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      What Tom Cruise Understands About Stunts. (And Movies.)

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      His intense devotion to doing his own stunt work can seem pathological. But it’s part of a more charming devotion to moviegoing itself.Every “Mission: Impossible” movie can be boiled down to a single, central image. Tom Cruise in glasses and a black vest, hanging by wires, inches above the floor. Tom Cruise dangling from a rocky cliff ledge. Tom Cruise sticking like a gecko to the glass panels of the Burj Khalifa. Tom Cruise in some kind of spacesuit, hurtling through the air toward the camera. Tom Cruise in midair again, arms stretched backward as a motorbike falls below him, making it look all the more as if he were flying. For the newest and purportedly last installment in the series, “The Final Reckoning,” the iconography has been perfected: We see Cruise dangling from a banana-yellow biplane as it hurtles through the sky. Oh, and the plane is upside down.In the opening minutes of “The Final Reckoning,” all of the iconic images from previous films are repeated back to us, reminding us that what we are here for is to see Tom Cruise perform breathtaking stunts. Of course, if you were in the theater, then you would have been sold on this idea already. The film’s marketing has made the sight of the upside-down biplane so familiar that before the movie had even started, I overheard a couple in the seats behind me discussing how the stunt might have been done. (“Where are the wires, you think?”)We’re compelled to know how these stunts were done for one very simple reason: We believe that Tom Cruise really is clutching the side of a skyscraper or an upside-down plane. This is because Cruise and many, many other people have worked hard to ensure our belief that Tom Cruise does his own stunts.‘How can we involve the audience?’Some of this belief-bolstering work is technical and filmic: The cameras move close to Cruise and linger there, convincing us that it really is him doing the thing. But a monumental part of the effort has to do with Cruise himself, and his ability to persuade us that if we buy a ticket for his movie, we will see him create a harrowing spectacle. On one hand, we will be watching a movie about a fictional character named Ethan Hunt, whose mission seems impossible. On the other, we will be watching Tom Cruise, a movie star we have known for 40-plus years, doing the seemingly impossible.This collapsing of character and star has become only more central to the films as the franchise goes on, sometimes sabotaging the movies’ impact, sometimes making them more interesting, sometimes both at the same time. For example, the antagonist in these final two installments is a runaway A.I. called the Entity. For a series that once had the great Philip Seymour Hoffman play a villain, evil software feels like a step down. But Ethan Hunt/Tom Cruise battling a faceless, ageless superintelligence that is able to fake practically anything? That is a rich text.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      If This Movie Wins the Palme d’Or, It Will Extend a Staggering Streak

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      The distributor Neon has been on a run at the Cannes Film Festival, and it has three movies, including “Sentimental Value,” considered front-runners.They sounded froggy. Their eyes were heavy. But underneath all that fatigue, it was clear that the cast and crew of “Sentimental Value” were in good spirits during their Cannes Film Festival news conference on Wednesday.“If my voice is a little rusty, it’s because the film was apparently well-received and we had the party yesterday,” said the co-writer Eskil Vogt.Later, the actor Stellan Skarsgard’s voice also faltered at the news conference. “I was at the same party,” he said apologetically.I, too, had been to that late-night soiree, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with people eager to celebrate the festival’s biggest hit so far. Earlier that night, “Sentimental Value” received the most supersized standing ovation of Cannes, immediately distinguishing it as one of the strongest contenders to win the Palme d’Or. And if it does take that prestigious trophy, one of the most remarkable streaks in cinema will extend even further.The film’s distributor, Neon, is now angling for its sixth consecutive Palme d’Or, following “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Anora.” Most insiders believe the Palme could go to “Sentimental Value,” the Iranian drama “It Was Just an Accident” or the Brazilian entry “The Secret Agent,” though Neon also bought the latter two films after they premiered this week, further improving the company’s odds.It may help that the “Sentimental Value” director Joachim Trier has come close to the top prize here before: His previous film, the dramedy “The Worst Person in the World,” won the best-actress award at Cannes for its lead, Renate Reinsve. “Sentimental Value” finds them reteaming for the story of Nora, a Norwegian stage actress who is reluctantly reunited with her estranged father, Gustav (Skarsgard), after her mother’s funeral.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Without a Prenup, David Geffen’s Divorce Could Get Interesting

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      The billionaire’s marriage to David Armstrong ended with the familiar “irreconcilable differences.” Is Mr. Geffen’s fortune in jeopardy?David Geffen’s name is affixed to concert halls, medical programs and drama schools. Last week, however, it landed on divorce papers.Mr. Geffen, 82, was the instigator in a divorce petition filed on Friday in Los Angeles, signaling a split from his husband of two years, David Armstrong, a 32-year-old dancer he married in March 2023.While the legal grounds were familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of divorce — “irreconcilable differences,” according to the petition — the circumstances of the dissolution raised some eyebrows because of one detail: The petition also indicates that Mr. Armstrong did not sign a prenuptial agreement with Mr. Geffen, the entertainment mogul whose net worth has been estimated at more than $8 billion.Whether that will lead to financial distress for Mr. Geffen remains to be seen, say experts in California divorce law. The filing last week shows that Mr. Geffen intends to pay spousal support, which — considering the brevity of the marriage — is generally disbursed over a period equal to about half the length of a marriage.Still, that support could be sizable considering the luxurious world in which Mr. Geffen — and, until recently, Mr. Armstrong — resided.Samantha Bley DeJean, a family law attorney in San Francisco, said she would guess that the couple’s lifestyle “was fairly significant,” though she also noted that Mr. Geffen could probably afford whatever the court deemed support to be.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Scarlett Johansson Makes Her Debut as Director of ‘Eleanor the Great’

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      Few movie stars today win over critics and convey Old Hollywood glamour as effortlessly as Scarlett Johansson does, all while seemingly impervious to the industry’s convulsions.Now 40, she has been famous most of her life. She turned 10 the year her first movie, “North,” opened in 1994; four years later, she was upstaging Robert Redford in “The Horse Whisperer.” In the decades since, she starred in cult films and blockbusters, made a record with Pete Yorn and earned a couple of Oscar nominations. In between hits and misses, she also married three times (most recently to Colin Jost) and had two children.The kind of diverse professional portfolio that Johansson has cultivated can make life more interesting, of course, but it’s also evidence of shrewd, career-sustaining choices. In 2010, she made her critically celebrated Broadway debut in a revival of Arthur Miller’s tragedy “A View From the Bridge.” (She went on to win a Tony.) That same year, she slipped on a bodysuit to play the lethal Russian superspy Black Widow in Marvel’s “Iron Man 2,” a role that propelled her into global celebrity.On Tuesday, Johansson publicly took on another role when she presented her feature directing debut, “Eleanor the Great,” at the Cannes Film Festival. Playing outside the main lineup, it is the kind of intimately scaled, performance-driven movie that’s ideal for a novice director.June Squibb stars as the 94-year-old Eleanor, who, soon after the story opens, moves into her daughter’s New York apartment. Life gets complicated when Eleanor inadvertently ends up in a support group for Holocaust survivors. It gets even trickier when a journalism student insists on writing about Eleanor. A friendship is born, salted with laughter and tears.I met with Johansson the day after the premiere of “Eleanor the Great.” She first walked the festival red carpet in 2005 for “Match Point,” returning last year with “Asteroid City.” (She’s also in “The Phoenician Scheme,” which is here, too.) It had rained hard the day of her premiere, but the sky was blue when she stepped onto a hotel terrace overlooking the Mediterranean. Seated in a quiet corner shaded by a large umbrella, Johansson was friendly, pleasant and a touch reserved. Wearing the largest diamond that I’ve seen outside of a Tiffany window, she kept her sunglasses on as we talked, the consummate picture of movie stardom.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Etiquette of Touching a Stranger

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      A tense exchange between the actor Denzel Washington and a photographer at Cannes is raising questions about laying hands on someone you don’t know.In a tense exchange on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival this week, a photographer grabbed the actor Denzel Washington’s arm, apparently seeking another photo.Mr. Washington, perturbed, yanked his arm back, and then repeatedly warned the photographer to stop — a brief squabble between seeming strangers that made headlines, and raised the question: Is it ever OK to touch someone you don’t know?The New York Times reached out to a handful of etiquette experts and therapists who specialize in boundary setting to ask about the rules around making physical contact with a stranger.‘Keep your hands to yourself.’Etiquette, when it comes to spontaneous touching, is nuanced — social rules vary from place to place and culture to culture. Still, the manners experts we spoke with were unanimous: “The hard and fast rule about touching strangers is that you shouldn’t,” said William Hanson, an etiquette coach in Britain and the author of “Just Good Manners.”We ran some scenarios by him. What if you are trying to flag down a server in a restaurant? No, he said. Placing a hand on someone as you are trying to move through a crowd? Nope, he answered. Weave!Others allowed for exceptions. If, say, someone drops a wallet without noticing and doesn’t hear your calls, “you could use touch briefly,” said Juliane T. Shore, a marriage and family therapist in Austin, Texas, and the author of “Setting Boundaries That Stick.” But don’t grab or clasp the person, she said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Cannes, Can You Trust the Length of a Standing Ovation?

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      The applause at premieres like “Mission: Impossible” or “The History of Sound” is often timed and reported breathlessly. But there’s more to the story.For decades, the Palme d’Or was the most prestigious award that the Cannes Film Festival could bestow. But there’s a new honor that many films appear to be vying for: Which movie can earn the longest standing ovation?The ovations here have always been supersized, but in recent years, industry outlets like Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter have turned the duration of the applause into a competitive spectacle. Headlines crow that “The History of Sound” (starring Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor) earned a nine-minute ovation, “Alpha” (Julia Ducournau’s follow-up to “Titane”) was applauded for 12 minutes, and “Sentimental Value” (from Joachim Trier) earned a stunning 19-minute ovation. A Palme pecking order is then heavily implied.As someone who covers Oscar season, I understand the temptation to turn artistic achievements into a horse race. Still, when it comes to the way these standing ovations are reported, appearances can be deceiving.First, some background. After a film’s closing credits conclude at Cannes, a camera is trained on the cast and director, broadcasting their reactions on the huge screen in the Grand Théâtre Lumière. It’s customary for the camera operator to isolate each actor in close-up for individual moments of applause, meaning that larger ensembles often garner the longest ovations. If the actors are then willing to interact with each other and reshuffle into new pairings, the ovation can be especially prolonged.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Fountain of Youth’ Review: John Krasinski Goes Continent Hopping

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      An adventurer enlists his disapproving sister (Natalie Portman) in this Guy Ritchie movie with a hint of Indiana Jones.The pop-music adage “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus” is often attributed to the Motown founder Berry Gordy. The sentiment, when applied to film, could generally sum up the approach of the director Guy Ritchie.In his new movie, “Fountain of Youth,” Ritchie opens with a furious chase through the alleys, into the video arcades and over the fruit stalls of Bangkok. On a motorcycle is Luke Purdue (John Krasinski), who’s just purloined a priceless work of art — it’s what he does — and in a vehicle with lots of automatic weapons are some very irate and skeevy-looking journeyman villains.Having evaded his pursuers and boarded a train out of Bangkok, Luke figures he can relax, but no. He is confronted by the lovely Esme (Eiza González, now appearing in her second Ritchie picture), who informs Luke, “I recover rare and unique paintings. Sometimes in leather tubes.” Luke laughs her off; he’s hardly going to let her have the goods. Then she warns him: “I am the hand of mercy. My employers are the hand of judgment.”What’s any of this got to do with the title fountain? It’s mildly complicated, involving a message that can only be deciphered by looking at the backs of a particular group of priceless artworks. Luke is compelled to seek the help of his disapproving sister Charlotte (Natalie Portman), a museum curator; the pair are convinced by a dying billionaire named Owen Carver (Domhnall Gleeson) that the fountain can be found, and that they should find it for him. And off they all go, continent hopping. Once they reach their destination, we learn that the fountain not only de-ages you, it makes you look like computer-generated art. So that’s something.The movie acknowledges its many antecedents; it’s mentioned that Luke and Charlotte are “the children of the famed archaeologist Harrison Perdue,” get it? Besides the hint of Indiana Jones, several scenes also bring to mind the “National Treasure” movies, because they’re set in worlds with great libraries and museums and peopled with characters who, under any other circumstances, would never in a million years set foot in them.Having made his career playing perhaps the ultimate beta male on the television series “The Office,” Krasinski has since ardently pursued alpha roles, playing the reluctant C.I.A. man of action Jack Ryan on the Amazon series of the same name. Still, his ready smile tends to make him instantaneously agreeable, a quality you don’t get from other Ritchie leading men such as Henry Cavill and Jason Statham. Here, the quality doesn’t provide much credibility or added value. Instead, it makes you more sympathetic to Charlotte, who’s almost always scowling at her goofball brother. Stanley Tucci turns up in a Vatican-set cameo, which makes you wonder if he just roosted in the Holy City after completing “Conclave.”Fountain of YouthRated PG-13 for some salty language. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘Bad Shabbos’ Review: Guess Who’s Kvetching About Dinner?

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      A newly engaged Jew and gentile plan to introduce their parents. But first: There’s a crisis involving a body, a ticking clock and a doorman played by Method Man.Those who have attended a Shabbat dinner — which occurs on Friday and kicks off the Jewish Sabbath — know that the traditional greeting is “good Shabbos.” The ensemble comedy “Bad Shabbos” telegraphs its silliness right from the title.Directed by Daniel Robbins, the movie takes place over a disastrous dinner on the Upper West Side, where David (Jon Bass) and Meg (Meghan Leathers) — a newly engaged Jew and gentile — plan to introduce their parents for the first time. But before they can start, a disturbing prank by David’s brother, Adam (Theo Taplitz), goes awry, causing an emergency that the family must hide from the Midwestern in-laws. The crisis involves a body and a ticking clock, as well as a zany, meddlesome doorman (Method Man, always welcome) added for good measure.“Bad Shabbos” overflows with the kvetching, nagging and nit-picking endemic to the Jewish movie canon. It also contains an overused trope: the domineering Jewish mother harboring animus toward her son’s shiksa fiancée. Despite Meg’s efforts to connect, Ellen (Kyra Sedgwick) repeatedly slights her future daughter-in-law. Ellen’s flat sitcom character finds a match in some of the movie’s aesthetic choices, like the framing and the pizzicato strings making up its score.These style elements can feel grating. But as the jokes continue to land and the wine continues to flow, you grow used to the tone. This is, after all, a situational comedy, in which the laughs spring from reaction shots and line deliveries. Luckily, the actors prove up to the task.Bad ShabbosNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters. More