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Watch Mikey Madison Take a Mansion Tour in ‘Anora’
The writer, director and editor Sean Baker narrates an early sequence from his film, which also features Mark Eydelshteyn.In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.When Ani (Mikey Madison) agrees to meet one of her young strip-club clients, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), at his home, she is taken aback by just how lavish that home is. That’s the setup for this scene from “Anora,” which follows the budding relationship, both transactional and emotional, between the title character, Ani, and Ivan.This sequence takes place before Ani learns that Ivan is the son of a Russian oligarch, and it is crafted to give both Ani and the audience an eye-opening look at the outsize abundance of Ivan’s space.Narrating the scene, the film’s writer, director and editor, Sean Baker, said, “I wanted the camera to essentially be following Ani, but also be seeing the world through Ani’s eyes.” He achieved this by keeping the cuts to a minimum. After Ani rings the doorbell and Ivan answers, the bulk of the sequence unfolds in one shot, following her with a hand-held camera (operated by the cinematographer Drew Daniels) as she marvels over the mansion.“It really sets up the geography,” Baker said, “because the geography is going to be extremely important later on in the film.”Read the “Anora” review.Learn more about Mikey Madison.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More
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Netflix and Lifetime Christmas Movies Strip Down With ‘Hot Frosty’ and More
With “Hot Frosty,” “The Merry Gentlemen” and “A Carpenter Christmas Romance,” holiday fare is headed in a shirtless new direction.Fans of Christmas romance usually know exactly what to expect when tuning in to any of the dozens of new movies on cable and streaming platforms each year.For 90 minutes or so, they’ll see a city slicker return to her immaculately decorated small hometown for the holidays. A local guy will sweep her off her feet. The scenery will be snow-covered. The music will be merry. And a quick peck on the lips will reliably signify the lovers’ happy ending.This year, however, some holiday films are stripping down. Literally.“Hot Frosty” and “The Merry Gentlemen” on Netflix and “A Carpenter Christmas Romance” on Lifetime employ many of the usual tropes, but they’ve ditched the sweaters and fleeting embraces for steamier visuals. Here, in a move seemingly born of the realization that women are a key viewing demographic of the genre, the men are often shirtless and on display to be ogled by the female townsfolk. The kisses are passionate. And, in at least one instance, the lead characters have s-e-x.Judging by the moans and longing gazes, these fictional women have been deprived of carnal fulfillment during holidays past. Modern Christmas movie viewers have been left wanting, too.“Way back before Lifetime and Netflix, the old idea of a merry Christmas was filled with mistletoe, which invited transgressional romantic and sexual activity,” said Robert J. Thompson, the director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University. He also noted the presence of sexual undertones in everything from Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” (a party scene where blindfolded revelers identify one another by touch) to songs like “Santa Baby” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”Chad Michael Murray, left, and Hector David Jr. are part of a male revue in “The Merry Gentlemen.”Katrina Marcinowski/NetflixWe 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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“Youth (Homecoming)”: Review of Film by Wang Bing
In the finale of Wang Bing’s nonfiction trilogy, garment-factory workers return to their families and wrestle with the questions all young people do.What happens when young people with jobs in the big city return to the homes they left behind? It’s a question that powers a whole bevy of films, including Hallmark’s holiday offerings. But it’s perhaps less expected in a 152-minute Chinese documentary, the final installment in a trilogy stretching nearly 10 hours.“Youth (Homecoming)” (in theaters), directed by the eminent filmmaker Wang Bing, is shorter by at least an hour than its predecessors, “Youth (Spring)” and “Youth (Hard Times).” Wang shot the films over about five years, spending time with the myriad young people, mostly in their late teens and 20s, who travel to the city of Zhili to work in garment factories. No one subject is the main protagonist in the “Youth” trilogy; instead, we see a collage of faces and personalities, all of whom toil very long hours for very little pay.“Spring” is the most cheerful of the films, showing the laborers as they arrive and get busy at their machines, often singing to pop music and talking about love. “Hard Times,” which covers the winter months, shows them struggling to get paid by bosses who skip town or try to drive down wages. The workers begin to organize, but it’s a battle with little chance of victory.In “Homecoming,” as the title suggests, many young people return to their remote villages for the New Year’s break when the factories slow down. We travel with them on packed, long-haul trains and traverse muddy mountain paths. Now families enter the picture, identified in the film only by their relationships to the laborers. Two of the subjects, Shi Wei and Fang Lingping, marry their romantic partners during this downtime. Others converse with loved ones about their plans or other subjects. Eventually the young people go back to Zhili, only to discover that employment is not always easy to come by.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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Clint Eastwood and the Power of a Squint
Shape-shifters by design, actors have their methods but many also have distinguishing features — sunburst smiles, rolling walks — that become their signatures. Memorable performers, after all, don’t simply catch our gaze, they seize it, holding and keeping it tight. And few performers have held us as powerfully as Clint Eastwood, who has cemented himself […] More
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‘The Last Rifleman’ Review: A World War II Veteran Hits the Road
Pierce Brosnan plays a man who sneaks out of his retirement home to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in this charming, but corny drama.“The Last Rifleman” is a sporadically affecting drama that stars Pierce Brosnan as a World War II veteran who sneaks out of his retirement home in Belfast to attend the 75th anniversary of D-Day in France. At 16, Artie (Brosnan) was petrified to be in Normandy; now 92 and three-quarters (he insists on the fraction), he’s hellbent on confronting his metaphorical ghosts.The story is lifted from the true adventures of an octogenarian British soldier in 2014, a caper also captured in the 2023 film “The Great Escaper” starring Michael Caine. This take by the director Terry Loane and the screenwriter Kevin Fitzpatrick is equal parts tenderhearted and heavy-handed. Artie absconds in a laundry truck to the ballad “Don’t Fence Me In” and, while on the lam, confesses his decades-old anguish to an American corporal audaciously named Lincoln Jefferson Adams (a touching John Amos in one of his final roles). Most strangers are kind, even a former member of the Hitler Youth (Jürgen Prochnow). For balance, in one scene some nasty teenagers play soccer with Artie’s underwear.Corny, yes. But charming, too, like when a nurse (Tara Lynne O’Neill) delivers a mini-monologue of reasons Artie’s too ill to travel that plays out like a clown car of ailments. Loane can also be cynical as he pans across a glut of tacky victory souvenirs. Brosnan, who is 71, gamely ages himself up and has fun rapping on cellphones with a cane and punctuating moments with a pained “Ooh! Ahh!” Yet, a climax where the humble survivor reels with emotions he’s never allowed himself to feel is truly sniffle-worthy.The Last RiflemanRated PG-13 for language and rather chintzy battle scenes. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More
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‘Meanwhile on Earth’ Review: Outer Space and Inner Turmoil
A bereaved young woman faces terrible choices in this dreamily uncertain blend of science fiction and moral philosophy.The French filmmaker Jérémy Clapin seems drawn to stories of loss. His animated feature debut, “I Lost My Body” (2019), followed the vivid, sometimes gruesome journey of a severed hand seeking to reconnect with its owner. And though his new film is called “Meanwhile on Earth,” it might well be titled “I Lost My Brother,” the movie’s sense of dislocation and desire for reconnection so reminiscent of its predecessor.The brother in question is Franck (voiced by Sébastien Pouderoux), an astronaut who disappeared while on a mission three years earlier. Since then, his younger sister, Elsa (Megan Northam), has been frozen in place. A talented artist, she exists in a daze of bereavement, unable to move on from her temporary job as a caregiver at a retirement facility. At home with her parents and younger brother, she sketches the daydreams that consume her until, one day, she hears Franck’s distressed voice emanating from a hilltop antenna.Part science-fiction drama, part morality tale, “Meanwhile on Earth” works best as an offbeat scrutiny of the intersection of extreme grief and mental health. When an extraterrestrial (voiced by Dimitri Doré) telepathically informs Elsa that her brother can be returned to Earth only in exchange for five of her fellow humans, the movie shifts from feelings to philosophy. Whom should she sacrifice? Whose life has value?Small and strange, “Meanwhile on Earth” seduces with its soft, barren beauty (the chilled cinematography is by Robrecht Heyvaert) and Dan Levy’s surreal score. Wobbling uncertainly between the inside of Elsa’s head and Earth’s outer limits, the movie demurs. Are we experiencing Elsa’s breakdown, or an alien invasion? Even the director appears unsure.Meanwhile on EarthRated R for abduction by aliens and mutilation by chain saw. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More
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‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’ Review: Home for the Holidays
Tyler Taormina’s third theatrical feature is a lightly nostalgic ensemble piece set on Long Island.Not much happens plot-wise in “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point,” the third theatrical feature from Tyler Taormina, but it has, as they say, a lot going on. In this ensemble comedy, centered on the Christmas gathering of a family so large that theaters ought to hand out a genealogy chart, the movie is at once hyper-specific about place — western Suffolk County on Long Island — and intriguingly loose about time.Scored to a soundtrack of early-1960s hits, the film is set in the aughts, judging from the dialogue, the cellphone technology and the TV (with its built-in DVD and VHS players) on which some of the kids play video games. The details (a player piano, cherry affogatos for dessert) are quirky enough to feel remembered, and Paris Peterson’s production design makes the home look lived in. The scant overt drama involves disagreement among siblings about how to handle their mother’s decline and whether to sell the house.Those siblings include Kathleen (Maria Dizzia), whose daughter (Matilda Fleming) is giving her attitude and whose husband (Ben Shenkman) awkwardly tries to fit in, and Ray (Tony Savino), who is secretly writing a novel. A cousin, Bruce (Chris Lazzaro), is a firefighter who is cheered on by the others when he rides by on a festively decorated truck. Somehow the film finds roles for not one but two adult children of auteurs, Francesca Scorsese and Sawyer Spielberg — though not as relatives, alas.As in his earlier features “Ham on Rye” and “Happer’s Comet,” Taormina gestures toward the surreal, especially once he steps outside the main location. Two police officers (Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington) spend much of the movie in stone-faced silence; their New York City uniforms suggest that they’re operating out of their jurisdiction. “Miller’s Point” is a Christmas movie more invested in atmosphere, and the qualities of wintry light, than in holiday cheer — and that somehow makes it all the more warm.Christmas Eve in Miller’s PointRated PG-13 for teenage mischief. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More
