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      Playing Santa Onscreen Takes Much More Than Just Donning a Red Suit

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      David Harbour, George Wendt and Tim Allen explain the acting challenge that is Jolly St. Nick.David Harbour isn’t the first actor most of us would cast as Santa Claus. Maybe it’s because he prefers to roll in the muck with his characters — the police chief Jim Hopper in “Stranger Things,” the super-soldier Alexei Shostakov in “Black Widow” — rather than snuggle with them.But to the director Tommy Wirkola, Harbour was perfect.For “Violent Night,” his new holiday gore-fest, Wirkola needed an actor with presence and chops: the ability to play Santa as a drunk depressive who has lost faith in humanity, Christmas and himself, but whose goodness still radiates.“Literally in our first meeting, somebody brought up his name, and it was one of those moments where we just looked at each other,” Wirkola said in a video call from Los Angeles. “It was almost too obvious; it’s such a good idea.”“Violent Night” puts Santa in the right place at the wrong time, a Christmas Eve heist at a billionaire’s mansion. He’d happily fly back up the chimney were it not for 7-year-old Trudy (Leah Brady), who has pleaded for help over the walkie-talkie her parents told her was a direct line to Santa. So he digs deep into himself and his sack of toys to summon the courage and the weaponry to save her.“I’m pretty sure it’s intimidating to some extent for an actor to do the role of Santa Claus,” Wirkola said. “So many actors have done it before, in so many movies. So how can we make it stand out?”Suiting up as St. Nick may sound like a frolic around the tannenbaum, a welcome break from more serious roles.If only.We talked with three stars about what went into portraying a Santa for the ages.David Harbour, ‘Violent Night’Alex Hassell, left, Beverly D’Angelo, Edi Patterson, Alexis Louder and Leah Brady with Harbour in “Violent Night.”Allen Fraser/Universal StudiosAs Harbour and Wirkola fleshed out their Santa, they decided he couldn’t be comical or the movie wouldn’t work. So Harbour played him straight.“It’s just inherently funny when people treat him as if he’s in on the joke, like, ‘Oh hello, Santa,’” he said, “and he’s completely deadpan because he is Santa.”And because the dynamic between Trudy and Santa needed to be respectful — and never condescending or cloying — Harbour watched the 1947 version of “Miracle on 34th Street” on his iPhone at night, recording scenes with the Santa and the child characters to discuss the next day as he and Wirkola developed the script.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.“That was the real movie I thought about all the time on set,” he said by video from Budapest, where he was shooting the upcoming film “Gran Turismo.”Harbour’s Santa was visually modeled on an old-school Coca-Cola advertising fantasy, with a curlicue beard and rosy cheeks. But that Santa wouldn’t drink himself horizontal or power-vomit on a woman. Nor would he display a Viking’s ferocity.This Santa was a warrior, which meant that Harbour had to become one, too.But as more of Santa’s origin story was revealed through action sequences, the question became what to show when.“David was adamant that he didn’t want him to be too good too quickly, or too cool too quickly and say too many cool lines too fast,” Wirkola said. “In the first couple of fights, he’s stumbling around and barely surviving. David didn’t want him to feel superhuman in any way.” Even if Harbour sometimes felt that the role’s demands required feats of imagination that more dramatic roles — where the depth and complexity is written into the script — did not.“It was a lot of digging in and trying to create a character and an arc that would be meaningful,” Harbour said. “The funny thing is, we might look down on work that happens in a soap opera or an action movie as being not artistic. But when I see somebody do something impressive in a soap opera, I’m always like, ‘You must have worked really hard on that.’”“And yeah, I worked really hard.”George Wendt, ‘Elf: The Musical’George Wendt opposite Sebastian Arcelus in “Elf: The Musical.” He was asked to humanize his Santa.Sara Krulwich/The New York Times George Wendt used to joke that if you stayed fat enough and got old enough, the Santa roles would start rolling in. But that was hardly what landed him “Elf: The Musical,” a 2010 stage adaptation of the 2003 Will Ferrell comedy. (He reprised the role in 2017 at Madison Square Garden.)“Did I want to be in the original cast of a new Broadway musical? It was a big yes,” Wendt, who is now starring in the rom-com “Christmas With the Campbells” on Amazon Prime Video, said in a call from Los Angeles. “I had just been on Broadway in ‘Hairspray.’ I was fresh meat, so to speak.”His instinct, and that of the show’s writers, was to humanize his Santa, maybe make him a little funnier than you’d think he would be — but go light on the schmaltz.“Any time I started to veer into what might be sappy Santa, Casey Nicholaw, the director, would be like, ‘Bup bup bup bup bup, don’t you dare!’” Wendt said. “He wanted me to keep it real and flip, not a reverential Santa in any way.”Wendt has played Santa five or six times — he’s lost count — and while “Elf” might have been his highest-profile gig, “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!,” in 2008, was his weirdest one.“I came down the chimney with a bowie knife between my teeth because this bear was stalking Colbert,” he said, referring to the late-night host Stephen Colbert. “So I brawled with the bear, and I ripped him open with my knife, with Colbert cowering in a corner. And when I slit his belly open, Elvis Costello came out dressed as Bob Cratchit.”But whether he’s cracking New Jersey jokes, like in “Elf: The Musical,” or saving TV hosts, being Santa comes with an inescapable irritant that makes you wonder how the jolly old fellow grew rotund in the first place.“It’s really hard to eat much with all that hair on,” Wendt said. “That beard — that’s awful. It just goes right in your mouth, no matter how careful you are.”Tim Allen, ‘The Santa Clause’Tim Allen, opposite Eric Lloyd, in “The Santa Clause,” the film that kicked off the franchise.DisneyFor nearly three decades, Tim Allen — who jokingly claims not to be fond of children, his own included — has played Scott Calvin, a divorced dad forced to fill Santa’s suit and boots, starting in “The Santa Clause” (1994). Two sequels later, he has extended his run with “The Santa Clauses,” a new Disney+ series about Calvin’s quest to find a worthy successor.Now Allen can’t get away from kids.“I have to make up stories to real children all the time when their parents say, ‘This is Santa Claus,’ and I’m like, ‘No, it’s not,’” he said, calling from Manhattan. “I play along, and I joyously do it. But it’s a little overwhelming, to be honest, for a very aggressive comedian.” In fact, “The Santa Clause” was a far darker comedy when Allen signed on. He kind of remembers that Calvin might have shot Santa.“To this day, it’s one of the best scripts, top to bottom, I’ve ever read,” he said.But for the series, Allen wanted — demanded, really — a story with a beginning, middle and end, as well as explanations for some lingering questions about what happened to the original Santa and the process for selecting a new one.“We answered those in a very wonderful, organic way,” he said. “So I had, in this one, conceptual strength in the script room. ‘Let’s get to these points and the jokes will come. And once we get to the funny stuff, I can add.’ That’s kind of my strength.” Physically getting into character originally was not.In the first film, Allen spent four hours in the chair each day, often followed by 10 hours in a hot, heavy suit — an affair he called psychotic.The process has since been streamlined, but its effect is still undeniable.Allen recalled the hush that fell over 225 people on the first day of shooting not so long ago, as he walked onto the set in his gorgeous velvet suit and uncannily realistic headpiece with beard, mustache and flawless skin that make him look younger even if you’re right next to him.“And all of a sudden you have adults, half adults, children looking at me with these big grins on their faces, and they’re silent,” he said. “I realized the magic of this image — that whatever it means, it means the same thing to all of the children in these people.”“It’s a responsibility. I don’t make fun of it.” More

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      ‘It’s a Wonderful Binge’ Review: A Spiked Christmas

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      In this sequel to “The Binge,” on a night of copious drinking and drugs, two friends reflect on their lives.In “It’s a Wonderful Binge,” a sequel to “The Binge,” the writer-director Jordan VanDina brings back the ne’er-do-well best friends Hags (Dexter Darden) and Andrew (Eduardo Franco) for a night of debauchery and mayhem.This time, Christmas Eve is the newly appointed, single day of the year when alcohol and drugs are not illegal. But now, Hags and Andrew are confronting mature hurdles: Hags intends to propose to his longtime girlfriend Sarah (Zainne Saleh), but is sidetracked when the engagement ring, her family heirloom, is lost. Conversely, Andrew feels so unwanted by his dysfunctional and temperamental family that he decides to end his life, George Bailey style, until an unlikely Angel (a hilarious Danny Trejo) tries to show Andrew the value of his life.In the background to the high jinks are Kimmi (Marta Piekarz) and Sarah working to hide Kimmi’s escaped convict uncle and recover the town’s Christmas owl.VanDina’s comedy lampoons a bevy of holiday movies, ranging from “It’s a Wonderful Life” to “The Christmas Chronicles,” for raunchy laughs. Sometimes these biting tributes can detract from the zaniness of the binge concept — we don’t get nearly enough substance-fueled havoc — causing the film to veer closer to retreaded ideas rather than new spins. Even so, the stirring pratfalls and well-placed dirty jokes make “It’s a Wonderful Binge” a keenly subversive Christmas movie.It’s a Wonderful BingeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      Highbrow Films Aimed at Winning Oscars Are Losing Audiences

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      The kind of critically praised dramas that often dominate the awards season are falling flat at the box office, failing to justify the money it takes to make them.A year ago, Hollywood watched in despair as Oscar-oriented films like “Licorice Pizza” and “Nightmare Alley” flatlined at the box office. The day seemed to have finally arrived when prestige films were no longer viable in theaters and streaming had forever altered cinema.But studios held out hope, deciding that November 2022 would give a more accurate reading of the marketplace. By then, the coronavirus would not be such a complicating factor. This fall would be a “last stand,” as some put it, a chance to show that more than superheroes and sequels could succeed.It has been carnage.One after another, films for grown-ups have failed to find an audience big enough to justify their cost. “Armageddon Time” cost roughly $30 million to make and market and collected $1.9 million at the North American box office. “Tár” cost at least $35 million, including marketing; ticket sales total $5.3 million. Universal spent around $55 million to make and market “She Said,” which also took in $5.3 million. “Devotion” cost well over $100 million and has generated $14 million in ticket sales.Even a charmer from the box office king, Steven Spielberg, has gotten off to a humdrum start. “The Fabelmans,” based on Mr. Spielberg’s adolescence, has collected $5.7 million in four weeks of limited play. Its budget was $40 million, not including marketing.What is going on?The problem is not quality: Reviews have been exceptional. Rather, “people have grown comfortable watching these movies at home,” said David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers.“The Fabelmans,” directed by Steven Spielberg, has gotten off to a slow start at the box office.Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin EntertainmentEver since Oscar-oriented films began showing up on streaming services in the late 2010s, Hollywood has worried that such movies would someday vanish from multiplexes. The diminishing importance of big screens was accentuated in March, when, for the first time, a streaming film, “CODA” from Apple TV+, won the Academy Award for best picture. ‘Tár’: A Timely Backstage DramaCate Blanchett plays a world-famous conductor who is embroiled in a #MeToo drama in the latest film by the director Todd Field.Review: “We don’t care about Lydia Tár because she’s an artist; we care about her because she’s art,” our critic writes about the film’s protagonist.An Elusive Subject: Blanchett has stayed one step ahead of audiences by constantly staying in motion. In “Tár,” she is as inscrutable as ever.Back Into the Limelight: The film marks Field’s return to directing, 16 years after “In the Bedroom” and “Little Children” made waves.The Song of the Fall?: A 120-year-old symphony by the composer Gustav Mahler is finding new life with unlikely listeners after a star turn in the film.This is about more than money: Hollywood sees the shift as an affront to its identity. Film power players have long clung to the fantasy that the cultural world revolves around them, as if it were 1940. But that delusion is hard to sustain when their lone measuring stick — bodies in seats — reveals that the masses can’t be bothered to come watch the films that they prize most. Hollywood equates this with cultural irrelevancy.Sure, a core crowd of cinephiles is still turning out. “Till,” focused on Mamie Till-Mobley, whose son, Emmett Till, was murdered in Mississippi in 1955, has collected $8.9 million in the United States and Canada. That’s not nothing for an emotionally challenging film. “The Banshees of Inisherin,” a dark comedy with heavily accented dialogue, has also brought in $8 million, with overseas ticket buyers contributing an additional $20 million.“While it is clear the theatrical specialty market hasn’t fully rebounded, we’ve seen ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ continue to perform strongly and drive conversation among moviegoers,” Searchlight Pictures said in a statement. “We firmly believe there’s a place in theaters for films that can offer audiences a broad range of cinematic experiences.”Still, crossover attention is almost always the goal, as underlined by how much film companies are spending on some of these productions. “Till,” for instance, cost at least $33 million to make and market.And remember: Theaters keep roughly half of any ticket revenue.The hope is for results more in line with “The Woman King.” Starring Viola Davis as the leader of an all-female group of African warriors, “The Woman King” collected nearly $70 million at domestic theaters ($92 million worldwide). It cost $50 million to produce and tens of millions more to market.“The Woman King,” starring Viola Davis, is one of the few Oscar-oriented films this year that has struck a box office chord, bringing in about $70 million.Ilze Kitshoff/Sony PicturesOscar-oriented dramas rarely become blockbusters. Even so, these movies used to do quite well at the box office. The World War I film “1917” generated $159 million in North America in 2019 and $385 million worldwide. In 2010, “Black Swan,” starring Natalie Portman as a demented ballerina, collected $107 million ($329 million worldwide).Most studios either declined to comment for this article or provided anodyne statements about being proud of the prestige dramas they have recently released, regardless of ticket sales.The unwillingness to engage publicly on the matter may reflect the annual awards race. Having a contender labeled a box office misfire is not great for vote gathering. (Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 24.) Or it may be because, behind the scenes, studios still seem to be grasping for answers.Ask 10 different specialty film executives to explain the box office and you will get 10 different answers. There have been too many dramas in theaters lately, resulting in cannibalization; there have been too few, leaving audiences to look for options on streaming services. Everyone has been busy watching the World Cup on television. No, it’s television dramas like “The Crown” that have undercut these films.Some are still blaming the coronavirus. But that doesn’t hold water. While initially reluctant to return to theaters, older audiences, for the most part, have come to see theaters as a virus-safe activity, according to box office analysts, citing surveys. Nearly 60 percent of “Woman King” ticket buyers were over the age of 35, according to Sony Pictures Entertainment.Hollywood considers anyone over 35 to be “old,” and this is who typically comes to see dramas.Maybe it is more nuanced? Older audiences are back, one longtime studio executive suggested, but sophisticated older audiences are not — in part because some of their favorite art house theaters have closed and they don’t want to mix with the multiplex masses. (He was serious. “Too many people, too likely to encounter a sticky floor.”)Grim dramas have struggled, but sparkly ones have succeeded. “Elvis,” starring Austin Butler, took in $151 million in North America.Warner Bros.Others see a problem with the content. Most of the movies that are struggling at the box office are downbeat, coming at a time when audiences want escape. Consider the successful spring release of the rollicking “Everything, Everywhere All at Once,” which collected $70 million in North America. Baz Luhrmann’s bedazzled “Elvis” delivered $151 million in domestic ticket sales. .“People like to call it ‘escape,’ but that’s not actually what it is,” Jeanine Basinger, the film scholar, said. “It’s entertainment. It can be a serious topic, by the way. But when films are too introspective, as many of these Oscar ones now are, the audience gets forgotten about.“Give us a laugh or two in there! When I think about going out to see misery and degradation and racism and all the other things that are wrong with our lives, I’m too depressed to put on my coat,” continued Ms. Basinger, whose latest book, “Hollywood: The Oral History,” co-written with Sam Wasson, arrived last month.Some studio executives insist that box office totals are an outdated way of assessing whether a film will generate a financial return. Focus Features, for instance, has evolved its business model in the last two years. The company’s films, which include “Tár” and “Armageddon Time,” are now made available for video-on-demand rental — for a premium price — after as little as three weeks in theaters. (Before, theaters got an exclusive window of about 90 days.) The money generated by premium in-home rentals is substantial, Focus has said, although it has declined to provide financial information to support that assertion.Some films, like “Armageddon Time,” now become available for digital rental after they spend just three weeks in theaters.Anne Joyce/Focus FeaturesThe worry in Hollywood is that such efforts will still fall short — that the conglomerates that own specialty film studios will decide there is not enough return on prestige films in theaters to continue releasing them that way. Disney owns Searchlight. Comcast owns Focus. Amazon owns United Artists. The chief executives of these companies like being invited to the Oscars. But they like profit even more.“The good news is we’ve now got a very large streaming business that we can go ahead and redirect that content toward those channels,” Bob Chapek, Disney’s former chief executive, said at a public event on Nov. 8, referring to prestige films. (Robert A. Iger, who has since returned to run Disney, may feel differently.)Others continue to advocate patience. Mr. Gross pointed out that “The Fabelmans” will roll into more theaters over the next month, hoping to capitalize on awards buzz — it is a front-runner for the 2023 best picture Oscar — and the end-of-year holidays. Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon,” a drug-and-sex induced fever dream about early Hollywood, is scheduled for wide release on Dec. 23.“I think movies are going to come back,” Mr. Spielberg recently told The New York Times. “I really do.”Steven Spielberg, on the set of his production “The Fabelmans.” Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment More

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      Making My Red (Well, Blue) Carpet Reporting Debut

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      When I covered my first movie premiere for The Times, I learned that there’s a casual art to a good carpet question.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Last week, I found myself awake in the wee morning hours, anxiously Googling things like “what to wear to cover a movie premiere” and “red carpet question ideas.”Katie Van Syckle, a senior staff editor for The New York Times, had messaged me earlier that day with two questions: Was I free the following evening, and if so, would I be up for covering the New York premiere of “The Whale,” the director Darren Aronofsky’s somber new film about a reclusive gay man with severe obesity, for the Styles desk?The resulting article, which was published online last week, was the first in a new Styles column called Quick Question, which takes readers behind the scenes at red carpets, gala dinners and other star-studded events.In addition to my day job at The Times as a senior staff editor on the Flexible Editing desk, a pool of 18 or so general editors who edit copy from across the newsroom, I’m a frequent contributor to The Times’s Culture desk. Still, I’d never been to a party in New York quite like this one — and I had certainly never covered one.I accepted and asked Katie: What should I wear? How much time would I have to talk to each person? How long should I stay at the after party?Katie, who has covered at least a hundred of these events over her career, patiently answered all of them: “a look,” around three minutes each and until I’d captured the scene. She also added a bit of her own advice: Have three sharp questions ready to fire, plus a backup.After doing some research about the film, which is likely to win its star, Brendan Fraser, his first Oscar, I brainstormed a few: What did the movie’s cast and creators think was the value of films that challenged and pushed audiences in an age of Marvel ubiquity and sequel fatigue? Should the Oscars follow in the steps of the previous night’s Gotham Awards, whose acting prize categories are gender neutral?I Googled photos of the film’s cast and creators so that I’d quickly recognize them and finally, around 3 a.m., fell asleep.The next afternoon, I learned that I might have overprepared when something called a face sheet — a list of expected attendees with their roles and headshots, typically provided to reporters for premieres — arrived in my inbox from A24, the movie and television studio hosting the event. I also landed on an outfit: a black dress coat, green turtleneck sweater dress, black leggings and black heeled boots.Then: go time. I arrived at Alice Tully Hall at 6 p.m. for a 6:15 p.m. carpet — which was ocean blue, not red — and took my place among the reporters and the corresponding line of laminated cards on the floor: Variety, Letterboxd, W Magazine, and mine, The New York Times.The first to arrive of those on my “to interview” list was Samuel D. Hunter, the screenwriter. As he made his way down the carpet, stopping to pose for photos, I knew I would have limited time, but I was ready.“What was your own first experience with heartbreak, and what did you do?” I unexpectedly burst out when he got to me, without so much as a word of hello. “OK, then!” he said. I winced.From left: the actor Brendan Fraser, the director Darren Aronofsky and the screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter.Evan Agostini/Invision, via Associated PressThen I spotted Mr. Fraser. At 6 feet 2 inches, he towered over me — and caught me off guard by asking my name. After striking out on my first two questions (“That’s personal, so I’m not going to answer it,” he said to the heartbreak one, and “That’s interesting, I’ll have to think about it,” his response to combining the Oscars acting categories), I struck gold with my third: What had enticed him to take on such a physically and emotionally draining role? His answer, which lasted nearly two minutes, was the longest in my article.After the screening, I took the subway to the after party at La Grande Boucherie, an upscale French brasserie on West 53rd Street, where actors, producers and other celebrities mingled.I immediately spotted the comedian Jim Gaffigan, clutching a glass of wine as he stood talking to a man by a large Christmas tree. I hovered nearby, waiting for them to finish their conversation, but after five minutes, it became clear I was going to have to interrupt.Like Mr. Fraser, Mr. Gaffigan, who was not involved in the film, began by asking me a question: What had I thought of the film? (I redirected the question back to him; I generally refrain from offering opinions on work I report on.)This was not in my party playbook. But party reporting is a conversation, a verbal give and take — unlike, say, a feature interview of a lead actor. I could ask most anything, trivial or considered, without the pressure of a ticking clock.On the subway ride home around 11:15 p.m., I outlined my article on a blank page in my notebook. I could check the exact quotes later against the recordings on my phone, but I wanted to sketch my story while I still remembered the gist of what people had said.As much as I’d tried to prepare in advance, I realized that reporting for this kind of event should be somewhat off the cuff. I wasn’t reading from a list of questions, and I had to be quick on my feet. The article, and the column, aim to capture that spirit. More

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      Jerrod Carmichael to Host Golden Globes as Broadcast Returns From Scandal

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      The tarnished ceremony will air on NBC in January after questions were raised about the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s diversity and ethics.The stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael will serve as host of the Golden Globes next month, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association announced Thursday. It’s the first time the tarnished film and television awards ceremony will be broadcast since a 2021 scandal over the ethics and diversity of the H.F.P.A., the group behind the Globes.Carmichael may be best known for his critically acclaimed HBO stand-up special “Rothaniel,” in which he came out as gay. He also was the star of an NBC sitcom, “The Carmichael Show,” that ran from 2015 to 2017.The Globes are trying to re-establish themselves as a must-watch evening. While the awards were never an indication of Oscar voters’ mind-set, the ceremony did provide studios and stars a high-profile opportunity to campaign before the Academy Awards. Or at least that was the case until 2021, when investigations by The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times revealed the nonprofit group’s lack of diversity (at the time it had no Black members) as well as members’ high compensation.NBC canceled the show later that year, and a much-reduced version of the ceremony was held last January. It was not broadcast; instead, at a Beverly Hilton ballroom where no stars were present, the winners were announced and then tweeted out.Since the articles appeared, the H.F.P.A. has taken steps to include more journalists of color and to tighten its ethics rules. This year, the group sold the Golden Globes to a private company, Eldridge Industries, owned by Todd Boehly, that also bought Dick Clark Productions, producer of the ceremony. In September, NBC said it would air the 2023 show in a one-year test.It remains to be seen who will show up for the ceremony, which once was known as an off-the-cuff affair. Brendan Fraser, the star of “The Whale” and a strong contender this awards season, has said he will not attend if nominated. In 2018, he said he had been groped in 2003 by a then-member of the H.F.P.A., who denied the allegation.The nominations for the Golden Globes will be announced Monday, and the telecast is set for Jan. 10. More

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      ‘Something From Tiffany’s’ Review: Put a Ring on It

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      Zoey Deutsch shines in a story of an epic Christmas gift mix-up.Romantic comedies rarely go wrong when they include some combination of mishaps, mistakes and mix-ups — all those fateful accidents that bring together strangers and glorify the wonder of cosmic serendipity. A really piquant imbroglio is rom-com gold: see “The Shop Around the Corner” (adversarial co-workers unwittingly strike up a romance by mail), “I Love You Again” (a husband on the verge of divorce gets amnesia and attempts to re-woo his own wife), “While You Were Sleeping” (a train fare collector is embroiled in family drama after being confused for a comatose commuter’s fiancée), or any number of other classics of the genre.“Something from Tiffany’s” doesn’t quite have the Lubitsch touch. But it does boast a very charming premise, built around a truly ludicrous misunderstanding that I found impossible to resist. Gary (Ray Nicholson) buys his girlfriend, Rachel (Zoey Deutch), a pair of earrings for Christmas. Ethan (Kendrick Sampson) buys Vanessa (Shay Mitchell), his girlfriend, an engagement ring. After Gary is hit by a car outside Tiffany & Company, Ethan comes to his aid, and the two unknowingly swap gifts. When Rachel opens the ring on Christmas morning, she wrongly assumes that Gary is trying to propose to her. Gary doesn’t remember much about the night of the accident, so when he sees the ring, he thinks that maybe he is.It’s a winning setup, and the director, Daryl Wein, escalates the action shrewdly, with clever rom-com engineering. Rachel and Ethan are thrown together as a result of the accident and the resulting confusion of gifts, and they quickly sense a mutual rapport that might be more than mere attraction. Deutch and Sampson have an abundance of screen chemistry, and Wein lets it simmer, holding on glances as it builds slowly to a last-act boil. With her wry grin and screwball banter, Deutch is especially delightful, bounding through the cavalcade of holiday mix-ups with the buoyant verve of a bona fide romantic lead.Something From Tiffany’sRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. Watch on Amazon Prime Video. More

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      ‘Loudmouth’ Review: Portrait of Al Sharpton as a Young Man

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      A stirring new biographical documentary about the Rev. Al Sharpton revisits a racially divided New York City and offers a critique of the news media then and now.In the sympathetic documentary “Loudmouth,” the Rev. Al Sharpton recounts the time Coretta Scott King admonished him for his rhetorical excesses. The film’s writer-director, Josh Alexander, cuts between the Sharpton of now — svelte, measured — and, using archival footage, the young man he was in the 1980s: rotund, passionate and plying his skills as a preacher to harness the anger and grief of those African Americans gathered at churches, rallies and marches in a time of heightened racial violence.“Loudmouth” is equal parts time capsule, media critique and authorized biography. Each of those examinations has its own flaws but also offers insights into the man, the moment (the current one but more pointedly New York City of the 1980s and ’90s) and the news media.Thirty years ago, Sharpton’s dramatic tactics earned him (along with the lawyers Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, who was later disbarred) incendiary headlines and a warm seat on the daytime talk circuit. For Sharpton, who sees himself in the tradition of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Scott King’s chiding invited a reconsideration of that lightning rod approach. Another epiphany came after he was stabbed in 1991 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, while preparing to protest the sentences in the case of Yusuf Hawkins, the Black 16-year-old who was and shot and killed by a white mob in the neighborhood two years earlier.One of the documentary’s most salient cautions might be that members of the news media were (and often remain) unwilling to cop to their biases. Sharpton has spent a lifetime calling the storytellers out for their slant — and schooling us to do the same. As straightforward as it appears, “Loudmouth” also invites an engaged but necessarily judicious scrutiny.LoudmouthNot rated. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘2/Duo’ Review: Relationship Rituals

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      This spare Japanese drama from 1997 gets a belated New York release.Regular film festival attendees might recognize the name of the Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa (“H Story” and “A Perfect Couple”). But his 1997 feature, “2/Duo,” is only now receiving a New York release; it’s showing in tandem with a series at Metrograph on “Japanese indies from the punk years.” But little about “2/Duo” is particularly punk.Rather, the film is a spare relationship drama centered on a volatile couple, Kei (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Yu (Eri Yu). Kei is a nonentity of a screen actor. (Near the beginning, he is shown practicing incidental dialogue before being informed that his scene has been cut.) Yu works at a clothing boutique. After Kei proposes, in a manner so abrupt that Yu thinks he’s rehearsing lines, their innocuous conversations increasingly turn into arguments.Given Kei’s profession, Suwa suggests there might be a performative aspect to the bickering. (Kei has a habit of phoning Yu, who asks where he is; he always says he doesn’t know.) As the film observes them in lengthy shots — occasionally interrupted by cuts to black — with Kei’s unmotivated outbursts sometimes breaking up interactions that drag or stall, their behavior looks suspiciously like the result of actors’ improvisation.It is not surprising to learn that a script was tossed and the performers developed their own lines. Similar techniques yielded brilliance from John Cassavetes, Jacques Rivette and Mike Leigh. But here they mostly result in characters who don’t appear fully realized. Whatever makes Kei and Yu tick, to the extent that the collaborative process ever fleshed it out, does not come across onscreen.2/DuoNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More