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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

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      ‘To the End’ Review: Seeing Red While Left on Read

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      This documentary follows climate activists and politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as they lobby for the Green New Deal.The last image that flashes before the title card on the documentary “To the End” is video captured from inside a car as it drives through a forest engulfed in flames. The footage shows the inferno of California’s wildfire season, and more than any image that follows, this opening presents a stark view of the apocalyptic effects of global climate change.The film quickly moves from the ravages of the earth to conference halls and the chambers of Congress‌. Using interviews and vérité footage, the documentary follows activists and political strategists like Varshini Prakash from the Sunrise Movement and Alexandra Rojas from Justice Democrats, as well as the policy writer, Rhiana Gunn-Wright. These young people have made finding political solutions for climate change their life’s work. The first major milestone that they face is the midterm elections in 2018, which mark the election of the progressive candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is interviewed extensively throughout the documentary. The director Rachel Lears then follows her subjects through the 2020 presidential election, and up to the passing of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.Through this time period, the activists and politicians depicted experience countless versions of no before they hear a yes on meaningful intervention into the climate crisis. They are often forced to compromise based on lack of support from voters, and lack of interest from politicians. Lears clearly feels earnest sympathy for her subjects and passion for their cause, but the film often replicates for viewers the same atmosphere of hopelessness that makes climate activism a hard sell for voters. Representative Ocasio-Cortez offers the best onscreen antidote to despair — she’s funny, a canny political strategy.To the EndRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Empire of Light’ Review: They Found It at the Movies

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      Olivia Colman and Micheal Ward pursue a bittersweet workplace romance in Sam Mendes’s look back at Britain in the early 1980s.“Empire of Light” takes place in and around an old movie palace in a British seaside town. This cinema, which is called the Empire, is more than a mere setting: it’s the movie’s center of gravity, its soul, its governing metaphor and reason for being.In the early 1980s, the Empire has fallen on hard times, rather like the global power evoked by its name. The sun hasn’t quite set, but the upstairs screens are now permanently dark, and a once-sumptuous lounge on the top floor is frequented mainly by pigeons. The public still shows up to buy popcorn and candy, and to see films like “The Blues Brothers,” “Stir Crazy” and “All That Jazz,” but the mood is one of quietly accepted defeat. Even the light looks tired.That light is also beautiful, thanks to the unrivaled cinematographer Roger Deakins, whose images impart a tone of gentle nostalgia. It’s possible to look back fondly on a less-than-golden age, and Sam Mendes (“Revolutionary Road,” “1917”), the writer and director, casts an affectionate gaze on the Empire, its employees, and the drab, sometimes brutal realities of Thatcher-era Britain.“Empire of Light” has a sad story to tell, one that touches on mental illness, sexual exploitation, racist violence and other grim facts of life. But Mendes isn’t a realist in the mode of Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. The period-appropriate British movies that find their way to the Empire’s screens are “Gregory’s Girl” and “Chariots of Fire,” and Mendes borrows some of their sweet, gentle humor and heartfelt humanist charm.Olivia Colman plays Hilary, the Empire’s duty manager, who oversees a motley squad of cinema soldiers. There is a nerdy guy, a post-punk girl and a grumpy projectionist. They are soon joined by Stephen (Micheal Ward), a genial young man whose college plans are on hold.Hilary and her boss, Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), are carrying on a desultory affair. For her, the rushed encounters in his office are part of a dreary workplace routine, evidence of an ongoing malaise. Things could always be worse, and for Hilary, they have been. She has recently returned to work after spending time in a mental hospital after a breakdown and takes lithium to maintain her equilibrium.Stephen’s arrival jolts her out of her torpor, which is both exciting and risky. He seems more open to experience, more capable of happiness, than anyone else in this grubby little city, and he and Hilary strike up a friendship that turns into more. His encounters with hostile skinheads and bigoted customers open Hilary’s eyes to the pervasiveness of racial prejudice. Together they nurse a wounded pigeon back to health.For a while, their romance unfolds in a quiet, quotidian rhythm that allows you to appreciate Colman and Ward’s fine-grained performances. “What are days?” the poet Philip Larkin asked — he’s a favorite of Hilary’s, along with W.H. Auden — and his answer was both somber and sublime. “Days are where we live.” The daily rituals of work at the Empire, and the pockets of free time that open up within it, add a dimension of understated enchantment, as if a touch of big-screen magic found its way into the break room, the concession stand and the box office.It’s inevitable that the spell will break, and when it does, “Empire of Light” falters. Mendes raises the stakes and accelerates the plot, pushing Hilary and Stephen through a series of crises that weigh the movie down with earnest self-importance. A film that had seemed interested in the lives and feelings of its characters, and in an unlikely but touching relationship between two people at odds with the world around them, turns into a movie with Something to Say.The message is muddled and soft, like a Milk Dud at the bottom of the box, and the movie chews on it for quite a while. “Empire of Light” arrives at its emotional terminus long before it actually ends. Things keep happening, as if Mendes were trying to talk himself and us through ideas that hadn’t been fully worked out. There isn’t really much insight to be gleaned on the subjects of mental illness, racial politics, middle age or work, though an earnest effort is made to show concern about all of them.What “Empire of Light” really wants to be about are the pleasures of ’80s pop music, fine English poetry and, above all, movies. Like everyone else at the Empire, the grumpy projectionist takes a liking to Stephen, and shows him how to work the machinery, eliciting exclamations of wonder from the young man, and also from old-timers in the audience who might remember the vanished sights and sounds of celluloid. The velvet ropes and plush seats, the beam of light and the whirring — it’s all lovely and bittersweet to contemplate.Movies have always been more than a source of comfort: They have the power to disturb, to seduce, to provoke and to enrage. None of that really interests Mendes here, even though the story of Hilary and Stephen might have benefited from a tougher, less sentimental telling.Empire of LightRated R. Sex and violence, just like in the movies. Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      Review: ‘The Treasure of His Youth: The Photographs of Paolo Di Paolo’ Delights

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      A documentary by Bruce Weber about a nonagenarian Italian photographer is sprinkled with la dolce vita, our critic writes.Late in this charming, exhilarating and revelatory documentary, Paolo Di Paolo, a prominent Italian photojournalist from the late 1950s who quietly and deliberately dropped off the map at the end of the 1960s, recalls a bittersweet love affair. It was with a woman several rungs above him on the social ladder (she is not named, although Di Paolo’s portraits of her are shown) who, when she called off the affair, told him “I will always be who I am. You are just a big paparazzo.”Obviously, Di Paolo was more than that. The American photographer and filmmaker Bruce Weber was inspired to direct “The Treasure of His Youth: The Photographs of Paolo Di Paolo” after coming upon some startling Di Paolo prints several years ago, at an Italian gallery. “I had been dreaming about them long before I knew they existed,” Weber said. The subjects included poor children, literati, movie stars and more, captured with an engaged and searching eye.Di Paolo was 94 when Weber started shooting the documentary. Energetic and articulate, frequently with his daughter Silvia, a champion of his rediscovered work, at his side, he is full of stories that directly reflect the artistic temperament he still possesses in retirement. “My luck was to have great relationships with important people,” he says.For that reason, among others, Di Paolo’s images remain breathtaking. Weber assembles them to create mini-essays about some still-startling Italian figures, such as the filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini and the actress Anna Magnani.As is his custom, Weber sprinkles the movie with that quirky dolce-vita dust that distinguishes his own sensibility. At one point, he throws in an “Intermission” montage scored with Barry White’s version of “Volare.” It not only fits — it’s delightful.The Treasure of His Youth: The Photographs of Paolo Di PaoloNot rated. In English and Italian with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More