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      Falling in Love With Nora Ephron

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      Ilana Kaplan’s new coffee table book pays tribute to the godmother of the modern rom-com.“I’ll have what she’s having.”There are few writers whose voices have been so indelibly stamped on our psyches that they can be conjured up with just one line. Nora Ephron, the godmother of the modern rom-com, is one of them (even if she didn’t take credit for the line in question).Her spiky heroines, epistolary romances, cable knit sweaters and explorations of intimacy and heartbreak transformed American cinema, giving rise to a generation of screenwriters and directors who have striven to follow in her oxford-clad footsteps (not to mention the swarms of fans for whom films like “You’ve Got Mail” and “When Harry Met Sally” are annual viewing traditions, bookending that sepia-tinged, pencil-shaving-scented season known as “Nora Ephron Fall”).Meg Ryan in a climactic scene in “When Harry Met Sally,” one of Ephron’s many films that took women — their neuroses and their desires — seriously.Columbia Pictures, via Everett CollectionRyan and Rosie O’Donnell in “Sleepless in Seattle.” The movie is as much a celebration of their characters’ friendship as of romantic love.TriStar PicturesIlana Kaplan explores this legacy in NORA EPHRON AT THE MOVIES (Abrams, $50) — a tribute, despite its title, not just to Ephron’s screen work but also to her essays, plays and searingly autobiographical novel, “Heartburn.”Each of them gets a chapter here, as do the fastidious enthusiasms that illuminate them all: Ephron’s love of language, her eye for fashion and her devotion to food. This is a woman, Kaplan explains, who turned ordering a piece of pie into an art form and whose version of a postcoital cigarette, in “Heartburn,” was an in-bed bowl of homemade spaghetti carbonara.Ephron’s passions — for language, fashion, food — infused her work.Katherine Wolkoff/Trunk ArchiveShe also drew on her personal heartbreaks, particularly in her novel, “Heartburn,” and its subsequent film adaptation, which starred Meryl Streep as an Ephron-esque food writer.Paramount, via Everett CollectionStanley Tucci and Meryl Streep in “Julie and Julia,” Ephron’s final film.Jonathan WenkEphron’s clarity of voice gave her work a steely backbone, bolstered by a screwball wit. She did not invent the meet-cute, the swoony set piece or the friends-to-lovers trope, but she made them so thoroughly her own that you’d be forgiven for thinking she did. Above all else, she took women seriously — their desires and neuroses, their careers, their friendships, their great beating hearts.Whatever she wrote about, we wanted what she was having. More

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      ‘Trap’ and More Horror Movies to Stream Now

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      This month’s picks include a sneaky serial killer, a boy’s vengeance quest and a holiday house of horrors.‘Trap’Stream it on Max.M. Night Shyamalan’s latest psychological thriller is so preposterous it makes “The Front Room,” my pick for the dumbest horror movie of 2024, look like “The Shining.” But unlike “The Front Room,” “Trap” takes itself very unseriously — God, I hope it does — and watching it was the most fun I had at a horror movie this year.Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper, a cool dad who takes his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to a concert by her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (a charisma-free Saleka, one of the director’s daughters). Cooper keeps noticing how tight security is in and around the arena, and for good reason: Law enforcement officers are there to capture a serial killer who they think is in the audience. To save himself and his daughter from danger, Cooper desperately seeks a way out.I’ll stop there because to give away more would spoil Shyamalan’s indulgent yet effective and surprisingly unpredictable twists and tensions. (I gasped more than once.) Hartnett does God’s work, finding the right balance of darkness and comedy with material that lands somewhere between “Days of Our Lives” at its silliest and a ’70s TV action movie-of-the-week, especially in the film’s delightfully ridiculous final stretch. It’s my favorite horror comedy of 2024.‘An Angry Boy’Stream it on Tubi.Owen (Scott Callenberger) becomes the talk of his Queens neighborhood when a video of him saving a woman during an attack goes viral. But the celebration is cut short when a home invader assaults Owen and his mother, killing her in front of him. It turns out the violence circling Owen isn’t entirely random, and it sets him and a little boy he keeps seeing on the streets on a bloody, identity-twisting quest to right a long-repressed wrong.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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      Watch the Stirring Climax of ‘The Piano Lesson’

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      The director Malcolm Washington narrates a sequence from the film featuring Danielle Deadwyler.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.This article contains spoilers for “The Piano Lesson.”In the August Wilson play “The Piano Lesson,” its characters must wrestle, metaphorically, with a ghost from their past. In the film adaptation, directed by Malcolm Washington, that confrontation becomes more literal.In this scene, the climax, Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) takes a seat at the piano that she has been avoiding playing for the entire film, a piano that has deep historical meaning in her family. She plays it in an effort to conjure up her ancestors and exorcise the ghost that her brother, Boy Willie (John David Washington), is fighting upstairs.“We have all of our themes converge here,” the director Malcolm Washington said in his narration of the sequence, “the idea of shadow and light, of truth and secrets, and confronting the deepest parts of ourself to get through and transcend.”Washington said that he had “wanted to tell a story of Black spiritual practice in America.” He used iconography from Black Southern Christian tradition and West African spiritual tradition: “The idea that you can call on your ancestors,” he said, “and that there’s a boundaryless relationship between the living and the dead.”Read the “Piano Lesson” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      12 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

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      Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.The dog days of motherhood.Amy Adams channels her feral side in “Nightbitch,” directed by Marielle Heller.Searchlight Pictures‘Nightbitch’Amy Adams stars as a stay-at-home mother who turns into a feral dog in this adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s novel directed by Marielle Heller.From our review:The movie doesn’t need to convince its target audience that there’s something gravely wrong with contemporary American motherhood. … Every thinking woman who watches “Nightbitch,” and a fair share of men, too, already know that score. Given this, it’s frustrating how eager to please the movie is.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickGoing out with a bang (and a song).Tilda Swinton in “The End.”Felix Dickinson/Neon‘The End’This musical directed by Joshua Oppenheimer follows a well-off family (led by Michael Shannon and Tilda Swinton) in their lavish underground bunker as the world literally burns above them.From our review:“The End” is about one version of the end of the world, and about how the people who could have prevented it might feel when they get there. But to watch it is to think about yourself, at least if you have a conscience, and to ponder the sort of cognitive dissonance you live with every day.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickTwo sisters in a singular drama.Marianne Jean-Baptiste, left, and Michele Austin play polar-opposite sisters in “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh.Simon Mein/Thin Man Films Ltd, via Bleecker Street‘Hard Truths’The latest from the writer-director Mike Leigh centers on two sisters, Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) and Chantelle (Michele Austin), who have vastly different dispositions and outlooks on life.From our review:Leigh doesn’t put his characters on the couch or disgorge the traumas that are etched in every word and gesture. He doesn’t smooth any edges, express his views on race and class, nature and nurture, or float theories as to why Pansy seems so damaged while Chantelle shoulders life with grace. Instead, with deep feeling and lacerating and gentle words, Leigh creates a world that, like the vast, mysterious one hovering outside its frame, can seem agonizingly empty if you can’t see the people in it.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickRichard Gere and Jacob Elordi in confessional mode.Richard Gere in “Oh, Canada.”Kino LorberWe 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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      In the ’90s, She Was a Surprise Oscar Nominee. It May Happen Again.

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      Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s lead role in “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh, is her most substantial onscreen role since “Secrets and Lies” earned them Academy Award nominations in 1997.In the spring of 2023, Marianne Jean-Baptiste was on a flight from Los Angeles to London, feeling “petrified.”The actress was off to spend the next five months working with the veteran British director Mike Leigh. As with all of Leigh’s projects, there was no script, and Jean-Baptiste didn’t know she would be playing the lead, let alone what the film would be about. It would also be the pair’s first time working together in almost 30 years.The last time Jean-Baptiste and Leigh had made a film, “Secrets and Lies,” it earned them both nominations at the 1997 Oscars, with Jean-Baptiste becoming the first Black British actress to be nominated for an Academy Award.Her supporting performance as Hortense, a coolheaded young woman meeting her live wire birth mother, launched Jean-Baptiste’s film career. In 2002, she left her hometown London for Los Angeles, and since then she has worked steadily in smaller onscreen roles, including a long stint as an FBI agent on the CBS prime-time drama “Without A Trace.”But reuniting with Leigh would give Jean-Baptiste the chance to play another complex central character. “God, I hope it goes well,” she remembered thinking on the plane. It certainly seems to have done: once again, her collaboration with Leigh is getting Oscars buzz, and on Tuesday, it won Jean-Baptiste best actress at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.The film, “Hard Truths” which opens in limited theaters on Friday, centers on Jean-Baptiste’s Pansy, a cantankerous middle-aged woman who spits venom at unsuspecting shop assistants, bald babies, her 20-something son Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) and her dentist, among others. What ails Pansy? “She says people,” Jean-Baptiste said in a recent interview, cackling wickedly. But Pansy is hurting, and the actress finds the vulnerability beneath her character’s caustic exterior.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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      Amy Adams, Marielle Heller and How ‘Nightbitch’ Speaks to Women

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      Within the first 30 minutes of the magical realist dramedy “Nightbitch,” Amy Adams, starring as a newish parent teeming with fury and resentment, discovers that the oozing pustule that appeared on her back contains what appears to be a tail, the clearest sign yet that she is transforming into a dog.Yet, unlike the protagonists in most body transformation movies, Adams meets the metamorphosis not with horror or shock, but with a general curiosity, an almost radical acceptance of who she is now.“It’s a further manifestation of what had already happened through pregnancy and post- pregnancy and nursing,” Adams said in a joint interview with the director, Marielle Heller. “It was just one more thing, ‘Oh, look, I’ve got hair growing in weird places.’ I feel like we all get to that point where we stop judging things. I’m not horrified anymore by anything. I’m just like, well, there’s that.”That somewhat serene validation by Adams’s character, called simply Mother in the credits, is what propels “Nightbitch.” This surreal examination of how motherhood changes a woman physically and emotionally is based on the novel of the same name by Rachel Yoder. Her husband is traveling for work for days at a time, and she has given up her successful career as an artist to care for their sleep-resistant toddler. Most days are tedious and exhausting until she meets a group of moms struggling with similar challenges. Her canine metamorphosis, rather than being painful and monstrous, is an almost euphoric journey of self-discovery, one that has been off-putting to some viewers and revelatory to others.Adams as Mother, coping with tedious exhausting days of parenting.Searchlight Pictures“With a title like ‘Nightbitch,’ people are coming in really expecting a full-on genre horror film and every bit of this movie is subverting expectations,” said Heller, whose credits include “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” Over lunch, she and Adams had a wide-ranging conversation that touched on the challenges of being a parent today, including the identity issues that often accompany motherhood and the difficulty in rebalancing equality with your partner. “It’s subverting expectations that you have of mothers and it’s subverting expectations of how you as an audience are going to feel while you watch it.”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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      ‘Mary’ Review: An Epic Biopic for the Mother of God

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      No genre gesture goes untapped in this Netflix film, a coming-of-age saga about the Virgin Mary featuring Anthony Hopkins as King Herod.Horses gallop across a desert. Christianity’s most famous couple meet cute at a river. Swords clatter. A villain emerges from flames. Insect buzz accompanies the come-ons of a devil. (OK, the Devil.) No genre gesture goes untapped in the deliberately hagiographic “Mary,” a coming-of-age saga about the mother of Jesus. Directed by D.J. Caruso and written by Timothy Michael Hayes, the film aims to draw multitudes.“I was chosen to deliver a gift to the world, the greatest gift it has ever known,” Mary (Noa Cohen) says in voice-over, as she stands in an arid landscape holding a newborn in her arms with Joseph (Ido Tako) nearby.The film covers the prophesied pregnancy of Mary’s mother, Anne (Hilla Vidor), Mary’s time studying in Jerusalem and King Herod’s obsession with the foretold savior. The angel Gabriel, his blue robes fluttering, appears often. So does Lucifer.King Herod, a transfixing Anthony Hopkins, struts and frets his waning hours and appears to be dysregulating as he tries to upstage and upend God’s promise.Vidor brings a humane yet grounded aura to Anne, one that feels lived. The same can’t be said of Cohen’s character. The filmmakers have Mary address the viewers: “You may think you know my story. Trust me, you don’t.” It’s a bold and humanizing move. But their portrait doesn’t live up to the bravado or promise of Mary’s declaration.MaryNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More