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    ‘The Bikeriders’ Review: On the Road to Nowhere, Beautifully

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    Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy star in a romanticized drama about a fictional motorcycle club in the 1960s.“The Bikeriders,” a romanticized ballad of tribal love, outlaw cool and the illusion of freedom, gets your motor runnin’ early. A drama flecked with absurdity and violence, it narrates the rise and inevitable dissolution of a Midwestern motorcycle club across the 1960s into the early ’70s, from the ebbing of the greaser era and past the dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Not much happens, but the people are beautiful and so too are their bikes, rumbling beasts that tribe members ride and ride on that familiar closed loop known as Nowheresville, U.S.A.The first essential thing to know about “The Bikeriders” is that the writer-director Jeff Nichols has, improbably, based the movie on a totemic photography book of the same title by the great American photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon. The second thing is that the movie stars Austin Butler, Jodie Comer and Tom Hardy, a troika of charisma bombs who just have to show up for me to do the same. Nicely supported by a sprawling cast of other good lookers and hard workers, these three are among the draws in a movie that understands the seductions of beauty, the sensuous lines of a human body, the curves of a chassis.The story, such as it is, traces the evolution of a fictional Chicago-area motorcycle club, the Vandals, from its racer origins. Scrambling the chronology, Nichols opens the story midway in 1965 with one member, Benny (Butler), being harassed at a bar by two strangers who want him to remove his “colors,” his ragged denim vest adorned with the club’s name. (Why? Why not?) Soon, punches are being thrown, and one stranger is swinging a shovel at the back of Benny’s head. Nichols freezes on Benny’s face with the shovel framed behind him like a cockeyed metal halo, a wryly funny image that captures a moment in time, much as Lyon did in his photos, and heralds the violence — its threats and giddy thrills — of the bikers’ lives.For a few years in the early and mid-1960s when Lyon was in his 20s, he rode with a real Chicago club, the Outlaws, one of the oldest such groups in the country, charting his adventure in photographs and audio recordings. In 1968, the year before Dennis Hopper’s biker film “Easy Rider” opened, Lyon published “The Bikeriders,” a collection of black-and-white photos with accompanying interviews. One of his interviewees was the real Benny’s wife, Kathy Bauer, a philosopher of male behavior whom Nichols has made the narrator and is played by Comer with rough charm and a chewy, g-dropping accent. (You can compare her pitch-perfect interpretation of Bauer’s voice on Lyon’s website bleakbeauty.com.)Using the book as his lodestar, Nichols borrows from Lyon by turns directly, elliptically and sometimes clumsily, while making some instructive omissions: Some of the bikers wear Iron Cross patches, but if there’s a Nazi swastika or Confederate flag here, emblems flaunted by some white bikers including Danny’s old Outlaw pals, I missed it. Nichols’s most cumbersome move is to have turned Lyon into a supporting character, a bland, earnest smiler (Mike Faist), who basically holds a mic while Kathy chronicles her biker life and times. More subtle and intriguing are Nichols’s efforts to capture the power of Lyon’s photos which — with their dynamic mixture of pictorial beauty and thematic grit, hyper-masculinity and homosocial intimacy — tell a specific 20th-century American story of being and belonging.To that end, Nichols at times re-creates the original photographs, say, with a shot of Benny riding alone across a bridge while looking backward, an image that condenses the paradoxes of his life. Like the other club members, Benny tends to rack up miles without going anywhere very far, a provincialism that is one of the most American things about them. In another scene, Kathy recounts the first time she saw Benny, head bowed, leaning on a barroom pool table with his bared, muscly arms. Nichols catches this moment memorably, as does Comer, whose face opens in wonder as the camera pushes in toward Benny and he raises his head.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 Careful Crafting of Austin Butler

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      There’s a scene early on in the new film “The Bikeriders” that functions like a stress test for stardom.While drinking at a 1960s pool hall, a woman named Kathy (Jodie Comer) is unnerved by the menacing bikers in the room and grabs her purse to go. She’s only stopped dead in her tracks when she catches sight of Benny, another biker, alone. The young man’s muscles are rippling, his hair artfully mussed, his gaze troubled but beguiling. As Kathy stares at him from across the crowded room, the jukebox music and biker chatter fade away, and all you can hear is her stunned gasp as she realizes she’s fallen in love.No visual effects are required for this scene, just a man who can hold the screen and make a woman hold her breath. It’s the sort of role you might have filled in past decades with the likes of Marlon Brando, Paul Newman or Brad Pitt. But who from today’s cohort of young stars has their presence?That’s what worried the director Jeff Nichols two years ago as he embarked on casting the character. He had written Benny as someone who feels mythic even to his fellow bikers, but no contemporary actor was even close to coming to mind. So Nichols wasn’t expecting much when he met with Austin Butler, whose breakthrough film “Elvis” was, at that point, still months from release.What he found, even as Butler walked up, was someone who looked and felt exactly like the character he had written, someone with beauty, gravitas and easy masculinity.Or, as Nichols put it, “I was like, ‘Oh, I’m talking to a movie star.’”Jodie Comer and Austin Butler in “The Bikeriders.”Kyle Kaplan/Focus FeaturesWe 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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      ‘Masters of the Air’ Review: Hanks and Spielberg, Back at War

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      The team behind “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” returns to World War II and the Greatest Generation, this time piloting B-17 bombers.This review contains spoilers for the entire season of “Masters of the Air.”When Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg created “Band of Brothers” in 2001, in the wake of their partnership on the 1998 film “Saving Private Ryan,” they were the most prominent celebrators of what had become known as the Greatest Generation. Twenty-three years later, with the release of “Masters of the Air,” they’ve become their own greatest generation: upholders of an old-fashioned style of television making, fighting their chosen war over and over again.Created by John Shiban and John Orloff based on Donald L. Miller’s book of the same title, “Masters of the Air” — which wrapped up its nine-episode run on Apple TV+ this week — was Hanks and Spielberg’s third mini-series saluting American troops in World War II. (Gary Goetzman joined them as executive producer for “The Pacific” in 2010 and for “Masters.”) The latest band of brothers chosen for dramatization and valorization was the 100th Bomb Group, the “bloody Hundredth,” based in England and decimated during its daytime runs over Europe from 1943 to 1945.The first — and for many viewers, perhaps, sufficient — observation to be made about “Masters” is that the money, more than ever, was right up there on the screen. These producers are Eisenhower-class when it comes to marshaling staff and materiel, as evidenced by the solid five minutes of closing credits, and both the quotidian recreation of an air base in the green English countryside and the special-effects extravaganzas of airborne battle were visually captivating.Some of the images of mayhem in the skies as the American B-17s and their crews are torn apart by German flak and fighters were the kind that will stick with you even if you would rather they didn’t, like the rain of wings and engines slowly falling after two bombers collide or like the airman sliding through the sky and being halved by a plane’s wing.But being absorbingly pictorial (the distinguished roster of directors included Cary Joji Fukunaga, Dee Rees, Tim Van Patten and the team of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck) only contributed to the sense that the show existed in amber — more of a well-preserved fossil than a compelling drama. You could argue that this was the inevitable result of trying to celebrate 1940s-style patriotism one time too many. But the issues with “Masters” are artistic rather than cultural or political or factual.In condensing Miller’s broad-ranging history, while also converting it into a drama extending over nearly eight hours, Orloff and Shiban ended up with an ungainly, disjointed story that never gave itself the time or the space to grow. “Masters” felt like a catalog of war movie genres — the home-front melodrama, the aerial-combat blockbuster, the P.O.W. escape adventure, the behind-enemy-lines spy thriller, the racial-harmony drama — strung together in fealty to actual events but with disregard for dramatic development.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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      ‘Dune: Part Two’ Review: Bigger, Wormier and Way Far Out

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      Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya make an appealing pair in Denis Villeneuve’s follow-up film, and the actors fit together with tangible ease.Having gone big in “Dune,” his 2021 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s futuristic opus, the director Denis Villeneuve has gone bigger and more far out in the follow up. Set in the aftermath of the first movie, the sequel resumes the story boldly and quickly, delivering visions both phantasmagoric and familiar. Like Timothée Chalamet’s dashingly coifed hero — who steers monstrous sandworms over the desert like a charioteer — Villeneuve has tamed a Leviathan. The art of cinematic spectacle is alive and rocking in “Dune: Part Two,” and it’s a blast.The new movie is a surprisingly nimble moonshot, even with all its gloom and doom and brutality. Big-screen enterprises, particularly those adapted from books with a huge, fiercely loyal readership, often have a ponderousness built in to every image. In some, you can feel the enormous effort it takes as filmmakers try to turn reams of pages into moving images that have commensurate life, artistry and pop on the screen. Adaptations can be especially deadly when moviemakers are too precious with the source material; they’re torpedoed by fealty.“Dune” made it clear that Villeneuve isn’t that kind of textualist. As he did in the original, he has again taken plentiful liberties with Herbert’s behemoth (one hardcover edition runs 528 pages) to make “Part Two,” which he wrote with the returning Jon Spaihts. Characters, subplots and volumes of dialogue (interior and otherwise) have again been reduced or excised altogether. (I was sorry that the great character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson, who played an eerie adviser in the first movie, didn’t make the cut here.) The story — its trajectory, protagonist and concerns — remains recognizable yet also different.“Dune” turns on Paul Atreides (Chalamet), an aristocrat who becomes a guerrilla and crusader, and whose destiny weighs as heavily on him as any crown. In adapting “Dune,” Villeneuve effectively cleaved Herbert’s novel in half. (Herbert wrote six “Dune” books, a series that has morphed into a multimedia franchise since his death in 1986.) The first part makes introductions and sketches in Paul’s back story as the beloved only son of a duke, Leto (Oscar Isaac), and his concubine, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson). When it opens, the royals, on orders from the universe’s emperor, are preparing to vacate their home planet, a watery world called Caladan, to the parched planet of Arrakis, a.k.a. Dune.The move to Arrakis goes catastrophically wrong; Paul’s father and most members of House Atreides are murdered by their enemies, most notably the pallid, villainous House Harkonnen. Paul and the Lady Jessica escape into the desert where — after much side-eyeing and muttering along with one of those climactic mano-a-mano duels that turn fictional boys into men — they find uneasy allies in a group of Fremen, the planet’s Indigenous population. A tribal people who have adapted to Dune’s harsh conditions with clever survival tactics, like form-fitting suits that conserve bodily moisture, the Fremen are scattered across the planet under the emperor’s rule. Some fight to be free; many pray for a messiah.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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      With ‘Masters of the Air,’ a 10-Year Dream of Spielberg and Hanks Lifts Off

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      The Apple TV+ series is an heir to their World War II epic “Band of Brothers,” set this time among the bomber pilots known as the Bloody Hundredth.After Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks spearheaded the epic 2001 World War II series “Band of Brothers,” Spielberg got some feedback from one of his most important critics.His father, Arnold, a World War II veteran who served in what was then called the United States Army Air Forces, liked the series. But he wanted more aerial action. Then Spielberg and Hanks returned as executive producers in 2010 with “The Pacific.” Again, the elder Spielberg approved — with the same caveat.“‘Well, that’s a great series,’” Spielberg, in an interview this week, recalled his father saying. “‘But where’s the Air Force?’”Arnold Spielberg, who died at age 103 in 2020, would most likely be pleased with Spielberg and Hanks’s third World War II series (following the 1998 movie “Saving Private Ryan,” in which Spielberg directed Hanks). “Masters of the Air,” a nine-part Apple TV+ series starring Austin Butler and Callum Turner, premieres on Friday and chronicles the dangerous feats of the 100th Bomb Group of the Eighth Air Force, known as the Bloody Hundredth. The unit flew daytime bombing missions 25,000 feet over German targets knowing that the odds suggested they might not survive.With 10-man crews packed into B-17 bombers so big they were called Flying Fortresses, the 100th faced not only a constant barrage of enemy fire, but also thin air, subzero temperatures and the psychological strain of what often played out as suicide missions. An estimated 77 percent of the Eighth Air Force was killed, injured or captured; the number of fatalities, more than 26,000, was higher than that of the entire U.S. Marine Corps during World War II.B-17 bombers, packed with 10-man crews, were so big they were called Flying Fortresses. The Bloody Hundredth flew missions in them knowing that the odds suggested they might not survive. National ArchivesFor Spielberg, “Masters of the Air,” adapted from Donald L. Miller’s more expansive nonfiction book about the Eighth Air Force, is part of a continuing effort to keep World War II in sight as the years claim the lives of more and more veterans.“I see it as a consistent recognition of the courage and sacrifice of the greatest generation, in keeping their memories alive today in a society that looks ahead more than they look back,” he said. “Through these dramas, we can tell these stories and get people to not only watch our series, but to go online and start to explore and navigate the history of World War II. That’s a big win for us.”“Masters of the Air” was conceived a little more than 10 years ago, when Hanks called the screenwriter John Orloff, one of many writers who had worked on “Band of Brothers.” As Orloff recalled in a video interview, Hanks’s question was simple: “You want to write another one?”Hanks and Spielberg had a specific story line in mind, to be chiseled from Miller’s mammoth book. They wanted to zero in on the friendship between Maj. John Egan (Turner) and Maj. Gale Cleven (Butler). A study in contrasts — Egan, known as Bucky, was a hard-drinking raconteur; Cleven, known as Buck, was a stoic with swagger — the two men flew mission after mission, building a reputation for leadership under heavy fire.Austin Butler, left, as Maj. Gale Cleven, a stoic with swagger. And Callum Turner as Maj. John Egan, a hard-drinking raconteur. Cleven and Egan built a reputation for leadership under heavy fire.Apple TV+After writing the first episodes and the show bible (a comprehensive guide to a TV series being pitched), Orloff was tasked with writing the entire series. Even with the names attached, it was not a sure thing to get picked up; in 2016 the “Masters” team submitted scripts for the first three episodes to HBO, which had broadcast “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” but the company passed on “Masters” “because of the price tag,” Spielberg said. That’s when Apple stepped in, ready to foot the bill. (HBO declined to comment; Apple would not disclose the budget.)“We were really fortunate to have Apple jump in and become our home,” Spielberg said.With intricate aerial sequences, massive sets, armies of extras and extensive research undertaken beyond the source book, the series “was a monumental undertaking,” Orloff said.“None of us thought it would take 10 years,” Orloff added. “I thought it would be a three- or four-year project, which is what ‘Band’ was and ‘The Pacific’ was, from inception to production. But this one was a bit tougher — the ambition of it, the scale of it. It was very intimidating to get this made.”For Butler, 32, and Turner, 33, the series was a chance to immerse themselves in the war’s history and the sacrifices made by the men they play. Specifically, “Masters” confronts what it meant to go “flak happy,” a phrase of the time that describes what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder.“It’s atrocious what they had to face, the most violent space a human could have ever put themselves in,” Turner said in a video interview. “What our show does is explore that trauma, what that did to their mind and their body and their spirit and their soul.”Butler, in a separate video interview, recalled speaking with a 102-year-old veteran of the Bloody Hundredth who said that the air would get so cold up there that his feet would freeze to the bomber pedals and have to be chipped out. The physiological hardships only aggravated the mental strain of seeing friends blown out of the sky and never knowing if your turn might come the very next day.“One of the elements that you see in the show is them dealing with the psychological toll,” Butler added. “It was just unfathomable.”There is an aspect of World War II storytelling “that can be absolutely lost in fanciful nostalgia, which bores me to tears and, I think, also misses the point,” Tom Hanks said. Apple TV+One movie that inspired Spielberg and Hanks was “Twelve O’Clock High,” the 1949 World War II drama about a B-17 bomber unit suffering heavy losses and low morale. “That was actually one of the first films made after World War II that embraced PTSD,” Spielberg said. He added: “Even though a Flying Fortress is a heavily armed heavy bomber with 50-caliber guns all over it, it is a very thinly constructed airplane with not a lot of steel, except sometimes in the floor. Just watching the series, I had a problem with my own claustrophobia.”Dee Rees, one of the series’s five directors, was drawn largely by a story line featuring the Tuskegee Airmen, the Black pilots and airmen who formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S.A.A.F. The Tuskegee men are mentioned only once in Miller’s book, but Orloff felt it was important to give them airtime, especially since they wound up in the same German prisoner camp as some of the prisoners from the Eighth Air Force. President Harry Truman didn’t desegregate the Armed Services until 1948, but the Airmen earned high marks for their combat duty in World War II.“That was a big part of me wanting to do it, to tell that part of the story and do them some justice and show their bravery,” Rees said in a telephone interview. “The very thing they’re fighting for abroad is what they’re going to be denied on their home soil. These men are more American when they’re overseas than they are at home, even though they are risking their lives and doing things that are just as difficult as their white counterparts.”Stories about World War II can veer into hazy reverence for a bygone era, more fodder for the nostalgia machine. World War II, after all, has become something of a cultural industry, leaving a mountain of books, television and film. But for Hanks, this interpretation doesn’t apply here. He thinks the specific themes of “Masters of the Air” are not only resonant but also applicable to the present day.There is an aspect of World War II storytelling “that can be absolutely lost in fanciful nostalgia, which bores me to tears and, I think, also misses the point,” Hanks said by phone on Wednesday.“Here was a time in which there was just no question that a division was going to take place in the human condition,” he said. “You had truly evil empires that were murdering people and enslaving them in order to hold sway over their part of the world.” But even if today’s conflicts feel more complicated, he added, the things that matter most remain the same, like good citizenship, like civic duty and responsibility.“Of course the world is completely different now,” he said. “But you still come down to the core issue of what is the truth, and what is justice, and what is my part to play in that? Isn’t that what all literature is kind of based on one way or another? Isn’t that what all storytelling comes down to?” More

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      2023 Oscar Nominees Luncheon: Tom Cruise’s Arrival Causes a Stir

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      The “Top Gun: Maverick” star and producer is mobbed as Austin Butler, Angela Bassett, Ke Huy Quan and others angle to chat with him.The “Elvis” star Austin Butler finally got an audience with Tom Cruise.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesFor the privileged few embarking on an Oscar campaign, the path to a nomination asks you to hobnob with so many of the same people that over the course of many months, your competitors can begin to feel like classmates.But on Monday afternoon, at a luncheon held in Beverly Hills for this year’s Oscar nominees, the arrival of a new student caused quite a stir.That would be Tom Cruise, nominated this year as a producer of the megahit best-picture contender “Top Gun: Maverick.” He was among the first notable names to walk into the ballroom of the Beverly Hilton. The 60-year-old star had sat out both the Golden Globes and the Critics Choice Awards this season, so many of his fellow nominees were encountering him for the first time. Before long, the ballroom had turned into a massive meet-and-greet.Together in the ballroom crush: from left, Michelle Williams, Hong Chau, Steven Spielberg, Jamie Lee Curtis and Cruise. Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times“The Fabelmans” castmates Judd Hirsch and Michelle Williams shared a moment.Roger Kisby for The New York Times“I love you, I love you, oh my God!” said the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star Ke Huy Quan, who hopped in place, exclaiming, “I want a picture with this man!” before seizing a selfie with Cruise. Director Guillermo del Toro went over for an embrace, as did the nominated actors Brendan Fraser, Angela Bassett and Michelle Williams. Cruise even posed for pictures with Steven Spielberg, a once-frequent collaborator whom the star has not been publicly photographed with in over a decade.The nominees luncheon is supposed to be an egalitarian affair where big stars and behind-the-scenes technicians are on equal footing, but there was no mistaking Cruise as the ballroom’s top dog: He had the gravitational pull of the sun and its burnt-orange countenance, too. Any of the nominees who might have pulled focus from Cruise had declined to attend: Original-song contenders Lady Gaga and Rihanna were busy with other obligations (including, for the latter, a just-concluded Super Bowl stint), and even surprise best-actress nominee Andrea Riseborough was missing in action.A caterer bringing out appetizers.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesJerzy Skolimowski, the director of “EO,” taking a break.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesStill, simply making it to Cruise took some time: In the schmoozy hour before lunch was served, he was so mobbed by his fellow nominees that he was hardly able to move more than a few feet. I watched for a while as “Elvis” star Austin Butler drifted with slow, inexorable determination toward Cruise, who finally pulled the younger man toward him by clamping a hand on his shoulder like a stapler. For several minutes, they were locked in such a tight bro-embrace that it was impossible to discern what they were talking about (or, more important, whether Butler was still speaking in his “Elvis” drawl).What would Lydia Tár think? Cate Blanchett at the event.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesSo instead, I made my way to “Top Gun: Maverick” producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who observed the scene serenely just a few feet away. “It’s my first time at the luncheon,” said the newly nominated producer, who’s better known for making explosive action movies than Oscar fare. “After 50 years in the business, I finally get here.”Malala Yousafzai, there on behalf of a documentary short, speaking with “The Whale” star Brendan Fraser.Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesA supporting actress nominee in the house: Stephanie Hsu of “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesIt was not the first time at the luncheon for songwriter Diane Warren, who has been nominated for an Oscar 13 times before and is back in contention this year for the song “Applause,” from the film “Tell It Like a Woman.”“It’s my favorite day,” Warren said. “No one’s a loser yet, everybody’s a winner.” I noted that Warren had received an honorary Oscar in November, and asked whether it had dimmed her desire to win a competitive statuette. “No, I still want to win,” she said, grinning. “He wants a friend!”Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) got time with Cruise while the “Top Gun: Maverick” screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and Butler chatted. Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesAs the nominees and their guests took their seats to nosh on mushroom risotto, the academy president, Janet Yang, came to the stage and addressed the fallout from the organization’s handling of the Will Smith slap at last year’s ceremony.“It was inadequate,” Yang said. “We learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis, we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively.”One unrelated tweak has already been made: Unlike last year, when eight below-the-line Oscars were presented just before the telecast began, Yang promised that each category would be aired live during the March 12 telecast. Because of that, Yang pleaded with the nominees to keep their speeches short: “We need to be sensitive to our running time,” she said. “This is live television, after all.”Nominees from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” included, from left, Jamie Lee Curtis, directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, and producer Jonathan Wang.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesSpielberg and Ke Huy Quan, who as a child starred in the director’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.”Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesWith that settled, the nominees were called one by one to the front of the stage, where they would pose together for one massive “class photo.” The first name announced was Jamie Lee Curtis, who had earned her first Oscar nomination this year for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”“I’ve been acting since I was 19 and I’m 64 — do the math,” Curtis told me. “That’s many years of watching this photograph being taken.” Her late parents, the actors Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, had both been Oscar nominees. “To be connected through this legacy of their work and my work and now being included here, it’s very powerful,” she said.Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) and Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) posed for photographers.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesBrian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”) made his way into the ballroom.Roger Kisby for The New York TimesEventually, with all the nominees assembled,  the producer and academy governor DeVon Franklin counted down to a flashbulb — pop! — then counted down again as the academy photographer took another picture. “All right, three more,” Franklin said.“I’ve got one more expression,” shouted best-actor nominee Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).Moments earlier, Farrell had been in an animated conversation with Warren, who was standing on the riser behind him. When the pictures were finished and the attendees started to make their way out of the ballroom, I asked Warren what they had discussed.“We talked about how we both did very badly at school,” she said, “and now here we are, at the coolest graduation picture ever.”Spielberg with Cruise, a longtime star of his.Sinna Nasseri for The New York Times More

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      ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Leads BAFTA Nominees

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      The German-language movie received 14 nods and will compete for best film against the likes of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.”“All Quiet on the Western Front,” a German-language movie set on the battlefields of World War I, emerged on Thursday as the surprise front-runner for this year’s British Academy Film Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars.“All Quiet,” a Netflix-backed movie about the futility of war, secured 14 nominations for the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs. Those included best film, where it is up against four higher-profile titles including “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a sci-fi adventure starring Michelle Yeoh as a laundromat owner who traverses universes; and “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy about two friends who fall out while living on a small island, both of which received a total of 10 nominations.Also competing for the main BAFTA prize is Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic and “Tár,” Todd Field’s drama starring Cate Blanchett as a conductor accused of sexual harassment.On its release in Britain, critics gave the Edward Berger-directed “All Quiet” rave reviews. Kevin Maher, writing in The Times of London, said that the movie was “more visceral, more spectacular and certainly more harrowing” than any previous adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel of the same title. “See it on the biggest screen possible. Then watch it again on Netflix,” Mr. Maher added.American critics were less effusive. Ben Kenigsberg, reviewing the movie for The New York Times, said that it “aims to pummel you with ceaseless brutality, and it’s hard not to be rattled by that.”Steven Spielberg Gets Personal in ‘The Fabelmans’The director’s latest movie, starring Michelle Williams, focuses on Sammy Fabelman, a budding filmmaker who is a lot like Spielberg himself.Review: “The Fabelmans” is “wonderful in both large and small ways, even if Spielberg can’t help but soften the rougher, potentially lacerating edges,” our critic writes.Michelle Williams: With her portrayal of Mitzi, Sammy’s mother, the actress moves from minor-key naturalism to more stylized performances.Judd Hirsch: The actor has been singled out for his rousing performance in the film. It’s the latest chapter in a career full of anecdotes.Making ‘The Fabelmans’: In working on this semi-autobiographical movie, Spielberg confronted painful family secrets and what it means to be Jewish in America today.The 14 nods for “All Quiet” is the highest number of BAFTA nominations for a movie not in the English language, tied with Ang Lee’s 2000 action film “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” according to BAFTA officials.Michelle Yeoh, left, and Jing Li in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert.Allyson Riggs/A24Most of the nominations for “All Quiet” are in technical categories. But Berger also secured a best director nomination. He will compete for that award against the directors of “Banshees of Inisherin” (McDonagh), “Tár”(Field) and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” (Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert). Park Chan-wook, the director of “Decision to Leave,” about a policeman who falls in love with a suspect, also secured a best director nod, as did Gina Prince-Bythewood for “The Woman King,” about the women soldiers of the precolonial Kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa. Prince-Bythewood is the only female director among the nominees.There was one upset among the best director nominees: Steven Spielberg didn’t get a nod for “The Fabelmans,” his semi-autobiographical tale of a budding filmmaker coping with a fractious home life, which won him best director at last week’s Golden Globes.The BAFTA nominations, which were announced in a YouTube broadcast, have long been seen as a bellwether for the Oscars because there is overlap between their voting bodies. Nominations for this year’s Academy Awards are scheduled to be unveiled on Tuesday and “All Quiet on the Western Front” has been tipped as a potential nominee in the best picture category.In recent years, the BAFTA organizers has made efforts to widen the diversity of nominees, including requiring voters to watch a variety of movies before they can make their selections.Last year, that led to several unexpected nominees in the best acting categories, many from low-budget British movies. But there are fewer upsets this year. The best actress nominees include Blanchett for “Tár,” Viola Davis for “The Woman King,” Yeoh for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and Emma Thompson for her role in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” in which she plays a widow who hires a prostitute.They will compete for that prize against Danielle Deadwyler for her role as Emmett Till’s mother in “Till” and Ana de Armas for “Blonde,” in which she plays Marilyn Monroe.The best actor category sees Austin Butler, the Golden Globe-winning star of “Elvis,” up against Colin Farrell, for his role in “The Banshees of Inisherin,” and Brendan Fraser, for his transformation into an obese, grief-stricken writing instructor in “The Whale.” Also nominated are the rising Irish star Paul Mescal, for his role as a young father taking his daughter on holiday in “Aftersun,” Daryl McCormack, for playing the prostitute in “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande,” and Bill Nighy, for “Living,” about a bureaucrat given a life-changing medical diagnosis.Whether the nominations for “All Quiet” translate into trophies will be revealed on Feb. 19, when the BAFTA winners are scheduled to be announced in a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall in London. More

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      in Television

      Austin Butler Sings ‘Blue Christmas’ With Cecily Strong in Her Last ‘SNL’

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      After a surprise announcement hours before the broadcast, Strong, an 11-season veteran of the show, bid a tearful goodbye.“Saturday Night Live” was lucky to have had Cecily Strong for as long as it did. Since joining the show in 2012, she has contributed memorable recurring characters, like The Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party, and an array of celebrity and political impersonations, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kyrsten Sinema and Jeanine Pirro. She performed at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and was a co-anchor of the Weekend Update desk.There was a moment, at the end of the 2020-21 season, when Strong appeared to be saying goodbye to “S.N.L.” — singing “My Way” as she doused herself in a tank that was supposed to be filled with wine — but she nonetheless returned the following year.And while she was not part of the exodus of cast members that preceded the start of its current 48th season, she did not appear in the first three live episodes — instead, she was performing a one-woman show, “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” in Los Angeles. And now her time on “S.N.L.” has indeed come to an end.The announcement of Strong’s departure was made online just a couple of hours before the start of this weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Austin Butler and featuring Lizzo as its musical guest.Strong herself got to bid farewell to “S.N.L.” in a Weekend Update segment in which she played her recurring character Cathy Anne, a disheveled woman who is always yelling outside Michael Che’s window.In her Cathy Anne guise, Strong said that she was wearing a Santa hat because “it’s covering up a giant open wound — I got a little bit scalped.” (She explained further that this had happened because she “fell asleep on the escalator.”)Strong went onto say that she was “a little emo tonight, because, truth is, I’m here to say goodbye.” She explained that she was going to prison because all of the crimes she had confessed in her various appearances had finally caught up with her: “You know, drug use, trespassing, destruction of property, crack, impersonating a police horse, meth and crack.”But, she said, she hoped prison would give her “much needed stability, and I’m not too scared ’cause I got friends on the inside — they seem to be doing OK.” (Here, the screen showed a graphic of the “S.N.L.” alumnae Kate McKinnon and Aidy Bryant, wearing orange jumpsuits and prison tattoos.)Strong gradually slipped out of character as she addressed the audience, saying: “Everybody has to go to jail at some point, right? It’s just my time now. But I had a lot of fun here. And I feel really lucky that I got to have so many of the best moments of my life in this place with these people that I love so much.”The tears came later, at the end of the episode, when Butler, who played Elvis Presley in the recent film “Elvis,” joined Strong, Kenan Thompson and several other “S.N.L.” cast members to sing a sentimental cover of “Blue Christmas.”But at the end of her Weekend Update segment, Strong told everyone not to be sad because, as she sang once again to the tune of “My Way”: “I did it high, Che.”Cold open of the weekFormer President Donald Trump pretty much handed “S.N.L.” a script for its opening sketch when he announced on Thursday that he would begin selling a set of digital trading cards depicting him as various fantastical characters.James Austin Johnson brought his studied nonchalance to his recurring role as Trump, pitching the $99 offer — “seems like a lot, seems like a scam, and in many ways it is,” he said — while also mocking the larger concept of NFTs: “You can also get them for free by just going online and just looking at them, maybe, I don’t know, maybe taking a screenshot.”“But we’d really prefer it,” he added, “if you sent the $99.”Celebrity impersonation of the weekIt has been less than a week since HBO aired the season finale of “The White Lotus.” But if you already find yourself missing its star and muse Jennifer Coolidge, then Chloe Fineman has you covered in this holiday-theme segment where she captures Coolidge’s breathless amazement at everyday occurrences.In “Jennifer Coolidge Is Impressed by Christmas Stuff,” Fineman oohs and ahhs about Christmas lights. (“One year I got the blinking ones,” she explains; “I left my Christmas tree on all night and learned my cat was epileptic.”) And she blithely asks a pianist, played by Michael Longfellow, if he was the composer of the tune he just played — that tune being “Jingle Bells.”(Fun fact: the real Coolidge auditioned for “S.N.L.” in the 1990s, along with the future cast members Will Ferrell, Chris Kattan and Cheri Oteri, but she didn’t get the gig. She has yet to host the show, wink wink!)Questionable holiday treat of the weekPerhaps on some Christmas past, you had the misfortune of being served some dry, brittle candy made out of marzipan and formed into some improbable shape like a cash register or a bunch of bananas. (And if not, consider yourself lucky.)But clearly someone in the “S.N.L.” writing staff had a score to settle with marzipan and channeled it into this exceptionally silly sketch in which Thompson and a group of excitable British children (played by Butler and the cast) fail to make it sound appealing, even when they try to sing marzipan’s praises.As Thompson explains, “Just remember, don’t eat it within 12 hours of going to sleep, or after 12 hours of waking up.”Weekend Update jokes of the weekOver at the Weekend Update desk, the anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che continued to riff on Trump’s entry into the NFT market and the arrest of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX:Jost began:Insiders are saying that the House Jan. 6 committee will refer at least three criminal charges against Donald Trump, but after this week, I think he’s pretty much locked down that insanity plea. [His screen shows a trading-card image depicting Trump as a comic-book hero with lasers coming from his eyes.] Semiretired maniac Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital NFT trading cards depicting him in various costumes, including cowboy, superhero and, most unbelievable of all, guy who didn’t dodge the draft.As the screen beside him showed an image of Trump wearing a fighter pilot suit, Jost continued:I’m honestly just relieved that he’s wearing an American military uniform. It’s such a funny move to get into NFTs after the whole market just crashed. It’s like getting into Kanye now. Which Trump also kind of did.Che picked up the thread:Sam Bankman-Fried, the former C.E.O. of the cryptocurrency company FTX, was arrested on fraud charges in the Bahamas — I’m going to guess while swimming in a T-shirt. Prosecutors allege that Bankman-Fried took funds from FTX customers to make large political donations. That money will now be used to make sure the cameras outside his jail cell aren’t working. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Elvis’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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      Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera.Film directors walk viewers through one scene of their movies, showing the magic, motives and the mistakes from behind the camera. More