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    Hollywood’s Message to Red States: Our Movies Are for You

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    After a period of openly using movies to display progressive values, studios seem to be heeding a message from many ticket buyers: Just entertain us.For nearly two decades, Hollywood has seemingly missed no opportunity to sound the alarm about climate change.There have been cri de coeur documentaries, most notably “An Inconvenient Truth.” Superheroes have been concerned, with Batman bemoaning mankind’s treatment of the planet in “Justice League.” Nary an award show goes by without a star or several begging viewers to take environment-saving action.So it was startling when the weather-focused “Twisters” arrived from Universal Pictures this month with no mention of climate change at all. If ever there was a perfect vehicle to carry Hollywood’s progressive climate change messaging — a big-budget movie about people caught in worsening storm patterns — wasn’t this it?Apparently not. Movies should not be about “preaching a message,” Lee Isaac Chung, who directed “Twisters,” said in a prerelease interview that served as a dog whistle to conservative ticket buyers.Trend spotting in cinema is a hazardous pursuit. Sometimes a movie is just a movie. “Twisters,” however, is emblematic of a clear shift in Hollywood: After a period of openly using movies to display progressive values, sometimes with success at the box office (“Barbie”) and often not (“Strange World,” “The Marvels,” “The Color Purple,” “Dark Waters”), studios seem to be heeding a message that many ticket buyers — especially in the center of the country — have been sending for a long time: We just want to be entertained, no homework attached.Put bluntly, it amounts to an attempt by Hollywood to bend to red state audiences.“It’s a reflection of economics and the desperation of the film industry,” said Corby Pons, a movie marketer who focuses on the faith community and is based in Nashville. “We want you to attend our movies. We need you to attend our movies.”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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      How ‘Twisters’ Destroys a Motel

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      The director Lee Isaac Chung narrates a sequence from the film featuring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell, in which a building is leveled by a tornado.Lee Isaac Chung narrates a sequence from his film, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell.Universal PicturesIn “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.A grungy, empty pool becomes a motel’s greatest asset in this harrowing sequence from “Twisters.”The storm chasers Kate (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Tyler (Glen Powell) find themselves in a predicament when a tornado descends on a motel and the two must lead a group to safety. They head to the drained pool to stay out of the tornado’s path, along the way dodging debris that includes a soda machine and a trailer.Much of the sequence gives the impression of a one-take shot, although it was stitched from different takes to best incorporate its visual effects. Those effects are a mix of the practical — one stunt performer was whisked 60 feet in the air — and the digital.“I really wanted to film a night tornado,” Chung said, narrating the scene, “because growing up around Tornado Alley, the night tornadoes were always the most frightening.”He said the intent of the scene and shooting it in this frantic, hand-held manner was to create “that subjective feeling of what it’s like to experience a tornado in real time.”Chung said that while filming his cast inside the swimming pool, crew members were destroying the set outside, so as the scene ends and the characters emerge, they are seeing a damaged version of the set they hadn’t seen going in.Read the “Twisters” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘Twisters’ Review: When the Monster Is Real

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      Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones lead a stand-alone sequel to the 1996 hit — and times sure have changed.The 1996 mega-blockbuster “Twister” is pleasing in its almost childlike simplicity. It’s a monster movie where the monster is a tornado, which neither knows nor cares about the people chasing it down. A tornado does not have a vendetta. It’s not even hungry, like a zombie is. Its path is erratic but its behavior is predictable: It forms, it destroys and then it simply collapses.That means the real intrigue comes from the human side of things, and on that point “Twister,” with a healthy dose of mid-90s style tropes and an absurdly stacked secondary cast (including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Jami Gertz and Todd Field, the future director of “Tár”), delivers mightily. The movie’s enduring status as a classic is due in no small part to its continual appearance on cable TV — and it works so well in that medium because you can flick it on at virtually any moment and know basically what’s going on. The estranged lovers Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton chase a tornado, hoping to deploy a device cheekily named “Dorothy” that will help them understand it better and save lives. No complicated back stories, no lore necessary.Nearly thirty years later, “Twisters,” billed as a stand-alone sequel to “Twister,” has a bit of a tougher hill to climb. For one, the era of straightforward original blockbusters ended a long time ago, swallowed up by superheroes and franchises. “Twister” has its fans, but the only character “Twisters” shares with its predecessor is the tornado.And tornadoes aren’t what they used to be either. When I left my screening of “Twisters” and turned on my phone, I saw a text from my mother, who lives in a region known more for its blizzards than tornadoes. The National Weather Service, as it turned out, was warning residents to look out for thunderstorms, flash flooding and … tornadoes.The words “climate change” are never uttered in “Twisters,” but as anyone in the path of extreme weather knows, things have been getting worse. This hurricane season is predicted to be an unusually bad one. If you tried to travel over Memorial Day weekend, you felt the real effects. And tornadoes now tend to rove in packs. There’s a reason the title of this movie is plural.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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      Yuh-Jung Youn Nabs Historic Oscar Win for 'Minari'

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      After the Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn’s delightfully hilarious BAFTA acceptance speech earlier this month, the Academy gave the 73-years-young “Minari” grandmother the chance to deliver another Sunday night when it selected her as its best supporting actress. It is the first time a Korean actress has ever won an acting Oscar.“I don’t believe in competition, how can I win over Glenn Close?” Youn said in her acceptance speech. “Tonight, I have just a little bit luck, I think, maybe. I’m luckier than you. And also maybe it’s American hospitality for the Korean actor. I’m not sure. But anyway, thank you so much.”Youn triumphed as the grandmother in Lee Isaac Chung’s film about a family from South Korea who takes up farming near the Ozarks. The film is named for the leafy green vegetable popular in Korean cooking. Our critic A.O. Scott called it “in its circumspect, gentle way, moving and downright revelatory.” Scott classed Youn as a sly scene-stealer but noted that is “also true of her character, who infuses her daughter’s home with mischief, folk wisdom and mostly unspoken memories of war, poverty and other hardship.”She also thanked her two grown sons, who she said “make me go out and work. … This is the result, because mommy worked so hard.”This was Youn’s first nomination, and, until recent weeks, an invite to speechify on the film industry’s biggest stage was far from a sure thing. One of her biggest foes might have been the 74-year-old Glenn Close, who’s now been nominated eight times without a single statuette (can we give her an honorary Oscar yet?). But after Youn’s SAG Award win and smile-inducing BAFTA speech earlier this month that thanked British voters — whom she labeled “very snobbish” people — for selecting her, the race was hers to lose.She didn’t repeat her BAFTA roast, but she did offer a kindly zinger Sunday night.“As you know, I’m from Korea, and my name is Yuh-Jung Youn — most of European people call me Yuh Youn and some call me Yuh-Jung,” she said. “But tonight, you are all forgiven.” More

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      Watch a Family Build a New Life in America in ‘Minari’

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      Lee Isaac Chung narrates an early scene from his Oscar-nominated film about Korean immigrants who move to rural Arkansas.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.America as a land of promise, a land of hardship or a land of fun? All three perspectives are seen in this opening sequence from “Minari,” Lee Isaac Chung’s drama about a Korean family that moves to Arkansas to build a fresh life in the United States. It is nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture.This sequence observes the Yi family (played by Steven Yeun, Yeri Han, Noel Kate Cho and Alan Kim) arriving at their new home, a trailer in the middle of a field. Yeun’s character, Jacob, is proud and optimistic, while Han’s Monica is skeptical.In an interview, Chung said that the scene was in his mind when he first began writing the screenplay and that the story would grow from there, a kind of hopeful emptiness that would be filled in.“That’s why it starts off at a house where it’s not really furnished,” he said. “There’s not even any stairs there.”Then Chung explored the different family members’ perspectives through shots and dialogue, or the lack thereof. Jacob is the first character we see getting out of a vehicle. “I filmed that wanting to evoke the feeling of man getting off of his horse,” Chung said. Then in directing Han, he told her that her performance would often be one of reactions rather than words. “Everything she has to convey has to be through her looks, her expressions, her gestures,” he said. And with the kids, he told them to just “go out and have fun.” He tried to capture their performances in a documentary style to give the movie a more free-form and less staged feeling.Read the “Minari” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More