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      “Poor Things,” the Weird Movie, Was “Poor Things” the Weird Novel, First

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      Hot air balloons soar above the Mediterranean. Aerial streetcars fly along ropes suspended above the alleys of a candy-colored Lisbon. Pastel green smoke billows into the night sky from the funnels of a cruise ship.This is the eye-poppingly surreal world that Bella Baxter, played by Emma Stone, thrills to in Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar-nominated film “Poor Things.”Bella, a 25-year-old woman who, after committing suicide, is reanimated with the brain of her unborn infant, is the daring and unusual creation of Alasdair Gray, whose 1992 novel was adapted for the movie.And it may not even be his most eccentric book. A prolific writer and visual artist who died at 85 in 2019, Gray wrote five other novels, two novellas, 89 short stories and a version of Dante’s Divine Comedy (“Decorated and Englished in Prosaic Verse”).In Scotland, Gray is something of a national treasure, his papers housed at the National Library of Scotland. (The cover flap for his illustrated autobiography, “A Life in Pictures,” described the lifelong Glaswegian as “Scotland’s best-known polymath.”)Outside Britain, however, he is not exactly a household name.“I would say he’s one of the very few writers from my lifetime that I’m in awe of,” said the English novelist Jonathan Coe, adding that Gray is “enormously respected” by writers and critics.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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      Sam Mendes to Direct Four Beatles Films

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      The Oscar-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes was given full rights to the band’s music and their life stories for the unusual quartet of films, planned for 2027.The British director Sam Mendes has signed on to direct not one but four biopics about the Beatles, each telling the story of the Fab Four from a different member’s point of view.Apple Corps, the guardian of the Beatles’ musical interests, and Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for the scripted films — a first — which will be financed and released by Sony Pictures Entertainment. The films are planned for release in 2027.“I’m honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” Mendes said in a statement on Tuesday. The announcement teased that the films would be released in an “innovative and groundbreaking” manner, but did not offer details.In recent years Mendes, the Oscar-winning director of “American Beauty,” has helped refresh the James Bond franchise with “Skyfall” and told the story of two British lance corporals in World War I in “1917.” As a theater director, he showed an ability to work with complicated biographical material over a long stretch of time with “The Lehman Trilogy,” a saga about the rise and fall of Lehman Brothers that earned him a Tony Award.Biopics about pop stars have grown popular in recent years: “Bob Marley: One Love” was on track to earn an estimated $33.2 million last weekend, following on the success of films including “Elvis” in 2022 and “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 2018.The Beatles have shown strength with movie audiences since they starred in “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964, playing versions of themselves. Their fans continue to show an appetite for expansive projects: Peter Jackson’s documentary series “The Beatles: Get Back,” an over-seven-hour project, was released to much acclaim in 2021 on Disney+. More

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      Zelda Williams, Daughter of Robin, on ‘Lisa Frankenstein’

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      As the director of “Lisa Frankenstein,” she embraced a tale in which no one was concerned whether grief was palatable to others.Zelda Williams never intended a teenage zombie rom-com to be her feature filmmaking debut. For one thing, the project, “Lisa Frankenstein,” was a big concept to sell, a high-camp period piece set in the fuchsia-and-teal ’80s. There was grief, violence and a floofy-haired love interest who was — not to put too fine a point on it — not only mute but dead.For another thing, Williams, 34, the only daughter of Robin Williams, the Oscar-winning comic superstar, worried that making her first big step out with a comedy would inevitably draw the wrong kind of attention. “It’s the one thing I thought people are going to be particularly mean to me about,” she said.But the script for “Lisa Frankenstein” came courtesy of Diablo Cody, who found one-liners, and an Oscar, in adolescent trauma with “Juno,” and who also wrote the feminist teen horror flick “Jennifer’s Body,” lately hailed as a cult classic.Some of the themes in “Lisa Frankenstein” resonated with Williams’s own life, as a person who experienced shock waves of anguish after her father’s sudden death in 2014. Plus, the film came wrapped in a pastiche of references from ’80s and ’90s movies she loved, like “Heathers,” “Weird Science,” “Beetlejuice” and “Death Becomes Her.” Williams was sold on it immediately, and of all the projects she was considering, it was the first to get greenlit.So she tucked away her trepidation, drew up her storyboards and shot list, and showed up on location in New Orleans, where she promptly got Covid and had to spend the first week directing from inside a van.Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse as the Creature in “Lisa Frankenstein.”Michele K. Short/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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      Juliette Binoche on Working With Benoît Magimel in “The Taste of Things.”

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      The star of “The Taste of Things” explains why working with her former romantic partner Benoît Magimel was freeing, and weighs in on an Oscar controversy.Some actors come to embody a national cinema through an alchemical combination of demeanor and film choices. You might say that Clint Eastwood is the quintessential American icon, for example, or that Hugh Grant is the embodiment of a certain kind of Britishness.When it comes to France, one of the country’s archetypal stars is Juliette Binoche, whose understated elegance and cryptic smile have graced art-house and popular movies alike since her domestic breakthrough playing an ingénue actress in “Rendez-Vous” (1985), followed by worldwide fame a decade later with the romantic drama “The English Patient” (1996), for which she earned an Academy Award.Now Binoche has two projects arriving at the same time in the United States: Tran Anh Hung’s “The Taste of Things,” in which she plays a self-effacing 19th-century cook, and the Apple TV+ series “The New Look,” in which she portrays Coco Chanel — meaning Binoche essentially carries the flags of food and fashion, the most visible signifiers of French culture abroad.During a recent interview in New York, the actress looked amused when asked about being a national symbol. “I’m fine taking on that role,” she said, laughing. “What’s important is what people feel, because the audience relates to something that is unsaid, something beyond ideas. Of course, the theme is food in ‘The Taste of Things,’ ” she continued, “but it’s also love and creating together” (Which, come to think of it, is also associated with the French.)Adding seasoning to the pot-au-feu, the movie paired Binoche with her former romantic partner Benoît Magimel. Although they broke up two decades ago, the actors’ intimacy seemed to return onscreen, like muscle memory.Tran recalled that Magimel went rogue while shooting the complex finale. When Binoche’s character, Eugénie, asked whether she was his cook or his wife, Magimel’s gourmand was meant to say, “You are my cook,” to acknowledge her mastery. Except that the actor added “… and my wife.”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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      If You Liked ‘Saltburn,’ Consider This Much Better Movie

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      “The Dreamers,” Bernardo Bertolucci’s notorious 2004 coming-of-age drama, pushes the same buttons, but it makes serious points along the way.I was at my mom’s house in the suburbs when I watched Barry Keoghan make love to his bestie’s grave in Emerald Fennell’s “Saltburn.”“Promising Young Woman,” Fennell’s previous film, a rape-revenge thriller for the girlboss generation, was a toothless bid at provocation. “Saltburn” seemed to promise a similar blend of all style, no substance, but the online hype had piqued my curiosity. So, there I was, watching Keoghan as an Oxford student named Oliver become one with the soil, my mother snoozing beside me.The moment brought back memories from adolescence of the dozens of times she’d walk into my teenage bedroom — or the same living room where I was watching “Saltburn” — to find me slack-jawed in the middle of “Basic Instinct” or “A Clockwork Orange.” Naturally, she always seemed to waltz in during the most morally compromised or sexually bewildering scenes.One movie in high school that had me constantly looking over my shoulder was “The Dreamers,” Bernardo Bertolucci’s notorious coming-of-age drama. Like “Saltburn,” it’s a story about cloistered wealth and beautiful students with deranged and obsessive desires. An outsider like Oliver, Matthew (Michael Pitt) is a blue-eyed American doing a year abroad in Paris, where he’s pulled into the decadent world of the twins Theo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green, in her first credited role). The French teenagers live with their intellectual parents in a luxurious loft and frequent the Cinémathèque Française like devout churchgoers. This is 1960s France, when going to the movies had all the luster and sex appeal of rolling up to the hottest nightclub.In “Saltburn,” as in “The Dreamers,” there are wealthy siblings (Jacob Elordi, center, and Alison Oliver) as well as a friend staying with them (Barry Keoghan).Chiabella James/Amazon StudiosReleased in the United States 20 years ago this month, “The Dreamers” arrived from overseas radiating scandal. The original version was rated NC-17, but American audiences — thanks to paranoid distributors — got the slightly shorter, R-rated cut. Bertolucci, the Italian director of divisive films like “Last Tango in Paris” (1972) and “The Conformist” (1970), had long established himself as an auteur of sexually explicit cinema. Yet “The Dreamers” pushed the boundaries of the collegiate sex movie, rivaling (and arguably surpassing) what were then Hollywood’s most scandalous stabs at youthful lusting, like “Wild Things” and “Cruel Intentions.”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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      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Dolly Parton’s Pet Gala’ and ‘Crime Nation’

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      The country singer hosts a special that involves a dog runway. The CW airs a new anthology series about true crime.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 19 – 25. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE PROPOSAL (2009) 5:30 p.m. on FX. Though this movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock is marketed as a romantic comedy, it really could be a horror movie. Imagine your mean boss has proposed that you commit a crime for her — the penalties of which are a potential fine of $250,00 and five years in prison. Scary, right? The rom-com follows the book editor Margaret Tate (Bullock), who convinces her assistant Andrew (Reynolds) to marry her so that she can get a fiancé visa and avoid being deported to Canada. While Bullock’s character lacks a certain friendly, polite Canadian charm, Reynolds (like me, a real-life Canadian) is oozing with it as the accommodating assistant whose family lives in Alaska.TuesdayCRIME NATION 8 p.m. on The CW. This new anthology series is the first original true crime series from the CW. Each two-hour episode focuses on a crime that was widely covered on social and traditional media, including the death of Gabby Petito, and the Gilgo Beach and Delphi murders; armchair experts, podcast hosts and true crime followers discuss the cases.THE GOOD DOCTOR 10 p.m. on ABC. This is the seventh and final season of the medical show starring Freddie Highmore as Dr. Shaun Murphy, a brilliant surgeon who has autism. Because Dr. Murphy just became a father, it is likely that this last season will focus on his new role as a dad as well as his sometimes complicated relationship with his patients and hospital colleagues.WednesdayDOLLY PARTON’S PET GALA 9 p.m. on CBS. Dolly Parton hosts a two-hour special devoted to dogs featuring performances by country singers like Lainey Wilson, Carly Pearce and Chris Janson, as well as KC of KC and the Sunshine Band — all singing classic Dolly songs. In a preview, the country legend explains that she loves dogs and wanted to show all the things they can do, from fun to more serious work. Puppies are set to walk a runway while modeling the latest styles in doggy-fashion and accompanying special guests include Kristen Bell, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Simpson and more.ThursdayLindsay Hubbard and Carl Radke on “Summer House.”Bravo/Eugene GologurskyWe 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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      BAFTA Awards 2024 Winners: ‘Oppenheimer’ Sweeps

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      “The Holdovers” and “Poor Things” were also honored at the British equivalent of the Oscars, while “Saltburn” and “Barbie” left empty-handed.“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie about the development of the atomic bomb, swept the board at the EE British Academy Film Awards in London on Sunday.The movie won seven awards at Britain’s equivalent of the Oscars, including best film, best director for Nolan and best leading actor for Cillian Murphy for his portrayal of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer.It beat four other nominees to the best film prize, including “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s take on a Frankenstein story and “The Holdovers,” Alexander Payne’s comedy about a boarding school teacher stuck looking after a student over the holidays. It also beat “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic about the Osage murders of the 1920s, and “Anatomy of a Fall,” Justine Triet’s multilingual courtroom drama about a woman accused of murdering her husband.In the days leading up to the awards, commonly known as the BAFTAs, most British movie critics predicted that “Oppenheimer” would win big. Tom Shone, writing in The Times of London, said that Nolan’s “magnum opus” was an instant classic. “Sometimes the front-runner is the front-runner for a reason,” he added.Still, the prizes were Nolan’s first director wins at the BAFTAs, despite several previous nominations for his movies “Inception” and “Dunkirk.”At the ceremony at London’s Royal Festival Hall, Nolan, who grew up in London, seemed a little overwhelmed by all the accolades. Accepting the best director prize, he called the award “an incredible honor” then reminisced about his parents dragging him to the festival hall, a major classical music venue as a boy. In fact, he said, his younger brother, now also a TV and filmmaker, had beaten him to the hall’s stage “by about 40 years” because he once took part in a performance of “The Nutcracker.”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