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      in Movies

      ‘No Need to Worry,’ Says ‘Wallace and Gromit’ Film Studio, After Clay Supplier Shuts Down

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      Rumors that Aardman Animations, the makers of stop-motion films, had lost their supplier worried fans. But fear not, the studio reassured, there is plenty of clay.It might have been an existential question for the creators of the beloved stop-motion animation characters Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep: What would happen if they ran out of clay?Fans spent the weekend worrying about the fate of Aardman Animations when the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the studio, based in Bristol, England, would be facing its “hour of knead” after the only manufacturer of the special clay used in its creations had closed its doors earlier this year. Having bought what it could, The Telegraph reported, the studio had enough clay left to make only one more film, a new “Wallace and Gromit” feature coming next year.But no, the studio’s foundations are not crumbling. Aardman Animations said on Monday it had plenty of clay to keep molding.Fans had “absolutely no need to worry,” the studio said in a statement. The studio has “high levels of existing stocks of modeling clay to service current and future productions,” it said.The manufacturer of the clay, Newclay Products, announced last month that it had stopped selling its products in March. The company had become known for Lewis Newplast, a Plasticine beloved by animators that is malleable enough to mold but strong enough to keep its shape during filming. Newclay Products did not immediately respond to a request for comment.“Shaun the Sheep.”Cinematic/Alamy Stock PhotoBut its directors, Paul and Valerie Dearing, told The Telegraph that they were retiring and had decided to close the company’s doors after they couldn’t find anyone to take it over. They said Aardman had bought about 400 kilograms, or almost 900 pounds, of the remaining Newplast stock.More than a ton of modeling clay is ordered for each of the studio’s feature films, and about half that is used to shape the characters, according to modelers for Aardman.Aardman on Monday sought to reassure fans, telling them that once its supplies of Newplast were gone, it had plans to transition to new stock.“Much like Wallace in his workshop, we have been tinkering away behind the scenes for quite some time,” it said, referring to the eccentric inventor who is one of Aardman’s most beloved characters.The studio is famed for its signature Claymation style, producing hits such as the “Wallace & Gromit” franchise, the spinoff series “Shaun the Sheep,” and the 2000 film “Chicken Run.”A sequel, “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget,” is set to be released on Netflix on Dec. 15, and the studio will also release a new “Wallace & Gromit” film in 2024, premiering on Netflix and the BBC. More

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      in Theater

      Danielle Brooks and Sam Jay on Confidence and ‘The Color Purple’

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      Two creative people in two different fields in one wide-ranging conversation. This time: the actress and the comedian.Viewers first saw the actress Danielle Brooks as Taystee, the smartest and funniest of the prisoners on “Orange Is the New Black,” the incarceration dramedy that began in 2013 and ran for seven seasons on Netflix. This month, she’ll appear in “The Color Purple,” the second film adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, this one based on the 2005 Broadway musical it inspired. Brooks’s character, Sofia, forced to work a grueling job as a maid for a white political family in early 1900s Georgia, was portrayed by Oprah Winfrey in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation; Brooks, 34, a Juilliard School-trained actress who was raised in South Carolina, played her in the musical’s 2015 revival. That production was Brooks’s Broadway debut; last year, she starred alongside Samuel L. Jackson in a revival of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” (1990).The comedian Sam Jay, who grew up in Boston and whose humor Brooks has long admired, recently released her first HBO special, “Salute Me or Shoot Me.” Jay, 41, spent years doing stand-up in Los Angeles before joining the writers’ room of “Saturday Night Live” in 2017. She left the show after three seasons for two series, “Pause With Sam Jay” (2021) and “Bust Down” (2022), both of which she helped create and starred in, and which highlight her frank, anecdotal style. This past October, the two gathered in a photo studio in downtown Manhattan to discuss acting, impostor syndrome and learning the importance of asking for what they need.T: Many stage shows that perform well are rumored to get adaptations that never materialize — but this one did, and quickly. Is that just the power of the film’s producer Oprah Winfrey?Danielle Brooks: I think for Oprah it’s making sure the story continues to have a life — that it lives through generations.Sam Jay: You shot in Georgia, right? I always wonder about Black people shooting these period films where they have to go back to being downtrodden, sweaty Black. How do you snap out of that and then just, like, go chill at Checkers?D.B.: It was tough but at times cool because you’re in it. It’s the difference between doing it on a stage versus on an actual plantation. It did get real at times: All I could think about was how many of my people were hung from those trees. I had the responsibility of making sure I told this very beloved story as honestly as I could to represent those people who aren’t here.Brooks and Corey Hawkins in the forthcoming film adaptation of “The Color Purple.”Eli Ade/Waner Bros.S.J.: Are they going to let the main characters Shug and Celie be gayer? Because they’re gay as hell in the book, and they really skipped over that in the first movie. When I read the book … it wasn’t just some crush; they were together.D.B.: You’re going to be satisfied. You get that, which I was happy about.S.J.: I feel like that was a part of the story Walker was trying to tell.D.B.: I got to meet her on set, and my close friend Corey Hawkins, who plays Harpo [Sofia’s husband], took a video of it, which was great because for me it starts with her. My whole pop-off — my Broadway career — started through her book.S.J.: These Broadway runs. …D.B.: It’s crazy. I imagine there was a lot of preparation before doing your HBO special, though, too. Do you remember how many shows you did before that?S.J.: I did somewhere around 300 shows for a year and a half. I was maybe three or four months into touring when I bumped into Chris Rock. We had dinner and he was like, “I don’t do less than 250 shows before filming.” So I immediately called my agent and got more on the books. Then I’m feeling myself because I’m, like, 20 shows away from my 250 and Chris goes, “Yeah, 50 more shows. I’m not telling you to do anything I wouldn’t do!” But I watch that special now and think, “Ah, growth.”D.B.: That’s how I feel with “The Color Purple.” When I did the Broadway show, I had so much anxiety and was going to therapy because I felt like an impostor. Cut to five years later, doing the movie, I felt such comfort. I might have done 500 shows, now that I think about it. One year, eight shows a week — someone do the math — but I felt more confident, worthy enough to portray this character.S.J.: Confidence, I’ve come to feel, is just knowledge. The more information you have, the more confident you are. When I look at my special, I can tell I was free.D.B.: I always thought you were free, every time I’ve watched you. I’m pretty picky about comedians; I don’t laugh at a lot of stuff. I’m the person in the audience the comedians make fun of, like, “Look at this bitch not laughing,” and then I’m still not laughing.S.J.: I think only you know what you’re hiding. In real life, I’m very silly and physical when I’m talking but, for some reason, when I’m onstage, I’m like, “You ain’t no clown! You don’t need to be doing all that flailing around.” It’s dumb because it’s comedy, but it was really me just being afraid to let that side out.D.B.: Did you ever feel, when you were starting out, that there was a comedian you wanted to style yourself to be like?Jay’s 2023 HBO special, “Salute Me or Shoot Me.” Courtesy of HBOS.J.: I don’t think I wanted to be like anyone, but you get ideas from others. Chris Rock was the first comic I saw who made sense to me. I grew up in a “Def Comedy Jam” era, with Black and white comedy being very separate. I love that era, but that’s not how my brain works. I’m not good at roasting. I’d seen George Carlin, too, and that seemed very white. But Chris was this hybrid I thought was cool.D.B.: I feel like some people won’t give you the real — where you think, “I can’t believe they just said that” — but also make you examine why you think the way you do. That’s so important in any medium, and the point of what we do, so we can see ourselves. Comedy’s always been that easier pill to swallow, for the truth. So when somebody can do that, not just make you laugh but question why you think about, you know, disabled people in some way, or why you don’t like to use the N-word, I find it important. What I’ve always enjoyed is that you don’t hold back. In a way, I can be guarded, but you’re very, “No, let’s talk about it.”S.J.: It comes from a kind of twisted place of my mom passing away [in 1998, from lupus] and me accepting the idea of mortality, that you don’t live forever. I moved out when I was 16 — I’ve had no parent longer than I’ve had a parent. I sometimes don’t remember my mother’s face, but I remember how she made me feel. That’s all that remains. I remember the lessons she taught. So it’s just about trying to be intentional in every interaction.D.B.: I think that’s the same for me … being more guarded because my mother is a minister. She’s very much, “Be careful what you do; what you say is going to affect you till you die.” I love my mom, I respect her 100 percent, but I have to live for me because it’s my life. But I want to hear about your experience booking “S.N.L.” I want to be on that show so bad!S.J.: I get this call from my manager, “Will you audition for ‘S.N.L.’ tomorrow?” I’m like, “Do they really want me? I’m not doing a character.” I didn’t want to set myself up for failure. I audition, then get a call saying, “We know you auditioned for the cast but how would you like to come be a writer?” I hang up and I’m like, “Damn, OK, too ugly for TV.” But I needed to step into something new at that point in my career. I’m all about going toward things that you’re afraid of, so I said yeah.Brooks (center) as Sofia in the 2015 Broadway revival of “The Color Purple.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesD.B.: Do you ask for what you need when you’re doing a show, or do you settle a bit?S.J.: I’m going to ask for what I need.D.B.: I think about a lot of women in comedy who aren’t matching up to what men are making or getting, in terms of perks. It’s just not happening. I was watching Luenell’s comedy show, and she was talking about being on a plane with comedians, and the men are flying first class and she’s in coach.S.J.: At first, I was absolutely scared to ask. I didn’t know what was OK.D.B.: You do have a core group of people that you can go to where you can say, “Let’s be real: How much do you make on this?”S.J.: I wish it was stronger, but I do feel like I got a couple of people where we try to be pretty transparent about that stuff. That’s the age-old trick where you have a 9-to-5 and they’re like, “You guys aren’t allowed to talk about this.” And it’s like, “Yeah, so you can keep us all poor.”D.B.: That’s been one of the best parts of having a friend group in the industry, our transparency. We’re not gonna brag about our contracts, but if you want to know, we’ll lay it out so we can come up together. You don’t know what you don’t know. That’s what drives me crazy: when you find out someone had a personal chef or a trainer, and you’re like, “Nobody told me that was a possibility, and I needed it more than they did.”S.J.: I think working behind the scenes, working on “S.N.L.,” knowing the lengths they’ll go to make sure the talent is OK, now when I’m being the talent, I’m like, “Do that for me.” It sometimes feels bitchy, but that’s just a stigma in our heads as women.D.B.: There are a lot of ways we should be given more respect. I think about hair and makeup: Why is it so much to ask for someone who can actually do my hair, rather than teaching somebody to do it? And why is it so wrong to ask for somebody who can do my face rather than having to come to them with the products I use?S.J.: The ask, at its core, is coming from a place of having to build up the confidence to do this work. That’s the thing that gets misconstrued when Black people say they want Black people in these spaces. The reverse racism crowd sees that as wanting everything to be all Black, when, no, it’s because we know we need this stuff.D.B.: I don’t want to go to a costume fitting and have to give them a list of shops and places to get my clothes. On “The Color Purple,” our hair and makeup departments were phenomenal — the wigs matched; the lace was lacing.S.J.: You know “The Color Purple” is coming correct.T: How do you work comedy into your performance of Sofia, who’s one of the most visibly oppressed, but also most joyous, characters in the film?D.B.: Sometimes, when people go through so much, they don’t want to dwell on that; they’re longing for joy and laughter. She’s somebody who tries to stop generational curses, whether that be through an abusive marriage or abusive parents. She’s trying to bring her community to the right path. She might not have all the skills to do so — she might use her fists or her mouth — but, at her core, she’s not looking for a fight. She’s looking to have a great day.This interview has been edited and condensed.Danielle Brooks: Fashion: ObyDezign. Hair: Tish Celestine at La Belle Boutique, NYC. Makeup: Renee Sanganoo using Nars at the Only AgencySam Jay: Hair and makeup: Merrell Hollis More

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      in Television

      A Hallmark Christmas Movie Costume Designer Shares His Secrets

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      Keith Nielsen, who oversaw costumes for four Hallmark Christmas movies out this year, shares his approach to dressing festively. (It does not involve ugly sweaters.)Several years ago, Keith Nielsen was feeling less than cheerful when a friend told him about an internship opportunity with the costume department of the TV series “Mozart in the Jungle.”After graduating from the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla., in 2015, he had hoped to find a job that merged his interests in fashion design and entertainment. When he couldn’t, he started working in retail. He said he had begun to feel depressed about his career by the time his friend mentioned the internship.His only experience in costuming had been on student films, but Mr. Nielsen, who said his grandmother had taught him to sew, got the internship. “On the ‘Mozart’ set, I listened and learned,” he said.Mr. Nielsen, now 30, worked on the show through its final season, rising from an intern to a costume coordinator. Afterward, he started to get more costuming jobs, including for productions at the Westchester Broadway Theater, now closed, and for the TV movie “My Adventures With Santa,” which was released in 2019.The movie tapped into Mr. Nielsen’s longtime fondness for Christmas, he said, and since then, he has been hired as the costume designer for about a dozen TV Christmas movies.This year, he oversaw costumes for four films: “Mystic Christmas,” a romance set in Mystic, Conn.; “Where Are You Christmas?,” a largely black-and-white movie that imagines a world without the holiday; “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” which was filmed at a castle in Scotland; and “A Biltmore Christmas,” which was filmed at Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C. All were for the Hallmark Channel.In “A Biltmore Christmas,” the actress Bethany Joy Lenz, left, wears a reworked Carolina Herrera gown. Hallmark MediaWorking with the theater helped prepare him to take on films, he said, because he learned how to better manage fittings and deadlines while becoming more familiar with outfits from different historical periods.“Keith has a deep understanding of fashion, culture and history, and an uncanny taste and style, especially for period pieces,” said Dustin Rikert, the director of “A Merry Scottish Christmas.” Mr. Rikert also worked with Mr. Nielsen on “Next Stop, Christmas,” which was broadcast in 2021. Costumes Mr. Nielsen created for that movie included the outfits worn by a time-traveling train conductor played by Christopher Lloyd.The director John Putch, who worked with Mr. Nielsen on “A Biltmore Christmas” and on “A Holiday Spectacular,” a 2022 movie featuring the Radio City Rockettes, noted his love of details. “Keith is into the shoelaces and socks people don’t see,” Mr. Putch said.Mr. Nielsen, who lives in Manchester, Conn., said many of his costume ideas originate from what he jokingly described as “my 12-year-old gay-boy mind.” (He declined to provide specific wardrobe budgets for films he has worked on as a costume designer.) In the edited interview below, he discussed the aesthetic influences that have inspired his work and the ways he has conjured the holiday spirit through clothes.Christopher Lloyd, left, and Keith Nielsen on the set of “Next Stop, Christmas.”via Keith NielsenHow do you source costumes?I read a script about four times and let my imagination run. Many holiday films are made in three weeks or fewer, so I often only have a couple of days to get fittings done.When I was costuming for theater, I started seeing old Broadway shows and going to warehouses that I still use. The vendor Right to the Moon Alice is where I get vintage items. I also get them from Ann Roth, an Oscar-winning costume designer, who has amazing pieces at her warehouse in Pennsylvania.Hallmark likes color and saturation. To get that freshness on camera, sometimes I recreate a garment so it doesn’t look like it has been sitting in a closet for 70 years.Do you ever buy clothes off the rack?I shop at outlets and online. I like J. Crew, Banana Republic and, for suits and coats, Brooks Brothers. Kate Spade has bags in bright reds and greens. I don’t like ugly Christmas sweaters.One costume in “A Biltmore Christmas” started as a Carolina Herrera gown that was bought from the RealReal. We had several fittings to re-drape the skirt, add a double-tulle layer and create a gathered bust that draped around the back. When I turn an existing garment into something else, I call it Frankenstein-ing.What has inspired your approach to costuming?I am a sap and love nostalgia and old Hollywood. Bill Travilla’s costumes for Marilyn Monroe are some of my favorites, especially those for “How to Marry a Millionaire.” I also like Arianne Phillips, who has designed costumes for film and for Madonna. I admire her breadth of work. I never want to get pigeonholed.How do locations like Biltmore House influence your process?I walked through the mansion to get ideas from the space. I remember looking at the colors of the wood paneling and of the limestone. Window shades are kept at a certain level and rooms are kept dimly lit to protect the things inside from light. It’s very romantic and cozy, and I wanted wardrobes that communicated warmth and coziness using colors besides red and green.To create a gown and a kilt worn by the stars of “A Merry Scottish Christmas,” I pulled together a bunch of tartans that went with the tapestries, candles and dark wood at the castle. We settled on MacDonald of Glencoe, a tartan with holiday-like jewel tones. The pattern was digitally printed on the fabric used to make the gown, and the kilt was made with a traditional wool tartan.What are some challenges with costuming holiday films?It’s the little things. All clothing sizes have changed: Vintage shoes are narrower than shoes are today, jackets fit differently, and girdles are gone. It’s hard to find people to do embroidery and beading.But I like classic and timeless looks because Christmas movies are watched over and over. More

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      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: Thanksgiving Specials and Holiday Movies

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      The Macy’s Day Parade, an annual dog show and a Friends marathon air on Thanksgiving. And Christmas movies are here, including “Love Actually” and “The Holiday.”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, Nov. 20-Nov. 26. Details and times are subject to change.MondayMONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES AT KANSAS CITY CHIEFS 8:15 p.m. on ESPN. While millions will be watching when the teams of the brothers Jason and Travis Kelce meet on the field, some eyes will be on the stands looking for Taylor Swift’s parents who it is rumored were coming to meet the Kelce family for the first time. (Maybe it’s time for Donna Kelce to lend the Swift family her half-Eagles, half-Chiefs jersey.) It’s unlikely that Swift will attend because she is performing in Rio on Monday, but because the Swift family are Eagles fans, they could still show up.TuesdayJude Law and Cameron Diaz in “The Holiday.”Simon Mein/Columbia PicturesTHE HOLIDAY (2006) 6 p.m. on AMC. I am thrilled to announce it’s time to watch this movie ad nauseam. The story follows Amanda (Cameron Diaz), who, after a bad breakup, decides to go to England for the holidays. Meanwhile Iris (Kate Winslet) is heartbroken from unrequited love and lists her house on a home exchange website. The two swap houses, and both end up finding love: Amanda with Iris’s brother Graham (Jude Law) and Iris with a retired movie producer (Eli Wallach)— in a friend way, don’t worry! Jack Black is also somehow in the mix. The whole movie is unabashedly charming, goofy and so cozy.WednesdayCOUNTDOWN TO MACY’S THANKSGIVING PARADE 8 p.m. on NBC. While we prep our pumpkin pies or run into people we went to high school with at our hometown bars, workers in Midtown Manhattan are closing off roads and enlisting their highest voltage air pumps to prepare for the annual parade. This show gives a behind-the-scenes look at this year’s floats and a back story for each of them.LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) 9 p.m. on AMC. Following a voice-over from Hugh Grant saying “if you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around,” this movie starts five weeks before Christmas, and for that reason it has always been my and my mom’s holiday tradition to watch it during the week of Thanksgiving. (It also marks the timing of our annual fight about why I don’t like the Colin Firth story line and she does.) The movie follows different narrative threads — all of which are of course connected in one way or another — and features a star-studded cast, including Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson and Keira Knightley.ThursdayThe Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2022.Jeenah Moon/Associated Press97TH ANNUAL MACY’S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE starting at 8:30 a.m. on NBC. Cher, Brandy and Jon Batiste are a few of the artists set to perform this year, alongside balloons, floats, marching bands and performance groups.NATIONAL DOG SHOW 12 p.m. on NBC. The National Dog Show took place in Philadelphia this past weekend but is being broadcast after the parade festivities wind down. This year, the German shepherd K9 Rom will be honored for its help in the search for the escaped inmate Danelo Cavalcante.FRIENDS THANKSGIVING EPISODES starting at 11 a.m. on TBS. Some of the best episodes of TV shows are the ones in which Thanksgiving is the centerpiece. Specifically, I am thinking of the “Gossip Girl” episode with Jason Derulo’s song “Whatcha Say” playing over dinner-table drama and the “Gilmore Girls” episode with the mother-daughter duo going to four dinners. But if I had to choose a themed-episode favorite, it would be “Friends,” the one where they all play football to relive Monica and Ross’s glory of the Geller Family Cup. Other episodes in this marathon include “The One With Chandler in a Box,” “The One With the Rumor” and “The One With Ross’s Sandwich.”FridayFrom left: James Stewart, Donna Reed and Thomas Mitchell in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”AP Photo/FilesIT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) 9 p.m. on E! It’s Christmas time, and George Bailey (James Stewart) is not feeling his best. His guardian angel Clarence (Henry Travers) shows him what life would have looked like without any of his contributions. “For a turkey dinner, with Christmas trimmings, is precisely what’s cooking at the end of this quaint and engaging modern parable on virtue being its own reward,” Bosley Crowther wrote in his review for The New York Times.SaturdayBYRON ALLEN PRESENTS THEGRIO AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. For a second year, this award show is honoring Black excellence, with the help of the hosts Sheryl Underwood and Roy Wood Jr. Mariah Carey is set to receive the Music Icon Award, and Denzel Washington, Eddie Murphy and Don Cheadle will also be taking awards home. Boyz II Men, Jennifer Hudson, Patti LaBelle and Smokey Robinson are set to preform.SundayTHE GREAT CHRISTMAS LIGHT FIGHT 10 p.m. on ABC. Another year, another season of this show that features people who are just really great at decorating their houses for Christmas. The first episode prepares you for the extra fun and creative light displays that are sure to be featured this season, with a look back at past year’s displays and competitions. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Saltburn Review’: Lust, Envy and Toxic Elitism

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      In the new film from Emerald Fennell, Barry Keoghan plays an Oxford student drawn into a world of lust and envy at a classmate’s estate.“Saltburn” is the sort of embarrassment you’ll put up with for 75 minutes. But not for 127. It’s too desperate, too confused, too pleased with its petty shocks to rile anything you’d recognize as genuine excitement. This thing was written and directed by Emerald Fennell, whose previous movie was “Promising Young Woman,” a horror flick about rape that was also a revenge comedy. So believe me: She wants you riled. Fennell’s seen the erotic thrillers, studied her Hitchcock and possibly read her Patricia Highsmith, and gets that if you name your main character Oliver Quick he’s obligated to do something at least arguably Dickensian. The question here, amid all the lying, lazing about and (eventually, inevitably) dying, is to what end?We’re dragged back to 2006, where two boys at Oxford — bookish Oliver (Barry Keoghan) and rakish Felix (Jacob Elordi) — forge one of those imbalanced, obsessive friendships that one of them mistakes for love and the other tolerates because he’s needier than he looks. It goes south or sideways or to outer space but also nowhere. Well, that’s not entirely accurate, since it also goes, for one summer, to Saltburn, Felix’s family’s estate, a grassy expanse that boasts a Baroque mansion with stratospheric ceilings, one cantilevered staircase, copious portraiture, a Bernard Palissy ceramic platter collection and one of those garden mazes where characters get lost right along with plots.These two meet, in earnest, when Oliver loans Felix his bike, a moment Oliver’s been waiting for. The best scenes in the movie happen during this Oxford stretch when Oliver experiences Felix as an intoxicant, and Felix’s prepster coterie experiences Oliver as an irritant. There’s some crackle and dreaminess and post-adolescent instability here. Identities are being forged. It’s been better elsewhere — John Hughes, “Heathers,” Hogwarts, Elordi’s HBO show “Euphoria.” But Fennell squeezes some hunger, cruelty and passable tenderness onto these moments. When Oliver tells Felix his father’s just died, Felix extends his Saltburn invitation out of sincere compassion.Now, what happens over the course of this visit amounts to a different movie — or maybe three. Lust and envy take over. As does Fennell’s tedious, crude stab at psychopathology. Felix hails from one of those stiff, pathologically blasé clans where “clenched” counts as an emotion. Everybody at Saltburn seems ready for a new toy. And Oliver’s A-student impulses make a sport of ingratiation. His erudition, availability and blue eyes impress Felix’s droll mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike); his mere arrival arouses Felix’s self-conscious zombie of a sister, Venetia (Alison Oliver). In a different movie, their enthusiasm for this newcomer would make you sad for Farleigh (Archie Madekwe), a schoolmate and old pal of Felix who’s already on the premises, practically a member of the family and flatulent with attitude by the time Oliver shows up. He’s the one nonwhite major character in “Saltburn,” a fact the movie considers doing something intriguing with but abandons. His eyebrows are just chronically Up to Something. Is Farleigh worried about losing a financial lifeline? Is he jealous that Oliver might consummate things with Felix before he does?But this isn’t a movie in which anybody’s reaction to new developments is straightforward — and not because there’s anything complex or psychological going on with the screenwriting or the performances (Richard E. Grant pumps Felix’s father full of drollery). It’s because Fennell is more drawn to — or maybe just better at — styling and stunts than she is the tougher work of emotional trenchancy. If she gives us one music-video bit (a montage, a whole tracking shot), she must give us half a dozen. When the time comes for the movie to make its switch to gothic mischief, it’s like watching the first half of “Psycho” turn into the video for “When Doves Cry” or George Michael’s “Freedom! ’90.” What’s that look like? Well: Oliver sneaks a peek as Felix masturbates in a tub, and once the coast is clear he bends over and sips the draining bathwater. It’s a fine shot that’s also an absurd thing to have this guy do. Which is how you know the movie is failing as a good work of trash. I didn’t laugh or gape. I just sat there watching an actor do his damnedest to save the rest of the movie before it heads down the drain. Fennell keeps going, though, turning her mild protagonist into someone ripe for the cover of a bodice-ripper: a crafty virgin discovers the lethal weapon of lust.This was the gist of “Promising Young Woman,” too: that sex was like a chain saw or a gun. When it landed in 2020, the moment seemed right. Fennell had found a way to turn a premise you’d propose at a dinner party or while tipsy in the back of a cab into something tight and mordant: a “rape culture” revenge-o-matic. But it was so morally and formally tidy that it punched its own teeth out. The “o-matic” won. “Saltburn” has the same seductive sleekness — the nerve. But none of the dread or poison kick.The film’s comic centerpiece was also the star of Fennell’s other movie: Carey Mulligan. Here, she’s deadpanning her way through a chicly ratty mess named Pamela. Mulligan does blinkered, stammering and sad like if Tama Janowitz had written Miss Havisham first. It’s just Helena Bonham-Carter karaoke. But the movie needs it. Pamela has maybe three actual scenes, then we never see her again. She’s overstayed her welcome at Saltburn. But the movie misses the campiness Mulligan’s giving. You’d like to see her and Pike try on the vulgar farce of “Absolutely Fabulous.” But Fennell is going for real opulence, not a comedy of it.If “Promising Young Woman” had feminist vengeance on its mind, what’s “Saltburn” thinking? I spy three hovering text dots. It’s got some twists and a handful of good lines (nearly all of them belong to Pike), but it doesn’t have many thoughts and even fewer feelings. Here is a movie where gay things occur, but homosexuality abuts, alas, corruption and conniving.I suppose Fennell has made a movie about toxic elitism, but she’s done it in the way Ikea gives you assembly instructions. And barely even that, since the most blatant class indictment is outsourced to the Pet Shop Boys’ “Rent” during a bout of actual karaoke with Oliver and Farleigh. Staging the warfare between two strivers isn’t a bad urge, but that doesn’t go far enough, either. The movie does for “posh” what “Soul Plane” did for “ghetto”: luxuriate in what it’s pretending to blow up.I’m even left doubting Fennell’s expertise in main characters. Are we meant to clock a nerd who, when he sheds the clothes and spectacles, makes you as horny as Felix is supposed to make him? Barry Keoghan is trying to create a role out of the disparate parts of other ones (Norman Bates, Tom Ripley, Patrick Bateman), yet doesn’t get all the way there. He couldn’t have. There is no “there.”The whole movie seems to exist for its coda, and presumably the prosthetics designer whose name appears in the closing credits. It’s another music-video fantasia, but so cynical, literal-minded and literally cheeky that I cringed my way through it. And it asks a lot of Keoghan, who could have built a memorable, original character for Fennell. But real acting is not what Fennell’s after here. Oliver has a decent amount of strategic sex and Keoghan does his share of nudity, but the only pornographic thing about the movie is the house.SaltburnRated R. Throw a rock. Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes. In theaters. More

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      After ‘Saltburn,’ Watch These Five Country House Movies

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      From upstairs to downstairs and the challenging moments in between, a walk through a particular subgenre of films ripe for dramatic tension.If “Promising Young Woman” was Emerald Fennell’s darkly comic take on the rape-revenge thriller — one that rode a zeitgeisty wave of discourse onto a best original screenplay Oscar in 2021 — “Saltburn” is the writer-director’s entry in the country house canon. The film (in theaters) is the latest in a subgenre ripe for dramatic tension: upstairs versus downstairs; invited versus interloped; public versus private. Away from prying eyes, characters in these tales tend to revel in their idyllic surroundings as unseen, often sinister, forces work against them, resulting in an unforgettable stay.In “Saltburn,” Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a shy Oxford student, accepts an invitation to spend the summer at the family estate of a wealthy classmate, Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). While there, Oliver’s adoration for the charming aristocrat reveals itself to be much more than an innocent infatuation.With its covetous double helix of class consciousness and homoeroticism, “Saltburn” fits in nicely alongside literary classics like “Brideshead Revisited” and “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (and their many screen adaptations). Here are five other films where summering at a country house leads to significant power imbalances and lifelong consequences.The Coming-of-Age Country House Movie‘The Go-Between’ (1971)Stream it on the Roku Channel.Joseph Losey, whose 1963 film, “The Servant,” is its own masterpiece of queer-coded dominance, works once again from a Harold Pinter screenplay to direct this quintessentially British period drama. Young Leo (Dominic Guard) is invited by a wealthy friend to spend the summer at his family’s country house. But when his friend is quarantined with the measles, Leo must devise another way to pass the time. He soon finds himself the fraught messenger for his friend’s beautiful sister (Julie Christie) and her secret lover, the tenant farmer (Alan Bates). Stunning shots of the property’s fertile grounds fuel this Palme d’Or winner with a sense of freedom that its owners are quick to curtail; when the film catches up with Leo decades later, his loss of innocence can be pinpointed back to that fateful summer.The Art House Country House Movie‘Cries and Whispers’ (1972)Stream it on Max.The silence of God, humanity’s inability to connect, the secret grudges that quietly tear families apart: all themes the Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman saw fit to set against the peacefulness of a summer house no less than a half dozen times. Here, it’s a searing look at the final days of a woman dying of cancer at her family’s opulent mansion, and her two sisters’ painful attempt to thaw out years of estrangement. As they struggle against the clock to process their emotions, the house’s maid shuffles in saintly servitude. Sven Nykvist’s Oscar-winning cinematography places the white-clad women — including the Bergman regulars Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson and Ingrid Thulin — against richly saturated crimson walls, bringing out piercing performances from their icy exteriors.The Documentary Country House Movie‘Grey Gardens’ (1975)Stream it on Max.One of the most consequential documentaries of all time serves as a cautionary tale about what happens when you don’t pack it up at summer’s end. When Albert and David Maysles were hired by Jacqueline Kennedy’s sister Lee Radziwill to make a film about their family, the documentarians’ attention quickly shifted to the women’s eccentric cousins: “Little Edie” and her mother, “Big Edie” Beale. The erstwhile socialites had boarded themselves up for nearly 20 years in their decaying home in East Hampton, N.Y., the stench of garbage and cat urine undergirding their peculiar relationship. With a distinctly American blend of can-do and laissez-faire, the Beales continue their business as usual, impervious to the changing tides of the outside world.The Cruel Country House Movie‘Chinese Roulette’ (1976)Stream it on the Criterion Channel.Alexander Allerson and Anna Karina in ”Chinese Roulette.”Janus FilmsBorn in Germany in 1945, Rainer Werner Fassbinder made films that emerged from a deep-seated mistrust of humanity. But he gave a despairing, devilish wink in even his cruelest works, like this bleak psychological thriller where two cheating spouses accidentally take lovers to their country estate on the same weekend. When their resentful young daughter arrives, she manipulates the foursome, the housekeeper and her son into playing the titular game, a sort of diabolical truth or dare, over dinner. Michael Ballhaus’s cinematography constructs a claustrophobic ballet around the house’s mirrored interiors, tightening reflective nooses around each of its deeply guilty guests.The Tender Country House Movie‘Call Me by Your Name’ (2017)Stream it on Netflix.James Ivory picked up the country house torch and ran through the ’80s and ’90s with hits like “A Room With a View” and “The Remains of the Day,” all of which were produced by his partner, Ismail Merchant. But it was for adapting André Aciman’s novel “Call Me by Your Name” that he won his first Oscar — becoming the oldest-ever winner at 89. The director Luca Guadagnino bathes the film in its Northern Italian setting, where a bookworm teen learns of the wounding and healing powers of sexual attraction after a graduate student arrives at his family’s lush villa. More

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      ‘Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain’ Review: Fools’ Gold

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      The “S.N.L.” troupe, known for digital shorts, makes its feature debut with this goofy, episodic adventure farce.The 20-something comedians Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy, who produce digital shorts for “Saturday Night Live” under the group name Please Don’t Destroy, owe a lot to their “S.N.L.” forebears Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer, whose troupe The Lonely Island laid the groundwork for Please Don’t Destroy’s distinctive style of two- to four-minute video skits that relish in juvenile absurdity.The Lonely Island parlayed late-night stardom into feature films like “Hot Rod” and “Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping.” And now the members of Please Don’t Destroy are here with a movie of their own: “The Treasure of Foggy Mountain,” which borrows the surreal gusto and madcap humor of “Hot Rod” and “Popstar” but shares little of Lonely Island’s originality and charm.Marshall, Higgins and Herlihy star as lifelong friends stuck in dead-end jobs at a small-town outdoor-supply store owned by Marshall’s father, played by Conan O’Brien. A TikTok video leads them to a treasure map, which leads them on an adventure: sort of like “The Goonies,” though the story is really just a framework for jokes. The jokes have the mixed-bag quality of sketch comedy, and the director Paul Briganti doesn’t have a strong instinct for when bits are dragging on: An “S.N.L.” alum, he tends to treat the film like a string of interconnected skits, which makes its 90-minute run time feel twice that length. The frustrating thing is that Marshall, Herlihy and especially Higgins really are funny, and the film has some huge laughs. That’s enough for a sketch show. It’s not quite enough for a film.Please Don’t Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy MountainRated R for crass language, sexual innuendo and comic violence. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

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      Eli Roth Takes a Stab at Thanksgiving Horror

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      Ever since he was a boy, the director has wanted to make a gory movie about the holiday. “Thanksgiving” is adapted from his 2007 faux trailer.For almost every holiday, there’s a horror movie, from “My Bloody Valentine” to “Black Christmas.” Thanksgiving, too. But the turkeys-beware holiday gets its own namesake movie with Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” featuring an ensemble cast that includes Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon.The movie (now in theaters) is based on the gory faux trailer Roth made all the way back in 2007 for “Grindhouse,” Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s homage to exploitation cinema. “Thanksgiving” centers on a masked killer who dresses like the pilgrim John Carver and terrorizes modern-day Plymouth, Mass., a year after a deadly Black Friday department store doorbusters riot.In a recent phone interview, Roth said that he and Jeff Rendell, a childhood friend and his screenwriter on the new film, have been itching to make a Thanksgiving scary movie since they were kids.“There was that lull between October and mid-December when it was all family films,” said Roth, who’s from Newton, Mass. “We were just waiting for another horror movie to come out. Our dream was to fill that void.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More