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      Songs from Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga Make the Oscar Shortlist

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      The academy also released shortlists for documentary, international feature and seven other categories.Will pop superstars like Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga take the stage at the Oscars next year? That possibility became more likely when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences released its shortlist for best original song on Wednesday.The Rihanna song “Lift Me Up” (from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) made the cut, as did Swift’s “Carolina” (“Where the Crawdads Sing”) and Lady Gaga’s anthem “Hold My Hand” (“Top Gun: Maverick”).Other songs on the short list include Selena Gomez’s “My Mind & Me” from the documentary about her; the Weeknd tune “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” from the new “Avatar” sequel; and “New Body Rhumba,” the tune that LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy wrote for “White Noise.”Also on the list is the “Spirited” ditty “Good Afternoon” from the songwriting team of Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. They’re familiar names to Oscar voters: In 2017, they won best original song for “City of Stars” from “La La Land.” A nomination next month would be their fourth in this category.The shortlist for documentary feature included biographical studies like “All the Bloodshed and the Beauty” (about the photographer Nan Goldin) and “Moonage Daydream” (David Bowie), as well as historical examinations like “Descendant” (focused on the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States) and “The Janes” (named after a collective that provided abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade).Meanwhile. the international feature shortlist is stacked with festival favorites from around the world, including “Decision to Leave,” the South Korean noir from Park Chan-wook; “Bardo” (Mexico), directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu; and Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” (France), based on a true story. Pakistan’s “Joyland” also made the cut: It features a relationship involving a transgender woman and was temporarily banned in that country.In all, the academy released shortlists for 10 categories — including visual effects, score, sound, and hair and makeup — in advance of the nominations on Jan. 24. Here are the shortlists for song, documentary feature and international feature. For the rest of the categories, go to oscars.org.Original Song“Time” from “Amsterdam”“Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” from “Avatar: The Way of Water”“Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”“This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once”“Ciao Papa” from “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”“Til You’re Home” from “A Man Called Otto”“Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”“My Mind & Me” from “Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me”“Good Afternoon” from “Spirited”“Applause” from “Tell It like a Woman”“Stand Up” from “Till”“Hold My Hand” from “Top Gun: Maverick”“Dust & Ash” from “The Voice of Dust and Ash”“Carolina” from “Where the Crawdads Sing”“New Body Rhumba” from “White Noise”Documentary Feature“All That Breathes”“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”“Bad Axe”“Children of the Mist”“Descendant”“Fire of Love”“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song”“Hidden Letters”“A House Made of Splinters”“The Janes”“Last Flight Home”“Moonage Daydream”“Navalny”“Retrograde”“The Territory”International FeatureArgentina, “Argentina, 1985”Austria, “Corsage”Belgium, “Close”Cambodia, “Return to Seoul”Denmark, “Holy Spider”France, “Saint Omer”Germany, “All Quiet on the Western Front”India, “Last Film Show”Ireland, “The Quiet Girl”Mexico, “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”Morocco, “The Blue Caftan”Pakistan, “Joyland”Poland, “EO”South Korea, “Decision to Leave”Sweden, “Cairo Conspiracy” More

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      Inside the Oscars’ Best-Actress Battle Royale

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      Forget the men: A banner crop of leading ladies, including Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett, rule the Oscars’ deepest and most dynamic race.Clockwise from top left, Margot Robbie in “Babylon”; Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; Danielle Deadwyler in “Till”; Cate Blanchett in “Tár”; Michelle Williams in “The Fabelmans”; and Viola Davis in “The Woman King.”Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures; A24; Lynsey Weatherspoon/Orion Pictures; Focus Features; Merie Weismiller Wallace/Universal Pictures, via Amblin Entertainment; Sony PicturesBy their very nature, awards shows are designed to exclude, barring all but a few from the glory of earning a nomination.Still, this year’s race for the best-actress Oscar is so stacked with contenders that I’m ready to comb the academy bylaws for a workaround. Are five slots really enough to honor a field this formidable? Couldn’t we swipe a few more from the wan best-actor category, at least?The truth is, even 10 slots would barely scratch the surface of what the best-actress race has to offer. Many of the season’s most acclaimed films, like “Tár” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” have given career-best signature roles to their leading ladies, though only one woman can collect the Oscar. Meanwhile, a vast array of up-and-comers, actresses playing against type and underdogs worth a second look will be vying simply to make the final five. Here are the women contending in this season’s most exciting category.The Front-runnersIn the fictional world of “Tár,” the conniving conductor played by Cate Blanchett has been showered with an absurd amount of awards. By the end of this season, Blanchett herself may keep pace with her character.The two-time Oscar winner’s bravura performance — she learned German, orchestra conducting and piano for the role — has netted the most notable prizes so far: In addition to nominations from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, Independent Spirit Awards and Gotham Awards, Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for best actress at the Venice Film Festival and a pair of leading trophies from the New York Film Critics Circle and Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The last time Blanchett triumphed with the critics groups on both coasts, she was well on her way to winning her second Oscar, for “Blue Jasmine.”If she wins her third, the 53-year-old would be the youngest woman ever to reach that milestone. (Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand and Ingrid Bergman are the only other actresses to have won three Oscars each for their performances, while Katharine Hepburn holds the record with four.) But those laurels could also count against Blanchett in a race where her strongest competitor has never even been nominated and is angling for a historic win.Michelle Yeoh came close to snagging a supporting-actress nomination for “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018), but this time, she’s undeniable: The 60-year-old’s leading role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” as an ordinary woman who becomes the multiverse’s last hope, should earn Yeoh her first Oscar nod.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.The role shows off everything Yeoh is capable of — including her athleticism, precise character work and sense of humor — and she has teared up in interviews while discussing how rarely a movie like that is offered to an Asian actress. In a recent awards round table, Yeoh told the other actresses, “I honestly look at all of you with such envy because you get an opportunity to try all the different roles, but we only get that opportunity maybe once in a long, long time.” Indeed, no Asian woman has ever won best actress, and after 94 ceremonies, the only winner of color in the category remains Halle Berry for “Monster’s Ball.”Can Yeoh pull off a landmark victory? It may help that she has a more sympathetic character arc: While Blanchett’s Lydia Tár compels and confounds in equal measure, Yeoh’s Evelyn Wang learns to drop her guard and let love in. But the competition in this category is fierce, and Blanchett isn’t the only heavyweight she’ll be contending with.For playing a character based on Steven Spielberg’s mother in “The Fabelmans,” Michelle Williams is likely to score her fifth Oscar nomination, which puts her behind Glenn Close and Amy Adams as the three living actresses who’ve been nominated the most times without having won. That gives Williams a potent “she’s due” narrative that could siphon votes from both Blanchett and Yeoh; it helps, too, that she gives her all to the part, playing a vivacious woman whose spirit couldn’t be contained by her marriage.The “Till” star Danielle Deadwyler won the first lead-performance trophy of the season at last month’s Gotham Awards, and she’ll need that momentum to overcome striking snubs from the Independent Spirits and Golden Globes. Still, her emotionally precise performance as the mother of Emmett Till has Oscar-friendly heft, since voters often gravitate toward an actor playing a historical figure.It’s rarer that Oscar voters make room for an action heroine in the best-actress category: Though Sigourney Weaver earned a nomination for “Aliens,” Charlize Theron found no traction for “Mad Max: Fury Road.” But there’s more to what Viola Davis does in “The Woman King” than just wielding a spear. Her fierce warrior is weary and her battle yells pack a cathartic punch. If the movie can make it into the best-picture lineup, Davis should be swept in.Damien Chazelle’s debauched Hollywood dramedy “Babylon” has earned wildly mixed reviews, but the director helmed two Oscar-winning performances — Emma Stone in “La La Land” and J.K. Simmons in “Whiplash” — and that pedigree has pushed Margot Robbie into contention for her role as a fledgling actress convinced of her own star quality. Nominations for “I, Tonya” and “Bombshell” prove that voters like Robbie in ambitious-striver mode, though the movie is stuffed so full of characters that she can’t quite dominate the proceedings like some of her best-actress competition.Oscar voters might consider an ingénue like Ana de Armas for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in “Blonde.” NetflixThe Women Waiting in the WingsCan two Oscar favorites overcome muted streaming launches in a year when theatrical contenders reign supreme? “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” hands Emma Thompson a sexually frank showcase role that had Oscar pundits buzzing at January’s Sundance Film Festival, but the film’s quiet June debut on Hulu drew fewer headlines. And despite a best-picture win this year for “CODA,” Apple TV+ still struggles to get all those “Ted Lasso” and “Severance” viewers to watch exclusive movies like “Causeway,” though the film features a strong, back-to-basics lead performance from Jennifer Lawrence.At least “Blonde” managed a streaming debut that got people talking, though the punishing Netflix drama about Marilyn Monroe had some awfully loud detractors. Can its star, Ana de Armas, rise above those pans? She managed a Golden Globe nomination, at least, and Oscar voters love to single out a rising ingénue, but the film will prove a tough sit in a year with plenty of better-received options.In the first hour of “Empire of Light,” Olivia Colman plays a movie-theater worker who opens herself up to an appealing romance, but in the second, the character goes off her meds and the movie goes off the rails. Even if those two halves don’t quite cohere, Colman definitely gets some big moments to play, and the actress has so quickly become an Oscar mainstay (over the last four years, she has been nominated three times and won once) that she should be considered a perennial option for the final five.Rooney Mara is spirited and sensitive in “Women Talking,” but the studio’s decision to campaign her as a lead actress is tenuous: In this ensemble drama about conflicted Mennonite women, Mara has scarcely more screen time than Claire Foy or Jessie Buckley, who are being positioned as supporting-actress contenders. Then again, Mara is no stranger to category high jinks: Six years ago, she was nominated as a supporting actress for “Carol,” even though she was clearly playing that film’s protagonist.Keke Palmer won a New York Film Critics Circle award for supporting actress for “Nope” even if it really was a lead performance. Universal PicturesThe Dark-Horse ContendersIf social media memes could be counted as accolades, Mia Goth would surely give Blanchett’s haul a run for her money: The young actress’s work in “Pearl,” in which she plays a farm girl who’d kill for stardom, has Twitter awash in Goth GIFs. Ti West’s technicolor horror drama isn’t the sort of thing that Oscar voters usually go for, but Goth is fearsomely committed, knocking out a tour de force, eight-minute monologue that’s topped only by a sustained closing shot of the actress smiling until she cries. At the very least, it’d make for one memorable Oscar clip.I hope that as the membership of the academy grows ever more international, more powerhouse performances will be recognized in languages other than English. In Park Chan-wook’s South Korean noir “Decision to Leave,” Tang Wei is a terrific femme fatale, while Léa Seydoux delivers her finest work as a single mother in the French drama “One Fine Morning.” And Oscar voters who regret snubbing Vicky Krieps for “Phantom Thread” could make it up to her by checking out the royal drama “Corsage,” in which she plays Empress Elisabeth of Austria with beguiling irreverence.Comedic actresses are too often undervalued by Oscar voters, but Aubrey Plaza spent 2022 proving she was capable of much more: Fans of her breakout performance in HBO’s “The White Lotus” should check out her dark, edgy work in the drama “Emily the Criminal,” which earned nominations from the Gothams and Indie Spirits. And “Nope,” which topped our critic A.O. Scott’s list of the best films of the year, boasts a charismatic star turn by Keke Palmer that recently earned a win from the New York Film Critics Circle, even if the group had to pretend she gave a supporting performance to get her out of the way of Blanchett’s leading win. Normally, I’d discourage that kind of category fraud, but in this crowded year, I sympathize with the desire to bend some rules. More

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      Cuarón, Del Toro y González Iñarritu recuerdan sus experiencias al trabajar con Daniel Giménez Cacho

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      Los tres cineastas más importantes del México contemporáneo recuerdan sus proyectos con el actor. “El mejor actor de nuestra generación”, dice Del Toro, quien le dio un papel en ‘Cronos’, su ópera prima.A los 24 años, cuando ya llevaba dos años de la licenciatura en Física, Daniel Giménez Cacho recibió una invitación informal para asistir a una clase de canto. Para consternación de su padre, que era ingeniero, aquella oferta inesperada desbarató el plan de una carrera científica y encendió en él un fervor por la actuación que duraría toda la vida.“Fue un descubrimiento físico, un renacimiento para mi cuerpo”, dijo Giménez Cacho durante una entrevista reciente en un restaurante mexicano de la histórica calle Olvera de Los Ángeles.Giménez Cacho, el aclamado actor que nació en Madrid pero se crio en el corazón de Ciudad de México, y quien ahora tiene 61 años, ha desarrollado un currículo ecléctico que muestra tanto su seriedad como sus dotes cómicas a lo largo de casi cuatro décadas.Desde el viernes lo podemos ver en Netflix como el alter ego del director Alejandro González Iñárritu, Silverio Gama, en Bardo, falsa crónica de unas cuantas verdades, una fantasía onírica de reflexiones personales y políticas.Después de iniciarse en el teatro, Giménez Cacho se dio a conocer más ampliamente a través de la televisión en 1989 con Teresa, la popular telenovela que protagonizó junto a una joven Salma Hayek en el personaje protagónico.En aquella época, en México solo se producían unas pocas películas al año pero, poco a poco, una joven cohorte de cineastas comenzó a impresionar con historias audaces tanto en la pantalla chica como en la grande. El actor estuvo presente en los mismos círculos artísticos y desarrolló su carrera en paralelo a la de quienes estaban detrás de la cámara.Ser el único actor que ha colaborado con los directores mexicanos reconocidos con el Oscar y conocidos colectivamente como los Tres Amigos: primero Alfonso Cuarón, luego Guillermo del Toro y ahora Iñárritu, es evidencia del papel fundamental que Giménez Cacho tuvo a la hora de sentar las bases para el surgimiento del nuevo cine mexicano. Iñárritu comentó, riendo a carcajadas: “Hay que levantarle una estatua por ser el único sobreviviente de los Tres Amigos”.Fuera de México, lo han convocado titanes del cine como Pedro Almodóvar (La mala educación), Lucrecia Martel (Zama) y Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Memoria).Les pedí a Cuarón, Del Toro y González Iñárritu que recordaran cuándo conocieron al actor y cómo fue la experiencia de trabajar con él.El actor como alter ego del director Alejandro González Iñárritu en ‘Bardo, falsa crónica de un puñado de verdades’.Limbo Films, S. de R. L. de C. V. Cortesía de NetflixAlfonso Cuarón: ‘Se convirtió no solo en colaborador, sino en cocreador’El actor y el director se conocieron en el rodaje de Camino largo a Tijuana (1988), de Luis Estrada, donde Cuarón fue productor y ayudante de cámara.Cuarón señaló que se arrepintió de considerarlo de inmediato para protagonizar su ópera prima, la comedia Sólo con tu pareja de 1991, a pesar de que lo impresionó el lenguaje corporal preciso y dancístico del actor.“Tenía miedo de no haber visto todas las opciones, cuando en realidad fue muy tonto eso porque la mejor opción estaba enfrente de mi”, dijo Cuarón por teléfono.Giménez Cacho acabó protagonizando la película y Cuarón se siente afortunado. Al recordar que un invitado a una cena comparó al actor con Marcello Mastroianni por su capacidad para infundir levedad a dramas más bien emotivos, el director explicó que su ópera prima “dependía del interprete. Él tenía que llevar la película con una gracia y una ligereza”. Cuarón añadió que “Daniel se convirtió no solo en colaborador, sino en cocreador de lo que terminó siendo la película”.Giménez Cacho recuerda que estaba indeciso, pues era su primer papel protagónico en una película.“Yo tuve siempre muchas dudas” respecto al papel de un mujeriego cuyas travesuras le pasan factura, dijo Giménez Cacho. “Todavía las tengo, pero ya tengo 61. Siempre tuve mucha inseguridad, entonces fue muy lindo descubrir mi vena cómica”.Después de Sólo con tu pareja, Cuarón animó a Giménez Cacho para que probara suerte en Hollywood y lo ayudó a concertar reuniones con agentes.“Vine y dije: ‘Esto no es para mí’. Me dijeron: ‘Do you want to be rich and famous?’. Y yo les dije: ‘Quiero hacer películas chingonas de las que pueda estar orgulloso’”, recuerda el actor. “La gente William Morris Endeavor creo que me entendieron por ahí y dijeron: ‘Está bien, vete a México y ahí te vamos mandando cosas’. Nunca pasó y yo no lo busqué después”.Una década después, para su conmovedora película Y tu mamá también, Cuarón quería un narrador masculino que evocara a los de Masculino femenino y Banda aparte, de Jean-Luc Godard.“Hay un don que pueden tener ciertos actores, que no lo puedes cultivar, que es que la cámara los sigue, el público está atento”, dijo Guillermo del Toro. “Y esa es una de las virtudes que Daniel tiene”.Ricardo Nagaoka para The New York TimesMientras buscaba una voz objetiva que añadiera un contexto irónico, pensó en alguien con acento español y le pidió al director Fernando Trueba que lo intentara.Al final, Cuarón recurrió a Giménez Cacho (a pesar de que pensó que el tono del actor podría ser demasiado cálido para esa tarea) y se sorprendió por la concordancia orgánica entre la voz y las imágenes. El actor grabó el texto antes de ver el material visual.“Daniel no se me había ocurrido porque estaba buscando voces, no estaba pensando en actores, y otra vez, esa fue una tontería”, admitió Cuarón. “Él supo perfectamente que tenía que tener un cierto distanciamiento Brechtiano, pero a la vez no permitió que se arribara a la sequedad”.El actor comentó con una sonrisa de satisfacción: “Nunca he sido su primera opción. Pero como luego no le gusta nadie, no le queda de otra que decir: ‘Bueno, ya que lo haga este cabrón’”.Guillermo del Toro: ‘Estábamos de acuerdo que era el mejor actor de nuestra generación’Mucho antes de convertirse en director, Del Toro fue maquillador de efectos especiales y conoció a Giménez Cacho en 1990, mientras le aplicaba lodo falso y una barba artificial durante el rodaje de Cabeza de Vaca, la obra de época de Nicolás Echevarría que está ambientada en territorio selvático.Con una curiosidad incisiva, Giménez Cacho le hizo preguntas detalladas a Del Toro sobre el proceso de transformación. El futuro cineasta se dio cuenta de que el actor tenía un compromiso obsesivo con cada aspecto de su trabajo, algo con lo que podía identificarse. De inmediato, se hicieron amigos.Del Toro lo apodó el Niño Sapo, al reconocer en Giménez Cacho una alteridad afín. “Decíamos que éramos un par de freaks”, recordó el cineasta a través de una videollamada. Poco después, Del Toro fabricó una réplica del brazo del actor para una escena de Sólo con tu pareja, la película de Cuarón.Según Del Toro, al principio de la carrera del actor, tanto él como Estrada, Cuarón, Carlos Marcovich y otros cineastas “estábamos de acuerdo que era el mejor actor de nuestra generación. Y lo sigo pensando”.A partir de su relación y en el trabajo del actor con el grupo de teatro de vanguardia El Milagro, Del Toro le ofreció el ahora emblemático papel de Tito, un director funerario malhablado pero entregado a su trabajo en Cronos, su ópera prima de 1994.“Estoy muy agradecido de que me invitó a hacer este pequeño papelito en Cronos porque, aunque es un papel pequeño, brillaba mucho, era memorable”, dijo Giménez Cacho.Hoy, después de más de 30 años de amistad, Del Toro se maravilla de cómo la intensidad de la juventud de Giménez Cacho ha evolucionado a una humildad admirable considerando su talento.“Hay un don que pueden tener ciertos actores, que no lo puedes cultivar, que es que la cámara los sigue, el público está atento”, dijo el director. “Y esa es una de las virtudes que Daniel tiene”.Alejandro González Iñárritu: ‘Sabía que me iba a hacer mi trabajo muy fácil’Giménez Cacho y González Iñárritu coincidieron por primera vez en una fiesta en Los Ángeles tras el estreno de Grandes esperanzas, de Cuarón, en 1998, pero pasó un buen tiempo antes de que pudieran trabajar juntos en una película.González Iñárritu describió su primera reunión para trabajar en Bardo como una “conexión cósmica”, pues la afinidad compartida por la meditación y una comprensión mutua de la similitud de sus viajes interiores se convirtieron en la base poco convencional de su trabajo juntos.Aunque Iñárritu no había escrito el papel de Silverio Gama pensando en un actor en particular, sabía que Giménez Cacho daría en el clavo incluso antes de haber leído una sola página del guion.“Me di cuenta que estaba en el mismo lugar que yo a nivel personal, filosófico, espiritual e intelectual”, dijo González Iñárritu durante una videollamada. “Más allá de sus dotes artísticos, que son muchísimos, sabía que me iba a hacer mi trabajo muy fácil porque él compartía la sensibilidad de lo que yo estaba buscando”.Aunque González Iñárritu abordó detalles íntimos de sus propios recuerdos en Silverio, un documentalista que navega tanto por su mortalidad como por su identidad mexicana en viñetas fantasiosas, veía al personaje como una entidad ficticia, no como un reflejo exacto de sí mismo.“Lo que siempre hago en cualquier personaje es traer lo que soy, mis experiencias y mis memorias”, dijo Giménez Cacho.Ricardo Nagaoka para The New York TimesEl director le pidió a su estrella que no reaccionara ante las situaciones, sino que solo las observara: el objetivo era crear una disonancia entre Silverio y el mundo bizarro que lo rodeaba porque la historia se cuenta desde la conciencia del personaje dentro de un sueño.Esa búsqueda de identidad hizo eco en Giménez Cacho, quien a principios de la primera década del siglo XXI intentó hacer carrera en España, pero descubrió que no podía verse a sí mismo más que como mexicano. Para encarnar a Silverio, no imitó a Iñárritu, sino que canalizó sus propias inquietudes y preguntas.“Lo que siempre hago en cualquier personaje es traer lo que soy, mis experiencias y mis memorias, pero aquí aún más”, señaló Giménez Cacho. “Al no haber un personaje diseñado pues lo tenía que tratar de buscar en mí”.El actor se comunica a través de su mirada penetrante y el movimiento corporal hipersensual que se muestra en una escena ambientada en la voz aislada de David Bowie en “Let’s Dance”.Iñárritu compara a Giménez Cacho con el actor británico Peter Sellers por la flexibilidad de su registro y lo describe como un haiku encarnado porque con una modulación mínima puede lograr la máxima emoción.“En Bardo hace lo que pocos actores son capaces de hacer, que es desaparecer el artificio de la actuación para llegar a la esencia y la presencia de algo honesto y verdadero”, concluyó González Iñárritu. “Se necesita mucha confianza interna para eso. Es lo más alto que hay en la actuación”. More

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      Jim Parsons Takes the Romantic Lead

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      The Emmy-winning “Big Bang Theory” actor “could’ve done anything he wanted.” Now starring in the tear-jerker film “Spoiler Alert,” he’s forging his own path.Ten years ago, the actor Jim Parsons, riding high on the success of the sitcom that would lead to his eventually making the Forbes list as the highest paid actor in television, casually told The New York Times that he was gay and in a long-term relationship. He remembers not wanting everything from 2012 forward to be about his sexual orientation.Now starring in the romantic drama “Spoiler Alert” (in theaters), of which he was also one of the producers, and having just wrapped an Off Broadway run of the musical “A Man of No Importance” — both of which have him playing gay leads — he says he wouldn’t trade the work he’s been able to do for anything.“Right after that piece came out, I felt power in being part of a group that I had not known I could feel,” Parsons, 49, said on a recent video call. He added that he was happy not to end up pigeonholed as an actor who could only do gay roles, even if more work came his way featuring gay characters.“It became a beautiful exploration of myself,” he said. “Not to say I feel completely satisfied and that there’s not plenty I still want to do, but I don’t know how I could be much happier or feel more fulfilled.”Parsons ties this feeling of catharsis to a lifelong quest to find himself worthy of love and acceptance. Growing up gay in a Houston suburb, he said he spent his first two decades with a “very real understanding that love would be lost” to him in certain corners of his life. Years into a successful career, he still considers himself on a journey to overcome the feeling that it is “overwhelming and a bit difficult to accept that much love from so many people at once.”He said that his recent projects have reflected that journey. “It’s kind of funny, since so many of them I didn’t pick,” he said, “but this chance to discover these things about myself, and other humans in the process, feels like a gift.”Parsons, center, as Alfie Byrne in the musical “A Man of No Importance.”Sara Krulwich/The New York Times“Spoiler Alert” is adapted from a memoir by the television journalist Michael Ausiello, recounting the cancer diagnosis of his husband, Kit Cowan, and the difficult path on which it set the two. It presented Parsons with an “open vein” of emotion that appealed to his lifelong fascination with mortality, one he said was deepened by the death of his father in a 2001 car accident, and the loss of his dog years later.“Both experiences were so painful, yet offered me a view of the preciousness of my time here that I had not experienced before, and I’ll forever now view my life through that lens of having loved and lost,” he said. “The thing that really crept up on me in the book was the story of two people who have this tragic, but also unique and rare, opportunity to go through an experience as close to two naked souls as you can be. It cracks open both of their hearts to see the risks that must be taken in order to live and love fully.”Parsons and Ausiello had interacted on red carpets and press junkets throughout the 12-season run of “The Big Bang Theory,” of which the journalist was a vocal fan, but it wasn’t until he asked Parsons to host a promotional Q. and A. for his book in 2018 that the actor learned Ausiello’s story.Jim Parsons’s Expanding UniverseThe actor stars in the tear-jerker romance “Spoiler Alert,” adapted from the memoir by the television journalist Michael Ausiello.‘Spoiler Alert’: The film follows the rocky romance — from meet cute to cancer — between Michael, played by Parsons, and Kit.On Stage: “He knows not only what marks to hit but exactly how to hit them,” our critic wrote of Parsons’s performance in “A Man of No Importance,” in which he starred this fall.‘The Big Bang Theory’: Parsons played the dorky physicist Sheldon Cooper in CBS’s hit comedy for 12 seasons. He won four Emmys for best actor in a comedy for the role.From the Archives: In 2012, Parsons led a Broadway cast for the first time in a revival of “Harvey.” He spoke with The Times about measuring up against Jimmy Stewart in the comedy.“I remember going back through Michael’s Instagram after reading the book, and seeing this picture of us at the Emmys,” Parsons said. “I saw the date on it and realized he’d been in the thick of all this when we took it, and I had no idea. I never met Kit, I didn’t know he was sick, I wasn’t friends enough with Michael to know, but I couldn’t shake that feeling.”Parsons became attached to the overlaps he saw between Ausiello and Cowan’s partnership and his own relationship with his husband and producing partner, Todd Spiewak. (A tweet from Ausiello, posted on the day of Parsons’s 2012 Times interview, points to two of these main parallels.)Ausiello recounted by phone always being drawn to Parsons’s comic rhythms, on- and offscreen, as well as his surprising career choices, like taking on a supporting role in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures” after having won four acting Emmys for “The Big Bang Theory.”Parsons, left, as Sheldon Cooper, with Mayim Bialik on “The Big Bang Theory.”Michael Yarish“We had this interesting rapport and snarky banter that made our interviews so much fun,” Ausiello said. “I looked forward to talking to him because it was going to be an entertaining experience; he was going to give me as much as I’d give him, and never miss a beat.”For the book Q. and A., this time it would be Parsons in the interviewer chair. “He shows up at this Barnes & Noble with pages of notes — he did his homework,” Ausiello said. “It was backstage, before we walked out, that Todd mentioned to me that they were interested in optioning the book; that was the first time I found out, and I was like a deer in the headlights.”For Parsons, the film proved to be the most involved he had been in any project. Though he mainly stayed out of its financial aspects, he played a central role in production, down to selecting his English co-star Ben Aldridge’s vocal coach — the same one he had as a student at the University of San Diego.The past few years have seen Parsons taking the reins more often through the production company he and Spiewak started in 2015, as well as stepping into more leading roles. This month, he finished a run in the Classic Stage Company revival of “A Man of No Importance,” about a closeted man’s efforts to lead a theater troupe. The Times critic Jesse Green wrote of his performance, “With his confident voice, unlined face and television polish, he never seems hopeless or, viewed from our time, too old for a new start.”His last stage outing before that, in the 2018 Broadway revival of “The Boys in the Band” (a 2020 film adaptation followed), saw him play opposite Matt Bomer, who also attained mainstream recognition through television before coming out as gay in 2012. In a phone interview, Bomer explained that he’d known Parsons as a “legend” in the suburban Houston high school drama circuit. (Though born a few years apart, both men grew up in Spring, Texas.)Parsons with Matt Bomer in the 2018 Broadway production of “The Boys in the Band.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesHe said he came to respect Parsons’s leadership and “fearless approach to the character” while working on the production, in which he played an often unlikable colead.“Jim achieved the type of television success that happens once in a generation, and he could have done anything he wanted after that,” Bomer said. “He’s translated it into these really thoughtful choices and performances, and taken creative responsibility for a lot of projects that are so interesting and that I really respect.”Three years removed from playing Sheldon, the role that made him a household name, Parsons isn’t sure that this new film and the recent musical point to a new career phase of leading roles, as opposed to the ensemble projects for which he’s been known.“Both projects required such tremendous, constant communication with my partners, and I like having a lot to do,” he said. “It’s much easier, if I’m a lead, to be constantly needed on set or onstage than it is to have swaths of time off, where I can get in my own head. Because I’ll find something else to do, I promise you, and it won’t be nearly as healthy as just doing the work.” More

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      ‘Stars at Noon,’ ‘Vortex’ and More of This Year’s Streaming Gems

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      A look back at some of the finest under-the-radar streaming picks of the year.December is upon us, prompting a glut of year-end best-of lists from film critics, awards-giving bodies and various experts. Most of those feature titles you might not have seen, and some you haven’t even heard of. In that year-end wrap-up spirit, this month’s guide to the hidden gems of your subscription streaming services consists solely of films released in the United States during the past calendar year. Check out some obscurities, and impress your friends and colleagues at holiday parties.‘Stars at Noon’Stream it on Hulu.Claire Denis’s erotic drama is immersed in the worlds of journalism, espionage and geopolitics, but the real subject is one of her standbys: the sexual dynamics between men and women, and the transactional nature therein. The participants here are Trish (Margaret Qualley), an underemployed American journalist in Nicaragua who’s doing a bit of sex work as a side hustle, and Daniel (Joe Alwyn), a British businessman who’s both buying and selling. Denis keenly observes how the power shifts between them, and rarely without a struggle; their dialogue scenes have a cockeyed unpredictability, particularly since one or both is always in a state of desperation. Alwyn is fine, good even, but Qualley is a revelation; she is, by turns, funny, sexy, savvy and broken.‘Vortex’Stream it on Mubi.The extremist Argentine-French filmmaker Gaspar Noé’s most recent effort is his gentlest, though only because he’s best known for provocations like “Irreversible,” “Enter the Void” and “Climax.” Here, he tells the story of a long-married couple (played by the Italian filmmaker Dario Argento and the French actress Françoise Lebrun) and how their idyllic retirement is ripped apart by her increasingly debilitating dementia. It sounds not unlike Michael Haneke’s devastating “Amour,” a similarly dour tale of aging and mortality, but Noé inserts an additional visual dimension: He plays out the events in split-screen, with her separative frame a devastating visualization of her mental isolation — a stylistic flourish that makes this harrowing drama all the more affecting.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.‘The Survivor’Stream it on HBO Max.Once upon a time, a Barry Levinson-directed feature based on a true story, with an all-star cast and successful debut at the Toronto International Film Festival, would have been a shoo-in for Oscar consideration. In today’s peculiar marketplace, it’s bought up by HBO only to never be seen again. But this is a stellar historical drama, with Ben Foster in fine form (both dramatically and athletically) as Harry Haft, an Auschwitz captive who survived his time there by boxing, and later used those skills to make a career as a boxer in America. The fight scenes are brutal, the dramatic stretches wrenching, and Levinson orchestrates his first-rate cast with aplomb.‘Elesin Olba: The King’s Horseman’Stream it on Netflix.In 1943, in the region of Africa now known as Nigeria, the longstanding tradition of the tribal king’s horseman committing ritual suicide after the death of the king (and thus following him into the afterlife) was prevented by British colonialists. That true event inspired Wole Soyinka’s venerable play “Death and the King’s Horseman,” which was adapted into this absorbing feature film by the Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker Biyi Bandele (who died just before its premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival). The portraiture of customs and rituals is fascinating, and the Brits are properly villainous. But the film truly comes alive in its closing scenes, a thought-provoking and thoughtful contemplation of mortality and responsibility.‘Navalny’Stream it on HBO Max.Between interviews for Daniel Roher’s documentary, but on a hot mic, the Russian dissident Alexei Navalny tells a friend, “He’s filming it all for the movie he’s gonna release if I get whacked.” That candor and fearlessness was part of what made Navalny a thorn in the side of Putin’s Kremlin, and as such, he was the target of a likely assassination attempt by poisoning in 2020. Roher’s cameras follow Navalny as he recovers, prepares to return to Russia and participates in an independent investigation of the poisoning, resulting in an explosive, accidental confession by one of the perpetrators. Roher carefully avoids outright hagiography (via evenhanded discussion of Navalny’s image and ethics), using his access and materials to assemble a first-rate, though nonfiction, political thriller.‘My Old School’Stream it on Hulu.The story of a supposedly 17-year-old secondary school student who was revealed, after over a year in classes, to be a 32-year-old former student caused a sensation in Scotland (where it occurred) and across Europe — so much so that it was slated to be adapted into a feature film, with the actor Alan Cumming in the leading role. That film was never made, but now the story has become a documentary, and since the film’s subject would consent only to an audio interview, Cumming appears on camera to lip-sync the man’s words. (Got that?) The rest of the tall tale is told via animation, archival footage and alternately funny and contemplative contemporary interviews with the classmates of “Brandon Lee,” who attempt to puzzle out why they were so easily fooled, and (in the stellar closing sections) how well they remember the entire affair. The director Jono McLeod tells the story straight, as they all heard it and as “Lee” told it, which makes for a wild, twisty ride indeed.‘Free Chol Soo Lee’Stream it on Mubi.Everybody loves the story of an innocent man, wrongfully accused and then rightfully freed, and it’s been a standby of documentary cinema since (at least) “The Thin Blue Line.” Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s film begins as that movie, relating how Chol Soo Lee was convicted and imprisoned for a murder in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1973, based on scant evidence and flimsy eyewitness testimony, only to become a common cause for the Korean American community until he was finally freed more than a decade later. But that’s only part of the story. With sensitivity and nuance, the filmmakers follow Lee’s troubled post-prison journey, reminding us that happy endings are often temporary. A riveting and often heartbreaking tale. More

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      ‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ Review: Swashbuckling Again

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      This animated sequel is a tidy charmer.It might be hard to believe it today, but there was a time when “Shrek” seemed like a breath of fresh air in the world of big-screen animation. Its salty humor and insistent pop culture knowingness was fun for a minute, before the sequels got nudging and formulaic. And then there was the whole shoving-Smash Mouth-down-our-throat issue. DreamWorks, the studio that concocted “Shrek,” soon enough became the anti-Pixar — in a bad way.So it’s a pleasant surprise that “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,” the second feature film highlighting a beloved children’s lit character who became one of the favorite additions to the “Shrek” universe, is for the most part winning. It contains amusing jokes and has an old-fashioned impulse to tug at heart strings. This in spite of the video-game-suggestive plot construction, in which Puss and cohorts, aided by an animated map, race to a dark forest to find a wishing star, with other children’s lore characters in hot, malevolent pursuit.Puss is voiced by Antonio Banderas, whose purr can warm the cockles of any and all, as is also the case with Salma Hayek Pinault, who plays his love-and-hate interest Kitty Softpaws. Directed by Joel Crawford, the movie’s overall tone harks back not so much to prior DreamWorks pictures as it does to the “Fractured Fairy Tales” of the old TV cartoon “Rocky and Bullwinkle.” To this end, Goldilocks and the Three Bears are now a band of criminals (including voice work by the powerhouses Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone and Florence Pugh). This often charming movie will play particularly well if you’re a cat person. But who’s not?Puss in Boots: The Last WishRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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      The Best Genre Movies of 2022

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      We look at the best in horror, science fiction, action and international films, all available to stream.Ready to go some gooey or gory places? Or see an expert performer navigate action films in an original way? Or perhaps you’d like to explore two knockout docs from around the world? Our genre movie streaming columnists have made their picks for the best of the year. Some movies you will have heard of. Others will be new to your view. Either way, prepare to head out on adventure with these across-the-spectrum offerings.Science FictionFor David Cronenberg, the call is always coming from inside the house: It is the body that attacks, betrays, seduces, takes over. Impervious to the subjects agitating current science-fiction movies (alternative universes, artificial intelligence, a dying Earth), the Canadian director went back to familiar turf with his latest, in which people mutate in unpredictable ways. Cronenberg has always known that the true frontier is not space but the evolution of flesh, consciousness and machine.In “Crimes of the Future,” Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) keeps growing new tumors that his acolyte, Caprice (Léa Seydoux), excises in public, via a repurposed autopsy device. The visual effects are not much more sophisticated than those in the director’s similarly themed “Videodrome” (1983) and “Existenz” (1999), but the squishy organic feel is exactly what makes the new film stand out from run-of-the-mill C.G.I. fests. That and, of course, its tone, coldly detached and darkly comic, as exemplified by Kristen Stewart’s deliciously arch turn as a fan of Tenser’s body artistry.“Everyone wants to be a performance artist these days,” we are told, and the movie zeros in on our narcissism, need for attention and terminal cynicism. Beyond the gross-out close-ups of puckering organs, what is most striking here is a rare cinematic quality nowadays: perversity. — ELISABETH VINCENTELLIStream “Crimes of the Future” on Hulu.HorrorRegina Lei in “The Sadness.”Fredrick Liu/Machi Xcelsior Studios/Shudder/AMCMy favorite horror movies this year laid off the flashy effects and instead gave me the unshakable willies the unshowy way: with creeping dread and uncertain stillness. That’s how “Watcher,” “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” and “The Innocents” did it.But oh man, “The Sadness.” Rob Jabbaz’s transgressive zombie film was bombastically directed and exhaustingly gory — in other words, the year’s most gloriously brutal horror-watching experience.The Projectionist Chronicles a New Awards SeasonThe Oscars aren’t until March, but the campaigns have begun. Kyle Buchanan is covering the films, personalities and events along the way.Golden Globe Nominations: Here are some of the most eyebrow-raising snubs and surprises from this year’s list of nominees.Gotham Awards: At the first official show of the season, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” won big.Governors Awards: Stars like Jamie Lee Curtis and Brendan Fraser worked a room full of academy voters at the event, which is considered a barometer of film industry enthusiasm.Rian Johnson:  The “Glass Onion” director explains the streaming plan for his “Knives Out” franchise.It’s set in Taipei, where two young lovers (Berant Zhu and Regina Lei) fight to reunite after a contagion turns people into sexually voracious flesh destroyers. The carnage almost never lets up, and it’s jaw-dropping to watch — like when the hungry infected turn a crowded subway car into a preposterously blood-slick Slip ‘N Slide. This scene, like the film overall, is demented and repulsive but also — and here’s the curveball — uncompromisingly feminist. It’s not easy to get a message across when the mayhem surrounding it is this maximalist, but Jabbaz figured it out.Listen to me carefully: If you’re at all iffy about being grossed out, stay away from this film. But if your constitution is solid, I dare you to jump into its exquisitely gruesome, grimly satirical maelstrom. — ERIK PIEPENBURGStream “The Sadness” on Shudder.ActionZoë Kravitz in “KIMI.”Warner Bros.Between Matt Reeves’ gripping neo-noir “The Batman” and Steven Soderbergh’s unnerving surveillance thriller “KIMI,” this year the actress Zoë Kravitz ruled the action genre. Her reign is uniquely impressive when one considers the disparate requirements of each role.As Selina Kyle/Catwoman in “The Batman,” the agile, shadowy equal to the caped crusader, she moves with a slender yet muscular physicality. As seen in her knowing runway stride, sultry possibilities become real and hand-to-hand confrontations are rendered acrobatic as Kravitz gracefully leaps and dives against thugs.Playing Angela, a blue-haired tech employee confined to her home office in “KIMI,” the actress turns in her former fluidity for an antisocial rigidity as she becomes the target of a predatory company intent on covering up the crime she discovered. In contrast to the skintight leather suit she wears as Catwoman, Kravitz packs a different but no less formidable punch in her long loose coat as she evades her pursuers during a series of arresting chase scenes.And yet, what binds these seemingly conflicting performances is how Kravitz’s expressive eyes translate the assuredness of Catwoman and the savviness of Angela. They’re a confirmation of her range as today’s premiere Black woman action hero. — ROBERT DANIELSStream both “The Batman” and “KIMI” on HBO Max.InternationalYoung residents of Paris’s suburbs in the documentary “We (Nous).”MubiEvery month, as I compile international films for my column, I am confronted with the arbitrariness of the boundaries that determine what we consider familiar and foreign, the home and the world. My two favorite films this year, both documentaries by women, challenge these delineations. In “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia, a fictional voice-over narration, chronicling the dissolve of the speaker’s inter-caste relationship, coalesces a series of twilit scenes of college life in India that range from nocturnal revels to protests against an increasingly repressive government. Culminating with CCTV footage of baton-wielding police descending upon a library full of students, the film shatters the fictions of democracy: The will of the people means little to the weapons of the state.In Alice Diop’s “We,” a train route that connects Paris’s suburbs to the city center forms the spine for the film’s intimate, itinerant glimpses of the working-class immigrants who live on the outskirts of France’s capital. Diop’s cinematic map bursts the contours of French identity and recenters them around those relegated to its margins.Each film, a whole fashioned from disparate pieces, offers an allegory for the nation itself, as a collective forged out of solidarity rather than superficial similarities. — DEVIKA GIRISHStream “A Night of Knowing Nothing” on the Criterion Channel. Stream “We” on Mubi. More

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      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ and Mariah Carey

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      Martin McDonagh’s latest dark comedy airs on HBO. And Mariah Carey performs in a Christmas special on CBS.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, Dec. 19-26. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN (2022) 7 p.m. on HBO. Heated language and cold fingers fly in this dark comedy from Martin McDonagh, about two old buddies, Padraic (Colin Farrell) and Colm (Brendan Gleeson), whose friendship meets a sudden end. Set on a fictional Irish island in 1923, the movie kicks into action when Colm announces, seemingly out of foggy air, that he’s had enough of Padraic. What follows is surreal and downbeat, with ambitious performances from Farrell, Gleeson and a supporting cast that includes Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan. “It’s not necessary to believe what you see — it may, indeed, not be possible,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The New York Times, “but you can nonetheless find yourself beguiled by the wayward sincerity of the characters and touched by the sparks of humanity their struggles cast off.” The movie is positioned to be part of the awards conversation in the lead-up to the Oscars in March.DEAD FOR A DOLLAR (2022) 8:10 p.m. on Showtime 2. This throwback, low-budget western from Walter Hill (“The Warriors,” “48 Hours”) centers on a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) searching for a businessman’s wife (Rachel Brosnahan), whose reasons for having gone missing are not what they seem. It is “solidly and proudly a B picture,” Scott wrote in his review for The Times. But, he added, “in an age of blockbuster bloat and streaming cynicism, a solid B movie — efficiently shot (by Lloyd Ahern II) and effectively acted (by everyone) is something of a miracle.” The cast also includes Willem Dafoe, Hamish Linklater and Benjamin Bratt.THE WHEEL 10 p.m. on NBC. The British comic Michael McIntyre has hosted a few seasons of this quiz show overseas for the BBC; it makes its stateside debut on Monday night. The show — whose set looks something like a gigantic roulette wheel — pairs contestants with celebrity guests who are sometimes experts on the trivia subjects, and sometimes very much not. Guests on Monday’s episode include the actress Christina Ricci, the comic Amber Ruffin and the television journalist Steve Kornacki.TuesdayMariah Carey, center, in “Mariah Carey: Merry Christmas To All!”James Devaney/CBSMARIAH CAREY: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! 8 p.m. on CBS. For the fourth consecutive year, Mariah Carey’s 1994 single “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has recently topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, despite its age. That feat should add extra flair to Carey’s performance of the song during this two-hour special, which was filmed in Manhattan at a bedazzled Madison Square Garden.WednesdayHOMEWARD BOUND: A GRAMMY SALUTE TO THE SONGS OF PAUL SIMON 9 p.m. on CBS. The first Grammy Award that the singer-songwriter Paul Simon ever won was for “Mrs. Robinson,” the 1968 Simon & Garfunkel hit he wrote for the Hollywood classic “The Graduate.” So perhaps it makes sense that this Grammy-hosted tribute to Simon took place in Los Angeles, despite Simon’s associations with New York. Filmed in April at the Hollywood Pantages Theater, the concert includes performances of Simon’s songs by a multigenerational (and multigenre) group of artists, among them Brandi Carlile, Rhiannon Giddens, Angélique Kidjo, Dave Matthews and Irma Thomas.ThursdayTHE LION IN WINTER (1968) 5:30 p.m. on TCM. Ahh, Christmas 1183 at King Henry II’s chateau, where holiday cheer is overtaken by familial scheming. (If this sounds like your own end-of-year gathering, consider that this one includes actual jousting.) At issue is who will take over the throne of the aging king (Peter O’Toole). Will it be Prince John (Nigel Terry)? Prince Richard (Anthony Hopkins)? In the end, the real winner is surely Katharine Hepburn, who won an Oscar for her performance as Eleanor of Aquitaine, the king’s wife.FridayTHE 24TH ANNUAL A HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS AT THE GROVE 8 p.m. on CBS. Gloria Estefan is the host of this benefit program, which tells positive stories of adoption from foster care. It also brings out musical performances, with this year’s lineup including Andy Grammer, Mickey Guyton, David Foster and Kat McPhee, and Little Big Town.SaturdayJohn Cho, left, and Kal Penn in “A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas.”Darren Michaels/Warner Brothers PicturesCHRISTMAS EVE PROGRAMMING on various networks. Even among those who celebrate, Christmas of course means different things to different people. And nowhere is this more apparent than on TV this Saturday, when you can catch the stoner comedy A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR CHRISTMAS (2011), at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. on IFC; then flip over to see Pope Francis lead CHRISTMAS EVE MASS from the Vatican, which begins at 11:29 p.m. on NBC.Also on offer are several adaptations of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol,” including FX’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL, a dark 2019 rethink with Guy Pearce that will air at 9:40 p.m. on FXM, and A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1938), a classic black-and-white adaptation that stars Reginald Owen and will air at 10 p.m. on TCM. See also: A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on TNT; LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on BBC America; and THE GRINCH (2018) at 8 p.m. on FX.SundayZiwe Fumudoh in “Ziwe.”Gwen Capistran/ShowtimeZIWE 11 p.m. on Showtime. Ziwe Fumudoh will wrap up the second season of her sharp variety show on Sunday by bringing on Wayne Brady, with whom she discusses the commercialization of Juneteenth, and several other guests, including the actress Laura Benanti and the comic Larry Owens. More