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      ‘The Whale’ Premiere in NYC Inspired Strong Reactions

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      More than 100 actors, singers and creative professionals attended the New York premiere of Darren Aronofsky’s new film at Alice Tully Hall this week. Some of them shared their thoughts.The carpet was blue. The poster was blue. The suits were blue.That is, until the actor Ty Simpkins arrived at the New York premiere of “The Whale” at Alice Tully Hall this week — in a magenta suit.“I want the summer weather back,” Mr. Simpkins, 21, explained of his choice to break with the otherwise muted palette of the film’s cast and creative team, who arrived on the red carpet — well, oceanic blue carpet — in navy suits and black dresses.The moment of levity was at odds with the character Mr. Simpkins plays in the director Darren Aronofsky’s somber new film, adapted from the play by Samuel D. Hunter and produced by A24. The movie centers on Charlie, played by Brendan Fraser, a reclusive, morbidly obese gay man trying to reconnect with his teenage daughter (Sadie Sink) after the death of his lover. (Mr. Simpkins plays a young evangelical missionary who tries to convert Charlie — and wrestles with some of his own demons in the process.)“The Whale” has received rapturous reviews at film festivals — including a six-minute standing ovation in Venice — and has been hailed as a comeback role for Mr. Fraser, whose career faltered in the years after his success in the “The Mummy” (1999). Though Fraser is regarded as a front-runner to win his first Oscar for his performance, and the film will most likely be nominated for best picture, it has also been criticized for Mr. Aronofsky’s decision to put Mr. Fraser in a so-called fat suit rather than cast an obese actor. The director has said that doing so would have been difficult.When asked about his choice to use a “fat suit,” Mr. Aronofsky objected to the phrasing. “I wouldn’t use that word,” he said. “It’s prosthetics and makeup.”The film’s makeup artists, he said, “were able to create this incredible illusion that not only works with the audience but I think helped Brendan inhabit his character and bring it to life.“That you can be transported into the life of someone who seems incredibly different than you and still learn something about yourself is why I love movies,” Mr. Aronofsky continued.On the carpet and at the after-party, the film’s cast and creative team discussed the themes the film tackles, the emotions it raises and what they hoped audiences would take away.The writer and playwright Samuel D. Hunter, left, with the actor Brendan Fraser and the director Darren Aronofsky at La Grande Boucherie after the New York premiere of “The Whale.”Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesMitch Bukhar, left, a talent agent, with Ty Simpkins, who played a young evangelical missionary in “The Whale.”Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesMr. Fraser gained weight for the role, in addition to wearing the prosthetics, which added as much as 300 additional pounds to his frame. He has said that he prepared for the part by speaking with people who have struggled with eating issues, asking about their diet and the impact of their weight on their relationships.“Very often people who live with severe obesity are disregarded and shut away and silenced,” said Mr. Fraser, 53, who attended the premiere with two of his sons, Holden Fraser, 18, and Leland Fraser, 16. “So it was my obligation — my duty — returning dignity and respect and authenticity.”He continued: “The creative choices we made — the makeup, the elaborate costuming that I wore — with the help of the Obesity Action Coalition, I’m pretty sure that we came really close to creating a film with a main character who hasn’t been seen in this way, as authentically before, and I’m proud of that.”The film, which shows Charlie inhaling whole buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken and double-stacked slices of pizza — with ranch dressing added on top — and being subjected to relentless verbal abuse by his teenage daughter, can at times be hard to watch. But stories that push and challenge audiences remain essential, said Mr. Hunter, who wrote the film.“In academia, there’s kind of a push for no more trauma-based stories, and I struggle with that,” said Mr. Hunter, 41, after posing for photos next to his husband, the dramaturge John Baker, on the carpet. “Not only because that is discounting a broad swath of world literature — maybe the majority of it, certainly the Bible — but also because I think there’s utility in looking at dark things through the lens of fiction.”Mala Gaonkar and David Byrne at the after-party for “The Whale.”Jackie Molloy for The New York TimesBut Mr. Aronofsky wanted to be clear: The film is not meant to induce two straight hours of waterworks. “What’s surprising to many people is how funny it is,” he said. “I think when people see the heartfelt material, there’s a lot of laughs.”At an after-party at the heated outdoor atrium of the upscale French brasserie La Grande Boucherie on West 53rd Street, where sliders, artisanal cheeses and wine were served, David Byrne, the former Talking Heads frontman, said it wasn’t the humor that had surprised him, but the humanity.“It’s surprising, the amount of heart in it,” Mr. Byrne, 70, said.Over by a gleaming Christmas tree, the comedian Jim Gaffigan was still processing what he had just experienced.“A film that moves you that much, you want to give a standing ovation to,” Mr. Gaffigan, 56, said, clutching a glass of wine. “But I feel like the audience was so emotionally drained that we needed the walker.”“Darren always does that,” he continued. “He accesses emotions that are very credible, very personal. It’s going to take a while to process.”Quick Question is a collection of dispatches from red carpets, gala dinners and other events that coax celebrities out of hiding. More

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      For Emma Corrin, Identity Is an Ever-Evolving Project

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      The British actor Emma Corrin knew that signing on to star in an adaptation of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” the racy D.H. Lawrence novel, would mean nudity and sex — and lots of it. They were even prepared to be wet, thanks to a pivotal scene in the rain, when the titular couple (Corrin as the lady and Jack O’Connell as the paramour) lovingly frolic naked. “It was that scene in the script that really drew me to the project, because I was like, that’s wild. I haven’t seen anything like that onscreen,” Corrin said.And yet, that sequence was also “the single most terrifying thing I’ve ever done in my life,” they said. (Corrin identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns.) There was no movie magic, no hiding behind camera angles and modesty protectors: It was leaping, dripping, fleshy full-frontal vulnerability. Watching the movie, they said, took “a lot of whiskey.”Corrin gamine-eyed their way to international fame and award recognition in 2020, playing Princess Diana in “The Crown,” their first major role. Though the settings are decades apart, there is a connection between the young Diana, contorting herself to meet an impossible ideal, and Constance Reid, an independent mind who marries into high aristocracy, circa World War I, only to find her Lord Chatterley dismissive of her needs. They are both “trapped women, searching for freedom,” Corrin said.Connie finds it in “Lady Chatterley” — it premieres on Netflix on Friday — through moments of sexual intimacy rarely depicted in period drama. (Masturbation under all those skirts!) Bringing that to the screen, “you know that you’re doing something that is taking up space that needs to be taken up,” Corrin said. “I felt emboldened, with this edge of, ‘Oh, this is a bit terrifying.’ That’s an exciting place to be as an actor.”Corrin opposite Jack O’Connell in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.”NetflixIt’s not a big leap from the projects and characters that Corrin has lately chosen to their own exploration of gender, love, power, and the responsibilities and costs of being heard. They are currently starring in the title role in a West End production of “Orlando,” based on Virginia Woolf’s gender-bending, time-traveling novel.Corrin’s ascent could have been simple: the English rose ingénue, who’s at home in flouncy frocks and looks as if they can blush on cue. (If only, they said.) Instead, Corrin has shared images of their experiments with chest binding and has changed pronouns twice, as their understanding of how they want to present evolved.“My identity and being nonbinary is an embrace of many different parts of myself, the masculine and the feminine and everything in between,” they said. They hoped only for patience, and for roles that encompass the full spectrum of individuality. “It’s hard to be discovering something in yourself at the same time you’re navigating an industry that demands a lot of you, in terms of knowing who you are,” they said.Dan Levy, the “Schitt’s Creek” star, is a friend who has become “a lifeline” for Corrin, as they put it. He said that the expectation, in the social-media age, that all facets of a star be accessible is dangerous, “especially as a queer person navigating your place in the world.”“You want to lend your voice to the conversation,” he wrote in an email, but “doing so comes at the cost of a sense of privacy. Emma has been really thoughtful about what they want to say and who they want to be publicly.” What he admired most, he said, has been “their frankness about not being entirely sure — that who they are is an ever-evolving internal conversation. I know that must be of comfort to many people who can relate.”The Return of ‘The Crown’The hit drama’s fifth season premiered on Netflix on Nov. 9.The Royals and TV: The royal family’s experiences with sitting for television interviews have been fraught. The latest season of “The Crown” explores that rocky relationship.Meeting the Al-Fayeds: The new season includes portrayals of the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, his son Dodi and his personal valet — who had all connections with the royal family.Republicanism on the Rise: Since “The Crown” debuted in 2016, there has been a steady increase in support for abolishing Britain’s monarchy. Has the show contributed to that change?Casting Choices: In a conversation with The Times, the casting director Robert Sterne told us how the drama has turned into a clearinghouse for some of Britain’s biggest stars.Corrin, 26, lives in North London, in a décor-jumbled flat (they have a penchant for Lego sets), with three roommates, friends from their school days, and Corrin’s doted-upon dog, Spencer. On a warm fall afternoon, they turned up for lunch in Manhattan in shorts and a sweater vest, with short platinum hair curled, a new style they quite liked. In the group chat with the roomies, they floated the idea of getting a perm. “It’s very Renaissance boy, which I feel like I channel in my soul anyway,” Corrin told me of the look.Corrin spent the summer in New York working on a new series.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesAbsolutely not, came the immediate texted reply: a photo of three blondes in a universal, arms-crossed, N-O. They are, Corrin said, the kind of friends “who know you so well that you can’t get away with anything, which is wonderful.”Their support network is robust, almost to a fault. Corrin’s mother, a speech therapist, and two younger brothers attended the “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” London premiere. “I did give them all the disclaimers,” Corrin said. “And it was, yeah, mortifying. I think worse for my flatmates, to have to sit next to my family watching it.” But they appreciated the film, Corrin added: “I got such sweet texts from my brothers afterwards.”Since their big debut, Corrin has worked nonstop — “I’m a stranger to breaks,” they said. “I’m bad at not doing anything.” They spent the summer in New York to film a coming FX mystery series and to be profiled by Vogue, the first nonbinary star to appear on the cover.Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, the French director of “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” understood why Corrin — whose pronouns were she/they during production — is in demand. The star “has a quality of being here and now,” the filmmaker said. “She’s believable in the ’60s, in the ’20s, today, but she has this immediacy and the spontaneity that brings you back to the present with her, and that’s a very strong quality. The singular energy that she has, the way she talks, the way she moves, it’s always surprising.”Physicality is a big part of Corrin’s performances. They have worked with Polly Bennett, a movement coach and choreographer, regularly since meeting on “The Crown,” where they set out to unpack “Diana-isms,” Bennett said, like the princess’s signature head tilt. “When you try to look at it from an actor’s perspective, it’s to understand why Diana did that,” Bennett said. “Match the physical world to the emotional.”Corrin as Diana in “The Crown.” They worked with a movement coach on the character’s signature head tilt.Des Willie/NetflixOn “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” Bennett put the leads through “some really quite outlandish, abstract perspective drama school stuff,” said O’Connell, who plays Oliver Mellors, the solitary but sensitive estate groundsman Connie falls for. “And I don’t have drama school experience, so I was very open to it.”In rehearsals, the leads and filmmakers, along with an intimacy coordinator, Ita O’Brien, blocked out the sex scenes and found their boundaries.For O’Connell, who is from the same part of Britain as D.H. Lawrence and recognized Mellors as a familiar sort of local figure, the coaching helped him “sit with feeling uncomfortable,” he said. “Before every take, there was like an overwhelming sensation that I did not want to do it.”The rain scene, in particular, seemed to test everyone involved.For starters, though they filmed in and around an estate in normally drizzly, muddy Wales, “it was like the most sunny summer of the last decade,” said de Clermont-Tonnerre. Cue the rain machine.The scene, which comes late in the film and serves to amplify Connie and Oliver’s love and connection, lasts 90 seconds. (To skirt an NC-17 rating, de Clermont-Tonnerre had to keep all the most explicit moments trim.) It needed to feel spontaneous and joyful, a natural exhilaration in a verdant field.“That scene was so reliant on two people in physical abandon,” Bennett said. “You can’t just send two people out to do that. We choreographed shapes and moments, and how garments came off.”But much of it was improvised. “We’re in the field and we looked at each other, and I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said. “We were like, what do we do?”For one nude scene with O’Connell, “I’d never seen my own terror reflected back at me so intensely,” Corrin said.Josefina SantosOn a closed set of about eight people, with music blasting to pump them up, Corrin and O’Connell cut loose. “It was scary for all of us,” de Clermont-Tonnerre said. “And also liberating, in the way that we all wanted to get naked and go running with them.”And O’Connell learned to quiet his inner doubts. “Once you get over the initial discomfort and sometimes shock, something really exhilarating can stem from that,” he said. “And that’s quite rewarding.”Lawrence’s novel, originally published privately in 1928, was famously banned for decades, but after social mores loosened, it was the subject of multiple screen adaptations. De Clermont-Tonnerre wanted to ground hers in Connie’s perspective, as she leaves behind the rule-bound grand manor for earthier pleasures.Ecstasy, in all its forms, was what she was after. “I needed this version to be erotic and to actually glorify eroticism as an actual and vital need,” she said. “I want people to get desire, and to really get horny.”The kind of sexual awakening that Connie undergoes, “I think it’s at the center of a lot of our lives, definitely in terms of self-discovery — probably throughout your life,” Corrin said, adding, “I think that her determination to find something that is very genuine, and a real connection, definitely made me want the same. She’s brave in a way that really inspired me.”Corrin hopes that some of the boldness sticks with them in other ways. “I’m very bad at conflict,” they said. At work, when a request feels iffy, they call Levy for advice. “He’ll be like, that’s out of order, you need to say no and set a boundary.” (“Self-preservation is a team effort!” he said.)Getting angry, raising their voice onscreen, still feels foreign to Corrin. “I’m always worried that I’m not landing it, because I’m so unused to that feeling in my own body,” they said.Crying and having sex, on the other hand, “I can do all day.” More

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      ‘Violent Night’ | Anatomy of a Scene

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

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      Kornel Mundruczo Brings Powerful Imagery to Wagner and Film

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      Kornel Mundruczo’s varied career has included the Oscar-nominated movie “Pieces of a Woman,” stage productions across Europe and now, “Lohengrin.”MUNICH — On a recent morning, the atmosphere on the rehearsal stage of the Bayerische Staatsoper, the main opera house here, was charged with anticipation.The director Kornel Mundruczo was supervising Act I of “Lohengrin,” Richard Wagner’s romantic opera about a mysterious knight sent by the Holy Grail to save a damsel in distress, and as they waited for the title character to appear, the vocal soloists and extras milled about in street clothes among rocks and grass scattered on the stage.Mundruczo made adjustments to the performers’ positions and gestures, ensuring that they conveyed nervous excitement. When Lohengrin, played by Klaus Florian Vogt, casually appeared midway through the act, Mundruczo surveyed the scene.“That’s super good,” he said with satisfaction.When the opera opens here on Saturday, it will close an uncommonly busy — and varied — year for the prolific Hungarian director.Over the past 12 months, Mundruczo, 47, has overseen a world premiere opera in Berlin and Geneva; a new play in Berlin; Wagner’s “Tannhäuser” in Hamburg, Germany; and has directed four of 10 episodes in the first season of the Apple TV+ series “The Crowded Room.”Serge Dorny, the Bayerische Staatsoper’s general manager, said he saw “Lohengrin” as “an extremely contemporary story,” adding that Mundruczo’s interest in topical themes, and how he has handled them over a range of artistic genres, was in part what led him to enlist the director for “Lohengrin.”Mundruczo’s production of “Lohengrin” at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. Over the past two decades, he has produced a multifaceted body of work across numerous countries, languages and genres.W. HoeslEqually important, however, was Mundruczo’s ability to create “powerful images that stay in our memories,” Dorny said.Mundruczo’s style is direct and emotional, but it is often tinged with fantastical elements that veer into magical realism: In one particularly vivid example, a recent Mundruczo production was set almost entirely inside a gigantic salmon.While Vogt said that Mundruczo’s background in film was clear from his ability to create “intense images” in “Lohengrin,” the singer called Mundruczo a “deeply musical person,” who had enormous respect for the score.This artistic versatility makes Mundruczo a rarity among today’s directors. Over the past two decades, he has produced a multifaceted body of work across numerous countries, languages and genres.In the English-speaking world, Mundruczo is best known for his 2020 film “Pieces of a Woman,” which garnered acclaim for the director, its writer, Kata Weber, and its lead actress, Vanessa Kirby, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as a mother processing the death of her newborn. Martin Scorsese signed on as an executive producer after seeing an early cut of the film.“With Kornel, you feel and see a real drive to express something in images and sounds,” Scorsese wrote in an emailed statement. “It’s real cinematic storytelling. No matter what Kornel makes, I’m interested.”Vanessa Kirby earned an Oscar nomination for her performance in Mundruczo’s “Pieces of a Woman.”Benjamin Loeb/NetflixMundruczo’s production of the opera “Sleepless” was dominated by a giant salmon.Nina Hansch/picture alliance, via Getty ImagesBorn in 1975 in Godollo, a small city outside Budapest, Mundruczo dreamed of becoming a painter as a teenager, but when he first picked up a camera at 21, he knew filmmaking was what he was meant to do.“I wasn’t planning for it to happen, but for me there was no longer any question,” Mundruczo said in an earlier interview in Berlin. “That hasn’t changed.”The director characterized his early shorts and first three features as “bohemian friendship movies, like early Almodóvar,” he created with “whoever was around,” he said, referring to the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar. Mundruczo made his first feature film in 2000 while still a student. Of the eight that have come since, six have premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, including “White God” (2014), which features a canine takeover of Budapest, and “Jupiter’s Moon” (2017), in which a Syrian refugee learns to fly.While building up his film career, Mundruczo also started directing plays for an independent theater group. In 2009, he co-founded Proton Theater in Budapest, where he serves as artistic director. Before long, his stage productions were getting attention on the international theater festival circuit.Mundruczo suggested that his outsider status as a filmmaker had helped him bring a new perspective to his stage productions, which tour throughout Europe. “I’m not a theater person,” he said, “and the theater festival system always needs new voices.”The director also welcomes a certain degree of cross-pollination between his stage and screen work. Before it was a film, “Pieces of a Woman” was a play written by Weber and first performed in 2018 at the TR Warszawa theater in Warsaw. “Evolution,” another collaboration between Weber and Mundruczo (who are both romantic and artistic partners), started life as part of a staged performance before they developed it into a film.When it comes to switching between genres, “I enjoy that it’s other parts of your soul working,” Mundruczo said. Gordon Welters for The New York Times“Evolution,” which premiered at the 2019 Ruhrtriennale festival in Bochum, Germany, was one of a string of productions in that country that inspired Mundruczo and Weber to move to Berlin from Budapest with their daughter several years ago. They were also guided by concerns about the political situation in Hungary, which continues its rightward slide under Prime Minister Viktor Orban.“I’m sure every New Yorker felt the same during the Trump era,” he said. “It can be tough. You feel a certain pressure.”Although he has never faced direct censorship in Hungary, the Hungarian National Film Board rejected funding for “Pieces of a Woman,” Mundruczo said. “They sent a beautiful letter — I still have it — they wrote that there is no audience for this movie,” he said.When it became a play in Warsaw, its Jewish themes, which were inspired by Weber’s family history, fell by the wayside. “Not that many Jewish people live in Poland, and we all know why,” Mundruczo said. Weber was able to restore some of the Jewish content in the film version, which moved the action to Boston, a city with a large Jewish population.Several of those themes, including a miraculous tale of survival at the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, are elaborated in the film “Evolution,” a multigenerational tale that begins in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and ends in modern-day Berlin.Since “Evolution” premiered at Cannes in summer 2021, Mundruczo has taken a hiatus from the silver screen. This year he made his debut at Berlin’s Staatsoper, directing the world premiere of Peter Eotvos’s “Sleepless,” the production dominated by a giant salmon.Matthias Schulz, the general manager of the Berlin State Opera, said that “first of all,” Mundruczo was a filmmaker. “He’s very precise and gives a lot of hints, just like he has to do when making a movie,” he said, describing “Sleepless” as having the atmosphere of “an opera and a movie at the same time.”Both the Berlin State Opera and Munich’s Bayerische Staatsoper have invited Mundruczo back to direct in future seasons. In addition to making “The Crowded Room” for the small screen, Mundruczo hopes to return to filmmaking soon, although he said that it was too early to share project details.When it comes to switching between opera, dramatic theater, television and film, “I enjoy that it’s other parts of your soul working,” Mundruczo said. “It’s very healthy when you’re not a one genre maniac,” he added.Perhaps someday he’ll be able to devote himself exclusively to one art form. “But I’m not there yet,” he said with a laugh. More

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      ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules’ Review: Oh, Brother

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      The beloved children’s book series receives another film installment.The media franchise “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has a long and storied history and has taken many, many forms. It started in 2004 as a kind of serialized web comic for kids on the educational website Funbrain. Its popularity led to a book deal for the author and illustrator Jeff Kinney, who turned the comics into a best-selling children’s book that combined text with crudely drawn cartoons. The book begot more than a dozen sequels; three spinoffs; a Children’s Theater Company musical; and six feature film adaptations, including two different versions based on the original book — one in live action, from 2010, and one animated, from 2021. A sequel to the animated one, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules,” streaming on Disney+, is based on the second book. It’s not to be confused with the live-action movie of the same name, from 2011. Got it?If all that makes this latest “Rodrick Rules” sound a bit redundant, the movie itself does little to suggest otherwise. Of course, none of the earlier “Wimpy Kid” movies were particularly great, but this animated retread, in which the gawky adolescent dweeb Greg (voiced by Brady Noon) must contend with the petulant foibles of his big brother, Rodrick (voiced by Hunter Dillon), feels distinctly insubstantial.It’s the sort of bland, innocuous trifle that will swiftly recede into the oblivion of a streaming service menu — a comedy without laughs and a family movie without heart, lacking any of the wit or charm of Kinney’s original stories. The director, Luke Cormican, keeps the action in a mild register that feels blandly televisual, hitting episodic beats that have no memorable emphasis. I imagine they’ll keep making these — why stop now? If so, let’s hope they reread the books to remember what made them endearing.Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick RulesRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 14 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      Stream These 13 Movies Before They Leave Netflix This Month

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      The end of the year brings the end of many licensing agreements for streaming services, so load up your queues now.The end of the year brings the end of many licensing agreements for streaming services, and this month is no exception. We’ll see the departure of a mix of Oscar winners, comedy franchises, indie dramas and action extravaganzas from Netflix in the U.S. So load up your queues now, lest you miss your last chance at these gems. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘Fast Color’ (Dec. 10)The ubiquity and (especially as of late) mediocrity of the mainstream superhero movie is particularly galling when reflecting on the commercial indifference with which Julia Hart’s superhero story was received in 2018. Then again, Hart’s wise and wonderful screenplay (co-written with her husband, Jordan Horowitz, who also produces) doesn’t simply deploy the familiar beats and conflicts; this is a character-driven indie drama that just so happens to concern characters with superhuman powers, and that grapples with the real-world implications of their abilities. Lorraine Toussaint is mighty as the patriarch of the family at the story’s center; Gugu Mbatha-Raw is quietly excellent as her troubled daughter.Stream it here.‘The Danish Girl’ (Dec. 15)Tom Hooper’s adaptation of the novel by David Ebershoff was unsurprisingly controversial upon its 2015 release, dealing, as it does, with the true story of the Danish painter Lili Elbe, one of the first people known to have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. But Hooper’s adaptation was criticized for its historical inaccuracies and approach to the material, as well as for centering the narrative on Gerda Wegener, Elbe’s cisgender partner. Those claims are valid, but the film is still worth seeing, primarily for the achievements of its actors. Eddie Redmayne resists the urge to overplay as Elbe, while Alicia Vikander is extraordinary as Wegener; she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress for the role and deserved it.Stream it here.‘A Little Princess’ (Dec. 31)When the director Alfonso Cuarón landed the high-profile assignment of taking over the “Harry Potter” film franchise for its third entry, “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” eyebrows raised across Hollywood — after all, at that point he was best known for helming the NC-17 erotic road trip drama “Y Tu Mamá También.” But the “Potter” gig made complete sense to those who’d seen his 1995 adaptation of this classic children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Taking understandable liberties with the source material, he weaves a tapestry of magic and pathos out of the story of Sara Crewe, who finds her life of privilege turned upside down when her father sends her to a girls’ boarding school.Stream it here.‘Blood Diamond’ (Dec. 31)Quick quiz: Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for the Oscar for best actor for “The Departed” (2006), right? Wrong. He was nominated that year, but it was for a different film: Edward Zwick’s sharp-edged action-drama, set during the Sierra Leone Civil War, starring DiCaprio as a smuggler and mercenary whose initial interest in the conflict is purely monetary. That changes, however, as he joins forces with a fisherman (Djimon Hounsou, also nominated for an Oscar) whose discovery of a giant diamond has put him in the sights of a local warlord. The narrative is predictable, sure. But DiCaprio, Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly, another co-star, are acting up a storm, and Zwick shows his usual adeptness at staging big action sequences.Stream it here.‘Blow’ (Dec. 31)It would be easy to dismiss this 2001 crime drama as “Goodfellas” Lite — it’s based on the true story of a cocaine kingpin, telling the thrilling story of his rise and fall in a jittery, hyperkinetic style, and features a stellar ensemble cast. But as Scorsese cosplay goes, it’s lively and entertaining. The director, the late Ted Demme (“The Ref”), knows when to turn up the heat and when to let it simmer; the screenplay (by the veteran scribes David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes) is detail-oriented and fascinating; and Johnny Depp turns in one of his best performances as George Jung, who made a fortune running drugs for Pablo Escobar. Ray Liotta even turns up as George’s father, an explicit “Goodfellas” shout-out that plays like a blessing on the project.Stream it here.‘Blue Jasmine’ (Dec. 31)Woody Allen’s last great movie, this 2013 comedy-drama won Cate Blanchett an Oscar for best actress, and Andrew Dice Clay the best reviews of his career as a bitter and estranged family member. Blanchett stars as Jasmine, once a rich socialite in New York City, whose husband (Alec Baldwin) fell from grace in a Bernie Madoff-style scandal; she finds herself living in San Francisco with her sister (the wonderful Sally Hawkins) and her working-class boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale, borderline feral). The echoes of “A Streetcar Named Desire” are unmistakable, and undoubtedly intentional; as he did with his Ingmar Bergman riffs, Allen is not just quoting an iconic work but putting his story and characters in conversation with it, and the results are both thoughtful and thrilling.Stream it here.‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (Dec. 31)True to form, Stanley Kubrick’s final film — unveiled four months after his death in 1999 — confounded audiences and critics upon its release, only to grow in reputation and estimation in the ensuing years. Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, then still real-life spouses, star as a wealthy Manhattan couple who find their seemingly idyllic marriage rocked by her confessions of desire for a passing stranger. Blind with jealousy, he journeys into the New York night, searching for an illicit affair but stumbling upon something far more insidious. Moody, odd and darkly funny, it boasts one of the greatest closing lines in all of cinema.Stream it here.‘Men in Black’ I / II / 3 (Dec. 31)Barry Sonnenfeld’s original 1997 “Men in Black” remains one of the great popcorn movies — a witty, briskly-paced treat that manages to both send up big-budget, effects-heavy extravaganzas, and simultaneously work as one. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are a pitch-perfect matchup of wisecracking cool and stone-faced professionalism, an oddball buddy movie pairing for the books. Their 2002 follow-up can’t match the laughs or energy of the original, but it’s still a hoot, with Rosario Dawson a welcome addition to the cast. And the final installment, released a decade later, draws on a time-travel plot that primarily serves as a showcase for Josh Brolin’s flawless impression of his “No Country For Old Men” co-star Jones. But it’s such a delicious piece of mimicry, you don’t really mind.Stream “Men in Black” here, “Men in Black II” here and “Men in Black 3” here.‘National Lampoon’s Vacation’ / ‘European Vacation’ (Dec. 31)Chevy Chase was floundering badly in the movies — his early films, after leaving “Saturday Night Live” only one year into its run, included such undistinguished efforts as “Modern Problems,” “Under the Rainbow” and “Oh! Heavenly Dog” — when he finally landed his ideal film role. Working from a screenplay by the up-and-coming screenwriter John Hughes (with uncredited contributions by Chase and the director Harold Ramis), the actor was terrific as Clark Griswold, a Chicago suburb-dweller who only wants the perfect cross-country vacation for himself and his family. The film was so successful that Chase (and co-star Beverly D’Angelo) came back three years later to escort his brood across Europe, with similarly silly results.Stream “Vacation” here and “European Vacation” here.‘Point Break’ (Dec. 31)Kathryn Bigelow was still an all-but-unknown genre filmmaker, and Keanu Reeves was still best known for playing Ted in the “Bill & Ted” movies, when they teamed up with Patrick Swayze — then hot off his starring role in the surprise hit “Ghost” — for this tense action drama. The screenplay by W. Peter Iliff (with uncredited rewrites by Bigelow and her then-husband, James Cameron) wasn’t the freshest of stuff, even in 1991: an FBI agent (Reeves) goes undercover in a group of surfer bank robbers and finds himself in too deep with the group’s charismatic leader (Swayze). But Bigelow’s energetic direction keeps things moving at such a hearty clip, the familiarity barely matters; her action beats are furiously paced, her female gaze gives welcome dimension to the testosterone-heavy proceedings and the central dynamic is wonderfully thorny.Stream it here.ALSO LEAVING: “A Clockwork Orange,” “Casino Royale,” “Chocolat,” “I Love You, Man,” “Police Academy,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (all Dec. 31). More

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      The Real Story of ‘Cocaine Bear’

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      Nearly 40 years after a 175-pound black bear found and ingested cocaine in a Georgia forest, the drug binge has inspired a movie.The trailer for a new movie called “Cocaine Bear” was released on Wednesday, and the film’s title is not a metaphor or clever wordplay: The movie is about a bear high on cocaine.The bloody spree that follows the bear’s cocaine binge, as depicted in the trailer, is fictional, but the story about a high bear is very real. Its lore is likely to grow with the movie, which was directed by Elizabeth Banks and is set for a Feb. 24 release.“Cocaine Bear” stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Ray Liotta, who died in May, in one of his final film roles. It depicts the bear’s drug-induced trail of terror and the victims he leaves behind.The real story is less bloody.It all began, as you might guess, in the 1980s. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced in December 1985 that a 175-pound black bear had “died of an overdose of cocaine after discovering a batch of the drug,” according to a three-sentence item from United Press International that appeared in The New York Times.A United Press International item on the cocaine bear appeared in The New York Times in December 1985.“The cocaine was apparently dropped from a plane piloted by Andrew Thornton, a convicted drug smuggler who died Sept. 11 in Knoxville, Tenn., because he was carrying too heavy a load while parachuting,” U.P.I. reported. “The bureau said the bear was found Friday in northern Georgia among 40 opened plastic containers with traces of cocaine.”The bear was found dead in the mountains of Fannin County, Ga., just south of the Tennessee border.“There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide,” Gary Garner of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told The Associated Press at the time.Dr. Kenneth Alonso, the state’s chief medical examiner at the time, said after an autopsy in December 1985 that the bear had absorbed three or four grams of cocaine into its blood stream, although it may have eaten more, The Associated Press reported that month.Today, the very same bear is said to be on display in Lexington, Ky., at the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall. The mall said in an August 2015 blog post that workers there wanted to know what happened to the bear and found out it had been stuffed. The blog post says the stuffed bear was at one point owned by the country singer Waylon Jennings, who kept it in his home in Las Vegas, before it was delivered to the store. (The New York Times could not independently confirm this account.)What happened to the bear in its final days, or hours, after the cocaine binge is a mystery, but the origins of the cocaine are not.Mr. Thornton was a known drug smuggler and a former police officer. He was found dead the morning of Sept. 11, 1985, in the backyard of a house in Knoxville, Tenn., wearing a parachute and Gucci loafers. He also had several weapons and a bag containing about 35 kilograms of cocaine, The Knoxville News Sentinel reported.A key in Mr. Thornton’s pocket matched the tail number of a wrecked plane that was found in Clay County, N.C., and based on Mr. Thornton’s history of drug smuggling, investigators guessed there was more cocaine nearby, The News Sentinel reported. The investigators searched the surrounding area and found more than 300 pounds of cocaine in a search that lasted several months.They also found the dead bear. More

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      ‘The Eternal Daughter’ Review: Two Glorious Sides of Tilda Swinton

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      The actress astonishes in two roles in Joanna Hogg’s haunting film set in a creaky castle in Wales.“The Eternal Daughter,” a lovely and haunted dream of a movie from the director of “The Souvenir,” opens on a spectral scene at dusk. On a desolate country road shrouded in fog and bordered by bare trees, sounds of the wind and lonely music drift on the soundtrack as spindly branches reach across the frame like fingers. By the time taxi headlights pierce the fog, your head may be churning with thoughts of ghosts and fanged demons, the kind that emerge from the shadows in old horror films to trouble your sleep.I imagine that the British filmmaker Joanna Hogg has a passing acquaintance with some of those movies, even if her work is rarefied enough to constitute its own auteurist genre. “The Souvenir,” which brought Hogg a wider audience, is a memory piece about a young woman’s devastating first love. The tragedy is crushingly sad, even if its conclusion is foregone. What gives it and other of Hogg’s movies their power aren’t their stories per se but her distinctive style and how she elicits meaning with emotional intimacy and intellectual reserve, creating realism from silences, gazes and rooms that become worlds.There are two women passengers in the taxi, a middle-aged filmmaker, Julie, and her mother, Rosalind, along with the mother’s dog, Louis, a soulful springer spaniel. The women are striking, dressed in understated clothing that quietly announces their privileged station before either speaks a word. Julie is talking to the driver while Rosalind seems to be sleeping, a gloved hand resting on Louis. Julie’s hair is auburn, her face pale and lightly creased, while Rosalind seems washed in gray. They make a vivid, arresting pair, all the more so because both characters are played by an astonishing Tilda Swinton.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.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.An Indie Hit’s Campaign: How do you make “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an Oscar contender? Throw a party for tastemakers.Jennifer Lawrence:  The Oscar winner may win more accolades with her performance in “Causeway,” but she’s focused on living a nonstar life.Julie and Rosalind are in Wales for a brief visit. They’re staying in a rambling hotel, an imposing, 18th-century mansion topped with gables and stone heraldic beasts. There are different reasons that mother and daughter are traveling together, including nearby relations, an impending birthday and a potential film project. As Julie explains later, during a conversation with a sympathetic caretaker, Bill (Joseph Mydell), one of the few other people around, she has come to the hotel to try and write a film about her and her mother. But she’s having trouble getting started. “I’m not sure that I feel I have a right to do such a thing.”Not much happens at first beyond Julie’s amusingly testy, politely antagonistic exchange at check-in with the hotel receptionist (a dryly funny Carly-Sophia Davies). The women settle into their room, a cozy double lined with toile wallpaper and furnished with separate beds and some strategically placed mirrors that Hogg soon has wicked fun with. Mother and daughter are close, though Julie’s doting on Rosalind isn’t always welcome. Rosalind spends a lot of time in bed; she also seems untroubled by the mansion’s eerie noises, its spooky gloom and the loud rhythmic banging that keeps Julie up at night.Given Hogg’s interest in memory and her expressionistic use of space it was perhaps inevitable that she’d make a ghost story, though “The Eternal Daughter” doesn’t as much conform to the genre template as playfully nip at its edges. It’s not for nothing that the first words you hear are “well, there was something strange….” Yet while Hogg comes at genre obliquely, she also makes great use of horror’s greatest hits by deploying creaking doors, billowing curtains and ominous shadows. And then there’s the pale-gray face at a window that Julie sees at night while out walking the dog.The mother and daughter, their differences, similarities, tenderness and love are the story, which Hogg fills in with chatter, reminiscences, precise details, private rituals and lingering looks. You see how Julie methodically, and with a hint of odd urgency, unpacks her luggage, and how Rosalind daintily removes a tablet from a pillbox. And while you may shriek in mock-horror at some mother-daughter passive-aggression — “What do you think, Mum?” Julie asks of Rosalind, who answers “What do you think?” — Hogg doesn’t peel away the character’s psychological layers. Their mysteries, as she will tenderly reveal, lie elsewhere.Notable effort has gone into visually distinguishing Julie and Rosalind beyond just their hair and clothes, including the use of some discreet makeup and careful lensing. Even so, the characters look more conspicuously alike than not, a resemblance that underlines their bonds, familial and otherwise, even as it evokes the figure of the doppelgänger, another horror staple. In classic examples, the doppelgänger serves as a sinister, even monstrous double (Dr. Jekyll, meet Mr. Hyde). Here, the doubling can be subtle, but it does suggest that there are alternative realities in play, an idea that Hogg conveys early on with some clever, destabilizing mirrored images — something definitely weird this way comes.Hogg’s greatest stroke in “The Eternal Daughter” is her casting of Swinton in both lead roles. Swinton is a wonderful chameleon and while she can go as big and showy as any Oscar contender, she is also a brilliant miniaturist. Swinton gives Julie and Rosalind fine-grained differences, individual gestures and gaits, puts elasticity into Julie’s voice and a light huskiness in Rosalind’s. Julie is more robust than her mother, and her expressions are bigger, too, more animated. Julie seems outwardly directed while Rosalind — with her still and watchful gaze — seems in retreat, as if she’d begun collapsing inward.The effect can be uncanny, particularly when mother and daughter are face to face at dinner. Hogg shows off the room at one point, the camera panning over the museological furnishings, but for the dinner sequences she primarily shoots Julia and Rosalind in individual medium close up, cutting back and forth between them. This allows you to see the warmth between the women, how they spark off each other, and to fully absorb their differences — the eagerness in one face, the exhaustion in the other. It’s like looking at two stages of the moon, one waxing and the other waning. And, if you’re wondering where the ghost is, let me whisper a clue: Nothing haunts us as deeply, as memorably, as love.The Eternal DaughterRated PG-13. For eek, a ghost! Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More