Movies

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Theater

      Chappell Roan, Kai Cenat, Shannon Sharpe Are Among Our Breakout Stars of 2024

      by

      Audacious, original and wielding a clear vision, the stars who rose to the top in 2024 pushed boundaries and took bold, even risky, choices. Here are 10 artists who shook up their scenes and resonated with fans this year.Pop MusicChappell RoanIt’s almost incomprehensible to think that last year, Chappell Roan still had time to work as a camp counselor.It’s not that she hadn’t been pursuing pop. Her debut album, “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” was released in 2023. One of its now-hit singles “Pink Pony Club” was released back in 2020.But it was this year that all the pieces coalesced: Her album hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart and No. 1 in album sales; her extravagant drag-inspired persona, 1980s-influenced pop sound, soaring vocals and edgy performances have become wildly viral; she outgrew her tour plans; and her dance-along anthem “Hot to Go!” was even featured in a Target ad and played at sporting events.All the while, her lyrics tackle queer issues frankly. Her track “Good Luck, Babe!” — about a relationship between two women that collapses because one is, as Roan has put it, “denying fate” — was one of the biggest hits of the summer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      ‘Home Alone’ Star Macaulay Culkin Delights Fans With Nostalgic Screening and Q&A

      by

      In Chicago, where the suburbs served as locations, a showing of the film featured an appearance by the star. Delighted fans made their devotion known.It has been 34 years since Kevin McAllister paint-canned two sour-faced bandits in “Home Alone.” And every Christmas since, fans have taken self-made tours of suburban Chicago sites in the classic holiday movie, which finds 8-year-old Kevin defending himself against robbers after his family leaves for a vacation without him. The stately residence where exteriors were shot in Winnetka, Ill., is the area’s top tourist attraction, with thousands of visitors annually.This year, Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin and became a 10-year-old international superstar as a result, created his own multicity tour, holding screenings of the comedy followed by a Q&A. Billed as “A Nostalgic Night With Macaulay Culkin,” it played last week in Rosemont, Ill., just outside Chicago, and that proved a big draw for “Home Alone” stans.They flocked to the Rosemont Theater in T-shirts quoting John Hughes’s script — “Keep the change, ya filthy animal!” — and roared at the burns and pratfalls of the bumbling thieves (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). Parents toted fleece blankets and stuffies for past-bedtime children; many were watching the movie, directed by Chris Columbus, on the big screen for the first time.The appeal was intergenerational and uncomplicated. “It feels like growing up,” said Monti Smith, 26, a mega-fan from Nashville.The SettingFans have been flocking to the house where the film’s exteriors were shot ever since “Home Alone” was released. Lyndon French for The New York TimesThe five bedroom, 9,126-square-foot brick home at 671 Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka has been a Mecca for movie buffs — and real estate agents. Its sale listing, for more than $5 million, went viral this year. (After a week on the market, the house found a buyer.) When a car pulled into the gated driveway last Friday, the driver paid no mind to the steady stream of onlookers or the traffic stopping for selfie-takers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Richard Gere Calls ‘Blonde on Blonde’ His All-Time Favorite

      by

      “He’s our Picasso,” the actor said of Bob Dylan.It has been more than four decades since an Armani-clad Richard Gere slunk around Los Angeles in Paul Schrader’s “American Gigolo.”Now Gere, 75, and Schrader have reunited on “Oh, Canada,” an adaptation of Russell Banks’s 2021 novel, “Foregone,” about a dying documentarian who wants to confess, mostly to his wife.Gere and Schrader were each dealing with end-of-life losses when they jumped into the project: Banks, a close friend of Schrader’s, had died from cancer in 2023. Gere’s father also died that year.“We were coming from emotional places,” Gere said.In addition to “Oh, Canada,” Gere made his American TV series debut last month in “The Agency,” an adaptation of the French hit “The Bureau.”“My wife and I binge-watched the French show and genuinely loved it,” he said. “So when I got a call saying they wanted to do an English-language version, I thought, Hmm, that’s kind of a double-edged sword. One, yeah, that sounds interesting, but two, the French one was so good, would they screw this up?”Gere was about to travel from Paris to Marrakech to meet his family when he called to talk about his admiration for former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the chef-humanitarian José Andrés, the Dylan song he can’t imagine not existing and the importance of Tibet. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Maura Delpero’s Family Story Became Her Latest Movie

      by

      Maura Delpero’s film “Vermiglio,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, is inspired by her own family in Italy during World War II.The mountaintop village of Vermiglio in the Italian Alps is blessed with picture-postcard views of snowy peaks and verdant valleys. It’s also the scene of a dramatic World War II story that moviegoers outside Italy will soon discover.“Vermiglio,” written and directed by Maura Delpero, is inspired by the story of Delpero’s grandparents, whose bucolic existence as a family of 10 was disrupted in the 1940s by a young Sicilian deserter romancing one of their daughters. The film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival in September, and is Italy’s submission to the list of contenders for the Academy Award for best foreign language film.Watching the movie feels like watching life itself: A succession of rustic tableaux — cow milkings, family meals, classroom lessons — are interspersed with moments of high drama that are filmed in the same slow-paced, naturalistic way, without fanfare.Delpero with the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, which the film won at the Venice Film Festival in September.Louisa Gouliamaki/ReutersIn a recent video interview, Delpero, 49, who splits her time between Italy and Argentina, spoke about life behind the camera and the future of cinema. The conversation, translated from Italian, has been edited and condensed.This movie was sparked by the death of your father in August 2019. He was one of the eight surviving children of your grandfather, the Vermiglio village schoolteacher. Can you talk about that?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      European Directors Sometimes Get Lost in Translation When Going Hollywood

      by

      The history of European directors “going Hollywood” and making the leap to English-language filmmaking is long and uneven.When Pedro Almodóvar’s “The Room Next Door” won the Golden Lion for best film at this year’s Venice Film Festival, it was the first time that the Spanish director had garnered the top prize at one of Europe’s major film festivals. What made this victory even more impressive and unusual was the fact that “The Room Next Door” was Almodóvar’s first full-length film in English.For a leading auteur of contemporary cinema, and one whose work is so bound up with the textures of his native tongue, Almodóvar’s late-career shift to English-language filmmaking feels daring. If the film’s reception at Venice is any indication, it appears that the gamble has paid off and that he has succeeded where many others have failed.Almodóvar, 75, is only the latest in a long line of European directors to make the leap to English-language filmmaking. The history of such transitions is uneven, and ranges from the Golden Age Hollywood classics of the Austrian-born Billy Wilder to infamous missteps by Ingmar Bergman and François Truffaut.The Hungarian filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo said that both working in English and directing Hollywood stars presents European directors with a unique set of hurdles. “It was a huge challenge to understand the cultural differences and not to create something which is symbolically, say, sinking into the Atlantic Ocean,” he said, recalling the making of his English-language debut, “Pieces of a Woman,” in a recent phone interview.“There are so many movies like that,” added Mundruczo, who finished shooting “At the Sea,” his new film starring Amy Adams, in Boston this August.Kornel Mundruczo, center, on set with Ellen Burstyn, left, and Vanessa Kirby in 2020, making “Pieces of a Woman.” Mundruczo, a Hungarian filmmaker, has found creative opportunities working in English.Philippe Bosse/Netflix, via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Timothée Chalamet Sings Live for the Bob Dylan Biopic, ‘A Complete Unknown’

      by

      The actor’s vocals so impressed the film’s director that he used the live recordings, instead of those prerecorded in a studio. Here’s a look at other actors who have hit their own high notes in musical biopics.In one trailer for the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown,” a fan pleads with the musician, played by Timothée Chalamet, saying that she can’t hear the music at his sold-out concert.Chalamet, his eyes hidden behind Dylan’s trademark Ray Ban sunglasses, his hair a frizzy mop, responds: “I’ll sing louder.”Biopics have often relied on creative license to portray a star, but Chalamet’s words are not just blowin’ in the wind. The songs in “Unknown,” directed by James Mangold, have resonated through generations, and Chalamet’s voice was so impressive that his live vocals — sung while performing in character — were kept for the final cut.That is not the industry standard. Some films use an original artist’s track while an actor lip-syncs. When actors in biopics do sing, it is common for them to record the vocals in a studio and then overdub them onscreen. Singing live on camera can leave a performance falling flat, especially if the actor is not a trained vocalist.But when done well, live vocals can add a touch of realism.“The idea was to get a little bit different sound in each different venue by using practical microphones from the period,” Tod Maitland, the sound mixer for “Unknown,” said in an interview with Variety this month. “That helped create a nice tapestry of sounds. But Timmy went 100 percent live. It was pretty amazing.”It’s not Chalamet’s first time at the mic — he sang in the 2023 film “Wonka,” and attended LaGuardia High School, a performing arts school in New York City.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      What ‘Wicked’ Has to Say About Our Current Political Moment

      by

      By breaking the story into two movies, the emphasis in “Part One” shifts to a nation’s potential decline into authoritarianism. Sound familiar?In the big-screen adaptation of “Wicked,” Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) uses magic to defend her sister and unwittingly destroys a courtyard mural of the Wizard at Shiz University. When her outburst shatters the wall, it also unearths an image that has been intentionally covered up: the school’s original founders, animal professors whose ability to speak, teach humans, and organize politically posed a threat to the Wizard’s autocratic reign.This surprising fact is revealed early on, but as I watched it, I realized Elphaba’s discovery came too late.As a repeat viewer of Broadway’s “Wicked,” I’m usually fascinated by how the story’s retrospective lens encourages us to sympathize with Elphaba, who eventually will become the Wicked Witch of the West. Her rich back story — she’s a perennial outsider and highly empathetic person — has forced me to rethink my assumptions about her and reflect on how easily I accepted L. Frank Baum’s own prejudices and his representation of her as a one-dimensional villain in his novel, “The Wizard of Oz.”But, unlike the stage version, which tracks Elphaba as a young adult to her fateful encounter with Dorothy, the movie delves even more into Elphaba’s biography. It follows her to Shiz University, where she ends up rooming with her frenemy, Galinda, later renamed Glinda (Ariana Grande), whose jealousy of Elphaba’s magical powers leads to conflict. The film ends at the characters’ climactic midpoints. “If Part One is about choices,” the director, Jon M. Chu, recently told Entertainment Weekly, “Part Two is about consequences.”But for now that also means the story remains unresolved. At the end of the Broadway version, there’s relief in the surprise ending when we learn that the Wicked Witch was far kinder than we gave her credit for and that she successfully challenged the Wizard’s dominance.Instead, onscreen, Elphaba is left suspended in midair (on her broom), made a scapegoat by the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) as the Shiz professor Madam Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), falsely warns the people of Oz about an enemy who must be captured. Madam Morrible goes even further, blasting on the loudspeaker, “Her green skin is but an outward manifestorium of her twisted nature. This distortion! This repulsion! This wicked witch!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Movies

      Children’s Movies to Stream Now: ‘That Christmas,’ ‘Transformers One’ and More

      by

      This month’s picks include a sequel to a 1980s Tim Burton classic and an animated tale of a Christmas nearly gone wrong.‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’Stream it on Max.One of the joys of parenthood is introducing your child to classic films that you once loved. It thrills me that my 7-year-old son adores “E.T.” and the original “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” films. Watching him mimic the “Banana Boat (Day-O)” dance in Tim Burton’s 1988 goth horror comedy “Beetlejuice” has been one of the highlights of my year. For older children that love scary-ish movies, Burton’s long-awaited follow-up film is a kooky medley of wacky scares and outrageous scenarios. Winona Ryder returns as a grown-up Lydia. She’s now a widow who hosts a ghost show on TV, and her goth teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), is every bit as brooding as her mother was at her age.Justin Theroux plays Lydia’s smarmy boyfriend, Rory, and Monica Bellucci is Beetlejuice’s (dead) ex-wife, Delores. Michael Keaton masterfully yuks it up again as the titular character, and Catherine O’Hara returns as the pompous artist Delia. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar wrote the script (Seth Grahame-Smith shares story credit). If your children delight in dark tales and don’t mind shrunken heads and some campy gore, this one’s worth a watch.‘That Christmas’Stream it on Netflix.Brian Cox sheds any evidence his tyrannical “Succession” character, Logan Roy, to voice none other than Santa Claus in this animated tale of a Christmas gone (almost) wrong. Based on a children’s book series written by Richard Curtis (yes, the one who wrote “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill” and “Love Actually”), the plot involves intertwining stories about loneliness and the importance of family and friends — Curtis’s sweet spot.Here we meet Danny (Jack Wisniewski), a new kid in the small fictional seaside town of Wellington-on-Sea. His newly divorced mother (Jodie Whittaker, “Doctor Who”) gets called in to work on Christmas, leaving Danny alone as a blizzard blows into town and strands a bunch of parents so they can’t get to their children’s Christmas pageant. Fiona Shaw (“Killing Eve”) voices the strict Ms. Trapper, who tries to keep the youngsters in line as the town goes haywire, and in a nod to “Love Actually,” Bill Nighy teams back up with Curtis here to voice a character named Lighthouse Bill.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More