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      ‘Nutcrackers’ Review: A Bumpy Ben Stiller Christmas

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      Ben Stiller stars in a tonally bumpy comedy with genre roots in Hallmark territory.If you tilt your head and squint, “Nutcrackers” resembles a Hallmark movie, though it certainly is not one. Michael (Ben Stiller), a big-city real estate guy, is on the verge of closing the deal of a lifetime when he’s called away from Chicago to rural Ohio. There, his estranged sister and her husband have died tragically, leaving behind four feral nephews to whom he is now technically guardian. He intends to stay just long enough to get them placed in foster homes, but mischief of all kinds ensues. Also, Christmas is in three weeks. You can see where this is going.The best part of “Nutcrackers,” directed by David Gordon Green, is those four kids, whose easy demeanor with one another makes them feel less like child actors, more like a pack of little hooligans who happened to wander onto set. They come by it naturally, presumably, since in real life, they’re brothers (delightfully named Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo Janson). The movie’s most clever line readings and funniest bits are all them, and I’d love to know how much they improvised and deviated from the screenplay.That screenplay, by Leland Douglas, lacks imagination. It’s a mash-up of the often feminine-coded Hallmark formula and its closest variants are “Garden State” or “Elizabethtown,” in which a world-weary guy finds himself in small town life. So two minutes into the movie, it’s obvious what will happen: This mean metropolitan man will come to grudgingly enjoy, then love, both his nephews and small-town life; a lady will happen along (in this case, the social worker, played by Linda Cardellini); and probably they’ll figure out how to save Christmas or enjoy its true meaning or whatever. The pattern is set in stone, seemingly since the dawn of time.There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a formula, especially one that has been so richly successful and beloved as the Hallmark one. Clearly the idea of the urbanite who can only regain their soul away from the hustle and bustle taps into some vein of desire or anxiety in audiences. It’s what makes the movies comfort viewing: You always know what will happen, and they make you feel like the world is a safe and good place.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Queer’ Review: The Seductive, Damaged Charm of Daniel Craig

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      The star kills off his Bond to inhabit a dissolute American expat in Luca Guadagnino’s handsome adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella.When William Lee stalks through Mexico City in “Queer,” he often seems on high alert, though sometimes he’s just high. The louche protagonist in Luca Guadagnino’s soft-serve adaptation of the William S. Burroughs autobiographical novella, Lee is a smoker, drinker, heroin addict and epic storyteller. He’s a refugee from America who at times seems like a visitor from another dimension. Played with sensitivity and predatory heat by Daniel Craig, Lee has a feverish mind, eyes like searchlights and a mouth that’s quick to sneer. There are moments when he seems possessed, though it’s not often clear what’s taken hold of his soul.As in the book, the movie follows Lee during an adventure that takes him from Mexico circa 1950 further south — to Panama, Ecuador and parts distinctly unknown — only to bring him back to where he began or thereabouts. The novella runs a scant 160 or so pages, and while it’s crammed with incisive details, characters and observations, the story is fairly compressed and, for the most part, focuses on Lee’s preoccupation with another American, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a tall, good-looking veteran. Lee first sees him gawking at a street cockfight, a distinctly Guadagnino take on what romantic stories call the meet cute.It’s rapture at first sight, at least for Lee, who’s soon chasing Allerton across the city. The younger man coyly, coolly, keeps Lee at a distance until they fall into bed. Guadagnino stages and shoots their encounter with discreet intimacy and pretty lighting, imbuing it with longing. This sensitivity may seem surprising given the outrageous visions, including a talking anus, that fill Burroughs’s most famous novel, the phantasmagoric “Naked Lunch” (1959). Yet desire suffuses his “Queer,” which he began writing in 1952, some six months after he fatally shot his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a horrifying, calamitously drunken game of William Tell.Burroughs remains best known as one of the coolest cats in the Beats; it was Jack Kerouac who suggested the title for “Queer.” Burroughs came from money, had a difficult past, sartorial flair, a hypnotically droning voice and a sinister aura. “He’s up there with the pope,” Patti Smith said. “Without Burroughs,” Lou Reed said, “modern lit would be a drama without a page, a sonnet without a song and a bone without gristle.” Burroughs, who died in 1997, and Kurt Cobain collaborated on a project, and Nirvana is featured on the soundtrack, suggesting Burroughs’s reach. He was a classic American figure: the nonconformist as cult.The most unconventional thing about the Lee in Guadagnino’s version of “Queer” is that he’s played by Craig, who, of course, is famous as the most recent James Bond. It’s understandable that Craig would seek out roles that put distance between him and Bond, a glossy cartoon of masculinity. It’s both startling and funny when, early in “Queer,” Lee enthusiastically claps a hand on the naked butt of an unnamed guy (Omar Apollo), a moment that Guadagnino presents in close-up so that the backside all but fills the screen, becoming a monumental landscape of desire. Craig isn’t just committing to this role; he is also throttling his Bond.Written by Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” “Queer” follows the novella fairly faithfully, though with customary and unexpected liberties. Lee pursues Allerton, and they become involved amid a blur of drinking, partying and talking. (Jason Schwartzman pops up as Joe, a lampoon of Allen Ginsberg that borders on the offensive.) In time, Lee and Eugene take off for South America to find what Lee calls yagé (the hallucinogen ayahuasca), a mystery drug with potential powers. The trip is by turns brutal and tender, and ends in a jungle where they meet an ayahuasca expert, Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville), and her husband (the filmmaker Lisandro Alonso), who fling open the doors of perception.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Watch Ariana Grande Swing From a Chandelier in ‘Wicked’

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      The director Jon M. Chu narrates the musical scene, also featuring Cynthia Erivo, where Grande performs the song “Popular.”In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.The song “Popular” from “Wicked” has secured a firm place in pop culture in the 21 years since the show opened on Broadway. So how to make the song fresh for the film adaptation?This was one of the major challenges for the film’s director, Jon M. Chu. His formula was a little practical effects, a little razzmatazz and a whole lot of Ariana Grande.The scene has Glinda (Grande) working to improve the image and perception of her roommate, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). In the process, Glinda’s suitcases almost come to life as pop-up closets that she raids for her task.“In each of these devices,” Chu said in his narration, “even though they seem simple, there’s grown men in small spaces pulling it open and shutting it. And the engineering in each took months and months to design right.”The other element involves the timing of Grande’s singing, and the way she works the pink peignoir she’s wearing (designed by Paul Tazewell). She swings on a chandelier in it and slides across the wood floor in it as well, singing live on set throughout.“Ari is just a master of comedy,” Chu said. “You can see it in all her moves, and how she interacts when she acts with Cynthia Erivo. When you actually listen to it, too, her beats and her pauses are just masterful.”Read the “Wicked” review.Read a tearful interview with its stars.Read an interview with the director.Read about the costume design.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      How ‘September 5’ Recreates a Historic News Broadcast

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      The drama chronicles the 1972 Munich Olympics attack from ABC Sports’ point of view, a perspective that resonates today. But the film arrives at a fraught time.“They’re all gone.”When the sports broadcaster Jim McKay announced the deaths of 11 Israeli Olympic team members taken hostage by the Palestinian militant group Black September at the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, it was a sentence freighted with emotion and instantly became a part of broadcast history.In the new film “September 5,” there is no actor playing McKay, who instead “plays” himself through archival footage woven throughout the drama, which focuses almost entirely on the ABC Sports control room as it retells the saga that unfolded that day.As the dramatized ABC Sports team pivots from the Olympics to breaking news, the real footage unspools on actual monitors from the era: “September 5” features a painstakingly recreated control room with 1970s technology restored to working order.The broadcasters weren’t the focus when the director, Tim Fehlbaum, and his team started their research in 2020, poring over police files and archival collections. But the ethical issues remain, more than half a century later. Fehlbaum said getting the details right was important.“The technology obviously has changed,” he said. “Maybe the bigger questions are still the same.”The 1972 Olympics have been covered multiple times on the big screen before, in movies like Steven Spielberg’s “Munich” (2005) and the documentary “One Day in September” (2000). The episode had long intrigued Fehlbaum, a Swiss director who went to film school in Munich and worked on many student films shot at the former Olympic Village.But it was only after talking to people who were in Munich at the time that they found their protagonist in Geoffrey Mason. In 1972 he was a young producer for ABC Sports thrust into a position of responsibility shortly after hearing gunshots in the distance. Mason had to weigh guidance from his superiors — the “Wide World of Sports” creator Roone Arledge (played by Peter Sarsgaard) and the longtime producer Marvin Bader (Ben Chaplin) — and quickly come up with answers to difficult ethical questions like how to respond to potential graphic violence on a live broadcast watched by millions.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Thanksgiving Streaming Recommendations for Every Mood

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      Whether you’re with hanging out with children or adults, want to laugh or tuck into an adventure, here are some specific selections to stream.“What do you all want to watch?”This question has torpedoed many get-togethers, leaving the poor soul wielding the remote at a Thanksgiving gathering to search and scroll through seemingly infinite streaming options until everyone is cross-eyed and over it. Let’s skip that part, shall we? Here are a handful of picks that might fit the bill for some common holiday dynamics.Family Friendly, but Not CornyAlex Honnold climbs El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. His feat was captured in the 2018 documentary “Free Solo.”Jimmy Chin/National GeographicDocumentary with the little ones: “Tiger” (Disney+)There is no shortage of stunning nature documentaries, but this 2024 Disneynature film from the director Mark Linfield (“Planet Earth”) goes beyond the usual script to tell a poignant family tale. Narrated by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and filmed over the course of 1,500 days, we follow a tigress named Ambar in the forests of India as she protects her cubs from predators and adverse weather while on a perpetual quest to feed them and herself.Documentary with the teenagers: “Free Solo” (Disney+)This 2018 film that follows Alex Honnold on his free solo ascent of El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, won the Oscar for best documentary for good reason. Not only will his feat shake your understanding of what is humanly possible, but how it was captured on film (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin directed) is just as gripping. Watch this on the biggest television you have. It’s worth it.Feature with the little ones: “Elemental” (Disney+)If you’ve already seen “Inside Out 2,” try this 2023 Pixar comedy set in Element City, where characters are divided into four strata: water, earth, air and fire, all magnificently rendered, creating a dazzling animated experience. The plot looks thoughtfully at family ties while telling a story of cross-cultural romantic love and self-actualization.Feature with the teenagers: “Spirited Away” (Max)It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 25 years since the release of this now revered Oscar-winning fantasy anime from the celebrated Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. It re-entered the zeitgeist this year with Billie Eilish’s track “Chihiro,” named after the film’s main character, a girl who slips into another realm, where she becomes trapped. The hand-drawn animation is transporting, and the coming-of-age themes will open the door for some deeper reflection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ Review: When the World Is a Prison

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      Mohammad Rasoulof’s powerful drama about the authoritarian Iranian government breaks a fourth wall, with consequences.The ubiquity of smartphones capable of filming anything, anywhere, has been a blessing and a curse to autocratic governments. On the one hand, protests and nascent revolutions can be filmed and broadcast, seen around the world, making the authoritarian’s attempt to quash dissent much more onerous.But there’s a shadow side. Autocrats can compel obedience by means of overt force, but it’s much more canny — and more insidious — to turn everyone into individual agents of surveillance. Thinking your office might be wiretapped is bad enough, but knowing whatever you do might be filmed by your snitch neighbor, or sibling, is a powerful motivator to fall into line even in the private sphere. And those phones? They’re perfect little monitoring machines.This possibility is a basic fact of 21st-century life, and Mohammad Rasoulof makes powerful use of it in his drama “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Titles before the film begins announce that it was made in secret, because “when there is no way, a way must be made.” In the past, Rasoulof’s films have resulted in travel bans and prison sentences in his native country of Iran, where he’s run afoul of strict censorship laws. When “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” was announced as a selection at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the Iranian government interrogated the cast and crew, subjecting them to travel bans. On May 8, less than a week before the start of the festival, Rasoulof was sentenced to flogging and eight years in prison. He and several of the film’s crew fled their country for Europe, and he remains in exile.It’s not hard to see why the film seemed so dangerous. It puts a frame around inconvenient truths. The main drama concerns a family of four: Iman (Missagh Zareh), his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), and their two daughters, 21-year-old Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and her teenage sister, Sana (Setareh Maleki). Iman has recently been made an investigating judge in Tehran’s revolutionary court, a position of prestige, and Najmeh is overjoyed. Iman aspires to do his job justly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Moana 2’ Review: It Doesn’t Rock the Boat

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      In this benign sequel, the Disney princess continues her seafaring ways and remains admirably uninterested in finding a prince.“Moana,” Disney’s breezy foray into Polynesian myth and culture, was released almost exactly eight years ago. Anyone remember what was going on that month? Amid an election, a reckoning and political anxiety, Moana’s anthems about voyaging beyond the confines of her coral reef (the tropical version of a glass ceiling) to save her people from environmental disaster rang out with special feeling.That resonance doesn’t really carry over into “Moana 2,” a sequel that seems to abide by the “if it ain’t broke” rule. Directed by David G. Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller, the movie charts a parallel course to its predecessor, following Moana (voiced by Auliʻi Cravalho) as she leaves home on an odyssey with her island’s future at stake. Along the way, she meets up with Maui (Dwayne Johnson), the burly, smug demigod still prone to jaunty jibes — he often calls Moana “Curly” — and corny metatextual commentary written, presumably, for the benefit of the millennial and Gen-X adults in the room. (“That’ll make sense in 2,000 years,” he quips, after using the term “butt dial.”)Coming off a successful restoration of the hydrosphere’s ecological balance, Moana, now a practiced voyager, begins the sequel by expressing an upgraded objective: establish contact with inhabitants of nearby islands. Soon enough, she receives a vision from her ancestors on the very topic, encouraging her to take an arduous journey across the ocean. Upon her dad’s urging, Moana assembles a small and somewhat haphazard way-finding crew, including a crotchety agriculturalist (David Fane), an excitable marine engineer (Rose Matafeo) and a muscled communications expert (Hualalai Chung). This jumble of new faces often feels like a waste of screen space, especially when the ocean, a wonderful animistic motif, is perfectly capable of buoying Moana on her travels.The group’s destination is Motufetu, an island that once served as a hub for disparate Pacific Islanders before Nalo, an evil storm god, sank it beneath the ocean. To bring back Motufetu and restore social harmony, humans need to find the land and step foot upon it. Onscreen, the details of this fabricated, composite mythology get a little murky. But squint your eyes against the specifics, and the odyssey tends to deliver a mood that fluctuates along a scale of benign to bright.The musical numbers, from Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear (picking up the reins from the original movie’s Lin-Manuel Miranda), as well as Opetaia Foa‘i and Mark Mancina, are competently written and arranged (save for one painful rap sequence). The big anthem is “Beyond,” a corollary to “How Far I’ll Go” that has Moana rehashing the pull to go out exploring, just a tad farther than last time. The song is a reminder that Moana is a member of the new and improved Disney kingdom, in which heroines reach happily ever after through personal growth, coming-of-age and finding themselves. Notably, and perhaps admirably, there remains no prince to Moana’s princess, although she does retain her animal sidekicks of rooster and pig.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