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    ‘Drive-Away Dolls’ Review: A Mirthless Joyride

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    Directing without his brother, Ethan Coen brings the usual mix of highbrow references and petty crimes, but this road movie just stalls out.The title of Ethan Coen’s leaden romp “Drive-Away Dolls” summons up the vulgar excesses of old-school exploitation cinema, with its horrors and pleasures, carnage and flesh. If only! The promising setup involves two friends — the dreary duo of Margaret Qualley as Jamie and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian — who, during a 1999 road trip from Philadelphia to Florida, come into possession of a briefcase wanted by some bad, violent men. There will be blood, yup, if not enough to obscure the inert staging, D.O.A. jokes and wooden performances.This is the most recent movie that Ethan Coen has made without his brother, Joel, his longtime collaborator. (Ethan also made the 2022 documentary “Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind.”) To a degree, “Drive-Away Dolls” seems of a piece with the Coens’ practice of playing with story forms (film genres and otherwise), which they have consistently satirized, upended and all but gutted. Mixing the ostensibly high with the putatively low, they sample and riff on populist and rarefied sources, the spiritual and the material. This can create a fascinating doubling in the sense that there’s the movie in front of you and its layered references, all of which can flow together when they don’t congeal, which alas happens here.Written by Coen and his wife, Tricia Cooke, “Drive-Away Dolls” opens on an old-style neon bar sign spelling out the word “Cicero,” immediately suggesting that you’re in familiar Coen territory. This nod to the philosopher puts you on alert, but it also feels like bait for those aficionados eager to sift through signs and meanings (which can be a self-flattering exercise for filmmakers and for viewers). Soon enough, the camera is prowling inside the bar where a panicked-looking man (Pedro Pascal as the Collector) sits in a booth clutching a briefcase to his body. After exchanging words with a curiously hostile waiter, the Collector scurries down a shadowy Chandleresque mean street before taking a fatal turn into a nightmarish alley.This particular briefcase contains another of moviedom’s great whatsits, one of those mysteries that, like knowledge itself, some people have, others are desperate to obtain and still others eventually regret having. After some character introductions — enter Jamie, Marian et. al. — and pro forma scene-setting, the movie gets down to business and the briefcase changes hands. For reasons that make sense mostly as a screenwriting contrivance, the two friends secure a car from a guy named Curlie (Bill Camp) and hit the road, with plans to visit Marian’s aunt in Tallahassee. There’s some sweet, sticky stuff, too: Jamie, who has broken up with her girlfriend, a tough cop named Sukie (Beanie Feldstein), thinks Marian needs to get laid. Marian does too, so there are more bars in their future.The women’s journey proves eventful; yet while they rack up both miles and conquests, and despite some flashy editing, “Drive-Away Dolls” remains inert. After their car blows a tire, Jamie and Marian find the briefcase in the trunk along with a hatbox. The two cases contain clues — by turns grisly and notionally amusing — which fit into a larger story that incorporates enough dildos to secure the movie its R rating; nods to Henry James; a dog named after Alice B. Toklas; and assorted attractions, including a family-values politician (Matt Damon), a dapper gangland boss (Colman Domingo as the Chief) and a couple of quarrelsome cartoon minions (Joey Slotnick and C.J. Wilson as the Chief’s Goons).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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      Sundance Film Festival: ‘Freaky Nights’ Is the Hot Ticket

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      “Freaky Tales” with Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis and Normani, gets a raucous premiere as Hollywood turns out in force for the festival.Hello from the Sundance Film Festival in frigid Park City, Utah, where your faithful Projectionist will spend the next week answering important questions like: Are we about to discover the next great filmmaker? Is it possible to look chic in a puffer jacket? And wait, there’s a Neon party tonight? Why didn’t I get an invite?The festival is celebrating its 40th edition this year, but it’s a Hollywood 40, meaning some effective nips and tucks have kept Sundance seeming fresh and vital even as the industry it’s a part of has changed considerably. In the ’90s, every independent filmmaker dreamed of launching their career at this festival as the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh had. Now, with the independent-film market in a precarious position, talent comes to Sundance to schmooze and say, “What I’d really like to do is make a limited series.”And hey, the festival programs those now, alongside the documentaries, shorts and narrative films that remain Sundance’s bread and butter. Some movies have premises so outrageous that you could only find them here: In “Love Me,” Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun play a buoy and satellite who fall in love, while “Sasquatch Sunset” casts Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough as an unrecognizable pair of Bigfoots and, I’m told, plays things utterly straight.Other movies evoke past Sundance classics. On Thursday, I watched “Ghostlight,” about a troubled family that finds solace by staging Shakespeare: It reminded me of the Sundance hit “CODA,” down to the third-act performance that had audiences weeping. Then I booked it to the documentary “Girls State,” a distaff sequel to Apple TV’s 2020 Sundance pickup “Boys State.” The new one follows hundreds of teenage girls as they try to craft a mock government.The opening night’s hottest ticket was “Freaky Tales,” a gonzo anthology starring Pedro Pascal, Jay Ellis and the pop singer Normani. Directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who’d previously brought their films “Half Nelson” and “Mississippi Grind” here, “Freaky Tales” follows four interconnected stories set in 1987 Oakland that all tend to climax in outrageously bloody scenes of revenge. Whenever the red stuff spurted, the audience hooted.Though Sundance has introduced a virtual portion to its festival that will be available next week, people remain eager to attend in person. Pascal, one of Hollywood’s most overbooked actors, made the briefest of trips to Park City just so he could attend the raucous “Freaky Tales” premiere. “Ghostlight” directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson were even more determined to make it to the festival: Though they were still shooting their film just three months ago, thanks to fleet work from their editors, the two were able to submit a first cut to Sundance in early November, just four days after they’d wrapped.It helped, O’Sullivan said, that she had another ticking clock that demanded quick work: She shot the film while eight months pregnant.“I said we had a hard out,” she joked at the premiere. More

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      Pedro Almodóvar Makes a Gay Western With Pedro Pascal and Ethan Hawke

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      In “Strange Way of Life,” the director’s short western, Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal play a lawman and a cowboy looking back on a passionate affair.The gunslinger in green locks eyes with the sheriff.“Don’t look at me like that,” says the sheriff, squinting.“How do you want me to look at you?” replies the gunslinger, flirting.It wouldn’t be a western without a fraught standoff, but when Pedro Almodóvar is behind the camera, the glances are even more loaded than the pistols. In “Strange Way of Life,” a new short film that will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal star as a lawman and a cowboy who reunite 25 years after having a passionate affair. But will their old magic be rekindled, or are both men concealing ulterior motives for the meeting?In many ways, the project is a swerve for Almodóvar: The 73-year-old auteur, typically known for Spanish-language movies about modern women living in beautiful apartments, has cast two English-speaking actors in a short that is set in the dusty Wild West. But Almodóvar, who was courted two decades ago to direct the gay western “Brokeback Mountain” and turned it down, sees his new project on a continuum with that 2005 film, which was ultimately directed by Ang Lee, who went on to win best director.“In ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ Jake Gyllenhaal’s character says to Heath Ledger’s character that they should go away and work on a ranch,” Almodóvar said on a video call. “Heath says, ‘What would two men do in the West, working on a ranch?’ In many ways, I feel my film gives answer to that.”Pedro Almodóvar, center, working with Hawke and Pascal on set. “In many ways, I feel my film gives answer to” a scene in “Brokeback Mountain,” the director said.Iglesias M/El Deseo and Sony Pictures ClassicsAlmodóvar wrote a few pages of the centerpiece scene three years ago, then put it out of his mind. “Sometimes I just write for the pleasure of writing,” he said. “I didn’t have any purpose for it.” But inspiration struck when Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director of the fashion label Saint Laurent, mentioned that he had just produced a short film for Gaspar Noé. Almodóvar remembered the sequence with the two pistoleros, added a scene-setting prologue and a guns-out aftermath, and offered Vaccarrello the screenplay for the 31-minute “Strange Way of Life.”“Of course, it could have become a feature-length film,” he said. “But I do think it was the perfect duration for the story I want to tell.” And after making the short film “The Human Voice” in 2020 with Tilda Swinton, Almodóvar hoped to continue casting English-speaking stars. “I never wanted to do it in Spanish,” Almodóvar said. “Even though we have our own western type, the spaghetti western, I wanted to make it a classic western.”Almodóvar soon reached out to Pascal, whose star was beginning to rise with the series “The Mandalorian” and “The Last of Us.” The 48-year-old actor was eager to sign on; he had watched his first Almodóvar film, “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (1988), with his family as a young teenager.“I remember it feeling like going to a new amusement park,” Pascal said in an email. “An entire world of color and play and a kind of naughty rebelión was introduced to my experience.”His co-star was just as gung-ho. “I felt really honored to be an American actor that was getting to work with him,” Hawke said by phone. “A lot of times when you’re making mainstream American movies, there’s this third entity in the room, which is you want the movie to sell — you just feel it from people behind the monitor. And what’s so wonderful about working with Almodóvar is that you feel there is nobody you need to make happy but Pedro Almodóvar.”The short went into production last summer in Almería, Spain, on the outdoor sets where Sergio Leone once shot his classic 1964-66 trilogy of spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood. “The passing of time, 50 years of it, had given authenticity to the place,” Almodóvar said. And in addition to producing the project, Vaccarello doubled as its costume designer, a crucial post on an Almodóvar film.The film was shot in Almería, Spain, on the same outdoor sets where Sergio Leone shot his Man With No Name trilogy.Iglesias M/El Deseo and Sony Pictures Classics“There’s some directors I’ve worked with who are wonderful directors, but they’re just not that interested in costume — it’s just, ‘Yeah, whatever you want to wear is fine,” Hawke said. “Whereas Almodóvar would spend weeks deciding what shade of green the wall is behind you or what color gray your jacket is and what fabric it’s made out of.”Though Almodóvar’s films are also notable for what happens when those clothes come off, “Strange Way of Life” is surprisingly discreet, fading to black when Hawke and Pascal move in for an embrace.“The sexual tension in my film happens around the gazes, so from the very beginning, I decided I wasn’t going to show the entirety of the sexual scene,” Almodóvar said. “They’re way more naked in the conversation they have after.”It’s that conversation that made Almodóvar want to shoot the film in the first place: After making “Pain and Glory” (2019), which starred Antonio Banderas as a thinly veiled version of his director, Almodóvar has found himself increasingly drawn to stories about middle-aged gay men looking back at their lives.“I do think this is partly a reflection of my own age, that I’ve decided to tell stories about older men,” Almodóvar said. “If I had written these stories when I was 25 years old, I probably would have written a story about two 25-year-old cowboys.”The shoot wasn’t easy, Hawke admitted: The production had to battle a record heat wave over 15 days in the desert, “and it’s very difficult to think about nuanced ideas when all your body wants to do is go to sleep or find some air conditioning,” he said. But as the project drew to a close, he was able to step back and take it all in.“All of a sudden I wrapped and realized that I was in the desert in Spain on an old Sergio Leone set, and Almodóvar was hugging me, thanking me, and I just thought about how much I love the movies and what a unique challenge this was and how much I keep wanting to hunt these kinds of experiences out,” Hawke said. “I felt somehow better for having done it, and I don’t know how to say it other than that.” More

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      Cannes Film Festival 2023 Lineup Includes Wes Anderson and Todd Haynes Movies

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      Over 50 movies will be screened at the event, including Johnny Depp’s first major film since a defamation trial and Martin Scorsese’s latest epic.Movies by Wes Anderson, Todd Haynes and Ken Loach will compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the event’s organizers announced during a news conference on Thursday.Also in the running for the festival’s top prize will be films by the returning winners Wim Wenders, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Nanni Moretti.But Martin Scorsese will not compete at the festival, which opens May 16 and runs through May 27. Instead, his eagerly anticipated movie “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and is about the murder of Osage Indians in 1920s Oklahoma, will appear out of competition. Thierry Frémaux, Cannes’s artistic director, said during Thursday’s news conference that the festival wanted “Killers of the Flower Moon” to play in competition, but Scorsese had turned him down.The Wes Anderson picture in competition is “Asteroid City,” about a space cadet convention that is interrupted by aliens; Todd Haynes will show “May December” a love story about a young man and his older employer, starring Julianne Moore.Ken Loach, whose movies focused on working-class life in Britain have twice won the Palme d’Or, will present “The Old Oak,” about Syrian refugees arriving in an economically depressed English mining town.A jury led by the Swedish director Ruben Ostlund will choose the winner. Ostlund won last year’s Palme d’Or for “Triangle of Sadness,” a satire of the international superrich; he also took the 2017 award for “The Square,” a sendup of the art world.Of the 19 titles in competition, five are directed by women, including the Cannes veterans Jessica Hausner and Alice Rohrwacher, and Ramata-Toulaye Sy, a French-Senegalese newcomer.Many of the highest profile titles at this year’s event will be shown out of competition. The festival will open with “Jeanne du Barry,” a period drama about a poor woman who becomes a lover of King Louis XV of France. It stars Johnny Depp in his first major role since he won a defamation trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.Other high-profile movies scheduled to premiere at Cannes’s 76th edition include “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” directed by James Mangold — the final movie in the Harrison Ford adventure series about a globe-trotting archaeology professor — and Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” the Spanish director’s second movie in English. Starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, that movie is a short western about a reunion between two hit men.Wim Wenders, the German director who won the 1984 Palme d’Or for “Paris, Texas,” has two films in the official selection. In the main competition, he will show “Perfect Days,” which Frémaux said was about a janitor in Japan who drives between jobs listening to rock music. Out of competition, Wenders will show a 3-D documentary about Anselm Kiefer, one of Germany’s most revered artists.Frémaux said that over 2,000 movies were submitted for the festival, although only 52 made Thursday’s selection. Of those, one other notable title is Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City,” about Amsterdam under the Nazis. Frémaux said that McQueen, the director of “12 Years a Slave” and “Widows,” had made a “very radical” film that was several hours long. But, Frémaux added, watching it, “you won’t fall asleep.” More

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      How Nicolas Cage Parodies Himself in ‘Massive Talent’

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      Tom Gormican, the director of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” narrates a sequence featuring the star and Pedro Pascal.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.Nicolas Cage gets his acting mojo back in this scene from the meta action comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.”Here, Cage, who plays the fictionalized version of himself named Nick Cage, is spending time with a superfan, Javi (Pedro Pascal). Javi has paid Nick to be his guest for his birthday. Reduced to taking such gigs instead of parts in major Hollywood movies, Nick has reached a low point in his career and has decided to give up acting. But Javi won’t allow that, creating a performance exercise with Nick that forces him to showcase his craft.Discussing the sequence, Gormican said that Pascal had a lot of weight on his shoulders. “He had to act like a bad actor as the character,” he said, “but not bad enough that it would yank you out of the scene.” For his part, Cage delved into his screen history to deliver dual levels of self-parody, including a tongue-in-cheek line from “Con Air.”At the scene’s end, the two characters leap from an 85-foot cliff, a moment that Gormican accomplished with two stunt performers who did the leap twice while five cameras were rolling to capture it.Read the “Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ Review: Being Nicolas Cage

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      Nicolas Cage plays Nick Cage — maybe, kind of, not really — in a comically romantic, buddy-movie thriller that is also an ode to him in all his Caginess.Those eyes, that hair, those choppers and, oh, that purring, whining adenoidal voice, which can change pitch and intensity midsentence (midword!) and often seems a bit stuffed up. To know or, anyway, to watch Nicolas Cage is to love him and sometimes also be confused by him (which is A-OK). He can be a joy and a conundrum, startling and remarkable, but also fantastically, gloriously untethered. Who is this? you sometimes wonder, agog. What is this?In his latest, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Cage fidgets and swaggers and smiles so broadly he looks ready to swallow the screen whole. He charms and alarms, jumps off a cliff and, drink in hand, walks straight into a swimming pool without breaking stride. (Holding onto the bottle, he sinks and then he drinks.) What’s it about? Does it matter? Does it ever? It’s another Nicolas Cage joint, a romp, a showcase, an eager-to-please ode to him in all his sui generis Caginess. That’s the idea, at any rate. Mostly, though, it is a single joke sustained for 106 minutes, amid many rapid tone shifts, mood swings and set changes.It’s a pretty good joke: Cage plays himself, or rather a variation on a star also named Nick Cage. Wrung out, inching toward bankruptcy, proud yet humbled, and yearning for a role that’s worthy of his self-regard, this avatar looks and sounds like the real deal. Certainly, he resembles the star who, since swiveling heads with “Valley Girl” and Uncle Francis’ “Rumble Fish” back in 1983, has made films both sublime and forgettable, married repeatedly (Elvis’s daughter!), won an Oscar (“Leaving Las Vegas”), whipped up vats of tabloid slobber and accrued a cult following that will giggle at this movie’s every reverent allusion: Not the bees.Nicolas Cage: Hollywood’s Greatest SurrealistFrom bleak dramas and Hollywood blockbusters to quiet character studies and psychedelic horrors, the mercurial actor has made over 100 films.His New Movie: In “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Nicolas Cage plays “himself” — in all his meme-ified glory.Interview: In a conversation with our Talk columnist, the actor discussed his philosophy of acting and his search for the Holy Grail.First Leading Role: The 1983 movie “Valley Girl” started as a cheap exploitation film but managed to become a star vehicle for Cage.Anatomy of a Scene: The director David Gordon Green breaks down a scene from the 2013 film “Joe” in which Cage used a real venomous snake as a prop.There’s a story, way too much of one, crammed into an overstuffed, self-reflexive entertainment that soon finds Cage flying abroad. Paired with a second banana (an amped Pedro Pascal), he embarks on an adventure that — in its vibe, beats and banality — is closer to “National Treasure” than David Lynch’s cold, cruel “Wild at Heart.” There’s also an ex (Sharon Horgan) and a daughter (Lily Sheen), who pop in and out and seem to have been written in because: a) producers know they now need more than one woman in the cast; and b) they want to prove, à la US Weekly, that celebrities are just like us, except for the private jets.“Massive Talent” finds its mojo once Cage and Pascal team up and start trading quips, dodging obstacles and vamping for the audience. It’s very Hope and Crosby loosey-goosey, though sometimes it’s more blotto Snoop and Martha. Cage and Pascal bounce off each other nicely, with Pascal playing the wall to Cage’s ricocheting ball. Tiffany Haddish and Ike Barinholtz show up as spies who dragoon Cage into a covert operation that allows the filmmakers to shift to more commercial terrain and bring out the heavy artillery. That partly explains all the love here for John Woo’s ballistic, balletic “Face/Off,” even if someone forgot the doves.The director Tom Gormican, who wrote the script with Kevin Etten, gets the job done, churning the nonsense. There are no surprises other than the movie is watchable and amusing, though it’s too bad Gormican didn’t let Cage and Pascal just go with the absurdist, shambolic flow. Cage doesn’t need a reason for you to watch him, least of all good material. He’s Nicolas Cage, master of his own universe, maker of strange poetry, breaker of hearts. He can eat a roach, love a pig and inhabit a movie so profoundly that its quality is superfluous. “He’s up there in the air,” Pauline Kael wrote in a review of his freak-fest “Vampire’s Kiss,” “it’s a little dizzying — you’re not quite sure you understand what’s going on.” Amen to that.The Unbearable Weight of Massive TalentRated R for language and gun violence. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Bubble’ Review: Swabs, Camera, Action

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      Judd Apatow’s new film is a comedy about actors trying to make a dinosaur movie during the pandemic that plays more like a documentary of actors trying to make a Covid comedy.“The safest place in the world right now is a film set,” an agent (Rob Delaney) tells his actress client Carol (Karen Gillan) to encourage her to join the quarantined production of “Cliff Beasts 6.” “The Bubble,” a new comedy from Judd Apatow, tells the story of how the stars of this apparently long-running dinosaur franchise spent their pandemic while doubling as a sort of documentary about how Apatow, who wrote the screenplay with Pam Brady, spent his.Carol, who skipped “Cliff Beasts 5” and stretched herself by playing a half-Israeli, half-Palestinian space-alien fighter, is being edged out as the series’ youth appeal by a TikTok sensation (Iris Apatow). Their fellow stars and bubble occupants include Keegan-Michael Key as an actor trying to build a lifestyle brand, Leslie Mann and David Duchovny as ex-spouses who can’t keep their hands off each other and Pedro Pascal as a drugged-out playboy with designs on a hotel employee (an underused Maria Bakalova, from the “Borat” sequel).Ask those real-life actors (and these characters) to work together under strict Covid protocols, and it would be hard not to get some laughs. Gillan’s escalating exasperation is especially funny.But elements that have the potential to become running gags — the prospect of forced re-isolation when a crew member tests positive, a rash not of Covid but of the flu, a mysterious security chief (Ross Lee) who uses violence to prevent escapes — either languish or are dropped, as if Apatow simply cut together what he felt were inspired improvisations without regard for flow (or the uncharacteristically cheap-looking visuals). And the Hollywood satire, with Fred Armisen as the Home Depot employee turned Sundance darling hired to direct “Cliff Beasts 6,” is not just safe. It’s airless.The BubbleRated R. Drugs, sex, violence — life on a film set. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More