Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations in our new series, L.A. Times Concierge.
My 73-year-old mother is coming to visit from the East Coast. She recently had hip surgery and it’s painful for her to walk too far. She likes quirky experiences like sushi on conveyor belts. I live in Sawtelle. Other times she has come we have gone to the Getty Villa, a couple studio tours, live taping of “Jeopardy!” and a local ramen place. She likes places with a backstory. For example in Boulder, she wanted to drive past the house where JonBenétRamsey had lived because she is obsessed with true crime. One thing she did say she wanted to do was try to see “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — CJ Schellack
Here’s what we suggest:
First off, your mom sounds like a good time. And I agree with her: The best places to visit often have an interesting backstory. Let’s start with the food. Given that your mom likes sushi experiences, make a stop at Yama Sushi Marketplace, conveniently located in your neighborhood. The family-owned Japanese seafood shop sells restaurant-quality sushi at takeout prices, writes Tiffany Tse in our guide to Sawtelle. “Just point to what catches your eye, and the staff will slice it fresh, sashimi-style, right in front of you,” she adds. Or if you’d prefer to check out another revolving sushi spot, check out Kura, which has a Sawtelle location.
To satisfy your mom’s appetite for one-of-a-kind, quirky experiences, head to Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Highland Park. Yes, it’s a bit of a push from your hood — don’t go during rush hour — but it’s worth the trek, especially if you have a sweet tooth. The 100-year-old family-owned shop is stacked with aisles of rare sodas from around the globe, nostalgic candies and retro toys that its 82-year-old owner John Nese tells me “you can’t find anywhere else.” In the back of the shop, next to the make-your-own-soda station, there’s a deli stand that sells “blockbuster” sandwiches — a name that was inspired by boxing legend Rocky Marciano who, after tasting one, declared “This is a real blockbuster!” (Pro tip: If Nese is there when you visit — and the likelihood is high because he “practically lives there,” he says — be sure to ask him for a rec.)
Once you’ve secured your snacks, grab a picnic blanket or low chair and head over to Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch a movie — a favorite L.A. experience for many of my colleagues. Through Halloween, Cinespia is hosting movie nights at the cemetery where stars like Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Johnny Ramone are laid to rest. Films are projected onto a mausoleum wall and moviegoers sit on the lawn (an open area with no graves). There’s a designated wheelchair user and companion area with restrooms close by, and accessible parking is available with a placard (though you’ll still need to buy a parking pass in advance).
But if you think your mom would be more comfortable indoors, check out the Quentin Tarantino-owned New Beverly Cinema, known for screening double features of classic, indie, cult and foreign flicks the old-fashioned way — on 35mm film. As Michael Ordoña writes in our guide to the best movie theaters in Los Angeles, “the New Bev is just what a rep cinema should be. It’s cozy, with a mellow, enthusiastic vibe. Surprises sometimes occur.”
To tap into your mom’s inner true crime fascination, make a visit to some of L.A.’s darker landmarks. “I like to take friends visiting from the East Coast on a drive along the Sunset Strip to show them where famous people died, like Belushi at Chateau Marmont and River Phoenix outside the Viper Room,” senior audience editor Vanessa Franko tells me. (Bonus: You don’t even need to get out of your car.) But if you prefer an actual tour, visit the Greystone Mansion and Gardens, where oil heir and homeowner Ned Doheny and his secretary, Hugh Plunkett, were found dead in 1929. Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds recommends it, saying that at this destination, you get “a crime scene, filming location and L.A. oil history, all in one.” We’ve also curated a list of 12 iconic L.A. film and TV horror homes that’s worth checking out (the filming location for the WB series “Charmed” is featured in the photo illustration above). I hope that you and your very cool mom have the best time. Please send us pictures if you hit up any of these spots.
“We’ve been doing this for a while now,” laughs Channing Tatum, “and every once in a while a new thing comes out I haven’t heard.”
Tatum’s responding to the latest revelation of the press tour for his new film “Roofman”: Director Derek Cianfrance’s claim that he was the fastest checker in Walmart history. (“They gave you a raise if you got 18 rings a minute,” says Cianfrance. “I averaged 350.”)
The point, for Cianfrance, is that the characters at the heart of “Roofman” — good-hearted thief and unauthorized Toys “R” Us tenant Jeffrey Manchester (Tatum) and working mother Leigh (Kirsten Dunst) — are his kind of people.
And “Roofman,” which in its themes of personal responsibility, community and acceptance holds much in common with the work of Frank Capra, is his kind of film. The director behind the 1946 Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” loomed over Cianfrance’s film from the start. “As we were selling this movie, trying to get it financed, I was pitching it to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing is, ‘We don’t make those movies anymore.’”
Cianfrance always knew he wanted “Roofman” to be a Christmas movie, which often features characters rediscovering themselves in a small town and magical happenings like, as he says, “a fish shows up with wings.” Or, in this case, that Manchester — on the lam after escaping prison — ends up falling in love with Leigh and being embraced by her family and community.
Tatum as Jeffrey Manchester in “Roofman.”
(Davi Russo / Paramount Pictures)
“I love the populist filmmaker who’s making movies about regular people,” says Cianfrance. “You never feel like Capra’s ever judging people, or being snobby about the people he’s making movies about. He’s making movies about the people who go to the movies.” And while the film’s true-life tale is certainly stranger than fiction, Cianfrance avoided turning “Roofman” into Hollywood escapism. Instead, he says, he wanted to illustrate his respect for working people’s dreams and aspirations: “The thing that transformed it for me was when Leigh told me that Jeff was the greatest adventure of her life, and that she didn’t regret a thing.”
With that in mind, he urged the cast to live their characters’ suburban North Carolina lives. He encouraged actor Peter Dinklage, who plays the Toys “R” Us store manager, to actually manage the store. Dunst’s Leigh, a new hire, was given an actual job interview by Dinklage himself. “He would not give me an inch in that interview,” says Dunst. “I respect him so much as an actor, I think I was also just intimidated by him as well.”
Cianfrance calls the set “an aquarium for actors” — a place where, to pull another Christmas reference he drops, everyone was Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the island of misfit toys. Actors like Emory Cohen and Juno Temple expanded their characters beyond the page. Cohen, who plays bullied employee Otis, conjured up his character’s love for peanut M&M’s, while Temple, who plays the girlfriend of one of Manchester’s friends, saw her character as a hairdresser.
Even a scene where the Toys “R” Us is decorated for Thanksgiving gave Cianfrance and production designer Inbal Weinberg the opportunity to debate where to have Dunst place an inflatable turkey. “I was like, we’re gonna let the actors decide. Kirsten came to set. She got the turkey. And she started to decide where it went, and she put it where my production designer wanted it,” Cianfrance says. “And Peter Dinklage came out and was like, ‘No, the turkey goes here.’”
“As we were selling this movie, trying to get it financed, I was pitching it to everyone as a Capra movie and what I kept hearing is, ‘We don’t make those movies anymore,’’’ says “Roofman” director Derek Cianfrance.
(The Tyler Twins / For The Times)
Dunst had been wanting to work with the director since auditioning (unsuccessfully, the pair joke) for his 2016 feature “The Light Between Oceans.” “I would have done this movie without reading any script,” she says. “How he makes a set — he wants to capture all the nuance and the things that make us humans interesting.”
Tatum concurs. He knew immediately the role would challenge him as a performer. The actor had heard stories of how Cianfrance worked with performers to get authentic responses, like giving Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams — playing a married couple in 2010 drama “Blue Valentine” — contrasting information in scenes to heighten tension.
Dunst recalls a similar moment on “Roofman,” where Jeff scares Leigh by driving a car too fast with her and her daughters inside. “Derek held my arms and he was like, ‘Push against me as hard as you can,’” she says. “I did that and he held tight and then we went into the scene immediately after. It brought up emotions of being trapped and a feeling like everything was out of your control … but that really helped me a lot.”
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“I only told [Cianfrance] no one time,” says Tatum, “and that’s when he wanted me to sing.” That might surprise viewers considering Tatum has an extended nude sequence where Jeff tries to escape from Dinklage’s Mitch — the first time Dinklage and Tatum met, as it happens.
“[Derek] always jokes, ‘You read the script,’” says Tatum. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know I read the script. I just assumed you had a plan … a blocking plan.” The scene itself, which involved Tatum running through the toy store and leaping onto a small roof, took 15 takes to accomplish over almost eight hours. Tatum, Dunst and Cianfrance laugh about how the director broached the subject of keeping Tatum’s nudity tasteful. “He’s like, ‘You want me to blur it?’” says Tatum. “I’m like, ‘Don’t blur it. That’s even weirder.’”
As Dunst, Tatum and Cianfrance discuss the production, the conversation seems to be as much about the memories they made on set as the making of a film — which underscores Cianfrance’s approach to directing.
“I’ve always tried to make sure [the actors] have environments … so that they can have these accidents and surprises. Moments can happen one time that you can’t replicate, and they become the moment that you watch forever. They become immortalized because of that.”
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
This has turned into one of those weeks when there are just way too many movies opening. From titles that premiered earlier in the year, to films that popped up only recently, distributors have decided that today is the time to drop them in theaters. It can make for some tough calls as a moviegoer but hopefully ones with pleasant returns. Here’s some intel.
Mary Bronstein’s “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You” was a standout at Sundance in January and remains one of the most powerful films of the year. Rose Byrne gives a knockout performance as Linda, a mother struggling to hold onto her own unraveling sense of self as she cares for her ill daughter.
Rose Byrne in the movie “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.”
(Logan White / A24)
In his review Glenn Whipp said, “Linda makes dozens of bad decisions in ‘If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,’ many of them seemingly indefensible until you realize that just how utterly isolated she feels. … Bronstein demands you pay attention to her, and with Byrne diving headfirst into the character’s harrowing panic, you will find you have no other choice.”
Speaking to Esther Zuckerman for a wide-ranging feature, Byrne said of the part: “Anything dealing with motherhood and shame around motherhood, whether it’s disappointment, failure — she’s got this line in the movie, ‘I wasn’t meant to do this’ — these are pretty radical things to say. People aren’t comfortable with that. So performance-wise, that was the hardest part because it was like a tightrope, the tightrope of this woman.”
Another Sundance premiere hitting theaters this week is director Bill Condon’s adaptation of “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” starring Diego Luna, Tonatiuh and Jennifer Lopez. Already a novel, a movie and a Broadway show, the story involves two men imprisoned in an Argentine jail for political crimes during the 1980s, with Lopez playing a fantasy film star who exists in their imaginations — a reverie to which they can escape.
Tonatiuh in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
(Roadside Attractions)
For our fall preview, Carlos Aguilar spoke to Tonatiuh, a native of L.A.’s Boyle Heights, whose performance is a true breakout.
“When I first met Jennifer, I was like, ‘Oh, my God — that’s Jennifer Lopez. What the hell?’ ” he recalled, with the enthusiasm of a true fan. “I must have turned left on the wrong street because now I’m standing in front of her. How did this happen? What life am I living?”
After praising both Lopez and Tonatiuh in her review of the film, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Still, my favorite performance has to be Luna’s, whose Valentin is at once strong and vulnerable, like a mutt attempting to fend off a bear. He’s the only one who doesn’t need to prove he’s a great actor, yet he feels like a revelation. Watching him gradually turn tender sends tingles through your heartstrings.”
Robert De Niro, left, and Martin Scorsese in an undated photo from Rebecca Miller’s documentary series “Mr. Scorsese.”
(Apple TV+)
The American Cinematheque is celebrating filmmaker Rebecca Miller this weekend with a four-title retrospective plus a preview of her documentary series “Mr. Scorsese,” a five-part portrait of the life and career of Martin Scorsese.
Miller will introduce a Saturday screening of her 2023 rom-com “She Came to Me,” starring Anne Hathaway and Peter Dinklage, then do a Q&A for the first two episodes of the Scorsese project on Sunday. Also screening in the series will be 2016’s “Maggie’s Plan,” starring Julianne Moore, Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig; Miller’s 2002 Sundance grand jury prize winner “Personal Velocity”; and 2005’s “The Ballad of Jack and Rose,” starring Miller’s husband Daniel Day-Lewis, screening with an introduction from co-star Camilla Belle.
Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig in “Maggie’s Plan,” written and directed by Rebecca Miller.
(Sony Pictures Classics)
I spoke to Miller this week about the retrospective and her new Scorsese project, which premieres Oct. 17 on Apple TV+. Along with extensive interviews with Scorsese himself, the series includes insights from collaborators such as Robert De Niro, Paul Schrader and longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker as well as childhood friends, Scorsese’s children, ex-wives and fellow filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Ari Aster, Benny Safdie and Spike Lee.
“It feels like such an honor and so weird in a way,” said Miller of the notion of having a retrospective. “You feel like you’re just in the middle of making everything, but then you realize, no, I’ve been making these films for 30 years. And it’ll be really interesting to see how the films play now for people. It’s exciting to have them still be sort of alive.”
When you look back on your own movies, what comes to mind for you?
Funnily enough, there is a connection between “Personal Velocity” and Martin Scorsese, which is that when I was about to shoot personal “Velocity,” I was in Rome, on the set of “Gangs of New York,” and I was watching the snack trolley go by and thinking my entire budget is probably the same as their snack budget. And thinking: What am I doing? What was I thinking? How am I going to do this? But talking to [“Gangs” cinematographer] Michael Ballhaus, I told him how long we had to shoot everything, and he said, “Oh, I envy you. We shot ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant’ in 10 days.” He was looking back on his days with Fassbinder as the good old days.
Then Marty gave me some advice on films with voiceovers to watch, and he ended up watching “Personal Velocity.” It was the first of my films that he saw, which then led probably to this [doc series] because he knew my films quite well. He watched them as time went on.
What interested you in Scorsese as a subject?
I knew that he was Catholic, that there was a strong spiritual element to his films. But I was interested in how that Catholicism kind of jogged with his fascination, or apparent fascination, with violence. Who is that person? How do those two things go together? And I thought that could be part of my exploration. I had a sense that all his work has a spiritual undercurrent in it, which I think it does. And I think that’s one of the things that I try to explore in the documentary. I felt I had something a little bit different to offer, for that reason.
The big questions that he’s asking: Are we essentially good? Are we essentially evil? And his immense honesty with himself about who he really is, the darkness of his own soul. I don’t think that people are usually that honest with themselves. And you realize that part of his greatness has to do with his willingness to look at himself.
Martin Scorsese in an undated photo from Rebecca Miller’s documentary series “Mr. Scorsese.”
(Apple TV+)
As much as we think we know about Scorsese, he seemed so candid about some of the darkest moments of his life, especially when he talks about his drug overdose and hospitalization in the late 1970s or about some of his issues with Hollywood, especially around “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Were you ever surprised that he was so willing to go there with you?
Oh, yeah, I was. I really didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t have an agenda. I had the scaffolding of the films themselves and a strong sense that this was a man that you can’t separate from the films. So the thing is like a dance, it’s like a permanent tango between those two things. You’re not going to pry them apart. I didn’t know about the addiction. I didn’t know a lot of these things. My questions are totally genuine, there’s no manipulation. It’s all me. I was very prepared in terms of the films. But in terms of the chronology and the connective tissue of his life, I was really right there discovering it.
Martin Scorsese at work on his film “Killers of the Flower Moon,” as seen in Rebecca Miller’s documenary series “Mr. Scorsese.”
(Apple TV+)
You’re catching him such a remarkable point in his life and career. He seems very happy and settled in his personal life and yet he still makes something like “Killers of the Flower Moon,” full of passion and fire. What do you make of that?
[Screenwriter] Jay [Cocks] says he’s learned that he can be selfish in his art, but he doesn’t have to be selfish in his life. Even if your outside is regular, your inside can be boiling. And I think Marty’s inside is always going to be boiling. The seas are not calm in there and never will be.
‘They Live’ and ‘Josie and the Pussycats,’ together at last
Roddy Piper in John Carpenter’s 1988 thriller “They Live.”
(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis )
There’s a real art to putting together a double bill. Sure, you can just program movies that have the same director or share the same on-screen talent. But what about deep, thematic links that might not otherwise be noticed?
The New Beverly has put together an inspired double bill playing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of John Carpenter’s 1988 “They Live” and Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont’s 2001 “Josie and the Pussycats.” Though one is a rough-and-tumble sci-fi action picture and the other a satirical teen-pop fantasia, they both use the idea of subliminal messages to explore how consumer culture can be a means of control.
In “They Live,” wrestler-turned-actor “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays a drifter who lands in Los Angeles and discovers a secret network fighting against an invasion of aliens living among us.
In Michael Wilmington’s original review, after joking the movie could be called “Invasion of the Space Yuppies,” he adds, “You can forgive the movie everything because of the sheer nasty pizzazz of its central concept. … The movie daffily mixes up the paranoia of the Red Scare monster movies of the ’50’s with a different kind of nightmare: the radical’s belief that everything is tightly controlled by a small, malicious ruling elite. Everything — the flat lighting, the crazily protracted action scenes, the monolithic beat and vamp of the score — reinforces a mood of murderous persecution mania.”
Rosario Dawson, from left, Rachael Leigh Cook and Tara Reid in the movie “Josie and the Pussycats.”
(Joseph Lederer / Universal Studios)
In “Josie and the Pussycats,” a small-town rock ‘n’ roll band (Rachael Leigh Cook, Tara Reid and Rosario Dawson) are plucked from obscurity when they are signed to a major record label and all their dreams of stardom seem to come true. But they come to realize the company’s executives (a brilliant pairing of Parker Posey and Allan Cumming) are using them for their own nefarious purposes.
Aside from some very hummable songs, the film has a truly epic amount of corporate logos and branding that appears throughout. Many reviewers at the time brought this up, including the L.A. Times’ own Kenneth Turan, who noted, “It’s a potent reminder that no matter how innocent a film may seem, there’s a Hollywood cash register behind almost every frame.” In subsequent interviews, Kaplan and Elfont confirmed these were not instances of paid product placement and, in fact, the production had to fight to get them all on-screen.
Points of interest
‘Eight Men Out’ in 35mm
Charlie Sheen, center, in a scene from the film “Eight Men Out.”
(Archive Photos / Getty Images)
Writer-director John Sayles has been so consistently good for so long that it is easy to take his work for granted. Case in point: 1988’s “Eight Men Out,” which tells the story of the infamous “Black Sox” scandal, when players from the Chicago White Sox were accused of intentionally throwing the 1919 World Series in league with underworld gamblers. The movie is playing on Sunday at Vidiots in 35mm.
The film captures much of what makes Sayles so special, particularly his unique grasp of the interplay between social and economic dynamics — a sense of how things work and why. He also fully grasps the deeper implications of the forces of greed and money setting themselves upon such an unassailable symbol of wholesome Americana as baseball. It’s also what makes the movie particularly worth a revisit now. With a phenomenal cast that includes John Cusack, David Straithairn, D.B. Sweeney, Charlie Sheen, John Mahoney, Christopher Lloyd, Michael Lerner and Sayles himself, the film was a relatively early effort from cinematographer Robert Richardson, who would go on to work repeatedly with Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.
In a review at the time, Sheila Benson wrote, “ ‘Eight Men Out’ is not a bad movie for an election year. Everything that politicians cherish as ‘old-fashioned’ and ‘American’ is here. The Grand Old Game. Idealistic little kids. Straw hats and cat’s-whisker crystal sets. And under the slogans and the platitudes, a terrifying erosion and no one to answer for it. No wonder Sayles, hardly an unpolitical animal, found it such a relevant story nearly 70 years later.”
‘The Sound of Music’ in 70mm
Julie Andrews, center, in the 1965 musical “The Sound of Music.”
(20th Century-Fox)
On Sunday the Academy Museum will screen Robert Wise’s “The Sound of Music” in 70mm, a rare opportunity to see this classic in the premium format on which it was originally released. Based on the stage musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein , the film would eventually win five Oscars, including director and best picture.
Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, it’s the story of the singing Von Trapp family, eventually forced to flee their native Austria as the Nazis take power.
In a Times review from March 1965, Philip K. Scheuer wrote of Wise and his collaborators, “They have taken this sweet, sometimes saccharine and structurally slight story of the Von Trapp Family Singers and transformed it into close to three hours of visual and vocal broilliaance, all in the universal terms of cinema. They have invested it with new delights and even a sense of depth in human relationships — not to mention the swooning beauty of Salzburg and the Austrian Alps, which the stage, of course, could only suggest.”
Even notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper liked the movie, presciently writing, “The picture is superb — dramatically, musically, cinematically. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer were born for their roles. … All children — from 7 to 90 — wil love it. The following morning I woke up singing. Producer-director Bob Wise did a magnificent job and 20th [Century Fox] will hear nothing but the sound of money for years to come.”
Diane Keaton, the actor who made film history — and won an Oscar — as the title character in Woody Allen’s beloved 1977 romantic comedy “Annie Hall,” died Saturday. She was 79. Tributes poured in from those who worked with and admired Keaton, including Bette Midler, Kate Hudson, Steve Martin and Josh Gad.
Here are some notable social media posts:
For the record:
8:42 p.m. Oct. 11, 2025An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited films in which Diane Keaton co-starred with actors Kate Hudson, Rosie O’Donnell, Octavia Spencer and Elizabeth Banks. These actors did not co-star in the listed films with Keaton.
Bette Midler, the actor, singer and comedian who starred with Keaton and Goldie Hawn in the 1996 comedy “The First Wives Club,” about three divorced women who seek revenge on their ex-husbands: “The brilliant, beautiful, extraordinary Diane Keaton has died. I cannot tell you how unbearably sad this makes me. She was hilarious, a complete original, and completely without guile, or any of the competitiveness one would have expected from such a star. What you saw was who she was …oh, la, lala!”
Steve Martin, who co-starred as Keaton’s husband in the “Father of the Bride” films, reposted an exchange between Keaton and Martin Short:
Short: “Who’s sexier, me or Steve Martin?
Keaton: “I mean, you’re both idiots.”
Martin then commented on the post: “Don’t know who first posted this, but it sums up our delightful relationship with Diane.”
Josh Gad: “What a monumental loss. Diane Keaton in many ways defined my love of movies. From Annie Hall to the Godfather films, from First Wives Club to Baby Boom, from Father of the Bride to Something’s Gotta Give, here resume was nothing short of iconic and hall of fame worthy. I was very fortunate to work with her many years ago on an unproduced HBO pilot and what I found was one of the most humble, ruthlessly funny, and unbelievably talented human beings I’ve ever come across. In many ways, this year will be defined by the loss of a Hollywood we will never again see. There simply are no replacements for a Gene Hackman or a Robert Redford or a Diane Keaton. They were the mavericks who helped redefine movies for a generation. … My heart goes out to Diane’s entire family during this impossible moment. RIP”
Kimberly Williams-Paisley, the actor, author and director who played Keaton’s daughter in the “Father of the Bride” films: “Diane, working with you will always be one of the highlights of my life. You are one of a kind, and it was thrilling to be in your orbit for a time. Thank you for your kindness, your generosity, your talent, and above all, your laughter. 🙏🏻🕊️💔❤️❤️❤️”
Rosie O’Donnell: “oh this breaks my heart – love to her children- what style what grace – she will be missed #ripdianekeaton”
Octavia Spencer: “Today we lost a true original. @diane_keaton wasn’t just an actress: she was a force. a woman who showed us that being yourself is the most powerful thing you can be. From Annie Hall to Something’s Gotta Give, she made every role unforgettable. But beyond the screen, she brought joy, laughter, and style that was all her own… Thank you, Diane, for reminding us that authenticity never goes out of fashion.”
Elizabeth Banks: “She was beloved in her industry. Every one of us idolizes her. Her influence on culture, fashion, art and women can’t be overstated. She was a delight. I am proud I have a career that allowed me to meet her and breathe her air.”
Viola Davis: “No!! No!!! No!! God, not yet, NO!!! Man… you defined womanhood. The pathos, humor, levity, your ever-present youthfulness and vulnerability — you tattooed your SOUL into every role, making it impossible to imagine anyone else inhabiting them. You were undeniably, unapologetically YOU!!! Loved you. Man… rest well. God bless your family, and I know angels are flying you home”
“The Chair Company,” premiering Sunday on HBO, is a conspiracy comedy — dark comedy, one would definitely have to say — in which Tim Robinson goes down a rabbit hole, from one carrot to the next, after a chair collapses beneath him. It’s a thriller in its way; there will be suspense, and injuries, and a lot of screaming, mostly by the star.
Robinson, who co-created the series with Zach Kanin (who also co-created Robinson’s Netflix sketch show, “I Think You Should Leave”), is a difficult hero. His main shtick is the madman underneath a cracking veneer of civilization; physically, he projects a sort of eccentric normality, like a critique of normal. From the beginning of “The Chair Company,” we see that Robinson’s Ron Trosper is tense and nervous and can’t relax, getting into a argument with a waitress over what and what isn’t a mall — he’s been named to lead the development of a new one in Canton, Ohio. (The action all takes place in the state.)
A presentation he’d been dreading goes well, but as he sits back down, his chair — a standard office model — collapses under him, robbing him of a moment of triumph. What most would throw off with a joke sets Ron on edge, and he begins an obsessive quest to track down the manufacturer. But all he comes up with are dead ends and empty offices, and he begins to suspect a conspiracy. When, getting into his car, he’s hit on the head with a pipe and told to stop asking about the chair, it only makes him more determined to uncover it. Lurking, sneaking and stealing will ensue. Reckless behavior. Shouting.
Along with some standard office comedy involving HR reports and Ron’s “know it when I see it” boss (Lou Diamond Phillips, aging gracefully), there is a family element. Wife Barb (Lake Bell) is moving ahead with plans to develop a more attractive breast pump. Daughter Natalie (Sophia Lillis) is getting married to her girlfriend, and wants to change the venue at the last moment to a haunted house. Son Seth (Will Price), a basketball player apparently of enough talent to mention it in the series, has discovered the pleasures of drinking just as recruiters are coming around. It’s not a developed thread, but it gives Price the opportunity to deliver my favorite line in the series: “Some nights I’ll have like four beers and I’ll sit in my room and I’ll put on Abbott and Costello after I’ve had a couple; it makes me feel good to know that [these] two guys found each other because they both seem so different.” Which is a theme of the show.
The character who makes the series breathe is Mike Santini (Joseph Tudisco), the person wielding the pipe. Ron will track him down, and eventually they’ll become partners in his investigation and, after a fashion, friends. (Though Ron is not always friendly.) Mike is the series’ most original conception, and, in a strange way, its heart — someone not beyond taking money from a stranger to hit another stranger over the head, but sympathetic. Lonely, he craves the connection. Ron, for his part, is forever running out on his family to join Mike in some misadventure.
Robinson, the rare “Saturday Night Live” worker who went from performer to writer, is quite adept at playing this character, which makes Ron exhausting company; it takes a certain sort of stamina, or a love for, this particular brand of chaos to put up with him. It seems hardly credible at times that he’s successfully helped raise two rational children, one to adulthood; has attained an upper-middle-class life (with Lake Bell!); and occupies a position of creative responsibility. There are difficult comic characters you’re nevertheless happy to see — Larry David, because he’s so centered in his world and basically right, Lucille Ball because she’s a genius. But Ron spends so much time at DEFCON 1, dialed up past 11, that it can be off-putting, and drowns out the human inside.
Nevertheless, like any mystery, it draws you along, waiting for answers. Seven episodes of eight were released to reviewers; the seventh ends on what feels like a note of quiet irresolution — if not, in Ron’s mind, satisfaction. But the eighth will surely not let things rest, and you may rest assured — and may need the rest — that eight is not the end.
Taylor Swift has already conquered the music world and the concert business, so it’s no surprise that this weekend she reigned supreme over the box office — again.
Swift’s latest venture into theaters came in the form of a listening session/fan party of sorts for her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”
The 89-minute movie, titled “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” featured the premiere of the Swift-directed “The Fate of Ophelia” music video, as well as behind-the-scenes footage and commentary from Swift about the inspiration for her new songs.
As expected with anything Swift, the film quickly rocketed to the top of a weekend box office that didn’t have a lot of new big-name releases. The one-weekend-only affair hauled in $34 million in the U.S. and Canada, AMC said Monday morning. Globally, it made more than $50 million. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” was the runner-up in its second outing this weekend, grossing about $11 million domestically.
But the lack of competition doesn’t dilute the impact Swift had — and has had — on the box office. Her three-day theatrical total beats opening weekend grosses for other recent, studio films such as the Leonardo DiCaprio-led “One Battle After Another” ($22 million), 22-year sequel “Freakier Friday” reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis ($28.6 million) and my personal favorite, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” ($18.1 million).
I may not be a Swiftie, but I know plenty who made their way to theaters this weekend, with some dressing up for the occasion. My colleague, Malia Mendez, wrote about the Taylormania that took over AMC Century City, which screened the Swift film 21 times over three screens, just on Saturday.
There’s something to be said about harnessing the power of a fan base to drive people to theaters. Look at Swift’s last theatrical appearance — 2023’s “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” made about $180 million domestically and brought in more than $261 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all time.
As she did with the “Eras Tour” film, Swift bypassed the typical Hollywood system and worked directly with AMC Theatres Distribution to release “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.” The film played at all of AMC’s 540 locations and also showed at other theaters such as Cinemark and Regal.
The unconventional release was welcome news for theaters, which have struggled to bring in crowds as they did before the pandemic
“On behalf of AMC Theatres and the entire theatrical exhibition industry, I extend our sincerest appreciation to the iconic Taylor Swift for bringing her brilliance and magic to movie theatres this weekend,” AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron said in a statement. “Her vision to add a cinematic element to her incredible album debut was nothing less than a triumph.”
The film’s success is another reminder of the value of nontraditional, alternative content for theaters at a time when they need to employ fresh strategies to lure younger audiences to the multiplex.
As the number of movies released by studios has decreased, theaters are on the hunt for content to put on their screens. Lately, that’s ranged from episodic streaming series like “The Chosen,” which chronicles the life of Jesus, to concert films, opera performances and anniversary screenings of hits such as “The Sound of Music,” “Jaws” or “Back to the Future.”
It’s a business that really took off after the pandemic. Distributor Fathom Entertainment has specialized in this kind of nontraditional content for more than 20 years, but it is now seeing increased interest in these types of titles, particularly anniversary screenings, which now tend to make up between 20% and 40% of the company’s annual revenue.
Providing these kinds of titles is a way to mitigate the uncertainty of the film business, where there can be highs driven by hotly anticipated releases and lows when there’s little in the lineup.
“Our bread and butter is, and has continued to be, the big studio releases,” said Daniel Fastlicht, chief operating officer of the Lot, a luxury dine-in theater chain based in La Jolla with four locations. “What we want to see more than anybody is more content. But if that doesn’t happen, we still need to fill our auditoriums with people.”
All of the Lot’s theaters had at least one or two screens showing the Swift film, and the atmosphere was light, with people singing and dressing up, including a few in Travis Kelce jerseys, said Marcos Sayd, director of operations. He noted that alternative content helps their theaters fill the less-scheduled holes in their calendar. In addition to the Swift release, the Lot also programs local documentaries and films, as well as one-off events such as the Newport Beach Film Festival to draw audiences in.
And they’re not alone. Other theaters have been looking to position themselves as gathering places for communal experiences, whether that’s to celebrate T-Swift fandom, sing and dance to “KPop Demon Hunters” or collectively scream at a horror movie. Will the post-pandemic zeal for connection repopulate theaters again? Only time will tell, but the popularity of Swift’s latest film is a positive sign.
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San Bruno-based YouTube is the latest tech and media company to settle one of Trump’s lawsuits. Meta, Twitter (now X), Paramount Global and Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC News have all paid multimillion dollar sums in settlements. Most of the YouTube settlement dollars will go to Trump, who plans to contribute it to the Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall” and will also fund construction of the White House State Ballroom, according to court documents.
Finally …
My colleagues, Matthew Ormseth and Summer Lin, wrote about how the strange case of an illicit casino-turned-marijuana stash house/psilocybin mushroom-growing location that eventually led police to find an Arcadia mansion filled with 15 children, most of whom were born to surrogates.
Only Taylor Swift could compel hundreds of Angelenos to spend their Saturday morning at a listening party film screening for an album they’ve already heard.
“The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” which hit theaters this weekend for a limited three-day run, features the debut of the Swift-directed “The Fate of Ophelia” music video, behind-the-scenes footage and notes from Swift about the inspiration for each of the songs on her new record, “The Life of a Showgirl.” The 89-minute companion film opened to an estimated $15.8 million on Friday and is projected to gross more than $30 million over the weekend.
The box office success comes as no surprise, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” brought in $96 million in 2023 in its first four days in theaters and became the highest-grossing concert film of all time. Hitting 21 countries in 21 months, the Eras Tour itself earned more than $2 billion in revenue, the first music tour to ever hit that milestone.
Even as “Showgirl” seems destined to become Swift’s most divisive album yet — with critics and fans alike split in their reactions — the Taylormania was palpable Saturday morning at AMC Century City, which that day screened “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” 21 times across three screens.
Madison Story, 34, made sure to catch the film at the luxury Dolby Cinema, calling “Showgirl” Swift’s “most cinematic album yet.”
“When I was listening to it, I just pictured Nora Ephron movies,” Story said. In true rom-com fashion, the longtime Swiftie wore a Lover cardigan. Others sported various Swift tour merch, sequined scarves and showgirl-inspired attire.
Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” is advertised outside of AMC Century City 15, which is screening “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
As theatergoers took their seats during the prelude to the show, Swift’s “Reputation” opener “Ready for It?” played over a slideshow of “Showgirl” promo photos. At 10 a.m. on the dot, the screen went dark, then switched to an Eras Tour-style countdown clock — set to 12 seconds, for Swift’s 12th studio album (which, naturally, also features 12 songs).
When Swift finally graced the screen to introduce the program, audience members were mesmerized. Hardly anyone made a peep.
“I’m Taylor, the official hypothetical showgirl in question,” Swift said, telling the crowd that in making the movie that’s not quite a movie, she was, as always, “trying to surprise you guys.”
“I hope you guys have a blast. I hope you sing along,” she said.
Despite Swift’s invitation, and the help of lyric displays for each “Showgirl” track, the crowd was surprisingly quiet throughout the screening aside from a few rounds of applause and occasional laughter at Swift’s trademark awkward-girl charisma. (“My bread is actually a music video star!” was a crowd-pleaser.)
“I feel like her quirkiness has been the same since she did [her] debut [album], and it’s neat to see that that has lasted through all the different iterations and eras,” said moviegoer Kelley Sheets, 30.
Sheets and her friends Sarah Borland, 29, and Ariana Diaz, 30, were taken aback by the quiet atmosphere in the auditorium, especially compared to “The Eras Tour” movie.” They suspected the album might be too fresh for people to feel comfortable singing and dancing along.
Attendees’ low energy may have also been a symptom of the morning showtime. Still, their delight was clear from their wide smiles and intermittent head bobbing, most pronounced during the ear-catching “Opalite” chorus.
As expected, some of Swift’s more questionable lyrics — many of which were exponentially funnier as clean versions — garnered some chuckles, and “Actually Romantic,” an alleged Charli XCX diss track, notably concluded without applause. But claps were generous for Swift’s closer, which saw the artist sincerely thanking her fans for being her muse.
“This album was completely inspired by the most incredible time of my life that was so exciting, because you made the Eras Tour what it was,” Swift said.
“The way that that tour felt, the way that it just kind of lit up my whole life, was such a through line of making this music,” she said. “So thank you for being that unknowing inspiration behind the scenes. I was internalizing all of that love and putting it into that record.”
During Swift’s album rollouts more than a decade ago, she hosted listening parties she dubbed “secret sessions.” At these intimate gatherings, the singer gave select fans a sneak peek at her new music, explaining the inspiration for each track and even playing some songs live.
Nick Eittreim, 28, was always jealous of the fans who got to attend those parties. With “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” he said, “It’s like I’m finally invited to that ‘secret session.’”
Rachel Birnam, 30, said while the “secret sessions” were “such a special thing, it’s nice that this is accessible to everybody.”
Taylor Swift fans Nick Eittreim and Melissa Roberts, both 28, arrive for “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl” at AMC Century City 15 on Saturday.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Anthony Cendejas, a manager at AMC Century City, said the theater has been noticeably busier with the release of “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.”
“More people than usual are dressing up,” Cendejas said, adding that many theatergoers have followed up their AMC visits with a stop at “The Life of a Showgirl” TikTok fan activation, running until Oct. 9 in the Westfield Century City Atrium. The immersive experience allows visitors to take photos and videos on a series of sets replicating those in “The Fate of Ophelia” music video.
Jamie Phillips and her daughters Rowan, 11, and Finley, 12, visited the TikTok activation Saturday afternoon. The trio also brought the biggest Swiftie in their family, their Saint Bernard named Lincoln, along with them. In their family photos, Lincoln wore a feather boa to match Rowan and Finley’s.
Jamie Phillips, left, takes a photo of her daughters Finley, 12, center, and Rowan, 11, with their dog Lincoln at a TikTok fan activation for Taylor Swift’s new album.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
When the Phillips family heard “The Life of a Showgirl” for the first time, Jamie Phillips said, “All of us were pleasantly surprised.”
“Usually it takes me, particularly with her albums, a lot of listens to be like, ‘OK, it’s OK,’” she said. But this one they loved on the first go-around.
The trio hadn’t yet made it to “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” but they hoped to squeeze it in Sunday along with a “Gilmore Girls” anniversary event at the Grove.
In the meantime, they couldn’t wait to get back home, where their “Showgirl” merch was waiting for them.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
Among the week’s new releases is “The Smashing Machine,” written and directed by Benny Safdie and starring Dwayne Johnson as Mark Kerr, an early mixed-martial-arts fighting champion who saw his career flame out before the sport became a lucrative cultural phenomenon.
Safdie is known for the movies he made with his brother Josh, such as “Good Time” and “Uncut Gems,” and more recently created the series “The Curse” with Nathan Fielder. Safdie won the directing prize at the Venice Film Festival for “The Smashing Machine,” his first solo feature.
Dwayne Johnson in the movie “The Smashing Machine.”
(A24)
In her review of the film, Amy Nicholson wrote about Safdie and Johnson, noting, “These two high-intensity talents, each with something to prove, seem to have egged each other on to be exhaustingly photorealistic. Johnson, squeezed into a wig so tight we get a vicarious headache, has pumped up his deltoids to nearly reach his prosthetic cauliflower ears. And Safdie is so devoted to duplicating the earthy brown decor of Kerr’s late-’90s nouveau riche Phoenix home that you’d think he was restoring Notre Dame.”
I spoke to Safdie earlier this week. He explained how he and Kerr held each other’s hands during the film’s emotional premiere screening at Venice and what it has meant for them to go through the process of seeing through the project together.
“I wanted him to feel some kind of ownership of the movie and his life. And it was very meaningful to me,” says Safdie of Kerr. “Now I hear him talk about it and it’s very interesting because he can say, ‘Oh, I see where I made mistakes in that relationship.’ And he can take ownership of them. And part of it is I wanted to make a movie about somebody’s perspective on life changing.”
A celebration of Jafar Panahi
A scene from the movie “It Was Just an Accident.”
(Neon)
The American Cinematheque is launching a tribute series to Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi this week. Winner of the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for the dramatic thriller “It Was Just an Accident,” Panahi has become Iran’s most high-profile dissident filmmaker, having been repeatedly jailed, placed under house arrest and officially banned from making films.
Yet none of that has stopped him. Panahi is now one of only four filmmakers ever to win the Palme d’Or, Berlin’s Golden Bear and Venice’s Golden Lion, alongside such giants as Michelangelo Antonioni, Robert Altman and Henri-Georges Clouzot. And “Accident” has been selected to be France’s entry for the international feature Oscar race.
Panahi was scheduled to appear at three events in Los Angeles next week as part of the tribute, but he may not make it. His appearances at the New York Film Festival (now in progress), including a scheduled talk with Martin Scorsese, had to be canceled due to a delay in Panahi receiving his visa to enter the country, reportedly a result of the federal government shutdown.
Even if Panahi does not make it to L.A., his films will play on and deserve to be seen. “Accident” will screen in a double-bill with 2003’s “Crimson Gold” at the Aero on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Panahi’s 1995 debut feature “The White Balloon,” co-written with Abbas Kiarostami, will play in 35mm at the Los Feliz 3. Later on Wednesday at the LF3, Panahi’s 2000 drama “The Circle” will screen in a 35mm print from the Yale Film Archive, along with the 2010 short “The Accordion.”
In 1996, Kenneth Turan had this to write about “The White Balloon”: “A completely charming, unhurried slice of life, it is both slow and sure-handed as it follows a small but fearsomely determined little girl on her amusing search for just the right ceremonial goldfish for her family’s new year’s celebration.”
Discussing “The Circle” in 2001, Turan said, “Restrained yet powerful, devastating in its emotional effects, ‘The Circle’ is a landmark in Iranian cinema. By combining two things that are relatively rare in that country’s production — unapologetically dramatic storytelling and an implicit challenge to the prevailing political ideology — this new film by producer-director Jafar Panahi creates a potent synthesis.”
With or without Panahi in attendance, these are deeply necessary films that speak to their respective moments — and all too much to our current one.
‘All the President’s Men’ and remembering Robert Redford
Robert Redford, right, and Dustin Hoffman in the movie “All the President’s Men.”
(Sunset Boulevard / Corbis via Getty Images)
Screenings have already begun to pop up in tribute to Robert Redford, who died recently at age 89. On Friday, Vidiots will screen Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 political thriller “All the President’s Men” in 35mm along with Phil Alden Robinson’s 1992 caper comedy “Sneakers.” On Sunday, Vidiots will also show Sydney Pollack’s 1973 romantic drama “The Way We Were.” (The Academy Museum will screen “The Way We Were” on Oct. 26.)
The American Cinematheque will also be a launching a Redford tribute series starting on Monday with a screening of Tony Scott’s 2001 thriller “Spy Game.” Other films currently scheduled include “Jeremiah Johnson,” “The Sting,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Indecent Proposal,” “Sneakers” and a 35mm showing of “All the President’s Men.” That barely scratches the surface of Redford’s work as an actor, let alone as a director, so more events are likely to come.
Redford was deeply involved in bringing “All the President’s Men” to the screen as quickly as possible following the Watergate scandal. Writing about “All the President’s Men” in 1976, Charles Champlin said the film has “a clarity born of historical perspective but also a newly quickened feeling of national concern. The central drama and suspense of ‘All the President’s Men’ is a reminder of the narrow margin of our safety and how close the coverup came to working. … The film invites no comfort. It was a narrow and almost accidental escape and the weight of a corrupted government had been tilted against the truth as never before. But never again? The movie makes no preachment but you are bound to think anew that forgiveness and forgetfulness ought to be two starkly different commodities.”
Points of interest
‘Rosemary’s Baby’ in 35mm
Mia Farrow in the 1968 horror landmark “Rosemary’s Baby.”
(Criterion Collection)
“Rosemary’s Baby,” a 1968 adaptation of the novel by Ira Levin written and directed by Roman Polanski (and produced by exploitation impresario William Castle), is still considered one of the creepiest movies of all time. The film stars Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse, who has moved into a grand old apartment building in New York City with her actor husband, Guy (John Cassavetes). After she becomes pregnant, it begins to seem as if her nosy neighbors have been part of a coven of witches scheming to give birth to the son of Satan. Ruth Gordon won a supporting actress Oscar for her role as one of the neighbors. The movie plays in 35mm Tuesday through Thursday at the New Beverly.
Even back in 1968, the film touched off a nerve with reviewers, including our own. In his original June 1968 review, Champlin wrote, “Having paid my critical respects, I must then add that I found ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ a most desperately sick and obscene motion picture whose ultimate horror — in my very private opinion — was that it was made at all. It seems a singularly appropriate symbol of an age which, believing in nothing, will believe anything. … It is also all so sleazy and sick at heart. And the horror is that it presumes we are too indifferent to perceive what its horrors really are.”
‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’
An image from Luis Buñuel’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.”
(Rialto Pictures)
Winner of the Oscar for international feature film and nominated for original screenplay, 1972’s “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” was directed by Luis Buñuel, who wrote the script with Jean-Claude Carrière. Screening at the Academy Museum as part of a series dedicated to Buñuel, the film is a bold satire of societal conventions — one that still largely holds up, as a group of friends meets for a series of meals.
In a November 1972 review, Charles Champlin wrote, “Watching a Buñuel film is a special experience because he creats a special world, somewhere west of hard reality but dealing — mockingly — with social reality and always reflecting Buñuel’s almost puritanical rage at any misuse of power, fiscal, political, ecclesiastical, military, social. … The surrealist attack sometimes makes him sound more formidable that he is. In fact he’s a sly humanist who has here created one of his most easily enjoyable works.”
In other news
PTA, ranked
Joaquin Phoenix in the movie “Inherent Vice.”
(Wilson Webb / Warner Bros.)
Last week, we mentioned Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which Amy Nicholson declared “fun and fizzy.” So this week, I set about the popular task of placing the new film within a ranking of Anderson’s 10 feature films, from his 1996 feature debut “Hard Eight” onward.
As I noted in the introduction, “More so than with other directors, it’s always tempting to overly psychologize Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, looking for traces of his personal development and hints of autobiography: the father figures of ‘Magnolia’ or ‘The Master,’ the partnership of ‘Phantom Thread,’ parenthood in the new ‘One Battle After Another.’ Yet two things truly set his work apart. There’s the incredibly high level of craft in each of them, giving each a unique feel, sensibility and visual identity, and also the deeply felt humanism: a pure love of people, for all their faults and foibles.
“Anderson is an 11-time Academy Award nominee without ever having won, a situation that could rectify itself soon enough, and it speaks to the extremely high bar set by his filmography that one could easily reverse the following list and still end up with a credible, if perhaps more idiosyncratic ranking. Reorder the films however you like — they are all, still, at the very least, extremely good. Simply put, there’s no one doing it like him.”
Would you have a different title at No. 1? Let us know in the comments.
When we first encounter Daniel Day-Lewis in “Anemone,” we only see him from the back, but there’s no mistaking him. Chopping wood outside his character’s rustic cabin in the middle of nowhere, he drives the ax down again and again, ferociously focused on the task at hand. At his best, which was often, Day-Lewis pursued acting with a primal clarity. Fittingly, his return to the big screen after announcing a retirement in 2017 is in a movie that exudes the same stark, elemental quality. He didn’t just co-write this tale of two estranged brothers excavating their complicated history — he imbues it with his essence, its reason for being.
“Anemone” isn’t just a film about family but one made by a father and his son. It’s the feature directorial debut of Ronan Day-Lewis, who collaborated with his Oscar-winning dad on the screenplay. Ronan, better known as a painter in New York’s contemporary art world, chronicles a collection of still lives who jostle themselves out of an emotional stupor.
Set in England some time during the mid-1990s, the movie opens as Jem (Sean Bean) says goodbye to his melancholy partner Nessa (Samantha Morton) and troubled son Brian (Samuel Bottomley) to venture out into the forest to reconnect with his younger brother Ray (Daniel Day-Lewis), whom he hasn’t spoken to in 20 years. A deeply religious man — he has “Only God Can Judge Me” sternly tattooed across his back — Jem is on a mission whose purpose will only slowly be revealed. When he arrives at Ray’s cabin, Ray knows it’s him before he even sets eyes on his brother. For several agonizing minutes, they sit together saying nothing, as Black Sabbath’s mystical ballad “Solitude” plays softly on the stereo. The tense silence will be the first of several battles of will between the two men, neither willing to yield.
Day-Lewis, now 68 and whose last film was Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Phantom Thread,” seems carved out of stone as Ray, his close-cropped hair and imposing gray goatee suggesting a man who doesn’t just live off the grid but thrives there. Lean and athletic, with a wildness in his eyes, Ray displays the same antagonism as Day-Lewis’ Bill the Butcher from “Gangs of New York” or Daniel Plainview in “There Will Be Blood.” Ray’s mysterious and fraught history as a member of the British military during the Troubles is a festering boil this film will eventually lance. His brother, who also served in the military, has come to speak to Ray about something more personal, but the hells they experienced in that conflict are the larger issue they must confront.
Shot by cinematographer Ben Fordesman in the Welsh countryside, “Anemone” takes place largely in a sprawling woods, Ronan Day-Lewis lending the flinty drama a mythic grandeur. Bobby Krlic’s mournful score is alternately dreamy and eerie, the instrumental music abruptly cutting out in the middle of a hypnotic passage. Wordless interludes find Jem and Ray dancing to music or sparring as boxers, their simmering feud reduced to its core elements of rugged masculinity and sibling rivalry. The artist-turned-filmmaker even incorporates a striking image from one of his oils — that of a translucent horselike creature — as an enigmatic visual motif that proves more ponderous than poetic.
This is not the first time Daniel Day-Lewis has worked closely with family. Twenty years ago, he starred in his wife Rebecca Miller’s father-daughter fable “The Ballad of Jack and Rose.” Both that film and “Anemone” concern solitary men who opted out of society, only to discover that such a plan is difficult to sustain. But they also both suffer from what might be described as an excess of dramatic seriousness, which is especially true of “Anemone.” Whether it’s Morton’s perpetually scowling expression in the infrequent cutaways to Brian’s life back home or the on-the-nose emphasis on looming gray clouds, there’s no question a storm is coming. Even “Anemone’s” rare moments of levity feel drained of color, the weight of this family’s Dark Past so severe that not an ounce of light (or lightness) can be permitted to escape.
Not surprisingly, the star almost makes the movie’s suffocating gloom resonate. “Anemone” allows Day-Lewis to be volcanic when Ray launches into a disturbing, ultimately revolting monologue about a recent run-in with a pedophiliac priest from childhood. Later, when the film finally explains why Ray abandoned the world, Day-Lewis delivers a teary confession that doesn’t have much fresh to say about the insanity of war but is nonetheless ennobled by how he unburdens his stoic character through cascading waves of anger and shame.
Even when he’s been fiery, nearly frothing at the mouth, Day-Lewis has always been a master of stillness, relying on his tall, taut frame to hint at the formidable power or menace underneath. (When his characters explode, it’s shocking, and yet we somehow knew the blast was imminent.) For Ray, a man full of rage who has no patience for religion, sentimentality or forgiveness, his brother’s arrival is an unwelcome event, and even when a slight thawing occurs between them, Day-Lewis remains coiled, ready to strike, their fragile truce constantly in danger of being upended.
But because Jem, like so many of these characters, is underwritten, Bean has to fall back on generalized manly intensity, which turns their showdowns into actorly exercises. The interactions are bracing but also a bit studied — the performers’ technique is more impressive than the story, which too often is merely a delivery device for misery disguised as searing truth.
There’s reason to celebrate that Daniel Day-Lewis has chosen, at least temporarily, to cancel his retirement, but “Anemone” as a whole strains for a greatness that its star effortlessly conveys. Amid the film’s self-conscious depiction of a brewing tempest, he remains a true force of nature.
The contradictions of mixed martial arts brawler Mark Kerr can’t be contained by a ring, an octagon or a film. A vulnerable man with a brutal career, he went undefeated on the mat while struggling in his private relationships and public addiction to painkillers, which he bravely revealed in John Hyams’ 2002 HBO documentary “The Smashing Machine: The Life and Times of Extreme Fighter Mark Kerr.” In that footage, shot between 1997 and 2000, you’re continually startled by how Kerr could clobber his opponents until some lost teeth — putting himself in a mental state he once likened to being a shark in a feeding frenzy — and then after the bell, flash a smile so wide and happy, it split his own head in half.
That’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s whole thing, too: Kill ’em with charm. So it’s as all-natural as his daily diet of organic chicken breast that the wrestler-turned-blockbuster-star would want to play Kerr in his own pursuit of excellence. He’s overdue for a sincere indie movie. Fair enough. Yet bizarrely, Johnson and writer-director Benny Safdie (“Uncut Gems,”“Good Time”), working solo without his brother Josh, have decided to simply shoot Hyams’ documentary again.
These two high-intensity talents, each with something to prove, seem to have egged each other on to be exhaustingly photorealistic. Johnson, squeezed into a wig so tight we get a vicarious headache, has pumped up his deltoids to nearly reach his prosthetic cauliflower ears. And Safdie is so devoted to duplicating the earthy brown decor of Kerr’s late-’90s nouveau riche Phoenix home that you’d think he was restoring Notre Dame. In setting out to establish his own style, Safdie just mimics another.
Their version of “The Smashing Machine” tells the same story that Hyams did, across the same years with the same handheld aesthetics and rattle-snap jazz score (by composer Nala Sinephro). It’s stiff karaoke that earns a confounded polite clap. That can’t possibly have been the intention, yet even the songs used as needle-drops are conspicuously borrowed: covers of the country crooner Billy Swan singing Elvis, and Elvis singing Frank Sinatra. Meanwhile, Johnson’s Kerr huffs up a set of stairs in a training montage that already belongs to “Rocky.”
Once again, Kerr gets shaken by his first defeat to Igor Vovchanchyn (played by Oleksandr Usyk, the current heavyweight boxing champion) in Japan’s Yokohama Arena, and responds by bottoming out, getting sober and committing to win his next tournament. All the while he bickers with his on-again, off-again alcoholic girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt), who gets blamed for everything that goes wrong in the ring. A teeth-grindingly mismatched couple, they can’t get through a conversation without arguing. Even trying her best to empathize, she’s overbearing. When Dawn alerts his friend and colleague Mark “The Hammer” Coleman (MMA fighter Ryan Bader in his acting debut) that her battering ram of a boyfriend was drinking before a bout, Coleman snaps at her for letting him act so stupid.
Safdie frames Dawn as a force of domestic destruction (although Kerr tears down doors like wet cardboard). In her introduction, she — horrors! — makes his smoothie with the wrong milk and, a beat later, insists on cuddling the cat on their leather sofa. A shattered Japanese kintsugi bowl is a newly added visual metaphor of their relationship, as is Dawn’s attempt to fix it with Krazy glue, a wink-wink at her emotional volatility. Still, we never understand what holds them together. Blunt is stuck in a reprise of her Oscar-nominated supporting role in “Oppenheimer” as the drunk whose cruelty pardons the male lead’s flaws. Yeah, Mark fizzled in Yokohama, but boy was she awful.
What’s the point? Having stripped away most of the documentary’s narration and sit-down interviews with Kerr’s family and friends, the film barely explores anyone’s psychology — and Blunt’s railroaded Dawn loses her chance to speak for herself. “I don’t think you know a damn thing about me,” she snipes mid-screaming match. She’s right. We don’t know much about her either, nor any of the noisy things onscreen, from the bloodrush of combat to the pull of their co-dependent affair.
We’re supposed to find depth in Johnson’s weary, pinched grin as he appreciates the sunset on a flight to Japan or watches fans at demolition derby cheer just as loudly for mindless chunks of metal getting crushed. He’s quieter than the real Kerr, who could come across like a guileless chatterbox, and when he does talk, it’s often about the control he must exert on his body and his backyard — the diet, the exercise, the sobriety, the gardening — delivered with the conviction of someone giving motivational advice to the manosphere.
If you squint, there’s an idea here that his personal needs set an unyielding tempo in their home, a notion Johnson must resonate with as someone who sets his morning alarm for 3:30 a.m. But we become better acquainted with how light ripples across Johnson’s shirtless back in a tracking shot than with whatever’s going on in his character’s head. More often than not, we’re just watching him walk around in a skin suit of Kerr, trying and failing not to see the movie star underneath. I wonder if Johnson might have channeled the open-faced Kerr better without the fake eyebrows, if he’d trusted his own inner glow instead of immediately going for the dramatic kill.
Look at how dutifully Safdie and Johnson have worked to re-create this world, the movie seems to be saying. Appreciate the intentionally cruddy camerawork by Maceo Bishop that duplicates Hyams’ low-budget limitations. Enjoy how costume designer Heidi Bivens has put Johnson in another silver-buckled black leather belt similar to the one in his infamous, much-memed Y2K-era photo, the one with the turtleneck, chain jewelry and fanny pack. You know without doing the math that, at this time, 39-year-old Safdie was in his early teens, an age that’s a sweet spot for nostalgia. This is his chance to go back to the future. No wonder he doesn’t want to change a thing.
But “The Smashing Machine” should be about change. For the MMA, this was an era of evolution as it transitioned from a contest of raw strength to one of endurance and skill. Former collegiate wrestlers like Kerr and Coleman could no longer win with their signature ground-and-pound techniques. Organizers forbade several of their key moves as their brusque victories weren’t telegenic. Kerr’s early contests often ended in less than two minutes, an oops-I-missed-it-grabbing-a-beer brevity that would have made pay-per-view buyers grumble. Headbutts were disallowed in part to draw the action out, and also because John McCain didn’t want what he called “human cockfighting” on TV.
These underlying tensions were just coming into focus. The original documentary felt blurry because Hyams didn’t yet know how the off-camera legalities would play out. He would have never guessed that the once-maligned Ultimate Fighting Championship league, purchased in 2001 for $2 million, would become a powerhouse with the clout to ink a $7.7-billion television deal just this summer. He also didn’t know that the cash payments Kerr earned in Japan would be revealed to have the yakuza’s fingerprints on them, or that Kerr’s opioid addiction was start of a burgeoning national health crisis that would soon have America in a chokehold.
Surely, Safdie with his two decades of perspective and his own knack for movies about hard-charging, charismatic screwups like Adam Sandler’s gambling addict Howard Ratner in “Uncut Gems” has something to add? Nope, just tell the same tale twice.
Hyams stopped filming in May 2000, at a point when it appeared that Kerr had chosen love over war. Safdie is aware that Kerr would live on to make more choices and that love doesn’t win, either. But despite the benefit of hindsight, Safdie doesn’t seem to have considered that the old narrative no longer fits. He just updates the title cards on the end: a sentence about Kerr and Dana’s future, a note that today’s MMA stars are better paid, a point undermined by a shot of the actual Kerr climbing into an exorbitantly glossy new truck. Turns out Kerr has been a car salesman for the last 15 years, but you wouldn’t know that leaving “The Smashing Machine.” You wouldn’t know why this movie existed at all.
President Trump again suggested that films made outside the U.S. should be subject to a 100% tariff, a move he said would help rejuvenate film production in America but that has been greeted with skepticism by many in Hollywood.
“Our movie making business has been stolen from the United States of America, by other Countries, just like stealing ‘candy from a baby,’” Trump wrote in a post Monday morning on his Truth Social platform. “California, with its weak and incompetent Governor, has been particularly hard hit! Therefore, in order to solve this long time, never ending problem, I will be imposing a 100% Tariff on any and all movies that are made outside of the United States.”
The post did not include details on how such a tariff would work or how it would be levied. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Trump has floated a tariff on films made overseas to combat so-called runaway production.
In May, Trump said he was authorizing the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative to begin the process of instituting a 100% tariff on “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”
That announcement surprised studio executives, who said at the time that they had no advance notice of the move. Shortly after, California Gov. Gavin Newsom reached out to the White House, offering to work together to create a federal film tax incentive, which many in the industry have said they would prefer over a tariff.
Newsom responded to Trump’s dig by sharing on X a screenshot of a news headline detailing the recent increase in applications for California’s revamped film and TV tax credit program next to a headline about Hollywood studios’ stock performance after Trump’s initial call in May for a 100% tariff on films made outside the U.S. “Almost like we know what we’re doing,” Newsom wrote in his post. “Almost like Donald Trump absolutely does not.”
Countries including Canada, the U.K. and New Zealand have developed generous film tax credit programs, which, along with lower costs, have increasingly lured productions out of the U.S. California has been particularly hard hit by the production exodus.
In response, states have also upped their individual tax credit programs, including California, which has now more than doubled the annual amount allocated to its film and TV tax credit program and expanded its eligibility criteria.
The Motion Picture Assn., the lobbying arm of Hollywood’s major studios, was not immediately available for comment.
On Monday, California congressional representatives reiterated their support for a federal film tax incentive program to support the U.S. film business.
Noting that a tariff could have “unintended and damaging consequences,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said he was “ready to work with this administration” and colleagues “on both sides of the aisle” to pass a major federal film tax credit.
The California senator is currently working on a proposal for a federal film incentive, a Schiff spokesperson said.
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), a former film producer, also called for movement on a federal tax incentive, saying that a 100% tariff on films made overseas would only increase costs for consumers.
“I’m relieved President Trump recognizes that we are losing a signature American product: the domestic film and TV industry,” she said in a statement. “I hope the President will join us in pioneering a real solution that levels the playing field with international competition.”
More so than with other directors, it’s always tempting to overly psychologize Paul Thomas Anderson’s films, looking for traces of his personal development and hints of autobiography: the father figures of “Magnolia” or “The Master,” the partnership of “Phantom Thread,” parenthood in the new “One Battle After Another.” Yet two things truly set his work apart. There’s the incredibly high level of craft in each of them, giving each a unique feel, sensibility and visual identity, and also the deeply felt humanism: a pure love of people, for all their faults and foibles.
Anderson is an 11-time Academy Award nominee without ever having won, a situation that could rectify itself soon enough, and it speaks to the extremely high bar set by his filmography that one could easily reverse the following list and still end up with a credible, if perhaps more idiosyncratic ranking. Reorder the films however you like — they are all, still, at the very least, extremely good. Simply put, there’s no one doing it like him.
Perhaps nothing marks Anderson as a filmmaker from the ’90s as much as his impeccable use of music, from the drowned-in-sound deluge of “Boogie Nights” to his ongoing collaboration with Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood as a composer. So just to add to the arguability of the following list, we’ve also noted a favorite song or two from each movie, the song titles often becoming surprise summations of the plots themselves.
This list is made in good faith, without any purposeful stuntery (honest). Feel free to let us know how your opinions vary.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
The 13th edition of Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque has already begun but lasts until Oct. 8, so there is still plenty of excitement on the way.
Japanese icon Meiko Kaji will make a series of appearances during her first time visiting the U.S. A double-bill of 1973’s “Lady Snowblood” and 1974’s “Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance” will feature a Q&A with the actor moderated by Jen Yamato, while another Q&A will be moderated by “Anora” Oscar winner Sean Baker.
Other upcoming screenings include “The Testament of Ann Lee” in 70mm, “The Secret Agent” with filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho, “It Was Just an Accident” with filmmaker Jafar Panahi, a Guillermo del Toro retrospective, Mike Nichols’ 1973 sci-fi thriller “The Day of the Dolphin” in 4K and a 10th anniversary screening of “The Invitation” with filmmaker Karyn Kusama, screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi and actor Logan Marshall-Green.
Meiko Kaji in the movie “Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion.”
(Arrow Films / Beyond Fest at American Cinematheque)
Saturday will see screenings of “Manhunter” and “To Live and Die in L.A.” with star William Petersen in attendance. I spoke to Petersen this week about going from being a Chicago theater actor to starring in two now-classic ’80s crime thrillers in the span of one year.
“It was never my intention to make any movies, it wasn’t like I was seeking them out,” Petersen said. “They kind of just came and found me.”
I also spoke to some of the team behind the festival about how they manage to harness the energy of L.A’s rep-house scene and point it toward an eclectic mix of new and old titles that increasingly includes legitimate prestige titles, including awards winners from the international festival circuit.
“It’s not just all about the films — it’s about the theatrical experience, seeing it all together,” said Grant Moninger, co-founder of Beyond Fest and artistic director of the American Cinematheque. “This does not happen online. You’re not watching a screener with a watermark at your house. You’re all together, you’re just celebrating cinema and going through all the emotions together. We put on a show every year at all these theaters because we’re thankful that everyone’s coming together and we’re going to try to give them as much as we can give them.”
‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ at 50
Tim Curry, center, as Frank-N-Furter in the movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
(20th Century Fox)
Tonight the 50th anniversary of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will be celebrated at the Academy Museum with a screening of new 4K restoration and an appearance by star Tim Curry. The screening will include “a full-blown audience participation and shadow cast experience,” capturing some the feeling of the riotous fan-fueled midnight shows that made the film a sensation over decades. There will be additional screenings of the film Oct. 4 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Oct. 15 at the Grammy Museum.
Directed by Jim Sharman, who also mounted the original stage show, from a story and songs by Richard O’Brien (who also plays Riff-Raff), the film is said to have the longest theatrical release in cinema history, thanks to its ongoing life as a cult object.
Steve Appleford interviewed the film’s star, Tim Curry at the Roxy, where the original stage show was first performed in L.A. In the film, Curry’s character, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, is a singing scientist in fishnets and high heels who introduces a young couple (Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick) to a world of new experiences.
“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” said Curry. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”
Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick do “The Time Warp” (again) in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
(John Jay / Disney)
The Times identified the “Rocky Horror” phenomenon from the very start. Gregg Kilday interviewed Curry for an article published in March 1974 as the stage show transferred from London to L.A. The feature follows Curry, then only 27, from the Roxy to Musso & Frank and on to the Chateau Marmont, a pretty enviable tour of the city.
Curry described the character at the time by saying, “He says he’s a transvestite transexual, whatever that means. I don’t play him as a transexual. But he’s a fairly complex guy. He just takes anything he can get. He’s not fussy, really. Though I think he’s something of a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am.”
In his original review of the film from Sept. 26, 1975, critic Kevin Thomas (of course, it was reviewed by Kevin Thomas) said, “All of this plays less depraved than it sounds. … This Richard O’Brien musical is simply too exuberant and too funny to be seriously decadent. Indeed, there’s an underlying quality of tenderness and even innocence in this loving send-up of horror and sci-fi flicks and celebration of post-graduate sexuality.”
The format wars of ‘One Battle After Another’
Teyana Taylor in the movie “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
The new film from Paul Thomas Anderson, “One Battle After Another,” features another of the filmmaker’s impressive ensembles, one that includes Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, Alana Haim, Sean Penn, newcomer Chase Infiniti and Benicio del Toro.
The film is playing in a variety of film formats, and Los Angeles is lucky to be one of only four cities in the world to be screening the movie in VistaVision. (Appropriately enough, it will be at the Vista.) The film is also in Imax 70mm at the Universal Citywalk and in Imax at multiple locations including the TCL Chinese and in 70mm at the CGV by Regency in Buena Park. (Plus, it’ll be in more conventional digital formats at many other theaters.)
A politically minded action-comedy based loosely on Thomas Pynchon’s novel “Vineland,” the film stars DiCaprio as a former bomb-making revolutionary who has gone underground to protect his daughter (Infiniti). When a power-mad military man (Penn) comes after them, Bob must spring into action in ways he is not ready for.
Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie “One Battle After Another.”
(Warner Bros. Pictures)
In her review, Amy Nicholson wrote, “Paul Thomas Anderson’s fun and fizzy adaptation views its Molotov cocktail as half-full. Yes, it says, the struggle for liberation continues: ideologues versus toadies, radicals versus conservatives, loyalists versus rats. But isn’t it inspiring that there are still people willing to fight?”
Glenn Whipp spoke to Anderson in his first solo interview for the film. Despite the fact that the movie opens with a raid on a government immigration detention center, Anderson was reluctant to directly connect it to the current political moment.
“The biggest mistake I could make in a story like this is to put politics up in the front,” Anderson said. “That has a short shelf life. To sustain a story over two hours and 40 minutes, you have to care about the characters and take those big swings in terms of the emotional arcs of people and their pursuits and why you love that person and why you hate this person. That’s not a thing that ever goes out of fashion. But neither does fascism and neither does people doing bad s— to other people. Unfortunately, that doesn’t go out of style, either. That’s just how we humans are.”
Points of interest
‘A Scanner Darkly’ in 35mm
Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder in director Richard Linklater’s “A Scanner Darkly,” based on the Philip K. Dick novel.
(Warner Independent Pictures)
On Friday night, Brain Dead Studios will host a 35mm screening of Richard Linklater’s 2006 animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “A Scanner Darkly.” A comic, deeply paranoid tale of identity, the rotoscoped film features a cast that includes Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr.
Reviewing the film, Carino Chocano wrote, “As the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that everybody isn’t out to get you. In the dismal near-future of the film, when large-scale government spying has taken the next logical step into thought-surveillance, questioning the effect of shadowy forces no longer requires an overactive imagination. It doesn’t even require a drug habit (though, of course, it helps to have one). The dropouts and burnouts of ‘Scanner’ don’t have to wonder if they’re being watched; they are in every sense part of the program. … The brilliance of ‘A Scanner Darkly’ is how it suggests, without bombast or fanfare, the ways in which the real world has come to resemble the dark world of comic books.”
Much as Linklater has recently made “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague” in short order, in 2006 he had both “A Scanner Darkly” and “Fast Food Nation,” a fictional adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction book.
“I make the joke that I’m like that British bus,” Linklater said at the time. “You wait forever and then two show up at the same time.”
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Teorema” captures Stamp’s otherworldly beauty as a mysterious stranger who seduces all the members of a wealthy family in Milan (played by Massimo Girotti, Silvana Mangano, Laura Betti and Anne Wiazemsky) and then disappears from their lives as suddenly as he appeared, leaving them all in spiritual crisis.
“Toby Dammit,” directed by Federico Fellini, was one section of the anthology film “Spirits of the Dead,” with the other sections directed by Roger Vadim and Louis Malle. Stamp plays a fading alcoholic actor who makes a deal to shoot a film in Rome in exchange for a new Ferrari. He begins to suffer from terrifying visions.
Writing about the anthology in 1969, Kevin Thomas noted the film’s “swirling, shimmering worlds of fantasy populated by decadent Roman society,” adding that they only paled in comparison to Fellini’s previous triumphs “La Docle Vita,” “8½” and “Juliet of the Spirits.”
In other news
Henry Jaglom dead at 87
Henry Jaglom, arriving at a premiere in Los Angeles in 2009.
(Chris Pizzello / Associated Press)
An insistently independent filmmaker, Henry Jaglom died this week at age 87. His deep love of actors led him to a loose, improvisatory style that gave freedom to his performers. Often drawing story ideas from his own life (and casts from his wide circle of friends), his films included 1976’s “Tracks,” 1985’s “Always,” 1994’s “Babyfever” and 2007’s “Hollywood Dreams.” A new restoration of Jaglom’s 1983 film “Can She Bake a Cherry Pie?” is premiering this weekend as part of the New York Film Festival.
I visited with Jaglom once at the offices he long kept on Sunset Boulevard, a warren of rooms stuffed with the accumulated memorabilia of a life dedicated to movies. In a corner was an editing machine he said belonged to John Cassavetes.
Jaglom well understood his own privilege in life and equally understood that there were those who would not respond to his work.
“I enjoy, even if I’m being attacked, knowing I’ve had an impact,” Jaglom told me. “People are looking at it, talking about it, thinking about it. And that some people are moved, feel better. It’s reaching out and trying to touch people. It’s what film can do. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
A few years ago, Jaleel White got really into game shows.
The actor, most widely known for his role as the nerdy, suspenders-pulling neighbor Steve Urkel on “Family Matters,” began appearing as a celebrity guest on shows like “25 Words or Less,” Anthony Anderson’s “To Tell the Truth” and “Pictionary” with Jerry O’Connell.
“I just enjoyed winning the money for the people,” White says. “It’s strangely equally gratifying.”
In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.
Soon, his longtime producer friend asked if he wanted to host a game show. He did. “Flip Side” is a survey-based competition in which two teamstry to determine how the majority of a crowd voted on various this-or-that questions for a chance to win $10,000. Its second season aired earlier this month.
White says that, in a way, hosting the show feels similar to being on a sitcom.
“When I did sitcom, I really felt the audience,” White says. “I really felt where the audience wanted to go emotionally in our storytelling, and I would play with it. I would consciously hear them and be like, ‘Milk that or dial that down.‘” He adds that he thrives off that “symbiotic” interaction, which is similar to engaging with contestants.
White is also developing a TV show based on his memoir, “Growing Up Urkel,” which was released last year. While the Pasadena native’s Sundays during the NFL season are typically dedicated to Chargers games, he takes us along on his ideal day in L.A., which involves eating fluffy pancakes after church, checking out a show or game at the immersive venue Cosm and playing footgolf.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
9:30 a.m.: Sleep in, then head to church If I’m not shooting “Flip Side,” so man, I might not get up before 9:30 a.m. I typically stay up late. I’m just a late-night person by nature. My mom said that she would stay up late a lot while she was pregnant with me, eating Mexican food, so I think biologically that turned me into a night owl, and I really appreciate great Mexican food [laughs]. If I’m on my game, I like to go to Oasis church on Wilshire. Shout to Pastor Julian. I think he’s one of the most underrated spiritual voices in the city, and he’s a pastor who wears Js, so that’s just kind of cool in itself to get the word like that.
Noon: Time for pancakes If you want to have the best pancakes in the city after you go to church, [go to] Redbird, which is near downtown L.A. Their pancakes are crazy with the char on the edges. Not everybody makes them like that. I also like Takagi Coffee on West Third Street. It’s a Japanese cafe and they have soufflé pancakes. Those are my two favorite pancake spots to hit after church. We get screwed in the cost of living in L.A., but the cultural exchange that we experience daily is so taken for granted. In L.A., I just gave you an all-American spot and a Japanese coffeehouse after leaving a very diverse church.
2 p.m.: Experience a game or a show at Cosm I rarely get to the movies these days and I feel terrible. I want to try to be like Kevin Bacon and encourage people to go to the movies and experience communal entertainment again. But one of my favorite places is Cosm in Inglewood. They are revolutionizing the sports bar business model. You can catch Cirque du Soleil with your family. You can catch a game. It’s just a big screen. It’s an experience that actually puts you on the field, so you feel like you’re actually at the game. Sometimes they get wild and they start shooting T-shirts with the T-shirt gun into the stadium seats.
5 p.m. Play footgolf But if you’re on a budget, a really fun thing to do actually is to play footgolf. One of the best footgolf courses is at Rancho Park. It’s literally golf with your feet, a soccer ball and an oversized hole. We’ll go out there, smoke some purple, grab some snacks and just be out there like kids, betting on each hole [laughs]. That’s the adult way of doing it, but you can also do it with the kids. You can hit up a good taco truck beforehand. I think Mariscos Jalisco is my favorite taco truck. They make a crunchy shrimp taco that is just ridiculous.
8 p.m.: Order in from Goop At this point, we’re kind of scrounging for dinner. I got to admit it, Gwyneth Paltrow be killing it with the Goop [Kitchen] order in. ’Cause I’ve eaten junk all day, so now I gotta start cleaning it up. Get yourself a salad from Goop, and really at this point, I’m probably on my couch trying to catch up on some binge TV with the lady and prepare for Monday.
11:30 p.m.: Binge TV until bed On a Sunday, I can probably do a little bit better, somewhere around 11:30 p.m. or midnight. I’m going to get my series binge on, and we have to watch the highlights from the games that we just attended. I recently finished up “Forever” on Netflix and “Wednesday” is back. I’m such a kid. I love Tim Burton. I’m all over the place in my film and TV appreciation. People would be really shocked by what I enjoy.
Henry Jaglom, the uncompromising indie filmmaker who eschewed big-budget operations in order to preserve his creative vision, died Monday night. He was 87.
Jaglom died at his Santa Monica home surrounded by his family, his daughter Sabrina Jaglom said. The writer-director, whose filmography includes “Last Summer in the Hamptons” and “Eating,” was known for his intimate, naturalistic style and foregrounding of women’s stories in his work.
Sabrina, also a director, said in a statement that her father was “larger-than-life, and made the world a lot more colorful for those of us lucky enough to know him.”
“But, most of all, he was the most loving and supportive Dad. He will be greatly missed, but impossible to forget,” she said Thursday.
From his earliest directing gigs, Jaglom was committed to creating autobiographically inspired and emotionally resonant stories with as little studio intervention as possible. He kept costs low, cast his friends and family in his movies and pursued an improvisational production style that preceded the early-2000s film genre mumblecore.
“My movies talk about the emotional side of life,” Jaglom told The Times in 2009.
“I just try to have people do what we do, which is sit around, talk, deal with the emotions of life,” he said. “It can be touching, sad, happy, but it allows people to go through some of what they go through in life and not feel isolated and lonely.”
Jaglom’s 1985 film, “Always,” in which he co-starred with his ex-wife Patrice Townsend, was inspired by the disintegration of the couple’s own relationship. Jaglom and Townsend divorced two years before the film’s release.
Nearly a decade later, conversations Jaglom had with his second wife, actor Victoria Foyt, about parenthood were distilled into 1994’s “Babyfever,” which the couple wrote, directed and Foyt starred in.
Former Times staff writer Chris Willman called the comedy-drama “remarkable in its comprehensive documentary aspects.”
“Jaglom is, as always, big on verite and improvisation; with such a large cast milling about the airy, oceanside house, he’s managed to cover just about every conceivable baby base, with sentiments ranging from banal self-interest to self-conscious belly laughs, and a lot of very real, undeniably affecting poignancy in-between,” Willman wrote in his review of the film.
“Babyfever” was lauded for sincerely engaging with topics affecting women and for starring a mostly female cast — both of which were trademarks for Jaglom, who went on to form a women’s arm to HHH Rainbow Productions, his production company with producers Howard Zucker and Henry Lange, which for many years was located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood.
“Women are the most disenfranchised people in this business,” he told The Times in 1987. “They still have to play mostly by men’s rules. And as I’ve been successfully making million-dollar movies for some time now I thought: ‘Why can’t they do it too?’”
Jaglom was a mentee and close confidant of acclaimed filmmaker and actor Orson Welles, whose farewell performance came in Jaglom’s 1987 comedy “Someone to Love,” which screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
“He plays himself, shedding even the persona he adopted for TV talk shows,” Jaglom told The Times of Welles’ acting style in the film. “People will finally get to see him the way I knew him; it’s almost as if he was sitting there having lunch with you.”
Peter Biskind compiled conversations between the longtime friends for his popular 2013 book, “My Lunches With Orson: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles.”
Several people approached Jaglom about publishing the tapes before Biskind came knocking, the director told The Times in 2013. But Biskind was the first one he took seriously.
“I said, ‘You want to put yourself through all this?’” Jaglom said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, on the one condition that you don’t censor me.’”
Jaglom, born in London in 1938, was the child of Jewish parents who immigrated to England to escape Nazi persecution. Later, Jaglom’s family moved to New York, where Jaglom spent his formative years and returned after attending the University of Pennsylvania.
In New York, Jaglom trained with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio, acting in and directing off-Broadway theater and cabaret before moving to Hollywood in the late 1960s. The multihyphenate went on to make his directorial debut in 1971 with “A Safe Place,” which starred Wells and Jack Nicholson.
After finding commercial success with his third film, “Sitting Ducks” (1980), Jaglom told The Times in 1987 that he was pitched by several big-time studio heads who said, “‘When you’re ready to make a serious movie, a big movie, come and see me.’”
“I said: ‘If you love my films why would you want me to come and make one of your big ones?’” Jaglom said, adding that with a large studio at the helm, directors run the risk of ceding the “final cut.”
“As far as I’m concerned all the big stars and fancy limos and fine dressing rooms aren’t worth a thing if you don’t control your film creatively,” he said.
For years, Henry ate at the same cafe on Santa Monica’s Montana Avenue. He was always delighted when fans and aspiring filmmakers stopped to say hello.
In addition to Sabrina, Jaglom is survived by a son, Simon Jaglom, and ex-wives Townsend and Foyt, Sabrina and Simon’s mother.
The old stage at West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre looks as small as ever to Tim Curry. Back in 1974, the actor spent nearly a year strutting across its boards in fishnets and a snug corset as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the flamboyant, sexually ravenous mad scientist of the musical comedy “The Rocky Horror Show.”
Witnesses to that run of performances still marvel at the spectacle of Curry’s nightly entrance, as he marched from the lobby on a long catwalk, his high heels at eye level with the audience. He would then cast aside his Dracula cape to sing a personal theme song, “Sweet Transvestite.”
“It’s actually really nice to be here because it was another home for me,” says Curry, 79, looking up at the empty stage inside the Sunset Strip nightclub. “It became my stomping ground. I had to appear as though I owned it — and I kind of did.”
At the end of that same year, Curry was back home in England to shoot the feature film version, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a rock ’n’ roll send-up of old sci-fi and horror B-movies that became both a cult classic and a vibrant symbol for sexual freedom. It is the original midnight movie and is now being feted around the world for its 50th anniversary with a second life as the longest continuous theatrical release in cinema history.
Tim Curry, center, as Frank-N-Furter in 1975’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
(John Jay Photo / Disney)
The role changed Curry’s career forever, and he will be part of some of those celebrations, beginning with a screening of a newly restored 4K version of the film, along with a panel Q&A, at the Academy Museum on Friday.
At the time of the film’s original release in 1975, it tapped into a cultural zeitgeist that mixed glamour and androgyny, akin to the era’s glam-rock movement led by David Bowie. “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” ultimately found a cult of fans who gathered for weekly midnight screenings in costume as the movie’s outlandish characters, performing as a “shadow cast” in harmony with the film onscreen.
“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” says Curry. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”
Since a stroke in 2012, the actor has been in a wheelchair and most of his work has been in voiceover. He did appear on camera in a 2016 remake of “Rocky Horror” for television, this time as the criminologist. But it was as the lascivious, self-confident Frank-N-Furter that Curry made history.
On this afternoon, he is dressed in black, auburn hair slicked back. In the Roxy’s lobby is a portrait of Curry in character as the mad doctor in pearls. It was a role he originated in London, on the tiny stage upstairs at the Royal Court Theatre, where it first became an underground sensation.
“Even for the time, there was a lot of courage that went into that performance,” remembers Jim Sharman, who directed Curry in the original stage productions in London and Los Angeles and then onscreen. “Tim himself was actually a kind of quiet intellectual offstage, but onstage he really knew how to let it rip.”
Curry, center, in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
(Disney)
With a story and songs written by actor Richard O’Brien, who also played the skeletal, sarcastic Riff-Raff, “Rocky Horror” begins with a young couple caught in a rainstorm who approach a mysterious castle in search of shelter and a phone.
Played by then-unknowns Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick, the couple find Frank-N-Furter is hosting a convention of partying aliens in formalwear from the planet Transsexual in the galaxy Transylvania.
The mad doctor is also anxious to show off his latest experiment, the creation of a perfectly formed male, a personal plaything of chiseled muscles and blond hair, as he sings “I Can Make You A Man.” The scene leaves an impression.
“He takes no prisoners — it’s his world and you just happen to live in it,” Curry says with a smile of his Frank-N-Furter. “He doesn’t leave much air in the room. And I enjoyed that because it was so not like me, really.”
Notably, the film shares a 50-year anniversary with “Jaws,” and Curry remembers someone at 20th Century Fox placing newspaper ads that year for “Rocky Horror” with the film’s glossy red lips image and words promising, “A different set of jaws.”
“Jaws,” of course, was a record-breaking summer blockbuster, but as the longest-running theatrical release of all time, “Rocky Horror” really has no competition in terms of impact. It helped establish a culture for midnight movies in open-ended rotation, from David Lynch’s “Eraserhead” to Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls.”
At the customary hour of midnight, the restored 4K film will be premiering across the country this weekend, with special screenings and Q&As on Oct. 4 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery and Oct. 15 at the Grammy Museum. The film will then be rereleased on Blu-ray on Oct. 7, with a reissue of the official soundtrack album on Oct. 10.
Also landing in time for the celebration is a new documentary, “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” directed by Linus O’Brien, son of “Rocky Horror” author and composer Richard O’Brien. The 90-minute film explores the making of the movie, the original stage musical and the decades of fan culture that followed.
“When a work of art survives this long, it’s working on many different levels,” says the younger O’Brien, who was a toddler on the set. “You want to live in that house and have those naughty experiences. [People] will be talking about it long after we’re all dead.”
The “Rocky Horror” journey from underground theater to feature film began after Los Angeles music impresario Lou Adler saw the show during a trip to London. Known as a manager and record producer (Carole King’s “Tapestry”), Adler was shaken from his jet lag, instantly recognizing “Rocky Horror” as a potential attraction for his recently opened L.A. club, the Roxy. Within two days, Adler signed a deal to host its U.S. premiere.
At the Roxy, the show was an immediate sensation, fueled by Curry’s wildly charismatic performance. Opening night brought out a crowd that included Jack Nicholson, John Lennon and Mick Jagger. L.A. Times theater critic Dan Sullivan compared Curry to various Hollywood grande dames (Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, among them).
“It was one of the great parties of all time,” Adler recalls during a video call from his home in Malibu. “The acceptance was unbelievable.”
Talk of turning the stage musical into a movie soon followed and a deal was made with 20th Century Fox, with producers Adler and Michael White guaranteeing delivery on a modest budget of about $1 million.
“I don’t know if 20th Century Fox ever understood the film,” Sharman says with a laugh, in a video call from Australia. “They might’ve been relieved that it was going on a low budget and being made on somebody’s lunch money.”
It was the first feature film for many of them. But Adler and White insisted on keeping the stage musical’s creative team together, including Sharman, costume designer Sue Blane and production designer Brian Thomson. With Curry firmly in the lead role, most of the cast members were drawn from the London production. Joining them were American actors Sarandon, Bostwick and singer Meat Loaf.
“I adored her,” Curry says of Sarandon. “She was a witty girl and so beautiful, and a real actress, I thought. You could tell that she had something.”
He also became friends with Meat Loaf, who appeared in the small but impactful role of Eddie, bursting out of a freezer on a motorcycle long enough to sing the manic “Hot Patootie, Bless My Soul.” In 1981, Curry hosted “Saturday Night Live” and appeared with Meat Loaf in a skit that had the actors selling “Rocky Horror” memorabilia. (Curry is still irritated by that one: “Dreadful.”)
Lou Adler, photographed at the Roxy in West Hollywood in 2023.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“When the movie was a definite thing, there were several big stars who wanted to play the part,” Curry remembers. “Mick Jagger wanted to play it and he would’ve done a great job if you saw ‘Performance.’ But [director Sharman] said he wanted me to do it. I don’t think the studio was happy that he turned down Mick.”
Though Sharman was a very experienced stage director, he had made only one previous film, a 16mm feature called “Shirley Thompson vs. the Aliens.” For “Rocky Horror,” he says he was aiming for “a dark version of ‘The Wizard of Oz.’” He was also inspired by old B-movies and German Expressionism along with lessons learned from the stage. Interior scenes were shot at the old Hammer horror films’ Bray Studios just outside London.
“The reason we don’t have great anecdotes from the shoot is we didn’t have time for anecdotes,” adds Sharman. “It was shot in five weeks.”
Bostwick, appearing in one of his first film roles, remembers, “It felt like a very low-budget but colorful, bright and inspiring musical. You knew from the moment you were around the sets and costumes and lighting and makeup and camera people that they were at the top of their game.”
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” evolved in some subtle but meaningful ways in its transition from the stage. For the live performances, Curry did his own makeup. “In the theater, I made it look a lot more amateur, deliberately, like he wasn’t good at it but was making a brave attempt and didn’t care much,” Curry says with a laugh. “In the play, it was just a lot trashier.”
For the film, French makeup artist Pierre La Roche was recruited to refine Frank-N-Furter’s exterior. La Roche had previously worked with Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust era.
“He was indeed very French,” says Curry, campily. “He was brilliant.”
An early sign of the challenges the movie would face arrived at an early screening of the completed film for Fox executives. Curry was there with Adler. “You could touch the silence at the end,” recalls Curry. “It wasn’t a very alive audience. There was really no reaction at all.”
Fox also hosted a test screening in Santa Barbara. The audience was a local mix of retirees and university students, and many of the older filmgoers began heading for the exit, until the theater was nearly empty.
But as Adler and a young Fox executive named Tim Deegan sat on the curb outside, they also met young people who were excited about the film. Adler credits Deegan for finding the “Rocky Horror” audience in an unexpected place: indie theaters at midnight.
Its second life began at the Waverly Theater in New York, where it began evolving into a happening that was both a movie and a theatrical experience. At the time, Curry happened to live within walking distance of the Waverly.
“It was a sort of guaranteed party,” he says of any potential moviegoer. “And if he didn’t bring a date, he could perhaps find one.”
On a recent weekend at the Nuart Theater in West L.A., barely five miles away from the Roxy, it’s approaching midnight and the lobby is filled with fans and volunteer shadow performers in “Rocky Horror” drag. Appearing as Frank-N-Furter is Kohlton Rippee, 32, already in his heels and makeup.
Like many here, he sees the film as both an outlet and a connection to a found family — a way “to see aspects of themselves represented in ways that they don’t see from traditional media. It’s like, ‘Oh, I can see myself in this and find this weird community to be around.’”
Bostwick first heard of the film’s second life from others and word trickled in that his every appearance onscreen was met with an affectionate callback from the crowd: “Ass—!” He didn’t see the phenomenon himself until later at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset.
“What do they say, that Disneyland is the happiest place on Earth? I’ve always thought that a Friday and Saturday night at a theater at midnight was the happiest place on Earth,” the actor says of the many raucous screenings he’s witnessed. “Everybody was just having a ball.”
After Walt Disney Co.‘s 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox, it turned the House of Mouse into the unlikely steward of “Rocky Horror.” Back in 1975, nothing could have been further from the Disney brand than a rock ’n’ roll musical about a cross-dressing scientist. That year, Disney released “The Apple Dumpling Gang.”
“I guess Walt is kind of revolving in his grave,” Curry jokes.
Even so, Adler says Disney has been a good partner on “Rocky Horror” and is supporting the multiple official anniversary events. “Walt was a breakthrough guy,” the producer notes. “He broke through and made a mouse a hero. So, in a way, he had his own Frank-N-Furter.”
ROME — Acclaimed Italian actor Claudia Cardinale, who starred in some of the most celebrated European films of the 1960s and ’70s, has died, AFP reported Tuesday. She was 87.
She starred in more than 100 films and made-for-television productions, but she was best known for embodying youthful purity in Federico Fellini’s “8½,” in which she co-starred with Marcello Mastroianni in 1963.
Cardinale also won praise for her role as Angelica Sedara in Luchino Visconti’s award-winning screen adaption of the historical novel “The Leopard” that same year and a reformed prostitute in Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western “Once Upon a Time in the West” in 1968.
She died in Nemours, France, surrounded by her children, her agent Laurent Savry told AFP. Savry and his agency did not immediately return emailed requests for comment from the Associated Press.
Cardinale began her movie career at the age of 17 after winning a beauty contest in Tunisia, where she was born of Sicilian parents who had emigrated to North Africa. The contest brought her to the Venice Film Festival, where she came to the attention of the Italian movie industry.
Before entering the beauty contest, she had expected to become a schoolteacher.
“The fact I’m making movies is just an accident,” Cardinale recalled while accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002. “When they asked me, ‘Do you want to be in the movies?’ I said no, and they insisted for six months.”
Her success came in the wake of Sophia Loren’s international stardom, and she was touted as Italy’s answer to Brigitte Bardot. Although never achieving the level of success of the French actor, she nonetheless was considered a star and worked with the leading directors in Europe and Hollywood.
“They gave me everything,” Cardinale said. “It’s marvelous to live so many lives. I’ve been living more than 150 lives, totally different women.”
One of her earliest roles was as a black-clad Sicilian girl in the 1958 comedy classic “Big Deal on Madonna Street.” It was produced by Franco Cristaldi, who managed Cardinale’s early career and to whom she was married from 1966 to 1975.
The sensuous brunette with enormous eyes was often cast as a hot-blooded woman. As she had a deep voice and spoke Italian with a heavy French accent, her voice was dubbed in her early movies.
Her career in Hollywood brought only partial success because she was not interested in giving up European film. Nonetheless, she achieved some fame by teaming with Rock Hudson in the 1965 comedy thriller “Blindfold” and another comedy, “Don’t Make Waves,” with Tony Curtis two years later.
Cardinale herself considered the 1966 “The Professionals,” directed by Richard Brooks, as the best of her Hollywood films, where she starred alongside Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Robert Ryan and Lee Marvin.
In a 2002 interview with the Guardian, she explained that the Hollywood studio “wanted me to sign a contract of exclusivity, and I refused. Because I’m a European actress and I was going there for movies.”
“And I had a big opportunity with Richard Brooks, ‘The Professionals,’ which is really a magnificent movie,” she said. “For me, ‘The Professionals’ is the best I did in Hollywood.”
Among her industry prizes was a Golden Lion for lifetime achievement that she received at the Venice Film Festival nearly 40 years after her initial appearance onscreen.
In 2000, Cardinale was named a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for the defense of women’s rights.
She had two children. One with Cristaldi and a second with her later companion, Italian director Pasquale Squitieri.
Simpson, the principal writer of this obituary, is a former Associated Press writer.
Marlon Wayans is putting up a “defensive run-stopping front” after his latest film received negative reviews from critics.
The actor took to his Instagram account over the weekend to promote his latest film, “HIM,” which hit the big screen Friday, and told fans to form their own opinions on the project. The movie currently holds a 29% score with critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
“An opinion does not always mean it’s everyone’s opinion. Some movies are ahead of the curve,” Wayans said. “Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted and it’s subjective.”
The post include screen grabs from the Rotten Tomatoes pages of his other movies that have been classified “rotten” by the website but were later embraced by audiences like 2004’s “White Chicks,” the first two films in the “Scary Movie” franchise, 2013’s “A Haunted House” and 1996’s “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood.” The post ends with a screen grab of the “HIM” Rotten Tomatoes page.
“I’ve had a career of making classic movies that weren’t critically received and those movies went on to be CLASSICS. So don’t take anyone’s opinion just go see for yourself,” Wayans added.
So far, audiences have given the film a 58% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Times film critic, Amy Nicholson, credited the the film for its “stylishly” craftsmanship but said it was lacking plot.
Walt Disney Studios released a new teaser for its upcoming “Star Wars” film on Monday, offering a first look at the Mandalorian Din Djarin and his charge Grogu’s next adventure. The movie is a spin-off of TV’s “The Mandalorian” and picks up after the events in the Disney+ series’ third season, which aired in 2023.
The trailer includes plenty of footage of the fan-favorite Force-wielding toddler being his usual adorable self as he flips switches on a spaceship, eats snacks and hangs out with Anzellans — the diminutive alien species who are often droidsmiths. It also shows Mando (potrayed by Pedro Pascal) and Grogu blowing up an AT-AT, taking in an event at a Hutt arena and meeting up with Sigourney Weaver’s character, a New Republic colonel named Ward. Ward seems unimpressed with Grogu’s attempts to help himself to her bar snacks.
The trailer was released amid the heightened scrutiny of Disney after its suspension of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Last week, the company’s broadcast network ABC announced it was dropping “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” indefinitely following remarks the host made in the aftermath of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk’s killing that drew the ire of Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr as well as affiliate-station owners Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group. According to the Hollywood Reporter, “The Mandalorian and Grogu” teaser release had been planned for last week.
Among the backlash to ABC’s decision were calls for a boycott and to cancel subscriptions to Disney-owned services such as Hulu and Disney+. So it’s no surprise that folks online — including those in the comments section on the trailer’s YouTube video — had called out the new trailer as a distraction from Disney’s current troubles. The company has since announced “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return Tuesday.
Directed by “The Mandalorian” creator Jon Favreau, “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” will be the first movie set in the galaxy far, far away to hit theaters since “Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019. The new movie is slated for a May 22 release.
Paramount+’s hit Sylvester Stallone drama Tulsa King is finally back for season three and a new addition to the cast has everyone excited
Tulsa King fans are ecstatic as another action movie legend has joined the cast as a powerful new enemy for crime boss Dwight ‘The General’ Manfredi (played by Sylvester Stallone).
Season three premiered last Sunday night (21st September), taking fans back to the night Dwight was kidnapped by Special Agent Musso (Kevin Pollak).
Thankfully, he’s soon released, albeit as Musso’s new informant on an unknown target, and reunites with Margaret (Dana Delany), apologising for her ranch being ransacked by gunmen the night before.
After a quick visit to his family in Little Italy, Dwight discovers Cleo Montague’s (Bella Heathcote) family distillery is due to be sold to the powerful Dunmire family after her father Theodore (Brett Rice) made a handshake deal.
However, Dwight sees the distillery as a valuable asset to his own empire and promises a better deal for the Montagues.
Fans are saying season three is already an improvement over the previous outing(Image: PARAMOUNT)
Cue the introduction of Tulsa King season three’s terrifying new villain, Jeremiah Dunmire, portrayed by none other than Hollywood star Robert Patrick.
Patrick is best known for portraying the unstoppable T-1000 in James Cameron’s hit action movie sequel Terminator 2: Judgement Day and has more recently landed roles in Yellowstone prequel 1923 and HBO’s Peacemaker.
Jeremiah is naturally furious to discover Theo has reneged on their deal, and sets a group of thugs on his mansion who beat him to a pulp and burn his home to the ground.
Viewers were on the edge of their seats during this nail-biting premiere, which raises the stakes for Dwight and his crew to a whole new level. Fans were also already impressed with Patrick’s performance as this season’s sadistic antagonist.
Dwight’s newest rival Jeremiah Dunmire isn’t playing games(Image: PARAMOUNT)
One ecstatic viewer took to X to reply to Patrick’s recent post in which he warned Dwight not to “cross” him.
Using plenty of fire emojis they exclaimed in the comments: “Yoooo, I just watched the new episode and O M G… and this is just the 1st episode and yall WENT TF OFFF… WOW!! ..
“You ARE GONNA BE A PROBLEMA FOR Dwight. Your character already starting off EVIL AF. Dude, I WAS YELLING AT THE TV AT THE END LIKE NOOO WAY! 10/10 show!!
“I can’t wait for next week.. man oh man.. GANGSTA A*** S***!! Awesome job yall!!!”
Someone else replied: “you’re awesome dude, great career, enjoy your success!!”
Robert Patrick is best known for playing the deadly T-1000 in Terminator 2(Image: TRI-STAR PICTURES)
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Discussion continued over on Reddit, where one user wrote: “Good to see Robert Patrick get consistent acting work.” To which another viewer replied: “He killed it and he was only on screen for a few mins.”
Another said: “Robert Patrick Is [a] great bad guy character.”
While other fans praised the episode in general for starting off the new season strong, with one sharing: “It’s already looking great, way better than season 2’s premiere for sure.”
And a final fan predicted: “Sly’s gonna rip Terminator’s nuts off for killing that old guy!”
Are you excited to see Stallone going head-to-head with one of Hollywood’s greatest villains?
Tulsa King season 3 continues Sundays on Paramount+.
