When we talk about “movie magic,” the first thing that comes to mind is often something like the bikes achieving liftoff in “E.T.” But it applies no less to Alice Rohrwacher’s wondrous “La Chimera,” a grubbily transcendent folk tale of a film that finds its enchantment buried in the ground. “Were you dreaming?” a train conductor asks the sleeping Arthur …
Read More »Tag Archives: Movies
Inside the SAG Awards: A mostly celebratory mood for 1st show since historic strike
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Inside the ballroom at the 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards, “Oppenheimer” was front and center literally and figuratively, snagging the night’s top prize along with trophies for Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. Ahead of this year’s Academy Awards, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster increasingly looks like the run-away favorite. It was outshined on Saturday’s awards only …
Read More »Inside the enduring movie homes of Jack Fisk, production design legend
NEW YORK (AP) — Jack Fisk, the legendary production designer, has been down a lot of roads in his life. He goes looking down back roads for movie locations and hillsides on which to plop down mock houses. He’s been to the Solomon Islands for “The Thin Red Line” and the Canadian Rockies for “The Revenant.” But America, really, is …
Read More »Movie Review: ‘Dune: Part Two’ sustains the dystopian dream of ‘Part One’
Three firm thumps into the Arrakis sand is all you need to summon a sandworm in Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two.” It’s almost as easy as hailing a cab or calling for the check. The big buggers can’t resist the sound, which is a little like how I feel taking in all the vibrations of Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s …
Read More »Ben Affleck inspired J.Lo’s first album in a decade. She’s using it to poke fun at her romantic past
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Throughout her career, Jennifer Lopez has been hailed as an epochal, prolific and hard-working artist. One adjective not often associated with the pop icon-turned-actor and movie producer, however, is self-deprecating. But as she readies to drop her first studio album in a decade, Lopez is performing a kind of fictionalized mea culpa about her past romantic …
Read More »‘Lisa Frankenstein’ fails to revive North American box office on a very slow Super Bowl weekend
“ Lisa Frankenstein ” didn’t come to life at the North American box office in its first weekend in theaters. The horror comedy written by Diablo Cody and starring Kathryn Newton and Cole Sprouse earned $3.8 million, according to studio estimates Sunday. It debuted in second place on a very slow Super Bowl weekend, behind the spy thriller “Argylle.” Matthew …
Read More »Movie Review: Food, glorious food (and other pleasures) in ‘The Taste of Things’
“ The Taste of Things ” should come with a warning: Audiences may be tempted to abandon work as they know it and start a beautiful, calm new life in the French countryside devoted to the culinary arts. There is something rather cruel about releasing a film this lovely and voyeuristic in the dead of February, in which the cinematic …
Read More »Movie Review: ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ lurches from idiocy to whimsy and ends up unwatchable
It will come as no surprise that the new movie “Lisa Frankenstein” is a real monster — stitched together from previous movies, painfully incoherent and deeply, deeply dumb. This is a baffling display of filmmaking, what appears to be a sort of feminist take on the reanimated creature trope that has been shoehorned into a late-1980s setting, complete with New …
Read More »‘Moana 2’ is coming to theaters for a Thanksgiving release
Moana and Maui are sailing back to the big screen, very quickly. “Moana 2” is coming to theaters in November, Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger said Wednesday. Originally planned as a television series, the movie finds Moana journeying on a dangerous mission to the far seas of Oceania after getting a call from her ancestors. It is, the company …
Read More »Annette Bening honored as Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Annette Bening, a two-time Golden Globe winner who recently received her fifth Oscar nomination, was feted Tuesday with a raucous parade full of colorful costumes and drag performers as part of festivities honoring her as Harvard University’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals 2024 Woman of the Year. A few hours later, Benning endured a celebrity roast before attending …
Read More »