On the face of it, the Russian actor Yura Borisov was an unlikely actor to land an Oscar nomination in 2025. Just a few years ago he played a guileless soldier in a Kremlin-sponsored movie that celebrated a Soviet tank model. Later, he starred in a biopic of Mikhail Kalashnikov, the man who invented the … Read more
In the decades separating the suave Cary Grant from the willowy Timothée Chalamet, there was a leading man with a rougher kind of charm. Even in his box-office heyday, Gene Hackman had a receding hairline and a paunch. He could pass for 50 when he was 30. He described himself as a “big lummox kind … Read more
Joseph Wambaugh, the master storyteller of police dramas, whose books, films and television tales powerfully caught the hard psychic realities of lonely street cops and flawed detectives trapped in a seedy world of greed and senseless brutality, died on Friday at his home in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 88. The cause was esophageal cancer, … Read more
When the director Wes Anderson and the actors Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray and Gwyneth Paltrow took the stage in 2011 for a panel celebrating the 10th anniversary of Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums,” there was no need for small talk before addressing the elephant in the room. “So, no Gene Hackman?” began the director Noah Baumbach, … Read more
Shari Redstone, the controlling shareholder of the entertainment giant Paramount, delivered a crucial message to her board a few weeks ago. For months, Paramount’s lawyers had been jousting with representatives for President Trump, who had sued the company’s CBS News network over its segment on former Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump accused the network … Read more
Since the best documentary feature category was first established at the Oscars in 1942, the nominees have been like a snapshot of the year: wars and social concerns, heroes and headlines. This year is no exception. On paper, each of the five nominees look as if they’re ripped from the headlines, chosen for some metric … Read more
Jalet, who choreographed Luca Guadagnino’s horror movie “Suspiria,” knew Saldaña only from the movie “Avatar.” When he discovered “Center Stage,” he grasped that she would take movement seriously. “It was such an amazing relief to feel that, “Oh, she’s a dancer,” he said. In the original conception, Saldaña had just one dance scene: Rita walks … Read more
The jokes might not land, but the drama hits hard. ‘My Dead Friend Zoe’ Directed by Kyle Hausmann-Stokes, this film follows Merit (Sonequa Martin-Green), a veteran who returns home from Afghanistan and must adjust to civilian life and grapple with the death of her friend Zoe (Natalie Morales). From our review: After World War II, … Read more
Actors may deliver impassioned speeches about achieving their “childhood dreams,” but we don’t often hear about how those sculpting wounds with clay and bubbling skin with latex are fulfilling their lifelong fantasies. “Teenager treats” is how Pierre Olivier Persin, the special effects designer nominated for an Oscar for makeup and hairstyling for “The Substance,” described … Read more
Then, there’s “Dune: Part Two,” a movie so expensive looking, so smoothly, tastefully, artfully done that it’s easy to remain passive in the face of all that’s weird about it. But look! It’s Stellan Skarsgard, plumped, pursy and a-vape, as a baron whose kink, in part, arises from stadium-size gladiatoring. When this series is complete, … Read more