The age of Timothée Chalamet, plus the week’s best movies in L.A.
Hello! I’m Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.
To get this year started on the right foot, the Los Angeles Times entertainment staff chose its 25 most anticipated movies for 2025. As one might expect, it is a varied and eclectic list. Amy Kaufman chose the documentary “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,” Mary McNamara selected “Paddington in Peru,” Maggie Gyllenhaal’s “The Bride,” and Terrence Malick’s “The Way of the Wind,” while Matt Brennan selected “Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy” and “F1.”
Josh Rottenberg chose Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17” and “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” Tracy Brown picked the remake of “The Wedding Banquet,” the animated “Elio” and the latest “Superman.”
Greg Braxton went with genre pictures “Ballerina” and “M3GAN 2.0, ” while Meredith Blake selected David Lowery’s “Mother Mary” and Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value.”
Ashley Lee picked a pair of follow-ups with “Freakier Friday” and “Wicked: For Good” and Glenn Whipp chose the untitled project from filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson and Celine Song’s “Materialists.”
Joshua Rothkopf chose Danny Boyle’s zombie sequel “28 Years Later,” with Amy Nicholson picking Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” and the as-yet-untitled film from “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
And I picked Lynne Ramsay’s “Die, My Love,” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson; Luca Guadagnino’s “After the Hunt” starring Julia Roberts and Ayo Edebiri; and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind” with Josh O’Connor.
Already I feel excited for the (movie) year ahead.
A Timothée Chalamet retrospective
It may seem a little early in his career for a retrospective, but Timothée Chalamet, only just turning 29, has already racked up an impressive and illustrious filmography. More than anything, he just seems to be someone who is capturing the spirit of this particular cultural moment. The American Cinematheque is launching a retrospective of the actor including numerous in-person appearances. The in-person screenings have already sold out, reportedly in record time, though there will be standby lines.
The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf will moderate a Q&A with Chalamet and director Denis Villeneuve on the 10th following a 70mm screening of “Dune: Part Two” at the DGA Theater. A double feature of “Call Me by Your Name” and “Bones and All” will include a Q&A with Chalamet and director Luca Guadagnino moderated by Andrew Garfield. A Q&A with Chalamet after a screening of the new “A Complete Unknown” will be moderated by Cameron Crowe.
Other films in the series include one of Chalamet’s earliest roles in “Miss Stevens” (introduced by writer-director Julia Hart), along with “The King,” “Wonka” and “Beautiful Boy.”
Writing about Chalamet in “A Complete Unknown,” Rothkopf called his turn “a near-magical performance that throws off all the right kind of sparks: newness, genius, a touch of aloofness that was probably easier for Dylan to fake than modesty and, under it all, a kind of aggressive, combative hunger. Chalamet has already taken his boy messiah in the ‘Dune’ movies to a dangerously dark place; his Dylan is cut from the same cloth, uncomfortable with the mantle thrust upon him.”
Judging by the run of recent press appearances Chalamet has already made on behalf of “A Complete Unknown,” the actor has found a way to deal with the pressures being placed upon him. This series of L.A. appearances should further burnish his growing mystique.
David Cronenberg comes to town
Filmmaker David Cronenberg will be appearing at the Academy Museum on Friday for a screening of the 4K director’s cut of 1983’s “Videodrome” and on Saturday for a screening of 1999’s “eXistenZ.”
“Videodrome” might be Cronenberg’s first masterwork: a disturbing and prescient look at how media and technology change bodies and minds. The movie stars James Woods and Debbie Harry and concerns an underground television broadcast.
In his original review of the film, Kevin Thomas wrote, “There’s no getting around it anymore: David Cronenberg must be reckoned with. The talented young Canadian filmmaker has just about the most morbid imagination at loose in the commercial cinema today. … culminating in his most accomplished film to date, the thoroughly compelling and terrifying ‘Videodrome.’ ”
He concluded by saying, “ ‘Videodrome’ is not itself a ‘Videodrome’ program. But how can we say for sure?”
In an interview at the time with Clarke Taylor, Cronenberg said, Woods’ character of Max Renn “runs his TV station the way I make my movies. I want people to respond to ‘Videodrome’ in the same way people respond to some of the more explicit cable-TV shows — attraction with repulsion.”
Cronenberg added, “Art should be an antenna to what’s going on, so we can take control and not just let things happen. If this movie is a warning of dire possibilities, then by its nature it’s not going to be funny and light. You want to be loud and noticed, not soft and ignored.”
“eXistenZ” stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jude Law in another Cronenbergian story that combines technology and biology, tapping into the anxieties of the turn of the millennium.
Kevin Thomas reviewed Cronenberg’s “eXistenZ” in 1999, writing, “Interestingly, ‘eXistenZ’ is not heavy on action spectacle, but there is violence and gore, to be sure, and it has only a few key settings. Cronenberg instead skillfully generates an unsettling involvement and suspense by making us feel that he is playing with our minds, just as Allegra and Ted are doing that to others — and maybe themselves.”
Thomas added, “Sci-fi fantasy/horror doesn’t get more sophisticated than ‘eXistenZ,’ yet while the film invites speculation, it doesn’t require it. As cerebral as ‘eXistenZ’ is, it’s nevertheless easy to go along for the ride, just for fun, as you would ‘Scream,’ and be rewarded with the stunning kind of payoff all thrillers should deliver regardless of their level of aspiration.”
Author Violet Lucca recently published “David Cronenberg: Clinical Trials,” an examination of the filmmaker’s work. As Marc Weingarten wrote about the study, “With her lavishly illustrated book, Lucca has given us the most rigorous critical analysis of the director’s work to date, reframing Cronenberg’s career as something more than the work of a master of ‘body horror,’ a term that she regards as reductive and dismissive. Instead of a facile thrill-seeker, Lucca locates in Cronenberg’s work the mind of a moralist and social critic with a taste for blood, writing that his films can be approached through various critical entry points: as cautionary tales about demagoguery in the age of scientific progress, or the dissolution of the self when confronted by a world thrown out of whack by money and desire.”
Points of interest
‘Pennies From Heaven’ in 35mm
The Egyptian Theatre will be showing Herbert Ross’ 1981 ambitious, emotionally vibrant Depression-era-set musical “Pennies From Heaven” starring Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters, Jessica Harper and Christopher Walken on a 35mm print on Tuesday.
In his original review, Kevin Thomas said the film “is like no other period musical. It is so far out, so unexpected, that it might well be described as experimental. Musicals, especially those as expensive as this one, are traditionally supposed to be democratic entertainments designed to appeal to the widest audience possible, while ‘Pennies From Heaven’ is so rigorously stylized and determinedly sophisticated that it verges on the esoteric. If ‘New York, New York’ was a film noir musical, ‘Pennies From Heaven’ is the musical as an art film. As such, it’s likely to elicit deeply divided reactions. Audiences will probably either love it or hate it.”
Charles Champlin wrote about the film as well, adding, “Like any art form, the movies can only remain vital and interesting if those who make them keep trying to renew them, extended them and explore their further possibilities. It happens less and less often as costs rise and revenues don’t.”
Champlin added, “Whatever else it is, ‘Pennies From Heaven’ is a courageous gamble that must have set ulcers twitching at MGM from the very start, but it seems appropriate that the studio responsible for so much innovation in the film musical should have underwritten this one, whose dark vision and dark look is, on the other hand, the absolute antithesis of the cheerful optimism Louis B. Mayer liked in his musicals and no musicals alike. … The message from ‘Pennies From Heaven’ is in one way optimistic, too: it reaffirms the inexhaustible possibilities of the motion picture, and this is no small triumph.”
Mike Leigh in L.A.
The American Cinematheque will be launching a tribute series to filmmaker Mike Leigh on Friday night with a double bill of his latest film, “Hard Truths,” coupled with 1996’s “Secrets & Lies.” Leigh and his actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin will be on hand for a Q&A ahead of the L.A. opening of “Hard Truths” on Jan. 10. (“Secrets & Lies” won Cannes’ Palme d’Or and Jean-Baptiste was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance in the film.)
Leigh will also be at the Egyptian on Saturday for a Q&A after his 1984 film “Meantime” (along with actors Marion Bailey and Tim Roth) and 1993’s “Naked.”
“Naked” won prizes for directing for Leigh and acting for David Thewlis at Cannes for the film’s portrait of a man spiraling out of control. In his original review of the film, Kenneth Turan wrote, “More than anything, though, ‘Naked’ is a mesmerizing character study, an attempt to stretch the emotional boundaries of truth on film as far as they will go. For once we think we’ve seen as much of Johnny as we can take, like an etching by Escher we start to see something else, a glimpse of another person easily missed.”
In other news
Free screening of ‘Conclave’
On Monday there will be a free screening of “Conclave” followed by a Q&A with screenwriter Peter Straughan and producers Tessa Ross and Mike Jackman, moderated by me.
Directed by Edward Berger and starring Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini, the film is a dramatic thriller set during a Vatican conclave to select a new pope. Reviewing the film for The Times, Katie Walsh wrote, “The cloistered politicking devolves into lunchroom antics and social warfare akin to a high school movie, but this swirling whirlpool of interpersonal drama is grounded by the pomp and circumstance of centuries-old ritual: garments and ballots and hierarchy.”
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