Lifestyle
Timothée Chalamet, a Neil Diamond tribute band and more in theaters for Christmas
Timothée Chalamet in Marty Supreme.
A24
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A24
A ping pong hustler for the ages, a Neil Diamond interpreter for the ’80s, choral music both comic and spiritual, plus tormented teens, twisted families, and a giant snake on the loose. It’s quite the jolly holiday at your local cineplex.
They join a new Avatar sequel, a Bradley Cooper-directed drama, and more in theaters.
Marty Supreme
In theaters Thursday
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I feel as if I should tell you to speed-read this review, preferably with Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” blaring in your ear. Josh Safdie’s adrenaline-fueled, screwball comedy about a table tennis hustler who dreams of world domination — in a sport that hasn’t registered yet with the American public — is a mesmerizing cinematic tour de force. Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser (loosely based on real-life 1940s and ’50s U.S. ping pong champ and petty criminal Marty Reisman), graduating from determined kid-with-a-passion to aggrieved also-ran-in-full-melt-down mode, attracting and then alienating everyone he comes across. We meet him as a New York shoe salesman having storeroom trysts with his married childhood sweetheart (Odessa A’zion) and prepping for a bout in England for which he can’t even afford plane fare.
Marty establishes with a series of heists and scams that he’s got no problem cheating or stealing to get there, then regales the press with a pugnacious racist routine that lands him on front pages before his first serve. Chalamet’s live-wire approach is neatly countered by a serenely sensual turn by Gwyneth Paltrow as an aging movie star who finds Marty amusing and alarming in about equal measure. And the film’s just getting started at that point, careening towards a championship in Japan with the propulsive, harrowing, rush-to-judgment feel of Safdie’s Uncut Gems mixed up with dizzying comedy. It’s a thrill ride, pure and simple. — Bob Mondello
Song Sung Blue
In theaters Thursday
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Mike and Claire Sardina, the real-life, blue-collar Milwaukee couple who formed a Neil Diamond tribute act in the 1980s, get the sequin-and-spangle treatment in this Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson love-fest. Writer and director Craig Brewer keeps the music central and the sentiment tolerable as the couple meets cute, bonds quick, and forms a musical act known professionally as Lightning and Thunder. The stars are well-matched and appealing — Hudson does a winning Patsy Cline impersonation, and Jackman completely nails Neil Diamond’s sound and bearing. The couple’s story, which has more downs than ups, doesn’t quite match the mood of a movie determined to be ever-and-always-up. Still, the stars are engaging, the supporting cast great fun, and the music rousing. — Bob Mondello
Anaconda
In theaters Thursday
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The original Anaconda movie came out almost 30 years ago, sending an assortment of ’90s movie stars down the Amazon, where they were menaced and occasionally crushed and/or devoured by giant deadly snakes. That film, starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube, was a hit that spawned a handful of lightly regarded sequels.

Heavy on meta references to the original film, the new Anaconda is not quite a reboot, it’s not quite a sequel, and it’s played for laughs. Jack Black and Paul Rudd star as lifelong friends who grew up wanting to be filmmakers. But they’ve followed different career paths — Paul Rudd’s character is a struggling actor whose biggest role was a bit part on the TV show S.W.A.T., while Jack Black’s character makes wedding videos while yearning to shoot something more creative. They gather their old friends and collaborators — played by Thandiwe Newton and Steve Zahn — and head to the Amazon to shoot a meta reimagining of Anaconda. As you can imagine, this proves harder than it sounds. — Stephen Thompson
The Plague
In limited theaters Wednesday
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The first image is an eerie, underwater shot — sun-dappled blues, greens, and greys — its peace suddenly exploded as bodies plunge into the pool. Middle school boys, limbs all akimbo, almost literally at sea, as they struggle for equilibrium. It’s an apt beginning for the story of a youngster trying to figure out where he fits in among the cliques at a summer water polo camp. Ben (Everett Blunck) is the camp newbie, Jake (Kayo Martin) its smirking cool kid who picks up on his fellow campers’ idiosyncrasies and exploits them.
He tells Ben that Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a withdrawn boy with a rash, has the “plague” and must be avoided. Ben, seeing the obvious pain the outcast is in, can’t square that with his own sense of decency, but also doesn’t want to be ostracized, and his attempt to split the difference leads the film into Lord of the Flies territory. Charlie Polinger’s directorial debut looks breathtaking, feels unnerving, and traffics cleverly in body-horror tropes as it basically establishes that 12-year-old boys are savages who should never be without adult supervision. — Bob Mondello
Father Mother Sister Brother
In limited theaters Wednesday
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You might expect Jim Jarmusch to look at family relationships with a certain eccentricity, but not necessarily in the elegantly framed way he does in this triptych about adult children and the parents they don’t begin to understand. The Father segment casts Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik as siblings who are stiff with each other, and even less comfortable with their garrulous con man of a dad (Tom Waits). Driver’s come with provisions and cash, Bialik’s come armed with an arched eyebrow, and Waits is ready for them both.
The second part, Mother, finds a sublimely chilly Charlotte Rampling hosting an awkward once-a-year tea for her daughters, one primly nervous (Cate Blanchett), the other pink-haired and boisterous (Vicky Krieps). And the final third, Sister Brother, finds Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat bonding in their recently deceased parents’ now-empty Paris apartment. This segment seems less about estrangement, until you realize how little they actually know about their dear departed folks. There are running jokes about Rolexes, the expression “Bob’s your uncle,” and toasts to tie things together, along with a sweet, reflective tone that makes this one of the year’s most compassionate films. — Bob Mondello
The Choral
In limited theaters Thursday
YouTube
Director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Alan Bennett, who previously teamed up on The Madness of King George, The History Boys, and The Lady in the Van, are plumbing shallower depths in this gentle dramedy about an amateur chorus in 1916. When their choirmaster leaves to fight in World War I, grieving mill owner Roger Allam, who funds the chorus, reluctantly hires Dr. Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), a gifted choirmaster but a divisive choice in this intensely nationalistic moment — because he’s spent the last few years in Germany. He also exhibits “peculiarities” (code for being gay) but this seems less important to the locals.
Fiennes is briskly dismissive of local traditions, snippy about English appreciation for the arts, and celebrated enough in music circles to persuade composer Edward Elgar (Simon Russell Beale) to let them perform his oratorio “The Dream of Gerontius.” Elgar is less thrilled when he discovers the chorus is turning the oratorio into a story about the war, casting its elderly hero as a young soldier and generally making it what later generations would call “relevant.” It’s all sweet and sentimental, and though it’s being released during awards seasons, feels as if it really wants to be considered for best picture of 1933. — Bob Mondello
No Other Choice
In select theaters Thursday
YouTube
“I’ve got it all,” says paper factory supervisor Man-su as he hugs his family at a barbecue in the backyard of his elegant Korean home. He’s grilling some eels given to him by the paper company’s new American owners, secure in the knowledge that this must mean they value him. This being a social satire by director Park Chan-wook, it’s reasonable to expect he will shortly be dealt a blow, and one day later, he’s been axed. (The film is based on Donald E. Westlake’s 1997 horror-thriller novel The Ax). He’s distraught but can’t express, or even really understand, that he feels he has lost his manhood, his mojo, and his reason for being.
On top of that, his industry is consolidating, so finding another job before his severance pay runs out and he loses his house (his childhood home) will be tricky. Asked if he’d consider a job outside the paper industry, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) says that for him there is “no other choice,” echoing the words his American bosses uttered about bringing down costs as they did layoffs. But with the end of severance payments looming, he hatches a plan to knock off his job market competition one by one. Isn’t this mass murder? Well, he has “no other choice.”
At first it seems as if we’re in serial-killer comedy territory, but the filmmaker widens the frame to include narrative side trips — a stepson who’s stealing cellphones, a daughter who’s a cello prodigy, a wife who’s working for a dentist that Man-su suspects has designs on her. Oh, and pig-farm trauma from his youth, and a passion for greenhouse gardening. Director Park has a lot going on, and a final paper-plant-mechanization sequence suggests that all these stabs at human agency may just have been humanity’s last gasp. — Bob Mondello
The Testament of Ann Lee
In limited theaters Thursday
YouTube
Ambitious, stylized, intense, and thoroughly unorthodox, Mona Fastvold’s religious biopic tells the story of Shakers founder Ann Lee (a wild-eyed, fiercely committed Amanda Seyfried) as a full-scale musical drama. That’s not to say there are finger-snapping tunes. The score adapts 18th century Shaker spirituals, and the choreography involves the thrusting limbs and clawing fingers of the seizure-like dancing that earned this puritan sect of “Shaking” Quakers their nickname.
We meet Ann as a pious youngster more interested in spiritual matters than matters of the flesh. Marriage to a man who enjoys inflicting pain during sex, and the deaths of her four children in infancy lead Ann to the conclusion that lifelong celibacy is among the keys to salvation. With the help of her younger brother (Lewis Pullman), she finds adherents to a religious philosophy that also emphasizes gender equality and simple living, and leads them to found a utopian, crafts-based community in America. Director Fastvold and her co-writer Brady Corbet (the couple flipped roles from last year’s The Brutalist) serve up Ann’s spiritual journey in ecstatically musical terms, which is at once distancing and … well, ecstatic, though it pales a bit over the course of two-and-a-quarter hours. — Bob Mondello
Lifestyle
No matter what happens at the Oscars, Delroy Lindo embraces ‘the joy of this moment’
Delroy Lindo is nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in Sinners.
Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
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Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP
Over the course of his decades-long career on stage and in Hollywood, Sinners actor Delroy Lindo has experienced firsthand what he calls the “disappointments, the vicissitudes of the industry.”
On Feb. 22, at the BAFTA awards in London, Lindo and Sinners co-star Michael B. Jordan were the first presenters of the evening when a man with Tourette syndrome shouted a racial slur.
Initially, Lindo says, he questioned if he had heard correctly. Then, he says, he adjusted his glasses and read the teleprompter: “I processed in the way that I process, in a nanosecond. Mike did similarly, and we went on and did our jobs.”
Lindo describes the BAFTA incident as “something that started out negatively becoming a positive.” A week after the BAFTAs, he appeared with Sinners director Ryan Coogler at the NAACP awards.

“The fact that I could stand there in a room predominantly of our people … and feel safe, feel loved, feel supported,” he says. “I just wanted to officially, formally say thank you to our people and to all of the people who have supported us as a result of that event, that incident.”
Sinners is a haunting vampire thriller about twins (both played by Jordan) who open a juke joint in 1930s Mississippi. The film has been nominated for a record 16 Academy Awards, including best actor for Jordan and best supporting actor for Lindo, who plays a blues musician named Delta Slim.

This is Lindo’s first Oscar nomination; five years ago, many felt his performance in the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods deserved recognition from the Academy. When that didn’t happen, Lindo admits he was disappointed, but he had no choice but to move on.
“I have never taken my marbles and gone home,” he says. “And I want to claim that I will not do that now. I will continue working.”
Interview highlights
On his preparation to play Delta Slim

Various people have mentioned … [that] my presence reminds them of an uncle or their grandfather, somebody that they knew from their families, and that is a huge compliment, but more importantly than being a compliment, it’s an affirmation for the work. My preparation for this started with Ryan sending me two books, Blues People, by Amiri Baraka — who was [known as] LeRoi Jones when he wrote the book — and Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer.
Lindo, shown above in his role as Delta Slim, says director Ryan Coogler “created a sacred space for all of us” on the Sinners set.
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In reading those books and then referencing those books, continuing to reference those throughout production, I was given an entrée into the worlds, the lifestyles of these musicians. There’s a certain kind of itinerant quality that they moved around a lot. The constant for them is their music, so that there is this deep-seated connection to the music.
On being Oscar-nominated for the first time — and thinking about other Black actors, including Halle Berry and Lou Gossett Jr., who had trouble getting work after their wins
I will not view it as a curse, because I am claiming the victory in this process, no matter what happens. … In terms of this moment, I absolutely am claiming, as much as I can, the joy of this moment. I’m not saying I don’t have trepidation, I do. It’s the reason I was not listening to the broadcast this year when the nominations were announced. I did not want to set myself up. But I’m … attempting as much as I can to fortify myself and know in my heart that I will continue working as an actor. I absolutely will.
On being “othered” as a child because of his race
Because my mom was studying to be a nurse they would not allow her to have an infant child with her on campus, so as a result of that, I was sent to live with a white family in a white working class area of London. … I was loved, I was cared for, but as a result of living with this family in this all-white neighborhood, I went to an all-white elementary or primary school. And I was literally the only Black child in an all-white school.
So one afternoon, after school had ended, I was playing with one of my playmates … And at a certain point in our game, a car pulls up, and this kid that I was playing with goes over to the car and has a very short conversation with whomever was in the car, which I now know was his parent, his father. He comes back and he … says, “I can’t play with you.” And that was the end of the game.
On the experience of writing his forthcoming memoir
It’s been healing, actually. I’m not denying that it has opened me up. I’ve been compelled to scrutinize myself. I’m using that word very advisedly, “scrutinized.” It’s a scrutiny, it’s an examination of oneself. But in my case, because a very, very, very significant part of what I’m writing has to do with re-examining my relationship with my mom. And so my mom is a protagonist in my memoir. I’m told by my editor and by my publisher that one of the attractions to what I’m writing is that it is not a classic “celebrity memoir.” I am examining history. I’m examining culture. I’m looking at certain passages of history through the lens of the “Windrush” experience [of Caribbean immigrants who came to the UK after World War II].
On getting a masters degree to help him write his mother’s story
My mom deserved it. My mom is deserving. And not only is my mom deserving, by extension, all the people of the Windrush generation are deserving. Stories about Windrush are not part of the global cultural lexicon commensurate with its impact. The people of Windrush changed the definition of what it means to be British. There are all these Black and brown people, theretofore members of what used to be called the British Commonwealth. And they were invited by the British government to come to England, the United Kingdom, to help rebuild the United Kingdom in the aftermath of the destruction of World War II. My mom was part of that movement. They helped rebuild construction, construction industry, transportation industry, critically, the health industry, the NHS, the National Health Service. My mom is a nurse.
The reason that I went into NYU was because my original intention was to write a screenplay about my mom. I wanted to write a screenplay about my mom because I looked around and I thought: Where are the feature films that have as protagonist a Caribbean female, a Black female, where are they? … I wanted to address that, I wanted to correct that, what I see as being an imbalance.
Ann Marie Baldonado and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.

Lifestyle
Britney Spears Open to Treatment Plan as Team Weighs Options
Britney Spears
Open to Treatment Plan After DUI Arrest, Source Says
Published
Britney Spears‘ team is hoping the judge mandates treatment for the pop star over jail time following her Wednesday DUI arrest … and Britney isn’t fighting them on that, TMZ has learned.
Sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ … Britney is willing to comply with a treatment and support plan.
We’re told her team is in the early stages of developing a plan and they’re exploring multiple options, including mental health services, detox, and dual-diagnosis programs.
It’s unclear whether she would do inpatient or outpatient treatment, and it’s also unclear whether she would enter treatment before her May 4 court date.
Broadcastify.com
We broke the story … Britney was pulled over by California Highway Patrol officers around 9:30 PM Wednesday in Westlake Village, CA, not far from her home. She was later taken to a hospital — not for any injuries, because we’re told she didn’t sustain any — but to draw her blood to determine her blood alcohol content.
According to CHP, she was arrested for “driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.”
Sources familiar with the investigation told us an unknown substance was found in Britney’s car, which was sent to be tested.
Britney’s manager, Cade Hudson, previously told TMZ … “This was an unfortunate and inexcusable incident. Britney will take the right steps, comply with the law, and we hope this marks the start of long-overdue change in her life. She needs help and support during this difficult time. Her boys will be spending time with her, and her loved ones are putting a plan in place to set her up for success and well-being.”
Lifestyle
If you loved ‘Sinners,’ here’s what to watch next
Michael B. Jordan plays twin brothers Smoke and Stack in Sinners.
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Warner Bros. Pictures
Ryan Coogler’s supernatural horror stars Michael B. Jordan playing twin brothers who open a 1930s juke joint in Mississippi. Opening night does not go as planned when vampires appear outside. “In a straightforward metaphor for all the ways Black culture has been co-opted by whiteness, the raucous pleasures and sonic beauty of the juke joint attract the interest of a trio of demons … they wish to literally leech off of the talents and energy of Black folks,” writes critic Aisha Harris. The film made history with a record 16 Academy Award nominations.


We asked our NPR audience: What movie would you recommend to someone who loved Sinners? Here’s what you told us:
Near Dark (1987)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow; starring Adrian Pasdar, Jenny Wright, Lance Henriksen
If you want another cool vampire movie with Western kind of vibes, check out Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark — super underseen and kind of hard to find, but really gritty and sexy and another very different take on what you might think is a genre that had been wrung dry. – Maggie Grossman, Chicago, Ill.
30 Days of Night (2007)
Directed by David Slade; starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston
It follows a group of people in a small Alaskan town as they struggle to survive an invasion of vampires who have taken advantage of the month-long absence of the sun. Both this and Sinners revolve around a vampire takeover and the people’s fight to outlast the “night.” – Nathan Strzelewicz, DeWitt, Mich.
The Wailing (2016)
Directed by Na Hong-jin; starring Kwak Do-won, Hwang Jung-min, Chun Woo-hee, Jun Kunimura
In this South Korean supernatural horror film, a mysterious illness causes people in a quiet rural village to become violent and murderous. A local police officer investigates while trying to save his daughter, who begins showing the same disturbing symptoms. The film blends folk horror, religion, and psychological dread, exploring themes of faith, evil, and moral weakness. Like Sinners, it centers on a supernatural force corrupting a close-knit community, builds slow-burning tension, and examines spiritual conflict and human frailty. – Amy Merke, Bronx, N.Y.
Fréwaka (2024)
Directed by Aislinn Clarke; starring Bríd Ní Neachtain, Clare Monnelly, Aleksandra Bystrzhitskaya
In this Irish folk horror film, a home care worker, Shoo, is assigned to stay with an elderly woman who’s convinced she’s under siege by malevolent fairies. Like Sinners, Fréwaka blends folk traditions and social commentary with horror. The social failures Shoo copes with (untreated mental health issues, religious abuse) are just as frightening as the supernatural forces. – Kerrin Smith, Baltimore, Md.
And a bonus pick from our critic:
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Directed by George C. Wolfe; starring Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Glynn Turman
This is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play about a legendary blues singer (Viola Davis) muscling through a recording session with white producers who want to control her music. Chadwick Boseman’s blistering in his final role. – Bob Mondello, NPR movie critic
Carly Rubin and Ivy Buck contributed to this project. It was edited by Clare Lombardo.
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