Entertainment
Nickel Boys: The blistering drama showing the US’s racist past from a new, first-person perspective
The Oscar-tipped film by RaMell Ross adapts Colson Whitehead’s novel about two boys at an abusive “reform” school and shoots it from their point of view. The effect is profound.
There’s no film this year, perhaps no film this decade, that looks and feels like Nickel Boys. The innovative new film from director RaMell Ross is based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead about an abusive “reform” school for boys, and provides a revolutionary perspective on the US’s racist past (and how it always informs the present), during the era of Jim Crow. This is in part because it focuses on the human experience rather than oppressive systems and punishment, above all through its use of a first-person viewpoint. Ross drops us behind the eyes of Elwood (Ethan Herisse), an idealistic young man living in Florida in the 1960s, a bright future ahead of him. That’s cut short when he’s wrongfully convicted of car theft and sent to Nickel Academy. The school is functionally a jail, based on a real institution in Florida known for the discovery of dozens of unmarked graves on its property.
At Nickel, Elwood meets another young man named Turner (Brandon Wilson), who has a more cynical outlook on the civil rights movement that is unfolding at the time of their imprisonment. Ross frequently switches perspectives, not just between first-person and third-person framing (where the camera is locked to behind the character’s head) but also between the viewpoints of Elwood and Turner, letting us see each character how their friend sees them and transforming our view of each in the process. Like the book, it also periodically checks in with an adult Elwood (Daveed Diggs) reckoning with what happened.
Ross says that the camerawork in Nickel Boys is designed to reflect how every human being is the centre of their own world, but also how they experience the world in a way that they haven’t yet processed. “It’s about giving the person – about giving Elwood – not the hindsight of ourselves, which is to look at things as if they’re meaningful, but just to look at things that will become meaningful,” he tells the BBC. “So the narrative will always be secondary to the experience of looking.”
Awards Watch
Nickel Boys earned a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Click here for more on the films getting awards buzz.
The way in which Elwood and Turner’s individual experiences are presented through the cameras – which were operated by Ross himself as well as cinematographer Jomo Fray and another cameraman, Sam Ellison, so they could each take breaks – includes movement mimicking that of a person’s eyes; the characters voices’ come from off screen, and you see their hands and feet, and sometimes their faces if they look at a reflective surface. Sometimes you really feel the restriction of their point of view, such as when they are getting chased and can’t tell how far someone is behind them, or hear menacing noises around the corner in their racially segregated hometown.
Some American holidays are intrinsically tied to certain traditions. Fourth of July and fireworks shows. Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping. And then there’s Christmas and the movie theater.
Moviegoing may not be the first thing you think of when considering the Christmas season. There are the trees, sure, then the carols, even the cut-out cookies. But going to the movie theater either on Christmas, or in the days surrounding it, has become a cherished holiday tradition for many families.
“On that day, it’s like the movie theater becomes a midnight mass,” said Matthew Germenis, 33, who’s been going to the movies on Christmas since he was a teen. “It’s just something really, really special.”
Germenis isn’t alone. The holiday season has become a massive time for movie theaters and studios. In years past, film franchises like “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” became holiday classics thanks purely to holiday release dates — in 2001, the first Harry Potter film, released just before Thanksgiving, topped the holiday season box office, while “The Fellowship of the Ring” came in at No. 3. The former went on to become the highest grossing movie of the entire year.
In other words: The holiday season, especially the week between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, pulls thousands of people to cinemas, many in the name of tradition. But exactly how the holiday and moviegoing became so intertwined is, well, a bit of a Christmas miracle.
Entertainment
Looking back at Celine Dion’s triumphant year, the inspirational pop culture story we needed in 2024
Perched atop of a platform on the Eiffel Tower at the start of the Paris Olympics in July, Celine Dion, gone for years amid a bitter health battle, marked her return in grand fashion with a rendition of Edith Piaf classic “Hymne À L’Amour.” It was, you could say, her own hymne à la résilience.
Dion announced in 2022 that she had been diagnosed with Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS), a rare neurological disorder. At the time, she said the condition did not allow her “to sing the way I’m used to.”
When she took the Olympic stage, seemingly closer to the heavens than the ground, she hadn’t performed live since 2020.
Just one month prior, the world was invited into her battle like never before via “I Am: Celine Dion,” which offered an intimate look at Dion’s return to performing live amid her battle with the disease.
“I think the performance really gave her confidence and also just really allowed her to show how far she’s come this last year,” Irene Taylor, who directed the documentary, told CNN in a recent interview.
As one of the most revered vocal talents of our time, Dion’s voice has been used to amplify some of the greatest stories ever told both in song and on the big screen. This year, she told her own story as she reemerged into public view, finding and sharing the power of her voice like never before.
Entertainment
Arnold Schwarzenegger is shooting a movie as Santa, and it will put you in the jolliest holiday mood
Arnold Schwarzenegger is a man of many talents, as he holds titles including body builder, politician and movie star.
With his latest movie role, however, the former governor of California can now add becoming Santa Claus to his list, as he embodies the Christmas gift-giver in an upcoming holiday movie titled “The Man with the Bag.”
“Santa Claus is coming to town!” Schwarzenegger wrote on his Instagram page on Tuesday, later adding, “I can’t wait to share all of this Christmas cheer with each and every one of you.”
Schwarzenegger shared a photo of himself posing with his costar, actor Alan Ritchson, with whom he’s currently filming in New York City.
The “Terminator” star appears in a shaggy white beard and hairdo, and a red wool coat over a festive Christmas sweater in the photo.
“The Man With the Bag” follows Santa, who turns to his naughty list to find a former thief to help him get his stolen magic bag back, according to a summary of the Adam Shankman-directed film.
Schwarzenegger is no stranger to spreading holiday cheer through his movies.
In 1996, he starred in the holiday family comedy “Jingle All the Way” as a father who goes to great and hilarious lengths to get his hands on a popular toy to give to his son for Christmas.
“The Man With the Bag” will be Schwarzenegger’s first major feature film role since 2019’s “Terminator: Dark Fate.”
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