Two years ago, Nicole Holofcener, the writer-director of funny and incisive indie comedies like Walking and Talking and Lovely & Amazing, released another great movie, You Hurt My Feelings, starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Beth, a successful memoirist and creative-writing teacher who's having trouble finishing her first novel. Her agent thinks it needs work, but she has enjoyed the steadfast support of her husband (Tobias Menzies), who goes so far as to suggest that she find another agent who might be more enthusiastic about it.
On October 24, 2025, the actor and director Christopher Guest took the stage for a discussion with the New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy, as part of The New Yorker's 26th annual Festival, a weekend of conversations, screenings, performances, and more. The Festival, which is the magazine's signature event, was held in New York City and brought together leading voices in literature, film, comedy, television, politics, and medicine.
From cool concerts and shows to delightful animation and apple tart deliciousness, there is a lot to do and eat this weekend. So let's get to it, shall we? (As always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines or other details.) Meanwhile, if you'd like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or w.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters .
Inspired by scuola metafisican Giorgio de Chirico and surrealist René Magritte, Michals is known for his depictions of familiar objects in unfamiliar contexts, using irrational juxtapositions to provoke questions about the boundaries of reality and representation in nature. His new short film was shot at his New York home, and captures Elordi in black and white with props and motifs that have appeared throughout Michals' distinguished oeuvre - a convex mirror, a suspended feather, a crystal ball.
Pier Paolo Pasolini: prophet. He saw what was coming, and Salò, that apocalyptic masterpiece, was his final warning. Almost his last recorded sentence, a few hours before his brutal murder, was "we are all in danger", siamo tutti in pericolo . Wasn't he right about that? He warned that capitalism was the new fascism, he dared to say that fireflies were worth more than the industrialisation that was poisoning the Italy he loved.
"To learn what we fear is to learn who we are," Guillermo del Toro wrote last week, in an essay for The Atlantic about Mary Shelley's eternally spooky novel Frankenstein. The director, who just released a film adaptation of the classic, has made a career of investigating the depths of horror, which he considers "one of the last refuges of spirituality in our materialistic world."
From 20th Century Studios comes "Ella McCay," a comedy from Oscar and Emmy Award-winning writer, director and producer James L. Brooks, known for "Terms of Endearment" and "As Good as It Gets." Watch the new trailer in the video player above. Emma Mackey stars as Ella McCay, an idealistic young woman who juggles her family and work life in a story about the people you love and how to survive them. Alongside Mackey, the film features Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Lowden, Kumail Nanjiani, Ayo Edebiri, Spike Fearn, Julie Kavner, Rebecca Hall, Becky Ann Bake and Joey Brooks, with Albert Brooks and Woody Harrelson.
Loosely inspired by Victor's own experiences, the film sees her take on the role of Agnes, an East Coast English professor who, after a shock sexual assault, begins to quietly unspool. It's a story we know well in the post-MeToo era, but Sorry, Baby is a sharp reinterpretation of the typical trauma plot: there is no violence, no gratuity, no moralising and no revenge. Instead, it's more about the strange, slippery nature of trauma, and the mundane, often unsatisfying, ways we have to stitch ourselves back together.
From one of hip-hop's most entertaining stars to a plethora of pumpkin treats, we're looking at a fine, fun weekend. So let's get to it, shall we? (As always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines or other details.) Meanwhile, if you'd like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or www.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters.
Spike Jonze's Gucci movie The Tiger is quite something both as a film and piece of branding. With strong acting from an ensemble cast including Demi Moore, Ed Norton, and Elliot Page, it weaves contemporary themes and a White Lotus-like atmosphere with sleek cinematography and bold brand storytelling and aesthetics.
Few figures in cinema embody the word 'ongoing' quite like Tilda Swinton. For nearly four decades, she has moved through film, art, and fashion with a mercurial presence that defies category - at once avant-garde icon, Oscar-winning actor, collaborator, and fashion muse. Rizzoli's new release, Tilda Swinton: Ongoing, captures not only Swinton's prolific career but an intricate web of lifelong friendships, creative collaborations and dialogues, presenting a portrait of an artist whose curiosity and generosity remains infinite.
Warmish days be damned, because Christian Girl Autumn has officially begun. This week offers many reasons to head indoors, like Spike Lee's Kurosawa-inspired film Highest 2 Lowest, Amanda Lepore's club kid glamour, and '70s art rockers Sparks. Plus, Freddie Robins installs knitted horses at Cooley Gallery, and the storytelling show Be Gay, Do Crime centers icons of queer rebellion. Read on, and don't forget your coat.
"HIM," a sports-horror thriller directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions, uses football as a vehicle to explore themes of power, obsession and mentorship gone wrong. Marlon Wayans stars as the fictional, legendary quarterback Isaiah White and former Florida State Seminole walk-on wideout Tyriq Withers brings authentic football experience to the role of his protégé, Cameron Cade. The movie pushes beyond jump scares to ask a deeper question: What happens when the pursuit of greatness turns terrifying?
Millet's new film, Ghost Trail, follows a Syrian refugee in Strasbourg as he attempts to locate the man who brutalised him in Sednaya prison, Damascus. Ghost Trail therefore joins the roll call of cerebral films that manufacture an uncanny power from what isn't depicted. But here, it's not achieved in exactly the same fashion as ones where the consequential action is cropped out of view.
Far from the Tree, Andrew Solomon's brilliant nonfiction book about parenting children different from oneself, offers the useful distinction between vertical and horizontal identities. Vertical identities are inherited a family name, an ethnicity, or a nationality; horizontal identities are qualities that define us which parents may have nothing to do with, such as the kinship people with autism feel with one another, or being gay or deaf.
Much as " The Holdovers" carved out its place in the Christmas-movie canon two years ago by finding wistful humor and aching sadness within its tale of joyous, unexpected companionship, Jay Duplass and Michael Stassner's lovely and bittersweet "The Baltimorons" (out in limited release on Friday, then expanding nationwide next week) has appeared this year as a scrappily hand-wrapped gift from an old friend you're just happy-and relieved-to hear from.
These might be the dog days of August but our tails are wagging at all the fun stuff to do this weekend. So let's get to it, shall we? (As always, be sure to double check event and venue websites for any last-minute changes in health guidelines or other details.) Meanwhile, if you'd like to have this Weekender lineup delivered to your inbox every Thursday morning for free, just sign up at www.mercurynews.com/newsletters or w.eastbaytimes.com/newsletters .
