The drink ticket reads “Get elfed up”? That sounds like a holiday pop-up bar worth visiting, even if there isn’t a hunky snowman (how did he come to life??) serving up themed cocktails.
I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, host of The Envelope’s Monday newsletter and the guy sharpening his ax to cut down a Christmas tree. If nothing else, my car’s going to smell great for the next few months.
Opposites attract — and bond — for Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg
Kieran Culkin tells a story about desperately not wanting to go to Poland to make Jesse Eisenberg’s odd-couple road movie, “A Real Pain,” and while every word of it’s true and comes from a deep place in his soul, tied to the love he has for his wife and children, it still feels like a bit of salesmanship for the film.
“The upshot of it is, this movie was so absolutely perfect that I couldn’t say no to it,” I tell Culkin, paraphrasing his pitch. “Like, if it had even one small imperfection, I would have bailed. But no. It was flawless.”
“It’s honestly the truth, and it was disappointing to my wife,” Culkin says. “You should have seen her face fall when I said, ‘I’m going to the other room to read it again. And this time I am going to read it with the perspective of really trying to find holes and really trying to find a reason to go, ‘Actually, this isn’t as good as I thought it was.’
“She apparently was hearing me laughing from the other room and was like, ‘Oh s—, this isn’t going so well,’” Culkin continues. “She really didn’t want to go on this trip, either. And when I walked into the room, I just went, ‘I’m sorry, honey.’”
Eisenberg, the writer, director and co-star of “A Real Pain,” is sitting next to Culkin. In the movie, they play cousins who travel to Poland to visit the childhood home of their beloved late grandmother, a Holocaust survivor. Eisenberg cast himself as the tightly wound introvert and Culkin as the charmer whose exuberance masks a deep inner turmoil.
“Ninety-seven percent of Screen Actors Guild actors are not working,” Eisenberg says to Culkin, “and you’re like, ‘I’m sorry, honey. I have to go make a movie I’m starring in.’”
Did you have any idea that he was wavering?
“What I was doing while he was doing that was shot-listing, buying wardrobe, figuring out and confirming locations and sets,” Eisenberg continues. “To say we were knee-deep in production is an understatement. Two weeks before a movie shoots, you’re kind of shooting the movie. Everything is in place. Every dollar has been spent.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t really aware of how far along you were,” Culkin says, sheepishly. “I didn’t know you were actually out there until I had that conversation with Emma.” Emma is Emma Stone, one of the producers of “A Real Pain,” and the grown-up in the room who took it upon herself to talk Culkin off the ledge and onto a plane to Poland.
“Does it change your perspective about maybe signing on to things that you’re ambivalent about?” Eisenberg asks.
“Yeah, it scares the s— out of me now,” Culkin answers. “I’ve always been terrified about saying yes to something because what if they actually say, ‘OK. We’re going to go do it right now.’ That doesn’t scare you at all? It’s like asking what you want for dinner on a Thursday in March.”
“To me,” Eisenberg counters, “that gives me the comfort of structure and knowing something’s coming up.”
“A Real Pain” has been playing in theaters for a few weeks, and it’s still hanging around. Have you seen it? It’s one of my favorite movies of the year. As one review put it, it’s a light movie with a heavy heart. That’s tough to pull off.
I spoke with Culkin and Eisenberg not too long ago and, as you might gather from the excerpts I’ve posted above, they were delightful company. You can read the story in its entirety here.
Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, partners in “A Real Pain.”
(Kate Dockeray / For The Times)
Amy Adams gets in touch with her feral side
Almost a year ago to the day, my overlords asked me to come up with a couple of movies for a list of the 17 movies we were most excited about for 2024. One of the films I chose, Bong Joon Ho’s “Mickey 17,” was moved to 2025 almost immediately after the article was published. The other was “Nightbitch,” a drama starring Amy Adams as an overwhelmed mother worried that she’s turning into a dog. It opened on Friday. Did you catch it?
My pal Meredith Blake talked with Adams not long ago about the movie, which has, by its nature, prompted a number of conversations with the actor’s friends and family, as well as complete strangers. There was also quite the array of reactions when the movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, with some critics decrying the film’s candid portrayal of, as Meredith writes, “various bodily functions and its undiluted channeling of female anger.” (Robert Abele, reviewing for The Times, was not one of those critics.)
Adams believes that some of the negative responses to “Nightbitch” come from confusion over the film’s “very intentional female gaze.”
“Only at certain times do we get a glimpse inside of the husband’s mind — otherwise, we’re living squarely inside of a woman’s mind,” she told Meredith. “It’s very uncommon for a film to not have a male gaze.” Adams is trying to meet these reactions with curiosity instead of anger. “I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s what you got from that?’ ” She also prefers to focus on viewers who recognize themselves in the movie.
“I had a friend write me and say, ‘My kids just left the house but I still identify so deeply with this, because I’m in a transitional period and am feeling invisible in the world. I have this deep sense of insignificance. To hear your character say it — I didn’t realize how much I felt it until that moment.’ ” Adams pauses to gather herself, then apologizes for becoming emotional. “That means so much more to me than someone having a reaction to seeing menstrual blood.”
Amy Adams stars in “Nightbitch.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)