Thanksgiving,’ Eli Roth serves up a feature-length feast of gore, some of it stale

Gather ’round the table, horror fans, because Eli Roth is finally serving up his long-gestating holiday feast: the seasonal slasher movie “Thanksgiving.” The idea for this film got rolling some 16 years ago with the 2007 Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature “Grindhouse,” in which Roth and his longtime friend Jeff Rendell cooked up a joke trailer inspired by their love of themed horror movies and a Massachusetts childhood spent just down the road from Plymouth, the site of the first Thanksgiving.

When horror fans first got their eyes on the “Thanksgiving” trailer, it sparked a fervent appetite for the whole meal, but with the full film finally hitting theaters after 16 years of discussion and development, it proves the adage — also true for Thanksgiving meals — that there can be too much of a good thing.

“Thanksgiving” is an enthusiastic slasher romp in which Roth is clearly having a ball making his childhood dreams come true. But the problem here is the underbaked script, co-written with Rendell. The film has been reverse-engineered around the holiday-themed kills (Black Friday mob, electric carving knife, turkey roasting) and references to the original trailer and other classic horror movies. The script takes the shape of a loose take on “Scream” or “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” with our killer, known as John Carver, stalking a group of teens in a revenge plot. “Thanksgiving” doesn’t try to deconstruct the genre — its only self-reflection comes with the requisite references — but the characters are thinly written, lacking motivation, and the central mystery is hopelessly muddled.

Our heroine is Nell Verlaque as Jessica. She could have easily swapped roles with social media star Addison Rae, who herself plays a vaguely mean popular girl Gabby; both are brunets with long, wavy hair and similarly wan screen abilities. The plot starts on Thanksgiving when Jessica’s father (Rick Hoffman), the owner of the Right Mart big-box store, starts his Black Friday sale a day early. A mob, frothing for free waffle irons, starts a vicious stampede after they’re taunted by Jessica’s snotty group of friends, who sneaked into the store early.

Mayhem ensues, lives are lost, etc. All that’s left is a haunting social media video and a sense of community grief and trauma. Fast forward a year later and this John Carver character — outfitted in Pilgrim finery — has been hunting down everyone involved in the melee for a deadly dinner party. It’s up to Jessica to track down the killer’s identity (is he one of two boyfriends?) since the bumbling Sheriff Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) proves to be utterly useless.

Roth, a horror fan and dedicated student of the genre, can stage and shoot an innovative suspense sequence. The violence is sadistic and gory; the setups are inventive and engaging. But he rushes through them and doesn’t let anything breathe. It’s the connective tissue — the gristle — between the kills that is seriously lacking. Local color is sprinkled on top like a garnish, not incorporated as a part of the whole, and the story movement from scene to scene hardly makes sense. It’s only the prior knowledge of horror tropes and a curiosity about who’s under the Carver mask that keeps this moving forward.

There’s also the sense that this holiday meal just might be a little stale. Certain set pieces like a cheerleader on a trampoline might have played well back in the Wild West of the mid-aughts, but in 2023 it’s cringe-worthy, and Roth seems to know that. He rushes through it as if he’s checking a box for the fans. His centerpiece of the table is a roasting sequence that reminds us why he excelled in the torture-porn era, but overall, “Thanksgiving” feels incredibly juvenile, perhaps due to its genesis so long ago.

If “Thanksgiving” had to be any specific dish on the holiday table, it would be stuffing: disparate chunks tossed together and baked. Stuffing is a dish where old bread goes to shine — a cheap and easy crowd-pleaser. But this particular serving of it is missing a crucial element, the binder. Without it, it’s just a crumbly mess. It might taste good for a bite or two, but Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” isn’t a full meal.

Fantasia Barrino talks ‘The Color Purple,’ facing her demons and surviving a suicide attempt

Fantasia Barrino is opening up about overcoming darker times and nearly taking her own life.

Barrino, who is reprising her role as Celie in the Oprah Winfrey-produced big-screen musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple,” told Variety that although she never thought she would be, she is “so HAPPY — in all caps.”

After being crowned the winner of the third season of “American Idol” in 2004, Barrino told the trade outlet, she rushed to embrace her grandmother, who told her to buckle up, “because with all of this comes the storm.”

In 2008, after ending her run playing Celie in “The Color Purple” on Broadway, the singer visited a church in Los Angeles, where Bishop George Bloomer warned her that she had years of pain to come. If she held on and made it through, he told her, her ending would look better than her beginning.

Just two years later, amid a battle with depression and intense public scrutiny, Barrino tried to take her own life by swallowing sleeping pills and aspirin.

“I just wanted the noise to stop,” she told Variety. At the time, she’d been supporting her family financially, was embroiled in a nasty legal battle with her father over his portrayal in her memoir, and her house was in foreclosure. In the North Carolina hospital where she awoke with tubes down her throat, a nurse held up magazines with her face on their covers and told her, “‘You see that young lady? She’s strong. She’s a blessing — don’t you come back in here no more. You fight.”

“I left that hospital and said, ‘I’ll never do that again, because I have purpose,’” the singer and actor told Variety. “I’m going to speak into every young person’s life and tell them, ‘Don’t you dare give up.’

“I don’t care if it gets ugly again,” she continued. “I don’t care if there’s storms. I realized I have the spirit of an eagle.... They fly over storms.”

In 2016, Barrino told The Times that her album cover for “The Definition Of ...” was inspired by all the abuse she had endured in her life and finally being able to confront the thing she’d always run from, herself.

“I feel like I’m every woman. I’ve been through a little bit of everything,” she told The Times. “I’m the definition of strength.”

“It’s hard for women … [especially] in the industry. If you look at some of the greats, they either couldn’t keep a good relationship or they were in an abusive one,” she continued. “It was almost like the man was trying to tear that spark out of them. I went through a lot of that. I’ve been spit on. I’ve had a black eye. I’ve dumbed myself down to try to make a relationship work.”

When Oprah first approached Barrino to play Celie again, the “American Idol” winner turned her down. Playing Celie for eight shows a week on Broadway had been traumatic for her. Celie’s struggle with abuse, heartache and adversity had mirrored her own in ways that became increasingly burdensome. She swore that she’d never play the role again.

But director Blitz Bazawule ultimately persuaded her, explaining his spin on the story. She appreciated that an on-screen portrayal of Celie could feature the character’s inner monologue in ways a stage portrayal could not.

“You get to see how she made it through some of this stuff,” Barrino said. This time around, the Grammy winner said playing Celie was an opportunity to face her past, rather than run from it.

Latin Grammys 2023: Latinas steal the show, sweep all major awards

Latin Grammy Awards 2023: Live updates from Sevilla

The 24th edition of the Latin Grammys will bring together some of the biggest names across Latin Music and some new faces that will vie for the award for Best New Artist. This time the event isn’t taking place in Las Vegas, instead it will be hosted in Sevilla, Spain.

Las cosas no se hacen precisamente temprano por estos lares. Mientras que la alfombra roja se inició después de las 6 de la tarde y terminó después de las 9 de la noche, la ceremonia oficial de premios que se transmite por televisión comenzó después de las 10 de la noche y se prolongó hasta después de la 1.30 de la madrugada.

Para quienes cubrimos el evento en vivo, la jornada fue brutal. Para otros continentes, pertenecientes sobre todo a los territorios latinoamericanos y a los Estados Unidos, la idea de que el Latin Grammy se realizara tan tarde tenía sentido, incluso cuando no se iba a transmitir en vivo por allá.

En lo que respecta a los trofeos, los resultados finales favorecieron a tres mujeres: Karol G, Shakira y Natalia Lafourcade. Cada una de ellas se fue a casa con tres premios, lo que le dio al evento una clara impronta femenina.

With sports and horror movies as canvas, an artist dissects the world’s digital upheaval

Emotionally creepy, intellectually disturbing and very, very loud, both audibly and visually, “Paul Pfeiffer: Prologue to the Story of the Birth of Freedom” is an extraordinarily compelling survey of the artist’s work in digital imagery, whether sculptures that incorporate video, room-size installations or large-format photographs. He’s been at it since the mid-1990s.

The newly opened exhibition of more than 50 works at Little Tokyo’s Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art is also timely, which adds to its resonance. We have lately been swallowed up in spectacular social and political upheaval, intensified by the depredations of digital life that traffics in images of state violence. With the eruptions and disruptions of digital mass culture as its Ferrari-level engine, often represented by the roaring drama of sport, Pfeiffer’s art cogitates on power as an ongoing campaign waged between the individual and the crowd.

Pfeiffer, 57, was born in Honolulu the year before French theorist Guy Debord published “Society of the Spectacle.” That thin but influential volume meditates on social transformations wrought by the corporate expansion of mass culture machinery, which has metastasized with the digital revolution. Debord is an unseen scaffolding for a hypnotizing work like “Caryatid,” in which the Stanley Cup — that big, heavy, tiered silver trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League playoff champion — floats, bobs and twirls in space before a cheering crowd on TV.

Nothing is holding it up. The airborne trophy — the oldest that can be won by professional athletes in North America — appears to have a life of its own. It hovers before the throng like a preening drone, playful yet vaguely malevolent.

Pfeiffer digitally erased the athlete holding the monumental trophy aloft in stock video of the event, a ritualized gesture of triumphal victory. The century-old object, not the player, is isolated as the active factor in our human relationship to the sporting scene.

What makes the work more than a passing visual amusement, a TikTok trick of editing, is the carefully altered monitor on which it is shown. A silver 9-inch television, chrome-plated and as pristine as a Jeff Koons bunny, is revealed as its own objectified gesture of triumphal power, discreetly encased in a Plexiglas box and elevated atop a pedestal. Corporate digital media are the dynamic agents in modern social experience, inseparably playful and malevolent.

Just as the shiny television monitor echoes the glittery Stanley Cup, so a viewer is likened to the athlete digitally deleted from the “Caryatid” video — essential to, but erased from, the spectacle. In ancient Greece, the culture where male athletes were so highly prized as heroic citizens, a caryatid was a draped female figure used instead of a column as an architectural support. Sometimes a caryatid has been compared to the unseen slave who carried society’s burdens.

Pfeiffer, who is Filipino American, moved with his family to Manila when he was 10, early in the Marcos dictatorship, and he has since returned to live and work in the archipelago several times. (Mostly he’s based in New York.) Notably, the Philippines has been twice colonized — first for over 300 years by Spain and its Christian religion, then for half a century by the United States and its tumultuous mass culture. Both come into prominent play in the artist’s work.

An extraordinary 2015 photograph shows a Black basketball player seen from below, hovering in space in the middle of a vast stadium, enormous crowds packed into the stands and the lower portion of an American flag glimpsed hanging high overhead. No one else is on the court.

A fabrication? A digital manipulation of an actual moment? An erasure of elements to reveal something hidden but meaningful in our culture, in the tradition of Robert Rauschenberg famously erasing a Willem De Kooning drawing?

The player’s arms are extended like a crucifixion. His face obscured and his blank white uniform disclosing neither team nor number, he is resolutely anonymous — as anonymous as the throng ogling in the stands. He seems held aloft by the sheer force of a mass performance.

The photograph is one in a group titled “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” a reference to the prophecy of triumph and submission from the New Testament Book of Revelation. Spectacle and spectatorship, cruelty and liberation are embedded in a scene poised on the brink of an individual soul’s ultimate destiny. So is the promise of a second coming, which is not necessarily consoling. The image of Black resurrection through b-ball is at once celebratory, chilling and poignant.

Pfeiffer takes on big themes. In “John 3:16” (2000), the image focuses on a basketball, a talisman that completely fills the screen and bobs around as it is being passed between largely unseen players. Sometimes hands come into view, at other times there is only the spinning, ricocheting ball. It’s akin to the levitating Stanley Cup in “Caryatid,” made three years later.

This 2023 Horror Movie May Be One Of The Best Modern Lovecraft Adaptations

Suitable Flesh is a modern exploration of ancient fears, inviting audiences to confront the terrors that lie beyond the threshold of understanding.

The year 2023 promises an unsettling experience with Suitable Flesh, a spine-chilling adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's short story, "The Thing on the Doorstep." Directed by the visionary Joe Lynch and penned by the talented Dennis Paoli, this film brings Lovecraftian horror to life, weaving a narrative that explores the thin veil between sanity and ancient, malevolent forces. With a stellar cast including Heather Graham, Judah Lewis, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Davison, and Johnathon, this new horror flick ventures into the depths of psychological terror.

Before delving into the depths of Suitable Flesh, it's crucial to understand the profound influence H.P. Lovecraft has had on the horror genre. Lovecraft's distinct cosmic horror, characterized by the insignificance of humanity in the face of incomprehensible cosmic entities, has spawned a multitude of adaptations across various media. From cult classics to contemporary hits, Lovecraft's tales of the unknown have ignited the imaginations of filmmakers and storytellers, giving rise to a rich tapestry of horror narratives that continue to captivate audiences worldwide.

What is Suitable Flesh about?

Heather Graham takes the lead as Elizabeth Derby, a psychiatrist grappling with the uncanny in a narrative that challenges the conventions of the horror genre. Unlike conventional horror protagonists who hastily embrace the supernatural, Elizabeth clings to rational explanations, even as the world around her descends into nightmarish chaos. As she grapples with Asa (Judah Lewis) and his cryptic tales, the film evolves into a mesmerizing dance between psychological thriller and body-snatching horror.

Elizabeth's attempt to diagnose Asa's erratic behavior is complicated by the unsettling violence and the emergence of a new personality. In a surreal blend of body-snatcher horror and erotic thriller, the narrative takes unexpected turns, challenging the boundaries of the genre. When Asa's father, Ephraim (Bruce Davison), unveils occult powers capable of forcing body swaps, Elizabeth must navigate a perilous journey to save herself from being ensnared in unsuitable flesh.

What is Suitable Flesh based on?

Suitable Flesh draws inspiration from Lovecraft's 1937 short story, "The Thing on the Doorstep." In Lovecraft's original tale, the narrative explores the eldritch horrors surrounding forbidden knowledge and the manipulation of mortal bodies by otherworldly entities. The adaptation takes creative liberties, infusing modern nuances into the narrative while preserving the essence of Lovecraft's cosmic horror.

"The Thing on the Doorstep" opens with Daniel Upton, the narrator, unraveling the harrowing events that led him to take the life of his closest friend, Edward Derby. Their lifelong friendship takes a dark turn as Derby's union with a mysterious Innsmouth woman, Asenath Waite, marks the beginning of an eerie transformation. Asenath's unsettling lineage, coupled with her father Ephraim's forbidden forays into sorcery, casts a malevolent shadow over their lives. Derby, ensnared in Asenath's enigmatic occult experiments, descends into madness, and Upton finds himself entangled in a nightmarish tale of forbidden knowledge and eldritch horrors.

As secrets unravel, the story unveils the sinister practice of body-swapping, blurring the lines between the living and the dead. Suitable Flesh reinterprets this tale for contemporary audiences, delivering a fresh take on Lovecraft's timeless themes.

‘The Marvels’ Never Really Stood A Chance

Critics and MCU fans all have something to say about the movie, and it’s a symptom of a larger issue.

Have you heard? “The Marvels” has the lowest box office earnings for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The film brought in $47 million in its opening weekend. So many headlines about the film, which had a reported production budget of $274.8 million, have been screaming about its failure. This is it, folks, the end of the Marvel franchise, and it’s all because of those pesky woke women who think they can make comic book movies, many detractors said.

“The Marvels” is the sequel to “Captain Marvel,” which was the MCU’s first female-led (and co-directed) film. This sequel is also a follow-up to “Ms. Marvel,” the Disney+ series that introduced the much-loved comic book character of the same name to the franchise.

Yes, there are criticisms about the film that many people agree on, like the fact that some of the backstory needed more context and the villain was underdeveloped. But this vehement declaration that it’s the worst Marvel film ever with the worst characters, etc., is a symptom of a larger issue.

To put it plainly, racism and misogyny play a huge role in what is perceived as successful. Genre films like the MCU installments are particularly guilty of this: It took Marvel 10 years to make a film with a majority Black cast and creative team, and women have been leads in less than a handful of MCU films (the Disney+ spinoffs are more diverse, but television has always been the place where executives take risks).

The truth is, “The Marvels” never really stood a chance. It is the first film in the franchise to be made by a Black female director, Nia DaCosta, and it features three female superheroes: Brie Larson as Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, Iman Vellani as Kamala Khan/Ms. Marvel and Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau. It also includes Kamala’s family, all of whom are played by South Asian-origin actors.

Marvel has been losing goodwill ever since the end of the Infinity Saga. The fourth and fifth phases of the franchise have seemed more disjointed, but what’s been different about Marvel properties post-“Avengers: Endgame” has been how diverse they are — more women and people of color have been leading the stories and creating them. And MCU fans have not been receptive to that diversity.

Larson has been unfairly targeted and hated by so-called Marvel fans from the moment she was cast. She made the correct and bold decision to say she wanted more diversity in the media that was covering “Captain Marvel,” and that statement put a target on her back so large that YouTubers still foam at the mouth at the mere mention of her name.

MCU followers couldn’t be bothered to finish, or even try watching, “Ms. Marvel” because the lead was a teenage girl of Pakistani origin. Kamala Khan is a young person trying to fit in, keep her family happy and discover the extent of her superpowers — you know, like that white dude from Queens called Peter Parker. Her story is universal and worth investing time in.

Moreover, “Captain Marvel” was review-bombed to such an extent — before it was even released — that Rotten Tomatoes had to change its rules. The film’s successors were never going to become blockbuster hits because the cards were stacked against them. People’s mindsets haven’t changed that much in four years.

Just before “The Marvels” was released, Variety shared its “Crisis at Marvel” feature with headlines focusing on Marvel executives discussing the possibility of “reviving Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow,” despite those characters being dead.

Without taking cultural issues into account, as well as the general disinterest among some vocal superhero fans about new, diverse characters leading Marvel films, we can’t just rely on the box office as the ultimate arbiter of success.

It’s funny how, now that “The Marvels” has performed so poorly at the box office, people are acting like box office numbers are the only way to judge the quality or effect of a film, almost as if no other good (or even great) film has ever failed at the box office. Equating “The Marvels” box office numbers to its quality would then mean we’d have to accept that “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” is better than “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” because the former made nearly $400 million while the latter didn’t break the $300 million mark.

But that’s not true. The films came out at different times, catered to different sensibilities and, well, one was more hyped than the other. But we can all admit that the second Captain America film was a bold and well-written film, whereas “Guardians 2” was derivative and predictable.

The Marvel promotional juggernaut has been a huge part of the franchise’s success so far. But “The Marvels” was marketed and released during the strikes by the writers’ and actors’ unions, so the performers couldn’t promote the film.

None of Marvel’s properties in 2023 have been a resounding success, even if they’ve broken even.

What people have intentionally failed to report is that “The Marvels” may not have been everyone’s favorite, but many critics have given it great reviews, and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is at a decent 84%. It is also the biggest debut ever for a Black woman director.

'The Marvels' Suffers 'Unprecedented Box Office Collapse'

The superhero movie may have encountered a new villain at the box office: genre fatigue.

Since 2008’s “Iron Man,” the Marvel machine has been one of the most unstoppable forces in box-office history. Now, though, that aura of invincibility is showing signs of wear and tear. The superhero factory hit a new low with the weekend launch of “The Marvels,” which opened with just $47 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The 33rd installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a sequel to the 2019 Brie Larson-led “Captain Marvel,” managed less than a third of the $153.4 million its predecessor launched with before ultimately taking in $1.13 billion worldwide.

Sequels, especially in Marvel Land, aren’t supposed to fall off a cliff. Yet “The Marvels” debuted with more than $100 million less than “Captain Marvel” opened with — something no sequel before has ever done. David A. Gross, who runs the movie consulting firm Franchise Research Entertainment, called it “an unprecedented Marvel box-office collapse.”

The previous low for a Walt Disney Co.-owned Marvel movie was “Ant-Man,” which bowed with $57.2 million in 2015. Otherwise, you have to go outside the Disney MCU to find such a slow start for a Marvel movie — releases like Universal’s “The Incredible Hulk” with $55.4 million in 2008, Sony’s “Morbius” with $39 million in 2022 or 20th Century Fox’s “Fantastic Four” reboot with $25.6 million in 2015.

But “The Marvels” was a $200 million-plus sequel to a billion-dollar blockbuster. It was also an exceptional Marvel release in numerous ways. The film, directed by Nia DaCosta, was the first MCU release directed by a Black woman. It was also the rare Marvel movie led by three women — Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani.

Reviews weren’t strong (62% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and neither was audience reaction. “The Marvels” is only the third MCU release to receive a “B” CinemaScore from moviegoers, following “Eternals” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantamania.”

“The Marvels,” which added $63.3 million in overseas ticket sales, may go down as a turning point in the MCU. Over the years, the franchise has collected $33 billion globally — a point Disney noted in reporting its grosses Sunday.

But with movie screens and streaming platforms increasingly crowded with superhero films and series, some analysts have detected a new fatigue setting in for audiences. Disney chief executive Bob Iger himself has spoken about possible oversaturation for Marvel.

“Over the last three and a half years, the growth of the genre has stopped,” Gross wrote in a newsletter Sunday.

Either way, something is shifting for superheroes. The box-office crown this year appears assured to go to “Barbie,” the year’s biggest smash with more than $1.4 billion worldwide for Warner Bros.

Marvel has still produced recent hits. “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” launched this summer with $118 million before ultimately raking in $845.6 million worldwide. Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” earned $690.5 million globally and, after rave reviews, is widely expected to be an Oscar contender.

The actors strike also didn’t do “The Marvels” any favors. The cast of the film wasn’t permitted to promote the film until the strike was called off late Wednesday evening when SAG-AFTRA and the studios reached agreement. Larson and company quickly jumped onto social media and made surprise appearances in theaters. And Larson guested on “The Tonight Show” on Friday.

The normally orderly pattern of MCU releases has also been disrupted by the strikes. After numerous strike-related delays, the only Marvel movie currently on the studio’s 2024 calendar is “Deadpool 3,” opening July 26.

Separately, after two weeks atop the box office, Universal Pictures’ “Five Nights at Freddy’s” slid to second place with $9 million in its third weekend of release. The Blumhouse-produced videogame adaptation has accumulated $127.2 million domestically.

Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert film came in third with $5.9 million from 2,484 venues in its fifth weekend of release. The film, produced by Swift and distributed by AMC Theatres, has made $172.5 million domestically and $240.9 million worldwide.

Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” held strongly in its second weekend of wide release. The A24 film, starring Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Presley and Jacob Elordi as Elvis, remained in fourth place with $4.8 million, dipping only 5% from the week prior.

Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” an Apple Studios production being theatrically distributed by Paramount Pictures, took in $4.7 million on its fourth weekend, to bring its domestic haul to about $60 million. While quite low for a $200 million movie, “Killers of the Flower Moon” is primarily an awards-season statement by Apple of its growing moviemaking ambitions.