{"id":2225711,"date":"2026-01-07T14:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2225711"},"modified":"2026-01-07T14:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T14:06:22","slug":"highlights-from-our-jan-8-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/highlights-from-our-jan-8-issue\/","title":{"rendered":"Highlights from our Jan. 8 issue"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Not to offend Larry David by saying it as late as Jan. 7, but: Happy New Year!<\/p>\n

The turning of the calendar also signals that Phase I of awards season is coming to a close. With the Golden Globes and a big weekend of parties on the horizon, I\u2019m proud to share our last issue \u2014 and my last letter from the editor \u2014 until after the Oscar nominations. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be back in February to unveil our three issues in Phase II. And be sure to keep an eye out Friday for Glenn Whipp\u2019s newsletter, which will have more on our Jan. 8 cover subject, George Clooney.<\/p>\n

Digital cover story: \u2018Bugonia\u2019<\/h2>\n
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(JSquared Photography \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Fans of Yorgos Lanthimos\u2019 misanthropic comedies will forgive the Michael Haneke pun in my coverline for Michael Ordo\u00f1a\u2019s story on \u201cBugonia,\u201d<\/a> starring Emma Stone as a healthcare CEO and Jesse Plemons as the conspiracy theorist who believes she\u2019s an alien invader. And not simply because Haneke\u2019s own brand of bleak absurdism seems to have rubbed off on Lanthimos. Funny games \u2014 well, \u2018silly games\u2019 \u2014 are at the core of Lanthimos\u2019 distinct creative process. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes it light,\u201d the filmmaker explained. \u201cYou don\u2019t take yourself too seriously. You don\u2019t take the material seriously. You\u2019re gargling and doing lines, whatever. It\u2019s a way of the actors getting the dialogue in them in an unconscious way, not fixed with a kind of intellectual baggage, so it\u2019s freer and it has more possibilities. And they feel comfortable with each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Small roles, big performances<\/h2>\n
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(Los Angeles Times photo illustration; photos by Dania Maxwell \/ For The Times; Warner Bros. Pictures; Tatum Mangus)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Envelope copy chief Blake Hennon sent up a cheer when Lisa Rosen\u2019s recurring spotlight<\/a> on the brilliant-but-unheralded turns that we love in movies came across his desk, and rightly so. In a flash, a film can make an indelible impression, and it\u2019s often thanks to those who fall outside the usual pundit predictions.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s participants include real-life siblings Jacobi and Noah Jupe (\u201cHamnet\u201d), Paul Thomas Anderson stalwart April Grace (\u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d) and one-scene wonder Hadley Robinson (\u201cThe History of Sound\u201d). <\/p>\n

The shot of the season<\/h2>\n
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\"A <\/picture> <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanks to contributor Daron James, the back page of every Envelope features an unforgettable frame from a film or TV series, accompanied by an explanation from the artists behind it. And while all are striking, I\u2019m glad to say we\u2019re ending Phase I on my favorite.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it\u2019s that \u201cBreathless\u201d was one of the first movies that made me fall in love with movies. Perhaps it\u2019s Richard Linklater\u2019s courageous decision to have his protagonist wear dark sunglasses throughout the movie. Perhaps it\u2019s the charm of actors Guillaume Marbeck and Zoey Deutch. It\u2019s probably all of the above. But whatever the reason, the final shot of \u201cNouvelle Vague\u201d<\/a> is, for my money, the best single shot I saw in 2025.<\/p>\n

More stories from our Jan. 8 issue<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not to offend Larry David by saying it as late as Jan. 7, but: Happy New Year! The turning of the calendar also signals that Phase I of awards season is coming to a close. With the Golden Globes and a big weekend of parties on the horizon, I\u2019m proud to share our last issue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2225712,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2225711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Highlights-from-our-Jan-8-issue.com2F392Fbf2F161d522449e9931307a93d77.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2225711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2225713,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2225711\/revisions\/2225713"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2225712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2225711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2225711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2225711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}