Ready for a pulpy papal potboiler?

A cardinal in red considers weighty papal matters.

Oct. 25, 2024 6 AM PT

It’s Kong vs. Godzilla, Dodgers vs. Yankees, the first time these two iconic franchises have met in the World Series since 1981, when a 20-year-old rookie phenom, pitching on three days rest, brought the Dodgers back from the brink, propelling them to a world championship.

RIP Fernando Valenzuela. Baseball star. Latino legend. As my pal Gustavo Arellano put it: “In a sport now reduced to algorithms and pitching clocks, Valenzuela represents more than a team or a career. He was the magic of baseball at its best.”

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope’s Friday newsletter. Time to win it for Fernando.

‘Conclave’ could have mass appeal this weekend

“Conclave” begins with the death of the pope and ends … well, I can’t tell you how it ends, only to say that this movie’s final revelation will be discussed and debated and thoroughly savored by anyone who enjoys elevated trashy movies. Ralph Fiennes does most of the heavy lifting here, playing Cardinal Lawrence, a dutiful and doubting man overseeing the vote for the next pope. Ambition and cattiness complicate the proceedings. The candidates who are most dangerous, Lawrence notes, are the ones who want the job.

After catching the movie at the Telluride Film Festival, I wrote: “Edward Berger adapts Robert Harris’ 2016 page-turner employing the same propulsive editing technique and bombastic score that made his last movie, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front,’ a hit with audiences, awards voters and earplug salespeople. It’s a thriller about petty men undone by aspiration: mostly silly, sure, but also at times clever in its send-up of electoral politics.”

Reviewing for The Times, my pal Katie Walsh couldn’t resist the very words I used in this email’s subject line, calling it a “papal potboiler.” It’s fun to say. Give it a try. The alliteration. And the movie too.

Stanley Tucci is part of the film’s exceptional ensemble, playing a cardinal vying for the top job. Esther Zuckerman talked with Tucci recently for The Times, and he explained what he found to be the key to playing his character.

“The most important relationship in this film, for all of these men, is the relationship with themselves,” Tucci told Esther. “That’s what it all boils down to. They think it’s God, they think it’s this, they think it’s that — and it is, but really it’s not. It’s them.”

A man in a dark blazer sits for a photo.

Steve McQueen makes WWII personal with ‘Blitz’

A new Steve McQueen movie is always welcome and “Blitz,” a fresh look at the German bombing of London during World War II through the eyes of a boy resisting his mother’s plan to evacuate him, is no exception. Part war movie, part Dickens, part “Lovers Rock” (McQueen can film a dance party like no other), it’s worth finding in a theater in the next few weeks. (It opens next Friday and will expand through Southern California before landing on Apple TV+ on Nov. 22.)

Emily Zemler recently spoke in London with McQueen, who told her that the seeds of the film were planted in his mind early, growing up in England’s capital.

“The Blitz is all around you,” McQueen says. “It’s one of the foundations of our identity.”

“Often people think war is what happens in far distant places,” McQueen adds. “I wanted to bring it home: This is what happened here. This movie has a real sense of urgency, unfortunately. I wanted it to be a roller-coaster ride through London during the war.”