<!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>In November, ahead of recording her new LP at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Young entered a treatment center for five weeks to address her dependence on cocaine. By the New Year, she was back to the industry rat race, delivering a surprise star turn on “The Tonight Show” couch with […] More
<!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–>In November, ahead of recording her new LP at Electric Lady Studios in New York, Young entered a treatment center for five weeks to address her dependence on cocaine. By the New Year, she was back to the industry rat race, delivering a surprise star turn on “The Tonight Show” couch with […] More
Sacha Jenkins’s documentary, about the variety show trailblazer and his commitment to Black performers in the Civil Rights era, will keep you hooked.As the opening credits of the documentary “Sunday Best” roll, Billy Preston in a killer chartreuse suit takes to “The Ed Sullivan Show” stage. Ray Charles pounds the keyboards and brass players ready to enter a sped-up version of “Agent Double-O-Soul.”From the get-go, Sacha Jenkins’s film about the variety show trailblazer Ed Sullivan and his commitment to Black performers, entwined as it became with the Civil Rights Movement, keeps us hooked. It’s not just the trove of archival performances — Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, James Brown — that persuade. It’s observations from legends and friends; among them Harry Belafonte, Smokey Robinson and the Motown impresario Berry Gordy.A music journalist-turned-filmmaker, Jenkins had the hip-hop bona fides to guarantee “Sunday Best” would not be a white savior tale. Instead, his film reveals the authentic amity and steadfast values of an ally. As a young sportswriter, Sullivan denounced N.Y.U.’s football program for benching a Black player when the University of Georgia came to town.“My parents knew these things were wrong … it wasn’t broad-minded, it was just sensible,” he tells the journalist David Frost in a 1969 television interview. Born in 1901 in a Harlem of Jewish and Irish immigrants, Sullivan furthered his mother and father’s example. “You can’t do so-and-so because the South will not accept it,” Belafonte recalls execs and sponsors telling Sullivan. “Ed pushed the envelope as far as an envelope could be pushed.”Illuminating and so entertaining, “Sunday Best” nevertheless elicits a mournful pang. Sullivan died in 1974. Belafonte is gone. Jenkins died in May at the age of 53. And a once celebrated CBS, home to Sullivan for decades, seems to be begging for last rites.Sunday BestNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More
“You’ll believe a man could fly.” That was the tagline for the 1978 “Superman” movie, made when superhero films were so rare that simply watching someone soar through the sky felt magical.Today, though, comic-book movies are commonplace, with flight and other superpowers handed out so liberally that even Annette Bening has blasted energy beams from her hands. (That happened in 2019’s “Captain Marvel.” What, you don’t remember?)James Gunn’s new take on “Superman,” in theaters now, has its fair share of flight scenes and they’re all convincingly done. But the movie’s mission statement has more to do with a pure spirit than a special effect: In the middle of one frenetic action sequence, after noticing a tiny squirrel is in danger of being crushed by debris, Superman leaps into action to rush the animal out of harm’s way.Sure, you’ll believe a man could fly. But would you believe that man would go to the trouble of saving a squirrel?“The squirrel moment is probably one of the most debated,” Gunn told me recently. In early test screenings, some audiences were confused about why Superman (David Corenswet) would prioritize a tiny critter when all of Metropolis was in jeopardy. But to Gunn, that was exactly the point: His cleareyed, upbeat incarnation of Superman prizes saving every life, human or not.“A lot of people were anti-squirrel. They thought it was too much,” he said. “And I think it really comes down to, do you like squirrels or not?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
In hit after hit, adorable monsters — as chaotic and cuddly as the popular accessory — have fulfilled moviegoers’ need for escapism.This summer has been invaded by a group of adorable furry monsters with sharp teeth. They are known as Labubus, and they are everywhere.The trendy key-ring dolls, from the Chinese purveyor Pop Mart, have received endorsements from Rihanna and Cher, and are omnipresent on social media. In a way, they’ve also infused the movies.Not literally, of course, though I wouldn’t put it past some executive to be developing a Labubu franchise right now. No, it’s more that the spirit of Labubus is everywhere onscreen. The blockbuster business has been overtaken by cuteness — sometimes ugly, chaotic cuteness in the style of the Labubu craze, but cuteness nonetheless.Nearly every major movie released since May features a cute sidekick, there to make audiences coo with delight. The season opened with Disney’s live-action remake of “Lilo & Stitch,” featuring the charmingly manic blue alien, Stitch. It became a box office success in part because of fans’ enduring love for the extraterrestrial with a penchant for causing a ruckus. You could say Stitch is the original Labubu. They do look an awful lot alike.“Lilo & Stitch,” starring Maia Kealoha, was a box office success in part because of the appeal of Stitch, the lovable blue alien.Disney, via Associated PressIn June, another remake was buoyed by a CGI cutie: Toothless, the title star of “How to Train Your Dragon,” whose oversized eyes and pointy (retractable) chompers have a Labubu-esque quality. Also like Stitch, Toothless looks wild but, at times, acts as a pet, be that a cat or a dog depending on the moment in the story.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
How music convinced a religious skeptic to rethink faith.Before I began listening to gospel music about 12 years ago, I was not the most obvious candidate to become a fan of the genre. Raised by divorced parents who were not particularly religious, I didn’t give much consideration to faith. Though my father was a longtime member of the Christ Temple Baptist Church — a Black congregation in Ypsilanti, Mich. — he wasn’t a regular presence at Sunday service nor did he pressure me to join him when he did go. My mother, who was a nonobservant Jewish woman, spent much of her adult life criticizing what she viewed as a patriarchal religion; we never attended synagogue, and I didn’t have a bar mitzvah.My mother’s iconoclasm shaped my attitude toward life, including my taste in music. As a teenager I was drawn to punk rock — loud, fast, angry music that reflected my vague and indeterminate outrage at the world. I defied authority, ranting and raving against the powers that be, including cops, politicians, security guards and my teachers at school, though my defiance usually involved little more than cutting holes in my clothes and quoting song lyrics. I was a perpetually cynical and distrustful young man who believed the world’s problems could be solved by my music and clothing preferences, not by organized religion.As I matured and entered my 30s, my father and I grew closer. We bonded over Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield and Aretha Franklin, artists who sang love songs distinctly informed by their respective backgrounds in the Black church. These singers were my conduit to gospel. After hearing the Swan Silvertones sing “Mary Don’t You Weep” on a compilation album of early R&B and gospel groups, I was instantly hooked, and I sought out their LPs as well as records by the Davis Sisters, Marion Williams, Brother Joe May and the Blind Boys of Alabama. I was drawn to the music not because of its religious lyrics but because its rhythms and vocal harmonies moved something deep in my core. I felt the music in my soul before I had even acknowledged the existence of a soul. Each minor chord on the piano, each impassioned cry from the singer broke through my cynicism. I was carried away — if only for a few minutes.I came to understand that the music’s religious spirit was inseparable from the music: Each served the other, to help us express our connection to and yearning for the ineffable, to give form to that which is unseen. When a gospel vocalist sings of faith and love of Jesus, it sounds to my ears like a higher power is pouring out of them, using the artist as an instrument. At the top of the Staple Singers’ 1965 song “Let Jesus Lead You,” for example, the band leader, Pops Staples, launches into the opening and his three children follow, creating a simple call-and-response: “Let Jesus lead you/Let Jesus lead you/Let Jesus lead you/All the way/All the way/All the way from Earth to glory,” before Mavis Staples takes over, her voice slowly building, from mortal earth to the heavenly realms.The sound of the Staple Singers’ early records is blues-influenced, trading church organs and a large chorus for a small band, stripping the music down to its raw core. But like much gospel, the Staple Singers’ music hinges on a buoyant joyfulness that invites the listener to share in their exaltation. Listening to this song, I clap my hands and stomp a foot on the backbeat. My heart swells with each repetition of the refrain, and I feel myself transported to places I’ve never visited but that the music conjures for me: some storefront church or a down-home revival. I’m connected to a history, to a not-so-distant past that is not a part of my personal experience but is bound up in my cultural heritage.It reached into the hidden, malnourished and underserved parts of my spirit that I so often tried to repress. To paraphrase Mahalia Jackson’s memorable description of gospel, the music brought good tidings and good news to my life. In a world that increasingly fosters self-interest and social isolation, gospel points me toward something more intimate, more collective. Though I don’t subscribe to any particular denomination, I aspire to lead a life of curiosity, generosity and compassion — all the best hallmarks of any faith and of great gospel music.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
For Laufey, 2024 was a whirlwind year. 2025 may be even wilder.Last year, the indie singer-songwriter, who cannot be described without a flurry of hyphenated hybrids — Icelandic-Chinese, jazz-pop-classical, TikTok-trad — became a breakout star with a quirky pop style that draws equally from Taylor Swift and the romantic whimsy of midcentury musicals. She won a Grammy Award and attended the Met Gala in a rosé-colored princess gown and, in perhaps the ultimate orchestra-nerd Easter egg, a veil embroidered with a Bach fugue.In an interview this spring, as she prepared to release her third studio album, “A Matter of Time,” Laufey, 26, was still practically glowing over those accomplishments. But seated at a control console at Electric Lady Studios in New York, where she recorded three of the album’s 14 songs, she also cataloged the jitters and anxieties she felt being thrust into the machinery of fame.“I wanted 2025 to be this year where I was less anxious,” she said, “and instead of walking meekly onto the red carpets or meekly into relationships, I wanted to walk with confidence.”“And I wanted to write a country song,” Laufey continued. She paused a beat. “Country-ish,” she amended herself, and then pushed a button to play “Clean Air” — a twangy starting-over ballad that she said was partly inspired by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris’s “Trio” albums from the 1980s and ’90s.In just a few years, Laufey — her name is properly pronounced with a vowel unfamiliar to most English speakers, but she answers to LAY-vay — has become a phenomenon almost without comparison in contemporary pop. Even in an age of scrambled genres, she stands out as a master code-switcher who cites inspiration from Prokofiev and Chet Baker yet has racked up more than five billion streams with concise, witty earworms that paint a glamorous wonderland shaded with the second guessings of a Gen Z diarist. Despite ruffling some feathers among the conservative gatekeepers of jazz, she has cultivated a vast fan base online and this fall will embark on her first arena tour, including two nights at Madison Square Garden.And she has big fans.Despite ruffling some feathers among the conservative gatekeepers of jazz, Laufey has cultivated a vast fan base. Olivia Rodrigo and Barbra Streisand are among her A-list admirers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
