Aurelia Butler

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    ‘A Minecraft Movie’ Review: Block by Bizarre Block

    Jack Black and Jason Momoa star in this adaptation of the megahit video game that leans into the mindless silliness of mid-aughts comedy.Occasionally, amid the cycles of nostalgic clip-sharing that periodically occur online, you might happen upon the Berries and Cream video. The viral Starburst commercial, involving a briefcase-toting pilgrimesque lad, is a concise distillation of the particular brand of mid-to-late-aughts humor that dominated the early internet: quaintly absurd, silly, and above all, random. When, early on in “A Minecraft Movie,” a makeshift rocket pack is sent hurtling toward a nearby potato chip factory, obliterating its giant mascot chip and leaving executives inside wailing, that genre of ad improbably blazes in the mind.That this adaptation of the megahit video game, directed by Jared Hess, fully commits to capturing that era of stupidly “epic,” or epically stupid, laughs shouldn’t come as a surprise. Hess, after all, laid a lot of groundwork for early internet humor with his 2004 indie comedy “Napoleon Dynamite.” And the star here, Jack Black, was the lead in Hess’s 2006 follow-up, “Nacho Libre.”This retro sensibility might, on paper, make for an out-of-touch comedy, but there’s something almost refreshingly bold in the full-tilt inanity here — in taking a blockbuster budget and embracing idiocy, as if to knowingly say, “I mean, it’s a Minecraft movie.”That charitable read is most immediately guided by Black, whose comedic persona of earnest goofiness has survived our age of irony. He plays Steve, a disillusioned office worker who decides to chase his dream of working as a miner. When he axes into a mysterious magic cube, it opens a portal to the Overworld, the blocky world of Minecraft, with its limitless potential for creation.But when a crew of ragtag outsiders, led by a washed-up video game champion named Garrett (Jason Momoa), unwittingly get their hands on the cube and enter the Overworld, they become caught in a battle for the universe’s survival.Most of this plays out with a camp quality of so-dumb-it’s-sort-of-fun. The visuals often appear intentionally, even egregiously artificial, something that only partly works; Hess’s early success was rooted in a deliberately askew visual grammar that worked in an indie medium, but with a studio extravaganza, it often simply translates as — well, a Starburst commercial.But those who can buy into Hess’s sensibility will get a nostalgic kick: Momoa, who is at times genuinely funny and at other times just capably creating sketches, is essentially doing a rendition of Rex, a side character from “Napoleon Dynamite.” (Also, for fans of that movie, there is more than one bit about tater tots.)The silliness of “A Minecraft Movie” will appeal to kids who love the game, to adults who think fondly of this comedy era, and perhaps to few else. But the movie could have gone a more polished and predictable route, like another of Black’s game-related movies, “Jumanji.” In a world of such factory-line adaptations, there’s more of an identity here, even if it’s a mindless one.A Minecraft MovieRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Val Kilmer in ‘Batman Forever’ Was a True 1990s Moment

    The actor took only one turn in the famous batsuit. That film, “Batman Forever,” couldn’t be a more representative artifact of its era.In June 1995 a pop confection hit thousands of movie screens. It seemed to embody what both boosters and critics have identified as that decade’s end-of-history nonchalance. It was, of all things, a Batman movie. And holding it together, the sturdy straight man surrounded by abject goofiness, was Val Kilmer, the actor who died at the age of 65 on Tuesday.“Batman Forever” was the third movie in a franchise kicked off in 1989 by the director Tim Burton’s brooding “Batman.” Starring Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, “Batman” was, by the standards of the time, dark for a comic-book flick.Burton’s and Keaton’s follow-up, “Batman Returns” (1992), failed to repeat the original’s box-office success. So a new director, Joel Schumacher, was brought in expressly to make what one journalist termed a “Batman Lite.” Schumacher was a fan of Kilmer’s portrayal of Doc Holliday in the 1993 western “Tombstone” and tapped him as his leading man.This was not Burton’s Batman. “There’s not much to contemplate here,” the critic Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times, “beyond the spectacle of gimmicky props and the kitsch of good actors (all of whom have lately done better work elsewhere) dressed for a red-hot Halloween.”Schumacher favored showy camera angles and a garish color scheme. The villains — Jim Carrey played the Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones was Two-Face — were freely permitted to chew the scenery. Batman’s suit had nipples. The movie was weird.It was also a box-office smash. It broke an opening-weekend record and eventually brought in more than $336 million worldwide, besting its predecessor by tens of millions of dollars.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

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    Val Kilmer: A Life in Pictures

    Val Kilmer, an actor known for his work in “Top Gun,” “The Doors” and “Batman Forever,” died on Tuesday at the age of 65. Here are some snapshots from his life and career.Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch, Via APCher and Kilmer in 1984, the same year he made his feature debut in the slapstick Cold War spy movie “Top Secret!”George Rose/Getty ImagesKilmer in 1988, the year he appeared in the children’s fantasy film “Willow.”Bonnie Schiffman/Getty ImagesKilmer in a series of black-and-white photos in 1986.Paramount PicturesKilmer starred opposite Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” in 1986.Michael Tighe/Donaldson Collection, via Getty ImagesKilmer, posing in 1994, starred as the profligate gunslinger Doc Holliday in “Tombstone” the year before.Warner Bros./Sunset Boulevard and Corbis, via Getty ImagesIn 1995, Kilmer took on “Batman Forever,” in which he battled Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey). Nicole Kidman played Dr. Chase Meridian.Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc, via Getty ImagesKilmer, Carrey and Kidman at a Las Vegas convention in 1995.Carolco/Getty ImagesKilmer being apprehended by the police in a scene from the 1991 film “The Doors.”Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesKilmer posing for one of his earliest movies, “Real Genius” (1985).Fairchild Archive/Penske Media, via Getty ImagesSean Penn and Kilmer at a book party in Venice, Calif., in 1995.Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc, via Getty ImagesKilmer in 1997, the year he starred in “The Saint,” a thriller about a debonair, resourceful thief playing cat-and-mouse with the Russian mob.M. Caulfield/WireImage, via Getty ImagesKilmer worked with Robert Downey Jr. and Shane Black on “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” in 2005.Donato Sardella/WireImage, via Getty ImagesKilmer in 2006. He was one of the youngest students ever admitted to the acting program at Juilliard. More

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    Rare Beatles Audition Tape Surfaces in a Vancouver Record Shop

    The recording appears to be from the band’s 1962 audition for Decca Records, which notably rejected the group.The tape sat unremarkably on a shelf behind the counter, collecting dust for five, maybe 10 years — so much time that Rob Frith says he lost track.Frith, 69, could not seem to recall how it had found its way to Neptoon Records, his store in Vancouver, British Columbia, which in its 44 years has become a repository for tens of thousands of vinyl records and other musical relics.The label on the cardboard box said it was a Beatles demo tape, but, having heard enough bootleg recordings over the decades, Frith was skeptical until he enlisted a disc jockey friend, Larry Hennessey, to load it onto his vintage tape player a few weeks ago.It was just before midnight on March 11 when they pushed play on the mystery tape. From the opening guitar riff and the intonation of a 21-year-old John Lennon, Frith said he could not believe his ears as he listened to the Beatles performing a cover of the Motown hit “Money (That’s What I Want).”“Right away, we’re all kind of looking at each other,” Frith said. “It seems like the Beatles are in the room. That’s how clear it is.”Frith said the tape appeared to be a professionally edited recording of the Beatles’ New Year’s Day 1962 audition for Decca Records in London, a session that notably ended with the band’s rejection.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

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    Val Kilmer, Film Star Who Played Batman and Jim Morrison, Dies at 65

    A wide-ranging leading man who earned critical praise, he was known to be charismatic but unpredictable. At one point he dropped out of Hollywood for a decade.Val Kilmer, a homegrown Hollywood actor who tasted leading-man stardom as Jim Morrison and Batman, but whose protean gifts and elusive personality also made him a high-profile supporting player, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 65.The cause was pneumonia, said his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. Mr. Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014 but later recovered, she said.Tall and handsome in a rock-star sort of way, Mr. Kilmer was in fact cast as a rocker a handful of times early in his career, when he seemed destined for blockbuster success. He made his feature debut in the slapstick Cold War spy-movie spoof “Top Secret!” (1984), in which he starred as a crowd-pleasing, hip-shaking American singer in Berlin unwittingly involved in an East German plot to reunify the country.He gave a vividly stylized performance as Jim Morrison, the emblem of psychedelic sensuality, in Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” (1991), and he played the cameo role of Mentor — an advice-giving Elvis as imagined by the film’s antiheroic protagonist, played by Christian Slater — in “True Romance” (1993), a violent drug-chase caper written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott.Val Kilmer as the rock singer Jim Morrison in the 1991 film “The Doors.”Sidney Baldwin/TriStar PicturesMr. Kilmer had top billing (ahead of Sam Shepard) in “Thunderheart” (1992), in which he played an unseasoned F.B.I. agent investigating a murder on a South Dakota Indian reservation, and in “The Saint” (1997), a thriller about a debonair, resourceful thief playing cat-and-mouse with the Russian mob. Most famously, perhaps, between Michael Keaton and George Clooney he inhabited the title role (and the batsuit) in “Batman Forever” (1995), doing battle in Gotham City with Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), though neither Mr. Kilmer nor the film were viewed as stellar representatives of the Batman franchise.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

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    Val Kilmer: Six Memorable Movies to Stream

    Kilmer’s film career ranged from slapstick comedy to some of the most memorable films of the 1980s and ’90s.Val Kilmer, who died at 65 on Tuesday, donned Batman’s cape, starred as a gunslinger, flew supersonic fighter jets in “Top Gun” and held the screen as a bumbling singer in a slapstick comedy about the Cold War.Kilmer was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1980s and ’90s and then exited stage left for more than a decade. His career was disrupted by throat cancer and a tracheotomy, but he had already left his mark with a series of notable performances.“Once you’re a star, you’re always a star,” he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in 2012.Here are six of his most memorable roles:‘Batman Forever’Kilmer replaced Michael Keaton as Batman, stepping into the film franchise as it transitioned from the gloomy atmosphere of Tim Burton to the campier direction of Joel Schumacher. Kilmer’s Caped Crusader in “Batman Forever” (1995) was stoic enough. But the tone of the film was set early, when Batman’s butler, Alfred, asked him if he needed a sandwich as he got into the Batmobile. “I’ll get drive-through,” Kilmer deadpanned.Stream, rent or buy it on Max, Prime, YouTube, Apple TV or Fandango.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

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    At New Directors/New Films, the Faces Tell the Story

    They’re the great cinematic landscape in stories as diverse as “Familiar Touch,” about dementia, and “Timestamp,” about Ukrainian schoolchildren.In “Familiar Touch,” Kathleen Chalfant plays a woman whose inner life alternately burns bright and suddenly dims. Her character, Ruth, has an inviting smile and natural physical grace, though at times she falters midstep. A former cook and a cookbook author now in her 80s, she lives alone in a pleasant modern home cluttered with shelves of books and just-so personal touches that convey the passage of time in a full, well-lived life. Ruth seems thoroughly at ease in her own skin when she first appears, bustling in her kitchen. She’s preparing lunch for a visitor who, you soon learn, is the son she no longer recognizes.Written and directed by Sarah Friedland, “Familiar Touch” is the opening-night selection Wednesday in the New Directors/New Films festival and a terrific leadoff for the annual event. Ruth’s openly loving and hurting son soon hurries her to his car — she thinks that they’re en route to a hotel — and into an assisted living facility. There, she settles into a new reality as she struggles with her memory, connects with other residents and finds support among the staff. In Chalfant’s mesmerizing, eloquently expressive face, you see both Ruth’s piercing loss and a soul safely settling into the eternal now as her past, present and future fade away.Kathleen Chalfant as a woman with dementia in “Familiar Touch.”Armchair Poetics LLCChalfant’s is just one of the memorable faces in the annual New Directors/New Films series, a collaboration of Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art that gathers movies from around the world. Established in 1972, the event was designed to draw attention to the kind of nonmainstream work that didn’t always make it into commercial theaters. That’s one reason that I always look forward to it; the other is that its programmers take film seriously. That’s clear throughout the lineup, which could use more genre variety, yet, at its finest, offers you personal, thoughtful, imaginative, adult work of the kind that plays in art houses and on more adventurous streamers. These are movies made and chosen by people who love the art.That love is also evident in the great diversity of men, women and children in the program, a variety that underscores the centrality of the human face as the great cinematic landscape. This year, partly because of the dystopian chatter about A.I., I was struck anew by the deep, signifying power of smiles, frowns and sneers, and how watching movies usually means watching other people. No matter if their directors tug at your heart (as in the documentary “Timestamp”) or keep you at an intellectual distance (the drama “Drowning Dry”), these movies present an astonishment of humanity. In selection after selection, old and young visages, some untroubled and others wrenched in pain, bring you face-to-face with the world.“Timestamp” follows Ukrainian classes near the front and in the center of the country.2Brave Productions/a_Bahn/Rinkel DocsWe 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

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    5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Billie Holiday

    Billie Holiday is one of the foremost vocalists in jazz, whose emotional depth and unique phrasing inspired generations of singers to experiment with form and pitch fluctuation. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by the saxophonist Lester Young, her star brightened in the 1930s behind a string of hit songs and notable live performances in Harlem. In what was the hottest jazz scene in the country, Holiday stood out, and in 1937 she joined the famed Count Basie Orchestra; a year later, the clarinetist Artie Shaw asked her to join his orchestra, making Holiday the first Black woman to work with a white big band.Billie Holiday in the spotlight.Charles Hewitt/Getty ImagesHoliday’s legend grew in the late ’30s during her residency at the Café Society in Manhattan. She was introduced to “Strange Fruit,” a song by Abel Meeropol about lynching in the American South based on a poem he had written. Barney Josephson, the proprietor of Café Society, heard the song and brought it to Holiday, who first performed it there in 1939. It was a watershed moment for the singer: It’s not only the most famous song in her repertoire, it’s considered one of the most important in history, the track’s vivid imagery a strong indictment of racism in the country. Holiday was officially a star after the recording of “Strange Fruit,” and followed it with an impressive run of tracks in the early ’40s that cemented her fame.While there’s been a notion to only associate Holiday with pain and struggle, these accounts have dimmed her light as a firebrand artist whose creative bravery encouraged others to take similar risks. We asked 10 musicians and writers to share their favorite Holiday songs: Enjoy listening to their choices, check out the playlists and be sure to leave your own selections in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆‘Autumn in New York’José James, vocalistWithin the first two seconds of this song it’s impossible not to be drawn into the spell of Billie Holiday’s voice. Sailing confidently over lush chords by the pianist Oscar Peterson, Holiday pulls back the curtain on the beating heart of everyone who has loved, lost, loved again and (finally) lost themselves in that great city. A superb storyteller, Holiday explores every nuance of Vernon Duke’s paean to autumnal introspection in the city that never sleeps. Through her knowing delivery, every detail becomes vivid, cinematic: couples holding hands in Central Park, clouds reflecting off endless steel buildings, sundown in Greenwich Village, the wry smile of the maître d’hôtel at the Ritz, a lipstick-stained empty cocktail glass left behind at the bar. Billie was queen of it all, one of the highest-paid Black entertainers of her time, who left no stone unturned on her journey toward the self. This is beyond jazz singing; this is mastery in its highest form. With this song, Billie takes her place among the greatest of all balladeer improvisers in the jazz canon, creating the definitive version of an American classic.▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe 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