Aurelia Butler

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    The Movie That Can Help You Understand Cory Booker’s 25-Hour Senate Speech

    “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” starring Jimmy Stewart as a naïve senator, explores the idealism — and reality — behind the tactic.Late in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” Frank Capra’s 1939 ode to democracy, free speech and the filibuster, a CBS newsman is trilling into his microphone near the Senate chamber. Inside that august room, he tells his listeners, is a man engaging in “the American privilege of free speech in its most dramatic form.”“The rrrrright,” he calls it, rolling that r, “to talk your head off!”He is referring to Jefferson Smith (played by a 30-ish Jimmy Stewart, all big eyes and gee-willikers wonder), the fish-out-of-water junior senator from some unnamed Western state and political party, who’s held the Senate floor all night and is still at it. He’s filibustering an appropriations bill to protest graft and injustice, specifically injustice against himself and more generally against the people of his state, his country and heck, why not, the whole world.I thought of Smith and his idealism while watching Senator Cory Booker on Tuesday, 24 hours into his own record-setting speech to protest the actions of the Trump administration. (Technically it wasn’t a filibuster because it did not come during a debate over a specific bill or nominee.) Stewart’s performance is calibrated to heightened Hollywood standards, to be sure, but by the end of the movie’s daylong filibuster, Smith looks as if he’s got the flu: sweaty, haggard, staggering around, voice reduced to a painful rasp. By contrast Booker, who’s about 25 years older than that character, remained coherent and composed and also audible, even when he concluded at the 25-hour mark.Cory Booker emerging from the Senate after his record-setting speech.Eric Lee/The New York TimesIn truth, I always think of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” (for rent on Apple TV+) when this kind of speech comes up. I saw it dozens of times as a teenager, as it was a favorite in the home-school community to which my family belonged. It’s both very funny and profoundly idealistic, with its underlying belief that anybody who tries a feat this athletic and grueling — as the CBS newsman reminds the crowd, sitting down ends the filibuster — must be in the right. “Either I’m dead right or I’m crazy!” Smith hollers at one point.“You wouldn’t care to put that to a vote, would you, senator?” one of his irritated colleagues replies. We know the movie’s answer.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 Brought a Wonderfully Weird Sensibility to Every Role

    Even his choice of parts could be eccentric. In the end, he’s best thought of as a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body.Val Kilmer doesn’t even need to appear onscreen as Iceman in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) for the audience to feel his presence.Early on, Tom Cruise’s “Maverick” Mitchell is texting with his old rival, Iceman, but even though he’s just represented by words on a screen, you know exactly who that is, the joy of Kilmer’s boisterously cocky performance in the original 1986 film echoing through your memory.It makes the moment Kilmer actually shows up, late in the film, all the more powerful. Maverick has come to him for counsel. Kilmer still projects a regal energy, only now his character has earned his haughtiness, which presents as wisdom. Time has softened him a little, but Kilmer does not play Iceman as humbled. Instead, he’s more confident than ever, a sage of sorts even if the years have taken away his voice, as they did with Kilmer himself, who suffered from throat cancer.It seemed like everyone involved knew that the scene in “Maverick” would serve as a swan song for Kilmer, who died Tuesday at the age of 65 from pneumonia. But as brief as the sequence is, it is a reminder of just what kind of actor Kilmer was, one who thrived on unexpected choices and was constantly eager to surprise, no matter what the context.In his youth, Kilmer looked like the ideal movie star, with smoldering good looks that were punctuated by naturally pouting, kissable lips. That classically beautiful appearance could have led him down a different path, and, sure, Hollywood occasionally tried to make a traditional leading man out of him. Most notably he was constrained as the vigilante in the cowl in Joel Schumacher’s “Batman Forever” (1995). But he thrived more as a character actor, bringing a bit of weirdo spice to the screen.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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    ‘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