Aurelia Butler

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    ‘Old Guy’ Review: The Veteran and the Rookie

    Christoph Waltz plays an aging hit man begrudgingly training his replacement in Simon West’s stale action movie.“Old Guy” is billed as an action movie but it is actually more of a fantasy film. It imagines a world in which an aging hit man kills his targets without consequence before retreating to nightclubs where scads of beautiful young women compete to accompany him home.Presumably Danny Dolinski (Christoph Waltz) has been enjoying such a lifestyle for decades. But when the movie begins, his bosses consider his contract killing career to be approaching its natural conclusion because of the joint pain afflicting his trigger finger. Dolinski would prefer to stay in the game, but Opal, the director of The Company (Ann Akinjirin) insists that he serve as a mentor to Wihlborg (Cooper Hoffman), a promising, and youthful, assassin.So begins a familiar story of the veteran and the rookie, updated to include snide observations about Gen-Z style trends. Between this odd couple, Wihlborg is designed as sympathetic — he is given an arbitrary back story in foster care — but Dolinski is clearly meant as our hero, joined by a damsel in a low-cut dress (Lucy Liu). The director Simon West strains to frame Dolinski as a witty cad whose embittered demeanor (and murderous vocation) belie a sturdy moral code.Beyond the stale plot and groaners that make up the dialogue, “Old Guy” suffers from haphazard pacing, as if every third scene was cut out in postproduction. Watching, one wonders who this movie is for — even within the target demographic stated in the title.Old GuyRated R for guys shooting guns. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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    ‘Millers in Marriage’ Review: Squall in the Family

    Three siblings navigate midlife crises in Edward Burns’s glossy look at marriages in transition.Rich people have problems too, is one takeaway from “Millers in Marriage,” the 14th feature from the writer and director Edward Burns. A roundelay of discontent, disappointment and disappearing dreams, this smoothly executed, coolly controlled relationship drama observes three siblings on the wrong side of 50 and, clearly, the right side of the property market.All are artists of one sort or another, and all reside in homes that appear ripped from the pages of Architectural Digest. Andy (Burns), a glumly separated painter, is torn between his attraction to a straight-shooting, happily divorced Englishwoman (a perfect Minnie Driver) and the renewed attentions of his volatile wife (Morena Baccarin). His sister Maggie (Julianna Margulies) is a novelist whose facility at churning out high-society beach reads isn’t helping her husband (a dour Campbell Scott) dislodge his writer’s block. The third sibling, Eve (a warm and engaging Gretchen Mol), a onetime rock musician, is deeply regretting the abandonment of her career to have babies with her former manager (Patrick Wilson), now a perpetually sozzled grouch.Who better, then, to pry Eve loose than a rangy, rakish music journalist (Benjamin Bratt) whose game includes unironic hat-wearing and — like a dispiriting number of men in his age bracket — the unembarrassed deployment of Stephen Stills lyrics?Cutting elegantly back and forth among the siblings, “Millers in Marriage” is a sincere, sometimes trite attempt to address midlife drift and late-marriage frustrations, its empty nests gaping beneath gleaming countertops and gauzy photography. Its characters may be stressed out, but its rhythms are leisurely, the skill of the actors mostly countering the weaknesses in the script. For Burns, though, the difficulty may be getting audiences to invest in the unhappiness of people who wake up each morning in square footage like this.Millers in MarriageRated R for alcoholism, adultery and enviable curb appeal. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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    ‘Ex-Husbands’ Review: Three Unweddings and a Funeral

    In this Griffin Dunne dramedy, a father and his sons face different kinds of relationship troubles at the same time.The Pearce men have lost the knack for marriage in Noah Pritzker’s gentle, grounded dramedy “Ex-Husbands.” Nick Pearce’s upcoming wedding has hit a snag; his dad, Peter, is facing fresh divorce papers; and Peter’s own father abruptly separated from his spouse of many years.Nick’s troubles are especially awkward because his bachelor party is proceeding as scheduled in Tulum, Mexico. Peter is flying there as well to lick his wounds (though his son would rather he didn’t). That sets the family up for revelations about one another, but more affectingly, a mix of small kindnesses.Griffin Dunne effortlessly anchors the film as Peter, a dentist who gets along with everyone and worries over his sons, a.k.a. “the boys.” Nick (James Norton) is depressed to be still waiting tables at 35 years old. His clean-cut younger brother, Mickey (Miles Heizer), has a bewildering fling on the trip and helps hide Nick’s big secret: His fiancée has cold feet.The Pearces and company bum around in Tulum, where Nick can barely write an explanatory letter to his friends and family. Pritzker directs genuine performances and has an ear for conversations with the ring of everyday emotion, like when Peter advises Nick’s friends (“You guys”) to enjoy each other’s company while they can.A death in the family leads to another round of male bonding and reconciliation to life’s disappointments. Even if the film’s wisdom is not earth-shattering, it radiates a kind of paternal salve that lives up to Peter’s best intentions.Ex-HusbandsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 38. minutes. In theaters. More

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    The New ‘Captain America’ Movie Isn’t Great. But Don’t Call Him a D.E.I. Hire.

    Anthony Mackie picks up the shield at a potentially awkward time. But there’s one way Disney can do right by him and the next generation of Marvel stars.“Captain America: Brave New World” is a mediocre-at-best movie, a roughly cobbled together film that pales in comparison to the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s still better than the franchise’s most recent run of disasters, and its strong opening weekend at the box office seems to have restored some momentum to the M.C.U. But the most remarkable part of this film is the irony of how it lands in the political moment: “Brave New World” features a Black iteration of the quintessential American superhero a month into an administration that has made eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion one of its first priorities.In a way, Disney’s timing regarding diversity was always going to be off. For most of the run of one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, diversity was an afterthought. For the first decade of the M.C.U., over the course of more than a dozen films, the heroes carrying the franchise — the central protagonists — were exclusively white men, until Chadwick Boseman led “Black Panther” in 2018.So, yeah, Disney started out a little behind.But when it came down to the handoff of the star-spangled shield from the blond-haired and blue-eyed Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Disney actually built a steady platform for the M.C.U.’s first Black Captain America to lead his own film.The 2021 Marvel TV series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” provided the space for Sam to develop into Captain America in earnest, not just as a kind of M.C.U. diversity hire.Sam’s transformation into the Captain could have easily been the M.C.U.’s version of “The Blind Side,” a tale of a Black man’s triumph under the tutelage of the true, original white hero. He also could have been the Uncle Tom Captain, a servile Black man unquestioningly putting his life on the line.But “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” explored Sam’s reticence in taking on the mantle of Captain America, given how his Blackness so often marginalized him, made him a target or turned him into a stereotype in the eyes of some of his fellow citizens. The show also introduced a Black super soldier named Isaiah Bradley, who received the super serum like Steve Rogers. But Isaiah never became the lauded hero Steve did; he was made a prisoner and a science project, jailed and experimented on for 30 years. He’s a reminder to Sam of what can happen as a Black man in American, no matter his standing, his strength or his title.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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    ‘Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse’ Review: Graphic Doom

    In this straightforward documentary, the acclaimed cartoonist reflects on his Holocaust memoir, “Maus,” and other masterworks of subversion.A conventional documentary about a distinctly unorthodox figure, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” has a lot going for it, mostly its title subject and his circle of cool pals and champions. Intimate if oddly unrevealing, it offers an overview of Spiegelman’s life, times and inspirations, charting how a Queens kid created “Maus: A Survivor’s Tale,” his 1986 graphic novel about the Holocaust. “Maus” and its equally lauded second installment are such an important cultural touchstone that the Pulitzer Prize board awarded it a special citation in 1992. It’s so powerful that it has been banned in some American school districts.Those schools, Spiegelman suggested in a 2023 interview, apparently wanted “a kinder, gentler, fuzzier Holocaust” to teach children. The interviewer, from PEN America, assured readers that Spiegelman was “darkly” joking, and maybe he was. Then again, perhaps it is the Holocaust that some want to jettison from minds and curriculums: Anne Frank’s “The Diary of a Young Girl” has also been banned in American schools. Whatever the case, the framing of Spiegelman’s comments brings to mind some of the telling anxiety — about taste, history, propriety, ostensibly highbrow art and low — that at times runs through commentary on “Maus” and “Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: And Here My Troubles Began” (1991).“Making a Holocaust comic book with Jews as mice and Germans as cats would probably strike most people as flippant, if not appalling,” a reviewer for The New York Times wrote of the first book on its release, quickly and instructively adding that it’s “the opposite of flippant and appalling.” Writing about “Maus II,” another Times reviewer began his appraisal by reassuring readers of this installment’s cultural legitimacy and seriousness. “Art Spiegelman doesn’t draw comics,” the reviewer began, asserting that the book resists labels.Well, yes but no: “Maus” is, among other things, an illustrated masterpiece. (It’s since been published as a single edition, “The Complete Maus.”) It’s a history, a biography and an autobiographical howl as well as a milestone in the history of comics and a foundational American work about the Holocaust. It traces alternating story lines. One involves Spiegelman’s life, including his difficult relationship with his father, Vladek, and the painful death of his mother, Anja. The other story line tracks the family’s life in Europe before World War II, continues through the horrors his parents endured, the liberation of the death camps, an interlude in Sweden (where Artie was born) and a new, at times excruciating life in America.Directed by Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, “Disaster Is My Muse” covers some of that same material, if more prosaically. Using a mix of archival and originally shot material, it wends between the past and the present to chart Spiegelman’s life, giving you a sense of both the man and the artist though without satisfying depth. His story begins in 1948, the year he was born, but more truly seems to have started when he was a boy in New York and accompanying his mother on errands. In a drugstore, he spied a copy of “Inside Mad,” a collection of Mad magazine work that featured a grotesque cartoon of a hyena-like woman by Basil Wolverton in the style of a Life magazine glamour girl. It was, Spiegelman says, “the cover that launched a thousand misbegotten thoughts and brains,” his obviously included.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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    ‘The Monkey’ Review: A Stephen King Story Adapted Into a Gory Farce

    A gruesome horror comedy adapted from a Stephen King story mixes nihilism, fatherhood and carnage.Few things are creepier than a creepy toy, especially the kind that has those cold, dead fake eyes. They seem to harbor ill will, perhaps put there by some evil person or spirit, and look like they want to rip your guts out. Thus malevolent dolls stalk horror directors’ nightmares, from Chucky to Annabelle to M3gan. How lucky we are that they pass those torments along to us.Well, here comes another one. The menacing toy of “The Monkey” is right there in the title — more specifically, it’s a medium-sized circus monkey who, when wound up via a key in the back, beats his little drum and stares at the winder unblinkingly. As a fun addition, though, as the monkey plays, someone in the general vicinity dies gruesomely. Very gruesomely.The deaths are so grisly and sudden and weird that they end up being hilarious, like some demented mash-up of “Final Destination” and “Looney Tunes.” Indeed, “The Monkey” is a comedy, and possibly a satirical one. The titular killer is brought home from some travels by a pilot named Petey (Adam Scott) who skipped town soon after, leaving his twin sons to be raised by Lois (Tatiana Maslany), their mother. The boys, Bill and Hal (both played by Christian Convery), discover the monkey while rooting through a closet full of junk. They turn the crank. Death.Twenty-five years later, Hal (Theo James) is estranged from Bill and has his own son, named Petey, but only sees him once a year. Fearing that anyone he’s too close to will somehow become the monkey’s victim, Hal leads a lonely life. But you cannot outrun a curse like that one.Much of “The Monkey” hinges on James’s performance as older Hal, whom the people around him treat as a complete loser but who is likely the only one with a brain. It’s kind of a sustained joke, helped along by the fact that James looks like, well, a very handsome movie star, whereas everyone else in this town seems to have been left in the oven a little too long. Thus, while James’s performance is relatively unremarkable until near the end, it works: He’s just a guy who’s trying to live quietly, but life, and death, have other plans.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 Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising

    For the arts institution, which receives only a small portion of its budget from federal funding, the perennial challenge is to raise additional revenue through ticket sales and private donations.In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed.President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were dismissed.Performers have dropped out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s call to rid the center of “woke” influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” will result in a reshaping of programming too narrowly aligned with the president’s own tastes.This concern — that the center’s tradition of pluralism, free expression and classical art forms is in jeopardy — has dominated conversation about its future. But just as relevant, experts say, are questions about its financial stability.Though the abrupt takeover by the new administration might suggest the center is an arts adjunct of the federal government, it is actually a semi-independent nonprofit.It operates under the Smithsonian Institution as a public-private partnership, and only a small portion of its $268 million budget — about $43 million, or 16 percent — comes from the federal government. That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned.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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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Files to Dismiss Sex-Trafficking Charge Due to ‘Racist Origins’

    The music mogul’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss a sex-trafficking charge, saying that the law involved has “racist origins.”Lawyers for Sean Combs filed a motion on Tuesday night seeking the dismissal of one of the sex trafficking charges he is facing, arguing that the hip-hop mogul is being unfairly prosecuted based on his race.Mr. Combs, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him and is awaiting trial in a Brooklyn jail, was indicted on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges — the most serious of which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison.His lawyers’ filing focuses on a lesser sex trafficking charge, which stems from a federal law known as the Mann Act. The law makes it illegal to transport a person “with intent that such individual engage in prostitution.”Mr. Combs’s lawyers contend that the law has “racist origins” and that it is being deployed against a “prominent Black man” for allegedly using an escort service to transport male escorts across state lines to have sex with his girlfriends.“The use of escorts, male or female, is common and indeed widely accepted in American culture today,” they write. To emphasize what it depicted as the noncriminal nature of the conduct, the filing notes that the chief executive of the escort service that Mr. Combs is said to have used has been interviewed in the media and was featured in a Showtime reality series.The lawyers questioned whether any white person had been charged under the law based on similar allegations.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