Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 138 Shares95 Views

    in Movies

    15 Unforgettable Looks From Cannes 2025: Rihanna, Dakota Johnson and More

    Three-dimensional gowns, thigh-high men’s boots, adult-size bibs and more.Organizers of this year’s Cannes Film Festival cast a conservative shadow over the red carpet with the release of a new dress code noting that, “for decency reasons, nudity is prohibited.” The rule was seen as an attempt to tamp down on so-called naked dressing, a trend that in recent years has inspired more people to wear less coverage as a way to get attention.Whether it stopped people from showing skin was debatable. But it certainly didn’t stop stars from making waves with their appearances. Some, like the actor Jeremy Strong, took Cannes as an opportunity to test color palettes: He wore a range of pastels (purple, green, salmon) that would rival the selection at an Easter egg hunt. Others, like the models Bella Hadid, used the festival to debut new hair (she went blond).Of all the clothes on display at Cannes, which ends on Saturday, these 15 looks were some of the most memorable for myriad reasons — nakedness mostly not among them.Isabelle Huppert: Most Brat!Miguel Medina/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe fine threads used to construct the actor’s Balenciaga gown had the delicacy of natural hair, but the chemical green color now firmly linked to Charli XCX and her “Brat” album.Pedro Pascal: Most ‘Sun’s Out, Guns Out’!Sarah Meyssonnier/ReutersWe 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

  • 150 Shares146 Views

    in Music

    Drummer and Music Agent Among 6 Killed in San Diego Plane Crash

    Friends paid tribute to Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada, and Dave Shapiro, a music agent who worked with Sum 41, Hanson and other bands.They were two rock music veterans who were excited to fly together from New Jersey to San Diego.One was Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the metalcore band The Devil Wears Prada. The other was Dave Shapiro, a music agent who worked with Sum 41, Hanson, Jefferson Starship and other artists, and was also a pilot who ran his own aviation business.In an Instagram story posted on Wednesday night, Mr. Williams shared a photo of their plane, a Cessna Citation, on a tarmac and two more photos of himself in the co-pilot’s seat.“Here we goooooo,” he wrote.But after crossing the country, the jet hit power lines and crashed in a residential neighborhood as it prepared to land in dense fog in San Diego early on Thursday morning.All six people aboard were killed, eight people on the ground were injured and 10 homes were damaged, the authorities said. It was not clear if Mr. Shapiro was piloting the Cessna when it crashed or if Mr. Willians was a co-pilot.Daniel Williams of The Devil Wears Prada at the Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival in 2012 in San Bernardino.Chelsea Lauren/Getty ImagesThe music executive Dave Shapiro last year in Nashville.Stephanie Siau/Sound Talent Group, via Associated PressOfficials on Friday did not release all of the names of the victims, but Mr. Shapiro, 42, was killed as were Emma Lynn Huke, 25, and Kendall Fortner, 24, two employees at Sound Talent Group, the company Mr. Shapiro co-founded, the company said.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

  • 125 Shares117 Views

    in Music

    Karol G’s Ode to Curves, Plus 7 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Alejandro Sanz and Shakira, St. Vincent, Stereolab and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Karol G: ‘Latina Foreva’The Colombian singer and rapper Karol G cheerfully fends off some unwanted male attention by praising Latin women instead: “Those curves don’t even exist in NASCAR.” The inventive pop-reggaeton production stays light and changeable, with little keyboard blips and string lines making sure the familiar beat is always laced with bits of melody.Alejandro Sanz featuring Shakira: ‘Bésame’Husky meets breathy in “Bésame” (“Kiss Me”), the new duet by Alejandro Sanz, from Spain, and Shakira, from Colombia: a 20-years-later reconnection after their 2005 megahit “La Tortura.” They trade endearments over a track that connects Latin pop to Nigerian Afrobeats — and, in the bridge, tosses in some flamenco handclaps for more trans-Atlantic fusion.Guedra Guedra: ‘Drift of Drummer’Abdellah M. Hassak, the Moroccan electronic producer, records as Guedra Guedra. Guedra is a Tuareg dance that shares its name with a cook pot that becomes a drum when covered with an animal skin. “Drift of Drummer” mixes field recordings that Hassak gathered in his travels across Africa with hand drum machines and synthesizers. Juggling ever-changing layers of percussion over a brisk implied pulse and a terse bass line, the song is a cauldron of rhythms, humanized by snippets of speaking voices.St. Vincent featuring Mon Laferte: ‘Tiempos Violentos’St. Vincent is joined by another high-drama songwriter and singer, Mon Laferte, for a third iteration of “Violent Times,” which appeared on her 2024 album “All Born Screaming” and its Spanish-language version, “Todos Nacen Gritando.” The ominous horns, looming drumbeats and James Bond-theme chords of the original track remain. Where Laferte takes over certain lines, she brings her own sharp-clawed sweetness.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

  • 113 Shares132 Views

    in Music

    Billy Joel Announces Brain Disorder and Cancels All Concerts

    Joel said he had normal pressure hydrocephalus, which has led to “problems with hearing, vision and balance.”Billy Joel, the arena-filling Everyman singer-songwriter, has canceled all of his upcoming concerts, including a large-scale tour scheduled for this year and next, because of a brain disorder known as normal pressure hydrocephalus, he announced on Friday.“This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,” said a statement that was posted to the singer’s social media accounts. “Under his doctor’s instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period.”Normal pressure hydrocephalus, or N.P.H., is a rare condition that occurs when excess cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the brain, causing symptoms that include trouble walking and controlling one’s bladder. It can also lead to cognitive impairment, including memory problems.If the disease is diagnosed early enough, it can be treated successfully through surgery that creates a path for the fluid to flow out of the brain, alleviating symptoms. But in later stages, some of its effects can become irreversible.In his statement, Joel, 76, added, “I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for your understanding.” A representative for Joel declined to comment further.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

  • 150 Shares124 Views

    in Movies

    At Cannes, Sneaky Period Pieces and Film Lovers’ Delights Rule the Screen

    Movies from China, Brazil, Iran and elsewhere prove that there’s so much more to cinema than Hollywood would have us believe.On Thursday, a few minutes after 10 p.m. on the 10th day of the Cannes Film Festival, a multitude of exhausted attendees — critics, programmers, industry types — abruptly woke up. The Chinese movie “Resurrection” had started, sending an immediate jolt through the theater. It was electric, dramatic, fantastic. People shifted in their seats to lean closer to the screen in the 1,068-seat auditorium. Experiencing awe can transform brains and bodies, and we were lit.A deliriously inventive, elegiac, self-reflexive fantasy written and directed by Bi Gan, “Resurrection” tracks a tragic mystery being, an entity known as a Fantasmer (Jackson Yee), across cinema history. A dreamer who clings to illusions, the Fantasmer’s journey effectively mirrors that of film itself, from its beginnings to its uneasy present. What makes the film especially delectable is that Bi Gan changes visual styles and narrative techniques throughout this movie odyssey. The opening section seems to take place around the time that the 19th century gives way to the 20th, but more precisely looks like — and heavily references — films from the art’s first few decades. Sometime later, a guy out of a Hollywood noir or a Jean-Pierre Melville thriller shows up.Chockablock with nods to other films and filmmakers, “Resurrection” is a cinephile’s delight. It was especially pleasurable to watch Bi Gan’s references to the pioneering Lumière brothers in a festival that showcases its award ceremony in a theater that bears their name. “Resurrection” may be wreathed in melancholy, but Bi Gan’s own journey through cinema is enlivening and encouraging. It was another reminder that great movies continue to be made despite the industry’s continuing agonies, which only deepened when, the week before the festival opened, President Trump threatened to impose a crushing 100 percent tariff on movies that were produced in “foreign lands,” though the White House has said no final decision had been made.The threat cast a lingering pall. The world’s largest film marketplace — where an estimated 15,000 industry professionals meet, great and make deals — takes place simultaneously with the festival. And the news out of the market was less than happy. “Did Trump’s tariffs hijack the world’s busiest film market?” read a headline on the France 24 news site. “Strong Festival, Soft Market” is how The Hollywood Reporter characterized the event’s final stretch.Whatever that means for our moviegoing future, this year’s festival was gratifyingly strong, the finest in a long time. The selections in the main competition — which vie for the Palme d’Or — can be a mixed bag, the product of programming taste, yes, but also favoritism, backroom politicking and other considerations. The festival functions as a vital showcase for European cinema, but it also relies on celebrity-driven movies to attract the news media that promotes it. That’s one reason the event is so protective of its red carpet and helps explains some of its much-derided rules, like no selfies on the steps leading to the Lumière.Lav Diaz revisits an explorer’s brutal travels in “Magellan.”Rosa FilmesWe 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

  • 88 Shares73 Views

    in Movies

    The Best Movies of 2025, So Far

    Our critics picked 10 films that you might have missed but that are worth your time on this long holiday weekend.“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” and the live-action “Lilo & Stitch” are flooding theaters this Memorial Day weekend. But if you don’t want to follow the crowd, it’s also a good time to catch up on some terrific films you may have missed earlier in the year. I asked our chief film critic, Manohla Dargis, and our movie critic, Alissa Wilkinson, to recommend releases worth your time. All are in theaters or available online.‘Sinners’In theaters.The story: The twins Smoke and Stack (both played by Michael B. Jordan) return from Al Capone’s Chicago to open a juke joint in Clarksdale, Miss. That’s when the devil, or rather, an Irish vampire, shows up in this talker of a film.Manohla Dargis’s take: Directed by Ryan Coogler, this “is a big-screen exultation — a passionate, effusive praise song about life and love, including the love of movies. Set in Jim Crow Mississippi, it is a genre-defying, mind-bending fantasia overflowing with great performances, dancing vampires and a lot of ideas about love and history.”Read the review; interviews with Coogler and Jordan, and other cast members; and a critic’s essay.‘I’m Still Here’Stream it on Netflix or rent it on most major platforms.Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here.”Alile Onawale/Sony Pictures ClassicsWe 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

  • 113 Shares80 Views

    in Music

    Dudamel and the New York Philharmonic Play Philip Glass

    Kate Soper’s tender, whimsical “Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,” a tribute to the orchestra, had its premiere on Thursday with its composer as soloist.“Is there anything like that first strike of the bow?” Kate Soper asks at the start of her new piece for the New York Philharmonic. “A hundred players moving as one! All that splendor, all that might!”She is describing the wonders of an orchestra, and you don’t have to take her word for it. In Soper’s sweet, clever “Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus,” which had its premiere at David Geffen Hall on Thursday under Gustavo Dudamel’s baton, the ensemble illustrates her words as she says them, “Peter and the Wolf” style.“The highs got higher, the lows got lower,” she says, explaining the development of instruments, and we hear ethereal pitches, then loud rumbles. “Wood was lacquered,” she goes on, to delight in the oboe and clarinet. “Metal bent” elicits a horn fanfare and trombone slide.Soper soon proclaims, with disarming plainness, “That’s right everyone: I’m Orpheus!” In this half-hour monodrama for a mostly speaking, sometimes singing soprano, she offers a tender retelling of the legend of the great musician of Greek mythology. Her story blends into a poetic reflection on music’s meaning, what it can do (offer glimpses of the sublime) and what it can’t (most anything else).Soper does all this in quirkily postmodern style. Her eclectic, quick-shifting sounds, including touches of memorably ancient-feeling bass flute, are woven into a quilt of quotations from famous settings of the Orpheus myth by Monteverdi and Gluck, as well as lesser-heard ones by Sartorio, Landi, Campra and others. There are also flashes of Bach, Vivaldi, Beethoven, Mozart and Grieg in the mix, and the text, mostly original, interpolates passages from Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus.”Modern music lovers may be reminded of Luciano Berio’s more chaotic collage “Sinfonia.” For fans of Soper, especially in her composer-performer mode, “Orpheus Orchestra Opus Onus” will recall brainy, winsome works like “Ipsa Dixit” (2016), which she began by posing the spoken question, “What is art?” and attempted to answer through snippets of writers like Aristotle, Lydia Davis and Freud.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

  • 75 Shares76 Views

    in Movies

    Tom Cruise Really, Really Loves Movies

    One of the industry’s biggest stars is also its most enthusiastic evangelist. He is hoping it pays off for the eighth “Mission: Impossible” film.Tom Cruise’s characters are defined by their enthusiasms. Jerry Maguire boosts his clients. Daniel Kaffee wants the truth, whether or not he can handle it. Maverick feels a need — a need for speed.In real life, Cruise, 62, has enthusiastically cast himself as the great champion of cinema. You can almost hear the deep-voice narration over the trailer: In a time when movies are endangered after a pandemic and the streaming age, one man stands up for old-fashioned filmmaking — with stark stories and real stunts intended for the Cineplex.In 2020, during the first Covid summer, Cruise posted video to social media of going to Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” (“Big Movie. Big Screen. Loved it”). An introduction ran before screenings of “Top Gun: Maverick” in the spring of 2022 in which Cruise thanked audiences for “seeing it on the big screen.” As Cruise put it in another short video: “I love my popcorn. Movies. Popcorn.”As he invariably does in his movies, Cruise has succeeded. “You saved Hollywood’s ass!” Steven Spielberg told him at a pre-Oscars lunch after “Top Gun: Maverick” grossed $1.5 billion, Variety reported. The turnout proved people would still go to the movies en masse.Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick.” The 2022 film was widely credited with revitalizing the film industry after Covid.Paramount PicturesAs his latest blockbuster, “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” hits theaters Friday, it is clear that Cruise’s persona has stuck. His press tour has featured his own paeans to moviemaking and fans’ appreciation for his commitment to doing his own stunts and even how he eats popcorn.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