Aurelia Butler

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    Stream These Movies and Shows Before They Leave Netflix in December

    A bunch of movies and TV shows are leaving for U.S. subscribers by the end of December. Here’s a roundup of the best.Two excellent independent dramas leave Netflix in the United States early this month, so get on them while you can; other present-wrapping background possibilities include a Liam Neeson action flick, two animated comedies and an easy-breezy comedy-drama about the rich and the doctor who serves them. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘White Girl’ (Dec. 2)Stream it here.Morgan Saylor, best known at the time this movie was released, in 2016, for her work as an all-American teen daughter on “Homeland,” raised some eyebrows when this sexually frank and pharmaceutically candid indie drama debuted. She stars here as Leah, a New York City college student whose adventures in casual sex and recreational drugs take up much of the picture’s running time. But this is no lazy exercise in shock value; the writer-director Elizabeth Wood based her script on her own rocky youth and treats her protagonist with an expected, but still refreshing, nonjudgmental sympathy. It’s a vivid and occasionally troubling movie, but it never feels forced or inauthentic.‘The Commuter’ (Dec. 3)Stream it here.This 2018 action drama was an early entry in a seemingly endless line of late-period action vehicles for Liam Neeson, the Oscar-nominated star of “Schindler’s List.” Here, he plays Michael MacCauley, an ex-cop who just lost his job as a life insurance salesman; on the commuter train home, he is drawn into a complicated scheme involving contract killers, dirty federal agents and the would-be witness they’re supposed to protect. Jaume Collet-Serra directed several of Neeson’s action pictures before this one, and he had already figured out how to play to his strengths, even if this one is essentially a relocated remake of their earlier film “nonstop.” And Collet-Serra handles the big set pieces with flair, particularly a long fight scene between Neeson and a hit man, in which the two men demolish each other and their train car using their fists, glass and, at one point, an electric guitar.‘Trolls’ (Dec. 7)Stream it here.Some family movies — like, say, “Wild Robot,” or “Inside Out” — truly offer fun for the whole family. So let’s clear this up right away: “Trolls” is not one of those movies. It’s an aggressively over-the-top experience, big and broad and loud and frequently obnoxious. But kids absolutely love it (take it from a father of two), and it’s not hard to see why: The songs are catchy, the performers — especially the leads, Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake — are having a good time, and the never-give-up messaging is valuable (particularly in Kendrick’s charming solo number “Get Back Up Again”).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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    Elton John, After Eye Infection, Says He Couldn’t See His Own Musical

    After a performance of “The Devil Wears Prada” in London, John told the crowd that the effects of an eye infection were continuing to limit his eyesight.Elton John’s eyesight problems have persisted to the point where he could not see a performance of his own musical in London on Sunday night, he told the crowd after the show.John, 77, appeared onstage after a charity performance of the musical “The Devil Wears Prada,” for which he wrote the score, at the Dominion Theatre.“I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews, because as you know I’ve lost my eyesight, so it’s hard for me to see it,” he said, wearing bright red sunglasses. “But I love to hear it.”John announced in a social media post in September that an eye infection this summer had left him “with only limited vision in one eye.”“I am healing, but it’s an extremely slow process and it will take some time before sight returns to the impacted eye,” he added. “I have been quietly spending the summer recuperating at home, and I am feeling positive about the progress I have made in my healing and recovery thus far.”He provided an update on “Good Morning America” late last month. “I unfortunately lost my eyesight in my right eye in July,” he said. “It’s been four months now since I haven’t been able to see, and my left eye’s not the greatest. There’s hope and encouragement that it should be OK.”Asked about a possible new album, he replied: “Going into the studio and recording, I don’t know, because I can’t see a lyric for a start. I can’t see anything, I can’t read anything, I can’t watch anything.”John did not respond to requests for comment on Monday sent through his talent agencies.When “The Devil Wears Prada” opened in Chicago in 2022 with a different cast, The New York Times said in a review, “The songs unfold pleasantly enough, with flashes of glam and morsels of wit, but they tend to feel last-season.”The musical is based on the 2006 film and the 2003 best-selling semi-autobiographical novel by Lauren Weisberger. The London production stars Vanessa Williams.John also wrote the score for “Tammy Faye,” which is set to close on Broadway this week after only 29 regular performances. He has also written the score for some hits, including “Billy Elliot” and the long-running “The Lion King.”In January, John picked up an Emmy, giving him a lifetime sweep of the major American awards, an accolade known as an EGOT — an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony. But he was not present at the ceremony to receive the Emmy because of a knee operation. More

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    Best Movies and Shows Streaming in December: ‘Skeleton Crew,’ ‘Dexter: Original Sin’ and More

    “Pop Culture Jeopardy!,” “Laid,” “Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,” “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” and “Sugarcane” are arriving.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of December’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Pop Culture Jeopardy!’ Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 4The “Saturday Night Live” stalwart Colin Jost hosts this “Jeopardy!” spinoff, which follows the basic format of the original quiz show, with a few twists. Rather than three individual contestants, each game features three, three-person teams, competing. The teams tackle clues that largely avoid history, geography and high art, instead dealing with memes, movies, TV, sports and modern pop songs. In addition to the Daily Doubles, each round includes a Triple Play with three answers — one for each team member. Also, the season is one big tournament, giving viewers a chance to root for their favorites as they advance toward the finals.‘The Sticky’Starts streaming: Dec. 6Based very loosely on a notorious Canadian maple syrup heist, this crime comedy mini-series stars Margo Martindale as Ruth, a farmer’s wife, who takes over the syrup-tapping business when her husband is hospitalized, and runs afoul of the powerful trade organization that runs the industry. To save her land and get revenge, Ruth teams up with a not-quite-reformed mobster (Chris Diamantopoulos) and a warehouse security guard (Guillaume Cyr) to steal barrels from the national syrup reserve. Created by Brian Donovan and Ed Herro, “The Sticky” finds the dark humor in this crazy scheme; but it’s also a low-key portrait of a rural Canada populated by eccentrics and petty bureaucrats.‘Secret Level’ Season 1Starts streaming: Dec. 10Each episode of this animation anthology was inspired by a different video game, taking inspiration from concepts and characters in titles like “Pac-Man,” “Armored Core,” “Spelunky,” “Warhammer 40,000” and more. Created by Tim Miller — who has some experience with this kind of thing, having previously created the Netflix anthology “Love, Death & Robots” — “Secret Level” features an all-star voice cast, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Keanu Reeves, Temuera Morrison, Kevin Hart and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. While each installment is different in approach, the series’ supervising director, Dave Wilson, gives them all a similar C.G.I. sheen, aiming more for a look more photorealistic than cartoony.Also arriving:Dec. 3“Jack in Time for Christmas”Dec. 5“Glitter and Greed: The Lisa Frank Story”“The Red Virgin”Dec. 23“Chiefsaholic: A Wolf in Chief’s Clothing”Francesca Scorsese in Tyler Thomas Taormina’s “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.” IFC FilmsWe 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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    Test Yourself on These Young Adult Novels Adapted Into Films

    Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions, video games and more. This week’s challenge is focused on tween and teen novels that made the leap from the page to the screen — and some of them more than once.Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their movie versions.3 of 5This 1972 middle-grade novel by Mary Rodgers has been adapted for the screen in 1976, 1995, 2003 and 2018, and its various productions over the years have starred Lindsay Lohan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Heidi Blickenstaff and Jodie Foster, among others. What is the title of the book? More

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    How Juice WRLD Arrived in Fortnite

    An avatar for the singing rapper, who died in 2019, appeared at a special event in the video game to debut a new song alongside Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice.Carmela Wallace, the mother of Juice WRLD, the Chicago sing-rapper who died five years ago as a rising star at age 21, still sometimes refers to her son in the present tense. Especially when it comes to his love of video games.“He’s always loved video games,” Wallace said in a recent interview. “It was his way of having a moment to himself, where he could escape. Because he dealt with anxiety and depression and stress. You know, he left his mom’s house to become famous.”“So that was his way of just having something normal,” she added. “He had a console wherever he went.”One of his favorites was Fortnite, the immersive adventure-slash-fighting game, with millions of players at a time and, on special occasions, in-game concerts. Those can be big enough to make a real-world splash, like Travis Scott’s animated performance in April 2020, at the height of Covid-19 lockdowns, which drew nearly 28 million players across five showings.Since then, there have been more shows by stars including Metallica, Ariana Grande, J Balvin and Eminem, whose appearance a year ago was such a draw that fans had difficulty logging in. Wallace, who oversees her son’s estate, approved his appearance in Fortnite’s latest musical event, the November-long “Chapter 2 Remix” — a nostalgic throwback to the game’s design circa 2020 — that also included Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Ice Spice, and culminated in a brief but elaborate virtual performance on Saturday afternoon.That event, called “Remix: The Finale,” inside Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode, lasted less than 15 minutes, but by one measurement it surpassed the previous record held by Scott. “Remix: The Finale” drew more than 14 million concurrent players for its first showing, according to Epic Games, the company behind the title, compared with about 12 million for Scott’s debut.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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    Strauss’s ‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten’ at the Metropolitan Opera

    “Die Frau Ohne Schatten,” a dense ode to fertility, may not sound appealing at first. But in this performance, the fairy tale comes movingly to life.It’s not easy to make “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” sound appealing.Believe me, I’ve tried. But when you describe Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s most opulent creation, which opened on Friday in one of its infrequent, glittering revivals at the Metropolitan Opera, the piece always seems dense and ponderous.Starting with the title: “The Woman Without a Shadow.” In this fairy tale, being without a shadow is both a literal condition and a representation of the inability to bear children. The idiosyncratic symbolism only deepens as the plot probes layers of fantastical realms, complete with a singing falcon, a choir of the unborn and the clock ticking down to an emperor’s transformation into stone. Two couples — one human, one demigod — face temptation but persevere through trials to achieve enlightenment and happiness. Oh, and fertility, too.You might think a four-hour allegorical ode to pregnancy isn’t your thing. But I’m here to tell you: Just go.With its formidable length and daunting vocal, instrumental and scenic demands, “Frau,” written around the time of World War I, has much in common with Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, to which it nods. And both tend to seem stilted and overblown when summarized.But like the “Ring,” “Frau” comes alive in performance — its royalty and commoners, flashes of magic and heavy-handed symbols, ending up movingly real and relatable. Hofmannsthal’s elegantly stylized, exquisitely poetic (and, for some, pretentiously contrived) text is warmed by the intensity and compassion of Strauss’s music.Last seen at the Met 11 years ago, “Frau” has always been an event for the company. The Met premiere, conducted by Karl Böhm in 1966, was a historic highlight of the first season in its Lincoln Center home.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 ‘Wicked’ Practice of Taking Pictures of the Movie Screen

    Why are so many people snapping photos and taking videos at the movies? Will this trend ever go away?During an opening weekend screening of the movie musical “Wicked,” a woman sitting in front of me reached for her phone during “The Wizard and I,” Cynthia Erivo’s first big number as the misunderstood green sorceress Elphaba. I watched while this person snapped several photos of Erivo as she belted.This behavior both bewildered me and, naturally, distracted me from the film. I became more focused on what exactly was being photographed — and why — than on Erivo’s performance. And yet this disruption is apparently not unusual if you have seen “Wicked” in a theater. Social media has been flooded with images that people have taken during the movie. One post actually prompted others to share their photos as if taking them was a badge of honor. (Even one of the movie’s stars, Ariana Grande, posted an Instagram Reel of her grandmother watching her sing “Popular.” That one we can let slide.)It’s not just “Wicked.” Taking photos and videos of the screen at movies has somehow become a common practice these days. For instance, major spoilers from “Deadpool & Wolverine” were plastered all over X and TikTok shortly after it hit theaters thanks to poor-quality shots from audience members. Blockbusters aren’t the only films getting this treatment: Look hard enough and you’ll find bootleg clips of just about any theatrical release, from the French body horror film “The Substance” to the pope drama “Conclave.”Demi Moore in “The Substance,” another movie at which audiences have been using their phones to snap photos of scenes in the theater.MubiThe problem with cellphones in theaters used to be mostly errant ringing or excessive texting. Now it’s people holding up their devices so they can get bits of the film and post to their accounts. For those of us who just want to watch in peace, letting ourselves be completely absorbed, it’s another way in which moviegoing etiquette has crumbled in the 21st century.But let’s back up: Why is this happening in the first place? While I don’t think I can ever fully understand the desire to participate in the trend, I have a good guess as to why it exists.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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    Bringing the Magic of ‘Fanny and Alexander’ to the Opera Stage

    A new opera by Mikael Karlsson and Royce Vavrek, directed by Ivo van Hove, aims to capture the lavishness of Ingmar Bergman’s film, in half the time.Ingmar Bergman’s film “Fanny and Alexander” luxuriates in space. In its longest version, a television mini-series that spanned more than five hours, the camera lingers on interiors that in their accumulating details say as much as the characters, who themselves say quite a lot.Bergman made another edit of the film, of a little more than three hours, for theatrical release. But the longer “Fanny and Alexander” spends 90 minutes alone on a single Christmas Eve and morning in the lives of the loving but complicated Ekdahl family in early 20th-century Uppsala, Sweden.Opera, too, is a slow-moving art form that luxuriates, but in different ways. Composers and singers relish sound, not sight. And so, in a new opera based on “Fanny and Alexander,” opening at La Monnaie in Brussels on Dec. 1, that Christmas scene takes half as long as it does in the TV cut. It’s one of several changes that were made for this adaptation, composed by Mikael Karlsson to a libretto by Royce Vavrek, and with a starry team that includes the director Ivo van Hove and the singers Sasha Cooke, Thomas Hampson and Anne Sofie von Otter. (The production will be streamed on multiple platforms on Dec. 13.)The director Ivo van Hove and the singer Anne Sofie von Otter, rehearsing the new opera. Ingmar Bergman, van Hove said, is “a realist about human emotions, but he is also poetic.”Simon Van RompayMost obviously, the opera has a running time of two and a half hours, less than half that of the longer cut of the film. Still, the stage version will be recognizably “Fanny and Alexander,” Bergman’s partially autobiographical coming-of-age tale, in which fantasy lives freely alongside reality as a vast tableau of human experience is seen through the eyes of a child. Bergman, who had planned for it to be his last film, said around its release, in 1982, that it represented “the sum total of my life as a filmmaker.”The film plays on television every Christmas in Sweden, and Karlsson, who is Swedish, said he felt the most pressure to get that holiday scene right. When he, Vavrek and van Hove met early in the opera’s development, van Hove suggested hurrying through Christmas to get to the wedding: the marriage of Alexander’s recently widowed mother to the local bishop, the precipitating event of the story’s darkest dramas.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