Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Music

    Billie Eilish, Lorde and More Are Singing Out About Body Image

    Billie Eilish, Charli XCX and Lorde are among a group of young women who are revealing, in their music, the pressure they have felt to look thin.Taken together, the first two song titles on Billie Eilish’s third album, “Hit Me Hard and Soft,” form a provocative pair: “Skinny” and “Lunch.”“People say I look happy/Just because I got skinny,” Eilish sings on the opener, her melancholic croon accompanied by a single, murky guitar. “But the old me is still me and maybe the real me,” she adds, “and I think she’s pretty.”That lyric is a gut punch. It’s also indicative of a subtle shift among the current generation of female pop stars, who have recently been acknowledging — often in stark, striking and possibly triggering language — the pressure they have felt to look thin.Taylor Swift, who first opened up about her past struggles with disordered eating in a powerful sequence in her 2020 documentary, “Miss Americana,” sings about it on her 2022 track “You’re on Your Own, Kid,” a compassionate ode to her younger self: “I hosted parties and starved my body, like I’d be saved by the perfect kiss.” Last month, in a guest appearance on the remix of Charli XCX’s “Girl, So Confusing,” Lorde confessed that fluctuations in her weight had led her to stay out of the public eye. “For the last couple years, I’ve been at war in my body,” she sings, heartbreakingly. “I tried to starve myself thinner, and then I gained all the weight back.”For several years, conversations about weight in mainstream pop have centered around an artist bold enough to speak up about it and absorb the stinging backlash: Lizzo. In her lyrics, on social media, and in her shapewear line, the singer and rapper has played up self-love, becoming a face of the body positivity movement. Earlier this year, however, she told The New York Times that she had “evolved into body neutrality.” “I’m not going to lie and say I love my body every day,” she said.Part of the vitriol Lizzo has faced is rooted in racism, and it is impossible to divorce a dialogue about body image from race, and the different ways Black, brown and white bodies are dissected, denigrated and idolized. Latto recently spoke out about how online criticism led her to have plastic surgery at 21 to enhance her buttocks. Last year the rapper, who is biracial, said, “When I didn’t have my surgery, they’re like, ‘Oh, she shaped like her white side.’” SZA, speaking to Elle about her own, similar, procedure (which she sang about on her hit 2022 album, “SOS”), said, “I didn’t succumb to industry pressure. I succumbed to my own eyes in the mirror.”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

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Movies

    ‘MaXXXine’ Director Ti West Is Turning Hollywood Into a Horror Show

    The Vista is a 101-year-old single-screen movie theater, one of the last of its kind in Los Angeles. A few years ago, midpandemic, Quentin Tarantino bought it, fixed it up, even opened a coffee shop next door and named it after the Pam Grier film “Coffy.” When asked why he bought the Vista or the New Beverly, another single-screen he owns, Tarantino has said: “I’ve got a living room. I want to go to a movie theater.” A few weeks ago I went to a sold-out double feature at the Vista: the film “X” and its prequel, “Pearl.” Both came out in 2022, both were released by the art-house mainstay A24 and both were directed by Ti West, a filmmaker sometimes compared with Tarantino — not least because both have made movies that are obsessed with the process, history and mythology of moviemaking itself. For Tarantino, that film was “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” in which two working actors stumble through the Hollywood of 1969, as one film era crashes into another. For West, it is “X” and “Pearl” and the trilogy’s final film, the newly released “MaXXXine.” These are, like most of West’s films, nominally horror movies. But they are also much stranger and more slippery than that label might suggest. In all three films, the horror stems from the characters’ drive toward stardom and their ruthless, sometimes psychotic ambition, which is fully unleashed by the possibilities of the silver screen.Martin Scorsese, a fan of West’s, wrote to me that he thought each film in the trilogy represented a “different type of horror, related to different eras in American moviemaking.” The first, “X,” is “the ’70s, the slasher era”; “Pearl” is “’50s melodrama in vivid saturated color; “MaXXXine” is “’80s Hollywood, rancid, desperate.” They are, Scorsese wrote, “three linked stories set within three different moments in movie culture, reflecting back on the greater culture.” By smuggling thoroughly modern ideas into films that were also steeped in the aesthetics of the past, Scorsese thought, West had done something bold and thoroughly cinematic.That night at the Vista, after “X” played, West sat onstage with the actress Lily Collins, who is in “MaXXXine,” and they talked about the making of the trilogy. Weeks earlier, over breakfast, West had shared with me an idea he was considering for the event: He wanted to surprise the audience by screening the new film instead of “Pearl.” It would be the first time he put “MaXXXine” in front of a real, live, movie-loving audience, as opposed to critics and press and industry types. The director Ti West, left, on the set of “MaXXXine,” the final installment in a horror trilogy that began with “X” and “Pearl.”Eddy Chen/A24Mia Goth in “MaXXXine.” She plays multiple roles across the course of the trilogy.Justin Lubin/A24The idea delighted West, he explained, because he was always interested in the process of leading an audience to that place where they know something is coming, and they probably have an idea of what it might be, but they find when it arrives that it is not at all what they expected. One of his favorite movie moments that does this is in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” at the end of the bazaar chase, when the crowd separates and a swordsman steps out. Indy looks at him for a beat, and you think to yourself: This is really exciting — he’s going to have a big battle against that guy with the sword! But instead, Indy simply pulls out his gun and shoots the guy.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

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in Music

    Meet the Woman Behind Laufey’s Romantic Style: Her Twin Sister, Junia

    Junia Lin Jonsdottir helped create the romantic visual world inhabited by her sister, the singer-songwriter Laufey. Please stop asking if she’s jealous.“Are you Laufey?”A fan approached the table at a cafe in the East Village, hoping for a picture with Laufey (pronounced LAY-vay), the musician beloved among Gen Z listeners for her nostalgic combination of pop and jazz.The woman dining there had the singer’s middle part, her mannerisms and her retro-femme style of dress. She was not Laufey, but her identical twin, Junia.The fan recovered quickly: “Do you steal all of her shoes?”This resemblance comes in handy, Junia (pronounced YOO-nia) explained last month over eggs and kimchi on a thick slice of sourdough. She can test camera angles while her sister is hydrating before a performance, or sub in for fittings on a moment’s notice. And they do swipe each other’s shoes.“She just got new Chanel ballet flats — of course I was going to steal them,” Junia told the fan.But Junia, 25, whose full name is Junia Lin Jonsdottir, is more than her famous sister’s body double. She works as Laufey’s creative director, shaping the romantic visual style the singer’s fans call “Laufeycore.” She has nearly two million TikTok followers of her own who consume her fashion recommendations and her occasional tours of Iceland, where the sisters grew up.Laufey, left, and Junia, backstage in Dallas. Though the sisters technically live in Los Angeles and London, they have a funny way of ending up side by side.Nicole MagoShe is also a young person trying to cement her own creative identity while her twin is in the midst of a professional breakthrough. So far this year, Laufey has won her first Grammy, attended her first Met Gala and sold out Radio City twice.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 Shares149 Views

    in Music

    The Composer Who Changed Opera With ‘a Beautiful Simplicity’

    In the mid-1700s, Christoph Willibald Gluck overthrew the musical excesses around him. A marathon double bill in France shows the vibrancy of his vision.A young woman is offered as a sacrifice to save her people before being rescued by divine intervention. Then a war is fought. Years pass, and, now living some 2,000 miles away, the same woman receives an agonizing order to perform a sacrifice herself, another bloody gift to the gods.That is a summary of two operas, both by Christoph Willibald Gluck: “Iphigénie en Aulide” and “Iphigénie en Tauride.” They were written five years apart and were never intended to be performed together. Each is a full-length score of about two hours, and while they share a protagonist, the vocal range for the character isn’t quite the same in both.But their plots — which tell the story of Greek myth’s Iphigenia, first in Aulis as a would-be victim, then in Tauris as a would-be murderer — flow together with uncanny ease. And on Wednesday, the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France opened a production that pairs the works in a marathon double bill, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov as a brooding reflection on the numbness of endless conflict.Tcherniakov sets the two operas in a stage-filling, prisonlike skeleton of a house, with “Aulide” as the last gasp of a frivolous prewar elite. His “Tauride” depicts the somber aftermath of years of brutal battles, and the physical and emotional toll — the paranoia, the twisted fantasies — on those who remain.Today, Gluck suffers a little from a reputation for formality, even stodginess. But with the period instrument ensemble Le Concert d’Astrée conducted gracefully yet energetically by Emmanuelle Haïm, the Aix double bill was a reminder of the vibrancy of his vision, a majestic yet vigorous directness.This rare juxtaposition offers an immersion in Gluck’s revolutionary innovations — what became known as his reform of opera, paving the way for Wagner and modernity. By the middle of the 18th century, bloated extravagance was the mainstream of Italian opera, dominated by singers burbling mindless coloratura in an endless parade of arias that barely held together as narrative.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

  • 88 Shares99 Views

    in Movies

    The Best Documentaries of 2024, So Far

    “Spermworld,” “Onlookers” and “32 Sounds” are worth watching for the different ways they allow us to see the world.Now that 2024 is half over, I’ve started collecting candidates for my list of the year’s best films — and that, of course, includes documentaries. I’ve written about many great nonfiction films already this year (including some favorites like “Songs of Earth,” “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” and “Art Talent Show”). Yet plenty fly under the radar, so I wanted to highlight three documentaries I haven’t written about that are worth your time.The first is “Spermworld” (Hulu), directed by Lance Oppenheim (who also made the recent, amazing HBO documentary series “Ren Faire”). Oppenheim’s singular style is dreamlike, heightening reality so it becomes poetic and unworldly. In this movie, he follows several “sperm kings,” men who connect with would-be parents looking for sperm donors via the internet, rather than at a sperm bank. The movie illuminates the reasons they choose to donate as well as the reasons people seek donors in this unconventional way. That premise could be cheesy, exploitative or salacious. Instead, it’s gripping and empathetic and unlike anything you’d expect. (The documentary is based on a 2021 New York Times article, and is a New York Times co-production.)I also loved “Onlookers,” Kimi Takesue’s unusual film about tourism in Laos. You can imagine a journalistic approach to this topic, which might involve interviews and investigative work, or perhaps a first-person travelogue approach. But Takesue eschews all those tools for something entirely different: a series of long takes, set up as locked, wide camera shots. Tourists and locals amble through the frame, taking pictures, talking to one another, buying items and going about the activities typical of tourism in the region. What you slowly realize you’re watching is the way that constant observation creates a certain sort of performance as well as disruption. Tourists are there to look at locals, and locals look right back at them, watching their behavior as well. But there’s an extra layer, because here we are as viewers, watching people be watched. So who is the real onlooker?A final film worth seeking out is Sam Green’s “32 Sounds” (Criterion Channel), an immersive sound documentary that Green has toured as a live performance throughout the world over the past few years. Now it’s available for home viewing, and the good news is that the experience is just as excellent through your headphones as it might be in a theater. That’s because “32 Sounds” aims to make you aware of the world of sound literally vibrating around you, and it’s designed to make you feel as if you’re inside the documentary rather than just watching it. Green narrates the film, which is both funny and full of ruminations on how sound creates meaning in our lives. Sometimes onscreen text instructs you to close your eyes so you can pay fuller attention to what you’re hearing. It’s the sort of movie that can change the way you live, and that’s what the best films do, isn’t it? More

  • 150 Shares199 Views

    in Movies

    Mia Goth on ‘MaXXXine’ and the End of the ‘X’ Horror Trilogy

    Don’t call her a scream queen.Mia Goth may have amassed a filmography dominated by horror films like “A Cure for Wellness,” “Suspiria” and “Infinity Pool,” but she prefers not to limit herself.“I don’t want to be boxed in,” the 30-year-old actress from London said in a video interview. “I want to do everything.” Still, her work involves a fair bit of screaming, and she is quite good at it.The “X” trilogy is no exception. Directed by Ti West, the films follow the lives and crimes of Pearl and Maxine, both played by Goth. As we meet them in the first movie, “X,” Pearl (Goth under a pound of prosthetics) is a sexually deprived older woman with murderous tendencies, and Maxine is a young porn actress who dreams of making it big. They meet when Maxine arrives at a farm for an adult film production being shot there, but their hosts, Pearl and her husband, clash with the crew and things get bloody quickly. The second entry, titled after the main character, serves as Pearl’s origin story, and brought Goth greater recognition for her bold, meme-able performance. The third, “MaXXXine” (in theaters), picks up with its title character in Hollywood when she finally catches a break. All are anchored by Goth’s work, which remains deeply sincere even as it grows delightfully unhinged.Mia Goth says her “confidence as a performer is probably what evolved more than anything” from “X” to “MaXXXine.”Amy Harrity for The New York TimesDistributed by A24, each movie riffs on different styles and eras, with “X,” playing off ’70s exploitation cinema, “Pearl” paying homage to early Technicolor melodramas and “MaXXXine” taking on the ’80s B-movie slasher.In a wide-ranging interview, Goth spoke about working on the trilogy and filming shortly after the birth of her daughter, now about 2, with Shia LaBeouf.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

  • 100 Shares189 Views

    in Movies

    ‘Mother, Couch’ Review: The Family That Stays Together

    A stubborn matriarch played by Ellen Burstyn lodges in a furniture store and wages emotional warfare with her adult children.In a furniture store devoid of customers, an elderly matriarch, referred to only as “Mother” and played by Ellen Burstyn, has settled on a couch. That is, she’s really settled on a couch. She’s sitting on it and refusing to budge. She promises that if anyone tries to move or carry her off the couch, she will struggle to the extent that, “I will fall and hit my head so hard it will burst.”No one in “Mother, Couch” is inordinately pragmatic, or else this movie, written and directed by Niclas Larsson, adapted from a novel by Jerker Virdborg, would be much shorter. Granted, Burstyn’s character, first seen in black wraparound sunglasses and sporting a helmet-like flip hairdo, is a formidable figure. And stranding her multi-accented adult children (it’s explained, weakly) in the store with her over a few days is one way to effect yet another cinematic contemplation on Why Families Are Dysfunctional.Mother’s children are Ewan McGregor’s David, buttoned-down and flying apart; Rhys Ifans’s Gruffudd, medium shambolic by default; and Lara Flynn Boyle’s Linda, snarling and swearing a blue streak.Apple, meet tree: Mother is stubborn, and frankly mean, albeit more formal in her language. “I never wanted any children, David,” she practically snarls after having given this son a nasty cut on the palm that won’t heal. Hey! Symbolism! Or, one should say, another bit of symbolism.While the film’s premise may suggest black comedy (and the sometimes fake-jaunty, fake-portentous score by Christopher Bear underscores that idea), Burstyn’s character, which the actor plays with her customary expertise, is so utterly disagreeable that viewing the picture is a mostly anxious experience with not much of a reward at the end, which shifts to magic realist mode for lack of anywhere better to go.Mother CouchNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

  • 88 Shares159 Views

    in Movies

    ‘The Imaginary’ Review: Off to Another World

    This poignant animated film casts the world of imaginary friends as an arena to reckon with emotional turmoil and loss of innocence.Imagination is the abstract space that can most potently symbolize childlike joy and wonder — at least, according to the opening scene of “The Imaginary,” with its sweeping fantastical vistas sprouting from the inside of a child’s mind. In truth, our imaginations and the friends we make along the way are, within this poignant and inventive animated film directed by Yoshiyuki Momose, arenas where we reckon with emotional turmoil and the loss of innocence.The third work out of Studio Ponoc, an offshoot of the revered Studio Ghibli, the movie follows Rudger (voiced by Kokoro Terada), the imaginary (i.e. imaginary friend) of Amanda (Rio Suzuki), a young girl who recently lost her father. Their days of play are interrupted when Mr. Bunting (Issey Ogata), a mustachioed villain accompanied by a wordless spectral imaginary, tries to consume Rudger and separates him from Amanda. After he is sent to a kind of imaginary heaven, Rudger must team up with other imaginaries to find and save her.It’s a visually splendid film with a restless inventiveness — too restless, at times. The movie falters periodically under the weight of its own dream logic, which can be hard to follow or flimsily constructed as the story gains momentum. But it’s mostly easy to move past those flaws in a work of such rich magical realism and heart.While the film is pushing for the kind of grand emotional and mythic proportions of a Ghibli work, it may not exactly stack up for some viewers with such great expectations. But, held up against more recent imagination-centric stories (with apologies to John Krasinski), Yoshiyuki’s film has the creative verve to sweep you away nonetheless.The ImaginaryRated PG for scary images, peril, thematic elements and some violence. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More