Aurelia Butler

More stories

  • 138 Shares189 Views

    in Movies

    ‘Kill’ Review: The Title Says It All. Over and Over Again.

    What begins as a romantic rescue becomes a blood bath when bandits on a train attack and rob passengers and our Romeo cracks multiple heads in return.We are almost halfway through the Indian action extravaganza “Kill” before the title card slams onscreen, by which point its simple imperative — and the film’s entire raison d’être — has been obeyed so many times it’s essentially redundant. Much like the movie’s English subtitles: The dialogue might be in Hindi, but the language of blood and bones is universal.Speaking it fluently is Amrit (Lakshya), a hunky military commando who has followed his childhood sweetie, Tulika (Tanya Maniktala), onto an express train to New Delhi in the hope of rescuing her from an arranged marriage. The lovebirds’ quivering reunion, however, is rudely interrupted by a horde of bandits armed with knives and hammers. What they lack in sophistication, they more than make up for in enthusiasm as they set about robbing the terrified passengers. Can Amrit and his military buddy (Abhishek Chauhan) stop them? Will the lead villain (a seductively menacing Raghav Juyal) upstage our baby-faced hero? How many objects can be inserted into a human head?To answer these questions, the writer and director, Nikhil Nagesh Bhat, leaps into fifth gear and rarely downshifts. As Amrit arguably does more damage than the zombies in “Train to Busan” (2016), the cinematographer Rafey Mahmood, working with the action specialists Parvez Shaikh and Se-yeong Oh, meticulously captures near-continuous martial-arts sequences of balletic brutality. Exhausted as the actors appear, spare a thought for the film’s Foley artists, whose repertoire of squishy, crunchy and splattery sound effects must have been sorely taxed.Manipulative to the max (one upsetting murder is almost pornographically protracted), “Kill” is dizzyingly impressive and punishingly vicious. In the press notes, the director tells us that he once slept through a similar attack by armed train robbers. No one is sleeping through this one.KillRated R for 52 varieties of knife wound, one weaponized bathroom fixture and several ugly sweater vests. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters. More

  • 138 Shares149 Views

    in Music

    The Brokes Play the Strokes in a New York Rock Club

    A cover band from Toronto brings some 2000s nostalgia to the home city of their indie rock heroes.More than two decades after the Strokes led an indie rock renaissance in New York City, a Strokes cover band called the Brokes played a sold-out show at Arlene’s Grocery, a small venue on the Lower East Side.Hailing from Toronto, the Brokes were on their first American tour, and this gig held special meaning: The Strokes used to play Arlene’s back when they were the garage rock princes of downtown Manhattan honing their act at clubs like this one.During a 45-minute set, the Brokes blazed through early Strokes hits like “The Modern Age” and “Last Nite” as fans chanted lyrics and pumped their fists into the air. The frontman, Marlon Chaplin, wore sunglasses and fingerless gloves while singing through a distortion effect to match Julian Casablancas’ vocal style.The Brokes guitarist Adrian Traub-Rees, wearing a white suit and Converse sneakers, looked and sounded like Albert Hammond Jr. as he played a white Fender Stratocaster. The crowd roared when he traded licks with Brandon Wall, who plays Nick Valensi’s guitar parts, during another Strokes fan favorite, “Reptilia.”Mr. Chaplin addressed the crowd in his Casablancas-esque tone: “We’re taking you back to ‘Room on Fire’ with this next tune.”Many people in the crowd at Arlene’s Grocery on Friday were too young to have seen the Strokes in the group’s early years.Graham DickieWe 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 Shares179 Views

    in Movies

    This Service Cat Has a Big Job: The Apocalypse

    The director of “A Quiet Place: Day One” was confident a cat could take on the end of the world. But could the feline actors win over Lupita Nyong’o?How did a cat named Schnitzel win the starring role of Frodo in “A Quiet Place: Day One”? He impressed the director Michael Sarnoski with his nonchalant confidence, rugged looks and intelligent face.“He had a lot going on behind his eyes,” Sarnoski said in an interview last week, when the film made its theatrical debut. “A lot of the other cats were really adorable but almost too cutesy, like they would be in a cat food commercial. And Schnitzel had a little bit of an edge, like you could kind of believe he was a bit of a world-weary street cat.”Frodo has a lot to be weary about in this cinematic universe. The film, a prequel to the 2018 horror movie “A Quiet Place” and its 2021 sequel, chronicles aliens invading Earth and attacking everything that makes a sound.Lupita Nyong’o plays Sam, a cancer patient caught in the apocalypse with her service cat while visiting New York. Though most people want to escape Manhattan, Sam knows she is dying regardless and just wants to go to Harlem, where she grew up, and grab a slice of pizza. She meets a British law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn), who agrees to join her, and the cat becomes a comfort to them both. (Sam is a poet, hence Frodo’s literary name.) And spoiler warning: Audiences will be happy to know Frodo makes it out alive.Sarnoski, who also wrote the screenplay, grew up with cats and knew he wanted Sam to have an animal companion. But the creature would need to be able to navigate an urban apocalypse in silence. A dog would bark at a threat, and something like a bunny, say, wouldn’t fit in the grit of Manhattan. But it’s common to see cats around the city, wandering the streets or guarding delis. Frodo even meets a bodega cat, played by a ginger-and-white shorthair named Stanlee, a runner-up for the lead role.“A lot of people are like, ‘Why doesn’t the cat make more noise?’ But cats are very smart, predatory creatures,” Sarnoski said, adding that he believed a cat would recognize the danger and figure out how to survive. “I figured a cat would have a shot.”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

  • 50 Shares129 Views

    in Movies

    ‘MaXXXine’ Review: Fame Monster

    Mia Goth returns to Ti West’s horrorverse as an actress fleeing a mysterious stalker and a traumatic past.A psychosexual thriller imagined in blood red and cocaine white, “MaXXXine,” the third installment in Ti West’s nostalgia-soaked slasher saga, is part grungy homage to 1980s Hollywood and part sleazy feminist manifesto. Darker, moodier and altogether nastier than its predecessors — “X” (2022) and, later that same year, “Pearl” — this hyperconfident feature is also funny, occasionally wistful and deeply empathetic toward its damaged, driven heroine.That would be Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), the sole survivor of the dirty-movie cast massacred in “X.” Now a successful porn star, Maxine, eager to break into mainstream movies, has relocated to a Hollywood of spectacular seediness. It is 1985 and, as in real life, a killer known as the Night Stalker is terrorizing the city, the so-called Moral Majority is hyperventilating on the sidelines and rock musicians are fighting accusations of satanic intent. In one pungent shot of Maxine’s boot grinding her cigarette stub into the silent film sex symbol Theda Bara’s star on the Walk of Fame, West underscores the transience of the celebrity status that Maxine so desperately seeks.“I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” she declares, repeating the mantra taught by her father, a preacher seen in speckled, black-and-white flashback. Securing a role on a low-grade horror sequel brings her under the wing of its industry-toughened director (a perfect Elizabeth Debicki). Yet Maxine is constantly distracted: Her friends are dying, and two homicide detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) want to question her; a Louisiana gumshoe (Kevin Bacon, a skeevy vision in crumpled suits and gold-capped incisors) keeps randomly accosting her; and a mysterious, black-gloved stalker haunts the film’s shadows. No wonder Maxine is plagued by panicked recollections of her traumatic past.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 Shares129 Views

    in Music

    The Story Behind Juvenile’s ‘Back That Azz Up’

    Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” was a 1999 hit that brought twerking and New Orleans bounce into the mainstream. Here’s the story of how it became a sensation.Twenty-five hot summers ago, Juvenile threw out a command and booties everywhere have never been the same. That’s when “Back That Azz Up,” the second single from the New Orleans rapper’s album “400 Degreez,” was released and almost instantly became the national anthem of twerking — before the word even entered the American vocabulary.Arguments can be made that the song is misogynistic, endearing or both. But the track — built around Juvenile hypnotically rapping the song’s title instruction, a raunchy verse from its producer, Mannie Fresh, and a syrupy outro from an ascendant, teenage Lil Wayne — has definitely proven to have staying power.From left: Birdman, Turk, Juvenile, Lil Wayne, Mannie Fresh and B.G. attend the 1999 Billboard Music Awards. Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImagesJuvenile, 49, initially doubted the song would succeed as a single, and it took a last-minute trip to Nashville’s Music Row to finish the recording. Ultimately, the song helped usher bounce music, the New Orleans branch of hip-hop featuring fast beats and call-and-response chants, into the mainstream while strengthening the South as an epicenter of hip-hop. In interviews, the artists and key figures behind the song explained how it all came to be. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.JUVENILE I sung the “Back that Azz Up,” hook, probably half a year, about five, six months knowing that I was working on my album.MANNIE FRESH I heard the lyrics first. I was just like, “You know what? This is already magical.” So the beat got to marry it.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 Shares129 Views

    in Movies

    French Director Benoît Jacquot Is Charged With Rape

    Mr. Jacquot, 77, was accused of assaulting two actresses and barred from working with minors. He has denied any wrongdoing.The French movie director Benoît Jacquot was charged on Wednesday with the rape of two actresses, Julia Roy and Isild Le Besco, several years ago, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.Mr. Jacquot, 77, is one of two directors facing a wave of #MeToo accusations that have roiled France’s movie industry since the actress Judith Godrèche came forward to say he had raped her during an abusive relationship that started when she was 14 and he was 39.In the wake of Ms. Godrèche’s accusations, Ms. Roy, 34, and Ms. Le Besco, 41, publicly accused Mr. Jacquot of keeping them in similarly abusive relationships and of sexually abusing them when they were much younger actresses who starred in his films.Ms. Le Besco has accused Mr. Jacquot of raping her between the ages of 16 and 25. Ms. Roy, who acted in some of Mr. Jacquot’s films between 2016 and 2021, had accused him of sexual and physical abuse.Mr. Jacquot and the other director who has been accused, Jacques Doillon, 80, were taken into police custody on Monday for questioning.Both men have denied any wrongdoing.Mr. Doillon was released on Tuesday on medical grounds and without being charged, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, although it added that it was still examining how to proceed in his case. Ms. Godrèche has accused Mr. Doillon of sexually assaulting her 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 Shares99 Views

    in Movies

    ‘Space Cadet’ Review: Emma Roberts Shoots for the Stars

    In a lightweight comedy, the actress plays a bartender who dreams of becoming an astronaut. One problem: She has no qualifications for the job.Some of Hollywood’s most durable genre conventions have to do with outsiders and underdogs, often two categories rolled into one, who show up the self-important elites. The cowboy who rolls into town and brings justice in a not-quite-law-abiding way. The lovable con artist who makes a fool of the uppity society folks. The washed-up cop or spy called in for one last covert mission. The stereotypical sorority girl who turns out to be a secret legal genius.That last one is, of course, the “Legally Blonde” heroine Elle Woods, a fashion major who decides on a whim to go to Harvard Law School and discovers her unconventional qualifications give her insight that her more buttoned up classmates lack. Rex Simpson, the protagonist of “Space Cadet,” bears more than a passing resemblance to Elle, and not just because the actress Emma Roberts could play, at a squint, Reese Witherspoon’s niece. (Her actual aunt, Julia Roberts, played another scrappy underdog in “Erin Brockovich.”)Roberts’s most famous work might be in Ryan Murphy’s shows “American Horror Story” and “Scream Queens,” in which her knack for playing a certain kind of queen bee — gorgeous, cruel, one crisis away from combustion — makes her a magnetic presence. She’s great at a caricature, elevating those characters to satire without diluting their sugary poison. That flair for exaggeration would seem to make Rex Simpson the right role for her.“Space Cadet,” a comedy written and directed by Liz W. Garcia, is cast closely along the lines of “Legally Blonde,” with some beats lifted so clearly from that movie I started to wonder if they weren’t meant as jabs. Rex is a neon-wearing bartender in Florida who wrestles alligators and loves to party on the beach, but there’s more than meets the eye: She was a bit of a science genius in high school, and dreamed of being an astronaut. When her mother died, she turned down a full ride to Georgia Tech. By the time she attends her 10-year high school reunion with her best friend, Nadine (Poppy Liu), she’s down in the dumps over her failure to, uh, launch.A chance encounter with a former classmate who now runs a private spaceflight company sparks something in Rex. It’s time to chase her dreams. So she pops open the NASA website and decides to apply to be an astronaut. One problem, of course, is that she has absolutely no qualifications for the job. But is that a real barrier to Rex, the woman who invented patent-worthy tanning mirrors?The movie continues in this direction, sending her to NASA in a crop top to become an Astronaut Candidate (or AsCan, a moniker that provides more than a few jokes). Here is where the “Legally Blonde” comparisons come in. There is, for instance, a scene in a classroom where Rex doesn’t know the answer to a stern professor’s question, then one later where she does, demonstrating her growth. There’s a whole sequence in which people look askance at Rex upon her arrival at NASA, thanks to her peppy, kooky outfit that signals unseriousness.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 Shares129 Views

    in Music

    Rob Stone, Master Marketer of Hip-Hop, Is Dead at 55

    A founder of the influential music magazine The Fader, he also bridged the worlds of hip-hop and the Fortune 500 with his innovative marketing agency.Rob Stone, who as a founder of the music magazine The Fader and the brand-strategy firm Cornerstone Agency bridged the sounds of the streets and the corporate suites, giving early exposure to rappers like Kanye West and Drake while brokering lucrative endorsements at a time when corporate America was still resistant to hip-hop, died on June 24 in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 55.His longtime professional partner, Jon Cohen, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was lung cancer.Early in his music business career, first at SBK Records and later at Arista, Mr. Stone was charged with finding exposure and radio airplay for new artists. He began to establish himself as a hip-hop insider, working with performers like the Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack, as well as with Sean Combs, whose label, Bad Boy Records, had entered into a joint venture with Arista.Before long Mr. Stone decided to set out on his own, and in 1996 he started Cornerstone with Steve Rifkind, the founder of the hip-hop label Loud Records. Mr. Rifkind left the agency after a year and a half and was replaced by Mr. Cohen, who had also worked at SBK and had been Mr. Stone’s best friend since middle school on Long Island.Mr. Stone and Mr. Cohen went on to create eye-opening campaigns for brands like Sprite, Converse and Johnnie Walker that leveraged their relationships with labels and with new artists, who in the early days were all too sensitive to charges of selling out.Mr. Stone, left, in an undated photo with the musician and producer Pharrell Williams and Jon Cohen, who founded The Fader with Mr. Stone.via Jon CohenWe 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