Aurelia Butler

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    Sam Smith Throws a Gay Pride Party

    The British singer selected Julius’, a Manhattan tavern with a storied past, as the place to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “In the Lonely Hour.”On Thursday night in the West Village of Manhattan, the soulful British balladeer Sam Smith hosted a private party at Julius’, which is known as the oldest gay bar in New York. Friends and fans sweltered inside the tavern, sipping vodka tonics as they waited for a late-night performance by Smith and a rumored special guest, Alicia Keys.Smith, who uses they/them pronouns, chatted with fans by the worn wooden bar. Standing about 6-foot-7 in Vivienne Westwood platform boots, paired with a tartan kilt and a big belt, the Grammy-winning singer towered above those who asked for selfies.The gathering commemorated the 10th anniversary of Smith’s debut album, “In the Lonely Hour,” which included the slow-burning anthems “Stay with Me” and “I’m Not the Only One.” Little menus along the bar advertised cocktails named after Smith songs like “Good Thing” (a cosmo) and “Life Support” (a margarita). And they noted Julius’ relevance as a historic site, detailing the events of the 1966 Sip-In, an act of civil disobedience that predated the Stonewall uprising by several years.The crowd at Smith’s barroom party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesWith Pride celebrations in full force throughout the West Village, Smith had chosen Julius’ precisely because of its connection to the Sip-In, when members of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group, visited Julius’ to challenge bars that would not serve gay customers. When the activists were refused service after intentionally revealing that they were “homosexuals,” the incident made news, attracting the attention of the Commission on Human Rights.“Why did I pick Julius’?” Smith said, leaning down to a reporter. “Because I’ve never felt more safe in any other bar in the world than here.”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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    Martin Starger, Influential Shaper of TV and Movies, Dies at 92

    In his decade at ABC, long the doormat network in prime time, he helped guide it toward the No. 1 spot. He later produced “Nashville” and won an Emmy for “Friendly Fire.”Martin Starger, who as a senior executive at ABC in the 1970s helped bring “Happy Days,” “Roots,” “Rich Man, Poor Man” and other shows to the small screen — and the network nearly to the brink of No. 1 in prime time — before turning to producing movies, most notably Robert Altman’s “Nashville,” died on May 31 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 92.His death was confirmed by his niece, Ilene Starger, a casting director.Mr. Starger joined ABC in the mid-1960s and rose to positions of increasing importance, culminating in his promotion to president of ABC Entertainment in 1972. The entertainment mogul Barry Diller, who was one of his protégés at ABC, described Mr. Starger in an email as “the quintessential television executive of the 1970s.” He was, Mr. Diller said, the “essence of N.Y. smarts: suave, sophisticated and funny. He was culturally ahead of his audience but was pragmatic in his programming choices, but ever striving for better.”From left, Anson Williams, Donny Most, Ron Howard and Henry Winkler in an episode of “Happy Days,” one of the shows Mr. Starger helped bring to the air as an ABC executive.ABC Photo Archives/Disney, via Getty ImagesMr. Starger’s time at ABC was characterized by the network’s long struggle to break out of last place in prime time, behind CBS and NBC, in what was then a three-network universe.Mr. Starger and other executives balanced middlebrow programs, including “Marcus Welby, M.D.” and “The Six Million Dollar Man,” with TV movies like “The Missiles of October” (1974), which dramatized the Cuban missile crisis, and prestigious mini-series like “Roots,” based on Alex Haley’s book about his family history.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 Ultimate Dad Rock Playlist

    What is dad rock? You know it when you hear it, so listen to 10 songs from Wilco, the Grateful Dead, Steely Dan and more.Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, the patron saint of dad rockEnric Fontcuberta/EPA, via ShutterstockDear listeners,This Sunday is Father’s Day, and I would like to celebrate the only way I know how — with a playlist of dad rock.What is dad rock? You know it when you hear it, but it’s difficult to define exactly, as I learned when I considered the supposed genre in an essay I wrote four Father’s Days ago*. One thing I want to make clear is that, while it’s an easy concept to poke fun at, I don’t consider the term “dad rock” to be an insult, per se. A lot of great music falls into the category, and you certainly don’t have to be a dad to enjoy it. Much of what I was grappling with in that essay was the fact that, in my 30s, I have come around to loving a lot of what I once dismissed as “dad music.” Perhaps, spiritually speaking at least, I am a dad.I associate dad rock with a certain laid-back, lived-in proficiency — an age and comfort level at which you no longer feel you have to prove your virtuosity but can just sit back and let it speak for itself. Accordingly, quite a few of the songs I’ve chosen here represent bands (Wilco, the Who and Pink Floyd, to name a few) in the middle years of their careers, polishing the rougher edges of their sounds while remaining indelibly themselves. Quite a few — from artists like Steely Dan, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Bruce Springsteen — are straight from my own dad’s record collection, and, as you’ll see below, he even makes a cameo, offering a corrective to his only complaint about this newsletter.Last week, a website I had never heard of called Merchoid conducted a questionably scientific poll that asked 3,000 Americans, “Which band truly epitomizes dad rock today?” The names that appeared in the Top 10 responses were horrifying: Nickelback, Blink-182, Red Hot Chili Peppers … Limp Bizkit?! Sure, I get that time marches on and that the pop-punk and nü-metal fans of yesteryear are aging into fatherhood. But something about the antic scatting of the Chili Peppers or the teenage-boy humor of Blink-182 does not square with the easygoing cool I associate with dad rock.So consider this playlist a rejoinder to that list, or maybe just an argument starter. But whatever you do, make sure you consider it The Amplifier’s way of saying happy Father’s Day.Turn it up! That’s enough,Lindsay*My own father really enjoyed the article, except the part where I told the entire readership of The New York Times that he used to drive a Ford Taurus. Sorry, Dad.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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    What ‘Inside Out 2’ Teaches Us About Anxiety

    A new emotion has taken over Riley’s teenage mind. And she has lessons for us all.At the end of “Inside Out,” the 2015 Pixar movie about the emotional life of a girl named Riley, a new button appears on the console used to control Riley’s mood. It’s emblazoned with one word: Puberty.Joy, one of the main characters who embodies Riley’s emotions, shrugs it off.“Things couldn’t be better!” Joy says. “After all, Riley’s 12 now. What could happen?”The answer has finally arrived, nearly a decade later, in the sequel “Inside Out 2.” Riley is now a teenager attending a three-day hockey camp as new, more complex feelings take root in her mind.There’s Embarrassment, a lumbering fellow who unsuccessfully attempts to hide in his hoodie; the noodle-like Ennui, who lounges listlessly on a couch; and Envy, with her wide, longing eyes.But it is Anxiety who takes center stage, entering Riley’s mind with literal baggage (no less than six suitcases).“OK, how can I help?” she asks. “I can take notes, get coffee, manage your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things — watch you sleep?”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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    Jelly Roll’s Anthem of Perseverance, and 9 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Zsela, the Decemberists, Khalid 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.Jelly Roll, ‘I Am Not Okay’The title of “I Am Not Okay” — a song Jelly Roll unveiled last month on “The Voice” — only tells half the story. It’s the kind of bruised, long-suffering, self-doubting, painfully open and high-drama testimonial that has turned Jelly Roll into a country star. He sings about sleepless nights and “voices in my head,” with production that rises from acoustic picking into stolid Southern rock behind his grainy voice. But soon Jelly Roll invokes a community — “I know I can’t be the only one who’s holding on for dear life” — and the promise of salvation: “The pain’ll wash away in a holy water tide.” Whether it’s in this life or beyond it, he declares, “It’s not OK, but we’re all gonna be all right.” It’s an arena-scale homily.NxWorries featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Rae Khalil, ‘WalkOnBy’NxWorries — the partnership of the producer Knxwledge and the rapper and singer Anderson .Paak — ponders the deeply mixed emotions of enjoying success while knowing how hard former peers are still striving. “When you walk on by, you’ve got shades to hide your eyes,” the chorus chides. The track is a relaxed, quiet-storm groove with tickling lead-guitar lines, but it provides contrast, not comfort. “No one has a clue what we had to do to survive,” Anderson .Paak raps, and adds, “When they ask me how I’m doing, I feel guilty inside.” Earl Sweatshirt admits he’s “lived too many lives removed from the strife.” But before the song ends, Rae Khalil sings for those left behind: “I feel like ain’t nobody caring/Everybody’s scared,” she laments.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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    Four Takeaways From the Metropolitan Opera’s Risky Season

    The company has bet that new operas will attract new, more diverse audiences and revitalize a stale repertory. Is the gamble paying off?For years, the Metropolitan Opera — the nation’s largest performing arts institution, with a $300 million budget and 4,000-seat theater — was like an ocean liner, changing course slowly, if at all.But now it is trying to be more like a speedboat. Since the pandemic, with costs up and ticket sales down, the Met’s programming has taken a sharp swerve toward contemporary works, which used to come along once in a blue moon. In recent seasons, the Met has done fewer productions than it used to, but about a third of its operas now come from our times.Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has staked a large part of his legacy on the bet that these new operas will attract new and more diverse audiences, revitalizing a house repertory better known for presenting “Tosca” and “La Traviata,” year after year. With the Met entering its summer break this week, is that bet paying off, artistically and financially?The experiment is, at best, a work in progress.The Met put on 18 operas during this so-so season, and if you line them up in order of paid attendance, only one of the six contemporary pieces, Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” is in the top half. Modern opera is not selling well, at least not better than classics like “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen” and “Turandot.”The Met’s economic model revolves around being able to efficiently bring back most pieces and have them find an audience. But this season raised alarms about how newer titles will do when revived. Gelb’s gamble on swiftly restaging two top sellers of recent seasons — Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours” — fizzled, with the theater over a third empty for both. (The average performance across the season was 72 percent full.)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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    9 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

    Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickAll the emotions!Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anxiety (Maya Hawke) are two of the voices in the head of Riley, who is turning 13 and acquiring the feelings that come with it.Pixar/Disney/Pixar, via Associated Press‘Inside Out 2’In the sequel to the Pixar charmer “Inside Out,” Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) develops a new range of (anthropomorphized) emotions like Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and Envy (Ayo Edebiri) when she reaches puberty.From our review:Franchises often bank on nostalgia, so it’s easy to fall for “Inside Out 2,” which works largely because the first one does wonderfully well. The new movie conforms to the original’s ethos as well as inventive template, its conceit and visual design, so its pleasures are agreeably familiar.In theaters. Read the full review.Putting the “community” in community theater.Dan (Keith Kupferer) in “Ghostlight.”Luke Dyra/IFC Films‘Ghostlight’This family drama directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson follows Dan (Keith Kupferer) as he struggles to navigate relationships with his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and daughter, Daisy (Katherine May Kupferer), after tragedy strikes. He finds solace in joining a local production of “Romeo and Juliet.”From our review:It’s a gentle story, full of tender moments, and knowing that the parents and daughter in the main cast are a family in real life increases the warmth. There’s a complexity to their conversations, the way their interactions are never one-note (as parents and teens often are in films), that you can sense has its roots in real life. By the end of the film, their emotional bond carries the story.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickMore like coming-of-rage.From left, Deena Ezral, Zafreen Zairizal, and Piqa in “Tiger Stripes.”Dark Star Pictures‘Tiger Stripes’After she gets her first period, Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) begins to experience strange and supernatural changes to her body in this feature debut from Amanda Nell Eu.From our review:Anyone who has gone through adolescence — in other words, everyone — knows the kind of myths, silences and shame that often accompany a maturing body. Eu smartly weaves that universality together with local myths and legends, and the result is a little eerie and unsettling, a film about dark things we’re afraid to speak about.In theaters. Read the full review.A swing and a miss.Ted (Logan Marshall-Green), left, makes his living as a stadium peanut vendor and Marty (David Duchovny) plays his father, a Red Sox fan, in “Reverse the Curse.”VerticalWe 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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    How ‘Inside Out 2’ Battles Anxiety

    The director Kelsey Mann narrates a sequence from his film, which pits Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) against Anxiety (Maya Hawke).In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.It’s a battle inside the mind to prevent one young girl’s thoughts from being overrun by anxiety in this scene from “Inside Out 2.”The sequel once again sets the bulk of its action inside the mind of Riley, who this time around is contending with the onset of puberty. Her emotions are still anthropomorphized by a colorful collection of characters, but with a new stage of adolescence comes an additional cast of emotions. Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) arrives in the form of a wild-looking orange creature with a busy plume and a tendency to overreact.In this scene, Anxiety is directing a room full of mind workers to draw up projections of everything that could go wrong in Riley’s big hockey match the next day, keeping the girl tossing in her sleep at each negative thought.Narrating the scene, the film’s director, Kelsey Mann, says, “I always envisioned this being a movie about anxiety taking over, and was reflecting on my own life and how my anxiety does that in me.”As things become overwhelming, Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) infiltrates Anxiety’s plan and begins to draw up positive projections to send to Riley to make her feel better. As she tries to get the mind workers to rise up against Anxiety, a number of film references come into play, from “Norma Rae” to “Jerry Maguire,” with a little bit of “Network” thrown in.Read the “Inside Out 2” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More