Aurelia Butler

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    Disney’s Splash Mountain Set to Reopen With Princess Tiana Theme

    The ride was closed last year because of its connection to a racist film. Disney overhauled it to focus on Tiana, Disney’s first Black princess, drawing praise and backlash.In the summer of 2020, as a reckoning on racial justice swept the country, Disney said it would rip out Splash Mountain, a wildly popular flume ride with a racist back story.Some people cheered, saying the move was long overdue: After 31 years at Disneyland in California and 28 at Walt Disney World in Florida, the attraction — with its animal minstrels from “Song of the South,” the radioactive 1946 movie — had to go.But Disney also faced blowback. Last year, when Splash Mountain finally closed, someone started a makeshift memorial near its entrance — the kind that pops up at scenes of horrific crimes. Distraught fans spirited away jars of the water. More than 100,000 fans signed a petition calling on Disney to reverse its “absurd” decision.Now, Disney is rolling out Splash Mountain’s replacement, which is based on “The Princess and the Frog,” the 2009 animated musical that introduced Disney’s first Black princess. The lighthearted new ride, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, will open to the public on June 28 at Disney World, with a similar version expected to arrive at Disneyland by the end of the year.The ride is the first marquee attraction in Disney theme park history to be based on a Black character.Tiana’s Bayou Adventure uses the same ride tracks as Splash Mountain.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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    Mitsuko Uchida Keeps the Focus on Young Artists at Ojai

    Mitsuko Uchida sat at the piano with her back to the audience.It was an unusual look for a reigning pianist who can fill a concert hall, or sell a new album of 200-year-old sonatas, on the strength of just of her name and face. But over four evenings of performances at the Ojai Music Festival in California, that’s how Uchida played.It was especially strange, given that she was the festival’s music director, an annual post given to an artist to organize programming and the roster of performers. Throughout the festival’s outdoor campus, her name was on T-shirts and signs, not to mention Vogue-thick program books handed out at each concert.Then again, we’re talking about Ojai, where open-minded audiences take in music accompanied by nature and snack on freshly picked pixie tangerines. Uchida might have seemed like a headliner, but this festival is about sharing the wealth.She invited friends and colleagues whom she has known for years, like the endlessly genial Brentano String Quartet. Most heavily featured, during the festival’s run from June 6 through 9, was the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom Uchida often tours in concerto programs that she leads from the piano.The Mahler Chamber Orchestra played traditional concerts at Ojai and also showed up at a local bar as a Johnny Cash cover band,Adali Schell for The New York TimesThose tours, though, rarely showcase the shape-shifting resourcefulness the ensemble brought to Ojai. Its members played pop-up miniatures in Libbey Park, the festival’s center, and even at a local bar as a Johnny Cash cover band. Onstage, they took on traditional fare, like heavenly Mozart concertos with Uchida, but also more contemporary works by Missy Mazzoli and John Adams.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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    Watch Glen Powell and Adria Arjona Fight and Flirt in ‘Hit Man’

    The director Richard Linklater narrates a pivotal sequence from his rom-com thriller.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.The following includes spoilers for “Hit Man.”Actions speak louder, and more flirtatiously, than words in this key sequence from “Hit Man,” the rom-com thriller from Richard Linklater now streaming on Netflix.During the movie’s screenings at film festivals last year, this particular scene had audiences erupting with applause for the feat that it pulls off. It’s “kind of a performance within a performance within a performance,” Linklater says in his narration.At this point in the movie, the lead character, Gary Johnson (Glen Powell), is at a turning point. He has been working undercover with the New Orleans Police Department as a hit man named Ron. In that role, he developed a secret romantic relationship with a woman who initially tried to solicit Ron for his services. Her name is Madison (Adria Arjona) and she was going to hire Ron to kill her abrasive husband, but Ron talks her out of it.Madison’s husband later ends up dead, and the police think that Madison is the killer. One of the officers, Jasper (Austin Amelio) has seen Gary and Madison together in public and has suspicions about what’s going on with the two. He decides to put a wire on Gary and send him to talk with Madison in the hopes of creating an entrapment scenario. But to save Madison (and himself), Gary thinks fast and comes up with a way to warn Madison that they are under surveillance.He types out information to her through his Notes app on his phone and directs her through what to say, and not say, in their conversation, in an exchange that is both sexy and flirty, while also being a tense high-wire act.“It’s fun to see your hero, the guy you’re invested in, kind of figure his way out of a really sticky, tight situation that I don’t think any of us would be quick enough to find a way out of,” Linklater says.“It’s a dance, and it’s just fun to see them figure it out as they go.”Read the “Hit Man” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    in Music

    When Vienna’s Opera Tradition Got Too Traditional, They Stepped In

    Bogdan Roscic and Lotte de Beer are shaking the dust off Vienna’s two biggest repertory companies.In a rehearsal studio built on the grounds of old military barracks outside Vienna’s city center one recent morning, the director Barrie Kosky was asking for a touch of vaudeville.He was working on his new production of Mozart’s “Così Fan Tutte,” which opens at the Vienna State Opera on June 16, and was running through a scene with Kate Lindsey and Christopher Maltman, the singers playing the scheming Despina and Don Alfonso.While Kosky demonstrated a bit of physical comedy, Bogdan Roscic, the general director of the State Opera, walked into the room, and read Mozart’s score over the shoulder of the rehearsal pianist. Once they were finished, he walked over to Kosky.“Your fabulousness,” Roscic said, addressing him. “Are the taxpayers getting their money’s worth?”Roscic was joking, of course; his job is to hire directors for their value as artists, not as public utilities. But his question wasn’t crazy. In Vienna, as in much of Europe, opera receives substantial government support, and the leaders of houses are chosen by politicians. If, in the United States, arts administrators like to talk about their work as a civic duty, in Vienna, it absolutely is.And Vienna is one of the busiest opera destinations in the world. Tourists plan entire trips around the storied, immense State Opera. Not far away, the Volksoper has long offered more varied fare, including musicals and operettas.Such a rich history, though, can be double-edged. In recent decades, the State Opera and the Volksoper, both repertory houses that present a head-spinning number of titles per season, developed reputations as stagnating under the weight of their traditions. At the State Opera this century, the average age of viewers began to increase by one year each year, suggesting that the audience wasn’t changing. It was just getting terminally older.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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    Santana and Rob Thomas’s ‘Smooth’ at 25

    Santana’s track featuring Rob Thomas turns 25 this week. Why is it still a rock blockbuster?“To really appreciate ‘Smooth,’ you have to embrace how cheesy ‘Smooth’ is,” Rob Thomas said. “It’s right in your face.”The singer’s voice dropped into a silky baritone, as if he were channeling an infomercial announcer, or a late-night radio D.J. “Man, it’s a hot one,” he crooned, dramatically reciting the song’s opening lyric.“Smooth” was a centerpiece of “Supernatural,” the 1999 comeback album by Santana and its leader, Carlos Santana. The Mexico-born guitarist’s band had been revered as an innovative force in music since its 1969 debut and had several rock radio standards in its repertoire, including “Evil Ways,” “Black Magic Woman” and “Oye Como Va.” But Santana hadn’t placed a single in the Top 40 since 1982, and with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera dominating the charts, there didn’t seem to be much demand for a 51-year-old guitar hero.The Arista Records head Clive Davis plotted “Supernatural” for maximum commercial effect, and paired the band with younger artists, including Lauryn Hill, Dave Matthews and Thomas, whose pop-rock band, Matchbox Twenty, had just scored a remarkable four smash singles on its first album, “Yourself or Someone Like You.”Davis’s machinations worked: “Smooth” hit No. 1 in October and held the position for 12 weeks, into 2000. But the track’s zombie afterlife is what most distinguishes “Smooth.” It spawned an inexplicably funny meme via T-shirts that read, in full, “I’d Rather Be Listening to the Grammy Award-Winning 1999 Hit Smooth by Santana Feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty off the Multi-platinum Album Supernatural.” Through the end of last month, it had been played 1.8 million times on U.S. radio, translating to an audience reach of 13.2 billion, according to data from Luminate. On a recent week alone, it was heard on the airwaves by 5.2 million people.You can buy Thomas and Santana action figures on Etsy or find a video of “Smooth” sung in the style of the B-52’s. When the sun explodes and human life expires, only cockroaches will remain, and those roaches will build a radio station and keep “Smooth” in heavy rotation.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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    Chucky, Queer Icon? Peacock Includes Killer Doll in Pride Month Collection.

    A graphic on the Peacock home screen seemed to induct the killer doll into the gay pantheon. His creator, however, says Chucky’s queer credentials are well established.During Pride Month, it can seem as if their faces are everywhere: Madonna, James Baldwin, Elton John, Judy Garland, Grace Jones, Bea Arthur. The well of queer icons is as deep as it is colorful. But how about Chucky, the homicidal redhead doll?Chucky, the killer doll who first appeared in the 1988 horror film “Child’s Play,” was thrust into the L.G.B.T.Q. spotlight this month when Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, displayed a banner on its home screen advertising a collection of queer-themed movies and TV shows. The image included the demonic doll, as well as the evergreen gay icons Cher and Alan Cumming, beside the words “Amplifying LGBTQIA+ Voices.”Through the years, viewers have come to learn quite a bit about the horror movie character, watching him navigate companionship (“Bride of Chucky”) and parenthood (“Seed of Chucky”). But many seem to have been taken by surprise that he was also a queer ally.In the first season of the TV series “Chucky,” one of several “queer horror” offerings in Peacock’s Pride collection, the doll reveals to Jake, a gay teenager who bought him at a yard sale, that he has his own queer, gender-fluid child.“You’re cool with it?” Jake asks.“I’m not a monster, Jake,” the doll responds. Chucky, it seems, is a PFLAG parent.Also in Season 1 of the TV show, Chucky is living his life — including his sex life — in a woman’s body, and he remarks on how interesting it has been. Chucky has broadened his sexual horizons.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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    Amid Outcry, Academy Museum to Revise Exhibit on Hollywood’s Jewish Roots

    When the museum first opened, it was criticized for omitting Hollywood’s Jewish pioneers. Now it is under fire for what its new exhibit says about them.When the popular Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened in 2021 with exhibits celebrating the diversity of the film industry, the museum was criticized for having largely omitted one group: the Jewish founders of Hollywood.Last month, the museum aimed to correct that oversight by opening a permanent new exhibition highlighting the formative role that Jewish immigrants like Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer played in creating the American film industry.But the new exhibition, which turns a sometimes critical eye on Hollywood’s founders, ignited an uproar. An open letter that a group called United Jewish Writers sent to the museum on Monday objected to the use of words including “tyrant,” “oppressive,” “womanizer” and “predator” in its wall text, called the exhibit “antisemitic” and described it as “the only section of the museum that vilifies those it purports to celebrate.”In response to the growing outcry, the Academy Museum said in a statement Monday that it had “heard the concerns from members of the Jewish community” and that it was “committed to making changes to the exhibition to address them.”“We will be implementing the first set of changes immediately — they will allow us to tell these important stories without using phrasing that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes,” the museum said.The museum announced the changes just before receiving the open letter, which was signed by more than 300 Hollywood professionals. “While we acknowledge the value in confronting Hollywood’s problematic past, the despicable double standard of the Jewish Founders exhibit, blaming only the Jews for that problematic past, is unacceptable and, whether intentional or not, antisemitic,” said the letter. “We call on the Academy Museum to thoroughly redo this exhibit so that it celebrates the Jewish founders of Hollywood with the same respect and enthusiasm granted to those celebrated throughout the rest of the museum.”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