Aurelia Butler

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    Hania Rani’s Music Is Tranquil. Please Don’t Call It ‘Soothing.’

    The Polish musician is a mainstay of streaming playlists with names like “Calm Vibes.” But she bristles at the notion that her music is therapeutic.When the Polish musician Hania Rani released her first solo album, “Esja,” in 2019, she knew it was a modest debut. Its subtle piano compositions were moody but pared down, and she worried that its serene atmosphere might limit its mainstream appeal.One year later, the album’s placid vibe turned out to be a blessing. As the world locked down against the Covid pandemic, distressed people were turning to streaming playlists with names like “Calm Vibes” and “Peaceful Rhythms” that featured Rani’s music. It became a breakthrough moment. As one critic told BBC radio during lockdown, Rani’s music “makes your problems and woes all sort of vanish.”But now, Rani, 34, has become a shooting star in a genre of pop-inflected minimalist music often referred to as neoclassical, or alt-classical — though she bristles at the notion that her music is meant to offer therapy. “It’s not being composed to help people relax,” she said in a recent interview. “The music might be slow — not so loud, not upbeat — but it’s actually intense.”Her critically lauded follow-up solo albums — “Home” (2020) and “Ghosts” (2023) — have made her one of the biggest names in neoclassical music. Rani has won seven Fryderyk Awards, Poland’s equivalent to the Grammys, and prompted comparisons to other big-name contemporary composers, such as Nils Frahm and Max Richter.Her live shows have also drawn online attention, including a 2022 performance in Paris that has garnered nine million views on YouTube. In recent months, she has embarked on a largely sold-out tour through some of the world’s best-known concert halls, including the Sydney Opera House and the Berlin Philharmonie.Rani has won four Fryderyk Awards, Poland’s equivalent to the Grammys.Anna Liminowicz for The New York TimesWe 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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    Wes Anderson and Richard Linklater to Compete at Cannes Film Festival

    A sidebar to the competition will feature Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut.Movies directed by Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and Ari Aster are among 19 films that will compete for the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the event’s organizers announced at a news conference on Thursday.The festival’s 78th edition, which opens May 13 and runs through May 24, will also feature the premiere of “Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning,” the eighth movie in the action series starring Tom Cruise, playing in an out-of-competition spot.Linklater’s movie, “Nouvelle Vague,” is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless,” a seminal picture in the French New Wave film movement.Richard Linklater at the Berlin Film Festival in February. His “Nouvelle Vague,” playing in competition at Cannes, is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic “Breathless.”Christopher Neundorf/EPA, via ShutterstockOther movies by American directors appearing in competition are Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” starring Benicio Del Toro as an eccentric businessman; Aster’s “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, and focused on a small-town election; and Kelly Reichardt’s “The Mastermind,” about an art heist.Julia Ducournau, whose movie “Titane” won the Palme d’Or in 2021, will return to the competition with “Alpha”; and Joachim Trier, who directed “The Worst Person in the World,” a breakout hit that same year, will present a new film, “Sentimental Value.”In recent years, the Cannes competition has premiered a host of movies that have gone on to dominate award season. Last year’s lineup included Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance” and Sean Baker’s “Anora” — the last of which won the Palme d’Or and this year’s Academy Award for best picture.A jury led by the French actor Juliette Binoche will announce the winner at a ceremony on May 24.Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, which will feature in the competition’s sidebar, is called “Eleanor the Great.”Mario Anzuoni/ReutersOutside the main competition, the sidebar section, known as Un Certain Regard, features the directorial debuts of two prominent actors: Scarlett Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great,” in which a woman in her 90s moves to New York and tries to start life afresh; and Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin,” a drama about a homeless person.Aside from the main competition and Un Certain Regard, the festival also has special screenings, out-of-competition slots and a section called Cannes Premiere. Some notable movies playing in those categories include “Private View,” directed by Rebecca Zlotowski and starring Jodie Foster in her first French-language role for over two decades; “Stories of Surrender,” based on Bono’s acclaimed one-man stage show; and “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,” by the Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov.The honorary Palme d’Or, given each year to acknowledge a contribution to cinema, will go to Robert De Niro. The actor performed the lead in two past Palme d’Or winners: Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” which won the main prize in 1976; and Roland Joffé’s “The Mission,” which triumphed in 1986. More

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    ‘Chicken Jockey!’ What to Know About the ‘Minecraft’ Catchphrase

    When Jack Black yells that in “A Minecraft Movie,” young audiences respond raucously. The director approves, but some theaters don’t. Here’s what to know.For most, “chicken jockey” seems like a random pair of words, almost poetic in how nonsensical they sound together. But the phrase is creating absolute pandemonium at showings of “A Minecraft Movie,” turning the film into a viral phenomenon in addition to a box office smash.Essentially, the movie, based on the popular video game, has quickly become something akin to a new generation’s “Rocky Horror Picture Show.” In videos posted on social media, the mayhem begins when one star, Jack Black, exuberantly proclaims, “Chicken jockey!” to announce the appearance of that creature from the video game. Young audience members go nuts, jumping up and down, screaming, even throwing popcorn at the screen in some cases.Warner Bros. sees the reaction as “a testament to the game’s loyal fan base,” as the marketing executive vice president Dana Nussbaum put it in a statement. The film’s director, Jared Hess, approves of the trend.“It’s way too funny,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s been a total blast. I’m just laughing my brains out every time someone sends me a new video.”But why exactly is this happening? Let’s unpack it as best we can.What is a chicken jockey?It’s a baby zombie that rides a chicken. (Don’t worry. Nothing about this makes any logical sense. Just go with it.) Encountering a chicken jockey during gameplay is pretty rare, but Hess was intent on filling the movie with his favorite characters from the vast Minecraft universe.“It’s not something you see all the time, but I think it’s adorable, and ridiculous and can murder you, and that’s something that makes it special,” Hess said.

    @matthewvietzke Minecraft movie was peak cinema #chickenjockey #minecraftmovie ♬ original sound – Matthew 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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    ‘G20’ Review: Madam President or Rambo?

    Viola Davis raises the bar on sheer brawniness in this action film where an American president has to fight Australian crypto-terrorists.The action spectacle “G20” offers up an absurd fantasy: What if the President of the United States were a gunslinging, martial-arts hero? “Air Force One” (1997) may be the ur-text of this shamelessly jingoistic subgenre, but Viola Davis’s President Danielle Sutton raises the bar on sheer brawniness.The script, in any case, aims for relevance. The bulk of the story takes place in a digitally-enhanced hillside hotel in Cape Town, where President Sutton and her family — including her doting husband, Derek (Anthony Anderson), teenage daughter, Serena (Marsai Martin), and son, Demetrius (Christopher Farrar) — have arrived for the Group of 20 economic summit.Chaos ensues when Rutledge (Antony Starr), a jacked crypto-terrorist from Australia, infiltrates the hotel with a group of military-trained lackeys with extremist right-wing views. Rutledge and his crew take most of the attending world leaders hostage, forcing them to record videos of themselves that he uses to create deepfakes meant to cause global stock markets to plunge.This master plan hinges on discrediting Sutton — though as a female politician, she’s used to the scrutiny.The film, directed by Patricia Riggen, clicks into place when Sutton and her top bodyguard Manny (Ramón Rodríguez) evade capture, navigating the hotel complex in search of her escape vehicle while knocking out Rutledge’s minions in cramped set pieces (like an elevator and a kitchen). Additional plot twists and cutesy comic touches come courtesy of the elderly South Korean first lady (Han Min-seo), the chauvinistic British Prime Minister (Douglas Hodge), and a top Italian delegate in high heels (Sabrina Impacciatore, who played the prickly hotel manager in the second season of “The White Lotus,” gets a fine spotlight moment during a missile-heavy getaway scene). This group latches onto Sutton for protection, while elsewhere Derek, Demetrius, and Serena play their own cat-and-mouse games.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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    ‘Warfare’ Review: A Combat Movie That Refuses to Entertain

    In Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza’s film about an American platoon in Iraq, there is no admirably staged bloodshed or witty repartee. That’s the point.The highest praise I can offer “Warfare,” a tough, relentless movie about life and death in battle, is that it isn’t thrilling. It is, rather, a purposely sad, angry movie, and as much a lament as a warning. That’s to the point of this factually informed fiction, which tracks a platoon of U.S. Navy SEALs during a calamitous mission in Iraq. There, under cover of an otherwise still night, the troops take over a seemingly ordinary home, place the inhabitants under guard and stake out the area. Then the men watch and wait while sitting, standing and sometimes agitatedly peering out windows in the name of a cause that no one ever explains outright.Among those not explaining any of this — the mission, its averred rationale and its carnage — are the writers-directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. Garland’s last movie was “Civil War” (2024), an eerie, uncomfortably realistic slice of speculative fiction set in a war-torn United States that Mendoza, a former member of the SEALs, worked on as the military adviser. That experience led to a friendship and now to “Warfare,” which is based on a real operation in 2006 that Mendoza took part in; at the time, the Americans were attempting to take control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province. The war was three years old by then, an estimated 600,000 Iraqis were dead and American fatalities would soon reach 3,000.Much of “Warfare” takes place in real time inside a blocky, two-story building where the inhabitants, including several children, are sleeping when the Americans enter. Crowded into a bedroom where they’re watched over by a rotation of guards, the Iraqis aren’t named (not that I remember, at least) and are scarcely individualized. The military men are more distinct, largely because they’re either played by somewhat familiar faces — including Will Poulter, as Captain Erik, the head of the initial operation — or have distinguishing features, like the mustache on Elliott (Cosmo Jarvis), the head sniper. (The movie is dedicated to the real Elliott Miller, who somehow survived the operation.)Garland is very good at building suspense, and he’s especially adept at turning quiet spaces into unrelenting zones of dread. “Warfare” opens with a burst of raucous silliness as uniformed men crowded around a monitor in a small room watch a risibly tacky music video for the dance tune “Call on Me.” Set in what’s meant to be an aerobics studio circa the 1980s, the video features a throng of big-haired, tight-thighed hotties (and one pitiful dude), stretching and pumping as if warming up for an orgiastic marathon. It’s a spectacle that the guys watch with collective pleasure and much whooping, and which underscores that you’ve entered a specific world of men that, minutes later, goes spookily quiet in an unnamed town.The SEAL unit takes over the Iraqi house quickly, breaking through a bricked-off upper floor, where most of them position themselves. In one room, Elliott, eyes squinting and face slicked with sweat, lies on his belly on a makeshift platform watching the street through a large, jagged peephole punched in the wall. As the minutes tick off, the men continue waiting as they listen to radio commands and watch surveillance footage. Every so often, Elliott scribbles a note as does a second sniper, Frank (Taylor John Smith). Frank briefly takes over when Elliott needs a break to replace his chewing tobacco and to relieve himself, which he does by urinating in an empty water bottle, something that I doubt that John Wayne did.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 Uninvited’ Review: A Surprise Guest at the Garden Party

    Hollywood types get skewered in this comedy of manners, starring Walton Goggins, Pedro Pascal and Elizabeth Reaser.The not-quite-comedy of manners “The Uninvited” begins with Rose (Elizabeth Reaser) fretting about her age in her walk-in closet. She and her husband Sammy (Walton Goggins), a talent agent plotting a big move, are about to throw a garden party, for which they are desperate to look successful.But really they’re just desperate. Or as desperate as affluent people can be while also being completely self-absorbed.The showbiz strivers of “The Uninvited,” written and directed by Nadia Conners, seem to have been created for the express purpose of being mocked. This is one of those self-hating Hollywood pictures. What’s new is its title hook.The uninvited guest is a confused older woman named Helen, played with painstaking expertise by Lois Smith, who shows up at the gate of Rose and Sammy’s house believing that it’s her home. Sammy just wants her gone — you get the feeling he might just toss her in the canyon if he could carry her that far — while Rose finds her better angels stirring up some compassion for her vulnerable guest.Of course Smith’s Helen is a fount of senior wisdom, telling one of her juniors, “You’re so angry — it will be the death of you.” About a half-hour in, Lucien (Pedro Pascal), a megastar and past romantic interest of Rose’s, shows up. His presence complicates matters and takes the focus off Helen, making this picture a very soft and indefinite satire.The UninvitedRated R for language, themes, sexual references. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘The Teacher’ Review: Harsh Lessons in the West Bank

    A legal procedural, a family tragedy, a romance and a kidnapping plot are a lot to hang on one character in this debut film by Farah Nabulsi.The protagonist of “The Teacher” is at the nexus of several dramas at once.Basem (Saleh Bakri), a Palestinian who teaches English at a school in the West Bank, is focused on helping a student, Yacoub (Mahmoud Bakri), who has just returned from serving a two-year sentence related to a protest. Yacoub’s brother, Adam (Muhammad Abed Elrahman), is another of Basem’s pupils — the brains to Yacoub’s muscle, as Yacoub sees it. Early in the film, Israeli authorities demolish the siblings’ house. Soon after, a violent encounter with settlers leads Basem to encourage the family to seek justice in an Israeli court.Initially, Basem appears to favor a strategy of nonviolent, high-minded resistance, but he has a complicated history. Details about how his past activism affected his marriage and his son are teased out gradually, as he grows closer with Lisa (Imogen Poots), a British volunteer who works as a counselor at his school. Against this backdrop, Israeli investigators are searching for an Israeli American soldier who is being held hostage in the West Bank, and whose captors hope to trade him for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.This feature debut from the Palestinian British writer-director Farah Nabulsi had its premiere before the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent war in Gaza. In some ways, the movie suffers from an understandable impulse to streamline. Nabulsi uses Basem as a single fulcrum that she can pivot around as she highlights elements of an intractably complex geopolitical conflict.But a teacher-student bonding narrative, a legal procedural, a family tragedy, a romance and a kidnapping thriller are a lot to hang on one character. And while the threads all compel individually, the climax, in which Basem declares his determination to redress a past failure, is decidedly trite.The TeacherNot rated. In English, Arabic and Hebrew, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Sacramento’ Review: Best Frenemies

    In this warmly funny indie comedy, two friends with a complicated past confront their grief and anxieties on a California road trip.After Rickey (Michael Angarano), an adrift ne’er-do-well, ambushes his sort-of best friend Glenn (Michael Cera) in his backyard in “Sacramento,” he drags him on a road trip under the pretense of scattering his dead father’s ashes.Rickey is indeed mourning but also has ulterior motives involving an estranged lover (Maya Erskine), a mission that inadvertently forces Glenn to confront his own fears about the baby he’s having with his wife (Kristen Stewart) in this warmly funny indie comedy directed by Michael Angarano.The two can’t help but clash, scuffling clumsily at one point in a parking lot, before pausing in a panting stalemate. The pose they strike — one arm around the other man, the other arm holding steady to the ground — is a mixture of support and attack, a hug and a tackle. It’s an apt snapshot of their friendship.The film will immediately bring to mind parallels with last year’s “A Real Pain,” and for good reason: Like that film, this is a story of two men going on a trip clouded by grief, one of whom is the anxious, stable family man, the other a tactless extrovert constantly deflecting away from his own emotional baggage.But Angarano’s work stands capably in its own right; the central love-hate buddy dynamic is familiar, but it’s also imbued with a sweet and playful touch. Angarano is an anchor here, as charming as he is feckless. But it’s also a worthy showcase for Cera, who is given a role that is at once typecast — he is again the nebbishy and awkward straight man — and expansive, providing far more dimension than he’s typically afforded within that mold.SacramentoRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More