Aurelia Butler

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    Florida Mayor Threatens Cinema Over Israeli-Palestinian Film

    The mayor of Miami Beach wants to end the lease of a group renting a city-owned property because it is screening the Academy Award-winning “No Other Land” there.The mayor of Miami Beach is seeking to oust a nonprofit art house cinema from a city-owned property for showing “No Other Land,” the Oscar-winning documentary that chronicles the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank.The mayor, Steven Meiner, introduced a resolution to revoke the lease under which O Cinema rents the space, he announced in a newsletter this week. He described the film as “a false, one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our city and residents.”Kareem Tabsch, the co-founder of O Cinema, said that the threat of losing its physical location in Miami Beach was “very grave and we take it very seriously.”“At the time, we take very seriously our responsibility as a cultural organization that presents works that are engaging and thought provoking and that foster dialogue,” he said. “And we take very seriously our responsibility to do that without interference of government.”The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is now co-counsel for the theater, criticized the mayor’s move, as did the makers of the film, which won the Academy Award for best documentary earlier this month but has not been acquired in the United States by a traditional distributor for either a theatrical or streaming release. Distributors in two dozen other countries had picked up the film even before it won the award.Daniel Tilley, the legal director of the Florida branch of the ACLU, said in an interview that “what’s at stake is the government’s ability to use unchecked power to punish those who dare to express views that the government disagrees with.”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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    Dawn Robinson, En Vogue Alum, Says She’s Been Living in Her Car for 3 Years

    Robinson’s mother said in an interview that the revelation about her estranged daughter had been hard to take but if she could see her now “I would grab her, I would hug her.”Dawn Robinson, a founding member of the ’90s R&B group En Vogue, said this week that she had been living in her car for roughly three years after several living arrangements fell through.In a nearly 20-minute video that was posted to her official YouTube channel on Tuesday, Robinson said that she did not want anyone’s pity and that she was comfortable with the decision she had made. Although she said she would rather have her own apartment, she put somewhat of a positive spin on her circumstances.“I’m glad that I made this choice because I needed to go through this fire,” Robinson said in the video, adding that she was in the middle of a spiritual journey involving a period of isolation from family and friends. “I’m in the trenches of this right now and I’m like, ‘I wouldn’t trade my experiences and what I’ve gone through for the world.’”A representative for En Vogue, which is still active without Robinson, declined to comment beyond saying that the group had not been in contact with her in more than five years. Robinson could not immediately be reached for comment and did not say in her video where her vehicle is.From left, Cindy Herron, Dawn Robinson, Terry Ellis and Maxine Jones in June 1991, when En Vogue performed at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.Mike Guastella/Getty ImagesBarbara Alexander, Robinson’s mother, said by phone from her home in Las Vegas on Thursday afternoon that she was first alerted to the video on Wednesday.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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    Sofia Gubaidulina, Composer Who Provoked Soviet Censors, Dies at 93

    Sofia Gubaidulina, a Tatar-Russian composer who defied Soviet dogma with her openly religious music and after decades of suppression moved to the West, where she was feted by major orchestras, died on Thursday at her home in Appen, Germany. She was 93. Carol Ann Cheung, of Boosey & Hawkes, Ms. Gubaidulina’s publisher, said the cause was cancer.Ms. Gubaidulina (pronounced goo-bye-doo-LEE-na) wrote many works steeped in biblical and liturgical texts that provoked censors at home and, beginning in the final decade of the Cold War, captivated Western audiences. She was part of a group of important composers in the Soviet Union, including Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke and Edison Denisov, who found disfavor with the authorities but acclaim abroad.She explored the tension between the human and the divine, and sought to place her music in the service of religion in the literal sense of repairing what she believed to be the broken bond between man and God. Using musical terms, Ms. Gubaidulina often spoke of her work bringing legato, a sense of connected flow, into the fragmented “staccato of life.”Soloists who performed her work, among them the violinists Gidon Kremer and Anne-Sofie Mutter, often spoke of the emotional intensity that the music required. Conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit and Kurt Masur, were strong advocates for her music.Folk traditions also fascinated Ms. Gubaidulina, who credited her Tatar roots with her love for percussion and shimmering sound colors. She favored soft-spoken or tenebrous instruments including the harp, the 13-stringed Japanese koto and the double bass.Ms. Gubaidulina in 2009 at a music festival in Berlin. She credited her Tatar roots with her love for using percussion in her compositions.Kai Bienert/ullstein bild, via Getty ImagesWe 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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    Sofia Gubaidulina Was Both Fully Modern and Sincerely Spiritual

    Sofia Gubaidulina’s work, with its thorniness and religious themes, put her at odds with the Soviet government.The Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, who died on Thursday at 93, was that rare creature: an artist both fully modern and sincerely spiritual. “I am convinced that religion is the kernel of all art,” she said in a 2021 interview.That is hardly a universal worldview these days. The era of Palestrina and Bach, who aimed to glorify God with their work, is centuries past. Music that is adventurous, religious and great is unusual in our secular time, and some of the most significant was written by Gubaidulina.Hers was never a soothing or tuneful faith. Her music is darker and more bracing than that of, say, Arvo Pärt, whose minimalist spirituality has been co-opted for meditation playlists.Gubaidulina’s work is not the kind of thing you put on during morning yoga. She makes sounds of struggle and disorder; of awaiting some signal from beyond with hushed anxiety; of the strenuous attempt to bridge the gap between humans and the divine. Transcendence, if and when it arrives, is hard won.Inspired by Psalm 130, “De Profundis” (1978), a wrenching solo for the bayan, the Russian accordion she loved, begins in the instrument’s depths and rises to harshly radiant heights. Stark focus suffuses “The Canticle of the Sun” (1997), written for the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, a small choir and percussion, and based on a song by St. Francis praising God. Her grand St. John Passion (2000) has apocalyptic force.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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    Mercedes’s Most Affordable Sedan Will Be Electric

    The German luxury carmaker said its latest compact sedan solved problems that had kept people from buying electric vehicles.Mercedes-Benz said on Thursday that the latest version of its least expensive sedan would be available first as an all-electric car and then as a hybrid. And the company will no longer sell a gasoline-only version of the car.That’s a big break from how Mercedes and other established carmakers have typically operated. Until recently, most automakers adapted vehicles designed for fossil fuels to be powered by batteries. The Mercedes sedan, the CLA, which the company unveiled in Rome with the rapper will.i.am, is an example of how at least some established carmakers are developing electric cars first, then adapting them for customers who still want a gasoline engine.The CLA, the first of more than two dozen Mercedes vehicles that will use the same basic technology, is a sign that many global carmakers are placing a priority on electric vehicles even as Republicans in the United States try to roll back Biden-era legislation that was intended to promote battery technology.Yet faced with uncertain demand for electric vehicles and unpredictable government policies, Mercedes is tempering its bets by offering hybrids, which pair traditional gasoline engines with relatively small batteries and electric motors.“If the world is not dominant electric by 2030, we as Mercedes-Benz, as an established manufacturer, we cannot walk away from a significant part of our revenues,” Ola Källenius, the chief executive of Mercedes, said in an interview in Rome. “So indeed, you could call it a hedge.”Mercedes did not disclose a price for the new CLA, but said it would be affordable for owners of the current version, which starts at $45,000 in the United States. Eventually some of the components from the car will be used in sport utility vehicles and a station wagon.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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    ‘Young Hearts’ Review: Finding Acceptance

    In this coming-of-age drama from Belgium, a 14-year-old boy falls in love with his neighbor and questions his sexual identity.There are no bigoted relatives or homophobic bullies in the pleasantly modest coming-of-age film “Young Hearts.” Instead, Elias (Lou Goossens), a 14-year-old boy, wrestles mostly with himself after he falls in love with Alexander (Marius De Saeger), his new neighbor.Shot primarily outdoors, in the Belgian countryside where the two boys ride their bikes and lounge by lakes, this debut drama by Anthony Schatteman presents a familiar conflict: Alex, who is originally from Brussels, isn’t afraid to be openly gay, whereas the provincial Elias treats their romance like a shameful secret.Elias’s friends at school, including his quasi-girlfriend Valerie (Saar Rogiers), think he’s straight, and because his dad, Luk (Geert Van Rampelberg), is a famous crooner of kitschy Flemish love songs, he’s already sensitive about being mocked.The assumptions of Elias’s family members about his sexuality — and the total absence of queer people in his life up to this point — are enough to convince him his feelings for Alex are abnormal. His mother Natalie (Emilie De Roo) and his grandfather Fred (Dirk Van Dijck) are more sensitive listeners than his self-absorbed father, but Elias insists on keeping things bottled up.The film shifts between Elias’s states of blissful surrender and angsty repression, capturing him in emotionally baring close-ups. Naturalistic performances and quiet scenes of summertime idling bring to mind Luca Guadagnino’s drama “Call Me By Your Name,” though “Young Hearts” is a more wholesome, and ultimately more cliché, endeavor. In the end, teenage brooding gives way to a sparkling fairy tale finale that shows that there was nothing for Elias to worry about, after all.Young HeartsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Novocaine’ Review: Sticks and Stones Will Never Hurt Him

    In this gross-out action spectacle, Jack Quaid plays an unlikely action hero who, because of a genetic disorder, can’t feel any pain.If we’re in a post- “John Wick” era, where action cinema has been revitalized and modernized — more bullets and blood, more choreographed spectacle — the thrills of the genre have strangely edged closer and closer to that earliest of movie pleasures: slapstick. Particularly in the man-on-a-rampage subgenre, as the violence and gore becomes increasingly absurd, these movies begin to echo that old format, where the more creative and outrageous the pain, the more visceral the pleasure.That’s essentially the kind of silly, gross-out fun of “Novocaine,” which taps into this understanding about as overtly as possible. The key is in the invincibility clause — if, like the Three Stooges themselves, our action hero is virtually indestructible, the pain and its wacky payoffs can be endless.Other films have presented unique and often inane spins on this idea (from Jason Statham in “Crank” to Logan Marshall-Green in “Upgrade”), but this film, directed by Robert Olsen and Dan Berk, takes it to its most extreme, via an almost stupidly simple premise: Because of a genetic disorder, our protagonist Nate Caine (Jack Quaid) can’t feel any physical pain. Cue just about as many ways one can try to invoke it.Nate, though, is no willing bionic man, but in fact the opposite. Because he doesn’t have the sensors of pain to notify him if something has gone wrong, he’s led a conversely bubble-boy existence, fearful that at any moment he might unknowingly injure and kill himself. He tennis-balls the corners of desks, doesn’t eat solid foods (God forbid he bites off his own tongue!) and has become a bit of a recluse.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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    ‘Who by Fire’ Review: Masculinity and Its Discontents

    Men posture and peacock in the Québecois director Philippe Lesage’s ensemble drama set at an isolated house in a remote forest.One enduring storytelling strategy is to put some characters in a cage and watch them fight it out. There’s a reason so many mysteries, thrillers and horror movies take place in close quarters: Lockdowns have a way of turning people into lab animals. And whatever the cause — nature, nurture or screenwriting contrivance — when characters are stuck together, they often gnaw on one another, whether they’re on a lifeboat, in a hotel or on a private island.The studied drama “Who by Fire” from the Québecois writer-director Philippe Lesage takes place in a Canadian wilderness area that is as swooningly beautiful as it is expediently remote. Set over a blurry few days, the story largely unfolds in and around a waterfront property, a slice of paradise so isolated that visitors arrive by seaplane. There, old friends and new acquaintances connect. They read, listen to music, dance a bit, and laugh and shout over dinners filled with wine and talk. Amid the levity and Lesage’s heavy ideas about men and masculinity, they also enjoy nature and, at times, try to dominate it and one another.Lesage has a terrific eye, and he opens the movie with a grabber: a hypnotic shot of an old, boxy Mercedes alone on a highway in the near distance, a series of droning electronic notes rising and falling on the soundtrack. As the car passes miles of dense, mountainous forest, Lesage keeps the vehicle steadily positioned at the image’s vanishing point, which keeps your gaze similarly pinned. Outwardly, the setup looks familiar (you could be following friends in your own car) yet the absence of extraneous sounds — there’s no wind, no whirring engine — gives the whole thing a dreamy, somewhat eerie timelessness. Whatever the period, some old-fashioned flourishes and the absence of cellphones suggest that this is a memory piece.The car belongs to Albert (Paul Ahmarani), a screenwriter who’s en route to a friend’s house with his adult daughter, Aliocha (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré), his younger son, Max (Antoine Marchand-Gagnon), and Max’s friend Jeff (Noah Parker). The owner of the remote getaway is Blake (Arieh Worthalter, an effective live wire), a successful director with an Oscar on a shelf and a plane out front. Blake’s baggage proves heavier than his visitors’: He has a dead wife, an unwieldy ego and a fraught past with Albert. When the two old friends meet, it’s all smiles and bear hugs. Before long, though, everyone is aloft in Blake’s plane and headed for some emotional, psychological and spiritual bloodletting.The movie’s opener — including the enigmatic drive, which can’t help but evoke Kubrick’s “The Shining” — announces Lesage’s gift for stirring up tension visually. That talent is evident throughout, notably during three leisurely dinners that anchor the story, each lasting some 10 minutes of screen time. Working with his director of photography, Balthazar Lab, Lesage stages and shoots these meals similarly, with everyone gathered around a long table. Over drinks and much talk, the camera alternately pushes in toward certain characters and pulls out to reveal the group’s dynamic, catching gestures and the circuitry of their gazes. “You know I hate fighting,” Albert tells Blake at one meal, an assertion that’s plainly hollow.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