Aurelia Butler

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    Shelley Duvall: A Life in Pictures

    Shelley Duvall, who died on Thursday at the age of 75, captivated Hollywood with her raw honesty, intuitive acting and winsome Texas drawl. She was nicknamed “Texas Twiggy” for her sharp fashion sense and became a regular presence in 1970s celebrity photos.Though she retired from show business in 2002, a new generation has remade her as a cult figure for the quirky and misunderstood. Here are some snapshots from her life and career.Duvall signing autographs. She wasn’t planning on a film career but she became the go-to actress for roles that called for an out-of-the-ordinary performance.Art Zelin/Getty ImagesDuvall with Robert Altman, the director who helped launch her career, beginning with “Brewster McCloud” (1970). She went on to appear in many more Altman films, including “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971), “Nashville” (1975) and “3 Women” (1977).Gilbert Tourte/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty ImagesDuvall dancing at Studio 54. She lived the life of a celebrity in the 1970s and 1980s, dating Paul Simon and Ringo Starr.Guy Marineau/WWD and Penske Media, via Getty ImagesAltman directed Duvall and Sissy Spacek in “3 Women.” Here they attend a screening of the film at Cannes.Jean-Jacques Levy/Associated PressBeside jury president and Italian director Roberto Rossellini, Duvall displays her award for best actress at Cannes in 1977 for her performance in “3 Women.”Jean-Jacques Levy/Associated PressThree actresses who worked with Robert Altman: Geraldine Chaplin (“Nashville”), Lauren Hutton (“A Wedding”) and Duvall at a party honoring the director in New York.Getty ImagesThe film critic Pauline Kael called her the “female Buster Keaton.” On casting Duvall in “The Shining,” Stanley Kubrick told her, “I like the way you cry.”Reg Innell/Toronto Star, via Getty ImagesDuvall with Ringo Starr en route to his home in Monte Carlo.PA Images, via Getty ImagesSitting between Paul Simon and James Taylor, Duvall greets Arnold Schwarzenegger at a screening in 1977.Sal Traina/WWD and Penske Media, via Getty ImagesWith Simon and Gilda Radner. Duvall hosted “Saturday Night Live” in 1977.Getty ImagesDuvall with Jack Nicholson, her co-star in “The Shining.” Critics at the time picked her performance apart, and she was nominated for a Razzie award for worst actress. But something in the authenticity of her reactions, her otherworldliness, resonated with audiences.Robin Platzer/Getty ImagesTerry Gilliam (far left) directed Duvall in “Time Bandits” (1981).Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImagesDuvall at a Hollywood party in 1982.Judy Graeme/WWD and Penske Media, via Getty ImagesRobin Williams with Duvall, who played Olive Oyl to his Popeye in the comedy from 1980.Fairchild Archive/WWD/Penske Media, via Getty ImagesAndy Warhol with Duvall in New York City. He put her on the cover of Interview magazine.Sonia Moskowitz/Getty ImagesDuvall at a cast party for “Faerie Tale Theatre,” one of the many children’s television shows she produced starting in the mid-’80s. Episodes featured Robin Williams, Christopher Reeve, Carol Kane and Mick Jagger, among other stars.Bob Riha, Jr./Getty ImagesDuvall produced the 1990 Disney television musical “Mother Goose Rock ‘n’ Rhyme,” where she met Dan Gilroy, who composed and performed some of the soundtrack and became her longtime partner. Vinnie Zuffante/Getty ImagesDuvall in 2024. She spent many decades away from Hollywood, living in small-town Texas, but had recently started acting again.Katherine Squier for The New York Times More

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    In ‘The Shining,’ Shelley Duvall Was a Perfect Gothic Heroine

    Her performance was perhaps misunderstood at the time, just as the narrative surrounding her life would be later.If Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” was a twist on the centuries-old Gothic horror genre, there was no one better suited to play a modern Gothic heroine than Shelley Duvall. Duvall, who died Thursday at 75, was in her late 20s when she shot the role of Wendy Torrance, put-upon wife of blocked writer Jack (Jack Nicholson). The pair have holed up with their young son in the Overlook Hotel, working as winter caretakers.But something evil is afoot. The Overlook is less hotel than haunted house, saddled with the weight of inexplicable and violent history. Wendy is virtually trapped there, a small woman often alone in a rambling, dangerous building full of secrets. It might be more accurate to call the Overlook a monster, one that pushes its monstrousness onto its inhabitants. And it is Wendy, not Jack, who successfully resists in the end.The Gothic heroine, the woman trapped in the menacing haunted home, must exhibit courage in the face of danger, remaining resolute while also being susceptible to the evil that lurks around every corner. Without that tension, we wouldn’t be kept in suspense. In the film, Duvall is waifish, eyes wide, hair flat and scraggly, and it’s hard not to believe she’s going to die. Her only objective is to save her son, Danny, from his father, who — we learn early on — previously broke Danny’s arm in an alcoholic rage. This evil she is fighting is malevolent and abusive and real, a threat she has seen in action before, only now it carries an ax.The Wendy of Kubrick’s 1980 movie is a different kind of woman than the Wendy of Stephen King’s earlier novel — she’s more vulnerable, more frightened. King complained that the movie’s version was “basically just there to scream and be stupid and that’s not the woman that I wrote about.” Duvall was cited as a weak point in many of the film’s mixed reviews and nominated for a Razzie for worst actress.Yet her work in “The Shining” has grown in critical esteem in recent years; today it can feel as if detractors simply weren’t expecting how unsettling it would be to witness her performance of abject terror. There’s a strangeness to it: Her eyes are both huge and heavy-lidded, her mouth equally able to draw into a rosebud or spread wide for a shriek. Throughout the film, her affect is almost that of a china doll, terrified of being shattered. She appears afraid to breathe, barely able to speak.Duvall’s work in the film has grown in critical esteem in recent years. Warner Bros. Inc, via Associated PressWe 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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    ‘Inside Out 2’ Passes $1.25 Billion Mark and Is Pixar’s Biggest Movie Ever

    The animated film about a young teenage girl and her complex emotions has passed the $1.25 billion mark globally and is expected to keep growing.Emotions are running wild at the box office this summer. Pixar’s newest animated feature, “Inside Out 2,” passed the $1.25 billion mark globally on Wednesday, making it the studio’s highest-grossing film of all time, not adjusted for inflation. It has raked in $543 million domestically and $708 million internationally.“Incredibles 2,” which earned $1.24 billion worldwide in 2018, was previously in the top spot for Pixar, which is owned by Disney.“Inside Out 2” is also the most successful film of 2024 so far and the fourth highest-grossing animated movie ever — behind “Frozen” (2013), “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023) and “Frozen II” (2019). Its profits are poised to keep climbing as it is released in more countries, including Japan.“Inside Out 2,” Pixar’s 28th movie, continues the story of Riley as she turns 13 years old and grapples with puberty and her bevy of personified emotions, now including anxiety.Directed by Kelsey Mann, the movie has a voice cast that includes Amy Poehler, Maya Hawke, Tony Hale, Lewis Black, Phyllis Smith, Ayo Edebiri and Yvette Nicole Brown.It opened on June 14 to rave reviews from critics and audiences, who bestowed it with an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls, the same score as “Inside Out,” which made about $860 million globally in 2015. The sequel also surpassed opening weekend box office predictions, collecting about $155 million in the United States and Canada, about 70 percent more than anticipated.Since last year’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon — when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” opened simultaneously on July 21 — the box office has been generally sluggish, without a single film achieving phenomenon status like Greta Gerwig’s smash or Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-dominating hit. “Inside Out 2” has filled that gap and is the first movie to clear the billion-dollar hurdle since “Barbie.”It was a crucial win for Pixar, which has had a wobbly run since the coronavirus pandemic started keeping audiences home in March 2020. Its film “Onward” was released in theaters on March 6, 2020, and its next three movies — “Soul,” “Turning Red” and “Luca” — went straight to the Disney+ streaming service.Last year, the original Pixar movie “Elemental” had a weak start but managed to reverse course, eventually collecting about $500 million worldwide. More

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    A ‘Simpsons’ Joke Comes True for Cypress Hill

    The famed California hip-hop group played with the London Symphony Orchestra — 28 years after “The Simpsons” dreamed up the collaboration.There is now an answer to at least one chicken-or-egg “Simpsons” prophesy: The episode did come first.But then, 28 years later, came the concert.“Simpsons” fans mixed with Cypress Hill fans on Wednesday at the Royal Albert Hall, a stately concert venue in the English capital, for a one-night-only collaboration between the London Symphony Orchestra and the American hip-hop group. Some were there for beats. Others had come to see a joke become a reality.“We came for the meme,” said Nick Brady, 30, who was with his brother. “We stayed for the music.”The evening had been foretold by a 1996 episode of “The Simpsons,” called “Homerpalooza,” in which Homer Simpson takes his family to a festival and then falls in with the stars.In the TV show, a festival employee arrives in a backstage area flanked by tuxedo-clad musicians. “Who is playing with the London Symphony Orchestra?” he calls out. “Somebody ordered the London Symphony Orchestra … possibly while high? Cypress Hill, I’m looking in your direction.”The hip-hop group huddles, whispering. Then, thinking fast, one says: “Uh, yeah, yeah, we think we did. Uh, do you know ‘Insane In The Brain’?”“We mostly know classical,” one orchestra member says, in a posh British accent. “But we could give it 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

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    ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ Is a Throwback Amid Summer Blockbusters

    Directed by Greg Berlanti, the film amounts to a Hollywood experiment: Is there still room at the multiplexes for original movies aimed at grown-ups.“Fly Me to the Moon” is the kind of movie that isn’t supposed to succeed in theaters anymore, at least if you listen to franchise-obsessed studio executives.The story is a period piece and completely original: In 1968, a government operative (Woody Harrelson) hires a marketing virtuoso (Scarlett Johansson) to convince the public — and Congress — that a troubled NASA can pull off its scheduled Apollo 11 moon landing. Stylish and devious, she clashes with the rigid launch director (Channing Tatum) and secretly — as a backup, to be used only in an emergency — arranges for a fake landing to be filmed on a soundstage. What’s the harm?Hollywood marketers will tell you that ticket buyers eschew movies that mash together genres. And “Fly Me to the Moon” is part drama, part comedic caper, part romance, part fiction and part true story. Particularly in the summer, studios prefer to serve up mindless popcorn movies aimed at teenagers. “Fly Me to the Moon” is entertainment for thinking adults, the kind that Mike Nichols (“Working Girl”) and James L. Brooks (“Broadcast News”) made in the 1980s.So the question must be asked: How on earth did “Fly Me to the Moon” manage to score a wide release in theaters at the height of blockbuster season? The film rolls into 3,300 theaters in the United States and Canada on Friday.Shouldn’t it be going straight to streaming?In many ways, the film’s unexpected journey to multiplexes reflects the degree to which Hollywood runs on the vagaries of chance. “Fly Me to the Moon” started out as a streaming movie — full stop. Apple TV+ paid an estimated $100 million for the project in March 2022, and the contract called for no theatrical release of any kind.But then Greg Berlanti got involved.It was June 2022, and Mr. Berlanti, the wunderkind television producer, had just turned 50. That milestone prompted a degree of uncomfortable self-reflection, compounded by his mother’s recent death. At the same time, the entertainment business was changing — the streaming-driven “peak TV” era was winding down — and Mr. Berlanti wasn’t entirely sure where to focus his professional attention.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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    Summer Horror Movies to Send a Chill Down Your Spine

    At the drive-in, under the stars or in your living room, there are plenty of frights to be had before fall arrives.Horror movies can be great summertime escapes because, unlike soaring temperatures and global political upheaval, their terrors are temporary and, at least for fans of the genre, a ton of fun.Here’s a look at new movies and beloved classics that will (metaphorically) scare your pants off in theaters, at home and under the stars this summer.Fresh HellsWhether it’s date night or a solo Summer Friday afternoon, movie theaters are chockablock with new scares. They include “MaXXXine,” the final entry in a slasher trilogy starring Mia Goth; “A Quiet Place: Day One,” a prequel to the hit franchise about bloodthirsty creatures with really good hearing; and “The Exorcism,” a supernatural drama starring Russell Crowe as an actor who unravels playing the role of an exorcist.For fans of oddball indie horror, there’s “In a Violent Nature,” an extravagantly gory, genre-smashing slasher film; “I Saw the TV Glow,” a darkly atmospheric meditation on youth and isolation; and “The Devil’s Bath,” a folk-horror psychodrama set in the 18th century.Classic FrightsWe 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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    ‘Twice Colonized’ Review: Untangling the Personal and Political

    This documentary follows a renowned Inuit activist over seven years, making sense of the ways in which racism and impoverishment can abrade one’s sense of self.The charismatic Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter is no stranger to cinema. Some viewers will know her from films like “Arctic Defenders” (2013), about Inuit activists’ struggle for self-government, and “Angry Inuk” (2016), which follows an Inuit campaign to allow seal hunting. Peter returns to the screen in “Twice Colonized,” but this time, the focus is not on her fight against colonialist policies. It’s on Peter’s fight with herself — with all the wounds that colonization has inflicted on her life and her soul.Peter grew up in Greenland, a Danish territory, in the 1960s and, as was common with high-performing young students, was shipped off to high school in Denmark. Later in life, she moved to the Canadian Arctic. In “Twice Colonized,” which follows Peter closely across seven years, she contends with her life under Danish and then Canadian colonialism, and the corrosive separations from her language, culture and family that assimilation required. Both she and the director, Lin Alluna, take on a difficult task: untangling the personal and the political, making sense of the ways in which racism and impoverishment can abrade one’s sense of self.Much like its heroine, “Twice Colonized” is a storm of emotion and conviction. Peter is tortured and vulnerable as she mourns her son’s death by suicide and struggles to break up with her abusive partner; she is also joyful and strong as she communes with other Indigenous people on her travels and speaks forcefully about Inuit rights on global platforms.The film seems to writhe alongside her, with shaky camerawork, jagged cuts and a haunting soundtrack full of breathy chants. If it can feel haphazard and narratively unsatisfying at times, it’s also thrilling in the way it matches Peter’s rhythms, refusing to sand down her defiant complexity.Twice ColonizedNot rated. In Danish, English, Greenlandic and Inuktitut, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. Available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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    ‘Touch’ Review: An Old-School Tear-Jerker, With a Twist

    An Icelandic widower revisits London, the site of his first romance, in this film from Baltasar Kormakur.“Touch,” a globe-trotting romance from Iceland, is an epic, old-fashioned weepie in the vein of “Atonement” and “The Notebook” — it’s mushy and ridiculous, then, suddenly, you’re in the throes of an ugly cry.Based on the novel by Olafur Johann Olafsson, the film straddles two timelines — 2020, at the very outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Swinging Sixties London — and plays out, at first, like a mystery. Kristofer (Egill Olafsson), an ex-restaurateur and widower, is diagnosed with dementia and spurred into action before the disease might incapacitate him: He books a flight from Reykjavik to London, unfazed by the imminent lockdown. He’s the only guest at his London hotel, his flights are near-empty, and his anxious daughter keeps calling, urging him to get back home.As Kristofer revisits his old stamping grounds — he was a student in London — the source of his longing becomes clear. In the earlier timeline, a young Kristofer (Palmi Kormakur), a devoted leftist, abandons his studies and takes a dishwashing job at a Japanese restaurant. The rest of the staff is Japanese, but the restaurant owner, Takahashi-san (Masahiro Motoki), takes a liking to this Icelandic gentle giant, whose passion for Japanese culture is convincing. (Plus, there’s a humorous parallel between Iceland and Japan — the love of fish!) The trope of the white guy with an Asian fetish certainly comes to mind, but Kormakur’s soft-spoken charisma wards off this pigeonholing, creating space for the Japanese characters to become three-dimensional as they tease Kristofer out of his shell.Then there’s the girl: Miko (Koki), Takahashi-san’s daughter, with whom Kristofer is smitten. The film tracks the twists and turns of their friendship, which unfold tragically when Miko’s origins — she’s a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing — come to light.Directed by Baltasar Kormakur, the father of Palmi, a veteran filmmaker with big-budget Hollywood credits (“Beast,” “Adrift,” “2 Guns”), “Touch” rekindles a treacly genre that I didn’t realize I missed. Its tender performances and gut-punch reveals are classic tear-jerker ingredients. Add to this a natural, inordinately sensitive approach to intercultural love — mercifully, without a sense of righteousness or obligation.TouchRated R for sex, references to abortion and images of atomic bomb casualties. Running time: 2 hours 1 minute. In theaters. More