Aurelia Butler

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    This Service Cat Has a Big Job: The Apocalypse

    The director of “A Quiet Place: Day One” was confident a cat could take on the end of the world. But could the feline actors win over Lupita Nyong’o?How did a cat named Schnitzel win the starring role of Frodo in “A Quiet Place: Day One”? He impressed the director Michael Sarnoski with his nonchalant confidence, rugged looks and intelligent face.“He had a lot going on behind his eyes,” Sarnoski said in an interview last week, when the film made its theatrical debut. “A lot of the other cats were really adorable but almost too cutesy, like they would be in a cat food commercial. And Schnitzel had a little bit of an edge, like you could kind of believe he was a bit of a world-weary street cat.”Frodo has a lot to be weary about in this cinematic universe. The film, a prequel to the 2018 horror movie “A Quiet Place” and its 2021 sequel, chronicles aliens invading Earth and attacking everything that makes a sound.Lupita Nyong’o plays Sam, a cancer patient caught in the apocalypse with her service cat while visiting New York. Though most people want to escape Manhattan, Sam knows she is dying regardless and just wants to go to Harlem, where she grew up, and grab a slice of pizza. She meets a British law student named Eric (Joseph Quinn), who agrees to join her, and the cat becomes a comfort to them both. (Sam is a poet, hence Frodo’s literary name.) And spoiler warning: Audiences will be happy to know Frodo makes it out alive.Sarnoski, who also wrote the screenplay, grew up with cats and knew he wanted Sam to have an animal companion. But the creature would need to be able to navigate an urban apocalypse in silence. A dog would bark at a threat, and something like a bunny, say, wouldn’t fit in the grit of Manhattan. But it’s common to see cats around the city, wandering the streets or guarding delis. Frodo even meets a bodega cat, played by a ginger-and-white shorthair named Stanlee, a runner-up for the lead role.“A lot of people are like, ‘Why doesn’t the cat make more noise?’ But cats are very smart, predatory creatures,” Sarnoski said, adding that he believed a cat would recognize the danger and figure out how to survive. “I figured a cat would have 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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    ‘MaXXXine’ Review: Fame Monster

    Mia Goth returns to Ti West’s horrorverse as an actress fleeing a mysterious stalker and a traumatic past.A psychosexual thriller imagined in blood red and cocaine white, “MaXXXine,” the third installment in Ti West’s nostalgia-soaked slasher saga, is part grungy homage to 1980s Hollywood and part sleazy feminist manifesto. Darker, moodier and altogether nastier than its predecessors — “X” (2022) and, later that same year, “Pearl” — this hyperconfident feature is also funny, occasionally wistful and deeply empathetic toward its damaged, driven heroine.That would be Maxine Minx (Mia Goth), the sole survivor of the dirty-movie cast massacred in “X.” Now a successful porn star, Maxine, eager to break into mainstream movies, has relocated to a Hollywood of spectacular seediness. It is 1985 and, as in real life, a killer known as the Night Stalker is terrorizing the city, the so-called Moral Majority is hyperventilating on the sidelines and rock musicians are fighting accusations of satanic intent. In one pungent shot of Maxine’s boot grinding her cigarette stub into the silent film sex symbol Theda Bara’s star on the Walk of Fame, West underscores the transience of the celebrity status that Maxine so desperately seeks.“I will not accept a life I do not deserve,” she declares, repeating the mantra taught by her father, a preacher seen in speckled, black-and-white flashback. Securing a role on a low-grade horror sequel brings her under the wing of its industry-toughened director (a perfect Elizabeth Debicki). Yet Maxine is constantly distracted: Her friends are dying, and two homicide detectives (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan) want to question her; a Louisiana gumshoe (Kevin Bacon, a skeevy vision in crumpled suits and gold-capped incisors) keeps randomly accosting her; and a mysterious, black-gloved stalker haunts the film’s shadows. No wonder Maxine is plagued by panicked recollections of her traumatic past.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 Story Behind Juvenile’s ‘Back That Azz Up’

    Juvenile’s “Back That Azz Up” was a 1999 hit that brought twerking and New Orleans bounce into the mainstream. Here’s the story of how it became a sensation.Twenty-five hot summers ago, Juvenile threw out a command and booties everywhere have never been the same. That’s when “Back That Azz Up,” the second single from the New Orleans rapper’s album “400 Degreez,” was released and almost instantly became the national anthem of twerking — before the word even entered the American vocabulary.Arguments can be made that the song is misogynistic, endearing or both. But the track — built around Juvenile hypnotically rapping the song’s title instruction, a raunchy verse from its producer, Mannie Fresh, and a syrupy outro from an ascendant, teenage Lil Wayne — has definitely proven to have staying power.From left: Birdman, Turk, Juvenile, Lil Wayne, Mannie Fresh and B.G. attend the 1999 Billboard Music Awards. Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection, via Getty ImagesJuvenile, 49, initially doubted the song would succeed as a single, and it took a last-minute trip to Nashville’s Music Row to finish the recording. Ultimately, the song helped usher bounce music, the New Orleans branch of hip-hop featuring fast beats and call-and-response chants, into the mainstream while strengthening the South as an epicenter of hip-hop. In interviews, the artists and key figures behind the song explained how it all came to be. These are edited excerpts from the conversations.JUVENILE I sung the “Back that Azz Up,” hook, probably half a year, about five, six months knowing that I was working on my album.MANNIE FRESH I heard the lyrics first. I was just like, “You know what? This is already magical.” So the beat got to marry it.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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    French Director Benoît Jacquot Is Charged With Rape

    Mr. Jacquot, 77, was accused of assaulting two actresses and barred from working with minors. He has denied any wrongdoing.The French movie director Benoît Jacquot was charged on Wednesday with the rape of two actresses, Julia Roy and Isild Le Besco, several years ago, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.Mr. Jacquot, 77, is one of two directors facing a wave of #MeToo accusations that have roiled France’s movie industry since the actress Judith Godrèche came forward to say he had raped her during an abusive relationship that started when she was 14 and he was 39.In the wake of Ms. Godrèche’s accusations, Ms. Roy, 34, and Ms. Le Besco, 41, publicly accused Mr. Jacquot of keeping them in similarly abusive relationships and of sexually abusing them when they were much younger actresses who starred in his films.Ms. Le Besco has accused Mr. Jacquot of raping her between the ages of 16 and 25. Ms. Roy, who acted in some of Mr. Jacquot’s films between 2016 and 2021, had accused him of sexual and physical abuse.Mr. Jacquot and the other director who has been accused, Jacques Doillon, 80, were taken into police custody on Monday for questioning.Both men have denied any wrongdoing.Mr. Doillon was released on Tuesday on medical grounds and without being charged, the Paris prosecutor’s office said, although it added that it was still examining how to proceed in his case. Ms. Godrèche has accused Mr. Doillon of sexually assaulting her twice.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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    ‘Space Cadet’ Review: Emma Roberts Shoots for the Stars

    In a lightweight comedy, the actress plays a bartender who dreams of becoming an astronaut. One problem: She has no qualifications for the job.Some of Hollywood’s most durable genre conventions have to do with outsiders and underdogs, often two categories rolled into one, who show up the self-important elites. The cowboy who rolls into town and brings justice in a not-quite-law-abiding way. The lovable con artist who makes a fool of the uppity society folks. The washed-up cop or spy called in for one last covert mission. The stereotypical sorority girl who turns out to be a secret legal genius.That last one is, of course, the “Legally Blonde” heroine Elle Woods, a fashion major who decides on a whim to go to Harvard Law School and discovers her unconventional qualifications give her insight that her more buttoned up classmates lack. Rex Simpson, the protagonist of “Space Cadet,” bears more than a passing resemblance to Elle, and not just because the actress Emma Roberts could play, at a squint, Reese Witherspoon’s niece. (Her actual aunt, Julia Roberts, played another scrappy underdog in “Erin Brockovich.”)Roberts’s most famous work might be in Ryan Murphy’s shows “American Horror Story” and “Scream Queens,” in which her knack for playing a certain kind of queen bee — gorgeous, cruel, one crisis away from combustion — makes her a magnetic presence. She’s great at a caricature, elevating those characters to satire without diluting their sugary poison. That flair for exaggeration would seem to make Rex Simpson the right role for her.“Space Cadet,” a comedy written and directed by Liz W. Garcia, is cast closely along the lines of “Legally Blonde,” with some beats lifted so clearly from that movie I started to wonder if they weren’t meant as jabs. Rex is a neon-wearing bartender in Florida who wrestles alligators and loves to party on the beach, but there’s more than meets the eye: She was a bit of a science genius in high school, and dreamed of being an astronaut. When her mother died, she turned down a full ride to Georgia Tech. By the time she attends her 10-year high school reunion with her best friend, Nadine (Poppy Liu), she’s down in the dumps over her failure to, uh, launch.A chance encounter with a former classmate who now runs a private spaceflight company sparks something in Rex. It’s time to chase her dreams. So she pops open the NASA website and decides to apply to be an astronaut. One problem, of course, is that she has absolutely no qualifications for the job. But is that a real barrier to Rex, the woman who invented patent-worthy tanning mirrors?The movie continues in this direction, sending her to NASA in a crop top to become an Astronaut Candidate (or AsCan, a moniker that provides more than a few jokes). Here is where the “Legally Blonde” comparisons come in. There is, for instance, a scene in a classroom where Rex doesn’t know the answer to a stern professor’s question, then one later where she does, demonstrating her growth. There’s a whole sequence in which people look askance at Rex upon her arrival at NASA, thanks to her peppy, kooky outfit that signals unseriousness.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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    Rob Stone, Master Marketer of Hip-Hop, Is Dead at 55

    A founder of the influential music magazine The Fader, he also bridged the worlds of hip-hop and the Fortune 500 with his innovative marketing agency.Rob Stone, who as a founder of the music magazine The Fader and the brand-strategy firm Cornerstone Agency bridged the sounds of the streets and the corporate suites, giving early exposure to rappers like Kanye West and Drake while brokering lucrative endorsements at a time when corporate America was still resistant to hip-hop, died on June 24 in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 55.His longtime professional partner, Jon Cohen, said the cause of his death, in a hospital, was lung cancer.Early in his music business career, first at SBK Records and later at Arista, Mr. Stone was charged with finding exposure and radio airplay for new artists. He began to establish himself as a hip-hop insider, working with performers like the Notorious B.I.G. and Craig Mack, as well as with Sean Combs, whose label, Bad Boy Records, had entered into a joint venture with Arista.Before long Mr. Stone decided to set out on his own, and in 1996 he started Cornerstone with Steve Rifkind, the founder of the hip-hop label Loud Records. Mr. Rifkind left the agency after a year and a half and was replaced by Mr. Cohen, who had also worked at SBK and had been Mr. Stone’s best friend since middle school on Long Island.Mr. Stone and Mr. Cohen went on to create eye-opening campaigns for brands like Sprite, Converse and Johnnie Walker that leveraged their relationships with labels and with new artists, who in the early days were all too sensitive to charges of selling out.Mr. Stone, left, in an undated photo with the musician and producer Pharrell Williams and Jon Cohen, who founded The Fader with Mr. Stone.via Jon CohenWe 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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    ‘Despicable Me 4’ Review: This Time They’re Superheroes

    The crew is back, but this time around they need to lie low. Sort of.If one wonders how a franchise on its sixth film in under 15 years (counting spinoffs) could still have any good ideas, one solution, apparently, is to simply throw all ideas at the screen. That’s the approach taken in “Despicable Me 4,” the latest, messily passable iteration of the deliriously successful franchise that follows the adventures of the reformed supervillain Gru.This one, helmed by the animated franchise’s longtime director and producer Chris Renaud, is a stream of mostly high-octane B-plots: Members of Gru’s family are struggling to adjust to life in witness protection after a new villain (Will Ferrell) becomes hellbent on revenge; Gru reluctantly mentors his teenage neighbor, who aspires to villainy; the Minions become lab-grown superheroes; and so on.As the movie noisily stretches itself out in too many directions, it largely sheds any meaningful charm or heart and struggles to cohere around a central story with actual stakes. It extends on a problem in the franchise that began with the third film, which relied more on gimmicky narrative and visual pyrotechnics and empty slapstick to keep things afloat. (What’s better than one Gru? Two!)There’s still occasional fun to be had and a budget that’s clearly put to use, but we’re mostly here, it seems, to keep the Minion cash cow chugging along. In all of the chaos, you may find your mind drifting off to the better, simpler days of the first film that set off the enterprise, when it was just a story of a bad guy gone good, but a genuine story nonetheless.Despicable Me 4Rated PG for Minion-related violence. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Seven Samurai’: Masterless Warriors in a Cinematic Masterpiece

    Akira Kurosawa’s epic has always been known for its action-film artistry, but there is emotional heft and nuance as well.Few movies have been more influential than “Seven Samurai,” an existential action film directed by Akira Kurosawa that, at longer than three hours, seemingly muscled its way into existence.“Seven Samurai,” made in Japan in the early 1950s, was by far the most expensive film then made in the country. And it required the longest shoot, in part because the exhausted director needed hospitalization. Trimmed by nearly one-third, it was introduced to the world at the 1954 Venice International Film Festival, sharing the Silver Lion award with three other movies.The abridged version opened in the United States in 1956 as “The Magnificent Seven,” a title soon to be appropriated by Hollywood. The full version did not arrive until 1982.Rarely screened since, Kurosawa’s masterpiece is showing — complete with intermission — for two weeks at Film Forum in a new 4K restoration. Its power is undiminished.The U.S. occupation of Japan ended only months before Kurosawa and his team began planning a film that, however ambiguously, would reassert Japan’s martial spirit. Production of “Seven Samurai” coincided with an equally elemental movie, allegorizing Japan’s nuclear martyrdom, “Godzilla” — both at the same studio, Toho.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