Aurelia Butler

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    Watch Demi Moore Transform in ‘The Substance’

    The writer and director Coralie Fargeat narrates a sequence from her film, which is nominated for best picture.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.A miracle drug starts to create some side effects in this scene from “The Substance.”Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) has been taking a black-market drug that has created a younger version of herself, Sue (Margaret Qualley). Her time must be divided between the younger and older versions on a strict schedule, but in this sequence, Elisabeth finds out what happens if she doesn’t respect the balance of that time.She wakes up after Sue’s wild evening to a disheveled apartment and one aged appendage, the result of Sue taking more fluid from Elisabeth’s body to buy more time in her young body. Elisabeth notices that one of her fingers now looks dramatically older than the others.As she runs to the sink to try to wash the age away, the pace become faster and closer. Narrating the scene, the director Coralie Fargeat said, “The idea was all those close-ups that go more and more macro on the finger is to project Elisabeth’s fears and Elisabeth’s thoughts about what’s happening to her.”As Elisabeth calls the Substance company to discuss her “alteration,” she is taunted by a giant billboard out her window that shows her younger self. Fargeat said that she included a shot from above on Elisabeth to “film her discomfort, the fact that she’s now threatened.” This point of view is almost “a face-off with her double, and above her as if she was tiny and oppressed by the situation.”Read the “Substance” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    Kendrick Lamar’s Bell Bottoms Steal the Super Bowl Halftime Show

    Could it be that the lasting impact of Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show will be … the return of bell bottoms?At halftime of a fairly dull game (unless, well, you’re an Eagles fan), the rapper materialized onstage, flanked by dancers in monotonal outfits of either blue, red or white, dressed in clothes that clearly repped team Lamar.His varsity jacket, custom-made by Martine Rose, a British designer known for her witty and warped sportswear, was coated with patches to please the Lamarologists in the Superdome. The front read “Gloria,” seemingly a reference to the last song on his latest album “GNX.” The back had a “pgLang” insignia, the creative agency Mr. Lamar co-runs with Dave Free.Mr. Lamar’s jacket was made by Martine Rose, a British designer.Emily Kask for The New York TimesThere were other delectable elements to his outfit: a tilted fitted cap with a feather brooch pinned on the side, as well as a conspicuous “a” chain that some online took to be a head nod to the villainous “A Minor” line in Mr. Lamar’s Grammy-gathering “Not Like Us” — a line that the stadium hollered in unison at the appointed time. (Others offered that the “a” could be some sort of nod to pgLang, though it also looked a little like the Amazon logo.)But the pièce de résistance, the item that people started texting me about, oh, two minutes into his performance, were those jeans, which came from the French fashion house Celine. Their official product name is the “flared surf jean in summer dazed wash.” At $1,300 they do not come cheap.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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    In ‘Festen,’ a Nightmare Birthday Becomes an Opera

    The composer who put Anna Nicole Smith’s life onstage has a new piece: an adaptation of a cult movie about child abuse.Mark-Anthony Turnage has a habit of provoking stuffy opera fans.The revered British composer’s 1988 debut, “Greek,” appalled some audiences by transposing Sophocles’s “Oedipus Rex” into to a cursing, brawling working-class London family. And some critics hated the pole dancers onstage in “Anna Nicole,” his opera about the tragic life of the Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith.Now, Turnage is preparing to present “Festen,” in which a patriarch’s 60th birthday party descends into chaos after a speech exposes a family’s deepest secrets. When “Festen” premieres on Tuesday at the Royal Ballet and Opera in London, the show’s dark subject matter looks set to upset traditionalists, too.Based on Thomas Vinterberg’s cult Danish-language movie of the same name, “Festen” includes descriptions of child abuse and suicide. The opera’s 35-strong cast will fight, engage in simulated sex and hurl racist abuse at the show’s only Black character.Yet Turnage insisted in a recent interview that he hadn’t set out to challenge anyone — except himself. “Part of me thinks, ‘Why don’t I just do a nice fluffy story that will be performed a lot?’” Turnage said. “But I know if I did, it wouldn’t be any good.”Allan Clayton as Christian, who accuses his father, Helge, of abuse.Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times“I need to be provoked,” Turnage added. “I need an extreme or strong subject to write good music.”This “Festen” premiere comes just over 25 years after Vinterberg’s movie won the jury prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival. Released as “The Celebration” in the United States, “Festen” was created under the banner of the Dogme95 movement, which required movie directors to follow 10 strict rules. Those included only using hand-held cameras and a ban on music, unless it occurs naturally in a scene.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 Bangles, One of the Biggest All-Girl Bands, Want to Reclaim Their Legacy

    The music industry pushed the group behind hits like “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame” hard, then pulled them apart. A new book tells their story.The first time Susanna Hoffs and the Peterson sisters sang together and their voices blended, the frisson was unmistakable. “We knew we had something,” Hoffs said. “We created a band in that moment.”Hoffs, 66, beamed at the memory, sitting in her kitchen on a late January afternoon. Dressed in a sweater and slacks, the diminutive singer and guitarist sipped coffee, an old Margaret Keane painting hanging above her. Her airy Brentwood, Calif., home is just a few blocks from where the Bangles were born, on a cool evening in early 1981 in her parents’ garage.“It’s an overused word, but we were organic,” the guitarist Vicki Peterson, 67, said. “We formed ourselves, played the music we loved, we really were a garage band.” But a garage band “that somehow became pop stars,” the drummer Debbi Peterson, 63, noted. Both sisters were interviewed in video conversations.The Bangles broke big, scoring five Top 5 hits and storming MTV with inescapable songs like “Manic Monday” and “Eternal Flame.” They were one of the era’s rare all-girl groups — and became one of the most successful female bands of all time — a crew of puckish 20-somethings showcasing their collective songwriting and vocal chops.But one of the defining bands of the 1980s also ended in spectacular fashion. Less than a decade after its birth, the group imploded in its manager’s Hollywood mansion, the sisterhood of its members lost amid a farrago of fame and mental fatigue.That story plays out vividly in “Eternal Flame: The Authorized Biography of the Bangles” by Jennifer Otter Bickerdike, out on Feb. 18. Bickerdike — the author of books about Nico and Britney Spears — fashioned a history of a bygone era in the music business, one in which the outsize influence of major labels, domineering producers and Machiavellian managers could routinely make or break a band.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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    Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl Halftime Show: The Peak of All Rap Battles?

    The first rapper to headline the N.F.L.’s biggest stage solo made his Drake diss “Not Like Us” the centerpiece of his set at the expense of a larger statement.Of course he performed “Not Like Us.”In the lead-up to Kendrick Lamar’s headline performance at the Super Bowl LIX halftime show on Sunday night, most of the chatter focused on whether he would play the song that was effectively the knockout blow in his monthslong battle with Drake last year. The song that became Lamar’s signature hit, and a generational anthem. The song that won both record and song of the year at the Grammys just a week ago. The song that appeared to recalibrate hip-hop’s power rankings, perhaps permanently.So yes, Lamar played the song. Toward the end of the set, of course, building up anticipation with a couple of brief musical nods to it, toying with the audience’s emotions and thirst.Lamar leaned on songs from his most recent album, “GNX,” like “Man at the Garden” and “Peekaboo.”Doug Mills/The New York TimesBut what will always be remembered from this performance is not the musical choices Lamar made, or the aesthetics of his choreography, or the silhouettes of his outfit. What will remain is his grin when he finally began rapping that song. It was wide, persistent, almost cartoonish in shape. The grin of a man having the time of his life at the expense of an enemy.Lamar is perhaps the most sober of all of hip-hop’s contemporary greats, a ferocious storyteller who values tongue-tripping polemics and introspection; he is not exactly a beacon of joy. During the beef, he appeared to take on the dismantling of Drake as necessary homework.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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    ‘Anora’ Wins Big at Producers and Directors Guild Awards

    The film that takes those two major industry prizes almost always goes on to win the best-picture Oscar.This tumultuous Oscar season has a certified front-runner.On Saturday night in Los Angeles, more than a month after “Anora” lost every award it was nominated for at the Golden Globes, the Sean Baker-directed comedy took top honors at awards shows held by the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America. The later victory is especially telling: Since 2009, when both the PGA and the academy expanded their number of best-film nominees from five, the PGA winner has gone on to claim the best-picture Oscar all but three times.The ceremonies were held opposite each other in Beverly Hills and Baker had to race from the DGAs, which wrapped first, to the PGAs. While accepting his award at the earlier ceremony, he appeared gobsmacked.“My impostor syndrome is skyrocketing right now,” Baker said, “as well as my cortisol levels.”The victories capped a good weekend for “Anora,” which also won the top prize at the Critics Choice Awards on Friday night. And though Baker may be battling impostor syndrome, 18 of the last 20 DGA winners also went on to take the best-director Oscar, which puts him in good company.Other winners at both shows included “Shogun,” and “Hacks,” which won drama-series and comedy-series awards, respectively. “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross took the DGA award for first-time theatrical filmmaker.“Emilia Pérez,” which led the Oscar field with 13 nominations but has been battered by controversy involving old tweets made by its star Karla Sofía Gascón, failed to take a prize at either ceremony.Here is the list of PGA winners:FilmFeature Film“Anora”Animated Feature“The Wild Robot”Documentary“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story”TelevisionEpisodic Drama“Shogun”Episodic Comedy“Hacks”Limited or Anthology Series“Baby Reindeer”Television Movie or Streamed Movie“The Greatest Night in Pop”Nonfiction Television“STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces”Live, Variety, Sketch, Stand-up or Talk Show“Saturday Night Live”Game or Competition Show“The Traitors”Sports Program“Simone Biles Rising”Children’s Program“Sesame Street”Short-Form Program“Succession: Controlling the Narrative”And here is the list of DGA winners. For the complete list, go to dga.org.FilmFeatureSean Baker, “Anora”Read our review.First-Time FeatureRaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”Read our review.DocumentaryBrendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, “Porcelain War”TelevisionDrama Series“Shogun,” Frederick E.O. ToyeRead our review.Comedy Series“Hacks,” Lucia AnielloTelevision Movies and Limited Series“Ripley,” Steven Zaillian More

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    What to Know About the Karla Sofía Gascón and ‘Emilia Pérez’ Controversies

    The actress’s old social media posts have threatened to derail the film’s Oscar campaign, but backlash has been building for months for other reasons.When “Emilia Pérez” premiered at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival last May, the reaction from critics in attendance and the jury was overwhelmingly positive.The French-produced, Spanish-language musical about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman and attempts to become a paragon of virtue won the jury prize (essentially third place) and its stars — Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz — shared the best actress award.Netflix, the powerful global streaming company that has had a best picture Oscar in its sights but out of its grasp since the 2019 ceremony, acquired the unconventional picture by the French director Jacques Audiard and launched an imposing awards campaign. Widely embraced by the film industry, “Emilia Pérez” received 13 Oscar nominations last month — leading this year’s pack and falling one short of tying the record.One of those nominations belongs to Gascón, who plays the titular character and became the first openly trans actor nominated for an Academy Award. In recent weeks, she has become engulfed in controversy that has threatened to derail the awards hopes for both her and the film. But since “Emilia Pérez” debuted in select theaters and then on Netflix late last year, there has been plenty of backlash on multiple fronts that has marred its pathway to Oscar glory. Here are the broad strokes of the controversies.Karla Sofía Gascón’s Resurfaced Social Media PostsLast week, the journalist Sarah Hagi unearthed offensive statements that Gascón posted in Spanish on X over the last few years. The disparaging comments touched on topics like George Floyd, Islam, and even the 2021 Oscar ceremony.Gascón has since apologized, deleted her X account and given a lengthy interview on CNN en Español that she booked without Netflix’s involvement or authorization. She has also stayed active on Instagram, defending herself against criticism.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