Aurelia Butler

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    What ‘Inside Out 2’ Teaches Us About Anxiety

    A new emotion has taken over Riley’s teenage mind. And she has lessons for us all.At the end of “Inside Out,” the 2015 Pixar movie about the emotional life of a girl named Riley, a new button appears on the console used to control Riley’s mood. It’s emblazoned with one word: Puberty.Joy, one of the main characters who embodies Riley’s emotions, shrugs it off.“Things couldn’t be better!” Joy says. “After all, Riley’s 12 now. What could happen?”The answer has finally arrived, nearly a decade later, in the sequel “Inside Out 2.” Riley is now a teenager attending a three-day hockey camp as new, more complex feelings take root in her mind.There’s Embarrassment, a lumbering fellow who unsuccessfully attempts to hide in his hoodie; the noodle-like Ennui, who lounges listlessly on a couch; and Envy, with her wide, longing eyes.But it is Anxiety who takes center stage, entering Riley’s mind with literal baggage (no less than six suitcases).“OK, how can I help?” she asks. “I can take notes, get coffee, manage your calendar, walk your dog, carry your things — watch you sleep?”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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    Jelly Roll’s Anthem of Perseverance, and 9 More New Songs

    Hear tracks by Zsela, the Decemberists, Khalid and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes) and at Apple Music here, and sign up for The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.Jelly Roll, ‘I Am Not Okay’The title of “I Am Not Okay” — a song Jelly Roll unveiled last month on “The Voice” — only tells half the story. It’s the kind of bruised, long-suffering, self-doubting, painfully open and high-drama testimonial that has turned Jelly Roll into a country star. He sings about sleepless nights and “voices in my head,” with production that rises from acoustic picking into stolid Southern rock behind his grainy voice. But soon Jelly Roll invokes a community — “I know I can’t be the only one who’s holding on for dear life” — and the promise of salvation: “The pain’ll wash away in a holy water tide.” Whether it’s in this life or beyond it, he declares, “It’s not OK, but we’re all gonna be all right.” It’s an arena-scale homily.NxWorries featuring Earl Sweatshirt and Rae Khalil, ‘WalkOnBy’NxWorries — the partnership of the producer Knxwledge and the rapper and singer Anderson .Paak — ponders the deeply mixed emotions of enjoying success while knowing how hard former peers are still striving. “When you walk on by, you’ve got shades to hide your eyes,” the chorus chides. The track is a relaxed, quiet-storm groove with tickling lead-guitar lines, but it provides contrast, not comfort. “No one has a clue what we had to do to survive,” Anderson .Paak raps, and adds, “When they ask me how I’m doing, I feel guilty inside.” Earl Sweatshirt admits he’s “lived too many lives removed from the strife.” But before the song ends, Rae Khalil sings for those left behind: “I feel like ain’t nobody caring/Everybody’s scared,” she laments.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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    Four Takeaways From the Metropolitan Opera’s Risky Season

    The company has bet that new operas will attract new, more diverse audiences and revitalize a stale repertory. Is the gamble paying off?For years, the Metropolitan Opera — the nation’s largest performing arts institution, with a $300 million budget and 4,000-seat theater — was like an ocean liner, changing course slowly, if at all.But now it is trying to be more like a speedboat. Since the pandemic, with costs up and ticket sales down, the Met’s programming has taken a sharp swerve toward contemporary works, which used to come along once in a blue moon. In recent seasons, the Met has done fewer productions than it used to, but about a third of its operas now come from our times.Peter Gelb, the company’s general manager, has staked a large part of his legacy on the bet that these new operas will attract new and more diverse audiences, revitalizing a house repertory better known for presenting “Tosca” and “La Traviata,” year after year. With the Met entering its summer break this week, is that bet paying off, artistically and financially?The experiment is, at best, a work in progress.The Met put on 18 operas during this so-so season, and if you line them up in order of paid attendance, only one of the six contemporary pieces, Anthony Davis’s “X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X,” is in the top half. Modern opera is not selling well, at least not better than classics like “The Magic Flute,” “Carmen” and “Turandot.”The Met’s economic model revolves around being able to efficiently bring back most pieces and have them find an audience. But this season raised alarms about how newer titles will do when revived. Gelb’s gamble on swiftly restaging two top sellers of recent seasons — Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” and Kevin Puts’s “The Hours” — fizzled, with the theater over a third empty for both. (The average performance across the season was 72 percent full.)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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    9 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

    Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickAll the emotions!Joy (Amy Poehler) and Anxiety (Maya Hawke) are two of the voices in the head of Riley, who is turning 13 and acquiring the feelings that come with it.Pixar/Disney/Pixar, via Associated Press‘Inside Out 2’In the sequel to the Pixar charmer “Inside Out,” Riley (voiced by Kensington Tallman) develops a new range of (anthropomorphized) emotions like Anxiety (Maya Hawke) and Envy (Ayo Edebiri) when she reaches puberty.From our review:Franchises often bank on nostalgia, so it’s easy to fall for “Inside Out 2,” which works largely because the first one does wonderfully well. The new movie conforms to the original’s ethos as well as inventive template, its conceit and visual design, so its pleasures are agreeably familiar.In theaters. Read the full review.Putting the “community” in community theater.Dan (Keith Kupferer) in “Ghostlight.”Luke Dyra/IFC Films‘Ghostlight’This family drama directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson follows Dan (Keith Kupferer) as he struggles to navigate relationships with his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), and daughter, Daisy (Katherine May Kupferer), after tragedy strikes. He finds solace in joining a local production of “Romeo and Juliet.”From our review:It’s a gentle story, full of tender moments, and knowing that the parents and daughter in the main cast are a family in real life increases the warmth. There’s a complexity to their conversations, the way their interactions are never one-note (as parents and teens often are in films), that you can sense has its roots in real life. By the end of the film, their emotional bond carries the story.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickMore like coming-of-rage.From left, Deena Ezral, Zafreen Zairizal, and Piqa in “Tiger Stripes.”Dark Star Pictures‘Tiger Stripes’After she gets her first period, Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) begins to experience strange and supernatural changes to her body in this feature debut from Amanda Nell Eu.From our review:Anyone who has gone through adolescence — in other words, everyone — knows the kind of myths, silences and shame that often accompany a maturing body. Eu smartly weaves that universality together with local myths and legends, and the result is a little eerie and unsettling, a film about dark things we’re afraid to speak about.In theaters. Read the full review.A swing and a miss.Ted (Logan Marshall-Green), left, makes his living as a stadium peanut vendor and Marty (David Duchovny) plays his father, a Red Sox fan, in “Reverse the Curse.”VerticalWe 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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    How ‘Inside Out 2’ Battles Anxiety

    The director Kelsey Mann narrates a sequence from his film, which pits Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) against Anxiety (Maya Hawke).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.It’s a battle inside the mind to prevent one young girl’s thoughts from being overrun by anxiety in this scene from “Inside Out 2.”The sequel once again sets the bulk of its action inside the mind of Riley, who this time around is contending with the onset of puberty. Her emotions are still anthropomorphized by a colorful collection of characters, but with a new stage of adolescence comes an additional cast of emotions. Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) arrives in the form of a wild-looking orange creature with a busy plume and a tendency to overreact.In this scene, Anxiety is directing a room full of mind workers to draw up projections of everything that could go wrong in Riley’s big hockey match the next day, keeping the girl tossing in her sleep at each negative thought.Narrating the scene, the film’s director, Kelsey Mann, says, “I always envisioned this being a movie about anxiety taking over, and was reflecting on my own life and how my anxiety does that in me.”As things become overwhelming, Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) infiltrates Anxiety’s plan and begins to draw up positive projections to send to Riley to make her feel better. As she tries to get the mind workers to rise up against Anxiety, a number of film references come into play, from “Norma Rae” to “Jerry Maguire,” with a little bit of “Network” thrown in.Read the “Inside Out 2” review.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    Remo Saraceni, 89, Dies; Inventor of the Walking Piano Seen in ‘Big’

    His keyboard, which became famous after Tom Hanks melodiously hopped on it, displayed Mr. Saraceni’s vision of technology powered by “people energy.”Remo Saraceni, a sculptor, toy inventor and technological fantasist best known for creating the Walking Piano that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on in a beloved scene of the hit 1988 movie “Big,” died on June 3 in Swarthmore, Pa. He was 89.The cause was heart failure, said Benjamin Medaugh, his assistant and caretaker. Mr. Saraceni died at Mr. Medaugh’s home, where he had been living in recent years.Mr. Saraceni’s specialty was “interactive electronics,” he told New York magazine in 1976. His other inventions included a clock that could reply aloud when you asked it the time, a stethoscope stereo system that could boom out your heartbeat, and Plexiglas clouds that lit up at the sound of a whistle with a pastel color appropriate for a room’s lighting. All were powered by what Mr. Saraceni (pronounced SAR-ah-SAY-nee) called “people energy”: the voice, touch and heat of the human body.The power of this sort of technology to enchant its users became a pivotal plot element of “Big,” and in turn the central prop in one of the most fondly recalled scenes in recent movie history.After wishing to be “big” at a magical Zoltar fortunetelling machine, the movie’s main character, Josh Baskin, transforms from a 12-year-old boy into a young adult (played by Mr. Hanks). He gets a clerical job at a toy company whose owner, Mac (Robert Loggia), recognizes Josh as his employee one Saturday at F.A.O. Schwarz. Mac is a shrewd capitalist surveying his industry in action; Josh is a boy exulting in the world of toys (albeit in a man’s body).As Josh impresses Mac with his close knowledge of F.A.O. Schwarz’s wares, they happen upon Mr. Saraceni’s nearly 16-foot-long Walking Piano. With childlike absorption, Josh begins hopping on it to the tune of “Heart and Soul.” Mac, inspired by Josh’s un-self-conscious delight, joins him, making the performance a duet. To an awe-struck crowd, the two of them then do a rendition of “Chopsticks.”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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    ‘Dancing for the Devil’: A Cult Docuseries That Takes Its Time

    This three-part Netflix documentary examines the supposed scheme to exploit TikTok dancers — and proves why cult narratives shouldn’t be rushed.There’s a train wreck quality to most documentaries about cults, an invitation to crane your neck at weird rituals, bizarre leaders and peculiar anecdotes. By nature, cults are insular, inscrutable and strange to outsiders. But for those on the inside, every teaching and action seems to follow a logic, to make sense. That’s sort of the point.I’ve watched a lot of cult documentaries in the past years, and so have a lot of Americans — they’re adjacent to true crime, which makes them perfect streaming fodder. Like many people, I settled in to watch Derek Doneen’s three-part documentary series “Dancing for the Devil: The 7M TikTok Cult” (streaming on Netflix) because I realized I’d seen some of the dancers on my own social media feeds, and was baffled to discover that lighthearted dancing to popular oldies could be cultish behavior.To my surprise, the series made its case by digging behind headlines, exposing how the supposedly controlling and manipulative pastor Robert Shinn found ways to dominate his church members for decades, long before the advent of TikTok. Parishioners tell stories that are disturbing, especially for anyone who’s had sustained contact with high-control religious groups — tales of abuse, extortion, grooming and worse. The series claims that Shinn most recently started a talent management company (called 7M) and attracted beautiful, aspirational young people, and then filched their earnings and kept them under his thumb. (Shinn did not participate in the documentary and denies wrongdoing.) Former 7M dancers as well as former church members describe the tactics they say he used to exploit them. They are chilling.I happen to know a lot of people who’ve been in cults, some of whom managed to leave, so I’m extra sensitive to a common flaw of cult documentaries: Sometimes they focus more on the train wreck than on those the train wrecked. This is particularly an issue in feature-length documentaries — it’s tough, in two hours, to explain the entire story and center the survivors, rather than the perpetrator.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