Aurelia Butler

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    ‘The Promised Land,’ ‘Biosphere’ and More Streaming Gems

    Speculative science fiction, period drama and sly thrillers are among this month’s off-the-beaten-path recommendations from your subscription streamers.‘The Promised Land’ (2023)Stream it on Hulu.Mads Mikkelsen stars in this epic period drama as Capt. Ludvig Kahlen, described as “a presumptuous soldier in a flea-ridden uniform” — and that’s what they say to his face. The sneers and humiliation he is subjected to by the ruling class of mid-18th-century Denmark give the picture its juice; the potent narrative is as much a pointed class commentary as a historical drama, as the poor but dedicated Kahlen tries to build a workable manor out of a barren slab of heath, and discovers that his idealistic notions of honor and hard work won’t get him much of anywhere with these aristocrats. Chief among them is Simon Bennebjerg’s De Schinkel, the most loathsome movie villain in many a moon. And the director Nikolaj Arcel builds up a furious head of steam on the way to an utterly satisfying conclusion.‘A Simple Favor’ (2018)Stream it on Netflix.Paul Feig made his name directing such movies as “Bridesmaids” and “Spy,” uproarious comic gems that provided career-best showcases for their female stars. He shines a similarly flattering spotlight on Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively here, though with a surprising genre shift, eschewing the broad comedy of his earlier work for this stylish, semi-Sapphic neo-noir thriller. Kendrick is a typical suburban mom who finds herself dazzled by (and quietly attracted to) Lively’s sophisticated outlier; their children are schoolmates, but they may as well be from different planets. The twists and turns of Jessica Sharzer’s screenplay (from the Darcey Bell novel) are compelling, but Kendrick and Lively’s swoony relationship, and its spiky playfulness, are what make “A Simple Favor” sing.‘Dean’ (2017)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.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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    Do You Recognize This Film (and Book) From a Movie Still?

    Can you identify a book title just by looking at a photo from its film adaptation? (Or maybe if you had just a little hint?) That’s the challenge in this week’s installment of Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books and stories that have gone on to find new life in the form of movies, television shows, theatrical productions and other formats.Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their screen adaptations. More

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    Taylor Swift’s ‘Tortured Poets’ Logs an Eighth Straight Week at No. 1

    Billie Eilish is No. 2, and Charli XCX debuts strong at No. 3.Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor.For two months now, Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” has dominated the Billboard album chart, fending off challenges from Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa and the K-pop group Ateez, often with the help of special “versions” featuring extra tracks.This week, “Tortured Poets” logs its eighth consecutive time at No. 1, with the equivalent of 128,000 sales in the United States, including 136 million streams and 23,000 copies sold as a full package, according to the tracking service Luminate.Although two of Swift’s previous albums have posted more times at No. 1 overall — “Fearless” and “1989” had 11 each — none has held the top spot for as many weeks in a row. Consecutive runs of eight weeks or longer are rare on the chart. The last releases to do so were both by Morgan Wallen: “One Thing at a Time,” which logged 12 last year, and “Dangerous: The Double Album,” with 10 in 2021. For another example you have to go back to Drake’s “Views,” which led the chart for nine straight weeks at No. 1 in 2016.Also this week, Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” is No. 2 in its fourth week out, while “Brat,” the latest from the British pop singer-songwriter Charli XCX, opens in third place with the equivalent of 82,000 sales. Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” holds at No. 4 and Bon Jovi’s latest, “Forever,” starts at No. 5, helped by collectible vinyl and CD editions. More

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    A Met Orchestra of Mixed Quality Returns to Carnegie Hall

    The tenure of Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera’s music director, can be difficult to assess. That much was evident over two concerts.So far, Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s tenure as the Metropolitan Opera’s music director has been mixed. That much was evident over two Met Orchestra concerts at Carnegie Hall last week that were by turns excellent and mystifying.This group’s specialties can seem indistinct; its quality, inconsistent. And, in general, it has been difficult to assess these players under Nézet-Séguin, who took over in 2018. A music director needs to be present to shape the sound of an ensemble, and he has been chronically overscheduled, juggling the Met with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Orchestre Métropolitain in Montreal, not to mention his post as the head of conducting at the Curtis Institute of Music.On a practical level, a music director also needs to build an orchestra, and the Met’s is still regrouping from a wave of retirements during the pandemic. For reasons perhaps beyond his control, though, Nézet-Séguin has hired a mere 13 instrumentalists since he started.He has exuded contemporary cool, proudly displaying his painted fingernails on Met posters; yet he has also, in a reinforcement of maestro mythology, referred to himself as the “father” of the company. In 2021, he broke convention by speaking out in favor of the orchestra’s musicians during a labor dispute, but only when it mattered least: nearly a year after they had been furloughed during the pandemic, and after they had already reached a deal for partial pay.Last September, he conducted the season-opening production, “Dead Man Walking.” That would seem like a given for a music director, but he was absent for “Medea,” the opener in 2022. “Dead Man,” at least, represents Nézet-Séguin’s admirable attempt to modernize the Met’s repertoire. But after that show, he conducted just two of the six contemporary works on offer this season. You could say he was focusing on the classics instead, but he led only four of the 18 total operas programmed.When he does conduct at the Met, he has a penchant for extremes, either colossal or exquisite. At the delicate end, he can be brilliant, with detail-oriented transparency and prayerful serenity. But when he evokes immensity, it is often crude and unbalanced.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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    ‘Inside Out 2’ Returns Pixar to Box Office Heights

    The sequel was expected to collect at least $145 million in the United States and Canada over the weekend, about 60 percent more than anticipated.Pixar is finally back in fighting form.The Disney-owned animation studio’s 28th movie, “Inside Out 2,” arrived to roughly $145 million in estimated North American ticket sales from Thursday night to Sunday, ending a cold streak that began in March 2020, when theaters closed because of the coronavirus pandemic.It was the second-biggest opening weekend in Pixar’s 29-year history, trailing only the superhero sequel “Incredibles 2,” which arrived to about $180 million in 2018.“They’re back,” David A. Gross, a film consultant who publishes a newsletter on box office numbers, said of Pixar. “This is a sensational opening.”Based on prerelease surveys that track audience interest, box office analysts had expected “Inside Out 2” to take in about $90 million in the United States and Canada over the weekend. That total would have been strong — on par with opening-weekend ticket sales for the first “Inside Out” in 2015.“Inside Out 2” sold an additional $125 million in partial release overseas, bringing its worldwide opening total to around $270 million, analysts said. The PG-rated movie cost an estimated $200 million to make and at least another $100 million to market.“Inside Out 2,” about a 13-year-old girl and the personified emotions inside her puberty-scrambled mind, received exceptional reviews. Ticket buyers gave the movie an A grade in CinemaScore exit polls, the same score the first film in the franchise received.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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    Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, Who Survived Him, Are the Focus of ‘Firebrand’

    “Firebrand” focuses on his sixth spouse as she tries to outlast the ailing king and his treacherous court. “I thought of it as a thriller,” the director says.Midway through Karim Aïnouz’s “Firebrand,” King Henry VIII of England takes a break from playing bowls on the lawn to walk with his sixth wife, Katherine Parr. Gripping her arm tightly, limping heavily, the king, played with terrifying menace by Jude Law, offers a threat to those who betray him. “They know what would happen,” he says quietly, turning to face the queen. “We’d have to have their head cut off.” Alicia Vikander’s Queen Katherine smiles faintly. “I’m sure you would come up with something much more creative,” she says.“Firebrand,” which is based on the Elizabeth Freemantle novel “Queen’s Gambit” and opens Friday, is set during Henry’s final months, in 1546-1547. Katherine is trying to keep her head on her shoulders while the king, ill, paranoid and angry, grows increasingly suspicious of her alliance with religious reformers. Egged on by the poison-drip whisperings of the power-hungry bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner (Simon Russell Beale), who fears Katherine’s progressive leanings, a witch-hunt begins in an effort to convict her of heresy and treason.“I thought of it as a thriller,” said Aïnouz, 58, by phone last month from the Cannes Film Festival, where his movie, “Motel Destino,” was in competition. “There are so many stories about the wives who perished under Henry. Katherine was older, politically astute, intellectual, rebellious. She survived. And yet there were no movies about her. This was a way to write history that wasn’t about dead women.”Many people coming to the movie will know that Parr survived Henry, but not “what a battle of wills that survival entailed,” Tim Robey wrote in The Telegraph, after the film was shown in competition at Cannes last year. “This pungent, meaty historical drama posits them as mortal enemies not just in the domestic sphere: ideologically, they were on different pages of separate Bibles.”A historical drama was an unlikely choice for the Brazilian director’s first foray into English-language filmmaking after a career of critically lauded small-scale movies and documentaries. When the London producer Gabrielle Tana approached him in 2020 about “Firebrand,” his first thought, he said, was, “Did she really propose this to me?”Karim Aïnouz, the director, working with Law and Vikander on his first English-language film.Larry Horricks, via Roadside Attractions and 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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    A Hungarian Rapper’s Bandwagon Gets an Unlikely New Rider

    Azahriah, who has rapped about the joy of cannabis, has shot to fame in Hungary. That may explain why he has been applauded by the country’s conservative leader, Viktor Orban.The 22-year-old rapper is so popular — he recently held three sold-out concerts at Hungary’s largest stadium — that even Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a stodgy champion of traditional values not known for being in tune with youth or its culture, claims he is a fan.Mr. Orban has said he particularly likes the song “Rampapapam,” a reggae-flavored ode to the joys of cannabis. It’s a surprising choice given the prime minister’s conservative views and one that raised questions about whether he has actually listened to it or just watched its video showing the musician playing soccer, the leader’s favorite sport.But Attila Bauko, a Hungarian superstar better known as Azahriah, has won so many passionate fans in Hungary that Mr. Orban, who has had 14 years in power, appears to want some of the rapper’s energy and stardust.“Since they see that a lot of people like me, it seems they want to be friendly,” Azahriah said in an interview backstage before a concert last month at the Puskas Arena, a sports stadium in Budapest, that attracted nearly 50,000 people for each of the three nights he performed.Official favor “should be flattering,” Azahriah said, “but feels strange and uncomfortable” when so many of his young fans loathe the governing Fidesz party.Fans singing along at Azahriah’s concert last month in Budapest.Akos Stiller for The New York TimesWe 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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    Sam Smith Throws a Gay Pride Party

    The British singer selected Julius’, a Manhattan tavern with a storied past, as the place to celebrate the 10th anniversary of “In the Lonely Hour.”On Thursday night in the West Village of Manhattan, the soulful British balladeer Sam Smith hosted a private party at Julius’, which is known as the oldest gay bar in New York. Friends and fans sweltered inside the tavern, sipping vodka tonics as they waited for a late-night performance by Smith and a rumored special guest, Alicia Keys.Smith, who uses they/them pronouns, chatted with fans by the worn wooden bar. Standing about 6-foot-7 in Vivienne Westwood platform boots, paired with a tartan kilt and a big belt, the Grammy-winning singer towered above those who asked for selfies.The gathering commemorated the 10th anniversary of Smith’s debut album, “In the Lonely Hour,” which included the slow-burning anthems “Stay with Me” and “I’m Not the Only One.” Little menus along the bar advertised cocktails named after Smith songs like “Good Thing” (a cosmo) and “Life Support” (a margarita). And they noted Julius’ relevance as a historic site, detailing the events of the 1966 Sip-In, an act of civil disobedience that predated the Stonewall uprising by several years.The crowd at Smith’s barroom party.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesWith Pride celebrations in full force throughout the West Village, Smith had chosen Julius’ precisely because of its connection to the Sip-In, when members of the Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group, visited Julius’ to challenge bars that would not serve gay customers. When the activists were refused service after intentionally revealing that they were “homosexuals,” the incident made news, attracting the attention of the Commission on Human Rights.“Why did I pick Julius’?” Smith said, leaning down to a reporter. “Because I’ve never felt more safe in any other bar in the world than here.”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