Aurelia Butler

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    John Koerner, Bluesman Who Inspired a Young Bob Dylan, Dies at 85

    A spindly guitarist nicknamed Spider, Mr. Koerner was Mr. Dylan’s first friend in the scruffy world of Minneapolis bohemia where he learned about folk music.Spider John Koerner, a blues and folk singer whose work drew praise from the Doors and the Beatles (if not the general public) and who, in 1960, taught his friend Bobby Zimmerman about traditional American music, then watched as the young man metamorphosed into Bob Dylan, died on Saturday at his home in Minneapolis. He was 85.The cause was cancer, his son Chris Kalmbach said.On a self-made seven-string guitar and also on a 12-string — like his idol, Lead Belly — Mr. Koerner (pronounced KER-ner) yowled and foot-stomped his way through songs about gold miners and frogs who went a-courtin’. He played the bars and coffeehouses of the nation’s university towns, and he performed both standards and his own original songs, which came out, as one critic put it, “pre-antiquated.”Musically, he was best known as a member of Koerner, Ray & Glover, along with Dave “Snaker” Ray, another guitarist and vocalist, and Tony “Little Sun” Glover, who played harmonica. Their debut album, “Blues, Rags & Hollers,” released in 1963, was an early attempt by young middle-class white men to imitate Black blues musicians whose hard-to-find recordings they had obsessively collected.Mr. Koerner first became known as a member of Koerner, Ray & Glover, whose first album was released in 1963 and reissued in 1995.Compass Records“Demolishing the puny vocalizations of ‘folk’ trios like the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul and Whatsit, Koerner and company showed how it should be done,” David Bowie wrote in a 2003 article in Vanity Fair in which he included “Blues, Rags & Hollers” on a list of his 25 favorite albums.The Doors decided to sign with Elektra Records in part because it had issued that album. The founder and chief executive of Elektra, Jac Holzman, often said the Beatles authorized him to issue an album of baroque interpretations of their work after John Lennon told him, “Anyone who records Koerner, Ray & Glover is OK with me.”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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    Fred Roos, Casting Director and Coppola Collaborator, Dies at 89

    Widely considered to have the best eye for talent in Hollywood, he shared the best-picture Oscar with Francis Ford Coppola for “The Godfather Part II.”Fred Roos, a casting director and producer who championed the early careers of A-list actors like Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson and Carrie Fisher, and whose long collaboration with Francis Ford Coppola and his family, stretching from “The Godfather” (1972) to this year’s “Megalopolis,” earned him an Oscar and an Emmy, died on Saturday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 89.His death was announced by his family in a statement.Many in Hollywood said that Mr. Roos had the best eye for talent in the business. He championed the young, relatively unknown Mr. Pacino for the role of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather” when the studio executives at Paramount wanted a better-known actor, like Robert Redford or Warren Beatty. And when his friend George Lucas was leaning toward Amy Irving for the role of Princess Leia in “Star Wars” (1977), Mr. Roos suggested he cast Carrie Fisher instead.Mr. Lucas listened — after all, it was Mr. Roos who had assembled the cast for his breakout film, “American Graffiti,” in 1973, including then-unknown actors like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss and Mackenzie Phillips. He later did something similar for Mr. Coppola’s 1983 adaptation of the novel “The Outsiders,” bringing together the future stars Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze.Al Pacino as Michael Corleone and Talia Shire as his sister, Connie, in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II.” Mr. Roos was a producer of the film, which won the best-picture Oscar in 1975.John Springer Collection/Corbis, via Getty ImagesHarrison Ford and Linda Christensen in George Lucas’s “American Graffiti,” for which Mr. Roos assembled the cast.Screen Archives/Getty ImagesMr. Roos was particularly taken with Mr. Ford, whom he met while the young actor was doing carpentry work on his home. After getting him the uncredited role of Bob Falfa, a wisecracking drag racer, in “American Graffiti,” he cast him in small roles in Mr. Coppola’s films “The Conversation” (1974) and “Apocalypse Now” (1979).But when he suggested Mr. Ford for the role of Han Solo in “Star Wars,” Mr. Lucas balked. He said he only wanted to cast actors he had never worked with.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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    Morgan Spurlock, Documentarian Known for ‘Super Size Me,’ Dies at 53

    His 2004 film followed Mr. Spurlock as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for a month. It was nominated for an Oscar, but it later came in for criticism.Morgan Spurlock, a documentary filmmaker who gained fame with his Oscar-nominated 2004 film “Super Size Me,” which followed him as he ate nothing but McDonald’s for 30 days — but later stepped back from the public eye after admitting to sexual misconduct — died on Thursday in New York City. He was 53.His brother Craig Spurlock said the cause was complications of cancer.A self-described attention hound with a keen eye for the absurd, Mr. Spurlock was a playwright and television producer when he rocketed to global attention with “Super Size Me,” an early entry into the genre of gonzo participatory filmmaking that borrowed heavily from the confrontational style of Michael Moore and the up-close-and-personal influences of reality TV, which was then just emerging as a genre.The film’s approach was straightforward: Mr. Spurlock would eat nothing but McDonald’s food for a month, and if a server at the restaurant offered to “supersize” the meal — that is, to give him the largest portion available for each item — he would accept.The movie then follows Mr. Spurlock and his ever-patient girlfriend through his 30-day odyssey, splicing in interviews with health experts and visits to his increasingly disturbed physician. At the end of the month, he was 25 pounds heavier, depressed, puffy-faced and experiencing liver dysfunction.The film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, grossed over $22 million, made Mr. Spurlock a household name, earned him an Academy Award nomination for best documentary and helped spur a sweeping backlash against the fast-food industry — though only temporarily; today, McDonald’s has 42,000 locations worldwide, its stock is near an all-time high, and 36 percent of Americans eat fast food on any given day.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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    ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’: What Do Critics Say? What Do You Say?

    The reviews all agree that the follow-up to “Fury Road” feels sadder and heavier. But is that a good thing? That’s where the disagreements start.Following up what is considered one of the greatest action movies of the last decade is no easy feat. But that was the task facing George Miller as he set out to make a prequel to his Oscar-winning 2015 blockbuster, “Mad Max: Fury Road.” The result, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” tells the origin story of the Imperator Furiosa, the breakout character who first appeared in “Fury Road” — played by Charlize Theron then and Anya Taylor-Joy now.The new film hits theaters on Friday, but critics weighed in when it premiered at Cannes last week. Comparisons with the other films in the “Mad Max” series (and especially the beloved “Fury Road”) were inevitable, and critics seem to agree that “Furiosa” feels heavier and sadder — but it’s less unanimous if that’s a positive or a negative. Read what they had to say, and let us know in the comments what you think of the movie.Manohla Dargis, The New York Times: “Scene for scene, ‘Furiosa’ is very much a complement to ‘Fury Road,’ yet the new movie never fully pops the way the earlier one does. As it turns out, it is one thing to watch a movie about warriors high-tailing it out of Dodge on the road to nowhere. It’s something else entirely to watch a woman struggle to survive a world that eats its young and everyone else, too. Miller is such a wildly inventive filmmaker that it’s been easy to forget that he keeps making movies about the end of life as we know it.” Read more.Owen Gleiberman, Variety: “What it all adds up to is a movie that can be darkly bedazzling, and that will be embraced and defended in a dozen passionate ways — but it’s one that, to me, falls very short of being a ‘Mad Max’ home run.” Read more.David Ehrlich, IndieWire: “Does ‘Furiosa’ deliver the kind of system shock that made its predecessor feel like such a violent rebuke to superhero-era Hollywood? Absolutely not — though its two bona fide set pieces both eclipse the most electric moments of ‘Fury Road,’ while also iterating on them in fantastic new ways (the much-hyped ‘Stowaway to Nowhere’ sequence is an out-of-body experience). But Miller’s decision to shift gears ultimately proves to be his prequel’s greatest strength.” Read more.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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    ‘Atlas’ Review: Jennifer Lopez Thriller Wonders Whether A.I. Is All That Bad

    Jennifer Lopez stars in a sci-fi action thriller that wonders whether artificial intelligence is really all that bad.In 1927, a humanoid robot showed up and wreaked havoc in Fritz Lang’s expressionist science fiction film “Metropolis,” a memorable early example of cinema’s artificial intelligence antagonists. Since then, many a sci-fi movie, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the “Terminator” offerings to “The Matrix,” has proposed that some kind of A.I. will try to take us out.But it’s scarier now. No longer is a menacing A.I. a thought experiment, mere metaphor. Every script with an A.I. villain operates in a world where the audience has probably thought about, or used, an actual A.I. to do some kind of task. So the notion of an “A.I. terrorist,” as in Brad Peyton’s new sci-fi action movie “Atlas,” seems queasily plausible.That terrorist has a name: Harlan (Simu Liu). In a fast-moving prologue, we quickly learn how he came to threaten humanity with extinction, wiping out millions of people before abruptly decamping for outer space. Humans, left behind on a “Blade Runner”-looking earth, protected only by the International Coalition of Nations (I.C.N.), wait uneasily for Harlan’s return, like a cutting-edge second coming of Christ.After 28 years of peering nervously at the skies, the I.C.N. captures an A.I. bot known to be associated with Harlan. Something is afoot. A scientist named Atlas Shepherd (Jennifer Lopez) is called in as the world’s leading expert on Harlan — in part because her mother, Val Shepherd, the founder of Shepherd Robotics, created Harlan and raised him alongside Atlas. At the request of Gen. Jake Boothe (Mark Strong), Atlas boards a spacecraft commanded by Col. Elias Banks (Sterling K. Brown), headed for the planet where they’ve discovered Harlan has been hiding out.You can tell from these names that “Atlas,” which Peyton directed from a script by Leo Sardarian and Aron Eli Coleite, is highly referential. (Or, perhaps, derivative.) Harlan shares a name with Harlan Ellison, the eminent speculative fiction author. Atlas is bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders; Lopez, who was also a producer on the movie, flings herself into the role with abandon, the kind of performance that’s especially impressive given that she’s largely by herself throughout. Her character’s last name, Shepherd, seems both metaphorical and maybe a link to a beloved character from the sci-fi show “Firefly.” I could keep digging, but you get the idea. At times “Atlas” feels like pure pastiche, and it looks, in a fashion we’re getting used to seeing on the streamers, kind of cheap, dark, plasticky and fake, particularly in the big action sequences. Science fiction often earns its place in memory by envisioning something new and startling — but with “Atlas,” we’ve seen it all before.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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    A Bouquet of Songs for May Flowers

    Tom Petty, Patrice Rushen, Billie Eilish and more.Tom Petty.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,Last month, I sent you a playlist of rainy songs, in honor of April showers. I also promised a sequel. I bet you have spent weeks racking your brain thinking what that playlist’s theme could possibly be. Well, wonder no more. It’s time for a selection of songs about (say it with me) …. um, no, not bell towers. And also not cauliflower, but that’s a fun guess.May flowers, guys! May flowers!Music history is, naturally, scattered with references to flowers — giving them to a lover, or maybe just buying them for oneself. There’s a song for just about every possible type of flora: irises, forget-me-nots, lilacs, you name it. Roses probably get the most mention of any flowers, but hey, even they have their thorns.Today’s playlist is just a smattering of the many songs out there about flowers. It features a few throwbacks from Scott McKenzie and Patrice Rushen, as well as a few freshly bloomed tracks — from Billie Eilish and Cassandra Jenkins — that came out this May. You’ll find a few wildflowers, a rhododendron and even a lotus. Consider this a sonic bouquet from me to you.Buy more stock in roses,LindsayListen along while you read.1. Tom Petty: “Wildflowers”We begin with the tenderhearted title track from Tom Petty’s great 1994 solo album. A few years ago I wrote about the deluxe edition of “Wildflowers” — a treasure trove for Petty fans — and a fact I stumbled upon in my research forever changed the way I hear this song. Written during a turbulent time in his life, the song is not a loving missive to someone else but rather, as Petty eventually realized with some help from a therapist, “me singing to me.”▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTubeWe 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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    Review: A Delightful ‘Orfeo’ Returns to the Met Opera

    The countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo stars in a revival of Mark Morris’s witty, sensitively choreographed production.Gluck’s opera “Orfeo ed Euridice” is a funny thing: a timeless Greek myth of separation and loss, twisted into a Viennese cream puff.Both that darkness and light are embraced in the choreographer Mark Morris’s 2007 production, which is being revived at the Metropolitan Opera starring the countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo. A firmly established star of the house, and a budding opera impresario, he owns the stage as Orfeo.Gluck’s version of the Orpheus story was commissioned for a celebration of the Hapsburg emperor Francis I in 1762. The tale’s traditional tragic ending was deemed not suitable for the crown, so Gluck tacked on a joyful conclusion. (Spoiler alert: Rather than being cleaved for eternity, the lovers are happily reunited.)Operas from around Gluck’s time were often little more than vehicles for vocal pyrotechnics. “Orfeo ed Euridice,” instead, is a character study of the grieving Orfeo, desperate to do anything to be reunited with his deceased Euridice. Costanzo is a bewitching performer who knows how to move his voice through many shades of tone and meaning — qualities on ample display in the aching Act III aria “Che puro ciel” and, in Act IV, “Che farò senza Euridice,” in which Orpheus realizes that he may have lost his beloved forever.Seen on Thursday, Costanzo was this opera’s melancholic heart and soul. The soprano Ying Fang proved a worthy complement as Euridice. She brought a pearly tone and an equally rich characterization to her role, particularly in the sublime Act IV duet, which curdles into a pained quarrel as she realizes that her husband refuses to look at her.Another soprano, Elena Villalón, sang the impish god Amore, who charges Orpheus with his task of rescuing Euridice from the underworld without gazing upon her. Villalón allowed her witty costume and impressive entrance — clad in preppy khakis, a Pepto Bismol-pink polo shirt and some slightly scruffy wings, she descends from the rafters on wires — to do much of the acting for her. I wished for a bit more pep and bite in her phrasing to match the staging’s zing. By contrast, the conductor J. David Jackson led the orchestra with vigor and snap.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 Cannes Love Affair With American Cinema Takes Unexpected Turns

    Whether it’s Demi Moore’s performance in “The Substance” or Sean Baker’s tale of a Brooklyn sex worker, this year’s jury will have a lot to ponder.One truism of the Cannes Film Festival is that no matter how alarming the news about the American movie world, Hollywood — however you understand that word — retains a powerful grip on this event. Cannes is a thoroughly French affair, but its love for le cinéma américain is evident everywhere from the faded images of Hollywood stars that are scattered about to the honorary awards that the event bestows. On Saturday, it will present an honorary Palme d’Or to George Lucas, the 11th American to get an award that it’s given out just 22 times.Given the United States’ long domination of the international film market, it’s no surprise that the country looms large here. The Disney adventure “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” it is worth pointing out, was No. 1 at the box office in France and in much of the rest of the world when Cannes opened last week; it still is. That said, the hold that American cinema maintains on this festival goes beyond market share. Americans have also won more top awards at Cannes than filmmakers from Britain, Italy or France. This fact that reminds me of the moment in “Kings of the Road,” the 1976 Wim Wenders road movie, when a character says, “The Yanks have colonized our subconscious.”There are always movies from around the world here, of course, but the selections that often generate the loudest chatter are either from the United States or are Hollywood-adjacent. Three such titles this year are a heat-seeking troika that involve American notables who, after a period of relative domestic quiet, have showily returned to the international stage. Kevin Costner is here with “Horizon: An American Saga,” a baggy western that’s the first chapter in a multipart series, and Francis Ford Coppola has a new epic, “Megalopolis.” Then there’s Demi Moore, who’s being hailed for her bold starring role in “The Substance,” an English-language horror movie from the French director Coralie Fargeat.Demi Moore as an actress of “a certain age” in “The Substance.” Universal PicturesA gross-out fantasy that suggests Fargeat has watched her share of David Cronenberg movies, “The Substance” centers on a beautiful actress, Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore), who is what’s often irritatingly called a certain age. When her TV show is canceled, the actress does what you might predict given the movie’s exaggerated look and tone: She despairs at what she sees in the mirror and reaches for an outrageous solution. This turns out to be the mysterious treatment of the title, which allows her to effectively generate (birth) a younger version of herself. This Demi 2.0, as it were, is played by Margaret Qualley, who, like Moore, bares her all in a 140-minute movie that’s as simple-minded as it is bloated.I am (personally!) sympathetic to the points about women, beauty and age that Fargeat seems to be trying to make. Yet the movie never gets beyond the obvious, and the whole thing soon becomes grindingly repetitive despite its two vigorous lead performances, all the many eye-catching shots of Qualley pumping her butt like a piston and the chunky tsunamis of gore. Far more successful on both feminist and filmmaking terms is “Anora,” Sean Baker’s giddily ribald picaresque about a Brooklyn sex worker, Ani (Mikey Madison), who, more or less impulsively, weds the absurdly juvenile son of a Russian oligarch.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