Aurelia Butler

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    George Miller and Anya Taylor-Joy on ‘Furiosa’

    For George Miller, Anya Taylor-Joy and their crew, a series of natural disasters made for an arduous production.In the hardscrabble, postapocalyptic world of “Mad Max,” nothing is more precious than water and gasoline. But to actually make “Mad Max” movies requires an even rarer commodity: faith.Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy, who fought during the difficult and chaotic making of the 2015 “Mad Max: Fury Road,” later said they wished they had placed more faith in the vision of George Miller, the director. The people who greenlit “Fury Road” didn’t fully understand it, either: Warner Bros. executives flew to Namibia, the site of the filming, and demanded that Miller cease production before the movie was complete, then crafted an alternative edit in an effort to undermine Miller’s final cut.Against all odds, Miller was able to release a one-of-a-kind, Oscar-winning masterwork. Now, he has returned with “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” a prequel to “Fury Road,” which premiered Wednesday night at the Cannes Film Festival and will be released in theaters next Wednesday.Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron in “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), a hit despite the chaotic production.Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.Did Miller feel the wind at his back while making “Furiosa,” since the reception to “Fury Road” vindicated his vision?“It definitely made it easier,” he said. “It didn’t make it effortless.”That last point may be understating things just a bit: A bevy of natural disasters, including floods and the coronavirus, pushed the production’s budget to $233 million, making it the most expensive movie ever shot in Australia. At every point in its making, Miller was faced with challenges as outsized as the fantasy world he labored to create.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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    ‘Back to Black’ Review: Another Amy Winehouse Biopic? No, No, No.

    The facts get softened and shuffled for an Amy Winehouse biopic that leaves her perspective at the edges.The director of “Back to Black,” Sam Taylor-Johnson, has said repeatedly in interviews that the movie is meant to center Amy Winehouse’s story in her own perspective. That may or may not be meant as implicit criticism of “Amy,” Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning 2015 documentary about the singer, which wove together archival interviews — many damning — with family and friends as well as with Winehouse herself to make the case that everyone was at fault for her untimely demise. Either way, Taylor-Johnson’s remarks suggest that Winehouse, who in 2011 died at the age of 27 of alcohol poisoning, has been co-opted in the years since her death. “Back to Black,” then, is an effort to tell the story the way she would have.But, oof. If that was the aim, I’m comfortable saying it failed completely. “Back to Black” has some bright spots. One is Marisa Abela’s performance as Winehouse, which is deeply and lovingly committed, if at times a little distracting. A few sequences work, too, particularly her marathon pub meet-cute with Blake Fielder-Civil (Jack O’Connell), the man whose exceptionally toxic relationship with Winehouse inspired the album for which the movie is named. (Unfortunately there are very few scenes in which we see Winehouse’s songs coming together — usually the best part of a musician biopic.)“Back to Black” starts with Winehouse expressing that she simply wants people to listen to her music and forget their troubles for a while, and to know who she really was. Then it follows her through her early gigs in Camden pubs, her friendships and her fights with boyfriends. When she meets Fielder-Civil, everything changes — and not for the best. Always a heavy drinker, she gradually becomes addicted to all kinds of substances, in part because he is an addict. When he goes back to his girlfriend, she writes angry songs that become “Back to Black.” When he returns, things get worse.Yet the facts of the real Winehouse’s life and struggles are impossible to ignore, and some of the movie’s choices, from a screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh, seem aimed at rewriting her history without her consent. Fielder-Civil, for instance, has said he instigated Winehouse’s first encounter with heroin, but in “Back to Black” she starts shooting up on her own. 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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    ‘Babes’ Review: Adulting, With Babies

    Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau star in Pamela Adlon’s pregnancy comedy, but it never quite lands.Among life’s biggest disappointments is a movie you wanted to love and didn’t. Alas: That’s what happened with “Babes.” The elements that promised joy were all there, starting with two very funny comic talents in Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau. There’s a screenplay by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, who was a producer on “Broad City,” the kooky, beloved show in which Glazer co-starred. And perhaps most of all, it’s directed by Pamela Adlon, whose chops for this kind of material — a buddy comedy about pregnancy, parenthood and grown-up life — were perfectly honed by her show “Better Things,” which I staunchly believe is among the best TV ever made.But sometimes a pile of good ingredients doesn’t make something delicious, and I guess that’s what happened here. The marketing for “Babes” suggests something akin to “Bridesmaids,” the runaway 2011 hit that reminded Hollywood that raunchy comedies starring women can be hilarious and profitable. “Bridesmaids” owes some of its punch to its rapid-fire rhythm, the pileup of relentless jokes both verbal and physical.“Babes” has plenty of raunch, but it’s otherwise very different. The setup is fairly modest: Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Buteau) have been best friends since they were kids, and they’re still each other’s person, even though Dawn and her husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj), moved to the Upper West Side and have a kid just barely out of diapers. Meanwhile, over in Astoria, Eden is free-spirited and single. Dawn and Marty’s second baby is born on Thanksgiving Day, and on the way home from the hospital Eden meets Claude (Stephan James) on the subway. Instant sparks fly, and their connection is undeniable, but Claude goes AWOL after their night together.And then, about a month later, Eden realizes she’s pregnant. When Dawn promises to be there for her, she decides to have the baby. But in friendship, as in all kinds of love, the course never does run smooth.“Babes” is, obviously, about pregnancy, which gives plenty of opportunity for body humor involving fluids and openings and other matters. But it’s just as much about friendship, and about the struggle to maintain connections when life circumstances change. It’s also about how frustrating young parenthood can be, even if you have the ability to pay for help and don’t worry about the roof over your head. In sum, you can almost hear the movie saying, adult life is a land of contrasts, and you’d better just hang on for the bumpy ride.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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    Popcast (Deluxe): The Kendrick-Drake Beef Ends + Zendaya & Post Malone

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeThis week’s episode of Popcast (Deluxe), the weekly culture roundup show on YouTube hosted by Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli, includes segments on:The seeming conclusion of the beef between Drake and Kendrick LamarThe way in which Kendrick Lamar used the tools that Drake had long perfected against him, especially in the hit “Not Like Us,” now the No. 1 song in the countryHow the meme ecosystem turned on Drake, long its most effective weaponizer, owing in part to the crowdsourced takedowns recorded to Metro Boomin’s instrumental song “BBL Drizzy”What might be next for both Drake and Kendrick LamarZendaya’s star turn in the tennis film “Challengers”Whether Zendaya’s emergence as a red carpet fixture trumps her actingZendaya’s Disney pastSongs of the week from Post Malone featuring Morgan Wallen (“I Had Some Help”), plus Ian’s “Figure It Out” and Central Cee’s “CC Freestyle”Snack chat about hip-hop jewelry and blown-out mixesConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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    ‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ Review: A Lonely Avenger

    The fifth installment of George Miller’s series delivers an origin story of Furiosa, the hard-bitten driver played here by Anya Taylor-Joy.Dystopia has rarely looked as grim and felt as exhilarating as it has in George Miller’s “Mad Max” cycle. For decades, Miller has been wowing viewers with hallucinatory images of a ravaged, violent world that looks enough like ours to generate shivers of recognition. Yet however familiar his alternative universe can seem — feel — his filmmaking creates such a strong contact high that it’s always been easy to simply bliss out on the sheer spectacle of it all. Apocalypse? Cool!The thing is, it has started to feel less cool just because in the years since the original “Mad Max” opened in 1979, the distance between Miller’s scorched earth and ours has narrowed. Set “a few years from now,” the first film tracks Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), a highway patrol cop who has a semblance of a normal life with a wife and kid. That things are about to go to hell for Max is obvious in the opening shot of a sign for the Hall of Justice, an entry that evokes the gate at Auschwitz (“Work Sets You Free”). You may have flinched if you made that association, but whatever qualms you had were soon swept away by the ensuing chases and crashes, the gunning engines and mad laughter.Miller’s latest and fifth movie in the cycle, “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga,” is primarily an origin story that recounts the life and brutal, dehumanizing times of the young Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy), the hard-bitten rig driver played by Charlize Theron in the last film, “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015). Miller’s magnum opus, “Fury Road” is at once the apotheosis of his cinematic genius — it’s one of the great movies of the last decade — and a departure narratively and tonally from the previous films. In “Fury,” Max still serves as the nominal headliner (with Tom Hardy taking over for Gibson), but the movie’s dramatic and emotional weight rests on Furiosa, her quest and her hopes.As befits a creation story, “Furiosa” tracks Furiosa from childhood to young adulthood, a downward spiral that takes her from freedom to captivity and, in time, circumscribed sovereignty. It opens with the 10-year-old Furiosa (Alyla Browne) foraging in a forest close to a paradisiacal outpost called the Green Place of Many Mothers. Just as she’s reaching for an amusingly, metaphorically ripe peach, her idyll is cut short by a gang of snaggletooth, hygiene-challenged bikers. They’re soon rocketing across the desert with Furiosa tied up on one of their bikes, with her mother (Charlee Fraser) and another woman in pursuit on horseback, a chase that presages the fight for power and bodies which follows.The chase grows exponentially tenser as Miller begins shifting between close-ups and expansive long shots, the raucous noise and energy of the kidnappers on their hell machines working contrapuntally against the desert’s stillness. While the scene’s arid landscape conjures up past “Mad Max” adventures, the buttes and the galloping horse evoke the classic westerns from which this series has drawn some of its mythopoetic force. Max has often seemed like a Hollywood gunslinger (or samurai) transplanted into Miller’s feverish imagination with some notes from Joseph Campbell. The minute Furiosa starts gnawing on her captor’s fuel line, though, Miller makes it clear that this wee captive is no damsel in distress.Furiosa’s odyssey takes a turn for the more ominous when she’s delivered to the bikers’ ruler, Warlord Dementus (a vamping Chris Hemsworth), a voluble show-boater who oversees a gaggle of largely male nomads. Wearing a billowing white cape, Dementus travels in a chariot drawn by motorcycles and keeps a scholar by his side. He’s a ridiculous figure, and Miller and Hemsworth lean into the character’s absurdity with a physical presentation that is as outlandish as Dementus’s pomposity and (prosthetic) nose. It’s hard not to wonder if Miller drew inspiration for the character from both Charlton Heston’s heroic champion and the Arab sheikh in the 1959 epic “Ben-Hur,” a very different desert saga.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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    Francis Ford Coppola Accused of Misconduct on ‘Megalopolis’ Set

    An executive producer said he wasn’t aware of complaints and called the contact “kind hugs and kisses on the cheek.”As anticipation for the premiere of “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in more than a decade, built to a fever pitch at Cannes, the director faced accusations Tuesday that he tried to kiss extras during a nightclub sequence.A report in The Guardian detailing the film’s chaotic production said that according to anonymous sources, Coppola pulled women to sit on his lap, and tried to kiss scantily clad extras.In response, a representative for Coppola referred to a statement from the executive producer Darren Demetre, published by The Hollywood Reporter, in which he said, “I was never aware of any complaints of harassment or ill behavior during the course of the project.” Demetre also noted in the statement that during two days of shooting a “celebratory Studio 54-esque club scene,” the director “walked around the set to establish the spirit of the scene by giving kind hugs and kisses on the cheek to the cast and background players. It was his way to help inspire and establish the club atmosphere, which was so important to the film.”The article focused largely on the movie’s unusual production conditions and, citing an unnamed crew member, said that Coppola stayed in his trailer for hours at a time, delaying filming.Mariela Comitini, a first assistant director on “Megalopolis,” told The Times through a representative, “I can say working alongside Francis Ford Coppola was an honor. I watched as Francis created a vibrant, professional and positive environment on set, and I wish I could be part of the celebration in Cannes. As one of the industry’s most well-respected master filmmakers, Francis was undaunted by the enormity of this undertaking, and he finished the film on time and on budget.”The report was published in advance of the film’s Thursday premiere in the Cannes competition, where the stakes are high since the movie has yet to find U.S. distribution. (After an early screening for buyers, one source told Puck that it had zero commercial prospects but that that wasn’t a bad thing.) On Tuesday, Coppola, best known as the director of the “Godfather” trilogy, posted a teaser for the dystopian “Megalopolis” that reflected ancient Roman influences and featured hallucinatory special effects.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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    Why Do People Make Music?

    Music baffled Charles Darwin. Mankind’s ability to produce and enjoy melodies, he wrote in 1874, “must be ranked amongst the most mysterious with which he is endowed.”All human societies made music, and yet, for Darwin, it seemed to offer no advantage to our survival. He speculated that music evolved as a way to win over potential mates. Our “half-human ancestors,” as he called them, “aroused each other’s ardent passions during their courtship and rivalry.”Other Victorian scientists were skeptical. William James brushed off Darwin’s idea, arguing that music is simply a byproduct of how our minds work — a “mere incidental peculiarity of the nervous system.”That debate continues to this day. Some researchers are developing new evolutionary explanations for music. Others maintain that music is a cultural invention, like writing, that did not need natural selection to come into existence.In recent years, scientists have investigated these ideas with big data. They have analyzed the acoustic properties of thousands of songs recorded in dozens of cultures. On Wednesday, a team of 75 researchers published a more personal investigation of music. For the study, all of the researchers sang songs from their own cultures.The team, which comprised musicologists, psychologists, linguists, evolutionary biologists and professional musicians, recorded songs in 55 languages, including Arabic, Balinese, Basque, Cherokee, Maori, Ukrainian and Yoruba. Across cultures, the researchers found, songs share certain features not found in speech, suggesting that Darwin might have been right: Despite its diversity today, music might have evolved in our distant ancestors. More

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    The Techno Pioneer Jeff Mills Blazes a Trail to Space, and Beyond

    At 60, the D.J. and producer is inspiring fresh generations with new work, including an LP that approximates the experience of traveling through a black hole.During a recent performance by Tomorrow Comes the Harvest that had some attendees dancing in the aisles at BAM’s Howard Gilman Opera House, a thrilling rhythmic conversation began between the percussionist Sundiata O.M., who was playing African talking drums, and the Detroit techno pioneer Jeff Mills, who tapped out beats on a Roland TR-909 drum machine. Over a 90-minute set, the musicians boldly blended techno, jazz and modern classical, embodying the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s famous credo “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future.”Tomorrow Comes the Harvest began in 2018 as a collaboration between Mills and the Afrobeat originator Tony Allen, Fela’s longtime drummer. Despite their stylistic differences, they created a sonic language — based around total improvisation, not typically a techno hallmark — that Mills found so fruitful, he wanted to continue it even after Allen’s 2020 death. “My hope,” Mills said, during an interview backstage, “is that Tomorrow Comes the Harvest becomes an approach to play music — not always the same sound, but the idea of figuring it out while playing.”Mills has blazed a singular trail over the past four decades: from his 1980s roots as the Detroit nightclub and FM radio D.J. the Wizard to his early 1990s period with the politically conscious Motor City techno collective Underground Resistance to his solo work helping define the sleek, stripped-down minimal techno genre. While always known as a dazzling D.J., Mills has continually expanded his horizons beyond the booth, including on high-concept album projects that began with “Discovers the Rings of Saturn” from the group X-102 in 1992, up through his new LP, “The Trip — Enter the Black Hole,” released last week on vinyl via his own Axis label.Mills lifted Tomorrow Comes the Harvest’s name from a phrase coined by the science fiction author Octavia Butler, who was describing the potential power of seeds, properly sown, to influence the future. The metaphor seems apt for Mills’s entire career, which has inspired generations of electronic musicians, like Mali Mase, a 25-year-old D.J. and producer who releases music as Sweater on Polo.“To me, Jeff Mills is someone who exhibits mastery, not only in techno, but all forms of expressions he explores,” said Mase, who spun a set dedicated to Mills during the 2023 edition of Dweller, a Black-centered annual techno festival in New York. “It would be so simple for him to sit back and bask in the spectacle of his own greatness. Instead, he challenges the forms established, reinvents, and still beats it sicker than anyone on a drum machine.”Mills said he hopes that Tomorrow Comes the Harvest “becomes an approach to play music — not always the same sound, but the idea of figuring it out while playing.”Edwina HayWe 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