Aurelia Butler

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    ‘When Fall Is Coming’ Review: Cooking Up a Mystery

    With her kind eyes and guileless smile, Hélène Vincent plays a sweet old French lady. But looks can be deceiving in this François Ozon film.For “When Fall Is Coming,” the French filmmaker François Ozon has cooked up a little mystery and an enigmatic heroine. A sleek, modestly scaled entertainment about families, secrets and obligations, it features fine performances and some picture-postcard Burgundian locations. It’s there in the heart of France, in a picturesque village in a large, pretty house, that Michelle (Hélène Vincent) makes her home. With her kind eyes, guileless smile and upswept hair, she looks the very picture of a sweet old lady. Looks can be deceiving, though, as we’re reminded, and as Ozon’s movie goes along, that picture grows amusingly slyer.Ozon’s efficiency and polished style are among his appeals — his films include “Under the Sand” and “Swimming Pool” — and he lays out this movie with silky ease. In precise, illustrative scenes he takes you on the rounds with Michelle, mapping her pleasant environs, charting her routines and introducing her small circle of intimates, including another local, Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), a longtime, charmingly earthy friend. For the most part, the pieces fit together, though a few things seem off. For one, Marie-Claude’s son, Vincent (Pierre Lottin), is in jail when the movie opens (though soon out); for another, Michelle’s daughter, Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier), is viscerally, inexplicably, hostile to her mother.Michelle’s life and the setup seem so pacific that the movie initially teeters on the soporific; which works as a sneaky bit of misdirection. Because just when everything seems a little too frictionless, someone prepares poisonous mushrooms for lunch, and someone else eats them, a turn that puts you on alert (where you stay). Ozon, who also wrote the script, continues to lightly thicken the plot but also withholds information, and before you know it, this obvious story has become an intrigue. One bad thing leads to another (and another), and the air crackles with menace. Michelle and Valérie argue, Marie-Claude falls seriously ill, Vincent takes a suspicious trip. Yet the more that things happen, the less you know.Ozon sprinkles the story with hints, summons up the ghost of Claude Chabrol (bonjour!) and, during one vividly hued autumn walk, evokes Grimm’s fairy-tale “Snow-White and Rose-Red,” about two sisters. He also foregrounds doubles: The sisterly Michelle and Marie-Claude don’t have partners, and each has a difficult adult kid. Despite their nominal similarities, Valérie and Vincent are notably different; he and his mom are openly loving, for one. By contrast, the minute that Valérie and her son, Lucas (Garlan Erlos), drive in from Paris to visit Michelle, the mood turns ugly. Valérie is petulant and nakedly greedy, and she soon asks for Michelle’s house. “I’ll owe less in taxes when you die,” she says before taking a swig of wine.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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    Bruce Springsteen Will Release Seven ‘Lost Albums’ in June

    The singer and songwriter announced a boxed set featuring 83 songs, of which 74 have never been officially released in any form.Bruce Springsteen is opening his vault — and unleashing seven “lost” LPs.On June 27, Springsteen will release “Tracks II: The Lost Albums,” a collection of 83 songs on seven CDs (or nine vinyl LPs), of which 74 have never been officially released in any form, according to an announcement from the star on Thursday.Fans have long known that Springsteen has withheld many songs throughout his career. Over the years the singer-songwriter has made stray comments about shelved or unfinished recordings, sometimes seeming to itch to get them completed and released.But even many Bruceologists may be surprised at the scale of “Tracks II,” which is organized as seven discrete projects from 1983 to 2018, each with its own production and stylistic approach. Among them are working tapes from Springsteen’s fruitful pre-“Born in the U.S.A.” period and a hip-hop-influenced album from the early 1990s.“‘The Lost Albums’ were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released,” Springsteen, 75, said in a statement.“LA Garage Sessions ’83” has 18 songs from the period when Springsteen was developing “Born in the U.S.A.,” his monster 1984 hit, a moment of transition from the raw solo demos that were released as “Nebraska” (1982). Many of those titles, like “Fugitive’s Dream” and “Don’t Back Down on Our Love,” have long circulated among fans as bootlegs, but are getting their first official release on “Tracks II.”“Streets of Philadelphia Sessions” peels back the curtain on another phase of Springsteen’s career. After using synthesizers and a drum machine to record “Streets of Philadelphia,” a solo song for Jonathan Demme’s 1993 film “Philadelphia” — which went on to win best original song at the Academy Awards — Springsteen continued to experiment with the format, and word filtered out about a dark LP with a “hip-hop edge.” But even after fully preparing it for release, Springsteen opted to hold the album back.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 Luckiest Man in America’ Review: Taking a Game Show for a Spin

    Paul Walter Hauser stars as a real-life contestant on “Press Your Luck” who pulled off an improbable trick.The ideal way to watch “The Luckiest Man in America,” a dramatization of a real-life game show incident, is to go in cold — to see these events unfold as TV viewers did. If you’ve never heard of Michael Larson, a contestant who appeared on CBS’s “Press Your Luck” in 1984, then it is best to save YouTube for later.In the movie’s version of events, Michael (Paul Walter Hauser) earns his spot on the program by crashing an audition, claiming to be someone he’s not. Bill Carruthers (David Strathairn), one of the show’s creators, nevertheless sees star potential in his Everyman persona.Is Michael a loose cannon? The screenplay, by Maggie Briggs and the film’s director, Samir Oliveros, paints him as, at minimum, maladroit. He wears shorts with his tie and jacket. A woolly hairdo and beard look more freakish on Hauser than the real Michael’s did on him. The character also seems fine with bending the show’s rules, like the one that forbids phone calls during breaks.Then Michael starts winning tens of thousands of dollars. And he keeps taking turns, even though each time he stands to lose it all. From here, the movie shifts into procedural mode, as the team in the control booth tries to sort out whether Michael is crazy or crafty. Shamier Anderson plays an employee who sleuths out Michael’s background during the taping. Oliveros is more selective in providing access to the protagonist’s thoughts.The events, and the mind games, appear to have been goosed for dramatic interest. (One preposterous, surely invented interlude finds Michael wandering onto a talk show set and baring his soul to the host, played by Johnny Knoxville.) But it is still fun to watch Michael and CBS compete for the upper hand.The Luckiest Man in AmericaRated R. Language unfit for daytime TV. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Hell of a Summer’ Review: Shallow Cuts

    Summer camp counselors run afoul of a masked killer in this limp, uninspired slasher throwback from Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk.Setting a slasher at a summer camp is sort of like wearing sandals with socks: There’s no law against it, but you’d better know what you’re doing. A wry throwback horror movie like “Hell of a Summer,” blatantly indebted to cabin-strewn ‘80s classics like “Sleepaway Camp” and “Friday the 13th,” screams for the confident guidance of a filmmaker enamored with the genre — someone like Eli Roth, say, whose grindhouse tribute “Thanksgiving” exuded affection for old-school slashers in its every gout of blood.Finn Wolfhard and Billy Bryk, the writers, directors and stars of “Hell of a Summer,” take a more conservative, and therefore more boring, approach to their horror homage. A largely forgettable cast of teens and 20-somethings hang around Camp Pineway cracking irreverent, Marvel-style quips as they wait to be butchered by a knife-wielding maniac, whose kills lack both the cruelty and inventiveness of even the most run-of-the-mill slashers of the genre’s heyday. There’s a coming-of-age angle involving Jason (Fred Hechinger), a 24-year-old counselor struggling to grow up, but it’s vague and noncommittal, straining for something to say.Wolfhard and Bryk don’t relish violence or gore: “Hell of a Summer” is surprisingly tame, with most of its kills kept tastefully offscreen. In the second act, an annoying teen with a peanut allergy comes face to face with the killer, who brandishes a jar of peanut butter menacingly — a perfect opportunity for a bit of gnarly comeuppance, except that the filmmakers cut away. It shows a fatal lack of conviction at a moment that requires slasher-loving brass. Where’s the fun in that?Hell of a SummerRated R for violence, strong language and mild sexual references. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Henry Fonda for President’ Review: A Legend and His Contradictions

    Fonda was the embodiment of America, the director Alexander Horwath posits in this documentary.Henry Fonda was inarguably one of the greatest actors ever produced by the United States. The Austrian filmmaker Alexander Horwath pushes this self-evident truth further in his purposefully expansive documentary “Henry Fonda for President.” The movie convincingly posits that Fonda was, cinematically, the embodiment of America itself.Horwath has gathered a vast amount of archival material from film, television, radio and more to make his case. We hear not just from Fonda himself, but from Peter and Jane, the Fonda children who followed in Henry’s professional footsteps.But the fulcrum from which Horwath mostly focuses his view of Fonda is a 1981 interview with the journalist Lawrence Grobel for Playboy magazine; Horwath plays sections of the tape throughout. Fonda sounds in rough shape, his distinctive Midwestern twang subsumed by rasp. He’s also in a bad mood. His crankiness is bracing and sad. He would die the next year.The movie travels across the United States, taking us to significant places in both Fonda’s life and filmography, beginning with the actual village of Fonda in upstate New York. Henry was a descendant of that town’s founder, who was killed and scalped in a raid by the Mohawk tribe there.Horwath concludes that Fonda is playing his own ancestor in John Ford’s “Drums Along the Mohawk.” The documentary later shows Robert De Niro’s mohawk haircut in “Taxi Driver,” threading that with an old TV ad in which Fonda extols the virtues of a viewer toy to that film’s co-star Jodie Foster. These connections have plentiful entertainment value, but Howarth knows they signify more than just trivia: Their threads make up the fabric of American culture, such as it is.Henry Fonda for PresidentNot rated. Running time: 3 hours 4 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Freaky Tales’ Review: Totally Oakland

    Misogyny and racism get their butts spanked in this bold, messy celebration of the Bay Area in the 1980s.Crammed to the margins with peaceable punks, vicious skinheads, ambitious rappers, racist police — oh, and a green supernatural whatsit — Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s “Freaky Tales” is a nostalgic homage to the music, movies and personalities of the 1980s.Set in 1987 in Oakland, where Fleck grew up, this revenge-of-the-underdogs picture unfolds through a lens of pop-culture goofiness. Blending multiple genres — action, comedy, horror, martial arts — Fleck and Boden’s screenplay is blunt and broad, a flurry of flyby references only loosely tethered to narrative logic. Bursts of animation and graphic-novel gore lend familiar gimmickry to the film’s four, vaguely connected stories, none of which feel fully cooked.In the first, two teenagers (Ji-young Yoo and Jack Champion) and their fellow punks are forced to defend a beloved music venue from a tribe of marauding neo-Nazis. This segues into a sparking rap battle between a young female duo (Dominique Thorne and Normani, both standouts) and Too $hort (played by the hip-hop artist Symba). The third segment feels more robust, thanks to Pedro Pascal’s performance as a burned-out enforcer trying vainly to escape his violent past. And a bloodily operatic finale sees a loathsome detective (Ben Mendelsohn) pay when a scheme to rob the home of the basketball star Sleepy Floyd (Jay Ellis) goes spectacularly awry.High on revolutionary spirit, “Freaky Tales” is a frisky, frantic pastiche that doesn’t always make sense. (In the third chapter, an unexpected cameo by a major celebrity is such a non sequitur even Pascal seems momentarily flummoxed.) Yet the visuals are meaty, and the filmmakers (whose last feature collaboration was on “Captain Marvel” in 2019) show considerable affection for their movie’s setting. I wish, though, they had focused less on the era’s greatest hits and more on the details of their script. Maybe then we would have learned the provenance of that supernatural whatsit.Freaky TalesRated R for lewd lyrics, slow-motion bloodletting and an exploding racist. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Gracie Abrams on Her Skin Essentials and Favorite Hair Bows

    Plus: wild hops in Venice, a Catherine Opie exhibition in New York and more recommendations from T Magazine.Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com.Step by StepGracie Abrams’s Beauty RoutineLeft: The singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams, who is a global brand partner of Hourglass Cosmetics. Right, clockwise from top left: Cyklar Sensorial body wash, $35, cyklar.com; Chanel bow barrette, $525, chanel.com; Oribe Gold Lust Repair & Restore shampoo, $53, oribe.com; Jan Marini Skin Research C-ESTA face serum, $133, janmarini.com; Hourglass 1.5MM mechanical gel eye liner, $21, hourglasscosmetics.com; Egyptian Magic all-purpose skin cream, $39, egyptianmagic.com; Osea Undaria Algae body oil, $84, oseamalibu.com; Hourglass Veil Hydrating skin tint, $49, hourglasscosmetics.com; Fenty Beauty Cheeks Out Freestyle cream blush, $28, fentybeauty.com.Left: Ben Hassett, courtesy of Hourglass Cosmetics. Right: courtesy of the brandsI like to wake up between 6 and 7 a.m., but when I’m touring, it’s anywhere from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sleep is a constant question mark because time zones are never consistent. I got lucky this past leg of the tour in Europe and the U.K. Our bus was great, and I got the same duvet that I have at home, which was especially comforting. A morning shower — really hot and then really cold — is the thing that fixes my brain quickly. At home I hang eucalyptus from the shower head because it smells nice in the steam. My friend Claudia [Sulewski] has this company called Cyklar, and I put all of her body washes in a row. I do a pump of each. She also launched a suction-y tool for lymphatic drainage, which I like to use. I have an Oribe shampoo that my hairstylist gave me, but I’m not too picky about that. I’ve surrendered to putting on a hat and walking out the door and letting my hair be what it is. I love the Osea algae body oil, and my most used body moisturizer is the Nivea one with almond oil, which kind of smells like sunscreen to me. I’ve always got Egyptian Magic [skin cream] in every bathroom, too.I’ve had a very temperamental relationship with my skin after developing cystic acne in college. At the end of the day, it’s skin — but it can feel like the end of the world if it hurts to put your face against your pillow. Facials with Shar [Hassani] helped me get my acne under control. She’s a wizard. I use mostly all Jan Marini skin care: the vitamin C serum C-ESTA, a hyaluronic acid serum, the Transformation cream and at night something called Age Intervention Duality, which has basically eradicated breakouts and is a holy grail product for me. The Hourglass Veil skin tint is part of my skin care routine at this point — it makes me feel and look even. The Vanish concealer is my favorite for spot-treating. I’m a blush freak. As a pale girl, I’m like, how do I make myself look like I have any life in me? I love Fenty Beauty’s cream blush in the shade Summertime Wine. To fill in my brows, I use Hourglass’s Arch pencil in Dark Brunette, and then Göt2b brow gel for hold. Mascara onstage is a must, but on a daily basis, I’ve just been curling my lashes and using Hourglass’s gel eyeliner in Canyon in the waterline at the top. For haircuts I go to Bobby Eliot, who’s a legend and an angel, and on tour, I work with genius hairstylist Arbana Dollani. She crocheted my hair for one show with silver thread. Hair bows have become a symbol of the community, which is very sweet, and I have this collection of bows that people have very generously made or gifted me. Sandy Liang has some great ones, and Chanel too. In my nighttime routine, I appreciate another scalding and then freezing shower. I like knowing that I’m getting all of the venue dirt and sweat off my body at the end of the day. Then it’s about bringing the adrenaline down. I drink a lot of tea. I like a CBD tincture. Journaling is quite crucial for me. This is corny, but on tour, I cuddle with my friends and we play cards. It’s very wholesome and mellow.In SeasonWhere to Eat the Wild Hops That Grow Around the Venetian LagoonLeft: bruscandoli, or wild hops, foraged from the banks of Venice’s lagoon, are a local and seasonal delicacy. Right: Ristorante Riviera is one of a handful of restaurants in Venice that offer dishes featuring bruscandoli when it’s in season.Left: istock/Getty Images Plus. Right: Matthias Scholz/Alamy One of life’s greatest luxuries is to eat that thing in that place, knowing you can’t get it anywhere else: the bruscandoli, or wild hops, in Venice are a case in point. These are the most tender early shoots of a plant that grows along the banks of the lagoon. You can find hops in other parts of Italy, but they won’t be called bruscandoli (the Italian name is luppolo selvatico) and they won’t have the distinctive flavor the Venetian variety draw from the salty lagoon soil. Visit Venice in springtime, and you might be lucky enough to catch the ephemeral bruscandoli season (typically no more than a couple of weeks between the end of March and the beginning of May — last year it was around the last week of March), when you’ll see bundles of the greens for sale at the Rialto market, as well as at vegetable stalls and barges dotted around town. You eat only the tips of the plant and cook it as you would wild asparagus, blanching it in boiling water or pan frying it, then seasoning it with a dash of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt. Bruscandoli also work well in a creamy risotto, layered into frittata or as the base for a brothy soup, minestra di bruscandoli. Harry’s Bar makes an excellent risotto con bruscandoli, as does Al Covo, a cozy, family-run establishment hidden away in the city’s Castello quarter. And if you’re looking for the incomparable combination of spring sunshine, waterside views and some variation on the theme of bruscandoli for lunch, then you can’t beat a table at Ristorante Riviera on the Zattere waterfront.Stay HereThe Southern California Beach Hotel Where Breakfast Comes With ChampagneLeft: the lobby living room at Le Petit Pali Laguna Beach, a hotel that opened this week in the coastal Orange County, Calif., town. Right: the hotel pool.Caylon HackwithSince its founding in 2007, the Los Angeles-based hotel group Palisociety has opened boutique properties across the U.S., many of which are in renovated midcentury inns and motels. Their latest, which opened on April 1, is Le Petit Pali Laguna Beach. The 41-room Southern California hotel is in a two-story structure built in the early 1960s along a stretch of Highway 1 that’s within view of the Pacific Ocean. Le Petit Pali sets itself apart with a whimsical aesthetic: Grass cloth wall coverings and vintage rattan furniture mix with antiques, floral-patterned throw pillows and navy-and-blue striped beds that evoke a beach club cabana. (Speaking of which, Treasure Island Beach and Goff Cove — two of the area’s most popular spots for swimming — are within easy walking distance.) And while there is no restaurant here (Palisociety’s “Le Petit” concept is modeled after a bed-and-breakfast), guests are treated to a morning spread with an abundance of eggs, locally made pastries from nearby Rye Goods, Marmalade Grove preserves and seasonal fruit, plus champagne and mimosas. From $350 a night, lepetitpali.com.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 Nice Indian Boy’ Review: Meet-Cute at a Hindu Temple

    Thanks to the instant chemistry between Karan Soni and Jonathan Groff, the film pulls off their whirlwind romance.Jay (Jonathan Groff) and Naveen (Karan Soni) experience their first meet-cute while worshiping at the same Hindu temple, united by their shared culture: Naveen is Indian, and Jay is white with adoptive Indian parents.Early on, the film “A Nice Indian Boy” hints at this swift romantic pace when Naveen’s mother, Megha (Zarna Garg, a standout), pokes at the familiar tropes of gay romance films while on a phone call with Naveen. “They just give each other a look, and like, boom, they’re kissing,” she says.Thanks to the instant chemistry between Groff and Soni, whose wit and vulnerability make him a natural rom-com lead, the film pulls off their whirlwind romance. Glances between them convey Naveen’s internal struggle to be open to his family about Jay, and Jay’s corresponding frustration with Naveen’s hesitation. True to the genre, there are heartbreaking fallouts, followed by tender reconciliations.Throughout the movie, the director Roshan Sethi’s sly and thoughtful touches respect conventions — the ultimate fairy-tale ending, for instance — while deepening the story with cultural nuances, like how Naveen’s same-sex relationship affects his sister, Arundhathi (Sunita Mani), who is in an arranged marriage. What happens when one sibling can break the rules but the other cannot? Within a family rooted in tradition, Naveen emerges as a quiet but powerful authority on true love — a rare, significant role for a gay character.In this vibrant addition to cinema’s romantic landscape, love isn’t the only winner: cultural understanding and the freedom to choose your own path triumph as well.A Nice Indian BoyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More