Aurelia Butler

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    Watch a Sniper Scene From ‘Civil War’

    Alex Garland, the film’s writer and director, narrates a sequence from his movie.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.In this sequence from the writer and director Alex Garland’s latest film, “Civil War,” about a modern-day conflict that has broken out in America, journalists making their way to Washington, D.C., stumble across a field set up with Christmas decorations. But the situation couldn’t be less festive. A sniper is set up in a house on a hill above the field. And men in uniform are trying to take the sniper down.Discussing the scene and its surrealist imagery in his narration, Garland said that in scouting locations, he and his crew came across decorations that were intact more or less as you see them in the film. He said they initially belonged to “a guy who’d put on a winter wonderland festival. People had not dug his winter wonderland festival and he’d gone bankrupt. And he decided just to leave everything just strewn around on a farmer’s field.”Garland’s aim for the sequence, he said, was to show that “when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant. And the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant.”Read the “Civil War” review.Read an extensive interview with Alex Garland.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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    ‘Brandy Hellville’ Documentary Is a New Twist on Exposés About Cults

    The film examines the retailer’s tactics and is surprisingly similar to exposés about cults.What’s most provocative about “Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion” (streaming on Max), and about the horror show it contends is behind the immensely popular cheap-clothing retailer Brandy Melville, isn’t necessarily its content. Other documentaries have tread similar ground with similar methods — the Netflix documentary “White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch,” for instance — which is to say that everything in “Brandy Hellville” has been reported before.Documentary participants allege that the company and its leaders, especially co-founder and owner Stephan Marsan, engaged in a host of terrible behaviors ranging from fat-shaming and exploitative practices to really awful racism and sexism. Aimed at teen girls, the company’s marketing and messaging is to Gen Z what Abercrombie was to my generation: an aspirational brand designed to make you feel terrible about yourself, even if you were the skinny white girl in the pictures or working in the store. You can read about it all, of course; what the documentary provides is a host of eyewitnesses, including girls who worked in the store as teenagers and men who worked closely with the company to open new stores. Experts and activists also attest to the threat that fast fashion (that is, inexpensive, essentially disposable clothing sold at retailers like Zara, H&M, Shein and Forever 21) poses to global economies and the environment.The documentary also looks at the economic and environmental fallout from fast fashion.HBOBut the subtitle of “Brandy Hellville,” directed by Eva Orner, points to an interesting idea, even if it’s underdeveloped in the movie. Brands like Brandy Melville and their ilk resemble a cult, and even harness some techniques employed by cults to keep their “members” (in this case, high school girls, whether as customers or as workers) in line. The documentary shows how employees were flattered, and then shamed by the leadership so that each would want to be more of a “Brandy girl” (which, the film hints at, usually required disordered eating). There was a strict image projected for “Brandy girls,” which many of the former employees in the film detail at length. Being part of the group requires constantly giving your money and time (which is to say, buying marked-up, poorly made clothing, according to the documentary, and then posting pictures on social media) to stay in the group. At times, girls were isolated from family and friends. And as in a cult, there’s a small, secretive inner circle (in this case, Marsan and some cronies) that makes all the decisions. There’s also a whole weird thing related to Marsan’s obsession with Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged,” but I’ll let you find that out for yourself.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 O.J. Simpson White Bronco Is Now a Museum Piece. In Tennessee.

    The vehicle that Simpson fled in as 95 million Americans watched on television is on display at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum in Pigeon Forge, Tenn.Tyler Starrett was on vacation with his family in Pigeon Forge, about 35 miles from Knoxville in eastern Tennessee, when they learned on Thursday that O.J. Simpson had died.So they changed plans. They had heard that one of the key artifacts of the Simpson case happened to be on display nearby at the Alcatraz East Crime Museum: the 1993 white Ford Bronco that Simpson fled from the police in, just days after the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson, his former wife, and Ronald L. Goldman. They could not resist.“If the Bronco is here in Pigeon Forge, why don’t we go see it?” Starrett, 23, said.Starrett is too young to have been among the 95 million television viewers who watched the low-speed chase unfold on June 17, 1994, when a swarm of police cars followed the white Bronco over some 60 miles of Southern California freeways, with Simpson holding a gun to his head in the back seat. But he was among those who visited the museum to see the vehicle in person on Thursday, as a three-minute clip of the police chase played on loop in the background.Pigeon Forge, best known for Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s theme park, is at first glance not an obvious home for such a relic. But in recent years, this town has increasingly become a place for attractions and museums dedicated to the offbeat and believe-it-or-not interests of an American tourist — including the Alcatraz East Crime Museum, which is housed in a prisonlike building designed to be a cross between the Tennessee State Prison just outside Nashville and the original Alcatraz, in San Francisco Bay.Inside the museum, the white Bronco is one of several notorious vehicles.It sits alongside the 1968 Volkswagen Beetle that was owned by the serial killer Ted Bundy, the 1933 Essex-Terraplane used by the bank robber John Dillinger and the so-called death car from the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde,” riddled with bullet holes. (A Pigeon Forge snow globe featuring the museum, the Bronco and the Beetle can be purchased for $10.99 in the gift shop.)“There are events in history that will always stick in people’s minds, and I think the O.J. chase is one of those for a large number of people,” said Ally Pennington, the artifacts and projects manager for the museum.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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    ‘Civil War,’ ‘Sasquatch Sunset’ and Other New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About

    Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about even if you’re not planning to see them.Critic’s PickA hot-button movie people are arguing over.Kirsten Dunst plays a war photographer in Alex Garland’s “Civil War.” A24, via Associated Press‘Civil War’Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is set in a near-future when the United States is at war with itself and something called the Western Front, made up of Texas and California, is fighting the federal government.From our review:It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe rare reboot that gets it right.Donielle Hansley Jr. and Simone Joy Jones in “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”2024 Fence 2021 Films LLC‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’After the babysitter hired to watch them for the summer keels over, a 17-year-old slacker named Tanya (Simone Joy Jones) is forced to support her even lazier younger siblings.From our review:Don’t tell helicopter parents, but the gleefully transgressive flicks that entertained a generation of latchkey wildlings are coming back in style. Wade Allain-Marcus’s rollicking update of the 1991 cult favorite keeps the plot … and amps up the immoral humor. It’s a snappy, gutsy comedy about how kids are spoiled and ignorant, and yet the adult workplace is only passingly more mature.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickA deceptive horror film where the good guys aren’t so good.Ramesha Nawal in “In Flames.”Game Theory Films‘In Flames’In Pakistan, 20-something Mariam, her widowed mother, Fariha, and her younger brother are struggling when Uncle Nasir suddenly becomes very interested in the relatives he had been neglecting.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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    7 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 even if you’re not planning to see them.Critic’s PickA hot-button movie people are arguing over.Kirsten Dunst plays a war photographer in Alex Garland’s “Civil War.” A24, via Associated Press‘Civil War’Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is set in a near-future when the United States is at war with itself and something called the Western Front, made up of Texas and California, is fighting the federal government.From our review:It’s mourning again in America, and it’s mesmerizingly, horribly gripping. Filled with bullets, consuming fires and terrific actors like Kirsten Dunst running for cover, the movie is a what-if nightmare stoked by memories of Jan. 6. As in what if the visions of some rioters had been realized, what if the nation was again broken by Civil War, what if the democratic experiment called America had come undone? If that sounds harrowing, you’re right.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe rare reboot that gets it right.Donielle Hansley Jr. and Simone Joy Jones in “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”2024 Fence 2021 Films LLC‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’After the babysitter hired to watch them for the summer keels over, a 17-year-old slacker named Tanya (Simone Joy Jones) is forced to support her even lazier younger siblings.From our review:Don’t tell helicopter parents, but the gleefully transgressive flicks that entertained a generation of latchkey wildlings are coming back in style. Wade Allain-Marcus’s rollicking update of the 1991 cult favorite keeps the plot … and amps up the immoral humor. It’s a snappy, gutsy comedy about how kids are spoiled and ignorant, and yet the adult workplace is only passingly more mature.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickA deceptive horror film where the good guys aren’t so good.Ramesha Nawal in “In Flames.”Game Theory Films‘In Flames’In Pakistan, 20-something Mariam, her widowed mother, Fariha, and her younger brother are struggling when Uncle Nasir suddenly becomes very interested in the relatives he had been neglecting.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 ‘Missionary for Opera’ Steps Down in Chicago

    Anthony Freud is leaving Lyric Opera of Chicago on good terms, though the company faces challenges in a strained environment for the performing arts.In 1975, Anthony Freud went to a performance that changed his life.Still in his teens, he waited in line for hours to see a concert version of Benjamin Britten’s opera “Peter Grimes” at the BBC Proms in London. For the Proms, seats are removed from the Royal Albert Hall to create a vast standing room, and Freud found himself pressed against the stage, just a few feet from the tenor Jon Vickers, who sang a crushingly intense Grimes.“This is what I want to spend my life doing,” he realized, recalling the show with relish in a recent interview. “I want to be a missionary for opera.”Last Sunday, Freud, now 66, was once again as close as he could be to the opera stage. At a matinee of Verdi’s “Aida,” the final full performance of his 13-year tenure as the general director of Lyric Opera of Chicago, Freud was front row, left aisle.Freud in the dressing room of William Clay Thompson, right, before the season finale of “Aida.”Evan Jenkins for The New York TimesHe usually sat there — in the theater’s traditional seat for the general director — only on opening nights. But “it seemed right to be in that seat today,” he said during intermission, as he made his way upstairs to greet donors.After 30 years leading opera companies — Welsh National Opera and Houston Grand Opera before coming to Chicago — Freud is retiring as one of the field’s most experienced hands. Gentle and genial, with a deep knowledge of operas and voices, he has tried to balance his venturesome spirit with the sensibilities of audiences — to challenge without alienating the people he needed for support.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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    Before He Was Infamous, O.J. Simpson’s Acting Helped Make Him Famous

    Simpson began acting while still a football star, appearing in titles as varied as “Roots,” “The Towering Inferno” and the “Naked Gun” films.Before O.J. Simpson became synonymous with the sensational murder trial that riveted the nation in the mid-1990s, he was a football star turned Hollywood fixture who played roles as varied as an astronaut, a comic detective and a fake priest.His acting career began while he was still a star running back. As Simpson, who died on Wednesday, told it, he was waiting out the best deal he could get in the N.F.L. when producers reached out to him asking if he could act. “Sure, I can try to act,” he replied.He scored bit parts in a medical series and a western, but the allure of an onscreen career didn’t grab him until his first major film, “The Klansman” (1974), in which he appeared alongside Richard Burton and Lee Marvin, playing a man seeking to avenge his friend’s death at the hands of the Ku Klux Klan.Simpson told Johnny Carson in an interview in 1979 on “The Tonight Show” that during the production, the actors were casually chatting about food when Elizabeth Taylor said the best chili she’d had was at a restaurant called Chasen’s in West Hollywood.Simpson with Richard Burton in “The Klansman.”Moviestore Collection Ltd, via Alamy“Somebody made a call, and in an hour and a half they had a private jet bring a pot of chili from Chasen’s to Oroville, Calif.,” Simpson said in the interview. “Two hours later we’re eating chili and I’m saying, ‘I like this life.’”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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    Taylor Swift’s Music Returns to TikTok Despite Ongoing Dispute With UMG

    Songs by the pop singer reappeared on TikTok despite the platform’s ongoing licensing dispute with Universal Music Group, which releases Swift’s music.When Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music company, went to war with TikTok earlier this year over licensing terms, songs by hundreds of its artists were removed from the platform, and have remained absent.But on Thursday, music by one very special Universal artist returned: Taylor Swift.A number of songs by Swift — whose new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” comes out next week — have reappeared in TikTok’s official music library, where they are available for the service’s millions of users to place in the background of their own videos. Those videos have become one of the music industry’s most important promotional vehicles, with the potential to mint new hits or breathe new life into old tunes — even as many artists and labels complain about low royalties from the service.The available songs from Swift appear to be from the period since she signed with Universal in 2018, including hits like “Lover,” “Anti-Hero,” “Cruel Summer” and “Cardigan.” Also available are her “Taylor’s version” rerecordings of older hits like “Style,” “Love Story” and “Shake It Off,” which were originally released by her first label, Big Machine. After Big Machine was sold in 2019 without her participation, Swift announced plans to rerecord her first six studio albums, and has already released four of those. Each went straight to No. 1.It was not immediately clear how Swift’s songs made it back to TikTok while Universal’s ban remains in place. When the company announced its plans to remove music earlier this year, it said its licensing contract with TikTok expired Jan. 31. By the early hours of Feb. 1, Universal’s music began to disappear from TikTok, and millions of videos that used the label’s music went silent.While Swift is part of Universal’s roster of artists, she owns the rights to her own recordings, as well as her songwriting rights, which are administered by the Universal Music Publishing Group, a division of the company.Representatives of Swift, Universal and TikTok did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Universal, whose hundreds of artists include stars like Ariana Grande, Drake, Lady Gaga and U2, said it was withdrawing permissions for its music after it was unable to reach a new licensing deal with TikTok. The company accused TikTok of being unwilling to pay “fair value for the music,” despite its importance to the platform. Universal also voiced concerns that TikTok was “allowing the platform to be flooded with A.I.-generated recordings,” diluting the royalty pool for real, human artists.In response, TikTok accused Universal of putting “their own greed above the interests of their artists and songwriters.”The dispute has been one of the most dramatic clashes in years between the music industry and a tech platform, and it has drawn a mixed public response. While many music industry groups have supported Universal, artists have expressed worry about the loss of such a valuable promotional platform. More