Aurelia Butler

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    ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’: Still Hard to Forget

    Michel Gondry’s surreal love story stunned audiences in 2004, and some of its sentiments are all the more relevant in the social media age.They say the only cure for heartbreak is time, although a lobotomy might be more effective. It’s a thorny conceit that Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet) tested out for our pleasure in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” by erasing memories of her ex-boyfriend, Joel Barish (Jim Carrey). Michel Gondry’s surreal love story stunned audiences in 2004 and remains hard to forget 20 years later.Like all painful breakups, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” has lingered in the consciousness long after the love story’s expiration date. The screenwriter Charlie Kaufman — who was fresh off the critical double-hitters “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation” — wrote Clementine and Joel’s love affair as a claustrophobic, unspooling maze that earned the movie an Oscar for best screenplay. Kirsten Dunst and Mark Ruffalo were knocking on stardom’s door when they gave delightful supporting performances as haphazard assistants of the memory-erasing company Lacuna Inc. The movie was one of a handful of romantic comedies from its decade (including “Lost in Translation” and “(500) Days of Summer”) that redefined what it meant to be both misunderstood and in love; in this cinematic landscape, love interests didn’t end up happily ever after. What they gave instead was the idea that maybe a love lost isn’t necessarily a net loss.As Clementine, an erratic and compulsive bookstore clerk, Winslet gives a career-redefining performance. Today, her idiosyncratic character lives on TikTok and Tumblr as a patron saint of women who are paradoxically lovable and terrifying. (“I apply my personality as a paste,” she says of her hair dye, aptly titled Blue Ruin.) Her legacy stands in the pantheon of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, a fast-talking screwball woman who protests, “Too many guys see me as a concept.” Most of all, she loves her own despair — if the film had come out today, it would be easy to imagine her posting about Prozac, stomach aches and Ottessa Moshfegh novels.And as Joel, Carrey remains an avatar for frustratingly plain and tightly wound men. After Joel discovers that Clementine has zapped him and their relationship thanks to Lacuna Inc., he decides to do the same. (In a contemporary parallel, I have blocked someone on Instagram to regain a sense of control, only to discover the psychic torture persists.) Together, they tumble through Joel’s tangled and chimeric subconscious in quotidian montages of early bliss and innocent flirtations.Along the way, Joel realizes he’d rather have all of Clementine, heartbreak included, than none of her. He desperately tries to salvage the memories as they’re deleted, trapping himself in a maze of his own psyche. The film spins out of control, traversing realities and timelines, until we are left with a teary-eyed Clementine and Joel, who acknowledge the futility of their relationship. “I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me,” asserts Clementine. “OK,” Joel says with a smirk and then agrees to try again, despite knowing the inevitable disaster of their attraction.A. O. Scott looks back at Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s film about loss, memory and love.Ellen Kuras/Focus FeaturesWe 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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    Lil Nas X Runs New York Half Marathon in Coach Sneakers

    The rapper and singer, clad in bulky designer sneakers and the official race T-shirt, was a last-minute addition at the NYC Half.Ahead of one of its signature events, New York Road Runners fielded an unusual email request on Friday night.The rapper and singer Lil Nas X, who was visiting New York from Los Angeles, had seen some advertisements for the United Airlines NYC Half, a 13.1-mile race that was set to be staged on Sunday morning. And one of his representatives was curious: Did the race have room for one more runner?“It kind of came out of the blue,” Rob Simmelkjaer, the chief executive of New York Road Runners, said in a telephone interview on Monday.The nonprofit, which puts on about 60 races each year, including the New York City Marathon, was happy to oblige. It hardly mattered that Lil Nas X, who will turn 25 next month, had seldom run more than three miles consecutively, let alone a half-marathon. Or that he showed up for the race in a pair of Coach high-top sneakers, which are more boot than high-end racing flat.Accompanied by Roberto Mandje, New York Road Runners’ senior adviser for running engagement and coaching, Lil Nas X was among more than 27,000 finishers, completing the race in 2 hours 32 minutes 53 seconds.“We would be running and you’d hear someone shout, ‘Wait, was that Lil Nas X?’” Mr. Mandje said in an interview. “So he’d turn around and wave, and they’d freak out.”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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    David Seidler, Oscar-Winning Writer of ‘The King’s Speech,’ Dies at 86

    He drew on his own painful experiences with a stutter in depicting King George VI’s struggles to overcome his impediment and rally Britain in World War II.David Seidler, a screenwriter whose Oscar-winning script for “The King’s Speech” — about King George VI conquering a stutter to rally Britain at the outset of World War II — drew on his own painful experience with a childhood stammer, died on Saturday on a fly-fishing trip in New Zealand. He was 86 and lived in Santa Fe, N.M.His manager, Jeff Aghassi, disclosed the death in a statement but did not cite a cause. “David was in the place he loved most in the world — New Zealand — doing what gave him the greatest peace, which was fly-fishing,” Mr. Aghassi said. “If given the chance, it is exactly as he would have scripted it.”On winning the Academy Award for best original screenplay for “The King’s Speech” (2010), Mr. Seidler said from the Hollywood stage that he was accepting on behalf of all stutterers. “We have a voice; we have been heard,’’ he said.The movie, a historical drama in the form of a buddy picture about an afflicted future monarch (Colin Firth) and his talented but unlicensed speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush), was a commercial and critical success. It also won Oscars for best picture, best director (Tom Hooper) and best actor (Mr. Firth).Colin Firth in the 2010 film “The King’s Speech.” Mr. Seidler’s script centered on George VI’s struggle to overcome his stutter as he prepared to speak to his beleaguered nation during wartime.Laurie Sparham/The Weinstein CompanyMr. Seidler, who was born in England but emigrated with his family to the United States as a child during World War II, spent much of his career writing little-noticed television projects, including soap operas, a biopic of the Partridge Family singers and the TV movie “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World” (1988), written with a longtime co-writer, Jacqueline Feather. That same year, he broke onto the big screen as a co-writer (with Arnold Schulman) of “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” about the automobile inventor Preston Tucker, directed by Francis Ford Coppola.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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    Toby Keith Will Be Inducted Into the Country Hall of Fame This Year

    The organization behind the honors avoids electing artists in the year of their death, but the singer died in February just after this year’s vote closed.The country music star Toby Keith, who died last month after battling stomach cancer, has been selected for the Country Music Hall of Fame despite a rule against electing artists in the year of their death, the Country Music Association said on Monday.The induction is moving forward on a technicality: The vote closed on Feb. 2 — three days before the singer’s death on Feb. 5 at age 62.A few hours after officials at the association learned about the death of Keith, the artist behind No. 1 country hits like “Who’s Your Daddy?” and “Made in America,” they received the results of the vote, which included Keith as a chosen inductee.“My heart sank that Tuesday afternoon, knowing that we had missed the chance to inform Toby while he was still with us,” Sarah Trahern, the chief executive of the Country Music Association, said as the group announced the new inductees on Monday.It is not uncommon for inductees to be added to the hall of fame posthumously, but the association’s rule specifically disallows artists to be elected in the year of their death. “That doesn’t apply this year,” Trahern said.With a catalog that included both traditional honky-tonk and pop-country, Keith released 20 No. 1 Billboard country singles during his three-decade career. He was a political lightning rod at times, and many remember Keith, who wrote or co-wrote most of his material, for his post-9/11 song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” which proclaimed that putting a “boot in your ass” is the “American way.”Chosen by an anonymous panel of voters, Keith will join more than 150 figures who have helped shape country music, a roster that includes Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley and Charley Pride. The other two additions to the hall of fame that were announced Monday are the musicians John Anderson and James Burton, who will be inducted along with Keith in October at the CMA Theater in Nashville. More

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    Steve Harley, ‘Make Me Smile’ Singer, Dies at 73

    Mr. Harley was the frontman of the 1970s rock band Cockney Rebel, which landed several hits on the British charts.Steve Harley, the 1970s British rock star who topped Britain’s music charts with the single “Make Me Smile,” died on Sunday. He was 73.He died at his home, his family said on Facebook. No cause was given but Mr. Harley had announced last month that he would step away from the stage to undergo treatment for cancer and previously canceled several concerts scheduled for this year.Mr. Harley was the frontman of the band Cockney Rebel, which he formed in the early 1970s.His biggest hit was the 1975 single “Make Me Smile,” in which Mr. Harley’s even-keeled vocals and melancholic lyrics cruise over instrumentals bearing the optimistic sound distinct to bands of the era. The song hit the top of the British charts in February of that year.Cockney Rebel graced the British charts with other releases, including the 1974 single “Judy Teen,” which peaked at No. 5 on the charts that year, and a funky cover of “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles in 1976.Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel in 1974.Gijsbert Hanekroot/RedfernsOther songs found success outside of Britain.“Sebastian,” a single featured on the band’s debut 1973 album, “The Human Menagerie,” wound up being a No. 1 hit in Belgium and the Netherlands, according to Mr. Harley’s website.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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    Gylan Kain, a Founder of the Last Poets and a Progenitor of Rap, Dies at 81

    He spun gripping portraits of the Black experience starting in the 1960s with the seminal Harlem spoken-word collective, laying a foundation for what was to come.Gylan Kain, a Harlem-born poet and performance artist who was a founder of the Last Poets, the spoken-word collective that laid a foundation for rap music starting in the late 1960s by delivering fiery poetic salvos about racism and oppression over pulsing drum beats, died on Feb. 7 in Lelystad, the Netherlands. He was 81.He died in a nursing home from complications of heart disease, his son Rufus Kain said. His death was not widely reported at the time.The Last Poets, which originally consisted of Mr. Kain, David Nelson and Abiodun Oyewole, were aligned with the Black Arts Movement — the cultural corollary to the broader Black Power movement of the 1960s and ’70s — of which the activist poet and playwright Amiri Baraka was a central figure.The Original Last Poets, as they were billed, in the 1970 film “Right On!” From left, Mr. Kain, Felipe Luciano and David Nelson. Herbert Danska, via Museum of Modern ArtWith their staccato wordplay and sinewy rhythms, the Last Poets were pioneers of performance poetry, spinning out portraits of Black street life that often bristled with the guerrilla spirit of revolution.They made their public debut on May 19, 1968, in Mount Morris Park, now Marcus Garvey Park, in Harlem, at a celebration of the slain civil rights leader Malcolm X. Less than two months after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, it was a fraught period in Black America, but also a time percolating with calls for dramatic change.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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    Ed Mintz, Who Gave Audiences the Chance to Grade Films, Dies at 83

    With CinemaScore, he broke new ground by building a business based on the opinions of moviegoers rather than critics.Ed Mintz, a mathematician who created an exit polling system for films called CinemaScore, which asks people leaving theaters on opening nights to grade the movies they have just seen — a precursor of the website Rotten Tomatoes, which aggregates and scores critics’ opinions — died on Feb. 6 in Las Vegas. He was 83.His son Harold said the cause of death, in a memory care facility, was vascular dementia.Mr. Mintz, a film buff, was a partner in a computerized billing service for dentists in 1978 when he and his wife, Rona, went to see “The Cheap Detective,” a comedy written by Neil Simon and starring Peter Falk, at a theater in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. They both disliked it, and they felt let down by the critics whose praise had encouraged them to see it.Their disappointment was echoed by at least one other departing moviegoer.“And all of a sudden, some guy said, ‘Is anybody here wondering why they can’t get the opinions of actual moviegoers and publish that? We keep getting critics,’” Mr. Mintz recalled in an interview with The Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2016. “I looked at him and thought, ‘Wow, that’s a great idea.’”That thought percolated until later that year. While attending Yom Kippur services at a synagogue in Los Angeles, he gazed at a donation pledge card. Rather than write with a pen or pencil, which Jews are prohibited from doing on Yom Kippur and the Sabbath, worshipers designated what to give by bending a perforated tab.“I almost jumped out of the chair,” he said. “I thought: ‘Simple. How simple.’”He quickly conceived the CinemaScore ballot card, which he tested by sending employees of his dental business to a few theaters. When the testing phase ended, polling began in 1979, and Mr. Mintz started reporting the results in a syndicated newspaper column.The card and the polling process have changed little since the beginning and create a crowdsourcing alternative to critics’ opinions.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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    What to Know About Beyonce’s Country Album, ‘Cowboy Carter’

    The singer and her collaborators have been dropping hints about “Cowboy Carter,” her upcoming album and first full-length foray into country music.It started with a western-style Grammys outfit, complete with a cream-colored cowboy hat, studded string tie and matching Louis Vuitton jacket and skirt.After a year and a half of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance,” the lauded dance music spectacular that included a world tour and a concert film, the awards show outfit signaled to fans that a new era was beginning. From the start, Beyoncé had described “Renaissance” as the first part of a three-act project, and fans wondered if the second act was on its way.One week later, the pop star made herself abundantly clear, this time in a Verizon ad that aired during the Super Bowl.“Drop the new music,” she said at the end of the intricately produced commercial, which featured the comic actor Tony Hale, a robot Beyoncé and the real version, who showed off 10 outfit changes.She had our attention.At her command, her team released a minute-long teaser video that culminated with a small crowd staring at a roadside billboard displaying another cowboy hat-wearing Beyoncé. Then came two new singles, “Texas Hold ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” filled with the kind of Southern twang and country instrumentation seldom heard in her catalog.Confirmation of the new album, Beyoncé’s eighth solo release, came via an Instagram post last week. “Cowboy Carter,” due on March 29, is her first full-length foray into country music. It is expected to tap into her Houston upbringing and reclaim the Black origins of the genre while challenging the largely white country music establishment.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