Aurelia Butler

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    Young Thug Lyrics Will Be Allowed as Evidence in YSL RICO Trial

    A judge ruled on Thursday that at least 17 specific sets of lines from the Atlanta rapper and his collaborators could be used by prosecutors in their gang conspiracy case.A judge decided on Thursday that rap lyrics by the Atlanta artist Young Thug and his collaborators will be allowed as evidence in the racketeering trial of YSL, a chart-topping hip-hop label and collective that prosecutors say is also a criminal street gang responsible for violent crimes.Following months of dueling court filings and a day of arguments about the relevance and admissibility of the song lyrics, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville ruled that 17 specific sets of lines from the music of Young Thug and other YSL artists could be used by the state when the trial begins later this month to argue for the existence of the gang, the defendants’ membership in the alleged criminal conspiracy and their mind state regarding specific crimes they are accused of committing.“The lyrics are being used to prove the nature of YSL as a racketeering enterprise — the expectations of YSL as a criminal street gang,” Mike Carlson, a Fulton County executive district attorney, said in court.Defense lawyers in the case had argued that including the lyrics was a constitutional violation of the First Amendment protecting free speech and would unfairly prejudice the jury.Young Thug, born Jeffery Williams, was one of 28 people initially charged in May 2022 with conspiracy to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law, or RICO, with some accused of murder, attempted murder, armed robbery and other crimes. Prosecutors say Young Thug, who has denied all of the charges and pleaded not guilty, occupied a leadership position in the gang, known as Young Slime Life or Young Stoner Life, which they say is an offshoot of the national Bloods gang.Jury selection for the trial began in January with 14 defendants, following some plea deals and the severing of other defendants from the case. After more than 10 months, a jury was seated last week; six defendants — including Young Thug — are left, with the remainder of the trial expected to last from three months to a year. Opening statements are scheduled for Nov. 27.The use of rap lyrics in criminal prosecutions has long been a thorny topic, with critics and defense lawyers contending that negative attitudes toward crude and violent lyrics in hip-hop could bias a jury. Lawyers for Young Thug argued in this case that the use of lyrics, videos and social media posts was “racist and discrimination because the jury will be so poisoned and prejudiced by these lyrics/poetry/artistry/speech” that it amounted to “unlawful character assassination.”Brian Steel, a lawyer for Young Thug, said in court on Wednesday that lyrics needed to be specifically tied back to alleged crimes in order to be admissible. “They’re targeting the right to free speech,” Steel said.Doug Weinstein, a lawyer for Deamonte Kendrick, the YSL rapper known as Yak Gotti, said, “There is art here, and the art has got to be separated from real life.”“They’re going to look at these lyrics and instantly say these guys are guilty,” Weinstein said of the jury, adding that rappers were playing characters: “It’s what his audience is looking for and demands in gangster rap.”Prosecutors argued that because they were not charging the rappers for the content of their lyrics — as in a terroristic threat case — but merely using the lyrics as supporting evidence that other crimes had been committed, that they were not protected by the First Amendment and should be admitted.They added, “the Defense would seem to opine that if the Unabomber’s manifesto had been set to music, it could not be used against him.” And in court, Carlson, the prosecutor, raised the frequently cited Johnny Cash lyric, “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die,” arguing that if Cash had actually been accused of killing a man in Washoe County, where Reno is located, “his lyrics would have in all likelihood have been used against him.”Carlson also noted that, in a racketeering and gang conspiracy case like the one facing YSL, “evidence of existence and the nature of the organization is not only relevant, it’s required.”Among the specific lyrics admitted as evidence by the judge — taken from songs like “Eww,” “Just How It Is” and “Mob Ties” — are lines that prosecutors argued would establish the existence of YSL (“this that mob life”); the expectations for its self-professed members (“for slimes you know I’ll kill”); and Young Thug’s role as a leader (“I’m the principal (slime!),” “I’m a boss, I call the shots,” “I was a capo in my hood way before a plaque”).The use of the lyrics at trial, Judge Glanville said, would be conditional, depending on prosecutors laying a foundation for their relevance, with any additional lyrics subject to further analysis before they could be admitted. More

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    ‘Albert Brooks: Defending My Life’ Review: Revisiting Past Hilarity

    This actor, comic, writer and director is seen in a cinematic retrospective that celebrates his talent, but not always in a critically discerning way.“Albert Brooks: Defending My Life,” a documentary about the venerable comedian, filmmaker, actor and writer, directed by his lifelong friend Rob Reiner, has the easy, amiable air of a career retrospective — wistful and hagiographic, it’s the kind of thing that usually accompanies a lifetime achievement award.Now 76, Brooks certainly deserves the recognition: the first four of the films he wrote and directed between 1979 and 2005, “Real Life,” “Modern Romance,” “Lost in America” and “Defending Your Life,” are among the finest American comedies ever made, and his trailblazing work on the late-night talk show circuit during the 1960s and 1970s had a seismic impact on the landscape of contemporary comedy. (To say nothing of his Academy Award-nominated turn in “Broadcast News,” a near-peerless masterpiece.)But there’s a reason we have comedy roasts, not toasts, as the rhapsodic tone of this film makes clear — breathless flattery just isn’t that interesting, no matter how funny the person receiving it. While Brooks deserves acclaim, he deserves it in a format as compelling and dynamic as he is. “Defending My Life” is simply too flat.Brooks and Reiner, lounging in a booth at Matteo’s Restaurant in Los Angeles, reminisce chummily about Brooks’s life and work, while an ensemble of comedy A-listers including Chris Rock, Ben Stiller, Jonah Hill and Larry David gush over his influence in a series of standard-issue talking head interviews. There are also clips from Brooks’s films and standup routines, which render much of the praise from the interviewees redundant. We don’t need to be told that Brooks is a genius. Even a brief glimpse of his work makes the case.Albert Brooks: Defending My LifeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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    ‘Youth (Spring)’ Review: Garment Rending

    The documentarian Wang Bing examines the cloistered world of young textile workers in China.Despite running three and a half hours, the documentary “Youth (Spring)” withholds a great deal. That isn’t necessarily a criticism. The film is the latest documentary from Wang Bing, a persistent and widely admired chronicler of China’s downtrodden — its migrants, its outsiders, its mental patients and its survivors of forced-labor camps.“Youth (Spring)” is partly a follow-up to his “Bitter Money,” which opened in New York in 2018 and concerned the textile boom in Huzhou, China; the city had become a destination for migrants eager for work. While “Bitter Money” devoted some time to the journey itself, “Youth (Spring)” takes more of an inside-out approach, looking specifically at young textile workers — most of the identified subjects are in their late teens or early 20s — from a radically cloistered perspective.The overwhelming majority of the movie is set in Zhili, a district of Huzhou that holds more than 18,000 workshops that make children’s clothes, according to the closing credits, where Wang typically places his documentaries’ only contextual information. “Youth (Spring)” zeros in on what must be a small fraction of those workshops. Several are on a thoroughfare incongruously named Happiness Road.The trash on the streets (“Heard of public hygiene?” one man shouts) makes the exteriors look even grimmer than the interiors. Visually, the shops are practically interchangeable. Over the long running time, the drilling noise of the sewing machines begins to prompt a Pavlovian flinch. The windows, which generally seem to have bars, barely let in any light, and at times the shops’ dull tube-bulb illumination makes it hard to concentrate on the image without vigorous blinking.But Wang’s implicit thesis, emphasized through duration and repetition, is that these shops have become the complete universe for the men and women who work there, and who live there in cramped, dormitory-style housing. (From what we hear, the managers use their provision of board and food as an excuse for paying low rates.)These settings are where they will find their first girlfriend or boyfriend or prepare for parenthood. Wang appears to prioritize the quantity of subjects rather than characterization, but one of the most vivid sections occurs early, as a young couple, Hu Zuguo and Li Shengnan, make a decision on how to handle a pregnancy. The conversation involves not only them and both sets of their parents but also the shop’s boss, hardly a model of tact. (“Cheer up!” he says. “An abortion is like you got bitten by a dog, and you bite back.”)Near the midpoint, workers at another shop stage what their manager sneers at as a “mass protest,” descending on him as a group to demand better pay, only to get brushed off because he’s supposedly busy with a rush job. Again and again, we see workers and managers arguing over the rates that each item should fetch. “Rate bargaining is hard,” says one of the few subjects to acknowledge Wang’s camera, which mostly observes invisibly. “It can take days.”There is more to come. Wang shot in Zhili from 2014 to 2019, and “Youth (Spring)” is said to be the first in a three-part series. Even for fans of Wang and mammoth docs, “Youth (Spring)” can be an arduous film to sit through. But while the running time may be indulgent, the experience of feeling trapped in this world is difficult to shake. Like Wang’s “’Til Madness Do Us Part,” set in a mental hospital, the movie is an exhortation not to forget the unseen.Youth (Spring)Not rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 3 hours 32 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Dream Scenario’ Review: Space Invader

    Nicolas Cage plays a mild-mannered professor who inexplicably wanders into others’ dreams in this wonderfully weird dark comedy.Balding, bespectacled and bowed by the weight of a thousand disappointments, Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage) moves through “Dream Scenario” with a schlubby passivity. At the college where he teaches evolutionary biology, his students sigh and fidget; during a lesson on zebras, he explains that their stripes keep them safe by ensuring that they don’t stand out from the herd. Not standing out is Paul’s entire vibe.Then he learns that, inexplicably, he has been popping up in people’s dreams. At first, it’s just the reveries of family and acquaintances — one of his daughters, a former girlfriend — but soon his invasions spread to complete strangers. A droll running joke has dream-Paul refusing to respond to the dreamer’s cries for help: In one scenario, his daughter is being pummeled by falling objects while Paul calmly rakes leaves; in another, a student is being menaced by a gore-soaked pursuer while Paul, sashaying past, declines to intervene. In Paul’s world, as in our own, it’s possible to go viral by doing virtually nothing.This could seem like a one-trick conceit; but the Norwegian writer and director, Kristoffer Borgli, infuses his screenplay with a sadness that foregrounds Paul’s long-burning need for recognition. At lunch with a former graduate school classmate (Paula Boudreau), who has recently published the book about ants that he himself has struggled to write, he attacks her for stealing one of his ideas. Later, he pushes back defensively when a former girlfriend (Marnie McPhail Diamond) describes his inaction in her dream about a dying friend.“You’re still doing that?,” she asks, incredulous. “Searching for the insult?” It’s perhaps the movie’s most important line, adding layers to a character who could seem a fool. But Paul is dull, not despicable, a vaguely resentful academic who’s loved by his stoic wife (Julianne Nicholson) and yearns to be included in their neighbor’s famed dinner parties. His newfound celebrity has him perplexed, then pleased, and ultimately petrified when the movie takes a dark turn and the dreams become nightmares. Now Paul stands out. Now he will be hunted — and not only online.Pondering the downside of notoriety and our willingness to exchange safety for fame, “Dream Scenario” is often funny and frequently surreal. Borgli’s previous feature, “Sick of Myself” (2023), also examined someone going to extremes to gain the attention she felt she deserved. Here, though, he has more ideas than space to execute them, and the movie’s third act can feel overloaded and indecisive of where it wants to land. Sharp, unheralded cuts from dream to reality leave us little time to get our bearings; yet they also leave Cage free to roam the length and breadth of his considerable acting range. The sight of Paul, in his shabby parka and scrubby beard, attempt to re-enact a young woman’s erotic dream — at her request — could make you want to put your eyes out.Full marks in this scene, though, to the terrific Dylan Gelula who, along with other supporting players like Michael Cera (as an advertising pup who wants Paul to carry a can of Sprite into people’s dreams) and Tim Meadows (as Paul’s department head), help ground the film’s cringe comedy. In the end, “Dream Scenario” is less interested in cancel culture than the fickleness of a mass audience that can rapidly swerve from adulation to condemnation — even when, like Paul, you really haven’t done anything at all.Dream ScenarioRated R for awkward groping and awful outerwear. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Manodrome’ Review: The Manosphere Gets a Crude Awakening

    An unemployed dad-to-be is seduced by a misogynist group who call themselves “the guys” in this sensationalizing drama starring Jesse Eisenberg.The word “Manodrome,” the title of a new film starring Jesse Eisenberg, is a riff on the “manosphere” — a catchall term for misogynist online communities including so-called incels and men’s rights activists. If your first instinct, like mine, is to snicker, know that this self-important drama is devoid of humor.Directed by John Trengove, the film tracks the seduction of an unemployed worker turned Uber driver, Eisenberg’s Ralphie, by a group of women-hating men, which sets off a violent downward spiral that is, at the very least, not boring.A gym rat, Ralphie pumps iron to make up for the fact that he doesn’t feel very manly. He’s broke, and he’s expecting a baby with his girlfriend Sal (Odessa Young), with whom he lives in a teeny-tiny apartment in Syracuse, N.Y.Sal isn’t particularly excited about starting a family, but Ralphie seems to think fatherhood will save him — if only the system wasn’t working against him. In other words, he’s easy bait.Ralphie’s workout pal Jason (Philip Ettinger) steps in, and introduces him to “the guys”: a diverse gang of bachelors who bunk together in a country mansion owned by the group’s leader and bankroller, Dan (Adrien Brody). They offer a sense of community and material perks, emboldening Ralphie to act out against Sal and unleash his inner alpha.Eisenberg — beefed up in this role and stripped of the cocky, motormouth bravado he’s known for — plays the edgy Ralphie like a ticking time bomb of pent-up feeling. Though the script, which relies heavily on pseudo-psychology, doesn’t leave room for much mystery. Ralphie is self-loathing, intensely homophobic, and was made fun of as a kid for being chubby — connect the dots and you’ll be able to anticipate half of the film’s twists (and there are surplus twists).Crude and sensationalizing, “Manodrome” is like an amalgam of all the headlines you’ve read about the kinds of men who succumb to warped ideologies.ManodromeRated R for sex, domestic abuse, gun violence and cultlike activity. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Journey to Bethlehem’ Review: No Room at the Inn? Try the Multiplex

    It’s no “Home Alone” or “Jesus Christ Superstar,” but it does have Antonio Banderas as a song-slinging Herod and Lecrae as a quavering Angel Gabriel.Christmas announces its coming earlier every year. We haven’t even hit Thanksgiving and here is this peculiar Nativity movie for, um, someone’s whole family, directed and co-written by Adam Anders. Anders, making his feature debut here, is a former “Glee” writer and music producer, and his co-writer, Peter Barsocchini, is a veteran of “High School Musical.” While their treatment of the ancient world is informed, to say the least, by their prior work, the scenario also feels like Hallmark pulped through a Disney strainer.For instance, the future Jesus-mom, Mary (Fiona Palomo), bridles at her arranged marriage, and actually says, “What about my dream of becoming a teacher, like my father?” She is talked down by girlfriends on a shopping trek who sing, “Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary/It’s good for you.”The familiar story line is festooned with “kicky” touches, like a meet-cute between Mary and Joseph (Milo Manheim) at a fruit market, and the angel Gabriel (the rapper and singer Lecrae) struggling with stage fright before making his presentation to the Blessed Virgin. Later, in a dream, two Josephs ponder the pregnancy issue, with the anti-Mary manifestation singing “Don’t make concessions/for her transgressions.”Antonio Banderas appears as Judea’s King Herod, dead set on making sure the newborn (other) King doesn’t stick around for long.“Did he lose a bet?” one may wonder, seeing Banderas in this role. Apparently not; he clearly relishes playing a singing and dancing villain. In his introductory number, he croons about how, yes, it’s good to be king.“Mine is the kingdom/mine is the power,” he belts out. And Joel Smallbone, as his scheming son Antipater, sidles up beside him to harmonize on “mine is the glory.”The magic of movies does depend on a certain suspension of disbelief, but “Journey” tests the viewer beyond rational credulity, even as it persists in asserting the reality of its existence.Call it a Christmas anti-miracle?Journey to BethlehemRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘A Still Small Voice’ Review: Grant Them the Serenity

    This absorbing documentary follows a chaplain at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan.Mati, the employee at the center of the hushed and absorbing documentary “A Still Small Voice,” reports for duty at an ordinary-looking office. There are cubicles, roller chairs, a water cooler and flat lighting that the director, Luke Lorentzen, would never dishonor by gussying up with a lamp. These are the chaplains’ quarters at The Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, and Mati and her colleagues are here to comfort the dying and the families of the dead — to transform this 1,134-bed institution into a sacred space. They are Olympian empaths and they are exhausted.Unexpectedly — and astutely — Lorentzen emphasizes not the emotional support these workers give, but the support they need to soldier on. Mati leans on her fellow residents and their supervisor, David; he, in turn, allows the camera into his counseling sessions with his own adviser, the Rev. A. Meigs Ross, where he admits that he no longer has “the gas in the tank.” Lorentzen keeps the image respectfully still while the chaplains vent their grievances in sensitive, measured language. When the pressure drives two to snap and interrupt each other, their moderately raised voices are as shocking as a slap.Here, comfort isn’t found in any particular religion. The one unifying belief is in a centering breath. Mati, raised Hasidic, questions whether she believes in God at all. Yet, in a powerful scene, she baptizes an infant who died at birth. Her persuasive words of comfort seem improvised. The holy water is in a Styrofoam cup. Somewhere, a door slams. It’s human and messy — and it’s divine.A Still Small VoiceNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More

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    Prince Wardrobe Items Go Up for Auction

    The market for Prince’s wardrobe, guitars and other items has been robust since his death in 2016. Now more than 200 pieces are available for bids.Twenty years ago, Bertrand Brillois, a Parisian businessman, began contacting seamstresses, costume designers, fabric dyers, production assistants and others who had worked for Prince. He told them that he thought Prince was not only a musical genius but also a fashion icon, and he wanted to buy clothing, jewelry and other accessories designed or worn by him.The many items acquired by Mr. Brillois over the years included an ankle-length white cashmere coat that Prince had custom-made by a tailor in Nice, France, when he was filming the 1986 movie “Under the Cherry Moon.” The coat, along with more than 200 other items, is on sale as part of the Fashion of Prince, an online auction that is accepting bids through Nov. 16.The sale, held by RR Auction, also features one of Prince’s signature wardrobe items: a white, high-necked, silk shirt with elaborate ruffles, puffy sleeves and faux pearl buttons. Prince wore it, according to the auction company, when he performed a blistering rendition of “Purple Rain” during the American Music Awards ceremony at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Jan. 28, 1985.The shirt worn by Prince during the American Music Awards in 1985 is one of more than 200 items up for auction.American Broadcasting Companies, via Getty ImagesThe collection goes beyond outfits worn by the artist who was sometimes known as His Purpleness, including backstage Polaroid shots, notes handwritten by Prince and master tapes of the albums “Lovesexy,” “Batman” and “Diamonds and Pearls.”There are also concept sketches and a binder containing fabric swatches in various shades of purple that offers clues on how Prince and his wardrobe team created his singular style and image.“You can see the creative process by which Prince and these designers were making these garments,” said Bobby Livingston, an executive vice president at RR Auction.Mr. Livingston mentioned as an example the yellow lace suit with an exposing backside that Prince (in)famously wore to the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards. “The butt suit — there’s fabric from that garment,” Mr. Livingston said. (The cheek-baring ensemble was later revealed to have panels that covered Prince’s bottom. The ensemble itself is not part of the sale.)A fan at the Chelsea Hotel on Tuesday, where the items on display included a purple guitar and an outfit worn by Prince.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesAt a preview party on Tuesday night at the Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, the displays and the accompanying catalog provided intimate glimpses of the auction’s subject. Prince’s hat size was 7⅛. The high heels of his custom boots — there are four pairs up for auction — were reinforced with hidden metal brackets, to prevent them from breaking during his exuberant stage shows.Tinu Naija, an editor of Shoeholics magazine, had come with the celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch. “Prince was one of the original influencers,” she said. “There’s got to be some shoes to check out, some jewels to gawk at.”Mr. Bloch eyed Prince’s gold cuff links that spelled “Sexy” and said he hoped Santa Claus would bring them for Christmas. “He was all about accessories,” Mr. Bloch said.Santa may need deep pockets. The auction market for Prince has boomed since he died in April 2016.A few months after his death, the Hollywood auctioneer Profiles in History sold a ruffled shirt and a blazer worn by Prince in the film “Purple Rain” for $96,000 apiece, well above the asking price of $6,000 to $8,000. In 2017, Julien’s Auctions sold one of Prince’s custom-made “Cloud” guitars for $700,000, far surpassing the $60,000 to $80,000 estimate.More Prince memorabilia on display at the gathering of collectors and fans.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York TimesIn 2020, RR Auction sold a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer played by Prince for nearly $74,000 — three times the expected price. In June, the auction house sold the demo tape that won Prince his first recording contract, for more than $67,000.The singer’s estate, which was initially left in disarray after Prince died without a will, is not affiliated with RR Auction or the current sale. Mr. Livingston said Prince was known to give things to employees and friends, adding that he held garage sales at Paisley Park, his production studio and headquarters in Chanhassen, Minn.Mr. Brillois, the French collector, flew in from Paris to attend the Chelsea Hotel party and bid adieu to the collection he had spent years assembling. He never had any contact with Prince himself and said that former employees of Prince thought he was crazy for wanting to buy stuff they had stored in closets or considered throwing away. But as a Prince fan, he saw the value — not as a speculator but as a preservationist.“For me, I was thinking it has to be preserved,” Mr. Brillois said, adding that he consulted experts at the Louvre Museum and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs about how to set up a climate-controlled environment to store the vintage garments, jewels and paperwork.Mr. Brillois said that at one point he had hoped to one day open a museum to Prince’s fashion. But after Paisley Park was turned into a museum by the singer’s estate, he felt that Prince’s legacy was in safe hands and decided to part with his collection, which, though impressive, is far smaller than what is displayed in Minnesota.Mingling with guests at the party, telling stories behind this or that item, Mr. Brillois was in a happy mood. “My work is done,” he said.Two Prince outfits on display at the Chelsea Hotel.Sara Naomi Lewkowicz for The New York Times More