Aurelia Butler

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    ‘Nutcrackers’ Review: A Bumpy Ben Stiller Christmas

    Ben Stiller stars in a tonally bumpy comedy with genre roots in Hallmark territory.If you tilt your head and squint, “Nutcrackers” resembles a Hallmark movie, though it certainly is not one. Michael (Ben Stiller), a big-city real estate guy, is on the verge of closing the deal of a lifetime when he’s called away from Chicago to rural Ohio. There, his estranged sister and her husband have died tragically, leaving behind four feral nephews to whom he is now technically guardian. He intends to stay just long enough to get them placed in foster homes, but mischief of all kinds ensues. Also, Christmas is in three weeks. You can see where this is going.The best part of “Nutcrackers,” directed by David Gordon Green, is those four kids, whose easy demeanor with one another makes them feel less like child actors, more like a pack of little hooligans who happened to wander onto set. They come by it naturally, presumably, since in real life, they’re brothers (delightfully named Homer, Ulysses, Atlas and Arlo Janson). The movie’s most clever line readings and funniest bits are all them, and I’d love to know how much they improvised and deviated from the screenplay.That screenplay, by Leland Douglas, lacks imagination. It’s a mash-up of the often feminine-coded Hallmark formula and its closest variants are “Garden State” or “Elizabethtown,” in which a world-weary guy finds himself in small town life. So two minutes into the movie, it’s obvious what will happen: This mean metropolitan man will come to grudgingly enjoy, then love, both his nephews and small-town life; a lady will happen along (in this case, the social worker, played by Linda Cardellini); and probably they’ll figure out how to save Christmas or enjoy its true meaning or whatever. The pattern is set in stone, seemingly since the dawn of time.There’s absolutely nothing wrong with a formula, especially one that has been so richly successful and beloved as the Hallmark one. Clearly the idea of the urbanite who can only regain their soul away from the hustle and bustle taps into some vein of desire or anxiety in audiences. It’s what makes the movies comfort viewing: You always know what will happen, and they make you feel like the world is a safe and good place.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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    ‘Beatles ’64’ Review: They Wanted to Hold Their Hands

    This documentary, directed by David Tedeschi, comes up with a solid compendium of the band’s arcana from their first trip to the United States, when fans went wild.Few cultural events of the 20th century have withstood as much scrutiny as the Beatles’ first trip to the United States, but the documentary “Beatles ’64,” directed by David Tedeschi, a frequent collaborator of Martin Scorsese’s, comes up with a solid compendium of Beatlemania arcana.Tedeschi (“The 50 Year Argument”) revisits the excitement surrounding the Fab Four’s arrival through the eyes of early fans. Among the more unlikely Beatles enthusiasts who appear is the filmmaker David Lynch, who attended the band’s 1964 concert at Washington Coliseum and remembers music that could inspire “tears of happiness.”The writer Jamie Bernstein recalls a childhood crush on George Harrison. Her ardor surely helped convince her father, the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, to weigh in on the merits of rock ’n’ roll: “I think this music has something terribly important to tell us adults,” he says in an archival clip. The musician Smokey Robinson describes being “elated” when the Beatles covered “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” even though, he says, he didn’t know about it until the record came out. “There are a billion songs on earth, man,” he says. “To just have somebody like the Beatles, who are great songwriters themselves — out of that billion songs, to take one of my songs and record it? I can’t beat that as a songwriter.”The present-day footage can seem self-reflexive to the point of parody: Paul McCartney gives the documentary team a tour of the Brooklyn Museum’s Paul McCartney exhibition. Ringo Starr is shown hanging out with Scorsese, a producer on this documentary and the director of a previous one on Harrison.But with respect to Harrison’s status as the quiet Beatle, the quiet star of “Beatles ’64” is superb footage by the brothers Albert and David Maysles, to whom the film is dedicated, and who trailed the Beatles during those two weeks. (They made their own 1964 documentary, “What’s Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A.,” out of the material.) Watching the band in the Plaza Hotel and fans in the streets, hoping to catch a glimpse of their idols, you can’t help but get swept up in a 60-year-old fervor.Beatles ’64Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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    Jim Abrahams, 80, Dies; One of Trio Behind ‘Airplane!’ and ‘Naked Gun’

    Along with David and Jerry Zucker, he revolutionized film comedy with a style of straight-faced, fast-paced parody.Jim Abrahams, who with the brothers David and Jerry Zucker surely comprised one of the funniest trios of comedy writers in film history, layering on the yucks in classics like “Airplane!” and “Naked Gun,” died on Tuesday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 80.His son Joseph said the death was from complications of leukemia.Mr. Abrahams and the Zucker brothers — often known around Hollywood as the “men from ZAZ” — revolutionized film comedy with their brand of straight-faced, fast-paced parodies of self-serious dramas like 1970s disaster films and police procedurals.Along the way they littered pop culture with a trail of one liners seemingly custom-cut to drop into daily conversation: “Have you ever seen a grown man naked?” “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” And “Nice beaver!”Their films spawned an entire genre of spoof comedy, many of them pale, scruffy comparisons to the tight scripts and cleverly paced plots that gave the ZAZ films their punch.The trio shared writing credits on five films, starting with “Kentucky Fried Movie” (1977), a compilation of parody sketches that grew out of a comedy show they developed after college in Madison, Wis., and took to Los Angeles in 1972.The idea for their second film, “Airplane!” (1980), came after watching a 1957 thriller called “Zero Hour!” about an ill-fated passenger plane on which the crew are stricken with food poisoning, forcing one of the passengers, a psychologically scarred ex-pilot, to take control.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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    ‘Queer’ Review: The Seductive, Damaged Charm of Daniel Craig

    The star kills off his Bond to inhabit a dissolute American expat in Luca Guadagnino’s handsome adaptation of the William S. Burroughs novella.When William Lee stalks through Mexico City in “Queer,” he often seems on high alert, though sometimes he’s just high. The louche protagonist in Luca Guadagnino’s soft-serve adaptation of the William S. Burroughs autobiographical novella, Lee is a smoker, drinker, heroin addict and epic storyteller. He’s a refugee from America who at times seems like a visitor from another dimension. Played with sensitivity and predatory heat by Daniel Craig, Lee has a feverish mind, eyes like searchlights and a mouth that’s quick to sneer. There are moments when he seems possessed, though it’s not often clear what’s taken hold of his soul.As in the book, the movie follows Lee during an adventure that takes him from Mexico circa 1950 further south — to Panama, Ecuador and parts distinctly unknown — only to bring him back to where he began or thereabouts. The novella runs a scant 160 or so pages, and while it’s crammed with incisive details, characters and observations, the story is fairly compressed and, for the most part, focuses on Lee’s preoccupation with another American, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), a tall, good-looking veteran. Lee first sees him gawking at a street cockfight, a distinctly Guadagnino take on what romantic stories call the meet cute.It’s rapture at first sight, at least for Lee, who’s soon chasing Allerton across the city. The younger man coyly, coolly, keeps Lee at a distance until they fall into bed. Guadagnino stages and shoots their encounter with discreet intimacy and pretty lighting, imbuing it with longing. This sensitivity may seem surprising given the outrageous visions, including a talking anus, that fill Burroughs’s most famous novel, the phantasmagoric “Naked Lunch” (1959). Yet desire suffuses his “Queer,” which he began writing in 1952, some six months after he fatally shot his wife, Joan Vollmer, during a horrifying, calamitously drunken game of William Tell.Burroughs remains best known as one of the coolest cats in the Beats; it was Jack Kerouac who suggested the title for “Queer.” Burroughs came from money, had a difficult past, sartorial flair, a hypnotically droning voice and a sinister aura. “He’s up there with the pope,” Patti Smith said. “Without Burroughs,” Lou Reed said, “modern lit would be a drama without a page, a sonnet without a song and a bone without gristle.” Burroughs, who died in 1997, and Kurt Cobain collaborated on a project, and Nirvana is featured on the soundtrack, suggesting Burroughs’s reach. He was a classic American figure: the nonconformist as cult.The most unconventional thing about the Lee in Guadagnino’s version of “Queer” is that he’s played by Craig, who, of course, is famous as the most recent James Bond. It’s understandable that Craig would seek out roles that put distance between him and Bond, a glossy cartoon of masculinity. It’s both startling and funny when, early in “Queer,” Lee enthusiastically claps a hand on the naked butt of an unnamed guy (Omar Apollo), a moment that Guadagnino presents in close-up so that the backside all but fills the screen, becoming a monumental landscape of desire. Craig isn’t just committing to this role; he is also throttling his Bond.Written by Justin Kuritzkes, who wrote Guadagnino’s “Challengers,” “Queer” follows the novella fairly faithfully, though with customary and unexpected liberties. Lee pursues Allerton, and they become involved amid a blur of drinking, partying and talking. (Jason Schwartzman pops up as Joe, a lampoon of Allen Ginsberg that borders on the offensive.) In time, Lee and Eugene take off for South America to find what Lee calls yagé (the hallucinogen ayahuasca), a mystery drug with potential powers. The trip is by turns brutal and tender, and ends in a jungle where they meet an ayahuasca expert, Dr. Cotter (Lesley Manville), and her husband (the filmmaker Lisandro Alonso), who fling open the doors of perception.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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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Is Denied Bail a Third Time

    A federal judge ruled against the music mogul’s efforts to be released from jail while he awaits trial on sex trafficking and racketeering charges.Sean Combs, the embattled music mogul who has been charged with sex trafficking and racketeering, was denied bail again on Wednesday after a federal judge rejected his lawyers’ third attempt to challenge his detention.Judge Arun Subramanian wrote in the order that prosecutors had presented evidence of Mr. Combs’s propensity for violence and that he had violated jail regulations by trying to obscure his communications with the outside world.The judge wrote that “there is evidence supporting a serious risk of witness tampering.”The decision orders Mr. Combs to remain at the Metropolitan Detention Center, a hulking federal facility on the Brooklyn waterfront, until his trial, which is scheduled for May. Mr. Combs, 55, has been detained since his arrest in September after a nearly 10-month federal investigation.After Mr. Combs’s arrest, his lawyers offered a robust bail package that they argued was more than sufficient to assuage the court’s concerns about the risks of his release. They offered a $50 million bond, secured by Mr. Combs’s Florida mansion and said that Mr. Combs would pay for round-the-clock security, with visitors restricted to family. Apart from contact with his lawyers, he would have no access to phones or the internet.Prosecutors asserted that there was no way the government could trust that private security guards, paid for by Mr. Combs, could be depended on to prevent efforts toward obstructing justice, which, they argued, he had been engaging in before and after his indictment.Judge Subramanian agreed, writing in the order that “the Court doubts the sufficiency of any conditions that place trust in Combs and individuals in his employ — like a private security detail — to follow those conditions.”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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    Andy Paley, Whose Imprint Was All Over Pop Music, Dies at 73

    Musician, singer, songwriter, producer and more, he collaborated with Madonna and a raft of other artists and helped resuscitate the career of the Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson.Andy Paley, a music producer, composer and rock ’n’ roll chameleon who worked with artists as varied as Madonna, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jonathan Richman, and who helped resuscitate the career of the Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson after his much-chronicled emotional flameout, died on Nov. 20 in Colchester, Vt. He was 73.The death, at a hospice facility, was caused by cancer, his wife, Heather Crist Paley, said.A curator of the spirit of classic 1960s pop, Mr. Paley played many roles over an ever-evolving career. He got his start in the late 1960s as the frontman for a Boston-area power pop outfit called the Sidewinders, which briefly included the future FM radio staple Billy Squier on guitar and opened for groups like Aerosmith.Later that decade, he banded with his younger brother, Jonathan, to form a highly regarded, if short-lived, pop duo, the Paley Brothers. With their winsome looks and mops of blond hair, they appeared in the pages of teen bibles like 16 Magazine and Tiger Beat and toured with the pop confection Shaun Cassidy.A skilled multi-instrumentalist, Mr. Paley often went on the road with his close friend Mr. Richman and filled in on keyboards on Patti Smith’s 1976 tour of Europe.During the 1980s, he began to produce for Seymour Stein, the visionary label chief of Sire Records. Influenced by studio wizards like Phil Spector, Mr. Paley produced songs for numerous performers, including Debbie Harry, K.D. Lang, NRBQ, Little Richard and Brenda Lee.From left, Darlene Love, Phil Spector, Joey Ramone, Mr. Paley and Jonathan Paley in 1978. Even as an intimate of musical luminaries, Mr. Paley maintained the wide-eyed wonder of a fan throughout his career.Bob MerlisWe 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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    Watch Ariana Grande Swing From a Chandelier in ‘Wicked’

    The director Jon M. Chu narrates the musical scene, also featuring Cynthia Erivo, where Grande performs the song “Popular.”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.The song “Popular” from “Wicked” has secured a firm place in pop culture in the 21 years since the show opened on Broadway. So how to make the song fresh for the film adaptation?This was one of the major challenges for the film’s director, Jon M. Chu. His formula was a little practical effects, a little razzmatazz and a whole lot of Ariana Grande.The scene has Glinda (Grande) working to improve the image and perception of her roommate, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). In the process, Glinda’s suitcases almost come to life as pop-up closets that she raids for her task.“In each of these devices,” Chu said in his narration, “even though they seem simple, there’s grown men in small spaces pulling it open and shutting it. And the engineering in each took months and months to design right.”The other element involves the timing of Grande’s singing, and the way she works the pink peignoir she’s wearing (designed by Paul Tazewell). She swings on a chandelier in it and slides across the wood floor in it as well, singing live on set throughout.“Ari is just a master of comedy,” Chu said. “You can see it in all her moves, and how she interacts when she acts with Cynthia Erivo. When you actually listen to it, too, her beats and her pauses are just masterful.”Read the “Wicked” review.Read a tearful interview with its stars.Read an interview with the director.Read about the costume design.Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More