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    How It Takes an Old ‘Beast Wars’ to Make a New ‘Transformers’

    The Canadian-made computer animated series “Beast Wars: Transformers” serves as the unlikely basis for the latest film in the popular franchise.This summer’s “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” is the latest of seven films in the long-running series of live-action films based on Hasbro’s hugely popular toy franchise; the first since the critically acclaimed 2018 spinoff, “Bumblebee”; and the first mainline installment since the Michael Bay-directed “Transformers: The Last Knight” (2017). Like all of the films in the series to date, “Rise of the Beasts” is based on characters first designed in 1984 as a line of children’s action figures, much like Mattel’s Masters of the Universe or Hasbro’s own G.I. Joe. But this new chapter also pulls from an unusual source: “Beast Wars: Transformers,” a somewhat obscure Canadian television show that ran from 1996 to 1999.A scene from “Beast Wars: Transformers.”Alliance Atlantis Communications“Rise of the Beasts” takes place largely in New York in the 1990s, and follows the action-packed exploits of a race of powerful robots who live in disguise as cars and trucks, including the series hero Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, reprising his role as voice actor from all of the previous films). This time around, Prime and his allies are joined by the Maximals, time-traveling Transformers from the distant future who turn into animals rather than vehicles: They include the rhinoceros Rhinox (David Sobolov), the falcon Airazor (Michelle Yeoh), the cheetah Cheetor (Tongayi Chirisa) and the gorilla Optimus Primal (Ron Perlman), a descendant of Prime. All of the new animal Transformers have been faithfully lifted from “Beast Wars,” which featured these characters living on a barren alien planet and doing battle with the nefarious Blackarachnia (a spider) and Scorponok (a scorpion), among other foes with similarly literal names.“Beast Wars” was produced in Vancouver, British Columbia, by the animation company Mainframe Studios, which had previously developed “ReBoot,” a pioneering computer-animated series from the ’90s, for the popular Canadian children’s entertainment network YTV. Also fully computer-animated — at a time when that technology was still in its infancy — “Beast Wars” looked a little like a starker, more rudimentary version of “Toy Story,” with colorful, bulbous character models moving simply around sparse environments. The series ran for three seasons on YTV (under the more kid-friendly title “Beasties”) and in syndication across the United States, winning a Daytime Emmy for outstanding achievement in animation in 1998 and inspiring a TV sequel, several comic books and two video games — and now, almost three decades after its debut, a feature film (sort of).Were it not for some of its characters and designs resurfacing this month in “Rise of the Beasts,” it seems likely that “Beast Wars” would have continued to recede into a lasting obsolescence, forgotten to all but the most nostalgic ’90s kids and most dedicated “Transformers” fans. And while the somewhat tangential connection to the source material may prevent the movie from kicking off a sudden torrent of interest in the Canadian series — “Rise of the Beasts” has not been especially billed as a “Beast Wars” movie, and the show has scarcely come up during press for the film — it’s still a good occasion to give the series its long-awaited due. Happily, the entire original run of “Beast Wars” was released on home video by Shout Factory in 2011 and is now available for purchase on Amazon Prime Video. More

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    Review: New York Philharmonic Journeys From Ocean to Desert

    The orchestra’s final program of the season featured the New York premiere of John Luther Adams’s “Become Desert.”Ostensibly, the New York Philharmonic’s final two programs of the season were about the earth. But they served more to illustrate the challenge composers face in translating the climate crisis to music.Last week at David Geffen Hall, Julia Wolfe’s new multimedia oratorio, “unEarth,” took an explicitly activist stance, lashing out at ecological violence and offering a path to recovery. On Thursday, John Luther Adams’s “Become Desert,” in its New York premiere, addressed the natural world more humbly — mourning, perhaps, the desertification of environments, but also evoking, marveling at and bowing down to forces larger than ourselves.The approach you prefer can be a matter of taste; I find observation more persuasive. Take this week. As smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted to New York, you could read that the city’s air quality was the worst on record, and understand the severity, but a step outside would reveal even more: a burning in your eyes and throat, an unrecognizable view of streets and parks obscured by an orange haze.That is the difference between “unEarth” and “Become Desert,” between declaring an emergency and bringing it to your feet. Interestingly, Wolfe and Adams have worked in both modes; her earlier oratorios have tended toward the poetic, and his “Vespers of the Blessed Earth,” which premiered in April, had the blunt rhetoric of a protest sign. These are two of the finest composers of our time, each with a Pulitzer Prize. But they are still figuring out how to respond to the climate crisis without making artistic missteps.And composers aren’t alone. The Philharmonic, too, had mixed success with its “Earth” concerts, which were both conducted by Jaap van Zweden. Wolfe’s work shared the billing with, for some reason, a seemingly unrehearsed account of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. Thursday’s program was an improvement, tracing a more considered path from the ocean to the desert.Representing the ocean was Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes From ‘Peter Grimes,’” brief movements that do double duty as poetic depictions of water, and as representations of the opera’s underlying drama. On Thursday, they were mainly illustrative of the renovated Geffen Hall’s acoustics, which in their bright dryness rewarded the lithe angularity of “Sunday Morning” but punished the violent muddle of “Storm.”Between the climactic ending of the “Interludes” and the monumentality of “Become Desert,” it was easy to overlook the small, Debussyan beauty of Toru Takemitsu’s “I Hear the Water Dreaming,” featuring the Philharmonic’s principal flute, Robert Langevin, as the soloist. He had a warm, lulling tone but played — like the concertmaster, Frank Huang, in the Sibelius last week — with the selfless stage presence of a section leader rather than an assertive star.“Become Desert” is the third installment of a trilogy that began with “Become River,” a 2010 chamber work of icy harmonic shards trickling into a flow that grows grander, and deeper, as if to lead directly into “Become Ocean” (2013), which won the Pulitzer. A masterpiece of scale and form, it immerses its listeners into a world that moves unpredictably in grand swells and ebbs. “Desert,” from 2018, continues in that enveloping vein, a musical equivalent of a camera placed on the ground to witness an expansive landscape as the day breaks and recedes, then returns — a glimpse into a repetitive yet ever-changing environment. The earth emerges, in all three, as awesome in every sense of the word.The Seattle Symphony, under Ludovic Morlot, has recorded the entire trilogy. In that account, you get a sense of Adams’s deference to his subject, rendered in stereoscopic clarity: textures that move like shadows; stretches of seeming stasis that evolve organically, demanding patience and distance to truly perceive; an unchanging pace of life marked in the score with a tempo of 45 beats per minute, described by Adams as “timeless.” At the opening, percussion instruments chime on every beat, but scattered, which with a haze of sustained harmonics dissolve any sense of a downbeat.But at Geffen Hall, van Zweden’s baton sliced through the air more quickly, shaving a few minutes from the score’s typical duration and dispelling its magic, and delicacy, along the way. Its 4/4 time signature all too apparent, the music was less immersive than propulsive.It was an unfortunate New York introduction to a work that ranks among Adams’s most ingeniously reverential. As written, the slowly evaporating final section recalls the poignant dissolving strings at the end of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony. On Thursday, though, it just felt like a march to a finish line painted intrusively on the earth.New York PhilharmonicThis program repeats through Saturday at David Geffen Hall, Manhattan; nyphil.org. More

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    12 New Songs From Janelle Monáe, Rosalía, PinkPantheress and More

    Hear tracks from Rosalía, L’Rain, Romy and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new tracks. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage, and The Amplifier, a twice-weekly guide to new and old songs.PinkPantheress, ‘Angel’“One day my baby just went away,” the British pop star PinkPantheress sings on “Angel,” an aching, bittersweet new track from the soundtrack to the upcoming movie “Barbie.” No grand tragedy has occurred here — just some run-of-the-mill ghosting. Still, PinkPantheress manages to squeeze pathos out of the story, thanks to a dreamy melody and a vocal delivery that blends wide-eyed optimism with creeping doubt: “Everyone tells me life was hard but it’s a piece of cake,” she sings, “even if Johnny hasn’t answered in a couple days.” Ken would never! LINDSAY ZOLADZRosalía, ‘Tuya’“Tuya” (“Yours”) is the kind of song Rosalía can apparently toss off at will: a lilting tune carrying a cheerful, amorous boast. “Sex with me is mind-blowing,” she promises. The production, as usual, goes genre hopping: plucked notes on a Japanese koto, a reggaeton beat, some flamenco handclaps and vocal quavers and, for the big finale, a slamming gabber techno beat and hyperpop pitch-shifted vocals. For Rosalía, they’re all within easy reach. JON PARELESRomy, ‘Loveher’A private, intimate confidence goes happily public in “Loveher” by Romy Madley Croft from the xx. “Hold my hand under the table,” she sings with quiet, breathy intensity. “It’s not that I’m not proud in the company of strangers/It’s just some things are for us.” The production — by Jamie xx, Stuart Price and Fred again.. — coaxes her into a proclamation. It evolves from sparse piano notes and a subdued four-on-the-floor beat to full-scale, chord-pounding house, while Romy’s vocal rises into an ecstatic loop: “I love her, I love her.” The beat suddenly falls away at the end, leaving Romy almost a cappella as she insists, “When they ask me I’ll tell them/Won’t be ashamed.” PARELESMadeline Kenney, ‘I Drew a Line’The Oakland singer-songwriter Madeline Kenney fills her sonic canvas with bold, angular shapes on “I Drew a Line,” the latest single from her upcoming album, “A New Reality Mind.” “Had an idea of who to be,” Kenney sings on this tale of self-revision and emotional growth, as a silky saxophone solo suddenly takes the song in a new direction. ZOLADZJanelle Monáe featuring Doechii, ‘Phenomenal’Janelle Monáe’s new album announces its intentions in its title: “The Age of Pleasure.” It’s all about physical, carnal joy as self-affirmation, underlined by Monáe’s full-spectrum mastery of African-diaspora music. “She’s a mystic sexy creature,” Monáe sings in “Phenomenal,” adding, “She’s a god and I’m a believer.” The groove is spring-loaded, Caribbean-tinged and jazzy, and it works through ever-changing variations — with call-and-response vocals, teasing guitar lines, electronics and horns — on the way to a seamless segue into the next song, “Haute.” PARELESJessie Murph and Maren Morris, ‘Texas’Maren Morris has made it her business to prove that country singers listen outside that limited format. Her latest collaboration is with the broody goth-pop songwriter Jessie Murph, and they take mutual delight in slinging radio-unfriendly words in “Texas,” one of Murph’s typically dark, unhappy accusations. Murph and Morris sing about consequences that a man has shrugged off. “I’m cold, I’m lost, I’m ruined/And you go back to Texas,” Murph sings. The video is set at a rodeo, but cowboy hats, mandolin and fiddle can’t lift the darkness. PARELESShamir, ‘Oversized Sweater’In a folk-rock fortress built around steady-strummed guitar, Shamir’s falsetto is simultaneously piercing and doleful as he sings about getting through a heartbreak. His palliatives are binge-watching TV, getting “higher than Mariah’s head” (voice), cuddling up in an oversized sweater and singing “until I believe in love again.” The marching, chiming production suggests he will. PARELESL’Rain, ‘New Year’s UnResolution’Echoes ripple across “New Year’s UnResolution,” a richly unmoored track by Taja Cheek, who records as L’Rain. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in love,” she sings in a blur of reverb, guitar swoops and harmony vocals over a programmed beat. The song ponders longing, time perception and memory, reaching no conclusion but raising evocative questions. PARELESNora Stanley and Benny Bock, ‘Peaches’A lot of the music on “Distance of the Moon” — the debut album from the baby-faced duo of Nora Stanley and Benny Bock — has been added in layers, via laptop, on the second or the 15th pass. They’re working with tons of instruments here: analog synths, Fender Rhodes, digitally programmed percussion, baritone guitar, saxophones, kalimba. Still, the result feels organic and bleary-eyed and miniature, not overworked. Stanley lives in New York, and Bock in Los Angeles, and the sound reflects that distance: This is music with a sense of focus and intimacy, yet a kind of unknowability too. It’s gentle and lovely, but not settled. On “Peaches,” Stanley’s vibrato-heavy saxophone trembles in harmony with a wavy synth, over minimalist drum programming and an undressed two-chord vamp. Fans of Sam Gendel or Alabaster dePlume or (going back further) Jimmy Giuffre will dig the mellow saxophone; anyone who trances out to Laraaji will probably feel the hypnotic pull of the electronic vamp. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLOLaura Misch, ‘Portals’The English songwriter and electronic-music producer Laura Misch celebrates a mystical communion of people, nature and art in “Portals” from an album due in October, “Sample the Sky.” Harplike plinks and clicking percussion rise around her voice, enfolded in instrumental and vocal harmonies as she sings that “portals open as you slowly drift through/surrounded by our love.” PARELESBlack Duck, ‘Lemon Treasure’One repeated note and an increasingly assertive beat propel “Lemon Treasure,” a drone and slide-guitar jam from the Chicago trio Black Duck: the bassist Douglas McCombs from Tortoise and Eleventh Dream Day, the guitarist Bill MacKay and the drummer Charles Rumback. McCombs can’t resist hopping through an occasional arpeggio, and Rumback’s drumming grows splashier and more insistent along the way, but the track is MacKay’s showcase. He bears down on chords, lofts raga-tinged scales, hints at the blues and bends and stretches sustained notes; his guitar both rides the beat and taunts it. PARELESRoxana Amed and Frank Carlberg, ‘Pido El Silencio’“Los Trabajos y Las Noches” is a 10-part song cycle that the Argentine vocalist Roxana Amed and the New York pianist Frank Carlberg wrote, using the poetry of Alejandra Pizarnik — a literary hero in mid-20th-century Argentina — as lyrics. Pizarnik’s verse, like Miles Davis’s trumpet playing, was known for its strategic use of silence and restraint. So the album’s first track, “Pido El Silencio,” (“I Beg for Silence”), is an apt opener: nine minutes of forbearance and cycling harmonies and non-resolution. Amed sings the short, mysterious poem repeatedly (in English, it’s: “Although it is late, it is nighttime,/and you’re unable./Sing as if nothing’s happened./Nothing happens”), then she sings in harmony with Carlberg’s piano and Adam Kolker’s tenor saxophone on a wordless bridge. The pianist starts a looming octave chime in the upper register and the band fixes upon a sequence of obscured, sometimes-mucky harmonies, until he finally breaks out into a lyrical solo. But even when Carlberg gets going, there are savory chunks of hesitation embedded in his phrases. RUSSONELLO More

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    Popcast Mailbag! Frank Ocean, Peso Pluma, A.I. Grimes and More

    Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Amazon MusicThe Popcast crew assembles for a semiannual mailbag episode, touching on many of the pressing pop music issues of the moment, including the controversy surrounding Frank Ocean’s Coachella set; the challenges faced by even the biggest pop stars (Sam Smith, Miley Cyrus) trying to follow massive singles; the sudden arrival of artificial intelligence in pop music and evolving notions of authorship; the startling recent growth in the popularity and visibility of música Mexicana and corridos tumbados, with stars like Grupo Frontera and Peso Pluma; and how the framework of genre continues to have meaning even in a universal-jukebox universe.Guests:Jon Pareles, The New York Time’s chief pop music criticJoe Coscarelli, The New York Times’s pop music reporterLindsay Zoladz, The New York Times’s pop music criticCaryn Ganz, The New York Times’s pop music editorConnect With Popcast. Become a part of the Popcast community: Join the show’s Facebook group and Discord channel. We want to hear from you! Tune in, and tell us what you think at popcast@nytimes.com. Follow our host, Jon Caramanica, on Twitter: @joncaramanica. More

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    Who Created Flamin’ Hot Cheetos? A New Movie Seeks Answers

    The film, now streaming on Hulu and Disney Plus, was adapted from a debunked memoir, but it does reveal how food brands want to be seen.Like Oscar Isaac, I occasionally use chopsticks to eat hot Cheetos, a technique that keeps their red dust from sticking to my fingers. It’s the neatest way to keep pace with a perfectly engineered snack, designed both to satisfy the desire for its prickly heat and violent crunch, its convincing tang and mellow sweetness, and to fuel an immediate need to revisit it.There are films this year celebrating (and satirizing) the invention of all kinds of consumer products, including the BlackBerry, Air Jordans and Tetris, but I never imagined that this spicy little snack produced by a multinational corporation could be the hero of a late-capitalist uplift saga.“Flamin’ Hot,” directed by Eva Longoria and streaming now on Hulu and Disney Plus, is a frothy, optimistic, very American film about Richard Montañez, a Mexican American kid from San Bernardino County who grows up to work at a Frito-Lay plant and dreams up a billion-dollar idea: Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.Through Montañez, the rise of the fingertip-staining, habit-forming, spicy corn-based snack becomes a story of the American dream — a ’90s-style janitor-to-executive tale fueled by pure grit and guts. Is it Montañez’s biopic, or the snack’s? In the film, there’s no difference, and success is a blurry, feverish longing. Montañez imagines his personal triumph as tangled up with the product’s, and seems convinced that corporate approval of hot Cheetos will somehow translate to respect and representation for working-class Mexican Americans. If that all seems a bit too tidy, a bit too good to be true, well, it’s because it is.“Flamin’ Hot” was adapted from the memoir-ish self-help book of the real-life Richard Montañez. (One example of its guidance: “You can start your journey by putting your hunger to work for you so you can move past your fears.”). Though Mr. Montañez did work his way up from janitor to marketing executive at Frito-Lay, a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2021 thoroughly debunked the story of his inventing hot Cheetos.Jesse Garcia plays Mr. Montañez as a charming and somewhat unreliable narrator of his own story.Searchlight Pictures/20th Century StudiosIn fact, in the late 1980s, Frito-Lay was losing on small-bag snack sales and getting desperate. Testing a spicy flavor line was a coordinated corporate strategy, and hot Cheetos were first released to the company’s test markets in Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland and Houston, not Southern California, where the film is set.Mr. Montañez’s version was admittedly way more fun than the truth, but adapting it was also an opportunity to revise, reshape and ultimately align the story of hot Cheetos with consumers.In the film, getting ready for his pitch to the executives, he practices his lines with a co-worker at the factory: “The Hispanic market will not be ignored!” But in the big meeting, he softens, admitting both his strategy and his vulnerability: “I want to know that I matter to you, to this company, to the world.”In the years since they were introduced, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos have become a billion-dollar product for Frito-Lay.The Image Party/ShutterstockHot Cheetos are great, but I don’t know — does anyone think a snack can do all that? Gushers can tweet about #BlackLivesMatter, M&M’s green mascot can switch from heels to flats and Skittles can print new packaging for Pride, but we all know that gestures from food brands tend to be hollow.In “Flamin’ Hot,” the PepsiCo chief executive Roger Enrico gives away the game: “You still think I’m investing in a janitor?” he says. “The Hispanic market is the future and this man is going to lead us there.”It sounds like a betrayal, but it’s not. It’s exactly what Montañez, who would later become known as the “godfather of Hispanic marketing” has been fighting for from the start — not for people, but for consumers — and the film exalts it.A murky and heartbreaking impulse drives Montañez from the start of the film, when he realizes that the elementary school bullies making fun of his lunch actually kind of like it. He starts charging them 25 cents per foil-wrapped bean burrito, converting his humiliation into cold, hard cash. Maybe he can’t get his haters to like him, but at least they like his food. Later, at the Frito-Lay factory, Montañez and his co-workers “fight” corporate, which refuses to invest in marketing hot Cheetos properly, setting up the product — and by extension, Montañez and his crew — to fail. They find their own ingenious, dodgy ways to get the product off the shelves in Rancho Cucamonga. And Enrico, ultimately impressed by the numbers, calls Montañez to say he’d like the factory to produce five million cases.Mr. Garcia, left, and the director, Eva Longoria, on the set of “Flamin’ Hot.”Searchlight Pictures/20th Century StudiosThe demand for more hot Cheetos is framed as our hero’s great victory, but the terms of the battle are a little flimsy, and its setup is insincere. Let’s rewind: Factory workers faced up against corporate suits to … do what exactly? To help those suits. To help Frito-Lay claim the Hispanic market in Southern California and to make the company more money.Though that isn’t how things went down, the Flamin’ Hot flavor line is in fact a wild success story tied to its fans, who constantly expand on the brand’s reach with viral recipes like hot Cheetos salads, elotes and fried chicken, until the dishes become canon. In an interview, Ms. Longoria emphasized the sense of collective ownership over the snack: “I like to say, this isn’t PepsiCo’s product, this is our product. The Hispanic community made this product popular, we made it a pop-culture phenomenon.”Much like the “Flamin’ Hot” origin story, that’s not entirely true. Though the film romanticizes labor on the production line, factories that produce hot Cheetos also employ underage migrant workers, mostly from Central America, whose lungs sting from all the spicy dust in the air. The billion-dollar brand belongs totally and patently to PepsiCo, not the people who buy or make the snacks.What “Flamin’ Hot” does get right, in a glossy fictional origin story, is showing us exactly how food brands wish we would see them — wholesome and harmless and completely essential to our lives, their wins and successes so tangled up with our own, it’s impossible to tell the difference.Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and Pinterest. Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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    Juilliard Fires Professor After Sexual Misconduct Inquiry

    An investigation found “credible evidence” that Robert Beaser, a composition professor, had engaged in “conduct which interfered with individuals’ academic work,” the school said.The Juilliard School has fired a professor who had been accused of sexually harassing students after an independent investigation found “credible evidence” that he had “engaged in conduct which interfered with individuals’ academic work,” the school said in a letter to students, staff, faculty and alumni on Thursday.Juilliard said the professor, Robert Beaser, 69, who served as chair of the composition department from 1994 to 2018, had behaved in a manner that was “inconsistent with Juilliard’s commitment to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for its students.” The school did not elaborate, saying only that the investigation had found evidence of a past “unreported relationship” and that Beaser had “repeatedly misrepresented facts about his actions.”Richard C. Schoenstein​, a lawyer for Beaser, denied that his client had misled his employer. He said the relationship in question took place three decades ago, had been known to Juilliard since then and had been the subject of previous inquiries. He called the school’s findings “unspecific and unattributed” and said that Beaser would “pursue his legal rights in full.”“Dr. Beaser is shocked and dismayed by Juilliard’s conclusions and actions,” Schoenstein said.The inquiry was ordered after an investigation in December 2022 by VAN, a classical music magazine, that detailed accusations against Beaser and other Juilliard composition teachers. VAN, citing interviews with unnamed former students, said that Beaser had made unwanted advances toward students and engaged in sexual relationships with them.The accusations prompted an outcry among students, faculty and alumni, as well as prominent composers and musicians. Juilliard placed Beaser on paid leave during the inquiry.Juilliard said that it had also looked into complaints against Christopher Rouse, another professor named in the VAN investigation. While the school determined that these allegations were also credible, it said that the complaints could not be fully investigated because Rouse had died in 2019.In the letter on Thursday, Juilliard said administrators had previously investigated some of these accusations of sexual misconduct in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and again in the 2017-18 academic year. These investigations “were handled based on their understanding of the information provided at that time,” according to the school.Juilliard said it had ordered the latest inquiry because of new information in news reports, and that the investigation had determined that “some students, especially women, experienced an environment in the department that did not live up to the school’s values and expectations.”Juilliard’s leaders said they were “dismayed by the negative impact” the events had on students at the time. They vowed to strengthen oversight, with measures including banning all sexual relationships between students and professors, beginning this fall. While professors have long been barred from having romantic relationships with undergraduates, the school has sometimes made exceptions for relationships between faculty members and graduate students.Juilliard said it would also seek to clarify channels for reporting harassment and bias.“Juilliard is committed to providing a safe, supportive and welcoming environment for all members of our school community, and to addressing concerns past and present,” the letter said. “No form of discrimination or harassment is tolerated, and we take all allegations reported to us seriously.” More

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    ‘American Pain’ Review: When the Pills and the Money Kept On Flowing

    Darren Foster’s documentary offers an energetic profile of twin brothers who operated a slick drug trafficking operation in South Florida.Beginning around 2008, a chain of shady pain clinics popped up in South Florida. The storefronts administered opioids on a sweeping scale; users and dealers alike would travel hundreds of miles to load up. The pill mills were run by Jeff and Chris George, twin brothers whose desire to get rich quick fueled the operation.The story of the Georges receives a dynamic retelling in “American Pain” (on Max), named with heavy irony after one of their clinics. The director, Darren Foster, frames the film almost as a profile, beginning with the twins’ upbringing before zipping to the launch of their venture. In interviews, past associates of the brothers — and the brothers themselves, speaking by phone from prison — talk openly about the slickness of the enterprise, the efficiency with which they moved visitors in and out. Foster pairs the testimonials with footage from TV news reporters and, eventually, from undercover missions by federal agents.As suffering carried on around them, Jeff and Chris made millions. Foster casts a clear eye on this cruelty, but the film also revels in the rollicking nature of the men’s venture. Plenty of time is spent on the nuttier details of their enterprise: the excessive workplace drinking, the money transported in trash bags, the receptionists hired for looks alone. Given only a cursory look is the broken system that enabled the men to conduct their dealings. At the time, Florida laws were beyond lax. And even as the orders grew unwieldy, pharmaceutical suppliers continued to ship the clinics pills.The utility of an energetic character study of depraved opioid kingpins is questionable. But the documentary unspools with enough style and spark to engage.American PainNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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    ‘Blue Jean’ Review: No Privacy in the Girls’ Locker Room

    School bullying rattles the life of a closeted lesbian teacher in this accomplished period drama.In 1987, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Margaret Thatcher, addressed public panic over children’s library books, stating at the Conservative Party conference, “Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.” Thatcher’s views were quickly adopted into the British legal code, and in 1988, the government prohibited the promotion of homosexuality in school. The film “Blue Jean” sets its story in this repressive period. Broadcasts of Thatcher’s proclamations blare in the background as the movie’s protagonist, Jean (Rosy McEwen), traverses between her life as a lesbian and her life as a high school gym teacher.When the film begins, Jean has already gone to the trouble of getting divorced and of coming out to her barely tolerant family. Her hair is bleached and her clothes are masculine, but she is still establishing a life for herself as a queer person. By contrast, Jean is in love with Viv (Kerrie Hayes), an out lesbian with a buzz cut and punk clothes. Viv is at ease with herself and other gay people. Viv’s many friends cast a slightly suspicious eye on Jean, as a jumpy newcomer to the lesbian club.Jean appears more confident in the classroom. As a teacher, her demeanor is as cheekily frosty as her hair color. She maintains firm boundaries with her adolescent charges, insisting on promptness in the locker room and easily shrugging off any youthful insubordination.But Jean’s equilibrium is disturbed when a new student, Lois (Lucy Halliday), enters the class. Lois becomes a target for Jean’s star student, who bullies Lois by suggesting to the class that she might be a lesbian. At first, Lois tries to halfheartedly deny the accusations, but she soon finds that her fists provide a better defense.It is Jean’s professional responsibility to resolve fights between students. But as someone who has been on the receiving end of discrimination, Jean feels a communal obligation to get involved and to use what authority she has to prevent younger people from becoming both victims and perpetrators of homophobia. This responsibility rattles Jean, disturbing even her life with Viv, and the film uses her terror to draw out genuine feeling and dramatic conflict. In some scenes, conversations about lesbian aggression appear to make Jean spontaneously break out in hives — a credit to the film’s makeup team and to McEwen’s committed performance.The film’s writer and director, Georgia Oakley, has made an accomplished movie in many ways. “Blue Jean” looks fantastic, and the period details are pitch perfect, from the moppish 1980s haircuts to the New Order music choices, all the way down to the neon gender symbols at the lesbian bar. Yet the film’s most impressive quality is its nuanced understanding of how political circumstances create different spheres of life. Jean is a character who moves both discreetly and discretely between worlds that cannot acknowledge each other. Her public and private lives are stacked, and Jean carries both like fragile cargo. One dish too many, and the whole tray could come crashing down.Blue JeanNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More