Aurelia Butler

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    Springsteen, in England, Blasts Trump Administration as ‘Treasonous’

    His remarks, delivered to an audience abroad, stood out at a time when other superstar artists have seemed to mute their criticism of the president.Bruce Springsteen opened his “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour in Manchester, England, on Wednesday with a forceful denunciation of President Trump, accusing him and his administration of trampling on civil rights and workers, abandoning allies and siding with dictators.Even for an avowed liberal like Mr. Springsteen, it was a notably piercing broadside at a time when some artists have seemed to avoid directly confronting Mr. Trump as they did in 2017, after he took office the first time. Back then, many prominent performers and celebrities roundly denounced Mr. Trump at shows and rallies and on television.Appearing in Manchester, Mr. Springsteen, 75, criticized Mr. Trump in separate remarks before his songs “Land of Hope and Dreams,” “House of a Thousand Guitars” and “My City of Ruins.” He later posted a transcript of his comments on his website and a video of them on his YouTube channel.“The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock ’n’ roll, in dangerous times,” he said. “In my home, the America I love, the America I’ve written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”The crowd responded with cheers, and Mr. Springsteen went on to offer a litany of grievances about the administration, accusing it of “taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers.”“They’re rolling back historic civil rights legislation that has led to a more just and plural society,” he said. “They’re abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom. They’re defunding American universities that won’t bow down to their ideological demands. They’re removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.”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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    in Movies

    ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ Review: The Weeknd’s Overextended Music Video

    A filmic companion to the Weeknd’s latest album, this meta psychological thriller is all style and no substance.Beneath the lurid adrenaline of the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” which Billboard classified as the No. 1 song of all time in 2021, is really a story of emptiness, explains Anima (Jenna Ortega). A superfan of the singer, she tells this to the Weeknd (a.k.a. Abel Tesfaye) himself — while his hands are bound to the bedposts in a hotel room.Like an acid-trip pop-star spin on Stephen King’s “Misery,” this sequence from “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” a filmic companion to Tesfaye’s latest album (supposedly his final one as the Weeknd), is in some ways the most apt manifestation of the story his music has always circled around: the devil’s bargain of fame, the hedonism that offers a fun-house portal to self-oblivion.But the film, directed by Trey Edward Shults, who wrote the screenplay with Tesfaye, primarily amounts to an overextended music video that shrinks and cheapens the universe that the Weeknd’s songs gesture toward. Tesfaye plays himself as a heartbroken superstar who exists in a seemingly perpetual bender alongside his best friend and manager, Lee (Barry Keoghan). After losing his voice onstage during a show (based on Tesfaye’s real experience), he finds solace in Anima, a mysterious girl in the crowd, whose obsession with him plunges him into a kind of ego-death horror show.This would all seem to make for a proper farewell to a musical identity that has always gravitated toward the darkly cinematic. It was in the alt-R&B sound he helped pioneer and the shadowy persona he cultivated; the conceptual trilogy of his latest three albums all featured a distinct protagonist traversing underworlds and afterlives (and, at one point, winding up with a bandaged nose à la Jack Nicholson’s private eye in “Chinatown”).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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    Smokey Robinson Faces Criminal Investigation After Assault Allegations

    The Motown legend, who was accused in a lawsuit earlier this month of sexually assaulting four former housekeepers, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has opened a criminal investigation into the Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who was accused in a civil suit this month of sexually assaulting four women, the department said Thursday.Mr. Robinson, 85, was sued earlier this month by four former housekeepers, who accused him of abusing them dozens of times over the years. His lawyer has denied the accusations. Now he is the subject of a criminal investigation.“The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau is actively investigating criminal allegations involving William Robinson a.k.a. ‘Smokey Robinson,’” Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a statement. “The investigation is in the early stages, and we have no further comment.”The civil suit, filed in Los Angeles, identified the accusers only as Jane Does 1 through 4. They accused Mr. Robinson of raping them repeatedly over the years while they were employed cleaning several of his homes. The suit claimed that Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, has known about his sexual misconduct but failed to protect the women.Mr. Robinson’s lawyer, Christopher Frost, said in a statement that the unnamed plaintiffs had “filed a police report only after they filed a $50 million lawsuit,” which he said that the police would be required to investigate.“We feel confident that a determination will be made that Mr. Robinson did nothing wrong, and that this is a desperate attempt to prejudice public opinion and make even more of a media circus than the plaintiffs were previously able to create,” Mr. Frost said in a statement. “The record will ultimately demonstrate that this is nothing more than a manufactured lawsuit intended to tarnish the good names of Smokey and Frances Robinson, for no other reason than unadulterated avarice.”The lawyers for the plaintiffs, John Harris and Herbert Hayden, said in a statement that they were pleased to learn that the sheriff’s department had “opened a criminal investigation into our clients’ claims of sexual assault against Smokey Robinson.”“Our clients intend to fully cooperate with L.A.S.D.’s ongoing investigation in the pursuit of seeking justice for themselves and others that may have been similarly assaulted by him,” they said in the statement. More

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    Kennedy Center Employees, Alarmed by Trump, Push to Unionize

    Employees say they are concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming.”Since President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts earlier this year, his administration has scaled back some programs there and fired nearly 40 employees.Those changes have unnerved many of the center’s administrative staff members, who work in programming, education, marketing, fund-raising, public relations and other areas. Now, seeking greater protection for their jobs, more than 90 of them are leading a push to unionize, they announced on Thursday.The employees, calling themselves the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers, said in a statement that they were concerned by the Trump administration’s efforts to “dismantle mission-essential departments and reshape our arts programming without regard to the interests of program funders, philanthropists, national partners and the audiences we serve.“We demand,” the statement continued, “transparent and consistent terms for hiring and firing, a return to ethical norms, freedom from partisan interference in programming, free speech protections and the right to negotiate the terms of our employment.”A push to unionize is likely to escalate tensions at the center, which has been in flux since Mr. Trump purged its previously bipartisan board of Biden appointees and had himself elected chairman in February. The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Trump administration has previously defended cost-cutting efforts, saying the center is in poor financial health and must scale back to survive. Mr. Trump recently requested $257 million from Congress for capital repairs and other expenses there, according to lawmakers; the funding is still being discussed.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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    Cannes Film Festival 2025: Is This an Early Front-runner for the Palme d’Or?

    “Sound of Falling,” which tracks four German girls over the course of a century, drew early raves. But it might not go the distance.Survey journalists during the first few days of the Cannes Film Festival, and you’re likely to hear some grumbling. Though it may seem uncharitable to complain in such a glittery, glamorous location, it’s practically tradition for critics here to shrug at the initial salvo of movies, wondering how long it will take for a viable contender to emerge that could win the prestigious Palme d’Or.Sometimes, it takes quite awhile. Unlike other major film festivals, Cannes, which started Tuesday, doesn’t front-load its highest-profile titles: Significant movies unspool every day over two weeks, and the Palme winner often does not debut until the festival’s back half.This year, though, an early pacesetter seems to have emerged. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, “Sound of Falling” skips through time to track four girls who have lived on the same German farm over the course of a century. From the prewar era to the modern day, these young women contend with many of the same issues, from nascent sexual curiosity to brutally violent repression.It’s arty and lengthy in the way that Cannes juries often favor, and many of the early reviews were rapturous, especially those by critics who had prescreened the movie before the festival began. To hear those scribes tell it, “Sound of Falling” is “transfixing” (The Hollywood Reporter), “astonishingly poised and ambitious”(Variety), and “a high-water mark that will be hard for another feature to reach” (Vulture).Still, the response on the ground wasn’t entirely positive after Wednesday’s premiere. A critic friend texted me that he found the film “pretty vacuous” and the fest’s popular Screen International grid, which compiles scores from a dozen critics on a scale from one to four, gave “Sound of Falling” an average of 2.8. That’s respectable, but last year’s Palme winner, “Anora,” hit 3.3, while the previous victor, “Anatomy of a Fall,” earned a 3.0.Can passion win out over consensus? Stay tuned. More

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    Joe Don Baker, Actor Who Found Fame With ‘Walking Tall,’ Dies at 89

    His performance as a crusading Southern sheriff made him a star after a decade under the radar in character parts. He went on to play a wide range of roles.Joe Don Baker, the tall, broad-shouldered character actor who found overnight fame when he starred as a crusading Southern sheriff in “Walking Tall,” a surprise hit both at the box office and with critics, and who went on to an impressive range of screen roles over the next four decades, died on May 7. He was 89.The death was announced by his family on Tuesday. The announcement did not say where he died or cite a cause.Released in the era of “Dirty Harry” and “Billy Jack,” “Walking Tall” (1973) is the story of a Tennessee man who moves back to his hometown and finds it hopelessly changed by illegal gambling, prostitution and careless moonshiners. The movie, as Dave Kehr described it almost 40 years later in The New York Times, is “a wild-eyed fantasy about an incorruptible leader who finds it necessary to subvert the law in order to save it.”A low-budget production, directed by the journeyman filmmaker Phil Karlson, it opened on Staten Island months before it arrived in Manhattan but proved to be a phenomenon. Vincent Canby, reviewing the film in The Times, called it “relentlessly violent” but also “uncommonly well acted.”It was soon noticed and praised by a wide array of prominent critics. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called it “a volcano of a movie” and saw in Mr. Baker, a 37-year-old unknown with a decade of credits, mostly on television, “the mighty stature of a classic hero.”“The picture’s crudeness and its crummy cinematography give it the illusion of honesty,” she wrote.Vanity Fair wrote in 2000 that “Walking Tall” had “a major asset in Joe Don Baker,” whom it compared to Elvis Presley.MGM, via LMPC/Getty ImagesWe 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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    Diddy’s Lawyers Work to Establish Cassie’s Agency in Freak-Offs

    On the first day of cross-examination, a defense lawyer asked Casandra Ventura about messages she wrote to the music mogul ahead of their sex sessions.It was only about a half-hour into the cross-examination of Casandra Ventura that a lawyer for Sean Combs drew on messages the couple exchanged, in an attempt to establish one of the defense’s key arguments in the case: that Ms. Ventura was a willing participant in the sex marathons known as “freak-offs.”Anna Estevao, the defense lawyer questioning Ms. Ventura on Thursday, presented a message the singer wrote to Mr. Combs in 2009, that read, “I’m always ready to freak off lolol.”In another exchange from around that time, Ms. Ventura expressed her excitement in graphic terms, and he told her: “I can’t wait to watch you. I want you to get real hott.”She answered: “Me too. I just want it to be uncontrollable.”Conversations like those, which could involve both explicit flirtation and logistical planning about their meetings and preparations, were “somewhat typical” for the two, Ms. Ventura testified.Those messages showed a very different side of the relationship than what Ms. Ventura described in the first two days of her testimony, under questioning by prosecutors. Over hours of sometimes excruciating testimony, she said that Mr. Combs had forced her to take part in “hundreds” of these episodes over about 10 years, and used violence and threats of releasing explicit videos from the freak-offs as what she called “blackmail materials.”Mr. Combs, who is charged with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy, has pleaded not guilty, and his lawyers have vehemently denied that any of his sexual encounters were not consensual.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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    Luigi Alva, Elegant Tenor With a Lighthearted Touch, Dies at 98

    A Peruvian-born international star, he made a specialty of roles in operas by Donizetti, Rossini and Mozart, becoming one of their pre-eminent interpreters.Luigi Alva, the Peruvian tenor who was a pre-eminent interpreter of Mozart and Rossini roles that highlighted his light-lyric voice, elegant phrasing and subtle acting during a three-decade career on the world’s opera stages, died on Thursday at his home in Barlassina, Italy, north of Milan. He was 98. His death was confirmed by the Peruvian tenor Ernesto Palacio, a close friend and the intendant of the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Italy.Mr. Alva did not have the booming, resonant voice needed for dramatic tenor performances in the biggest opera houses. But he triumphed in opera buffa roles — such as Count Almaviva in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” and the lovesick Ernesto in Donizetti’s “Don Pasquale” — which demanded fine comedic timing and an appreciation for absurd situations without resorting to slapstick or mugging.In more serious roles, such as Don Ottavio in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Mr. Alva displayed a warm timbre and gracious line that gained him an enthusiastic following. Few tenors could match his ability to deliver long coloratura passages with a single breath, as Mr. Alva did time and again in “Il mio tesoro,” the famous aria from “Don Giovanni.”“The real trick is not merely to sing the passage, but to make it sound easy,” the critic Alan Rich of The New York Times wrote on the occasion of Mr. Alva’s New York recital debut at Judson Hall in 1961. “And this was the way he sang throughout the evening — beautifully, and with an assurance that was literally breathtaking.”In more serious roles, such as Don Ottavio in “Don Giovanni,” Mr. Alva displayed a warm timbre and gracious line that gained him an enthusiastic following. Here he performed the role in 1963 at La Scala.Erio Piccagliani/Teatro alla ScalaWe 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