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    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Melinda Wilson, Wife of Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, Dies at 77

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      Ms. Wilson’s relationship with her husband, a co-founder of the Beach Boys, was portrayed in the 2014 film “Love & Mercy.”Melinda Wilson, who rescued her future husband, the Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson, from psychological ruin when they were dating in the 1980s, died on Tuesday. She was 77.Mr. Wilson confirmed her death on Instagram, saying that they had been married for 28 years. No cause of death was given.Jean Sievers, Mr. Wilson’s manager, said that Ms. Wilson had died suddenly at her home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She added that the couple has five adopted children — Dakota Rose, Daria Rose, Dash, Dylan and Delanie Rae — who all survive her and carry Mr. Wilson’s surname.The couple’s relationship was portrayed in the 2014 biopic “Love & Mercy.” The film shows Ms. Wilson (Elizabeth Banks) meeting Mr. Wilson, played by both John Cusack and Paul Dano, in a Cadillac showroom in Los Angeles where she was working as a saleswoman.After the film was released, Ms. Banks said in an interview with ABC News that she had met Ms. Wilson while preparing for the role.“She said to me, ‘Music is his first love,’” Ms. Banks told ABC. “‘Nothing can replace it. It’s his being, it’s his essence, it’s his everything. So I’m settling for second, but it’s a pretty good — it’s a pretty good second.’”The film shows Ms. Wilson helping her then boyfriend navigate a bout of mental illness in the 1980s. That effort, and their courtship, is complicated by the presence of Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a psychologist who had helped Mr. Wilson fight off depression and substance abuse to stage a professional comeback.Mr. Landy, whose team of professional minders at one point lived with Mr. Wilson 24 hours a day, insinuated himself into the musician’s life to the point where the therapist was at one point acting as his Mr. Wilson’s business partner, record producer and occasional songwriting partner.In 1992, a lawsuit by Mr. Wilson’s family resulted in a court order that barred Mr. Landy from contacting Mr. Wilson. Mr. Landy died in 2006.John Cusack as Brian Wilson and Elizabeth Banks as Melinda Ledbetter in the 2014 film “Love & Mercy.”François DuhamelMelinda Kae Ledbetter was born on Oct. 3, 1946, in Pueblo, Colo. She grew up in Whittier, Calif., and went to college there before becoming a model, Ms. Sievers said.She also worked as a producer on several films related to her husband’s music, including “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road” (2021) and “Pet Sounds Live at Royce Hall” (2006). The latter title refers to “Pet Sounds,” a landmark 1966 Beach Boys album.When the couple saw the film “Love & Mercy” for the first time, Ms. Wilson told ABC News, she did not know how tough the experience would be.“I think I was more nervous than him when I took him to see it, and after, I said, ‘So what did you think?’” she said. “And he goes, ‘Oh, it was really a lot worse in real life.’” More

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      in Movies

      Minute-Long Soap Operas Are Here. Is America Ready?

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      Popularized in China during the pandemic, ReelShort and other apps are hoping to bring minute-by-minute melodramas to the United States.When Albee Zhang received an offer to produce cheesy short-form features made for phones last spring, she was skeptical, and so, she declined.But the offers kept coming. Finally, Ms. Zhang, who has been a producer for 12 years, realized it could be a profitable new way of storytelling and said yes.Since last summer, she has produced two short-form features and is working on four more for several apps that are creating cookie-cutter content aimed at women.Think: Lifetime movie cut up into TikTok videos. Think: soap opera, but for the short attention span of the internet age.The biggest player in this new genre is ReelShort, an app that offers melodramatic content in minute-long, vertically shot episodes and is hoping to bring a successful formula established abroad to the United States by hooking millions of people on its short-form content.“The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband” is one of the many short features you can watch on ReelShort, an app that offers short dramatic content meant to be watched on phones. ReelShort

      @reelshortapp On your 18th birthday, the Moon Goddess granted you a RED wolf. She said a new journey awaited you, but there were also evil forces after your power… Called weak your whole life, what POWER could you possibly have?! #fyp #reelshort #binge #bingeworthy #bingewatching #obsessed #obsession #mustwatch #witch #alpha #werewolf #moon #wolfpack #booktok #luna #drama #film #movie #tiktok #tv #tvseries #shortclips #tvclips #filmtok #movietok #dramatok #romance #love #marriage #relationship #couple #dramatiktok #filmtiktok #movietiktoks #saturday #saturdayvibes #saturdaymood #saturdaymotivation #saturdayfeels #saturdayfeeling #weekend #weekendvibes ♬ original sound – ReelShort APP 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?  More

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      in Movies

      A Mind-Bending 7-Hour Epic About Hitler Gets a Rare Screening

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      Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s surreal film collage was a cause celebre when it reached the United States in 1980. It’s a fascinating contrast with current Holocaust dramas.This weekend, the hottest ticket in New York is a seven-hour-plus movie about Adolf Hitler.Showing just once at Film at Lincoln Center, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s rarely screened epic, “Hitler, a Film From Germany,” is, according to the programmers, sold out despite its behemoth running time (which includes a few breaks). It’s a curious sort of event movie.Distributed by Francis Ford Coppola, it was first released in the United States in 1980, when it also played to sold-out houses. Presumably, these viewers were intrigued by the huge scope of its ambitions. Susan Sontag’s seal of approval was the cherry on top; she considered it a masterpiece. “There is Syberberg’s film — and then there are the other films one admires,” she wrote.Some 442 minutes later, whether audiences stumble out of the theater agreeing with Sontag, one thing remains true: There is nothing like it.Divided in four parts, the film is a Wagnerian opera on acid, composed of theatrical sketches inspired by the German dictator’s life. Images from classics of German cinema like “Nosferatu” and “M” are interspersed with archival footage from World War II, creating a surreal collage made extra disorienting by bursts of Beethoven and overlapping stream-of-consciousness narration. If this “primal scream therapy,” as one voice in the film puts it, sounds overwhelming, it’s only a taste of the film’s dizzying powers. Syberberg wasn’t without a sense of humor, either: In one scene, steam pours out of a sculpture of a rear end. The caption reads: “The biggest fart of the century.”Based on these details, it should come as no surprise that the director wasn’t interested in portraying the actual Hitler. To him, realistic depictions of Nazi Germany indulge our morbid fascination and simplify a troubling and complicated reality.For its American release, Coppola retitled the film “Our Hitler” because it explores the mythologies and images that we associate with the German dictator, meaning Hitler isn’t presented as a single man but as a projection of mankind’s darkest fantasies and desires throughout history. Multiple actors play him, as do puppets, cardboard cutouts and a dog. The film is “about the Hitler in all of us,” Syberbeg once said.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?  More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      Can You Match Up These Short Stories and Their Screen Adaptations?

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      This 1950 film, a psychological thriller about four differing eyewitness accounts concerning a pair of crimes, was directed by Akira Kurosawa and is considered a cinematic masterpiece. Most of the script was adapted from “In a Bamboo Grove,” a short story by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, with elements of another Akutagawa story as well. What is the name of the film? More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      ‘Suits’ and ‘Friends’: Here’s What Americans Streamed in 2023

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      Hollywood was on strike for much of the year. And yet the time viewers spent streaming shows and movies went up. A lot.Last year, studios continued to pull back how much they spend on new TV shows. A pair of strikes effectively shut down Hollywood for several months, disrupting new releases of television shows and movies.And yet Americans kept on streaming.The time that people watched streaming services from their TV sets last year jumped 21 percent from 2022, according to a year-end review on streaming trends by Nielsen, the media research firm. There were nearly a million television shows and movies for Americans to choose from on over 90 streaming services.What did they watch? A lot of reruns, it turns out.Here’s a look at some of the trends.‘Suits’ Bests ‘Stranger Things’From left, Gaten Matarazzo, Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink in a scene from “Stranger Things.”NetflixIt’s well established that “Suits,” the USA Network’s legal procedural that aired from 2011 to 2019, was an unexpected streaming hit last year. Netflix subscribers began devouring it over the summer. They shattered records in the process.“Suits,” with 57.7 billion minutes of viewing time in 2023, eclipsed both “The Office” in 2020 and “Stranger Things” in 2022 (when its fourth season was released) as the most-streamed show on television sets in a single year, according to Nielsen. (The research firm began releasing yearly figures in 2020.)“Suits” was probably new to most viewers who watched it on Netflix, said Brian Fuhrer, a senior vice president of product at Nielsen.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?  More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Vanderpump Rules’ and the Grammys

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      The Bravo hit returns for an 11th season, and the Recording Academy hands out awards.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 29-Feb. 4. Details and times are subject to change.MondayBAD ROMANCE 10 p.m. on ABC. In February 2023, Becky Bliefnick was murdered in her home, and her estranged husband, Tim Bliefnick, was immediately the primary person of interest. Evidence was found in the home and online, but one of the creepiest parts of the case is an appearance Tim made on “Family Feud” years earlier. The question he was asked didn’t seem out of the ordinary: “What’s the biggest mistake you made at your wedding?” His answer: “Honey, I love you, but said, ‘I do.’” This special edition of “20/20” takes a deeper look at the case.TuesdayVANDERPUMP RULES 8 p.m. on Bravo. I will always choose “Below Deck” over anything else in the Bravo universe, but I can humbly admit that this season premiere is going to be one of the network’s biggest must-watch moments all year. After “Scandoval” set the reality-television world aflame, this is the first chance to check back in with Tom Sandoval and Ariana Madix (minus Rachel Leviss, who has left the show). With Madix headed to Broadway to play Roxie in “Chicago” and Tom Schwartz coming off a slight character-redeeming run on “Winter House,” I personally can’t wait to see more drama unfold.WednesdayNaomi Watts and Tom Hollander in “Feud.”FXFEUD 10 p.m. on FX. Ryan Murphy is back at it with another season of his anthology series. When the show debuted in 2017, it focused on a feud between the actresses Joan Crawford and Bette Davis that exploded when they filmed “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?” This season, subtitled “Capote vs. the Swans,” focuses on the fallings-out that the writer Truman Capote had with New York City socialites, including Ann Woodward, Babe Paley and C.Z. Guest.ThursdayFARMER WANTS A WIFE 9 p.m. on Fox. The second season, hosted by the singer and actress Jennifer Nettles, is bringing 32 “city girls” to the countryside to meet four single farmers to hopefully create a match. Look, it’s definitely not conventional (and might not be particularly successful), but I’ve read enough novels with the “big city girl moves to a small town and falls in love” trope that I’m willing to suspend my disbelief — for 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?  More

    • 75 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      5 Podcasts for Hollywood’s Awards Season

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      As Oscars night approaches, these shows offer expert analysis and predictions, insight into behind-the-scenes machinations and reflections on front-runners of the past.The 2024 awards season has felt unusually hectic so far, thanks to the strike-delayed Emmy Awards shifting from their usual fall airdate to January. To help make sense of it all — and unpack the discombobulated state of Hollywood now — these five podcasts offer a mixture of expert analysis and predictions for the major ceremonies, original reporting on the industry trends and behind-the-scenes machinations that influence voting, and reflections on Oscar front-runners of the past that probably shouldn’t have been.‘Little Gold Men’This Vanity Fair series debuted in 2015, which means it’s been on hand to chronicle some of the weirdest moments in Academy history, like the 2017 Best Picture flub (when “La La Land” was mistakenly announced as the winner instead of “Moonlight”), 2021’s muted Covid-era ceremony held in a cavernous Los Angeles train station, and the slap heard around the world in 2022. But even when there’s nothing quite so unusual going on, the analysis here always makes awards season more interesting. Hosted by the Vanity Fair journalists Michael Hogan, Katey Rich, Richard Lawson and Joanna Robinson, the conversation is always exhaustive and packed with expertise, exploring not just the contenders for Hollywood’s top prizes, but also the campaigning and strategizing that shape the race. Since many Oscar journeys begin at film festivals such as Sundance, Cannes, Venice and Toronto, there’s no shortage of news and releases to cover year round, not to mention interviews; recent guests have included Andrew Scott (“All of Us Strangers”), Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) and Greta Lee (“Past Lives”).Starter episode: “Oscar Voters, Start Your Engines”‘This Had Oscar Buzz’There’s a peculiar category of film that debuts with great fanfare, attracts plenty of awards buzz, and then fades from the cultural consciousness without a trace (and no awards). Not all of the films discussed on “This Had Oscar Buzz” fall into that bracket, but, as the title suggests, the focus is on the movies that had that buzzy aura around them, at least for a while. An early episode about “Cake,” a 2014 movie starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman living with chronic pain, exemplifies what works so well about this format — Aniston was lauded for her playing-against-type performance and campaigned intensely during that awards season, but was famously snubbed on Oscar nomination morning. The hosts, Joe Reid and Chris Feil, don’t belittle either the performance or the hustle, but rather use the hype around “Cake” as a jumping-off point to discuss Aniston’s career and celebrity more broadly, alongside the ins and outs of how exactly buzz gets built in the first place.Starter episode: “Alexander (With David Sims)”‘The Town With Matthew Belloni’Though not a traditional awards season podcast with predictions or play-by-play recaps, “The Town” is an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to understand the upheaval in Hollywood. Delivered in snappy episodes that clock in around 30 minutes, Matthew Belloni, a former editor of The Hollywood Reporter and a founding partner of the digital media company Puck, shares insights and exclusive reporting on the industry, whether the issue is last year’s monthslong writers’ and actors’ strikes, Disney’s succession woes or the cost-of-streaming crisis. In a recent episode, Belloni and Brooks Barnes, a Hollywood correspondent for The New York Times, went deep on the current state of the “unkillable” Golden Globes, which returned last year after a hiatus sparked by controversy surrounding its now-defunct unorthodox voting body, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Traditionally the first awards show on the calendar — and the most chaotic — the Globes have proved to have more staying power than many predicted, and this analysis is a good resource for anybody wondering why.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?  More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in Movies

      Jake Johnson Likes to Play the Hollywood Game, Especially When It Changes

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      “When you get on this roller coaster, you don’t know how long you’re going to be allowed to play while you’re here,” the “New Girl” actor said about his filmmaking debut, “Self Reliance.”If you were bored enough — a stultifying job, living with Mom after a bad breakup — you, too, might climb into a mysterious limo carrying Andy Samberg. You might even consider the offer: outwit assassins for 30 days and win $1 million.It’s a risk that Tommy, played by Jake Johnson, is willing to take in “Self Reliance,” the dark comedy on Hulu that he also wrote and directed.Johnson, 45, was antsy during the pandemic when he decided the time for this project was now.“When you get on this roller coaster, you don’t know how long you’re going to be allowed to play while you’re here,” he said in a video interview from the studio he built for podcasts and Zoom calls in his Pasadena, Calif., home. “You should take chances and experiment. And if you have a relationship with an audience, you should be presenting new options.”Johnson is best known as an actor in movies and television, particularly the sitcom “New Girl,” which ran for seven seasons and is one of the reasons Anna Kendrick and Samberg agreed to come aboard “Self Reliance.”“Having somebody as funny as him start the movie, it sets the tone in the way that I want this movie to be viewed,” Johnson said before talking about losing at chess, carpentry mishaps and out-of-this-world restaurants. “And that is: sit back, have a glass of wine or smoke a joint or whatever you like to do and enjoy it. It’s a ride.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1My Twin DaughtersWhen I had kids, they become such a dominant part of my life. They transform every day, every thought. So the idea of living without them — I don’t even know what living is.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?  More