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      in Music

      J. Lo Cancels ‘This Is Me … Live’ Tour This Summer

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      The singer and actress said she was “heartsick and devastated” about the decision, which comes on the heels of a hit Netflix movie and persistent rumors about her marriage.Jennifer Lopez announced on Friday that she has canceled her “This Is Me … Live” summer tour. In a message on her website she said she was “heartsick and devastated” about the decision.“Please know that I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t feel that it was absolutely necessary,” she continued, promising her fans that they’d be “together again.”An accompanying statement from Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, said that “Jennifer is taking time off to be with her children, family and close friends,” and that tickets bought through Ticketmaster would be refunded automatically.The tour, scheduled for arenas across the country, appeared to be struggling with ticket sales; earlier this year, a handful of dates had been canceled and several shows appeared to have a number of unsold seats, Variety reported in March.The cancellation comes during a time when Lopez, 54, has been in the spotlight for both her work and her personal life. She currently stars in the sci-fi action thriller “Atlas,” which has been the No. 1 film on Netflix in the United States since its debut last week.And in February, she released an expansive, ambitious project, which she had poured $20 million of her own money into. It included a studio album, “This Is Me … Now”; an accompanying musical film, “This Is Me … Now: A Love Story”; and a making-of documentary, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” which stars her husband, the actor and director Ben Affleck, 51. The pair also appeared together in an ad for Dunkin’ Donuts that debuted during this year’s Super Bowl.Despite the recent collaborations, rumors have been swirling for weeks that their marriage is in trouble, with tabloids offering reports almost daily on the state of their union. Lopez and Affleck were famously minted as “Bennifer” when they dated from about 2002 to 2004, a period that included a brief engagement. They reunited in 2021 and married in July 2022.A representative for Lopez did not immediately respond on Friday to questions about the tour cancellation or the reports about her marriage to Affleck. More

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      in Movies

      How the ‘Furiosa’ War Rig Was Built

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      Members of the creative team explain what it took to turn the War Rig into “a beautiful chrome stage.”Chrome and polished steel have some great qualities. They look sleek, sexy and powerful. Onscreen, they really pop.But talk to the team that built the War Rig — the menacingly dazzling, steel-and-chrome 12-wheeler that carries a crucial action scene in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” — and you’ll learn that these materials can at times be something else: a royal pain in the tailpipe.“Metal gets hot in the Australian sun,” said Guy Norris, the movie’s action designer.That became a challenge for the stunt performers, who, to execute the director George Miller’s vision, threw their bodies every which way around the tractor-trailer as it sped down a stretch of road near Hay, a rural town in southeastern Australia.“They’d get blown up or shot and they’d fall,” Norris said. “And we had restraining cables on them, so they wouldn’t hit the ground, but they’d do a full fall, hit the side of the tanker and dangle.” Even worse: “they were all bare-chested.”Shirtless skin. Sizzling metal. And surfaces so shiny, the crew’s reflection could often be seen in shots of the truck. This is how the team behind “Furiosa” created the War Rig, and how they worked with its idiosyncrasies.Anya Taylor-Joy in action on the War Rig.Jasin Boland/Warner Bros.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

      Watch an Ambush at the Bullet Farm in ‘Furiosa’

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      The director George Miller narrates a sequence from his film, featuring Anya Taylor-Joy and Tom Burke.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 following contains spoilers for “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.”A great action sequence may involve pyrotechnics, breakneck vehicle maneuvers and other dazzling stunts, but according to the director George Miller, it may prove hollow without a connection to, and between, the characters.He put a relationship front and center in this sequence from his latest tale in the Mad Max saga, the prequel “Furiosa.” Anya Taylor-Joy stars as the title character and Tom Burke is a driver named Praetorian Jack, with whom Furiosa builds a bond.In the scene, the pair approach the Bullet Farm to pick up munitions for a battle being waged between Immortan Joe and Dementus. But soon after they arrive and their War Rig passes through a portcullis, they are ambushed and they realize that Dementus has taken over the Bullet Farm.Taylor-Joy performs her own car stunt requiring her to spin the vehicle 180 degrees. And the sequence plays out in tense ways as both she and Praetorian Jack defend themselves. But narrating the scene, Miller defines the central purpose: “What follows is that through their actions, not their words and their promises to each other but through their actions, that they are prepared to give of themselves entirely to the other.”He continues, “In a way, it’s kind of a love story in the middle of an action scene.”Read the “Furiosa” review.Read an interview with Anya Taylor-Joy.Take a behind-the-scenes look at the War Rig from “Furiosa.”Sign up for the Movies Update newsletter and get a roundup of reviews, news, Critics’ Picks and more. More

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      in Movies

      10 New Movies Our Critics Are Talking About This Week

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      Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.Critic’s PickA wordless cartoon to love.The happy dog-robot pair in the animated film “Robot Dreams.”Arcadia Motion Pictures, Lokiz Films, Noodles Production, Les Films du Worso‘Robot Dreams’A dog and his robot friend explore 1980s New York in this wordless cartoon written and directed by Pablo Berger and adapted from the graphic novel of the same name.From our review:It’s marvelous how the film is able to sketch so much soul from such simple lines. The characters are drawn bluntly, just as they are in the book. Yet Berger, directing his first animated feature (but not his first silent film), already boasts the creativity of a master. He frames images from inside a grimy microwave, or looking up from the bottom of a candy bowl as it’s being filled with jelly beans. One dizzying shot comes from the point of view of a snowman who’s popped off his own head and hurled it like a bowling ball.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickThe sulking dead.Renate Reinsve in “Handling the Undead.”Pal Ulvik Rokseth/Sundance Institute, via Neon‘Handling the Undead’After the dead are spontaneously reanimated, three families wrestle with the personal ramifications.From our review:Director Thea Hvistendahl wisely takes her time getting to any real action. Instead, with a slow-moving camera and plenty of filtered sunlight, she conjures a dreamlike state, the sense of hanging between planes of existence that tends to accompany those who grieve. There are times when the film veers too near the maudlin for comfort, but it always finds its way back to something spare and meaningful. What would you do, the story gently asks, if your fondest and most impossible wish was granted, and you realized it wasn’t at all what you’d hoped it would be?In theaters. Read the full review.Swimming with the clichés.Daisy Ridley as the real-life competitive swimmer Trudy Ederle in “Young Woman and the Sea.”Vladisav Lepoev/Disney‘Young Woman and the Sea’This Disney drama is inspired by the true story of Trudy Ederle (played by Daisy Ridley), who in 1926 battled sexism and became the first woman to swim across the English Channel.From our review:This is one of those movies that proves, when they’ve got a mind to, they can still make them like they used to. Which is to say, its production values are top-notch, the cast uniformly competent or better (Ridley is particularly winning), and the filmmaking language — the director here is Joachim Ronning, whose last at-bat with Disney was the 2019 critical misfire “Maleficent: Mistress of Evil” — is meticulously calculated to deliver a rousing climax and an appropriately heartwarming coda. It’s also rather rich in cliché.In theaters. Read the full review.Critic’s PickJessica Lange, stealing the show.Jessica Lange in “The Great Lillian Hall,” with Jesse Williams, standing behind her, reflected in the mirror.HBOWe 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

      How Stop-Motion Yetis Emerged From Film Hibernation

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      “The Primevals,” a movie in the lineage of “Jason and the Argonauts,” was filmed 30 years ago. It has finally been released.Movies like “Dune: Part Two” and “Challengers” arrived in theaters later than expected because of last year’s actors’ strike, and Hollywood experienced significant production setbacks during the coronavirus pandemic.But “The Primevals,” about a group of researchers who discover gigantic yetis and other prehistoric creatures, made those movie delays look minuscule when it was released in theaters in March.It was filmed in 1994.The live-action movie, which was delayed because of funding woes and then the death of its director, David Allen, incorporates a stop-motion animation technique in which puppets are painstakingly photographed and brought to life through a series of frames, as with a children’s flipbook. The retro look conjures up an earlier era of filmmaking, before computer-generated imagery took over visual effects.“It’s like an archaeological find,” said Juliet Mills, who plays one of the movie’s researchers. “It’s like entering a time machine watching this film.”Mills and the other actors had doubted that the movie would ever reach theaters. Even before Allen died, the film’s development had been plagued by outsize expectations and financial challenges.David Allen, left, and Chris Endicott working behind the scenes on “The Primevals.” Allen conceived the movie in the 1970s and began directing it in the 1990s.Full Moon FeaturesWe 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 Theater

      When the Stage Harnesses the Power of the Movies

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      Adaptations of films will be a factor at the Tonys this year. Surprisingly the best of these shows are not always the most faithful.A passing glance at this year’s Tony nominations might trick a glancer into thinking the wrong artistic medium has crept onto the list. Among the nominees are “The Notebook,” “The Outsiders” and “Days of Wine and Roses,” based on three movies: a 2004 Nicholas Sparks romance, a 1983 coming-of-age crime drama directed by Francis Ford Coppola and a 1962 Blake Edwards melodrama about alcoholism. (They were, in turn, based on best-selling novels and a TV play.)It’s not that movie adaptations are uncommon in theater — a number of mega-budget shows have been driven by silver-screen nostalgia, whether it’s “Back to the Future” and “Aladdin” or that stalwart of the Broadway economy, “The Lion King.” Splashy musicals, in particular, often come from recognizable cinematic sources: There’s “Mean Girls,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Kinky Boots” and many more. Not all of them are hits, as “American Psycho,” “Almost Famous” and “New York, New York” prove.Given how much theater relies on visitors buying tickets to an experience they know they’ll enjoy, it makes sense. Though there’s plenty of artistry on display in these productions, blockbuster adaptations can feel, to financiers, like slam dunks, safer bets than original material. The same nostalgia that drives sequels and reboots in cinema is at play: We know audiences like it, so let’s give them some more.But intellectual property that’s bankable isn’t everything, and increasingly, interesting theater comes from movie sources hailing from left field. “Teeth,” for instance, a musical by Michael R. Jackson and Anna K. Jacobs, made a bloody, buzzy Off Broadway splash this winter at Playwrights Horizons; it’s based on a 2008 indie horror classic about a young woman with vagina dentata. Over at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, Tobias Menzies starred in “The Hunt,” adapted by David Farr from Thomas Vinterberg’s 2013 Norwegian thriller.“Teeth” made a splash Off Broadway this year, even though the source material wasn’t widely known.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesJess Weixler starred in the 2008 indie horror movie on which the show is based. LionsgateWe 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

      ‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’ Review: A Foursquare Western From Viggo Mortensen

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      Mortensen gives his film a nested, at times unnecessarily complicated structure, but with performances this good, it’s hard to mind much.In making an honest go at reviving the movie western, Viggo Mortensen — who directed, wrote and stars in “The Dead Don’t Hurt,” in addition to composing its score — delivers a few different westerns in one.Not counting a deathbed prologue, the film initially seems to be staking out a claim in the law-and-order corner of the genre. Mortensen, as a bereaved sheriff named Holger Olsen, appears skeptical when a town dullard stands accused of six murders and apparently claimed not to remember any of them. The local courthouse — a makeshift affair cobbled together in the saloon — is not the most forgiving place for the wrongfully accused, or for anyone. (At one point, in lieu of slamming a gavel to call for order, the judge fires a gun upward twice, then glances toward the ceiling to make sure it won’t cave in.)We’ve already seen the killer. Weston Jeffries (Solly McLeod), the entitled and vicious son of the area’s leading rancher, Alfred Jeffries (Garret Dillahunt), is introduced mid-spree: He is first seen emerging from the saloon and casually shooting two people in a single take before the title card appears, dangling above a corpse.But before “The Dead Don’t Hurt” can become a film about a good sheriff’s efforts to correct a miscarriage of justice, it flashes back to tell the story of another character, Vivienne Le Coudy (played as an adult by Vicky Krieps). A brisker, more classically mounted western might have kept her offscreen, relegating her to the sheriff’s back story.Painting on a bigger canvas, Mortensen gives his film a nested, at times unnecessarily complicated structure. (Vivienne’s French Canadian childhood gets somewhat superfluous flashbacks of its own.) Once the grown Vivienne meets Olsen — she prefers calling him by his last name — they set out to build a life together. Olsen is an able carpenter; Vivienne has a knack for shooting fowl. She cleans up his dusty, drab parcel of land and inspires him to add some greenery.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