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    The 50 Best Movies on Max Right Now

    In addition to new Warner and HBO films, the streamer has a treasure trove of Golden Age classics, indie flicks and foreign films. Start with these.When HBO Max debuted in May 2020, subscribers rightfully expected (and got) the formidable catalog of prestige television associated with the HBO brand. But its movie library drew from a much deeper well. Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, is a huge conglomerate, and its premiere streaming service comprises decades of titles from Warner Bros., Turner Classic Movies, Studio Ghibli and more. Viewed in that light, its recent rebranding as Max seems fitting.That means a lot of large-scale fantasy series and selections from the DC extended universe. Max is also an education in Golden Age Hollywood classics and in independent and foreign auteurs like Federico Fellini, Satyajit Ray and John Cassavetes. The list below is an effort to recommend a diverse range of movies — old and new, foreign and domestic, all-ages and adults-only — that cross genres and cultures while appealing to casual and serious movie-watchers alike. (Note: Streaming services sometimes remove titles or change starting dates without notice.)Here are our lists of the best movies and TV shows on Netflix, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video and the best of everything on Hulu and Disney+.A24‘Aftersun’ (2022)Memory pieces about childhood are nearly always touched by nostalgia, however bittersweet, but Charlotte Wells’s gorgeous, semi-autobiographical debut feature is graced instead by perspective. The memory in “Aftersun” encapsulates a few days in 1999 at a downscale Turkish resort, where an 11-year-old (Frankie Corio) went on her last vacation with her 30-something father (Paul Mescal), who did a credible job at the time of masking his personal anguish in order to make her happy. The MiniDV camera footage the girl captured of the trip tells a different story about him, and the film seizes on it subtly and beautifully. A.O. Scott admired Wells for directing with “the unaffected precision of a lyric poet.”Stream it on Max‘Logan’ (2017)Superhero franchises like the MCU and the DCEU have developed such a predictable template that each new entry can feel at least partially like a paint-by-numbers exercise. Though it extends from the popular “X-Men” series featuring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine and Patrick Stewart as Professor X, James Mangold’s “Logan” has the somber tone and feel of an old-school Western, emphasizing the exhaustion of an aging, battered hero dragged reluctantly to another mission. Having retired to Mexico to look after a sick Professor X, Jackman’s Logan is tasked with protecting a vulnerable young girl (Dafne Keen) whose powers (and history) overlap mysteriously with his own. Manohla Dargis called the film “a strong argument for bringing the comic-book movie down to earth.”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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    AriAtHome Walks the Streets, Making Beats (and New Friends)

    On the SoHo corner where Prince and Elizabeth Streets meet, dog walkers, errand runners and lunch breakers squinted through the April sun at the part man, part beat-emanating automaton approaching them.Ari Miller, 25, known by his artist name AriAtHome, is a New York-based wayfaring musician who turns heads with his mobile beat-making rig. Donning a get-up that looks like a cross between a Ghostbusters proton pack and a ballpark-vendor tray, he dishes out on-the-spot hip-hop, neo-soul, funk and house beats throughout the city’s streets, all created entirely from scratch without breaking stride.“I built the rig with New York City in mind,” Miller said. “When you make a good song with a stranger in the street it’s like, ‘Whoa, did we just become best friends?’”Ari Miller (a.k.a. AriAtHome) at work, with his videographer Dylan Goucher capturing the scene and livestreaming. Miller making his way up subway stairs wearing 55 pounds of gear.The guts of the machinery Miller and a friend assembled for his mobile music project.Crammed with keyboards, a looper, six speakers and a controller with dozens of knobs and faders, Miller’s Frankenstein instrument offers a buffet of drum, keyboard and bass sounds, interfaced through the music software Ableton. In the back, a mess of cables hides a Mac Mini M4, a modem and the hot-swappable camera batteries that power it all.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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    Goose Rules the Jam-Band Roost (Sorry, Haters)

    A monkey, a giraffe, a pair of goth nuns, a bee holding flowers and an old-timey circus strongman made their way through the crowd last month at Luna Luna, the lost art carnival, in Manhattan.Fans of the 11-year-old jam band Goose were wise to what they were witnessing. “They’re from the band’s lore,” one explained spying the performers, who had assembled to help announce a new Goose album, “Everything Must Go.” Soon the four members of Goose and a guest saxophonist situated themselves in the center of the crowd of hundreds that fanned out to Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Ferris wheel and Keith Haring’s carousel, and began an hourlong jam.Creative, intentional, extremely eager to please: The whole thing was very Goose.A jam band “is like a sitcom,” said Cotter Ellis, Goose’s drummer. “When you watch a show like ‘The Office,’ after a while you feel like you know the characters. That’s how people view us — they feel they’re such a part of the scene that they actually get to know us.”Ellis, 33, who earlier had strolled anonymously around Luna Luna dressed as a lion, added, “I like that. I don’t want to be seen as better than the crowd. I want it to be seen as, ‘We’re all in this together.’”“Everything Must Go,” a 14-song set that features major-key tunes with lyrics alternately goofy and uplifting, a prog-y instrumental number and a new single, the Don Henley-inflected “Your Direction,” comes as the group solidifies its status as rock’s biggest “new” jam band. On Thursday, Goose will make its debut at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, followed by its first destination festival — Viva el Gonzo, next month in San José del Cabo, Mexico — and a sold-out headlining concert in June at Madison Square Garden, long the site of heralded residencies by the jam great Phish. Together, it all inescapably feels like an anointment.“Within the community, there’s all this talk of, ‘Who’s coming next?’” said Peter Anspach, Goose’s keyboardist. “You see the lineage of the Grateful Dead, Phish. ‘Well, what’s going to happen after this?’ Is it going to be a pool of bands? Is it going to be, like, one pinnacle band?”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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    ‘Black Mirror’ Showed Us a Future. Some of It Is Here Now.

    The long-running tech drama always felt as if it took place in a dystopian near future. How much of that future has come to pass?Since “Black Mirror” debuted in 2011, the dystopian sci-fi anthology series has taken seeds of nascent technology and expanded them to absurd and disturbing proportions.In doing so, it has become a commentary on defining issues of the 21st-century: surveillance, consumerism, artificial intelligence, social media, data privacy, virtual reality and more. Every episode serves in part as a warning about how technological advancement run rampant will lead us, often willingly, toward a lonely, disorienting and dangerous future.Season 7, newly available on Netflix (the streamer acquired the show from Britain’s Channel 4 after its first two seasons), explores ideas around memory alteration, the fickleness of subscription services and, per usual, the validity of A.I. consciousness.Here’s a look back at a few themes from past episodes that seemed futuristic at the time but are now upon us, in some form or another. Down the rabbit hole we go:‘Be Right Back’Season 2, Episode 1Not long after “Be Right Back” came out, services that digitally resurrect people via recordings and social feeds began to be introduced.NetflixA.I. imitations, companion chatbots and humanoid robotsWhen Martha’s partner, Ash, dies in a car accident, she’s plunged into grief. At his funeral, she hears about an online service that can help soften the blow by essentially creating an A.I. imitation of him built from his social media posts, online communications, videos and voice messages.At first she’s skeptical, but when she finds out she’s pregnant, she goes through with it. She enjoys the companionship she finds by talking with “him” on the phone and starts neglecting her real-life relationships. She soon decides to take the next step: having a physical android of Ash created in his likeness. But as she gets to know “him,” a sense of uncanny valley quickly sets in.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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    How ‘The Jennifer Hudson Show’ Took Over TikTok

    I have never watched an episode of “The Jennifer Hudson Show.” Yet here I am at my desk, singing to myself: “Aaron. Pierre. That’s Mufasa.”If you’re familiar with the tune, you’re singing it now too. If not, picture Pierre, the dashing actor who voiced the title character in “Mufasa: The Lion King,” strut-dancing his way down a hallway surrounded by … Actually, just watch it below and then keep reading.

    @jenniferhudsonshow Aaron Pierre, that’s Mufasa #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #aaronpierre #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show OK, welcome back.“The Jennifer Hudson Show,” a daytime talk show, is not a top syndicated program, according to the ratings agency Nielsen. But it has amassed a huge social media following with its behind-the-scenes promotional videos.Before taking the stage, guests make their way down a hallway as members of the show’s staff serenade them with a complicated, customized hype song, sung entirely from memory. Some of the biggest names in American culture — Michelle Obama, Usher, Angela Bassett — have danced, skated or nervously shimmied through this “spirit tunnel” as the TikTok cameras roll.Some of the videos are awkward. Some are suave. Most go viral.During the show’s first season in 2022, members of the show’s staff learned that cheering for Hudson before she took the stage boosted her confidence and energy.

    @jenniferhudsonshow We got @imkevinhart #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #kevinhart #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show

    @jenniferhudsonshow It’s Gwen! @Gwen Stefani! S-T-E-F-A-N-I! #thejenniferhudsonshow #jenniferhudson #gwenstefani #jhud ♬ original sound – Jennifer Hudson Show 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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    Do You Know the Classic Works That Inspired These Popular Family Movies?

    “The Lion King,” first released as an animated film in 1994, has spawned multiple adaptations and sequels, including Julie Taymor’s 1997 Broadway production and a soundtrack companion album by Beyoncé for the 2019 computer-enhanced movie version. The plot of the story, about a young lion finding his place in the world, has been compared to which play by William Shakespeare? More

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    Sean Combs’s Lawyers Say Video of Hallway Assault Was Altered

    The video, a critical piece of the prosecution’s case, shows the music mogul beating and kicking his girlfriend at a hotel in 2016.Lawyers for Sean Combs argued at a court hearing on Friday that a leaked security video showing Mr. Combs assaulting his former girlfriend was “deceptive,” and said they would request that it not be allowed as evidence at his upcoming trial on charges of sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy.That video, recorded at a Los Angeles hotel in 2016, was broadcast by CNN last year, months before Mr. Combs’s arrest. It showed him beating, kicking and dragging Casandra Ventura, his former girlfriend and an artist once signed to his record label under her stage name, Cassie.Marc Agnifilo, a lawyer for Mr. Combs, said that a forensic analysis of the security footage aired by CNN showed that the video had been sped up from its original source, that events were depicted out of sequence and that time stamps on the original tape had been covered up.“It’s a deceptive piece of evidence,” Mr. Agnifilo argued. Mr. Combs’s lawyers, however, did not define how a change in sequencing would have affected a viewer’s understanding of what occurred.Mr. Combs’s legal team also accused CNN of destroying the original footage, and said they planned to file a motion to exclude the video from evidence at Mr. Combs’s criminal trial, which is set to begin in May.CNN, in a statement from a spokeswoman, denied the allegations. “CNN never altered the video and did not destroy the original copy of the footage, which was retained by the source,” the statement 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Theater to Stream Now: ‘Beckett Briefs’ and One of Gavin Creel’s Last Shows

    Also available for streaming: A masterful F. Murray Abraham in “Beckett Briefs,” and Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon in a take on “Streetcar.”‘Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice’Stream it on YouTube.When Gavin Creel died of a rare form of cancer last fall, at the age of 48, he left behind an artistic and emotional hole — he was a beloved presence onstage, especially in musical theater, with an easy wit, a sure flair for physical comedy and an old-fashioned elegance. One of his last large-scale endeavors was the musical “Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice,” for which he wrote the book and score, and which he performed in a run at MCC Theater in 2023. The show, which The New York Times’s Michael Paulson described as “a passion project” in his obituary for Creel, allowed the actor to venture into soul-searching as he explored his (very new) relationship with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Fortunately, that institution, which had commissioned the project, keeps a capture of an October 2021 performance on YouTube.‘[Untitled Miniature]’Stream it at HERE.As a theater maker, Joshua William Gelb fully came into his own with his Theater in Quarantine productions, which he performed and streamed live from a closet in his home, often displaying uncommon technical mastery. From Tuesday through March 25, he continues to explore the live-digital hybrid with a new project that sounds closer to the experiments of such artists as Marina Abramovic than to traditional theater, and in which he will push the boundaries of his own endurance. In “[Untitled Miniature],” Gelb will spend 24 nonconsecutive hours (in 45-minute segments spread over eight days) naked inside a box that’s about 3 feet wide by less than 2 feet tall. Despite (or perhaps because of) the limited space, his movement will be choreographed. Audience members can buy tickets for either the physical performances, to be held at HERE, or for a live feed.‘Beckett Briefs’F. Murray Abraham in “Krapp’s Last Tape,” which is being presented as part of Irish Repertory Theater’s “Beckett Briefs.”Carol RoseggStream it from the League of Live Stream Theater.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