Category: Entertainment

Categories
Entertainment

Carla Fracci, Expressive Doyenne of Italian Ballet, Dies at 84

Carla Fracci, Expressive Doyenne of Italian Ballet, Dies at 84

Carla Fracci, Italy’s grande dame of ballet and one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century, who was admired for the naturalness and emotional directness of her performances, died on Thursday at her home in Milan. She was 84.

The cause was cancer, her husband, Beppe Menegatti, said.

Over her five-decade career, critics and audiences marveled at Ms. Fracci’s ability to transcend technique, merging so completely with her characters that she seemed to become them. In Italy she was called “the Duse of the dance,” as Clive Barnes of The New York Times wrote in 1977, a reference to the great 20th-century Italian actress Eleonora Duse.

“The pleasant alliteration apart,” he continued, “there is indeed a strong histrionic undercurrent to her performance, so that its softness, its essential prettiness, can at times be torn apart by an unexpected display of almost volcanic emotionalism.”

Mikhail Baryshnikov, who danced with her in the 1970s, said in a phone interview that Ms. Fracci would subtly alter her interpretation of a role from performance to performance. “She never did the same thing,” he said, “and because of that she was really alive, and very full onstage.”

She made her professional debut at the Teatro alla Scala in 1955 and before long became a household name in Italy, where she brought luster to Italian ballet after it had languished for decades. She became the first Italian ballerina since the turn of the 20th century to have a major international career, performing frequently with American Ballet Theater, the Royal Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet, among other companies.

In the early 1970s, Ms. Fracci formed the Compagnia Italiana di Balletto with her husband. Through appearances in small towns, on opera stages and in outdoor arenas, she brought awareness of ballet to the farthest corners of Italy and inspired new generations of dancers, including Alessandra Ferri and Roberto Bolle, both of whom became international stars.

She also appeared frequently in Italian TV specials, and in 1982 had a dramatic role in a popular mini-series, “Verdi,” about the composer Giuseppe Verdi, on Rai, the Italian state broadcaster. She played the composer’s second wife, the singer Giuseppina Strepponi.

In everyday life Ms. Fracci struck an elegant figure, often appearing in public dressed all in soft, white fabrics, her dark hair parted in the middle. “She was like a figure out of the turn of the last century,” Mr. Baryshnikov said.

She was most closely associated with the title role of “Giselle,” a young woman driven to madness and death after discovering her lover’s betrayal. In The Times, Anna Kisselgoff wrote of a 1991 “Giselle” performance by Ms. Fracci (she was 55 at the time) in which “her foot seemed barely to touch the floor.”

“It was the image that others have never matched,” Ms. Kisselgoff added, “the airborne wraith who seemed to fly out of a lithograph.”

Ms. Fracci performed the role for more than 30 years, into her 50s, and was partnered in it by a long list of celebrated dancers, including Erik Bruhn, Rudolf Nureyev, Vladimir Vasiliev, Ivan Nagy, Paul Chalmer, Mr. Baryshnikov and even Julio Bocca, 31 years her junior.

As recently as January she was invited by La Scala to give a master class on “Giselle.” (The class was filmed and is available on YouTube.) The dancers who took part, Nicoletta Manni and Martina Arduino, had both grown up watching a much-loved 1969 movie version of “Giselle,” starring Ms. Fracci and Mr. Bruhn, based on an American Ballet Theater production.

That film shows all the qualities for which Ms. Fracci is remembered: lightness on her feet, crisp technique, sincerity and a naturalness that makes it seem as if dancing were breathing. Just as compelling is the great beauty of her face, which she uses to maximum effect.

“I studied that video from beginning to end, over and over,” Ms. Arduino said by phone from Milan. “Where her eyes looked, how she moved her arms. And when she came to give the master class, she told me, ‘You have to say with your eyes exactly what you’re thinking.’”

Mr. Baryshnikov remembered this same quality. “She had these enormous, dark eyes,” he said. “She danced with them. And then there was the abnormal beauty of her face. Dancing with her was quite a mesmerizing experience.”

Carla Fracci was born in Milan on Aug. 20, 1936, the daughter of Luigi Fracci, a tram driver, and Santina Rocca, a factory worker at the Innocenti machinery works. Carla liked to dance around the house, and when she was 9, family friends suggested that she might be suited for ballet.

Despite being small and rather frail, she was accepted at the ballet school associated with La Scala, where one of her teachers was Vera Volkova, a student of Agrippina Vaganova, a founder of modern Russian ballet technique.

The young Ms. Fracci did not take to ballet right away. “School was a crashing bore and a terrible chore,” she told The Times in 1981. Then one day she found herself onstage in a children’s role.

“I was cast as a girl with a mandolin in ‘Sleeping Beauty,’” she said. “Once onstage next to Margot Fonteyn, I suddenly changed my mind. Dancing to an audience was something entirely different from dancing at school.”

After graduating from the academy, she entered the ballet company at La Scala.

Ms. Fracci got her first big break in 1956, when she was called to substitute for the French ballerina Violette Verdy in a production of the evening-length “Cinderella.” Two years later she became a principal dancer. That same year, 1958, the choreographer John Cranko created for her the female lead in his new production of “Romeo and Juliet.” She went on to perform the role many times during her career.

Very soon she began dancing abroad as well, appearing for the first time with the London Festival Ballet, in “Giselle” in 1959. In 1962, she debuted another of her best-known roles, the sylph in “La Sylphide,” alongside Mr. Bruhn. The two were regular partners during Ms. Fracci’s years as a member of American Ballet Theater, from 1972 to 1976.

Not all her roles were tragic, however: She was also celebrated for her sense of buoyant mischief in the comic ballet “Coppélia.”

At Ballet Theater, Ms. Fracci’s repertory widened to include dramatic ballets like José Limon’s “The Moor’s Pavane,” Antony Tudor’s “Lilac Garden” and “Medea,” by John Butler. In 1991, she danced the role of Lizzie Borden in Agnes de Mille’s “Fall River Legend.” Ms. Kisselgoff described that performance as “hurtling furiously into insanity.”

As her dancing career drew to a close in the 1990s, Ms. Fracci took on the role of director at several ballet companies, including those at the Teatro di San Carlo theater in Naples (1990-91), the Arena di Verona (1995-97) and the Opera di Roma (2000-10). She also dabbled in politics, serving as the councilor for culture for the province of Florence from 2009 to 2014.

In addition to Mr. Menegatti, her husband of 56 years and a stage director who had once been an assistant to Luchino Visconti, Ms. Fracci is survived by her son, Francesco Menegatti, an architect; her sister Marisa Fracci, also a dancer; and two grandchildren.

“To us, as Italians, she represented the importance of dance,” Ms. Arduino, the dancer, said. “Not just the steps, but the purity of art. Something precious.”

Categories
Entertainment

Dove Cameron Discusses Her Sexuality in Homosexual Occasions Interview

SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 13: In this picture released on March 13, Dove Cameron attends Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards at the Barker Hangar on March 13, 2021 in Santa Monica, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman / KCA2021 / Getty Images for Nickelodeon)

Image Source: Getty / Amy Sussman

A few days before Pride Month, Dove Cameron spoke in a touching interview for the summer edition of Gay times. “I have been pointing out my sexuality for years while I was afraid to phrase it for everyone,” said Dove, adding that she refuses to compromise her identity any longer. “I was never confused about who I was. [But] I felt like I wasn’t being accepted and I had this strange story that people wouldn’t believe me. “

After Dove saw that her prominent role models, including Ben Platt, Kristen Stewart, and Cara Delevingne, were her true, authentic selves, she wondered if she could do the same. “It felt like something I could never talk about,” she said. “I feel like the industry has changed a lot as people with platforms have space to be human and not be taken apart. I was very nervous about getting out and one day I dropped it because I behaved like someone who was outside and I realized it wasn’t me. “

“I choose to love myself, to be who I am every day, and not edit myself based on the room I’m in. I don’t apologize for who I am.”

Dove spoke about her sexuality for the first time on an Instagram Live in August 2020. “I went on Instagram Live and said, ‘Guys, I really had to explain something to you. Maybe I didn’t tell you, but I’m super queer. This is something I want to portray through my music because I am”, she remembered. “Since then, I’ve had an amazing relationship with my fans and we have this very safe space that we created.”

Ever since Dove came out as queer, she’s hoped her life as her real self will inspire fans in similar situations to do the same. “I’m not a label person, but I’d say I’m queer and that’s probably my most accurate way of representing myself,” she said. “Coming out was more about who I am as a whole than who I date or who I sleep with. I choose to love myself, to be who I am every day and not depend on myself the edit room I’m in. I don’t apologize for who I am. “

Categories
Entertainment

Alix Dobkin, Who Sang Songs of Liberation, Dies at 80

Alix Dobkin, Who Sang Songs of Liberation, Dies at 80

Long before K.D. Lang transformed herself from a country artist into an androgyne pop idol and sex symbol, smoldering in a man’s suit on the cover of Vanity Fair being mock-shaved by the supermodel Cindy Crawford; long before Melissa Etheridge sold millions of copies of her 1993 album, “Yes I Am,” and in so doing came out as a gay rock star; and long before the singer-songwriter Jill Sobule’s “I Kissed a Girl” hit the Billboard charts, the folk singer Alix Dobkin chopped her hair off, formed a band and recorded “Lavender Jane Loves Women.”

Released in 1973, it was the first album recorded and distributed by women for women — arguably the first lesbian record. Ms. Dobkin started her own label, Women’s Wax Works, to do it.

Once a folk star playing Greenwich Village clubs with Bob Dylan and Buffy Sainte-Marie, Ms. Dobkin turned to writing songs like “The View From Gay Head” (“It’s a pleasure to be a lesbian/A lesbian in a no-man’s land”). Her lyrics sketched out a lesbian separatist utopia and also poked fun at its vernacular and customs, as she did in “Lesbian Code,” which contained lines like “Is she Lithuanian?,” “Is she Lebanese?” and “She’s a member of the church, of the club, of the committee/She sings in the choir.”

Her music was the soundtrack for many young women coming out in the 1970s and ’80s, a rite of passage spoofed by Alison Bechdel, the graphic memoirist, in her long-running comic strip, “Dykes to Watch Out For.” (A panel titled “Age 21” showed a young woman with cropped hair and pinwheel eyes, smoking a bong and reading Mary Daly’s “Gyn/Ecology,” another feminist touchstone, as the lyrics from Ms. Dobkin’s “The Woman in Your Life Is You” waft around her, a Lavender Jane album cover propped up in a corner.)

“I can’t tell you how cool it was as a young dyke to see those album covers,” said Lisa Vogel, founder of the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, otherwise known as Michfest, where Ms. Dobkin would perform for decades. “To see someone not trying to pass one bit.”

Ms. Dobkin died on May 19 at her home in Woodstock, N.Y., after suffering a brain aneurysm and a stroke. She was 80. Her former partner Liza Cowan announced the death.

She was a star of the women’s festivals that were an expression of the alternative economy lesbian feminists were building in the ’70s — a byproduct of second-wave feminism — with their own books, publishing companies, record labels and magazines. Michfest was the biggest, an entire city built from scratch each season in Oceana County, complete with health care clinics, crafts, workshops and food for thousands. It was a complete matriarchal society. No men were allowed.

When the festivals began in the mid-’70s, there were no safe spaces for lesbians, said Bonnie J. Morris, a historian and archivist of feminist music and the author of “Eden Built by Eves: The Culture of Women’s Music Festivals.” “You weren’t welcome to have a double bed in a hotel; there were no Disney Gay Days. Festivals were a way to get together, share information and recharge.”

It was backstage at a women’s festival in 1983 that Ms. Etheridge first met Ms. Dobkin. “She was in the tradition of the classic folk troubadour, changing the world through song and cleverness,” Ms. Etheridge said in an interview.

“She made an impact,” she added, “and she did it with humor. Until I heard Alix, I had no idea I would be an out lesbian performer; I just wanted to be a rock star.”

“When I told her I was thinking of recording an album, she said, ‘Oh, Melissa, there’s no radio station that’s going to play a lesbian.’ After ‘Yes I Am’ came out — and I came out — she said to me, ‘Damn it, you proved me wrong. I’m so grateful.’”

Alix Cecil Dobkin was born on Aug. 16, 1940, in New York City. She was named for an uncle, Cecil Alexander Kunstlich, a womanizing, drug-addicted ne’er-do-well who cleaned up his act and was killed in the Spanish Civil War. Her parents, Martha (Kunstlich) and William Dobkin, were, like many Jewish intellectuals of the time, Communist Party members and social activists. Alix grew up listening to the folk music of Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie, as well as the Red Army Chorus and Broadway show tunes, and singing at home with her parents.

Alix was 16 when the F.B.I. began investigating her. She had joined the Communist Party that year, but her parents had become disillusioned and left; there were too many F.B.I. informants, her father told her later.

The F.B.I. followed Ms. Dobkin until she turned 30, noting in her file that she had become a housewife and mother. The file, which Ms. Dobkin retrieved in 1983 under the Freedom of Information Act, proved useful decades later, when she was writing her memoir, “My Red Blood” (2009). It recorded her many addresses and helpful dates, like that of her wedding in 1965, though it had the venue wrong.

Ms. Dobkin studied art at the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia, earning a bachelor’s degree, with honors, in 1962. A fellow student and Communist Party member was also a booker at a local nightclub, and he began to manage her, often along with a young comic named Bill Cosby. He found the pair regular work at the Gaslight in Greenwich Village, where she met her future husband, Sam Hood, whose parents owned the place, as well as Mr. Dylan and other folk luminaries.

When Ms. Dobkin married Mr. Hood, her career as a performer took a back seat to his as a producer. They divorced amicably in 1971, when their daughter, Adrian, was a year old.

Like many women in that transitional time, Ms. Dobkin was frustrated by her role as a housewife and had joined a consciousness-raising group. When she heard Germaine Greer, the feminist author of “The Female Eunuch,” interviewed on the countercultural radio station WBAI, it was a revelation. She wrote to Ms. Cowan, a producer at the station who had conducted the interview. Ms. Cowan invited her on the program to perform, and the two women fell in love.

After they got together, Ms. Dobkin decided she wanted to make music for and by women only. Ms. Cowan would go on to found lesbian magazines like Dyke, A Quarterly. In the mid-’70s, the couple bought a 70-acre farm in rural Schoharie County, in central New York State — not an easy locale to plunk down a gay family.

“I remember being called a ‘hobo’ by the kids in school,” Adrian Hood said, “though they were trying to say ‘homo’. I craved a normal mom with long hair.”

Ms. Dobkin’s tour schedule slowed down a bit in the late ’90s, and when Ms. Hood had her own children, Ms. Dobkin took on a new role.

“She was a stay-at-home grandma by choice, which allowed me to work full time,” said Ms. Hood, who is dean of students and director of admissions at a day school in Woodstock. “That was a huge gift. She was able to express that everyday maternal attention that she missed with me.”

In addition to her daughter, Ms. Dobkin is survived by her brother, Carl; her sister, Julie Dobkin; and three grandchildren.

In 2015, a photograph of Ms. Dobkin taken by Ms. Cowan wearing a T-shirt that read “The Future Is Female” exploded on social media, thanks to an Instagram post by @h_e_r_s_t_o_r_y, an account that documents lesbian imagery. It brought the T-shirt, originally made in the 1970s by Labyris Books, the first feminist bookstore in New York City, back into production — and introduced Ms. Dobkin to a new generation of young women.

“I’ve prepared all my life for this job,” Ms. Dobkin told the crowd at a women’s music festival in 1997. “Because being a Jew and being a lesbian are very similar. That’s why I look so much alike. I have so much in common. It’s OK to be a Jew, it’s OK to be a lesbian — as long as you don’t mention it. And what we also have in common is that we were never supposed to survive.”

Categories
Entertainment

Summer season Motion pictures 2021: Right here’s What’s Coming to the Massive (and Small) Display screen

Summer Movies 2021: Here’s What’s Coming to the Big (and Small) Screen

Here is a list of noteworthy films scheduled this summer. Release dates and platform are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.

CHANGING THE GAME (on Hulu) This documentary profiles three transgender athletes and their high school sports careers, with a particular focus on Mack Beggs, a transgender man who as a teenager wanted to compete in boys’ wrestling but, because of a rule in Texas, could only wrestle against girls.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE (in theaters) The biases of surveillance — by the eye, by police body cameras and in the composite photography of the eugenics proponent Francis Galton, for example — are the subject of this haunting, wide-ranging essay film from the Baltimore experimental director Theo Anthony (“Rat Film”). It won a special jury prize at Sundance.

THE ANCIENT WOODS (in theaters) The biologist and filmmaker Mindaugas Survila investigates the floral and faunal mysteries of a mostly untouched forest in Lithuania. Film Forum says the movie, poised between nature documentary and folklore, is suitable for children “whose attention spans have not been destroyed by technology.”

BAD TALES (in virtual cinemas) This Italian feature, winner of best screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, pulls back the facade of family life in a seemingly idyllic Rome suburb.

THE CARNIVORES (in theaters and on demand) The illness of a dog triggers the unraveling of a couple (Lindsay Burdge and Tallie Medel). The trailer promises ample servings of the dark and the grotesque.

CITY OF ALI (in virtual cinemas) Other documentaries have captured the highlights of Muhammad Ali’s career, but “City of Ali” deals specifically with his life in Louisville, Ky., where he was born and raised.

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (in theaters and on HBO Max) Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) return for what’s either the third or the eighth “Conjuring” movie. (Spinoffs like “Annabelle” and “The Nun” only sort of count.) This one involves the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), who was convicted of manslaughter but who some believe was possessed. Michael Chaves (who directed another spinoff, “The Curse of La Llorona”) assumes the helm from the “Conjuring” director James Wan.

THE REAL THING (in virtual cinemas) Koji Fukada (the Cannes prizewinner “Harmonium”) directed this four-hour feature, based on a manga and condensed from a 10-episode series, about a toy seller who rescues a woman from being hit by a train and gets a whirlwind of adventure as his reward.

SLOW MACHINE (in virtual cinemas) In a fractured narrative, Stephanie Hayes plays an actress who has a series of bizarre encounters with a man who identifies himself as a New York City police intelligence specialist. The movie was shown in an experimental section of last year’s New York Film Festival.

SPIRIT UNTAMED (in theaters) The daughter (voiced by Isabela Merced) of a legendary horse rider (voiced by Eiza González) hops into her mother’s saddle in this computer-animated feature. Julianne Moore, Jake Gyllenhaal and Andre Braugher round out the vocal cast.

UNDINE (in theaters and on demand) Interweaving mythology and the history of modern Berlin, the German director Christian Petzold reunites the stars of his acclaimed “Transit” for a love story of sorts between a recently spurned tour guide (Paula Beer) and a diver (Franz Rogowski) who repairs bridges. What the film means is as slippery as the protagonists, who get soaked when a fish tank explodes during their meet-cute and are continually drawn to water.

THE AMUSEMENT PARK (on Shudder) In one of the stranger collaborations in cinema history, George A. Romero, just a few years removed from “Night of the Living Dead,” accepted an assignment from the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania to make a film about the mistreatment of the elderly. True to form, he turned it into a horror movie. Made in the early 1970s and rarely shown until the recent arrival of a restored version in 2020, it will be widely available for the first time.

AWAKE (on Netflix) A cataclysm knocks out Earth’s power grids and gives the world’s population insomnia; the collective exhaustion leads to “Purge”-like conditions. Gina Rodriguez plays a former soldier whose daughter is somehow immune to the sleeplessness, but harnessing the cure isn’t as simple as giving everyone valerian tea. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Frances Fisher co-star.

TRAGIC JUNGLE (on Netflix) Yulene Olaizola directed this 1920s-set magical-realist feature, shown at the Venice and New York film festivals last year. It centers on a fleeing woman (Indira Andrewin) who finds herself in the company of gum workers in the Mayan rainforest.

THE WOMAN WHO RAN (in theaters) In the latest film from the prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, a character played by Hong’s frequent star Kim Min-hee visits with three friends. There is also an argument with a neighbor about whether it’s all right to feed stray cats.

ASIA (in theaters) Shira Haas of “Unorthodox” plays a Russian immigrant in Israel who faces challenges both with her health and her mother (Alena Yiv). Ruthy Pribar directed, and it won the top prize from the body that gives out Israel’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

CENSOR (in theaters) Shown at Sundance, this stylized British horror film is set in the 1980s, when what became known as “video nasties” — violent, cheaply made movies available on cassette — were all the rage. Niamh Algar plays a censor who does her utmost to protect the public (but maybe wasn’t so great at protecting her sister years earlier). Prano Bailey-Bond directed.

DOMINO: BATTLE OF THE BONES (in theaters) No, it’s not a sequel to Tony Scott’s 2005 movie “Domino,” in which Keira Knightley played a bounty hunter, or one to Brian De Palma’s recent film of the same title. Rather, it’s the story of how a man and his stepgrandson compete in a domino tournament. Baron Davis, the former N.B.A. star, directed and co-wrote.

HOLLER (in theaters and on demand) Jessica Barden plays a promising Ohio student who begins working in scrap-metal yards to keep her family together. Nicole Riegel directed; Pamela Adlon and Gus Halper co-star.

IN THE HEIGHTS (in theaters and on HBO Max) Expected to have been a huge hit in the summer of 2020, now destined to be a return-to-the-movies toe-tapper in 2021, this film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s best-musical Tony winner — the one before “Hamilton,” that is — stars Anthony Ramos (a.k.a. Philip Hamilton) as Usnavi, the bodega owner Miranda played on Broadway. Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) and Miranda also appear. Jon M. Chu, who showed his skill with screen musicals in two of the better “Step Up” movies, directed from a screenplay by the musical’s book writer, Quiara Alegría Hudes.

THE MISFITS (in theaters) Pierce Brosnan, two decades from his turn in the “Thomas Crown Affair” remake, plays another thief who joins forces with a group to steal gold bars that a businessman (Tim Roth) uses to finance terrorists. Renny Harlin directed.

PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY (in theaters) James Corden returns as the voice of Beatrix Potter’s famous hare, although Glenn Kenny of The Times wrote that the first film, from 2018, dispensed “with the sweetness and light and lyricism of the books.” Here, Peter ventures out of the garden to make trouble.

SKATER GIRL (on Netflix) Rachel Saanchita Gupta plays a teenager in northwestern India who discovers skateboarding and begins to dream of competing at a championship level.

SUBLET (in theaters) John Benjamin Hickey plays a grieving travel journalist (for The New York Times, no less) who rediscovers his zest for life in Tel Aviv. Eytan Fox directed.

WISH DRAGON (on Netflix) Jimmy Wong provides the voice of a college student and John Cho the voice of a wish-granting dragon in this animated feature, which is set in Shanghai and counts Jackie Chan among its producers.

REVOLUTION RENT (on HBO Max) How does “La Bohème” transplanted to Alphabet City play when it’s transplanted to Cuba? This documentary follows Andy Señor Jr., the son of Cuban exiles, as he works to put on an American-produced staging of “Rent” in that country. Señor directed with Victor Patrick Alvarez.

AN UNKNOWN COMPELLING FORCE (on demand) This documentary delves into the murky matter of what killed nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. (A study published earlier this year said it was quite possibly an avalanche.)

THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD (in theaters) “Samuel L. Jackson is the hit man. Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard. What more do you want me to say?” A.O. Scott wrote of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” in 2017. Well, Salma Hayek played the hit man’s wife in that movie, too, and now they’re all back for a sequel. Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman also star.

A CRIME ON THE BAYOU (in theaters) Nancy Buirski (“The Rape of Recy Taylor”) directs this documentary about Gary Duncan, who was convicted of simple battery in Louisiana after trying to stop a skirmish near an integrated school. The Supreme Court ultimately found that he had a right to a jury trial.

FATHERHOOD (on Netflix) Kevin Hart plays a widower adjusting to life as a single father in this drama directed by Paul Weitz. It’s adapted from a book by Matthew Logelin.

LUCA (on Disney+) In Pixar’s latest, two sea monsters disguise themselves as boys to experience the wonders of the Italian Riviera on land. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the two main characters; Enrico Casarosa (the Pixar short “La Luna”) directed.

RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER (on National Geographic and Hulu) This documentary from Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) looks at the 1921 massacre in Tulsa when white residents destroyed what was known as “Black Wall Street.”

RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT (in theaters) The EGOT-winning actress revisits her career, recounting her experiences with discrimination in Hollywood, her breakthrough role in “West Side Story” and more. Mariem Pérez Riera directed.

SIBERIA (in theaters and on demand) The idea of Abel Ferrara directing Willem Dafoe as a bartender in Siberia will be irresistible to fans of a certain brand of uncompromising cinema. In an interview, Ferrara described it as “an odyssey movie.”

THE SPARKS BROTHERS (in theaters) Edgar Wright directed what feels like the definitive portrait of the band Sparks, a.k.a. the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who straddle an almost imperceptibly thin line between the comic and the earnest and whose most consistent trait over 50 years has been their interest in reinventing their sound. Their first movie musical, “Annette” (Aug. 6), also comes out this summer.

SUMMER OF 85 (in theaters) François Ozon directed this tale of young summer romance, which was selected for the canceled Cannes Film Festival last year. A boy (Félix Lefebvre) is saved from a boating accident and then taught worldly ways by his rescuer (Benjamin Voisin).

SWEAT (in theaters) Another selection from the Cannes-that-wasn’t, this Polish feature from Magnus von Horn stars Magdalena Kolesnik as a “fitness influencer” who faces the burdens of being extremely online.

SWEET THING (in theaters) Alexandre Rockwell, a mainstay of American independent filmmaking in the 1990s with films like “In the Soup,” directs his children in a coming-of-age film about a long and fantastical day.

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The documentarian Lisa Immordino Vreeland puts Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams in an artistic dialogue with each other. Jim Parsons reads Capote’s words in voice-over and Zachary Quinto reads Williams’s.

12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (in theaters) Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw and Martin Sheen star in this true story of a how an orphanage’s football team went to compete for championships in Texas during the Great Depression.

SISTERS ON TRACK (on Netflix) Three sisters — Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard — raised in tough circumstances in Brooklyn won medals in the Junior Olympics and were declared “SportsKids of the Year” for 2016 by the children’s edition of Sports Illustrated. This documentary tells their story, on the track and off.

AGAINST THE CURRENT (in theaters) No, it’s not a “Great Gatsby” spinoff. It’s a documentary about Veiga Gretarsdottir, a transgender kayaker who sets out to circumnavigate Iceland in the more difficult counterclockwise direction.

F9 (in theaters) Just when Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) thought they had settled into a quiet family life, Dom’s brother (John Cena) — who is every bit the driver Dom is, and also an assassin — turns up to settle scores. Justin Lin directed.

FALSE POSITIVE (on Hulu) Ilana Glazer and Justin Theroux play a couple trying to get pregnant who discover that their doctor (Pierce Brosnan) has a dark side.

I CARRY YOU WITH ME (in theaters) The documentarian Heidi Ewing (“Detropia”) turns to dramatized filmmaking, though not entirely (to say more would be a spoiler), with this story of the love between two Mexican men (Armando Espitia and Christian Vázquez) and how their bond endures after one, with his eye on working as a chef, crosses into the United States.

THE ICE ROAD (on Netflix) Liam Neeson plays a badass big-rig driver trying to rescue entombed miners in the frozen reaches of Canada.

KENNY SCHARF: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (in theaters and on demand) Malia Scharf, with Max Basch, directed this look at her father, who emerged from the East Village art world of the 1980s.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (in theaters) Holed up in a snowstorm, the residents of a small town must contend with lycanthropy. Josh Ruben directed; Milana Vayntrub and Sam Richardson star.

WOLFGANG (on Disney+) Not Amadeus Mozart, but Puck. David Gelb (“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”) directed this portrait of the celebrity chef’s career.

AMERICA: THE MOTION PICTURE (on Netflix) With the voice of Channing Tatum as a “chainsaw-wielding” George Washington, this irreverent animated feature makes a travesty of key figures of the American Revolution. Jason Mantzoukas and Olivia Munn also supply voices. Matt Thompson directed.

LYDIA LUNCH — THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The New York underground filmmaker Beth B directed this portrait of another figure from the scene, the No Wave singer Lydia Lunch.

ZOLA (in theaters) A tale originally told in a viral 148-tweet thread (and then in a Rolling Stone article about the thread) is now a major motion picture, directed by Janicza Bravo (“Lemon”) and written by Bravo and the playwright Jeremy O. Harris (“Slave Play”). Taylour Paige stars as a waitress and occasional stripper who is taken on a wild trip to Florida by another stripper (Riley Keough). Colman Domingo also stars.

NO SUDDEN MOVE (on HBO Max) The pandemic hasn’t slowed down Steven Soderbergh. His latest feature is a crime thriller starring Don Cheadle as an ex-con who plots a convoluted scheme that goes awry. Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm and Amy Seimetz are among the many familiar faces populating Detroit in 1954, when the film is set.

BEING A HUMAN PERSON (in theaters) The Swedish commercial director turned deadpan filmmaker Roy Andersson is the subject of this documentary, which follows the making of his latest movie, “About Endlessness,” which opened in April.

FEAR STREET (on Netflix) R.L. Stine’s “Fear Street” books have become three feature films — set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively — that will be released on a weekly basis starting July 2. Stine has said that the content won’t be toned down for children. Leigh Janiak directed all three movies, and cast members recur throughout.

FIRST DATE (in theaters and on demand) Tyson Brown plays a teenager who takes his dream girl (Shelby Duclos) on a misadventure-filled outing in a dilapidated Chrysler.

THE FOREVER PURGE (in theaters) In the “Purge” franchise, murder is made legal for one day a year. This fifth film in the series dares to ask, what if it were more than one day? Judging from the trailer, you should also count on commentary on United States-Mexico border politics.

SUMMER OF SOUL (… OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) (in theaters and on Hulu) In his first feature documentary as director, Questlove assembles joyous archival footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts that developed a reputation as the Black Woodstock. The film features electrifying performances from Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Ray Barretto and more.

TILL DEATH (in theaters and on demand) The “Jennifer’s Body” star Megan Fox plays a woman who wakes up handcuffed to her husband’s corpse in this thriller.

THE TOMORROW WAR (on Amazon). Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski and J.K. Simmons are all tapped for a war effort against aliens that won’t happen until 30 years in the future. Time travel makes this possible.

BLACK WIDOW (in theaters and on Disney+) The Marvel universe continues to swallow promising actors by casting “Midsommar” and “Little Women” standout Florence Pugh as Yelena, who is brought together as a family with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. The Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (“Berlin Syndrome”) directed.

SUMMERTIME (in theaters) Carlos López Estrada (“Blindspotting”) directed this vibrant panorama of life in Los Angeles. It’s like a musical, but instead of bursting into song, the characters share their emotions in poetry, written by the cast members, who are poets.

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (in theaters) Julien Faraut, an archivist whose documentary “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” posed intriguing parallels between tennis and cinema, recounts how textile workers in Japan became an internationally celebrated volleyball team.

CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The dancer Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz direct a portrait of the choreographer as LeBlanc oversees a production of his 1989 work “D-Man in the Waters,” which addressed the AIDS epidemic in dance.

ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (in theaters) Taylor Russell and Logan Miller, who played escapees in the first “Escape Room” (2019), find themselves ensnared again.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (in theaters) Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) directed this portrait of the “Kitchen Confidential” chef, who died in 2018.

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (in theaters and on HBO Max) In 1996, Michael Jordan joined the Looney Tunes on the basketball court. This time it’s LeBron James who assembles Bugs and the gang for a hybrid live-action/animated round of hoops, with a lot of other Warner Bros. intellectual property filling out the sidelines. Malcolm D. Lee directed.

AILEY (in theaters and on demand) Using archival footage and its subject’s words, the director Jamila Wignot’s documentary recounts the career of the dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-89).

EYIMOFE (THIS IS MY DESIRE) (in theaters) The siblings Arie and Chuko Esiri directed this film set in Lagos, Nigeria, about two people separately trying to leave for Europe.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA (in theaters) The transformation in this fourth feature of the animated franchise happens when a “monsterfication ray” turns humans into monsters and monsters into humans. But there’s a behind-the-scenes transformation, too: Dracula’s vocal cords aren’t supplied by Adam Sandler this time, but by Brian Hull.

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER (on Netflix). In this summer’s addition to the tear-jerker sweepstakes, Felicity Jones plays a journalist who uncovers an affair from the 1960s between another journalist (Callum Turner) and a married woman (Shailene Woodley).

MANDIBLES (in theaters and on demand) The French absurdist and electronic musician Quentin Dupieux (“Deerskin”) serves up another deadpan oddity, about two friends trying to train a giant fly.

OLD (in theaters) It wouldn’t be an M. Night Shyamalan film if the premise weren’t shrouded in mystery, but judging from the Super Bowl trailer, it stars Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”) as parents vacationing with their family on a beach that magically turns their children … old.

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (in theaters) Based on the line of action figures, this franchise adds to its collection by giving an origin story to Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park in earlier movies and now embodied — during his ninja-training phase — by Henry Golding.

RESORT TO LOVE (on Netflix). Christina Milian plays a singer who aspires to superstardom but is reduced to performing at her ex’s wedding.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE (in theaters and on demand) Executive produced by Errol Morris, this documentary, directed by Sonia Kennebeck, unravels the case of Matt DeHart, a hacktivist who sought refuge in Canada and claimed the F.B.I. had tortured him.

THE GREEN KNIGHT (in theaters) Dev Patel has a seat at the round table as Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in the director David Lowery’s quest to revive the Arthurian legend onscreen. Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Sarita Choudhury also star.

JUNGLE CRUISE (in theaters and on Disney+) In 1916, a British researcher (Emily Blunt) travels to South America and hires a roguish, Bogartian skipper (Dwayne Johnson) as her guide through the Amazon. It’s based on a ride at Disneyland, and indirectly on a long lineage of Hollywood adventure films. Edgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti co-star. Jaume Collet-Serra directed.

THE LAST MERCENARY (on Netflix) French authorities falsely allege that a young man has been trafficking arms and drugs. Unfortunately for them, his father is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.

NINE DAYS (in theaters) Winston Duke plays an interrogator at a way station of sorts, where he interviews people — actually unborn souls — some of whom will earn the right to be born as humans. Zazie Beetz plays an interviewee who confounds him. Edson Oda wrote and directed.

SABAYA (in theaters and on demand) This documentary trails intrepid volunteer workers in Syria who extract women and girls held captive as sex slaves by the Islamic State.

STILLWATER Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”) directed Matt Damon as an American oil-rig worker whose daughter (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned for murder in Marseille, France. She says she is innocent; he scrambles to help her.

ANNETTE (in theaters) While Edgar Wright’s documentary about the band Sparks (June 18) covers the cinephile musicians’ history of movie projects that never came to fruition, this feature film gives them their chance: They wrote the screenplay, the songs and the score for this love story, and Leos Carax (“Holy Motors”) directed. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star.

EMA (in theaters) The Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín directs this story of a dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo) and a choreographer (Gael García Bernal) whose lives are thrown out of whack after they return the boy they adopted.

JOHN AND THE HOLE (in theaters and on demand) At the age of 13, John (Charlie Shotwell) gains a measure of adult independence by drugging his immediate family (Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall and Taissa Farmiga) and imprisoning them in a bunker. Pascual Sisto directed this detached, chilly open-ended allegory.

THE MACALUSO SISTERS (in theaters) The Italian playwright and theater director Emma Dante directed this story of five orphan sisters in living in Palermo. She adapted it from her play.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (in theaters and on HBO Max) If it doesn’t work the first time, add a definite article. Poised somewhere between a reboot of and a sequel to “Suicide Squad” (2016), the movie sets several DC characters, including Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, loose on a jungle island. James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) wrote and directed. With Idris Elba, John Cena, Sylvester Stallone and Viola Davis.

THE KISSING BOOTH 3 (on Netflix) This entry in the series finds Elle (Joey King) getting ready for college.

CODA (in theaters and on Apple TV+) A crowd-pleaser (and awards-grabber, with four prizes) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the movie tells the story of a child of deaf adults (Emilia Jones) in a working-class Massachusetts fishing family. She wants to sing, a passion that is alien to her non-hearing parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant). Sian Heder directed this remake of a French film.

DAYS (in theaters) A highlight of last year’s New York Film Festival, the director Tsai Ming-liang’s feature follows two men — one in Taipei, then Hong Kong (the Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng); the other in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) — who in the second half meet, and for a little while are not alone.

DON’T BREATHE 2 (in theaters) In the first “Don’t Breathe” (2016), Stephen Lang played a blind veteran whose dark secrets were among that home-invasion tale’s surprises. There’s more on those in this sequel. Rodo Sayagues directed, co-writing with Fede Alvarez, who directed the original.

FREE GUY (in theaters) Ryan Reynolds plays a bank teller who finds out, “Truman Show”-like, that he is actually a background character in a video game. Shawn Levy directed. Jodie Comer and Lil Rel Howery also star.

THE MEANING OF HITLER (in theaters and on demand) The documentarians Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker examine the rise of Nazi Germany and draw parallels with the rumblings of authoritarianism across the globe today.

THE LOST LEONARDO (in theaters) Andreas Koefoed’s documentary investigates the dealings that surround “Salvator Mundi,” the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, when in 2017 it was billed as a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees.

RESPECT (in theaters) Find out what it means to her: Jennifer Hudson plays Aretha Franklin in this biopic of the Queen of Soul, directed by the theater vet Liesl Tommy. With Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, Audra McDonald as Franklin’s mother and Forest Whitaker as Franklin’s father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin.

CRYPTOZOO (in theaters and on demand) It’s really more of a cryptid zoo, a cryptid being an animal that is the subject of lore but does not actually exist, like the dream-eating creature that everyone is after in this movie. It’s an animated film, from the graphic novelist Dash Shaw. Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Louisa Krause and Thomas Jay Ryan provided some of the voices.

THE NIGHT HOUSE (in theaters) Rebecca Hall plays a widow who discovers that her husband had a … thing for women who looked quite a bit like her, one of whom is played by Stacy Martin. What was he up to? David Bruckner directed, with an appetite for jump scares.

PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (in theaters) The techno-fitted animated canines of the children’s TV series make the leap to the big screen.

THE PROTÉGÉ (in theaters) This is the second movie of the summer in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a hit man (after “The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife”) — except that this one concerns the hit man’s daughter (Maggie Q), or at least the woman he raised like a daughter, a hit woman herself, who seeks revenge after he is murdered. Michael Keaton co-stars, also playing a killer. Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) directed.

REMINISCENCE (in theaters and on HBO Max) Lisa Joy, a creator of “Westworld,” wrote and directed this thriller, which casts Hugh Jackman as a sleuth who digs up lost memories. Rebecca Ferguson plays his latest customer.

WILDLAND (in theaters) This dark Danish feature concerns a teenager (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) who, after her mother’s death, goes to live with an aunt (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and an extended clan filled with criminality and addiction.

THE BEATLES: GET BACK (in theaters) Peter Jackson, who used archival footage to bring World War I back to life in “They Shall Not Grow Old,” uses tens of hours of restored footage and audio — billed as previously unseen and unheard — to showcase the Beatles as they were in 1969.

CANDYMAN (in theaters) Even without anyone saying Candyman’s name to a mirror, a haunting teaser trailer with only shadow puppets, from last year, set the bar high for this remake, directed by Nia DaCosta (“Little Woods”) and co-written by, among others, Jordan Peele. Interestingly, it appears to retain the milieu of Chicago’s mostly defunct Cabrini-Green housing project, where much of the 1992 original took place. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris star. Colman Domingo also appears.

HE’S ALL THAT (on Netflix) Mark Waters (“Mean Girls”) directed this gender-swapped remake of “She’s All That.” Addison Rae plays an influencer who gives a dork (Tanner Buchanan) an image makeover.

VACATION FRIENDS (on Hulu) A couple (Yvonne Orji and Lil Rel Howery) is mortified when some casual friends from a vacation (Meredith Hagner and John Cena) crash their wedding.

THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD (in theaters) Spoiler alert: The word is “socialism,” and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are among the interviewees in this documentary about its history in the United States.

FAYA DAYI (in theaters) When the director Jessica Beshir’s experimental documentary, shot in Harar, Ethiopia, played at New Directors/New Films in the spring, Beatrice Loayza, writing in The Times, called it “dreamy and visually dazzling.” The film, she wrote, considers the toll that the economics of khat — a plant that is used as a drug — takes “on a rural community across generations.”

MOGUL MOWGLI (in theaters) Riz Ahmed plays a rapper whose body begins to fail him, but it’s not “Sound of Metal” redux. Rather, it’s a story of British-Pakistani identity, and the character’s denial of his heritage may even be responsible for his autoimmune condition. Bassam Tariq (the well-regarded documentary “These Birds Walk”) directed.

Listings compiled with the assistance of Gabe Cohn.

Categories
Entertainment

Chief of Individuals for the Arts Retires After Office Complaints

Leader of Americans for the Arts Retires After Workplace Complaints

Robert L. Lynch, the longtime president and chief executive of the Washington-based advocacy organization Americans for the Arts who had been on paid leave since December amid workplace complaints, has agreed to retire effective immediately, the organization’s board announced Thursday.

“Bob has dedicated his life to the arts, in particular increasing access to the arts for everyone,” the board’s statement said, “and we know he will continue to be a passionate advocate for many years to come.”

The board did not say whether Mr. Lynch had received a severance package.

Mr. Lynch, 71, had voluntarily stepped aside late last year while investigations into the organization’s equity and diversity practices and workplace management were ongoing. Those investigations have now concluded, the board’s statement said, though it did not disclose the findings.

He will be succeeded by Nolen Bivens, a retired Army brigadier general and former board member who had led the organization since December. Mr. Bivens helped found the National Initiative for Arts & Health Across the Military, which provides access to creative arts therapies at military clinical sites across the country.

Before he went on leave on Dec. 16, Mr. Lynch had led AFTA for more than three decades. He served on the Biden-Harris transition team for the arts and humanities and was a prominent advocate for resources for nonprofit organizations. His annual compensation package exceeded $900,000, according to the organization’s tax filings.

Mr. Lynch was criticized by a number of current and former AFTA employees and advisory council members late last year, who called out the organization for falling short with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion. Several complainants also said they had been sexually harassed while they worked at AFTA, and said the organization had a management culture rooted in intimidation.

Critics had called for Mr. Lynch to resign from the organization, because, they said, he had long been unresponsive to the issues they raised. As calls grew for AFTA to diversify its leadership and better serve creative communities and artists of color, Mr. Lynch publicly defended the group’s actions, and vowed to do better.

AFTA said in December that it would be the subject of two independent investigations: one related to the work environment, and one focused on AFTA’s policies and procedures surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion. Those have now concluded, though the board did not say when or if it plans to release the findings.

Caitlin Strokosch, the president and chief executive of the National Performance Network, a group of artists and organizations that campaign for racial and cultural justice, said in an email on Thursday that while Mr. Lynch’s resignation had been a positive step, the “toxic practices of supremacy culture” remain within the organization he built. She criticized AFTA for declining to share the findings of the investigations.

“Americans for the Arts had an opportunity for truth-telling,” she said, “and has instead chosen a path that seeks to sweep their practices under the rug, to reject transparency, and to bank on the status quo to keep them in power.”

Categories
Entertainment

Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer Had a Crush on Associates

FRIENDS, from left: David Schwimmer, Jennifer Aniston, 'The One Where Ross Finds Out', (Season 2, ep. 207, aired Nov. 9, 1995), 1994-2004. photo: Robert Isenberg / Warner Bros. / Courtesy: Everett Collection

Image Source: Everett Collection
When it comes to iconic TV “Will they? Won’t they?” couples, Ross Geller and Rachel Green from Friends are very high in the rankings. The chemistry between Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer in those early seasons was intense, and thanks to the recent Friends reunion on HBO Max, we now know why. “The first season, I had a major crush on Jen,” Schwimmer shared, before Aniston quickly added, “It was reciprocated.” Although their crush was mutual, they never acted upon it in real life. “At some point, we were both crushing hard on each other, but it was like two ships passing. One of us was always in a relationship, and we never crossed that boundary,” Schwimmer explained. “Bullsh*t,” Matt LeBlanc jokingly added.

Aniston recalled thinking how it would “be such a bummer if the first time you and I actually kiss is . . . on national television.” And that’s exactly what ended up happening. Since they weren’t able to realize these feelings in their personal lives, they utilized them for Ross and Rachel’s first kiss outside of Central Perk. “Sure enough, the first time we kissed was in that coffee shop. We just channeled all of our adoration and love for each other into Ross and Rachel,” Aniston said.

If the pair thought they’d been keeping this big secret from the rest of the group, their rehearsal behavior certainly betrayed them. “I thought back on the very first year or two, you know, when we had breaks from rehearsal, there were moments we would cuddle on the couch,” Schwimmer told host James Corden. “I’m thinking, ‘How did everyone not know we were crushing on each other?'” Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox almost immediately responded in unison with, “We knew.” Guess the reunion actually is “The One Where Everybody Finds Out.”

Categories
Entertainment

Met Opera’s Deal With Its Choristers Has Much less Financial savings Than It Sought

Met Opera’s Deal With Its Choristers Has Less Savings Than It Sought

The union representing the Metropolitan Opera’s chorus staved off calls for a 30-percent reduction in payroll costs that the company had said it needed to survive the pandemic. But the contract it tentatively agreed to will save the Met millions by modestly cutting pay, moving members to the union’s health insurance plan and reducing the size of the regular chorus.

The American Guild of Musical Artists was the first of the Met’s major unions to strike a deal with the company over pandemic pay cuts. Its members — who also include soloists, dancers, actors and stage managers — are currently learning about the specifics of the deal and are still voting on whether to ratify it.

For months, the Met’s management has said it was seeking to cut the payroll costs for its highest-paid unions by 30 percent, which it said would effectively cut their take-home pay by around 20 percent. It said that half of its proposed pay cuts would be restored once ticket revenues and core donations returned to prepandemic levels.

But the tentative four-year contract the guild agreed to includes cost savings that appear to fall short of that goal, according to an outline of the deal provided by the union. (The union declined to specify the total value of the cuts it agreed to, and the Met declined to provide details.)

Most categories of employees the union represents, including choristers, will see 3.7 percent cuts to their pay, most of which will be restored after three years. For soloists who get paid per performance, the cuts are deeper, with the highest-paid soloists seeing a 12.7 percent cut that will be fully restored in three years.

There are no provisions in the deal that make the salary restoration contingent on box office numbers or donations.

“Considering what the Met was originally seeking in concessions, I think this tentative agreement was really the fairest resolution for our members,” said Leonard Egert, the national executive director of the guild.

As Broadway shows put tickets back on sale and performing arts groups across New York City plan their comebacks, the Met’s plan to return to its stage in September has been threatened by contentious labor disputes. While this deal is a hopeful sign, the Met remains involved in tense negotiations with the union that represents the orchestra, and it has yet to restart formal negotiations with the union representing stagehands, who have been locked out since late last year.

The Met, which says that it has lost $150 million in earned revenues since the coronavirus pandemic forced it to close its doors more than a year ago, said in a statement, “It’s very important for the Met’s plan to reopen in September that A.G.M.A. members ratify this agreement.”

The Met will save more than $2 million by moving guild members off its health insurance plan and onto the union’s plan, guild officials said. Employees may have to switch doctors and will likely pay more in out-of-pocket health care costs, said Sam Wheeler, a guild official who helped negotiate the deal.

To save money, the guild has allowed the Met to cut its regular, full-time chorus from 80 to 74 members, with one position set to be restored at the end of the contract. The positions will be cut through attrition, not terminations, guild officials said.

“This was a big give for the chorus,” Wheeler said, “but this was part of the shared sacrifice that we hope will get the Met open.”

The agreement includes a number of provisions that address diversity and inclusion efforts at the Met, which hired its first chief diversity officer earlier this year.

The Met agreed to send the guild an annual report about its effort to recruit applicants from underrepresented groups; to create a diversity, equity and inclusion committee associated with the guild; to start a demographic survey of its employees that includes questions about race and sexual orientation; to engage an organization to develop racial justice training for Met staff; and to ensure that hair stylists and makeup artists have “cultural competence” when it comes to working with cast members of color.

The deal also adds language to specify that guild members’ contracts can be canceled if they have engaged in certain kinds of serious misconduct — a measure that was not in the previous contract. The Met had proposed a morals clause that would have allowed it to terminate a contract under a broader range of circumstances, but the final agreement limited it to “truly serious conduct,” a guild spokeswoman, Alicia Cook, said.

Categories
Entertainment

Kevin Spacey Solid in Italian Movie After Being Sidelined within the U.S.

Kevin Spacey Cast in Italian Film After Being Sidelined in the U.S.

Kevin Spacey has been cast in a film in what is believed to be the first time since accusations of sexual assault against the actor started surfacing more than three years ago, prompting several court cases and unraveling his onscreen career.

The film, “L’uomo Che Disegno Dio” (or “The Man Who Drew God”), is an Italian feature directed by Franco Nero, who rose to fame via the 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” said Louis Nero, one of theproducers. Mr. Spacey, who plays a detective, is not a lead in the film, he said.

Vanessa Redgrave, who is married to the director, was initially said to have a role, but on Wednesday, a spokesman said she would not appear in the film.

TV and film producers started dropping Mr. Spacey from projects after the actor Anthony Rapp accused Mr. Spacey in 2017 of making unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old. More accusations followed, and several men have sued Mr. Spacey over their accounts of sexual assault and other misconduct.

Mr. Spacey, 61, was swiftly excluded from the Netflix political thriller “House of Cards”; replaced by Christopher Plummer in the Sony film “All the Money in the World”; and played Gore Vidal in a biopic that never saw the light of day. Less than a year after the accusations, he appeared in a supporting role for a finished movie called “Billionaire Boys Club,” but has not appeared in a television show or film since.

Louis Nero said the movie is about a blind artist, played by Franco Nero, who draws portraits of subjects by listening to their voices. The filmmakers hope to complete the project in September; Mr. Spacey has not yet filmed his role.

Asked about the sexual assault allegations, Louis Nero said, “I only know that he is a good actor — that’s it.”

Ms. Redgrave had been slated to play a woman who teaches the artist to read Braille, the producer said. But a spokesman for Ms. Redgrave said in a statement, “While there have been discussions about the possibility of her joining the cast, she will not appear in the film.”

A representative for Franco Nero did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

For years, Mr. Spacey has been embroiled in court proceedings over sexual assault and misconduct allegations against him. Mr. Rapp sued Mr. Spacey last year, along with an anonymous man who said in the lawsuit that Mr. Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was 14 years old after meeting him in an acting class in the 1980s. A judge ruled that the man would have to identify himself publicly if he wanted to continue to trial; his lawyers said the “unwanted attention” associated with revealing his identity would be “too much for him to bear” but suggested that they planned to appeal the ruling.

In 2018, Mr. Spacey was charged with the sexual assault of an 18-year-old man in Nantucket, Mass. Prosecutors dropped the case when the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to continue testifying.

A massage therapist sued Mr. Spacey in California in 2019, accusing him of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly ahead of the trial and the case was dismissed when his estate dropped the lawsuit.

Mr. Spacey, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has denied the allegations made by the four men.

It is not uncommon for actors and filmmakers accused of sexual assault to find work in Europe after opportunities dry up in the United States. Roman Polanski, the director who fled the United States for Europe in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, won big at France’s equivalent of the Academy Awards last year. Woody Allen, who was accused of sexual assault by his daughter Dylan Farrow, has also reoriented himself to Europe since the #MeToo movement revived criticism of those working with him.

Categories
Entertainment

They’ve Given $6 Million to the Arts. No One Knew Them, Till Now.

They’ve Given $6 Million to the Arts. No One Knew Them, Until Now.

The Alphadyne Foundation – who were they? Christine Cox didn’t know, and neither did Google seem to know when she checked late last year in the dark days of the pandemic when organizations like hers struggled to stay alive.

Cox is the co-founder and artistic director of BalletX, a Philadelphia-based contemporary dance group. Although she tried to remain optimistic about the prospect, funding slowed and donors tired of the video views. Then, in December, the Juilliard School president Damian Woetzel called and said a mysterious benefactor named Alphadyne might have some money. Cox drafted a proposal and tried not to awaken her hopes. A number of scholarship recipients had already turned down BalletX, and even at its best, it usually took forever for money to arrive.

But eight weeks after she sent her pitch, the money came in from Alphadyne. It was real money, six-figure money, more money than any donor had ever given them in a single year. Even now, Cox can’t believe it’s real. “We have never received a gift like this,” she said. “My jaw dropped and I started crying.”

The scenario was repeated at various performing arts organizations in and around New York over the past year. At the Harlem Dance Theater. In the National Sawdust, the concert hall in Brooklyn. At the Kaufman Music Center in Manhattan. A phone call came in, a proposal was requested, and then, within a few weeks, it was booming: a serious piece of change, courtesy of the Alphadyne Foundation, whoever they were.

The group that helped select recipients turned out to be as colorful as Alphadyne.

In addition to Woetzel, this included Jay Dweck, a financial technology consultant and violin maker, who made headlines in 2014 for installing a multi-million dollar violin-shaped Stradivarius pool in his garden. and Annabelle Weidenfeld, a former English concert manager who fell in love with the legendary pianist Arthur Rubinstein in the 1970s despite an age difference of six decades – and vice versa. (A decade after his death in 1982, she married the English publisher Lord George Weidenfeld, an engagement that made her the titular lady.)

Gil Shiva, a former board member of the Public Theater, was also won over to attend. (Alphadyne helped sign the audience’s Shakespeare presentation in the park this summer.)

Philippe Khuong-Huu, former managing director of Goldman Sachs and founding member of the investment firm Alphadyne Asset Management, united them all. Khuong-Huu, a 57-year-old Frenchman of Vietnamese descent, is by and large the primary person responsible for the Alphadyne Foundation, which didn’t exist before the pandemic.

It’s also relatively private. His only real foray into the public eye came a decade ago when his purchase of a 10-room Park Avenue terraced duplex drew the attention of The Observer. At first, he declined to be interviewed for this article and only agreed after learning that a story about the foundation would take place with or without his contribution.

In the interview, Khuong-Huu said that when the pandemic broke out in New York last year, when the pandemic broke out in New York, he and his Alphadyner colleagues were seized with a sense of urgency and, although he did not use those words precisely, were indebted to noblesse.

“We realized early on that this pandemic affects people very unevenly beyond general inequalities,” said Khuong-Huu. “Once the crisis is over, you will have people who did something about it and people who didn’t. We had to do something immediately. “

This is not usually how it works in the nonprofit art world, where organizations go to enormous lengths to identify potential donors and spend years carefully nurturing those relationships before asking for a single dime.

During the pandemic, however, Alphadyne was part of a growing group of philanthropists, a sector that has often been criticized for being slow to respond to a crisis that was acting in a rush, according to Sean Delany, former head of the New York State Charities Bureau.

“I’m not saying this is a universal revolution, but I’ve seen a lot more of it than I have seen in normal times,” Delany said.

The performing artists were particularly overwhelmed last year and, for various reasons, often had no access to financial relief. Between July and September 2020, when the average unemployment rate was 8.5 percent, 55 percent of dancers, 52 percent of actors, and 27 percent of musicians and singers were unemployed, according to the National Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The foundation pledged to give away an initial $ 10 million and identified efforts already ongoing in New York to help people in need.

Khuong-Huu said Alphadyne’s money went to ReThink Food NYC, through which restaurants feed the poor; Accompany Capital, a nonprofit that supports refugee and immigrant owned businesses; and the Bronx Community Foundation.

More than half of the foundation’s money went to the performing arts, a sector in which Khuong-Huu has some expertise. He sits on the board of directors at Juilliard and his two teenage daughters are award-winning violinists.

And he was a firm believer in what would help artists more than handouts.

“For artists, what they need most is performance,” he said. “Getting a check from the government is good, but going to a concert is very, very meaningful.”

To make sure the money was being used to get the cast back on track, his SWAT advisory team came in.

Dweck – his Stradivarius-shaped pool was back in the news when Mariah Carey rented his house last summer – knew Khuong-Huu from her time at Goldman Sachs, where they partly bonded over their mutual love of the violin.

When asked for recommendations, Dweck immediately thought of the Perlman music program, which became another Alphadyne recipient. With Kate Sheeran, executive director of Kaufman Music Center, he helped create Musical Storefronts, a pop-up concert series that ran in New York from January to April.

“We have 100 percent acceptance,” said Dweck of the musicians’ interest. “People said, ‘Where and when?'”

The side of the series, an empty Lincoln Center storefront, has been donated. Sheeran said Alphadyne provided the necessary funding at around $ 450,000 for the center to provide well-paid work to 200 artists, as well as sound engineers and ushers. Many of the musicians have not had a paid live performance since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We were just so grateful,” said Isaiah J. Thompson, a jazz pianist and the youngest Juilliard graduate to appear on the series.

Lady Weidenfeld, who Khuong-Huu had met through the pianist Menahem Pressler, her companion since Lord Weidenfeld’s death in 2016, helped out from England, suggesting projects and changes, and checking artist fees and the like.

Woetzel connected Alphadyne to National Sawdust because he supported independent artists. “That was the community that was hit the quickest because there weren’t any gigs,” said Woetzel.

National Sawdust had cut staff by 60 percent and cut wages, and artistic director and co-founder Paola Prestini said it was unclear how the venue could survive. But Alphadyne’s money enabled him to build a digital platform, commission work from 100 artists, commission 20 composers for $ 3,000, and conduct workshops and masterclasses. The digital engagement numbers have increased.

“It was transformative – I couldn’t believe it,” said Prestini. “It suddenly felt like the community we were trying to build just froze.”

This year, Prestini said, Alphadyne National gave Sawdust a second round of funding, again in the six-figure range, and more than the first time.

At BalletX, the Alphadyne money filled the gap in their budget and gave their dancers 20 weeks of paid work. Cox has commissioned 15 choreographers, five of whom have performed live this summer, including in June.

Two non-profit arts organizations used Alphadyne funds to partner with the Violin Channel to create a 10-episode online concert series that ran February through April. Geoffrey John Davies, the founder and executive director of the Violin Channel, said the performers were paid concert prices for four hours of work and the footage was reduced to a 40-minute show and 10-minute interview, which the artist would hold the rights.

In the end, Davies said, the show sparked millions of views. Production of a second series, also supported by Alphadyne, is slated to begin in June.

“They were just overjoyed,” he said of the artist. “I was inundated with lyrics that said, ‘Thank you, thank you.'”

Overall, Khuong-Huu said the Alphadyne Foundation granted $ 6 million to the performing arts but refused to provide any further details on how much more it had put into their fund this year. The foundation has not yet issued any public statements or press releases and still does not have a website. Khuong-Huu also said it does not accept unsolicited requests.

The foundation is still mysterious, although news of its size has spread throughout the New York art world. Anna Glass, executive director of the Dance Theater of Harlem, said the organization received $ 250,000 from Alphadyne in the fall – three weeks after submitting a two-paragraph proposal. The money helped cover two residence bladders for 16 of their dancers.

Still, said Glass, she hardly knows anything about the giver of the gift.

“Just want to say thanks, man behind the curtain,” said Glass. “Whoever you are, thank you.”

Categories
Entertainment

Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail Welcomed Their First Youngster

Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail Welcomed Their First Child

Emmy Rossum and Sam Esmail are parents! On Tuesday, the actress revealed that she gave birth to the couple’s first child on May 24. “On a sunny Monday morning, at 8:13AM, we welcomed our daughter into the world,” Emmy wrote on Instagram, along with a series of beautiful maternity photos. Emmy and Sam kept this exciting baby news private for her entire pregnancy.

The couple were first linked back in 2013, before getting engaged two years later, and married in 2017. Emmy popularized the role of Fiona Gallagher on the recently concluded Shameless series, and Sam executive produced Mr. Robot and Homecoming. Congrats to both of them on their new family of three!

Image Source: Getty / Gabriel Olsen