‘Music’ Review: Angela Schanelec’s Radically Mystifying But Rewarding Riff on ‘Oedipus Rex’

Making a movie with your own child is perilous enough at a time when the media, which is stuffed with them, has decided that “nepo babies” are the latest blight on the eco-system of filmmaking. It’s even more of a risk when your private life has been splashed all over the tabloids, and the facts of that controversy — man leaves wife and kids to start a new family with a younger woman — are a key part of that movie. But whether or not Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara saw the film as a chance for family therapy, or whether they even thought about these things at all, Emma Westenberg’s affecting, slow-burn debut leaves all that kind of real-world baggage firmly at the door.

Making a movie with your own child is perilous enough at a time when the media, which is stuffed with them, has decided that “nepo babies” are the latest blight on the eco-system of filmmaking. It’s even more of a risk when your private life has been splashed all over the tabloids, and the facts of that controversy — man leaves wife and kids to start a new family with a younger woman — are a key part of that movie. But whether or not Ewan McGregor and his daughter Clara saw the film as a chance for family therapy, or whether they even thought about these things at all, Emma Westenberg’s affecting, slow-burn debut leaves all that kind of real-world baggage firmly at the door.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV Critic The story of Kim Philby is perhaps too good to make up. The British spy, a double agent for Moscow, operated at the highest levels of the intelligence community; his ability to disseminate information to the Soviet Union, to which he eventually defected, is proof, perhaps, of the power of personal charm and erudition to cover over what’s lying in plain sight. That’s the powerfully told story of “A Spy Among Friends,” which streamed on ITVX in the United Kingdom last year and which now arrives on nascent streamer MGM+. Guy Pearce plays Philby, who has at the series’ outset been a valued Soviet source for many years; likely his closest friend in tradecraft, Nicholas Elliott (Damian Lewis), must get a confession from him. We see the pair’s relationship over time in layered flashbacks, adding context and understanding to Elliott’s failure to nail down Philby.

Google the origins of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, and one can quickly fall down a rabbit hole of half-truths and urban legends. The popular story – the one now cemented in film history – says that the brand of Cheetos was initially conceived by maintenance worker Richard Montañez.

Biopics, especially those that err on the side of mainstream and are helmed by a major studio, can and do go wrong. From bad casting to lacking scripts, to directorial faux-pas and even sensational stories that muddle the truth, the world has had its fair share of flawed glimpses into the lives of history’s most compelling people.

There can be no doubt why Searchlight Pictures was excited to bring Flamin’ Hot, the true life story of the man known as the ‘godfather of hispanic marketing’, to the screen. Premiering today at SXSW, the life story of Richard Montanez — a high school dropout from a struggling Latino family who worked as a janitor in a Southern California Frito-Lay factory for 10 years — is, at its heart, really a Rocky-style inspirational tale perfect for the Hollywood treatment. He eventually realized the American dream and rose to one the highest ranks of the company,

Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker performed on crutches with a fractured hip in Mexico City last night (March 10) – watch footage from the gig below.Last week, Parker revealed to fans that he had unknowingly ran a half marathon on a fractured hip but vowed to go ahead with the band’s upcoming shows.The Australian musician and vocalist shared the news of his injury on Instagram, posting a series of pictures of him in hospital along with x-rays which show screws in his bones and post-surgery stitches.“Fractured my hip,” he began the post. “Tried to run a half marathon on what turned out to be an existing stress fracture.

Lukas Gage has some thoughts about the new interest in his love life!

Thankfully there seems to have been a moratorium lately on movies that mine the LGTBQ+ experience for tragedy and awards. There’s also been a move towards authenticity, notably in the area of casting trans actors for trans roles, and both of those factors help and hinder photographer Luke Gilford’s feature debut, a film as rich in personality as a Diane Arbus snap but, dramatically, about as punchy as an instalment of High School Musical. In another year, this might be more of a problem than it actually is, since, perhaps more by coincidence than design, National Anthem arrives at a time when everything it celebrates is under attack, and such a low-key affirmation of personal growth and freedom might actually be what we really need right now.

Jimmie Allen’s Artists:Ale Aguirre | Chihuahua, Mexico Ale infuses herself into her music and bilingual lyrics with the mariachi, norteño, banda and other sounds she heard growing up in Mexico. At the age of 16 she taught herself how to play the guitar, and is now on the way to establishing herself as an independent singer-songwriter with a loyal following she’s gained from her popular YouTube channel. Dhruv Visvanath | New Delhi, India Dhruv, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter and producer, started his musical journey at the age of seven.

Reese Witherspoon and Kacey Musgraves comes a new music reality competition called, which they promise is a «fresh take on» the TV genre as it «breaks down barriers in country music by providing an extraordinary opportunity to diverse artists from around the world.»  Ahead of the eight-part competition's debut on Apple TV+, the streaming platform released a trailer, offering the first look at what's to come from this one-of-a-kind experience.  On the show, three groundbreaking country artists and scouts -- Jimmie Allen, Mickey Guyton and Orville Peck -- have each handpicked a roster of what they consider to be «exceptional up-and-coming talent» and invited them to live together in a house in Nashville, Tennessee, where they'll showcase their unique sound and style for the judges.While there, the twelve contestants will vye for the chance to win «a life-changing experience from Apple, including global exposure across the Apple TV+ and Apple Music platforms.»In addition to watching the extended preview for the reality series, check out the three scout's full roster of competing artists below:    Chihuahua, Mexico Ale infuses herself into her music and bilingual lyrics with the mariachi, norteño, banda and other sounds she heard growing up in Mexico. At the age of 16 she taught herself how to play the guitar, and is now on the way to establishing herself as an independent singer-songwriter with a loyal following she’s gained from her popular YouTube channel.    New Delhi, India Dhruv, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, singer-songwriter and producer, started his musical journey at the age of seven.

Thania Garcia Karol G’s deeply introspective “Mañana Será Bonito” has made a historic entrance on the albums chart as the first all-Spanish-language record by a female artist to hit No. 1. The collection — which spans pop, rock, reggaeton, Mexican music and electronica — is also the Colombian artist’s first leader on the Billboard 200. All four of Karol’s studio albums have charted on the all-genre Billboard 200, though “Mañana” is the first to enter the top 10 of the list. Before this, Karol’s highest charting effort was her last 2021 record, “KG0516,” which reached a peak of No. 20. Only two other all-Spanish albums have previously led the list, both were by reggaeton titan Bad Bunny (“Un Verano Sin Ti” in 2022 and “El Ultimo Tour del Mundo” in 2020).

A series of rituals play out across Helmut Dosantos’ nearly wordless documentary “Gods of Mexico.” Honing in on Indigenous communities and their labor in Mexico despite the shadow of the country’s creeping modernization, Dosantos’s breathtaking film recalls the work of Ron Fricke and Godfrey Reggio in its emphasis on the juxtaposition between static imagery and the syncopated rhythms of manual labor.

Binki has returned with a new single, ‘Hotel Window’ and teased the release of more new music soon – check out the new track below.The track serves as the first taste of new material from the New York-based artist since his debut EP, ‘Motor Function’, released in August 2021. It is set to be part of Binki’s second EP released through the FADER Label this spring, with more details to be announced soon.Explaining the meaning behind ‘Hotel Window’, Binki said: “I think this song started with looking at a hotel window as a good metaphor for feeling trapped. You know you can look out of hotel windows but most of the time you can’t open them.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic On Oscar night, “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” will almost certainly win the Academy Award for feature animation. For many of those following along at home, it will look as though the director of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Shape of Water” is being rewarded for some kind of secondary passion, as if del Toro had scaled Everest and then set his sights on a smaller peak on which to plant his flag. But that’s not how it happened at all. Way back in Mexico, del Toro started his filmmaking career doing animated shorts: Obsessed with Ray Harryhausen, the amateur future auteur built rudimentary armatures, painstakingly repositioning the puppets one frame at a time. Decades later, once established in Hollywood, del Toro accepted a side gig at DreamWorks Animation, serving as a story consultant on films such as “Megamind” and “Kung Fu Panda 2” as a pretext for teaching himself the trade. With “Pinocchio,” he put those lessons to work on a stop-motion passion project that’s every bit as challenging as his most impressive films.

Elon Musk continues to be the richest person in the world, despite briefly losing the No. 1 spot for over two months.

Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic Presented largely from the point of view of two children, Mexican director Lila Avilés’ intimate, emotionally rich Berlin competition entry “Tótem” immerses audiences in a boisterous family gathering, where a handful of adult siblings have gathered to celebrate the birthday of their brother, a painter named Tonatiuh (Mateo Garcia). “Tona” is barely seen for most of the movie, confined to a back room where he refuses visitors. Naturally, this confuses 7-year-old Sol (Naíma Sentíes), who spends the day wandering the house alone, building a pillow fort in the living room or collecting snails in the garden. “Sometimes I feel like my dad doesn’t love me when he says he doesn’t want to see me,” Sol confides to her father’s trusted nurse, Cruz (Teresita Sánchez, the lone carryover from Avilés’ exceptional 2018 debut, “The Chambermaid”). Your heart can’t help but break a little in that moment, for by this time, Avilés has already provided enough clues for us to sketch out the rough situation in our heads.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlinale competition film “Music” opens with gray clouds racing across the face of a Greek mountain as a storm prepares to break. It is a suitably dramatic prelude to the tumultuous events that will unfold, albeit rendered in an understated manner by German director Angela Schanelec, who won the Berlinale best director award in 2019 for “I Was at Home, But.” As the storm lifts, an abandoned baby boy is rescued a paramedic, who names him Jon. Years later, Jon, now a young man, kills another man, accidentally, and ends up in prison. Here, he is tended to by a female guard, Iro, as his eyesight begins to deteriorate. When he is released, the two get married and have a child. But several years later, his wife discovers a terrible secret.

The title says it all. Just like Snakes On A Plane was about just that, the new horror comedy Cocaine Bear is about a 500 pound bear on a jihad after coming upon a ton of cocaine dropped into rural Georgia on a drug run gone wrong. The bear ingests the coke and soon you have a beast roaring out of control devouring whatever human comes on to his path. It is all not to be taken seriously, but fortunately director Elizabeth Banks (Charlie’s Angels, Pitch Perfect 2) is smart enough to give audiences hungry for a ‘Jaws’ in the wilderness, some nice scares mixed in with the laughs plus a bit more bang for their buck than just a marketable title.

Anna Marie de la Fuente In what marks a first for Chile’s Storyboard Media, Baremo Films of Mexico has boarded its psychological thriller “Quizas es cierto lo que dicen de nosotras” (“Maybe It’s True What They’re Saying About Us”), which has been shooting in Santiago since Feb. 1 and will wrap later this month.  Written and directed by Sofía Gomez (“Trastornos del sueño”) and Camilo Becerra (“Perro muerto”), the co-production also involves Chile’s La Jauria Cine as well as Argentina’s Murillo Cine and HDArgentina. “We’re delighted to have our first co-production with Mexico, which is such an important market, given its relevance in terms of promotion and visibility in our region,” said Storyboard Media’s Gabriela Sandoval and Carlos Núñez.