
Very Important Questions: Daveed Diggs and Katie Aselton
Daveed Diggs and Katie Aselton answer The Times' Nick Ducassi's Very Important Questions about their film 'Magic Hour,' which premiered at SXSW on Friday.

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New York Times
16 minutes ago
- New York Times
Weinstein Prosecutors Invoke His Former Power as N.Y. Retrial Nears End
When a prosecutor rose to make her closing argument at Harvey Weinstein's retrial on sex crimes charges on Tuesday, the Manhattan courtroom's televisions showed a picture of him clad in a smart black suit, on a red carpet, smiling with his hands spread before a throng of clamoring photographers. The image, taken at a star-studded gala at the Cannes Film Festival, captured the former Hollywood producer at the height of his power — power Mr. Weinstein used to sexually assault three women, the prosecutor, Nicole Blumberg, told the jury. He took private flights, had a personal driver and attended events with dignitaries and celebrities regularly. 'I want you to remember it's not the person sitting here today in the wheelchair,' Ms. Blumberg, a prosecutor with the Manhattan district attorney's office, said, pointing to the picture: 'It's that man.' Ms. Blumberg's statements, which continued on Wednesday, will be the last arguments the jury hears before beginning its deliberations over whether to convict him on two counts of a first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of third degree rape. It is the second time in five years that Mr. Weinstein, 73, has faced a Manhattan jury. The state's highest court overturned his a 2020 conviction on sex crimes charges last year. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus Is Working on Musical Using AI: ‘Such a Great Tool'
ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus is working on a new musical using artificial intelligence. According to Variety, during a talk at SXSW London on Wednesday (June 4), the 80-year old Swedish pop legend said he's tapping into AI because he believes it is an excellent creative tool. 'Right now I'm writing a musical, assisted by AI,' Ulvaeus said, noting that he's about three-quarters of the way through the creative process on the unnamed project, the follow-up to the hugely successful pop quartet's avatar stage show, Voyage. More from Billboard Jessie J Reveals 'Early Breast Cancer' Diagnosis: 'Cancer Sucks in Any Form' Big Thief Announce New Album, 'Double Infinity' Neil Young Invites Donald Trump to Summer Tour 'If There Is Not Martial Law by Then' 'It's fantastic. It is such a great tool,' Ulvaeus raved of AI. 'It is like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame. It is really an extension of your mind. You have access to things that you didn't think of before.' Unlike many in the industry who fear that AI is an existential threat to their existence and the traditional creative process, Ulvaeus is aware of the bugs in the system, which he said have helped him to merge AI with his already formidable songwriting skills. 'It's lousy at [writing a whole song]' and 'very bad at lyrics,' he said about his AI helpmate, which has allowed him to navigate through some creative dead-ends. 'You can prompt a lyric you have written about something, and you're stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style,' he said. 'You can ask it, how would you extend? Where would you go from here? It usually comes out with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea.' Ulvaeus is part of an eclectic lineup for 2025 SXSW London, whose lineup includes Erykah Badu (as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown), Tems, Mabel, Alice Glass and many more. Penske Media Corporation (which also owns Billboard) and the film and production company MRC invested in SXSW in 2021 following the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; two years later, Penske took majority ownership of SXSW. The AI project, whose ultimate form has not yet been announced, is part of Ulvaeus' ongoing partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind the ABBA Voyage production. The Voyage virtual residency opened in London in May 2022 and is slated to run through January 2026. The show is a combination of 10 live performers and digital avatars of the four ABBA members, who have not performed live since their split in December 1982; the group, which also features Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, released their first album in 40 years, Voyage, in November 2021. Though Ulvaeus is happy to use AI in the creative process, he is also adamant about fighting for artists' rights in the rapidly evolving digital age. 'These AI models wouldn't exist without the songs that we wrote,' he said. Best of Billboard Chart Rewind: In 1989, New Kids on the Block Were 'Hangin' Tough' at No. 1 Janet Jackson's Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits H.E.R. & Chris Brown 'Come Through' to No. 1 on Adult R&B Airplay Chart


New York Times
6 hours ago
- New York Times
‘A Freeky Introduction' Review: Pleasure Principles
In 'A Freeky Introduction,' the writer-creator, NSangou Njikam plays a quasi-deity, M.C., holy hedonist named Freeky Dee. He is a poet delivering sybaritic couplets above the thrum of R&B tunes. He is a missionary preaching the gospel of freakdom: 'All of us are aftershocks of the Divine orgasm.' (The Big Bang, Freeky argues, was an explosive one.) The result is a sort of hip-hop hallelujah — a work of interactive theater that's funny and familiar in its embrace of Black culture, yet flattened at times by a lack of specificity. Freeky Dee is also a storyteller. He opens the show, now at Atlantic Stage 2 in Manhattan, with the tale of an eagle destined to fly, but born into a nest of bullying buzzards — a not-so-subtle allegory about one species that must resist the self-appointed superiority of another. Accompanied by DJ Monday Blue onstage, Freeky Dee is the sole performer who acts out these scenes, including his pursuit of a fine lady named Liberty ('French, with a splash of Africa' and wearing 'a crown that looked like sun rays coming out her forehead' — you get it). Njikam, who wrote and starred in the lively and semi-autobiographical 'Syncing Ink,' is a fan of salacious reinterpretations. Under Dennis A. Allen II's well-paced direction for this Atlantic Theater Company production, he delivers them with the charisma of a folkloric trickster. DJ Monday Blue's sounds and samples lend a rock-steady groove — a feast of R&B and hip-hop staples. Whenever Freeky Dee sets up for a spoken-word set, the standing bass and sax lines of 'Brother to the Night,' from the movie 'Love Jones,' ring out. It's a knowing wink — sonic choices that affirm Black cultural memory as its own special canon. Audience participation also becomes a form of communion for Njikam and Blue. At times, we're ordered to recite an affirmation-laden 'Mirror Song' or do kegel exercises in our seats. The show is always edging the sacred up against the sexual, which set designer Jason Ardizzone-West reinforces, adorning square columns with divine contradiction: half evoke West and North African etchings of figures kneeling in spiritual offering; while the other lean into smut — peach and eggplant emojis, thirst drops, figures on their knees for a different purpose. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.