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An earthquake and an eclipse weren’t the only natural rarities that happened in New York City this past week. Did you hear about the sasquatch in Central Park? That’s because the sasquatch was a costume and his stroll through the park was a publicity push for the new film from the brothers David and Nathan Zellner. Opening in New York on Friday, the movie spends a year in the wild with a sasquatch pack — a male and female (Nathan Zellner and Riley Keough) and two younger sasquatches (Jesse Eisenberg and Christophe Zajac-Denek) — as they eat, have sex, fight predators and reckon with death. Droll but big-hearted, the movie sits at the intersection of the ad campaign for Jack Link’s beef jerky, the 1987 comedy “Harry and the Hendersons” and a 1970s nature documentary, down to the hippie-vibe soundtrack.

Persons: David, Nathan Zellner, Riley Keough, sasquatches, Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac, Jack Link’s, Harry Locations: New York City, Central Park, New York

☆ Thursday in the Park With Bigfoot
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-05 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you were near the Ramble in Central Park on Thursday afternoon, you might have thought you were in a “Planet of the Apes”-themed episode of “What Would You Do?”Because you may have witnessed a 6-foot-7 longhaired sasquatch slowly traversing tall rocks and promenading through thickets, grunting at the sky and scaring children and dogs silly. But what you saw wasn’t Bigfoot. The sasquatch sighting was a gorilla — sorry, guerrilla — publicity effort for “Sasquatch Sunset,” a new film directed by the brothers David and Nathan Zellner that opens in New York on April 12. Conceptually, the promotional shenanigans in Central Park were in line with the film’s irreverent sensibility. A mix of bro comedy, National Geographic documentary and emotional family drama, it stars Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg as members of a pack of kind-eyed sasquatches who brave life and death in the wilderness.

Persons: David, Nathan Zellner, Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg Organizations: Geographic Locations: Central Park, New York

☆ At This California Radio Station, the Call Letters Say It All
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fog clouded the San Jacinto Mountains recently as Brad Fuhr approached the headquarters of KGAY, a radio station in an undistinguished Palm Springs, California, strip mall. KGAY’s call letters aren’t a fluke but a savvy marketing tool. It’s the only terrestrial radio station in America geared toward L.G.B.T.Q. (There’s WGAY, a “party station” in the Florida Keys, but it doesn’t market itself as gay.) Three other D.J.s — Eric Ornelas, Galaxy and ModGirl — provide the station with homemade mix shows that play around the clock.

Persons: Brad Fuhr, ” George Lamond’s, ”, KGAY, “, Chris Shebel, John Taylor, Eric Ornelas, — Organizations: Volvo, coeur, iHeart’s Pride, KGAY Locations: Jacinto, KGAY, Springs , California, Britain, America, Cincinnati, Florida

☆ Mary Todd Lincoln, Thwarted Cabaret Star? That’s Cole Escola’s Take.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-07 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s hard to pin down the moment in “Oh, Mary!,” a comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln, that will send Lincoln scholars and purists into apoplexy. It could be when the first lady disastrously auditions for a role in “Our American Cousin,” the play at which John Wilkes Booth would later shoot her husband on April 14, 1865. Or when the deeply closeted Lincoln is orally pleasured at his desk. “I’ve seen people at the box office who seem to think this is really a play about Abraham Lincoln, and I feel a little bad, but it’s also funny,” Cole Escola, the show’s writer and star, said in a recent phone interview. (The show opens on Thursday and continues through March 24 at Off Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theater.)

Persons: Mary !, Mary Todd Lincoln, ”, John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln, “ I’ve, Abraham Lincoln, it’s, ” Cole Escola, “, Jackée Harry, Harry, enchant Escola, Lucille Lortel Organizations: Lincoln, Stonewall Locations: “, enchant

☆ Looking to Watch Movies and Make Friends? Join the Club.
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

At Heart of Gold, a cozy bar in Queens, a mad scientist recently brought to life a corpse that went on a blood-drenched rampage. That’s because the undead were marauding on a screen, set up at the front of the bar, that was illuminated by “Re-Animator,” Stuart Gordon’s 1985 horror-science fiction splatterfest. The occasion was a Monday night gathering of the Astoria Horror Club, which meets regularly to watch scary movies over hot dogs, mulled wine and other anything-but-popcorn concessions. Before the film, Tom Herrmann and Madeleine Koestner, the club’s co-founders, introduced “Re-Animator” with a trigger warning about a sexual assault scene and a reminder to generously tip the staff. The Astoria Horror Club is just one of many film clubs that, while not new in concept, are quietly thriving in and around New York City.

Persons: “, ” Stuart Gordon’s, Tom Herrmann, Madeleine Koestner Organizations: Astoria Horror Locations: Queens, New York City, gush

☆ Eli Roth Takes a Stab at Thanksgiving Horror
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-17 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For almost every holiday, there’s a horror movie, from “My Bloody Valentine” to “Black Christmas.” Thanksgiving, too. But the turkeys-beware holiday gets its own namesake movie with Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” featuring an ensemble cast that includes Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey and Gina Gershon. In a recent phone interview, Roth said that he and Jeff Rendell, a childhood friend and his screenwriter on the new film, have been itching to make a Thanksgiving scary movie since they were kids. “There was that lull between October and mid-December when it was all family films,” said Roth, who’s from Newton, Mass. “We were just waiting for another horror movie to come out.

Persons: Valentine ”, Eli Roth’s, Addison Rae, Patrick Dempsey, Gina Gershon, Roth, “, ” Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez’s, John Carver, Jeff Rendell, ”, who’s Locations: Plymouth, Newton

☆ ‘How to Dance in Ohio’: A Story About Autism and Connection
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-15 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The center’s clinical director, Dr. Emilio Amigo, waved at me once I got inside. Behind a closed door I heard the voices of his clients — autistic young adults from mostly working- and middle-class central Ohio families — boisterously chatting about their Friday night plans. I was there to talk about “How to Dance in Ohio,” a new Broadway musical that features Dr. Amigo and seven of his autistic clients as characters. In a room filled with board games and framed illustrations of rainbow-bright robots, I met Tommy Van Atta. Van Atta, 28, who has the frame of a linebacker, paused for a few seconds, then spoke softly.

Persons: Bob Evans, Emilio Amigo, ”, Amigo, Alexandra Shiva’s, Max, Tommy Van Atta, Van Atta Organizations: Family, Belasco Locations: Columbus , Ohio, Ohio, Manhattan

Horror, Hysteria and a SpinningHeadReconsidering‘The Exorcist’ at 50Essays by Jason Zinoman , Manohla Dargis and Erik PiepenburgCould a movie about a girl possessed by the devil really have caused audience members to faint and lose their lunch at theaters? The vehement reaction to “The Exorcist” when it premiered in late 1973 helped create a special place for it in pop culture, as evidenced by the media frenzy at the time. We asked three of our critics for new perspectives on the film: what it accomplished then and what it represents to us now.

Persons: Jason Zinoman, Manohla Dargis, Erik Piepenburg

☆ Halloween in New York: Things to Do in October
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-30 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A Halloween without horror movies is like a Christmas without Hallmark movies about big-city women falling for small-town bookstore owners. New scary films in theaters now are the Agatha Christie-inspired “A Haunting in Venice”; the twisted sister tale “The Nun II”; and “Saw X,” the tenth film in the franchise. For a sneak peek at what horror fans will be drooling over next, check out the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival (Oct. 12-19), at Nitehawk Cinema’s Williamsburg and Prospect Park locations. Stine’s horror books for teenagers (Disney+, Oct. 13). Back to scare again are new seasons of the killer doll show “Chucky” (Peacock, Oct. 4) and the anthology series “Creepshow” (Shudder, Oct. 13).

Persons: Agatha Christie, Hitchcock’s Marlene Dietrich, ”, moviemaking Adams, “ Michelle, Usher, ” Mike Flanagan’s, Edgar Allan Poe, Chucky ”, John, Ed Gein, “ Organizations: Hallmark, Brooklyn Horror Film, MGM Locations: Venice, Nitehawk, Williamsburg, Prospect, California, Texas

☆ Queer History Was Made in ’90s Clubs. These Fliers Captured It.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-28 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the new book “Getting In,” the journalist David Kennerley takes an electric visual stroll through New York’s 1990s gay club scene. “People threw the fliers on the ground,” Kennerley, 63, said in a recent interview at a Midtown cafe. A self-described “bit of a hoarder,” Kennerley considers the book an act of queer music history preservation. “We weren’t all snapping pictures at clubs back then, so we don’t have much of a visual record,” he said. “These provide some sort of visual evidence of what went on.”

Persons: ”, David Kennerley, hither hunks, Frankie Knuckles, Junior Vasquez, Jackie, Kennerley, ” Kennerley Locations: Midtown

☆ At Mrs. Roper Romps, the Caftan Is Queen
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-22 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“The way that she is constantly needling Mr. Roper is a takedown of the patriarchy,” Baume said in a phone interview. The ladies got tipsy on the Oh, Stanley, a special cocktail of white rum and grenadine named for one of Mrs. Roper’s frequent hubby-shaming chastisements. Nancy Rafi, a 65-year-old retired event planner who co-organized the Romp, said she wasn’t surprised tickets sold out quickly. For many women of her generation, she said, Mrs. Roper was “a feminist icon.”“I loved Suzanne Somers and Joyce DeWitt,” said Rafi, who is also a practicing witch. “But they were very vanilla to me.” Mrs. Roper, she said, “was a firecracker.”

Persons: Mr, Roper, ” Baume, “, Stanley, Roper’s, Nancy Rafi, wasn’t, Suzanne Somers, Joyce DeWitt, ”, Rafi, Mrs Locations: Providence, perm

☆ They Put the Heart in ‘Heartstopper’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But then we started talking about coming out, and the mood in the room shifted, fast. Last year, Connor came out on Twitter as bisexual, saying he felt forced to do so after some fans accused him of queer-baiting. “I had just told my mum, and I was on top of the world,” he said. “I quickly realized I was ready to tell my mum but I was not ready to tell the world. I retold all my friends and they’re like, ‘Yeah, you told us two years ago.’”And now that he’s out-out and playing gay on “Heartstopper”?

Persons: Connor, ”, it’s, ” Locke, “, Locke glanced

☆ In ‘The Horror of Dolores Roach,’ the Empanadas Are to Die For
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It does the same for cannibalism, though there was nothing like that on the schedule as far as I knew. But we had all day to talk about eating people. First, empanadas. I drooled a little watching Machado and Mark take bites of the face-sized empanadas, which were perfectly golden brown, bubbly in the right spots and oozy, not greasy. They were tasty, Machado said, but she was partial to the chicken-and-cheese pastelillos, fried turnovers similar to empanadas, that her Puerto Rican mother used to make.

Persons: Justina Machado, Aaron Mark, Dolores Roach, ”, Mark, Machado, carne, Jane, Virgin Organizations: Broadway Locations: Washington Heights, Manhattan, Empanadas, Puerto Rican

☆ Andrew Ridgeley on George Michael and Life After Wham!
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If you weren’t a teenager in 1984, it might be hard to understand this, but here goes: There are Gen X-ers who remember where they were the first time they saw the video for the Wham! clap-along pop anthem “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”In it, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, the heartthrob frontmen of Wham!, wear big smiles and beachy short shorts as they perform their infectious bop — titled after a note Ridgeley had once left on his family’s refrigerator — for a small crowd of adoring fans. Ridgeley, who turned 60 in January, remembers making it as great fun. “It was our first video with an audience,” he said during a recent video interview from his home in London. “The atmosphere was really quite excitable and exciting.”Ridgeley and his bandmate are the subject of “Wham!,” a new documentary that premieres on Wednesday on Netflix.

Persons: George Michael, Andrew Ridgeley, beachy, Ridgeley, Crüe, ”, Chris Smith Organizations: Netflix Locations: London

☆ A Gay Riot at a Doughnut Shop? The Legend Has Some Holes.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The story still resonates: More than 60 years ago, Los Angeles police officers were routinely harassing the gay and transgender people who gathered at Cooper Do-nuts, a 24-hour spot in the city’s seedy gay circuit known as the Run. Then one evening in May 1959, some fed-up drag queens, hustlers and other customers pushed back, barraging officers with hot coffee and half-eaten crullers. John Rechy, author of the landmark 1963 gay novel “City of Night,” has recalled seeing coffee cups fly. The Cooper Do-nuts melee has long been noted as a gay uprising a full 10 years before the more famous June 1969 riot outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City. resistance that on Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council is set to approve the installation of a street sign commemorating a Cooper Do-nuts shop as part of what it calls “the ongoing work to make Los Angeles a more inclusive place.”

Persons: Cooper, John Rechy, ” Organizations: Los, Los Angeles City Council Locations: New York City, Los Angeles

☆ Pride Month in New York Is Back. Here’s How to Celebrate.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

New York City’s official Pride theme this year is Strength in Solidarity, an apt reminder that Pride was born as a protest movement against bigotry wherever it manifests. Also that day, Christina Aguilera headlines Pride Island, the big annual dance party, at Brooklyn Army Terminal. New York’s official Pride calendar also features a Juneteenth brunch with Black L.G.B.T.Q. chefs on June 18 and, on June 24, events centered on people of color and a Youth Pride party. The annual Dyke March — “a protest march, not a parade,” according to organizers — is June 24.

Persons: Pride, Billy Porter, Randy Wicker, Christina Aguilera, Black L.G.B.T.Q, “, — Organizations: Solidarity, ABC, Pride, Brooklyn Army Locations: Hudson, Queens, Brooklyn, Bronx, Harlem

From web-slinging diversions to archaeological excursions, this summer movie season is stacked with releases across a variety of genres. Our writers who seek out the most interesting picks in horror, international, science fiction, action and children’s movies each month scoured the summer calendar to come up with the films that have their attention. Horror“Host,” Rob Savage’s terrifying 2020 found-footage movie about a possessed online séance, will go down as a defining pandemic-inspired horror film. Sophie Thatcher stars as a young woman who battles a home-invading supernatural entity that feeds on the suffering of its victims. Not only is Wilson reprising his role as Josh Lambert, father to a now college-age son, but he’s also making his directing debut.

☆ Five Horror Movies to Stream Now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ruben Broekhuis’s propulsive thriller mixes documentary and found-footage conventions to tell a sinister and unpredictable story about surveillance and the dark web. The young siblings were in a shelter, about to be adopted, when one day Adin mysteriously disappeared. When Elias and Aisha arrive at the shelter with the camera rolling, blows are exchanged as the administrators question the visitors’ motives. But then — and here’s where the film made me sit straight up — the camera’s point of view switches. A knockout final stretch explains most everything, but the film concludes with a too-twisty coda.

☆ Nicolas Cage, Ranked From Wild to Mild
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Erik Piepenburg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the early 1980s, Nicolas Cage got his first big breaks in Martha Coolidge’s “Valley Girl” and Amy Heckerling’s “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” films that zeroed in on the peculiar allure of his dopey bad boy persona. Watching him was like eating a banana split: You tasted something nutty, sweet, indulgent, all-American. Since then, few actors have been able to match how nimble a polymorph Cage is in genre, how easily he power-bounces between action (“National Treasure”), comedy (“Moonstruck”) and horror (“Pay the Ghost”). He’s done the same for a who’s who of boundary-pushing directors, including the Coen brothers (“Raising Arizona”), David Lynch (“Wild at Heart”) and Spike Jonze (“Adaptation”). Each is rated on a scale of bees — one for sleepy, five for loony — in honor of the insects that tortured him in the 2006 remake of “The Wicker Man.”

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