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    ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Review: Singing, Slinging and Slashing

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    Beyond the somewhat silly premise of this Netflix animated film is a charming, funny and artfully punchy original universe.Lest you roll your eyes and think of it as a four-quadrant-friendlier version of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” “KPop Demon Hunters” immediately establishes its premise, getting any prospective scoffing out of the way.For generations, a voice-over intro explains, girl groups have used their popular songs to secretly trap hordes of demons underground and keep the world safe. The latest group on their trail? Huntrix, a K-pop girl band that, in its fight against the sinister Gwi-ma (Lee Byung-hun) and his demons, is close to completing the Golden Honmoon, a protective barrier that will permanently keep evil forces at bay. But the girl group soon faces its toughest challenge yet: a demon boy band.With that somewhat silly logline behind us, what we’ll find in this Netflix animated film, directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans, is an original universe that is charming, funny and artfully punchy.It’s a Sony Pictures Animation film that shares a kind of lineage with the studio’s recent hit “Spider-Verse” franchise that is most apparent in the similar visual style. But otherwise what it borrows mostly is a more holistic and technical sense of the cinematic, a philosophy of approach that is rare in big-budget animation films. The action sequences are fluid and immersive, the art is frequently striking and the music (catchy, if formulaic earworms) is a properly wielded and dynamic storytelling tool.And as for the cheesy girl group vs. boy band story, Kang and Appelhans have a sly sense of humor about it all, too; the movie is funniest when it pokes at pop culture that is highly manufactured, from K-pop to K-dramas to mass-produced singing competitions — the very things the film itself would never stoop to.Rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      David Hekili Kenui Bell, an Actor in ‘Lilo & Stitch,’ Dies at 46

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      Mr. Bell’s first role in a feature film was providing comic relief in the Disney hit.In Disney’s latest live-action remake, “Lilo & Stitch,” David Hekili Kenui Bell has a short but memorable role in which he is so bewildered to see aliens that he lets his shaved ice plop to the ground. The appearance was his first in a feature film.Mr. Bell, who had played minor roles in a few productions, died on Thursday. He was 46.His sister, Jalene Bell, confirmed his death on social media on Sunday and in a family statement that did not provide a cause of death.He was credited simply as Big Hawaiian Dude on his IMDb page, but on TikTok he referred to himself as the Shave Ice Guy.“Lilo & Stitch,” which is based on the 2002 film and the animated franchise, was released on May 23 and became one of the most profitable recent films as it raked in more than $800 million in sales.His role was part of a running gag in the franchise. In those moments, a sunburned character who is relaxing somewhere drops his ice cream when the aliens arrive.In one of two movie scenes where he appeared, the aliens startle him while he sits at the beach in a sleeveless shirt, with a towel on one shoulder and sunglasses atop his head. Predictably, he drops his shaved ice.“These damn aliens owe me a shave ice,” he captioned the scene on TikTok.In the original “Lilo & Stitch,” the man dropping the ice cream is bald and is often not wearing a shirt.Mr. Bell had also appeared in two episodes of a “Magnum P.I.” remake in 2018 and 2019, as well as in one episode of a “Hawaii Five-0” remake in 2014, according to IMDb. He was involved in the upcoming film “The Wrecking Crew,” about two half brothers solving their father’s murder in Hawaii, his page on the site said.He appeared in the “One Life, Right?” commercials for the Kona Brewing Company. The ads won a 2025 Pele Award, according to his sister and the organization’s website. The Pele Awards honor excellence in advertising and design in Hawaii.Outside of acting, Mr. Bell worked at the Kona International Airport near Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, according to the social media statement from his sister.Complete information on survivors was not available.To celebrate her brother’s life and express their grief, Ms. Bell said that she and her grandson went to get shaved ice.“David loved being an actor,” doing voice-overs and traveling as part of his work, his sister said. “The film industry and entertainment was so exciting to him.” More

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      Renée Victor, Actress Who Voiced Abuelita in ‘Coco,’ Dies at 86

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      She had many memorable roles in her decades-long career, including Lupita in the television series “Weeds.”Renée Victor, best known for voicing the strict but loving grandmother in the Pixar film “Coco,” died Friday night at her home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She was 86.The cause was lymphoma, a representative for Ms. Victor confirmed on Sunday.Ms. Victor appeared in a number of television series through her decades-long career, including as Lupita on the comedy “Weeds.” But her most well-known role came in 2017 as the grandmother in “Coco,” which follows a 12-year-old boy in Mexico who is transported to the land of the dead.In a post on social media, Pixar said it was “heartbroken” about Ms. Victor’s death. “We will always remember you,” the company added, possibly referring to the signature song in “Coco.”Renée Victor was born on July 25, 1938, in San Antonio. She was raised in a traditional Catholic family and went to an all-girls school. When she was 10, Ms. Victor danced in a production of the opera “Carmen,” according to the entertainment database IMDb.Ms. Victor’s early career included a run as a singer and dancer at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas, according to IMDb. She went on to do more stage work internationally, including in Australia, Europe and Latin America.Ms. Victor later returned to Los Angeles and hosted the local talk show “Pacesetters,” a public affairs program. She also worked as a translator and interpreter at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, as well as for the BBC. In 1996, Ms. Victor starred in the short film “Libertad,” portraying a matriarch fighting to keep her fractured family together. The next year, she played the Hispanic translator in Robert Duvall’s “The Apostle.” She had roles in two other films with Mr. Duvall: “Assassination Tango” and “A Night in Old Mexico.”The director Frank Aragon said Ms. Victor was deft at balancing humor and drama in a way that “unleashes colorful, quirky personas that tickle the funny bone.” She also played the grandmother in the 2014 horror film “Paranormal Activity 5: The Marked Ones.” Her character was originally meant to die midway through the movie, according to Ms. Victor’s IMDb biography, but studio executives decided against that fate because “she’s too lovable and the audience won’t accept it.”She also had recurring roles on the shows “ER,” “Dead to Me” and “Snowpiercer.”In an interview in 2017 about her role in “Coco,” Ms. Victor said that the film would bring a broader awareness of Mexican culture to those who “don’t know enough” about it.Of doing voice-over work, she said, “I love it, because a microphone doesn’t care what you look like.”She added, “It’s what you’re projecting into that microphone that’s important.”She is survived by her two daughters, Raquel and Margo Victor. More

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      ‘A Sloth Story’ Review: Slow Cooking

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      A family of sloths take their food truck to the big city in this animated movie directed by Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent.The prospect of an animated movie about sloths introduces an invigorating challenge. What’s the best way to spin a comedic children’s story about the slowest-moving mammals on Earth? Sid, the central sloth in the “Ice Age” franchise, is slow of wit but swift in body, while “Zootopia” installed its sloth, Flash, as an unhurried employee of the Department of Mammal Vehicles.“A Sloth Story,” an Australian animated feature directed by Ricard Cussó and Tania Vincent, takes slothful speed and applies it not to gags, but to a sentimental story set in the culinary world. The Romero-Flores family have been in the restaurant business for generations, and are known for their slow cooking. But once the foursome survives a natural disaster that destroys their hometown, they’re forced to take their recipes on the road in a clanking food truck.The movie belongs to “The Tales from Sanctuary City,” an Australian franchise, and like its predecessors, “A Sloth Story” suffers from a plasticky visual design. The characters seem stiff, like action figures, and their food items, meant to look appetizing, are often rendered as colored medallions.The plot is a standard clash between art and commerce, embodied by a restless preteen sloth named Laura (voiced by Teo Vergara) and Dotti (Leslie Jones), a fast-food tycoon cheetah. It does make several gestures at real-world issues, most notably in the opening climate catastrophe and in a scene parodying cultural appropriation in the culinary industry. But “A Sloth Story” mainly sticks to the basics — solidarity, identity, growing pains — in a tale generic enough to match its title.A Sloth StoryRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Smurfs’ Trailer Shows Rihanna as Smurfette and Promises New Music

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      The first preview of the animated feature shows the singer in her “blue era” and assures fans that new songs from her will be featured on the soundtrack.Music superstar, beauty mogul, fashion designer and … Smurfette? Rihanna’s next big role may not be what you were expecting.On Thursday, Paramount released a trailer for “Smurfs,” giving us a first look at the singer as the elflike, blonde-haired, blue-skinned creature. In an animation style that blends smooth 3-D rendering with elements that evoke the classic hand-drawn cartoons, Smurfette leads her cohort into the real, live-action world on a quest to Paris to find Papa Smurf after he mysteriously disappears.The trailer begins with Rihanna, in human form, addressing the audience.“I can’t wait for you all to see it this summer,” she says, with sunglasses largely covering her Smurf-blue eye shadow. She had teased the trailer in an Instagram post on Wednesday, which was a short video captioned “in my blue era.”The animated movie also features an ensemble cast including Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Sedaris, Nick Kroll and Dan Levy, and is directed by Chris Miller, who previously helmed “Shrek the Third” and “Puss in Boots.” It will be a musical-comedy reboot of ‘The Smurfs’ film franchise, which last had an installment with “Smurfs: The Lost Village” in 2017.In addition to playing Smurfette, Rihanna is a producer on the movie. But, in what will most likely be the biggest news for her fans, who have been clamoring for more music since her album “Anti” was released in 2016, the trailer ends with a message advising people to “presave” the movie’s soundtrack, which will feature new music from Rihanna.It also says the movie will include the song “Higher Love,” recorded by Desi Trill and featuring DJ Khaled, Cardi B, Natania and Subhi.“Smurfs” is set to release on July 18. More

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      When ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Gets the Anime Treatment

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      “The War of the Rohirrim” is the latest and most high-profile anime adaptation of a Western franchise to hit screens big and small.When Warner Bros. approached the filmmaker Peter Jackson and his longtime screenwriting partner Philippa Boyens about making a new animated “Lord of the Rings,” Boyens at first had a hard time wrapping her head around the notion. But when studio executives suggested that the film could be told via Japanese anime — suddenly it clicked.They could tell a stand-alone story from J.R.R. Tolkien’s appendices about the people of the kingdom of Rohan, which has now become “The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim,” directed by Kenji Kamiyama. Jackson is one of the film’s executive producers and Boyens one of its producers.“It was that moment of form meeting the story,” Boyens said in a video call. She said she thought anime would be an appealing approach because “it’s a story that ultimately deals with the wreckage of war, and that’s something that Japanese storytelling on film has been really good at telling.”“The War of the Rohirrim” (in theaters) is the latest and most high profile anime adaptation of a Western franchise to hit screens big and small. In recent years there’s been “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off” on Netflix, an anime version of the 2010 movie “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”; a “Rick and Morty: The Anime” for Adult Swim; and “Terminator Zero,” a show set in James Cameron’s “Terminator” universe, also on Netflix. Kamiyama also made an installment of “Star Wars: Visions,” a 2021 anime anthology featuring a galaxy far, far away on Disney+, as well as “Blade Runner: Black Lotus,” a co-production of Adult Swim and the anime streaming service Crunchyroll.BenDavid Grabinski, one of the creators of “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off,” said in an interview that he sought to tap into some of the artistry of anime that “can feel fresh and different than a lot of the traditional animation coming out of the west.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds’ Review: Flights of Fantasy

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      Two sisters get transported to a new world and transformed into cats in this whimsical and thoughtful animated feature.You can discover a lot about a fantasy world from its mode of entry: an English wardrobe, a disappearing train platform, a rabbit hole. The means to the phantasmagorical dream world of “Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds,” available on demand, is as playful and fanciful as the destination: You have to hopscotch there.“Sirocco” begins with two sisters, Juliette and Carmen, getting dropped off at a family friend’s house for the weekend. This friend, Agnès, is the author of a popular fantasy book series about an ill-tempered wizard named Sirocco who summons devastating winds to destroy whole towns. When Agnès is distracted, a sentient toy — a testy little fellow with magical powers and a treasure trove of absurd lines — hopscotches the sisters into the kingdom of winds, where they’re transformed into cats. That’s not the end of their problems: Carmen’s at risk of getting married against her will and Juliette is offered as a pet to Selma, an elegant avian adventurer turned opera singer. With the help of Selma, the two sisters set out to find Sirocco to figure out a way to get back home.Directed by Benoît Chieux, who wrote the screenplay with Alain Gagnol, “Sirocco” feels drawn from the same extended family of stories as those from the great Hayao Miyazaki — contemporary fairy tales that skip genre clichés and conventions to provide novel plots where the next step in the journey is always a mystery.The intrigues of this film begin with the animation, which recalls such psychedelic classics as “Yellow Submarine” and “Son of the White Mare.” A town of amphibious residents live in gravity-defying skyscrapers made by Jenga-stacked geometric blocks. Selma travels in a flying opera house kept afloat by a hot-air balloon resembling a jellyfish. And in the sky, clouds churn and move like sentient gobs of putty. The various landscapes of this fantastical world are also marked with expressive coloring-book palettes: The cherry reds and watermelon pinks of a town’s architecture and cliffs are starkly contrasted with the honey and amber browns of desert sands.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Rachael Lillis, Who Voiced Popular ‘Pokémon’ Characters, Dies at 55

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      Ms. Lillis voiced the characters of Misty and Jessie in the animated series based on a video game. She was diagnosed with breast cancer this year.Rachael Lillis, an actress who voiced the original English versions of Misty and Jessie, popular characters in the 1990s “Pokémon” anime television series, and later in the franchise’s movies and games as well, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. She was 55.The cause was breast cancer, according to Laurie Orr, one of her sisters. Ms. Lillis had been diagnosed earlier this year.Ms. Lillis started voice acting in the 1980s, according to her IMDB page, but her big break came in the late 1990s when she was cast in the English version of the “Pokémon” TV series, a popular Japanese anime based on the “Pokémon” video games. In hundreds of episodes over eight years, Ms. Lillis voiced the characters Misty, a trusted friend of the main character, Ash Ketchum, and Jessie, one of the show’s villains.She also voiced those characters in “Pokemon” movies as the cultural phenomenon grew.Ms. Lillis, who lived in Los Angeles, also was the voice of Jigglypuff, whose fairy song put listeners to sleep and was one of the creatures the characters pursue.Ms. Lillis, who had dozens of other voice credits to her name, had a strong sense of humor and a talent for voice acting, said Eric Stuart, who voiced James, the other member of Team Rocket in the “Pokémon” series, and worked with Ms. Lillis for many years.“If you met her, you’d not say this was so natural for her,” Mr. Stuart said in a phone interview. “Rachael in real life was pretty low key, kind of quiet and sweet,” Mr. Stuart added. “The minute she stepped in that booth it was like this whole other energy came out.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Richard Sherman, Songwriter of Many Spoonfuls of Sugar, Dies at 95

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      He and his brother, Robert, teamed up to write the songs for “Mary Poppins” and other Disney classics. They also gave the world “It’s a Small World (After All).”Richard M. Sherman, the younger brother in a songwriting team that won two Oscars and two Grammys, brought Disney movies to musical life and gave the world numbers like “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and the ubiquitous, multiply translated “It’s a Small World (After All),” died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 95.The death, in a hospital, was announced by the Walt Disney Company.The careers of the Shermans — Richard and Robert — were inextricably linked with Walt Disney. Their Academy Awards were for “Chim Chim Cher-ee,” a chimney sweep’s alternately cheerful and plaintive anthem from “Mary Poppins” (1964), and for the film’s score. Their Grammy Awards were for “Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too,” shared in 1975 for best recording for children, and the “Mary Poppins” score.“It’s a Small World” was written for the Disney theme-park ride of the same name. The song plays as guests in boats pass among 240 dolls of many nations with identical faces — tiny can-can and folk dancers, mermaids and mariachi bands — plus Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and grinning farm animals.“People want to kiss us or kill us,” Richard Sherman said in a 2011 video interview about the song, which he said was “the biggest hit of the World’s Fair,” where it was introduced in 1964.The Shermans brought a musical-theater sensibility to movie songwriting. The question was never which came first, the music or the words; what came first was the idea.The framework of “Mary Poppins” did not exist until the Shermans got their hands on P.L. Travers’s beloved books about a magical nanny, a series of adventures in 1930s London with no discernible conflict or resolution. In the movie, the problem is the children’s behavior, brought on by a neglectful father. It also seemed like bad taste to employ live-in servants during hard economic times, so they moved the Banks family to the Edwardian era.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More