Nicolas Cage plays the title character, a version of Spider-Man who lives in 1930s New York and works as a private investigator. By ESTHER ZUCKERMAN “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” the latest movie featuring the web-slinging Marvel hero, arrives in theaters in July. But last week a very different Spider-Man came to television. “Spider-Noir” premiered Monday, May 25 on the MGM+ cable channel and began streaming on Amazon Prime Video last Wednesday. Nicolas Cage plays the title ch

Cellist Emanuel Graf (landesjugendorchester.de) By PEGGY ANN BLISS Special to The STAR Just when everyone is packing up for the summer, musicians are working themselves into a frenzy of creativity and exuberance. Take Matthew, a 17-year-old Maryland high-schooler of Chinese ancestry. The youngest of 25 students enrolled in British keyboard genius Ian Hobson’s 12th International Piano Festival at the Puerto Rico Steinway Society headquarters in Jan D’Esopo’s Gallery Inn this w

The Mexican-American singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas in Los Angeles on April 27, 2026. On her new album, “Norteña,” Venegas embraces regional traditions and unlocks her most personal songwriting yet. (Amanda Hakan/The New York Times) By JON PARELES Separations, homecomings and memories — personal and historical — fill the songs on “Norteña,” the ninth studio album by Mexican American songwriter Julieta Venegas and her most personal one. Música norteña is a regional genre th

By GLENN KENNY This movie begins, as so many contemporary espionage pictures do, with men at laptops being interrupted by men with guns: In Dubai, a covert intelligence outpost is infiltrated by a small posse of men with high-caliber fast-shooting weapons. Their stolid, silver-haired commander has given only one instruction: “No hesitation.” The carnage is considerable. And so, Wendell Pierce as an intelligence leader, James Greer, heads to New York’s Greenwich Village to tra

In “Fjord,” once child protection services opens an inquiry, an ostensible family matter becomes headline news and, in turn, a proxy war between religious conservatism and social liberalism. By MANOHLA DARGIS The 79th Cannes Film Festival came to a close Saturday when the Palme d’Or was awarded to “Fjord,” Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu’s multilingual drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve as a devout Christian couple accused of physically abusing their children

Ian Hobson (will.illinois.edu) A week’s worth of performances continues today at The Gallery Inn By PEGGY ANN BLISS Special to The STAR When you own a small hotel filled with grand pianos and a museum full of treasures, what do you do with it? If you are sculptor Jan D’Esopo, you fill your beds with music-loving travelers and your grands with pianists of all sizes, ages and nationalities, playing anything from Liszt to Nicodé, from Mozart to Astor Piazzolla. This week, the 12

A scene from “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” (Lucasfilm Ltd./Fairview Entertainment/Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures) By NATALIA WINKELMAN “The human face is the great subject of the cinema.” That’s Ingmar Bergman, in a widely cited quote. If he’s right, then what could possibly be the thinking behind the Mandalorian, a franchise-carrying hero permanently covered by a helmet? I’m aware that opening a “Star Wars” spinoff review with a Bergman line may come off as sni

PRSO assistant principal bassoonist Ion Serbanescu (1957-2026) was remembered by a close colleague as having “a great effect on the morale of the whole orchestra” and as an “outstanding musician for over two decades.” (Courtesy of Elena Sherbanesco) By PEGGY ANN BLISS Special to The STAR The opening of the 70th annual Casals Festival on Saturday at 7 p.m. coupled with the death of a musician from the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra (PRSO), brings back an eerie echo of the fina

Mallori Johnson and Kara Young in a scene from “Is God Is” (2026). (Amazon MGM Studios) By LISA KENNEDY A little girl sits still on a playground bench. Another one, smaller but dressed similarly, sidles next to her and places a head on her shoulder. At the start of “Is God Is,” fraternal twins Anaia and Racine have their backs to us, but their physical intimacy and even their nascent dynamics radiate from the get-go in playwright Aleshea Harris’ powerhouse film directorial de

“The Beloved” (A Contracorriente Films/Le Pacte) By KYLE BUCHANAN At this year’s Cannes Film Festival, beach clubs have become battlegrounds. Every after-party I attend has been the site of a heated debate, as journalists and industry insiders fight about the polarizing films vying for the Palme d’Or. During the soiree for “Paper Tiger,” a New York thriller starring Miles Teller and Adam Driver, I predicted that their co-star Scarlett Johansson would become a major Oscar cont