Canadian singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen, whose voice was as golden as his lyrics were moving, has died, Sony Music confirmed on his Facebook page Thursday. He was 82.

Cohen’s death comes just weeks after the release of his 14th studio album, “You Want It Darker” ― a befitting final farewell on which he sings plainly and beautifully about death knocking at his door. 

“Hineni, hineni, I’m ready my Lord,” Cohen laments on the album’s self-titled track. (“Hineni” is Hebrew for “here I am,” which is how Abraham answered when God commanded that he sacrifice his son Isaac in the Bible’s Old Testament.)

“I’m leaving the table. I’m out of the game,” Cohen sings on another new track.

In his review late October, National Public Radio Rock Critic Ken Tucker declares the album is “less a summing up than a living will, complete with gifts for how to negotiate a life for maximum passion.”

Throughout his career, Cohen wore his heart on his sleeve, never shying away from talking, writing or singing about life, sexuality, spirituality or death.

Cohen spoke candidly to The New Yorker last month about his “proximity to death.”

“I’ve got some work to do,” he told David Remnick. “Take care of business. I am ready to die. I hope it’s not too uncomfortable. That’s about it for me.”

During a listening party last month in Los Angeles, however, Cohen backpedaled on those comments. 

“I said I was ready to die recently, and I think that was exaggerating,” he said, drawing laughs. “One is given to self-dramatization from time to time. I intend to live forever.”

Born in 1934 in Montreal, Cohen’s first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies, was published in 1956). He became a folk singer in the 1960s and released his first album, “Songs Of Leonard Cohen,” in 1967.

Among Cohen’s most famous songs are the ballad “Hallelujah,” “So Long Marianne,””First We Take Manhattan” and “Tower of Song.”

In his home country of Canada, Cohen was inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2008, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. During the ceremony, Cohen recited the lyrics of his “Tower of Song.”

In 2010, The Recording Academy honored Cohen with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Although Cohen brought comfort to many, he dealt with depression since his adolescence. He spent several years in the 1990s living at a mountaintop Zen Buddhist monastery outside of Los Angeles, he told The New Yorker.

“Moving into some periods, which were debilitating, when I found it hard to get off the couch, to periods when I was fully operative but the background noise of anguish still prevailed.” he told the magazine.

Eventually, Cohen left the monastery and returned to music. 

In 2004, however, he discovered that his long-time manager, Kelley Lynch, had stolen millions from his retirement fund. Lynch was ordered to pay $9.5 million, and she was later sentenced to 18 months in jail for harassment, according to The Guardian. 

Cohen went back on tour to offset his financial difficulties, a move that proved to be a major success. He went on to play nearly 400 shows around the globe between 2008 and 2013, before his physical health began to deteriorate, Rolling Stone reports.

Despite being “confined to barracks,” as he described his own situation to The New Yorker, Cohen managed to find the energy for not one, but two more albums. “Popular Problems” was released in 2014. 

“At times I was very worried about his health, and the only thing that buoyed his spirits was the work itself,” Cohen’s son Adam told Rolling Stone about the recent album project. “And given the incredible and acute discomfort he was suffering from in his largely immobilized state, [creating this album] was a great distraction.”  

In July, Cohen learned that his former girlfriend Marianne Ihlen, the inspiration behind his famous song “So Long, Marianne,” was dying of leukemia. In an emotional and touching letter that was read to Ihlen just before she died, Cohen wished his old friend farewell.

“Well Marianne, it’s come to this time when we are really so old and our bodies are falling apart and I think I will follow you very soon,” Cohen wrote. “Know that I am so close behind you that if you stretch out your hand, I think you can reach mine. And you know that I’ve always loved you for your beauty and your wisdom, but I don’t need to say anything more about that because you know all about that. But now, I just want to wish you a very good journey. Goodbye old friend. Endless love, see you down the road.”

The musician is survived by his son, Adam Cohen, and daughter, Lorca Cohen. 

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Leonard Cohen’s oft-covered “Hallelujah” is such a soundtrack staple that it’s become a cliché. Used to accentuate wistful emotions in movies and TV shows as varied as “Basquiat,” “Shrek,” “The West Wing,” “The O.C.,” “Cold Case” and “Watchmen,” the 1984 ballad will surely be remembered as Cohen’s signature contribution to popular culture, even though it saw little fanfare when first released. 

Cohen, who died Thursday at age 82, gave Hollywood far more than “Hallelujah.” His greatest cinematic achievements are the songs used in 1971’s “McCabe & Mrs. Miller.” Robert Altman’s classic is a perfect emblem of its decade, considered a banner period for filmmaking, when Hollywood mended the crumbled studio system by leaving directors to their own creative devices. That auteurism contributed to Altman’s remarkable career, of which “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” is arguably the highlight. Without Cohen’s songs to guide it, the film wouldn’t be what it is. 

A revisionist Western that gracefully twists the genre’s conventions, “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” opens with the sounds of Cohen’s “The Stranger Song.” “I told you when I came I was a stranger,” the folk singer repeats, his words scoring our hero’s entrance. Warren Beatty plays John Quincy McCabe, a storied gambler who stumbles upon a musty mining town and strikes a business deal with a cockney brothel matriarch named Constance Miller (Julie Christie). Quickly winning the favor of the townsfolk, who are enchanted by her business acumen and his reputation as a gunfighter, the titular pair are the embodiment of a free market in a town where nothing ever happens ― until corporate tyrants threaten their lives. 

As this folksy satire transitions to one of the most serene manhunts committed to film, Cohen’s dulcet warble is its constant. We hear no other music throughout, only the sounds of nature and quotidian activity.

Once McCabe and Mrs. Miller have brought viable business to this Northwestern hamlet, life moves forward with relative ease. Cohen’s “Sisters of Mercy” plays as Altman’s camera surveys the women who work in the brothel ― women who care for their clients and one another and the land they occupy. “And they brought me their comfort and later they brought me this song / Oh, I hope you run into them, you who’ve been traveling so long,” Cohen sings. Coupled with shots of the ladies enjoying the new bathhouse being constructed, “Sisters of Mercy” makes their lives seem nothing short of blissful. For a movie filled with gray skies and inclement weather, the scene is one of the film’s sunniest. It’s passive and simple and subtly beautiful.

Speaking of inclement weather, a third Cohen song arrives much later, in the film’s final few minutes, when heavy snow and greedy capitalism have enveloped the town. McCabe has been gunned down by corporate assassins, and Mrs. Miller has given into an opium addiction that renders her emotionally hollow. Cohen’s “Winter Lady” scores their fate, becoming a death elegy that turns their tenure in the town into a blessed chapter laid to rest. The final words we hear are Cohen’s: “Traveling lady, stay awhile / Until the night is over / I’m just a station on your way / I know I’m not your lover.” 

In “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” moments come and go. Days fold into one another, their denizens moving in and out of dank rooms, unwittingly desperate to brush up against more prosperous cultural horizons. This frontier tale does not culminate in triumph. Some of McCabe and Mrs. Miller’s advancements will stick; others will inevitably fade into history. What remains, hopefully, is the folksiness of their community, as underscored in Cohen’s lonely melodies. 

“The Stranger Song,” “Sisters of Mercy” and “Winter Lady” hail from Cohen’s 1967 debut album, “Songs of Leonard Cohen.” Altman was a huge fan, floored when he called up the singer and was able to secure inexpensive rights to the songs, which might as well have been written for the movie. When Altman first showed Cohen a print of the film, Cohen said he didn’t much like it. The director was crushed. Cohen later re-watched it and phoned Altman to apologize. “I don’t know what was wrong with me,” he said, calling the movie “absolutely fantastic.”

Critics have fawned over it, and today “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” is considered one of American cinema’s finest achievements. No major studio ― e.g. Warner Bros., which released the project ― would dare make something so poetic nowadays. The closest a recent soundtrack has come to emulating Cohen’s tone is 2013’s “Inside Llewyn Davis,” but that uses folk music because it’s about a folk singer. We honor Cohen’s work not because it fostered a great movie’s plot, but because it enshrined it. It bettered it. It made a downtrodden story romantic. It evoked a mood and ushered along a tone poem. It, like Cohen himself for so many years, spoke to us. 

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Prince, David Bowie, Gene Wilder ― 2016 has been full of tough losses. 

And Thursday’s announcement of singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen’s death came as yet another crushing blow, particularly for those still reeling from Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election.

Following the news, beautiful tributes to Cohen began pouring in. Many, from Patton Oswalt to Johnny Knoxville, wondered when 2016 would give the world a break.  

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As the U.S. election results poured in Tuesday night, Lin-Manuel Miranda took to Twitter to voice his reaction to the unexpected lead of Donald Trump. And when it became apparent that Trump would indeed become our next president-elect, the “Hamilton” creator gave his fans a small, but much-needed ray of hope:

After announcing that he was dropping more tracks from his highly anticipated “Hamilton Mixtape” album (being released Dec. 2), he revealed that the two songs would be Sia’s “Satisfied,” featuring Miguel and Queen Latifah, and “Immigrants,” featuring K’naan, Snow Tha Product, Riz MC and Residente.

The tracks were released at midnight across time zones from Nov. 10 to 11. Throughout the day and night, Miranda shared details about the songs, noting in particular his neighbor’s powerful reaction to “Satisfied”: “Sia WEAPONIZES vowels.” 

“I can tell you that the people covering ‘Satisfied’ — and it’s more than one person — that’s when we realized how special this was going to be,” Miranda told People magazine back in October. “They turned it in nine months ago and, like, our hair blew backwards. I have footage of playing it for Jonathan Groff for the first time backstage and him just crying in our dressing room.”

Before the release, Miranda also emphasized how “timely” the song “Immigrants” is, no doubt referencing Trump’s history of malice toward immigrant communities.

You can listen to two other songs from the record ― Kelly Clarkson’s version of “It’s Quiet Uptown” and The Roots’ “My Shot (Rise Up Remix),” featuring Busta Rhymes, Joell Ortiz and Nate Ruess ― on YouTube.

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J.K. Rowling has offered up some sage words of advice to all the young women who are frustrated with Hillary Clinton’s election defeat.

While the U.S. did not elect its first female president this week, the Harry Potter author sought to reassure Americans that a woman would one day definitely take office in the White House.

“We have a female prime minister in the U.K. and we have Angela Merkel in Germany,” she told Variety magazine on the red carpet of the world premiere of the Harry Potter prequel movie “Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them” in New York on Thursday.

“It will happen here, it will happen here,” Rowling said. “And let’s not forget, most people did vote for Hillary, so, hang on in there girls.” 

Rowling was a fierce critic of President-elect Donald Trump throughout his campaign, at one point even labeling him worse than her most evil character ― Voldemort.

On election night, she also urged people to keep fighting racism, sexism and hate speech to ensure that they never become “normalized.”

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Calling all women, girls, butches, femmes, witches, mothers, daughters, grandmothers, lesbians, queers, and feminists of every age and gender. It’s time to march for women’s rights. 

When artist Lara Schnitger began preparations for her feminist procession “Suffragette City,” she partly expected the performance would take place just after the first woman was elected president of the United States. Of course, that did not happen, and instead the nation elected a man with a history of objectifying and demeaning women. This only makes Schnitger’s project more necessary than ever. 

This weekend in Los Angeles, Schnitger will lead a feminist march through the city of Westwood, Calif. Beginning at the Hammer Museum, the procession will feature the artist’s sculptural “Slut Sticks,” sculptures made from sticks, bras, strings and “as little fabric as possible.” The works address the misogynist misconception that provocative clothing invites unwanted male attention or assault. 

The feminine, totemic sculptures speak to the longstanding relationship between women and the clothing they wear. From a pantsuit to a “Nasty Woman” tee to nothing at all, women’s clothing can serve as a vehicle for self-expression, creativity, dissent and protest. 

“When the suffragettes were trying to get attention to get the vote, they wore these beautiful white dresses to show they were educated ladies,” Schnitger explained in an interview with the LA Review of Books.

“So, it’s interesting how the language of clothing and the way to protest has changed so much over the years, from being completely dressed to completely naked. I wanted to mix together this procession idea and create more of a protest parade for female rights. So all those different elements, combined with my frustration about being a woman in the art world, kind of made this procession possible.”

The protest parade will also feature an array of signs with painfully relevant messages including “Don’t Let The Boys Win” and “No Means No. Yes Means Yes.”

The procession will take place Saturday, Nov. 12, followed by a community gathering and open mic back at the museum, added to the program to give women a chance to address the recent election. After the conversation will be a concert by Miya Folick. On Sunday, the feminist programming will continue with two film screenings: “Don’t Need You: A Herstory of Riot Grrrl” and “Inez Milholland: Forward into Light.”

The weekend will conclude with a lecture and performance by artist and practicing witch Amanda Yates Garcia. The presentation will address the history of witchcraft, its contemporary manifestations, and how magical practices can be used to combat capitalist patriarchy. 

“More and more people, particularly women, and especially artists, are aligning themselves with witchcraft today because at its most fundamental level, witchcraft is about power: who has it, how they get it, and how they wield it,” Garcia wrote in an email to The Huffington Post.  

“Power is the ability to affect change in the world according to one’s will. Our power as witches comes from within, from our resistance to the dominant forms of power, which use force, coercion, and fear to motivate change. Witches understand that true power comes from within, through self-mastery, but also through collaboration with our loved ones and with the environment. When we focus our efforts on collaboration and bringing joy and flourishing to all beings, everybody wins. Fear disappears like a shadow exposed to sunlight.”

Yates will lead a ceremonial performance called “Yes Means Yes!” meant to celebrate sexual consent and the ever-present importance of intention. As the artist explained: “Here our intention is say yes to love, yes to collaboration, yes to the power of women, yes to women controlling their own bodies, and yes to women’s taking pleasure in themselves, their partners and their world.”

If you are a woman hurting in Los Angeles right now, join forces with other powerful artists and activists to fight for what is right. Yes, many women are heartbroken and angry and so very tired. But it remains more important now than ever for women and girls to stand up together for our freedom, our rights, our bodies, our education, and our respect. 

See the full schedule for Suffragette City below, part of the Hammer’s Bureau of Feminism initiative.

Saturday, Nov. 12

Noon: Procession leaves Hammer (route here)
1:30 p.m. Procession arrives back to Hammer
2 p.m. Community gathering with open mic to share thoughts and reflections regarding the recent election; courtyard concert by Miya Folick

Sunday, Nov. 13

1 p.m. Welcome
1:15 p.m. Screening of “Don’t Need You: A Herstory of Riot Grrrl” (TRT 40 min)
2 p.m. Screening of “Inez Milholland: Forward into Light” (TRT 13:30 min)
2:30 p.m. Amanda Yates Garcia, the Oracle of Los Angeles: Lecture on witchcraft + Q&A
3:30 p.m. Closing ceremony in the Hammer courtyard 

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Guys. Come on. If you’re going to take a selfie by a sculpture, please, please make sure you are far enough away to not do this:

It was a dark week for an 18th-century sculpture of archangel Saint Michael that came toppling to the ground after an unnamed museumgoer snapped a photo while seriously encroaching on the statue’s personal space. 

A Brazilian tourist was visiting Lisbon’s National Museum of Ancient Art (NMAA) when he felt compelled to document a special moment with the polychrome wooden artwork. Unfortunately, he got too close in an attempt to get the most flattering angle, and the statue fell to the ground while guards and other visitors looked on in horror. 

“The statue is very affected in the wings, in one arm and mantle,” the museum’s deputy director José Alberto Seabra Carvalho explained to Diário de Notícias. “The damage is severe but reversible.” The piece is currently under examination by a conservation team for further analysis. 

This is not the first time a statue has fallen victim to a selfie gone awry. We’re praying it will be the last. 

H/T Hyperallergic

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Maps aren’t always as accurate as we’d like to believe.

Just ask British author Edward Brooke-Hitching, who details 70 of the most epic fails in his new book The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies And Blunders On Maps.

It’s “an atlas of the world not as it ever existed, but as it was thought to be,” says the London-based writer ― who researched ghost islands, non-existent mountain ranges, hoax golden cities and fake continents for the tome.

“All of them at one time or another were absolutely believed, sometimes for centuries, to be real because they were drawn on maps,” the 33-year-old told The Huffington Post.

“Maps have an unquestionable authority,” he said. “We’ve always thought of them as infallible, and so it’s startling and intriguing to see how wrongly they’ve sometimes shown the world to be.”

Brooke-Hitching first became interested in cartography as a child. His father was a rare book and map dealer who covered the walls of their home with old geographical charts.

One of his favorite hoaxes concerns Scottish explorer Gregor MacGregor, who reportedly visited London in the early 1800s with a map of a new but entirely make-believe country in South America. 

Claiming to be the new nation’s king, MacGregor sold off sections of land. “Two boats full of colonists, who sold all their possessions to start a new life there, sailed to the coordinates he provided,” said Brooke-Hitching. But, unfortunately for them, they discovered “nothing but a desolate swamp.”

“What is so fascinating is that they allow you to see the world as it existed purely in the imaginations of our ancestors,” Brooke-Hitching said of the stories he investigated. “You get a sense of how exciting and terrifying the world must have been when we knew so little about it.”

Brooke-Hitching said nowadays “it feels like everything has been discovered, like the mystery has gone.” With the seemingly omniscient tech company Google and its Maps app trying to profile the entire planet, he may have a point.

“But from these maps and stories, you realize that however certain we are of the world around us, there’s usually more to the story,” the author added. “You wonder whether there are other fictitious islands or mountains drawn on our current maps that are in fact quietly enjoying a non-existence, just waiting to be undiscovered.”

Watch Brooke-Hitching talk about his new book in the clip above.

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Since “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” acts as a prequel to the “Harry Potter” universe, we’re about to get a lot more backstory about our cherished wizarding world. The film mostly operates as its own entity, but at a press conference in New York on Thursday, J.K. Rowling and producer David Heyman promised more “connective tissue” with the initial Hogwarts novels as the new five-part franchise continues. 

That raises many questions about what’s in store for our new hero, sheepish magizoologist Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), and the established characters who may resurface. With the exception of the dark wizard Grindelwald, most of “Fantastic Beasts” introduces fresh faces. But we already know that Albus Dumbledore will appear in the second film, and at the press conference, Screen Crush senior editor and former HuffPost writer Erin Whitney asked whether that movie will present the future headmaster as openly gay. 

In a room filled with domestic and international press, Rowling smiled knowingly at the question. “Well, I can’t tell you everything I would like to say because this is obviously a five-part story, so there’s lots to unpack in that relationship,” Rowling said, referring to Dumbledore’s known romance with Grindelwald. “I will say that you will see Dumbledore as a younger man, and quite a troubled man, because he wasn’t always the sage. He was always very clever, but we’ll see what I think was the formative period of his life. As far as his sexuality is concerned, watch this space.”

Of course, this is no confirmation either way. But it sounds to me like the author, who wrote “Fantastic Beasts” and is putting finishing touches on the sequel’s script, is inching toward an affirmative answer. Given her advocacy for the LGBTQ community and her anti-Trump sentiments, one can assume Rowling understands how revolutionary it would be for young viewers to see a queer hero on the big screen. 

Rowling, a Brit, has been vocal about the American presidential election on Twitter, but she didn’t want to talk Trump when asked about him at the press conference. Rowling said any Trumpian parallels to storylines in “Fantastic Beasts” are coincidental, as the story was conceived years ago.

However, she noted that the film, which opens Nov. 18, revolves around unlikely heroes thrust into a situation while dark forces try to take control. The overarching themes, Rowling said, were a response to “a rise of populism around the world.” She was in a “bleak mood” boarding a plane to America on Wednesday, so she worked on revisions to the next “Beasts” script to distract herself. 

“I need to do it,” she said. “I feel strange if I don’t write. Clearly, I don’t need to write anymore. I love it so much. I would feel almost like a psychic amputation if I didn’t do it. I have to write.”

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Don’t you hate it when you hold open a door for someone and they don’t say “thank you”? Or how about when you are pushing a shopping cart around the grocery store and one wheel just keeps spinning out of control?

Lin-Manuel Miranda, the brilliant mind behind Broadway hit musical “Hamilton,” freestyled verses about these minor yet utterly aggravating inconveniences during his appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Friday.

Being fed his topics only seconds in advance, the seriously gifted rapper extraordinaire and bonafide cutie did not hesitate when rapping poetic about cold showers or the never-ending affliction of updating your iPhone settings. With so many frightening unknowns looming on the horizon after this week’s election, only LMM could make us sympathize with his hard, cold nipples. 

Check out the video below. 

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Lena Dunham wrote a powerful and gut-wrenching essay in Lenny Letter following Hillary Clinton’s devastating loss Tuesday night. 

In her essay, Dunham describes the year and a half she spent campaigning for Clinton and what Donald Trump’s win means to so many minority groups in this country. Dunham’s letter serves as a somber yet encouraging reminder that although people need time to grieve, it is also the time to organize and fight back.

“In this new reality, we have all been radicalized,” Dunham wrote. “It’s no longer a word for those living on the fringes. It’s a word for everyone who walks in pain with the results of this election, who feels their identity being crushed under the weight of the half of the country who voted for a man who denounces and denies the basic rights of women, the queer community, immigrants, Muslims, people of color and the differently abled.”

During her time campaigning for Clinton, the “Girls” creator received more online vitriol and threats than she ever had before: Her phone was hacked, her Twitter mentions became violent and she was called horrific names. 

“My experience mimics that of so many women who organized for Hillary Clinton and against Donald Trump, most of them not celebrities,” she wrote. “We wanted a female president. We wanted guaranteed control over our own bodies. We wanted equal pay. That made us nasty. That made us targets.”

It should not be the job of women, of people of color, of queer and trans Americans, to understand who does not consider them human and why, just as it’s not the job of the abused to understand their abuser.
Lena Dunham

Dunham also spoke to other white woman, 53 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump. 

“It’s painful to know that white women, so unable to see the unity of female identity, so unable to look past their violent privilege, and so inoculated with hate for themselves, showed up to the polls for him, too,” Dunham wrote. 

She pointed out that right now is not the time to try to understand the mindset of Trump voters: “It should not be the job of women, of people of color, of queer and trans Americans, to understand who does not consider them human and why, just as it’s not the job of the abused to understand their abuser,” she wrote. “It’s quite enough work to know about and bear the hatred of so many. It’s quite enough work to go on living.”

Dunham wrapped up her essay by thanking Clinton:

Thank you, Hillary, for bravely taking every shot and standing tall, for weathering assaults from every direction... Thank you for showing our daughters something beautiful to aspire to. Thank you for reminding us what we are capable of when we are focused and ferocious. Thank you for 30 years of that. Thank you for not abandoning us now.

Head over to Lenny Letter to read the rest of Dunham’s essay. 

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In France, according to Isabelle Huppert, actresses’ currency isn’t bankrupted as they mature. Unlike the cliché surrounding American film careers, their ages are “completely irrelevant.” Which explains why, at 64, Huppert is enjoying a banner year. The Paris native has won raves for two movies opening before 2016’s end: the psychosexual thriller “Elle” and the divorce drama “Things To Come.” 

Huppert is the Meryl Streep of France. She has more nominations from the César Awards ― the French equivalent of the Oscars ― than any other actress. But her on-camera persona is far subtler than Streep’s. Already a fixture among stateside cinephiles, Huppert may see her profile rise with moviegoers over the next few months. She is part of the Oscars’ heated Best Actress derby, a European veteran who could slip in the way Charlotte Rampling deservedly did for last year’s “45 Years.” (For what it’s worth, Huppert considers any Rampling comparisons a compliment.)

Before awards season becomes too noisy, Huppert ― whose recent highlights include “The Piano Teacher,” “8 Women,” “I Heart Huckabees” and “Amour” ― must win the favor of American audiences who could find her characters in “Elle” and “Things to Come” a bit prickly. 

The former has proven especially divisive. Despite mostly laudatory reviews, some critics find its story about a rape victim who provokes a game of cat and mouse with her assailant “infuriating.” Directed by Dutch schlock maestro Paul Verhoeven, who made “Basic Instinct” and “Showgirls,” “Elle” tackles the ills of misogyny from a satirical lens. Huppert’s battle-scarred character’s refusal to suffer at the hands of a masked attacker ― she finds sexual pleasure in the power of the chase ― makes a hero out of someone who won’t grieve in any conventional way. After she is raped, she takes a bath, orders sushi and moves on with her night.

“She does not fall into the caricature of the classical vengeful woman taking the gun and shooting the guy, the James Bond type,” Huppert said last month during the New York Film Festival, where “Elle” and “Things to Come” screened. “Maybe that’s what certain persons would expect from her, but then that would follow precisely a male pattern. That’s why I would call her a postfeminist character, making her own way. ... In a way, it is a revenge film.”

Huppert recognizes that it’s a dicey moment to deliver to American audiences a film about rape that isn’t coated in anguish, given we’ve just elected a president accused of sexual assault and predatory behavior umpteen times over. Huppert sees “Elle” as something of a “fantasy,” and a delicately told one at that.

Her character in “Things to Come” ― directed by Mia Hansen-Løve (”The Father of My Children,” “Eden”) ―  hasn’t experienced the same level of trauma, but she, too, processes life’s setbacks with a nonchalance uncommon in America. A well-read philosophy professor contending with professional blows, she responds to her husband’s proclamation that he has been seeing another woman by asking, sans affect, why he wouldn’t instead just hide the affair. 

The women in “Elle” and “Things to Come” are self-sufficient and resilient. Because they will not be victimized, they are able to maintain their sense of humor.

“There is a certain sense of amorality that we allow,” Huppert said, referring to the Frenchness of the two characters. “The reaction should go even beyond the gender pattern because it’s just a way to say, ‘If someone leaves you, whether it is a man or a woman or whatever, it’s not the end of the world.’ We have to escape this pattern of being defined by the fact that you are with someone. ... As a performer, it’s my natural instinct to put this kind of irony, no matter what I do. It certainly also avoids any sentimentality or sentimentalism or psychological heaviness.” 

Indeed, both films are about moving on with life. They’re about finding farce in the face of tragedy. Throughout her 45-year career, Huppert hasn’t had any trouble landing roles that tap into these sensibilities. Dating back to her early work with directors like Otto Preminger (1975’s “Rosebud”), Jean-Luc Godard (1980’s “Every Man for Himself” and 1982’s “Passion”) and Curtis Hanson (1987’s “The Bedroom Window”), Huppert has gravitated toward weathered characters whose bitter eyes indicate lifetimes of hardship, often at the hands of men.

Huppert, who boasted of her collaborative methods with Verhoeven and Hansen-Løve, has always been a director’s actress. Hot on the success of “The Deer Hunter,” Michael Cimino refused to make 1980’s “Heaven’s Gate” unless he could cast Huppert over better-known performers like Jane Fonda and Diane Keaton. “Heaven’s Gate” became an “unqualified disaster” of a flop, notoriously credited with tainting the auteur peak of 1970s cinema, when studios left directors to their own devices. No matter the drama: It was clear that Huppert’s persona was not meant for meek storylines. In Cimino’s sprawling Western, she played the pragmatic owner of a brothel. That she is now celebrated for playing women who defy male expectations crystallizes a career spent inhabiting ethically independent, borderline nihilistic characters ― and thriving at every step.

“It’s like giving birth to a new prototype of a woman,” she said of “Elle.” “Of course it’s a fiction character and it’s certainly not someone you would meet walking in the subway, meaning it’s not a completely realistic character. But it’s a very, very special character. Even in fiction, you’ve never seen someone like her.”

“Elle” opens in theaters Nov. 11. “Things to Come” opens in theaters Dec. 2.

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A great big red brick wall shrouding all blue sky from view ― it’s an image chock full of symbolism that feels more appropriate than ever following Donald Trump’s shocking election victory this week.

“When we first received the results of the election, we felt as though we had hit a brick wall, full force,” New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly wrote about the magazine’s cover for next week, created by illustrator Bob Staake.

Aside from that, there’s the obvious. The president-elect plans to fund the construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border within his first 100 days in office, as announced in October as part of his plan called “Donald Trump’s Contract With The American Voter.”

It also speaks to the despair and despondency so many people are experiencing as he prepares to take over the White House. 

“The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism,” David Remnick, the magazine’s editor, wrote in a piece posted shortly after Trump claimed victory.  

But all hope is not lost.

“To combat authoritarianism, to call out lies, to struggle honorably and fiercely in the name of American ideals ― that is what is left to do. That is all there is to do,” Remnick added. 

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You won’t find a documentary over the next few months that’s more important than “I Am Not Your Negro.” Raoul Peck uses James Baldwin’s unfinished manuscript about the civil-rights movement ― specifically Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Medgar Evers ― to frame America’s racial divide. The results are searing.

Peck’s film opens Feb. 3. It’s a piece of art this country desperately needs right now. Watch the new trailer below.

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We know there is a secret chord that every musician in the whole wide world has played, and it pleases us all. Or rather, chords. More specifically, the chords that make up “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen, whose death was announced via Facebook on Thursday. And actually, some renditions might please us more than others. 

More famous than the original is Jeff Buckley’s version, an emotional take whose quiet intensity most artists find themselves trying to imitate. It’s perhaps most closely followed by Rufus Wainwright’s version, which appeared on the soundtrack to millennial favorite “Shrek.” K.D. Lang has covered the song, as has Neil Diamond, Bon Jovi, several contenders on “The Voice,” more than a few (very impressive) a cappella groups and dozens of other instrumentalists and vocalists alike.

Below we’ve compiled a Spotify playlist with 141 versions of the song after Cohen’s original. That’s 10-and-a-half hours of “Hallelujah,” plus a few YouTube videos for good measure. Enjoy.

But wait, there’s more ...

Some kids on Russia’s version of “The Voice”:

LeAnn Rimes:

Bon Jovi:

Norwegian “Pop Idol” winner Kurt Nilsen:

”The X Factor” finalist Alexandra Burke:

”The X Factor” finalist Jeff Gutt:

YouTuber Hayley Richman:

YouTuber Luciana Zogbi:

Anyanya Udongwo on Ukraine’s version of “The Voice”:

Anna Clendening on “America’s Got Talent”:

A band called Gungor:

YouTuber Kimberly Freeman:

Straalen McCallum from Australia:

And, finally, Celine Dion:

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Yoko Ono issued her official response on Friday to news that Donald J. Trump was elected President of the United States of America.

You can find her official response below. 

Ono also shared this fitting Instagram Friday:

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At the top of the latest episode of The New York Times’ “Still Processing,” released Wednesday, Wesley Morris asks co-host Jenna Wortham how she is. It feels, for a moment, like any other podcast intro, an average water-cooler conversation between two colleagues. And then you remember.

“How am I,” Wortham responds, more of a statement than a question. “I’m here, looking at you. Happy for that, grateful for that.”

Wednesday marks a new era in American politics that is extremely difficult to grapple with for many U.S. voters. The people spoke, and in doing so laid their prejudices bare, electing a man who we’ve seen, in the national arena, disparage women, immigrants, people with disabilities, people of color, LGBTQ individuals and other marginalized groups. As returns were coming in on election night, a CBC commentator called it “white supremacy’s last stand.”

Where do we go from here? How do we continue to love, and survive, in a country where so many of our fellow citizens have placed their feet on the side of hate? How do white allies ensure the support and safety of their loved ones and colleagues whose safety has felt jeopardized in the last 48 hours?

There’s no certainty that podcast hosts can tell us these answers, but we will see these and many more issues — such as the opinion bubble that shocked Clinton supporters find themselves in on social media, wondering how Trump could have possibly prevailed — play out before our ears. Shows like Morris and Wortham’s will serve as a record in the decades ahead, first-person accounts of what it was like to wake up in America as a black person on Nov. 9.

As a straight, white woman, I have my own fears and sympathies in the aftermath of the election. I know the only way I can begin to know how the prospect of a Trump presidency feels for people of color, for Muslims, for the LGBTQ community, is to listen.

Many podcasts have released episodes since the election was called. Along with “Still Processing,” there’s also BuzzFeed’s “See Something Say Something,” a relatively new podcast from the media company where host Ahmed Ali Akbar brings guests on to discuss being Muslim in the U.S. “Usually at the beginning of each episode we ask guests what they’re thinking about,” Akbar says at the top of the program, making it clear that this time around, there’s something that, without question, everyone is thinking about.

WNYC tech podcast “Note to Self” released an addendum to its most recent episode. Host Manoush Zomorodi addresses listeners: “It would be so weird to pretend that things in podcast-land are just business as usual. Whoever you voted for, chances are you were surprised by the results. And the fact that no one picks up their phone anymore means that the pollsters were way off.” For a show that deals in the intersection between technology and human beings, it’s fair to imagine that it might continue to tackle the aforementioned opinion bubbles that contributed to the highly unanticipated election result. “We have an opportunity, and a responsibility, to do more,” she concludes.

If you just need to hear some cool ladies talk it out, try “Call Your Girlfriend,” a podcast “for long-distance besties everywhere.” Hosts Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman took to the mics after the election, starting with a focus on self-care. “I just want to ask how you’re taking care of yourself today,” Friedman begins the first episode since the election. “I will say this: Having many of my closest friends ask me how I’m doing today has been the best part of the day,” Sow answers, suggesting that most of the day has been far less great.

NPR’s “Code Switch,” a show about race and identity helmed by journalists of color, also convened to discuss their feelings post-election, with hosts Shereen Marisol Meraji and Gene Demby ready to discuss the sobering reality of President-elect Trump, while also hoping for some much needed comic relief. The brain can only handle so much trauma before it needs a reprieve: “I’m not sure our guests are in the mood to laugh, or make us laugh,” Meraji notes. Demby quips back, joking: “Um, they better get on it. ‘Cause I think we all need it.”

Humor, empathy, information and bold storytelling: These are the things we can find in podcasts as we work together to act, organize and figure out how to proceed.

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Robert Redford says he is planning on retiring from acting soon to focus on directing and on his first love - art.

The 80-year old star of “Out of Africa” and “The Sting” told his grandson Dylan in an online interview that he was getting tired of acting.

“I’m an impatient person, so it’s hard for me to sit around and do take after take after take,” Redford said in the interview published on Thursday for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. “Going back to sketching — that’s sort of where my head is right now.”

Redford, who has never won an Oscar for acting despite a storied 50-year career, will not be departing from the big screen any time soon.

He said he has two more acting projects in the works. One is a love story for older people with Jane Fonda, his co-star in the 1967 romantic comedy “Barefoot in the Park,” and the other is a lighter movie with Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek. According to movie website IMDB.com, both movies are expected to be released in 2017.

“Once they’re done then I’m going to say, ‘Okay, that’s goodbye to all that,’ and then just focus on directing,” he said.

Redford recalled that his first love was art and that he spent time in Europe as a teenager “exploring story-telling through painting.”

Movies like “All The President’s Men,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “The Way We Were” made Redford into one of the world’s biggest movie stars of the 1970s and 1980s.

He later turned to directing, winning an Oscar for the 1980 film “Ordinary People.”

In 1978, Redford helped found what became the Sundance Film Festival in Utah to promote independent movies, and which has grown to be the most influential independent film gathering in the world.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Everything is awesome with this Lego stop-motion remake of “Stranger Things.”

YouTube channel Bookshelf Productions used the Danish company’s colorful toy bricks and figurines to recreate key moments from the Netflix sci-fi horror’s first season. Will’s disappearance, Eleven’s sudden arrival and Barb’s fate are just three of the crucial events remade for the clip.

For people who haven’t yet seen the spooky show, be warned that the video does contain spoilers. For everyone else, it’s enough to make them yearn for season 2 ― which will reportedly be in production next year.

Check it out in the clip above.

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While it seemed that virtually everyone, regardless of their political beliefs, was utterly shocked when Republican candidate Donald Trump won last week’s presidential election, iconic hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest saw it coming. 

“I knew it was gonna happen,” Jarobi White told Vanity Fair last week. The outcome was predicted on A Tribe Called Quest’s latest album, “We Got It From Here … Thank You 4 Your Service,” their first release in 18 years.

The album, available for streaming below, features Jarobi White, Q-Tip, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and the voice of late member Phife Dawg, along with guest appearances by artists including Elton John and André 3000.

Although there is a song titled “The Donald” on the record, the track “We the People ...” features lyrics that will surely resonate the most with those who opposed Trump. The song’s chorus sums up present-day America in simple and scathing verses:

All you black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go

The band performed “We the People ...” and “The Space Program” last weekend during their first performance on “Saturday Night Live.” Check it out, and stream the whole thing on Spotify, below.

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