By JONATHAN LANDRUM Jr., AP Entertainment Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The BET Awards is bringing major star power — including Kendrick Lamar, Mariah Carey, and Jamie Foxx — to celebrate its 25th anniversary on Monday.

Lamar leads the pack with 10 nominations, including album of the year for his critically acclaimed project “GNX.” His ubiquitous diss track “Not Like Us,” emanating from the Drake feud, received nominations for video of the year and viewer’s choice award.

The awards will air live on June 9 from the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles at 8 p.m. Eastern.

The rap megastar made waves with his Grammy triumph, winning song and record of the year for “Not Like Us.” He followed up with a groundbreaking halftime show, becoming the first solo hip-hop performer to headline the coveted slot. He is currently on the Grand National Tour with SZA.

Carey, Foxx, Snoop Dogg and Kirk Franklin will receive the Ultimate Icon Award, which selected due to their impact on entertainment as well as their community impact and advocacy.

Who else is nominated?

Doechii, Drake, Future and GloRilla tied for the second-most nominations with six. Metro Boomin pulled in five nods, while SZA and The Weeknd each scored four.

Who are the show’s performers?

Rap icon Lil Wayne, rapper GloRilla and singer Teyana Taylor will hit the BET Awards stage.

The lineup of performers also includes rapper Playboi Carti and singer Leon Thomas.

Who will host the show?

Kevin Hart is expected to bring the funny as host.

The comedian-actor, who hosted the BET Awards in 2011, called this year’s ceremony a “black-tie affair.”

“It’s a chance to reflect, cherish and honor life’s unforgettable moments,” Hart said in a statement. He has a history with the network, hosting “Comic View: One Night Stand” in 2008. He was an executive producer and one of the stars of “Real Husbands of Hollywood” and launched adult animated comedy “Lil Kev” on BET+.

Will there be any tributes?

The BET Awards will offer tributes to former popular hosts and performances, including the network’s once-flagship program “106 & Park. ”

“’106 & Park’ was more than just a music countdown show; it was the heartbeat of Black youth culture and one of the highest-rated BET programs for over a decade,” said Scott Mills, BET’s president and CEO. The weekday show launched in 2000 and lasted for more than a decade.

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The show thrived with a video countdown, interviews and performances.

The show will reunite past hosts A.J. Calloway, Free, Julissa Bermudez, Keshia Chanté, Rocsi Diaz and Terrence J. The tribute will feature performers such as Bow Wow, Amerie, B2K, Jim Jones, Mya, T.I. and Mr. 106 & Park.

It is not yet known whether Carey, Snoop, Foxx and Franklin will receive individual tributes during the ceremony.

Are there any other standout nominees?

There’s a competitive list of top-notch actors looking to take home the top award in their category.

For best actor, the category includes: Aaron Pierre, Aldis Hodge, Anthony Mackie, Colman Domingo, Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Joey Bada$$, Kevin Hart, Sterling K. Brown and Will Smith.

For best actress, the nominees include: Andra Day, Angela Bassett, Coco Jones, Cynthia Erivo, Keke Palmer, Kerry Washington, Quinta Brunson, Viola Davis and Zendaya.

Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Simone Biles, Angel Reese and Jalen Hurts are among the sports stars competing for awards.

A peculiar tension exists inside nearly every frame created by writer-director Wes Anderson. The geometric visual preoccupation of the framing; the actors, sometimes in motion but more frequently motionless; the manifestation of storytelling as a series of the prettiest shoebox dioramas in modern cinema: It’s more than a style or a look to Anderson. It’s his way of seeing the world through a lens of comic stoicism, right at the edge of art-installation territory.

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The tension in those images comes from two places. The unfortunate place: When the comic banter or monologuing strains for laughs, or goes sideways, it sometimes dies an extra, tiny, momentary death because of the arch, extreme formality of the presentation.

The more fortunate source of tension is where the actors live. In Anderson’s lavishly talented ensembles, the majority of the performers fulfill the basic requirements of being in a Wes Anderson movie, which can involve spitting out long reams of dialogue quickly, directly, without a lot of sauce. It also involves the task of portraying a human in a specific realm of unreality and in a kind of permanent repose, even in motion.

But hitting the marks and holding the pose isn’t enough. There’s movement, of course, in every Anderson comedy, and in the best ones, the movement and the sight gags are funnier because of the stillness surrounding that movement. Whatever you want to call Anderson’s universe — I’ll go with Deadpandia — it’s not easy to activate as a performer. When the right actor wriggles free of the constraints and finds a rhythm, a heartbeat and a human spark, it’s magic.

Benicio Del Toro is the star of “The Phoenician Scheme,” Anderson’s 12th and latest. But the ringer is Michael Cera, as Norwegian tutor Bjørn Lund, employed as an all-purpose factotum by the shady, swaggering, death-defying entrepreneur played by Del Toro.

In one go, Cera joins the top tier of Anderson alums, which includes Ralph Fiennes (“The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar”) and, from Anderson’s earlier, looser years, Gene Hackman and Anjelica Huston (“The Royal Tenenbaums”) and, of course, Bill Murray in everything (he has a brief cameo here, as God). Cera is terrifically subtle in everything he does, from pricelessly cheap dialect humor to sudden bursts of jealousy. He’s delightful, even if “The Phoenician Scheme” is only occasionally that.

Michael Cera and Mia Threapleton in writer-director Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme.” (TPS Productions/Focus Features)

The movie’s largely about other characters. A frequent target of assassins, forever surviving plane crashes in between business deals, Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda (Del Toro) embarks on the riskiest development project of his life, indicated by Anderson’s title. It consists of a dam, tunnels, a canal and a general colonialist ravaging of a desert region (fictional, but with plenty of real-world Middle Eastern inspirations). Funding this beast means negotiating with several investors, among them a French nightclub owner (Mathieu Amalric), a pair of American industrialists (Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston) and, above all, Korda’s estranged daughter, Liesl, a cynical novitiate and Korda’s intended heiress, played by Mia Threapleton.

“The Phoenician Scheme” is a tale of what money can buy, and what money can’t. Stringing episodes together, screenwriter Anderson (working from a story co-created by Roman Coppola) treats Korda as a cocky survivor of fabulous riches. Through his adventures in fundraising, and realization that he won’t last forever, Korda learns from Liesl a little about what makes a legacy important. Meantime, he negotiates family matters with his 10 young sons and his scowling brother, Uncle Nubar (Benedict Cumberbatch), who may be Liesl’s father, and whose massive woodcut of a beard comes straight from Orson Welles’ billionaire in “Mr. Arkadin.”

The overall vibe of fishy exoticism owes something to “Mr. Arkadin” as well. Anderson works here with a cinematographer new to him, the excellent Bruno Delbonnel, shooting on 35mm film. Anderson regulars Adam Stockhausen (production design, first-rate) and Milena Canonero (costume design, brilliant and vibrant as always) evoke a dreamlike 1950s setting in every soundstage-bound detail.

The cast of “The Phoenician Scheme” includes Mathieu Amalric, Michael Cera, Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton and Jeffrey Wright. (TPS Productions/Focus Features)

And the story? Well, it has a little problem with over-elaboration. “The Phoenician Scheme” follows a relatively straightforward narrative line, ticking off chapters as Korda addresses each of his prized (and literal) shoeboxes of research and minutiae regarding the massively disruptive, slave labor-dependent construction project. It’s easier to parse what’s going on here compared to the hyperlinking and layering of “The French Dispatch” and “Asteroid City.” But the protagonist is a bit of a bore. And somehow, right now, on planet Earth in 2025, a movie about a craven oligarch on a spree hits a mixed chord, let’s say.

It is, however, striking to see what happens in the epilogue of this up-and-down Anderson film, when Del Toro — who looks splendid but struggles to locate a lightness of touch the material could use — finally gets a few moments of on-screen relaxation in the epilogue. That’s by design: He is not the same person at the end of his story. But I wonder if Anderson erred in maintaining such a tight hold on Del Toro and Threapleton en route to the story destination.

A beautiful mixed bag, let’s say, all told. But I’ll see “The Phoenician Scheme” a second time sometime for Cera, who will surely return to the Anderson fold.

“The Phoenician Scheme” — 2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for violent content, bloody images, some sexual material, nude images, and smoking throughout)

Running time: 1:45

How to watch: Premieres in theaters June 6

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

“The Life of Chuck,” a slick but ickily grandiose reminder to take your dance lessons while you can, also reminds us that every generation gets its own variations on “It’s a Wonderful Life” — movie fantasies designed for affirmation and comfort, while unnerving us a little.

There’s a third reminder, too: One person’s eyeroll is another’s shattering and beautiful reminder that life is beautiful, maybe harsh and sometimes lonely and full of wrong turns with a possible apocalypse looming. But beautiful.

This latest Stephen King screen adaptation is written and directed by Mike Flanagan, best known for “The Haunting of Hill House” on Netflix, along with “Oculus,” “Before I Wake,” “Doctor Sleep” and other features. Elements of all this find a home somewhere in the running time of “The Life of Chuck,” told in three reverse-chronological chapters. It begins with an ending — the planet’s — and ends with the adolescence, first crush and tender heart of an orphaned boy, shadowed by ghosts, headed for life as an accountant. It’s what his wizened, grieving accountant grandfather (played by Mark Hamill) wanted for him all along, right or wrong.

Narrated throughout by Nick Offerman, the first and most intriguing chapter focuses on a teacher, Marty, played by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor. He is at his wit’s end, dealing with hopeless students and even more hopeless parents. Their reasons for despair are beyond anyone’s control.

The world has had it. It’s quitting time. We learn some details on the fly, from news reports and townsfolk mutterings, about whole chunks of California tumbling in the ocean, wildfires, earthquakes, satellite communication gone awry, wifi and the internet itself dying minute by minute. The center isn’t holding.

The weirdest thing of all is the most darling. Around town, Marty and others notice a proliferation of billboards and signage congratulating someone named Charles Krantz on “39 great years!” Meantime Marty and his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan), on good terms, commiserate by phone about the latest roster of calamities. Director Flanagan handles the escalating insanity with suggestive ambiguity, nothing too bombastic for as long as the story allows.

Later, at night, on every window on every house within view, a satellite (or celestial?) video image of Chuck appears, long after power has been lost. Marty and Felicia stare at the stars in Felicia’s backyard. Maybe the love they knew once remains intact, unlike everything around them. And maybe they’ll have to settle for wondering.

Part 2 is Chuck’s story, at least a piece of it, taking place prior to the first chapter. Tom Hiddleston portrays this everyman accountant, married with a daughter. Chuck has traveled to a new town for a convention. Between conferences he’s outside, strolling, and drawn to the drumming skills of a sidewalk busker (Taylor Gordon). Catching the eye of a young woman (Annalise Basso), recently dumped and not happy about it, he asks for her hand while the drummer does her thing. This is not just the movie’s crucial scene; it’s meant as a life-is-worth-living demonstration, precision-choreographed and flashy beyond all conventional notions of accountancy.

Where did Chuck get the moves? The answers come right on schedule in the concluding chapter, after we’ve learned the adult Chuck’s full circumstances and fate. The childhood versions of this everyman archetype (he’s not really a character) are played by Benjamin Pajak and, in adolescence, Jacob Tremblay (of “Room”). Chuck endures a difficult, grief-laden childhood after the tragic death of his parents. He finds love and solace under the loving care of his grandparents, played by Hamill and Mia Sara. Here, King’s material, adapted by Flanagan, inches into small-town horror behind closed doors, with the off-limits storage room in Chuck’s grandparents’ house containing something wicked. Or at least not of this world.

Clearly “The Life of Chuck” works for many. It snagged the coveted audience award at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival, a frequent harbinger of the best picture winner at the Oscars. Well, maybe. This may be one of those movies, like “The Shawshank Redemption” (another King story), that comes and goes at the theaters and then becomes one of those beloved films that makes people tear up just saying the title.

It is, however, mighty gooey stuff, sanctimonious and faux-humble in its embrace of ordinary lives and, in the end, a weirdly scaled expansion of a familiar idea borrowed from Walt Whitman (name-checked in the movie) and his line in “Song of Myself”: “I am large, I contain multitudes.” We all are, and do. But setting a genial if frustrated accountant’s life against the universe’s curtain call is a little too, you know, too-too.

A final word about the visual landscape of the film. Maybe it’s just me, but when Chuck dances like he’s never danced before, the town square (most of the film was shot in various Alabama locations) has been made to resemble one of those eerie Hallmark Channel Christmas specials, but in July. You keep waiting for the big reveal: The town’s “The Truman Show”! It can’t be real! But the reveal never comes. It’s not a documentary or anything, but the best Stephen King stories on screen keep one foot in a world we recognize, so that we can step off into another world, and explore. After the persuasively strange first chapter’s over, “The Life of Chuck” is a duller kind of strange.

“The Life of Chuck’ — 2 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 1:51

How to watch: Premieres in theaters  June 6

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

 

By CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL

This pasta dish, a riff on an offering served at Trattoria Bertozzi in Bologna, Italy, is a golden, fresh combination of guanciale (cured pork cheek), fragrant saffron, summery zucchini and short, curly pasta.

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In this recipe from our cookbook “ Milk Street Backroads Italy,” we opted for easier-to-find but equally meaty pancetta, and lightened the dish’s richness by swapping in half-and-half for the heavy cream.

The restaurant uses gramigna pasta, a tubular, curled shape from the Emilia-Romagna region, but cavatappi or gemelli works just as well, combining with the zucchini and catching the lightly creamy sauce in its crevices.

Saffron is best when steeped in hot liquid to extract its flavor and aroma. To infuse the dish with a golden hue and earthy-floral flavor, we soak a generous pinch of saffron threads in a portion of water before combining it with the pasta.

Don’t boil the pasta until al dente. Drain it when it has a little more bite than is desirable in the finished dish; the noodles will cook a bit more in the sauce. Also, don’t forget to reserve 2 cups of the cooking water before draining the pasta. Serve with shaved Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.

This image released by Milk Street shows a recipe for zucchini pasta with saffron. (Milk Street via AP)

Pasta with Zucchini, Pancetta and Saffron

Start to finish: 40 minutes

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

1 pound zucchini

12 ounces short, curly pasta, such as cavatappi or gemelli

Kosher salt and ground black pepper

½ teaspoon saffron threads

3 ounces pancetta, finely chopped

1 medium garlic clove, smashed and peeled

½ cup half-and-half

1 ounce Parmesan cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler

Directions:

This image released by Milk Street shows a recipe for zucchini pasta with saffron. (Milk Street via AP)

Halve the zucchini lengthwise, then use a spoon to scrape out the seeds. Slice each half lengthwise about ¼ inch thick, then cut the strips crosswise into 1-inch sections. In a large pot, boil 4 quarts of water. Add the pasta and 1 tablespoon salt, then cook, stirring occasionally, until just shy of al dente. Reserve 2 cups of the cooking water, then drain. In a small bowl, combine 1½ cups of the reserved water and the saffron; set aside the remaining ½ cup water.

While the pasta cooks, in a 12-inch skillet over medium, cook the pancetta and garlic, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta has rendered some of its fat and begins to crisp, about 3 minutes. Remove and discard the garlic, then stir in the zucchini and ½ teaspoon pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the pancetta is fully crisped and the zucchini is lightly browned, 4 to 6 minutes.

Add the pasta and the saffron water to the skillet. Bring to a simmer over medium-high and cook, stirring often, until the pasta is al dente, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the half-and-half and cook, stirring, until the sauce is lightly thickened and clings to the pasta, about 1 minute. Off heat, taste and season with salt and pepper. If needed, stir in additional reserved pasta water 1 tablespoon at a time to create a lightly creamy sauce. Transfer to a serving bowl and top with Parmesan.

EDITOR’S NOTE: For more recipes, go to Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street at 177milkstreet.com/ap