Ashley Lee | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Some of the high notes of the upcoming movie calendar are the many musicals heading to the screen: Warner Bros.’ Joaquin Phoenix-Lady Gaga starrer “Joker: Folie à Deux” (Oct. 4), Netflix’s tuneful crime drama “Emilia Pérez” (in limited release Nov. 1), Universal’s adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked” (Nov. 22), Netflix’s princess quest “Spellbound” (Nov. 22), Disney’s animated “Moana 2” (Nov. 27) and a CGI prequel, “Mufasa: The Lion King” (Dec. 20).

And this lengthy list doesn’t yet include buzzy music-related movies now on the fall film festival circuit that still might nab release dates in the coming months: Pablo Larraín’s Maria Callas biopic “Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie, Joshua Oppenheimer’s apocalyptic feature “The End,” Anderson .Paak’s South Korean-set story “K-Pops” and Rebel Wilson’s directorial debut, “The Deb.”

It’s rare for a three-month span to offer such volume and variety in the musical genre: animated adventures and live-action titles, family-friendly fare and grittier, offbeat dares. Only one is an adaptation of a well-known stage show. (Well, technically, half a stage show, since “Wicked” will be split across two installments and the pictures released a year apart.)

So what’s behind this year’s deluge of song and dance? Just as 2002’s “Chicago” became a hit after the Sept. 11 attacks and 2016’s “La La Land” served as a salve after Trump’s election win, this form has been particularly popular during or after unprecedented times. In terms of our current landscape — for example, a global pandemic, a nationwide recession, a pivotal presidential election — this year’s entries might offer audiences the onscreen resolutions they crave.

“It’s no surprise that when we go through moments of societal and economic adversity, and it seems like we’ve been fractured beyond repair, the musical can step in with a utopian message of hope and resilience,” says Desirée J. Garcia, an associate professor at Dartmouth College and author of “The Movie Musical.” “It’s a genre that has lent itself to an ending of coming together and overcoming any kind of division and conflict that exists.”

But just because characters suddenly belt out lyrics doesn’t mean their stories are all escapist entertainment. “Movies like ‘Gold Diggers of 1933’ that were in response to the Great Depression, or ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ and ‘Cabaret,’ which were released during the 1970s — they really spoke to the dark side of humanity,” Garcia adds. “These musicals made a real comment on what the world had become and reflected society back to itself in a very real way. And it’s precisely the cynicism and disillusionment of such times to which the musical has historically ministered.”

Even amid the uncertainty of today’s moviegoing era, musicals can still break through at the box office. “The Little Mermaid” and “Wonka” were among 2023’s highest-grossing movies, with “Wish” and “Trolls Band Together” also earning more than $200 million worldwide.

“Musicals have the potential to be blockbusters because they typically can bring in a large number of families,” says Kevin Goetz, founder and chief executive of Screen Engine/ASI, a market research and data analytics firm. Goetz told The Times that although movies previously aimed to appeal to all four quadrants — male and female audiences and those over and under 25 — today’s titles need to entice a majority of eight octants: boys, girls, moms, dads, teenage boys, teenage girls, nonparent males and nonparent females.

“You have a real runaway success when it appeals to six or seven of those octants,” he says, citing “Wonka,” which grossed $632 million worldwide. “‘Wonka’ was quite charming and, because it was released during the holiday season — the perfect time of year for family movies — it became the perfect compromise movie: ‘Someone in my family really wants to see it, it looks fun enough, I’ll go see it with them.’ It was enough to bring out constituents from all eight demographics, and as a result, it did exceedingly well.”

Like “Wonka” and “The Little Mermaid,” the four musicals scheduled for theatrical release later this year “aren’t super big artistic swings, nothing too audacious and unusual,” says Karie Bible, a film historian and box-office analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “I don’t think they’re big risks, simply because they’re all based on beloved intellectual property, so they’ve already got a built-in audience.”

That the season’s two relatively original musicals — “Emilia Pérez,” the gender-transitioning Mexican crime title that won Cannes’ jury prize and actress awards earlier this year, and “Spellbound,” an animated fantasy with an all-star cast and songs by “Tangled” duo Alan Menken and Glenn Slater — are premiering on Netflix makes a certain sense. “They can really succeed on streaming because these platforms have the ability to surgically find those folks it’ll appeal to,” says Goetz.

Musicals or otherwise, the barrier to win over theatrical audiences remains higher than ever. “The world has changed, and what’s happening in theatrical moviegoing right now is that you see more people going to a movie theater, but they’re seeing far fewer films,” Goetz says. “If you’re asking people to leave their homes to go to a movie theater and spend upwards of $70 for a family of four’s tickets, concessions and parking, you better have an offering that is significant enough for it to be one of the few movies they see a year.

“The movies that have already overperformed this year — including ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ ‘Twisters’ and ‘It Ends With Us’ — are real events for their targeted audiences, things that people are running to the theater to see. Some of these movie musicals, to me, are truly events, and there’s tremendous opportunity for the right one.”

©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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MUNICH — The head brewmaster for Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, has a secret: He really likes alcohol-free beer.

Even though he’s quick to say he obviously enjoys real beer more, Tobias Zollo says he savors alcohol-free beer when he’s working or eating lunch. It has the same taste but fewer calories than a soft drink, he said, thanks to the brewery’s process of evaporating the alcohol.

“You can’t drink beer every day — unfortunately,” he joked last week at the Bavarian state brewery in the German town of Freising, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Munich.

Zollo isn’t alone in his appreciation for the sober beverage. Alcohol-free beer has been gaining popularity in recent years as beer consumption shrinks.

At Weihenstephan, which was founded as a brewery in 1040 by Benedictine monks, non-alcoholic wheat beer and lager now make up 10% of the volume. The increase over the last few years, since they started making alcohol-free drinks in the 1990s, mirrors the statistics for the rest of Germany’s beer industry.

“The people are unfortunately — I have to say that as a brewer — unfortunately drinking less beer,” Zollo said Friday, the day before Oktoberfest officially started. “If there’s an alternative to have the crisp and fresh taste from a typical Weihenstephan beer, but just as a non-alcoholic version, we want to do that.”

Even at Oktoberfest — arguably the world’s most famous ode to alcohol — alcohol-free beer is on the menu.

All but two of the 18 large tents at the festival offer the drink through the celebration’s 16 days. The sober beverage will cost drinkers the same as an alcoholic beer — between 13.60 and 15.30 euros ($15.12 and $17.01) for a 1-liter mug (33 fluid ounces) — but save them from a hangover.

“For people who don’t like to drink alcohol and want to enjoy the Oktoberfest as well, I think it’s a good option,” Mikael Caselitz, 24, of Munich said Saturday inside one of the tents. “Sometimes people feel like they have more fun with alcohol, which is not a good thing because you can also have fun without alcohol.”

He added: “If you want to come and drink alcohol-free beer, nobody will judge you.”

This year marked the first time an alcohol-free beer garden opened in Munich. “Die Null,” which means “the zero” in German, served non-alcoholic beer, mocktails and other alcohol-free drinks near the city’s main train station this summer but was scheduled to close a few day before Oktoberfest opened.

Walter König, managing director of the Society of Hop Research north of Munich, said researchers have had to breed special hops varieties for alcohol-free beer. If brewers use the typical hops for alcohol-free beer, the distinct aroma gets lost when the alcohol is reduced during the brewing process.

But customers don’t care about that, König said Friday as he prepared for Oktoberfest.

“They only want to know that what they are tasting is as good as traditional beers with alcohol,” he said.

Michael Boxall found it “kind of funny.”

“At this age (36), it was a time where I’ve had the most calls from other teams,” Boxall told reporters Tuesday. “I mean, there were options.”

But the longest-tenured Minnesota United player will not enter free agency at the end of the season and instead signed a one-year contract with the Loons for 2025, with a club option for 2026, the team said Tuesday.

Boxall said the decision was not a particularly difficult one. The New Zealand native and MNUFC leader in MLS appearances (215 since 2017) has started a family in Minnesota, with his wife Libby, daughter and son.

“For me and my family, we’re pretty happy to stay here,” Boxall explained. “My kids love it here. Wife loves it here as well. So yeah, they’re delighted to stay on.”

Playing for the Loons, of course, was another driver for Boxall to remain in Minnesota.

“Through that whole process, I think if I was to go anywhere else, it would feel like I’d be going (for) a job,” Boxall said. “It would feel like a job, whereas here, it doesn’t. It feels like more than that.”

Boxall’s standing has led to a level of ownership in the product and he spoke about unfinished business with the Loons under first-year head coach Eric Ramsay. The club has worked to get significantly younger under new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad this year, and that will continue going into next season.

But the goal is to sprinkle the youth movement in with impact veterans in leadership positions. Boxall epitomizes that, having worn the captain’s armband in 28 of 30 MLS matches this season.

Boxall has played a team-high 2,565 minutes this season and while there have been some lean games, he was huge in the 2-0 win over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday. After the Loons defense as a whole struggled in the 2-1 loss to FC Cincinnati last Wednesday, he tallied 12 clearances in Kansas.

“It was a real captain’s performance,” Ramsay said about Saturday’s match. “I think it is pretty symbolic in a sense. Someone, of course, really happy that he’s going to be around for the coming couple of years, because Boxy is someone who sets a standard with how he looks after himself, how he trains, and in those games, in particular, he’s a gladiator.”

Diaz down, but not out

Center back Jefferson Diaz exited the Kansas City win with an adductor injury, but an MRI showed no structural damage and his absence from Tuesday’s training session was deemed precautionary.

“He should be in good shape for the weekend,” Ramsay said. “Something that’s he’s just trying to work out, whether it’s pain that he can manage, or whether it’s something more serious. The fact that he’s had it scanned and it shows nothing is a really good sign.”

Tapias scuffling, but not out

The Loons have relied on center back Micky Tapias in 24 matches this season, but after a poor game in the 2-1 loss to FC Cincinnati, he was taken out of the starting XI against Sporting. He cam back in for the final 13 minutes after Diaz got hurt.

It didn’t go well as his foul in the 18-yard box led to a SKC penalty kick, which Willy Agada put off the woodwork.

“We just got to get (Tapias) to rediscover some of that conviction that he played with,” Ramsay said. “And I think he’s been, in some sense, unfortunate to be repeatedly involved with goals, and they’re not necessarily clean-cut errors, but perhaps a little bit of indecision, perhaps a little bit of lacking cohesion in the back line. So he’s been a victim of that. But I know deep down, he’s a very good player at this level.”

Briefly

After Saturday’s home game against Colorado Rapids, MNUFC will travel Monday to Salt Lake for Wednesday’s match in Utah and stay on the road through Saturday’s match at Vancouver. … Fullbacks DJ Taylor (hamstring) and Zarek Valentin (lower leg) remained sidelined Tuesday.

Corinne Purtill | (TNS) Los Angeles Times

Since the dawn of the antibiotic age, opportunistic pathogens have evolved defenses faster than humans can develop drugs to combat them.

At the same time, humans have unwittingly given the bugs an advantage through the overuse of antibiotics, allowing pathogens that survive their exposure to pass on their resistant traits.

Now, a new report finds that unless officials take action to develop new medications, “superbug” infections could kill nearly 2 million people a year in 2050 — a 67.5% increase from the 1.14 million lives lost this way in 2021.

An additional 8.22 million will die of causes related to those infections in 2050, according to a study from the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance Project published this week in the Lancet, a medical journal.

GRAM is a joint project of the University of Oxford and the University of Washington School of Medicine’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. The report is the most comprehensive assessment yet of the risk of antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, which the World Health Organization has long identified as one of the top 10 threats to global public health.

It was released in advance of a United Nations General Assembly meeting later this month on drug-resistant pathogens.

“The numbers in the Lancet paper represent a staggering and unacceptable level of human suffering,” said Henry Skinner, chief executive of the AMR Action Fund, a public-private partnership that invests in new antibiotic development, who was not involved in the study. “A continued failure of governments to meet their moral obligations to protect and care for their people, as this paper shows, will doom millions of people to needless deaths.”

Roughly two-thirds of AMR deaths in 2050 will be among people ages 70 years or older, the report estimated. Older people are already at greater risk for drug-resistant infections, which are often acquired in hospitals and care facilities.

Between 1990 and 2021, the report noted, deaths due to AMR increased by more than 80% for people ages 70 and older.

Across all ages, the mortality rate from resistant pathogens is projected to be highest in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.

New antibiotic development has been painfully slow, especially when compared with drugs with better financial incentives for producers. Vital as they are, antibiotics aren’t meant to be taken over the long term like medications for chronic conditions. The most powerful have to be used as rarely as possible, to give bacteria fewer opportunities to develop resistance.

In June, the World Health Organization warned that far too few new antibiotics are currently in the global development pipeline, and the ones that are there fall far short of the innovation required to vanquish the most dangerous microbes.

Of the 32 antibiotics under development against bugs on the WHO’s 2024 bacterial priority pathogen list, the organization noted, only 12 took nontraditional approaches, which is vital for staving off the rise of drug resistance. And of those 12, only four were active against pathogens that WHO identified as the most critical threat to public health.

The scenario laid out in the GRAM report is grim, its authors noted, but not inevitable. Improvements in vaccine distribution and access to clean drinking water and sanitation have helped halve AMR-related deaths among children younger than 5 between 1990 and 2021, even as superbugs proliferated.

With better infection control measures and accelerated drug development, the report found, up to 92 million lives could be saved between 2025 and 2050.

“The data shows that if we take action toward better stewardship practices, improved access in low- and middle-income countries, and new investments to bolster the antibiotic pipeline, then we can save tens of millions of lives,” said James Anderson, chair of the AMR Industry Alliance.

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©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.