News

Steve Ripley, leader of Grammy-nominated country-rock band the Tractors, died Thursday at his home in Pawnee, Oklahoma, following a battle with cancer. He was 69.

With Ripley as frontman, the Tractors scored their biggest hit with their rollicking debut single, “Baby Likes to Rock It,” in 1994, attracting critical attention and rapidly earning a platinum disc for their self-titled debut. While other releases for the group didn’t fare as well, Ripley would continue as a recording artist, songwriter, producer, engineer, radio host (of the popular Oklahoma Rock & Roll series) and the inventor of the “stereo guitar,...

This year’s New York Film Festival has just unveiled a slew of Special Events to round out its already full-to-bursting lineup, and it includes some late-breaking entries to previously announced sections and a selection of brand new events that are very special indeed. Highlights include a trio of documentary premieres, including Susan Lacy’s “Spielberg” (focused on the eponymous director, with both Lacy and her subject set to appear at the festival), along with Jennifer Lebeau’s Bob Dylan concert film “Trouble No More,” and Susan Froemke’s “The Opera House,” a history of the Metropolitan Opera and a love letter to the art form that will (appropriately enough) screen at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center.

Other standouts include four brand-new films from Claude Lanzmann, a sparkling new restoration of G.W. Pabst’s “Pandora’s Box.” Elsewhere, Kate Winslet will be on hand for a career-spanning chat...