Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 88 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    Late Night Tackles Trump’s Gag Order Hearing

    “Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?” Jordan Klepper asked on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Can’t Stop, Won’t StopAttorneys representing former President Donald Trump argued that he did not violate his gag order during Tuesday’s hearing in his criminal trial.“This guy is incapable of keeping his mouth shut for two minutes,” Jordan Klepper said on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.” “Has Trump ever considered paying himself hush money?”“He violated the gag order during a hearing about whether he violated the gag order!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead attorney — a guy named Todd Blanche — that his arguments didn’t make sense, that he ‘presented nothing’ and that he was losing ‘all credibility with the court.’ To his credit, Blanche fired back. He said, ‘Your honor, I lost all credibility when I agreed to represent Donald Trump! That is not an issue.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Fortunately, Trump didn’t hear any of it. He was sound asleep. Let One Rip Van Winkle is dozing off so often, they’re going to need one of those N.B.A. sweat-wiper kids to mop the drool puddles off his desk.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“On his way out of the courthouse, Groper Cleveland stopped to tell reporters how uncomfortably cold it is in the room and how very unhappy he is to be there.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Eight hours a day, four days a week — it’s literally torture. Or, as the rest of the world calls it, a job.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“I love hearing him complain about how cold it is. Someone should knit him a little pair of mittens to wear into court.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (National Enquirer Edition)“The one and only witness today was Trump’s old pal and former publisher of the National Enquirer, a guy named David Pecker, who looks like if the man on the Pringles can was now dating your mom.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Pecker described what he called a ‘mutually beneficial relationship’ with Trump. It’s weird, the only faithful relationship Trump’s ever been in is with the National Enquirer.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He testified that to help Trump win the 2016 election, he would buy scandalous stories about Trump and then bury them. And what a good job he did — I can’t think of a single Trump scandal.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“But think about how insane it is that our president had a ‘mutually beneficial relationship’ with The National Enquirer. There are only two people on the planet who can say that: Donald Trump and Bigfoot.” — JIMMY KIMMELWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Theater

    ‘Mary Jane’ Review: When Parenting Means Intensive Care

    Amy Herzog’s heartbreaker arrives on Broadway with Rachel McAdams as the alarmingly upbeat mother of a fearfully sick child.Soon after Alex was born at 25 weeks, with multiple catastrophic disorders, Mary Jane’s husband, unable to cope, fled their marriage. Still, she hopes he “finds some peace, I really do.”She also thinks kindly of her boss, who means to accommodate her but pretty much fails to. “It’s daily moral agony for her,” Mary Jane marvels. “It’s really something to behold.”Mary Jane’s own moral agony is likewise something to behold. She feels guilty about putting the super of her Queens building, where she shares a junior one-bedroom with Alex, in a difficult position by removing the window guards. “It’s just that he loves looking out the windows, especially when he’s sick and I can’t take him outside?” she explains in upspeak.“It’s the law,” the not-unkind super replies — though Alex, now 2, can barely sit up, let alone reach the sill.“You’re an excellent superintendent,” Mary Jane says. She is the embodiment of apologizing for living.That, at its heart, is the condition that Amy Herzog’s steel-trap play “Mary Jane” explores: The death of the self in the love for one’s child. As with Alex, so for his mother: There is no cure.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    Howie Schwab, ESPN Researcher and Trivia Star, Dies at 63

    He stepped out of his behind-the-scenes role in 2004 when he was cast as the ultimate sports know-it-all on the game show “Stump the Schwab.”Howie Schwab, a sports nerd who parlayed his love of statistics into a long stint at ESPN that was most notable for his starring role as the ultimate trivia expert on the game show “Stump the Schwab,” died on Saturday in Aventura, Fla. He was 63.His death was announced on social media by his wife, Suzie Davie-Schwab. His mother, Dona (Bressner) Schwab, said he was in a hospital being treated for an infection when he died, apparently of a heart attack.Mr. Schwab had been at ESPN for 17 years in behind-the-scenes roles as a researcher and producer when he was tapped in 2004 to star in his own show.On “Stump the Schwab,” three challengers vied to outdo Mr. Schwab in answering questions posed by the host, Stuart Scott, in the opening rounds. In the final round — called the Schwab Showdown — the best of the three went head to head against him for a $25,000 grand prize. Mr. Schwab almost always won.In the episode that decided the 2005 season’s champion, Mr. Schwab entered the studio at the start of the show wearing a red boxing robe, with a woman on each arm; he then doffed the robe, revealing a Derek Jeter jersey, and shadowboxed.“I am ready to rumble,” he told Mr. Scott.Mr. Schwab did not look like a typical television star: He was overweight, wore glasses and sported a goatee.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 113 Shares179 Views

    in Theater

    Terry Carter, Barrier-Breaking Actor and Documentarian, Dies at 95

    He was the only Black actor on “Combat!” and “The Phil Silvers Show,” then made well regarded documentaries on luminaries like Duke Ellington and Katherine Dunham.Terry Carter, who broke color barriers onstage and on television in the 1950s and ’60s and later produced multicultural documentaries on the jazz luminary Duke Ellington and the dancer-choreographer Katherine Dunham, died on Tuesday at his home in Midtown Manhattan. He was 95. His death was confirmed by his son, Miguel Carter DeCoste.Mr. Carter was raised in a bilingual home next door to a synagogue in a predominantly Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn. His best friend was the future jazz great Cecil Taylor. In his first stage role, at 9, Mr. Carter played the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama on a voyage of discovery.And in a wayfaring six-decade career, he was a merchant seaman, a jazz pianist, a law student, a television news anchor, a familiar character on network sitcoms, an Emmy-winning documentarian, a good will ambassador to China, a longtime expatriate in Europe — and a reported dead man; in 2015, rumors that he had been killed were mistaken. It was not him but a much younger Terry Carter who had died in a hit-and-run accident in Los Angeles by a pickup truck driven by the rap mogul Marion “Suge” Knight.Slightly misquoting Mark Twain, Mr. Carter posted on social media: “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”While he acted in some 30 television series and movies, Mr. Carter was best known to viewers as Sgt. Joe Broadhurst, the sidekick to Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud (Dennis Weaver) on NBC’s “McCloud” series from 1970 to 1977, and in 21 episodes of “Battlestar Galactica,” as Colonel Tigh, second-in-command of the starship fleet in ABC’s original science-fiction series in 1978-79. (The series was revived for a second run from 2004 to 2009.)Mr. Carter, right, on “McCloud” as the sidekick to Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud, played by Dennis Weaver, left. Mr. Carter appeared on the series from 1970 to 1977.via Everett CollectionWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 88 Shares129 Views

    in Theater

    Lady Macbeth Gets Two Very Different Interpretations

    One of Shakespeare’s most coveted roles for women gets different interpretations onstage in New York and Washington.“Macbeth” isn’t one of Shakespeare’s so-called “problem plays,” and yet, the vast contradictions and reversals of the central couple often present a problem for those staging it.Two “Macbeth” productions now running — the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh’s “Macbeth (An Undoing),” at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, and the Shakespeare Theater Company’s “Macbeth” in Washington — take opposite approaches to the text, particularly in their depictions of Lady Macbeth. The results are two wildly different kinds of tragedies, one more successful than the other.The project of “Macbeth (An Undoing),” written and directed by Zinnie Harris, is to re-evaluate the female characters in Shakespeare’s tragedy. The play, presented by Theater for a New Audience and the Rose Theater, begins as a loose adaptation of the material: Macbeth, a celebrated soldier fighting on behalf of Scotland, hears a prophecy from three weird sisters that he’ll get two promotions, including one to the throne. The Macbeths then pave their path to power by murdering everyone who could stand in their way.With the exception of some modern paraphrasing, the unnecessary fan-fiction-esque addition of a romantic affair and a larger showing by the witches — who sometimes break the fourth wall and at others appear as servants — much of the first half of the show follows the original. In the second half, however, the production changes direction; Macbeth is the one who can’t seem to wash the blood off his hands. As he descends into the particular brand of madness usually reserved for Lady Macbeth, she transforms into the king. In fact, those around her begin addressing her as “sir” and “king.” Lady Macbeth, it turns out, has her own history with the witches, whom she sought out for medicine to prevent a miscarriage but neglected to pay when she still lost the child.“So I am reduced to my infertility after all,” Lady Macbeth says to her husband when he accusingly interrogates her about the miscarriages. The line is one of several that the play offers as a rebuttal to some unclear larger discourse about the gender politics of “Macbeth.” “Unclear” because the ultimate irony (and failure) of “Macbeth (An Undoing)” is that in trying to subvert the gender politics of the original, it actually contradicts itself, making the character arcs and themes largely incoherent. So this Lady Macbeth complains about being characterized by her infertility, and yet the material that most heavily emphasizes her obsessive desire for a child are unique additions to this play not found in Shakespeare’s text.Playing Lady Macbeth, Nicole Cooper is at her best when she offers a more realistic, matter-of-fact interpretation of the character in the first half of the production. But she and her Macbeth, played by Adam Best, lack chemistry, and the actors can’t negate the fact that instead of expanding the characters, the play’s role reversals flatten them. Shakespeare already built in a reversal between these characters; Macbeth’s early hesitance and caution shifts to untethered resolve, while Lady Macbeth’s early steadfastness shifts to guilt and madness.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 150 Shares169 Views

    in Television

    ‘Baby Reindeer,’ Netflix’s New Stalker Drama, Is Based on a True Story

    The Netflix series is based on the real-life experience of its creator, Richard Gadd, who also stars in the show.Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning in “Baby Reindeer.”Ed Miller/NetflixRichard Gadd created and stars in the mesmerizing, complex drama “Baby Reindeer” (on Netflix), which is based on his experience of being stalked. Here he plays Donny Dunn, an aspiring comedian and miserable bartender, living with his ex-girlfriend’s mother and stewing in regret.So one day when Martha (Jessica Gunning) sits at his bar, he feels bad for her — he sees a fellow wounded bird who deserves a moment of compassion. But Martha isn’t just a sad sack; she is a convicted stalker. Soon she is emailing Donny hundreds of times a day, harassing his family and his exes, showing up at gigs and outside his house. It’s relentless, it’s terrifying, it’s … flattering?“Reindeer” is candid and disturbing, but not lurid. On lesser shows, nuance can play like a lack of conviction, but here it is the conviction, a rebuttal to pat victimhood narratives. It delves into the absolute pits of human experience not with a sage, well-adjusted perspective but with the mischievous bravado of a prop comic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. (“Baby Reindeer” is adapted from Gadd’s solo show of the same title, which premiered at the festival.)We see Donny’s act bomb and bomb and bomb; to be a comedian is often one big indignity. Donny recognizes and articulates the dangers of wanting fame, how it warps his judgment but also could solve his problems. (One person knowing your darkest secret is unbearable, but a million people knowing it is stardom.) Agony and attention are bound together here — Look at me! No, not like that! — twin snakes choking the life out of their prey. The show is relentlessly, fascinatingly compassionate, answering the questions of “why would you …” and “why didn’t he just …” with probing clarity. Everyone is shaped by suffering, their choices and identities carved by humiliations large and small.The show is seven half-hour(ish) episodes, and they are the good kind of heavy.SIDE QUESTSIf you want something autobiographical and introspective about masculinity but without the horrors of stalking, all three seasons of “Ladhood” are on Hulu and the Roku Channel.If you actually love the horrors of stalking and want to add in serial murder and sultry whispers, all four seasons of “You” are on Netflix. (Only the first three are good.)If you want another fabulous show that started out at Edinburgh, it is always a good time to watch “Fleabag.” Both perfect seasons are on Amazon. More

  • 63 Shares129 Views

    in Television

    ‘Shogun’ Finale Recap: Mask Off

    Lord Toranaga’s true plan is finally revealed.Season 1, Episode 10: ‘A Dream of a Dream’Take a look at any of FX’s promotional material for “Shogun,” and one image will stare back: Lord Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), in full samurai armor, his sword drawn as he charges into battle on a white horse. Tattered red banners and a cavalry provide the backdrop. It doesn’t require close reading to determine that he has cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war.It’s also false advertising. There is no culminating battle in the final episode of “Shogun.” Toranaga does not charge into the fray on a white horse, his katana dealing death on all sides. The regents’ armies do not fight among themselves. Lord Ishido is not beaten down in defeat. John Blackthorne does not prove his battlefield mettle to earn his samurai sword. Instead, the episode mimics the leafless branch in the poem Lady Mariko dictated before her death.By now, you may be shouting that the book upon which the show is based doesn’t include a final battle, either. But just as James Clavell, the author of “Shogun,” altered, edited and exaggerated real-world people and events from Japanese history to suit the needs of his novel, the creators of the 2024 television version also altered, edited and exaggerated in turn. They’ve changed character names, shifted points of emphasis from Blackthorne to Japanese characters and so on. For this episode they cut the book’s epilogue, in which Toranaga executes Ishido by burying him up to his neck and leaving him to die of exposure. (Toranaga is a tough cookie, but that act seems a bridge too far for the TV version.) The showrunners don’t mind taking advantage of adaptational freedom when it suits them.Much as I think both the marketing and the writing have deliberately steered audiences to expect an all out action-horror spectacle — in the mode for which the pioneering “Game of Thrones” set a still-unmatched standard on television — the show’s creators Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks, as well as the writers Maegan Houang and Emily Yoshida (not to mention Clavell himself), turn out not to be telling that kind of story.If there’s a through line for how “Shogun” depicts violence, it’s that it’s almost always dirty pool. A Christian lord’s army ambushing another lord’s forces under cover of darkness. A cannon fusillade launched at men given no warning. A nephew attempting to murder his uncle in a brothel. A squad of palace guards, slowly driving an outnumbered woman warrior to exhaustion and defeat. Ninja assassins slaughtering their way through a sleepy household, not once but twice. The entire plot is driven by Blackthorne’s revelation that even the Christian lords’ European allies are secretly building an army with which they intend to take all of Japan unawares.When it comes to violence, nobody here moves out in the open. “Shogun” is consistent in that respect, at least if you ignore the picture on the promos.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

  • 125 Shares109 Views

    in Television

    Jon Stewart Slams the Media for Coverage of Trump Trial

    “Are you trying to make this O.J.? It’s not a chase — he’s commuting,” Stewart said on Monday’s “Daily Show.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Media CircusOpening arguments began in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial on Monday, with much of the news media coverage homing in on as many details as possible about the proceedings.Jon Stewart called the trial a “test of the fairness of the American legal system, but it’s also a test of the media’s ability to cover Donald Trump in a responsible way.”“Perhaps if we limit the coverage to the issues at hand and try not to create an all-encompassing spectacle of the most banal of details, perhaps that would help.” — JON STEWART“He arrived at the intersection of American history, where he put a quarter in the parking meter of destiny, leaving the car, looking to avoid stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence.” — JON STEWART, mocking the media’s coverage of Trump’s arrival in court“Seriously, are we going to follow this guy to court every [expletive] day? Are you trying to make this O.J.? It’s not a chase — he’s commuting.” — JON STEWART“At this point, you’re probably saying to yourself, ‘How many television hours have they devoted to what Donald Trump, a man who has not been off any of our screens for more than 30 seconds in the last eight years, looks like?’ The answer is not nearly as many hours as describing his every movement.” — JON STEWART“Look, at some point in this trial, something important and revelatory is going to happen, but none of us are going to notice because of the hours spent on his speculative facial tics. If the media tries to make us feel like the most mundane [expletive] is earth-shattering, we won’t believe you when it’s really interesting. It’s your classic ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf Blitzer.’” — JON STEWART“Look, we’ve got a long ways to go here. It’s the first day of the first of his 438 trials to come. Pace yourselves, and if you’re bored, you can always start planning how you’re going to [expletive] up covering his next trial and the sober mea culpa you’ll deliver during his next term as president.” — JON STEWARTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Insano Edition)“The city that never sleeps versus the defendant who keeps nodding off during the trial.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“As he should. I mean, he’s been up since 2 a.m. rage tweeting. He needs his anger sleep.” — JON STEWART“Just when you think the insano-meter has topped out, Donald Trump adds farting to his list of atrocities.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Of course, we don’t know for sure that Trump was the one farting in court, so it would not be right for me to state that he was. So, I cannot in good conscience report that Trump was pumping gas like a Barstow Texaco, but I can report, to borrow a phrase that he likes to use when spreading rumors, ‘Many people were saying Trump was farting in court.’” — JIMMY KIMMELWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More