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    Hidetoshi Nishijima Was ‘Overwhelmed’ by This Filmmaker’s Work

    After seeing “Husbands” and “Minnie and Moskowitz,” the actor from “Drive My Car” and the new Apple TV+ series “Sunny” said, “I couldn’t go home. I just kept bicycling around.”The morning after “Drive My Car” won an Oscar for best international feature, its lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima was already planning his next project.Nishijima, 53, met with the director and screenwriter of the upcoming Apple TV+ show “Sunny” and is now one of its stars.In “Sunny,” which began streaming this month, Nishijima plays Masa, an employee at a secretive robotics company in Japan as well as the husband to Suzie Sakamoto, an American expatriate played by Rashida Jones. When Masa and their son go missing, Suzie embarks on a quest to find out more about the company and the husband she thought she knew.“In this show, there’s trust and betrayal,” Nishijima said in a video interview from Tokyo, where he lives with his family. “There’s technology that has a good side and a dangerous side. This show really explores how as a human sometimes you don’t even know who you are.”He discussed the way he brings a bit of nature to his home, the thing he and his “Drive My Car” character have in common and the filmmaking book he keeps coming back to. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Movie TheatersWhen I was in my 20s and 30s, I wasn’t really working. I was an actor, but I wasn’t working. So I was going to the movies every day. In Tokyo, we could watch every movie in the world. I would watch two or three movies a day. Looking back, I treasure those moments. I was still doing something productive, and I feel like that kind of saved me in a sense. It helped me keep my sanity.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

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    Biden’s News Conference Answered Many Questions. But Not the Big One.

    For once, a presidential Q. and A. was must-see TV. But it didn’t put an end to the summer’s biggest drama.Follow the latest Biden news and election updates.There were many questions at President Biden’s nearly hourlong news conference on Thursday night — questions about Gaza, Ukraine, the campaign, his health, his record.But at its heart there was only one question: Could he do it?That is, could Mr. Biden, who stunned viewers and his party and George Clooney with a doddering performance at the first presidential debate two weeks ago, stand and deliver? Could he be coherent? Could he dispel the talk of age and frailty and decline? Could he beat the doubters who want him to step down from the ticket? Could he look like a winner?On a national TV stage, Mr. Biden answered the individual questions, often comfortably, sometimes defensively, with depth and engagement and flashes of passion. As for the uber-question, the answer was incomplete. He was not the uncomfortable, lost presence of the debate, but he didn’t erase the memory of that version of himself either. He came across as the president he wants to be, but not necessarily the candidate his critics have said he needs to be.Presidential news conferences are rarely must-see TV. But the stakes — heightened by reports that some Democrats were waiting for it before weighing in on whether Mr. Biden should remain the nominee — gave this one the air of a test, if not a last stand.The telecast had the daredevil feel of a live walk through a minefield. The first false step came before the news conference proper, at remarks after the afternoon’s NATO meeting, when Mr. Biden introduced President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”The president caught himself and recovered. “I’m better,” Mr. Zelensky joked; “You’re a hell of a lot better,” Mr. Biden said. The audience laughed. Anybody can mix up a name once.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

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    Late Night Laughs Off the Responses to George Clooney’s Essay

    “It’s crazy the election of 2024 could be decided by the Sexiest Man Alive of 1997,” Kumail Nanjiani, the guest host, joked on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”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.Trump vs. Biden vs. ClooneyAfter George Clooney, in a guest essay for The New York Times, called for President Biden to drop out of the race, Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!”“You know whom movies never worked out for? Donald Trump,” said Kumail Nanjiani, the guest host on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” “A man who somehow blew a one-second cameo in ‘Home Alone 2.’”“Of course, the big difference between George Clooney and Donald Trump is that George Clooney actually made money from a casino.” — KUMAIL NANJIANI“It’s crazy the election of 2024 could be decided by the Sexiest Man Alive of 1997.” — KUMAIL NANJIANIBiden campaign officials responded to the essay, with one saying the actor quickly left a recent campaign fund-raiser, while president stayed for three hours. Seth Meyers found the comment snarky, saying, “Your slam on Clooney is that he left the fund-raiser three hours early? No [expletive]. He’s got better places to be — he’s George Clooney.”“OK, fair enough. but most people would leave early, too, if they knew that they were going home with George Clooney.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What’s next, Brad Pitt getting body slammed by Jimmy Carter?” — SETH MEYERS“But maybe it should be inspiration. Maybe the only way Biden can win this fight is to assemble a crack team of well-funded, highly skilled bank robbers, ‘Ocean’s 11’ style. There’s Gavin Newsom, the smooth-talking frontman; Pete Buttigieg, the expert safecracker; and Kamala Harris, the genius card counter posing as the drunk aunt at the craps table.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Press Conference Edition)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

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    Review: What Makes ‘Oh, Mary!” One of the Best Summer Comedies in Years

    Cole Escola’s dragtastic White House farce asks the immortal question: Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?Like so many before them, members of the “Oh, Mary!” creative team are proudly reclaiming an insulting epithet as a badge of honor.I don’t mean “queer”; they’re way past that. I mean “stupid.”“Oh, Mary!” is “the stupidest play,” Cole Escola, its author and star, tells anyone who will listen.“I have a huge hunger for deep stupidity,” Sam Pinkleton, its director, chimes in.They protest too much. “Oh, Mary!” may be silly, campy, even pointless, but “stupid,” I think not. Rather, the play, which opened on Thursday at the Lyceum Theater, is one of the best crafted and most exactingly directed Broadway comedies in years. Which is a surprise on many levels, and on each level a gift.To start with, we don’t get a lot of comedies these days, not the kind you can feel good laughing at. Most contemporary examples of the genre — say “Bootycandy” by Robert O’Hara and “Clybourne Park” by Bruce Norris — use the form the way doctors use an emetic: They want you to gag on the gags. But the totally unserious “Oh, Mary!” is not medicinal in that sense. It merely wants you to lose your breath guffawing, especially with a series of switchback shocks at the end, so cleverly conceived and executed they’re hilarious.But the premise is already a joke. How else would you describe a back story in which Mary Todd Lincoln (Escola in a hoop skirt the size of a yurt) longs to return to her first love, cabaret, with its “madcap medleys” and built-in excuses for diva behavior?Escola and James Scully in the play, which is on Broadway at the Lyceum Theater after debuting Off Broadway this past winter.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe 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

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    ‘Me’ Is a Lovely and Distinctive Tween Drama

    Anchored by beautiful performances, this Apple TV+ superhero show surpasses its own genre clichés.How often the world nearly ends at a middle-school dance. “Me,” a superpower tween drama arriving Friday on Apple TV+, has your standard cataclysm in its be-streamered gym and hits plenty of familiar beats along the way. But the show is anchored by beautiful performances, and its non-magical story lines punch well above their weight class. Why, it’s almost as if the real super powers lay within all along.Lucian-River Chauhan stars as Ben, our saucer-eyed hero who is trying, for his mother’s sake, to make a go of things with his doting new stepfather (Kyle Howard) and funky, precocious stepsister, Max (Abigail Pniowsky). Lucky for him, Max tries to have his back at school, where he is subjected to (unimaginative) cafeteria bullying.Our Ben is not just a put-upon little dweeb, though. He is also a shape-shifter. One morning, he wakes up not looking like himself but instead exactly like a classmate. Eventually, he learns to control this power, and he attempts to wield it justly: to stand up for people even lower in the social strata than he, to help Max ask a crush to the doomed dance, to mimic voices as a fun party trick. But there’s a reason well-meaning adults always offer the same advice. Just be yourself! Pretending to be other people is a dangerous game.As a gentle blended-family drama for young viewers, “Me” is lovely and distinctive. The relationship between Max and Ben is one rarely explored on television: stepsiblings who are allies. Chauhan and Pniowsky are terrific, and especially terrific together. Ben lets Max in on his big secret right away, and not only does she instantly believe him, she’s in his corner, helping him with his techniques and also with his ethics.This warm wholesomeness is not without its deeper tensions: Max is loyal to her own mother, too, and she resents how often her wants are dismissed in order to placate her divorced parents. Ben’s powers are thoughtfully framed as part of the natural teenage search for one’s identity, and his mother (Dilshad Vadsaria) worries, with good reason, that he’s withdrawing, pulling away.Were we to stay within the domestic realms, even with Ben’s gifts, this would be among the most emotionally literate middle-grade shows. But of course Ben’s abilities connect him to a broader world of a superpowered cabal and an evil guy seeking world domination and blah blah blah. The triteness is tiring, the mechanics and motivations of the supernatural stories do not make enough sense, and the use of split timelines only muddies the narrative.There are 10 episodes of “Me,” and they start strong, strong enough to fend off the forces of evil that threaten both the characters and the show. More

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    ‘The Daily Show’ Ribs Biden Over Democratic Detractors

    “You know you’re in trouble if even Danny Ocean is saying, ‘We can’t pull this one off,’” Desi Lydic joked after George Clooney called for Biden to drop out.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.Ocean’s 24On Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, responded to questions about whether the president should continue to seek re-election by saying that she would support President Biden, “whatever he decides.”“Keep in mind, Biden has said about 50 times that he’s staying in the race,” Jordan Klepper said on “The Daily Show.”“He’s like, ‘I’m not going anywhere. The Lord almighty couldn’t get me out of this race,’ and Pelosi’s going, ‘Yup, great, just let us know when you decide. Clock’s ticking — tick-tock.’” — JORDAN KLEPPER“By the way, it probably doesn’t help that as she was speaking, I kept thinking, ‘Man, I wish that Biden could channel the youth and vigor of Nancy Pelosi.’” — JORDAN KLEPPER“You know things are crazy when an 84-year-old Nancy Pelosi is telling an 81-year-old Joe Biden to retire.” — JIMMY FALLONIn the same segment, “The Daily Show” co-host Desi Lydic referred to George Clooney as an “even more powerful Democrat,” after he called for Biden to step aside in a Times opinion essay.“You know you’re in trouble if even Danny Ocean is saying, ‘We can’t pull this one off.’” — DESI LYDIC“It’s easy for him to say Biden’s too old — Clooney doesn’t age.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“George wrote a New York Times Op-Ed titled ‘I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee,’ adding, ‘We also need a money guy, a safecracker, an acrobat and Brad Pitt. It’s the plot of ‘Ocean’s 24: Amal’s Busy With Human Rights Stuff and I Got Bored.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Wait, while we were all distracted by this Op-Ed, who was watching the money? Oh, it was a heist the whole time. Clooney!” — DESI LYDICThe Punchiest Punchlines (Different Strokes Edition)“At his rally last night in Florida, former President Trump challenged President Biden to a golf match. Biden’s actually interested because, in golf, the lowest number wins.” — SETH MEYERS“That’d be a crazy match. While Trump replaces a divot with his hairpiece, Biden will be in the sand trap with a metal detector.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump said if Biden beats him, he’d give a million dollars to charity. Keep in mind, Charity is the name of a dancer at a club near Mar-a-Lago, but still, he’s going to give it to her.” — JIMMY FALLONWe 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

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    Benji Gregory, Child Star on ‘ALF,’ Dies at 46

    Mr. Gregory was found dead on June 13 in his car, along with his service dog.Benji Gregory, who starred as a child in the hit television series “ALF” in the 1980s, has died. He was 46.His death was confirmed by his sister, Rebecca Pfaffinger, who said that an official cause of death was still pending.According to Mrs. Pfaffinger, Mr. Gregory and his service dog, Hans, were found dead in his car on June 13 at a bank’s parking lot in Peoria, Ariz. She said in a Facebook post that he had fallen asleep in the vehicle and had died of heatstroke.Mr. Gregory was best known for his role as Brian Tanner on “ALF,” an NBC sitcom that premiered in September 1986, when he was 8.The show featured a suburban family whose world is thrown upside down when a back-talking, pointy-eared alien from the planet Melmac crash-lands through their garage. The Tanner family calls the alien ALF, short for Alien Life Form, and he stays with them, causing mischief and voicing his observations about humankind. Brian and ALF soon become the best of friends. “ALF” was a hit and aired for four seasons.“It became quite natural to interact with ALF,” Mr. Gregory said of the experience in a 2022 interview with BTM Legends Corner, a show on YouTube.Benji Gregory was best known for his role as the young Brian Tanner on “ALF,” a hit NBC sitcom in the late 1980s.InstagramHe was born Benjamin Gregory Hertzberg on May 26, 1978, in the Los Angeles area, according to his IMDB profile.Alongside “ALF,” Mr. Gregory appeared in a string of other hit shows in the 1980s, including “The A-Team,” “Punky Brewster” and “Amazing Stories.”Mr. Gregory’s film credits include “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” a 1986 comedy about a lonely computer programmer in Manhattan played by Whoopi Goldberg, and the 1993 animated movie “Once Upon a Forest.”He eventually moved on from acting and in 2004 became an aerographer’s mate for the U.S. Navy stationed in Biloxi, Miss., according to IMDB.He had lived with bipolar disorder and depression and received care for both, his sister said. More

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    ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Review: Sprinkling Magic Under a Night Sky

    Fun is the main point of Carl Cofield’s stylish outdoor staging of Shakespeare’s comic fantasy for the Classical Theater of Harlem.“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Shakespeare’s sylvan comic fantasy about mischief-making fairies and enchanted lovers, is such gossamer entertainment that it’s always a jolt to be reminded, near the start of the play, why the smitten young couple Hermia and Lysander flee to the forest in the first place.It’s because Hermia’s father, Egeus, one of Shakespeare’s many dreadful patriarchs, forbids her to marry Lysander. He insists that she wed Demetrius, a suitor whom she does not love.“As she is mine,” Egeus says in Carl Cofield’s stylish production for the Classical Theater of Harlem, “I may dispose of her: which shall be either with this gentleman” — Demetrius, that is — “or, according to our law, unto her death.”During Sunday’s opening-night performance, the mention of a death sentence for Hermia drew a gasp from the crowd: Ancient barbarism had intruded on a scene glittering with Harlem Renaissance elegance. (The set is by Christopher and Justin Swader, costumes by Mika Eubanks.)But that father-daughter moment is about as serious as Cofield’s staging gets. In the Richard Rodgers Amphitheater at Marcus Garvey Park, fun is the main point. And if this free “Midsummer” doesn’t deliver as much across-the-board delight as you may expect from the Classical Theater of Harlem, it does have a charismatic drama stirrer in Mykal Kilgore’s Puck, sprinkling magic for the fairy king, Oberon (a sympathetic Victor Williams).There is also a giggle-inducing gaggle of rude mechanicals, who put on the adorable show within the show. The comedian Russell Peters is billed as the star of “Midsummer,” playing one of them: Nick Bottom, the weaver whom Puck transfigures into an ass, and with whom the ensorcelled fairy queen, Titania (Jesmille Darbouze, not given enough to do), falls in love. Peters, however, is scheduled to be absent from much of the run.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