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    Late Night Comedians Mock Trump’s Trial-Delaying Efforts

    “You know what they say: If at first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth you don’t succeed, cry, cry again,” Jimmy Kimmel said.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.Hush Money MondayFormer President Donald Trump’s first criminal trial starts on Monday, despite several failed efforts to have it delayed.“His only move left is to have sex with everyone in the court and pay them $130,000 to keep their mouth shut,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Thursday.“You know what they say: If at first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth you don’t succeed, cry, cry again.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump has tried everything. He even requested a delay so he could mourn the loss of O.J.” — JIMMY FALLONOn “Late Night,” Seth Meyers pointed out that Trump had spent $100 million — or $230,000 a day — on legal bills for his combined court cases.“First of all, it’s very funny that you have to pay all the lawyers for all your criminal trials through something called Save America. Save America from what, you?” — SETH MEYERS“Also, $230,000 a day — for comparison’s sake — you can buy a pristine 1967 Chevy Corvette with original transmission and teal-blue interior for roughly the same price, which is perfect because that’s Joe Biden’s favorite car.” — SETH MEYERS“Biden should pull that thing up in front of the courthouse every day: ‘[imitating Biden] Hey, Donny, what’d you spend your $230K on?’ Every day that Trump drops that much money on lawyers you should have to hear Joe Biden say the words ‘Vroom vroom.’” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (R.I.P. O.J. Edition)“As most of you probably know, the big story was that O.J. Simpson went to hell today.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s rare that a celebrity as famous as O.J. doesn’t get an outpouring of love after news of his death, but it makes sense.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Guys, as I mentioned, the big news today is O.J. Simpson died. As we speak, someone is trying to write the most impossible eulogy of all time.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingJordan Klepper joined Michael Kosta, the guest host, for “Men Talk About Abortion” on Thursday’s “The Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutDonielle Hansley Jr. and Simone Joy Jones in “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead.”2024 Fence 2021 Films LLCWade Allain-Marcus’s reboot of the cult hit “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead” keeps the plot from the 1991 original. More

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    Review: In ‘The Outsiders,’ a New Song for the Young Misfits

    The classic coming-of-age novel has become a compelling, if imperfect, musical about have-not teenagers in a have-it-all world.For many young misfits and wannabes, “The Outsiders,” published in 1967, is still a sacred text. Written by an actual teenager — S.E. Hinton drafted it in high school — it spoke with eyewitness authority to teenage alienation. Even if its poor “greasers” and rich “socs” (the book’s shorthand for society types) now seem like exhibits in a midcentury angst museum, their inchoate yearning has not aged, nor has Hinton’s faith that there is poetry in every soul.These tender qualities argue against stage adaptation, as does Francis Ford Coppola’s choppy, murky 1983 movie. (It introduced a lot of young stars, but it’s a mess.) The material doesn’t want sophisticated adults mucking about in it or, worse, gentling its hard edges for commercial consumption. Harshness tempered with naïveté is central to its style and argument. To turn the novel into a Broadway musical, with the gloss of song and dance that entails, would thus seem a category error worse even than the film’s.And yet the musical version of “The Outsiders” that opened on Thursday has been made with so much love and sincerity it survives with most of its heart intact. Youth is key to that survival; the cast, if not actually teenage — their singing is way too professional for that — is still credibly fresh-faced. (Five of the nine principals are making their Broadway debuts.) That there is no cynical distance between them and their characters is in itself refreshing to see.Also key to the show’s power is the director Danya Taymor’s rivetingly sensorial approach to the storytelling, even if it sometimes comes at a cost to the story itself. Many stunning things are happening on the stage of the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater — and from the sobs I heard the other night, in the audience, too.Some of those sobs came from teenagers, who can’t have seen in recent musicals many serious attempts at capturing the confusions of youth. Though witches, princesses and leaping newsboys can be entertaining, their tales are escapes from reality, not portraits of it. From the start, “The Outsiders” is gritty — literally. (The stage is covered with synthetic rubber granules that kick up with each fight and footfall.) There is no sugarcoating the facts as Hinton found them: Her Tulsa, Okla., is an apartheid town, the greasers subject to brutal violence if they dare step into the socs’ territory or, worse, lay eyes on their girls.But the unavoidable cross-clan romance — between the 14-year-old greaser Ponyboy Curtis (Brody Grant) and the soc Cherry Valance (Emma Pittman) — is something of a MacGuffin here. The score, by Jonathan Clay and Zach Chance of the folk duo Jamestown Revival, working with Justin Levine, gives them just two songs, neither really about love.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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    How Hertz Turned O.J. Simpson Into the ‘Superstar in Rent‐a‐Car’

    The famous ad campaign paid dividends for both the company and its pitchman, who died on Wednesday.Executives at the rental car company Hertz knew what they wanted to project to potential business travelers in the 1970s: speed, reliability and efficiency.They quickly realized that one man radiated all of those qualities. So they made the football player O.J. Simpson, who died on Wednesday at the age of 76, the first Black star of a national television advertising campaign.“They had a slogan — the Superstar in Rent‐a‐Car — and I was the current reigning superstar as far as the competition was concerned,” Simpson told The New York Times in 1976.The campaign would pay dividends for both the company and its pitchman, who in early Hertz ads was shown racing through an airport terminal and leaping over rope barriers, clutching a briefcase instead of cradling a football. In some of Simpson’s later ads, average Janes and Joes cheered him on as he ran, yelling, “Go, O.J., Go!”At that time, decades before Simpson was acquitted of killing his former wife and her friend, he was known for dazzling on the field for the University of Southern California and the Buffalo Bills. His athleticism and speed made Simpson the perfect choice for the Hertz commercials that widened his stardom beyond the gridiron, offering him up as a suave, smiling promoter known to football fans and businessmen alike.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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    O.J. Simpson: Made in America, Made by TV

    In O.J. Simpson’s life and trials, television was a spotlight, a microscope and a mirror.One of the strangest quotes I can remember associated with O.J. Simpson came from the broadcaster Al Michaels during the notorious freeway chase in 1994. Michaels, a sports commentator now covering the flight from the law of one of America’s biggest celebrities, said that he had spoken with his friend Simpson on the phone earlier. “Al,” Michaels recalled him saying, “I have got to get out of the media business.”For a man who was about to be arrested and charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, it was an odd statement. But it was accurate. Simpson, during and after his pro football career, was a creature of the media business. With the freeway chase, and the acrimonious trial on live TV, he would essentially become the media business. Simpson, who died Wednesday at age 76, was one of the most-seen Americans in history.What did people see when they looked at O.J. Simpson? A superstar, a killer, a hero, a liar, a victim, an abuser, an insider, a pariah — often many of these at once. In his fame and infamy, he was an example of what celebrity could make of a person and a symbol of what the media could make of a country.Simpson’s football career made him a TV star in itself, as he became the first N.F.L. running back to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season, with the Buffalo Bills. But he found his way into mass-market stardom during the commercial breaks, doing endorsements for RC Cola, Chevrolet and, most famously, Hertz rental cars.Simpson was a star for the Buffalo Bills, but endorsements dramatically increased his fame.Getty ImagesAs the documentary “O.J.: Made in America” would later detail, race was a subtext of Simpson’s fame, even in his pitchman days. There was a sense of social relief in having white America, after the civil-rights battles of the 1960s, embrace a charismatic Black star. It felt good for the country to like O.J.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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    What to Watch This Weekend: A Food-Fantasy Anime

    “Delicious in Dungeon” on Netflix combines the aesthetic pleasures of anime with the food-nerd pleasures of Serious Eats.A scene from “Delicious in Dungeon.” Yes, they eat that mushroom.Netflix“Delicious in Dungeon,” a magical-quest saga with a gleeful emphasis on cooking and biology, combines the aesthetic, kinetic pleasures of anime with the food-nerd pleasures of Serious Eats. First we find the kraken, then we slay the kraken, then we practice safety in handling seafood, then we learn about parasites and the cooking methods that kill them, then we eat.So far 15 episodes of the show, based on the manga by Ryoko Kui, are on Netflix, with new installments arriving Thursdays. As with many adventures that include cloaks and swords, “Dungeon” (in Japanese, with subtitles or dubbed) follows a ragtag crew. The angelic Falin has been eaten by the Red Dragon, and now her brother, Laios, and friends Marcille and Chilchuck are determined to find the dragon, slay it and rescue her before she can be completely digested. Along the way, Laios and friends meet Senshi, a gruff and bearded dwarf who is a gifted chef and knowledgeable ecologist. They decide that their journey will also include eating all the monsters they encounter — and lo, they encounter many monsters, including plants, fungi, creatures and spirits.How ought one truss the chicken half of a half-chicken, half-snake basilisk? How can mud-based golems be repurposed as cabbage gardens? What are the gnarly ethics of eating demi-human creatures? “Dungeon” shines as food-fantasy reverie, with Senshi explaining both the physiology of magical creatures and outlining the tastiest methods for preparing them. Cook those coin-bugs belly-side down, and make sure to swing your jar of holy water through several ghosts to get the creamiest sorbet.Anyone who has ever pored over a map at the beginning of a fantasy book or wished Wookieepedia included more about the food chain will find ample pleasures here. “World-building” is too mild a term to describe the scope of detail in every episode of “Dungeon,” though I do wish Netflix offered more-detailed translations of the many, many diagrams. The lush score and rich, evocative visual language add a sense of grandeur and occasional maturity to the show that the narrative and dialogue can’t generate on their own.I could take or leave the broad plot of “Delicious in Dungeon,” but the charms of all its little asides add up. A montage of Marcille finally convincing Senshi to bathe is so poignant and darling I watched it twice, and all the ways animation can convey tastiness make even the most indulgent live-action food shows seem barren in comparison. More

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    There’s a Bright Spot in New York Theater. It’s Not Where You Think.

    Commercial Off Broadway, a long-dormant sector of the city’s theater economy, is having a banner season. But can it last?Broadway is struggling through a postpandemic funk, squeezed between higher production costs and lower audience numbers just as a bevy of new shows set sail into those fierce headwinds. At the same time, New York’s Off Broadway nonprofits, long essential seedbeds for many of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, are shedding staff, programming and even real estate.But there is an unexpected bright spot this season. Commercial Off Broadway, a small sector of New York’s theatrical economy and one that has for years been somewhere between difficult and dormant, is back in business.“Oh, Mary!,” a madcap comedy that imagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a daffy alcoholic, is selling out nightly at a 295-seat theater in the West Village, and is likely to transfer to Broadway this summer. Eddie Izzard’s solo “Hamlet” did well enough at a 199-seat theater in Greenwich Village that it relocated to a 349-seat house in the East Village, and next is planning runs in Chicago and London.A commercial revival of “Danny and the Deep Blue Sea,” an early John Patrick Shanley play about two misfits who meet at a Bronx bar, had a profitable run downtown this season thanks to its two stars, Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott. A new play, “Job,” featuring two “Succession” alums, rode word-of-mouth to profitability, and is also exploring a Broadway transfer.Ticket seekers waited in the cancellation line before a recent performance of “Oh, Mary!” at the Lucille Lortel Theater.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesAnd a pair of good-time musicals, “Little Shop of Horrors” and “Titanique,” have settled in for open-ended Off Broadway runs.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 Mocks Arizona’s Abortion Law

    “That is crazy — but remember it’s Arizona, so it’s a dry crazy,” Stephen Colbert said of the state’s 160-year-old ban on abortion, newly reinstated.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.Hazing ArizonaThe Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday reinstated a law from 1864 banning nearly all abortions in the state.Stephen Colbert called it “a law so old that it was passed before women had the right to vote.”“To which the Arizona Supreme Court said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll work on that one next.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That is crazy — but remember it’s Arizona, so it’s a dry crazy.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“1864? Was anybody even there yet? Was this their first law right after Don’t Shoot the Piano Player?” — SETH MEYERS“States can enforce laws written before they were even states? Does that mean any state in the Louisiana Purchase is now subject to the laws of 18th-century France? If you steal a loaf of bread in Baton Rouge, you’ll be sentenced to 19 years in jail, and they’ll write a musical about you?” — SETH MEYERS, referring to “Les Miserables”The Punchiest Punchlines (‘Simon & Joefunkel’ Edition)The White House state dinner for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan also got some attention from the hosts.“You know Joe Biden — his state dinners are a little different than the usual. For one thing, they start at 4:30., and you can only get in if you have a Groupon.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The musical entertainment for the event was Paul Simon, which is — that’s a good one. That’s big. Trump was lucky to get the surviving members of O-Town for one of his state dinners, but Japan got an evening of Simon & Joefunkel.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, Biden got to eat dinner with a performance from Paul Simon. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris had to sit through a lunch with Art Garfunkel.” — JIMMY FALLON“So of course Paul Simon kicked off his old hit, ‘Me and Fumio Down by the Schoolyard.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingVampire Weekend performed their new song “Mary Boone” on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe Norwegian singer-songwriter girl in red is the musical guest on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutThe Indigo Girls, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, were routinely mocked for being too earnest, too poetic, too folky, too lesbian. OscilloscopeThe Indigo Girls opened up their archives for “It’s Only Life After All,” a new career-spanning documentary about the folk-rock music duo. More

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    It’s April on Broadway. This Man Wants to Sell You on a Show.

    Rick Miramontez, a veteran theater press agent, is gearing up for the craziest stretch of the Broadway season.Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at what the spring has in store for Rick Miramontez, a leading Broadway press agent.Gabby Jones for The New York TimesRick Miramontez is both a night owl and an early bird.He has to be. As the president of DKC/O&M, the theatrical public relations agency he founded in 2006, he is always on call. His agency represents eight shows currently running on Broadway, including “Hadestown” and “MJ.”And the nine-day stretch from April 17 to 25 — when 12 plays and musicals will open by the cutoff date to be eligible for Tony Award nominations — is the equivalent of the theatrical Super Bowl.“It’s absolutely seven days a week right now,” Miramontez said in a recent phone conversation from his office, which sits in a penthouse on West 39th Street above the Drama Book Shop.April is always a busy time for Broadway openings. Like the crush of Oscar hopefuls that open in late December, productions want to open as close as possible to the Tonys deadline to be fresh in the minds of nominators and voters. Tony nominations will be announced on April 30, and the televised awards show takes place on June 16.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