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    In ‘The New Look,’ It’s Chanel Versus Dior in War-Torn Paris

    Juliette Binoche and Ben Mendelsohn play the two fashion icons during the Nazi occupation of France in a new series from Apple TV+.In “The New Look,” an Apple TV+ show premiering Feb. 14, wine glasses are never empty, cigarettes are always half-smoked and everyone is thin. The series follows two titans of French fashion, Christian Dior and Coco Chanel, after all, toward the end of World War II.But this glamorous portrayal of Paris’s creative milieu is also interested in how the French elite collaborated with their Nazi occupiers during this contested period. It offers a startling throwback to a time when swastika-stamped flags hung over the streets of Paris. From 1940 to 1944, the French Vichy regime collaborated with the Nazis and deported over 70,000 Jews to death camps, sent French workers to Germany and tried to crush the French resistance.The show’s main action starts in 1943. Chanel (played by Juliette Binoche), a star of French fashion, is living at the Ritz Hotel, which was then a Nazi headquarter, where she hosts her boyfriend, the German spy Hans Günther von Dincklage (Claes Bang).“Chanel was an excellent survivor,” said Binoche, sitting on a couch in the wood-paneled bar at the Hotel Regina Louvre, which stood in for the Ritz on the show. Binoche — wearing a white shirt layered with a black bustier, tie and pants — said she read several biographies of the designer to prepare for the role, and was impressed by how Chanel’s creativity and business savvy took her from childhood poverty to the top of the European elite.Binoche and Ben Mendelsohn, who plays Christian Dior, at the Hotel Regina Louvre in Paris, where several scenes from were shot.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesPlaying the character in this period of her life was challenging, the actress added, because “there’s so many layers of gray going on.” On the show, we see Chanel invoking Vichy’s Aryan laws in a failed bid to eject her Jewish business partners from the company. She travels to Madrid at the request of an S.S. general in a bizarre attempt to broker peace between Germany and Britain (Winston Churchill, whom she knew personally, declines to meet).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 Nikki Haley’s Big Loss in Nevada

    “Nikki Haley’s campaign message is ‘Nobody’s better than me,’ and Nevada agreed,” Stephen Colbert said after Tuesday’s presidential primary.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.‘Second to None’The Nevada presidential primaries took place on Tuesday, with Nikki Haley as the only candidate listed on the Republican ballot.Stephen Colbert called the primary “a big chance for her to spark some Nikk-mania,” but Haley came through with only 30 percent of the vote, losing to the option “None of these candidates.”“Nikki Haley’s campaign message is ‘Nobody’s better than me,’ and Nevada agreed.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“She also lost to Nevada candidates ‘Not feelin’ it today’ and ‘Gonna be a no from me, dawg.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You know how they say, ‘You’re second to none?’ She finished second to none.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I like the idea that people took time to wait in line to vote for ‘None of these candidates.’ That’s like going to the Wendy’s drive-through and yelling, ‘Nothing for me, thanks!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I don’t know what the opposite of momentum is, but I know Haley’s got it.” — SETH MEYERS“Even worse, she actually came in third behind ‘None of these candidates’ and ‘No, seriously, not you, Nikki.’” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Tucker Takes Russia Edition)“Tucker Carlson still doesn’t have a job. He’s in Moscow — house hunting, I hope.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced yesterday that he will interview Russian President Vladimir Putin. And while they may not speak the same language, they also kind of do.” — SETH MEYERS“As for why he chose Putin, it’s pretty simple — Hitler’s dead.” — SETH MEYERS“Today, the Kremlin confirmed that Tucker Carlson has interviewed Vladimir Putin. You can tell the interview went over well, ’cause Tucker is still alive.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Tucker Carlson interviewing Vladimir Putin may not be, uh, mean much to you, but for Trump, this is like watching OnlyFans.” — JIMMY FALLON“Vladimir Putin — he’s a murderer, he’s a war criminal, he hates America, he hates everything America stands for, he’s a liar and a propagandist, but Tuck thinks we just need to hear him out.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” the creator and star of “Abbott Elementary,” Quinta Brunson, responded to Daniel Radcliffe’s saying they could be a good “height match” for a romantic comedy film.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightMariska Hargitay will celebrate 25 years of “Law & Order: SVU” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutA well-dressed visitor to “Giants” takes a photo of Jamel Shabazz’s “Fly Girl, Brownsville, Brooklyn, NYC,” 1980; and “Rude Boy, Brooklyn, NYC,” 1981, at the opening night party.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesA new show at the Brooklyn Museum exhibits art from the collection of musical power couple Alicia Keys and Swizz Beats. More

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    ‘Bark of Millions’ Review: Taylor Mac’s Rock Opera at BAM

    If Taylor Mac and Matt Ray’s four-hour rock opera were aiming to succeed on aural gorgeousness and visual spectacle alone, there would be no cause to quibble.Somewhere close to the four-hour mark in “Bark of Millions,” the polychromatic cavalcade of splendor that is Taylor Mac and Matt Ray’s new rock opera, I finally realized why the woman in front of me had been reading on her phone throughout the performance. And why she had looked at me like I was way out of line when I couldn’t bear the glowing screen any longer, leaned forward and implored her to stop.The words on her phone were excerpts from the show’s lyrics, a free digital version of the printed fan deck on sale at concessions. More than 50 songs in, she was grasping at that text in an attempt to follow along. Because the great frustration of “Bark of Millions,” which continues through Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, is that there are far too many songs in which the music drowns out the lyrics, making the meaning a bafflement. (Sound design is by Brendan Aanes.) In those moments, time decelerates.If “Bark of Millions” were aiming to succeed on aural gorgeousness and visual spectacle alone, there would be no cause to quibble. Those are plentiful in Ray’s genre-hopping music, richly interpreted by the band he directs, and in Machine Dazzle’s ingeniously odd costumes, such as the sparkly pastel number in which Mac begins the evening, looking like Weird Barbie as an acid-tinged sprite, dressed for Versailles by way of ’60s Vegas.But Mac’s vivid, often poetic lyrics are not incidental. In the creation of the score, they were the starting point, each of the 55 songs inspired by a figure in queer history. It is a mosaic of a show, inherently political in its affirmation of queer heritage and community, though as Mac tells the audience, it is not a history lesson: “We beg you not to Google in your seats.”From left, Jack Fuller, Mama Alto and Thornetta Davis.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesStill, there are degrees of mystery, and I do not believe that “Bark of Millions” — which Mac, its principal director, describes aptly in a program note as “an opera-concert-song-cycle-musical-performance-art-piece-play” — means to leave us so much in the dark.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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    Mary Todd Lincoln, Thwarted Cabaret Star? That’s Cole Escola’s Take.

    “Oh, Mary!,” which follows a boozing, romance-starved first lady, is the latest entertainment about the Lincolns, illustrating their staying power as irreverent genre figures.It’s hard to pin down the moment in “Oh, Mary!,” a comedy about Mary Todd Lincoln, that will send Lincoln scholars and purists into apoplexy. It could be when the first lady disastrously auditions for a role in “Our American Cousin,” the play at which John Wilkes Booth would later shoot her husband on April 14, 1865. Or when the deeply closeted Lincoln is orally pleasured at his desk. Maybe the puke-drinking scene?There have been walkouts.“I’ve seen people at the box office who seem to think this is really a play about Abraham Lincoln, and I feel a little bad, but it’s also funny,” Cole Escola, the show’s writer and star, said in a recent phone interview.“Oh, Mary!”: It sounds like a catty dramedy set at a pre-Stonewall gay bar, or maybe an alt-cabaret tribute to Jackée Harry and her chirpy signature greeting on the 1980s sitcom “227.”“Oh, Mary!,” of course, is not about gay bars or Jackée Harry, but it is just as camp: The former first lady is presented as a bubbleheaded alcoholic, and she is the latest put-upon woman to enchant Escola. (The show opens on Thursday and continues through March 24 at Off Broadway’s Lucille Lortel Theater.)Far from being a student of the Lincolns, Escola, who is nonbinary, said they only started reading “a few cursory” things about Mary Todd Lincoln about three weeks ago.“I wish I had done any research,” they said. “But I wanted to write the show for an audience who had the same third-grade understanding that I do.” (“I just wanted to wear the costume,” Escola deadpan confesses in an Instagram video.)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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    ESPN, Fox and Others to Launch Sports Streaming Service: What to Know

    The joint venture announced by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will offer a lot, but it may not be enough on its own for serious fans.Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday that they would join together and sell access to all of the sports they televise through a new streaming service. It will be available this fall, but many other details, like price or who would run the service, are not yet known.The subtext of the agreement — and of most decisions media companies make — is that the cable bundle is collapsing. A decade ago, about 100 million homes in the United States subscribed to a package of cable or satellite television channels. Today, that number is around 70 million, and dropping.Media companies know that young adults no longer sign up for cable, and that their best customers are also their oldest. They know people no longer think of “television,” but are instead used to “content” that can be watched on a television, a phone or some other device.Cable’s days seem numbered but right now it is still a profitable business — streaming, for most companies, is not — and the biggest audiences for shows, especially sports, still exist on traditional television. So how do media companies get from where they are today to where they are going to be?With, they hope, deals like the one announced this week.How does it work?Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery have bundled 14 of their channels that show sports — the full list includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNews, Fox, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, Big Ten Network, TNT, TBS and truTV — and the ESPN+ streaming service, and will sell them as a single package.How much will it cost?That was not announced. But you can expect it to cost more than the $15 or so a month that most streaming companies charge, and less than the $100 or so it costs each month to subscribe to a pay television package. Ads will be shown on the new service.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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    The Best Laughs on ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Have Always Been Larry’s Own

    For almost 25 years, Larry David has charmed us with his knowing mischief and endearing jolliness.As the creator and star of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David has been ambling in and out of view for almost 25 years, playing a version of himself whose odyssey is now winding to a close: This month, the show began its 12th and final season, concluding a run that started in the last days of the Clinton administration. David has also, in a more colloquial sense, played himself. “Curb” sends up his celebrity, rendering him a tetchy caricature whose showbiz success has granted him time enough at last to enjoy the pettier things in life. This “Larry” is a gadfly who goads others, and himself, into fits of rancor. Yet he’s also gregarious, the type for whom every car ride is an occasion to discuss, say, the serenity of gardeners or a possible link between the words “yoga” and “yogurt.” In “Curb,” discomfort has always been made tolerable by such frivolity, and by the knowing mischief of David’s performance. At its heart is the signature of David’s screen persona: his own irrepressible laughter. “I am laughing constantly when we’re shooting,” David once said in an interview with the journalist Bill Carter. He extemporizes a lot too: The actors on “Curb” largely improvise their way through scenes, following basic outlines. This accounts for the show’s charming strangeness, its relaxed approach to dialogue and narrative incident. As one of the show’s executive producers, Jeff Schaffer, recently explained, David “wants to be surprised” while filming — and if his reactions “seem like real laughs, they’re real laughs, because Larry’s hearing it for the first time, too.”In other shows, these moments might constitute “breaking,” disruptions to the reality of the scene that are usually edited out. On “Curb,” too, many of David’s reactions have become outtakes. But some remain in the show itself, roiling its mixture of absurdities and half-truths. There is an artful, unstudied naturalism to David’s acting, which makes the boundaries between real laughs and stylized ones elusive. The viewer looks for a telltale sign, some jolt of spontaneity — which is just what David’s most authentic laughs provide. At such moments he’s still Larry David, tactless noter of peccadilloes. But you can also detect an overlapping spectacle: Larry David himself, openly appreciating the comedic inventions of his scene partners. Or even, sometimes, his own. In Season 4, we watch him rehearse how he might request some baseball tickets from a friend whose father recently passed away. “I know you’re still in mourning,” he begins — but he’s quickly cut off by the familiar sound of his own chortling, a kind of protracted, gut-punch wheeze.His biggest reactions combine the toothy luster of dentistry ads with the unstoppable giddiness common to pot-addled youths. The only inducement he needs is a bit of banter. In Season 7, Jerry Seinfeld, with whom David famously created a hit sitcom, guest-stars as himself. After overhearing the clamor of David’s urination, a baffled Seinfeld registers his astonishment: “I’ve never heard a — a stream like that.” David’s response: an eruption of hearty, jaw-trembling laughter. His laughter is so robust, so distinct, that other stars trade stories and impressions. “He laughs so hard at stuff,” the actor Bill Hader once marveled on Conan O’Brien’s podcast. “Like if you just started yanking on the cord of a ventriloquist dummy, up and down,” O’Brien replied. “That’s his laugh.” The same endearing jolliness distinguished “Seinfeld.” In his own self-performance, Seinfeld often seemed delighted by his colleagues, and by the ridiculous opportunities the show afforded its cast. He made many scenes funnier simply by acknowledging their silliness. In one episode, he cannot keep a straight face while being scolded by an improbably intense “library investigations officer.” Nor can he hide his smile in “The Diplomat’s Club” as his supposedly harried character announces that he is “freaking out.” There’s a difference between a thoughtfully airy performance and a carelessly bad one, and in both “Curb” and “Seinfeld,” a measure of informality becomes something felicitous. Each show offers up endless varieties of pique and mendacity — all of which you learn to laugh off. Seinfeld and David do not anchor their shows so much as cut the ropes and let them drift free. 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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    The Vocal Coach Who Keeps Broadway (and Patti LuPone) in Tune

    “She saved my career,” Patti LuPone said of this indispensable vocal therapist and coach whose clients include Madonna and Billy Porter.For 41 years, Joan Lader has rented a slender studio apartment just west of Union Square in Manhattan. Through its door, a narrow entryway leads to a doll-size bathroom and an efficiency kitchen. In the main space, where a visitor might expect to find a bed, Lader has arranged the instruments of her trade — a piano, a keyboard, balance balls, straws, a box of tissues, a skeleton in a jaunty hat.Lader has never advertised, never solicited clients. But for two generations of Broadway stars, as well as dozens of opera singers and pop and rock luminaries, she remains an indispensable vocal therapist and vocal coach. She even received a Tony Award in 2016 for excellence in theater.And while proper breathing is fundamental to her practice, she has scarcely paused for breath since that award. She continues to work seven hours each day, seven days a week. (“I wish she would take a break,” Patti LuPone, a longtime student, told me.) For Lader, 77, the work is her calling, a synthesis of artistry, science and according to her clients and fans, something akin to magic.“I’ve called her a witch in front of people, many times,” the music director Rob Fisher said. “I’ve never seen anybody else do the hocus-pocus that she sometimes does.”The composer Tom Kitt can nearly always tell when a singer has been working with Lader. “They have opened up in the beautiful way,” he said. “They are empowered, and they feel confident.”I met Lader on a wintry afternoon last month. She had struggled to find time to see me, but a cancellation had opened a narrow window in her schedule. She showed me into her space, noting the eight-inch soundproofing along the wall that borders the apartment next door. “Cats” paid for that, she said.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 Cheers Donald Trump’s Rejected Absolute Immunity Claim

    “It was a devastating moment for Trump, especially when Melania started clapping,” 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.Immunity DeniedOn Tuesday, a federal appeals court rejected former President Donald Trump’s claims that executive immunity protected him from criminal charges related to subverting the 2020 election.“I mean, kind of a bummer because poor guy drank all that bleach for nothing,” Jimmy Kimmel said.“OK, so he doesn’t have immunity, but after all these trials, he must have built up some antibodies.” — SETH MEYERS“The three-judge panel shot down his arguments in a strongly worded 57-page ruling. It was a devastating moment for Trump, especially when Melania started clapping.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump’s campaign said that he respectfully disagrees with the ruling. Although, if Trump knew to respectfully disagree with a loss, he wouldn’t be on trial in the first place.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Speaking to the Manager Edition)“And now Trump plans on going to the Supreme Court. And if he loses there, he plans on going to Brazil.” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course, he will now appeal to the Supreme Court, which is the legal equivalent of, ‘Well, then, I want to speak to your manager.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The Supreme Court hasn’t announced if they’ll hear the case, but Clarence Thomas announced that he’d like an Apple Vision Pro and Super Bowl tickets if they do.” — JIMMY FALLON“According to a new poll from CNN, a majority of Americans want to see a verdict in the Jan. 6 case before they vote in the election. It’s vitally important that we find out whether the former president did what we all saw him do on television or not.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe journalist and “Late Show” guest Joy Reid told Stephen Colbert what she learned about courage while researching her new book, “Medgar and Myrlie.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightSheryl Lee Ralph will discuss the new season of “Abbott Elementary” with Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutTracy Chapman making a rare public appearance to perform her 1988 song “Fast Car” with the country singer Luke Combs at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night.Amy Sussman/Getty ImagesTracy Chapman’s return to the Grammy stage on Sunday has fans wondering where she’s been and when they’ll hear more from her. More