Eliana Willis

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    ‘Art Detectives’ Is Good Nerdy Fun

    Murder? Of course. But this British series also gets excited about things like Viking gold, Chinese artifacts and Dutch master paintings.“Art Detectives,” on Acorn TV, is another strong cozy-nerdy procedural, this time oriented around murders connected to arts and culture. Stephen Moyer stars as Detective Inspector Mick Palmer, the sole member of the Heritage Crime Unit and a knowledgeable, passionate, observant dork. In the pilot, he recruits a devoted underling, Detective Constable Shazia Malik (Nina Singh), a young cop whose potential he spots and whose shabby boss he abhors.Each episode opens with a jazzy little murder vignette, and then Palmer and Malik show up to educate us all about Viking gold or Chinese artifacts. Given that Palmer is an art cop, perhaps it is no surprise that his dad (Larry Lamb) is an art criminal — a forger in particular, and also a real absentee dirtbag. Their relationship and Palmer’s grief and abandonment issues form the serial story line of the show.But the fun here is in the episodic aspects, and “Art Detectives” has a good time in the worlds of, for example, wine fraud and Titanic collectibles. Most of the mysteries here include one more minor twist at the end, an additional motive for the murder that the detectives misunderstood or a connection between the suspects that they missed. This helps the show feel more special than just another chug-along “Murder, She Wrote” descendant, a little richer, a little more adorned. The show is conscious of its own predictability, so it makes the most of its surprises.Many detective shows center on an investigator who is so dang quirky that his or her quirk is the defining feature of the show. But “Art Detectives” is a little brighter and realer than that. Palmer is not some alienated, frigid genius, nor is Malik his trusty people-whisperer. Palmer is an occasionally awkward smart guy who loves art and history. He flirts with his curator romantic interest (Sarah Alexander) over 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons and impresses collectors with his knowledge of rare books. For a while there, a lot of cop shows were horny for murder; “Art Detectives” prefers culture. Ooo, talk Dutch masters to me.Four of the season’s six episodes are available now, with new installments arriving on Mondays. More

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    How Much Do Celebrities Make From Fashion Deals?

    And what’s in it for the brands? As the industry’s model for working with public figures shifts, the power dynamics are becoming increasingly unclear.On Friday in Paris, the Northern Irish designer Jonathan Anderson will show his first collection as the creative director of the French fashion house Dior. During his previous, 11-year tenure as the creative director of the Spanish brand Loewe, Anderson became known for his avant-garde sensibility and dedication to craft — but also for his unique ability to turn the internet’s so-called boyfriends (those young actors and musicians who are lusted over online with possessive familiarity) into bona fide celebrities.In the front row of Anderson’s fall 2024 Loewe men’s wear show in Paris were the established actors Jamie Dornan, Andrew Garfield and Nicholas Hoult, but also, seated with equal prominence, emerging ones, including Drew Starkey, who was set to star in “Queer” (the 2024 Luca Guadagnino movie for which Anderson oversaw the costumes), and Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, who would soon appear as romantic leads in Guadagnino’s film “Challengers,” a film that helped them reach mainstream heartthrob status, and with which Anderson was also involved as a costume designer. The following June, at Anderson’s final Loewe men’s runway show, the rising actors Kit Connor, Evan Peters and Enzo Vogrincic sat front row — suggesting, based on the strength of the designer’s track record, that they too would also soon become leading men. For Loewe, it was a display of cultural currency; for the actors, it was free publicity.It used to be that an association with a brand was, if not a career-killer, then certainly not chic for an actor. It was hard to be taken seriously as both an artist and a de facto fashion model. But in recent decades, the rise of social media and the expansion of the fashion industry have blurred the lines between model, actor and influencer. Back in the 1980s, the Italian fashion house Armani began dressing Hollywood celebrities, including, most notably, Richard Gere for his role in the 1980 movie “American Gigolo.” But gone are the days when one megastar served as a company’s global face. Today brands adopt a multitiered system of ambassadors that includes international stars, yes, but also up-and-comers and influencers. While these cliques are often described by their members and parent brands as “family,” and frequently represent a genuine affinity, they are also carefully constructed to maximize a company’s exposure on red carpets and billboards — but also very specific corners of TikTok. Now, as this business decision solidifies into standard practice, the question is, Who ultimately wields the power, the celebrities or the brands?Until 2010, “a few brands had ambassadors, but it was mainly for fragrance,” says Ben Cercio, the founder of a consulting agency specializing in brand strategy and communications with clients including the French fashion house Givenchy. But with the launch of Instagram that year, a shift occurred: companies began to engage not just with major actors but also with “microinfluencers” — online personalities with less than 100,000 followers — to reach their audiences early on. And because social media has accelerated the rise to fame, whenever a new talent in any field emerges from the crowd, “every brand wants to get its hands on them,” says Cercio. Now an ingénue like the actress Mikey Madison, who starred in last year’s “Anora,” might have a dozen offers from brands immediately after making a buzzy debut at a festival like Cannes, suggesting that it’s often the young actors, rather than the brands, who are in control. When Madison accepted her Oscar for best lead actress in March, she wore a custom look from Dior.A Calvin Klein billboard featuring the actor Jeremy Allen White in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, photographed in 2024.© Richard B. Levine/AlamyWe 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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    Lynne Meadow, Who Led Manhattan Theater Club for 53 Years, Is Stepping Down

    Lynne Meadow was just 25 when she took a job running the Off Off Broadway Manhattan Theater Club. Now the nonprofit is a major player on and off Broadway.Lynne Meadow, the last of the long-serving artistic directors who for decades led the four nonprofits with Broadway theaters, plans to step down from her current position, she said in an interview.Meadow, 78, has served as artistic director of Manhattan Theater Club since 1972, and by her own count has produced or presented more than 600 shows, making her one of the most prolific and successful figures in the American theater. Among the successes: the repeatedly extended Lynn Nottage play “Ruined,” which won a Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2009, and Jonathan Spector’s “Eureka Day,” which won a Tony Award earlier this month.She said she will stay with the organization as an artistic adviser, but that a search for a new artistic director is already underway.Her move will follow that of André Bishop, whose 33-year run leading Lincoln Center Theater ends next week; Carole Rothman, who in 2023 ended a 45-year tenure atop Second Stage Theater; and Todd Haimes, who died in 2023 after running Roundabout Theater Company for 40 years.The departures mean that, after decades of constancy, a new generation of leaders will oversee the nonprofit presence on Broadway. These institutions, which together control six of the 41 Broadway theaters, over the years have been an important ballast for the industry, preserving a place for new plays, risky work and large-orchestra musical revivals during periods when those types of projects have been less appealing to commercial producers.“I’m doing this because I feel that the timing is right to do this — there are things that I want to do,” Meadow said. “I’m not tired, and I’m not bored, and I’m not depressed, but I’m excited for Chapter 2.”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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    ‘Squid Game’ Is Back for Its Final Season. Here’s What to Remember

    Only six months have passed since the Season 2 premiere, but there was plenty to keep track of. Here’s a quick look at where things left off.When “Squid Game,” a dystopian drama from South Korea, debuted on Netflix in September 2021, few could have predicted its outsize success. It swiftly became the streamer’s most-watched show, snagged Emmy wins for its director and star and spawned a reality game series and countless Halloween costumes.And while fans had to wait three long years between Seasons 1 and 2, the third and final season — arriving on Friday in its entirety — comes just six months after viewers last checked in with the hapless contestants, who must compete for both cash and their lives. Filmed back to back, Season 3 picks up right where Season 2 left off — with the heroes’ would-be mutiny quashed and their futures precarious.For those with short memories, here’s a quick refresher on how we got here.It’s all fun and games until someone losesThe first season introduced the contest, in which down-on-their-luck contestants vie for riches on a remote, secret island by competing in children’s schoolyard games like “Red Light, Green Light” and “Tug of War.” The twist? Losers in each round are killed (typically, in a hail of gunfire), a wrinkle that is revealed only after the first game begins. Uber-rich spectators watch the proceedings for sport, and in a pointed commentary about the value of human life, each death adds to the overall pot awarded to the last person standing — as much as 45.6 billion South Korean won, or about $38 million.That winner, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), an affable gambler estranged from his young daughter, emerged from the arena with heavy pockets and an even heavier heart. In the final moments of Season 1, haunted by what he had seen and done, he abandoned his plans to reunite with his daughter, choosing instead to put a stop to the game.Forging alliances outside the game …Among the many things we learned in Season 2 about Front Man (Lee Byung-hun) was that he is Jun-ho’s brother.No Ju-han/NetflixAt the beginning of Season 2, Gi-hun had been searching for two years for evidence of the game and its elusive Front Man (the contest’s puppet master, played by Lee Byung-hun), which he hoped to present to the authorities. He eventually teamed with Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun), the resourceful cop who infiltrated the game to look for his missing brother, only to be shot and plunge off a cliff into the sea by the Front Man at the end of Season 1. In a plot twist, the Front Man is Jun-ho’s brother, In-ho, but Jun-ho has not shared this information with Gi-hun or the police force he works for.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 Ponders the Possibility of a Millennial Mayor of New York

    Jimmy Fallon imagined Zohran Mamdani’s reaction to his surprising success in the primary: “My seven roommates are never going to believe this.”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.Young BloodA young state assemblyman, Zohran Mamdani, is likely to be the Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City after stunning former Gov. Andrew Cuomo in a primary election on Tuesday. “My seven roommates are never going to believe this,” Jimmy Fallon imagined the 33-year-old candidate saying on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”“Wow, that’s a good age, ’cause he knows the meaning of both the spending cap and ‘no cap.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Between his campaign and his billionaire-backed super PACs, Cuomo raised over $36 million, while Mamdani relied on volunteers and a relentlessly positive campaign based on issues that affect everyday New Yorkers, like freezing the rent, no-cost child care and free buses. Sounds pretty good. Sounds pretty good — and I, for one, cannot wait to get my free bus. I’m gonna paint mine like the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine and then fight ghost crime.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“According to experts, with this message, Mamdani generated excitement among minority groups and electrified younger voters, while older voters still run on diesel.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Cuomo Edition)“Yesterday was New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary, and former Governor Andrew Cuomo conceded to state Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani. On the bright side for Cuomo, at least he doesn’t have to move to New York City.” — SETH MEYERS“Mamdani won decisively in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, while Andrew Cuomo won Staten Island, the Bronx and the secret sixth borough of Groper’s Island.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“During his concession speech, Cuomo said that Mamdani put together a great campaign and added, ‘He touched young people and inspired them and got them to come out and vote.’ Cuomo’s mistake was waiting until after he was elected to touch young people.” — SETH MEYERS“Yes, that Andrew Cuomo, the same one who sentenced grannies to death in nursing homes during Covid. I guess the senior vote was important after all.” — DANA PERINO, guest host of “Gutfeld”“The same Cuomo who resigned in disgrace and blamed his groping tendencies on being Italian, like he was Super Mario popping Cialis instead of mushrooms.” — DANA PERINOThe Bits Worth WatchingDiego Luna, this week’s guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” and Guillermo Rodriguez tried to cash in on the surge in Americans moving to Mexico with a new business venture, Gring-Go.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay will talk about her intimate new documentary, “My Mom Jayne,” on “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This OutIllustration by Brian ReaModern Love listeners talked about how location sharing has affected their relationships with loved ones. More

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    ‘Lowcountry’ Review: A Flat-Footed First Date

    Abby Rosebrock’s latest offering for Atlantic Theater Company mines fertile ground, but simmers about with nary a sign of tension, sexual or otherwise.There’s exposition, and then there’s a high-debit download like in the opening scene of “Lowcountry,” at Atlantic Theater Company.David (Babak Tafti) is making dinner, changing into clean clothes, neatening things up around his down-at-the-heels studio apartment. All the while he is on the phone with Paul (Keith Kupferer). David is on speaker, so we hear both sides, which allows the playwright Abby Rosebrock to deliver — more or less smoothly — heaps of background information. It also lets the audience seize on the production’s gist: unafraid of melodramatic turns, heavy-handed, often logic-defying.David, we learn, once had to wear an ankle monitor, is involved in a custody battle, is a sex pest and works as a line cook at a Waffle House — a Bojangles takeout bag is another hint that we’re in the South. (The scenic designer Arnulfo Maldonado and the costume designer Sarah Laux do what they can to evoke a guy with more problems than dollars.)On the other end of the line, Paul is David’s sponsor in a recovery program, and his purported concern and care barely hide a whiff of bossy paternalism. With only a disembodied voice, Kupferer, who was superb last year in the acclaimed film “Ghostlight,” injects a vaguely unsettling dimension to his character’s good ol’ boy — or rather good ol’ grandpa — persona. You can almost picture Paul, pacing by his pool on a phone, dispensing support that smells strongly of controlling judgment.Then again, he knows David better than we do. And the younger man, who’s preparing for a first date with a woman he met on Tinder, is, indeed, lying to Paul: He’s not actually going on a picnic — she’s coming to his place for dinner.That Tally (Jodi Balfour, from the series “Ted Lasso” and “For All Mankind”) is willing to meet a stranger at his home rather than in a neutral spot is one of several mysteries bobbing about in her wake. She looks comfortable in her own skin but also leans heavily on self-deprecating jokes that suggest fault lines. She appears forthright, but many of her answers to David’s getting-to-know-you questions are vague, which of course makes them more tantalizing. Tally shares that she was into self-help to deal with the aftermath of “Garden-variety sex stuff and workplace stuff, workplace abuse wage-theft poverty blah blah blah …” Then she coolly informs David that Bill Clinton killed her mother.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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    ‘Trophy Boys’ Review: The Nerds’ Case Against Feminism

    In an Off Broadway play, young men on a high school debate team prepare to argue an uncomfortable case.Has feminism failed women?That’s the uh-oh question facing the Imperium School’s senior debate team when asked to argue the affirmative in the finals of their league competition. But asserting that proposition against the girls from St. Gratia feels deeply uncomfortable to the four teenage boys who make up the team. Worse, it feels like a sure way to lose.And losers are not what Imperium’s debaters, no matter how nerdy, are expected to be. How will they get into Yale or Harvard — or “maybe … like … N.Y.U.?” — if they’re caught defending the patriarchy? How will Owen, their best speaker, run for president one day, as he intends to, with video of him vivisecting feminism in the ether forever?That’s the setup for Emmanuelle Mattana’s “Trophy Boys,” whose title suggests that what’s at stake is more than a contest. Regardless of their protestations of love for their mothers and sisters, the team members are mostly concerned with preserving their privilege as preppies and men. Their feminism is the kind that crumbles the moment it asks something of them beyond lip service.“Trophy Boys,” which opened Wednesday at MCC Theater, addresses their bad faith in many ways but not, alas, in the most important one: a convincing narrative. Mattana begins with satire so broad it’s indistinguishable from burlesque, as the Imperium team arrives at St. Gratia for their power hour of prep time. How stoked they are by the posters of feminist thought leaders — Oprah, Malala, Yoko — plastering the walls! (The classroom set is by Matt Saunders.) “I am at my most inspired when surrounded by inspiring women,” Owen says.Owen is portrayed by the playwright, who has made the casting of female, queer, trans and nonbinary actors “nonnegotiable.” Not that Danya Taymor’s production asks us to read their gray flannel, blue blazer, repp tie drag as real. (The costumes are by Márion Talán de la Rosa.) Especially when they roughhouse, leaping on desks and licking their notebooks, the cast overplays the characters’ youthfulness, making them seem less like a delivery system for gender commentary than a cartoon version of “Newsies.”But if those choices take some of the sting out of the boys’ masculine cluelessness and bro-y vulgarity, they also amp up the ambient camp. Jared (Louisa Jacobson) is a sendup of WASP obliviousness, disowning his advantages while pulling a gold watch and Tesla keys from his backpack. Scott (Esco Jouléy) is clearly in love with him, even as he overcompensates with casually sexist remarks. And David (Terry Hu) is an arrogant incel whose most salient contribution to feminism is calling his father a cuck.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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    Broadway Musical ‘Boop’ Set to Close Amid Weak Ticket Sales

    ‘Boop! The Musical’ imagines the cartoon character leaving 1920s filmdom for 2020s New York City. Ticket sales were weak.“Boop! The Musical,” based on the iconic flapper from early animated shorts, announced on Wednesday that it would close July 13 after failing to find sufficient audience to defray its running costs on Broadway.The show is the fourth new musical to post a closing notice in the 17 days since the Tony Awards, following “Smash,” “Real Women Have Curves” and “Dead Outlaw.”“Boop!” had a disappointing Tonys season — it was not nominated for best musical, and its request to perform on the awards show was rebuffed. It was nominated for best lead actress (Jasmine Amy Rogers), best choreography (Jerry Mitchell) and best costume design (Gregg Barnes) but won no awards.The show’s weekly grosses, consistently too low, ticked upward last week, but remain well below its running costs. During the week that ended June 22, “Boop!” grossed $602,017, and 19 percent of the seats went unsold.The musical began previews March 11 and opened on April 5 at the Broadhurst Theater. At the time of its closing, it will have played 25 previews and 112 regular performances.Set primarily in New York City, the musical imagines that Betty Boop, an actress in films of the 1920s, time travels to present-day Manhattan seeking a greater sense of her self; in the city she finds friendship, love and clarity.The musical, led by the veteran producer Bill Haber, had been in development for more than a quarter century, with shifting creative teams, and had a pre-Broadway production in Chicago in 2023. The version that finally made it to Broadway has a book by Bob Martin, music by David Foster, and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead; it is directed as well as choreographed by Mitchell.Reviews were mostly positive. But in The New York Times, the critic Jesse Green was unenthusiastic, praising Rogers’s performance and other elements of the show, but questioning its rationale, saying that “a well-crafted, charmingly performed, highly professional production that nobody asked for” is “disappointing,” and that “one feels at all times the heavy hooves of a marketing imperative.”“Boop!” was capitalized for up to $26 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That money — the amount it cost to finance the show’s development — has not been recouped. More