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    What to Watch This Weekend: Catch Up on ‘The Curse’

    The second-to-last episode of this cringe dramedy starring Emma Stone, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie arrives this weekend. There’s still time to watch before the season finale.Nathan Fielder and Emma Stone in a scene from Episode 5 of “The Curse.”Richard Foreman Jr./A24“The Curse,” a nightmare-tinted drama about aspiring HGTV hosts, starring Nathan Fielder, Emma Stone and Benny Safdie, is approaching its finale; the show’s ninth of 10 episodes arrives this weekend: Friday on Paramount+ and Sunday at 9 p.m., on Showtime. The show’s discomfort is so intense it becomes mythical, its white awkwardness so potent that those in its blast zone question reality.The show centers on Whitney (Stone) and Asher (Fielder), a brittle couple trying to sell a show called “Fliplanthropy” under the tortured guidance of Asher’s former bully turned reality producer, Dougie (Safdie, who could repurpose both costume and demeanor to play the disgraced megachurch leader in a recent Hulu documentary). Whitney is the heiress to her parents’ slumlord fortune, a fact she pretends to distance herself from but can’t quite. Asher is her largely dutiful acolyte whose strained encounter with a Black little girl in a parking lot ends with her declaring, “I curse you.”Does your culture believe in curses, Asher asks her father, Abshir (Barkhad Abdi). No, he says. “But if you put an idea in your head, it can become very real.” That’s one of the pillars of the show, this self-imposed reality of imagination. Whitney believes people want her arty, eco-friendly “passive” houses, though no one really does. Asher starts to believe he really is cursed, the rare character to recite Shabbat prayers and also experience backyard stigmata. If you see yourself as a savior, doesn’t everyone look like someone desperate for saving?A lot of art centers on a similar idea, that perception and fate are often the same. Where “The Curse” becomes more interesting is its exploration of the inverse — that when you take an idea out of your head, it can become very surreal. The jokes Asher scripts for himself become, in performance, tortured and grotesque rather than just flat. Whitney thinks her chiropractor could help Abshir with his neck pain, and when put into action, the result is as disturbing as any horror movie. Dougie nudges Whitney to envision the show with a more cynical, Bravo-ish tone, and suddenly a disenchanted cruelty springs forth, like a summoned demon.The line between surrealism and revulsion is often thin, and on “The Curse,” that emerges most often as “recontextualizing” — which the characters themselves discuss as an artistic concept and vaguely mock. But a loss of context is what drives some of the most jarring facets of the show: A heap of poached chicken would be normal and welcome in a packaged meal kit, but sitting on the lip of a sink in a firehouse, that same chicken is terrifying and revolting; Dougie shocks Whitney with how easy it is, with reality TV editing, to turn one fleeting glance into marriage-threatening contempt; the sound of a car horn hangs on too long, until the tone melts into a panicky wail; an expensive stove is an emblem of green living, unless it’s chucked out to the curb as trash, in which case it’s a $7,000 icon of waste.Cringe comedies abound, but the cringe drama is a rarer specimen, perhaps because its discomfort just compounds; scorn does not discharge cringe the way laughter does. On “The Curse” especially, cringe is so intertwined with surveillance and recording, the paranoia that every misstep is on tape forever — which isn’t even paranoia, it’s just reality. But reality for the characters is also warped by reality TV, a phony interaction made “real” by dint of its record, and round and round it goes, every reflection distorted, every interaction a setup. More

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    30 Shows to Watch This Winter

    This season promises a deluge of big stars (Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet), intriguing adaptations (“Avatar: The Last Airbender”), long-awaited returns (“True Detective”) and final goodbyes (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”).Is it a delayed effect of the writers’ and actors’ strikes? The Year of the Dragon? Climate change? Whatever the reason, a paper-thin fall season on television screens (definitely a result of the strikes) is being followed by a deluge of attention-grabbing shows this winter. A-list stars (Jodie Foster, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet), intriguing adaptations and reboots (“3 Body Problem,” “Avatar: The Last Airbender”), long-awaited returns (welcome back, “True Detective”) and final goodbyes (so long, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) abound. Throw in all the delayed broadcast-network premieres — your various “Chicago,” “FBI,” “NCIS” and “Law and Order” series, among others — and it promises to be exhausting.Here, based on available screeners, track record or sheer star power, are 30 of the more interesting selections, arranged in chronological order. All dates are subject to change.‘One Piece’Episode 1,089 of the 25-year-old pirate-adventure anime marks the beginning of what is being called its Final Saga, but there’s no telling how many more hundreds of episodes that might entail. (Crunchyroll, Jan. 6)‘Funny Woman’The actress (“Skins”) and writer (“Slow Horses”) Morwenna Banks adapted this six-episode drama from the Nick Hornby novel “Funny Girl.” Gemma Arterton plays a woman who leaves behind her life as a beauty queen in 1960s Blackpool, England, to move to London for a career in TV comedy. (PBS, Jan. 7)‘Miss Scarlet and the Duke’No one is currently doing the self-centered, self-righteous — but charming! — force of nature better than Kate Phillips, now in her fourth season as Eliza Scarlet, who is still struggling to succeed as a female detective in Victorian London. (PBS, Jan. 7)‘Criminal Record’Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo headline this dark London-set police thriller, while Cathy Tyson, star of the great British neo-noir “Mona Lisa,” lends gravitas as the mother of a man who may have been unjustly imprisoned. (Apple TV+, Jan. 10)‘Bluey’Your long parental nightmare is over, at least for a few hours: Everyone’s favorite family of talking Australian dogs drops 10 new episodes. (Disney+, Jan. 12)‘Belgravia: The Next Chapter’Helen Edmundson, chief writer of the quite decent British mystery “Dalgliesh,” takes over Julian Fellowes’s Georgian-Victorian, upstairs-downstairs melodrama “Belgravia.” This second season picks up several decades after the first and centers on the son who caused such consternation in the original, now grown into Lord Trenchard (Benjamin Wainwright). (MGM+, Jan. 14)Jodie Foster, left, and Kali Reis in “True Detective: Night Country,” which takes place in Alaska.Michele K. Short/HBO‘True Detective: Night Country’HBO’s horror noir returns after a five-year hiatus. Season 4 enters the arctic-derangement territory of “Fortitude,” “The Terror” and “The Thing,” as the crew of an Alaska research station collectively disappears into the 24-hour darkness. Jodie Foster plays the series’s latest angsty cop. (HBO, Jan. 14)‘Death and Other Details’Mandy Patinkin stars as the professed “world’s greatest detective” in a shipboard mystery-comedy that appears to triangulate among “Only Murders in the Building,” “White Lotus” and Hercule Poirot. (Hulu, Jan. 16)‘The Shift’The talented Danish director Lone Scherfig (“An Education”) created and is the showrunner of this hospital drama about a team of midwives whose high performance masks critical understaffing; the Danish title translates as “Day and Night.” Sofie Grabol of “The Killing” plays the chief midwife. (MHz Choice, Jan. 16)‘Sort Of’Bilal Baig’s loosely autobiographical, Toronto-set series is known for its head-on but nonchalant approach to gender and identity. It has reached a third season — in which Baig’s character, Sabi, deals with the fallout from their father’s death and their boss’s longings — because it nails the very particular texture of the Canadian dramedy: muted, expertly paced, earnestly whimsical, polished in the most nonaggressive way possible. (Max, Jan. 18)‘The Woman in the Wall’Ruth Wilson brings her layered, off-kilter intensity to this thriller involving an Irish woman who has not recovered from her encounter with one of the country’s notorious Magdalene asylums. Daryl McCormack of “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” plays a cop investigating the murder of a priest. (Paramount+, Jan. 19; Showtime, Jan. 21)‘Griselda’The life of the cocaine merchant Griselda Blanco gets the full-gloss treatment, with a striving-immigrant story line, lots of disco nostalgia and Sofia Vergara in the title role. (Netflix, Jan. 25)‘In the Know’Mike Judge and Zach Woods, who worked together on “Silicon Valley,” bring a similar strain of cerebral satire to the quirks and pretensions of public radio, except this time the unbearable egoists and patient enablers are portrayed by stop-motion puppets. Woods voices an NPR host with an undeniable physical resemblance to Ira Glass; his interview subjects are real people who appear on the animated studio’s monitors. (Peacock, Jan. 25)Brian Tee and Nicole Kidman in “Expats,” based on the Janice Y.K. Lee novel, “The Expatriates.”Prime Video‘Expats’Janice Y.K. Lee’s 2016 novel, “The Expatriates,” about the lives of high-strung Americans living in Hong Kong, comes to TV as a series directed by Lulu Wang (“The Farewell”) and starring Nicole Kidman as the perfect expat wife, Margaret, a bit of casting that feels inevitable. (Amazon Prime Video, Jan. 26)‘Hightown’This engaging beach-town crime drama — energetic but downbeat, in the general neighborhood of “Justified” — enters its third and final season with the highly problematic fisheries agent Jackie Quinones (Monica Raymund) passed out on the Cape Cod sand after her latest blackout bender. (Starz, Jan. 26)‘Masters of the Air’The producing team behind “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific” — including Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg — offers another salute to American forces in World War II, this time chronicling the crews of the 100th Bomb Group of the Army Air Force as they fly missions over Germany. Like its predecessors it has a large and not overly well-known cast, led by Austin Butler and Callum Turner. (Apple TV+, Jan. 26)‘Genius: MLK/X’The fourth edition of the “Genius” series yokes together the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and Malcolm X (Aaron Pierre), who crossed paths just once, so expect a lot of scene shifting. (National Geographic, Feb. 1)Maya Erskine and Donald Glover in “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” a remake of the 2005 movie.David Lee/Prime Video‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’Determined to keep us guessing, Donald Glover, working with the writer Francesca Sloane, follows up “Atlanta” and “Swarm” with a remake of the 2005 married-spies film that starred Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Glover and Maya Erskine, as John and Jane Smith, lead a promising cast that includes John Turturro, Michaela Coel, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Sharon Horgan and Parker Posey. (Amazon Prime Video, Feb. 2)‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’The most recent season of Larry David’s burlesque of Hollywood self-absorption was a pretty good argument for watching “Family Guy” at 10:30 on Sundays. But with more than two years to prepare for its 12th and final season, maybe the show can recapture some of its former glory. (HBO, Feb. 4)‘Gospel’The indefatigable historian-impresario Henry Louis Gates Jr. follows up the 2021 documentary “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song” with a four-hour history of gospel music, directed by Stacey L. Holman and Shayla Harris. (PBS, Feb. 12)‘The New Look’Ben Mendelsohn, best known for dark crime dramas and thrillers (“Bloodline,” “The Outsider”) and for playing a shape-shifting alien in the Marvel universe, changes things up. He plays the post-World War II Christian Dior, about to revolutionize the fashion world, in a series from Todd A. Kessler, a creator of “Bloodline” and “Damages.” Juliette Binoche co-stars as Dior’s great competitor Coco Chanel. (Apple TV+, Feb. 14)‘Constellation’Attention Jonathan Banks fans: With “Better Call Saul” kaput, the peerless character actor resurfaces in this science-fiction thriller. Noomi Rapace stars as an astronaut who returns to Earth after a bad trip. (Apple TV+, Feb. 21)Gordon Cormier in “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” a live-action adaptation of the beloved animated series.Robert Falconer/Netflix‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’Netflix turns an animated hit into a live-action show, as it did with the anime “Cowboy Bebop” and “One Piece.” This time it transmutes the highly regarded American series about a young lama-like warrior fighting to bring about harmony among the nations of fire, water, earth and air. (Netflix, Feb. 22)‘The Second Best Hospital in the Galaxy’“Grey’s Anatomy” meets “Rick and Morty” in an animated comedy set in an intergalactic hospital in the year 14,002; it is the first show created by Cirocco Dunlap, a writer on “Miracle Workers” and “Man Seeking Woman.” Stephanie Hsu and Keke Palmer voice the young renegade surgeons Sleech and Klak. (Amazon Prime Video, Feb. 23)‘The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live’Andrew Lincoln’s Rick Grimes, the franchise’s original alpha, and Danai Gurira’s sword-wielding Michonne are revived in the seventh “Walking Dead” TV series. (AMC, Feb. 25)‘Shogun’You could ask whose needs are being served by making another miniseries based on James Clavell’s 1975 best seller, beyond those of whomever’s digital pocket the film rights were burning a hole in. (Michaela Clavell, the novelist’s daughter, is an executive producer.) But you can’t argue with the chance to watch excellent Japanese performers like Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano and Fumi Nikaido. (FX, Feb. 27)‘Elsbeth’Elsbeth Tascioni, the aggressively quirky lawyer played by Carrie Preston in “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight,” was a bit of an acquired taste. If you acquired it, Preston is now starring in a spinoff series also created by the generally reliable team of Michelle and Robert King. The premise is clever: Tascioni comes to New York to observe the police department as part of a consent decree (we’re told the other candidate was Cary Agos, the “Good Fight” lawyer played by Matt Czuchry), setting up “Elsbeth” as more of a comic procedural than a legal drama. (CBS, Feb. 29)Kate Winslet plays an autocratic ruler in “The Regime.”Miya Mizuno/HBO‘The Regime’Will Tracy, a writer for “Succession” and “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” cements his connection to HBO with this miniseries he created about the ruler of a fictional, failing Central European autocracy. Among the bonuses of that association: Kate Winslet as your star, Jessica Hobbs (“The Crown”) and Stephen Frears as your directors and Gary Shteyngart as one of your writers. Andrea Riseborough plays the chancellor’s chief minister, Hugh Grant the opposition leader and Martha Plimpton the American secretary of state. (HBO, March 3)‘Palm Royale’Kristen Wiig stars as a woman campaigning to join 1969 Palm Beach society in a cheerfully mordant comedy from the writer and producer Abe Sylvia (“George & Tammy,” “Dead to Me”) that also boasts Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Laura Dern and Carol Burnett. (Apple TV+, March 20)‘3 Body Problem’The producers of the blockbuster American fantasy series “Game of Thrones” adapt the blockbuster Chinese science-fiction novel “The Three-Body Problem,” in some kind of apotheosis of the nerd-tech takeover of our storytelling culture. The trailer looks cool, though. (Netflix, March 21)Other returning shows: “The Great North,” Fox, Jan. 7; “All Creatures Great and Small,” PBS, Jan. 7; “La Brea,” NBC, Jan. 9; “SkyMed,” Paramount+, Jan. 11; “The Traitors,” Peacock, Jan. 12; “Family Law,” CW, Jan. 17; “It Was Always Me,” Disney+, Jan. 17; “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago Med,” “Chicago P.D.,” NBC, Jan. 17; “Double Cross,” AllBlk, Jan. 18; “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Organized Crime,” “Law & Order: SVU,” NBC, Jan. 18; “Real Time With Bill Maher,” HBO, Jan. 19; “The Way Home,” Hallmark, Jan. 21; “The Bachelor,” ABC, Jan. 22; “Father Brown,” BritBox, Jan. 23; “Abbott Elementary,” “The Conners,” “Not Dead Yet,” ABC, Feb. 7; “Halo,” Paramount+, Feb. 8; “Bob Hearts Abishola,” “NCIS,” “NCIS: Hawaii,” “The Neighborhood,” CBS, Feb. 12; “Ghosts,” “So Help Me Todd,” “Young Sheldon,” CBS, Feb. 15; “Blue Bloods,” “Fire Country,” CBS, Feb. 16; “Life and Beth,” Hulu, Feb. 16; “CSI: Vegas,” “The Equalizer,” CBS, Feb. 18; “The Good Doctor,” “Will Trent,” ABC, Feb. 20; “The Tourist,” Netflix, Feb. 29; “BMF,” Starz, March 1; “Alert: Missing Persons Unit,” “The Cleaning Lady,” Fox, March 5; “Animal Control,” Fox, March 6; “Grey’s Anatomy,” ABC, March 14; “Girls5Eva,” Netflix, March 14; “Call the Midwife,” PBS, March 17; “Bridgerton,” Netflix, May 16. More

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    Donald Wildmon, Early Crusader in Conservative Culture Wars, Dies at 85

    He founded the American Family Association, which became a juggernaut in the Christian right’s campaign against sex and gay themes in art, television and pop culture.Donald E. Wildmon, a conservative activist whose alarm over indecency on television spawned a national organization, the American Family Association, a once powerful cog of the Christian right, and who led boycotts over sexuality and gay themes in some of America’s most popular TV shows and in the arts, died in Tupelo, Miss., where he lived, on Dec 28. He was 85.The cause was Lewy body dementia, according to a statement posted by the American Family Association.Mr. Wildmon’s crusades beginning in the 1970s against boundary-pushing trends in popular culture and the arts — including high-profile attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts — were an early thunderclap of the culture wars that have moved from the fringe of the Republican Party to its mainstream.A former pastor in the United Methodist Church, Mr. Wildmon became a lightning rod for liberals, who attacked him for bigotry and stifling free speech. In 1981, the president of NBC, Fred Silverman, a champion of socially conscious television, said that Mr. Wildmon’s threats to boycott advertisers were “a sneak attack on the foundation of democracy.”“A boycott,” Mr. Wildmon responded in an interview with The New York Times that year, “is as legal and as American as apple pie.”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?  More

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    Pat McAfee Apologizes Over Role in Aaron Rodgers-Jimmy Kimmel Feud

    Rodgers, the Jets quarterback, suggested during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” that Kimmel had a connection to Jeffrey Epstein, leading Kimmel to threaten legal action.Pat McAfee on Wednesday apologized for airing comments that Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made toward Jimmy Kimmel on McAfee’s ESPN television show a day earlier suggesting the late-night talk show host had a connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.“Some things obviously people get very pissed off about, especially when they’re that serious allegations,” McAfee said. “So we apologize for being a part of it. I can’t wait to hear what Aaron has to say about it. Hopefully those two will just be able to settle this, you know, not work-wise, but be able to chitchat and move along.”Speaking on his weekly Tuesday appearance on McAfee’s television show on ESPN, Rodgers, a four-time winner of the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award, suggested that Kimmel, the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, was acquainted with Epstein, who was accused of having sex with minors and in 2019 died by suicide while in jail. Epstein was a longtime friend to powerful politicians and business executives, and the names of some of his associates are expected to be publicly released soon in court documents.“There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, really hoping that doesn’t come out,” Rodgers said on McAfee’s show. Kimmel denied the allegations on X, formerly known as Twitter, and threatened potential legal action against Rodgers.“Your reckless words put my family in danger,” Kimmel said. “Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney, placing McAfee and both entities in an uneasy situation. The predicament highlights the leeway ESPN gives McAfee, including the regular appearances by Rodgers, who has used his time on the show to speak out against vaccines and even challenged Travis Kelce to a debate during a recent appearance. In October, McAfee confirmed a report that Rodgers had been paid over $1 million to appear on the show.Spokesmen for ABC and ESPN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.ESPN signed McAfee, a former N.F.L. punter, to a reported five-year, $85 million contract last year to bring his popular digital show to the network and to appear on other programing. The hire came as ESPN underwent layoffs as part of an overall cost-cutting strategy from Disney.McAfee stands out among the network’s other personalities, often using profanity on what had long been family-friendly programming and eschewing the usual business-casual attire for tank tops. Though he has scaled back on the coarse language, ESPN has hoped his show’s freewheeling format would attract new viewers as the network’s business model changes.“We’re not putting a suit and tie on him,” Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of content, told The Wall Street Journal in September. More

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    At a Revamped Under the Radar, New York Greets a ‘Global Downtown’

    No longer at the Public, the annual celebration of experimental theater disperses 17 productions across the city. About half are international works that are getting harder to import.The writer and performer Inua Ellams was born in Nigeria, is based in England and performs internationally. “As an immigrant, I’m most comfortable when I’m not at home,” he said during a recent conversation. “To go to another country and see if my concepts still stand the test of artistry, that’s what I love doing.”Ellams will take that test in early January, at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theater, when he performs “Search Party,” during which the audience curates an evening of his poetry by shouting out words that Ellams enters into the search bar of an iPad already loaded with his works.“Search Party” is among the works included in this year’s Under the Radar Festival, a celebration of experimental performance. Having lost its longtime space at the Public Theater owing to the Public’s budget cuts, the 2024 festival will disperse 17 full productions (as well as symposia and a disco) across more than a dozen partner venues in Manhattan and Brooklyn.Of those full productions, about half of them are created by artists based outside the United States. In a year in which the festival, with its budget halved, had to scramble for new partners and new spaces, and considering the rising costs and difficulties of artists’ visas, a roster of local artists might have been an easier sell. But that would undercut the ethos of Under the Radar, which has always mingled international artists with local ones in pursuit of what the festival’s founder, Mark Russell, refers to as “the global downtown.”“I want for our artists to see these other artists from around the world and understand that they’re all part of a larger community,” Russell said.To bring an international show to New York is a process that must begin many months (or ideally, years) in advance. The work has to be scouted and deemed appropriate for an American, English-speaking audience and not so bulky — in terms of both cast size and production design — that the cost of importing it becomes prohibitive.Within these criteria, Ellams’s “Search Party” is especially attractive. It requires only Ellams, who had already received a visa as an individual of extraordinary ability, and his iPad. (“Of all the shows that I’ve had performed across the world, this is probably the most eco-friendly,” Ellams said.) The two other shows that Lincoln Center has brought over, “Queens of Sheba” and Pan Pan’s “The First Bad Man,” are also traveling without scenery, a deliberate simplicity.“International artists are getting smarter,” Jon Nakagawa, Lincoln Center’s director of contemporary programming, said.Funding for these shows must be secured, typically a collaboration between the sponsor theater and the international artists, who can apply in their home countries for government and private grants, which can be used to cover airfare and hotel costs. Visas have to be obtained, typically either a P-3, for an artist or entertainer traveling with a work of unique cultural significance, or an O-1 visa, like the one Ellams travels under, granted to individuals of extraordinary abilities. Each type requires both a stateside approval and an in-person interview, typically in the applicant’s country of origin. As wait times for visa approvals have grown exponentially, many arts institutions now work with law firms to expedite the process.Even so, there can be surprises, usually not welcome ones. The Japan Society, which has long imported experimental Japanese performance, ran into a hitch with “Hamlet/Toilet,” an absurdist, pop culture-inflected work from the playwright and director Yu Murai and Theater Company Kaimaku Pennant Race. As the work is based in part on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” Yoko Shioya, the Japan Society’s artistic director, had to argue what made this work culturally unique to Japan. Asked by the consular official to submit further evidence, she focused on the production’s toilets. (Murai is also the author of “Romeo & Toilet.” Toilets are a recurring motif.)“Everybody who first goes to Japan, their jaws drop at the toilets,” she said. The official approved the application.The Japan Society will host “Hamlet/Toilet,” a work from the playwright and director Yu Murai and Theater Company Kaimaku Pennant Race.Takashi IkemuraOther productions have had to rely on U.S. senators and foreign officials to arrange timely appointments at American embassies. When none can be found, artists have been flown to other countries whose embassies are less backlogged. This year, the vice mayor of Milan helped to schedule an expedited appointment for a member of the Italian performance troupe Motus, which will perform “Of the Nightingale I Envy the Fate,” adapted from “The Oresteia,” at La MaMa. A cinematographer with Sister Sylvester’s “The Eagle and the Tortoise,” a work about the history of the aerial view that will play at BRIC, wasn’t so lucky. That colleague couldn’t secure an appointment until 2025 and won’t join the production.“It’s becoming more and more risky and more and more expensive,” Denise Greber, La MaMa’s director of artistic operations, said of importing international work. She noted that the cost of visa applications has nearly doubled in recent years. And she had just received word that the cost of one form was set to increase further. “But we still try. It’s important for people in New York City to have an opportunity to see work from other countries. It’s just really important to have cultural exchange.”It isn’t only New York City residents who benefit. Under the Radar, like other January events such as the Exponential Festival, Prototype and The Fire This Time, is in part a showcase that coincides with the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Those professionals can reward artists with lucrative touring contracts, and artists can profit in other ways, too.Ellams was looking forward to the conversations among local and international artists, perpetuating his belief in what he called “the global village.”“New York is the concrete jungle of the world,” he said. “It’s where a lot of the world’s conversations begin.” More

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    The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in January

    Sofia Vergara’s narco queenpin miniseries and a crypto documentary highlight this month’s slate.Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of January’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Bitconned’Now streamingThe collapse of big-time cryptocurrency exchanges like FTX grab a lot of headlines, but these are far from the only crypto businesses that have misled investors into losing fortunes. The documentary “Bitconned” tracks the rise and fall of Centra Tech, a company that promised — dubiously, in retrospect — to make crypto assets accessible via a debit card. Directed by Bryan Storkel (best-known for the quirky docs “The Pez Outlaw” and “The Bad Boy of Bowling”), the film is anchored by extensive interviews with the Centra Tech masterminds, as well as with some of the journalists who figured out early that something was fishy here. The details of the story are at once amusing and alarming, involving easily persuaded celebrity spokespeople, phony apps engineered to demonstrate a nonexistent technology and a FOMO culture where the bold promise of quick cash drowns out common sense.‘Fool Me Once’Now streamingThe author Harlan Coben’s novels are prime adaptation fodder for two simple reasons: He creates sympathetic protagonists with relatable anxieties; and he writes twisty plots that keep readers guessing. In the British miniseries “Fool Me Once,” Michelle Keegan plays a typical Coben hero, Maya Stern, an ex-military special operations agent who is shocked one day to look at the footage from her home security camera and see her husband, Joe (Richard Armitage), whom she thought had been murdered. Her investigation into this mystery leads to Maya crossing paths with a distrustful homicide investigator (Adeel Akhtar) and Joe’s rich and powerful mother (Joanna Lumley) — as well as some family members of her own who believe Joe’s strange case may be tied to the death of Maya’s sister.‘Society of the Snow’Starts streaming: Jan. 4In 1972, a plane crash in the Andes left over two dozen passengers stuck on a remote, icy mountain, with little hope of rescue and only a small amount of food to share. Famously — or infamously — the survivors resorted to cannibalism while waiting for the spring thaw. But the director J.A. Bayona (adapting a book by the journalist Pablo Vierci) doesn’t make the eating of human flesh the primary point of emphasis in his film “Society of the Snow.” He’s more interested in hardships like extreme cold and sudden avalanches, and in how a desperate situation strengthened the bond between these people, many of whom played together on the same rugby team. This is film about young men fighting hard to stay alive for each other’s sake, in a landscape at once picturesque and cruel.‘The Brothers Sun’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 4The two brothers in the action-dramedy “The Brothers Sun” couldn’t be more different. One is Bruce (Sam Song Li), a cash-strapped Los Angeles college student with aspirations to be an improv comic; the other is Charles (Justin Chien), a skilled amateur chef who also happens to be a top-level assassin in a Taiwan triad. Michelle Yeoh plays the boys’ mother, Eileen, who has been sheltering Bruce from the criminal life in America. But when killers from the old country start invading her suburban sanctuary, she has to get her gangster groove back to keep her family safe. Created by Brad Falchuk (a creator of “Glee” and “American Horror Story”) and Byron Wu, this series combines dynamic martial arts sequences with scenes where the dysfunctional Suns relearn how to trust each other.‘Griselda’Starts streaming: Jan. 25Sofia Vergara plays the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in this miniseries, created by the writer-producer Ingrid Escajeda alongside some of the team behind the Netflix favorite “Narcos.” (Vergara, a Colombian herself, is also a producer on the project.) Blanco’s story has been told before in documentaries and TV movies, most of which treat her as a larger-than-life criminal legend. “Griselda” aims to be more grounded, following the cocaine queenpin from her origins in Medellín to her dominance of the Miami market, while frequently jumping back and forth in time to compare the mild-mannered immigrant mother that Blanco once seemed to be with the ruthless woman who went on to outfox the mob’s macho men.Also arriving:Jan. 1“You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment”Jan. 5“Gyeongseong Creature” Season 1, Part 2Jan. 10“The Trust: A Game of Greed” Season 1Jan. 11“Champion” Season 1“Detective Forst” Season 1“Sonic Prime” Season 3Jan. 12“Lift”“Love Is Blind: Sweden” Season 1Jan. 19“The Bequeathed” Season 1“Sixty Minutes”Jan. 22“Not Quite Narwhal” Season 2Jan. 23“Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees”“Love Deadline” Season 1Jan. 24“Queer Eye” Season 8“Six Nations: Full Contact”Jan. 30“Jack Whitehall: Settle Down”Jan. 31“Baby Bandito” More

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    ‘Fargo’ Season 5, Episode 8 Recap: Rude Awakenings

    Dot learns some harsh truths about her past and present. Danish takes an ill-advised trip to North Dakota.Season 5, Episode 8: ‘Blanket’When Dot was kidnapped early in the season and then she simply returned home as if nothing had happened, it was absurd on its face. No one, other than Wayne, could believe that she had stepped out for a while and come back in time to whisk up some Bisquick for their daughter. And even though she knew that her abductors would lay siege to the house again, she was determined to enjoy Halloween with her family, even as she laid out booby traps like Dustin Hoffman in “Straw Dogs.” She’s the sort of determined fantasist who believes she can bend reality to her will.That bubble is punctured in two lines in this week’s episode, as Roy finally has her back at his ranch in North Dakota, shackled to the floor like an animal. “You’ll end up same as Linda,” he hisses. “I’ll bury you right next to her.” We had just spent most of the previous episode at Camp Utopia, the women’s shelter that Dot had conjured in a reverie over pancakes, which seemed at the time like a clever way to fill in a crucial piece of her back story. But now it’s clear that she was clinging to the idea that Linda had fled Tillman Ranch to save herself and perhaps could one day reappear to make amends with Dot and be a mother again to her wayward son, Gator, who has gone to the dark side in her absence.In the time leading up to Roy’s revelation about what really happened to Linda, Dot is still dead set on returning to the fantasy life that she has nearly succeeded in making real. She needs to order an ice cream cake for Scotty’s birthday. She has her duties as a den mother for a girl scout troop. She has 13 seasons of “Call the Midwife” to get through with Wayne. Yet the incontrovertible truth about Roy is that he is a killer with a badge, unrestrained by the laws of man or the influence of a powerful lawyer like Danish Graves, who smugly assumed he had the upper hand in a negotiation. From her shelter on the ranch, Dot can see that corpse disposal is so routine for Roy that he has a pit on site for it.At this point, it may be worth questioning how sincere “Fargo” is about domestic violence. As skillfully as the show’s creator, Noah Hawley, has spun his serio-comic yarn this season, it can be difficult to reconcile the glib, knowing, referential tone of the show with the content warnings that have bracketed the last two episodes. When Roy takes his long walk back to Dot in the shelter, following his humiliation at the county sheriff’s debate, a Lisa Hannigan cover of the Britney Spears hit “Toxic” blankets the soundtrack and it strikes a bum note. “Dark” covers of pop songs have become a staple of movie trailers, and here it’s the coming attraction to a type of abuse the show isn’t sober enough to handle. What worked for the puppets in Camp Utopia feels more like genre exploitation here.It doesn’t help that the prelude to violence is so extravagantly silly. Lorraine and Danish’s plan to spoil Roy’s re-election campaign surely ranks as the strangest of the onerous debt consolidation options offered by Redemption Services. In order for the plan to work, Danish has to get name changes approved for three Roy Tillmans, secure spots for each of them on the debate stage for Stark County sheriff and provoke the real Roy Tillman so shrewdly that he melts down and slugs the female moderator. Those seem like a lot of unpredictable variables, but the scene itself is reasonably funny, with the fake Roys echoing the real one like siblings pranking their older brother.Now that the Roy-Dot-Linda situation has been clarified, can we get a puppet-assisted back story on how Indira and Lars Olmstead ever became a couple? Because whatever it is that Lars brought to the table when they fell in love and got married, there’s no evidence left of it now. Indira catching Lars with another woman adds infidelity to a long list of flaws that she itemizes one last time before kicking him out of the house. Throughout the season, Indira’s troubles at home have been placed in contrast with Dot’s blissful marriage to Wayne, and it has offered a different picture of domestic toxicity than Dot’s abuse at Roy’s hands. They are both women fighting for their own happiness, and the show has engineered an unspoken bond between them.The final shot of Dot peering out a small, broken window on the ranch, fully awake to Roy’s capabilities, introduces a genuine fear that we haven’t yet seen from her. “You don’t have a plan, do you?,” she asked him earlier. She intended it as a rhetorical taunt, but perhaps now she realizes that his not having a plan is a terrifying proposition. He will assert his authority over her. He hasn’t planned anything after that.3 Cent StampsDot knowing the truth about what happened to Linda does increase the possibility that Gator will turn on his father, especially given the vulnerability he shows at any mention of his mother. He will have to survive Ole Munch first, however.Nice to see Deputy Witt Farr re-emerge in the hospital, where he tries to pry Dot away from Roy’s clutches. He has shown a lot of courage already in standing up to the Tillmans, but it’s his insistence on repeatedly calling Dot “Mrs. Lyon” that is touching in this context. He wants her (and Roy) to know that he recognizes who she really is.One Coens reference in this episode: Indira’s opening the bedroom closet door on Lars’s mistress recalls when George Clooney discovers Brad Pitt hiding out in “Burn After Reading.” The mistress gets off a little easier, though.Kudos to the people of Stark County for packing the house for a sheriffs debate. You don’t expect such things to be standing-room-only media events.Another small movie reference: The squeaky windmill above the spot where Roy dumps his victims seems like a nod to the famous opening of “Once Upon a Time in the West,” where such a squeak is among the new sounds we hear in the pregnant moments before three outlaws ambush Charles Bronson at a train station. It’s also a callback to the place where she hid the postcard from Linda in her reverie. More

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    in Theater

    New Year, New Show: An Original ‘& Juliet’ Star Heads Home

    Melanie La Barrie thought she would make it through her last performance of “& Juliet” without succumbing to tears.She was mistaken — though contributing factors include that it was the end of a nine-show holiday week; that she originated the role of Angélique, Juliet’s nurse, in this British jukebox-musical riff on “Romeo and Juliet” in 2019; and that she made her Broadway debut in it, at 48, in October 2022.On Saturday night at the Stephen Sondheim Theater, where “& Juliet” is one of Broadway’s poppiest hits, La Barrie sailed through her comic Act I duet with Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love. But her poignant Act II solo, sung to Juliet (Lorna Courtney), undid her. Embracing Courtney at the finish, La Barrie kept her eyes shut tight against the audience’s ovation, needing to stay rooted in the show.Paulo Szot, who plays Angélique’s long-lost love, gave La Barrie an eloquent onstage tribute.Emily Soto for The New York TimesA Trinidadian Londoner whose West End credits include Mrs. Phelps in the original production of “Matilda,” La Barrie is about to play Hermes in the West End premiere of “Hadestown,” whose first week of rehearsal, in December, she attended on a vacation from “& Juliet.” During her Broadway sojourn, her partner of 15 years, Martin Phillips, a translator, was more often the one traveling back and forth.After La Barrie’s final bow in “& Juliet,” which Szot marked with an eloquent onstage tribute, thanking her “for giving life to the adorable Angélique,” she changed out of her costume and put on a Hermes pendant: a gift from Jeannie Naughton, her “& Juliet” dresser.La Barrie sat for photos, communed with fans at the stage door, declined offers of Jell-O shots from her young colleagues. Then she returned to her dressing room to talk, packing a bit as she did, because she had a New Year’s Eve flight to London the next day. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.“The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet,” La Barrie said.Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow are you doing?I feel so satisfied. I’ve been with this show for such a long time. I did the first workshop of it in December 2017, in London. It was right after Liverpool, where I had played the Nurse in “Romeo and Juliet.” [The director Luke Sheppard] said, “Will you come and read something for me? I can’t really explain what it is, but it’s kind of top secret.”Jeannie Naughton, La Barrie’s “& Juliet” dresser, gave her a Hermes pendant in a nod to the role she is about to play in “Hadestown.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesHow did having played the Nurse affect your approach to Angélique?The thing that was the most important to me was for people to know how much I loved Juliet. They had to know that my entire being was to be an adjunct to Juliet’s wishes. To facilitate them, even reluctantly. Which is Shakespeare’s intention, you know. Everything I do is for Juliet. But this one then veers off and gives me my own story. Which is quite something.It’s a fizzy, funny, midlife romance. Tell me how you made that work so beautifully.Grown-ups don’t get love stories. They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, “Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?” A new love, or a re-sparked love in older people, they eat it up because they say, “I don’t know this. I don’t know this in the context of a jukebox musical or in the context of any musical at all.” I think that is the first thing: the audience’s desire for that. You put me with somebody that I love as deeply as I love Paulo Szot ——“The way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place,” said La Barrie, a Trinidadian Londoner.Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhom you had never met before this show.Never met before. And when I came, I was so clear that I didn’t want to bring any of my experience of the [dynamic from the] London production. It would be very unfair, I thought, to come here and try to make Tony Award-winning Paulo Szot do what Broadway debutante Melanie La Barrie wanted to do. So why don’t we make it anew? He’s an acclaimed opera singer. He runs in serious circles. But he lives in a spirit of collaboration.When I first moved here, Paulo took me out. He took me to see a Brazilian symphony at Carnegie Hall. Then we went to Birdland afterwards, to watch some jazz. It was the best date — [laughs] sorry, Martin — one of the best friend dates that I have ever been on. And he knew that I had never been here before.You had never been here before?I probably, maybe, had a layover once or spent one day.And then you just moved here for over a year.I know. Isn’t that fun?“Grown-ups don’t get love stories,” La Barrie said. “They say to me at the stage door all the time — it’s always the mamas — they go, ‘Can my kid have a picture, and then can I have one?’” Emily Soto for The New York TimesIn March, when “Hadestown” tweeted that it was going back to London, you tweeted, “I am available.”I’d never even seen the show.Had you heard it?No, not really. But I knew that it was amazing.How much freedom do you have to make Hermes your own?One, I’m using my own accent. That brings its own music and its own sensibilities. And the way that I tell stories comes from a deeply cultural place. There’s a [Trinidadian] music called rapso. It’s social commentary, all in rhyme, in time to music. That’s the thing that informed me when I did my audition.We have taken the gender out of Hermes. Hermes is now just Hermes. It was something that I felt very, very deeply about. When I went in to audition, I just dropped all the “Mister” and “Missus.” I didn’t say it. I put in other words. Because I was like, I don’t feel like a Missus Hermes. I just feel like Hermes. And they’re so game for this kind of genderless god from the Caribbean. [laughs]“I love Broadway, and I love New York,” La Barrie said. “That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart.”Emily Soto for The New York TimesWhat of your “& Juliet” experience will you take with you?This show and this part has changed my life. I probably never would have gotten Hermes if I didn’t play Angélique. People regard me differently. I had to wait until I was nearly 50 years old for that to happen. I think people would have still just had me in those smaller supporting roles if I hadn’t done this, and if I hadn’t done this on Broadway. Which then jumped it up a few pegs in the hierarchy of things.Will Broadway see you again?I hope so. I love Broadway, and I love New York. That’s also now a part of me, that’s like another lobe of my heart. I didn’t expect when I was growing up in Trinidad to ever be given anything like this. It’s like, not miraculous, because I have done the work. But still it’s wondrous. That wonder has been given to me. And that is why I am satisfied. More