Eliana Willis

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    ‘Shogun’ Episode 4 Recap: Fire Away

    Lord Yabushige has managed to split his loyalties between Ishido and Toranaga. A play by younger lords will force his hand.Episode 4: ‘The Eightfold Fence’Last week’s episode dropped the ball when it came to depicting visceral combat. This week’s fired it straight at the enemy and pulped them.In the bloody climax of this episode, Lord Nagakado (Yuki Kura), the untested young son of Lord Toranaga, decides to make a name for himself by blowing the visiting enemy forces of the Lord Ishido to bits with John Blackthorne’s frighteningly precise cannons. Virtually every witness to the slaughter, including Blackthorne and Lady Mariko, is aghast, the double-dealing Lord Yabushige most of all.The exception is Yabushige’s equally calculating but somewhat less comical nephew, Lord Omi, who was by Nagakado’s side when he made the fateful decision to ambush the Ishido samurai, a distraction that keeps his dad’s battle plans under wraps. The young lords have drawn first blood in a war that threatens the entire nation — Nagakado for family pride, Omi for pure ambition.Where this leaves Blackthorne is anyone’s guess. He’s fulfilling the bargain he made with Lord Toranaga to train a regiment in the Western ways of war. To the best of his abilities, anyway. Since he doesn’t know anything about infantry tactics, he shows them how to use English cannons instead, arguing that a naval bombardment can breach walls faster than any besieging army can.But Toranaga does not appear to be honoring his end. He departs Lord Omi’s village almost as soon as he arrives, leaving Blackthorne without the access to his men and his ship that Toranaga promised.Blackthorne can hardly believe what he’s offered instead. Befitting his status as hatamoto, he’s granted a house of his own — a prison with better accommodations, he says — and a consort in the form of Fuji, the bereaved mother and widow. Neither is thrilled by the arrangement, but they make the best of it, culminating in an exchange of gifts — his best pistol, her father’s swords — that leaves them both fumbling for words.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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    Jimmy Kimmel Explains His Run-In (Sort of) With Trump at the Oscars

    Why did Donald Trump go online during the Oscars to criticize Kimmel’s performance as host? Kimmel thinks he was upset because no one had mentioned his name. 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.OscarworthyFresh from hosting the Oscars on Sunday, Jimmy Kimmel detailed on Monday night how he’d come to poke fun in real time at one viewer: Donald Trump, who posted criticism of Kimmel’s performance during the broadcast. (“Isn’t it past your jail time?” Kimmel asked the ex-president from the stage.) “We were backstage, the show was almost over, and one of our writers was like, ‘Hey, look at this,’ and I was like, well, to quote Al Pacino, ‘Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in,’ and I had to read it,” Kimmel said.“Donald Trump — you remember that guy? He used to be, yeah — wrote ‘Has there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars? His opening was that of a less-than-average person trying too hard to be something which he is not and never can be.’ This was also his wedding toast to his son Eric, by the way.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“So after the show, almost everyone I ran into was asking me, ‘Was that real? Did Donald Trump really?’ It’s like yeah, of course, it was real. And it kind of tells you all you need know about Donald Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He wrote this because he was upset I didn’t mention him on the show, and no one mentioned him on the show. He wasn’t getting any attention. He couldn’t stand it. And so then the Adderall McFlurry kicked in, and he went right on.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Funny — we had John Cena onstage naked, and somehow Trump still managed to be the biggest [expletive] of the night.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Pushing the Envelope Edition)“‘Oppenheimer’ was the big winner, taking home seven awards, including Best Picture, while the award for Most Paused Picture went to John Cena.” — JIMMY FALLON“I mean, God bless, John. I could never do something like that. If I did, I’d win the Oscar for Best Short.” — JIMMY FALLON“Good thing he held onto that card, ’cause we might have seen his Maestro, if you know what I’m saying? His Poor Thing, if you catch my drift.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They kept demanding that we make the envelope bigger and bigger, which, well, first, I have to say congratulations to John Cena, the commotion you caused. Very rarely does an idea literally push the envelope, and this one did.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingKristen Stewart defended her racy Rolling Stone cover while on Monday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe journalist Jane Marie will discuss her new book “Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans” on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This Out“I still like looking at the world around me with softness and an open heart,” Adrianne Lenker said.Erinn Springer for The New York TimesThe singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief fame projects resilience on her fifth solo album, Bright Future. More

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    ‘Corruption’ Review: Onstage, a Scandal’s Human Drama Is Muffled

    A new play by J.T. Rogers goes behind the scenes of the shady “news-gathering” that rocked Rupert Murdoch’s British media empire over a decade ago.“Corruption,” J.T. Rogers’s tantalizing new phone-hacking play, starts on Rebekah Brooks’s wedding weekend. In a village in the English countryside, the flame-haired power broker, one of Rupert Murdoch’s favorite tabloid editors, has drawn the cream of Britain’s political class to her celebration.Prime Minister Gordon Brown is there, and so is David Cameron, the Tory who will succeed him. But Brooks (Saffron Burrows) is sequestered in conversation with her charmless boss, Rupert’s son James (Seth Numrich). He informs her that television and new media are the company’s focus now.“Newspapers are a relic,” James says. So his contempt is already evident when he tells her that she is the new chief executive of News International, the Murdoch-owned British newspaper group. Congratulations?It will be on Brooks’s watch, anyway, that a many-tentacled scandal erupts, with the revelation that her journalists clandestinely acquired the voice mail messages not only of celebrities and politicians but also of a missing child who was later found dead. Multiple arrests ensue, with accusations of phone hacking, police corruption and perverting the course of justice. Rupert Murdoch shuts down News of the World, his top-selling Sunday tabloids. Through it all, he remains loyal to Brooks.As a news story evolving in real time, the scandal made for jaw-dropping reading. As a play, though, “Corruption” is uncompelling — counterintuitively so, given the inherent drama: the crimes, the coverup, the comeuppance (or not), the clashes of personality. Also the stakes, which include the well-being of a democracy in which one culture-shaping media magnate holds too much sway.Tom Watson (Toby Stephens), a Labour member of Parliament as the scandal brews, is the central figure. (Murdoch, frequently mentioned, is a looming unseen presence.) Rumpled and besieged, Watson is determined to expose the widespread, under-the-radar operation: the surveillance, the intimidation, the gathering of secrets. The police, in the meantime, are oddly incurious about the voluminous records of a private investigator who they know hacked phones for News of the World.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ and 55th N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards

    The 20th season of this medical drama airs on ABC. And CBS hosts the annual awards show honoring excellence in film and television.For TV viewers like me who still haven’t cut the cord, here is a selection of cable and network shows, movies and specials broadcasting Monday through Sunday, March 11-16. Details and times are subject to change.MondayLAKEFRONT EMPIRE 10 p.m. on HGTV. This new real estate series takes viewers to Missouri’s Lake of the Ozarks, a Midwestern vacation destination made famous by the Netflix show “Ozark.” This series follows a group of realtors, including Peggy Albers, who often talks about her remarkable turnaround from serving more than 15 years in federal prison for selling methamphetamine to becoming a successful agent at the lake.TuesdayIn a scene from “Lionheart,” Dan Wheldon with his son Sebastian.Michael Voorhees/HBOTHE LIONHEART 9 p.m. on HBO. Dan Wheldon was best known by his nickname, “The Lionheart,” and won the Indianapolis 500 twice. In a tragic accident, he died in a crash in 2011 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This documentary blends archival and present-day footage to tell the story of Wheldon’s sons, Sebastian and Oliver, who have since followed their father’s footsteps and entered the world of racing.PASSWORD 10 p.m. on NBC. This game show, which originally aired in the 1960s on CBS, is coming back for its second season, with Keke Palmer as host and Jimmy Fallon as a panelist. This season will feature guest stars, including Chance the Rapper, Howie Mandel and Joe Manganiello, playing the game that is a mix between charades and telephone.WednesdayTHE AMAZING RACE 9:30 p.m. on CBS. It’s hard to believe that this reality competition series premiered in 2001, just as iPods and iTunes were introduced. As for 36 seasons now, teams of two will embark on heart-racing challenges around the world for a cash prize of $1 million.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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    ‘Dead Outlaw’ Review: Not Much of a Bandit, but What a Corpse

    The creators of “The Band’s Visit” return with this mischievous ghost story of a musical based on an odd slice of Old West history.In the final chapter of Elmer McCurdy’s macabre posthumous journey through the American West, his red-painted corpse dangled from a noose inside a Southern California amusement park ride: a creepy bit of décor to spook the thrill seekers.More than six decades after his death, poor old arsenic-preserved McCurdy was presumed to be a mannequin — until, in 1976, the TV series “The Six Million Dollar Man” came to shoot an episode at the ride, and a crew member discovered otherwise.“This is a man!” the freaked-out Teamster shouts in “Dead Outlaw,” a mischievous but never meanspirited ghost story of a musical about McCurdy from the creators of “The Band’s Visit.”Conceived by David Yazbek, who wrote the “Dead Outlaw” music and lyrics with Erik Della Penna, this oddball new show reunites Yazbek with the book writer Itamar Moses and the director David Cromer. Based on a sensationally ghastly scrap of Old West and pop culture history that has inspired books, previous plays and a documentary, it is 180 degrees different from “The Band’s Visit,” the gently comic, Tony Award-winning tale about an Egyptian band stranded in an Israeli town. It’s also terrific fun.“Dead Outlaw,” which opened Sunday in an Audible production at the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village, is a compact, deliciously deadpan yarn that stretches over almost a century.It traces Elmer’s hapless life as an alcoholic drifter turned bungling criminal, and his involuntary second act as a formidably well-embalmed sideshow attraction. Along the way, it casts a jaundiced eye at the callous American lust for guns and money, and takes puckish pleasure in reminding us that we’ll all be shadows like Elmer soon enough.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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    ‘SNL’ Riffs on the State of the Union and Republican Response

    The Republican rebuttal delivered by Senator Katie Britt already struck many viewers as parody, making Scarlett Johansson’s job look easy.It was inevitable that “Saturday Night Live” would sample heavily from the buffet of satirical potential offered by Thursday’s State of the Union. Perhaps the only question going into this weekend’s broadcast, hosted by Josh Brolin and featuring the musical guest Ariana Grande, was who would play Senator Katie Britt of Alabama, who delivered the much-discussed Republican response to President Biden’s speech.As it turned out, “S.N.L.” did not draw from its own cast for this role, but it didn’t look far to find someone: Britt was played by Scarlett Johansson, the two-time Academy Award-nominated actress, six-time “S.N.L.” host and — yes — wife of Colin Jost, the Weekend Update co-anchor.Following a brief introduction from Ego Nwodim as CNN’s Abby Phillip, the show began with Mikey Day, now the resident Biden impersonator at “S.N.L.,” taking his place in front of Punkie Johnson (as Vice President Harris) and Michael Longfellow (as Speaker Mike Johnson).“Folks,” Day said, “tonight I’m going to cover a lot. There’s going to be a lot of applause. So, Kamala, I hope you didn’t skip leg day, girl. You’re going to be up and down all night.” (Naturally, Johnson stood up and applauded; Longfellow did not.)Day continued: “Tonight, I’m also going to be talking about my predecessor,” he said. “Mainly because every time I say predecessor, Mike Johnson shakes his head, like he just accidentally caught 30 seconds of the show ‘Euphoria.’ Look at that weirdo.”After being booed by Heidi Gardner (who was playing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene), Day threw to the Republican response: “I think she’s going to help me more than anything else I could say here,” he said. “Enjoy.”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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    Jeremy Strong Isn’t Sure He Knows Who He Is

    For years, Jeremy Strong was a relatively anonymous, steadily gigging actor. He did theater and some recurring TV work (“The Good Wife,” “Masters of Sex”), and was able to land decent supporting roles in big movies (“The Big Short,” “Selma”). Then “Succession” changed everything. The hit HBO show, a biting satire about the emotionally dysfunctional, […] More

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    Former Trump Aide Alyssa Farah Griffin Becomes a Liberal Favorite

    Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.A rising star of the current season is Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former communications director for President Trump who is now a co-host of ABC’s “The View” and a regular commentator on CNN.Ms. Farah Griffin, who resigned from the Trump administration in December 2020, garnered wide attention with a tweet she posted on Jan. 6, 2021: “Dear MAGA — I am one of you. Before I worked for @realDonaldTrump, I worked for @MarkMeadows & @Jim_Jordan & the @freedomcaucus. I marched in the 2010 Tea Party rallies. I campaigned w/ Trump & voted for him. But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”Three years later, Ms. Farah Griffin, 34, spends many of her nights at the CNN headquarters in the Hudson Yards district of Manhattan, bantering with Van Jones, David Axelrod and other liberal commentators.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