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    ‘Sugar’ Review: In a Lonely Place With Colin Farrell

    This Apple TV+ mystery celebrates and subverts film noir.This much I can tell you: Colin Farrell plays a private detective in “Sugar.” He has a license. We see it being handed to him and everything.I can also tell you that his character, John Sugar, is not an ordinary private detective, in ways that go beyond his fetishization of the film noir heroes he emulates. But I can’t really get into it because “Sugar” — which premieres Friday on Apple TV+ with two of its eight episodes — is a show with a congenital vulnerability to spoilers.The show is the first television project of Mark Protosevich, whose short list of screenplays across more than two decades includes “I Am Legend” and Spike Lee’s remake of the South Korean revenge drama “Oldboy.” Based on “Sugar,” it is fair to guess that he shares his protagonist’s obsession with noir.The show opens with a short black-and-white preamble, set in Tokyo, that echoes the premise of Akira Kurosawa’s great 1963 crime thriller “High and Low.” Then Sugar returns to his home base in Los Angeles and steps into the plot of Roman Polanski’s “Chinatown,” agreeing to look for the missing granddaughter of a legendary Hollywood producer, Jonathan Siegel. The intimidating mogul is played by James Cromwell, who serves as a living link to another obvious influence, Curtis Hanson’s “L.A. Confidential.”The genre worship goes beyond that kind of easy homage, however. Sugar is an acolyte of classic noir, watching the old films at every opportunity and discussing them in Farrell’s genre-obligatory voice-over narration. Bolder yet, scenes of Sugar in action are intercut with clips from iconic films. A threat of violence is carried out, in tandem, by Farrell and Robert Mitchum (“The Night of the Hunter”); a nighttime drive across Los Angeles by Farrell and Amy Ryan, who plays a woman caught up in Sugar’s case, is shared with Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame (“In a Lonely Place”).These frequent past-in-present moments are probably not as exciting or sensual as they were in Protosevich’s imagination, but they do the job thematically: We see that the codes of noir and the lonely heroism of the private eye have shaped what it means to be a man for Sugar, a do-gooder with an aversion to gunplay.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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    Stephen Colbert Says Trump’s ‘April Trials Bring Me Smiles’

    “The Late Show” host changed up the adage about spring after Donald Trump had a bad day in court.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.‘April Trials Bring Me Smiles’Former President Donald Trump has suffered setbacks in court the last few days, including a ruling against him on Thursday in his classified documents case.Stephen Colbert said he’s changing up the “April showers” adage: “Because from now on, it’s April trials bring me smiles.”Late night hosts were also thrilled that, on Wednesday, the judge in Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial refused his proposed delay until after the Supreme Court rules on whether he is immune from prosecution in another case.“Starting April 15, we get to see Donald Trump having to see Stormy Daniels testify about having to see Donald Trump naked.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“[imitating lawyer] Your honor, for reasons that will be all too apparent during her testimony, I’d like to submit into evidence this baby Bella mushroom.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Don Provolone has a long list of charges against him, but I feel like we all want to see him taken down by the porn star one, right? I mean, that’s the fun one. Grab him by the mushroom, Stormy!” — JIMMY KIMMEL“April 15’s going to be a big day for Donald Trump. It’s the first time in history a former president will be held accountable for cheating on his taxes and his wife the same day.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Eclipse Edition)“Next Monday, a solar eclipse will totally block out the sun over parts of America, and we’re all looking forward to having one brief moment when you can look up into the sky and see something besides the door of a Boeing airplane plummeting to the ground.” — DESI LYDIC, guest host of “The Daily Show”“But it’s not just a moment for humans. An eclipse offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rudy Giuliani to come out and feed during the day.” — DESI LYDIC“It’s really exciting because we haven’t had total darkness outside since November through March.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe stand-up comedian Alex Edelman discussed his new HBO special, “Just for Us,” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutA scene from the documentary “Kim’s Video,” directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin.Drafthouse FilmsA new documentary about Kim’s Video tracks a beloved movie collection from downtown New York City to small-town Italy. More

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    What to Watch This Weekend: A Riveting True-Crime Drama

    “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” premiering Sunday on PBS, is a shattering mini-series about a real-life injustice.Toby Jones stars in “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office.”ITV StudiosLegal thrillers and true-crime sagas often succeed at generating momentum but fail at conveying genuine humanity. “Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office,” debuting Sunday at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), succeeds at both; it is a tender and shattering drama and a tense, twisty legal story.Toby Jones stars as Alan Bates, a British sub-postmaster who radiates decency and integrity. He’s convinced — as are we, immediately — that his new Post Office-issued kiosk is the source of grave accounting errors, but dozens of calls lead him nowhere. He is told, repeatedly, that he’s the only person encountering any problems, and the Post Office fires him and accuses him of theft. With the support of his thoughtful wife, Suzanne (Julie Hesmondhalgh, superb), he vows to clear his name.Thus begins a 20-year saga, one of baffling malfeasance by the British Post Office that led to widespread suffering, with hundreds of people falsely accused of crimes. The sub-postmasters were contractually responsible for the perceived shortfalls, which sometimes amounted to tens of thousands of pounds. Some, like Jo (Monica Dolan), pleaded guilty just to avoid jail time. Some served prison sentences not just for crimes they did not commit, but crimes that did not even occur. Some filed for bankruptcy; some died from suicide.“We just gotta trust in the British justice system, and everything’ll be all right,” says Lee (Will Mellor), one of the victims. He might as well be the guy in the horror movie who asks “what’s the worst that could happen?” before walking into a chain saw. When Alan finally manages to organize an advocacy and support group, we get our first glimmers of hope and relief barely poking through the Kafkaesque, viciously punitive morass.“Mr. Bates vs. the Post Office” is true story, but in tabloid parlance, it is an unbelievable true story — the injustice it depicts is so outrageous that it defies comprehension. The show’s real sense of reality, then, flows forth from precise portraiture by the show’s writer, Gwyneth Hughes, and from intimate, grounded performances by Jones and Dolan. By the end of the four episodes, I knew all the characters so well I swear I could pick out birthday presents for them, the heroes and villains both. More

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    Kate Shindle on Why She’s Stepping Down as Actors’ Equity President

    After nine years in the role, she has decided not to seek re-election in May. Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry.Kate Shindle, who has served as president of Actors’ Equity Association for nine years, is stepping down after a tenure dominated by the coronavirus pandemic that for a time idled all of the labor union’s members.Shindle, 47, said she expected to remain active in the labor movement, but that she was eager to resume working as an actor. The Equity presidency, leading a union that represents more than 51,000 theater actors and stage managers nationwide, is an unpaid, volunteer position. Because of the time required to manage the crises facing the union’s members, Shindle has worked so little as an actor that she hasn’t even qualified for her own union’s health insurance coverage.Her departure comes amid significant turnover in the theater industry. Charlotte St. Martin recently left her position as president of the Broadway League, which is the trade association most often on the opposite side of the bargaining table with Equity, and the heads of many nonprofit theaters are also leaving their positions.“It feels like it’s time,” Shindle said. “We’ve accomplished a lot. And I think turnover is good for organizations. I’ve never been one who wanted to stay until the members threw me out.”Shindle, a former Miss America, will wrap up her third and final term on May 23. These are edited excerpts from an interview.Equity imposed very strict rules during the pandemic that had the effect of limiting performance around the country. In hindsight, how do you think about Equity’s role in the state of theater over those years?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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    ‘Travels’ Review: A Sonic Flight From Heartbreak

    In his new show, James Harrison Monaco blends storytelling and electronic beats in service of curiosity and escape.Some ride-share passengers are content to wear headphones and gaze out the window. But anywhere that James Harrison Monaco goes, including the back seat of a Lyft, presents an opportunity to zero in on someone else’s story.In the first segment of “Travels,” Monaco’s new autobiographical show that opened at Ars Nova in Manhattan on Monday, the playwright and performer tells the audience that he was itching to talk on a recent ride from the Los Angeles airport when the driver handed him an audio cable so he could put on music, opening the door to conversation. Their exchange, Monaco says breathlessly, peeled off like a speeding car.Monaco’s dogged curiosity, and affinity for electronic beats, propels much of this uneven 90-minute show, for which he also composed the Miami Beach-meets-Berlin underscore. Monaco’s opening anecdote, the first in a series of eight, introduces the sense of possibility he feels when he is in transit, the inquisitiveness he brings to bear on others and his amorphous concept of music as a medium for storytelling.Eager and bespectacled, Monaco is the first-person voice in each account, but he shares narrating duties with three performers — El Beh, Ashley De La Rosa and Mehry Eslaminia — who take turns recalling his encounters with a handful of people he’s found fascinating over the past several years, both at home and abroad. This layering effect in the performances is echoed in the backbeats and crescendos that a head-bobbing Monaco generates, in collaboration with the instrumentalist John Murchison, from behind an onstage table full of D.J. equipment (the set is by Diggle).Considering how often Monaco draws attention to his called-off marriage engagement, it would not be unfair to categorize “Travels” as a breakup album. (The project is also a departure for Monaco from his artistic partnership with Jerome Ellis, who contributed additional music.) Reeling from heartache, Monaco seems to search for meaning and solace in the far graver misfortunes of a friend referred to as “R,” a political prisoner turned asylum seeker and the show’s most revisited subject.“Perhaps all pain is comparable in the end,” Monaco recalls R telling him of their wholly incomparable struggles.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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    In ‘Ripley’ on Netflix, the Con Man Gets the Art House Treatment

    Andrew Scott stars in a Netflix series that looks like what you might get if Antonioni or Resnais had directed a season of “The White Lotus.”Patricia Highsmith’s 1955 novel “The Talented Mr. Ripley” sets its dark action in a succession of colorful Italian locales: the Amalfi coast, San Remo, Rome, Palermo, Venice. Movies based on the book, like René Clément’s “Plein Soleil” (released in the United States as “Purple Noon”) and Anthony Minghella’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” have taken the opportunity Highsmith gave them to capitalize on sun and scenery. The audience gets its brutal murders and brazen deceit wrapped in bright visual pleasure.For “Ripley,” an eight-episode adaptation of the book that premieres on Netflix on Thursday, Steven Zaillian has decided to do without the color. Shot — beautifully — in sharply etched black and white by the Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit (“There Will Be Blood”), “Ripley” offers a different sort of pleasure: the chilly embrace of the art house.Reflecting what the more high-minded filmmakers of the show’s time period (it is set in 1961) were up to, Zaillian, who wrote and directed all the episodes, takes an approach that harmonizes with Elswit’s austerity. The entire season moves along sleekly — you could say somnolently — at the same measured pace, with the same arch tone and on the same note of muted, stylish apprehension. Highsmith’s pulpy concoction, with its hair-trigger killings and sudden reversals, is run through a strainer and comes out smooth. It feels like what you might get if the early-’60s Antonioni or Resnais had directed a season of “The White Lotus.”And Zaillian appears to have asked his actors to practice a similar restraint. Their overall affect isn’t flat, exactly, but it’s within a narrow range, with physicality tightly reined in and the eyes asked to do a lot of work. When you have the eyes of Andrew Scott, the gifted Irish actor (“Sherlock,” “Fleabag”) who plays Tom Ripley, that’s not a big problem.Zaillian has been faithful, in broad outline, to Highsmith’s story. Ripley, a slacker and a con man grinding out a living in postwar New York, is sent to Italy to try to persuade a trust-funded idler to come home and take over the family business. He has only a passing acquaintance with his target, Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn), but in the first of a long series of misunderstandings and lucky strokes that go Ripley’s way, Greenleaf’s father thinks they are good friends.Highsmith’s novel is a training manual for the sociopath: Once Ripley sees the indolent lives led by Greenleaf and his sort-of girlfriend, Marge Sherwood (Dakota Fanning), in a picturesque fishing village on the Amalfi coast, he ups his game from tedious grifting to full-contact identity theft. Wedging himself between Dickie and Marge, he becomes obsessed — an obsession in which the lines between befriending Dickie, sponging off Dickie and becoming Dickie are progressively erased.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 Rebuts Trump’s Call for ‘Christian Visibility Day’

    “This is America, buddy. Every day is ‘Christian Visibility Day,’” Desi Lydic said on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”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.‘Finally, a Christian Holiday We Can Celebrate’During a rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, former President Donald Trump criticized President Biden for acknowledging Transgender Day of Visibility, which is observed every March 31. This year, that also happened to be Easter Sunday. Trump said he wanted Election Day, on Nov. 5, to be “Christian Visibility Day.”“This is America, buddy. Every day is ‘Christian Visibility Day,’” Desi Lydic said on “The Daily Show.”“Yes, finally, a Christian holiday we can celebrate.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Former President Trump yesterday criticized President Biden for proclaiming Easter Sunday as Transgender Day of Visibility and said, ‘Such total disrespect to Christians.’ And if you’re going to disrespect Christians, you might as well make some money off it.” — SETH MEYERS“I love that he’s somehow the Christian candidate. Trump — not only does he not go to church, he didn’t even go to church on Easter Sunday.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yes, by total coincidence, Trans Visibility Day happened to fall on Easter this year. Which seemed like, I don’t know, a good fit to me. I mean, Jesus did identify as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So, live your truth, queen!” — DESI LYDIC“Trump aside, I have a question for the actual religious conservatives: Why are you so upset about this? Trans Visibility Day had no effect on your Easter. Nobody was at church like, ‘Well, we were going to celebrate the Resurrection, but instead, everyone line up for your gender reassignment surgery. Please, leave your penis in the collection basket.’” — DESI LYDIC“And, for what it’s worth, there’s a false premise at the heart of this entire controversy, which is that there’s even a conflict between trans people and Christianity to begin with. There isn’t. In fact, the Bible doesn’t say anything about trans people. It does, however, say to love thy neighbor and to not judge other people, and perhaps the most famous of Bible verses, ‘Please do not sell me for $59.99 to pay off your rape fines. Amen.’” — DESI LYDICThe Punchiest Punchlines (It’s Moon O’Clock Somewhere Edition)“We have just learned that the White House has directed NASA to create a time standard for the moon. Though, obviously, they’re going to need two: Moon Standard and Moonlight Savings Time.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The moon is getting its own time zone because scientists need a time-keeping benchmark for lunar spacecraft and satellites that require extreme precision for their missions. But it’s also going to be great for anyone who needs an excuse to day drink. Hey, it’s Moon O’Clock somewhere.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This sounds like a fake project Trump would have given Mike Pence to keep him busy.” — JIMMY KIMMELWe 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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    For Len Cariou, Dying Onstage Each Night Has Been ‘Invigorating’

    In “Tuesdays With Morrie,” the 84-year-old actor was eager to tackle “a rich role in a show that asks, ‘What if despair and death are not the end?’”Chris Domig was ready to throw in the towel.After a year-and-a-half-long search, a church chapel in Gramercy Park was the only affordable space Domig, the artistic director of the Off Off Broadway company Sea Dog Theater, had been able to find to mount a production of “Tuesdays With Morrie.” Chairs would have to be arranged on a set of risers on the altar. The props would be a piano, a couple of chairs, a walker and a wheelchair.The company also had almost no advertising budget.But it did have Len Cariou, an elder statesman of the theater who in 1979 won a Tony Award for originating the role of Sweeney Todd on Broadway. He would play Morrie, a former sociology professor who, after receiving a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., reconnects with one of his students in what becomes a series of weekly meetings.Cariou, also known for his turns in musicals like “A Little Night Music” and “Applause,” had been taken with the character of Morrie ever since he read the 1997 memoir by Mitch Albom on which the 2002 play is based.“I said, ‘One day, I’d love to play that part,’” Cariou, 84, said last month during a joint interview with Domig at St. George’s Episcopal Church, where the recently extended “Tuesdays With Morrie” is set to run through April 20. “It’s such a rich role in a show that asks, ‘What if despair and death are not the end? What if there’s something more?’”Chris Domig, left, and Cariou in the Sea Dog Theater production of “Tuesdays With Morrie.”Jeremy VarnerBut one major hurdle remained, Domig said: How were they going to pull off the play with only a handful of props?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