Eliana Willis

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    ‘Baby Farm’ Is a Harrowing Nigerian Drama

    Inspired by the bleak, real-life phenomenon of Nigerian “baby factories,” the Netflix series nonetheless manages not to be a didactic, punishing slog.The five-part Nigerian thriller “Baby Farm,” on Netflix (in English and Nigerian Pidgin, with subtitles), follows a desperate young woman trapped in a sadistic maternity-care facility. Adanna (Onyinye Odokoro) finds herself pregnant, alone and broke in Lagos when a seemingly friendly sex worker ushers her into the welcoming arms of the Evans Foundation, a glam nongovernmental organization that claims to help women like her. Once there, the blond, British Sister Barb (Jenny Stead) really lays on the high-pressure sales tactics.Even though Adanna is uncomfortable, she agrees to move in. She is worried that living outside might damage her gestating baby, and she has nowhere else to turn. She can leave if she wants to, right? “Leave where, exactly?” replies Sister Barb.Adanna’s relief to have food and medical care is short-lived. She isn’t in a comfortable place for women to receive prenatal care; she is in a terrifying, abusive prison, run by Barb and her cartoonishly evil husband (Langley Kirkwood), the doctor and face of the organization. “You are here for one thing and one thing only: making babies,” he bellows. Once delivered, the babies are ripped from their mothers’ arms and sold to wealthy couples.The third prong here is Cherise (Rita Dominic), a Nigerian actress poised for a big break and international success. She and her husband are trying everything they can to have a baby, but nothing has worked. She regrets speaking so openly with the press about her miscarriages because now gossip bloggers hound her about it. Legal paths to adoption are off the table because of her husband’s arrest record, and her desperation and despair are so profound that she is willing to turn a blind eye to some of the sketchiness surrounding the Evans Foundation. She wants a baby through any means necessary.“Baby Farm” feels like a less-turgid “Handmaid’s Tale,” faster and soapier. The show moves between gutting, grounded moments and campy melodrama, which tempers the misery substantially. The topics at hand here are among the heaviest imaginable, and while this show is not based on a true story, Nigerian “baby factories” are real. But “Baby Farm” manages not to be a didactic, punishing slog. It is energetic, and even as its characters consider themselves utterly stuck, the story really moves. More

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    Bobby Sherman, Easygoing Teen Idol of the 1960s and ’70s, Dies at 81

    First on TV and then on the pop charts, he became so popular so young, he once said, that he “didn’t really have time to have an ego.”Bobby Sherman, an actor and singer who became an easygoing pop-music star and teen idol in the late 1960s, and who continued performing until well into the 1980s, has died. He was 81. His wife, Brigitte Poublon, announced his death on Tuesday morning on Instagram, providing no other details. She revealed in March that Mr. Sherman had been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, though she did not specify the type of cancer.Mr. Sherman was 25 when he was cast in the comedy western that made him a star. On “Here Come the Brides,” a one-hour ABC series, he played a bashful 19th-century Seattle lumberjack. George Gent, reviewing the show for The New York Times, declared Mr. Sherman “winning as the shy and stuttering youngest brother,” although he predicted only that the show “should be fun.”“Here Come the Brides” ran for only two seasons (1968-70), but that was more than long enough for Mr. Sherman to attract a following: He was said to be receiving 25,000 pieces of fan mail every week.He had already become a successful recording artist, beginning with “Little Woman,” which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1969 and proved to be his biggest hit. He went on to score three other Top 10 singles in 1969 and 1970: “La La La (If I Had You),” “Easy Come, Easy Go” and “Julie, Do Ya Love Me.”By the end of 1972 he had seven gold singles, one platinum single and 10 gold albums.When TV Guide in 2005 ranked the 25 greatest teen idols, Mr. Sherman took the No. 8 spot, ahead of Davy Jones and Troy Donahue. (David Cassidy was No. 1.) He appeared countless times on the cover of Tiger Beat, a popular magazine for adolescent girls. Even Marge Simpson, leading lady of the long-running animated series “The Simpsons,” had a crush on Bobby Sherman, as she confessed to her daughter Lisa in one episode.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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    ‘Cold War Choir Practice’ Review: When the President Made a Deal

    Ro Reddick’s music-infused comedy, set during the Cold War, finishes this year’s edition of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks festival on a high.For Christmas 1987, Meek knows exactly what she wants from Santa Claus. All three items should fit easily on the sleigh: a stuffed animal, a Speak & Spell for language-learning and a nuclear radiation detector. You know, to keep inside the fallout shelter she’s building in the basement.At 10 years old, alert to the world, Meek is anxious about the Cold War and hoping to help stop it — or at least protect herself and her family, should Soviet missiles ever be aimed at Syracuse, N.Y. But she is also just a little kid, inquisitive and dreamy, with an “E.T.” sweatshirt and a taste for Atomic Fireballs from the neighborhood candy shop.Played by Alana Raquel Bowers, an adult deftly channeling tweendom, Meek is the winsome protagonist of “Cold War Choir Practice,” a brainy new comedy by Ro Reddick that’s infused with choral music and spiked with espionage. Directed by Knud Adams, and featuring a jewel-studded cast, the play finishes this year’s edition of Clubbed Thumb’s Summerworks festival on a high.That’s true even with the whole extra set of reverberations that the show abruptly acquired after the U.S. strike on Iran on Saturday — world peace being one of Meek’s consuming priorities. In a children’s choir, she sings of de-escalation (sample lyric: “No one has to die”) and gets matched with a pen pal from the U.S.S.R.“Dear Soviet Pen Pal,” Meek writes, brightly. “War is imminent. How are you today? Did you know the voice of a child has the power to stop a nuclear attack?”Meek (Bowers) and her father, Smooch (Will Cobbs).Maria BaranovaWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘The Bear’ Is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know

    The kitchen dramedy returns Wednesday, a year after its divisive third season ended on a cliffhanger. Here’s what to remember for the new episodes.The FX dramedy “The Bear” arrived on Hulu in the summer of 2022, and unlike a lot of award-winning TV, this series has stuck to a yearly release schedule, always arriving in late June. So get ready to start hearing “Yes, chef!” during everyday interactions.Season 4 debuts in full on Wednesday, returning viewers to the eclectic, vibrant Chicago food scene and the struggling restaurant at the heart of the story, the Bear. At the end of last season, Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), the Bear’s chef and co-owner, had just received a review in The Chicago Tribune that might determine whether or not his place stays open. But viewers still don’t know what it says.They almost certainly will find out in the new episodes, though Christopher Storer, the creator of “The Bear,” likes to keep the show unpredictable. Here are some things to keep in mind going into the new season.Chaos on the menuA quick reminder of how we got here: Carmy, suffering from self-doubt and burnout from his time working at high-end restaurants, returned to run the Original Beef of Chicagoland a few months after the suicide of his brother, Mikey (Jon Bernthal), who had inherited the restaurant from their volatile father. The first season ended with Carmy discovering Mikey had hidden thousands of dollars in tomato cans — enough to settle much of the restaurants’ debts, potentially.Instead, in Season 2, Carmy went deeper into debt with the family’s longtime backer, Jimmy Kalinowski (Oliver Platt), known variously as “Cicero” or “Unc,” to expand the restaurant into a new establishment called the Bear, serving sandwiches for lunch and a Michelin-level menu at night. The soft opening went well, despite a meltdown in the kitchen and a Carmy tantrum inside a walk-in refrigerator.Last season, the Bear built some buzz but still suffered from internal dysfunction, much of it because of Carmy’s persistent, restless reinvention of the menu. It all led up to the make-or-break review, which, based on Carmy’s reaction when he read it, does not seem to be the rave he and his team badly need.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The Curious Proposal to Fund New Hampshire’s Arts Council With $1

    New Hampshire residents pushed back, but lawmakers still plan to decimate the group, which gives grants to theaters and museums.The notice that landed in the inbox of Elliott Cunningham, the managing director of New Hampshire’s oldest playhouse, provided little explanation. But it made clear that the federal grant it had been awarded for a traveling production about a 12-year-old boy exploring backyard trails was no longer available.He expects a similar message from state funding sources to come next.Support for New Hampshire’s arts council is at risk as legislators finalize a two-year state budget this week. After one lawmaker suggested eliminating the organization, another countered with a proposal that the council should instead receive $1.The proposed cuts looked similar to President Trump’s move to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. In her inaugural address in January, Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, announced the formation of the Commission on Government Efficiency, a state version of the Department of Government Efficiency.The message has been clear: Reduce the size of government and trim budgets.To many state legislators, shrinking revenue means tough decisions. To arts administrators, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts is essential to sustaining the theaters, museums and festivals that help give the “Live free or die” state its character.Last fiscal year the arts council gave the New London Barn Playhouse, where Mr. Cunningham works, a $21,250 grant to upgrade its sound system. The council also helped pay for a wheelchair-accessible lift backstage at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, for broadband upgrades at the New England Ski Museum in Franconia and for new floors at a dance studio in Lebanon.“There are a million places in this country that have a million strip malls that all look exactly the same,” said Sal Prizio, the executive director of the Capitol Center for the Arts, which is blocks away from the State House. “You’re killing the things that make New Hampshire, New Hampshire.”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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    On Broadway, A.I. and High-Tech Storytelling Is Having a Moment

    Sarah Snook screen-sharing selfies from a face-filtering phone app. Nicole Scherzinger getting her close-up via movie cameras. George Clooney making onstage television. Robert Downey Jr. superseded by a digital puppet.High-tech storytelling is surging on Broadway. Over the last year, stages have been brimming with large-scale and high-resolution videos, deployed not simply for scenery but also as an integrated narrative tool. It is all made possible by the growing availability, affordability and stability of the cameras, computers, projectors and surfaces that are utilized as part of today’s stage sets.The phenomenon, which is presumably here to stay, also reflects the ubiquity of digital devices in contemporary life. In an era when we are rarely separated from our smartphones or smartwatches, and video greets us in our cars and supermarkets, the latest technology is transforming stagecraft and storytelling.Robert Downey Jr. in “McNeal.”“The majority of Americans’ waking, conscious moments are looking at screens,” said the designer Jake Barton, who last fall worked on “McNeal,” a play that starred Downey as a novelist whose entanglement with generative artificial intelligence is woven into the scenic design. “On one level,” Barton said, “this is just theater naturally evolving.”Just two weeks ago, the Tony Awards gave the coveted best musical prize to “Maybe Happy Ending,” in which actors playing robots share a stage at times with massive videos depicting their digital memories. The best musical revival Tony went to “Sunset Boulevard,” where performers holding camera rigs film part of the action for transmission to a giant screen that swivels into the audience’s view. And the best play revival honor went to “Eureka Day,” which featured a reliably gut-busting scene in which chat comments posted during a school board meeting were projected above the cast.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 Fallon Wonders What Trump Will Launch Next

    The “Tonight Show” host said it was crazy that the president had “launched an attack on Iran, his own parade and a cellphone in the same week.”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.Hard LaunchPresident Trump authorized military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend.“Remember when we were scared he was going to invade Canada?” Jimmy Fallon said on Monday. “I miss that.”“Yep, the strike came as a total surprise. Apparently, Trump had all the planes fly out of the abandoned Newark airport.” — JIMMY FALLON“The U.S. on Saturday launched strikes against three Iranian nuclear sites in a surprise attack. Well, ‘surprise’ to everyone who’s not on Pete Hegseth’s text chain.” — SETH MEYERS“It’s crazy to me that the president launched an attack on Iran, his own parade and a cellphone in the same week.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump claimed Iran’s nuclear program was totally obliterated. As evidence, he held up a satellite photo showing Iran’s nuclear facility is now a Spirit Halloween.” — JIMMY FALLON“Now, were we facing an imminent threat? I don’t know. On one hand, Iran’s slogan isn’t ‘Life to America,’ but it’s hard to trust Donald Trump to be the one making these kinds of decisions. It kind of feels like we’re all in the back seat while the Uber driver goes on a road rage.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Fainting Elmo Edition)“New York governor Kathy Hochul yesterday declared a state of emergency amid a heat wave that’s expected to break 125-year-old records. Which means it’s time for my favorite hobby, going down to Times Square to watch the Elmos faint.” — SETH MEYERS“This weekend was the official start of summer, as my audience knows all too well. Thank you, thank you, you brave souls, for waiting outside in the humidity that the Weather Channel has described as ‘the devil’s trouser chili.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s not wearing a suit that makes me feel sticky. It’s the two layers of Spanx underneath it.” — JIMMY FALLON“Seriously, it is brutal out there. You know it’s bad when the heat map looks like Elmo’s colonoscopy.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe Mexican actor and director Diego Luna spoke out on behalf of immigrants during his first night as guest host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe pop music prodigy Lorde will promote her new album, “Virgin,” on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutMore than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best movies of the 21st century so far. More

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    The Real Winner of ‘Squid Game’ Is Hwang Dong-hyuk

    “Squid Game,” the candy-colored South Korean series about a deadly competition, premiered on Netflix in 2021 and almost immediately became an international sensation. Hwang Dong-hyuk, who wrote and directed the series, could hardly believe it.“Literally, I pinched myself,” he said, gripping the skin of his cheek. “It was very surreal to me.”Hwang was speaking — sometimes in English, sometimes through an interpreter — earlier this month in the breakfast room of a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan. The series was conceived in far shabbier locations.In 2009, having earned a master’s in film at the University of Southern California, he found himself back in South Korea, broke and demoralized. Spending his days huddled in cafes, reading grisly comic books and sliding deeper into debt, he began to dream up a story about a competition, based on popular children’s games, in which players would either solve all their money woes or die. No one would finance that nascent feature until nearly a decade later, when Netflix came calling.In its first season, “Squid Game” became the streamer’s most popular series ever, spawning think pieces, spinoffs, memes, bobblehead dolls. You could buy a “Squid Game” tracksuit, emblazoned with 456, the player number of the show’s protagonist, Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae). You could participate in less lethal recreations of the games, with on-site snack bars and a gift shop. A capitalist satire had become a capitalist triumph.Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in the final season. “The sense of crisis that weighs heavily on people’s daily lives, it allows anyone to easily relate to Gi-hun,” Hwang said.No Ju-han/NetflixWe 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