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    Jon Stewart: Trump Is ‘Trying to Order Off-Menu From the Constitution’

    President Trump says there are “methods” by which he could get a third term. “I think you tried one a few years ago,” the “Daily Show” host quipped. 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.Animal StyleIn an interview on Sunday, President Trump said he was considering his options for pursuing a third term in office, even though the Constitution forbids it. (He said there were “methods” by which it could be done.)“I’m sorry — ‘considering the option?’” Jon Stewart said on Monday’s “Daily Show.”“What, are you trying to order off-menu from the Constitution? ‘Oh, yeah, I see you got, uh, what do you got, two terms here — but can I get it animal style?’” — JON STEWART“Yes, there are other methods. I think you tried one a few years ago.” — JON STEWART“Although maybe Trump has something more creative in mind with the Vance thing. Have you guys heard of the movie ‘Face/Off?’” — JON STEWART“So aside from the president saying, ‘I’m not leaving,’ is there any other image of the shambolic state of our democracy? Perhaps something that looks like what you might get if you fed ‘the destruction of democracy’ into an A.I. meme generator? Oh, right. Elon Musk. OK.” — JON STEWARTThe Punchiest Punchlines (The Donstitution Edition)“If you don’t like Trump tariffs, and not many people do, don’t you worry: One day he won’t be president — maybe.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“President Trump said in a new interview that he is ‘not joking’ about seeking a third term and added, ‘There are methods.’ In response, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer announced that Democrats will have a plan in place to stop him by 2032.” — SETH MEYERS“In fact, he’s already working on some slogans for another run. I’m going to show you what I mean. First, there’s ‘Trump ’28: I Edited the Constitution With a Sharpie, and the Donstitution Says It’s Legal.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Up next, there’s ‘Trump ’28: Remember How Awesome It Was to Have a President in His 80s?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Here’s another one: ‘Trump ’28: Greenland Is Now Worth 300 Electoral Votes.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Then there’s ‘Trump ’28: It’s Totally Legal, According to New Supreme Court Justices Jake and Logan Paul.” — JIMMY FALLON“And, finally, ‘Trump ’28: If You Vote for Me, I’ll Add You to the Top-Secret Group Chat.’”— JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingOn Monday’s “Late Night,” the comedian Amber Ruffin addressed the White House Correspondents’ Association’s cancellation of her planned performance at its black-tie dinner.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightMichelle Williams will discuss her new FX dramedy “Dying for Sex” on “The Late Show.”Also, Check This OutUsing footage the residents had filmed on a tiny camera, “Secret Mall Apartment” places their stunt in the context of the rapid gentrification that was happening at the time.Michael TownsendA new documentary, “Secret Mall Apartment,” recounts how eight artists managed to live in a shopping center from 2003 to 2007. More

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    12 Plays and Musicals Across the U.S. to Brighten the Spring

    On stages across the country, there is no shortage of adventurous work, including plays by Lauren Yee, Larissa FastHorse and Zora Howard.Variety, ambition and ingenuity are on generous display at theaters throughout the United States this spring, with a healthy crop of new shows, a lauded Kinks musical making its North American debut and one friend of Paddington starring in a Chekhov play. These dozen productions are worth putting on your radar.‘Here There Are Blueberries’A cache of photos of Nazis who built and ran the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II is the starting point for this historically inspired production from Tectonic Theater Project (“The Laramie Project”). A finalist for the 2024 Pulitzer Prize, it feels like a companion piece to the film “The Zone of Interest,” fixing its gaze on perpetrators of the Holocaust. As a museum archivist in the play says, “Six million people didn’t murder themselves.” Moisés Kaufman directs. (Through March 30, Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills, Calif. April 5-May 11, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Berkeley, Calif.)‘Mother Russia’This savvy goofball comedy by Lauren Yee (“Cambodian Rock Band”) is set in 1992 in St. Petersburg, where college friends Evgeny and Dmitri are bumblers at 25, perplexed and adrift in a new economy that their Soviet upbringing did nothing to prepare them for. So Evgeny, the son of a former high-ranking K.G.B. official, and Dmitri, who had always hoped to join the agency, mimic the old ways, spying for a client on a defector who has returned. Nicholas C. Avila directs the world premiere. (Through April 13, Seattle Rep.)‘Sunny Afternoon’Kinks fans on this side of the Atlantic at last get their chance at a jukebox musical about the band. With original story, music and lyrics by Ray Davies, and a book by Joe Penhall (“The Constituent”), this retelling of the Kinks’ rise won the Olivier Award (Britain’s equivalent to the Tony) for best new musical in 2015. Edward Hall, who staged that production, directs this one, too. Songs include “You Really Got Me,” “Lola” and more. (Through April 27, Chicago Shakespeare Theater.)‘Uncle Vanya’The title role in Chekhov’s lately omnipresent comic drama seems almost tailor-made for Hugh Bonneville (“Downton Abbey”), who has often played hapless beta men to perfection; think Mr. Brown in the “Paddington” movies or Bernie in “Notting Hill.” In Simon Godwin’s production of Conor McPherson’s adaptation, Bonneville plays a man waking up to the waste of having toiled all his life for the benefit of his celebrated brother-in-law (Tom Nelis), while building nothing for himself. With John Benjamin Hickey as Astrov, the tree-hugging doctor. (March 30-April 20, Shakespeare Theater Company, Washington, D.C.)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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    Othello and Iago, a Marriage Made in Both Heaven and Hell

    Who exactly is in charge here?Is it the strutting general or his self-effacing ensign? The man celebrated for his “free and open nature” or the sociopath who keeps stockpiling secrets?That question has been occupying the minds of theatergoers and readers since Shakespeare’s “Othello” was first performed in London in the early 17th century. And it is doubtless being puzzled over by audiences at the star-charged Broadway revival of this tragedy of homicidal jealousy, with Denzel Washington in the title role of the noble Moorish warrior and Jake Gyllenhaal as Iago, his eminently credible, equally duplicitous aide-de-camp.On the most basic level, the answer is obvious. (For those unfamiliar with “Othello,” serious spoilers follow.) It’s the resentment-riddled Iago, the ultimate disgruntled employee, who takes command of his commander, and pretty much everyone in his orbit, in coldblooded pursuit of revenge. It’s Iago who gives the orders to his boss, while making his boss believe otherwise. And it’s Iago who’s still alive at the end.Jake Gyllenhaal and Denzel Washington in the play’s latest revival, on Broadway through June 8.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesBut in another sense, the contest has never been that easy to call. Put it this way: After you’ve seen it, who is it who dominates your thoughts? Which character’s point of view wound up ruling the night? In other words, who owned the production?Othello may have the glamour, the grand poetic speeches and a death scene for the ages. But there is a reason that Laurence Olivier, who would play the part blackface to divisive effect in the early 1960s, would worry about having “the stage stolen from me by some young and brilliant Iago.”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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    My Friend’s Show Was Kind of Terrible. What Do I Say When I See Them?

    You can always consider telling the truth, but it may not be advisable in this case.Do you have a question for our culture writers and editors? Ask us here.Q: What do you say to a friend at the stage door when their show was kind of terrible? Is there a “nonpliment” you’d recommend?There are three basic options here:Tell the truth, as a form of tough love.Find something to say that is appreciative but also incomplete.Lie.Each approach has its pros and cons.Truth is not always the answer.For some people, being a straight shooter is a point of pride. They view directness as a positive character trait and believe it makes them trustworthy; they may think they’re upholding high standards and prioritizing artistic integrity. But none of the artists I spoke with about this question believe this is the right approach, particularly at the stage door.There are certainly contexts in which expressing your concerns might be appropriate — particularly when you have been asked for such input, and when you have some expertise to offer. So if you are invited to a workshop for a project in development, or you are offered an early draft of a script, or you are asked to watch a rehearsal, and your friend is clear about wanting honest responses that might help them, go for it.“If you are attending an early preview of a play and your friend is genuinely requesting feedback, ground it in your viewing experience, interspersing bits of praise with constructive thoughts about how you encountered specific moments, performances or production elements,” said Lauren Halvorsen, a dramaturg who writes Nothing for the Group, a theater newsletter. “It’s also helpful to check in with your friend on their experience: ‘How are you feeling? What are you learning from these audiences? What are you still working out about the piece?’ and craft your response around their questions and concerns.”But once the show is on its feet, and you are greeting that friend backstage or at the stage door or at an after-party — fessing up that you disliked it is not the way to go.How about finessing the situation?Lots of people opt for an artful dodge. I’ve done that myself, in my case not because of friendship, but because of policy — The Times’s ethics rules say that reporters “may not comment, even informally, on works in progress before those works are reviewed,” so I often fall back on something generic like “congratulations” or “I’m so glad I was here.”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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    ‘Dying for Sex,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV this Week

    The Hulu show starring Michelle Williams premieres, and the third season of “White Lotus” wraps up.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that air or stream this week, March 31-April 6. Details and times are subject to change.Certain circumstances of being a woman.In 2020 Nikki Boyer hosted a podcast in which she chatted with her best friend Molly Kochan, who, after being diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, decided to leave her husband to explore her sexual desires for the first time in her life. A new series, inspired by the podcast, “Dying for Sex” stars Michelle Williams as Molly and Jenny Slate as Nikki. Rob Delaney, Kelvin Yu, David Rasche also make appearances. Streaming on Hulu on Friday.Though menopause will effect every woman who lives into her 40s and up, there is only starting to be a public conversation about its symptoms or possible treatments. And who better to tackle the issue than Oprah Winfrey? She has recently hosted shows discussing weight loss drugs and A.I., and now comes “An Oprah Winfrey Special: The Menopause Revolution,” which will feature a panel with Naomi Watts, Halle Berry, Dr. Mary Claire Haver and others as they discuss their personal experiences and share research. Monday at 10 p.m. on ABC.A bounty hunter, a doctor and a dysfunctional family walk into a bar …The new series, “The Bondsman” answers the question I can only assume has been top of mind for most of us: What if Kevin Bacon were a bounty hunter resurrected from the dead by the devil to help bring escaped demons back to hell? Bacon stars as Hub Halloran, the aforementioned resurrected bounty hunter, who also spends time, when he’s not busy chasing demons, reflecting on what landed him in hell in the first place, getting a second chance at love and jump-starting his country music career. Jennifer Nettles, Damon Herriman and Beth Grant also star. Streaming on Thursday on Prime Video.Willa Fitzgerald and Colin Woodell in “Pulse.”Jeff Neumann/NetflixThough we have seen countless encounters on TV of hot doctors canoodling in the on-call rooms, it somehow never gets old. On “Pulse,” a new medical drama, the stakes get upped when a Category 1 hurricane rips through a busy Miami medical center. The third-year resident Dr. Danny Simms (Willa Fitzgerald) and the chief resident Dr. Xander Phillips (Colin Woodell) are locked down in the hospital and forced to work together as details of their affair starts to spread. No medical show romance can probably ever top Meredith Grey and McDreamy, but one can only hope. Streaming Thursday on Netflix.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 White Lotus’ Season 3, Episode 7: Lovers and Fighters

    “The White Lotus” tells us only enough about the characters’ pasts to explain some of the choices they make. Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t.Season 3, Episode 7: ‘Killer Instincts’One unusual quality of “The White Lotus” is that the show’s creator, Mike White, keeps his characters’ back stories to a minimum. He mainly traffics in types: the swaggering North Carolina money-manager, the vain celebrity, and so on.White tells us only enough about their pasts to explain some of the choices they make. We know a lot about Rick’s past, because his tragic childhood led directly to every move he has made this season. But we know very little about the Ratliff kids beyond the personas they project: the cocky older brother, the rebellious lefty sister and whatever the heck Lochlan is supposed to be. As for what made them this way? We can use our imaginations to shade in the finer details.Most of the time, this approach works well enough. There is a wonderfully wry comic moment in this week’s episode, when Piper gets embarrassed while watching Lochlan struggle awkwardly with his monastery dinner. We know just enough about her to guess what she is thinking. She suddenly seems a lot like her mother, concerned less with her brother’s feelings than with how his clumsiness reflects on her. (See also: Piper’s mildly dismayed expression when Lochlan says he wants to spend the year in Thailand with her.)On the other hand, Saxon’s overall blankness becomes a problem in this episode, leading to one of the season’s clumsiest scenes. The moment occurs at Gary’s party, when Saxon watches his father swill down yet another large glass of whiskey. He asks Tim again if something is wrong back at the office, reminding him that, “My career is totally tied to yours.” Saxon has no interests, no hobbies. “I put my whole life into this basket,” he says. “Into your basket.”Given what we have seen of Saxon this season, I am not sure he is the kind of guy who would give such a self-aware speech, saying things like, “If I’m not a success, I’m nothing, and I can’t handle being nothing.” (I can, however, believe that Tim would answer his son’s very real concerns with a mumbled, “Nothing’s up, kid. We’re all good. It’s a party, get out there.”)It’s a tricky balancing act for White, trying to show more than he tells and letting the audience make assumptions. I thought about this also this week during the Bangkok scenes with Rick and Frank. I figured these two were seasoned old pros, skilled at running cons, and that they would know what they were doing when they met up with Sritala and her ailing husband, Jim (Scott Glenn), at the Hollingers’ house. Instead, Rick and Frank are surprisingly — and ridiculously — unprepared. They try to get by on improvisation; Frank in particular is really bad at it.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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    Richard Chamberlain, Actor in ‘Shogun’ and ‘Dr. Kildare,’ Dies at 90

    An overnight star as Dr. Kildare in the 1960s, he achieved new acclaim two decades later as the omnipresent leading man of mini-series.Richard Chamberlain, who rose to fame as the heartthrob star of the television series “Dr. Kildare” in the early 1960s, proved his mettle by becoming a serious stage actor and went on to a new wave of acclaim as the omnipresent leading man of 1980s mini-series, died on Saturday night at his home in Waimanalo, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. He was 90.A spokesman, Harlan Boll, said the cause was complications of a stroke.Mr. Chamberlain was just 27 when he made his debut in the title role of the idealistic young intern on NBC’s “Dr. Kildare,” based on the 1930s and ’40s movie series. With his California-blond boyish good looks and low-key charm, he became an overnight star, said to be receiving 12,000 fan letters a week during the show’s five-year run (1961-66).Not long after the series ended, he moved to England, determined to shake his pretty-boy image by training as a serious actor. By 1969 he was playing Hamlet at the Birmingham Repertory Theater and surprising the British critics, who called him assured, graceful and plucky. “Anyone who comes to this production to scoff at the sight of a popular American television actor, Richard Chamberlain, playing Hamlet will be in for a deep disappointment,” a review in The Times of London declared.After five years he returned to the United States and to notable stage and screen roles, but it was television, and in particular the mini-series format, that restored his major star status. It began with a role as a Scottish trapper in the ensemble cast of the 12-part “Centennial” in 1978, as viewers began a brief but intense romance with this new programming form, which combined feature-film ambition with the many hours required to tell big stories in great detail.For Mr. Chamberlain, the phenomenon hit full force only when he played the dashing 17th-century romantic lead in “Shogun” in 1980, seducing a new generation of fans. He followed that in 1983 with his portrayal of Ralph de Bricassart, the tortured young priest in the saga “The Thorn Birds,” making him a 49-year-old sex symbol and the undeniable holder of the unofficial title “king of the mini-series.”Mr. Chamberlain received Emmy Award nominations for “The Thorn Birds” and “Shogun,” as well as for “Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story” (1985) — in which he played Raoul Wallenberg, the World War II resistance hero — and for “The Count of Monte Cristo” (1975). He won three Golden Globes during his career, for “The Thorn Birds” and “Shogun,” and as best television actor for “Dr. Kildare” in 1963.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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    Richard Chamberlain Was a Mega Star in TV Mini-Series ‘The Thorn Birds’ and ‘Shogun’

    The actor, who died at 90, was the most compelling face of a maximalist, soapy television era.When mini-series ruled prime time, their maxi-est star was Richard Chamberlain.Today we call them “limited series.” But in their 20th-century heyday, under another inapt diminutive, mini-series were the megafauna of TV, lavish events that achieved the kind of cinematic spectacle that was otherwise rare in living-room entertainment of the time. They were TV specials that made TV special.In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of mini-series — “Roots,” “The Winds of War,” “Lonesome Dove” — dominated the conversation and minted stars. But perhaps no other actor is more closely associated with the genre than Chamberlain, who died on Saturday at 90, because of his star-making, swoon-worthy, emotive roles in “Shogun” and “The Thorn Birds.”I was young when Chamberlain’s mini-series aired, and “Dr. Kildare,” the 1960s medical series that established him as a heartthrob, was before my time. But his landmark roles helped form my ideas of what TV could do, and what a TV star was.His mini-series were luxury liners and time machines, whisking audiences to other lands and ages in a way that workaday series couldn’t. In “Shogun,” Chamberlain played John Blackthorne, an English navigator taken prisoner in feudal Japan; in the melodrama “The Thorn Birds,” his priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart, wrestled with his forbidden love for a young woman from an Australian sheep ranching family.Locations and budgets helped shape the experience, of course, but so did Chamberlain’s screen presence. A Shakespearean actor in between TV roles, he was able to make the manners of decades or centuries before feel warm-blooded and lived-in. He was dignified enough to carry the stories’ grandeur, expressive enough to put them over as the finest grade of pulp.Though he was a signature star of the 1980s, Chamberlain’s appeal was in a way a holdover of the 1960s and 1970s. He was emotive, with fine features that made a beautiful canvas for fervor and anguish and longing. He could rage and burst with passion, but his appeal was a different mold from the kind of beefy masculinity that would define the 1980s screen celebrity of Stallone and Schwarzenegger.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