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    The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in April

    Our streaming picks for April, including ‘Concrete Cowboy,’ ‘Made for Love’ and ‘Them’Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for April.New to NetflixAPRIL 1‘Worn Stories’ Season 1Based on the Times columnist Emily Spivack’s book of the same name, the docu-series “Worn Stories” features short vignettes about what people wear and why. The show’s crew has assembled slice-of-life footage and thoughtful comments from a wide variety of people, who talk about how clothing — or the lack thereof, in the case of one segment about nudism — connects them to history, to their families, and to the communities they love. “Worn Stories” is comforting TV, designed to leave viewers feeling more optimistic about humanity.APRIL 2‘Concrete Cowboy’The “Stranger Things” actor Caleb McLaughlin plays a troubled teen named Cole in this coming-of-age drama, set in a Philadelphia neighborhood where the predominately Black residents defy the local authorities by maintaining a stable of horses. Idris Elba plays Cole’s father Harp, who tries to steer him away from the local drug trade by teaching him to cherish the responsibility of caring for a large animal. Based on a Greg Neri novel, “Concrete Cowboy” is an earnest and often lyrical look at an unusual urban subculture.‘The Serpent’In the mid-1970s, the con man Charles Sobhraj embarked on a crime spree across eastern Asia, at first swindling and then murdering a succession of tourists, with the help of a handful of loyal followers. Tahar Rahim plays Sobhraj in the British crime drama “The Serpent.” The show features a timeline-hopping structure, meant to compare and contrast the killer’s rampage with the work of the Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle), who investigated the deaths of a young couple from his country. This eight-part mini-series is both a character sketch and a portrait of a wild and sometimes dangerous decade.‘Shadow and Bone’NetflixAPRIL 23‘Shadow and Bone’ Season 1Fans of big, sweeping Netflix fantasy series — like “The Witcher” and “The Umbrella Academy” — are the ideal audience for “Shadow and Bone.” This adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s popular series of supernatural adventure novels is set in a world where unstoppable giant monsters terrorize a society governed by a rigid military and unscrupulous outlaws. Jessie Mei Li plays Alina Starkov, an ordinary soldier who surprises her comrades by exhibiting extraordinary superpowers — perhaps strong enough to change their lives. APRIL 29‘Yasuke’ Season 1In this animated action-adventure series, LaKeith Stanfield voices the title character, very loosely based on the historical records of an African-born samurai who fought in 16th century Japan. Created by the writer/producer LaSean Thomas (who previously worked on “Black Dynamite” and “Cannon Busters”), “Yasuke” follows this masterless swordsman as he reluctantly agrees to escort a superpowered girl on a dangerous quest. The story jumps back in forth in time, showing how Yasuke fights for his own nobility after a lifetime of bad breaks.Also arriving: “Prank Encounters” Season 2 (April 1), “Just Say Yes” (April 2), “Madame Claude” (April 2), “Family Reunion” Season 3 (April 5), “Snabba Cash” Season 1 (April 7), “This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (April 7), “The Wedding Coach” Season 1 (April 7), “The Way of the Househusband” Season 1 (April 8), “Night in Paradise” (April 9), “Thunder Force” (April 9), “My Love: Six Stories of True Love” (April 13), “Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!” (April 14), “Law School” (April 14), “Love and Monsters” (April 14), “The Soul” (April 14), “Arlo the Alligator Boy” (April 16), “Fast & Furious: Spy Racers” Season 4 (April 16), “Into the Beat” (April 16), “Ride or Die” (April 16), “Zero” Season 1 (April 21), “Stowaway” (April 22), “Fatima” (April 27), “Sexify” (April 28), “And Tomorrow the Entire World” (April 30), “The Innocent” (April 30), “The Mitchells vs. the Machines” (April 30), “Things Heard and Seen” (April 30).New to Stan‘Made for Love’StanAPRIL 1‘Made for Love’ Season 1The terrific comic actress Cristin Milioti takes the lead in this offbeat science-fiction dramedy, based on an Alissa Nutting novel. Milioti plays Hazel, who gets fed up with her controlling tech billionaire husband Byron (Billy Magnussen) and flees to the middle of nowhere to spend time with her relatively low-maintenance dad (Ray Romano). Unfortunately, Hazel soon finds she can’t flee modernity — not with her father’s synthetic girlfriend taking up space around the house, and not with Byron’s cutting-edge surveillance equipment tracking her every move and mood.APRIL 8‘No Activity’ Season 4The American version of the Australian series “No Activity” features a new approach for its fourth season, necessitated by the pandemic. The show is still mostly about lawmen dealing with the tedium of waiting for something to happen while investigating cases, but the format has now switched from live action to animation — which also allows for an all-star team of guest stars, including Kevin Bacon, Elle Fanning, Will Forte and D’Arcy Carden. Patrick Brammall (who cocreated the original show with the writer-director Trent O’Donnell) returns as a cop who dreams of tackling major crimes but who keeps getting assigned much duller duties.APRIL 16‘Younger’ Season 7The seventh season is the last for this beloved sitcom, created by the “Sex and the City” producer Darren Star. “Younger” started out as a shrewd and cynical take on the modern New York publishing business, with Sutton Foster playing a middle-aged divorcee pretending to be a hip 20-something in order to get a job. But over the course of its run, the series has dealt with more than just the generation gap, as Star and his team have explored the fragile state of modern media. Throughout, the heroine’s big lie has remained the main hook, and the foundation for the cliffhanger setting up this final run.‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’StanAPRIL 19‘Everything’s Gonna Be Okay’ Season 2One of 2020s most entertaining and emotionally engaging new comedies returns for a second season. Josh Thomas plays Nicholas, a formerly carefree Australian now saddled with the guardianship of his two American half sisters: the high-functioning autistic savant Matilda (Kayla Cromer) and the social misfit Genevieve (Maeve Press). While the show is mostly about the girls — both lovable characters, wonderfully played — it’s also about how Nicholas struggles with whether he should be more of a “dad” to these emotionally fragile teens, as they navigate upper middle-class Los Angeles.APRIL 20‘Godfather of Harlem’ Season 2The first season of this period crime drama introduced Bumpy Johnson (Forest Whitaker), an aging crime boss trying to reestablish his dominance in early 1960s New York after a decade in prison. The initial ten episodes covered the rapid changes in politics and pop culture, in an era when African-Americans were wielding power more publicly — even in the drug trade. Season two will add even more real-life (and fictional) gangsters, activists and celebrities, and should further the show’s reputation as one of TV’s best-acted and most ambitious crime dramas.APRIL 23‘Rutherford Falls’ Season 1The latest project for the writer-producer Michael Schur — one of the creators who brought “Parks and Recreation” and “The Good Place” to the small screen — is a sitcom about the complex and sometimes combative relationship between the residents of a Native American reservation and a nearby community in upstate New York. Ed Helms (another of the show’s creators) stars as the descendant of a local historical figure. The “Rutherford Falls” head writer Sierra Teller Ornelas leads a staff that is primarily made up of Indigenous people, lending authenticity — as well as some wryly self-aware humor — to these stories of small town life.APRIL 24‘Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Boy’Based on Jimmy Barnes’ frank memoir, this documentary tells the story of how the Scottish-born singer-songwriter overcame a rough childhood to become one of the most popular musicians in Australia. The film isn’t a comprehensive look at Barnes or his band Cold Chisel. Instead the director Mark Joffe lets his subject talk at length about his formative years, while cutting occasionally to some new performance footage in an intimate setting, in which Barnes strips his music — and his life — down to its soulful core.‘The Dressmaker’StanAPRIL 25‘The Dressmaker’Kate Winslet won Best Actress at the AACTA Awards — and her co-stars Judy Davis and Hugo Weaving won Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor — for this darkly comic melodrama, about a talented tailor who returns to her inhospitable hometown with vengeance on her mind. Winslet plays the title character, who was driven away by her neighbors as a little girl because of a crime she’s pretty sure she didn’t commit. Directed and co-written by Jocelyn Moorhouse (adapting a Rosalie Ham novel), “The Dressmaker” is stylish, dynamic and shockingly — and wonderfully — dark in places. Also arriving: “Cheat” Season 1 (April 1), “Dinner with Friends” (April 1), “I Used to Go Here” (April 1), “Jiu Jitsu” (April 1), “Recoil” (April 1), “Tyson” (April 1), “The Capture” Season 1 (April 2), “The Moodys” Season 2 (April 2), “Pitch Perfect” (April 7), “Pitch Perfect 2” (April 7), “Home Economics” Season 1 (April 14), “Grow” (April 8), “Reservoir Dogs” (April 10), “Van Der Walk” Season 1 (April 16), “Confronting a Serial Killer” (April 18), “Baby Done” (April 20), “Gold Diggers” (April 22), “Anzacs” Season 1 (April 23).New to Amazon‘Them’AmazonAPRIL 9‘Them’ Season 1“The Chi” creator Lena Waithe is one of the producers of this socially conscious horror anthology, from the mind of the writer Little Marvin. In season one — subtitled “Covenant” — Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas play the Emorys, a pair of married Black parents from North Carolina who move to a white middle-class neighborhood in Los Angeles in the early 1950s. Alison Pill plays the block’s bigoted tastemaker, who persuades her girlfriends and their husbands to make the Emorys feel unwelcome. The story eventually takes a turn toward the supernatural, although it’s plenty terrifying when it’s just about discrimination.Also arriving: “Frank of Ireland” (April 16), “Without Remorse” (April 30). More

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    Pat Collins, Tony Award-Winning Lighting Designer, Dies at 88

    She sought to move audiences with her lighting in shows like “The Threepenny Opera,” “I’m Not Rappaport” and “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”Pat Collins, a Tony Award-winning lighting designer and a Broadway mainstay whose work was seen for nearly 50 years in plays, musicals and operas, died on March 21 at her home in Branford, Conn. She was 88.The cause was pancreatic cancer, said Dr. Virginia Stuermer, her partner of 64 years and her only survivor.Ms. Collins, who won her Tony for Herb Gardner’s “I’m Not Rappaport” in 1986, was the lighting designer for more than 30 other Broadway productions, among them “The Threepenny Opera,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Doubt,” which earned her a Tony nomination.“Her lighting was like her personality: She was nervy and intelligent but with a sensitive side,” John Lee Beatty, a Tony-winning scenic designer and frequent collaborator, said in a phone interview. “She really blossomed in tech rehearsals; she loved to create on the spot.” He added: “She could do conventional lighting, but she also wanted to try everything.”Ms. Collins brought an autumnal palette to “I’m Not Rappaport,” about two irascible and inseparable octogenarians who meet on a Central Park bench, and the darkness of looming death to a 1989 production in Baltimore of “Miss Evers’ Boys,” David Feldshuh’s play about the federal government’s withholding of treatment for syphilis to poor Black men. In a 2002 revival of Lanford Wilson’s “Burn This” at the Union Square Theater, she transformed figures onstage into what Ben Brantley of The New York Times called “ambiguous silhouettes.”She also worked at regional theaters throughout the United States and with opera companies in New York, San Francisco, Santa Fe, London, Paris and Munich — always using light to establish moods, create the illusion of time passing and indicate where the audience’s attention should be on the stage.“Lighting has everything to do with how you feel and how things affect you,” Ms. Collins told The Post-Star in Glens Falls, N.Y., in 1975. “Almost everyone has had the aesthetic experience of being moved by seeing light filtered through trees in the forest. Multiply that by one thousand and you’d have some idea of the constant subliminal effect lighting has on us.”The musical “Ain’t Misbehavin’” on Broadway. It was one of more than 30 Broadway productions for which Ms. Collins designed the lighting.Alamy Stock PhotoMichael Chybowski, a lighting designer who worked with Ms. Collins on two productions at the Alaska Repertory Theater in the 1980s, said of her: “She understood the point of the show and made sure that you saw it. Whether it was portentous events in ‘An Enemy of the People’ or the sheer fun of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’,’ her light reflected and communicated that.”Mr. Chybowski recalled the lighting design that Ms. Collins devised for “An Enemy of the People,” Ibsen’s political drama about a scientist who tries to save his town from water pollution but becomes a scapegoat.“She went into the studio, worked at my drafting table for four hours, drew up the plan and went off to the airport,” he said. “I said, ‘It can’t be that easy,’ but we put on the show, and it was the most beautiful show we did in my five years at the theater.”Patricia Jane Collins was born on April 3, 1932, in Brooklyn to Jerry and Alta (Hyatt) Collins. Her mother worked in a law firm; her father left the family when Pat was very young.Ms. Collins attended Pembroke College in Brown University, where she studied Spanish and joined a campus drama group. After graduating, she spent a year at Yale Drama School — where she met Dr. Stuermer — but felt it was a waste of time. She went to work instead as a stage manager at the Joffrey Ballet, and then as an assistant to Jean Rosenthal, a top Broadway lighting designer, at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater in Stratford, Conn.Ms. Collins won a Tony for her work on Herb Gardner’s “I’m Not Rappaport” in 1986. She also designed the lighting for a 2002 Broadway revival with Ben Vereen, left, and Judd Hirsch.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesMs. Collins worked as a stage manager, among other jobs, in the 1960s but did not hit her stride until Joseph Papp, the founder and director of the New York Shakespeare Festival, hired her to design the lighting for productions of “The Threepenny Opera” at Lincoln Center in 1976, which earned her a Tony nomination, and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in 1977.“She had fixed somebody else’s show, and he offered her ‘Threepenny,’” said Mimi Jordan Sherin, a lighting designer and longtime associate of Ms. Collins’s. “That put her on the map, and she never stopped working after that.”For all that she worked on Broadway, she spent much of her time away from it, designing lighting at regional theaters, including Ford’s Theater in Washington, Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago, Berkeley Repertory Theater in California, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles and the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn.For the Hartford Stage Company’s production of Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline,” Malcolm Johnson of The Hartford Courant wrote admiringly of “the ever-changing light patterns” that Ms. Collins had created with “mirror images and stars and moons and comets.”Ms. Collins, who began listening to opera on radio at age 9, designed lighting for productions at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. She also conceived the lighting for Lar Lubovitch’s production of “Othello: A Dance in Three Acts” at the American Ballet Theater in 1997.Ms. Collins conceived the lighting for Lar Lubovitch’s production of “Othello” with the American Ballet Theater in 1997.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesHer other Broadway credits include “The Heidi Chronicles,” “The Sisters Rosenzweig,” “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” “Good People,” “Orphans” and “Execution of Justice,” for which she won a Drama Desk Award in 1986.Mr. Beatty recalled being in London one year when Ms. Collins had a double bill of work there — Stephen Sondheim’s “Into the Woods” and a performance nearby at the English National Opera.At “Into the Woods,” he said, “the curtain goes down, the music starts” and the lighting was “bright and simple, like the world’s biggest flashbulb had come on. Whoa, in your face!”“There was a certain joyfulness to that,” he added. “Then, she was down the street, doing an esoteric opera, challenging that director to think out of the box. It was perfect Pat.” More

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    Theater to Stream: ‘Broadway Backwards’ and Starry Readings

    Among the offerings are a well-matched double bill, Ute Lemper’s tribute to Marlene Dietrich and a virtual revival of Michel Legrand’s musical “Amour.”Theater audiences have become more like movie fans and television bingers: They can settle in for a double bill. Before the pandemic, they might have scheduled a matinee and evening performance back to back, but there were those pesky hours to kill in between. Now it’s possible to simply queue up a couple of streaming shows and hit play.A natural pairing this month combines two engaging autobiographical shows written by gifted actors looking back on their childhoods. Round House Theater of Bethesda, Md., is presenting Colman Domingo’s “A Boy and His Soul,” which played Off Broadway in 2009. Domingo, who portrayed the bandleader Cutler in the film adaptation of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” looks back at his connection to music and family while growing up gay in the 1970s and ’80s in Philadelphia. This new production is the first major one in which he himself does not appear, with Ro Boddie taking on the role. Through Apr. 18; roundhousetheatre.orgAcross the Potomac River, in Arlington, Va., Signature Theater is presenting “Daniel J. Watts’ The Jam: Only Child.” Under Lileana Blain-Cruz’s direction, Watts (who played Ike Turner in “Tina: The Tina Turner Musical” on Broadway) recalls growing up with his single mother in the 1980s and ’90s. The title refers to fruit spread, but sound and music energize the show, with DJ Duggz spinning onstage and acting as Watts’s occasional sidekick. Through May 7; sigtheatre.org‘Broadway Backwards’Along the lines of MCC Theater’s beloved “Miscast,” in which stars perform songs they would never get to sing in real shows, this Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS annual fund-raising series features gender-reversed performances. This year’s concert mixes new numbers — hold on to your hats during the opener with Stephanie J. Block, Deborah Cox and Lea Salonga — with ones from previous editions, featuring the usual array of starry participants. Through April 3; broadwaycares.org‘Inside the GPO’The GPO of this docudrama title refers to the General Post Office in Dublin, which was central to the 1916 Easter Rising of Irish Republicans against British rule. Created as a centennial commemoration, Fishamble’s production takes place at the actual GPO, which in 1916 had been occupied by the rebels for several days. The company is now streaming a remastered digital version in partnership with various Irish organizations around the world, including the New York Irish Center. April 1-5; newyorkirishcenter.org‘What the ___ Just Happened?’The monologuist Mike Daisey returns to the stage in a new piece livestreamed from the Kraine Theater in New York — in front of an in-person, fully vaccinated audience. The title (you can guess which word was omitted) neatly encapsulates many people’s stunned take on the past year. April 2; frigid.nycClockwise, from top left: Debbie Allen, Heather Alicia Simms, Alicia Stith and Phylicia Rashad in “Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous.”via Spotlight on Plays‘Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous’The Spotlight on Plays series has pulled off a fun feat with its latest reading, the first time the sisters Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad have acted together since the PBS movie “The Old Settler” 20 years ago. Rashad plays a grande dame of the stage, and Allen is her friend and director, in this 2019 comedy by Pearl Cleage (“Blues for an Alabama Sky”). April 8-12; broadwaysbestshows.comOne Year of Play-PerViewWhen many theatrical institutions curled up into the equivalent of a fetal position in March 2020, some people got to work. Among them was the enterprising reading series Play-PerView, which is celebrating its one-year anniversary with a mix of new and old works. In the first category is “Babette in Retreat” by Justin Sayre, who in the past year has been cultivating a high-camp sensibility in a steady stream of comedies like “Drowsenberg,” “When Sunny Went Blue” and “The Ducks.” There should be some choice bon mots and slapstick for Becca Blackwell, Nathan Lee Graham (as the title character), Randy Harrison (“Queer as Folk”), Bradford Louryk and Mary Testa. April 10-14; play-perview.comRandy Harrison, left, and Scott Parkinson in “Cockfight Play.”via Studio Theater‘Cockfight Play’Randy Harrison also takes on the lead role of John in Studio Theater’s fully staged digital production of Mike Bartlett’s “Cockfight Play.” (The actual title is just one word, so use your deductive skills). John is in a relationship with M (Scott Parkinson) when he falls in love with W (Kathryn Tkel). “Love?” a startled M says. “She?” Bartlett’s deceivingly simple premise explores the vagaries of romantic attraction, and the director David Muse makes good use of a split screen to overcome the actors’ need to maintain their distance. Through Apr. 18; studiotheatre.orgThe cast of an online revival of Michel Legrand’s musical “Amour,” presented by Art Lab and ShowTown Productions.via Art Lab‘Amour’Michel Legrand’s only Broadway musical was a flop, running for only 48 performances in 2002 — which is a shame because the poetic, surrealistic “Amour,” in which a civil servant realizes he can walk through walls, has plenty of the gorgeous melodies you’d expect from the French composer. Now, Art Lab and ShowTown Productions are presenting a revival starring Derrick Baskin (a Tony Award nominee for “Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations”), Drew Gehling (“Waitress”), Kara Lindsay, Adam Pascal, Christiani Pitts and Rachel York. It is high time “Amour” gets some love. April 2-4; stellartickets.com‘Period Piece’Don’t expect costumes of yesteryear. This project, conceived by Susan Cinoman, has enrolled an impressive roster of playwrights — among them, Ngozi Anyanwu, Bekah Brunstetter, Lisa D’Amour, Kirsten Greenidge, Lauren Gunderson, Theresa Rebeck, Sarah Ruhl and Caridad Svich — to create monologues about periods. The works, directed by Karen Carpenter (“Love, Loss, and What I Wore”), are spread over three evenings, and each has a unique cast; participants include Geneva Carr, Judy Gold, Julie Halston, Jessica Hecht, Mia Katigbak, Beth Leavel, Lauren Patten and Julie White. April 12, 19 and 26; periodpieceplay.com‘Hype Man: a break beat play’This play with music by Idris Goodwin revolves around the relationship between a white M.C. (Michael Knowlton) and his Black hype man (Kadahj Bennett). Their friendship goes from complicated to adversarial as they react differently to a case of police brutality, while their beatmaker (Rachel Cognata) is stuck in the middle. The show ran in New York in 2018, but Company One’s version, presented by the American Repertory Theater, is freshly urgent, considering the past year’s debates around policing and the appropriation of historically Black art forms. April 8-May 8; americanrepertorytheater.orgUte Lemper in “Rendezvous With Marlene.”Russ Rowland‘Ute Lemper: Rendezvous With Marlene’One night in 1988, Marlene, as in Marlene Dietrich, phoned her fellow German chanteuse Ute Lemper, then starring in a production of “Cabaret” in Paris. The two women chatted for hours. Three decades later, Lemper wrote and starred in a cabaret tribute that dives into Dietrich’s life and songs. The York Theater, which hosted the show in 2019, is presenting a virtual version that was filmed at the beloved East Village boîte Club Cumming. April 8-10; yorktheatre.org More

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    Review: In ‘Made for Love,’ She Can’t Get Him Out of Her Head

    In this techno-satire, a woman tagged with a chip by her mogul husband tries to break the (block)chains of love.Cristin Milioti has claimed a curiously specific character niche: woman escaping from twisted sci-fi trap. In the “Black Mirror” episode “USS Callister,” she was programmed into a simulation by her creepy boss. In last year’s “Palm Springs,” she and Andy Samberg puzzled out how to break free of a time loop that stuck them in a vicious “Groundhog Day” rom-com cycle.In “Made for Love,” a light-handed and dark-minded comedy of technology, control and gaslighting whose first three episodes arrive Thursday on HBO Max, the snare is all in her head.As in physically. As in implanted. As in a microchip.Hazel Green (Milioti) received this unwanted hardware upgrade from her husband, Byron Gogol (Billy Magnussen), who runs a world-dominating tech company. (Feel free to play around with the first vowel sound in “Gogol.”) For 10 years, they’ve lived in a gilded cage — or rather a gilded cube, a virtual-reality environment called the Hub, secluded from the messy outside world, with eternally perfect weather and a dolphin sporting in the swimming pool.And for 10 years, Byron has grown more devoted. Too devoted. “Have your wife review her biometrically recorded orgasms to better optimize them” devoted. Finally, he decides that he loves her — and his technology — so deeply that he and she will become “Users One” of his new product, Made for Love, which makes couples into two-person neural networks, their brains digitally connected. No more secrets, no more miscommunication, no more private thoughts.Who the hell would want that? you might ask, a question “Made for Love” raises but doesn’t entirely answer. For the purposes of the story, what’s important is that Byron wants it and Hazel emphatically does not. This impels her to fly the cube, a madcap and violent escape with Byron watching from behind her eyeballs. (Turns out he implanted only her chip, not his: “I had to read your diary first to know if I could let you read mine.”)Based on the novel of the same name by Alissa Nutting, a writer and producer on the series, “Made for Love” plays out as a screwball action satire, which likely makes its chilling premise — patriarchy and techno-utopianism as two sides of the same chip — go down easier than it would as a straight drama. (Christina Lee of the mordant “Search Party” is the showrunner; other producers include Patrick Somerville of Netflix’s “Maniac,” with which this shares a skeevy-dystopian vibe.)The metaphors are never far under the surface here, like Byron and Hazel’s double-finger wedding bands, reminiscent of tiny handcuffs. And when Hazel seeks help from her widowed father, Herb (Ray Romano), she finds him having taken up a committed partnership with a sex doll — sorry, “synthetic partner” — named Diane. Their one-way relationship is an echo of what Byron is trying to make Hazel into, a wife machine, but it’s also oddly tender and respectful.“Made for Love” is hardly subtle, and its cautionary tech tale has been told repeatedly in “Black Mirror” and elsewhere. But it’s playful and funny and almost momentum-driven enough to get away with hand-waving away its many implausibilities. Among those is the question of why Hazel, presented as a wily, resourceful skeptic, would have been swept off her feet by Byron, who from their first meeting throws up enough red flags for a giant slalom course.The casting helps put this over. Milioti, with her charm and anime eyes, is an almost too-perfect rom-com-lead type. (She broke out on TV as the title figure in “How I Met Your Mother.”) But she smartly plays against that type in stories that subvert expectations. Her Hazel is cunning, feral and sardonic on the lam; in flashbacks to her married life in the Hub, you can almost hear her scream behind her 10,000-watt smile.Romano, meanwhile, may be one of the few actors you could introduce in bed with a humanoid sex toy, whom he dresses in his dead wife’s clothing, yet have your viewer think, “You know, this seems like a complicated guy who’s been through a few rough patches.”And Magnussen, given the broadest of the central roles, pushes Byron’s zealotry past tilt. Inept at most human relationships, Byron has funneled all his emotional capacity into Hazel, out of both passion and the gamifying impulse to get the all-time high score on his marriage. He’s the epitome of both the obsessive Wife Guy and the hubristic Tech Guy, and he makes plain the connection between the two types.He’s also pitiable, insofar as a billionaire with godlike powers can be. “I am the only person who actually loves you!” he pleads to Hazel. “Objectively!”But it’s Milioti who gives the season’s first half (I’ve seen four episodes of eight) its adrenaline. “Made for Love” is a loopy jolt to the cortex that demands a high tolerance for absurdity. What grounds it is Hazel’s journey from kept woman to action hero, determined not to be a character in somebody else’s love story. More

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    Two ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Episodes No Longer on Nickelodeon

    One episode, which centered on a virus story line, “was never put on the schedule to be sensitive to the pandemic outbreak last year,” a spokesman said. The other, removed three years ago, was not “kid-appropriate.”Two episodes of the animated series “SpongeBob SquarePants” have been removed from the Nickelodeon cable network — one because of sensitivity related to the pandemic and another for not being “kid-appropriate,” the network said on Tuesday.The cartoon, which debuted in 1999 on Nickelodeon, follows the underwater misadventures of a talking yellow sea sponge named SpongeBob, who works at a fast-food restaurant, and his starfish buddy Patrick and other aquatic friends.One episode, titled “Kwarantined Crab,” centers on a virus story line, David Bittler, a spokesman for Nickelodeon, said on Tuesday. The episode features a health inspector who visits the fast-food restaurant where the main character works and finds a case of the “clam flu.”The episode “was never put on the schedule to be sensitive to the pandemic outbreak last year,” Mr. Bittler said on Tuesday.Another episode, “Mid-Life Crustacean,” was removed from rotation on the network in 2018 “following a standards review in which we determined some story elements were not kid-appropriate,” Mr. Bittler said.That episode followed another character, Mr. Krabs, the owner of the fast-food place, who is feeling old and asks SpongeBob and Patrick if he can join them on a wild night out, according to IMDb.com. The trio breaks into a woman’s house and takes her underwear. CNN reported on the removal of the episodes on Tuesday. The “Mid-Life Crustacean” episode is also no longer on Amazon.News of the episodes’ removal came at a time when other streaming platforms and publishers have sought to give audiences context for older films, television shows and books that carry offensive content.Last week, a children’s graphic novel by the creator of the popular “Captain Underpants” series was pulled from circulation by its publisher, Scholastic, which said that the book featured images and tropes — including Asian stereotypes — that perpetuate “passive racism.”The move to pull the book came days after a man opened fire at three massage businesses in and near Atlanta, killing eight people, including six women of Asian descent.Earlier this month, after WWE wrestling episodes began moving to Peacock, NBCUniversal’s new streaming service, racist moments were removed from old episodes. One episode from 1990 presented a showdown between Roddy Piper, a white wrestler, and Bad News Brown, a Black wrestler. Mr. Piper appeared at the match with half his face painted black.Also this month, the estate of Dr. Seuss announced that six of his books would no longer be published because they contained depictions of groups that were “hurtful and wrong.” More

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    ‘Game of Thrones’ Aims for Broadway

    A stage adaptation is in the works for Broadway, the West End and Australia. The goal is a 2023 debut.“Game of Thrones” ended in 2019 but George R.R. Martin still hasn’t finished the next novel in his Song of Ice and Fire series, the books that inspired the globally popular HBO drama.Alas, no word on when that might happen. But impatient fans may have something else to look forward to: The return of favorite characters like Ned Stark and Jaime Lannister in a stage adaptation of “Game of Thrones” that is being developed in the hope of productions on Broadway, in London’s West End and in Australia, with a target debut of 2023.“It ought to be spectacular,” Martin said in a statement announcing the play on Tuesday.The author will write the story alongside the playwright Duncan Macmillan, who also adapted George Orwell’s “1984” for the stage and recently wrote “Lungs,” a play that streamed live from London’s Old Vic Theater last summer. Dominic Cooke, a former artistic director of the Royal Court Theater, will direct.Martin said the play, which is not yet titled, will be set during a pivotal moment in the history of the series — The Great Tourney at Harrenhal, which took place 16 years before the events of “Game of Thrones” — and include many of the show’s “most iconic and well-known characters.” The production’s story, he said, will be “centered around love, vengeance, madness and the dangers of dealing in prophecy, in the process revealing secrets and lies that have only been hinted at until now.”The Great Tourney featured jousting and archery competitions and was considered the biggest tournament in Westeros history. No specific characters have yet been confirmed to recur, but a few seem like safe bets — a young Ned Stark, his sister Lyanna, and a braggadocious teenage Jaime Lannister all attended the event in Martin’s books.Simon Painter, Tim Lawson and Jonathan Sanford will produce, in partnership with Kilburn Live. Painter is known for creating large-scale touring shows like “The Illusionist” franchise, which he launched with Lawson. Vince Gerardis will also serve as an executive producer.The play is the latest in a series of prequel projects that have been announced since the HBO fantasy epic concluded in 2019. Martin recently agreed to a five-year deal with HBO to create content for the network, and one “Game of Thrones” prequel, “House of the Dragon,” has already been greenlit, with an expected premiere in 2022.The series became a singularly enormous hit for HBO, regularly attracting millions of viewers for each episode across its eight seasons. The final episode was the most-watched of the series, drawing 19.3 million viewers when it aired in May 2019.This will not be the first “Game of Thrones” project for the stage. Ramin Djawadi, the show’s composer, toured with musicians playing the score set to clips from the series in arenas all over the world from 2017 to 2019, complete with confetti snow, sparks, smoke and “dragon” fire.Other fantasy epics have attempted journeys to the stage after the conclusion of their literary sagas, among them J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” books. The two-part “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” which debuted in London in 2016, won six Tony Awards during its Broadway run, which began in 2018, and has been produced in Melbourne and Toronto. But the “Lord of the Rings” musical, which opened in Toronto in 2006 before transferring to the West End, was never a critical — or box office — success, and went on to become one of the biggest commercial flops in West End history.But, right now, for Westeros fans, excitement is running high.“The seeds of war are often planted in times of peace,” Martin said. “And now, at last, we can tell the whole story … on the stage.” More

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    ‘Diana’ Musical Sets Netflix Run — and Broadway Opening Night

    In an unprecedented move, a recording of the show will start streaming in October, while audiences can see it live (if theaters reopen) in December.“Diana,” a new musical about the idolized but ill-fated British princess, managed to get through nine preview performances before Broadway shut down last March.Now, one year, one pandemic, and one Oprah interview later, the show is ready to try again, with a new strategy and a new context.In a first for a Broadway show, a filmed version of the stage production will start streaming before the musical opens. “Diana,” which was shot over a week last September in an audience-less Longacre Theater, will begin streaming on Netflix on Oct. 1, and then two months later, on Dec. 1, will resume previews on Broadway.The musical’s producers announced Tuesday that they intend to open Dec. 16, which is 625 days after its originally scheduled, but pandemic-postponed, opening night. The producers are putting their Broadway tickets on sale now, and counting on the Netflix film, which will have an open-ended run, to boost interest in the stage production.“I think people will see the movie and will say, that’s a show I want to see in person,” said Frank Marshall, a prominent filmmaker who is one of the musical’s lead producers. Another lead producer, the Broadway veteran Beth Williams, acknowledged that the plan involves “a slightly more complicated rollout,” but added “we feel like it’s an incredible opportunity to put ‘Diana’ in front of the global Netflix audience, and then give them an opportunity to see it live.”Broadway, of course, remains closed in an effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus, and producers expect that most full-scale plays and musicals won’t attempt to start performances until after Labor Day. “Diana,” which chronicles the life and death of the Princess of Wales, who was the first wife of Prince Charles, is among the first shows to put tickets on sale and to choose a specific date for a target opening.The scheduling, Marshall said, was a matter of trying to anticipate how the country’s post-pandemic reopening will unfold, and trying to coordinate the two projects to strengthen them both. “We wanted to make sure our marketing plans aligned,” he said. “I’m very optimistic about the fall, for both movies and for Broadway.” (A spokesman for the show declined to say how much Netflix paid for the streaming rights.)The musical, featuring Jeanna de Waal in the title role, is directed by Christopher Ashley and choreographed by Kelly Devine, who previously collaborated on “Come From Away”; it was written by Joe DiPietro and David Bryan (the Bon Jovi keyboardist), who created the Tony Award-winning “Memphis.”Through virtual and in-person work, the show, which had a pre-Broadway production at La Jolla Playhouse, was revised early in the pandemic. The producers said they do not expect further revisions, and expect their cast to remain intact.Diana has remained an object of public fascination in the years since her death in a 1997 car crash. But her story also has a contemporary sequel, as her younger son, Harry, and his wife, Meghan, stepped away from their royal duties, and, in an interview this month with Oprah Winfrey, he said that “my biggest concern was history repeating itself.”The lives of Diana’s children are not the subject of the new show. “You see Diana become a mother, but her children are not in the musical,” Williams said. “We’re telling the story of a complicated marriage, and at the same time we’re telling a coming-of-age story, and we’ve always seen it as a celebration of Princess Diana, whose legacy will live forever.”The producers said they don’t yet know what sort of safety protocols might be required for cast, crew, or ticket holders at the in-person production. Will there even be an opening night party? “There will be a celebration,” Williams said. “It’s too soon to know what that will look like.” More

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    Sean Bean Talks About Derailing ‘Snowpiercer’

    In an interview, the actor discussed Monday’s Season 2 finale, his character’s Trumpian qualities and whether he would be up for a “Game of Thrones” prequel.This interview includes spoilers for Monday’s season finale of “Snowpiercer.”As Ned Stark, the initial, if short-lived protagonist of HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” Sean Bean was the first actor to utter that show’s signature phrase: “Winter is coming.”In his latest series, TNT’s “Snowpiercer,” winter has arrived — the Big Freeze, a cataclysmic temperature collapse that has disabled the Earth and forced a few thousand survivors to seek shelter aboard a train that hurtles perpetually around the icy planet. (The premise is taken from a series of graphic novels by Jacque Lob, Jean-Marc Rochette and Benjamin Legrand, as well as from Bong Joon Ho’s film adaptation.) Now, though, the story’s ice age might be ending; the Earth might warming enough to support life again. Once more, though, the biggest obstacle to this healing is humanity itself.Bean’s character, Wilford, was little more than an idea in Season 1, a Wizard of Oz-like figure who had been installed in the minds of the passengers as the world’s savior. This lie was kept alive for years by the train’s designer and engineer, Melanie (Jennifer Connelly), who created Wilford out of old voice recordings that she edited into new speeches. But in Season 2, Wilford himself showed up, determined to take charge. This Wilford was more of a cruel Joffrey than an honorable Ned Stark, ready to kill and humiliate his subjects and engineer problems only that he could fix, and thus receive godlike worship in return.Wilford’s gaslighting manipulations and abuses were an unsettling study of cultlike leaders, indoctrination, propaganda and authoritarianism. After a year of lockdown, the real-life parallels were sometimes too claustrophobic — and too relevant — to be seen as pure escapism.In Monday’s Season 2 finale, Wilford once again attempted to sabotage humanity’s best hope, this time in the form of Melanie, who had ventured outside the train to gather data about Earth’s possible warming. (“See ya!” he shouted as the train rumbled by.) In the end, though, it was Wilford himself who was left stranded, the engine cut loose by a few passengers. Come Season 3, which is being filmed now in Vancouver, these two factions will have to reach a truce in order for “Snowpiercer” — the train and the show — to move forward.During a phone call from Vancouver, Bean discussed diving into his fiendish role, why Wilford enjoys a good blood bath and whether the actor would be willing to do a “Game of Thrones” prequel. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When Alex (Rowan Blanchard) slashed your throat in the finale, I thought you might die. But then I remembered reading that you had stopped taking roles in which your character would be killed off. Is that still the case?[Chuckles.] It was a bit worrying, actually! I forgive you for thinking it might be the end. I think everyone expects me to die at some point in this series. That’s what I do.I worked on a film recently called “Possessor,” and I was supposed to die in that. I asked them: “Why don’t you just badly injure me instead? You can put me in a wheelchair.” They said OK. So by the end of the film, I’ve got brain damage, but at least I’m alive. I’m not really that bothered by dying if there is a justifiable reason for it, but I don’t want to keep dying all the time. And it kind of gives the game away if you see me and you think, “How long is this guy going to last?” So when I do survive, it’s a bit of a surprise!Wilford does a lot of surprising things. He would rather sabotage humanity’s best chances of survival than deal with his own petty jealousy. Wouldn’t it be more advantageous just to steal the credit for Melanie’s discoveries?Yeah, I wonder about that. What does he actually want to achieve? There’s got to be an ultimate goal. But he doesn’t want anybody else to make decisions. I’m sure he’d like someplace safe to live, someplace more temperate. But if he can’t discover it himself, he would very happily sweep aside whoever did. He wants to be the one to say: “I found this myself. I’m colonizing it. It’s going to be named after me.” He’ll use any means to achieve that.Bean, who was famously killed off early in “Game of Thrones,” now has a reputation for playing characters who die. “That’s what I do,” he said.Helen Sloan/HBOHis willingness to sacrifice everyone else for his short-term gains reminded me of how some politicians responded in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.Leaders in America got the nod that the pandemic was going to happen and sold their shares. People with prior knowledge preferred to make a profit first. It is a despicable reaction.I wonder if that was a political move, right at the beginning, to put all the blame on China. I guess the origins of it don’t matter anymore, but I do wonder about this slandering of different countries for political reasons. In the midst of all this, they’re still being political, which is astounding.Was there any aspect of Donald Trump that affected your portrayal of Wilford?He’s an easy target. [Laughs.] If I’m honest, I used to enjoy watching Donald Trump. I found him highly entertaining and rather funny. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like much of his policies, or what he believed in. But he talked like a regular guy, and that kind of brought you in. He also could just dismiss someone very quickly and start laughing about it. I couldn’t help but notice that and apply a little of that attitude in Wilford.Trump liked to use the rhetoric and the platitudes that a lot of American presidents use, including Joe Biden: “We’re all in this fight together” or “Loyalty is rewarded.” It sounds a little more sinister coming from Wilford, but it’s the same kind of message — it sounds grand, but it doesn’t actually mean anything. Wilford’s a good orator. He likes the sound of his own voice, and he likes dressing up to address an audience. That’s why he’s successful — he’s attractive, charming and witty. But that just masks the savagery, barbarism and cruelty.But there are other monsters out there, present-day and past, who are more fitting comparisons for Wilford. I don’t think Bill Gates is a particularly attractive character — he’s certainly a man who relishes control, and I’m a bit wary of that kind of guy. Jeff Bezos, various others, they’ve got so many billions, but they’re still trying to get more. It’s not even the money. They really want to be influential in the world and put forward their ideas. They want to continue trying to get to the top, whatever the top may be. That’s Wilford. He just wants to be top dog and have ultimate power over life and death.Wilford is not exactly anti-science, but he seems only interested in certain kinds of science.He’s like Dr. Frankenstein, with the capability of creating monsters. He spent a lot of time researching how to suffer extreme cold conditions, and that’s been demonstrated with Icy Bob (Andre Tricoteux) and now Josie (Katie McGuinness). He’s just experimenting. That’s another aspect of Wilford, meddling with people’s lives, treating them like animals. That’s where he spends a lot of his time, pursuing things that wouldn’t be allowed in normal society.Like his bath ritual, joining people in the tub and convincing them to slit their own wrists?It’s like a game. Kevin (Tom Lipinski) is lulled into a trance-like state, because he thinks so much of Wilford. He loves him. And Wilford convinces Kevin: “Get in the bath, sit in the bath. And I’ll talk about what you did and how it was wrong. Here’s a razor blade!” [Laughs.] It’s kind of his mantra: “Here’s a way to make it go away. You don’t have to worry. Everything’s fine.”He did that with Miss Audrey (Lena Hall), too. He doesn’t care about people. He does care about Miss Audrey, in that he has a fanciful, romantic vision of her, kind of twisted and lustful. But apart from that, humans are just like ants to him.Were there any scenes you found hard to wrap your mind around?The mango sex scene was a difficult scene for me and Lena Hall. That took it to a new level of weirdness. We were making it up as we went along. I was putting the mango between her legs, she was putting it between mine, and it became a sensual encounter, in a warped and tasty way.The way this season ends, the uncoupled train and engine will have to be reconnected. What does that mean for Wilford’s reign?Maybe we’ll get to see him in a more reasonable light. There are moments where he has to bargain with people, comply with some of their demands and try to be diplomatic. He’s in such a dire situation, so he does have to work with Layton (Daveed Diggs). This might give the audience the impression that Wilford’s folding, but there’s always an ulterior motive — it’s never simple. That’s how cunning he is, how good he is at scheming.HBO is developing several “Game of Thrones” prequels, one of which would be about Robert’s Rebellion.Is that King Robert Baratheon? I keep hearing about so many different remakes. I mean, there’s a “Lord of the Rings” series coming, too. I might be too old to play Ned Stark again. That’s the trouble, isn’t it? It depends on how far you go back, doesn’t it? I’d love to reprise the role. Maybe they could do that thing they did with Robert De Niro in “The Irishman,” do a few alterations! [Laughs.] I don’t see why not. More