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    Jimmy Fallon: With Trump in Town, New York Is ‘a Lot More Florida’

    The “Tonight Show” host quipped about the former president’s rally in Long Island on Wednesday.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 to Be HumbleFormer President Donald Trump held a campaign rally on Long Island on Wednesday.“Yeah, tonight the rest of the country found out New York is a lot more Florida than you think,” Jimmy Fallon said.“Organizers said that there were 60,000 online ticket requests. It turns out Rudy Giuliani just passed out with his head on the keyboard.” — JIMMY FALLON“But the rally at Nassau Coliseum was historic. The last time a president appeared at the Coliseum was when President Biden fought the lions in Rome.” — JIMMY FALLON“At a Trump campaign rally last night, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that her kids keep her humble and added, ‘Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything to keep her humble.’ Though I’m not sure the math checks out there, because doesn’t Trump have, like, five?” — SETH MEYERS“Everyone knows if you don’t have biological kids, you can’t be humble. It’s like that famous Ernest Hemingway story, ‘For Sale: Baby Shoes. Didn’t Need ’Em Cuz I’m a Playa!’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Poll Position Edition)“According to a new poll, Vice President Kamala Harris has a 6-point lead over former President Trump following last week’s debate. And if you think that’s a big lead, then you just don’t follow New York football.” — SETH MEYERS“That same poll found that 61 percent of likely voters believe Harris won the debate, which seems low to me, but it seemed very high to Trump, who posted last night, ‘Finally everyone is agreeing that I won the debate with Kamala. It was like a delayed reaction, but as one political pundit said, Trump is still the GOAT.’ He thinks his caddy at Mar-a-Lago counts as a political pundit.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“According to a new poll, young people are nervous about the 2024 election. Oh, my God, am I young?” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Kimmel dug out footage of Jon Hamm rapping in his high school production of “Godspell” for the actor’s appearance on Wednesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightDemi Lovato will discuss her new documentary, “Child Star,” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutAaron Hernandez has been the subject of multiple books, true crime podcasts and documentaries.Pool photo by Steven Senne“American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez” delves into the saga of the pro football player who murdered his friend less than a year after playing in the Super Bowl. More

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    ‘Agatha All Along’ Review: Toil and Trouble

    Marvel’s “WandaVision” spinoff has more witchcraft but less magic.This review contains spoilers for the first episode of “Agatha All Along.”Jac Schaeffer, who created the first of the Disney+ Marvel series, “WandaVision,” and has now created the 11th, its spinoff “Agatha All Along,” is not one to let an idea go to waste.In Schaeffer’s first series, a grieving superheroine used her magical powers to create a world for herself based on classic American sitcoms. It was entertaining to watch how the show reimagined those familiar comedies within a dark fantasy-science fiction framework. (At least until “WandaVision” went off the rails toward convoluted Marvel business as usual in its last few episodes.)Now she starts “Agatha All Along,” which premiered Wednesday night on Disney+, with another detailed sendup. This time she puts her new main character — Agatha Harkness, a dangerous witch with a half-century history in Marvel comic books — inside a parody of the grim HBO crime drama “Mare of Easttown.” Still stuck where she was at the end of “WandaVision,” under a spell that strips her powers and any memory of who she really is, the fallen sorceress is now a cynical, violence-prone small-town police officer.You may ask yourself how, in the three years that have elapsed between the two shows, Agatha has undergone a complete personality shift, from chirpy neighborhood noodge to hardened cop. You should be more concerned, though, with why the cop-show pastiche is so disappointing — so dull and aimless that talented comic actresses like Kathryn Hahn (who stars as Agatha) and Aubrey Plaza seem at a loss.It is a relief when that show-within-a-show ends during the first episode, apparently a quick diversion rather than an integral element like the sitcom burlesques in “WandaVision.” (Four of the nine episodes of “Agatha All Along” were available for review.)It has set a bad precedent, though. Even when the series shifts into its actual format — a jokey, jaggedly comic fantasy quest in which a group of unfulfilled women hit the road in search of their powers — the results are mostly perfunctory. Spells are cast, but not on the audience.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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    Valarie D’Elia, Travel Reporter on TV and Radio, Dies at 64

    She steered vacationers and business travelers to choice destinations, talked about the best deals, and offered up savvy tips on how to avoid vexation.Valarie D’Elia, a travel reporter who visited 102 countries on all seven continents to advise her viewers and listeners on where to go, how to get there, what the best bargains were and what to pack, died on Sept. 10 in Manhattan. She was 64.The death, in a hospital, was caused by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the degenerative neurological disease also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, her husband, Ron Cucos, said.From 1998 to 2017, Ms. D’Elia appeared regularly in a segment called “Travel With Val” on the local cable TV station now known as Spectrum News NY1. She also hosted a syndicated radio program, “The Travel Show,” and wrote a blog, which included the trademark feature “D’Elia’s Deals.” (Her personal mantra was “Travel with VALue.”)Her viewers, listeners and readers might learn that ski resorts in the Canadian Rockies were opening in early November that year because of snow storms; that a hotel near London was offering complimentary honeymoon accommodations to couples who got married there; or that rare winter discounts were available at a resort in the Florida Keys timed to school vacations the first week of January in several Southern states.Her advice was coveted. (Her favorite was “Pack light, forget the blow-dryer — who wants to worry about all that stuff?”) Her wanderlust was celebrated. Her documentary “The Making of a Maestro: From Castelfranco to Carnegie Hall,” the story of the conductor Sir Antonio Pappano, won first place in the North American Travel Journalists Association’s competition for travel videos in 2018.From 1998 to 2017, Ms. D’Elia appeared regularly in a segment called “Travel With Val” on the cable channel now known as Spectrum News NY1.NY1We 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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    ‘You’re Basically on a Broadway Stage, With New Friends’

    At the touring dance party Broadway Rave, the playlist is all show tunes. But don’t worry, no house remixes of “I Dreamed a Dream” here.Julia Cochrane drove for four hours, to New York from Boston, so she could spend last Saturday night immersed in all things Broadway. But not in Manhattan.Instead, she headed to Huntington, Long Island. There, over 100 people packed into Spotlight at the Paramount, a small bar attached to a concert hall, for a touring dance party called Broadway Rave, at which theater kids turned theater adults dance and sing onstage in between shots of tequila.“People who love this, they just want to come together,” said Cochrane, 22, who attended with her friend Hannah Opisso, 23, a Long Island resident who learned about the dance party via Instagram. “It’s like you’re basically on a Broadway stage, with new friends.”“You see these folks get onstage and have the courage to be up there,” said Ethan Maccoby, whose company presents Broadway Rave.Ye Fan for The New York TimesCochrane and Opisso met as students at the State University of New York, Plattsburgh, where Broadway cast albums were their pregame music of choice. Last weekend, Broadway musicals brought them together again, and at one point they took the stage to sing “Meet the Plastics” from the “Mean Girls” musical.Attendees don’t have microphones — this isn’t karaoke — but they are encouraged to rush the stage to sing and dance when their favorite songs come on. And the term “rave” is a misnomer: The playlist is mostly uncut cast album material — though last weekend those theater fans may have caught the remix flair at the beginning of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats.” Other songs that night included “Out Tonight” (“Rent”), “Popular” (“Wicked”), “Sincerely Me” (“Dear Evan Hansen”) and a few tracks from “Hamilton,” including “The Schuyler Sisters” and “Wait for 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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    Is the Comedy-Club Booking Process Broken?

    The owners of a new spot say hiring comics based on referrals from other stand-ups is no guarantee the acts will be funny. Others say it’s all more nuanced.After three years doing standup roughly every night, the comic Jad Sleiman concluded that the system for finding and promoting new talent was broken.“Whether or not you get onstage at most clubs in the city has very little to do, at this point, with how funny you are,” he wrote me recently. Sleiman went on to say that the best way to get stage time is not to work at your craft, but to network, make connections and increase your online follower count. Most major clubs use a referral system, to varying degrees: That means to get onstage, you need other comics to vouch for you, he said.Performers, he added, naturally pick their friends, and there’s even a motivation to promote mediocrity. “Honestly,” he told me. “You don’t want to follow someone who buries you.”In comparison to the theater, live comedy has recovered from the pandemic in great commercial shape, with the help of podcasting and social media exposure. But with success comes the danger of insularity, and while more new artists are entering the field than ever, the gulf in influence between celebrity comics and gifted young unknowns grows. Sleiman’s polemical critique of the current club establishment gives voice to a real and justifiable anxiety that it’s becoming harder for comics with more talent than connections to break through.Young, hustling comedians have always bemoaned the choices of gatekeepers, but Sleiman is actually dedicating money and time to doing something about it. Along with fellow comics Brooks Tawil and Kyle Gillis, who share his frustration with the status quo, he recently started the Bushwick Comedy Club. One week before opening, sitting next to Tawil inside a former bodega that now houses a small stage, 50 seats and a sink held up by Goya cans, Sleiman described his plans for a more meritocratic comedy club.“Our main difference is going to sound stupid,” he explained, “but simply put, we’re going to actually watch submission tapes.” Referrals will not matter. Nor will social media followers. Only how funny you are on tape. On Instagram, Bushwick Comedy Club promotes itself as the “only club in New York who books its lineups purely off video submissions.”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 Menendez Brothers: What to Know Ahead of the New Netflix Series

    “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” chronicles the trials of two brothers who killed their parents in 1989, and their aftermath. Much has changed since then.On Aug. 20, 1989, Lyle and Erik Menendez, ages 21 and 18, shot and killed their parents in the family’s Beverly Hills mansion. Both were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after two highly publicized trials, the first of which was broadcast on the then-nascent Court TV.But in the 35 years since the crime, the public has become increasingly divided on whether the brothers were merely the stone-cold opportunists the prosecution said they were. Now Ryan Murphy — who has a longstanding knack for taking on stories at the intersection of true crime, celebrity and media — is weighing in with a new scripted version of their story, premiering Thursday on Netflix.Titled “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” the series stars Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch as Lyle and Erik, with Javier Bardem and Chloë Sevigny playing their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. It is the second installment of the Monster anthology, created by Murphy with Ian Brennan. The first focused on the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.A lot has happened since 1989 — including numerous documentaries, podcasts and a “Law & Order” series — as the case and cultural attitudes have evolved. Need to get caught up? Here’s a brief refresher and an update on more recent developments.The Menendez family storyFrom left, Nicholas Chavez as Lyle Menendez, Cooper Koch as Erik and Javier Bardem as Jose in a scene from the scripted series “Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story.” Miles Crist/NetflixJose Menendez was a successful entertainment executive who fled his native Cuba for the United States on his own at the age of 16, shortly after Fidel Castro took power. He married his college girlfriend, Mary Louise Andersen, better known as Kitty. They had two sons, and after some time on the East Coast, the family settled in the Los Angeles area.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Late Night Calls Out Violence Against Trump

    “Not only is it morally wrong, but you’re also just giving him more things to brag about,” Ronny Chieng said on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘In His Natural Habitat’Late night returned in full on Tuesday, with a focus on what officials believe was a second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.“Yes, this weekend, a crazy person tried to hunt Donald Trump in his natural habitat, his golf course,” Ronny Chieng said on Tuesday’s “Daily Show.”“Now here’s how this craziness went down: A truly deranged man went to Mar-a-Lago’s golf course and spent nearly 12 hours hiding there before a Secret Service agent spotted his rifle sticking through the shrubbery. That sounds like an evil plot straight out of Looney Tunes.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yo, again? Will you people stop trying to assassinate Donald Trump? Not only is it morally wrong, but you’re also just giving him more things to brag about: ‘They only tried to kill Abraham Lincoln once; that makes me twice as great as him.’” — RONNY CHIENG“Given that Trump’s campaign hadn’t announced any public plans for Sunday, many wondered did the suspect know the former president would be coming to play golf or was it a guess? Yes, how could he possibly have guessed that Trump would be golfing?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This guy managed to walk into Trump’s golf course and stay there undetected for 12 hours, OK? And I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, Trump, but maybe you should consider building, like, a wall?” — RONNY CHIENG“By the way, have you noticed that the news reports are all like ‘a harrowing near tragedy sending chills through our nation!’ and meanwhile, everyone you actually know is like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, I saw that, yeah.’ I mean, we have to act like it’s a big deal, but it doesn’t really have the same impact of the first one, you know? It’s kind of like ‘Black Panther 2.’ You’re like, ‘Yeah, I guess I’ll see it.’” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Swift Social Edition)“In a post to Truth Social over the weekend, former President Trump said, ‘I hate Taylor Swift!’ Sounds like he’s making a strong play for the 9-year-old brother vote.” — SETH MEYERS“Donald tweeting ‘I hate Taylor Swift?’ That’s dangerous. I mean, I would rather buy one of those Hezbollah pagers than tweet ‘I hate Taylor Swift.’” — RONNY CHIENG“I think Trump needs to stick to racism — it’s less divisive.” — RONNY CHIENG“But the assassin this weekend was probably not a Swiftie, OK? He doesn’t fit the M.O. Swifties are nonviolent — they prefer to cyberbully you until you kill yourself.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Bits Worth WatchingWe 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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    ‘American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez’ Premieres on FX and Hulu

    The buzzy FX series delves into the N.F.L. star who murdered a friend less than a year after playing in the Super Bowl.The saga of Aaron Hernandez has riveted the sports world and beyond for more than a decade. An N.F.L. star on one of football’s best teams killed a man in 2013 even as he chased fame and glory on the field.Two years after his conviction in 2015, Hernandez hanged himself in prison, leaving unexplained his descent into crime, rumors about his sexuality, and how he was able to hide his off-field life while thriving at America’s most popular sport.Hernandez has been the subject of multiple books, true crime podcasts and documentaries. But his story is getting the Ryan Murphy treatment in a new 10-part anthology series, “American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez,” premiering on Tuesday on FX and Hulu. Its showrunners are trying a playbook similar to one used for dramatizations of other well-known scandals like “The People v. O.J. Simpson” and “Impeachment,” about former President Bill Clinton’s sexual improprieties. But this time, they’re grappling with new terrain: pro football.Nina Jacobson, an executive producer of “American Sports Story,” said showrunners hoped to offer viewers a “more subjective experience,” rather than a rehashing of previously reported events.“I think we try, in all of these shows, to find a way to put people in the shoes of the characters and put themselves in the eye of the storm — not in a way to excuse anybody’s voices or behaviors,” she said, “but to give people a chance to maybe see them in a different light.”Ahead of the first installment, here are the key points to know about Aaron Hernandez’s football career and murder case, and the TV drama that will depict them.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