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    ‘Blood Meal’ Review: Just Us, Locked Down in a Dollhouse

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeExplore: A Cubist CollageFollow: Cooking AdviceVisit: Famous Old HomesLearn: About the VaccineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘Blood Meal’ Review: Just Us, Locked Down in a DollhouseCleverly edited and darkly funny, the latest Theater in Quarantine show finds a nervous couple afraid to go out or let anyone in. Sound familiar?Lee Minora, left, and Joshua William Gelb in Scott R. Sheppard’s “Blood Meal,” which is shot and edited live with the actors in different settings.Credit…Katie Rose McLaughlin, via Theater in QuarantineFeb. 2, 2021The bugs have made Sam and Lindsay prisoners of their own home. To battle the invasion, the couple live in bare rooms, the furniture wrapped in plastic. They don’t leave the house and don’t welcome anybody in, either: They refuse entry to Girl Scouts selling cookies and after drinks with friends on the porch — in the middle of winter — they throw their clothes in garbage bags.Any resemblance to a certain pandemic is entirely not coincidental, and in just 32 minutes Scott R. Sheppard’s darkly funny new play, “Blood Meal,” captures our zeitgeist with satirical accuracy.What makes the show even zeitgeistier is that it is the latest salvo from the prime purveyor of inventive stagecraft in the age of Covid: Joshua William Gelb and Katie Rose McLaughlin’s Theater in Quarantine.For the past 10 months, the pair have turned a small closet in Gelb’s apartment into a performing space that has hosted everything from an “expressionistic musical portrait” of Mother Teresa (“I Am Sending You the Sacred Face”) to an adaptation of a Polish science-fiction story (“The 7th Voyage of Egon Tichy”).In creating Theater in Quarantine, Gelb (with Minora) has shot many pieces from a closet in his apartment.Credit…Katie Rose McLaughlin, via Theater in Quarantine“Blood Meal” ups the ante: Gelb (who directed and plays Sam) and Lee Minora (Lindsay) are performing live from separate closets — hers was built in the basement of La MaMa. The magic of technology brings the actors together so Sam and Lindsay can have sex and share a bath. We even watch them move about a cross-section of their home, as if it were a dollhouse. (Gelb and Stivo Arnoczy did the video design; Alex Hawthorn was responsible for the software that synced the action.)The setting itself creates a strange combination of the mundane and the surreal that perfectly suits Sheppard’s sensibility. He co-wrote the Off Off Broadway hit “Underground Railroad Game,” about children and adults re-enacting slavery scenarios, and last June contributed “Topside,” a claustrophobic, unsettling play inspired by the Donald Barthelme nuclear-cloud short-story “Game” to the growing Theater in Quarantine catalog.The zippy “Blood Meal,” which is free on YouTube, is an even better piece than “Topside” because it so skillfully maps a familiar world where an invisible danger lurks everywhere. McLaughlin’s matching costumes for Lindsay and Sam, black with red accessories, make them look like two mimes flailing in paranoid domesticity at the end of the world.Sam is at the end of his rope and desperately wants to believe the infestation has run its course so they can get back to normal and maybe even stop sleeping in the kitchen.Editing technology allows the viewers to watch Minora and Gelb, being filmed separately, take a bath together.Credit…Katie Rose McLaughlin, via Theater in QuarantineLindsay has a more jaundiced attitude. “If we are serious about fighting these bugs, we must always doubt that we are free of them,” she tells him. “Do you understand that? It’s about doubt.”But she starts having the wrong kind of doubt as she increasingly suspects Sam of surreptitiously meeting people outside. Her nagging suspicions and his equivocations drive a wedge in the heretofore united couple. Eventually, Sam pleads for Lindsay to join him in an escape: “Let’s get in the Jetta and take the mountain,” he pleads. “Let’s drink black Manhattans and cuddle like bobcats.”Watching this live play on a screen, at a remove, it’s hard not to think, “Can I come too?”Blood MealOn the Theater in Quarantine YouTube pageAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Trump’s New Lawyers Represent Him Well, Says Late Night

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightTrump’s New Lawyers Represent Him Well, Says Late Night“My God, who on Earth would hire Jeffrey Epstein’s defense lawyer?” Stephen Colbert said on Monday. “Oh, Jeffrey Epstein’s wingman? Yeah, that makes sense.”Stephen Colbert joked that former President Donald J. Trump “cruised some dark alleys of the legal world” to find new lawyers for his impeachment defense team.Credit…CBSFeb. 2, 2021, 2:29 a.m. ETWelcome 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. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘Rats Fleeing a Sinking Rat’Former President Donald J. Trump lost five lawyers from his legal defense team over the weekend, just more than a week before his second impeachment trial.“There was something lawyers wouldn’t do for money,” Stephen Colbert joked on Monday night. “That is rats fleeing a sinking rat.”“He wanted his lawyers to make the case that he won the election and they quit, so this should be fun.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, Trump and his lawyers disagreed on strategy. Apparently Trump got upset when they wanted to have one.” — JIMMY FALLON“Aha, the brilliant legal strategy of pointing out to the jury how motivated you were to commit the crime.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“At this rate, Trump’s going to be the first president to show up to his impeachment trial with a public defender.” — SETH MEYERS“Trump suddenly found himself without any legal representation, which is still a huge improvement over being represented by Rudy Giuliani.” — JAMES CORDEN“Trump was furious — not that they quit, that he couldn’t fire them on Twitter.” — JIMMY FALLON“A source close to the ex-president described it as a ‘mutual decision.’ Oh, totally mutual! ‘No, Carol did not divorce me — we divorced me. We also agreed that the lawn was the perfect place for all my shirts.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTBut Trump didn’t go without for long. On Sunday, Colbert said, “the former president cruised some dark alleys of the legal world and scooped up two new lawyers,” Bruce Castor and David Schoen.“Now these guys have a lot in common. When he was a Pennsylvania D.A. in 2005, Castor declined to prosecute Bill Cosby as part of a ‘secret agreement,’ although it is possible Castor did not know, and Cosby just dropped the secret agreement into his drink.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, days before Jeffrey Epstein died, Schoen actually met with the accused child sex trafficker about ‘joining his defense.’ My God, who on earth would hire Jeffrey Epstein’s defense lawyer? Oh, Jeffrey Epstein’s wingman? Yeah, that makes sense.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What, was the guy who defended Saddam Hussein not available?” — JIMMY FALLON“I mean, even Rudy Giuliani thought, ‘You’re going with these guys?’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Vaccine Dodgers Edition)“The only snowflakes we had here in L.A. this weekend were the ones blocking the vaccine line at Dodger Stadium.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Whatever their reason, they gathered at the entrance to Dodger Stadium for what they called a ‘scamdemic protest march.’ They blocked traffic; they delayed the vaccinations for about an hour. Now see, this is where we really miss Tommy Lasorda. He would have cleared that mess out in about a minute.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Whoa, these people in L.A. had to sit in their cars for an hour. How did they notice?” — TREVOR NOAH“For Pete’s sake, it takes two hours just to change lanes on the 405.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The protest organizers wanted people to be open to their message, so they urged attendees to ‘refrain from wearing MAGA attire, as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple.’ Yeah, the ones getting the vaccine are the sheeple — ‘Now everyone hide the matching hats we bought from our bankrupt casino god-king!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right. These doofuses with their homemade signs saying ‘Bill Gates is controlled by Satan’ are like, ‘Take off that MAGA hat or they’ll think we’re nuts.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If you don’t want a vaccine, then don’t get one. I don’t agree with you, but don’t ruin it for everyone else. Like, we don’t come interrupt you when you’re busy dying of measles.” — TREVOR NOAH“Here’s what I don’t understand — why does it always have to be the most ridiculous people who are the most fired up? Like why can’t anti-vaxxers be like those Instagram models were last summer, you know? Where they just post a black square on Instagram one day and never bring up vaccines again?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Slave Play” playwright Jeremy O. Harris appeared on “The Daily Show,” discussing how Covid has devastated the theater industry.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightZendaya will catch up with Colbert on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutSophie’s fascinations with the musicality of hyper-feminized speech and the plasticky found-materials of late-capitalist consumer culture made their way into her music.Credit…Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for CoachellaThe late Sophie was a progressive performer and producer who worked with artists from Madonna to Charli XCX in her short but influential career. Here are 12 of her essential songs.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in FebruaryOur streaming picks for February, including ‘Parks and Recreation,’ ‘News of the World’ and ‘Bliss.’‘Parks and Recreation’Credit…NetflixFeb. 1, 2021Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for February.New to NetflixFEBRUARY 1‘Parks and Recreation’ Seasons 1-7With all the social and political unrest around the world, now is as good time as any to revisit this refreshingly optimistic sitcom. Set in the dysfunctional Middle American city of Pawnee, the show stars the very funny Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a midlevel bureaucrat who motivates a community of skeptics and kooks into making their town more livable. Though “Parks and Recreation” mostly focuses on the relationships between its cast of lovable eccentrics, it’s also about how good-hearted and determined civil servants can make a difference.FEBRUARY 2‘Kid Cosmic’Although the animated science-fiction/superhero series “Kid Cosmic” sprang from the mind (and the pen) of “The Powerpuff Girls” creator Craig McKracken, it looks and feels different from the work he’s done before. This is a more serialized adventure, featuring a group of misfits from a New Mexico desert town who rely on superpowered alien jewels to fight off invaders from outer space. “Kid Cosmic” has a remarkable design, with its loosely sketched lines and pale colors resembling fading old fantasy magazines and comic books.FEBRUARY 3‘Firefly Lane’Based on Kristin Hannah’s popular tear-jerker novel, “Firefly Lane” stars Katherine Heigl as a glamorous but lonely TV personality. Sarah Chalke plays her longtime best friend, whose own life as a wife and mother has recently been disrupted by divorce. The series frames these two women’s diverging situations as a kind of existential mystery. Frequent flashbacks to the characters’ teenage and young adult years allows viewers to make key connections between the troubles of the past and the anxieties of the present.‘Malcolm & Marie’Credit…NetflixFEBRUARY 5‘Malcolm & Marie’The writer-director Sam Levinson — best-known for the social satire “Assassination Nation” and the provocative teen drama series “Euphoria” — shot his intimate, two-character “Malcolm & Marie” during the pandemic. John David Washington and Zendaya play a bickering couple, airing their grievances over the course of one tense night. Levinson cenhances the stripped-down story by shooting his two striking-looking actors in handsome black-and-white, making a movie that echoes the low-budget psychodramas of the indie film pioneer John Cassavetes.FEBRUARY 10‘News of the World’How did it take so long to get Tom Hanks into a western? In “News of the World,” Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, who in the 1870s ekes out a living riding from town to town, reading newspapers to the locals. Helena Zengel plays Johanna, a preteen kidnap victim whom Kidd tries to return to her family. Based on a Paulette Jiles novel, this film has an episodic structure, designed to lead viewers through a tour of a postwar America still deeply divided. Hanks is the sturdy anchor for a winding story.‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever’Credit…NetflixFEBRUARY 12‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever’In Netflix’s energetic and emotional movie adaptations of Jenny Han’s novel “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and its two sequels, Lara Condor plays a lovestruck teenager named Lara Jean Covey, while Noah Centineo plays her college-bound crush Peter. Last year’s “P.S. I Still Love You” introduced some complications to the first film’s happy ending; and now the third and final part in the trilogy, “Always and Forever” tells the story of how Lara Jean and Peter handle an unexpectedly complicated transition from high school to college.FEBRUARY 19‘I Care a Lot’Don’t look for any sympathetic characters in J Blakeson’s “I Care a Lot,” a blackly comic neo-noir film in which two oddly charismatic creeps try to outwit one another. Rosamund Pike plays a high-class grifter, who exploits the systemic flaws in the elder-care industry to make money off the helpless. Peter Dinklage plays a drug kingpin living under an assumed name, who risks revealing himself when his mother (Dianne Wiest) gets caught up in the scam. Like Blakeson’s entertainingly nasty 2009 debut film “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” this is a well-acted and twisty movie, made for audiences who enjoy watching clever folks be shamelessly awful.FEBRUARY 23‘Pelé’This documentary about the legendary Brazilian footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, is focused primarily on his four World Cup appearances, from 1958 to 1970. Between those years, he went from being an unknown teen from a poor São Paulo neighborhood to becoming universally acknowledged as one of the best ever. The “Pelé” directors Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn have a wealth of exciting footage of the man in action, but their film is just as much about how Brazil and the world changed during the 1960s.FEBRUARY 24‘Ginny & Georgia’Fans of “Gilmore Girls” should find a lot to like about “Ginny & Georgia,” a drama about a precociously mature teenage girl (Antonia Gentry) and her more free-spirited and libertine mother (Brianne Howey), who are both adjusting to a new life in a quaint New England town. In a reversal of the “Gilmore Girls” premise — where the mom was born of privilege and then fled to a more middle-class existence — in “Ginny & Georgia” the family has seen hard times and is now striving for something better. The core of the show remains the often shaky relationship between a strong-willed parent and her equally headstrong child.Also arriving: “Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready” Season 2 (February 2), “Black Beach” (February 3), “Hache” Season 2 (February 5), “Invisible City” (February 5), “The Last Paradiso” (February 5), “Little Big Women” (February 5), “Space Sweepers” (February 5), “Strip Down, Rise Up” (February 5), “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” (February 10), “The Misadventures of Heidi and Cokeman” (February 10), “Capitani” (February 11), “Red Dot” (February 11), “Squared Love” (February 11), “Buried by the Bernards” (February 12), “Nadiya Bakes” (February 12), “Xico’s Journey” (February 12), “Hello, Me!” (February 15), “Behind Her Eyes” (February 17), “Tribes of Europa” (February 19), “2067” (February 19), “Classmates Minus” (February 20), “High-Rise Invasion” (February 25), “Bigfoot Family” (February 26), “Caught by a Wave” (February 26), “Crazy About Her” (February 26).New to Stan‘Punky Brewster’Credit…StanFEBRUARY 3‘Race to Perfection’The archivists for Formula One auto racing have emptied out their vaults for this seven-part docu-series, which covers the past 70 years of the sport from multiple angles. Packed with original interviews and exciting vintage footage, “Race to Perfection” documents both the history and the evolution of various aspects of racing: from the advances in technology to the personalities of the drivers to some of F1’s most controversial incidents. It’s pitched at longtime fans and novices alike.FEBRUARY 5‘The Virtues’The writer-director Shane Meadows and the actor Stephen Graham are frequent collaborators, best known for their decade-spanning “This Is England” series. The pair reunites for the four-part mini-series “The Virtues,” a heavy drama about a man belatedly confronting childhood trauma. Graham plays an alcoholic whose life is in utter disarray when he returns home to reconnect with his estranged sister. The trip reminds him of incidents he’d long-suppressed, while also pushing him toward a woman (Niamh Algar) with issues of her own.FEBRUARY 12‘Clarice’This thriller series’s title character should be familiar to fans of either the novel or the movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” The show is set one year after the events of “Silence,” and follows the FBI agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) as she tackles new cases. Expect a mix of short and longer narrative arcs, splitting the difference between a traditional TV procedural and the more novelistic serialized approach. But don’t expect any direct mention of the infamous serial killer Hannibal Lecter; the character’s rights are owned by a different production company.FEBRUARY 26‘Punky Brewster’In its original incarnation, the 1980s sitcom “Punky Brewster” starred Soleil Moon Frye as an abandoned child, taken in by a cranky old widower and raised with the help of some kindly neighbors and teachers. Frye returns for the revival, playing Punky now as a quirky divorced mother, who upends her family’s life when she considers become a foster parent to a kid a lot like herself. Some of the original cast members will appear, in a series that aims to charm and uplift.Also arriving: “Doll & Em” Seasons 1-2 (February 2), “The Pleasure Principle” (February 4), “The Green Mile” (February 9), “Hassel” (February 11), “Chasing Life” Seasons 1-2 (February 12), “Lucy” (February 12), “Ex Machina” (February 15), “United 93” (February 17), “Perfect Places” (February 18), “The First Team” (February 19), “Children of Men” (February 21), “Casino” (February 23), “Indian Summers” Seasons 1-3 (February 23), “Angel of Death” (February 25), “Scarface” (February 26), “American Gangster” (February 27).New to Amazon‘Bliss’Credit…AmazonFEBRUARY 5‘Bliss’Owen Wilson plays a lonely, hopeless man named Greg in the writer-director Mike Cahill’s haunting science-fiction drama “Bliss.” Greg is experiencing a run of bad luck when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), who persuades him that they’re both actually living in a computer simulation. Cahill makes both Greg’s dreary “real” world and Isabel’s more utopian version seem equally valid, leaving the audience wondering until the end whether she’s savvy or crazy. Along the way, he raises pointed questions about whether humans need some kind of misery in their lives to achieve happiness.‘Tell Me Your Secrets’The lives of three very different characters — a woman on the run (Lily Rabe), a desperate mother (Amy Brenneman), and a sexual predator (Hamish Linklater) — intersect in this mystery/suspense series. As a crime from the past draws this trio closer together, they each reveal secrets about themselves they would’ve rather kept hidden, while also learning more about their friends and neighbors than they may have wanted to know. “Tell Me Your Secrets” is about the lies and delusions that sustain some people; and about what happens when they’re finally told the truth.Also arriving: “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” (February 12).AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Dustin Diamond, Actor on ‘Saved by the Bell,’ Dies at 44

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDustin Diamond, Actor on ‘Saved by the Bell,’ Dies at 44Mr. Diamond played Screech on the NBC high school sitcom, but struggled to find work and reconcile with cast members in the decades after the show ended.Dustin Diamond as Samuel “Screech” Powers on “Saved by the Bell,” a Saturday morning staple on NBC from 1989 to 1992.Credit…Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 6:17 p.m. ETDustin Diamond, the former child actor who found fame on the enduring NBC Saturday morning sitcom “Saved by the Bell” but struggled to find work in later years, died on Monday in Florida. He was 44.A representative for Mr. Diamond, Roger Paul, confirmed the death. He said that the cause was carcinoma and that Mr. Diamond died in a hospital.After Mr. Diamond went “through some medical testing,” in January, his representatives said in a statement that he had cancer.From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Diamond played Samuel “Screech” Powers on “Saved by the Bell,” which developed a cult following among millennials and members of Generation X and grew into an internet obsession for some fans.The show followed the day-to-day adventures of a group of loudly dressed friends at the fictional Bayside High School in California.Saturday morning viewers watched Mr. Diamond grow up on the show as he played Screech, the sweet-natured, geeky underdog and the dunce among his friends. An ongoing plotline was the character’s unrequited crush on Lisa Turtle, who was played by Lark Voorhies.Screech was also the comedic sidekick to Zack Morris, the popular student who was played Mark-Paul Gosselaar. The show’s cast also included Mario Lopez as Slater, Elizabeth Berkley as Jessie and Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly, who rounded out the circle of friends.The show also starred Dennis Haskins as the school principal who mentored and disciplined the group. Mr. Diamond appeared in all 86 episodes.Memorable plot lines included a caffeine pill addiction by Ms. Berkley’s character, the friends competing in a dance competition hosted by the radio disc jockey Casey Kasem and when “Screech” is asked to make fake IDs so the guys could go to a club.Mr. Diamond was born on Jan. 7, 1977, in San Jose, Calif., according to IMDB.com, and he said he began acting when he was 8. He also appeared in other series, including “The Wonder Years.”He originated the role of Screech in 1988 when he was cast in “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” the Disney Channel series that was the forerunner to “Saved by the Bell” and introduced many of its characters.After “Saved by the Bell” ended in 1992, a prime-time spinoff show called “Saved by the Bell: The College Years” followed the gang in college. That show ran for one season, ending in 1994. From 1994 to 2000, he reprised the role of Screech in another spinoff series, “Saved by the Bell: The New Class.”After the series ended, Mr. Diamond became known for his post-stardom troubles, and spoke openly about his struggles finding work.“The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood,” Mr. Diamond said in 2013 on “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” While he was working on “Saved by the Bell,” he said, he feared being replaced, saying, “You don’t get a childhood, really.”After the series ended, he said: “I didn’t really know what I was going to do. It was hard to get work that wasn’t Screech-cloned stuff.”He added: “I had been working for the last 10 years, every single week, and I felt lost. As I mature I realize, wow, I was kind of going through my rebellious teens in my 20s.”Seeking a payout in the mid-2000s, Mr. Diamond found tabloid fame with the release of a sex tape that he later spoke of with regret.“The sex tape is the thing that I’m most embarrassed about,” Mr. Diamond said on Ms. Winfrey’s documentary show. Although he made some money from the tape, he said, “it wasn’t worth what the fallout was.”He was also featured on reality shows including “Celebrity Boxing 2” in 2002 and “Celebrity Fit Club,” on VH1, in 2007.In 2009, he released a tell-all book called “Behind the Bell” that claimed that members of the show’s cast were using drugs and having sex. Years later, Mr. Diamond expressed regret about the book as well, saying it was written by a ghostwriter.“The book was another disappointment of mine,” he said in Ms. Winfrey’s documentary. “I was a first-time author, so they had a ghostwriter. I talked to a guy a few times, so the book has some truth in it, and a lot of the stories were just kind of throwaways.”Mr. Diamond’s problems also extended to court. In 2015, he was accused of stabbing a man during a fight in a Wisconsin bar. Mr. Diamond said he had pulled a knife to defend himself; he was convicted on two misdemeanors, sentenced to four months in jail and ordered to pay more than $1,000 to the man who was stabbed.In a 2016 interview on “Extra,” Mr. Diamond told Mr. Lopez that were he to meet his other former “Saved by the Bell” castmates, he would “ask for forgiveness for any kind of misunderstandings that may have come about by the book.” He said he had not seen some of his co-stars for decades.Mr. Diamond was repeatedly omitted from reunions. In 2015, he was left out of a skit that reunited the cast on “The Tonight Show,” and in 2020, when “Saved by the Bell” was rebooted on NBC’s Peacock streaming service, Mr. Diamond was not part of the new series.Information about Mr. Diamond’s survivors was not immediately available.Christopher Mele contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Keegan-Michael Key Will Do Anything for a Laugh

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyKeegan-Michael Key Will Do Anything for a LaughHis new 10-part podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” is a surprising and earnest defense of a relatively unsung art form.Keegan-Michael Key in 2018. His new podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” involved a lot of research. “I loved school,” he said, so delving into a subject “kind of lights my fire.”Credit…Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 4:33 p.m. ETThere are people who enjoy comedy, people who are nerdy about comedy and then there is Keegan-Michael Key, an actor and producer whose deep and affectionate connoisseurship of jokes puts him closer to the realm of a jurist or sommelier.On Key’s new Audible-exclusive podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” he plays resident historian, taking listeners on a laugh-laden and discursive journey — from ancient Sumer to 16th-century Rome to Abbott and Costello — in a lighthearted but earnest attempt to demonstrate the enduring power and understated complexity of the art form.For Key, who has spent the half-decade since the end of his award-winning TV show “Key & Peele” zigzagging between interesting projects onscreen and off, the podcast was a labor of love. It was directed by and co-written with his wife, Elle Key, last year. On a recent phone call, he discussed the impetus for the show, performing without a true audience and the role his adoption played in his love of comedy.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When you hear about a celebrity starting a podcast, you generally think of something personality driven, or an interview show with other famous people. You don’t think of an in-depth, 10-part history lesson. What made you want to do this project as a podcast?KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY Well, one of the things that brought me and my wife, Elle, together is our love of humor and of comedy, even the science of it: What makes a good turn? What makes the joke work? I’m an academically minded person — I loved school. So being able to do research and delve into a subject and turn that around and share with other people is something that kind of lights my fire. For years, Elle has been suggesting that with all of the combined knowledge and passion for this art form that we have, we should figure out a way to share it with others. And when the pandemic started, we used all of our time in quarantine to put it together. Her pitch to Audible was: “If Keegan-Michael Key was a guest lecturer at N.Y.U. doing a 10-week course called ‘The History of Sketch Comedy,’ it would be a very popular class.”Have you always been a student of the history of sketch comedy?KEY That’s something that started in my 20s probably, when I was an undergrad fine arts and acting major [at the University of Detroit Mercy]. I never gave much thought to the history of comedy until I started studying commedia dell’arte. I was like, “Wait a second, you mean there are archetypes? Warner Brothers didn’t just invent the phenomenon of Bugs Bunny? The primary characteristics [of Bugs] have existed for hundreds of years?” When my professor said that, my mind got peeled back. I wrote a paper [in graduate school, at Pennsylvania State University] making a comparison between vaudevillian poster advertisements from the late 19th century and the images that you would see on Greek and Roman friezes from the comedies of Plautus and Terence and Aristophanes, just because that kind of stuff fascinated me.Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key, who directed the podcast, at the Vanity Fair Oscar party last year.Credit…Danny Moloshok/ReutersHad you done much comedy of your own at that point?KEY Yeah, I think comedy afforded me social currency. You don’t have to be particularly athletic, you don’t have to be super strong and you don’t have to be on the dean’s list to be able to execute a pratfall or tell a funny joke or do a dead-on impression. That was the route that I went as a painfully shy, very skinny kid. That was the only power I knew how to wield. I remember once, when I was a kid, seeing my father, who was this very large, stoic, soft-spoken guy, guffawing at this impression. It was revelatory to me that a person could have that kind of power over somebody who was a thousand miles away, or 10,000 miles away.Did you try and make him laugh yourself?KEY I would try to impress him. If I had gone to see a movie, I would go home to my mom and my dad and act out the movie. Or, if they hadn’t seen a trailer for a movie, I would act out the trailer. Sometimes I would also use that as a kind of pre-Power Point presentation, trying to convince them to let me go see the movie if it was rated R. They were thoroughly entertained, but alas, it did not work.That’s really funny given what you ended up doing for a living, especially all the movie-inspired sketches of the “Key & Peele” show.KEY Exactly. It’s not a surprise at all. Also, I’m adopted; so to say that I spent a lot of time trying to get my parents’ approval is kind of an understatement. I’ve been acting since I was born, you know what I mean? I’ve been putting my tap shoes on for people’s approval for a long time.You chose an interesting starting point for the show, going all the way back to a Sumerian fart joke from 1900 B.C., which I couldn’t believe was real. How did you decide how far back to go?KEY It started with the joke from the film “Airplane.” Lloyd Bridges storms in and he goes: “All right, everybody. I need this piece of information. I need that to happen over there, this to happen over here, and we have to start at the beginning.” And then the guy says to him: “OK. Well, first, there was dinosaurs, and then …” So we actually decided to use that joke as the basis for the beginning. Like, “What would it look like if we start at the beginning? Let’s talk about hieroglyphics.” And then the hieroglyphics brought us to the Sumerians. I think, at our most basic level, the way we captivate each other as human beings is through explaining the journey or the ordeal that one goes through. Literature, cinema, theater — they’re all basically the same at the core, but we express them in a different way.The series begs the question of just what is a sketch. I’m curious how you define it.KEY I think one of the biggest components of sketch is brevity. The modern definition is: premise plus escalation equals sketch, or premise plus escalation equals comedy, which means that a sketch is just kind of an elongated joke that builds on itself. So I was trying to affix that measuring stick to these other pieces of art throughout history. There are lots of scenes in movies and plays where you could move it surgically out of the larger piece, and it could stand as its own piece of comedy. To me, that’s sketch.How did you approach doing all the research for the show? Did you have to brush up on your William Dunlap or your Mathurine de Vallois?KEY Well, a lot of what Elle did is that, as we were putting the structure together, we started to go through history and just say, “What do we know about comedy and where there were comedic performers in history?” Then we just started putting them on the timeline. I discovered through our research about female jesters — was not aware that they existed. There are a lot of wonderful things that I discovered, like the “rural purge” and Beyond the Fringe.Putting all that on a timeline and then being able to kind of zoom out, did it make you see comedy in a different way? Or affirm things you already knew?KEY I think that it probably affirmed things. One of those affirmations was the basics: that people figured out tens of thousands of years ago that it was satisfying to watch someone overcome obstacles to achieve a goal. That is somehow inherent in our programming, to excite us and bring us meaning.Yours is the only voice we hear in the series, and you act out a lot of the sketches you discuss. Was it strange to perform without an audience?KEY Technically speaking, I wasn’t alone: I had Elle in the booth, the engineer and a production assistant. I’d be in the booth looking at them [while performing], and I’d see them start to smile. To me, if I start improvising and I see people start to grin, that’s chum in the water and I’m a great white shark. I’m going to go right the [expletive] off script and do everything in my power to make them burst out in laughter. In certain episodes, you actually hear me talking to Cameron [Perry], the engineer. I go, “Right, Cameron? I mean, it’s a pretty filthy joke, but you’re laughing. Everybody, Cameron’s laughing.”What have you liked most about working in audio?KEY One thing I like is the fact that sometimes it allows you to go bigger. It allows you to be broader, more energetic, because you have to convey something through a microphone. Especially when you’re doing animation work — the figure of what you’re performing with your voice is often so exaggerated that it gives you license to be peculiar or over the top. You can say to the director, “What if I just was like [yodels loudly and cartoonishly]?” And the director will go: “That might work.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Jamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56

    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56She broke barriers as a woman in the TV industry and turned out hit after hit, only to see it all fizzle under a very public spotlight.Jamie Tarses in 1996. At 32 she was named president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.Credit…Steve GoldsteinFeb. 1, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETLOS ANGELES — A young, female executive arrives in the men’s locker room that was broadcast television in the 1990s and snaps a few towels of her own, working with writers to shape juggernaut comedies like “Mad About You” and “Friends.” She is so good at spotting hits that she becomes, at 32, the president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.But she fizzles in epic fashion, brought down by corporate dysfunction, unvarnished sexism, self-sabotage, weaponized industry gossip and scalding news media scrutiny.Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday in Los Angeles at 56. Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was “complications from a cardiac event.” She suffered a stroke in the fall and had spent a long period in a coma.Ms. Tarses (pronounced TAR-siss) broke a Hollywood glass ceiling in 1996, when she became president of ABC Entertainment. ABC badly needed fresh hit shows, and Ms. Tarses, who had worked at NBC, had a reputation for serving up a steady supply — especially zeitgeist-tapping sitcoms. She had shepherded the cuddly “Mad About You” and the neurotic “Frasier” to NBC’s prime-time lineup. “Friends,” which she had helped develop, was the envy of every network.“Jamie had a remarkable ability to engage writers — to understand their twisted, dark, joyful, brilliant complexity and really speak their language and help them achieve their creative goals,” said Warren Littlefield, who was NBC’s president of entertainment from 1991 to 1998. “She was highly creative herself and, of course, came from a family of writers.” (Her father, Jay Tarses, wrote for “The Carol Burnett Show” and created “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” an acclaimed comedic drama, from 1987 to ’91. Her brother, the comedy writer Matt Tarses, has credits like “Scrubs” and “The Goldbergs.”)Even so, Ms. Tarses faced extreme challenges.Upstart broadcast competitors — the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB — were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. So were cable channels. In 1996, about 49 percent of prime-time viewers watched ABC, CBS or NBC, down from roughly 74 percent a decade earlier, according to Nielsen data. HBO was moving into original programming with shows like “Sex and the City,” further diluting the talent pool.The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC shortly before Ms. Tarses arrived, heightening Wall Street scrutiny and intensifying corporate politics. “ABC was a snake pit in those days,” said Jon Mandel, who ran MediaCom, a television ad-buying agency. “Some people spent more time trying to assassinate internal rivals than actually doing their jobs.”Ms. Tarses in 1997 as president of ABC Entertainment. At NBC she had served up a steady supply of hit sitcoms, including “Mad About You,”  “Frasier” and “Friends.” Credit…Kevork Djansezian/Associated PressThen came The Article.After a year at ABC, Ms. Tarses, who had alienated some colleagues by not returning calls and missing morning meetings, gave the journalist Lynn Hirschberg unfettered access for an 8,000-word cover story in The New York Times Magazine. The piece portrayed Ms. Tarses as “a nervous girl” who swung erratically between arrogance and insecurity. “Women are emotional, and Jamie is particularly emotional,” one male agent, speaking anonymously, was quoted as saying. “You think of her as a girl, and it changes how you do business with her.”The article, which pointedly discussed Ms. Tarses’s hairstyle and feminine way of sitting, helped color the rest of Ms. Tarses’s career. Once someone is typecast in Hollywood, even as an executive, getting people to see that person in a different light can be a never-ending battle.“A lot of it was pure sexism,” said Betsy Thomas, a screenwriter and friend.Even so, Ms. Tarses was criticized at times as showing poor judgment. In 1998, ABC hosted more than 100 television critics and entertainment journalists from across the United States at a promotional event in Pasadena, Calif. ABC stars were also invited, including a young Ryan Reynolds, then appearing on a sitcom called “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.” As the evening wore on, reporters witnessed Ms. Tarses and Mr. Reynolds go outside and become amorous.The indiscretion, which was reported on by some newspapers, contributed to a narrative that had congealed around Ms. Tarses: She was too impetuous for such a big job.Her bosses, including Robert A. Iger, then chairman of the ABC Group, had been applying patches to the situation. A veteran television executive, Stuart Bloomberg, was installed above Ms. Tarses. Then, as part of a restructuring, yet another manager, Lloyd Braun, was placed over her in what was essentially a demotion. Vicious infighting ensued, what The Wall Street Journal later deemed “a case study in dysfunctional corporate relationships.”Thomas Gibson and Jenna Elfman in 1998 in “Dharma & Greg,” a popular sitcom that Ms. Tarses developed at ABC. Credit…Jerry Fitzgerald/ABCMs. Tarses resigned in 1999. She left ABC with one popular sitcom, “Dharma & Greg,” and one comedy that was a hit with critics, Aaron Sorkin’s “Sports Night.” She also put “The Practice,” a popular legal drama from David E. Kelley, on the ABC schedule.“I just don’t want to play anymore,” she told The Los Angeles Times when she left ABC. “The work is a blast. The rest of this nonsense I don’t need.”Sara James Tarses was born in Pittsburgh on March 16, 1964 to Jay and Rachel (Newdell) Tarses. The family moved to suburban Los Angeles, where her father became a successful sitcom writer (first on “The Bob Newhart Show”).Ms. Tarses attended Williams College in Massachusetts, studying play structure and receiving a theater degree in 1985. She was a production assistant on “Saturday Night Live” in New York for a season before returning to Los Angeles in 1986 to become a casting director for Lorimar Productions. She joined NBC in 1987 in the “current” comedy programming division (shows already on the air), where she monitored scripts for shows like “Cheers” and “A Different World,” starring Lisa Bonet.Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s much-admired entertainment chief, became her mentor. He swiftly promoted Ms. Tarses to the network’s comedy development department, where she worked on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which turned Will Smith into a household name; the oddball “Wings,” set at a New England airport; and “Blossom,” centered on a teenage Mayim Bialik.Ms. Tarses’s departure from NBC was ugly.Michael Ovitz, the polarizing former power agent, had become Disney’s president. He began talking to Ms. Tarses about taking over ABC. But she was under contract at NBC. Gossip swirled in Hollywood that she solved the problem by claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Don Ohlmeyer, a senior NBC executive. (Mr. Ohlmeyer blamed Mr. Ovitz for the rumor and publicly called him “the Antichrist,” leading to a media frenzy.) Ms. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Mr. Ovitz, but it continued to hound her, making the young Ms. Tarses appear as someone “who would do anything to get ahead,” as Ms. Hirschberg wrote.When she arrived at ABC in the spring of 1996, Ms. Tarses was the second-youngest person ever to be the lead programmer of a network. (Mr. Tartikoff was 31 when he took over at NBC.) Her age, along with her status as the first woman to have that prestigious job, resulted in an unusual amount of scrutiny, often negative. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as “Minnie Mouse” in one article and “scarily ruthless” in another.Karey Burke, who ran ABC from 2018 to 2020 and is now president of 20th Television, a leading TV studio, said of Ms. Tarses in a statement: “She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve, and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself.”After quitting ABC in 1999, Ms. Tarses avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Several television pilots failed, but she ultimately found a few modest hits, including “My Boys,” a comedy created by Ms. Thomas and centered on a female sportswriter, and “Happy Endings,” a sitcom that dusted off the “Friends” formula.“She was a hands-on, deeply involved producer who just so totally got my voice and my sense of humor,” Ms. Thomas said. “She knew how to pull the best out of you without trying to change your writing or make it into something different.”Ms. Tarses in 2018. After quitting ABC she avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Credit…Emma Mcintyre/Getty ImagesIn addition to her brother, Matt, Ms. Tarses is survived by her partner, Paddy Aubrey, a chef and restaurateur; their two children, Wyatt and Sloane; her parents; and a sister, Mallory Tarses, a teacher and fiction writer.Even decades after she had left ABC, Ms. Tarses continued to serve as a lightning rod in Hollywood. To some, she was the victim of a misogynistic television industry. Others stubbornly viewed her as a callous climber.“She had smarts, drive, family connections, money, the mentor everyone wished they had, very good looks, absolutely everything going for her,” Mr. Mandel said. “That automatically created jealousy and resentment.”He continued: “Yes, she made mistakes. But the same could be said about any guy in Hollywood — especially then — and none of them had the added pressure of breaking a glass ceiling.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    What’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’A new documentary on PBS looks at the roots of a women’s rights organization. And Queen Latifah stars in a reboot of “The Equalizer” on CBS.“9to5: The Story of a Movement” revisits an organization that fought for better treatment of women in the workplace.Credit…Richard BermackFeb. 1, 2021, 1:00 a.m. ETBetween network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: 9TO5 — THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT 10 p.m. on PBS. The filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar (“American Factory”), co-directed this new documentary about the founding of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. The organization was started by a group of secretaries in Boston in the 1970s. The documentary revisits its roots, and the larger groundswell of feminist activism from which it grew. It includes interviews with the organization’s founders and others related to the movement — including Jane Fonda, who starred alongside Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the 1980 farce “Nine to Five,” which took inspiration from the organization’s back story.TuesdayA scene from “Fake Famous.”Credit…HBOFAKE FAMOUS (2021) 9 p.m. on HBO. Nick Bilton, a journalist who has written extensively about technology for publications including Vanity Fair and The New York Times, is the director of this new documentary. The film follows Bilton as he gathers a trio of relatively unknown young people — an actress, a real-estate professional and a fashion designer — and helps them try to become “famous” social-media influencers. He uses a variety of artificial tactics to do that, like setting up photo shoots that make the subjects’ lifestyles appear lavish, and helping them purchase fake Instagram followers. The documentary includes at least one scene in which one of its subjects drives a car while holding two smartphones.GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) 8 p.m. on AMC. Real-life Groundhog Day is on Tuesday, so naturally AMC is showing this classic comedy about an ornery weatherman (Bill Murray) reliving the same day over and over and over. You can also see it at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (seriously).WednesdayA RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) 10 p.m. on TCM. The first week of Black History Month is a fitting time to revisit “A Raisin in the Sun.” Lorraine Hansberry made history with it in 1959, when she became the first Black woman with a play produced on Broadway. The original Broadway cast — including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil — later starred in this classic film version. Its screenplay, which Hansberry adapted from her original play, retells the story of the Youngers, a Black family that has to decide what to do with a large insurance payment, and faces relentless discrimination when its members try to buy a home in a fictional white neighborhood in Chicago.ThursdayCynda Williams and Denzel Washington in “Mo’ Better Blues.”Credit…David Lee/Universal City StudiosMO’ BETTER BLUES (1990) 6:50 p.m. on Showtime. You can watch a trio of Spike Lee movies on Showtime on Thursday night, beginning with Lee’s 1994 Bed-Stuy coming-of-age story “Crooklyn” at 4:55 p.m., and ending with Lee’s 1989 opus “Do the Right Thing” at 9 p.m. In between those two, the network will show “Mo’ Better Blues,” Lee’s music-heavy comedy-drama about a jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington). The music in the movie is largely by Lee’s father, the jazz bassist and composer Bill Lee; its plot involves Bleek’s complicated love life and his band’s financial issues, which are driven by their gambling-addicted manager (Lee), and which raise questions about the relationship between art and money. “An artist has to be a businessman today,” Lee explained in an interview with The Times in 1990. “Money means a lot. It equals power. If my films did not make the money they make, I couldn’t make the demands I make. A studio knows I’ll have final cut.”FridayBADLANDS (1973) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. Terrence Malick took inspiration from a brief, bloody real-life episode for this, his directorial debut. Based loosely on a string of murders committed in the 1950s, “Badlands” casts Martin Sheen as a 25-year-old Midwestern garbage collector and Sissy Spacek as an underage girl who runs off with him. The two take a murderous road trip across the Midwest. The film, Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times in 1973, is “ferociously American.”SaturdayRose Byrne and Steve Carell in “Irresistible,” a satire about a political operative.Credit…Daniel Mcfadden/Focus FeaturesIRRESISTIBLE (2020) 8 p.m. on HBO. After years of staying away from the social media center of couch commentary, Jon Stewart finally joined Twitter last week, weighing in on — of all things — the internet-fueled stock market kerfuffle revolving around the video-game retailer GameStop. Stewart’s voice has largely been absent from the political-commentary realm since he stopped hosting the “Daily Show” in 2015, but he dipped his toe back into it last year with “Irresistible,” a satire about a savvy political consultant in Washington, D.C., named Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell), who swoops into a small Wisconsin town to run a mayoral campaign. Gary’s quest to get his candidate — a farmer and retired Marine played by Chris Cooper — elected is complicated by the arrival of a Republican adversary (Rose Byrne). The result is a film that feels like “a stale corn chip trampled into Party-convention carpeting,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times. But, she notes, Byrne “gives Faith a bitingly droll politesse that tells us she has Gary’s number: She knows he’s as comfortable with his privilege as she is with hers.”SundayIn “The Equalizer,” Queen Latifah stars as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante.Credit…Barbara Nitke/CBSTHE EQUALIZER 10 p.m. on CBS. The 1980s action series “The Equalizer” got a pair of ultraviolent film adaptations during the 2010s, with Denzel Washington taking over for the original series’s star, Edward Woodward, on laying-waste-to-bad-guys duty. The franchise comes full-circle with this new TV reboot, which stars Queen Latifah as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante. CBS clearly has high hopes for the new series; they’re airing it right after the Super Bowl, which begins on the network at 7 p.m.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More