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    ‘The Sopranos’ and Nina Simone Sustain ‘Unorthodox’ Star

    Last spring, the Israeli actress Shira Haas was undergoing a transformation in Berlin. Call it a crash course — with lessons in Yiddish, English, piano and voice — in playing Esther “Esty” Shapiro, a fiercely independent 19-year-old woman who escapes her cloistered Hasidic community in Brooklyn, in Netflix’s “Unorthodox.”The hard work won Haas praise. James Poniewozik, the chief television critic for The New York Times, called her “a phenomenon, expressive and captivating.”In another world, she would have ridden that high to the premiere of her latest movie, “Asia,” at the Tribeca Film Festival and the shooting of Season 3 of “Shtisel,” also on Netflix.Instead, Haas, 24, was sheltering at home in Tel Aviv and pondering the 10 things she doesn’t want to live without. Here are edited excerpts from a conversation about them.1. Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’A friend without any connections to [“Unorthodox”] sent this to me a week or two before I flew to Berlin. I was so into the script already and was like, I can totally relate to it as Esty. I can hear it all the time, it’s such a moving song. And to listen to her doing this live is so powerful. And that song is just, yeah, my song of the year for sure.2. Female directorsTali Shalom-Ezer directed “Princess,” which was not only the first female director that I worked with, it’s also the first project I ever did. I was not yet 17, and it was completely new to me, this cinema world. I was so lucky to work with Tali because she was so sensitive, and she taught me so much, and she gave me so many new ways to see. She was a true inspiration obviously as an actress, but also as a role model. That’s why I mentioned the other directors I’ve worked with — Maria Schrader, Natalie Portman, Niki Caro and Ruthy Pribar. You know that they were running all these projects on their backs. I’ve worked with the most amazing men directors. I cannot complain for a second. But working with strong and talented women is, for me, something that leads to more awareness. The fact that we’re talking about this says that there’s not enough of that, right?3. MandalasA really good friend of mine is a big mandala maker, and a few years ago I was stressed and she was like: “You should make mandalas. I’ll teach you how.” Since then it’s like my meditation. It’s really only for my soul and for myself. I have a lot of them from the last years, and it’s interesting to see which mandala I made in what period, because there’s a lot of meaning in what you create.You take calipers, and the basic one is really just circles. Then you can do whatever you want. Sometimes I put pictures that I love, sometimes I paint, sometimes with pencils or pens or markers. I know lots of people think it needs to be symmetrical, but for me it’s always a big mess. You have the basic shape of it, so you do have rules — but you can break them.4. ‘The Sopranos’It came out when I was 4, so I did not watch it when it was aired. But it was one of the first series that really influenced me. I felt like I’m seeing cinema in my TV. The writing and the acting — I mean, brilliant. I think it affected me as an actress and the stories that I want to tell.I’m a Carmela person. I’m always attracted to the female strong part, so she’s my favorite for sure. But all of the characters, even though they’re talking about murders and criminals, you can really understand them and see their private life. And I think that’s the reason that I love it so much, because that’s how life is complex. In “Unorthodox,” you see a society that you don’t know, but you can understand the people. I’m not trying to say that we’re “The Sopranos.” But you see characters where, if you were to read about them in the news, you would be like, “Oh, this is awful.” But they really touch your heart.5. Chava AlbersteinShe is a singer and composer and a huge, huge symbol here in Israel. She’s been working for over 50 years. She has beautiful songs, and some of them are very old — what my parents and grandparents listened to. But every time I hear them, whether it’s her old songs or current songs, I always get emotional. And like with Nina, it’s not only that her songs are beautiful, but also how she presents the songs is so amazing. I feel like singing in a lot of ways is also acting. You cannot separate it.6. ‘Beware of Pity’ by Stefan ZweigIt’s a very hard core book about relationships, about connections, and the pity and mercy that the man has toward the woman because she’s disabled. It’s kind of a mirror to society’s face, and how our actions and words have consequences. It really touched me. I’m not an easy crier, not at all. But this book was one of the few moments that I found myself sobbing. It was a knife to my heart.7. PhotoshopI do it for fun, for friends, but sometimes it’s more like inspiration for my work and my roles. If I’m writing, for example, and I have this idea, I’m sometimes going to design it, to have pictures and references together and to make colors. It’s like a mood board, but it’s much crazier.8. Pawel Pawlikowski’s ‘Cold War’I told you before, I don’t usually cry. But I went to the cinema with a friend when it was just released, and I had tears in my eyes. It’s a story about history and about passion. I’d never felt such things. And the music and the soundtrack combined together with this cinematography — and even the makeup and the hairstyles — you can really see the emotional journey of the characters and the historical phases they’re going through. I felt like I’m seeing a masterpiece.9. Brené Brown on EmpathyA friend of mine sent this to me when we were 19. It’s less than three minutes, and I remember smiling the whole way through. It was so simple, but not a cliché. And it was so beautifully said and so accurate. I think it’s really helped me in my relations with others, and the difference between showing that you know something versus to just be. You should just listen. It’s a helpful thing for actors because when you’re working on a character, it is so important not to judge her but to really understand and have empathy for her. That’s the key, I think.10. Jérémy Comte’s ‘Fauve’It’s about a friendship between two kids that are playing together, and they have this perfect chemistry. I don’t want to spoil it too much, but it’s about one of them losing the other, and moving on. It’s so, so beautiful for the cinematography and the location and for the art. And I recommend people to see it right now in this time that we’re living. More

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    ‘Better Call Saul’ Season 5, Episode 9 Recap: Bullet Holes

    At last, proof positive: Kim is a much better liar than Jimmy.We know because as the pair try to win over a skeptical looking, handgun-packing, fish-tank tapping Lalo, it is Kim who proves a far more convincing, far nimbler fabricator. Lalo mentions the bullet holes he found in Jimmy’s car — which turn out to be the biggest holes in Jimmy’s story — and Kim instantly has a simple and plausible explanation.“Bullet holes?” she says, feigning astonishment. “That’s it?”They are no doubt the work of New Mexico’s legion of yahoos, she says, who will shoot at anything made of metal. Kim also serves as a character witness, telling Lalo that Jimmy is a man of integrity. The kind who doesn’t lie, she lies.Our favorite con man, it seems, has married a far more talented con woman. She doesn’t merely persuade Lalo. She admonishes him. For not having a better criminal enterprise, for not hiring more trustworthy minions.“No offense,” she says, “but you need to get your house in order.”It’s a nonviolent, psychologically fraught ending to an episode that is low on action and very interior. If the tale told here has a chewy center, it is the speech Mike gives to Jimmy about the ways that people choose a road, often based on a small decision, and then find it impossible to exit that road. This is a pretty fatalistic vision of life, and one to which Mike sincerely subscribes. With good reason. When he tried leaving his own road a few episodes ago, he wound up a depressed drunk with a death wish.Is Jimmy every bit as chained to his fate? Probably. By accepting a bag of cash in exchange for serving as Lalo’s mule, and by mentioning this mission to Kim, he has cast his lot with the Mexican cartel in a way that can’t be uncast.Nacho, certainly, is stuck on his road. Mike’s efforts to convince Fring to remove the gun he is pointing — at times literally — at the head of Nacho’s father comes to naught. Mike argues that Nacho delivered Lalo, as promised, and is due a chit. Fring is unmoved. He likens Nacho to a dog that bites all of his owners.For viewers, who know Nacho as both a criminal and a human with a soft spot for his father and for compulsive women, this seems unduly harsh. But all that Fring knows about the man is that he tried to kill his previous drug-lord boss, Hector Salamanca.Lalo, on the other hand, doesn’t worry much about his own fate. He makes bail, gets released and nears the Mexican border when it occurs to him that he should double check Jimmy’s desert escape story. Why he didn’t think of this before he arrived at the water well/meeting spot is unclear, and this actually gets to one of the more interesting conundrums for the writers of “Better Call Saul.”How smart, capable and menacing should Lalo be? It’s no fun if he’s dim or merely intelligent, right? What made the contest between Gus and Walter White so compelling in “Breaking Bad” is that each was trying to outsmart the other, and both were surpassingly devious. Their schemes and counter-schemes made them ideal enemies.So far, I’m not sure that the writers have invested Lalo with enough malignant gifts to serve as a Gus-worthy foil. He is charming, he is murderous, and he certainly can jump from high places and land on his feet (Into a ravine in this episode; out of the ceiling of a Travelwire last season.)But he’s always a step behind Gus. He was snowed about the meth superlab. He was manipulated into prison and later manipulated out of prison. This week, he jumped bail, just as Gus planned, and appears to be lamming it to Mexico, just as Gus planned. (Well, he was headed in that direction when last seen.) And as Kim snookered him in that living room showdown, Mike had the cross-hairs of a rifle pointed at Lalo’s chest.The point is that Lalo might need more game. As a fan of the show, and a fan of suspense, I kind of wish that Gus’s organization was now genuinely imperiled. It seems the worst Lalo can do, at present, is compel Gus to blow up his own restaurants. Which is bad.But there’s one episode left in this season. From which cliff are we currently hanging? Kim’s death appears off the table, at least for the time being. I sort of expected that by now Lalo would pose an existential threat to Gus Inc., and we would all be wondering if he was about to sic the Feds on the guy, or preparing to murder Gus, as counterproductive to the cartel’s interests as that might be.We still don’t know whether Lalo will be back for Season 6., though it seems likely given Jimmy’s brief reference to him in Season 2 of “Breaking Bad.” My wish: that he gets back to Mexico and then returns next year, with reinforcements and new ways to cause havoc. A lot more havoc.Odds and Ends:In addition to saving Jimmy’s life, Kim changes career paths in this episode. She’s had enough of the tedium of regulatory work on behalf of a growing regional bank, and she would like to become a public defender. This irks Jimmy, who is — as he has been at other moments — focused on the money. She’s undaunted.The woman has range. She even knows what kind of soaking bath cures a guy desiccated in the desert.So, Don Eladio was behind the attempted hijacking of Lalo’s $7 million in bail cash. At least, that is what Gus has concluded after talking to the elegant, even-tempered señor. The question is, why?Here’s why, according to Gus: “He was trying to protect his business by protecting our business.”All right, hive mind, let’s buy a vowel and solve this puzzle.My guess is that Eladio wants to scuttle the bail deal on the theory that keeping Lalo behind bars is good for Fring’s drug enterprise, and thus good for Eladio’s. It’s a fair assumption. As far as Eladio knows, Lalo has been nabbed by the police and is going to wind up, like his cousin Tuco, neutralized behind bars. Eladio doesn’t know that Lalo was causing huge problems for Fring while in jail. He certainly doesn’t know that Fring has a double agent in the cartel, and that Fring torched his own restaurant. Finally, Eladio doesn’t know that Fring orchestrated Lalo’s release.So Eladio hired some gangsters to steal the cartel’s own money, hoping to keep Lalo in the Big House.For Fring, what’s the end game here? Remember, he said that anything that happens to Lalo on this side of the border is his responsibility. So his plan is surely to let Lalo escape to Mexico and then kill him there, without raising any suspicions.Lalo is in a hurry to get home, unaware that home for him is now one of the most dangerous places on earth.What are you hoping to see in the finale? Share in the comments section.And remember, if anyone asks if you pushed your car into a ditch, the wrong answer — perhaps the worst answer — is “I don’t think so.” More

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    The TV Show I Love: ‘Grey’s Anatomy’

    Stuck on a desert island or confined to a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment, I will take the 15-year-old medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” as distraction over any of its newer, shinier, more critically acclaimed, more endlessly dissected and meme-fueling competition.I’ve been onboard since 2007. The show’s creator, Shonda Rhimes, or its current showrunner, Krista Vernoff, could replace the lead character, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), with an android: I have no desire to ever stop watching. The longevity of my emotional investment is partly the point. Nothing replaces the feeling — unique to television — of watching a show age in real time. And this one has remarkably held up.Besides the occasional tremor when a cast member leaves or acts out — or a pandemic prompts a season to end prematurely, as happened last week — series like “Grey’s” are often taken for granted. Yet the pleasures they dispense are both rare and very real. Here’s why I’m a fan.How I Discovered ItI embarked on my “Grey’s” journey around the middle of Season 4. “ER,” to which I was devoted, was in its penultimate season and running on fumes, and I must have been looking, consciously or not, for another prime-time drama focusing on adults rather than children or families. (The medical genre wasn’t a draw in itself: I never got into, say, “House,” and I didn’t even bother with the “Grey’s” spinoff “Private Practice.”)One night, I stumbled onto Seattle Grace Hospital, and I never left. I can’t remember the episode or why I was hooked — maybe it was an intriguing case, maybe it was a snarky exchange between Meredith and her “person,” Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh). No matter: I was back the following week and have remained loyal.Why I WatchIt’s not just inertia that has kept me hanging on. I have ditched other favorites, like “The Walking Dead,” many seasons in. But “Grey’s” has never flagged in brilliantly stitching together the personal, the professional and the soap-operatically outrageous. Of course, the show handles the medical side of the stories well, deftly balancing one-in-a-million cases with less colorful but just as dangerous illnesses. (It’s amazing how many people have been impaled by implausible objects over the years.)Yet operating-room action alone would not have kept me interested: I have stayed for the ever-changing permutations of horny doctors and to watch characters either settle into relationships or flamboyantly sabotage them. This is a series in which adults have adult concerns, but the impulse control of hormonal teens.The show has also never shied from hot-button issues (Meredith has recently become obsessed with the inequity of the American health-insurance system) or from addressing the moral and ethical quandaries of fallible doctors blinded by hubris, pigheadedness or lust.And all of this has unfurled with a matter-of-factly progressive approach to race (inclusive casting has always been a huge part of the appeal), sexual orientation and physical and mental disabilities — a tolerance woven into the show’s fabric rather than funneled into Very Special Episodes.Why I Keep Coming BackRenewal is built into the show’s DNA: Grey Sloan Memorial, as the hospital is now known, is a teaching institution, which means that new interns and consulting doctors arrive at regular intervals. They are put under observation, and the show either absorbs or rejects them, like a body with a transplanted organ. Established stars can’t sleep soundly either, and anybody can get walking papers overnight. When the powers-that-be killed off the dreamboat Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey) in Season 11, ratings did not sink — and the show remains a hit for ABC.If you become overly attached to a character or a couple on “Grey’s,” chances are that at some point you will wind up either sobbing or furiously throwing objects at the wall. And you will keep watching because the show is uncommonly well-written and directed, even when the plot goes off the rails.What I Manage to OverlookLoving means tolerating flaws. “Grey’s” often deploys weapons of mass emotional manipulation that drive me crazy in other shows. I can’t stand sappy acoustic covers of pop songs, but when they play over patients being informed they are going to live or die, I start crying. Likewise, preternaturally perceptive children are my Kryptonite on all series except “Grey’s.” Perhaps this is because said kids are almost always patients, so they come and go fairly quickly. (Many of the doctors have offspring now, but they barely figure in the story lines.)Am I Prepared for When It’s Gone?As a rule, I accept that shows must end. In 2019, the ABC entertainment president Karey Burke said that she would keep the series going as long as Rhimes and Pompeo were game. Pompeo’s contract runs until Season 17, in 2021; she could well renew and renew and renew, until Grandma Meredith bosses around interns a third her age. I will tag along, even if it requires walkers for everybody involved. More

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    It’s a Streaming World After All: Scuttled Benefit Is Back.

    A Broadway fund-raiser to benefit entertainment workers whose livelihoods have been imperiled by the coronavirus will be rescheduled after a labor union retreated from a demand that musicians be paid for the streaming of the previously recorded event.“We believe all musicians should be fairly compensated for their work all of the time, but we also believe that we must do everything possible to support entertainment workers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic,” Ray Hair, international president of the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, said in a statement Monday. “We fully support the union musicians who have graciously offered to forgo all required payments to allow this charity event to move forward.”The fund-raiser, which had been scheduled for Monday, will instead be held on Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. (It will be streamed at broadwaycares.org, youtube.com/BCEFA and facebook.com/BCEFA, as well as on websites of Playbill, iHeartRadio and ABC-owned television stations.)The event is to raise money for the theater nonprofit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. It will feature a streamed benefit concert, recorded in November, in which 79 singers and dancers, and 15 musicians, performed songs from Disney musicals, . The actor Ryan McCartan will host from home, weaving in live interviews.The fund-raiser had run aground over whether the musicians — who were paid last fall for performing — should also receive compensation for the streaming.Their union, which has made a priority of winning compensation for streaming media, insisted that the musicians should be paid. But the charity said it could not afford to do so, and pointed out that other unions, including Actors’ Equity and SAG-AFTRA, had agreed to waive any fees given that the event was to benefit suffering performers. The charity also agreed to make a donation to an emergency assistance fund for musicians.After an unpleasant email exchange last week, the charity canceled the event on Saturday.On Sunday, the 15 musicians issued a public statement expressing their desire for the event to proceed without any additional payment to them. Also on Sunday, the president of the union’s Local 802, which represents musicians in Greater New York, issued a statement criticizing Hair’s action.On Monday, after Hair issued the statement changing his position, Tom Viola, the Broadway Cares executive director, issued his own statement thanking the union and praising those musicians “who were willing to speak up during this unprecedented time.”And the musicians who had performed in the original concert welcomed the news. “We are delighted to see that President Ray Hair has endorsed our wish to donate our rights to the streaming of this performance,” they said in a statement. “Thanks to all the AFM leadership for hearing our voice in this matter.” More

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    What’s on TV Monday: 'Listen to Your Heart’ and ‘The Baker and the Beauty’

    What’s on TVTHE BACHELOR PRESENTS: LISTEN TO YOUR HEART 8 p.m. on ABC. It’s only been about a month since Peter Weber wrapped up his divisive stint as television’s most visible romantic free agent on “The Bachelor.” Many fans are still parsing his decision to break off his engagement with Hannah Ann to pursue a relationship with Madison, especially since the couple called things off soon after the finale aired. The franchise’s new offering starts off with a two-hour episode, and follows musicians looking for love. It should be diverting enough to help viewers forget that the most recent bachelor didn’t end his season betrothed. At the very least, it will tide us over until Clare Crawley assumes “The Bachelorette” throne. The spinoff’s contestants will perform separately and together as they try to develop ongoing relationships.THE BAKER AND THE BEAUTY 10 p.m. on ABC. If you’re still in the mood for romance after watching aspiring musicians flirt and flaunt their skills for two hours, this new series about an average Joe and a famous fashion mogul may hit the spot. The two meet when Daniel (Victor Rasuk), who works at the family bakery, publicly rejects his girlfriend’s marriage proposal. He’s splattered with soup, a parting gift from his spurned partner. Noa (Nathalie Kelley), the titular beauty and celebrity, offers him a ride away from his troubles. But instead of returning to his close-knit clan of parents and siblings, Daniel joins Noa for a night out in Miami.What’s StreamingANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959) Stream on the Criterion Channel. Jimmy Stewart stars in this acclaimed courtroom drama by Otto Preminger as Paul Biegler, a folksy small-town lawyer who is called upon to defend an Army lieutenant charged with murder (Ben Gazzara). The officer says it was a revenge killing for the rape of his wife, Laura (Lee Remick). Biegler is hopeful that he will be able to successfully argue that the lieutenant is innocent because his actions were the result of an “irresistible impulse.” But the case proves difficult to make. The prosecution is tough and Laura appears unsympathetic and unreliable.THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF (2009) Stream on Mubi. The director Pietro Marcello’s film “Martin Eden” was supposed to open in theaters in the United States this month, but its release was postponed because of the coronavirus. While we wait for “Martin Eden,” the Italian director’s adaptation of Jack London’s 1909 novel, his first two full-length films are available to stream. One, “The Mouth of the Wolf,” is a hybrid documentary and drama that follows Vincenzo Motta after his release from prison, as he readjusts to life in Genoa and reunites with his companion, Mary. The other, “Crossing the Line,” is a documentary: a journey through Italy on the country’s long-distance express trains. More

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    ‘Westworld’ Season 3, Episode 5 Recap: Reality, Man

    Season 3, Episode 5: ‘Genre’“Which genre is this?”“It’s reality, man.”Let’s get that absolutely atrocious exchange out of the way now, because it was one of the few bum moments in this week’s episode, the best of the season so far. “Westworld” had spent much of the past few hours teasing out the idea that ordinary people are like hosts in their own world, tethered to a sophisticated algorithm that not only predicts their fate but also goes a long way toward engineering it. The reality, man, is the chaos that inevitably erupts after humans have been freed from their own loops and allowed to make real choices, rather than submit to a numbing illusion of having them.The third season has been unfolding like a mirror version of the first, only now it’s the humans who are unknowingly locked into an automated and carefully managed routine. And much as with Dolores and other key hosts in the first season, change starts to happen the moment they achieve self-awareness. Companies like Incite have an interest in controlling the masses with the private information they’ve stolen from them, which is the natural endgame to what Delos intended with the Forge. The more a corporation could anticipate — and, better still, dictate — consumer behavior, the more it could manipulate mankind to serve whatever ambitions it might have.There’s a lot of talk about how the system in 2020 serves the billionaire class; in the future, with men like Engerraund Serac pulling the strings, its serves the trillionaire class.Yet the situation isn’t so cut and dried. It’s easy enough to decry a system in which people are at the mercy of a deathless algorithm. But this episode begins with a young Serac and his brother witnessing the leveling of Paris and everyone they knew and loved. “Humankind was hurtling toward extinction,” explains Serac, so whether God existed or not, He wasn’t doing enough to keep oblivion at bay. Another omniscient being would have to be created to replace God, and the Serac brothers make it their life’s work to get it done. Serac may be the villain of the season, corrupted by monstrous hubris, but his starting point was the basic survival of the species. That’s an idealistic goal if there ever was one.The episode proceeds elegantly along two main tracks. One tells the story of the Seracs and Liam Dempsey Sr. as they build the spherical AI deity known as Rehoboam, and the other follows Dolores, Caleb and a kidnapped Dempsey Jr as they take action to dismantle it. Serac is the key player across both subplots because he has a strong interest in keeping anyone else from accessing the deeper layers of Rehoboam. He may be fairly accused of enslaving his fellow man with his creation — and, more diabolically, of editing out the behaviors of those anomalies who threaten it — but his predictive model isn’t optimistic about what will happen to the world if it weren’t under strict supervision.Caleb is one of those anomalies, which is why Dolores has deputized him for the fight, but the episode heavily suggests questions about his own identity. In a pitiful bid to escape his captors, Dempsey Jr. injects Caleb with the party drug “Genre,” which works a little bit like the experimental gum in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” only with movies instead of meals. Each stage prompts him to see the world through a new filter, like the black-and-white of postwar noir or the glossy romance of “Love Story.”The show doesn’t do enough visually to reflect the change in filters: Music cues for films like “Apocalypse Now” and “The Shining” anticipate a shift in the action that never quite arrives. There’s too much on the agenda to fuss over Caleb’s addled perspective.But the fight over Rehoboam does yield some thrilling futuristic action, as Dolores and Caleb blast their way through an ambush by Serac and his goons. A heat-seeking rocket launcher and a detonated motorcycle provide most of the pyrotechnics, but the show adds a little bit of symbolism to the spectacle by questioning how a driverless vehicle might figure into a car-chase sequence. In this future, citizens have ceded control over their own destination: They no doubt get escorted where they want to go safely and efficiently, but the system can turn them from passenger to prisoner at any time. That’s the trade-off.But there are, as Serac explains in the opening narration, “flies in the ointment,” and he hasn’t found a big enough swatter yet. A facility that Serac builds to “edit” the behavior of human anomalies, including his own brother, looks conspicuously similar to the glass enclosures in the Mesa where technicians do their tinkering with the hosts. The Delos brass were always confident that they could restore and reprogram the hosts to bring them back to compliance. How’d that work out for them?Paranoid Androids:The pre-credits scene in which Serac meets with a world leader has shades of “Minority Report,” with Rehoboam anticipating a pocket of unrest that isn’t perceptible to anyone yet, including the would-be separatists. But it’s not just a predictive algorithm. Serac has the ability to manipulate currency and agitate the masses on his command, which is corporate power imagined to its greatest extreme.As Caleb’s mercenary buddies, Lena Waithe and Marshawn Lynch are out there living the John Carpenter dystopian sci-fi-action movie I’d love to see.“Westworld” is still maxing-out on run times, but a shorter and more streamlined eight-episode season has made a world of difference in terms of pace. There’s far less philosophical spinning-of-the-wheels than in previous seasons.“In every projection, the world came unglued.” The Serac brothers learn that God doesn’t have it easy.A subway train full of people learning exactly when and how they’re projected to die definitely seems livelier than the usual dead-eyed commute. More peripheral glimpses of their “bubble of agency” would be welcome. More

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    Labor Dispute Sinks Broadway Benefit for Pandemic Assistance

    An effort to raise money for entertainment workers hurt by the coronavirus pandemic has collapsed because of a dispute between a major charity and a labor union representing musicians.The charity, Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, had planned an online fund-raiser on Monday at which it would stream a concert, recorded in November, that celebrated the 25th anniversary of Disney on Broadway. The concert, backed by 15 musicians, was also a fund-raiser, which brought in $570,426 for Broadway Cares.Two major labor unions, Actors’ Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA, agreed to allow the streaming of the concert without fees, but the American Federation of Musicians, which has been focused on winning greater compensation for streamed content, did not.“Members of the American Federation of Musicians are suffering from the sudden cancellation of all work as a result of the Coronavirus outbreak,” the union’s international president, Ray Hair, said by email. “During the height of this crisis, Disney Theatrical has come to us asking to stream media content without payment to the musicians involved in the production. Especially now, with zero employment in the entertainment sector, the content producers should care enough about the welfare of those who originally performed the show to see to it that they are fairly compensated when their work is recorded and streamed throughout the world.”Broadway Cares, which has been raising money for a Covid-19 emergency assistance fund, was clearly frustrated.“I understand being told no,” Tom Viola, the organization’s executive director, said in a statement. “When that happens — and it does — I can usually see why or understand the extenuating circumstances. It never feels simply meanspirited. This was different and the result, particularly now, is heartbreaking.”Disney, which has raised nearly $20 million for Broadway Cares over the last quarter-century, was similarly unhappy. “Disney wholeheartedly supported the request from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS to AFM to waive fees for this fund-raiser, just as many unions and guilds had happily agreed to do,” Disney Theatrical Productions said in a statement. “It’s disappointing that in this case, due to AFM’s decision, much-needed funds will not be raised. We are fiercely proud to be advocates for Broadway Cares and will continue to be, especially at a time like this.” More

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    What’s on TV Saturday: ‘It Chapter Two’ and ‘The Clark Sisters’

    What’s on TVIT CHAPTER TWO (2019) 8 p.m. on HBO; stream on HBO platforms. Stephen King fans welcomed the director Andy Muschietti’s film adaptation of the 1986 novel “It” in 2017. That led to led this sequel, which picks up 27 years after the events of the first movie. The seven friends of the Losers Club reunite in their picturesque town of Derry, Me. All have seemingly moved on from their traumas involving It — the supernatural killer that takes the form of Pennywise the clown (Bill Skarsgard) — except for Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), who has been obsessively researching ways to stop It for good. Flashbacks of the friends’ encounters with It resurface from years ago, and each of them have to confront demons that were long buried. Some critics praised the cast — which also includes Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, James McAvoy, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Andy Bean — but said the scares are underwhelming.[embedded content]THE CLARK SISTERS: FIRST LADIES OF GOSPEL (2020) 8 p.m. on Lifetime. This new biopic of the Clark Sisters follows the release of their first album in 11 years, aptly titled “The Return.” The Grammy-winning gospel group originated in Detroit in the early 1970s and has been credited for bringing gospel to the mainstream. “First Ladies” packs in a whole lot of story: It chronicles the sisters’ rise to fame and the troubles that came with it, starting with their early days, when they were led by their passionate yet demanding mother, the choir director Mattie Moss Clark (Aunjanue Ellis). Gospel fans will recognize hits like “You Brought the Sunshine” and “Is My Living in Vain.” And the movie boasts some star power: Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott are among the executive producers.SAVED BY THE BARN 10 p.m. on Animal Planet. Sure, the title of this new series may be cringe-inducing. But the premise is heartwarming. The show follows Dan McKernan, a former tech employee who quit his six-figure job to convert his family’s farm in Michigan to a “sanctuary” for rescued barnyard animals that have suffered abuse and neglect. What better way to forget the current state of the world than to indulge in scenes of goats frolicking in the sun.What’s StreamingTHE AMERICAN NURSE (2014) Stream on Kino Now; rent on Google Play, Vudu or YouTube. Nearly every night, New Yorkers have been coming together to clap for medical professionals on the front lines of the coronavirus outbreak. This touching documentary by the filmmaker Carolyn Jones is a similar gesture, an ode to nurses who put their patients first on a daily basis. The movie follows five workers in different settings. Among them is a nurse who runs a prison hospice program and another who looks after wounded soldiers. Each of the stories will tug at your heartstrings. The film is available to stream for free on Kino Lorber’s streaming platform, Kino Now, until the end of May. More