Eliana Willis

More stories

  • 138 Shares169 Views

    in Theater

    ‘What Became of Us’ Review: Reflections on a Family’s Immigration Tale

    Shayan Lotfi’s topical play about a family building a new life in a new country leaves the details vague, deliberately.Details are sparse in Shayan Lotfi’s play “What Became of Us,” but the imprecision is by design. Onstage at Atlantic Stage 2 in Manhattan, the two-hander is meant to be one size fits all, to a degree: a story of immigration that doesn’t specify its characters’ country — neither the one they quit, in the Global South, nor the one they adopt, in the Global North.Q (Rosalind Chao), the daughter of the family, is alone onstage when she begins mining her memories of what she will always call “the Old Country,” from which she emigrated with her parents when she was 6.“They wanted to leave because of the economic, and the political,” she says, her vagueness allowing space for imagination. “They wanted to leave to find autonomy, and safety.”And, she suggests, they wanted their then-only child not to be frightened by the momentous change they had decided on: “They explained the journey to me using words from the fantastical stories I loved to read: adventure, new, exciting.”Q’s gaze hovers above the audience, but she is not talking to us. These recollections are for Z (BD Wong), her sibling, who was born in what she calls “This Country,” when Q was 7. For all of them, the new baby would be “a root into This Country that could never be ripped out.”Does it need mentioning that there is nothing sinister in that sentiment — that their parents were simply building their family as they built a new life in a new place, to which they wanted to be connected? Such are the electrified politics around immigration these days, and not just in the United States, that maybe it does.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

  • 125 Shares179 Views

    in Television

    ‘Hitler and the Nazis’ Review: Building a Case for Alarm

    Joe Berlinger’s six-part documentary for Netflix asks whether we should see our future in Germany’s past.Hitler’s project: “Making Germany great again.” The Nazis’ characterization of criticism from the media: “Fake news.” Hitler’s mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden: “It’s sort of like Hitler’s Mar-a-Lago, if you will.”Donald Trump’s name is not mentioned in the six episodes of “Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial,” a new historical documentary series on Netflix. But it dances just beneath the surface, and occasionally, as in the examples above, the production’s cadre of scholars, popular historians and biographers can barely stop themselves from giving the game away.The series was directed by the veteran documentarian Joe Berlinger (“Paradise Lost,” “Metallica: Some Kind of Monster”), who has a production deal with Netflix and has given it popular true-crime shows like “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich” and the “Conversations With a Killer” series.In promotional material, Berlinger explains his decision to step up from true crime to total war and genocide: “This is the right time to retell this story for a younger generation as a cautionary tale,” he says, adding, “In America, we are in the midst of our own reckoning with democracy, with authoritarianism knocking at the door and a rise in antisemitism.” In other words, you can’t make a documentary about Germany in the 1930s and ’40s without holding the United States of the 2010s and ’20s in your mind.To that end, Berlinger has made a deluxe version of the sort of history of Hitler, the Third Reich and the Holocaust that for years has been a staple of American cable television. The information is not new, but the resources available to Berlinger are reflected in the abundance of material he deploys across nearly six and a half hours: archival film, most of it meticulously colorized for the series, and audio; staged recreations with a sprawling cast of actors; and the copious roster of interviewees.A new telling of an old story requires a twist, of course, and Berlinger has several. The American journalist William L. Shirer serves as the series’s unofficial narrator, despite having died in 1993 — an A.I. recreation of his voice recites passages from his many books about the period, and occasionally his actual voice is heard in excerpts from radio broadcasts. He is also represented onscreen by an actor in scenes recreating the series’s other primary framing device, the first Nuremberg trials in 1945.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

  • 113 Shares129 Views

    in Theater

    Zack Winokur Leads an Arts Reboot at Little Island

    Zack Winokur, an ambitious dancer-turned-director, now has a New York stage to call his own as the park’s artistic leader.On Saturday night, Zack Winokur stood at the top row of the amphitheater of Little Island. Hundreds of people had taken their seats for the first performance of the park’s summer season, but he didn’t feel like joining them. “I’m just going to pace,” he said.If Winokur, Little Island’s producing artistic director, was restless, it was for good reason. The park, a cluster of tulip-shaped structures that support rolling hills above the Hudson River, had been open since 2021, and its amphitheater had been used plenty of times before.But Saturday’s performance, the premiere of Twyla Tharp’s “How Long Blues,” was a milestone for Little Island, and for New York City: the opening, or rather rebooting, of an institution dedicated solely to commissioning and supporting artists, with Winokur’s curatorial vision and the extremely deep pockets of the billionaire mogul Barry Diller.Outdoors, with a thrust stage, Little Island’s theater is subject to the elements and open to onlookers, who can watch performances, for free, from the winding paths of the park. (Tickets for amphitheater seats are $25.) The only real barrier to entry, Winokur said, is the West Side Highway.What really sets the theater apart, though, is its programming of world premiere after world premiere by top-shelf artists. Behind that is Winokur, 35, a Juilliard-trained dancer-turned-director who was a founder of the essential, increasingly visible collective American Modern Opera Company, or AMOC. Now, with Little Island, he is at the vanguard of his generation’s artistic leaders, with a New York stage to call his own.The financial support that Diller has pledged to Little Island’s programming, millions of dollars with no end in sight, is the kind that most artistic leaders only dream of. Winokur does not have to spend his days courting fund-raisers or securing residencies; instead, he can provide money and space, like a producer.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

  • 113 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    Late Night Reacts to President Biden’s Mexican Border Closure

    “The Daily Show” host Ronny Chieng joked that the president “has decided to start trying to win the election” with a temporary order affecting asylum seekers.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.Access DeniedPresident Biden issued a temporary order to shut down the Southern border to asylum seekers on Tuesday in an attempt to prevent migrants from crossing into the country.“The Daily Show” host Ronny Chieng said that the president “has decided to start trying to win the election,” with border security as one of his “biggest weaknesses.”“It’s why he tried to make a border deal with Republicans earlier this year. It’s also why Republicans refused to make a deal with him. They’re like, ‘How can we blame you for this if you fix it, you idiot? So now with his polls tanking five months before Election Day, Biden is finally saying ‘[Expletive] it, I’ll just do it myself.” — RONNY CHIENG“It’s not very popular to have no control over who immigrates to your country, OK? Just ask the Native Americans.” — RONNY CHIENG“Hey, I get it, dude, but if you don’t want people to come, like, maybe stop saying how awesome America is. ‘It’s the best; you can’t come!’” — RONNY CHIENG“But if you’re really upset about this, don’t worry — like everything else Biden does, it’ll probably get knocked down by the Supreme Court. So, if America really wants to lock down the Southern border, they should put Ticketmaster in charge of it, OK? These guys are the best at making sure nobody can actually get into the thing they want to, OK? Everyone will be waiting on the queue for three hours. Yeah, and then they find out that America’s already sold out.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Immediate Action Edition)“Say what you want about Biden, but he takes immediate action five months before an election.” — JIMMY FALLON“I’m going to be honest; I’m not sure Biden’s plan is going to work. Forget the border — we can’t even secure the deodorant at Walgreens.” — JIMMY FALLON“I feel bad for Biden — he can’t close the border, and he can’t open a bottle of Tylenol.” — JIMMY FALLON“That is a tough needle to thread, being an anti-immigration liberal: [imitating Biden] ‘So we’re going to seal the border, folks, but the wall is going to be gluten-free, and the barbed wire will be pro-choice. It’s not a border wall, it’s a ‘board-her’ wall.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingVice President Kamala Harris discussed the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe stand-up comic and actor Tig Notaro will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This Out“I don’t think I can perform the way I want to in a couple of years,” Cyndi Lauper said. “I want to be strong.”Thea Traff for The New York TimesAt 70, the pop icon Cyndi Lauper is readying one last tour and a documentary about her life. More

  • 138 Shares119 Views

    in Theater

    Review: In ‘Breaking the Story,’ All’s Unfair in Love and War

    Maggie Siff plays a war journalist facing the most dangerous assignment of her life: domesticity.“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired.” So Chekhov instructed playwrights, and so they are taught in drama schools everywhere.But perhaps there should be a corollary: If you start your action with a bang, a gun had better follow.In Alexis Scheer’s “Breaking the Story,” which opened on Tuesday at Second Stage Theater, the initial bang is an earsplitting doozy: an explosion that throws a war journalist and her videographer to the ground. Nor is it the first life-threatening attack that the journalist has experienced. We quickly learn that in her 20 years on the front lines, Marina (Maggie Siff) has been knocked down, knocked out, cut up and resewn many times over. A scar runs up the right side of her face like a cherry gummy worm.Arresting and alarming though that is, it sets up an impossible comparison with the rest of the play, which, despite the director Jo Bonney’s efforts, is woefully light on dramatic ammunition. A rom-com is no match for a war.That’s not just the play’s problem, but also Marina’s. The slim thread of story concerns her attempted retirement from conflict journalism and sudden engagement to the videographer, Bear (Louis Ozawa). But on the weekend of the wedding, it turns out she isn’t so sure she wants (or can even survive) the safe, domestic life she has spent her career avoiding. Danger was not merely a risk she took in choosing to be a war correspondent but the reason for the choice in the first place.Thrill-seeking disguised as high-mindedness might be an interesting idea to explore, and indeed Donald Margulies’s “Time Stands Still,” about a war journalist likewise returning to regular life, explored it movingly in 2010. But Scheer’s framing, in which a flock of comic and undermining kibitzers descends for the wedding on Marina’s new estate in Wellesley, Mass., is too lightweight to support much content. For most of the play they treat Marina’s war-lust as an endearing character trait, already factored into their love for her.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

  • 125 Shares199 Views

    in Television

    ‘House of the Dragon’ Cast Celebrates Its Season 2 Premiere

    At the Season 2 premiere of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” prequel, the cast mingled over cocktails as early clips from the series suggested that “war is coming.”Where does the story pick up this season on HBO’s fantasy epic “House of the Dragon”?“So,” the actor Tom Glynn-Carney told a reporter on Monday night at the Season 2 premiere at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom, everything “hits the fan.”His character in the “Game of Thrones” prequel, the newly crowned King Aegon II Targaryen, holds a grip on the throne that is tenuous at best. His brother has just killed their nephew in what could best be described as death by dragon chomp. And his sister Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen is on the brink of going nuclear — as Targaryens tend to do — likely with more dragon chomping.Even as Mr. Glynn-Carney, Matt Smith and other “Dragon” actors laid out the violence in store for the new season — which returns June 16 — the show’s impending civil war stood in stark contrast to the evening’s cocktails and joviality, with not a single silvery wig in sight.“I think nothing is black and white with Daemon Targaryen,” Matt Smith said of his character.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesEmma D’Arcy, who plays Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, in Celine.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesGayle Rankin plays Alys Rivers in “House of the Dragon.”Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesMatthew Needham, who plays Larys Strong.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSome actors have struggled to recognize each other without them, said Phia Saban, whose character, Queen Helaena Targaryen, plays a critical role in an early episode. (There were 114 wigs used this season, HBO’s chief executive Casey Bloys said at the premiere, and — back to the dragon chomping — 33 gallons of fake blood.)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

  • 163 Shares189 Views

    in Television

    Alec and Hilaria Baldwin and Their 7 Children Get a Reality TV Series

    “We’re inviting you into our home,” the actor, who is set to stand trial next month on an involuntary manslaughter charge, said as he announced a show about his family on TLC.Speaking with Alec Baldwin on his podcast last year, the talk show host Kelly Ripa made a pitch for him and his wife: “When I think about you and Hilaria and your seven young kids — now, I know what you’re going to say, but just go with me — this has reality TV written all over it,” she said.He didn’t dismiss the idea. In fact, he said the couple had already received pitches, and made one or two themselves.And on Tuesday, Baldwin, who is scheduled to stand trial next month on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the set of the film “Rust,” announced that a reality show featuring the couple and their “seven growing kids” would be coming next year to TLC. Its working title is “The Baldwins.”“We’re inviting you into our home to experience the ups and downs, the good, the bad, the wild and the crazy,” Alec Baldwin said in a video announcement with Hilaria that he posted to Instagram on Tuesday, interspersed with footage from inside their busy home.The announcement of the new show comes at a delicate time for Baldwin, 66, as he prepares to go on trial in New Mexico in the “Rust” shooting. Baldwin, who has pleaded not guilty in the case, has denied responsibility for the death of the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, who was killed when a gun that he was rehearsing with, which was not supposed to be loaded with live ammunition, fired a real bullet that struck her. Baldwin’s lawyers are continuing to seek the case’s dismissal, placing blame for the tragedy on the movie’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who was convicted in March of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison.Lawyers for Baldwin, who had a starring role in the western, have written in court papers that the tragedy has made it difficult for the actor to get work.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

  • 138 Shares99 Views

    in Television

    The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in June

    The final season of “Sweet Tooth” and a Richard Linklater rom-com highlight this month’s slate.Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of June’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Sweet Tooth’ Season 3Starts streaming: June 6Based on the writer-artist Jeff Lemire’s acclaimed comic book series, this fantastical drama has for the past two seasons followed a plucky human-animal hybrid named Gus (Christian Convery) as he has journeyed through a postapocalyptic America with the burly nomad Tommy Jepperd (Nonso Anozie), making new friends and enemies. Following Lemire’s plot (with some variations), the “Sweet Tooth” writer-producer Jim Mickle has repeatedly raised the stakes for Gus, Jepperd and all the mutant children and helpful humans they’ve picked up along the way. Season 3 will wrap up their story, as our heroes seek a safe haven from all the world’s violent, pitiless ravagers while also looking for the root cause of the devastating plague and mass mutation event that upended the social order.‘Hit Man’Starts streaming: June 7Glen Powell co-wrote and stars in this shaggy romantic comedy, based loosely on a Texas Monthly article by Skip Hollandsworth. Powell plays Gary Johnson, a New Orleans college professor who moonlights with the local police department as an undercover operative, posing as a killer-for-hire in order to catch the kind of people who would hire a hit man. When he falls for Madison (Adria Arjona), one of his would-be clients, Gary risks crossing over to the other side of the law. The “Hit Man” co-writer and director Richard Linklater is known for the laid-back vibes of his movies like “Bernie” (also based on a Hollandsworth article) and “Dazed and Confused.” Though the plot here takes some classic film noir turns, Linklater and Powell are just as interested in hanging out with Gary and Madison, watching closely as their passion for each other leads to some questionable decisions.‘Bridgerton’ Season 3, Part 2Starts streaming: June 13Each “Bridgerton” season so far has adapted a different Julia Quinn novel, each telling a story focused primarily on the romantic ups and downs of one member of a Regency-era London family. Season 3 — which debuted its first four episodes in May and is debuting its final four in June — is no exception, covering the love life of Colin Bridgerton (Luke Newton), as recounted originally in Quinn’s book “Romancing Mister Bridgerton.” But the season’s true main character thus far has been the woman Colin is slowly circling: Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan), an often overlooked spinster who throughout the series has secretly been the scandal-mongering gossip columnist Lady Whistledown. The season’s second half will resolve this complicated love story, while also potentially setting up Season 4 via a subplot about the brainy, witty, romance-averse Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie).‘A Family Affair’Starts streaming: June 28Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman play unlikely lovers in this romantic comedy, written by Carrie Solomon and directed by the rom-com vet Richard LaGravenese (the screenwriter of “The Fisher King” and “Water for Elephants”). Efron is Chris Cole, a middle-aged action movie superstar feeling increasingly cut off from the real world. Kidman is Brooke Harwood, an older writer who feels an immediate and thrilling connection with Chris from the first time they meet. The complication? Brooke’s daughter Zara is Chris’s frazzled personal assistant, who was on the verge of quitting before her mom and her boss hooked up. These three people are under a lot of pressure in their personal and professional lives, and “A Family Affair” is about how they have to learn to be honest with each other about what they really want.‘The Mole’ Season 2Starts streaming: June 28Though it is technically the seventh season (counting the five that ran on ABC in the early 2000s), the latest edition of the reality competition “The Mole” is the second since the American version of the show moved to Netflix in 2022. Based on a Belgian series that has been copied around the world, “The Mole” has a dozen strangers working together to win money by solving puzzles and performing feats of physical strength — all while one member of their party is covertly trying to sabotage them. The new season is set in Malaysia and hosted by Ari Shapiro, who also administers a quiz at the end of every challenge and sends one underperforming player home. As always, a big part of the show’s appeal is that the audience can play along at home, trying to guess the identity of the Mole before the final episode.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