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    A Somber Late Night After the Attack on Donald Trump

    Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers offered sober reflections about democracy. So did Anthony Anderson, though he found some humor in the reaction to the shooting.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.Not FunnyLate night was more subdued than usual on Monday, two days after a gunman tried to kill Donald Trump at a rally.“The Daily Show” canceled its plans to cover the Republican National Convention from Milwaukee, skipping its Monday show. Jimmy Fallon avoided the topic altogether on “The Tonight Show,” while Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers addressed it with solemnity at the top of “The Late Show” and “Late Night.”Colbert expressed “horror at what was unfolding, relief that Donald Trump had lived, and, frankly, grief for my beautiful country.”“So as we’ve done many times in the past when some tragic event has shocked the nation, I’m starting the show tonight talking at the desk. Though I could just as easily start the show moaning on the floor, because how many times do we need to learn the lesson that violence has no role in our politics? That the entire objective of a democracy is to fight out our differences with, as the saying goes, ballot not a bullet?” — STEPHEN COLBERTSeth Meyers said it was “worth saying that there is no autopilot for democracy.”“Every generation before us has had to do the difficult work of safeguarding this cherished enterprise, and now we’re called upon to do the same.” — SETH MEYERSAnthony Anderson, guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said he hoped that “we can all take a step back from the hatred and vitriol in our politics.” He was the only host who attempted a few jokes around the incident.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Dr. Ruth’s Tips for a Happy Life

    Ruth Westheimer loved to give advice — and often strayed from her area of expertise as she tried, in her words, “to make the world a better place.”Ruth Westheimer spent a lot of time talking about sex. She did so with her own brand of frankness and good cheer on her pioneering radio show, “Sexually Speaking,” and on her daytime TV program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” as well as in her column for Playgirl magazine, in her many books and in countless interviews and public appearances across more than four decades. It’s possible that Dr. Ruth, who died last week at 96, talked publicly about sex more than anyone else. Ever.But since her specialty touched on so many other aspects of the human experience, she also gave plenty of general life advice. Some of those lessons were pulled from her own difficult experience as a German Jewish refugee who lost her parents during the Holocaust. Or from her unhappy early relationships, though she found lasting love with her third husband, Manfred Westheimer, an engineer, after two brief marriages.In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, she spoke of the importance of turning a terrible experience into something positive. “I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world. What I didn’t know was that that dent would end up being me talking about sex from morning to night.”To describe her sense of purpose, she often used the phrase tikkun olam — Hebrew for “repairing the world” or, as she put it in a speech, “making the world a better place.” “I knew I had to do something for tikkun olam,” she said in a 2014 interview with Hadassah Magazine. “You can take horrible experiences you will never forget, but you can use the experiences to live a productive life.”In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, she noted the importance of humor in teaching. “If a professor leaves his students laughing,” she said, “they will walk away remembering what they have learned.”Dr. Ruth made her first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1982, when “Sexually Speaking” was catching on. When the host, Johnny Carson, said that many people are bashful talking about sex, Dr. Ruth offered a lesson in how to approach delicate subjects: “If you do it in good taste — and if you do it properly, then it can be — everything can be talked about. Everything.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Kite Man’ Is a Fun, Irreverent ‘Harley Quinn’ Spinoff

    Like “Harley,” the series is set among Gotham’s villains and goons, with a similarly lewd and rowdy vibe.“Harley Quinn” is one of the best comedies going these days, quick and filthy and ambitious. (It’s all on Max.) Perhaps predictably, it has earned itself a spinoff; perhaps unpredictably, that spinoff is pegged to one of its lesser characters. “Kite Man: Hell Yeah!,” premiering Thursday on Max, keeps the nervy lewdness and contemporary pop-psychology of “Harley” but redirects its energy to Kite Man (voiced by Matt Oberg).“Kite Man” operates as an ensemble show and might be more accurately titled “Kite Man and Golden Glider,” since Kite Man’s girlfriend has just as big a slice of the narrative pie. On “Harley,” the will-they-won’t-they of Harley and Poison Ivy drives a lot of the first few seasons. Here, Kite Man and Golden Glider (Stephanie Hsu) are together and thriving, in their warped and sometimes dopey ways, from the get go, and their conflicts stem largely from their decision to buy a decrepit bar. Well, that and the super villainy: The setting here, as with “Harley,” is among Gotham’s villains, goons, thugs and scoundrels and their various appetites for destruction.The show gets off to a bumpy start because Kite Man is mostly just an airhead with daddy issues, which the show says overtly and often. The real momentum of the season follows Golden Glider and her mommy issues — hers is the richer story because she is more biting and self aware. I do wish the show dropped all its episodes at once because it makes for such a zesty binge and because I wasn’t quite sold right out of the gate.Even bad guys have their bad guys, and on “Kite Man,” our pals are up against the ever-expanding Villigans corporation. “Villigans isn’t a chain restaurant/global e-commerce/privatized prison system; we’re really a data business,” boasts its leader (Judith Light) as she rattles off personal details and manipulates the gang.If the plot of “Kite Man” doesn’t always quite soar, the dialogue is a ton of fun. “I guess one slippery slope couldn’t hurt,” says a teetotaler looking at a cocktail menu. A new character, Dubelz (Michael Imperioli), a mobster with two heads (sort of …), advises Kite Man that Golden Glider is out of his league. “You’re dating a meatball bigger than your mouth,” he huffs. And all the silliness and non sequiturs mean dramatic lines land even harder. “My parents were doing their favorite thing in their favorite place: fighting in a bar,” Golden Glider laments.The best part of the show — and the best part of “Harley Quinn” — is Bane (James Adomian), and he gets more screen time as the season goes on. His shimmering insecurity and fealty to social rules make him a consistent fish out of water, too rigid for both the evildoers and the regular joes of the world. He gets roped into balloon-animal duty at a child’s birthday party and hands them a mangled snarl. “It is despair!” he announces, proudly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In ‘Beverly Hills, 90210,’ Shannen Doherty Redefined Teen TV Drama

    As Brenda Walsh, Doherty was the engine of the series that set the template for what a modern teen drama would look like on television.If you liked watching TV on Thursday nights in 1990, you could have spent your spring with Audrey Horne and Donna Hayward, in “Twin Peaks,” and your fall with Brenda Walsh in “Beverly Hills, 90210.” And Brenda, as played memorably by Shannen Doherty, who died on Saturday, knew who her peers were. When she dons a (hideous) hat in Season 1, she is met with derision. “Hippie witch is out,” sneers Kelly (Jennie Garth).“It’s not hippie witch; it’s ‘Twin Peaks,’ and it’s very in,” Brenda snaps back. Ah, back then we were so rich in pouty, put-upon brunettes with brooding motorcycle boyfriends, fraught taste in companions and a desire to listen to the same song over and over.No, Brenda’s outfit is not “Twin Peaks” in any way, but her affection and affectation create a fun hall of mirrors. Brenda herself was a character whose style many sought to emulate, though sadly, God blesses so few of us with such magnificent bangs. Still, it was far easier to incorporate a Walshian choker or silver belt buckle than to pull off an arch “Twin Peaks” saddle shoe.Teens were all over prime-time in 1990. “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” also debuted that season, and shows like “Growing Pains,” “Who’s the Boss,” “A Different World” and “Doogie Howser, M.D.” were already airing.But it was “Beverly Hills, 90210” that established the blueprint for what a modern teen drama would be: glossy, aspirational, tackling the topics of the day but bending inexorably — if they lasted — toward soapiness. It was a template followed by series like “Dawson’s Creek,” “One Tree Hill,” “Gossip Girl” and “The O.C.,” among many others.And of all the young beautiful people who populated West Beverly Hills High, it was Brenda who made the show go. As she went from naïf to vixen, from humble Minnesotan to globe-trotting romantic, her transformations transformed the show itself. Grander tragedies befell other characters, but no one suffered heartbreak or betrayal with more intensity than Brenda, the show’s most authentically teenage character. In Doherty’s hands, Brenda was both vulnerable and vituperative, delivering the sharpest insults but in the most pain.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Test Your Knowledge of Shakespeare Film Adaptations

    The works of William Shakespeare have inspired countless performances and interpretations over the centuries, but some films show their Shakepearean roots more clearly than others. The challenge here is to identify a handful of those movies in this week’s edition of Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books and stories that have gone on to find new life in the form of films, television shows, theatrical productions and other formats.Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the plays and their screen adaptations.3 of 5“The Taming of the Shrew,” Shakespeare’s controversial comedy about gender roles, has been adapted multiple times for the stage and screen, with the 1999 teen rom-com “10 Things I Hate About You,” the 1948 Broadway musical “Kiss Me, Kate” and the 1986 “Atomic Shakespeare” episode of the television series “Moonlighting” all tapping into the storyline of a volatile couple and their relationship. Which of these films is also based on the play? More

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    Anthony Hopkins on Playing a Roman Emperor in ‘Those About to Die’

    In an interview, the actor discusses his new series, humble origins and the freedom age brings. “That gives me a tremendous amount of energy to move forward,” he said.Anthony Hopkins has advice for any aspiring actor: Speak clearly.“If you whisper, you sound sexy,” he said during a recent video call. “But I can’t hear you. What’s the story? Tell the story. Stop mumbling.”Though Hopkins, 86, has won two Oscars (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “The Father”), a pair of Emmys and a Laurence Olivier award, he still insists that acting is mostly just enunciating. “It’s just showing up,” he said. This summer, he can be heard, clearly, in “Those About to Die,” a 10-episode series set amid the blood and sand of a Roman amphitheater. It premieres on Peacock on July 18. Hopkins plays Vespasian, a general-turned-emperor who ordered the construction of what would become the Roman Colosseum.“Those About to Die” allowed Hopkins to return to Cinecittà, the famed Italian studio where he filmed “The Two Popes.” And it continues his interest, demonstrated in projects such as “Freud’s Last Session,” “The Father,” “Westworld” and even as far back as “Nixon” and “The Remains of the Day,” in playing men in the waning of their power.Though Hopkins appears in few scenes of “Those About to Die” (anyone familiar with the ancient Roman timeline can guess why), he is fully in command of his own capacities. His Vespasian is infirm of body, not purpose. Facing down his legacy, Vespasian scolds his sons (played by Jojo Macari and Tom Hughes), dismissing their advice and praise.“I had to be tough on them and no nonsense,” Hopkins said.Roland Emmerich, the show’s director, wanted Hopkins for that sternness. “He plays a little bit like a gruff guy,” Emmerich said in a recent interview. He also suspected that Hopkins could play Vespasian’s canniness as he contends with both the aristocracy and the people. And that he could make that realpolitik pleasurable.“He has this likability,” Emmerich said. “He played Hannibal Lecter and was still lovable.”During the video call, Hopkins was only occasionally gruff and, yes, often lovable. (A man who has a way with a twinkle, he has amassed millions of followers on TikTok.) These days, he views his career, he said, “with a sense, not of self-congratulation, but a sense of fun.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Richard Simmons, the Original Queer Eye

    In an era of high machismo and casual homophobia, he was a cheerleader for self-acceptance.Richard Simmons, the ebullient paterfamilias of aerobics instruction who died on Saturday at 76, never publicly addressed his sexuality. But during his long run as a leading figure in American cultural life, the way he defined himself for others was perhaps less important than how he presented himself.More than 20 years before the fashion stylist Carson Kressley dispensed tips to finance bros on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” and Tim Gunn rescued aspiring designers from nervous breakdowns on “Project Runway” with the instruction to “make it work,” Mr. Simmons guided the average and the out-of-shape toward a loving embrace of the bodies they already had.In the process, he navigated the end of disco culture and the advent of the AIDS epidemic by making himself as nonthreatening as possible.“Confidence is contagious,” Mr. Kressley said in an interview on Sunday. “That was his brand.”Mr. Simmons became nationally famous with “The Richard Simmons Show,” a syndicated daytime program that combined sketch comedy with celebrity interviews, cooking segments and fitness routines.At a time when Clint Eastwood and Sylvester Stallone were top male stars, Mr. Simmons baked cakes with Betty White and did kooky exercise segments in which shopping carts doubled as fitness equipment. Although he wasn’t open about his sexuality, he managed nevertheless to “really be himself on camera, and people could take it for what it was,” Mr. Kressley said.Mr. Simmons had grown up in New Orleans, La., where he said he had been a “fat kid” who avoided sports and kept mostly to himself. In the mid-1970s, he opened an exercise studio in Beverly Hills, Calif. The idea, as Mr. Simmons wrote in his 1993 book, “Never Give Up,” one of his many best sellers, was that weight loss should be fun.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    In ‘Life and Trust,’ the Details Are in the Devil

    What’s the going rate for a soul these days? A little more than $200 on weekends, less on weekdays, handling fees included.That’s the ticket price for “Life and Trust,” the new show from Emursive, the producers of “Sleep No More,” and arguably an even more ambitious undertaking. A version of the Faust legend (well, several braided versions of the Faust legend), “Life and Trust,” which opens Aug. 1, occupies 100,000 square feet over six floors of a financial district skyscraper in New York that was once the home of the City Bank-Farmers Trust Company.In a brief introduction, which is set on the eve of the 1929 stock market crash, a financier makes a deal with the devil: damnation in exchange for the chance to relive his youth. The show then ushers audiences back to 1894, plunging them into a Gilded Age delirium.“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get a canvas of this size,” said Teddy Bergman, the director of “Life and Trust.” “It just keeps going.”Making this deal with the devil took space. And time. And quite a lot of money. How much money? The producers wouldn’t say, though Jonathan Hochwald, a producer at Emursive, said the final amount was comfortably in the millions.A company of performers, including Marla Phelan, above left, and Mia DiLena, plays 30 characters in 250 overlapping scenes, which loop twice each evening.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