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      Late Night Thinks Trump Is the Biggest Loser in the Midterms

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      The former president was said to be livid that candidates he endorsed lost on Tuesday, including Dr. Oz.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.A Losing CombinationLate night hosts commented on the midterm results on Wednesday night, including how poorly the night went for former President Donald Trump, who was said to be “livid” about Dr. Mehmet Oz’s loss in Pennsylvania.“They say the last time Trump was this disappointed was when Eric was born,” Jimmy Kimmel said.“In fact, it’s being reported that he is blaming Melania for pushing him to endorse Dr. Oz in the first place, saying it was ‘not her best decision.’ Yeah, and I’m sure in response, Melania was, like, ‘Yes, it’s true, I am very bad at picking men.’” — TREVOR NOAH“It might even be her second-worst decision.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump is so angry at Melania, they’re no longer sleeping in separate beds.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump was so mad he ran upstairs and slammed the door of his tanning bed.” — JIMMY FALLON“On the bright side, Dr. Oz now can go back to doing what he does best, which is analyzing the shape and color of our stool.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oprah right now is sitting at home cackling like a ‘Game of Thrones’ villain: ‘Tell Mehmet I want him to know it was me.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Oz says he’s just happy he doesn’t have to pretend to root for the Philadelphia Steelers anymore.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Not Seeing Red Edition)“Whatever happens, it was less a red wave and more of a purple nurple.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s like what happens when you accidentally wash your Klan robes with your MAGA hat. Just a little pink — a pink wash.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I would say it was less like a red wave and more like a red wedding. The Republicans were the Starks, and Donald Trump was a dragon who burned his whole [expletive] party to a crisp.” — SETH MEYERS“For both parties it wasn’t great, but also not terrible. It was the political version of eating at TGI Fridays.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingBono took the Colbert Questionnaire while on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightWill Ferrell will inevitably get into some high jinks during his Thursday appearance on “The Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutPhoto Illustration by The New York Times. Photo by Harry Langdon/Getty ImagesThis week’s “Still Processing” digs into the resurgence of disco and Donna Summer. More

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      Late Night Goes Live on Election Night

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      Stephen Colbert said that the midterms looked less like a red wave of Republican victories and more like “a pink trickle.”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.‘A Pink Trickle’Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel took their shows live on election night, sharing midterm results as they came in during their monologues.“Though the G.O.P. is picking up seats in the House, so far it does not look like a red wave,” Colbert reported. “Perhaps — perhaps too early to tell. Perhaps a pink trickle. They should really have that checked out.”“Not only are we live, our audience tonight — this is exciting — our studio audience is made up entirely of Herschel Walker’s children.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“In the Florida governor’s race, Democrat Charlie Crist has been defeated by MAGA wannabe and 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis. And now, in accordance with Florida law, Charlie Crist will be forced on a plane and flown to Martha’s Vineyard.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“You know, Matt Gaetz easily won his seat in Florida. He was re-elected. Florida’s a state in which being an alleged sex offender makes you an experienced public servant. It’s not necessarily frowned on. Matt is going to wait to celebrate until prom night, which is sweet.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“New York, we’re just getting word that Democratic incumbent Kathy Hochul has defeated MAGA candidate Lee Zeldin to remain governor of New York. This marks the historic first time New York has ever had a female governor on purpose.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, one of the biggest races that everyone has been watching is in Georgia, between Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker, and right now they are neck and almost entirely neck.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It is so tight, this race could be decided by a margin of error of plus or minus Herschel Walker’s secret children.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (High Voter Turnout Edition)“The Colorado governor’s race goes to incumbent Jared Polis, who earlier this year — earlier this year, signed an exclusive order protecting marijuana users’ rights. So his victory was secured due to high voter turnout.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And then down in North Carolina — this was expected — in the North Carolina Senate race, we got word Republican Ted Budd has beaten Cheri Beasley, which is too bad for a couple of reasons. One was I was really looking forward to the headline, ‘Cheri Beasley Smokes Budd.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingRoy Wood Jr. explored the history of Black governors on Tuesday’s regular “Daily Show” segment, “CP Time.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightFlorence Pugh will pop by Wednesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This Out“She must make sure that everyone around her knows she is stable, and not talk about her feelings,” Imelda Staunton said of playing Queen Elizabeth II, adding, “But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings.” Netflix“The Crown” creator Peter Morgan chose Imelda Staunton to play Queen Elizabeth II for the final two seasons of the series because of her “vulnerability and strength.” More

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      D.I.Y. Sci-Fi: A Talk With Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead

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      The filmmaking and acting team discuss their latest low-budget science fiction movie, “Something in the Dirt,” and their work on the Marvel Disney+ series “Moon Knight.”The writing-directing-acting duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s latest film, the science fiction satire “Something in the Dirt,” follows John (Moorhead) and Levi (Benson), neighboring tenants in a ramshackle Los Angeles apartment complex. After observing inexplicable supernatural phenomena in Levi’s flat, they attempt to capture the event on camera for personal gain, but meet disaster instead.Since releasing their feature debut, “Resolution” (2013), Benson and Moorhead have made movies their way, exercising full creative control over their malleable, genre-fluid aesthetic. Referred to in reviews as their “most personal” movie after its Sundance premiere, “Something in the Dirt” (in theaters) is a distillation of their sensibilities, striking a lopsided contrast with their directing contributions to the Marvel Disney+ series “Moon Knight,” an atypically weird superhero show involving dissociative identity disorder, Egyptian gods and Oscar Isaac.In an interview via Zoom, the two discussed nuances in personal filmmaking, the line between virtue and villainy, and how directing for an entertainment giant crystallized their filmmaking identities. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Something in the Dirt” is about two guys making a movie. Did the way that you make movies and collaborate wind up echoing in the story?Justin Benson: What’s strange is our dynamic and our filmmaking process and our relationship couldn’t be more different than John and Levi’s. Obviously we’ve seen it described as “their most personal film.” There is probably some truth to that, but you’ve got to get into this oddly precise definition of “personal,” because it’s the farthest thing from autobiographical. The characters were intentionally constructed to be wildly different from who we are.Explore the Marvel Cinematic UniverseThe popular franchise of superhero films and TV series continues to expand.‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’: Tatiana Maslany described the giant, green character making her television debut on Disney+ as “weirdly, the closest thing to my own experience I’ve done ever.”‘Black Panther: Wakanda Forever’: The trailer for the long-awaited sequel was unveiled at Comic-Con International in San Diego. The film will be released on Nov. 11.‘Thor: Love and Thunder’: The fourth “Thor” movie in 11 years, directed by Taika Waititi, embraces wholesale self-parody and is sillier than any of its predecessors.‘Ms. Marvel’: This Disney+ series introduces a new character: Kamala Khan, a Muslim high schooler in Jersey City who is mysteriously granted superpowers.Aaron Moorhead: For the most part we were interested in these characters because we were exploring stuff we don’t believe. That’s not just in our films. That’s our free time, our conversations. The stuff that’s interesting feels a little dangerous. It’s on a razor’s edge of being mockable, but still can hold resonance in our minds and hearts.Benson: The only similarity between Aaron and I and John and Levi is we spend a lot of time talking about science fiction. But that’s the point. The huge difference for us is that John and Levi are quick to believe, and we never believe in anything.Moorhead and Benson in “Something in the Dirt.”XYZ/Rustic FilmsJohn and Levi trade stories with each other that either are not true or are dubious. It feels like there’s a bit of you in that dynamic. Was it gratifying to play that in this fictional, very fractured environment?Benson: There’s a cut line from the movie — Levi accuses John of being a liar, and John says, “You lie more than anyone I’ve ever met!” They lie in different ways. Levi works at a bar and wants to put his best foot forward. He’s probably got half a dozen different stories, and once you run out of them, you end up with this sad, lonely soul. John lies for other reasons, but the way they lie was part of fleshing them out as real human beings.Moorhead: We were dedicated to this idea of: you sympathize with one character and suspect the other is a villain, and then it slowly swaps through the movie, and by the end, you realize they’re both flawed human beings, neither villain nor hero. Neither of us ever believed the characters we were playing were bad people, but while we were performing, we believed in the virtue of what they were doing. There’s a part of me deep down that says it isn’t villainous if you’re virtuous, but you don’t know if you’re virtuous or not. You just hope you are.Benson: The different ways John and Levi lie connects them to us as creators, hopefully as characters with humanity. You hope that in the way science fiction operates, people don’t think you’re lying, that they understand it’s science fiction storytelling — that people don’t think you’re expressing a viewpoint one would call a lie.Moorhead: It was part of the conception of this movie to examine your own relationship with pop culture and what you put out in the world. Sometimes lies enter the zeitgeist in a way you didn’t intend. What exactly is the responsibility of the person who’s creating these things whole cloth? It is terrifying as a filmmaker to think someone might actually believe that what you are showing them is real.“Something in the Dirt” premiered at Sundance. “Moon Knight” premiered in March. This isn’t a knock against “Moon Knight,” but it comparatively feels impersonal because it’s a Marvel production. There’s a big leap from your movies “Spring” and “The Endless” to Marvel. Did that personal quality remain intact in that framework?Moorhead: When we faced a decade of being completely unemployable, we walked into every single studio pitch room on every single project, pitched our hearts out and wouldn’t be able to make it happen. We now realize that was for the better, because our alternative was to make a personal independent film. That solidified in our own minds, but also in the minds of what you call the industry, what exactly we’re doing. Now, when people ask us if we want to do something, it’s in that niche — not broadly horror, broadly sci-fi. There’s mystery afoot, and something dark and cosmic about it.It isn’t that we have to erase our personality and work within the machine. What [Marvel] wanted from us was our voice. It comes out mostly in the visuals, because scripts are separate from direction, but we put a lot of ourselves into it. But your thesis is definitely correct. There’s by definition nothing more personal than an independent film.Benson: [“Moon Knight”] has given us opportunities to work with collaborators we wouldn’t otherwise, which has expanded our creative worlds. These opportunities have also given us time on set in a compressed period that’s been like a second film school in some ways — though being a filmmaker is continuously being in film school, because every day is never planned for, really.Moorhead: The greatest terror we both hold is losing our curiosity and ability to grow. It can happen, and it can sneak up on you. If you only ever make your own films, you might start to repeat yourself because you think you’ve got a bunch of great ideas, but they’re all the same idea. We only want to make stuff that expresses ourselves purely. Right now, doing something big and doing something indie, they feed each other very nicely. More