Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      Before Jussie Smollett Sentencing, His Supporters Ask for ‘Mercy’

      by

      A judge must decide whether to send the actor to prison after a jury convicted him last year of falsely reporting that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic hate crime in 2019.Ahead of a sentencing hearing on Thursday, celebrities and racial justice advocates like Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, the actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson; the Rev. Jesse Jackson; and Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., have written letters pleading for leniency for Jussie Smollett, the actor convicted of falsely reporting that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack.“Jussie has already suffered,” the Rev. Jackson wrote to the judge handling the case. “He has been excoriated and vilified in the court of public opinion. His professional reputation has been severely damaged.”Mr. Smollett, 39, was convicted of felony disorderly conduct — which carries a maximum of three years in prison — relating to conversations he had with the police just after reporting the attack. But defendants convicted of similar crimes in the past have been sentenced to probation and community service.Many of the letters cite Mr. Smollett’s history of volunteer work, the nonviolent nature of his offense and the reputational damage he had already suffered following charges that the 2019 attack was actually a hoax that he had planned to drum up publicity. Others who have written on his behalf include the actress Alfre Woodard and Melina Abdullah, a founder of Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles.During the trial, the prosecution argued that Mr. Smollett had instructed two brothers, Abimbola Osundairo and Olabinjo Osundairo, to attack him near his Chicago apartment building, yelling racist and homophobic slurs at him, punching him hard enough to only create a bruise and placing a rope around his neck like a noose. Both brothers testified against him, acknowledging their role in the incident, which they said had been staged. The actor himself took the stand during seven hours of testimony over two days to deny that he had played any role.Prosecutors have not indicated whether they will push for prison time at the hearing.“It’s the judge who has the total and exclusive authority to impose a sentence,” said Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the case.Daniel K. Webb, the special prosecutor who handled the Smollett case, has not said whether he will recommend that the actor be sent to prison. Tannen Maury/EPA, via ShutterstockAt the outset of Thursday’s proceeding, Judge James B. Linn is expected to rule on a motion by lawyers for Mr. Smollett, who is best known for his role in the hip-hop drama “Empire,” that seeks to have the conviction thrown out or for the actor to gain a new trial.In papers filed with the court last month, the lawyers argued that Judge Linn displayed a “hostile attitude” toward the defense and acted inappropriately when the defense attempted to present evidence that one of the brothers had made homophobic statements and that the attack on Mr. Smollett, who is gay, could have been motivated by bias.In their motion, the defense lawyers cited an instance in which Judge Linn called a line of questioning about a homophobic comment by Olabinjo Osundairo “very collateral matters.”The defense argued that this comment could have swayed the jury and that the line of questioning was central to their argument that the Osundairo brothers perpetrated a “real attack” against Mr. Smollett “driven by homophobia.” (During testimony, Olabinjo Osundairo repeatedly denied being homophobic.)During the trial, Judge Linn rejected the defense’s request for a mistrial at the time, defending his use of the term “collateral” as simply referring to matters outside the direct facts of Mr. Smollett’s case.As part of their bid for a new trial, the defense also argued that during jury selection, prosecutors displayed a pattern of seeking to dismiss Black potential jurors — resulting in a final group that included one Black juror and a Black alternate.Prosecutors argued in court papers that the accusation of discrimination during jury selection was unfounded and that they had provided “race-neutral” explanations for challenging the inclusion of those jurors.Possibilities for Mr. Smollett’s sentence also include restitution, which, in his case, would likely mean paying the city of Chicago for the money it expended while investigating his hate crime report.In a court filing ahead of the sentencing, a city lawyer and the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department urged prosecutors to ask the court to order Mr. Smollett to pay them more than $130,000, explaining that police officers had “worked around the clock” to find the perpetrators of the attack.“The city is a victim of Mr. Smollett’s crimes because his false reports caused CPD to expend scarce resources that could have been devoted to solving actual crimes,” the filing said. The city currently has a pending lawsuit against Mr. Smollett in which they asked for the same amount of money.In their letter to Judge Linn, Samuel L. Jackson and LaTanya Richardson Jackson said they have known Mr. Smollett since he was a child and later through charitable work. The Jacksons asked Judge Linn for “mercy” and argued that Mr. Smollett “used his celebrity to impact community outreach work,” including to aid people in Flint, Mich., during the water crisis.In his letter, Rev. Jesse Jackson wrote that he worried about Mr. Smollett’s safety in prison as a “well-known, nonviolent, Black, gay man with Jewish heritage.”In making the sentencing decision, the court will consider Mr. Smollett’s criminal history, which involves a single incident from 2007 in California. He was convicted in that case of driving under the influence, driving without a license and giving false information to the police, all misdemeanors. Mr. Smollett was sentenced to probation and community service and was required to complete substance abuse treatment, according to a pre-sentencing report written by a probation officer and filed with the court.The report was based on an interview with Mr. Smollett after his conviction, in which the actor said he had been suffering from “excessive stress,” dealing with financial problems and asking to undergo substance abuse treatment for a few years. Mr. Smollett told the probation officer that he hoped to pursue directing.The actor, who is out of jail on bond, generally declined to discuss the specifics of his case during the interview with the probation officer. But when asked how his family had responded to the ordeal, he said, “They know me, and they know I did not do this.”Asked whether he planned to stay in his apartment in New York City, Mr. Smollet replied, “Everything is up in the air right now.” More

    • 138 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Leslie Jones Gets Revved Up by Vinyl, Live Tweeting and ‘Euphoria’

      by

      Sometimes even Leslie Jones doesn’t want to be Leslie Jones. That’s why her new comedy series, “Our Flag Means Death,” checks all of the boxes.“I was in as soon as they said, ‘Black pirate,’” Leslie Jones recalled about the offer to play Spanish Jackie in the HBO Max series “Our Flag Means Death.”Even better, Jones — a three-time Emmy nominee during her five audacious years on “Saturday Night Live” and a provocative live-tweeter on everything from Zoom backgrounds to the Olympics — was being asked to leave behind what she called her “crazy, out-there personality.”“We are so happy that Leslie Jones is here, but we don’t want Leslie Jones right now,” the comedy’s creator, David Jenkins, told her, giving Jones the freedom to embrace her inner rogue.“Our Flag Means Death” sends up the historical partnership between Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby), an aristocrat turned pirate, and the legendary Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). The marauders first encounter each other in the Republic of Pirates, where Spanish Jackie, in a Prince-style get-up, is a fearsome bar owner with 19 husbands — and out for revenge for the death of the 20th, her favorite.“She came up hard, and she’s probably had to fight so many men and prove that she is the captain of her ship and the boss of her life,” Jones said. “I’m not saying Leslie don’t have a little of that in her, but Spanish Jackie embodies being a badass.”Jones will soon be transforming into another not-so-Jones character — Mrs. Claus — for an as-yet untitled Christmas movie expected in 2023.“Now, if Santa knows when you’ve been naughty and nice, you definitely know Mrs. Claus knows that, right?” Jones said while discussing her cultural appetite in a recent video call from Los Angeles. “If anything, she’s doing most of the work.”Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Los Angeles Lifestyle I always was in L.A. before I went to New York to do “S.N.L.” But I don’t think I appreciated L.A. until I moved back, because New York is hardcore. If you stay there longer than two years, you’re going to get sinus infections. It’s terrible. I never thought of New York as a place to actually live, but people do. They love it, you know? L.A. is just more personal space, just the sunshine out here. I love how relaxed it is, because the last seven years have been hectic. It’s like a nice breath of fresh air.2. Vinyl Records My dad was a D.J. forever, and he used to collect albums. I think he had up to 2,000 albums and when he passed, I had to sell the collection because I had nowhere to keep it. I was broke at the time. So now I’m collecting a lot of albums back. I got my little private record player in my office. Then I got one for the house that I could play over the speaker. It’s been so fun to have people send me albums because when you see them again, you go, “Oh my God, I thought it was a dream.”3. The Olympics The Olympics were a very important thing [when I was growing up]. I remember us getting school time off. I remember people taking days off of work to support the Games and the athletes. I always loved it, especially the gymnastics and the figure skating. What it’s come to now is great and how beautiful it is. I’ve always thought that this is the one time that all countries put down whatever it is that they have against each other and just compete in the Games. It’s almost a moment of world peace to me. Of course, it’s not now, with the timing and everything. But I always loved it because you had a team to cheer for. It was like, “Yeah, our country! Yeah, U.S.A.!”4. Mental health accountability in sports This is what people need to understand: It’s not enough just to be physically fit for these Games. You have to be mentally fit for these Games. One doesn’t work without the other. And the pressure that is put on these athletes has to be enormous. The way that they attacked Simone Biles, I was ashamed of our country because, first of all, most of the people that complained were sitting on their fat asses on the couch. You’ll never do a cartwheel and you have the nerve to talk about someone and tell them that they let the country down? We have to start taking accountability that they are not actually superheroes. They do make it look like they’re superheroes, but they are humans.5. Live Tweeting It’s a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I’m going be honest with you — I didn’t actually think people were going to catch on to it. The first time I live-tweeted might have been “Breaking Bad.” It had already been off the air for about five years, but it was so good that I was like, “I’ve got to tell people about this.” So it really did start off as fun. Now it is a job. The politics [commentary] started during Covid and sitting on the couch watching TV, and I don’t think people were paying attention to their backgrounds. I was like, “Does she know she’s in front of — what the [expletive] is that?” I’m always trying to find a way to make people laugh when things are bad. It’s relief. That is what a comic’s job is. We’re jesters.6. “Euphoria” Oh my God, it’s just such a great show. It also proved to me I was a [expletive] nerd if that’s really what’s going on in high school. And I thank my parents because this is the worst version of “Charlie Brown” I have ever seen. What in the absolute hell is going on in that town?7. “Bel-Air,” the “Fresh Prince” reboot I got to go to the premiere of “Bel-Air,” and it is sensational the way they did that. TV in the ’80s and ’90s used to be kind of goofy. But behind some of these goofy shows were great plots. So they took the goofiness out of it and made it an actual dramatic story. I told Will Smith, “This is chef’s kiss.” The Fresh Prince on the basketball court wasn’t just some goofy scene of the ball hitting the dude’s head. People got shot. It was like, “Whoa, so that’s why your mama got so scared to send you to L.A.”8. Stand-up I’ve been a comedian since 1987. All those years of hustling, hustling, hustling to be famous. And then when you become famous, the one thing that you’re so good at is not something that you can just go do anymore, because you’re known as a different person. For a long time, people didn’t even know I was a stand-up — they just thought I came on “S.N.L.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me? That used to pay all my bills.” Doing stand-up in its purest form is still something I love, but it’s not something I always get to do now because it’s hard to go into the clubs. I’m not going in as Leslie the comic, “Hey, can I get a spot?” I’m going in as Leslie Jones, “She’s about to bump everybody off the list.”9. Brown Bag Lady Charity in Los Angeles Everybody should know about Jacqueline Norvell. She literally started out on a bicycle with a basket full of lunches that she would give to homeless people. And now it’s turned into a big thing where she goes out every day. Sunday, she does a whole meal. She brings barbers down. She brings beauticians down. She gets some coats. She’s doing this by herself. I mean, everybody thinks that they can solve homelessness. You are not going to solve it. You just really have to be kind and do what you can. She’s taking that to the next level.10. Bryan Buckley, the director of her Super Bowl commercial Usually those commercials are kind of tedious or annoying. People will be asking you for stuff that you just go, “You’re not going to use that.” He was the first guy that I was like, “Oh, this guy knows what he is doing.” He asked specifically for what he wanted, and it’s just like, “Bam!” I think he’s known to be one of the best Super Bowl commercial directors. I was like, “I hope the commercial turns out OK, because it was so easy to do.” Usually when it’s really, really hard and stuff happens, the project turns out beautifully. I was scared that it was so easy. More

    • 88 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Fallon Rags on America’s Gas Problem

      by

      “Gas prices are so high, the Indy 500 was just changed to the Indy 5,” Fallon joked.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.How High?President Biden announced a ban of imported Russian oil, gas and coal on Tuesday. The move prompted fears of higher prices at the pump.“Yeah, this is devastating for Russia,” Jimmy Fallon said. “Now their biggest export is bad guys in ‘John Wick’ movies.”“Of course, we’ve got to get oil from somewhere else, which is why today, Biden looked at Rudy Giuliani and was like, ‘Let’s get you in the sauna, buddy.’” — JIMMY FALLON“And luckily America produces a lot of its own oil. There’s Texas, there’s Alaska, there’s Rudy Giuliani, but it’s still not enough.” — TREVOR NOAH“Like, if this keeps up, the next ‘Fast and Furious’ movie will take place on public transportation.” — TREVOR NOAH“That’s right, gas prices were already on the rise, and with the decision to ban Russian oil, they’re higher than ever before. Gas prices are so high, the Indy 500 was just changed to the Indy 5.” — JIMMY FALLON“Gas prices are so high, this morning, parents were like: ‘All right, kids, we’re Amish now. Let’s get in the buggy — we’re taking the horse to school.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Gas prices are so high, Americans are just filling their cars with Red Bull and hoping for the best.” — JIMMY FALLON“But on the bright side, this is the perfect excuse to pretend you’re going to get back on the bike you bought mid-pandemic and rode twice.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Unhappy Meals Edition)“Meanwhile, in the battle, McDonald’s and Starbucks are cutting ties with Russia, both announcing they would temporarily close all locations in the country. No Starbucks, no McDonald’s — that’s a sad life to live. And no pick-me-up in the morning, no Happy Meals — or, as they call them in Russia, meals.” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, we don’t want their oil and they can’t have our grease.” — JIMMY FALLON“McDonald’s in Russia is a little strange. It’s the only country that sells unhappy meals.” — JIMMY FALLON“Not to be outdone, Arby’s announced that they are punishing Russia by staying open.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yes. Russia just became a ‘no fry zone.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Some people go for the jugular. America? They go for the McRib.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingDina Gusovsky, a writer for “Late Night With Seth Meyers,” delivered a monologue about reconciling her Russian heritage during the Vladimir Putin era.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightDolly Parton will pop by Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAt the 2019 “Peaky Blinders” Festival, actors recreated scenes from the show on the streets of Birmingham, England.PA Images, via ReutersThe final season of the crime drama “Peaky Blinders” is currently airing in Britain, where some superfans are staging re-enactments in public. More

    • 163 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Conrad Janis, Father on ‘Mork & Mindy’ and Much More, Dies at 94

      by

      His role on the hit sitcom was just one of more than 100 film and television credits; he was also a fine jazz trombonist and co-owner of an art gallery.Conrad Janis, an actor familiar to television viewers as Mindy’s father on the hit sitcom “Mork & Mindy” who was also a skilled jazz musician and a gallerist well known in the New York art world, died on March 1 in Los Angeles. He was 94.Dean A. Avedon, his business manager, confirmed the death.Mr. Janis, a child of the noted art collectors and gallerists Sidney and Harriet (Grossman) Janis, moved easily between the worlds of high art, jazz and acting, sometimes switching one hat for another in the same evening.“Conrad Janis Is Glad to Live Three Lives,” the headline on a 1962 Newsday article read. At the time he was starring in the romantic comedy “Sunday in New York” on Broadway and, after the Friday and Saturday night performances, playing trombone with his group, the Tailgate 5, at Central Plaza in Manhattan. (On Sundays he’d trek to Brooklyn to play at the club Caton Corner.) When not onstage or on the bandstand, he could often be found at his father’s art gallery.Sixteen years later he found himself on one of the most popular shows on television when he was cast on “Mork & Mindy,” which premiered in September 1978, as the father of Mindy (Pam Dawber), a Colorado woman who befriends an eccentric alien (Robin Williams). On Sundays during this period, he played in the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band at the Ginger Man, a club in Beverly Hills, Calif., whose owners included Carroll O’Connor of “All in the Family.”The key to juggling three areas of expertise, Mr. Janis told Newsday, was keeping his personas separate.“It just wouldn’t do to tell a knowledgeable art patron that ‘man, I dig Picasso the wildest,’” he said.Mr. Janis, an accomplished trombonist as well as a busy actor, peformed regularly with the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band. Among the other members of the band, seen in performance in 1980, was his fellow actor George Segal, who played banjo and sang.Ralph Dominguez/MediaPunch, via AlamyConrad Janis was born on Feb. 11, 1928, in Manhattan. His parents had a successful shirt-making business early in their married life, which gave them the wherewithal to begin collecting art and, in 1948, open the Sidney Janis Gallery, which became, as The New York Times put it in Sidney Janis’s obituary in 1989, “a major pacesetter for the art world in the 1950s and ’60s.”Harriet Janis also wrote books with the jazz historian Rudi Blesh, including “They All Played Ragtime” (1950). That connection led to Conrad’s musical expertise. Mr. Blesh’s daughter played trombone in her school’s marching band but lost interest; the spare trombone ended up in Conrad’s hands. He particularly studied the music of the influential New Orleans trombonist and bandleader Kid Ory.“I memorized a lot of what he did,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 1988.His acting developed alongside his musicianship. When he was 13, a classmate at the Little Red School House in Manhattan told him that “Junior Miss,” a popular Broadway comedy about a teenage girl, was holding auditions for a road company. He auditioned, got in, and spent two years with the tour, advancing to a leading juvenile role. He started doing radio voice work at the same time.“I played kids of 14 and old men of 40” on the radio, he told The New York Times in a 1945 interview.He landed a role in the pre-Broadway run of “The Dark of the Moon,” which got him noticed by a Hollywood talent scout. He remained with the play when it went to New York, making his Broadway debut in March 1945, but within a few months he was on the West Coast to make his first film, the comedy “Snafu,” in which he played a teenager who lies about his age to enlist.It was the first of more than 100 film and television credits. In the movies, he played alongside some famous names: Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple in the notoriously bad “That Hagan Girl” (1947), Charlton Heston and other prominent stars in “Airport 1975” (1974), Lynn Redgrave in “The Happy Hooker” (1975), George Burns in “Oh God! Book II” (1980).He was on television from the medium’s earliest days, playing numerous roles in the late 1940s and ’50s, many of them on shows like “Suspense,” “Actor’s Studio” and “The Philco Television Playhouse” that were broadcast live. Some of those roles took advantage of his familiarity with musical instruments.“All through the ’50s,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1981, “I was in so many TV shows as a young musician on drugs, desperately trying to kick the habit, that I’m sure I helped cement in the public’s mind a relationship between musicians and dope. All they cast me in were shows in which I did or didn’t kick the habit. I was always saying, ‘Hey, man, I just got to have a fix.’”He continued to play small parts on TV in the 1960s and ’70s before landing his best-known role, Mindy’s father. His character operated a music store, but although “Mork & Mindy” ran for four seasons, he never got a chance to play his trombone on the show, something he regretted.“The producers wouldn’t go for it,” he told The Albany Democrat-Herald of Oregon in 1990. “We had a really cute script where I got together with my old Dixieland jazz band, but they didn’t think it was funny enough.”Mr. Janis with Thomas Scott, left, and Steven Scott in the 1996 movie “The Cable Guy.”He continued to work in television after “Mork,” with appearances on “St. Elsewhere,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Frasier” and other shows. His later movie appearances included small roles in “Mr. Saturday Night” (1992) and “The Cable Guy” (1996). He sometimes collaborated with his wife, Maria Grimm, including directing two movies she wrote, “The Feminine Touch” (1995) and “Bad Blood” (2012).Mr. Janis’s acting career also included a dozen Broadway credits, among them the Gore Vidal play “A Visit to a Small Planet” in 1957 and a revival of “The Front Page” in 1969.Throughout his musical and acting adventures, Mr. Janis also kept a hand in the art world.Arne Glimcher, the founder and chairman of Pace Gallery and a friend of Mr. Janis’s for almost 60 years, said Mr. Janis worked for his father at the Sidney Janis Gallery and was responsible for certain artists there, including Claes Oldenburg and Tom Wesselmann.“His knowledge of 20th-century art and Modernism was really encyclopedic,” Mr. Glimcher said in a phone interview.When Sidney Janis reached 90, he turned the Janis Gallery over to Conrad and his brother, Carroll, who kept it going until 1999.Mr. Janis’s first marriage, to Vicki Quarles, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Ronda Copland. Ms. Grimm, whom he married in 1987, died in September. He is survived by his brother; two children from his first marriage, Christopher and Carin Janis; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.Mr. Glimcher said that in recent years some of Mr. Janis’s old jazz pals would come to his home in Beverly Hills on Thursdays and play. When his wife died, Mr. Glimcher said, Mr. Janis gave her a jazz funeral, then changed the location of those jam sessions.“Every Thursday,” Mr. Glimcher said, “he took the jazz band to her mausoleum and played there.” More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Seth Meyers Skewers Trump for a ‘Looney’ Idea on Russia

      by

      Meyers said the former president’s suggestion that the U.S. paint Chinese flags on planes and bomb Russia was “a slightly stupider version of Bugs Bunny dressing up as a sexy lady to distract Elmer Fudd.”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.Flag FooleryAt a Republican fund-raiser on Saturday, Donald Trump suggested that the U.S. should paint Chinese flags on F-22 jets and bomb Russia.“Look, we came very close, very close to a world where Trump was still in charge during Russia’s brutal and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which is scary for many reasons,” Seth Meyers said on Monday. “One of which is Trump keeps giving us a glimpse as to how he would have responded, and, as usual, he has that unique Trump blend of being both terrifying and incredibly stupid at the same time.”“Finally, a way to bring stability to the world — a war between Russia and China.” — SETH MEYERS“So, if you’re wondering what Trump has been up to lately, the answer is huffing glue.” — JIMMY FALLON“These are the types of ideas you come up with after you stare at the sun too long.” — JIMMY FALLON“Then Trump said that he would stop Russian tanks by painting a tunnel on the side of a mountain so they slam into it. [Imitating Trump] ‘Meep meep.’” — JIMMY FALLON“He definitely gets his ideas from cartoons. I mean, this is a slightly stupider version of Bugs Bunny dressing up as a sexy lady to distract Elmer Fudd.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Running Out of Gas Edition)“Meanwhile, here in the U.S., a convoy of truckers spent the last two days surfing the Capital Beltway outside D.C. to protest Covid restrictions. Yep, the truckers waited until all the mandates were lifted and gas hit five bucks a gallon.” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s a horrible time to be driving as your protest because now they are praying the cops tow them away just to save on gas.” — TREVOR NOAH“This is just sad. American truckers were trying to block traffic, but D.C. already has so much traffic that nobody really noticed they were protesting.” — TREVOR NOAH“And, I mean, let’s be honest — a protest isn’t much good if it is too subtle for people to know it is a protest. Yeah, it’s like if Rosa Parks bravely decided to sit in the middle of the bus — it just wouldn’t be the same.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden was flabbergasted by a moviegoer who released a live bat during a viewing of “The Batman.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightLeslie Jones will sit down with Seth Meyers on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutThe Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes was recently convicted of four counts of fraud.Photo Illustration by The New York Times; HBO (Elizabeth Holmes)With new limited series like “The Dropout,” “WeCrashed” and “Super Pumped,” television is saturated with ripped-from-the-headlines tales of self-immolating entrepreneurs. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      Supreme Court Will Not Review Decision to Overturn Bill Cosby’s Conviction

      by

      Prosecutors had appealed a ruling by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which had overturned the conviction on due process grounds.The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the bid by prosecutors in Pennsylvania to reinstate Bill Cosby’s conviction for sexual assault, a decision that ends the criminal case that had led to imprisonment for the man once known as America’s Dad.In an order issued Monday, the court said, without elaborating, that it had declined to hear the appeal filed by prosecutors last November.The Supreme Court’s decision leaves in place a ruling issued by an appellate court in Pennsylvania last year that had overturned Mr. Cosby’s 2018 conviction on due process grounds, allowing Mr. Cosby, 84, to walk free after serving nearly three years of a three-to-10-year prison sentence.Mr. Cosby had been found guilty of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his home outside Philadelphia, though his lawyers argued at trial that the encounter, in 2004, had been consensual.The case, one of the first high-profile criminal prosecutions of the #MeToo era, drew widespread attention, in part because of Mr. Cosby’s celebrity and in part because dozens of women had over a period of years leveled similar accusations of sexual abuse against the entertainer. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled last June that Mr. Cosby’s due process rights had been violated when the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office pursued a criminal case against him despite what the appellate court found was a binding verbal promise not to prosecute given to him by a previous district attorney.The former district attorney, Bruce L. Castor Jr., who said he believed Ms. Constand but was not sure he could win a conviction, said he had agreed years ago not to press charges against Mr. Cosby to induce him to testify in a civil case brought by Ms. Constand. He said the substance of his promise was contained in a news release he issued at the time that said he found insufficient credible and admissible evidence. But he held out the possibility of a civil action “with a much lower standard of proof.” Ms. Constand later received $3.38 million as part of a settlement in her civil case against Mr. Cosby.During the civil case, Mr. Cosby acknowledged giving narcotics to women as part of an effort to have sex with them, a statement that was later introduced as evidence at Mr. Cosby’s trial.Understand Bill Cosby’s Sexual Assault CaseBill Cosby was released from prison June 30, 2021, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 conviction for sexual assault.Why He Was Released: Here’s a breakdown of the issues surrounding the ruling to overturn the conviction.What Legal Analysts Think: The court’s decision opened an unusually vigorous debate among the legal community.His Uncertain Future: Experts say it’s unlikely the ruling will change the public perception of the former star.The Aftermath: The Times critic Wesley Morris looks at what to do with our fondness for “The Cosby Show,” and W. Kamau Bell’s documentary series contextualizes his legacy.Following Mr. Cosby’s conviction in 2018, an intermediate appeals court in Pennsylvania found that no formal agreement never to prosecute had ever existed, a position that aligned with what the trial court had ruled.But in a 6-to-1 ruling, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that Mr. Cosby had, in fact, relied on Mr. Castor’s assurances that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, and that charging Mr. Cosby and using his testimony concerning drugs at the criminal trial had violated his due process rights.Prosecutors had argued that such a promise had never been made. They said that no one else in the district attorney’s office at the time had been made aware of it and that a news release could not be the basis of a formal immunity agreement.A spokesman for Mr. Cosby, Andrew Wyatt, welcomed the decision Monday, saying in a statement that the entertainer and his family “would like to offer our sincere gratitude to the justices of the United States Supreme Court for following the rules of law and protecting the Constitutional Rights of ALL American Citizens.”Ms. Constand and her lawyers released a statement Monday that criticized the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s ruling, in particular faulting the panel for assuming “there was a valid agreement not to prosecute, which was vigorously disputed in the Habeas proceedings, and determined by the trial judge not to exist.”Andrea Constand and her lawyers have consistently taken issue with the reasoning of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in overturning Mr. Cosby’s conviction.Angela Lewis for The New York TimesThe Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, released a statement in which he expressed his appreciation to Ms. Constand and described petitioning for Supreme Court review as “the right thing to do,” even though there was only a small chance the court would take up the case.“All crime victims deserve to be heard, treated with respect and be supported through their day in court,” the statement continued. “I wish her the best as she moves forward in her life.”Mr. Cosby was first accused in 2005 of having molested Ms. Constand, then an employee of the Temple University basketball team for whom he had become a mentor. The case was reopened in 2015, and Mr. Cosby went through two trials, the first of which ended with a hung jury. The second ended in April 2018, with a jury in Montgomery County convicting Mr. Cosby of three counts of aggravated indecent assault.Both cases were closely watched by many of the women who came forward with similar accusations but statutes of limitations in their cases made further prosecutions unlikely.Mr. Cosby has consistently denied the accusations that he was a sexual predator, suggesting that any encounters were completely consensual.Patricia Leary Steuer, who accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and assaulting her in 1978 and 1980, said in an interview on Monday that she felt “a little let down by the decision” but that “it does not change anything for me and the other survivors” since, she said, public sentiment is on their side.“The survivors did what we were supposed to do which was to come forward and tell the truth and that’s what we did,” she said. “The rest is out of our hands.”Legal experts had predicted it would be unlikely that the Supreme Court, which denies the vast majority of petitions for review, would take up the Cosby case. For one thing, they said, the case involved a unique set of circumstances that did not necessarily raise far-reaching constitutional issues.Dennis McAndrews, a Pennsylvania lawyer and former prosecutor who has followed the case, said the Supreme Court typically “looks to determine whether there are compelling issues of constitutional law about which the courts across the country need additional guidance, especially if the case is capable of repetition.”Shan Wu, a former federal prosecutor in Washington, said the Supreme Court likely considered whether its ruling would have the potential for broader significance outside the parameters of this case. “It’s a very unique set of circumstances,” he said. “It’s highly unlikely to be repeated.” More

    • 175 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Thing About Pam’ and the Critics Choice Awards

      by

      Renée Zellweger stars in a new true-crime mini-series. And this year’s Critics Choice Awards ceremony airs on the CW and TBS.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, March 7 -13. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE THING ABOUT PAM 10 p.m. on NBC. The slurp of a Big-Gulp-size beverage becomes something sinister in this true-crime limited series, which stars Renée Zellweger as a Missouri woman, Pam Hupp, who is implicated in a murder that ultimately reveals a larger illicit scheme. It’s a juicy role for Zellweger, who squares off with Judy Greer (as a prosecutor) and Josh Duhamel (a defense attorney). For more true crime, see the two-part documentary UNDERCURRENT: THE DISAPPEARANCE OF KIM WALL, debuting on HBO at 9 p.m., which looks at the killing of Wall, a Swedish journalist, in 2017 while she was reporting a story aboard a submarine.TuesdayTHE GREEN KNIGHT (2021) 7 p.m. on Showtime. You’ve probably already seen a movie about King Arthur — or at least have heard the tales, or baked with the flour. You’re less likely to have seen the tale of Arthur’s nephew Gawain — the subject of the anonymous 14th-century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” — on the big screen. This aesthetically pleasing adaptation from the filmmaker David Lowery stars Dev Patel as Gawain, who goes on a quest to hunt down a giant. In his review for The New York Times, A.O. Scott called the movie “sumptuous, ragged and inventive.”WednesdayDOMINO MASTERS 9 p.m. on Fox. Ambitious domino builders square off in this new competition show, in which contestants vie to create the most impressive toppling-domino arrangements, Rube Goldberg style. Expect the exactitude required here — where a false move can completely ruin a project — to create some tense moments. Imagine a reality cooking show in which chefs have to juggle their culinary creations before the judges sit down to eat.ThursdayMahershala Ali, left, and Matthew McConaughey in “Free State of Jones.”Murray Close/STX EntertainmentFREE STATE OF JONES (2016) 7:40 p.m. on FXM. The composer Nicholas Britell and the actor Mahershala Ali worked on two notably different movies released in 2016: Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-winning contemporary coming-of-age story “Moonlight” and Gary Ross’s historical drama “Free State of Jones.” In Ross’s movie, Ali plays a man named Moses, who is a close friend and confidant of the film’s subject, Newton Knight (Matthew McConaughey), a Southern dissident who established a homespun army that rebelled against the Confederacy in Mississippi, and whose work on behalf of African American rights extended beyond the war. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott praised what he called Ross’s “unusual respect for historical truth,” and wrote that he does “a good job of balancing the factual record with the demands of dramatic storytelling.” Another of Ross’s movies, the jockey drama SEABISCUIT (2003), will also air on Thursday, at 4 p.m. on Showtime.FridayJULIA (1977) 6 p.m. on TCM. Jane Fonda plays a fictionalized version of the playwright and author Lillian Hellman in this historical drama. Adapted from a slice of Hellman’s 1973 book, “Pentimento: A Book of Portraits,” the film takes place in the lead-up to the Second World War, centering on a friendship between Hellman and a character known only as Julia (Vanessa Redgrave), a young American woman from a wealthy family who uses her money to aid anti-Nazi efforts. The movie was also the feature debut of Meryl Streep, who has a small role as another friend of Hellman’s.SaturdayRachel Zegler in “West Side Story.”Niko Tavernise/20th Century StudiosWEST SIDE STORY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. The last few years have brought two attempts to reinvigorate “West Side Story.” On Broadway in 2020, the Belgian experimental theater director Ivo van Hove presented a version that injected the musical with projected video and skinny jeans. Even more recently, we got this big-screen rethink from Steven Spielberg, which reworks some elements while sticking closer to the original Broadway and Hollywood productions, at least on the surface (take one look at the sets and haircuts here, and you know we’re in mid-20th-century New York City). But this version of the forbidden-love story between Maria (Rachel Zegler) and Tony (Ansel Elgort) still has a lot of new ideas, thanks in large part to its substantial reworking of Arthur Laurents’s book by the playwright Tony Kushner and its ​​new choreography by Justin Peck. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott wrote that the new movie makes the musical feel “bold, surprising and new,” even as the performances and the transitions between musical numbers and other scenes can be uneven. “The seams — joining past to present, comedy to tragedy, America to dreamland — sometimes show,” Scott wrote. “But those seams,” he added, “are part of what makes the movie so exciting. It’s a dazzling display of filmmaking craft that also feels raw, unsettled and alive.”SundayTaye Diggs hosting the Critics Choice Awards in 2020. He will host this year’s ceremony on Sunday alongside the comic actress Nicole Byer.Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice AssociationTHE 27TH ANNUAL CRITICS CHOICE AWARDS 7 p.m. on the CW and TBS. Awards season will continue on Sunday night with this broadcast of the Critics Choice Awards, which this year comes just two weeks before the Oscars. The nominees for best picture at the Critics Choice awards largely overlap with the Oscars — “West Side Story,” “CODA,” “Don’t Look Up,” “Dune,” “King Richard,” “Licorice Pizza,” “Nightmare Alley” and “The Power of the Dog” are all nominated for the top prize in both competitions — with Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Tick, Tick … Boom!” taking the place of the Haruki Murakami adaptation “Drive My Car” at the Critics Choice awards. There are also differences in the best actor and actress categories, which here include nominations for Nicolas Cage (“Pig”), Peter Dinklage (“Cyrano”), Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”) and Alana Haim (“Licorice Pizza”), none of whom will be up for an acting award at the Oscars. Taye Diggs and Nicole Byer host. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 7 Recap: Let the Games Begin

      by

      Chuck visits an old friend. Wags tries to cover his boss’s tracks as the decision about New York’s Olympics bid nears.Season 6, Episode 7: ‘Napoleon’s Hat’You know, it’s funny: Before I watched this episode of “Billions,” I’d been thinking to myself, “It’s been too long since Chuck Rhoades went to a dungeon.”Seriously! The series launched with an image of Chuck in flagrante, and his so-called “arousal template” played a major role in the show on and off for quite some time. A calculated admission of his predilections helped him win the attorney general’s office. And a failure to service his kink spelled the end of his relationship with last season’s romantic interest, played by Julianna Margulies.In this very episode, in fact, Rhoades says regarding sex workers, “I’m out of that game.” An almost entirely sexless sixth season, at least as far as Chuck is concerned, just didn’t sit right.So it was with some pleasure that I greeted Chuck’s descent into his old dungeon, on a quest to uncover the current location of the high-end brothel where Wags illegally entertained the bigwigs who select the host city of the 2028 Olympics. It was great to see Clara Wong as Troy, Chuck’s one-time dominatrix, and even better to see Paul Giamatti squirm as Troy painfully tweaked Chuck’s ear.It even meshed well with the subplot in which Chuck and his ex-wife-slash-amateur domme, Wendy, briefly rekindled their old friendship, only to bail when professional concerns got in the way. At their son’s high school carnival, Chuck had won a private dinner for two with the Michelin-starred chef Daniel Boulud, to which he invited Wendy for old time’s sake. But poor Boulud, playing himself, wound up serving the multicourse meal to their nanny and himself instead. C’est la vie!In the end, however, Chuck’s reunion with Troy bore no fruit, legally speaking. Wags was one step ahead of him, tipping off the elite brothel that the cops were on the way; the pros in question converted the place into the world’s least-geriatric bridge club, stymying Chuck’s attempt to tie Prince to illegal activities and thus scupper his Olympic bid.Even Chuck’s Plan B winds up D.O.A. With the help of his lieutenants, Dave and Karl (who’s been increasingly entertaining), Rhoades pinpoints the Olympic “fixer” Colin Drache as the recipient of a $5 million bribe, presumably from Prince. (Even Wags, of all people, is aghast at the brazen nature of the graft, at least as it pertains to a self-conceptualized straight arrow like Prince.) But just when he’s ready to make an arrest amid New York City’s celebration for securing the games, Drache simply vanishes, like Keyser Soze.In a way, watching this season of “Billions” is like watching some kind of ethical disease spread. Taylor Mason, head of the Prince Capital subsidiary Mase Carb, could well be patient zero. The one-time wunderkind spends this episode setting up a crowdsourced algorithm for investment ratings, then lording it over an established ratings agency in order to force them to downgrade the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. The idea is to allow Prince to weasel his way back into the system after his previous $2 billion donation to the authority backfired, abrogating the city’s need for his big ideas to improve the subway.It’s such an effective play that the governor, the mayor and the head of the M.T.A. can basically only nod and go along with it. Prince is upset that Taylor and his own right-hand man, Scooter, went behind his back with the plan, but he knows how to take a W. Still, he insists he’s not like some drunk dad from whom the booze needs to be hidden at Christmas; he wants to be included in future maneuvers of this sort.Meanwhile, Rian, who has been spending the season as a sort of Jiminy Cricket-style externalization of Taylor’s conscience, rues handing over the spiffy new ratings algorithm to the corrupt old guard just to have it squashed. The Rian-Taylor dynamic is one of the show’s most intriguing at this point; I have no idea where the endgame is with these two.But the most compelling duo in this episode is Chuck and Dave, thanks to their verbal sparring over the nature of extreme wealth. Chuck has the zeal of the convert when it comes to the rich: He calls billionaires a threat to democracy itself and says that the lower classes have been sold a myth because they hope against hope to be rich themselves one day. Dave argues that “only those with wealth have the privilege of resenting it, but for the rest of us, it’s that dream that makes us go.”Honestly? For as shrewd a legal operator as Dave is made out to be, her position sounds hopelessly jejune. I mean, Horatio Alger? In this economy? Please. By contrast, Chuck’s rage against the billionaire class reads like a logical and narratively fruitful outgrowth of his old enmity for one specific billionaire, Bobby Axelrod, and his current grudge against Axe’s successor, Mike Prince. Chuck has met the enemy, and he is cash.Loose change:No “Godfather” allusions that I caught this week, but there was a shout out to another gangster movie, “A Bronx Tale.” For my money, though, the best pop-culture reference of the episode was a subtle but unmistakable quote from “The Big Lebowski” when Chuck talks about the scholarship students sponsored by Prince: “Proud we are of all of them,” he says, quoting Julianne Moore’s Maude Lebowski on the “Little Lebowski Urban Achievers.”As a charter member of the Karl Allard fan club, I was delighted to no end by this episode as it revealed the wild side of the old legal hand. Dave recoils in borderline disgust as Karl recalls nights in an Okinawa sex club with viper-seasoned sake; Chuck gazes at him incredulously as he describes his prowess as a “spirit guide” in the psychedelic era. (“Loose, breathable clothing is key.”)Still no clues as to whatever Mike’s secret agenda may be, beyond his vaguely proclaiming, “I plan on having a lifetime of grand projects.”Crucial to all of Mike Prince’s plans is the approval of his semi-estranged wife Andy, an Olympic-level rock-climbing coach. She ends the episode with an anecdote about racing up a summer-camp rock wall to kiss pinups of era-appropriate heartthrobs at age 8 and by extracting a promise from Prince to fly back and forth to Denver. Can he really be trusted to put his marriage ahead of his city?“The year Sperrys or a Vineyard Vines blazer shows up on Kevin’s Christmas list is the year we’re transferring him to public school”: Wendy is decidedly sour on her son’s private-school upbringing after she and Chuck are confronted by an obnoxious parent at the carnival, who calls Chuck a communist and Wendy a Karen. As an aside, the way they ferociously stick up for each other makes me think there’s still dramatic juice to be squeezed from their relationship.For all of Chuck’s self-conception as a man of the people, he still reacts like a scalded dog at the prospect of his son going to — gasp — Cornell instead of Yale.“That guy … a Cypress Hill song comes to mind,” says Prince of Chuck. Which one, I wonder? “Insane in the Brain”? “How I Could Just Kill a Man”? Uh, “Hits from the Bong”?Chuck on that fancy brothel: “These places shuffle locations like handsy priests change dioceses.” As a veteran of a Catholic upbringing, this one hit home hard.“Next time I pay every employee their full night’s wages,” Wags says to one of the brothel’s workers, “something unspeakable is going to transpire, and I will be right in the middle of it.” Now that’s our Wags! More