Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      ‘Snowfall’ Review: To Live, Love and Die in 1980s L.A.

      by

      FX’s sharply etched, powerfully nostalgic and entirely under-the-radar drama about a family cocaine empire begins its fifth season.“Snowfall,” FX’s South Los Angeles cocaine saga, eased onto the television schedule in July 2017, and since then it’s gone about its business quietly. It doesn’t get talked about a lot, but its fifth season arrives with two episodes on Wednesday. That’s a good run for an astringent morality tale that doesn’t offer predictable thrills, excessive sentimentality or brand-name actors.Which isn’t to say that “Snowfall” doesn’t do some discreet pandering to its audience. It is, in its vicious way, one of the most powerfully nostalgic shows on television — a “Wonder Years” for the drug trade. Its picture of Los Angeles in the mid-1980s may not be realistic in the strict sense, but it’s true to an idea of the city at that time as promulgated by John Singleton, one of the show’s creators, and the show allies itself with that mythos in clever ways. When the family at the story’s center goes ballistic in the new season after a neighborhood rapper rhymes about their business, a light goes on in the eyes of one of the crew: It’s 1986, and he sees gangsta rap coming.Singleton, who died in 2019, was in Los Angeles developing the screenplay for his first and best-known film, “Boyz N The Hood,” at the time that the new season of “Snowfall” takes place. When he was nominated for an Oscar for directing the film, he was 24, the age the hero of the show, the precocious drug dealer Franklin Saint (Damson Idris), reaches in Season 5. “Snowfall” borrows some tragic-young-men archetypes from “Boyz,” and their melodramatic pull is another ingredient in the show’s appeal.But “Snowfall” has taken a cooler and more understated approach — the romanticism and sensationalism are there, but they’re moderated by dry humor, on one hand, and an effective calibration of cold dread, on the other. (Dave Andron, another creator of the series, remains the showrunner and wrote the new season’s first two episodes with Leonard Chang; four of 10 episodes were available for review.) Rather than a rueful tragedy, it is — so far — a Horatio Alger tale of aspirational capitalism, one that adds systemic racism and automatic weapons to the barriers facing the hero.And although it didn’t start out as a wry and moving family drama, it has evolved into one. The plot strands that followed the internal workings of a Mexican drug cartel and the Central American adventures of the rogue C.I.A. agent Reed (Carter Hudson) have dropped away, and the focus is entirely on Franklin and his tight-knit crew: his uncle Jerome (Amin Joseph); Jerome’s girlfriend, Louie (Angela Lewis); his best friend and right-hand man, Leon (Isaiah John); and his mother, Cissy (Michael Hyatt).And it’s those performers, finally, who are the show’s almost-secret weapon. Presumably directed over the seasons to underplay, they’ve consistently worked against any temptation to resort to clichéd gestures and emotions. The central cast, led by Idris as the dangerously conflicted, reluctantly menacing Franklin, has created a quirky and believable gallery of characters, and their emotional credibility keeps you invested through the story’s melodramatic twists and abrupt turns. (The portrayal of the actual drug business, and the fictionalized treatment of the C.I.A.’s involvement with it, is not, it’s safe to say, documentary in nature.)Season 4 ended (spoilers ahead) in a welter of chaos and violence: Franklin and Reed’s partnership was nearly exposed by a reporter; Reed killed the reporter but was then partially outed anyway by Franklin’s father, who in turn was (perhaps) killed by Reed. As Season 5 opens, Franklin has apparently put it all behind him. He’s on top of his game, piloting his own airplane and running his semi-legitimate real estate company with his new girlfriend, Veronique (Devyn A. Tyler of “Clarice”), who’s pregnant.But success is the handmaiden of disaster on “Snowfall” — the perverse reality of Franklin’s American dream is that the wealthier and happier your family becomes, the more ruthless and paranoid you need to be to protect it. The death of the real-life basketball star Len Bias means that the public, and law enforcement, suddenly begin to pay more attention to cocaine. Closer to home, life is complicated by the return of Reed (now going by his real name, Teddy), who’s quickly back in the C.I.A.’s good graces, and of Cissy, who wants to know why her son is back in business with his father’s killer.None of this can end well, it would seem, but it’s a dark, enjoyable, sharply etched ride in the meantime. “Snowfall” is partly about the collateral damage of true belief — the destruction wrought when Reed’s obsessive patriotism hooks up with Franklin’s implacable determination to succeed. But as the battles play out, there’s always love and the pull of friendship down in the trenches. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Seth Meyers on Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ Stumbles

      by

      Meyers said, “By the time you find yourself signing up for Donald Trump’s social media site, something already went wrong.”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.Moment of TruthDonald Trump’s new Twitter alternative went live on Monday. On “Late Night,” Seth Meyers joked that Truth Social is “expected to revolutionize the way Americans have their data stolen.”“But like lots of people, I couldn’t even log in because when it launched, select users who tried to create accounts were repeatedly met with a red error warning, ‘Something went wrong. Please try again.’ Though by the time you find yourself signing up for Donald Trump’s social media site, something already went wrong.” — SETH MEYERS“But I’m guessing they’ll try again. If you were first in line to sign up for Truth Social, you probably got some free time on your hands. [imitating Trump supporter] ‘Well, I’m just sitting here waiting for J.F.K., Jr. to reappear at the Meadowlands with Elvis and the Loch Ness monster to prove the election was stolen. I guess I’ll try logging in again.’” — SETH MEYERS“I really enjoy how vague the error message is: ‘Something went wrong,’ like even they don’t know what the problem is. Usually you get an error code or something, but Trump’s site just gives you a shrug emoji that says, ‘What were you expecting? This thing’s a cluster [expletive].’” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Chilly Willy Edition)“And finally, an athlete from Finland told reporters over the weekend that after competing in the men’s 50-kilometer cross-country ski race at the Beijing Games, his penis was, quote, ‘a little bit frozen’ — though just because he needed an excuse after he was caught ‘warming it up.’” — SETH MEYERS“Or as it’s known by its official medical diagnosis: chilly willy.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Lindholm’s frosty groin was so bad, after the race, he had to use a heat pack to try to thaw out his appendage. OK, you gotta do it. Remember, never let your penis defrost on the counter. Put it in a bowl of water in the fridge — salmonella.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now if this all sounds painful, yes. As Lindholm said, “When the body parts started to warm up after the finish, the pain was unbearable.’ As opposed to ‘bearable’ frozen penis?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“People could tell something was wrong when he was doing a hand stand under the hand dryers in the men’s room. Thank god he’s an Olympian, because I wouldn’t have the hand strength.” — JIMMY FALLON“I feel for the guy, though. He’s training for years and now that’s what comes up when you Google him, you know what I’m saying?” — JIMMY FALLON“He used it to his advantage, though. For two of the turns he didn’t even use a ski pole.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingA bachelorette party crashed Monday night’s “Late Late Show,” and James Corden called on security for help.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightArnold Schwarzenegger will appear on Tuesday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutClockwise from right: scenes from “A Banquet,” “You Are Not My Mother,” “Censor” and “She Will.”IFC Midnight; Magnet ReleasingA new wave of woman filmmakers from Britain and Ireland is breaking into the horror genre with scary debuts like “Saint Maud” and “A Banquet.” More

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Gilded Age’: What Is Fact and What Is Fiction?

      by

      The HBO period drama sets invented melodrama within actual historical story lines. Here are the back stories of elements that shape the world of the series.A scene in this week’s episode of “The Gilded Age,” Julian Fellowes’s frothy period drama on HBO, takes us to Central Park in the late 19th century. Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), young, rebellious and newly arrived from the obscurity of Pennsylvania, is riding in a carriage with her two blue-blood aunts when talk turns to the subject of Caroline Astor, the fearsome doyenne of New York society.“Do you like Mrs. Astor?” Marian asks.“That’s like saying, ‘Do you like rain?’” her Aunt Agnes (a waspish Christine Baranski) replies. “She is a fact of life that we must live with.”It is one of many nods to New York history that appears in “The Gilded Age.” Set during a time of dramatic change, the series chronicles a moment when the city’s center of gravity moved uptown, when society’s rules were rewritten as swiftly as new European-inspired mansions sprung up along Fifth Avenue, and when old families like the Astors and the Schermerhorns were challenged socially and financially by arrivistes named Vanderbilt, Gould and Rockefeller.The era’s name, from a book co-written by Mark Twain, makes the point that the glitter was on the surface. “Gilded means gold-covered, not golden,” said Erica Armstrong Dunbar, a history professor at Rutgers University who was the main historical consultant for “The Gilded Age,” and a co-executive producer. “It was a time when economic inequality, racial segregation, violence and nativism was living side by side with luxury and opulence.”Carl Raymond, a social historian whose podcast, “The Gilded Gentleman,” focuses on the era, said the cultural shifts were driven largely by “huge changes in commercial infrastructure, when crazy money was pouring in and old New York was being challenged by new.”“It’s when the new society was being created and everybody was jockeying for power,” he said.The HBO series speaks mostly to the Gilded Age of our imagination, full of grand families, sumptuous furnishings, lavish entertainments, stringent social rules, massive fortunes and sky’s-the-limit ambitions.Roughly halfway through its first season, which ends on March 21, “The Gilded Age” has blended fictional melodrama with actual historical story lines, like the importance of the Black press, the influx of stratospherically wealthy railroad magnates into the city and a simmering society dispute over the fashionable opera house’s inhospitality to newcomers.The events have played out among some characters who were wholly invented and others who were clearly inspired by real people — Carrie Coon’s striving Bertha Russell, for instance, channels the similarly eyes-on-the-prize Alva Vanderbilt — as well as a few who are portrayals of actual historical figures. These include the aforementioned Caroline Astor (Donna Murphy), the queen of Gilded Age society; Ward McAllister (Nathan Lane), snobby social arbiter to the elite; Clara Barton (Linda Emond), the founder of the American Red Cross; and T. Thomas Fortune (Sullivan Jones), the Black writer, orator, civil rights leader and newspaper editor.Teasing out the real from the fictional is part of the fun of watching “The Gilded Age,” which was recently renewed for a second season. To help you along, here are the back stories of some of the elements that shape the world of the series.Denée Benton plays a reporter who writes for T. Thomas Fortune, a pioneering Black newspaper editor.Alison Cohen Rosa/HBOUptown vs. DowntownIn the first episode, the chef who works for the rapaciously ambitious new-money Russell family notes approvingly that the family has moved to stylish 61st Street, some 30 blocks north of their previous house. “Thirtieth Street is out of fashion,” he declares.Indeed, the early history of upper-class Manhattan is the history of northerly migration, from Bowling Green to Washington Square to Murray Hill to the 50s, and then straight up Fifth Avenue by the 1880s.“All of a sudden people you think are beneath you, people you didn’t want to associate with, are suddenly on your block,” said Esther Crain, author of “The Gilded Age in New York” and founder of the website Ephemeral New York, which explores interesting aspects of the city.She described it as a time when corruption, exploitation and graft were rampant, but also when the culture, lifestyle and institutions of the city began to take shape, cementing New York’s sense of itself as the center of everything.“New York was the microcosm of the era — the financial capital of the country, the industrial base for lots of big business,” she said. “It had the culture, the capital, the theater and shopping and fashion, and everybody who was anybody wanted to be here.”The Opera“The Age of Innocence,” Edith Wharton’s exquisite dissection of Gilded Age New York, opens with the main characters preparing to see “Faust” at the Academy of Music, the opera venue beloved by New York’s old guard. “Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the ‘new people’ whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to,” Wharton writes.Indeed, although Bertha Russell, the richest and most brazen upstart in “The Gilded Age,” attends the opera as a guest, she discovers to her dismay that all her wealth can’t buy her a coveted private box. The Academy had fewer than two dozen, owned by prominent New York families and passed to their heirs.Bertha Russell, a wealthy arriviste played by Carrie Coon, resembles the similarly steely Alva Vanderbilt. Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO“Going to the opera in this period was a social battlefield,” Raymond said. “It was about where you sat, what you were wearing — and most importantly, who saw you do it.” The layout lent itself to social peacocking, he said, with “boxes on one side of the stage looking at boxes on the other side.”In New York, rich people annoyed at being excluded from things tend to set up their own fancier alternatives. In this case, a group of new-money interlopers pooled their money and built a bigger and better building. (A character in “The Gilded Age” describes them as “J.P. Morgan, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts — every opportunist in New York.”) The result, the first Metropolitan Opera House, opened in 1883 at Broadway and 39th Street. (Unable to compete, the Academy tried to reinvent itself as a vaudeville hall but closed several years later.)Dunbar said that the ease with which the rich could buy their way into society during the period reflected and bolstered one of the founding myths of America: that it was a place where anything was possible, as long as you did the work and made the money.“It may seem like this is just a case of ‘old’ rich people and ‘new’ rich people fighting, and who cares,” Dunbar said. “But it speaks to the changing of the guard, and the changing of traditions, and the way this nation has always grappled with change.”European SocietyAmerica was still a young country during the Gilded Age, barely 100 years old and forged by revolution that ostensibly repudiated the old ways. But for all that, Manhattan’s upper crust seemed determined to emulate European customs.In “The Gilded Age,” Mrs. Russell reflects the tastes of the time by boasting that her new chef is French. Her extravagant new home was designed to emulate grand European houses, as were the mansions built by real-life New York arrivistes of the era. (The interiors also were generally full of materials bought from European chateaus and imported at huge expense.) The new opera house was modeled on its European counterparts. Social customs, too — the elaborate codes of dress, manners and decorum, dictating who could be introduced to whom — were also very European, perhaps as a response by a nervous upper class to the exciting but threatening notion of American social mobility.“Caroline Astor’s model was Europe; she wanted to create a European American court,” Raymond said. “One of the funniest ironies about the Gilded Age is that you have a society desperately trying to emulate the courts of Europe and British aristocracy.”Caroline Astor, as depicted by the society portraitist Carolus-Duran. Mrs. Astor ruled New York society in the late 19th century.Sepia Times/Universal Images Group, via Getty ImagesMrs. Astor vs. Mrs. VanderbiltFor many years, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor was the ruler of New York society and the epitome of old-guard Manhattan. With the help of her friend Ward McAllister, she decreed who and what was worthy, or not. It was said that her parties were limited to 400 guests from just 25 “old” families.But she met her match in the staggeringly rich Alva Vanderbilt, who swept into New York and in 1882 installed herself in the most over-the-top new mansion the city had ever seen, at 52nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Designed under Vanderbilt’s watchful eye by the renowned architect Richard Morris Hunt and known as the “Petit Chateau,” it was enormous, made of limestone and done in a French Renaissance and Gothic style. It indeed looked like a castle, to the extent you can have a castle in the middle of an American city. Astor herself had two houses, one in the increasingly unfashionable 30s and one in the 50s. But neither was as nice as the Vanderbilt mansion.In 1883, Vanderbilt threw a lavish masked ball for more than 1,000 guests. Everyone clamored to be invited, but Astor and her daughter Carrie (who was said to be desperate to attend) were left off the guest list. The story goes that after Vanderbilt pointed out to McAllister that she had never been introduced to Astor, Astor promptly called on Vanderbilt — and swiftly received an invitation to the party.Alas, like virtually all the Gilded Age mansions, the Vanderbilts’ “Petit Chateau” eventually became too expensive for the family to maintain. In 1926, Vanderbilt heirs sold it to developers for $3.75 million, and it was destroyed. An office building now sits on the site. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      'Euphoria' Is Hard to Watch. Why Can't Viewers Look Away?

      by

      It’s one of the most popular shows on television right now. But sometimes even the fans need to calm down after an episode.Every Sunday around 9 p.m., Maddie Bone and her five roommates, all in their 20s and 30s, dim the lights in their Brooklyn apartment, fire up the projector and turn on HBO Max — with subtitles, just in case the J train rattles by. They also brew a pot of Sleepytime tea, not to help them drift off but to keep their nerves at bay while they watch the heart-racing fever dream that is “Euphoria.”“We choose not to drink during it,” Ms. Bone, 26, said. “You need something that deeply relaxes you.”After all, rare are the moments of peace in the show, a daring ensemble drama about teenagers pushing the limits in a Southern California suburb. Most episodes include some mix of bad sex, graphic violence, gratuitous nudity, copious consumption of drugs and alcohol and unsparing depictions of addiction. For the viewer, feeling stressed, anxious or restless while watching comes with the territory.had me STRESSED #EuphoriaHBO #euphoria pic.twitter.com/fBP3uRw6ZQ— ☂️☂️ (@wetsockera) February 7, 2022
      “I think there is a lot of stress/anxiety that goes hand in hand with watching ‘Euphoria,’” Adhya Hoskote, a 20-year-old from San Jose, Calif., wrote in a direct message on Instagram. “Personally I know my anxiety is not the same as those who have had firsthand experience with addiction or friends or family struggling with addiction, but it can be hard to watch at times.”Ms. Hoskote said she has to take breaks while watching. But like the millions of other people who keep up with the show, she always comes back.The show, written and produced by Sam Levinson, presents a stylized portrayal of young people in the throes of addiction, grief and betrayal. Every story line is its own miniature trauma plot.Zendaya, the show’s star and one of its executive producers, issued a content warning ahead of the Season 2 premiere: “This season, maybe even more so than the last, is deeply emotional and deals with subject matter that can be triggering and difficult to watch,” she wrote in an Instagram post. “Please only watch if you feel comfortable.”Viewers have also noted the intensity of this season. “You’re just anxious for an hour straight,” said Merna Ahmed, 21. “When you’re watching a horror movie or listening to something that’s super high adrenaline, you keep listening because you want to know what’s going to happen. You just can’t look away.”This season’s sixth episode, which aired on Feb. 13, drew in 5.1 million viewers, according to HBO, despite premiering during the Super Bowl (which had an audience of 112.3 million).“Euphoria” follows in the footsteps of teen dramas such as “The O.C.,” “Skins” and “Degrassi” (the cast of which included a young Drake, who is now an executive producer on “Euphoria”) in its approach to coming of age. But “Euphoria” has stood out for its willingness to push to extremes alongside its aesthetically pleasing imagery.We look on as Zendaya’s character, Rue, relapses and collapses into her addiction to opiates, torching bridges with people she claims to love and physically destroying her home. We watch as robberies take place, guns are cocked and drivers speed haphazardly while taking swigs from beer bottles.Zendaya as Rue in “Euphoria.”HBOIf that sounds unpleasant — agonizing even — it hasn’t stopped people from tuning in.Ms. Ahmed, who lives in New Brunswick, N.J., keeps up with “Euphoria” for social reasons; she loves discussing the drama with her friends and seeing memes about the show on Twitter. But she is also holding out hope that the characters, even those in the deepest trenches, will eventually be redeemed.“I was thinking about why we keep watching when it’s so agonizing. For me, at least, I think it’s because you want to see these characters reach redemption,” she said. “You want to see where it ends up for them and root for them.”Philip Cadoux, 23, who watches with friends every week, loves the show’s colors, costumes and acting. He is also pulled in by empathy, as he knows people who have struggled with addiction.“It’s like an intense dramatization of things we all experience. They’re very relatable characters, but the things that they go through are just amped up to an 11,” said Mr. Cadoux, who lives in Brooklyn. “I don’t relate to Rue, but I relate to her sister or mother.”Apart from the aesthetics and award-winning acting, mental health professionals agree that the show can be relatable.“There is a parallel process between the characters they’re watching onscreen and viewers’ own willingness and ability to adapt to the pandemic,” Sabrina Romanoff, a clinical psychologist in New York, wrote in an email. “Viewers are watching various stories unfold that center on the question: Would you do whatever is necessary to get what you want?”She also attributes the show’s success to a phenomenon she calls “doom watching,” a cousin of doomscrolling, consuming bad news ever-present via our phones. While “doom watching,” people watch intense shows that feed off their own anxieties, especially at night when other distractions might not be as readily available. She sees it as a method of projection, specifically “projecting the personal fears and stressors of oneself to the collective group or external and fictionalized television characters.”But it’s not all doom and gloom. Dr. Romanoff also believes the show can serve as a vehicle for education and understanding.“The show does a good job at showcasing mental health, addiction struggles and how people address this through self-medication,” she wrote. “The show has important implications when it comes to increasing awareness and empathy for addiction, mental health, sexuality and relationships. It encourages important conversations and self-reflection.”Mary Kay Holmes, a 46-year-old writer and parent of two teenagers, taps into that school of thought. Every week, she watches the show alongside her 17-year-old daughter (her 15-year-old opts to watch it alone, finding it “cringe” to watch with parents).Ms. Holmes and her daughter both enjoy the show as a source of entertainment first and foremost (she’d be watching it even if she didn’t have kids), but as a mother, she often utilizes “Euphoria” as a mechanism to have informal conversations with her children about drug use, relationships, toxic masculinity, gender and sexuality.“It’s a hard show to watch, but there’s a lot of good stuff that comes up,” Ms. Holmes said. “I think in my house, we’ve used television a lot to bring up conversations and talk about things, and I know that’s probably not the norm for a lot of families, but I try to keep up with what my kids are consuming, as opposed to restricting it.”But the main reason most viewers seem to return is that the show holds their attention: with its eye-catching fashion and makeup, its stunning visuals and the twists and turns that keep people talking.“I definitely watch it for the drama. I don’t have a lot of drama in my life right now because I work from home, and I’m pretty emotionally solid right now,” Ms. Bone said. “However, I love to be able to hash out some of the plotlines with co-workers, friends, passers-by, someone I meet at the bodega. It’s these things that we can really latch on to.” More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches’ and Awards Shows

      by

      A new documentary about Frederick Douglass debuts on HBO. And both the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards air this weekend.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, Feb. 21-27. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE ENDGAME 10 p.m. on NBC. An F.B.I. agent (Ryan Michelle Bathe) and a mysterious criminal mastermind (Morena Baccarin) fight to one-up each other materially and verbally in this new thriller series. The plot revolves around a series of major bank robberies in New York City. Expect fireworks: The “Fast and Furious” director Justin Lin is an executive producer of the show and directed Monday night’s debut episode.TuesdayFANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA: AN AMERICA REFRAMED SPECIAL 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This feature-length documentary special looks at the influential civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer. The program shows Hamer’s legacy as an advocate for voting and women’s rights and explains how she went from working as a sharecropper in Mississippi to organizing grass-roots campaigns.WednesdayFREDERICK DOUGLASS: IN FIVE SPEECHES (2022) 9 p.m. on HBO. David W. Blight’s Pulitzer-winning 2018 book, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” is the foundation of this new documentary, which includes commentary by Blight and the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. that speaks to the abolitionist’s crucial place in American history. But the documentary also takes advantage of its own medium, emphasizing the power of Douglass’s words: It features five actors — Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Beharie, Colman Domingo, Jonathan Majors and Denzel Whitaker — performing words from five Douglass speeches from several different decades. A sixth actor, André Holland, narrates.ThursdayAIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS (2013) 5:15 p.m. on Showtime 2. The filmmaker David Lowery had proven himself a skilled maker of moody dramas by last year, when he released the Arthurian romance “The Green Knight.” Lowery’s reputation is due in part to this somber quasi western. In it, Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck play Bob and Ruth, a couple that gets involved in a shootout. The fight leaves one man dead and a sheriff’s deputy (Ben Foster) injured. Bob goes to prison, and Ruth gives birth to their daughter. Later, Bob escapes and journeys back to Ruth. But he’s wanted, and things get complicated.FridayDaniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith in “Queen & Slim.”Universal PicturesQUEEN & SLIM (2019) 7:35 p.m. and 10:20 p.m. on FXM. Both the outlaw romance “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” (above) and Melina Matsoukas’s “Queen & Slim” feature couples whose lives are transformed, quickly, by violence. The story of Queen and Slim (played by Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya) opens with an awkward first date that leads into a deadly encounter with an aggressive white police officer (Sturgill Simpson). They become fugitives on the run, and “Queen & Slim” turns into a road movie and a love story. What lingers, A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times, “are strains of anger, ardor, sorrow and sweetness, and the quiet astonishment of witnessing the birth of a legend.”SaturdayRyan Reynolds and Jodie Comer in “Free Guy.”20th Century StudiosFREE GUY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. This action comedy was a pandemic-era box-office success story. Now it can be a watch-from-home Saturday night diversion. A sugary sci-fi romp with notes of “The Truman Show” and “The Matrix” (but filtered through the director of “Night at the Museum”), “Free Guy” casts Ryan Reynolds as Guy, an Everyman who learns that he’s a side character in a video game. When he meets a player named Millie (Jodie Comer), Guy is drawn into a mission to stop the C.E.O. of the studio that created the game (Taika Waititi) from enacting evil deeds. The movie is “perky though predictable,” Maya Phillips wrote in her review for The Times.53RD ANNUAL N.A.A.C.P. IMAGE AWARDS 8 p.m. on BET. One of the joys of the N.A.A.C.P.’s annual Image Awards show is that it allows for some matchups that you don’t see at the Oscars, Emmys or Grammys. The ceremony recognizes movies, TV shows and music. Some of the categories in this year’s edition are fairly typical: Halle Berry, Andra Day, Jennifer Hudson, Tessa Thompson and Zendaya are all up for the best actress in a film award, while “Encanto,” “Luca, “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Sing 2” and “Vivo” will compete for best animated movie. But other categories break genre boundaries: The nominees for entertainer of the year are Jennifer Hudson, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, Regina King and Tiffany Haddish.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 5 Recap: All in the Family

      by

      This week, the ties that bind are feeling extra tight for Chuck, Prince and Scooter.Season 6, Episode 5: ‘Rock of Eye’It shouldn’t come as a surprise that “Billions,” the most “Godfather”-quoting show on television — this episode alone included references to the “Part II” antagonist Don Fanucci and Vito Corleone’s regret that his son Michael would never become governor or senator — put family at the heart of its story lines. This week, family was the story line for three of the show’s most important characters. And surprisingly, no one involved got shot to death in a rowboat, metaphorically speaking.The first family struggle involves Mike Prince’s second-in-command, Scooter, and his nephew, Philip (Toney Goins). Prince woos the wunderkind away from his job teaching at a charter school to join Prince Cap, where his instantaneous success rubs many of his colleagues the wrong way. Scooter is aghast at Prince’s play; he wanted his nephew to pursue dreams that aren’t strictly financial in nature. (Scooter himself says he could have been an orchestra conductor before the promised wealth of a partnership with Prince came calling.)In the end, they patch things up, though Philip causes problems for the firm in other ways. He arrives just days before Prince declares that he will reallocate capital among the traders, and the old guard worries he will take a piece of the pie. Philip, however, declines Prince’s offer to double his book; he prefers to have it cut in half so he can grow it on his own and take a larger slice of the profits. That said, Philip is given the job of directly supervising the timid trader Tuk, who has his capital zeroed out.(The biggest fireworks from the reallocation come from a completely different quarter. Victor, the firm’s alpha male now that Dollar Bill is gone, has his book doubled, while Bonnie, who was aggressively trading against Victor’s positions in a sort of grudge match, gets hers cut in half and put under the supervision of Wags. She angrily quits in protest; might she join Mafee and her former lover Dollar Bill at their breakaway firm?)Chuck’s family problems hit him right where he lives, literally: His father, Charles, moves into Chuck’s house after getting thrown out by his wife over some illicit texts exchanged with a woman on whom he has had romantic designs for years. (Charles announces his intent to stay at Chuck’s place in semi-permanent fashion by humming the theme song from “The Odd Couple.”) To everyone’s surprise, Charles’s not the least, he doesn’t pursue the potential affair, letting both it and his existing marriage exist in limbo.That limbo lingers until Wendy, his former daughter-in-law steps in. She convinces him with brute-force reverse psychology to give up the emotional affair and move back home: She tells him to leave his wife, knowing he’ll do the exact opposite. It’s a solid make-good to her ex-husband, Chuck, for her role in poaching Kate Sacker from the attorney general’s office. But it’s also a very transactional move, which causes her to put the kibosh on her nascent interest in practicing Buddhism. (Her instructor had asked her to start by seeing if she could go just four days, or even four hours, without any quid pro quos.) Oh well!Prince’s family woes, by contrast, directly effect the grandest of his plans: his play to bring the 2028 Olympic Games to New York. News breaks — with a little help from Chuck’s well-connected minion Karl Allard, who alerts Page Six — that Prince’s daughter Gail (Gracie Lawrence) has insulted Gov. Bob Sweeney to his face, leaving egg all over it. After some tense negotiations during an emergency family dinner, Gail agrees to apologize at her father’s insistence, but Prince winds up reversing course and tells her she shouldn’t have to eat crow for speaking her mind.Instead, he seizes on a throwaway comment from Gail, who wonders aloud how a man as vain as Sweeney could ever make it to the governor’s chair, and runs with it. He decides to appeal to the governor’s vanity directly by naming his theoretical Manhattan stadium after him; the plan, which involves a huge glowing mock-up of Sweeney’s name over the stadium entrance, works like a charm, much to Chuck’s and Karl’s chagrin.One of the episode’s most intriguing developments involves Taylor Mason’s play for a vegan-food outfit called Terravore as part of an attempt to drive up those end-of-quarter numbers. Taylor orders Rian and Winston to stake out a position on the company so huge that the firm’s legal minds, including Sacker and the compliance officer Ari Spyros, worry it will raise red flags with the S.E.C. unless Taylor can provide documentation as to why the purchase was so big. When it becomes clear that Mase Carb’s play is to wait until the company makes it onto the S&P index, at which point they’ll sell and turn a huge profit, the concern only grows.Sure enough, the plan works, though it requires help from an unexpected quarter. Taylor’s old colleagues Mafee and Dollar Bill help out by convincing a loudmouthed YouTube day trading guru, Darren Russakoff (J-L Cauvin), to urge his legion of “stonks” bros to buy in. Kate, of all people, helps Taylor by claiming the Mase Carb founder’s six and a half years of veganism count as due diligence and by backfilling a paper trail to that effect. Everyone at the firm, including Prince and Wendy, know that something sketchy has gone down, but unless Taylor comes out and admits it, it’s nothing anyone can prove. (Rian, it should be noted, seems particularly uncomfortable with the scheme from the get-go.)But at least one of the nominal good guys gets a W, even if it comes after a major L. To burnish his reputation as a tribune of the people, Chuck steps back into the courtroom to prosecute a case against a seafood company that fraudulently labeled poor-quality fish as the good stuff. To use a situationally appropriate metaphor, he is eaten alive by a shark: the corporate defense lawyer Daevisha Mahar, also known as Dave (Sakina Jaffrey), who dupes him into using an expert witness she knows is crooked, and whom she exposes as such.Chuck regrets the error — it’s very much like how he was fooled by Prince into taking his eye off Kate Sacker last week — but he is impressed by Dave’s acumen. More than that, he is convinced that between her past as a public defender and her current fondness for diner food, she is less than comfortable with working at a white-shoe law firm, defending law breaking corporations.So Chuck invites her to take over Sacker’s old position as his right hand, and Dave accepts. This could create a very interesting dynamic in the attorney general’s office, as Chuck has never before had a lieutenant who was more a peer than a protégé. Will his eagerness to enlist Dave lead to a clash with his considerable ego? Tune in next week, same Chuck time, same Chuck channel!Loose change:This series’s love of basketball is second only to its fondness for the works of Francis Ford Coppola; this week, Prince, himself a former player, uses Coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success as a guide for his employees — who take to it with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success — and rewards them all with brand-new Jordans when the reallocation is complete.I enjoyed the insight into Karl Allard’s personal legal style granted by this episode: He admits courtroom work isn’t his strong suit, his office is one giant pile of folders and boxes, and he says he hasn’t a clue where anything is amid the mess … but he does have the gossip sheets on speed dial.Dave and Chuck both fire direct shots at the reputation of a certain former New York prosecutor by the name of Rudy Giuliani. Now that it’s no longer making a pastiche of Trumpworld with the likes of Jock Jeffcoat and Todd Krakow, “Billions” seems more comfortable in making its distaste for the former administration and its hangers-on more explicit.At one point, after revealing in-depth knowledge of the nature of the spat between Victor and Bonnie, Prince says, “I’m the Eye of Sauron — I see all.” Does that sound like an ethical billionaire to you?A key quote from Chuck that I think we’ll be coming back to as long as Prince sits in the big chair: When Wendy tells him the firm under Prince “isn’t Axe Cap,” Chuck says, “No, it’s worse because it pretends to be better.” That’s the crux of the season, isn’t it? More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Marc Brown on the End of ‘Arthur’ and His Favorite Fan Theories

      by

      With the beloved PBS children’s show ending after 25 seasons, its 75-year-old creator answered some off-the-wall questions about his 8-year-old aardvark.From the minute Marc Brown meets you, he’s sizing you up. Just maybe not in the usual way.“People remind me of animals,” said Brown, the 75-year-old creator of the illustrated character Arthur Read, the 8-year-old bespectacled aardvark who, since the book “Arthur’s Nose” debuted in 1976, has been helping children navigate the world around them. “When the child that I’m talking to reads a book and all the characters are animals, they don’t care what color their skin is. They are immediately drawn to the character that they identify with and feel an affinity with.”For more than 25 years, Brown and a team at WGBH, Boston’s PBS affiliate, have produced the animated adaptation series “Arthur,” in which the aardvark, his friends and a lineup of animalized guest stars tackle difficult subjects like bullying, divorce and disability. The series, which has won praise from both children and parents for its candor in depicting challenging situations — as well as seven Emmy Awards and the distinction of longest-running children’s animated series on American television — will air its final episodes this week. (All four will air on Monday afternoon and stream free on PBS Kids.)Brown appears in animated form in an episode from the new and final season of “Arthur.”WGBH“One of the reasons I love ‘Arthur’ is because of the imperfections in our characters,” said Carol Greenwald, who created the show with Brown and now serves as an executive producer. “It’s important to show kids that you can really screw up and it’s not the end of the world. You can learn from your mistakes and come back a better person.”Both Brown and Greenwald said that the idea from start was for the series not only to reflect issues relevant to kids but also to present a world in which they could see themselves. When they first got started, Greenwald said, the WGBH team dispatched people with cameras to capture neighborhoods around Boston to help animators diversify the homes in Arthur’s world.“Arthur lived in a beautiful little house with a picket fence,” she said, “but we wanted to diversify the world enough that kids who lived in apartment buildings, or in smaller, lower income neighborhoods, would feel like they were as a part of that story.”And Elwood City, Arthur’s fictional home, did come to feel like home for many viewers, not just in Boston but also around the world. So when one of the show’s writers revealed in July that the show had wrapped production — and when PBS later announced that the series’s final episodes would air this winter, the reaction, at least on social media, was a collective balled fist (a riff on a popular Arthur meme).Arthur, a bespectacled 8-year-old aardvark, debuted in Brown’s 1976 book “Arthur’s Nose.” The books were adapted into a PBS animated series for 25 seasons.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesArthur’s friends are all animals, too. “People remind me of animals,” Brown said.Calla Kessler for The New York TimesBut for fans who have been with Arthur across more than 250 episodes, there’s some consolation: The characters will live on in a new Arthur podcast, games and digital shorts — and the series’s final episode will flash forward to provide viewers a glimpse of what Arthur and his friends grow up to be.“There are definitely some surprises,” Greenwald said.In a recent video call from his sunny West Village living room, Brown was candid, sprightly and puckish. His clothing and furnishings were impeccably tidy, his white hair neatly combed — it wasn’t hard to see where Arthur, fond of polo shirts and V-neck sweaters, took his sartorial cues. Brown, who is still an executive producer of the show, reflected on its longevity and why now was to right time to end it, and he talked about some of his new projects, including the long-gestating Arthur movie that has gained new momentum recently. (He also set the record straight on a few fan theories.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Congratulations on 25 years! Did you ever think you would be having this conversation when the first episode premiered in October 1996?Not in my wildest dreams. I thought it’d last two years — if I was lucky.Many authors help create a show, then step back. Why are you still so intensely involved after 25 years?I still have the same feeling I had when PBS came to me and wanted to put Arthur on television. I had invested 15 years before that in the characters, and I was getting lots of letters from kids. It felt like a little family, and I wanted the characters to be faithful to my vision. And so I’ve been a guard in the corner in that way.“I thought it’d last two years — if I was lucky,” Brown said of the animated adaptation, which premiered in 1996. Today it is the longest-running animated children’s show on American TV. GBHSo many of the stories are inspired by real-life experiences you had when your kids — Tolon, Tucker and Eliza — were little. Now that they’re adults, is it more difficult to come up with fresh ideas?So many episodes grow out of our writing team’s experiences — and it turns out they’re still helpful and relevant to kids! There are episodes, like the one on head lice, that every time we run them, because it’s still an ongoing problem for a lot of kids, it gets a lot of positive feedback.Why end it now, then?Technology has changed in the last 25 years, and kids are now watching stories on their iPhones, listening to podcasts, playing games on their devices — they’re getting information so many other ways. We’re looking for ways to try new things.Have you been surprised by the reaction?It was wonderful to see the response. I’m still getting many messages on my Instagram page: “Is Arthur really over?” I love seeing reactions from these young adults who grew up with Arthur, the fact that these characters are still fresh in their minds. It’s great that he’s touched so many people so deeply that they want him to continue.In the first book, “Arthur’s Nose,” Arthur looked like an aardvark with a long snout, not a mouse with glasses. What happened?The second book, “Arthur’s Eyes,” came from when my son Tolon was getting glasses. He came home and said, “Dad, I thought all my friends were better-looking.” You can’t make that up! So of course Arthur had glasses, too. As the series went on, I just got to know him better, and he became more lovable and more humanlike — and his nose got shorter. It was not intentional!Have you ever met an aardvark?[Laughs.] I haven’t had any encounters with aardvarks, although I think there may be one that lives in an apartment across the street.The series is notable for its diverse characters, including ones with blindness, dyslexia, autism and dementia. How did you ensure those representations were accurate?We work with a series of experts for each episode, like the one we did about Arthur’s grandfather, Dave, who was struggling with Alzheimer’s and doesn’t remember Arthur’s name. Things like that are so important, and so many families are dealing with that. We heard from a dad who watched the show about autism and discovered through the show that his son was autistic and wrote to thank us. The show helped parents understand their kids. Matt Damon’s mom happens to be one of our wonderful experts who’s helped us with many episodes. That’s how we got Matt Damon as a guest star. The poor guy didn’t know what hit him!The show made headlines in 2019 when it revealed that Mr. Ratburn, Arthur’s teacher, is gay. The episode also showed his wedding to a man. Did you have any worries about how people would react?We want to represent the world around us. When we wanted to have Arthur’s teacher get married, we thought it could be opportunity for him to marry a same-sex partner — and kudos to PBS, who got behind us and let us do that, and do it in a way that wasn’t about his sexual orientation. It was about the fact that their teacher, who they love, found a partner who he loved, and they were happy for him.When The New York Times talked to you in 1996 — shortly after the first episodes aired — you were getting 100,000 letters a year from kids. How much fan mail do you get these days?I get letters asking for Francine’s phone number — well, Francine [a monkey character on the show] doesn’t have a phone number! Years ago, I was really stupid: In the book “Arthur’s Thanksgiving,” I put our home phone number in a little illustration of a bulletin board that says “Call Arthur at 749-7978.” Every Thanksgiving, the phone began to ring and ring and ring. My wife, Laurie, had the best response. You’d hear a little voice say: “Hello? Is Arthur there?” And she’d say, “No, he’s at the library.” That was when we lived outside Boston; it went on for a few years!Brown in his Manhattan home with his cat Romeo. “I haven’t had any encounters with aardvarks,” Brown said, “although I think there may be one that lives in an apartment across the street.”Calla Kessler for The New York TimesWhat’s next for you?For three years now, I’ve been working on a new preschool animated show called “Hop.” It’s a little frog, and one of his legs is a little shorter than the other. It’s a show about the power of friendship, solving problems together and kindness.And my dream for an Arthur feature film, which I decided wasn’t ever going to happen, might actually happen in a way I could be proud of. When that idea was hatched 15 years ago, I spent way too much time out in Los Angeles talking to people that weren’t making a whole lot of sense — in my mind. But now I think I’ve found the right people.Can we do a quick speed round? There are several fan theories that I’d love to have you confirm or deny.Sure.Let’s start with the most plausible: Arthur lives in Pennsylvania.Well, I grew up in Erie, Penn. Lakewood Elementary School was where I went to elementary school. I can still see my third-grade class, and all my friends, many of whom turned into characters in Arthur’s world. But I also lived in Massachusetts for many years, and I used a lot of elements from there — the movie theater in “Arthur’s Valentine” was the theater down the street where we lived. When Carol and I were trying to come up with a name for Arthur’s hometown, she suggested Elwood City, which is also in Pennsylvania, near a place where she lived as a child. That’s how it happened, folks!Arthur gets married.I’m not telling you! You’ll have to tune in and find out.Arthur takes place in a multiverse.No? [Laughs.]Arthur is a reality series directed by Matt Damon.I hadn’t heard that one. That’s interesting.The whole show is acted out by aliens.Well, we did do something similar a few years ago with Buster and his fascination with aliens, so …That’s not a no?I couldn’t be happier inspiring people’s imagination. That’s a good thing! More

    • 75 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Trevor Noah: Russia Loves Playing Chess

      by

      Noah said Russia has been preparing to play chess while Americans “love dumb games now,” poking fun at a preference for Wordle.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.What’s ‘Checkmate’ in Russian?Russia continued to threaten to invade Ukraine on Thursday despite claims that its forces would be pulling back from the border.“I’m not going to lie, guys: It wouldn’t be a surprise if Russia was being sneaky,” Trevor Noah said. “I mean, this is the same country that hides dolls inside bigger dolls. Do you know how sick you have to be to do that?”“But America is certain — they’re certain — that Russia is still planning to invade. In fact, today the U.S. Secretary of State even said what Russia might do to justify an invasion is launch fake or even real chemical weapons at themselves and then blame it on Ukraine. Yeah, yeah, first of all, uh, spoilers, hello!” — TREVOR NOAH“Secondly, can you imagine that, staging a chemical attack on yourself to justify your invasion? That’s pretty messed up, especially for the Russian soldiers who have to carry out the mission: [imitating Russian soldier] ‘So we launch this on ourselves but this is fake, yes?’ [imitating another Russian soldier] ‘Yeah, we will find out when bomb explodes. Mystery, excitement.’” — TREVOR NOAH“And you know, people, as erratic as the Russians’ actions might seem, you understand what they’re doing right now, right? They’re playing chess. This is literally what chess is all about: [imitating chess player] ‘Oh, I’m moving forward. I’m moving backwards. I’m attacking. No, I’m not. The horse is going this way, then it turns.’ This is what Russia is doing — and the Russians love playing chess. They’ve been designed for this moment. Meanwhile, the rest of us, we don’t play chess anymore. We love dumb games now. We’re like, ‘Uh, I need a five-letter word that ends in d-e. Plate? No.’” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Pillow Drop Edition)“Lindell has a plan to support the Canadian truckers, and you’ll never guess what it is — send them a bunch of MyPillows.” — STEPHEN COLBERT, on MyPillow C.E.O. Mike Lindell“Lindell loaded up a truck with 10,000 pillows — almost as many as on the bed in your great-aunt’s guest room.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Who would’ve ever guessed his voter fraud crusade would wind up being the second-craziest thing he’s done?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Mike told The Daily Beast his backup plan was to fly a helicopter over the border and drop the pillows from the sky. Then he claimed he was trolling the reporter. But at this point, how would we have any way of knowing when you’re joking or not?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“OK, so the Canadian border guards are stopping him from driving into the country, so he’s playing it safe by using a helicopter to violate their airspace. Good thing he’s got those 10,000 pillows — they can cushion the fall when the Canadian air force shoots his [expletive] down.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And another question, why are you sending pillows to Canada? They have pillows. I think that’s where Canadian geese come from, Canada.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJordan Klepper went straight to the source and talked with Canadian truckers protesting the Covid-19 vaccine mandate on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAdam Makké as Noah and Sharon D. Clarke as Caroline in the recent Broadway revival of “Caroline, or Change.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesJason Zinoman investigates the long, rich Jewish tradition of grappling with antisemitism by laughing at it. More