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    Did You Find These Easter Eggs in ‘The Bear’ Season 3?

    Subtle, and not so subtle, culinary references are sprinkled throughout the show’s third season.In its third season, “The Bear,” a television show known for its dedicated hyperrealism, did not disappoint fans looking for real-world culinary references. As Carmy (Jeremy Allen White), Sydney (Ayo Edebiri) and their team of former sandwich professionals hustled for a Michelin star or two at their newly opened fine-dining spot, Easter eggs dotted the show. We’ve compiled a short list, with help from restaurant industry professionals, of the most true-to-life nods and hidden surprises:In certain corners of Reddit, it is rumored that the entire show is loosely based on the life of the chef Curtis Duffy, an owner of Ever restaurant in Chicago. But, while the creators have dined at his restaurant, “If they were studying me, I didn’t know it,” he said.The photos of the restaurant critics posted in the Bear office are of actual people, including the New Yorker writer Naomi Fry, the “How Long Gone” podcaster Chris Black and Sue Chan, who runs the culinary events and marketing agency Care by Chan. On the show, Marcus, the pastry chef played by Lionel Boyce, makes a “caviar sundae.” A similar dish was served at the renowned, now-closed restaurant 108 in Copenhagen, a culinary hotbed to which “The Bear” has referred numerous times.In flashbacks to Carmy’s time at the French Laundry, Thomas Keller’s restaurant in the Napa Valley, a sign beneath the clock reads, “Sense of Urgency.” “That sign sits under every clock in every restaurant Thomas Keller has,” said Nick Fitch, a co-owner of Alston Hospitality Group who spent 12 years working the dining room at the French Laundry and Per Se.The Pilot G2 Gel Roller Pen, with a .07-millimeter tip that Carmy uses to furiously scribble throughout the season (and to write his list of “non-negotiables”) caught the eye of Greg Ryan, a co-owner of Bell’s in Los Alamos, Calif. who worked in the dining rooms at Per Se and the French Laundry for more than five years. “When I was an expediter, those were just the pens you had,” he said. “They work well on receipt paper, don’t smudge, have a fine tip and write super-smoothly.”Much has been made of Mr. Keller’s chicken-trussing demonstration — “If you ask him his favorite dish, he’ll say roast chicken,” said Mr. Fitch — but a photo of his handprint cast in concrete also makes an appearance in the season’s first episode. According to Mr. Fitch, the handprint was initially in the kitchen at the French Laundry but was extracted during an extensive renovation and moved outside, along with handprints from Corey Lee, a former French Laundry chef de cuisine, and Claire Clark, a former pastry chef at the restaurant.Joel McHale, who plays Chef David, said on “Late Night With Seth Meyers” that he was “portraying” Mr. Keller. “I don’t think he’s as awful as I was, but he does whisper at his employees,” Mr. McHale said. Others have speculated that the character is based on Daniel Humm, the chef at Eleven Madison Park. Will Guidara, a producer on “The Bear,” was a business partner of Mr. Humm’s until the two had a tense public split. Mr. McHale said in a GQ interview this week that “David is apparently based on Thomas Keller and Daniel Humm,” and added, “There wasn’t any material. I’ve never met them.”In Episode 2, Carmy calls a dish of sea bass topped with potato chips a “Boulud nod,” as in Daniel Boulud, the renowned chef who created crisp paupiettes of sea bass in Barolo sauce. That dish uses thinly sliced potatoes as a crust for a skinless fillet, and Mr. Boulud has in turn credited a mullet dish made by Paul Bocuse as his inspiration.The tip-versus-service-charge conversation among the Bear’s staff touches on a hot-button issue that’s playing out all over the country. Many restaurateurs, most famously Danny Meyer, have tried to create a better system, with mixed results. In California, a recently passed law seemed to make restaurant service charges illegal (as part of a bid to reduce hidden fees), but then a second bill was passed, allowing restaurants to keep those fees if they are presented clearly.In Episode 7, Chef Marcus asks Carmy about a photo of Mr. Keller with Mr. Boulud and the chef Nobu Matsuhisa as much younger men. All three went on to become world-renowned chefs. Mr. Matsuhisa has opened restaurants on five continents, and popularized the now-famous dish of miso black cod at Nobu, his restaurant in TriBeCa.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘The Bear’ Season 3: Tastes Great, Less Fulfilling

    It’s still TV’s best and most beautiful series about work and creation. But the new season is a tease.This article discusses scenes from the beginning through the end of FX’s “The Bear” Season 3, now available in full on Hulu.No one loves a mixed review. The final moments of “The Bear” Season 3 confirm this, as Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), the doe-eyed maniac at the center of the dramedy, receives an alert for the make-or-break Chicago Tribune review of his ambitious, cacophonous restaurant. He has imagined a million versions of it — absolute raves, devastating pans. Now it’s here.We don’t get to see the review, only a Mad Libs rush of contradictory words, out of context: “Brilliant.” “Complex.” “Confusing.” “Innovative.” “Stale.” “Talent.” “Disappointed.” Carmy, alone with his phone and the verdict, lets fly the season’s last words, a hearty curse.Sorry, Chef: Sometimes the truth is mixed. It is for the third season of “The Bear,” in which one of the most brilliant shows on TV attempts a complex, at times confusing, elaboration on its themes. The 10 episodes are often innovative in execution but sometimes stale in their repetition of established conflicts. It’s an astonishing display of talent. But it is likely to leave anyone hoping for narrative momentum disappointed.“The Bear” does not lack confidence. The premiere, “Tomorrow,” is a bravura scene-setter that is as much an overture as an episode. Picking up the morning after the Season 2 finale — in which Carmy successfully soft-launches the Bear but sabotages his romance with Claire (Molly Gordon) — it’s an impressionistic tour of his manic consciousness.There is very little dialogue; mostly this episode, written by the series creator Christopher Storer, tells its stories in a series of quick cuts set to a mesmerizing score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. It dips into the near and remote past, flashing on scenes from the previous seasons, sneak-peeking moments from later in Season 3 and fleshing out events from Carmy’s history. At times it’s hard to tell what’s present and past as you tumble about in his perseverating mind.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Nikki Haley Appears on ‘Saturday Night Live’

    Ayo Edebiri hosted in a show that focused much of its energy on politics, along with Taylor Swift conspiracy theories and a “Dune” popcorn bucket.“Saturday Night Live” resumed its election-season tradition of bringing on political candidates to play themselves, inviting Nikki Haley for a cameo in its opening sketches this weekend.Haley, who has tried to make use of comedy and popular culture as she trails former President Donald J. Trump in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, appeared in a segment that was presented as a CNN town hall event with Trump (played by the show’s resident Trump impersonator, James Austin Johnson).Johnson fielded questions from other “S.N.L.” cast members, explaining how he planned to beat President Biden and would “stop Taylor Swift from infiltrating the Super Bowl.” The town hall moderators then introduced a question from an audience member “who describes herself as a concerned South Carolina voter.”That voter turned out to be Haley, the former governor of South Carolina (as well as an ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration). “Yes, hello,” Haley said to Johnson. “My question is, why won’t you debate Nikki Haley?”“Oh my God, it’s her!” Johnson said. “The woman who was in charge of security on Jan. 6. It’s Nancy Pelosi.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    See Golden Globes Winners Celebrate Their Big Moment

    What Winning a Golden Globe Looks LikeLily Gladstone, Paul Giamatti, Billie Eilish and stars from “Succession,” “Beef” and “The Bear” are captured in their moments of glory.The Los Angeles-based photographer Erik Carter was backstage at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Sunday, where he photographed Golden Globes winners for The Times.Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in any Motion PictureDa’Vine Joy Randolph, ‘The Holdovers’“I hope I’ve helped you all find your inner Mary. Because there’s a little bit of her in all of us.” — Da’Vine Joy Randolph, in her acceptance speech. She played Mary, the mourning mother, in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers.”Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy‘The Bear’From left: Abby Elliott, Jeremy Allen White, Lionel Boyce, Ayo Edebiri, Liza Colón-Zayas (foreground), Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Matty Matheson and Edwin Lee Gibson.“There are so many people I probably forgot to thank. Oh, my God, all of my agents’ and managers’ assistants! To the people who answer my emails. Y’all are real ones. Thank you for answering my crazy, crazy emails.” — Ayo Edebiri, in her acceptance speech for best actress in a TV comedy.Best Original Song, Motion PictureBillie Eilish and Finneas, ‘What Was I Made For?,’ from ‘Barbie’“It was exactly a year ago, almost, that we were shown the movie and I was very, very miserable and depressed at the time. Writing that song kind of saved me a little bit. A year later and here we are, and it’s really surreal. I feel incredibly, incredibly lucky and grateful.” — Billie Eilish, in her acceptance speech.Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture, DramaLily Gladstone, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’“This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little Native kid who has a dream, who is seeing themselves represented.” — Lily Gladstone, in her acceptance speech.Best Performance by an Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for TelevisionSteven Yeun, ‘Beef’Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy‘Poor Things’From left, the director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and Mark Ruffalo.Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or ComedyPaul Giamatti, ‘The Holdovers’Best Performance by an Actress in a Limited Series, Anthology Series or Motion Picture Made for TelevisionAli Wong, ‘Beef’“I really need to thank the father of my children and my best friend, Justin, for all of your love and support. It’s because of you that I’m able to be a working mother.” — Ali Wong, in her acceptance speech.Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Supporting RoleElizabeth Debicki, ‘The Crown’Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, DramaKieran Culkin, ‘Succession’“Thanks to ‘Succession,’ I’ve been in here a couple of times. It’s nice, but I sort of accepted I’m never going to be onstage, so this is a nice moment.” — Kieran Culkin, in his acceptance speech. More

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    ‘The Bear’ Wins Best Comedy at the Golden Globes

    Globe voters said “Yes, chef,” to “The Bear,” which beat out “Ted Lasso” and “Abbott Elementary” to win best comedy.One quibble: Is “The Bear” even a comedy? Any episode of the restaurant-set FX series has more agita and fewer jokes than most dramas. Some scenes and some entire episodes, like the most recent season’s standout, “Fishes,” can only be watched through fingers. But “The Bear,” created by Christopher Storer, also has a softish heart — among other organ meats — and a half-hour running time, enough to land it in this category.The first season, which saw Jeremy Allen White’s troubled chef, Carmy, inherit the restaurant from his dead brother, was a surprise hit despite its grubby milieu and absence of bankable stars. (Apologies, Oliver Platt.) It made an immediate internet pinup of White and a darling of his co-star, Ayo Edebiri, who plays a driven upstart chef. The second season saw the eatery morph from an Italian beef joint to a Michelin-courting sensation. It focused more on the camaraderie among the staff even as it broke a few characters away for special episodes, and it was praised for its realistic depictions of work, grief, Chicago, high-end food and friendship.A nominee last year for best comedy, “The Bear” yielded a surprise best lead actor win for White as the aggrieved Carmy. Repeating his win in the same category this year was less of a surprise.“I can’t believe I’m in this room with all these people I’ve loved so much, admired so much for so long. It’s unreal. I love this show,” he said.White’s co-star, Edebiri, won her first Golden Globe for best actress in a TV comedy.“Everybody at ‘The Bear,’ that’s my family,” Edebiri said in her breathless acceptance speech. “I love you guys so much. It’s an honor to work with you and grow alongside you.”“All of my agents, managers, assistants, the people who answer my emails, y’all are real ones,” she added. “Thank you for answering my crazy, crazy emails.”Lionel Bryce, who plays Marcus, spoke on behalf of the show’s cast and crew accepting the award. “Most importantly, thank you to the entire restaurant community,” he said. “We played these characters for a couple of hours a day for a couple of months out of the year, but this is your reality, the highs and the lows. So thank you for embracing us.” More

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    ‘The Sweet East’ Review: All-American Girl

    Starring Talia Ryder and Simon Rex, this shape-shifting satire about modern American subcultures is a curious, and occasionally delightful, object if you can handle its flippant treatment of taboos.“The Sweet East,” a shape-shifting satire about modern American subcultures, is a curious — occasionally delightful — object. Its doe-eyed leading lady, Lillian (Talia Ryder), is like the reincarnation of her ostensible namesake, the silent film star Lillian Gish. Both are blank canvasses filled out by different kinds of American dreams. Not the gooey, aspirational sort, but the delusional kind that makes you question humanity’s worth even though you can’t look away.Echoing Gish’s most well-known role, as the victimized naïf in D.W. Griffith’s infamous Ku Klux Klan epic “The Birth of a Nation” (1915), this Lillian consorts with white supremacists, too — if only for a spell before she moves on to the next part.Treating taboos with the flippancy of an eye-rolling teenager, “The Sweet East” tracks the high schooler Lillian’s journeys around the northeastern seaboard. The film is directed by the veteran cinematographer Sean Price Williams (“Good Time”), who shot the film as well and employs grainy B-movie aesthetics.Mileage is sure to vary on the film’s picaresque antics. Lillian falls in with what Williams and the screenwriter Nick Pinkerton see as the most mockable crews: brain-fried anarchists in Washington, D.C.; a sexually repressed Muslim brotherhood in rural Vermont; navel-gazing filmmakers (Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy O. Harris) in the Big Apple. This latter group casts Lillian as the star in their upcoming period movie about the construction of the Erie Canal, which features a meta heartthrob-du-jour played by Jacob Elordi.Pinkerton’s cheeky script flattens when it’s up against the crust-punk radicals and the jihadists; and at its strongest when skewering a neo-Nazi intellectual (Simon Rex) angling to make Lillian his child bride. This weirdly eloquent figure is played marvelously by Rex, who hits the right balance between sincerity and absurdity that other parts of the film sometimes bungle. Maybe it’s low hanging fruit that the white supremacist character is the best comic fodder, but the film’s trolling is stranger and more esoterically inclined than its selection of political punching bags would seem to warrant.The Sweet EastNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘Bottoms’ and the Tricky Tone of a Horror-Indie-Drama-Action-Teen-Sex Comedy

    The director Emma Seligman took a big leap from her buzzy feature debut, “Shiva Baby.” But this is the film she wanted to make all along.In “Bottoms,” a pair of teenagers start a fight club in their high school gym. The twist: The pugilists are lesbians, and they are whaling on each other — in the guise of self-defense — as a way to attract the hottest cheerleaders. (It’s a satire on many levels.)The writer-director Emma Seligman had the idea and sold the script — to Elizabeth Banks’s production company — even before her feature debut, “Shiva Baby,” put her on the indie filmmaker map in 2021.“I really love teen adventure movies,” Seligman said in a phone interview, “and giving queer kids the chance to be in that story.”Seligman, 28, grew up in Toronto in a family of film buffs. “Everyone here is always just talking about movies,” she said. By 10, she was a judge at a children’s film festival; later she got involved with the Toronto International Film Festival. She studied the subject at New York University, where she met the two stars of “Bottoms” — Rachel Sennott (who co-wrote the film) and Ayo Edebiri, a breakout actress from “The Bear.” (Seligman has an eye for talent: “Bottoms” also features Nicholas Galitzine, of “Red, White & Royal Blue,” as a quarterback boyfriend; and the former N.F.L. player Marshawn Lynch as a teacher with questionable methods.)“Shiva Baby,” about a young woman who encounters her sugar daddy at a shiva, was based on Seligman’s experience of Jewish life and on her college milieu. “I went on one sugar date,” she said. “Not everyone was doing it, but so many people were doing it to the point where it was so normal.” (It wasn’t ultimately her thing.) “Bottoms,” though it exists in a heightened world, is also personal. “It’s just wanting to see yourself,” said Seligman, who is gay. As she recalled Banks telling her: “You can’t underestimate how much young people want to see themselves onscreen.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.“Shiva Baby” had a small cast and essentially one set. “Bottoms” has an ensemble and multiple locations. How did you prepare to scale up?The jump was quite challenging. I knew there were going to be a million and one lessons I was going to have to learn, but I just didn’t know what they were going to be. It’s like knowing you’re about to get hazed but not knowing how.I tried to have conversations with as many directors as I could to get their advice — Adam McKay, Greg Berlanti, who directed “Love, Simon,” and Atom Egoyan. It was helpful, but most of them were like, “You’re not going to know until you’re just doing it.” I went to [Elizabeth Banks’s] house before we shot, and we talked about costume and hair and improv — it wasn’t her giving didactic advice. It was me asking: “As a director, how do you prepare to do this?” And everyone was like, stop asking questions. Stop getting in your head.Edebiri and Sennott in “Bottoms.” Seligman said she “wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls.”via Orion Pictures IncRachel Sennott has starred in both your films. What clicked with you two?Neither of us were in the industry or came from industry families. Her level of ambition and organization and her intense work ethic was really inspiring. It’s a wild thing to be like, “I’m going to devote all this time to writing two screenplays, when there’s nothing in the world telling me that this will work out.” Her energy was: “It’s not crazy, we will do it, and we will make a living.” It’s rare for someone to want to see you succeed as much as they want themselves to succeed.How did you envision Ayo Edebiri in this role?I met Ayo at a party before I met Rachel. I had a vague idea of “Bottoms” in my head. And I was like, “Oh, if I ever made that high school movie, that girl would be so funny in it.” It’s been really incredible to watch her grow into the success that she’s become. It’s not a surprise at all to me, but I feel a little bit like I have street cred because I’m like, “Yeah, I knew.” She’s just so funny. We finished “Bottoms,” and “The Bear” came out a month later and her world changed.Where did you want to focus your satire?The way queer teen characters are always so innocent in teen movies. Whether they’re being traumatized or finding love, they’re so sweet and often don’t have any sexual thoughts at all — or if they do, they’re not expressing it, or they’re not talking in a vulgar way. And we also wanted to satirize the way female friendship is often shoved down our throats onscreen with teen girls — characters that are like, “I love you, queen! You’re the best thing ever!” We wanted to make fun of that.“Bottoms” builds on a lot of the teen movie canon, starting with “Heathers.” What else did you use as a reference?We pulled from that era of the ’90s — I guess “Heathers” is the ’80s — but that kind of female, campy, driven, high school and murder [comedy].“Bring It On” was a big reference. That movie strikes such a beautiful tone of campiness while caring deeply about the characters — it’s right on the edge. “Pen15,” definitely — looking at the show about this beautiful female friendship, that was so ridiculous and stupid at the same time, and so relatable. That came out right around when we started writing. “Wet Hot American Summer” was a big one. There’s not murder in that. But they do get addicted to heroin for the day. And Liz is in it, which is also great.How did you find the right tone?It took a long time to figure that out. I don’t think Rachel and I originally intended to have the audience care about the characters that much. We actually felt like in female comedy, there’s too much stress on, “Care about these girls” and “Care about the friendship.” We wanted to give the female characters a chance to be so [terrible] that you’re not supposed to care about them at all. But I think over the years, as we would get notes from our producers or the studio, we let up a little bit.I really think tone is always the trickiest thing to master. And I would love one day to do a movie that’s just one genre, to see if it’s any easier than a horror-indie-dramedy-action-teen-sex-comedy, or whatever we did. More