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    Seth Meyers and His Brother, Josh, Poke Fun at Family Vacations on Podcast

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    In their podcast, “Family Trips With the Meyers Brothers,” the comedians interview notable guests about memorable childhood holidays.When Seth and Josh Meyers were kids, their family spent a week in Maine at a waterfront cabin, where their mother got bitten by a horsefly, developed a bad reaction and ended up in the emergency room.“Her forearms looked like Popeye’s,” Josh recalled.“I remember spending the entirety of the trip in a room with a bunk bed that was a billion degrees,” added Seth, the host of a late-night talk show and a “Saturday Night Live” alumnus.These days, the brothers — both writers and comedians and the rare siblings who claim not to have fought over territory when they were young — mine similar vacation disasters for their weekly podcast, “Family Trips With the Meyers Brothers.” They interview guests including comedians, actors, musicians and even Bill Gates, about their memories of childhood vacations, many of which went awry.“Family trips are high-stakes affairs. We have expectations that these trips should be special. We go into them with the intention of making memories,” Josh said. “And the further we get away from the doomed excursions, creepy hotels, car breakdowns, illnesses, bad weather and knock-down drag-out fights with our siblings, the funnier it all gets.”We talked about the inception of their podcast, which turns two this month, aspects of childhood travel that they miss and what makes family trips, even disastrous ones, worth taking.This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.Tell us how the podcast came about.Seth: A family trip sort of stress-tests the family dynamic, both for the good and the bad. I think you really find out a lot about the people you’re closest with when it’s an away game.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      Thanksgiving Streaming Recommendations for Every Mood

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      Whether you’re with hanging out with children or adults, want to laugh or tuck into an adventure, here are some specific selections to stream.“What do you all want to watch?”This question has torpedoed many get-togethers, leaving the poor soul wielding the remote at a Thanksgiving gathering to search and scroll through seemingly infinite streaming options until everyone is cross-eyed and over it. Let’s skip that part, shall we? Here are a handful of picks that might fit the bill for some common holiday dynamics.Family Friendly, but Not CornyAlex Honnold climbs El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. His feat was captured in the 2018 documentary “Free Solo.”Jimmy Chin/National GeographicDocumentary with the little ones: “Tiger” (Disney+)There is no shortage of stunning nature documentaries, but this 2024 Disneynature film from the director Mark Linfield (“Planet Earth”) goes beyond the usual script to tell a poignant family tale. Narrated by Priyanka Chopra Jonas and filmed over the course of 1,500 days, we follow a tigress named Ambar in the forests of India as she protects her cubs from predators and adverse weather while on a perpetual quest to feed them and herself.Documentary with the teenagers: “Free Solo” (Disney+)This 2018 film that follows Alex Honnold on his free solo ascent of El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, won the Oscar for best documentary for good reason. Not only will his feat shake your understanding of what is humanly possible, but how it was captured on film (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin directed) is just as gripping. Watch this on the biggest television you have. It’s worth it.Feature with the little ones: “Elemental” (Disney+)If you’ve already seen “Inside Out 2,” try this 2023 Pixar comedy set in Element City, where characters are divided into four strata: water, earth, air and fire, all magnificently rendered, creating a dazzling animated experience. The plot looks thoughtfully at family ties while telling a story of cross-cultural romantic love and self-actualization.Feature with the teenagers: “Spirited Away” (Max)It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 25 years since the release of this now revered Oscar-winning fantasy anime from the celebrated Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. It re-entered the zeitgeist this year with Billie Eilish’s track “Chihiro,” named after the film’s main character, a girl who slips into another realm, where she becomes trapped. The hand-drawn animation is transporting, and the coming-of-age themes will open the door for some deeper reflection.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      How to Plan a Family Heritage Trip

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      In the second season of the TV show “The White Lotus,” three generations of a fictional American family travel to Sicily to try to reconnect with their ancestral roots. Though their journey goes hilariously wrong at times, heritage trips like theirs have become serious business.Decades ago, Americans who were interested in traveling to explore their roots had to rely on family lore, sort through dusty books and, often, follow their gut. But DNA-testing sites, online genealogical databases and social media have made searching far easier, fueling a growing interest in heritage travel.Global heritage tourism is a nearly $600-billion-a-year industry, which is expected to keep growing by about 4 percent annually through 2030, according to market analysis by Grand View Research. And TV programs like “Who Do You Think You Are?” and “Finding Your Roots,” which follow mostly celebrities as they discover their heritage, are continuing to inspire other journeys.Not everyone goes on a heritage trip for the same reason: Maybe you want to meet living relatives to swap photos and stories. Maybe you are tracking down official documents to obtain dual citizenship. Or you could simply be looking to connect with a place your family once called home.Here are some tips for planning your own heritage trip.Follow your DNAServices like Ancestry.com, FamilyTreeDNA, MyHeritage and the struggling 23andMe use your genes to decode your family’s likely places of origin. Other DNA-testing websites cater to specific ethnic groups, like African Ancestry or Somos Ancestria, for Latino origins. The cost of the DNA test kits, which usually require a saliva sample, can vary from about $40 to $300, depending on the company and how detailed you want your results to be.Do some free online sleuthingBirth, death, marriage and census records can help you narrow your search to specific places. You can dig into these sources through the U.S. Census Bureau or the National Archives and Records Administration. If you don’t know where to start, FamilySearch is an easy-to-use, free website funded by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (You don’t have to be a member of the church to use it.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Oasis Comeback: A Timeline of the Gallagher Brothers’ Feud

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      When Liam and Noel Gallagher get together, hide the tambourines.The Kinks, the Allman Brothers Band, the Jacksons: Every band of brothers occasionally bickered, even feuded.But no sibling rivalry reached the level of rancor found in Oasis, the Britpop band that improbably announced that it is reuniting after years of animosity, insults and at least one incident involving a cricket bat.Here’s a look at the roller coaster career of Liam and Noel Gallagher, two brothers who managed to produce the music of a generation while mostly despising each other.The sound of the ’90s had a taste of the ’60s.The members of Oasis in 1993, from left to right: Paul McGuigan, Noel Gallagher, Tony McCarroll, Paul Arthurs and Liam Gallagher. James Fry/Getty ImagesOasis was formed in 1991 in Manchester, England. There were various members, some of whom came and went. But the constants were the Gallagher brothers: Liam, the lead singer, and Noel, the lead guitarist and songwriter.They soon came to be the most prominent band in a ’90s movement called Britpop, joining groups like Blur and Pulp in producing catchy rock music with a ’60s influence.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      ‘Chimp Crazy,’ ‘Childless Cat Ladies’ and the Fault Lines of Family Life

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      The charged cultural conversation about pets and children — see “Chimp Crazy,” “childless cat ladies” and more — reveals the hidden contradictions of family life.“Monkey love is totally different than the way that you have love for your child,” Tonia Haddix, an exotic animal broker, says at the beginning of “Chimp Crazy,” the documentary HBO series investigating the world of chimpanzee ownership. “If it’s your natural born child, it’s just natural because you actually gave birth to that kid. But when you adopt a monkey, the bond is much, much deeper.”“Chimp Crazy” arrives in a summer of cultural and political obsession about the place of animals in our family lives. When JD Vance became the Republican vice-presidential nominee, his 2021 comment about “childless cat ladies” resurfaced, positioning them as adversaries of the traditional family. New York magazine published a special issue questioning the ethics of pet ownership, featuring a polarizing essay from an anonymous mother who neglected her cat once her human baby arrived. In the background of these stories, you can hear the echoes of an internet-wide argument that pits companion animals against human children, pet and tot forced into a psychic battle for adult recognition.These dynamics feel supercharged since 2020, the year when American family life — that insular institution that is expected to provide for all human care needs — became positively airtight. The coronavirus pandemic exaggerated a wider trend toward domestic isolation: pet owners spending more time with their animals, parents more time with their children, everyone less time with one another — except perhaps online, where our domestic scenes collide in a theater of grievance and stress.When a cat, a dog or certainly a chimp scampers through a family story, it knocks it off-kilter, revealing its hypocrisies and its harms. In “Chimp Crazy,” Haddix emerges as the avatar for all the contradictions of the domestic ideal of private home care: She loves her chimp “babies” with such obsession that she traps them (and herself) in a miserable diorama of family life.Haddix, a 50-something woman who describes herself as the “Dolly Parton of Chimps,” believes that God chose her to be a caretaker. She was a registered nurse before she became a live-in volunteer at a ramshackle chimp breeding facility in Missouri, where she speaks of a male chimp named Tonka as if she is his mother. Haddix also has two human children; she just loves them less, and says so on television.As she appoints herself the parent to an imprisoned wild animal, she asserts an idealized form of mothering — one she describes as selfless, unending and pure. “Chimp Crazy” is the story of just how ruinous this idea of love can be, for the woman and the ape.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Movies

      ‘Charm Circle’ Review: Welcome to Queens

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      In this tender and funny documentary, Nira Burstein films her parents in their house in Queens without making excuses about their unsettled lives.Not many documentaries about families are truly able to get into the unkempt reality of home life, without tidy explanations and dramatic beats. In the touching and funny “Charm Circle,” Nira Burstein films her parents in their shambolic house in Queens with a persistent, loving curiosity about their relationship with each other and with their three adult daughters.Burstein lets us see her parents, Raya and Uri, for the people they are, rather than simply diagnosing their situation, which is only part of their story. Each of them faces psychiatric issues, as does their daughter Judy, who is developmentally disabled. Financial troubles also loom. But with a skill that’s easy to take for granted, the filmmaker portrays the matter-of-fact eccentricities of their personalities and their love, anger, and confusion — the emotional weather system of it all.Raya gazes at the hilariously quotable Uri with adoration, but can’t stand his temper. Uri was a real estate agent until a “nervous breakdown,” he says; Raya’s psychiatric challenges led her to be hospitalized. Home videos show how some habits and disputes have persisted for years. One daughter, Adina, fled to live on the West Coast, and is planning to marry two women, which Uri finds at odds with Jewish law.Uri and Raya (who have disarmingly direct affects) show a mix of insight and innocence that also feels like a faithful rendering of the vulnerability within a relationship. The nickname for their residence, “The Glass House,” recalls the famously troubled family of J.D. Salinger’s stories — an apt echo for this film’s rumpled intimacy.Charm CircleNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 19 minutes. Watch on the Criterion Channel. More

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      in Music

      Day 22: A Very Bollywood Christmas

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      In my Indian American family, where no occasion passes without celebration, getting into the Christmas spirit means grooving to Bollywood music. Though none of our elders grew up celebrating Christmas, they’ve embraced it wholly, and when we come together for Christmas dinner at my in-law’s home in Los Angeles, everyone has a task. While the moms roast the nuts with chaat masala and the dads gather ’round the wine, my job is to sync my phone to a bluetooth speaker and play deejay. My father-in-law, Vrajesh Lal, the family’s patriarch, begins the evening with a full glass of pinot noir and a request for “something Christmas-y,” like “Elvis’ Christmas Album.” (Having immigrated from India to the U.S. in 1972, Vrajesh is a big fan of Elvis.) But when the nuts give way to Cornish game hens and cumin-crusted squash (for the vegetarians), he never fails to flag me down with a new directive: “Let’s put on some Bollywood, huh?” My playlist includes Bhangra-style covers of Christmas music, with beats that hail from north India, songs from the Bollywood Brass Band and some of my father-in-law’s favorite Bollywood hits. Even the King cannot compete with this family’s compulsion to celebrate Christmas with jams from the mother country.The album, “A Jolly Bolly Christmas,” features Bollywood and Bhangra versions of Christmas classics. Keda Records More

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      in Movies

      ‘Our American Family’ Review: How Addiction Affects the Household

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      In this intimate documentary, a Philadelphia family of six reels from a daughter’s recent overdose.“Our American Family,” an intimate documentary, hopes to give a human face to the epidemic of addiction. The film opens and closes with footage of rainy city streets as maudlin music plays, but for the most part, the directors Hallee Adelman and Sean King O’Grady wisely home in on the story of a family of six in Philadelphia.The documentary pays special attention to the clan’s matrilineal bonds. When the film begins, the 29-year-old Nicole has recently survived an overdose, and must move into a nearby rehab clinic. She leaves her toddler in the care of her mother, Linda. Nicole is a veteran of recovery programs, and she approaches her crisis with a clear eye and jocular attitude.Also living under Linda’s roof are her husband (and Nicole’s stepfather), Bryan, and Nicole’s two brothers, Chris and Stephen. This is a stubborn group prone to squabbles, and the filmmakers assemble a nearly unremitting string of arguments, tense discussions and outbursts. Among an array of big personalities, Linda, a yoga instructor, is tasked with keeping the household peace.As the family members speak candidly both to one another and in voice-over testimonies, the film’s freshest insight lies in the comparison of addiction to cancer. Both are deadly diseases; only one is stigmatized. But for some in the family, the analogy only goes so far. People with cancer “don’t go through your wallet while you’re sleeping,” Bryan counters, adding, “They don’t get arrested because they’re trying to buy chemo.” That’s “part of the fallout from the disease,” Linda shoots back.The filmmakers let these tensions remain unsettled. Addiction is a complex, challenging topic, and “Our American Family,” in its sharp specificity, handles it with grace.Our American FamilyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters. More