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    A Tiny Chef Inspires an Outsize Outpouring

    When Nickelodeon canceled “The Tiny Chef Show,” fans rallied around the wee gourmand. But his TV future remains uncertain.After the creators Rachel Larsen and Ozlem Akturk learned that their Nickelodeon series, “The Tiny Chef Show,” was canceled, they had to break it to their star.“Once we learned of the news, we just knew we needed to tell Chef,” Larsen said in a video call.Chef, by the way, is a small, cylindrical fellow with black eyes and an adorably garbled voice who lives in a tree stump and enjoys singing. He is animated, but Larsen and Akturk occasionally speak of “Cheffy,” as he is also known, as if he’s a real person.The result was a stop-motion video in which the Tiny Chef gets a phone call from what he calls “Mickelfodeon.” He then sits down to cry after he is told there will be no more new episodes.Since the clip was posted to social media about two weeks ago, the little vegan gourmand has received an outpouring of love as well as about $140,000 in donations from fans hoping to keep his content flowing. The character’s newly relaunched fan club, which is called a “Fan Cwub” to mimic Chef’s distinctive way of speaking and requires a paid membership, has drawn more than 10,000 members.Famous fans have also expressed their support. Dionne Warwick, X commentator nonpareil, posted the cancellation video with strong words for Nickelodeon: “are you proud of making this thing cry? Who is in charge over there? I want a name.”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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    Superhero Movies Dominated the Box Office, but Not the Top 100 List

    The notable exceptions — “The Dark Knight” and “Black Panther” — stood out among the many sequels and spinoffs.Any way you look at the last 25 years in film, there’s no denying that superhero movies have been a vital part of 21st-century big screen entertainment. Many refer to the release of “Iron Man” in 2008 as the official kickoff of what would become the moneymaking engine that resulted in a steady stream of blockbusters, sequels, phases and cinematic universes unto themselves. And yet “Iron Man,” and most of its successors, plucked from Marvel and DC Comics alike, are conspicuously absent from The New York Times list of the 100 best films from the 21st century so far, as voted on by influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood.For some, this may not be at all surprising. Audiences will buy tickets to the next Marvel movie, and perhaps even enjoy it for whatever combination of cinematic spectacle, fan nostalgia and actual solid filmmaking it offers, but many would be more loath to grant it the prestige of a top film.But it’s also worth considering how years of oversaturation of superhero stories on movies and TV have worn on even the most loyal fans, causing superhero fatigue and casting a shadow over even the acclaimed films that have come out of the genre. It’s difficult to consider the individual merits of films that primarily serve as cogs in the larger wheels of their franchises.Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight,” which along with “Black Panther” is one of the two superhero movies that made the list, is acclaimed for bridging the gap between prestige filmmaking and comic book material. It doesn’t hurt, too, that the film looks the part of your typical award-winning drama, with a grim, realistic tone and showcasing well-loved serious actors like Christian Bale and Gary Oldman.“The Dark Knight” and “Black Panther” are prime examples of the idea that there can be more to superhero movies than camp, spandex and CGI. The two stand out for their nuanced philosophical musings: “The Dark Knight” questions the line between chaos and control, and the significance of the hero as a symbol of justice in a world where justice is not always synonymous with law and order.And “Black Panther” was not simply the first major Black superhero film of the century, featuring Black leads, Black culture and a beautiful Black utopia, but an examination of how the diaspora created a rift between Black Africans and African Americans. And both films starred now-departed actors giving career-defining performances: Heath Ledger and Chadwick Boseman.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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    ‘Love Island USA’ Has a New Villain This Season: The Viewers

    Audiences have bullied past contestants, but after an islander has become particularly divisive, the series is taking more steps to keep fans from harassing stars and their families.For viewers, the ridiculous games, steamy make-out sessions and potential relationships that appear on “Love Island USA” are as much of a draw as what happens after they air.The reality dating show, on Peacock, brings contestants to a remote villa in Fiji to pair up and risk getting dumped (and booted from the island) or recoupled with a different romantic interest. Through the show’s official app, viewers are encouraged to vote on who should be dumped and even selecting which contestants should go on dates.But one such fan vote, and a floodgate of audience response, this season has reopened scrutiny of “Love Island” and the mental health and welfare of its contestants. In recent weeks, the host Ariana Madix took the rare step of admonishing fans, as some have sent hateful messages or threats to family and friends of the islanders.“Don’t be contacting people’s families,” she said on “Aftersun,” a weekly recap show. “Don’t be going on islanders’ pages and saying rude things.”The rebuke came after viewers were vocal in response to Huda Mustafa, a 24-year-old from North Carolina who audiences voted to split from her partner Jeremiah Brown. Her reaction was dramatic, even by reality TV standards.Mustafa shouted insults and expletives at Brown, and her aggressive behavior toward the woman Brown was recoupled with prompted another contestant, Pepe Garcia, to tell an islander: “I don’t know if we should stay close or not, in case something happens.”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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    HBO Brings Hot Fellas Bakery From ‘And Just Like That’ to Life

    “Who wants a hot croissant?” asked the actor Mario Cantone, reprising his character Anthony Marentino from the HBO show “Sex and the City.”Mr. Cantone, brandishing an apron and a cake server, added an emphasis on the word “hot” and wagged his eyebrows, turning the otherwise ordinary tray of freshly baked pastries into an innuendo.A group of fans in front of him — most of whom were women with their phones at the ready — giggled and took photos.When “Sex and the City” was brought back to life in 2021 as “And Just Like That …,” Mr. Cantone’s character pivoted from a career in wedding planning to starting up a bread delivery business, called Hot Fellas. As the name suggests, his business is staffed by sexy men in short denim rompers so tight that every arm flex or squat teases a wardrobe malfunction.The fictional business became “a fan favorite story line from the moment it first appeared,” Dana Flax, a marketing vice president at HBO Max said in an emailed statement, citing the engagement and enthusiasm for the Hot Fellas on social media.In the most recent episode of Season 3, which was released last week, Anthony opened a Hot Fellas brick-and-mortar cafe (using a pun for male genitalia to alter that phrase) and his current lover, Giuseppe, an aspiring poet played by Sebastiano Pigazzi, temporarily became a Hot Fella to help with its launch — thanks largely to his ability to fill out the skin-tight uniform.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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    BTS Reunion Nears as RM and V Finish Military Service

    RM and V emerged from a base in South Korea on Wednesday in fatigues. Three other members of the hugely popular boy band will finish their national service this month.RM and V of BTS emerged from a base in Chuncheon, South Korea, and gave fans a brief saxophone performance.Kim Hong-Ji/ReutersJin: check. J Hope: check. And on Tuesday, RM and V: check.That leaves only three members of the K-pop boy band BTS still doing their national service: Jimin, Jungkook and Suga. And when they too are discharged this month, their fans’ long wait will be over. BTS will be civilians again, and a vastly lucrative reunion can follow.RM and V emerged from a base in Chuncheon, South Korea, on Wednesday in military fatigues. V, 29, carried flowers, while RM, 30, had a saxophone on which he gave a brief impromptu performance on one knee.“There were tough and painful moments, of course,” RM said, as translated by The Korea Herald, “but during our service, I came to deeply appreciate the many people who have protected this country.”BTS’s record label, Big Hit Music, had pleaded with fans to stay home and not make a circus of the members’ discharges: “We kindly ask fans to send their warm welcome and support from their hearts.” But hundreds of screaming, camera-wielding, flag-waving fans showed up anyway.RM of BTS gave an impromptu saxophone performance after he and another member of the band, V, were discharged from South Korea’s military on Tuesday.Anthony Wallace/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesNearly all able-bodied young men in South Korea are required to serve a year and a half of military duty.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 the Age of the Algorithm, Roots Music Is Rising

    Billy Strings and Chris Thile were singing an old song called “Rabbit in a Log” at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Clouds of weedy smoke rolled up to the stage from below, and thunder echoed from the surrounding mountain peaks as the crowd of 7,000 nodded blissfully and trance-bopped in Dead-show fashion.Listen to this article, read by Eric Jason MartinThe song, also known as “Feast Here Tonight,” is about extracting a rabbit from a hollow log when you don’t have a dog (you’ll need to fashion a brier snare), cooking it over an open fire and finding a place to lay your weary bones for the night. So it’s about the techniques and outlook of the hobo, redolent of atavistic physical competence and the unforgiving facts of life. Like a lot of old-timey music heard in our disorienting present, it sounds like equipment for living, shaped and road-tested by hard times. Bill Monroe, the main force behind the merger of Scottish fiddle tunes with blues and gospel that came to be called bluegrass, recorded the song in the 1930s, but its roots extend back to earlier folk traditions in the South.It carries a considerable payload of history, and it also offers an occasion to shred. Billy Strings, who is already regarded at age 32 as an all-time great flat picker, grimaced in concentration as he laid down dense, twisting skeins of guitar notes. Thile, who is known as a wizard of the mandolin able to play anything with anybody, was all smiles and seemed to do everything without effort: impossibly swift runs, chordal washes, daring harmonic touches. Billy Strings told me later that his immediate reaction to hearing Thile warm up on mandolin backstage was “I better get some coffee.”But Billy Strings was the main attraction. Born William Lee Apostol, he is one of the biggest names in the world of roots music and still getting bigger. He consistently sells out arenas, and it seems just a matter of time before he moves up to stadiums. He has been wildly successful in attracting fans of all ages, including devotees of jam bands, heavy metal and other genres beyond the roots-music scene. He told me, “I’ll throw in some diminished runs for metalheads; you know, put some horns on it,” referring to the devil-horns finger gesture favored by fans of heavy metal, who lap up the ominous minor sound of diminished chords.Billy Strings, whose marquee turn with Thile opened the Telluride festival last June, was one of a cohort of youngish, proven-yet-still-rising stars who converged there that also included Molly Tuttle, Charley Crockett and Sierra Ferrell. They are all big fish in the expanding pond of the roots-music scene who have been testing the vaster waters of the mainstream — showing up all over late-night TV, movie soundtracks and music awards shows. Endlessly in demand as guest stars on other artists’ songs, they are both generating and riding the cultural momentum as American popular music makes one of its regular cyclical swings back toward acoustic instruments and natural voices, the values of community and craft and a heightened sense of connection to the soulful experience and hard-won wisdom of those who lived in the past. Like crafting and sewing and other embodied competences also making a comeback, music handmade by flesh-and-blood humans on instruments made of wood and metal has acquired special added meaning. It offers a strong contrast to the disembodied digital reality that more and more of us inhabit more and more of the time.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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    Timothee Chalamet Was a Knicks Superfan Before He Was Famous

    Tim Chalamet, an unknown teenager, was with the Knicks in the hard times. Timothée Chalamet, the famous actor, is loving every second of the team’s deep playoff run.Timothée Chalamet, the Academy Award-nominated actor, has been impossible to miss during the New York Knicks’ feisty run through the N.B.A. playoffs. A courtside staple at Madison Square Garden, Mr. Chalamet seemed to get nearly as much screen time as Jalen Brunson, the team’s star guard.Mr. Chalamet, 29, was particularly animated as the Knicks eliminated the Boston Celtics in their second-round series. He embraced Bad Bunny. He dapped up Karl-Anthony Towns, the Knicks’ starting center. He posed for the cameras with Spike Lee, the self-appointed dean of Knicks fandom. He leaned out the window of a sport utility vehicle on Friday to celebrate with other fans in the shadow of the Garden after the Knicks’ series-clinching win.He even earned praise on X for getting Kylie and Kendall Jenner, both famous Angelenos, to cheer alongside him at the Garden, in a post that has been viewed more than 23 million times. (That he is dating Kylie undoubtedly helped win them over.)A focus on celebrities at N.B.A. games is nothing new. For years, the Knicks have pushed the concept of the Garden’s Celebrity Row — their answer to the star-studded floor seats at Los Angeles Lakers games. But while Jack Nicholson spent decades holding court at Lakers games, and Drake has been a sideline fixture for the Toronto Raptors, the Knicks of Mr. Chalamet’s childhood often filled out the floor seats with lower-rung celebrities and entertainers who just happened to be in town. And Mr. Lee, of course.These days, Celebrity Row at the Garden delivers on its name. And in that group of A-listers, Mr. Chalamet has the fan credentials to hang with any of them.Evidence of Mr. Chalamet’s longstanding loyalty is apparent in social media posts from November 2010, around the time that Mr. Chalamet, then 14, was attending LaGuardia High School in Manhattan. He was not yet a star. His breakout role in the Showtime series “Homeland” was a couple of years away.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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    Jason Sudeikis, Spike Lee and Fans Cheer on WNBA Champions New York Liberty

    At halftime at Barclays Center in Downtown Brooklyn, where the New York Liberty, the defending W.N.B.A. champions, were leading in their season opener against the Las Vegas Aces, the team’s mascot, Ellie the Elephant, danced to Nicki Minaj.Downstairs in the Crown Club, a space reserved for select ticket holders, the “Severance” actors John Turturro and Zach Cherry chatted in the front of the room. In the back, Robin Roberts, the broadcaster, had a quiet meal with Russell Wilson, the quarterback of the New York Giants. Joining them were the owners of the Liberty, the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center, Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, who is also the founder and chairman of the Chinese tech company Alibaba.After dominating much of the game, the Liberty won, 92-78.Jonquel Jones, a power forward for the Liberty.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesSabrina Ionescu, a guard for the Liberty.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesBefore the game, the team was presented with rings commemorating their 2024 championship victory.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesThe filmmaker Spike Lee was also in the Crown Club, browsing a room filled with free popcorn, water and candy, including boxes of Milk Duds and Swedish Fish.“It’s just such a great moment for the city,” he said, reflecting on an unusually momentous weekend for New York sports teams, which also included a subway series between the Mets and the Yankees, as well as a playoff run for the Knicks.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