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    Cory Michael Smith Burns Through ‘Mountainhead,’ by the Creator of ‘Succession’

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    Cory Michael Smith was disappointed. “I’m a big fan of pepperoni with a little more constitution,” he said, looking down at the slice of pizza on his plate. “These are tired. They’re tired cups.”This was the day after the premiere party for “Mountainhead,” the Jesse Armstrong movie that premieres Saturday on HBO. A Vantablack comedy of wealth, power and moral negligence, it evokes Armstrong’s earlier fable of the megarich, “Succession,” but is more explicitly attuned to current anxieties about Silicon Valley oligarchs.Smith stars as a social media mogul named Venis (rhymes with menace), a pampered edgelord holed up in a cartoonishly swank chalet (the Mountainhead of the title) with other tech machers, played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman and Ramy Youssef. Venis’s content creation tools have destabilized much of the global South, but he remains mostly unbothered.“Nothing means anything, and everything is funny and cool,” he tells his fellow founders, as they swipe past scenes of chaos.In person, Smith, 38, was not quite so nihilistic, though he had dressed the part, a man in black on black on black — pants, coat, shirt, tie, shoes. Offscreen, Smith is abidingly polite, with a wide smile that narrows his eyes to slits.He lives in the West Village, though increasingly work keeps him away. He had flown in for the premiere and soon he would fly out again, to Alaska where he is shooting a film that he was forbidden to discuss. Smith (“Gotham,” “Carol,” “May December”) is suddenly so in demand that he had to miss Cannes, at which “Sentimental Value,” a movie in which he co-stars, was awarded the Grand Prix.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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      ‘Mountainhead’ Review: While We Go Down, They Bro Down

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      The creator of “Succession” skewers tech billionaires in a dark comedy that is intelligent but feels a bit artificial.Over four seasons of “Succession,” the creator, Jesse Armstrong, told the story of people who control the world by selling ideas: the Roy family, who ran and fought over a media and entertainment empire. Toward its end, as their business was sold to a tech entrepreneur, “Succession” suggested that power was shifting, and that the future belonged to silicon hyperbillionaires.In his film “Mountainhead,” which premieres Saturday on HBO, that future has arrived, and it is both terrifying and ridiculous — not unlike our present. In the scabrous story of a weekend getaway for four tech-mogul frenemies, Armstrong finds that our new bro overlords are rich targets for satire, though when it comes to depth, nuance and insight, their story has nothing on the Roys’.As “Mountainhead” begins, countries around the globe are erupting in hatred and sectarian violence, fueled by A.I.-generated propaganda. This chaos is the whoopsie of Venis (Cory Michael Smith), a chuckleheaded social-media entrepreneur whose company pushed a half-baked software update that gave bad actors around the world the sudden ability to create unfalsifiable deepfake videos. (The name “Venis,” a seeming portmanteau of “venal” and “penis” that is pronounced “Venice,” is Armstrong’s sensibility in five letters.)The world is burning. But in the snowy, Randian-named retreat that gives its name to “Mountainhead,” Venis has arrived to chill with his boys. Jeff (Ramy Youssef) has developed possibly the only A.I. capable of weeding out the dangerous fake videos from Venis’s company. Randall (Steve Carell), a self-styled philosopher-exec, tosses around terms like “Hegelian” in a way that makes you wonder if he’s ever finished a book. And Hugo Van Yalk (a wonderfully debased Jason Schwartzman), the owner of the property, is a meditation-app developer nicknamed “Soup” — for “soup kitchen” — because his net worth is a mere half billion dollars.The edgy bro-down that ensues is fueled by unspoken rivalries and schemes. Venis wants Jeff to sell him his A.I., which would allow him to call off the apocalypse without having to do an embarrassing recall of the update. Randall, who has received a concerning diagnosis, is keen on Venis’s plan to usher in the “transhuman” era by uploading people’s consciousnesses to the cloud. Soup wants someone to fund his anemic wellness app and finally add a zero to his humiliating nine-digit wealth.The film centers almost entirely on this quartet. (Like the Roys, they mash up aspects of several real-life analogues — Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg and more.) The narrow focus matches their perspective: The four men see themselves as the only real people in the world, while the other eight billion of us are NPCs. At one point, Venis asks Randall, “Do you believe in other people?” The only reasonable answer is, “Obviously not!”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 Rehearsal’ Argues That Cringe Comedy Can Save Lives

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      The second season of “The Rehearsal,” Nathan Fielder’s ambitious exercise in comic social experimentation, ended on Sunday on HBO. It focused on one topic — air safety — but did so with an astounding array of props and stunts, including replica airport terminals, cloned dogs, a fake singing contest and enormous, breastfeeding puppets. James Poniewozik, chief TV critic for The Times, and Alissa Wilkinson, a Times movie critic, discussed all of the above and more.Spoilers and some simulations of Fielder’s simulations follow.HOW TO IMPROVE COMMUNICATION To help airline first officers navigate challenging interactions with co-pilots — and potentially save lives — a simulation recreates a typical day on the job.Steps: Build full-scale replica of airport terminal (fig. 1). Hire actors to portray actual crew members likely to interact with first officer (fig. 2).Simulate real-life cockpit scenarios with actors (fig. 3). Optional: Amplify tension by casting significant other as captain (fig.4).Simulation may reveal deeper emotional and relational challenges.JAMES PONIEWOZIK Alissa, the last time we convened to discuss a Nathan Fielder project, “The Curse,” it ended with his jaw-dropping ascent into the air. Today we’re talking Season 2 of “The Rehearsal” and I will not bury the lead: Our boy flew a damn passenger jet.I will say that the ending, which reveals that Fielder has been moonlighting as a commercial jet pilot, caught me by surprise (though not eagle-eyed Redditors, who noted weeks ago that Fielder had obtained a commercial pilot’s license). It also assuaged my worries that this audacious premise would fizzle out. The previews for this season suggested that it might build to Fielder bringing his ideas before a congressional subcommittee. Instead, that scene proved be a rehearsal, and the host only managed an awkward meeting with one actual representative, Steve Cohen of Tennessee.Turned out there was nowhere to go from there but up. I don’t know if the final flight of “The Rehearsal” proved the thesis — essentially, that cringe comedy can save lives. But just as Season 1 was a striking exploration of how to live with doubt and regret, Season 2’s high-concept stunts, and its combination of social commentary and personal (quasi) revelation, suggest that what might have been a one-off is in fact a spectacularly repeatable format.How well did it work for you? Please be Blunt. I’m Allears.ALISSA WILKINSON Co-pilot Blunt here, clocking in for duty. Or whatever pilots say.

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      Review: ‘Pee-wee as Himself’ Finds the Man Behind the Man-Child

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      This fascinating though incomplete documentary tells Paul Reubens’s story despite the subject’s doubts about the project.The title of “Pee-wee as Himself,” the two-part documentary that airs Friday on HBO, is a bit of a ruse, or maybe a riddle.Pee-wee Herman, the manic, bow-tied man-child, was the greatest creation of Paul Reubens, who died in 2023. But Reubens was someone else, a self whose nature was obscured, sometimes by the overshadowing fame of his alter ego, sometimes by his own choice.The question that hangs over this fascinating and tantalizing film is how much Reubens the director, Matt Wolf, will get out of Reubens. Before his death, Reubens cooperated on the documentary — but not without reservations, which he airs from the first moment he appears onscreen.“I could have directed this documentary,” he says, but adds that he was told he would not have the appropriate perspective. In his interviews with Wolf, he still seems not entirely convinced. He wants to tell his story; he is not so sure he wants his story to be told for him. He wants to show us his nature, but it is not simply going to explode out of him as if somebody said the secret word on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”What unfolds, over more than three hours, is in part a public story: How Reubens channeled his genius into an anarchic creation that bridged the worlds of alternative art and children’s TV, then had his life derailed by trumped-up scandals that haunted him to the end.It is also partly a spellbinding private story about artistry, ambition, identity and control. What does it mean to become famous as someone else? (The documentary’s title refers to the acting credit in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” as a result of which Reubens remained largely unknown even as his persona became a worldwide star.) And what were the implications of being obscured by his creation, especially for a gay man in a still very homophobic Hollywood?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

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Rehearsal’ Is an Awkward, Dazzling Ride

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      For Season 2, Nathan Fielder’s focus is commercial airline safety, hardly a typical topic for comedy. But his approach is never typical.The first season of HBO’s “The Rehearsal,” which aired in 2022, was an entrancing experiment. Created by and starring the comedian Nathan Fielder, the show began with a relatively simple but absurd premise: What if you could rehearse for events in your everyday life — like, for instance, having a difficult conversation with a friend? Eventually, the experiment turned into a large-scale simulation in which Fielder “rehearsed” raising a kid, a feat that, because of child labor rules and an accelerated timeline, involved a rotating cast of child actors.The second season premieres on Sunday, anticipated by the question: How is Fielder is going to top that first brilliantly uncomfortable season? His answer is to turn his attention to the world of commercial airline safety, and what results is both sidesplitting and one of the most stressful television watching experiences in recent memory.The season revolves around Fielder’s personal research into the causes of aviation disasters — a premise he admits isn’t particularly ripe for a comedy. (“So far, I was failing,” he narrates in what is perhaps the show’s first joke. “We were over 10 minutes into this episode with zero laughs.”) He has concluded that a primary cause of crashes is a lack of communication in the cockpit, where the second-in-command feels too intimidated to press his or her concerns with the captain.Fielder’s solution? Getting the pilots to open up through his rehearsal methods involving professional actors. But in Fielder’s universe, nothing is that straightforward.Working with real pilots and building a full-size replica of a Houston airport terminal, Fielder takes bizarrely hilarious detours. One involves a singing competition called “Wings of Voice.” Another uses oversize puppets to examine the life of the “Miracle on the Hudson” pilot Chesley Sullenberger.Fielder’s life-or-death subject is distressingly topical, but “The Rehearsal” is interested in more than aviation. It is a study of human behavior and the masks people wear, investigating the psychology not only of the pilots but also of the actors Fielder employs and, ultimately, of Fielder himself.Fielder draws from his own life more than ever — including in references to his other shows “Nathan for You” and “The Curse” — all while keeping the audience guessing about how much of what he is showing us is just a character. But his typically deadpan persona takes on new weight here. “The Rehearsal” remains one of the best comedies out there, but what’s at stake is no joke. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Television

      ‘Harry Potter’ HBO Series Casts Dumbledore, Hagrid and More Major Roles

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      John Lithgow will play the Hogwarts headmaster in the HBO show, with Paapa Essiedu filling the role of Severus Snape.Potterheads are one step closer to seeing a television series about the boy wizard come to life, two years after it was announced.HBO said on Monday that it had cast John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore, Janet McTeer as Minerva McGonagall, Paapa Essiedu as Severus Snape and Nick Frost as Rubeus Hagrid.Casting for major roles like Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley has not been announced, and the series — based on the best-selling books by J.K. Rowling — does not have an official title or air date.HBO also said that Luke Thallon and Paul Whitehouse were joining the cast as Quirinus Quirrell and Argus Filch.“We’re delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can’t wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life,” Francesca Gardiner, the showrunner of the series, and Mark Mylod, who will direct several episodes, said in a joint statement. (They are both also executive producers of the show.)Paapa Essiedu will play Severus Snape in the show.Neil Hall/EPA, via ShutterstockLithgow starred in the 1990s television series “3rd Rock From the Sun” and won Emmys for his roles in “Dexter” and “The Crown.” He has also won two Tony Awards and has an extensive movie career; he played one of the cardinals contending for the papacy in last year’s “Conclave.”He told ScreenRant in February that he had signed on to play Dumbledore, a role played in the original “Harry Potter” films by Richard Harris, who died in 2002, and Michael Gambon, who died in 2023. (Jude Law played a younger Dumbledore in “Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore,” a spinoff film.)“It was not an easy decision because it’s going to define me for the last chapter of my life, I’m afraid,” Lithgow said then. “But I’m very excited. Some wonderful people are turning their attention back to ‘Harry Potter.’ That’s why it’s been such a hard decision. I’ll be about 87 years old at the wrap party, but I’ve said yes.”The new show will air on HBO and stream on Max. HBO said in 2023 that the series would be a “faithful adaptation” of the seven books published between 1997 and 2007. Eight hit films were released between 2001 and 2011. More

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      ‘The Last of Us’ Review: On the Road Again

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      Season 2 of HBO’s zombie drama begins with Joel and Ellie safe and settled. One guess how long that lasts.HBO’s video-game-inspired, postapocalyptic hit “The Last of Us” likes to cover all its zombie bases. The first season emphasized urban hellscapes — lots of cowering and running in the ruins of Boston, Kansas City and Salt Lake City — while moving toward the open spaces of Wyoming. Season 2, premiering Sunday, goes the other direction, starting out as a grisly western — stockaded town, horse patrols, waves of attackers — but moving back to the city, this time an emptied-out Seattle.Wherever it goes, though, “The Last of Us” remains (as my colleague James Poniewozik pointed out in his Season 1 review) a zombie tale that polishes and elaborates on the conventions of the genre but does not transcend them. The course of its action and the dynamics of its relationships run in familiar grooves, lubricated by generous applications of blood and goo.Where the show has differed from the genre standard is in the dramatic weight and screen time it devotes to those relationships, or, seen another way, in its sentimentality. (I say potahto.)Other zombie shows flesh out love, friendship and loyalty just enough to provide a little extra frisson when a character becomes lunch. “The Last of Us,” which was created and is still overseen by Neil Druckmann and Craig Mazin, doesn’t reverse that equation — it still spends time, and a lot of HBO’s money, on elaborate scenes of mayhem, in close quarters or on broad canvases. But it really wants you to care. If the Hallmark Channel had a zombie drama, it might look like a PG version of “The Last of Us.”At the heart of the series, making the greatest demands on our emotions, is the Mutt and Jeff pairing of Joel (Pedro Pascal) — a hard case whose daughter was killed at the beginning of the show’s zombie-spawning fungal pandemic — and Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a teenager he met two decades later. Ellie, who would try the patience of adults far saintlier than Joel, happens to be immune to the fungus, and in Season 1 Joel reluctantly agreed to take her on a cross-country journey in pursuit of a cure. They emerged from the perilous, season-long road trip as each other’s surrogate family.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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      After “The White Lotus,” Lorazepam Lives On in Memes and Merch

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      “The White Lotus” Season 3 may be ending, but the medication that has become synonymous with it has found a new life in memes and merchandise.Etsy has been flooded with hats and candles asking the question: “Has Anyone Seen My Lorazepam?” Social media is rife with videos of people enunciating “lorazepam” in a faux Southern drawl. Lorazepam even made a cameo on a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live,” when the actress Chloe Fineman raucously shouted the word during a sketch.As anyone even loosely familiar with Season 3 of “The White Lotus” may know, this sudden tsunami of references to a prescription medication used to treat anxiety is not a sign of mass desperation. Rather, it’s a manifestation of an unceasing fan obsession with Victoria Ratliff, a character on the HBO TV show, the current season of which ends on Sunday.Played by Parker Posey, Victoria is a wealthy North Carolina woman on vacation at a wellness resort in Thailand, who, despite the idyllic setting, regularly expresses a need for her lorazepam, a drug known for being tough to quit.A massage? It could make her “very stressed out” and “claustrophobic,” Victoria says. The lorazepam helps her “to really relax,” she tells a masseuse.A party on a yacht? “Certain social situations make me anxious,” Victoria drawls at her eldest son, Saxon.Her daughter Piper’s decision to make a major life change? “I don’t even have my lorazepam,” a distraught Victoria declares after her bottle goes missing. “I’m going to have to drink myself to sleep.”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 White Lotus’ Luxury: How Branded Collaborations Are Capitalizing on Privilege

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      The hit HBO series satirizes luxury vacationers’ privilege. That hasn’t slowed demand for branded collaborations that sell the show’s lavish lifestyle.Ahead of the much-anticipated Season 3 finale of “The White Lotus,” HBO’s dark comedy-drama that skewers self-absorbed luxury travelers, some fans will be able to immerse themselves in a version of the show’s opulent settings.The Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village, in the foothills of California’s Santa Monica Mountains, is offering an “exclusive luxury wellness retreat,” set to begin hours ahead of the finale’s airing on Sunday. The experience is intended to “capture the essence” of this season’s Thailand location.“We’re inviting fans to go beyond watching ‘The White Lotus’ and truly experience it,” Pia Barlow, HBO and Max’s executive vice president of originals marketing, said in a news release about the campaign.The retreat is only one of many “White Lotus” experiences and products pegged to the current season. The premium luggage company Away sold out its “White Lotus” capsule collection, complete with lotus flower-printed interior lining. Clothing retailers including H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Bloomingdale’s and Banana Republic have all offered show-inspired resort apparel. (Patrick Schwarzenegger, a star of the season, modeled for Banana Republic.) There is “White Lotus” wallpaper, sunscreen and a travel skin-care set in a branded beach tote. Sunglasses, candles, chocolates and even a Thai coffee-flavored creamer can be purchased by viewers looking to live like the show’s wealthy protagonists.But truly experiencing “The White Lotus” is an inherently dicey proposition. The primary motif of the series — created, written and directed by Mike White — has always been to satirize the wealthy who, even while enveloped by the world’s most tranquil and extraordinary surroundings, can’t help but indulge their egos or keep up with their ever-growing list of grievances. They can’t relax either.“I just was like, I should just do a show about people on vacation who have money, and how money is impacting all of their relationships,” White told The New York Times in 2021, ahead of the Season 1 premiere.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