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      Marty Callner Might Be the Most Influential Comedy Director

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      Marty Callner made the first modern special, setting the template still in use. (He was also key to hair-metal videos. But that’s another story.)Since comedy is often overlooked at the Oscars, why doesn’t it have its own awards show?It’s been tried, but the self-seriousness of such events can be an odd fit. So when Netflix started an awards show celebrating the greats in stand-up — who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame being built at the National Comedy Center — it was inevitable that a participating comic would make fun of the whole thing.At the recent Los Angeles taping of that awards show, “The Hall: Honoring the Greats of Stand-Up,” which premieres on Thursday, Richard Pryor, Joan Rivers, George Carlin and Robin Williams were inducted with speeches by Dave Chappelle, Chelsea Handler, Jon Stewart and John Mulaney. When Mulaney introduced Williams by reading a letter from the late comic’s daughter, he appeared momentarily emotional before pausing to say: “I don’t want to cry at a fake awards show.”That didn’t sit right with Marty Callner, the show’s co-creator (with Randall Gladstein) and director, who cut that quip in the edit. “It’s real,” he told me in the backyard of his Malibu home. “The Hall” has been a longtime dream of his, an effort to reintroduce classic comedy to younger generations, and an honor that he says comics will appreciate and care about. “These guys are still human beings and they still have egos and they still want a legacy.”John Mulaney inducting Robin Williams into the Hall of Fame on the new special.Terence Patrick/NetflixCallner, 75, has his own complicated relationship with a public legacy since his remarkable career has largely existed in the background. In fact, he might be the most successful director you have never heard of.Over the past five decades, Callner has worked with some of the most famous brand names in popular culture — Madonna, Jerry Seinfeld, the Dallas Cowboys — and was a formative figure at the dawn of two modern art forms: the stand-up special and the music video, neither of which are known for giving much credit to the director. If that weren’t enough innovation, he also created “Hard Knocks,” a hit reality show that for 20 years, turned N.F.L. training camp into a soap opera.“The Hall,” whose inductees were chosen by a panel of comedy industry types like club owners and agents chosen by Callner, is only the latest institution he’s built, but it’s one he speaks about with personal passion, especially since he knew each of the first four comics being inducted. “Stand-up is such a part of my life that I wanted to give back,” he said.Callner was raised by a single parent (his father left when he was 2) in Cincinnati, a midcentury television hub. He credits a 1969 trip on synthetic psilocybin for awakening his previously dormant creativity, started working an entry-level job in live local news and immediately fell in love. He hung around the Cincinnati station at all hours, sponging up shot composition and camera angles. When a director suddenly left one afternoon for a family emergency, Callner got his chance, moving on to direct commercials and Boston Celtics games including their championship season in 1974. His success led to two offers: to work for NBC Sports, a national behemoth, or for a relatively unknown new cable channel called HBO, where he would be able to shape its look and style (and direct live coverage of Wimbledon). Callner bet on the option where he could have more sway. It wouldn’t take long for this to pay off in his big break.Two months after “Saturday Night Live” premiered in 1975, he directed a show that started a tradition that rivals it: “An Evening With Robert Klein” was the first HBO stand-up special. Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart had made specials for television the previous decade, but it was Klein’s hour that pointed the way to the future, even opening with a backstage scene of the comic preparing. This cold open would become such a stand-up special cliché that Callner said he wouldn’t use it again.HBO had a couple of advantages over network television: It presented longer sets, and, critically, comics could curse. The line that Klein cared most about, Callner said, came after he swore: “What a catharsis,” he quipped.Callner zoomed in on him during this moment to emphasize the point.The day after the show premiered, a positive review in The Times described the process of using five cameras to capture an uncensored long-form portrait of the comic as “innovative.”“That changed my life,” Callner said, adding that the article led HBO to sign him up for a series of specials that made the cable channel the central home for this nascent form. He directed the first specials of Robin Williams, Steve Martin and Carlin, who became a good friend and the best man at his wedding. Did Carlin give a speech? “I’m sure he did but I don’t even remember being there,” Callner said, smiling. “It was the 1980s.”The look of these early specials did not draw attention to itself. “I learned the comedy directs me,” he said. “If a comedian is doing something physical, it better be a head-to-toe shot. If he’s making a poignant point, it better be on a close shot. It was reportage. My job was to capture their genius and not take shots that were superfluous. I see all kinds of directors today making this mistake. They are cutting around to show off.”“My job was to capture their genius and not take shots that were superfluous,” Callner said, with an Emmy for “Hard Knocks” on his desk.Peter Fisher for The New York TimesBy the end of the decade, Callner had become bored with specials and excited by a flashier art form in its infancy at another young cable channel, MTV.His first video, Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take it,” was a slapstick production that leaned on his comic background. In it, a boy (played by his son) sends his angry dad out the window thanks to the power of his declaration, “I want to rock!” (which was Callner’s voice dubbed in). This proved to be a major hit and led to directing jobs on hundreds more videos, including 18 with Aerosmith and four with Cher. It was Callner’s idea to put Cher on a cannon on a Navy ship in the video “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Asked why, he said, “It was phallic,” which is hard to argue with.In these early days of MTV, the aesthetic for videos was up for grabs, said Rob Tannenbaum, who co-wrote “I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution” and is an occasional contributor to The Times. He explained, “Devo wanted them to be avant-garde films; Duran Duran wanted them to be Patrick Nagel-style reveries; Marty Callner thought videos should be funny, which proved to be a more durable concept.” He added, “He understood, early on, that videos could be about more than amusement — they could be about branding and even mythology.”To be sure, they were also about scantily clad women (MTV once gave him a note that his video for the Scorpions’ “Big City Nights,” had too many women in bikinis) and hair, lots of it. As much as anyone, Callner created the visuals for the era when rock was dominated by flowing, feathered locks. The secret auteur of the genre known as hair metal was his hairdresser wife of 40 years, Aleeza Callner, who blow-dried the heads of the members of Whitesnake, Poison, Kiss, the Scorpions — not to mention Sam Kinison and Jerry Seinfeld.After a career directing television that tapped into the raw American id, Callner, who said he hated the objectification of women “even though I can’t say I wasn’t culpable,” is now looking at an unlikely new idea. He’s planning a festival called “America’s Wedding” in which 2,000 couples would get married at the same time in Las Vegas.For now, he is focused on “The Hall,” which Netflix aims to make an annual tradition. Callner, who once directed a tribute to Lenny Bruce, said that the influential stand-up received the fifth most votes, and hopes he gets inducted in a future show.Asked if it ever bothers him that his work is so much better known than he is, he said what mattered to him was the final product. “I didn’t become a household name,” he said, in front of a beautiful view of the water, “but I did become the highest paid television director in Hollywood, and the reason is: I made people a lot of money.” More

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      Ann Sarnoff, Warner Bros. Chief, Is Set to Leave

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      LOS ANGELES — Ann Sarnoff, the chief executive of the WarnerMedia Studios and Networks Group, will leave the company, with an announcement coming as soon as this week, three people briefed on the matter said.Ms. Sarnoff, who declined to comment, was chosen to lead Warner Bros. in 2019 despite limited Hollywood experience, becoming the first woman to hold the role. She is departing as WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T, is set to complete a merger with Discovery. Ms. Sarnoff’s boss, Jason Kilar, who has been chief executive of WarnerMedia since 2020, announced his exit on Tuesday.Like Mr. Kilar, Ms. Sarnoff found herself without a seat in the game of musical chairs that accompanies the merging of competing companies, said the people briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information. The Warner Bros. Discovery management structure is still unknown, but David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery, who will run the new company, is expected to take over at least some of Ms. Sarnoff’s portfolio. She has had a dozen direct reports.Her job has involved oversight of HBO and HBO Max; the Warner Bros. movie and television studio; several cable channels, including TBS and TNT; and a large consumer products division. Breaking down the siloed nature of some of those units has been one of Ms. Sarnoff’s accomplishments.After news of her departure became public, Mr. Zaslav said in an email that Ms. Sarnoff had been “a passionate and committed steward,” leading “with integrity, focus and hard work in bringing WarnerMedia’s businesses, brands and work force closer together.” In an email of his own, Mr. Kilar called Ms. Sarnoff a “first-tier human being” and “the definition of a selfless leader.”Ms. Sarnoff’s job security has been the subject of Hollywood gossip for months, with agents and Warner-affiliated producers insisting that she was on her way out and some members of her team insisting the opposite. That kind of speculation can be deadly in show business, with whispers congealing into conventional wisdom, often resulting in an irrecoverable position of weakness in the view of Hollywood’s creative community.To be fair, Ms. Sarnoff, whip smart and affable, never got the opportunity to really do her job. The pandemic shut down the entertainment business roughly seven months after she started. AT&T, which hired her, decided to spin off WarnerMedia last May.Before joining WarnerMedia, Ms. Sarnoff held leadership roles at Nickelodeon, the Women’s National Basketball Association, Dow Jones and BBC America. More

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      Why TV-Inspired Vacations Are on the Rise

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      TV-themed itineraries are on the rise, taking travelers on adventures with familiar shows during a time of uncertainty.With 70 percent of Americans watching more TV in 2021 than they did in 2020, binge-watching has skyrocketed during the pandemic. Now, as borders reopen, restrictions ease and travel restarts, tour advisers are fielding an increasingly popular request: immersive, TV-themed itineraries that allow travelers to live out their favorite shows’ story lines.In Britain, where all travel restrictions are now lifted, hotels in London have partnered with Netflix to offer Lady Whistledown-themed teas inspired by “Bridgerton” high society. In Yellowstone National Park, travelers are arriving in Wyoming not for a glimpse of Old Faithful, but for a chance to cosplay as John Dutton from the hit drama “Yellowstone.”And in South Korea, where vaccinated travelers can now enter without quarantine, street food vendors on Jeju Island are anticipating a run on dalgona candy, the honeycomb toffees that played a central role in “Squid Game.”“When you fall in love with a character, you can’t get it out of your mind,” said Antonina Pattiz, 30, a blogger who last year got hooked on “Outlander,” the steamy, time-traveling drama about Claire Beauchamp, a nurse transported 200 years back in history. Ms. Pattiz and her husband, William, binge-watched the Starz show together, and are now planning an “Outlander”-themed trip to Scotland in May to visit sites from the show, including Midhope Castle, which stands in as Lallybroch, the family home of another character, Jamie Fraser.Mr. Pattiz is part Scottish, Ms. Pattiz said, and their joint interest in the show kicked off a desire on his part to explore his roots. “You watch the show and you really start to connect with the characters and you just want to know more,” she said.The fifth season of “Outlander” was available in February 2020, and Starz’s 142 percent increase in new subscribers early in the pandemic has been largely attributed to a jump in locked-down viewers discovering the show. During the ensuing two-year hiatus before Season 6 recently hit screens — a period of time known by fans as “Droughtlander” — “Outlander”-related attractions in Scotland, like Glencoe, which appears in the show’s opening credits and the Palace of Holyroodhouse, saw more than 1.7 million visitors. “Outlander”-related content on Visit Scotland’s website generated more than 350,000 page views, ahead of content pegged to the filming there of Harry Potter and James Bond movies.The Pattizs, who live in New York City, will follow a 12-day self-driving sample itinerary provided by Visit Scotland, winding from Edinburgh to Fife to Glasgow as they visit castles and gardens where Claire fell in love and Jamie’s comrades died in battle. Private tour companies, including Nordic Visitor and Inverness Tours, have also unveiled customized tours.The ‘Sex and the City’ UniverseThe sprawling franchise revolutionized how women were portrayed on the screen. And the show isn’t over yet. A New Series: Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte return for another strut down the premium cable runway in “And Just Like That,” streaming on HBO. Off Broadway: Candace Bushnell, whose writing gave birth to the “Sex and the City” universe, stars in her one-woman show based on her life. In Carrie’s Footsteps: “Sex and the City” painted a seductive vision of Manhattan, inspiring many young women to move to the city. The Origins: For the show’s 20th anniversary in 2018, Bushnell shared how a collection of essays turned into a pathbreaking series.Enduring trend, new intensityScreen tourism, which encompasses not just pilgrimages to filming locations but also studio tours and visits to amusement parks like The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, is an enduring trend. Tourists flocked to Salzburg in the 1960s after the release of “The Sound of Music”; in recent decades, locations like New Zealand saw a huge bump in visits from “Lord of the Rings” fans and bus tours in New York City have offered tourists a chance to go on location of “Sex and the City” and “The Marvelous Ms. Maisel.”But in this pandemic moment, where travel has for months been synonymous with danger and tourists are navigating conflicting desires to safeguard their health while also making up for squandered time, screen tourism is taking on a new intensity, said Rachel Kazez, a Chicago-based mental health therapist. She has clients eager to travel — another major trend for 2022 is “going big” — but they are looking for ways to tamp down the anxiety that may accompany those supersized ambitions.She said her patients increasingly are saying “‘I was cooped up for a year and I just want to go nuts. Let’s do whatever fantasy we’ve been thinking about’.”“If we’ve been watching a TV show, we know everything about it, and we can go and have a totally immersive experience that’s also extremely predictable,” Ms. Kazez continued. Cyndi Lam, a pharmacist in Fairfax, Va., has longed to go to Morocco for years. But she didn’t feel confident pulling the trigger until last month, when “Inventing Anna,” the nine-episode drama about the sham heiress Anna Delvey, began streaming on Netflix.In episode six of “Inventing Anna,” the character flies to Marrakesh and stays at La Mamounia, a lavish five-star resort. Ms. Lam and her husband are now booked to stay there in September.“Everybody can kind of relate to Anna,” Ms. Lam said. “I found her character to be fascinating, and when she went to Morocco, I was like, ‘OK, we’re going to Morocco.’ It sealed the deal.”In December, Club Wyndham teamed up with Hallmark Channel to design three suites tied to the “Countdown to Christmas” holiday movie event. They sold out in seven hours.Courtesy of Club WyndhamSensing a new desire among guests to tap into the scripted universe, dozens of hotels over the past year have rolled out themed suites inspired by popular shows. Graduate Hotels has a “Stranger Things”-themed suite at its Bloomington, Ind., location, with areas designed like the living room and basement of central characters like the Byers. A blinking alphabet of Christmas lights and Eleven’s favorite Eggo waffles are included. And in December, Club Wyndham teamed up with the Hallmark Channel to design three “Countdown to Christmas”-themed suites where guests could check in and binge Christmas films. They sold out in seven hours.“It was the first time we’d done anything like this,” said Lara Richardson, chief marketing officer for Crown Media Family Networks, in an email. “One thing we hear over and over from viewers is that, as much they love our products, they want to step inside a ‘Countdown to Christmas’ movie.”Vacation homes are also going immersive. For families, Airbnb partnered with BBC to list the Heeler House, a real-world incarnation of the animated home on the beloved animated series “Bluey,” and Vrbo has 10 rental homes inspired by “Yes Day,” the 2021 Netflix film about parents who remove “no” from their vocabulary. Celebrities are jumping in, too: Issa Rae, creator and star of HBO’s “Insecure,” offered an exclusive look at her neighborhood in South Los Angeles in February with a special Airbnb listing, at a rock-bottom price of $56.Tea on TV, now in London (and Boston)“Bridgerton,” Netflix’s British period drama about family, love and savage gossip, was streamed by 82 million households in 2021. (For comparison, the finale of “Breaking Bad” in 2013 had 10.3 million viewers; more recent streaming hits, including “Tiger King” and “Maid,” had fewer than 70 million). When season two of “Bridgerton” premieres on March 25, Beaverbrook Town House, a hotel built across two Georgian townhouses in London’s Chelsea, will offer a “Bridgerton” experience that includes a day out in London and drinks in the British countryside; nearby at the Lanesborough, a Bridgerton-themed tea, cheekily dubbed “the social event of the season,” will kick off the same day. In Boston, the Fairmont Copley Plaza now has a “High Society Package” for fans with flowers and a private afternoon tea.Contiki, the group travel company for 18- to 35-year-olds, had a “Bridgerton”-themed itinerary set for September 2021 but had to scrap it when the Delta variant hit; they’ve now partnered with Amazon Prime on a Hawaiian Islands trip inspired by “I Know What You Did Last Summer” set for July.Both Netflix and Amazon Prime have brand partnership teams that handle collaborations of this nature.“As we come out of this pandemic, the desire for more immersive experiences is really stronger than ever,” said Adam Armstrong, Contiki’s chief executive. “It’s about getting under the skin of destinations, creating those Instagrammable moments that recreate stuff from films and movies. It’s really a strong focus for us.”The popularity of “Bridgerton” on Netflix was eclipsed by “Squid Game,” the high-stakes South Korean survival drama, and despite that show’s carnage, travelers are booking Squid Game vacations, too. Remote Lands, an Asia-focused travel agency, reported a 25 percent increase in interest in South Korean travel and created a Seoul guide for fans and a customized itinerary.Some travel advisers say that some clients don’t even want to explore the locations they’re traveling to. They just want to be there while they continue binge-watching.Emily Lutz, a travel adviser in Los Angeles, said that more than 20 percent of her total requests over the past few months have been for travel to Yellowstone National Park, a result of the popularity of “Yellowstone,” the western family drama starring Kevin Costner on the Paramount Network and other streaming services. And not all of her clients are interested in hiking.“I had a client who wrote me and said, ‘All we want to do is rent a lodge in the mountains, sit in front of the fireplace, and watch episodes of ‘Yellowstone’ — while we’re in Yellowstone’,” she said.52 Places for a Changed WorldThe 2022 list highlights places around the globe where travelers can be part of the solution.Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to receive expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places for a Changed World for 2022. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘After Yang’ and the State of the Union

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      Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith and Justin H. Min star in a new sci-fi movie on Showtime. And President Biden delivers a State of the Union address.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. 28-March 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTRAYVON MARTIN: 10 YEARS LATER 8 p.m. on BET. Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Black teenager in Florida, was shot and killed almost exactly 10 years ago by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain. Gayle King, the co-host of “CBS Mornings,” hosts this hourlong special, which commemorates Martin and looks at the activism that his death continues to help galvanize. The program includes interviews with Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, and other mothers whose children have been killed by the police or by gun violence.MY BRILLIANT FRIEND 10 p.m. on HBO. The third season of the show, which centers on a friendship between two girls, Lenù and Lila, who come of age in mid-20th-century Naples, will debut on Monday night. It is adapted from the third of Elena Ferrante’s four Neopolitan books, “Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay,” and finds Lenù and Lila grappling with careers, marriage and, eventually, motherhood. This will be the final season for the actresses Margherita Mazzucco, 19, and Gaia Girace, 18: The fourth book in the series, “The Story of the Lost Child,” which would be the focus of a potential fourth season, revolves around the characters in middle age. “I have never read the final pages of the fourth book,” Mazzucco told The New York Times recently. “I don’t want to know how it ends.”TuesdayPresident Biden in February. He is scheduled to deliver his State of the Union address on Tuesday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesSTATE OF THE UNION 9 p.m. on various networks (check local listings); streaming on Facebook, Twitter, WH.gov and YouTube. President Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union speech to Congress on Tuesday night. Biden will presumably speak to the progress that his administration has made since his first address to Congress last year — including the passage of the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill and the nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus package — though he’ll have a lot more to cover. He’s likely to address Russia’s war on Ukraine, the selection of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as his nominee to the Supreme Court and the state of the coronavirus pandemic, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosen safety guidelines.Inside the World of Elena FerranteThe mysterious Italian writer has won international attention with her intimate representations of Neapolitan life, womanhood and friendship. Beginner’s Guide: New to Elena Ferrante’s work? Here’s a breakdown of her most important writing. Latest Novel: Following the success of her Neapolitan novels, the author returned to fiction with a suspenseful story about parents and their sins.English-Language Translator: The work of Ann Goldstein has helped catapult Ferrante to global fame. Humility is a hallmark of her approach.Onscreen: The HBO series based on Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend” is a testament to the elusive writer’s ability to create inscrutable characters.Lenù and Lila: The actresses playing the two protagonists in the HBO adaptation grew up with their characters. Here is what they said about it.THE LARRY DAVID STORY 9 p.m. on HBO. What’s the difference between Larry David the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” character and Larry David the successful producer and performer? Based on a trailer for “The Larry David Story,” the answer is a dusting of facial hair and a touch of introspection. David reflects on his life and career in this two-part documentary, which covers his upbringing in Brooklyn, his beginnings in comedy, his success with “Seinfeld” (which he co-created) and his more recent work on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” The documentary was directed by the comic and filmmaker Larry Charles, a staff writer on “Seinfeld” whose well-established rapport with David comes through in their conversations.WednesdayLA STRADA (1956) 6 p.m. on TCM. When the Oscar for best international feature is handed out at the Academy Awards ceremony next month, the winner will become part of a lineage that “La Strada” helped establish: This Federico Fellini classic was the first movie to win the best foreign-language film honor when that category became a competitive award at the Oscars in 1956. The movie raised the profiles of both Fellini and his wife and collaborator, Giulietta Masina, who plays a young woman who is sold to a traveling circus strongman (Anthony Quinn). “‘La Strada’ is often sentimental and not always convincing but the ending packs a wallop,” J. Hoberman wrote about the film last year in his “Rewind” column.ThursdayTilda Swinton in “The French Dispatch.”Searchlight PicturesTHE FRENCH DISPATCH (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO Signature. Wes Anderson drew inspiration from the old-school days of The New Yorker for this ornate anthology comedy, which follows a collection of eccentric magazine writers and their subjects — played by an ensemble that includes Bill Murray, Benicio Del Toro, Léa Seydoux, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand and Tilda Swinton — in a mid-20th-century French city. Typewriters clack. Cocktails disappear.FridayAFTER YANG (2022) 9 p.m. on Showtime. In his 2017 feature debut, “Columbus,” the filmmaker Kogonada used the modernist architecture of Columbus, Ind., to give a surreal, otherworldly undercurrent to a modest story about a close friendship. His new movie, “After Yang,” takes place solidly in the future: It centers on a mother (played by Jodie Turner-Smith), father (Colin Farrell) and young daughter (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja) whose humanoid robot, Yang (Justin H. Min), breaks down. The loss of Yang is essentially the loss of a family member, but it may be possible to repair him.SaturdayVin Diesel, left and John Cena in “F9.” Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesF9 (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. If the “Fast and Furious” movies went all-electric, and the grunt of gasoline engines was muted, the series could still rely on Vin Diesel’s voice to fill out the low end of the sonic spectrum. The latest installment of the series introduced a new villain, played by John Cena, and brought back the familiar faces of Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Helen Mirren and Charlize Theron. The movie also saw the return of the director Justin Lin, a veteran of the franchise who had stepped away for several years. Lin makes the movie “feel scrappy and baroque at the same time,” A.O. Scott said in his review for The Times.SundayLester Holt, left, and the former Attorney General William P. Barr in an NBC News primetime special.NBC NewsNBC NEWS PRIMETIME SPECIAL 9 p.m. on NBC. Lester Holt interviews the former Attorney General William P. Barr in this hourlong special. The two discuss Barr’s final days as Attorney General during the Trump administration, when he rebuked former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims of a stolen election by acknowledging that the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. The conversation also touches on policing in America, among other topics. More

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      Edi Patterson on Tapping Into Her Id for ‘The Righteous Gemstones’

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      Ahead of the Season 2 finale, the actress, writer and producer talked about the joys of being Judy in this HBO comedy about a family of televangelists.This interview contains spoilers for the Season 2 finale of “The Righteous Gemstones.”It’s nearly impossible to find a Judy Gemstone quote that can be spoken aloud in a real church. When the character isn’t cursing or disparaging her siblings, she is referencing profane sexual acts and organs — all things unfit for a house of worship (and print).But beneath Judy’s abrasive, hypersexual surface is the decidedly calm and collected Edi Patterson, an actress, writer and producer on HBO’s “The Righteous Gemstones.” Trading her straight hair and chill demeanor for a curly wig and an unholy amount of sequins, she transforms into Judy, the rambunctious middle child in a family of Southern megachurch preachers, who craves validation and lacks any semblance of a filter.Patterson, who first worked with the show’s creator, Danny McBride, on the HBO series “Vice Principals” (which he created with Jody Hill) acts alongside him and Adam DeVine, who play Judy’s older and younger brothers — both of whom are just as stunted by sibling rivalry as she is, maybe more.Season 2 of the series, which ended Sunday, dove deeper into the Gemstone family drama, making new forays into real estate, motorcycle ninjas and Judy’s relationship with her beta-male husband, BJ (Tim Baltz). After an assassination attempt on the family patriarch, Eli (John Goodman), threatened to tear the Gemstones apart, the season finale brought the whole clan back together for a birth, some death and, of course, one last musical number.It also revealed a softer side of Judy — even though her dialogue was still largely unprintable.“It’s fun for people to watch Judy because she’s doing things that they want to do, and saying things they really want to say, and I think it’s fun to watch someone get to play id,” Patterson said. “I’m really grateful that I get to run downfield as fast as I can and let it rip.”In a recent video call from her hotel room in Winnipeg, Canada, where she was shooting the film “Violent Night” with David Harbour (“Stranger Things”), Patterson discussed BJ’s baptism, Eli’s near-death experience and why we can’t keep our eyes off Judy. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Where do you think Judy falls in the Gemstone hierarchy, being a middle child and the only daughter?Sadly, the default in those sort of systems is very patriarchy-centric, so she’s got a lot to prove. And she knows that she is equal to and as good as her brothers. But that’s part of the fun — she’s in a system where she’s going to need to prove it, probably over and over again. So that sums up all of her emotions of wanting to prove things; wanting to excel; wanting to be bad; all of it.How do you think Judy has changed over the course of this season?Well, she took a big swing with getting married at Disney World without her dad. That was a big, ‘Well, I’ll show them …’ and then she immediately felt bad. She’s got a lot of teenage emotions and angst happening.This season, she probably gets closer to what she wants, with BJ being more accepted than he was. She also has a bit of an emotional epiphany with Tiffany [Judy’s younger aunt, played by Valyn Hall] — basically going from feeling like Tiffany was a mold growing on something in her fridge to actual care and love. That was a really cool progression. Actual people never have a giant turnaround that you see in movies, like, “Now, I’m a different person, and I’m totally better.” I like the big ups and setbacks that the Gemstones have emotionally.That plotline where Judy and BJ kind of become Tiffany’s parents is a funny choice. What was that meant to bring out in each of them?We wanted to show Judy’s depth just a little bit and show she’s complicated, man, and complex. Like, yeah, her bark is loud and intense, and there’s a lot of it coming at you. But there’s also empathy in there, and she can honestly get her feelings hurt, and she can honestly care about whether or not she hurt someone else’s feelings. It was fun to show she’s actually not a full narcissist or a sociopath.Season 2 went deeper into Judy’s relationship with her husband, BJ (Tim Baltz), who was baptized in a very special onesie.HBO MaxEpisode 4 really stood out to me as Judy and BJ’s big moment — how was it to write, shoot and produce that whole baptism?That episode was such a blast. We got to kind of live on that insane set for a whole week and a half, and that was such a pleasure and a luxury. Because the set where we had BJ’s party felt so real and so … I don’t know … have you been to Vegas?I haven’t.Vegas has this weird, weird vibe where some hotels can actually be so blown out that they almost feel cozy. Something in you goes: “I’m safe to cut loose and everyone’s taking care of me.” And I don’t know, that room felt like the cozy side of Vegas.Like the Cheesecake Factory effect? Where you have way too many things going on at once?Totally! Everywhere my eyes look, there’s something interesting to look at. So it was just heavenly to be there for an extended period. And Danny directed that episode — it’s the only one he directed this season, and he’s just so good. It was really fun because, for instance, in the bathroom scene where I’m threatening BJ’s sister, Danny is clear about when there’s room to play with it and get crazy and find things. And there were a couple of wild things we found as we were doing it, like the smoking in the stall or kicking the stall door like a 1980s bully move.Do the particularly memorable lines, like “You can’t gobble the pie if you didn’t help bake it,” more often come from the scripts or happen spontaneously in the moment?A lot of the way they talk is in the crafting. I wrote that “gobble the pie” thing — a lot of times, I know that it’s specifically right for her if it makes me laugh and makes me go, “Oh my God, that’s so stupid.” That’s the highest praise for me. It’s probably right if it made me delightfully disgusted.In previous interviews, you have mentioned that you watched a lot of horror movies when you were growing up. Where do you think horror fits into “Gemstones”?What’s interesting is almost all of us who are writers on the show love horror movies. It’s probably a direction thing, too, because David Gordon Green and Jody Hill [who have directed most of the episodes] both like horror movies. They’re really good at making things truly suspenseful, or truly dramatic, or kind of creepy, or truly action-y. The love of horror makes people not pull back and go, “Oh, it’s comedy.” It makes everyone go further into all of it.You have also said that Judy is wearing ice skater outfits when she performs. If you had to make a mood board of things Judy finds glamorous, what else would be on there?Oh man, it would be covered with ice skaters. There’d be probably a bunch of stuff from Studio 54. Cher would be all over it. I feel like early Madonna would be all over it: It would be a fair amount of this move: [Patterson pulls one shirtsleeve down to reveal a shoulder.]So much of it would be from Judy’s kid brain of what was sexy and what was cool and powerful. I think so many of her notions about things are just stunted.There’s a point in the season where Eli Gemstone almost dies. What was that meant to evoke in the family?It just shows so quickly that even though they all think, “I can do this,” they’re all immediately like: “Oh God, I don’t want it. I just want him here.” They all adore their dad. Judy is very enmeshed with her dad and what he thinks of her. The second something terrible happens, all she wants is for him to be alive and well. Hence the vomiting. [Laughs.]You grew up in Texas going to church every week. What do you think your Sunday school teachers would say if they saw this show?Wow. It depends on which Sunday school teacher. I can think of some people from the church I grew up in that would be very disturbed by what I’m doing and probably not ever watch it — not even because it’s about a televangelist family, but because of the cursing. But a lot of people from the church love it.The thing about our show is we’re never making fun of religion, or people who are involved in religion, or believers. I think all the Gemstones are believers. They’re just messing up a lot. More

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

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      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

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

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      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

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Missing in Brooks County’ and ‘Sisters With Transistors’

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      A documentary about a Texas border region plays as part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series. And a documentary about women in electronic music airs on Showtime.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, Jan. 21-Feb. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2021) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Hundreds of people have died trying to migrate from Mexico to the United States through Brooks County, Tex., in the past two decades. This documentary looks at what makes the region, on the southern end of Texas, so perilous for those crossing the border, and explores work that activists and community members are doing to address the crisis. It focuses on two families who turn to Eddie Canales, the founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center, for help finding missing family members.CELEBRATING BETTY WHITE: AMERICA’S GOLDEN GIRL 10 p.m. on NBC. This hourlong special celebrates the life and career of the comic actress Betty White, who died in December at 99. Many famous people will pay tribute to White, including Drew Barrymore, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Goldie Hawn, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart and President Biden.TuesdayA scene from “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power.”Greenwich EntertainmentBARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (2021) 8 p.m. on Starz. “A Super Bowl touchdown roar.” That’s how The New York Times described the reception that Representative Barbara Lee received from an audience in Oakland, Calif., at a community gathering in October 2001. The reason for the crowd’s enthusiasm: Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. This documentary looks at Lee’s life both before and after that pivotal move. Interviewees include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the CNN commentator Van Jones and the actor Danny Glover.Remembering Betty WhiteThe actress, whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades, died on Jan. 31. She was 99. Obituary: After creating two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history,  White remained a beloved presence on television. Remembered Fondly: Hollywood stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute after her death was announced. Final Prank: People magazine found itself in an awkward spot when a cover for White’s upcoming 100th birthday hit the newsstands right before her death.From the Archives: In a 2011 interview, White shared the memory of a relationship she held dear to her heart — with an elephant.WednesdayLUCY IN THE SKY (2019) 7:15 p.m. and 9:50 on FXM. Earlier this month, the “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley released a dark new novel, “Anthem,” that imagines teenage characters several years after the Covid-19 pandemic. For a multiformat double feature, pair the book with Hawley’s film “Lucy in the Sky,” where Natalie Portman is a lovesick astronaut.ThursdayThe composer Maryanne Amacher in a scene from “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary that explores how women shaped electronic music.Peggy Weil/Metrograph PicturesSISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (2021) 6:30 p.m. on Showtime. When the multimedia musician and composer Laurie Anderson mentions “radical sounds” while narrating this documentary, the phrase has a clear double meaning. Not only did synthesizers and other digital technology, a focus of the film, create never-before-heard sounds during the 20th century, but it gave opportunities for female composers like Daphne Oram, Maryanne Amacher and Clara Rockmore to innovate outside of the traditional, male-dominated music industry. The film explores the work of these women and more, arguing that their importance in shaping electronic music has been overlooked. The result, Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times, is “informative and often fascinating.”SCREAM (1996) 8 p.m. on BBC America. The shrieks came with a laugh in “Scream,” Wes Craven’s horror-parody that gave new life to the slasher genre when it hit theaters just over 25 years ago. The movie spawned a slew of sequels — the latest of which came out earlier this month — but even this first entry feels like something of a sequel, so filled is it with references and callbacks to previous, genre-defining movies, including “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” It introduced the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a suburban teenager who is stalked by a masked killer with a long face. BBC America is airing it alongside its first sequel, SCREAM 2 (1997).Friday2022 WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on NBC. The Winter Olympics in Beijing formally begin on Friday with an opening ceremony set to include the traditional cauldron lighting and parade of nations. (Other than athletes, American presence at the games will be subdued: The United States is among the countries whose governments have planned for a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing human rights abuses.) The ceremony will be covered live at 6:30 a.m., then rebroadcast at 8 p.m. as a more polished special.STAND AND DELIVER (1988) 10 p.m. on TCM. The actor Edward James Olmos took a break from the sheen of “Miami Vice” to play a schlubby (but deeply gifted) math teacher in this late ’80s drama. Directed by Ramón Menéndez and based on actual events, the film casts Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a teacher at a public high school in East Los Angeles whose ability to motivate his students leads to impressive test scores that were called into question by prejudiced standardized-testing authorities. Olmos plays the part to “inspiringly great effect,” Janet Maslin said in her review for The Times in 1988. (He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance.) “If ever a film made its audience want to study calculus,” Maslin wrote, “this is the one.”SaturdayWillem Dafoe, left, and Bradley Cooper in “Nightmare Alley.”Searchlight PicturesNIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. After its recent release in theaters, Guillermo del Toro’s latest haunted house of a movie hits smaller screens via HBO on Saturday night. Set primarily amid a grimy carnival, “Nightmare Alley” centers on a 1930s con man (Bradley Cooper) who finds success putting on a mentalist act. The real star, though, might be the setting: In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis praised del Toro’s textured, polished world building, but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the rest of the film. “The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks,” she wrote. “But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.”SundayGUY’S CHANCE OF A LIFETIME 9 p.m. on Food Network. Some competition shows offer their winners a cash prize that they can retire on. “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime” offers an opportunity: Contestants vie for ownership of a Guy Fieri-branded chicken joint in Nashville. A winner will be revealed on Sunday night’s season finale. More