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      Your Thanksgiving Day Watching Lineup, Plus 6 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      Watch the Macy’s Day Parade, the dog show and football while the turkey is cooking, and catch up on true crime and two new shows.Football, puppies and floats: Here’s what to watch on Thanksgiving.Whether you’re big on cooking, big on eating or big on avoiding Thanksgiving altogether, one of the best parts of the holiday is that there are endless options on TV throughout the day.First up is the annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which started 100 years ago in 1924 (though this year isn’t the 100th parade because of a hiatus during World War II). It will follow its usual route in New York City, with Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb and Al Roker returning as hosts. Jennifer Hudson, Kylie Minogue, Loud Luxury and Cynthia Erivo are just a few of the many performers — along with balloons of Minnie Mouse, Spider-Man and Goku, of course. Thursday at 8:30 a.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock.Once the parade is over and cooking is in full swing, it’s time to watch the National Dog Show, with 2,000 cute, preening dogs representing 205 breeds. Last year a Sealyham terrier named Stache took home the gold. Thursday at 12 p.m. on NBC and streaming on Peacock.A Tibetan Mastiff who will be featured in the 2024 National Dog Show.Scott Gries/NBCAnd for many, the best part of the day is watching not one, not two, but three football games, back to back. First, it’s the Chicago Bears at the Detroit Lions at 12:30 p.m. on CBS. Then, the New York Giants play the Dallas Cowboys at 4:30 p.m. on Fox. Finally, once you’re hopefully a couple of pie slices deep, the Miami Dolphins square off against the Green Bay Packers at 8:15 p.m. on NBC. I’ll be skipping the real football and queuing up a thematic “Friends” episode: “The One With the Football,” on Max.Send shivers up your spine with lots of true crime.The house where JonBenét Ramsey was found murdered in Boulder, Colo., in a photo from 1997.David Zalubowski/Associated PressWe 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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      Lucy Liu Thinks It’s Important to Make a Mess Sometimes

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      “That’s how creative things happen,” said the actress, one of the stars of the holiday film “Red One.”Lucy Liu’s 9-year-old son, Rockwell, hasn’t seen his mother draw blood in “Charlie’s Angels” or “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” and certainly not in “Kill Bill, Vol. 1.”But the only splash of crimson in her latest film, “Red One,” is the suit of Santa Claus, who has been kidnapped from the North Pole. Liu is one of the Christmas movie’s stars, alongside Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, and plays the head of security for the world’s mythological creatures.“This is the only live-action movie that my son has been able to watch, and he wanted to see it again right afterward,” Liu said on a video call. “I think he forgot that I was actually in it at one point.”When she isn’t shooting or producing (she will next appear in “Presence,” a Steven Soderbergh thriller slated for release in January), Liu can most often be found in her art studio. She tends to lose track of time there — “the whole point of art,” she said. “You just get lost in that world.”Liu, who lives in Manhattan, elaborated on why her library card, spur-of-the-moment theatergoing and riding her bicycle are essential to her well-being. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Transcendental MeditationI put together an art book years ago, and I asked Deepak Chopra if he would write a forward. He did, but he also asked me to come into his office. He wanted to teach me about meditation. And so he gave me a mantra, and it was an important moment for me because I didn’t know that it would make such a big difference.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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      ‘Glicked’ Fans Rejoice in Bloodshed and Broadway Songs

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      Swords clashing and blood curdling screams of gladiators emanate from one room. Across the hallway, witches belt out show tunes.That’s the sound of “Glicked.”Last year, moviegoers swarmed to see “Barbenheimer” — the combined name for “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” — when the films opened on the same day. Now, there is a push from the casts and fans of “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” — which both opened across the country on Friday — to recreate that energy for another double feature with a blended name.Isabelle Deveaux and Emma Rabuano skipped out of theater six at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn at 2:38 p.m. on Friday, after watching “Gladiator II.”At 6:15 p.m., the pair, both 25, planned to return to the Alamo Drafthouse to see “Wicked.” The crossover, Ms. Deveaux said, “felt so specifically catered to our interests.”Diego Gasca of Los Angeles went with friends to the opening day of “Wicked” at AMC Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan, but he said that he was not interested in seeing “Gladiator II.”Colin Clark for The New York TimesOn the surface, the two films, which have a combined running time of over five hours, appear vastly different. One is a family friendly musical prequel to “The Wizard of Oz,” while the other is an R-rated epic sequel about murder, war and the Roman Empire. But Ms. Deveaux and Ms. Rabuano see some common ground in the films.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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      Lottery to Be Held for Coveted Seats at Menendez Brothers Hearing

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      The court is expecting high demand and has announced a public lottery for a limited number of seats at a status hearing in Los Angeles on Monday.What’s one of the most exclusive tickets in Los Angeles? It may not be what you think.A lottery is being held on Monday to determine who will be the 16 people who get to witness what happens next in the case of the Menendez Brothers, who are serving life sentences for murdering their parents in 1989.The drawing will take place between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. Pacific time, in front of the Van Nuys Courthouse West, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County said. The seats for 16 people, in a county of more than 10 million residents, will be allocated just one hour before the status hearing is set to begin at 10:30 a.m.The court occasionally holds public lotteries “when seating is limited and public interest is high,” a court spokesperson said in an email.The high level of interest in the case is in part spurred by a new series as well as a new documentary on Netflix that detail the brothers’ abuse allegations against their parents. Erik and Lyle Menendez killed their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, more than 35 years ago in their Beverly Hills mansion.The Menendez brothers were found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to life in prison without parole. At the time, the judge said that he sentenced each brother to two consecutive life sentences because they had carefully decided to kill their parents.In the almost three decades since, the public perception of Lyle and Erik Menendez, who were 21 and 18 when they committed the murders, has shifted somewhat. Many have shown their interest in the murders in social media posts, and have often pushed for the brothers’ release, with the renewed attention earning them a new class of defenders.Last month, the Los Angeles County district attorney, George Gascón, said he would request that the brothers be resentenced, which could ultimately lead to their release.“I came to a place where I believe that under the law, resentencing is appropriate,” said Mr. Gascón, who has since lost his seat.The brothers could also find freedom through clemency from California’s governor, for which they have petitioned. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he would hold off on considering that request until the new district attorney, Nathan Hochman, takes office early next month and has had a chance to review the case. More

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      Mohammad Rasoulof Had to Escape Iran to Finish His Most Daring Film Yet

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      In the early months of 2024, a few weeks into the shooting of his new film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof learned that his lawyers received a letter. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Court had processed his case, composed of several charges against his previous movies and activism, and sentenced him to eight years in prison. Rasoulof asked his lawyers how much time he had before the authorities took him in. The process of filing an appeal, they told him, could take up to two months. He still had some time.Rasoulof and his team worked around the clock on shooting and postproduction. Another call came in. The court had rejected the appeal, and his eight-year sentence was to start immediately. To make an example of him, his lawyers warned, government agents would probably storm his house in the middle of the night, handcuff him and take him to jail.Rasoulof had to make the most difficult decision of his life. He was always determined to live and work in Iran, which had been a wellspring of inspiration throughout his filmmaking career. He had already been arrested in 2010 for shooting a movie about the Green Movement, a period of mass unrest in the wake of the 2009 presidential election, which he never finished. He was sent to jail for seven months in 2022 after signing a petition that was critical of the government. So he didn’t fear being in prison, and he felt no urge to flee from regime interrogators and torturers. If anything, those encounters had provided fodder for his work. Yet this time was different. Already confronted with the likelihood that he would have to serve at least five years of his eight-year sentence, Rasoulof expected that the court would probably open a new case once it learned about “Sacred Fig,” which he was shooting in secret, without the appropriate approvals. Serving five years, plus whatever the latest charges would yield, would surely end his career. So Rasoulof decided to leave Iran.He had learned, from another inmate during one of his prison stints, about a network of people who specialized in helping persecuted citizens escape Iran. When Rasoulof contacted them, they advised him to leave everything behind, including his electronic devices and IDs, throw some clothes in a backpack and meet them in a town near Tehran.Rasoulof was taken to a hiding place and, from there, driven on a side road to another city. After a few days of traveling along abandoned roads, he reached a small village on the border. He stayed in a small room for a few days, preparing for the final leg of his journey, which involved a hike over the mountains into a neighboring country. The villagers, who had met many people in his circumstances, suspected he was important because the network regularly checked in about his well-being. For the villagers, harboring such an escapee entailed more risk, which meant more pay. When it was time for Rasoulof to depart, they refused to release him.Astonished by this turn of events, members of the network negotiated a deal with the villagers. At midnight, he was delivered to a spot in the middle of nowhere. It was so dark he couldn’t see anything. Money changed hands, and he was returned to the people he hired to smuggle him out of the country. They then took him to another border village, from which the passage to the neighboring country was longer and more treacherous.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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      Jon M. Chu Waited 20 Years for the Chance to Direct ‘Wicked’

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      On a recent morning, Jon M. Chu was in his office in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, describing what it was like to direct “Defying Gravity,” the thrilling finale of his forthcoming adaptation of “Wicked.” In the Broadway version of the scene, the green-hued Elphaba, a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West, rises above the stage atop a huge platform, its mechanical guts hidden behind an enormous black cape. Onstage, the effect is showstopping.In Chu’s version, however, Elphaba really flies, crashing through windows and barnstorming Oz. “We’re whipping her around with C.G. monkeys and C.G. backgrounds on a physical set,” Chu said. The Wizard’s guards are rushing in, the wind is blasting, and Cynthia Erivo, who plays Elphaba, is performing the signature song live, “even though I said she didn’t have to.”“That scene took all of us,” Chu said. “But without Cynthia, who is just a powerhouse, it would have been all for nothing.”Directing a film adaptation of “Wicked” would be a plum assignment for any fan of American musicals. Since its debut in 2003, “Wicked” has become one of Broadway’s most beloved shows, winning three Tonys and playing to more than 63 million people worldwide, from London’s West End to Tokyo. So how did Chu, who’s done lots of movies with music, but not a whole lot of musicals, get the gig? “I really am a newbie in the musical world,” he admitted. “So I feel like I’m living the theater kid’s dream.”Scenes from a career: Chu’s credits include, clockwise from top left, “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” “Step Up 2 the Streets,” “In the Heights” and “Crazy Rich Asians.”Indeed, Chu, 45, has been a lover of musicals dating to his earliest days. As a boy, he regularly saw shows in San Francisco and grew up on a steady diet of film musicals, including “The Sound of Music” (“That was on all the time in our house”) and “Singin’ in the Rain.” An early viewing of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” the 1942 George M. Cohan biopic, inspired the young fan to start signing his name “Jon M. Chu,” in tribute.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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      ‘Gladiator II’ Review: Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal Entertain

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      Denzel Washington’s performance shows skill, intensity and absolute confidence in Ridley Scott’s pleasurably immersive epic about ancient Roman fighters.When Denzel Washington sweeps into “Gladiator II” — Ridley Scott’s epic about ancient Rome and men at war and sometimes in love — it’s with such easy grace that you may mistake his character’s loose bearing with indifference. What you’re seeing is power incarnate, power that’s so raw and so supremely self-possessed that it doesn’t announce itself. It just takes. And it keeps taking as warriors enter the Colosseum to fight and die in the blood sport that gives this sequel to Scott’s 2000 drama “Gladiator” its sober backdrop and much of its juice. It is a performance of charismatic evil and of mesmerizing stardom both.Like Scott’s filmmaking in this pleasurably immersive spectacle — with its foreign ancients and mentalities, exotic animals and equally unfamiliar calls to human nobility — Washington’s performance has skill, intensity and absolute confidence. Each man has an unqualified belief in entertainment as a value that’s essential to put over an old-fashioned, inherently audacious production like this, the kind that turns the past into a plaything and doesn’t ask you to worry about niceties like historical accuracy. Both director and performer are also veterans when it comes to popular audiences, and since neither has mellowed or slowed with age (Scott turns 87 this year and Washington 70), they still know how to put on a great show.The first “Gladiator” centers on a Roman general, Maximus (Russell Crowe), who circa 180 A.D. serves an aged emperor, incurs the wrath of a young usurper and ends up clanging swords in the Colosseum, where he quickly becomes a crowd favorite. Crowe, then at the height of his leading-man fame, delivered an appropriately muscular if characteristically sensitive lead performance that holds the screen even when challenged by the vulpine charisma of a scene-stealing Joaquin Phoenix as the new emperor. The two characters are dead by the end and Rome itself seems like it may follow rapidly in their wake; they and all the other ghosts from the original movie haunt the sequel, which is set 16 years later.“Gladiator II” tells the story of another righteous, ostensibly simple man, this time named Lucius (Paul Mescal) who is swept up by violent political forces seemingly beyond his control. The story opens in Numidia, a slice of land hugging the northernmost coast of the African continent. There, in a humming city, Lucius lives with his wife, and while their smiles suggest they’re happy enough, they are both soon suiting up to fight a flotilla of Roman invaders. Led by General Acacius (Pedro Pascal), the Romans make quick work of the Numidians. In this regard, the invaders are just as ruthlessly economic as Scott, who demonstrates a commensurate show of his power with the epically scaled, vividly staged and shot warfare.Fast, brutal and absorbing, the shocker opener sets the template for the rest of the movie, which plays — and often feels — like one long, inventively diverse, elaborately imaginative fight. As in the first film, the diversity of the casting here suggests the vastness of the Roman Empire, a variety that’s matched by the many ways characters die: trebuchet, arrow, sword and a (digital) menagerie that includes a saddled rhino and a troop of rampaging baboons. Every so often, the characters put down their weapons to indulge their other vices or to plot an uprising, diverting interludes that advance the narrative and add crucial rhythm, giving the characters enough time to unclench the jaws and for you to keep processing the story.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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      ‘A Traveler’s Needs’ Review: Language Lessons

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      Iris (Isabelle Huppert), a stranger who teaches French in Seoul, is at the center of an enigmatic film by Hong Sang-soo.“Why’d she come to Korea?” a man (Kwon Hae-hyo) asks his wife (Lee Hye-young) in the park, as Iris (Isabelle Huppert) is walking away from them. Iris is a stranger in Seoul who has started teaching French to the wife. Whether Iris is up to the task is uncertain. She has no background in instruction, and the only language that she and her pupils share is English, which is not a native tongue for any of them.Iris takes an oddball approach to acclimating her students to French: She extracts personal confessions from them in English, then writes wildly extrapolated versions of the French on index cards. “You’ll love your true emotion being expressed in a foreign language,” she says. Better that than to learn phrases from a textbook — something she declines to use. She is also a fiend for makgeolli, the Korean rice wine, of which she claims to drink one or two bottles every day.Is Iris for real? That question hangs over “A Traveler’s Needs,” just as it does over the career of the director Hong Sang-soo. Hong routinely turns out two features per year with methods nearly as baffling as Iris’s: His devotees see infinite subtlety in his use of theme and variation, while the skeptical can’t help but wonder if his movies have become increasingly repetitive and slapdash. In “A Traveler’s Needs,” which won second prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, the sunlit interiors often suggest a deliberately amateurish look.This is his third overall feature with Huppert, who adds drollery and an air of mystery. And there is just enough intrigue this time — one motif involves the difficulty of translating a work by Yoon Dong-ju, a Korean poet who died in 1945 after being imprisoned in Japan — to suggest hidden depths.A Traveler’s NeedsNot rated. In English, Korean (with subtitles) and French. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More