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      ‘The Harder They Fall’ Review: A New Look for the Old West

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      Jeymes Samuel’s film is a bloody horse opera with a charismatic cast.A note at the beginning of “The Harder They Fall” asserts that while the story is fictional, “These. People. Existed.” This isn’t about historical accuracy, or even realism; it’s about genre. The movie, directed by Jeymes Samuel (from a screenplay he wrote with Boaz Yakin), is a high-style pop Western, with geysers of blood, winks of nasty, knowing humor and an eclectic, joyfully anachronistic soundtrack featuring cuts from Jay-Z, Fela Kuti and Nina Simone alongside Samuel’s original score.The point is that the vivid assortment of gunslingers, chanteuses, saloonkeepers and train-robbers — all of them Black — who ride through picturesque mountain ranges and frontier towns have as authentic a claim on the mythology of the West as their white counterparts. They exist, in other words, as true archetypes in a primal story of revenge, greed, treachery and courage.Especially revenge. The story begins with a family’s Sunday dinner interrupted by slaughter. Some years later, the young boy whose parents were gunned down in front of him has grown up into an outlaw named Nat Love, played with abundant charm by Jonathan Majors. Nat’s gang — whose most valuable players are a sharpshooter (Edi Gathegi) and a quick-draw specialist (RJ Cyler) — specializes in stealing from other outlaw bands. But that’s just business. The personal concerns that propel Nate and the plot are his love for Stagecoach Mary (Zazie Beetz) and his vendetta against Rufus Buck (Idris Elba).Mary is a singer and entrepreneur with impressive fighting skills. Rufus resembles a villain out of fantasy or science fiction — a nearly superhuman avatar of evil with grandiose ambitions and a grudge against the universe. And also the charisma of Elba, unmatched at playing bad guys with a touch of sadness to them. Rufus’s crew is a mirror-image of Nate’s, though his empire is more extensive. His sharpshooter, Cherokee Bill (Lakieth Stanfield), is a philosophical sociopath, and his main lieutenant is a ruthless killer named Trudy Smith.Speaking of charisma: Regina King! From her first appearance — on horseback, in a blazing blue coat with gold buttons to match her stirrups — Trudy spikes the magnetometer, but King is in good company. Just look at the names in the preceding paragraphs. Add Delroy Lindo as a dour U.S. Marshall with complicated allegiances and Danielle Deadwyler as Mary’s pint-size bouncer, who joins up with Nate’s gang and steals a dozen scenes as well as $35,000 from a white-owned bank.Samuel makes the most of his formidable cast. If anything, he may be overgenerous. The narrative sometimes flags so that everyone can get in a few volleys of the salty, pungent dialogue on the way to the next round of gunplay or fisticuffs. There are imaginative and suspenseful set pieces — Trudy peeling an apple while she tells the captive Mary a story; a bank robbery in a town so white that even the dust on Main Street looks bleached — and plenty of more conventional episodes of shooting and punching.“The Harder They Fall,” nodding to the traditions of blaxploitation and spaghetti Westerns in the Netflix era, opts for sprawl and impact — the eye-popping cinematography is by Mihai Malaimare Jr. — over restraint and coherence. That’s not such a bad thing, though the story sometimes feels glib as well as messy. A late-breaking revelation that is meant to raise the dramatic and emotional stakes has the opposite effect, and the violence walks the line between stylization and sadism. The bodies pile up at the end, but there are enough people still existing to tease a sequel. No complaints here. That’s part of how the West was won.The Harder They FallRated R. Killing and cursing. Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      From BTS to ‘Squid Game’: How South Korea Became a Cultural Juggernaut

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      The country was once largely known for cars and smartphones, but a global audience has become mesmerized by its entertainment, and creators say success didn’t happen overnight.PAJU, South Korea — In a new Korean drama being filmed inside a cavernous studio building outside of Seoul, a detective chases down a man cursed to live for 600 years. Pistol shots crack. A hush follows. Then, a woman pierces the silence, screaming: “I told you not to shoot him in ​the heart!”The scene was filmed several times for more than an hour as part of “Bulgasal: Immortal Souls,” a new show scheduled to be released on Netflix in December. Jang Young-woo, the director, hopes it will be the latest South Korean phenomenon to captivate an international audience.South Korea has long chafed at its lack of groundbreaking cultural exports. For decades the country’s reputation was defined by its cars and cellphones from companies like Hyundai and LG, while its movies, TV shows and music were mostly consumed by a regional audience. Now K-pop stars like Blackpink, the dystopian drama “Squid Game” and award-winning films such as “Parasite” appear as ubiquitous as any Samsung smartphone.Jang Young-woo, the director of “Bulgasal: Immortal Souls.” He hopes it will be the latest South Korean phenomenon to captivate an international audience.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesIn the same way South Korea borrowed from Japan and the United States to develop its manufacturing prowess, the country’s directors and producers say they have been studying Hollywood and other entertainment hubs for years, adopting and refining formulas by adding distinctly Korean touches. Once streaming services like Netflix tore down geographical barriers, the creators say, the country transformed from a consumer of Western culture into an entertainment juggernaut and major cultural exporter in its own right.In the last few years alone, South Korea shocked the world with “Parasite,” the first foreign language film to win best picture at the Academy Awards. It has one of the biggest, if not the biggest, band in the world with BTS. Netflix has introduced 80 Korean movies and TV shows in the last few years, far more than it had imagined when it started its service in South Korea in 2016, according to the company. Three of the 10 most popular TV shows on Netflix as of Monday were South Korean.“When we made ‘Mr. Sunshine,’ ‘Crash Landing on You’ and ‘Sweet Home,’ we didn’t have a global reaction in mind,” said Mr. Jang, who worked as co-producer or co-director on all three hit Korean Netflix shows. “We just tried to make them as interesting and meaningful as possible. It’s the world that has started understanding and identifying with the emotional experiences we have been creating all along.”The South Korean dystopian drama “Squid Game” became the most watched show on Netflix.NetflixThe growing demand for Korean entertainment has inspired independent creators like Seo Jea-won, who wrote the script for “Bulgasal” with his wife. Mr. Seo said his generation devoured American TV hits like “The Six Million Dollar Man” and “Miami Vice,” learning “the basics” and experimenting with the form by adding Korean colors. “When over-the-top streaming services like Netflix arrived with a revolution in distributing TV shows, we were ready to compete,” he said.South Korea’s cultural output is still tiny compared with key exports like semiconductors, but it has given the country the sort of influence that can be hard to measure. In September, the Oxford English Dictionary added 26 new words of Korean origin, including “hallyu,” or Korean wave. North Korea has called the K-pop invasion a “vicious cancer.” China has suspended dozens of K-pop fan accounts on social media for their “unhealthy” behavior.The country’s ability to punch above its weight as a cultural powerhouse contrasts with Beijing’s ineffective state-led campaigns to achieve the same kind of sway. South Korean officials who have attempted to censor the country’s artists have not been very successful. Instead, politicians have begun promoting South Korean pop culture, enacting a law to allow some male pop artists to postpone conscription. This month, officials allowed Netflix to install a giant “Squid Game” statue in Seoul’s Olympic Park.Seo Jea-won, the writer behind “Bulgasal.” The show’s supernatural plot recalls American TV favorites like “X-Files” and “Stranger Things.”Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe explosive success didn’t happen overnight. Long before “Squid Game” became the most watched TV show on Netflix or BTS performed at the United Nations, Korean TV shows like “Winter Sonata” and bands like Bigbang and Girls’ Generation had conquered markets in Asia and beyond. But they were unable to achieve the global reach associated with the current wave. Psy’s “Gangnam Style” was a one-hit wonder.“We love to tell stories and have good stories to tell,” said Kim Young-kyu, CEO of Studio Dragon, South Korea’s largest studio, which makes dozens of TV shows a year. “But our domestic market is too small, too crowded. We needed to go global.”It wasn’t until last year when “Parasite,” a film highlighting the yawning gap between rich and poor, won the Oscar that international audiences truly began to pay attention, even though South Korea had been producing similar work for years.“The world just didn’t know about them until streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube helped it discover them at a time when people watch more entertainment online,” said Kang Yu-jung, a professor at Kangnam University, in Seoul.A scene from “Parasite,” the first foreign language film to win best picture at the Academy Awards.EPA, via ShutterstockBefore Netflix, a select number of national broadcasters controlled South Korea’s television industry. Those broadcasters have since been eclipsed by streaming platforms and independent studios like Studio Dragon, which provide the financing and artistic freedom needed to target international markets.South Korean censors screen media for content deemed violent or sexually explicit, but Netflix shows are subject to less stringent restrictions than those broadcast on local TV networks. Creators also say that domestic censorship laws have forced ​them to dig deeper into their imagination, crafting characters and plots that are much more compelling than most..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Scenes often overflow with emotionally rich interactions, or “sinpa.” Heroes are usually deeply flawed, ordinary people trapped in impossible situations, clinging to shared values such as love, family and caring for others. Directors and producers say they deliberately want all of their characters to “smell like humans.”Kim Young-kyu, CEO of Studio Dragon, which makes dozens of South Korean TV shows a year. Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesAs South Korea emerged from the vortex of war, dictatorship, democratization and rapid economic growth, its creators developed a keen nose for what people wanted to watch and hear, and it often had to do with social change. Most national blockbusters have story lines based on issues that speak to common people, such as income inequality and the despair and class conflict it has spawned.“Squid Game” director Hwang Dong-hyuk first made a name for himself with “Dogani,” a 2011 movie based on a real-life sexual abuse scandal in a school for the hearing-impaired. The widespread anger the film incited forced the government to ferret out teachers who had records of sexual abuse​ from schools for disabled minors​.Although K-pop artists rarely speak about politics, their music has loomed large in South Korea’s lively protest culture. When students in Ewha Womans University in Seoul started campus rallies that led to a nationwide anti-government uprising in 2016, they sang Girls’ Generation’s “Into the New World.” The boy band g.o.d.’s “One Candle” became an unofficial anthem for the “Candlelight Revolution” that toppled President Park Geun-hye.The K-Pop band Blackpink, which has conquered markets in Asia and beyond.Netflix, via Associated Press“One dominating feature of Korean content is its combativeness,” said Lim Myeong-mook, author of a book about Korean youth culture. “It channels the people’s frustrated desire for upward mobility, their anger and their motivation for mass activism.” And with many people now stuck at home trying to manage the enormous angst caused by the pandemic, global audiences may be more receptive to those themes than ever before.“Korean creators are adept at quickly copying what’s interesting from abroad and making it their own by making it more interesting and better,” said Lee Hark-joon, a professor of Kyungil University who co-authored “K-pop Idols.”On the set of “Bulgasal,” dozens of staffers scurried around to get every detail of the scene just right — the smog filling the air, the water drops falling on the damp floor and the “sad and pitiable​”​ look of the gunned-down man. The show’s supernatural plot recalls American TV favorites like “X-Files” and “Stranger Things,” yet Mr. Jang has created a uniquely Korean tragedy centered on “eopbo,” a belief among Koreans that both good and bad deeds affect a person in the afterlife.Based on the recent success of Korean shows abroad, Mr. Jang said he hopes viewers will flock to the new series. “The takeaway is: what sells in South Korea sells globally.”Construction of new studios at the complex where “Bulgasal” was filmed. “Our domestic market is too small, too crowded. We needed to go global,” Mr. Kim said.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times More

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      This Movie Season, It’s a Black-and-White Boom

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      “Passing,” “The Tragedy of Macbeth” and “Belfast” are just a few of the movies that forgo color for a more classical approach.Do not adjust that dial. Over the coming months, whether you’re watching new films on a streaming service or at the multiplex, more than a few of those movies are likely to be in black and white.Films as varied as “The French Dispatch” and “Being the Ricardos” employ several black-and-white sequences, while “Passing,” “Belfast” and “The Tragedy of Macbeth” are shot almost entirely without color. These are all period movies that use the old-fashioned format to evoke a bygone era, but even “C’mon C’mon,” which takes place in contemporary times and has Joaquin Phoenix as a radio journalist crisscrossing the country with his nephew, was filmed in monochrome.Is this all a coincidence, or a natural next step after recent black-and-white stunners like “Roma” and “Cold War”? To understand why everyone is going grayscale, we talked to the cinematographers behind three of the season’s most striking black-and-white features.‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand set against the film’s austere atmosphere.A24For his new spin on Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” the director Joel Coen wanted to strip the play down to its barest essence. The result is a fast and ruthless reimagining leached of all color, shot not in wide-screen but in a claustrophobic 4:3 aspect ratio rarely used since the 1950s.“It’s meant to bring theatricality, and to lose temporality,” the cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel said. “It’s not about the 1700s, and it’s not about Scotland, either. We’re giving an abstraction, but a very creative one.”For Delbonnel, the creative limitations of black-and-white proved intoxicating. “I pushed the envelope even more,” Delbonnel said. “I said we shouldn’t have any furniture, and we pushed this very far: There is only one bed and a couple of tables, and there is no practical light.”All that austerity makes a striking visual impression, but Delbonnel said it was simply in service of the play’s language. The same creative rules applied to the actors Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand, who could tackle their roles as Shakespeare’s most fearsome power couple in the most unadorned fashion.As Delbonnel put it, “You say, ‘Denzel, this is the room. There is no place to sit because there is no chair. There is no glass, so you can’t drink. There is nothing you can do, so it’s all about your body language and the way you deliver the lines.’”Still, don’t get the wrong impression: Though this “Macbeth” was made in the spirit of minimalism, Delbonnel often brought in the boldest lights he could muster.“The whole movie is lit with theater light, like you’d see at a Beyoncé concert, which has very, very hard shadows,” he said. “In color, it would be unbearable, but in black-and-white, it looks amazing.”‘Passing’Negga, left, and Tessa Thompson are framed in a boxy aspect ratio for “Passing.”NetflixWhile he shot Rebecca Hall’s “Passing,” the cinematographer Eduard Grau was so committed to the film’s monochrome aesthetic that he took all the color off his iPhone, too..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Even when I was taking photos, they would be in black and white,” Grau said. “You do things like that to see the world without color, to train your brain to forget about that green or pink wall and only look at the level of brightness or darkness.”Based on the 1929 novel by Nella Larsen, “Passing” is about two light-skinned Black women: Irene (Tessa Thompson), a well-respected but restless doctor’s wife, and Clare (Ruth Negga), her childhood friend who has been passing for white. A chance meeting in a hotel tearoom reunites the two after years spent apart, and Grau chose to flood that initial encounter with a striking amount of white light.“This is the brightest I’ve ever done a scene in my life,” Grau said. “You don’t see that a lot, especially in dramas, to have such a bright scene without a lot of detail in the whites. It also came from the fact that we didn’t want to clearly show to the audience at first whether our characters were white or Black or mixed race. Everything is so bright that it’s difficult to tell.”Like “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” “Passing” is filmed not just in black and white but also in a boxy aspect ratio that recalls some of Hollywood’s earliest feature films. (It may also remind the viewer how limited those movies were when it came to race, a thorny topic that the color scheme of “Passing” serves as a meta comment on.)Grau couldn’t have foreseen similarities with other current films when he made “Passing,” but he said he welcomed this winter’s bounty of black-and-white stories.“I think it is a coincidence, but this is also about love of film, and they are all true filmmakers,” Grau said. “It’s a strong starting point when a director chooses that, a good indication. Strong, powerful visions from directors make for good movies.”‘Belfast’The new film “Belfast” is about Buddy, played by Jude Hill, a young Irish boy coming of age in the turbulent 1960s.Rob Youngson / Focus FeaturesOver 15 years of shooting movies with the director Kenneth Branagh, the cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos has come to see color as both a blessing and a curse.“Color is so brilliantly descriptive in film, and even the color of someone’s eyes gives you so much information,” Zambarloukos said. “But I often find that when I’m making films with Ken, we’re trying to remove information for the audience and present them with what we want them to see.”Their new film, “Belfast,” about a young Irish boy coming of age in the turbulent 1960s, doesn’t eschew color entirely: It’s bookended by two color montages of modern-day Belfast, and whenever our young protagonist, Buddy, goes to the movies, the films he watches come to life in vivid color.But for the most part, whether Buddy is wooing a girl at school or trying to make sense of the conflict that grips his parents (Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe), “Belfast” is shot in shimmering silvers.“In this case, I think we’re using a strength of black and white, which is not to tell you how a person or place looks but how they feel,” Zambarloukos said. “It has a transcendental quality to be of the past and the present. It’s realistic, but it has a certain magical sense to it as well.”Zambarloukos cut his teeth on the format while shooting Branagh’s long-delayed “Death on the Nile” (due in February), which opens with a 10-minute sequence in black and white. But now, after having filmed all those “Belfast” close-ups without color, he admits it will be hard to go back to reds, yellows and blues.“If I saw the same portrait of a person in color and in black and white, most of the time, I would tell more about that person from black-and-white,” Zambarloukos said. “It doesn’t create anything that isn’t there, but whatever is there is so amplified!” More

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      Paul Newman Will Tell His Own Story, 14 Years After His Death

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      Knopf plans to publish a book next year based on hours of recordings the movie star left behind, as well as interviews with family, friends and associates.Decades ago, the actor and philanthropist Paul Newman, frustrated by all the unauthorized biographies and coverage of his life, recorded his own oral history, leaving behind transcripts that for years were forgotten in the basement laundry room of his house in Connecticut.Now his family has decided to turn those transcripts into a memoir, which will be published by Knopf next fall.“What he recorded, and in essence what he wrote, was so honest and revealing,” said Peter Gethers, an editor-at-large at Knopf who will edit the book, which does not yet have a title. “It showed this extraordinary arc, a guy who was very, very flawed at the beginning of his life and as a young man, but who, as he got older, turned into the Paul Newman we want him to be.”Newman — known for his blue eyes and 50-year acting career in movies such as “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “Hud” and “Cool Hand Luke” — died in 2008 at age 83.The book began more than 30 years ago as an oral history project put together by one of Newman’s closest friends, the screenwriter Stewart Stern. Stern, whose 1968 film “Rachel, Rachel,” was directed by Newman and starred his wife, Joanne Woodward, spent several years interviewing people from all corners of Newman’s life, including his children, his ex-wife Jacqueline Witte, close friends, and actors and directors who worked with him. This produced thousands of pages of transcripts and convinced Newman he should do his own version. Stern peppered him with questions, Gethers said, and they created recordings that are a mix of interview and Newman speaking without prompts..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}The recordings, completed about 10 years before his death, describe Newman’s early life, including his difficult relationship with his parents, as well as his troubles with drinking, his shortcomings as a husband in his first marriage, and his flaws as a parent. It is candid about his sorrow when his son, Scott, died of a drug and alcohol overdose at 28.One of several photos of Newman and his family that will appear in his forthcoming memoir.via KnopfThe book also delves into Newman’s insecurity in his younger years, exploring his jealousy of peers like James Dean and Marlon Brando when they were all working in Hollywood.“He said that his mother did not so much think of him as flesh and blood, but as a decoration,” Gethers said. “He says that if he was not a pretty child, she never would have paid attention to him at all. It’s a devastating thing to read, and clearly forms so much of his life and his insecurity about being an actor.”The memoir will also cover his marriage to Woodward, which Gethers called “remarkably loving, affectionate and sexy,” as well as his acting career and racecar driving.The book was purchased at auction this spring, Gethers said. It will be about 80 percent memoir, with the remaining part based on the recordings Stern made with people close to Newman. It will also include previously unreleased family photographs.The transcripts were given to Knopf, which was then charged with turning it into a book. (After the publisher bought it, more transcripts were found in a storage unit in Connecticut, in a banker’s box marked “PLN / HISTORY,” Gethers said.) Stern died in 2015, so Newman’s daughters are participating in the editing process, in essence as an author would, approving changes and drafts.Gethers himself is the author of 13 books and several screenplays, and has produced movies and television shows. He said that while wooing the Newman family during the bidding process, he told them that his father, a TV writer and producer, wrote one of Newman’s earliest starring roles in 1956 on a show called “Rag Jungle.” Gethers also mentioned that he had two cats named for Newman roles: Harper and Hud. More

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      ‘Isolation’ Review: Dispatches From a Different Pandemic

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      In an anthology of nine short films made during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, people around the world fight to survive.Given that horror films tend to reflect our anxieties back at us, manifesting them into solid, solvable problems like zombie hordes or possessed houses, it makes sense that movie lovers have turned to the genre for comfort during the coronavirus pandemic. Filmmakers have likewise mined this moment for terrifying inspiration. Last summer Shudder released “Host,” a collaborative horror film made entirely over Zoom. Now “Isolation,” a collection of nine short horror films set all over the globe, offers stories of survival created under the limitations of quarantine. Though there are a few standout creations, the anthology is mostly muddled, privileging a heightened version of 2020 over a reality that was plenty scary on its own.In “Isolation,” each short is set in a specific city in a world upended by a mutating virus. Economies are crashing and food supply chains have halted, resulting in mass civil unrest. “Pacific Northwest,” directed by Bobby Roe, follows two children as they outrun murderous escaped convicts who have been inexplicably freed from a nearby facility. This hovering between real-world horror and tacked-on scares results in more confusion than it does poetry.For instance “The Dread,” directed by Dennie Gordon, artfully depicts a woman’s anxiety as her husband slowly dies in their bed — but the film ends with gunshots and explosions as unknown vigilantes ransack the Hollywood Hills. Two films about conspiracy theorists, “5G” and “It’s Inside,” only compound confusion. Without consistent information about this slightly different world, it’s impossible to tell if these characters are totally unhinged or if their paranoia is justified.The gimmick of this collection is its main draw. Seeing what the filmmakers have pulled off at the height of quarantine, with only at-hand resources at their disposal, is fascinating. Drone footage abounds; family members and friends play starring roles. Some films are meditative, while others go full-on slasher. But the bizarre 2020 that “Isolation” presents — exactly like ours, except when it’s not — is ultimately a hobbling distraction.IsolationNot rated. In English and German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Lawyer for ‘Rust’ Assistant Director Says Checking Gun Was Not His Job

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      The assistant director, Dave Halls, had previously told a detective that he should have more thoroughly checked the gun before Alec Baldwin handled it, according to an affidavit.A lawyer for the assistant director on the film “Rust” — who law-enforcement officials said had handed a gun to the actor Alec Baldwin before it discharged a live round that killed the cinematographer — said in an interview on Fox News Monday that it was “not his responsibility” to check the weapon.The assistant director, Dave Halls, had told a detective shortly after the fatal shooting that when the movie’s armorer had shown him the firearm to inspect its rounds, he “should have checked all of them, but didn’t,” according to an affidavit released by the sheriff’s office in Santa Fe County, N.M. According to another affidavit, Mr. Halls had called out “cold gun,” indicating that the gun did not contain any live rounds, and handed it to Mr. Baldwin.But Mr. Halls’s lawyer, Lisa Torraco, contended in an interview with Martha MacCallum on Fox News that the main responsibility for checking the gun was with the film’s armorer, claiming that it was “not the assistant director’s job.”“What I can tell you is that expecting an assistant director to check a firearm is like telling the assistant director to check the camera angle or telling the assistant director to check sound or lighting,” she said in the interview. “That’s not the assistant director’s job. If he chooses to check the firearm because he wants to make sure that everyone’s safe, he can do that, but that’s not his responsibility.”The film’s director, Joel Souza, who was wounded in the shooting, later told a detective that the firearms were checked by the film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, and “then the firearm is checked by the assistant director Dave Halls, who then gives it to the actor using the firearm,” according to another affidavit released as part of a search warrant application.Larry Zanoff, a veteran armorer whose past films include “Django Unchained” and “Fantastic Four,” said it was common practice on a film set for the first assistant director to be one of the people responsible for inspecting guns on set, including checking to make sure a gun is empty before the armorer hands it to an actor.The shooting on the set of “Rust” killed Halyna Hutchins, an up-and-coming cinematographer.Since the shooting, public scrutiny has been largely focused on Mr. Halls and Ms. Gutierrez-Reed, because investigators reported that they handled the gun shortly before the incident. In an affidavit released by the sheriff’s department, a detective, Joel Cano, wrote that he learned that shortly before the shooting, Mr. Halls had picked the gun up from a gray cart that had been set up by Ms. Gutierrez-Reed and had taken it onto the set, where he handed it to Mr. Baldwin and yelled “cold gun.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Torraco disputed that chain of events in the Fox interview, saying, “This idea that my client grabbed the gun off of a prop cart and handed it to Mr. Baldwin absolutely did not happen.” Ms. Torraco said she has heard differing accounts from crew members on set.She did not directly give her client’s account. “My client went through something that was such a freak accident that he’s in shock,” Ms. Torraco said. “He’s having a hard time sorting out what happened.”Mr. Halls has not responded to several requests for comment; Ms. Torraco’s office declined to comment last week and has not responded to several requests for comment this week.Mr. Halls has been the subject of complaints on previous film productions. In 2019, Mr. Halls was fired from a movie, “Freedom’s Path,” after a gun discharged unexpectedly on set, causing a minor injury to a crew member, its production company said. Ms. Torraco did not respond to a question in the Fox interview about the previous complaints.No criminal charges have been announced in the case, but the district attorney overseeing it, Mary Carmack-Altwies, has said that her office has not ruled them out. As details have emerged around a series of errors on set that preceded the fatal shooting, how a live round got into the revolver that Mr. Baldwin handled remains unclear. More

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      The ‘Jaws’ Shoot Was a Drama. Now It’s a Play.

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      The hit movie’s set was plagued by malfunctioning sharks and drunken feuds — perfect material for a night at the theater.LONDON — When Ian Shaw was 5, he did something to make any movie fan jealous: He visited the set of “Jaws.” On location on Martha’s Vineyard, an assistant pulled back a huge sheet and young Shaw found himself staring into the gaping mouth of the man-eating shark that would soon become a cinematic icon.“I was terrified!” Shaw, now 51, recalled in a recent interview.Shaw was on set because his father, Robert Shaw, was starring in the movie as Quint, the psychotic shark hunter who, by the film’s end, has been bitten in two. Shaw said he visited many of his father’s sets, and the “Jaws” shoot seemed like any other. But what he didn’t know back then was that the shoot was one of movie history’s most notoriously dysfunctional, plagued by technical problems and cast feuds.The production’s three mechanical sharks kept breaking down, and shooting was often delayed: Steven Spielberg, the film’s director, took to calling the special effects team the “special defects department.” At one point, a boat they were filming on sunk, sending two cameras down to the sea floor. (The film inside the cameras turned out to be safe.)Shaw’s father — who died in 1978 — brought difficulties of his own to the production. He drank heavily during the shoot, and clashed with a co-star, Richard Dreyfuss. The elder Shaw repeatedly belittled and tried to humiliate Dreyfuss, making off-putting comments seconds before the cameras rolled, or goading Dreyfuss into performing silly stunts, like climbing a ship’s mast and jumping into the sea.Roy Scheider, the movie’s other star, was stuck between the feuding pair.In “The Shark Is Broken,” the three main characters are stuck together on a boat as tensions wax and wane. Helen MaybanksThe younger Shaw didn’t learn the full extent of the chaos on the set of “Jaws” until decades later, he said, but he realized that they had enough the drama for a play. Now he is winning rave reviews in Britain for “The Shark Is Broken,” a comedy three-hander running at the Ambassadors Theater in London’s West End through Jan. 15. In it, Shaw plays his father, stuck on a boat with Dreyfuss (Liam Murray Scott) and Scheider (Demetri Goritsas) as the tensions wax and wane.In a recent interview, Shaw talked about the difficulty of portraying his father’s darker side onstage, and whether conflict can spur creativity. These are edited extracts of that conversation.In the play, your father clearly dislikes “Jaws.” Did he ever take you to see the movie?I saw it when I was very young, in a screening room somewhere, and was absolutely terrified and couldn’t go in the swimming pool afterward. I remember having nightmares, imagining sharks around my bed and calling for my dad to come and save me. Even though I knew that in the film he got eaten, I was able to suspend my disbelief about that.From left: Roy Scheider as Martin Brody, Robert Shaw as Quint and Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper in the film “Jaws.”Universal StudiosFrom left: Demetri Goritsas as Roy Scheider, Ian Shaw as Robert Shaw and Liam Murray Scott as Richard Dreyfuss in the play “The Shark Is Broken.”Helen MaybanksWhat made you come up with the idea to turn the movie’s problems into this play?I once had to grow a mustache for a part, and looked in the mirror and thought, “Oh, I look like Quint.” That’s what started it, but it seemed a very silly and foolish idea because I’d spent my whole career avoiding association with my dad.Then I read Carl Gottlieb’s “The Jaws Log,” and watched documentaries, and saw there was this really interesting relationship between Robert and Richard and Roy — this triangle which makes for great drama. And you only need three people, so it’s affordable!I toyed with the idea for years, because I felt it could be very embarrassing — potentially disrespectful to my dad and to the movie “Jaws,” which I love. To step into my dad’s shoes, and to paint him as an alcoholic — do I have the right to do that publicly?Did you know he was an alcoholic at the time? He died only a few years after making “Jaws” when you were still young.I did used to see him drink. I was often playing under the table in the Irish pubs when he would be having a session. But it didn’t seem a problem then. It actually seemed kind of normal.I feel that generation, especially the more working-class actors like Richard Burton, had a little discomfort with the profession in terms of putting on tights and makeup. So their way of asserting their masculinity was to be hard drinkers, the sort of Viking method of proving themselves.What made you get over your fear of disrespecting him?When I started writing the play with Joseph Nixon, we quickly saw it wasn’t just about “Jaws.” Joe’s father died very sadly, and it became a little bit more about fathers and sons, about addiction, about making movies in general. There were these other themes that meant it wasn’t just a stunt.The “Jaws” shoot used three mechanical sharks. They kept breaking down, delaying the production and ratcheting up tension on the set.Universal Studios, via Everett CollectionYou show your father continually antagonizing Dreyfuss, often seemingly just for fun. Why do you think he behaved like that?He really didn’t want to do “Jaws,” because, at the time, he was offered [the remake of] “Brief Encounter,” or was certainly in the running for it. He would have rather have done that, to break away from this macho image. He kind of felt handcuffed to “Jaws” to provide for his family.Then the shark’s not working, so they’re hanging around. And he liked to drink. But also Dreyfus genuinely did wind him up and so he thought he needed a bit of a slap down. He dared Dreyfuss to jump off the mast from the top of the ship, and I think he fired a fire hose in his face. There’s so many stories, and a lot of them are true.In the play, your father says he’s needling Dreyfuss to improve the movie. Their characters are meant to dislike each other. Did you consider that he might just have been trying to create a mood?Personally, I think it was both because he was annoyed with Richard, but also he did think it was getting some good work done between them. The acting is so good in the film, so it probably did help.You once auditioned for a role in a production Dreyfuss was directing. How did that go given his past with your father?He was directing “Hamlet,” and I went in and mentioned that I was Robert Shaw’s son and he looked, ironically, like Hamlet seeing his dead father. He just sat down and looked slightly ill. I was really taken aback at the time. I’d been expecting him to go, “Wonderful!” then give me a big hug. But he was very professional, because we obviously went through the audition.Did you get the part?No, I didn’t!“The Shark Is Broken” isn’t just about “Jaws,” Shaw said; it became “more about fathers and sons, about addiction, about making movies in general.”Lauren Fleishman for The New York TimesGiven that “Jaws” experienced so many problems, did you have any of your own making “The Shark Is Broken?”Not that I remember. When I had the first ideas on paper, I did wake up with cold sweats at three o’clock in the morning thinking, “This is really bad idea,” because I was really worried that I would offend my family. But in terms of the writing process, I really enjoyed it.Do you think “Jaws” would have been a better movie without the problems?No, because the problems meant they all hung around and developed it. It allowed them to improvise. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” was a piece of improvisation from Steven Spielberg. And the delays allowed my father to rewrite the Indianapolis speech, which is a big moment. All sorts of things in it were devised while they were hanging around waiting.So disaster is a good recipe for creative success?Well, it can be. More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO, Hulu and More in November

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of November’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Rosamund Pike, center, as the mystic Moiraine escorting the young heroes of “The Wheel of Time.”Jan Thijs/Amazon Studios New to Amazon‘The Wheel of Time’ Season 1Starts streaming: Nov. 19Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” saga spans 14 fantasy novels plus various supplemental works, with the last of the books having been completed posthumously by the author’s colleague Brandon Sanderson. So if Amazon’s TV version of catches on, there’ll be enough story to tell to keep the show running longer than the “Game of Thrones” series and “The Lord of the Rings” movies combined. “The Wheel of Time” starts as simply as the novels do: with the tale of the mystic Moiraine (Rosamund Pike) who helps a group of young people escape the shadow forces pursuing them, while knowing that someone in her charge may be their land’s long-prophesied champion in an ancient, eternally recurring battle against civilization-destroying chaos agents. As with the books, the TV series is as much character-driven as it is lore-driven.Also arriving:Nov. 5“The Electrical Life of Louis Wain”“A Man Named Scott”“Tampa Baes”Nov. 12“Always Jane”“Mayor Pete”Nov. 19“Everybody Loves Natti”Nov. 29“Burning”Jeremy Renner and Hailee Stanfield in “Hawkeye.”Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel StudiosNew to Disney+‘Hawkeye’Starts streaming: Nov. 24The recent run of Marvel Cinematic Universe TV series have featured some real departures, with shows like “WandaVision,” “Loki” and “What If…?” sporting unusual narrative structures and stories that ventured into the more mystical areas of Marvel Comics. But the six-part mini-series “Hawkeye” promises to be more of a grounded action-adventure, in the vein of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (and with some of the same characters). Jeremy Renner reprises his role as the Avengers’ resident archer and family man Clint Barton, who finds himself training a protégée, Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld), in hopes that he can take care of his latest crisis and get home in time for Christmas. “Hawkeye” was inspired in part by comic book stories penned by Matt Fraction, who brought a playful quality to the title character that should carry over well to television.‘The Beatles: Get Back’Starts streaming: Nov. 25The 1970 documentary “Let It Be” captured both the recording of one of the Beatles’ final albums and the personality conflicts that ultimately led to the band’s breakup. The director Peter Jackson’s three-part docuseries “Get Back” takes the original footage from that documentary (supervised at the time by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg) and refashions it into a larger story: about the making of the original film, and about what was really happening in the Beatles’ lives back then that even a fly-on-the-wall camera couldn’t catch. Jackson’s version is meant to be a more nuanced take on the band circa 1970, catching the passive-aggressive sniping but also the genuine pleasure these musicians took in working together on classic songs like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “The Long and Winding Road.”Also arriving:Nov. 12“Ciao Alberto”“Home Sweet Home Alone”“Olaf Presents”“The World According to Jeff Goldblum”From left, Douglas Hodge, Elle Fanning and Sacha Dhawan in “The Great.”Gareth Gatrell/Hulu New to Hulu‘The Great’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 19Season one of “The Great” introduced the “occasionally true” story of Catherine II (Elle Fanning), who marries the cruel and capricious Russian emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) and then begins trying to wrest power from him in ways both subtle and overt. The second season picks up not long after the events of last year’s finale, in which the two headstrong aristocrats reached a wary rapprochement, for the sake of their unborn child and for their own private agendas. The series’ creator Tony McNamara was one of the Oscar-nominated screenwriters of “The Favourite,” another unapologetically anachronistic historical dramedy. Expect more of McNamara’s sensibility in year two — along with an exciting new cast addition in Gillian Anderson, playing Catherine’s mother.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Taste the Nation With Padma Lakshmi: Holiday Edition”Nov. 5“Animaniacs” Season 2Nov. 11“3212 Un-Redacted”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-m80ywj header{margin-bottom:5px;}.css-m80ywj header h4{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:500;font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5625rem;margin-bottom:0;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-m80ywj header h4{font-size:1.5625rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Nov. 17“Marvel’s Hit-Monkey”Tom Hanks as Finch and Caleb Landry voicing Finch’s creation in the film “Finch.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Dickinson’ Season 3Starts streaming: Nov. 5Although the dramedy “Dickinson” is based on the life of the poet Emily Dickinson, it’s impossible to predict what will happen in the show’s third and final season. “Dickinson” has always been proudly off-kilter, with its creator, Alena Smith, taking the proven facts of writer’s life and then spinning whimsical and at times humorously impossible fantasies about the historical figures Dickinson might have met in mid-19th century Massachusetts, as well as the decadent parties she might’ve attended as a young woman with a thirst for independence. However the series eventually ends, its star, Hailee Steinfeld, continues to bring wit and passion to the role of an artist who wants badly to leave a lasting legacy, but a stubborn patriarchy and the looming threat of Civil War have her fearing that she’ll never get the chance to be heard.‘Finch’Starts streaming: Nov. 5Tom Hanks gets back into “Cast Away” mode in the science-fiction drama “Finch,” playing the title character: a resourceful scientist who is one of the few survivors of an Earth ravaged by environmental disasters. Fearing he is dying of radiation poisoning, Finch builds a robot named Jeff (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) and fills it with as much useful knowledge as he can, hoping Jeff will help him drive from St. Louis to San Francisco — and that the machine will take care of Finch’s dog after his master is dead. The road trip is filled with surprises and dangers, but most of the movie is just a long conversation between a man and his well-meaning but frequently bumbling creation, as Finch tries to explain to Jeff both how and why to survive tough times.‘The Shrink Next Door’Starts streaming: Nov. 12The journalist Joe Nocera’s true-crime podcast “The Shrink Next Door” tells the story of Dr. Isaac Herschkopf, a psychiatrist who allegedly took control of his patient Martin Markowitz’s life, moving into his ritzy Hamptons estate and eventually guiding his financial decisions. In the TV adaptation, Paul Rudd plays the doctor and Will Ferrell plays Marty. The two actors lean into both the comic and the dramatic possibilities of the codependent relationship that develops between these two men: One who is pushy and the other a pushover. The mini-series’s narrative stretches across decades, as the writer Georgia Pritchett and the director Michael Showalter seek to explain how this situation got out of hand, between a charming opportunist and a person who desperately needed his approval.Also arriving:Nov. 3“Dr. Brain”Nov. 5“Hello, Jack! The Kindness Show”Nov. 19“Harriet the Spy” Season 1“The Line”The cinematographer John Wilson as seen in “How to With John Wilson.”Thomas Wilson/HBONew to HBO Max‘How to With John Wilson’ Season 2Starts streaming: Nov. 26Uniquely strange and sweet, this comic docuseries is built around the eccentric worldview of the persistently upbeat but profoundly confused videographer John Wilson, who tries to make sense of modern human existence by filming the mundane chaos of daily life in New York City and then commenting on it in halting voice-overs. In Season 1, Wilson tried to get a handle on basic concepts like friendship, ownership, security and memory. By the end of the run, he (like everyone else on the planet) saw his life upended by disease and death. It should be exciting — if that’s the right word for a show as gentle as “How to” — to see how Wilson and his crew capture and interpret everything that’s happened in the world since 2020.Also arriving:Nov. 4“Aida Rodriguez: Fighting Words”“Head of the Class” Season 1Nov. 9“Dear Rider”Nov. 16“Simple as Water”Nov. 18“The Sex Lives of College Girls”Nov. 19“King Richard”Nov. 23“Black and Missing” More