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    ‘The Interview’: Ramy Youssef Is Just Trying to Be ‘Emotionally Correct’

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    In the trailer for the new animated series “#1 Happy Family USA,” which premieres on Prime Video on April 17, there is a tag line that reads: “From the childhood nightmares of Ramy Youssef.” That might seem like a warning, but the show, which tells the story of the fictional Hussein family as they try to fit into a changing America in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, is actually very funny. There are big musical numbers and irreverent “South Park”-esque humor (Youssef’s co-creator, Pam Brady, was a “South Park” writer), and the characters’ appearances change depending on whether they are inside their home or out trying to navigate the world.Youssef was 10, growing up in New Jersey in an Egyptian American family, when Al Qaeda attacked in 2001. He often refers to the dislocation and fear he experienced as a child in his stand-up comedy, and it has come up in “Ramy,” the Hulu show he created and stars in about a young first-generation Muslim American guy figuring things out in New Jersey. (Youssef told me he makes work about his own life because “it’s the only thing I can actually account for with genuine insight.”) This new series, though, is his most ambitious attempt yet to examine past events that are still very much with us. Again, it’s a really funny show.Though much of Youssef’s work is rooted in his own experiences and worldview, he has lately been taking on roles in other people’s projects too. He had a part in Yorgos Lanthimos’s 2023 film, “Poor Things”; directed a memorable, dreamy episode of “The Bear” (the one set in Copenhagen); and when we spoke, he was in Utah filming “Mountainhead,” the first movie directed by the “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, in which he plays a billionaire during a financial crisis. (He couldn’t tell me much about the project, but he did say that “what’s happening and what we’re portraying — it’s been so surreal.”) Our conversation, like much of his work, ranged from the personal to the universal.The creator and comedian discusses his penchant for self-reflection, how politics fits into his work and why he’s not interested in representing anyone but himself.Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Amazon | iHeart | NYT Audio AppYour new animated project is called “#1 Happy Family USA,” which is a great name. I found it almost hopeful, that something like this can now be made: a comedy about one of the most terrible days in American history from the perspective of a Muslim American family. Why did you want to make this show now? The thing that compelled me is: The family in this show, they already have a lot going on before 9/11 happens. Pretty much the entire pilot, it’s just this family comedy about a family you’ve never really seen in an animated space. To bring in the events of the early 2000s felt important in the sense that it’s something we talk about all the time. It’s part of what we’re currently experiencing. It’s never gone away. And when I think about how long these themes have been directly a part of my life and the lives of people that I know — to get to step into a period of time that I don’t think has escaped us in any way, unfortunately, and to do it in a style that is familiar in terms of trodding on political things that can feel a little difficult, and undercuts them and doesn’t make them feel so volatile — to give this kind of family that treatment is really exciting. And to go at this through a totally unexpected and very silly lens — maybe that’s where that hope feeling comes from, because it’s so unfiltered. It’s one of the most inappropriate things I’ve gotten to be a part of. Yet there’s a lot of love and care for the subjects involved.Listen to the Conversation With Ramy YoussefThe creator and comedian discusses his penchant for self-reflection, how politics fits into his work and why he’s not interested in representing anyone but himself. More

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      Hamdan Ballal, Palestinian Director of ‘No Other Land,’ Is Attacked in West Bank, Witnesses Say

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      Hamdan Ballal was assaulted by masked attackers in his home village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, witnesses said. The Israeli military said he had been detained for questioning.A Palestinian director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” was beaten bloody near his home by Israeli settlers and detained by the Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank on Monday evening, witnesses said.The director, Hamdan Ballal, was set upon in Susya, his home village, by at least 20 masked people, mostly teenagers armed with rocks, sticks and knives, according to Joseph Kaplan Weinger, 26, who said he had come upon the attack after it began. Mr. Weinger is part of a volunteer initiative that provides protection in areas vulnerable to settler violence.It was not clear what prompted the attack, but Mr. Weinger, who is also a doctoral student in sociology at the University of California in Los Angeles, said the group had descended on Susya, which is south of Hebron, and assaulted West Bank residents as they were breaking the fast during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Some mockingly shouted holiday blessings as they did so, he said.Mr. Weinger said that he began honking the car horn in an attempt to alert nearby Israeli soldiers to the attack, but that the Israeli forces prevented him and two companions from reaching Mr. Ballal’s home.“Soldiers just stood around,” he said. “Later, when we got there, we saw his blood on the ground.”Mr. Ballal, 37, was one of three Palestinians detained, according to witnesses and the Israeli military. Leah Zemel, a lawyer representing the detainees, said that she had been informed that they were being held in a military center for medical treatment ahead of questioning, but that she did not know the reason for their detention.The Israeli military said in a statement that “several terrorists” had hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya and prompting a “violent confrontation” that involved “mutual rock hurling between Palestinians and Israelis.” The military said that when its forces and the police arrived, “terrorists” threw rocks at them.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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      Florida Mayor Threatens Cinema Over Israeli-Palestinian Film

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      The mayor of Miami Beach wants to end the lease of a group renting a city-owned property because it is screening the Academy Award-winning “No Other Land” there.The mayor of Miami Beach is seeking to oust a nonprofit art house cinema from a city-owned property for showing “No Other Land,” the Oscar-winning documentary that chronicles the Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank.The mayor, Steven Meiner, introduced a resolution to revoke the lease under which O Cinema rents the space, he announced in a newsletter this week. He described the film as “a false, one-sided propaganda attack on the Jewish people that is not consistent with the values of our city and residents.”Kareem Tabsch, the co-founder of O Cinema, said that the threat of losing its physical location in Miami Beach was “very grave and we take it very seriously.”“At the time, we take very seriously our responsibility as a cultural organization that presents works that are engaging and thought provoking and that foster dialogue,” he said. “And we take very seriously our responsibility to do that without interference of government.”The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, which is now co-counsel for the theater, criticized the mayor’s move, as did the makers of the film, which won the Academy Award for best documentary earlier this month but has not been acquired in the United States by a traditional distributor for either a theatrical or streaming release. Distributors in two dozen other countries had picked up the film even before it won the award.Daniel Tilley, the legal director of the Florida branch of the ACLU, said in an interview that “what’s at stake is the government’s ability to use unchecked power to punish those who dare to express views that the government disagrees with.”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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      “No Other Land” Is the Oscar-Nominated Film That No Studio Will Touch

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      “No Other Land,” about the destruction of a village in the occupied West Bank, is one of the year’s most acclaimed films. Still, U.S. studios are unwilling to distribute it.No documentary this season has been more talked about or acclaimed than “No Other Land,” which chronicles the besieged community of Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank as Israeli forces demolish residents’ homes and expel families from the land they have lived in for generations, claiming the area is needed for a military training ground.Directed by the Palestinian filmmakers Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal alongside the Israeli filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, “No Other Land” has received critical acclaim and collected many honors on the festival circuit. After winning the best documentary award at its Berlin International Film Festival premiere last February, the film also earned the same prize at the Gotham Awards and from major critics’ groups in New York and Los Angeles. Just weeks ago, it received an Oscar nomination.Still, no American studio has been willing to pick up this hot-button film, even though distributors typically spend this time of year eagerly boasting about their Oscar-nomination tallies.“I still think it’s possible, but we’ll have to see,” Abraham told me last week. “It’s clear that there are political reasons at play here that are affecting it. I’m hoping that at a certain point the demand for the film will become so clear and indisputable that there will be a distributor with the kind of courage to take it on and show it to the audience.”In the meantime, the directors have embarked on a self-distribution plan that has put “No Other Land” into 23 U.S. theaters; on the back of strong box office, it will continue to roll out into additional cities over the coming weeks.Adra and Abraham are not just part of the film’s directing team, but its two primary subjects. The 28-year-old Adra was raised in Masafer Yatta and has been documenting the forced expulsion since he was a teenager. Over the course of the film, he builds a strong but tense bond with Abraham, who lives in Jerusalem but travels frequently to Masafer Yatta to write about the situation there for an Israeli audience.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      How the Politics of the Gaza War Engulfed the Melbourne Symphony

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      The orchestra faced criticism for canceling a performance by a pianist who spoke about the war. Now a top leader has departed and the ensemble has opened an inquiry.The pianist Jayson Gillham was performing Beethoven’s “Waldstein” sonata and Ligeti’s études at a concert hall in Melbourne, Australia, earlier this month when the concert took an unexpected turn.When Gillham, 38, returned to the stage after intermission, he announced that he would depart from the printed program and play a world premiere: a piece called “Witness” by his friend, the composer Connor D’Netto, dedicated to journalists killed in Gaza.Speaking to the audience, Gillham blamed Israel for the deaths of more than 100 Palestinian journalists over the past 10 months, and said that “the killing of journalists is a war crime in international law, and it is done in an effort to prevent the documentation and broadcasting of war crimes to the world.”The next day, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, which had presented Gillham’s solo recital, informed him it was removing him from a planned concert with the orchestra a few days later, replacing his Mozart piano concerto with a Beethoven symphony. The ensemble said in a letter to audience members that Gillham had made “unauthorized statements” that represented an “intrusion of personal political views” on a piano recital.“I was really surprised,” Gillham said in an interview. “It felt like an overreaction.”A backlash followed: Artists, journalists and music fans in Australia denounced the Melbourne Symphony for canceling Gillham’s performance and defended his right to free speech. The orchestra backtracked, issuing a statement saying it had been wrong to cancel Gillham’s appearance and that it would work to reschedule it. It wound up canceling the Beethoven performance, citing “safety concerns.”But the fallout has continued.On Monday, the Melbourne Symphony announced that its managing director, Sophie Galaise, was departing. The ensemble said it was commissioning an outside investigation into the incident, to be led by Peter Garrett, the former lead singer of the Australian rock band Midnight Oil, who has also been a government minister.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

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      Marvel Changes Israeli Superhero Sabra in Captain America Movie

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      The studio said Sabra, a Mossad agent in comic books, will be “a high-ranking U.S. government official” in its next Captain America movie.When Marvel Studios announced two years ago that it had cast the Israeli actress Shira Haas to play Sabra, a superhero Mossad agent, in its next “Captain America” film, the news was cheered by Israelis and denounced by Palestinians.The studio said at the time that the makers of the film, “Captain America: Brave New World,” would be “taking a new approach to the character,” but did not elaborate.The contours of that reimagined character became clearer on Friday when Marvel released a trailer of the upcoming film. The accompanying announcement made no mention of Sabra as an agent of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, as she is depicted in comic books, but described her as “a high-ranking U.S. government official.”The change drew criticism from some who saw it as diminishing Israeli and Jewish representation onscreen. A headline in Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper, proclaimed, “‘Sabra’ Superhero in Marvel’s ‘Captain America’ Stripped of Israeliness Amid pro-Palestinian Backlash,” and one in The Jerusalem Post said, “Marvel removes Jewish superhero Sabra’s Israeli identity for new Captain America movie.”The American Jewish Committee said on social media that Marvel’s “decision to strip the Israeli identity of Sabra is a betrayal of the character’s creators and fans and a capitulation to intimidation. Sabra is a proud Israeli hero, and should be portrayed as such. Taking away such a central part of her identity would be like making Captain America Canadian.”It was not clear whether Sabra — alter ego: Ruth Bat-Seraph — still has Israeli origins in the movie, as her superhero name suggests. “Sabra” is a Hebrew word for a local cactus bush that doubles as an affectionate term for native Israelis. It also the name of a refugee camp in Lebanon where Palestinians were massacred in 1982 by a Christian militia while Israeli troops stood by, though the superhero predated that event. Haas appears only briefly in the new trailer, and a Marvel spokeswoman declined to comment.When Marvel said Sabra would be introduced in this “Captain America” movie two years ago, the prospect drew criticism from Palestinians and their supporters who argued that the comic book character, which dates back to 1980, unduly glorified Israel. The hashtag #CaptainApartheid began to appear on social media.“The bottom line is that to Palestinians, Marvel having an Israeli superhero whitewashes the occupation,” Sani Meo, publisher of This Week in Palestine, a magazine about Palestinian issues, said at the time.In the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel, and Israel’s war in Gaza, questions arose anew about how Marvel Studios, which is owned by Disney, would handle the character. Newsweek wrote in October that “Marvel’s Israeli Superhero Poses Huge Headache for Disney.”Just what kind of character Sabra will be in the film, which is set to be released in February, remains to be seen. More

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      Did Cate Blanchett Make a Pro-Palestinian Fashion Statement at Cannes?

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      The actress hasn’t said so, but some internet users think she did. Plus, a bleak week for small fashion brands and wedding dresses for fashion-forward brides.Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, followers of events known for being fashion spectacles — the Oscars, the Met Gala, Eurovision — have watched them become venues for making sartorial as well as political statements about the conflict.The Cannes Festival in France has not been immune to this trend. Several attendees have used the red carpet on the Croisette to show their support for Israelis or Palestinians during the film festival, with some wearing sashes saying “bring them home,” referring to Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, and others wearing red pins calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.Off the carpet, the model Bella Hadid ate ice cream near the beach in Cannes wearing a dress made of the material used for kaffiyehs, the scarves long seen as a symbol of Palestinians solidarity and identity.But those obvious displays have not generated as much buzz as the dress that the actress Cate Blanchett wore on Monday to the premiere of “The Apprentice,” a docudrama about the early life of former President Donald J. Trump.At first glance the gown — a piece from the designer Haider Ackermann’s one-off spring 2023 couture collection for Jean Paul Gaultier — looked like a simple black dress worn with a pearl necklace across the length of Ms. Blanchett’s bare shoulders.But as she began to walk the carpet, flashes of other colors emerged: The back of the dress was a pink so pale that it appeared white, and the gown had an emerald green interior lining that Ms. Blanchett repeatedly revealed by lifting its train. The dress had been significantly altered since it appeared on the runway, where it had a knee-length hemline, a lime-green back and a lavender lining.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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      Jewish Film Professionals Denounce Jonathan Glazer’s ‘Zone of Interest’ Speech

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      An open letter condemned remarks critical of Israel that Jonathan Glazer made when he accepted an Oscar for the film, which is about the Holocaust.Hundreds of Jewish actors, producers and others in the film industry have signed a letter condemning remarks critical of Israel that the director Jonathan Glazer made when he accepted an Oscar for his film about the Holocaust, “The Zone of Interest.”Described as a “statement from Jewish Hollywood professionals,” the letter was signed by the actors Debra Messing and Julianna Margulies; the producers Lawrence Bender and Amy Pascal; and the writer and showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino, according to Variety, which first reported on it on Monday evening.The signatories were confirmed Tuesday by Allison Josephs, an activist who has promoted Jewish representation in films and television and who helped with outreach for the letter. She said that by Tuesday morning it had nearly a thousand signatures.The letter criticized a speech Glazer made when he accepted the Oscar for international feature at the Academy Awards earlier this month for “The Zone of Interest,” which follows the Nazi commandant who runs Auschwitz and his family as they lead quiet domestic lives just beyond the walls of the camp.“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present,” Glazer, who is Jewish, said as he accepted the Oscar. “Not to say ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst.”“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” he said. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Theater

      ‘The Ally,’ a Play About Israel and Free Speech, Tackles Big Issues

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      Itamar Moses wrote a drama of ideas about Israel and antisemitism. Then Oct. 7 happened.Before his audition for “The Ally,” a new play by Itamar Moses, the actor Michael Khalid Karadsheh printed out the monologue that his character, Farid, a Palestinian student at an American university, would give in the second act.The speech cites both the Mideast conflict’s specific history and Farid’s personal testimony of, he says, “the experience of moving through the world as the threat of violence incarnate.” Karadsheh — who booked the part — was bowled over.“I don’t think anyone has said these words about Palestine on a stage in New York in such a clear, concise, beautiful, poetic way,” said Karadsheh, whose parents are from Jordan and who has ancestors who were from Birzeit in the West Bank.Farid’s speech sits alongside others, though, in Moses’s play: one delivered by an observant Jew branding much criticism of Israel as antisemitic; another by a Black lawyer connecting Israel’s policies toward Palestinians to police brutality in the United States; another by a Korean American bemoaning the mainstream’s overlooking of East Asians. These speeches are invariably answered by rebuttals, which are answered by their own counter-rebuttals, all by characters who feel they have skin in the game.In other words, “The Ally,” which opens Tuesday at the Public Theater in a production directed by Lila Neugebauer and starring Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother”), is a not abstract and none too brief chronicle of our times, a minestrone of hot-button issues: Israelis and Palestinians, racism and antisemitism, free speech and campus politics, housing and gentrification, the excesses of progressivism — even the tenuous employment of adjunct professors.“I don’t think anyone has said these words about Palestine on a stage in New York in such a clear, concise, beautiful, poetic way,” said Michael Khalid Karadsheh, who plays Farid.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe 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