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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sues NBC Over Documentary That He Says Defamed Him

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    The documentary, “Diddy: Making of a Bad Boy,” began streaming on NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform last month.Sean Combs, the music mogul facing federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges, sued NBCUniversal and its streaming service Peacock on Wednesday, accusing them of airing a documentary that “shamelessly advances conspiracy theories” about him.The documentary, “Diddy: The Making of a Bad Boy,” is one of several about Mr. Combs’s life and career that have been developed amid mounting allegations of sexual abuse and violence that led to the criminal charges and more than three dozen civil lawsuits.Mr. Combs, who is in a Brooklyn jail awaiting his criminal trial, has pleaded not guilty to the charges, has denied sexually assaulting anyone and has depicted the allegations as fabrications or distorted accounts of consensual sex. In recent weeks, he has begun to go on the offensive, filing lawsuits against people and companies he says have defamed him.The newest defamation suit focuses in part on a segment of the Peacock documentary in which one interview subject asserts that Kim Porter, Mr. Combs’s longtime girlfriend with whom the mogul had three children, had been murdered.The documentary includes an image of Ms. Porter’s autopsy report, which says she died of lobar pneumonia, and notes that the local police did not suspect foul play. She died in 2018 at 47 years old.But it also includes an interview with Albert Joseph Brown, a former singer who goes by the name Al B. Sure!, that the suit characterizes as defamatory. In the interview, Mr. Brown, who had a child with Ms. Porter, describes seeing her and says, “It was two, three weeks prior to her murder — am I supposed to say ‘allegedly’?”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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      ‘I Have Nothing’ Is a Wacky and Moving Docu-Comedy

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      In this six-part Peacock series, the comedian Carolyn Taylor tries to choreograph a figure-skating routine, despite being barely able to skate.Comedians’ quixotic quests to delve into childhood obsessions or achieve strange dreams well outside their areas of expertise are typically relegated to the podcast format, and the Canadian series “I Have Nothing” (on Peacock) has that same ramshackle, worlds-collide style. Luckily it’s a TV show, because its premise is a visual one: the creation and performance of a pairs figure-skating routine set to Whitney Houston’s “I Have Nothing.”The comedian Carolyn Taylor (“Baroness von Sketch Show”) was a kid during the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, and those Games left a real impression, especially the figure skating. The Battle of the Brians, Katarina Witt, Gordeeva and Grinkov — the highest of highs. Decades later, with no connection to the sport whatsoever, Taylor hears Whitney Houston on the radio and is struck by a vision, one that she and perhaps only she can make real in the world. She wants to create a pairs program to Houston’s banger, and she can picture the whole thing: the jumps and the lifts, the footwork sequences, the open-armed glides and intense expressions.So she decides to answer this calling, to choreograph a routine for Olympic-level skaters. She can barely skate and does not know any of the terminology, but she forges ahead. “Can’t this be a ‘buffoon makes good’ story?” she asks her pal, the comedian Mae Martin.It can; it is; “buffoon makes good” is a perfect way to describe the six-part docu-comedy. Taylor goes right to the top and enlists the Canadian choreographer, broadcaster and skater Sandra Bezic as a mentor, and much of the show is built on Bezic’s expertise (and, seemingly, Rolodex). A few false starts feel like filler at the beginning. But by Episode 3, things are really happening, and somehow the Olympic champions Ekaterina Gordeeva and David Pelletier are on board to skate the program.If you are a person who values preparedness, “Nothing” will fry the hair off your head with Taylor’s lack thereof — though eventually her madness reveals its methods. Much of the show is played for cringe, but everyone’s enthusiasm tends to melt that awkwardness. Several figure-skating legends contribute expertise and advice, and two Canadian skaters Taylor worshiped in her youth, Kurt Browning and Brian Orser, even get on the ice with her to help codify her ideas. The good nature on display here is genuinely moving, and the figure skating ain’t bad either.SIDE QUESTSIf you are craving more figure skating, the documentary series “Harlem Ice,” about the coaches and young skaters at Figure Skating in Harlem, debuts Wednesday, on Disney+.Pelletier is one of the main subjects of the terrific documentary series “Meddling” (on Peacock), about the 2002 pairs figure-skating judging scandal.“Baroness von Sketch Show” is available on the Roku Channel. More

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      ‘The Agency’ and ‘Black Doves’: Spy Dramas in Touch With Their Feelings

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      ‘The Agency’ and ‘Black Doves’ are part of a new crop of espionage series whose biggest battles take place within the hearts and minds of their agents.Ukraine and Russia are at war. Political instability and civil war rage in Sudan. Iran is ramping up its nuclear capabilities. The world is basically a mess in “The Agency,” the new espionage series that inundates the viewer with rapidly intersecting story lines set on an increasingly complicated geopolitical playing field.The series, which premiered last week on Paramount+ (with the Showtime tier), is part of a surge in spy shows that also includes “The Day of the Jackal,” on Peacock; “Black Doves,” premiering Dec. 5 on Netflix; and “Slow Horses,” which wrapped up its fourth season on Apple TV+ this fall.True to the genre, these series jet all over the globe (though mostly Europe) and unfold in high-tech command centers and in dark urban alleyways, via thrilling shootouts and furtive meetups. Some operatives pursue sanctioned missions as others go rogue. Multiple cats chase multiple mice, and it’s not always clear who is which.The most pitched battles, however, happen within the hearts and minds of the individual players. Even as the new spy shows reflect a fraught, tangled and mercenary post-Cold War world, the existential threats and conflicts are more interior, intimate and, in many ways, timeless.“It’s the agency,” a Central Intelligence Agency honcho (Jeffrey Wright) tells a field agent (Michael Fassbender) in “The Agency.” “Nothing is personal.” Nothing, that is, except everything.Jeffrey Wright, right, with John Magaro, plays a C.I.A. boss in “The Agency,” based on the French series “The Bureau.”Luke Varley/Paramount+ with ShowtimeWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The Day of the Jackal’ Is a Cat-and-Mouse Thriller

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      The new Peacock series, starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch, adapts the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel and sets the action in the present day.Eddie Redmayne is one of our most curious actors. The British star, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” takes big swings that sometimes are captivatingly odd. (If you haven’t seen his bellowing villain in “Jupiter Ascending,” from 2015, check it out.) But Redmayne’s innate slipperiness is well-suited to his latest role: an unknowable and deadly assassin in “The Day of the Jackal,” premiering Thursday on Peacock with five episodes (of 10).You spend much of the series wondering what exactly makes the Jackal tick. Is he simply a monstrous, unfeeling killer? A family man in disguise? A straight-up psychopath? Redmayne is fascinatingly coy — warm one moment and then haunting the next.The series is an adaptation of the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel, which was also made into a film in 1973. Created by Ronan Bennett, this version sets the action in the present day and opens with Redmayne’s gun for hire targeting a German politician. This piques the interest of an MI6 officer named Bianca (Lashana Lynch), who has an almost perverse fascination with weapons.As Bianca runs around trying to uncover the Jackal’s identity, the assassin gets a new high-profile assignment. These two characters operate on parallel tracks, just missing one another time and time again. If Redmayne’s portrayal of the Jackal is steeped in mystery, Lynch’s take on Bianca is a stirring mix of impulsivity and cunning. They are the twin engines propelling the plot.As is often the case with streaming dramas, there is some bloat in the narrative — it takes multiple episodes for Bianca and the Jackal to even end up in the same place. But there is a compelling focus on the collateral damage these two inflict. The Jackal has a beautiful Spanish wife who slowly becomes more suspicious of her husband’s activities. At the same time, Bianca is willing to put innocents in danger, including her own daughter, because she believes she is serving the greater good. Some of this material can feel like filler, but much of it deepens “The Day of the Jackal” and its depiction of the human cost of global intrigue. More

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      New Horror TV Shows to Stream This Halloween: ‘Teacup,’ ‘Uzumaki’ and More

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      This year’s horror series take us to damned villages, cursed towns and countries fallen into anarchy.This selection of shows from October’s annual parade of horror series will take you on a tour of places where the world appears to be out of control: a South Korea going through a religious frenzy, a Georgia farm under attack, a bucolic English village visited by aliens, a Japanese seaside town haunted by spirals. Just keep telling yourself it’s fiction.‘Hellbound’Based on an online cartoon, this Korean series on Netflix has a comic-book hook, repeated a time or two per episode: A trio of towering, golem-like figures materialize, heralded by cracks of thunder, and roast a human who has been identified as a sinner. This usually involves a lot of smashing and tossing about of people and vehicles. These scenes are kinetically satisfying — it is a Korean production, after all — and there’s something counter-intuitively adorable about the silent, hulking reapers. Directed by Yeon Sang-ho of the “Train to Busan” zombie films, “Hellbound,” whose second season premiered last week, is a solidly constructed supernatural thriller, with well-choreographed action that often features a tight-lipped lawyer (Kim Hyun-joo) who gets more use out of her police baton than her legal training.The bam-pow does not dominate the show, however. The screenwriter Choi Gyu-seok, adapting Yeon’s 2002 webtoon, focuses less on explaining the supernatural happenings than on portraying a society’s reactions to a terrifying rip in reality. Those responses are bad and badder, running from coercive religious fanaticism to cathartic, mordant anarchy — parallels to current trends around the world are almost certainly intentional — while a few contrarians fight for rationality and free will.The drama of ideas is talky and pitched between comic book and Philosophy 101, but there is enough inventiveness and feeling in the storytelling to keep you attuned to the show’s evocation of a world quickly going mad.‘The Midwich Cuckoos: Village of the Damned’When this mini-series premiered in Britain two years ago, it had the same title as the John Wyndham novel on which it is loosely based, “The Midwich Cuckoos.” For its American release, Acorn TV and Sundance Now (both will have the third of seven episodes on Thursday) tacked on the name of the cult-favorite 1960 film adaptation, “Village of the Damned.” The series is a solid, watchable piece of work, though it might have been better if they hadn’t reminded us of the chilling, compact, highly satisfying movie.The story, if you are unfamiliar, begins with everyone in a British village blacking out; shortly after, every woman of childbearing age finds herself pregnant. The resulting children, as you might guess, are a scary bunch, with powers of mind control that represent an extinction-level threat. “The Midwich Cuckoos” handles the science-fiction aspects capably, and like the film, it has its share of quietly creepy moments. Filling out the expanded running time with a lot of agonizing about motherhood and parenting, though, feels a little precious when the story is about aliens getting Earth women pregnant. Focus!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 Shares149 Views

      in Movies

      ‘The Killer’ Review: John Woo With a French Twist

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      Woo’s new version of his Hong Kong action movie “The Killer,” starring Nathalie Emmanuel and Omar Sy, may be a remake, but it’s not a retread.When he started a run of contemporary action movies in the early 1980s, the Hong Kong director John Woo forged a personal mode influenced by the stylized violence of American directors like Sam Peckinpah and Don Siegel (see the shootouts in “The Getaway” and “Dirty Harry”), and the mentholated cool of the French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Melville (à la the existential assassin of “Le Samouraï”). Before taking up in Hong Kong again in 2008, Woo created some galvanizing work in the United States: “Face/Off” (1997) and “Mission: Impossible 2” (2000).It is exhilarating, then, to see him set his sights on Paris with a remake of his 1989 Hong Kong classic, “The Killer.” He depicts the City of Lights with a loving, romantic eye.Woo’s original starred the incredibly charismatic Chow Yun-fat as the title assassin, a hired killer with an ethos who makes some sacrifices on behalf of a young woman he accidentally blinded during a shootout. (Woo has more than a touch of Chaplin’s “City Lights” in him, too.) One challenge for a remake would be finding a younger lead actor to match Chow’s magnetism. There is none, and Woo knows it as well as we do; hence, the film’s rather delightful surprise of gender-switching the title character.The British actress Nathalie Emmanuel plays the soulful marauder Zee, and man, does she cause a ruckus. The film’s first big blowout, in a cabaret-bar, features quarts of spilled blood, a skyscraper’s worth of shattered glass and mirrors, slow-motion flying bullets and, yes, a mishap in which a cabaret singer named Jenn (Diana Silvers) is blinded. Zee is a little more coldblooded than Jeffrey was in 1989; at first she tries to get rid of the singer rather than help her.Zee’s contractor, Finn, played by Sam Worthington, isn’t pleased that the singer was allowed to live. Zee is confused — she always asks before taking a job whether her future victims deserve to die. Finn tells her that this one had it coming. But Zee insists on keeping Jenn alive, despite the shadowy forces trying to wipe her out.Omar Sy plays Sey, a French cop who will, of course, form an uneasy alliance with Zee. (Woo’s world is like the one Mick Jagger’s devil envisions: Every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints. Sort of.) Sy projects assuredness and vulnerability in almost equal measure.Emmanuel, best known as Missandei, the trusted adviser to Daenerys in “Game of Thrones,” conveys a smooth, chameleonic expertise. As in the first film, the killer spends a lot of time in a moody, deconsecrated church, which is, of course, kitted out with a complement of doves — Woo’s favorite symbolic animals. The direction is energetic, incorporating frantic flashbacks and resourceful split-screen perspectives, and the plot adds several new twists not found in the first movie. Rest assured, this may be a remake, but it’s not a retread.The KillerRated R for — guess — violence. Running time: 2 hours 6 minutes. Watch on Peacock. More

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      ‘Homicide’ Is One of the Best TV Shows Ever. And It Is Finally Streaming

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      For years, the foundational cop drama, based on the book by David Simon (“The Wire”), languished in DVD-only purgatory. No longer.Pop the champagne, ring the bells, dance the jigs, cancel all other plans: A time of great rejoicing is here. “Homicide: Life on the Street,” one of the greatest shows in TV history, is finally streaming (on Peacock). So long we wandered in darkness, begging for its return. How we lamented its absence while the years rolled by, our cries growing louder and more sorrowful. But now at last we feast.“Homicide” debuted in 1993 with a tense, inventive nine-episode first season. Executive produced by Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson and Paul Attanasio, and based on the book by David Simon, the show often has a jangly, jumpy feel. Its instantly recognizable bloopy phones ring-ring in the background, and quick and distinctive edits keep the rhythm unpredictable — as if scenes were following the cadence of thoughts, not the cadence of shows. The series blends gallows humor and cynicism with operatic emotion and soaring monologues, and the signature interrogation scenes play out like seductions, like battles, like debates, like dances.The show is set in Baltimore and feels true to time and space in a way network cop shows no longer do. Everything is kind of grimy, yellowing before our eyes from the omnipresent cigarette smoke and general neglect, and you can hear how deflated the cushions on the chairs are at the precinct house.Characters remark often on the heat or the cold or the way a place smells, and the costuming is both naturalistic and specific, as if the characters really picked out their outfits themselves. This rewatch in particular, I was struck by how much touching there is on the show — how often the characters touch one another but also how often they interact physically with the set or props, knocking on tables and thumbing folders. That sense of contact anchors us, giving us a sense of solid-wood realism.The term “cop show” is frequently synonymous with “formulaic,” but “Homicide” is anything but. Some crimes stay with the show for its entire run, others for only an episode, and the depth and detail of all the one-off characters is unflagging, even when the show meanders a bit in later seasons. Andre Braugher’s performance as Frank Pembleton, the brilliant detective wrestling with his faith and purpose, is often the highlight, but all the acting here is top-notch. A symphony requires many instruments.If you want to watch one episode to get a taste for the show, watch Season 1, Episode 6, “Three Men and Adena,” in which Pembleton and his partner, Bayliss (Kyle Secor, also fantastic), interrogate a suspect (Moses Gunn, superb) for hours on end. If you want to watch five episodes and don’t care as much about self-spoiling, watch the first block of Season 3: “Nearer My God to Thee,” “Fits Like a Glove” and “Extreme Unction” follow the investigation into a serial killer, one who gets under Pembleton’s skin to an unusual degree; then “Crosetti” tells a more searing and intimate story, followed by “The Last of the Waterman,” which sends Melissa Leo’s guarded, thoughtful Kay Howard to her hometown on the Chesapeake Bay.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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      ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ Will Finally Be Available to Stream

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      The celebrated 1990s police procedural is coming to Peacock in August.The critically acclaimed 1990s police procedural “Homicide: Life on the Street” will soon be available to stream in its entirety.All seven seasons of the crime drama, which ran on NBC from 1993 to 1999, as well as the 2000 film “Homicide: The Movie,” which served as the series finale, will arrive on Peacock on Aug. 19. The show has been syndicated over the years and has been released on DVD, but its absence from streaming services — thanks largely to the challenge of securing music rights, a frequent sticking point in streaming deals — has long been lamented by fans.“Homicide” was based on a book by David Simon — then a Baltimore Sun reporter who had spent a year shadowing the Baltimore Police Department’s Homicide Unit. The series — along with “NYPD Blue,” which also premiered in 1993 — infused the cop genre with more grit and moral ambiguity, setting the stage for hard-edge cable dramas like “The Shield” and Simon’s own “The Wire,” one of the most celebrated series of all time.“Homicide” was created by Paul Attanasio and executive produced by Barry Levinson, among others. (Simon was a producer.) Tom Fontana, who would go on to create the prison drama “Oz,” was the showrunner. “Homicide” had a devoted core following during its run but was never a ratings darling. It stayed on the air for seven seasons, winning four Emmy Awards out of 17 nominations and three Peabody Awards. It also boasted a memorable cast that included Andre Braugher, who won an Emmy for his role as Detective Frank Pembleton; Melissa Leo; Richard Belzer; and Giancarlo Esposito.As the streaming boom resurfaced beloved titles from throughout TV history, “Homicide” regularly appeared on lists of shows fans most wanted to see come to a service. Simon previewed its arrival in a June post on X.“Word is that NBC has managed to finally secure the music rights necessary to sell ‘Homicide: Life On The Streets’ to a streaming platform,” he wrote, adding later in a reply: “I did nothing. Tom Fontana, Barry Levinson and [the producer] Gail Mutrux undertook the lobbying effort.” More

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      ‘Love Island USA’ Finds Its Magic Formula for Success

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      A new host, an embrace of social media and some excellent casting led to the former also-ran becoming the summer’s buzziest show.There is no shortage of dating reality shows, but this summer one is receiving the majority of the buzz. “Love Island USA,” an American spinoff of a popular British dating show, is dominating social media discourse, breaking streaming records and making fans out of even the most curmudgeonly anti-reality TV watchers.The show, which streams on Peacock, gathers a group of contestants, called islanders, into a luxury villa (this season is in Fiji) and tasks them with coupling up, either out of true love, friendship or simple survival. Islanders who are single were kicked out of the villa, and every so often American viewers have been asked to vote out their least favorite couple. In Sunday night’s season finale, the pair voted “most compatible,” will win a cash prize of $100,000.The show is captured through 80 to 90 cameras installed around the villa, which feed footage to a war room at the resort’s reception area. There, a crew of 450 producers, editors and postproduction executives make decisions about what footage will make the cut.“What’s shot on a Monday is delivered to the network on a Tuesday, and it works that way every day for a six-week run,” Simon Thomas, an executive producer at ITV Entertainment, the production company for “Love Island,” said in an interview.Though “Love Island USA” has been on air since 2019, this season — its sixth — has been by far the most successful. The first three seasons, which aired on CBS, received moderate viewership but did not live up to the success of the original British version. This season, the show has been the top reality series across all streaming platforms since its start on June 11, according to preliminary data from Nielsen. The show has also dominated social media, overshadowing Peacock’s other fan favorites like “The Traitors.”Ariana Madix’s supportive approach as host has been a huge hit with viewers.Ben Symons/PeacockWe 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