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    ‘Bad Boys’ Ticket Buyers Toss Will Smith a Career Lifeline

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    Mr. Smith’s first wide-release film since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars two years ago arrived to a hefty $56 million at the North American box office.Moviegoers sent Will Smith a clear message over the weekend: We forgive you.“Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the fourth entry in the Sony Pictures franchise — and Mr. Smith’s first wide release since he slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards in 2022 — arrived to roughly $56 million in ticket sales in the United States and Canada, according to Sony. That No. 1 result was a career milestone for Mr. Smith: He now has 15 first-place debuts as a leading man on his résumé.“Ride or Die,” which returned Mr. Smith to one of his signature roles, cost an estimated $100 million to make, not including marketing. It received positive reviews, with many critics noting a comedic moment that seemed to refer to Mr. Smith’s behavior at the 2022 Oscars: Mr. Smith is slapped by his co-star, Martin Lawrence, and called a “bad boy.”Ticket buyers gave the R-rated “Ride or Die” an A-minus grade in CinemaScore exit polls. The Rotten Tomatoes audience score stood at 97 percent positive on Saturday.Prerelease surveys that track audience interest had indicated that “Ride or Die” would arrive to about $45 million in North American ticket sales. Sony was hoping for at least $30 million.Mr. Smith’s popularity, as measured by the Q Scores Company, plummeted after his behavior at the 2022 Oscars.Frank Masi/Columbia PicturesHollywood as a whole was unsure what to expect. For a variety of reasons — too few movies, movies that didn’t appeal to wide audiences, changing consumer habits — the summer box office has been in a deep freeze.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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      Will Smith Taps Nostalgia as He Attempts a Post-Slap Comeback

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      “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the latest entry in a nearly three-decade- old franchise, will be Smith’s first wide-release film since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022.During the Latin pop star J Balvin’s set at Coachella in April, a surprise guest star suddenly appeared onstage: Will Smith, wearing a familiar black suit and sunglasses, launched into the title song of “Men in Black,” his 1997 Hollywood blockbuster.It was the beginning of a frenetic spring for Smith as he carefully re-enters the public eye to promote “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” his first wide-release movie since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022, a move that threatened to derail his career.Smith has been back walking red carpets, bantering on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon” and eating spicy chicken until his eyes watered on “Hot Ones,” the popular YouTube show. He told Fallon his publicity tour had taken him to eight cities in 12 days, with stops in Dubai and in Riyadh for what he described as the first Hollywood premiere in Saudi Arabia.“Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the latest entry in a nearly three-decade old franchise, is opening nationwide on Friday. The film industry will be closely watching how it does to see whether the moviegoing public is ready to welcome Smith back after an event so shocking and ignominious that it achieved proper-noun status: the Slap.Whether by accident or agreement, the Slap has not come up much in Smith’s prerelease publicity blitz. But the film itself seems to refer to it, archly, as several critics have noted: In it, Smith gets slapped by his co-star, Martin Lawrence, and called a “bad boy.”Lawrence appeared on “The Tonight Show” with Smith and praised him effusively. “He is one of the most professional actors out there, most talented actors out there, he has a brilliant mind, he’s a genius and he’s upstanding,” he said.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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      How the O.J. Simpson Trial Changed What Comics Could Roast

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      Norm Macdonald and Jay Leno made the double homicides such a constant topic that refraining from jokes the way David Letterman did was noticeable.The weekend after a jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of murder, the comedian Norm Macdonald opened Weekend Update on “Saturday Night Live” at his desk next to a photo of the defendant. “Well, it is finally official,” he said. “Murder is legal in the state of California.”The 1995 trial of Simpson, who died Wednesday at 76, didn’t just dominate and revolutionize the media. It also became an unlikely staple of comedy. The details of the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald L. Goldman were daily fodder for punchlines on talk shows, sitcoms and stand-up stages. And Macdonald cemented his status as one of the finest comedians of his generation thanks to a fixation on what turned into one of the largest comedy genres of the 1990s: the O.J. joke.In his 1996 breakthrough special, “Bring the Pain,” Chris Rock’s button-pushing analysis of the dynamics of the O.J. Simpson case helped change the course of his career. He argued that fame is what saved Simpson. “If O.J. drove a bus, he wouldn’t even be O.J.,” he said. “He’d be Orenthal, the bus-driving murderer.”The O.J. joke was so pervasive in the 1990s that not telling one could make you stand out. In the week after Simpson’s arrest, Howard Stern went on “Late Show With David Letterman” during the most heated era of the late-night wars and asked the host why he was avoiding the subject. “I’ll tell you my problem with the situation,” Letterman responded. “Double homicides don’t crack me up the way they used to.”Letterman eventually did tell some jokes about the trial, including a Top 10 list of things that will get you kicked off the jury (No. 1: “Keep frisking yourself.”). But his caution was in sharp contrast to Jay Leno, who went all in on O.J. jokes on the “Tonight Show.” A study that tracked his monologues revealed that Leno told more punchlines about Simpson than about any other celebrity, edging out Michael Jackson and Martha Stewart. In one running bit, he imagined the trial judge, Lance Ito, and the lead prosecutor, Marcia Clark, as members of a Broadway chorus line. In an even more perversely glib parody, Leno recast the murder trial as a sitcom using the theme song from “Gilligan’s Island” and portraying Simpson as the lovable title character. Was this sketch turning real-life tragedy into diverting entertainment or parodying it? Watching it now makes the difference seem pointless.Moments like Simpson trying on the gloves at trial became fodder for Jay Leno, Macdonald and other comics. Vince Bucci/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWe 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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      Kevin Hart Receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor

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      The prolific comic was honored at the Kennedy Center for a 25-year career that has included movies, TV series and many live events.The Kennedy Center honored the comedian, who said he “fell in love with the idea of comedy” as something he could do for the rest of his life.Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesKevin Hart stepped into the spotlight on Sunday night with his usual swagger to accept the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, occupying a stage lit up with his signature pyrotechnics.“Can I pee?” Mr. Hart said after a heartfelt tribute from his friend the comedian Dave Chappelle, before waddling offstage at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. He then reappeared to accept a bust of Mark Twain from David M. Rubenstein, the retiring chairman of the Kennedy Center.Mr. Hart, 44, is the 25th comic to receive the prize from the Kennedy Center, an honor given annually to the greatest humorists in American comedy. Mr. Hart was joined by his wife and four children, and grinned broadly even as he teared up at bitingly funny roasts and emotional tributes from friends and colleagues in the industry.“I played arenas with Chris Rock, and I would never play an arena before I saw you do it,” Mr. Chappelle said, crediting Mr. Hart with changing the business of stand-up comedy after a career selling out arena tours and even a football stadium in his hometown, Philadelphia. “You made me dream bigger, and you’re younger than me — it’s humiliating.”Over a roughly 25-year career — it was noted that he had been doing comedy since the inception of the Mark Twain Prize in the late 1990s — Mr. Hart has sold millions of tickets. He has built a loyal fan base through movies, TV series and many live events — some enhanced by fireworks — including eight comedy specials on relatable narratives, physical comedy and goofy re-enactments. But even when he rags on the cast of characters who file in and out of his life, he is usually the punchline of his own jokes.His peers also lauded him on Sunday for his work ethic, which includes appearing and casting friends in a slate of Hollywood movies, like the “Jumanji” sequels, dramedies such as “Fatherhood” and “Night School,” and a number of comedic action films.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only’ Review: Sold-Out Laughs

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      This Netflix movie is aimed at comedy fans, even if they already know many of its stories.“Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only,” a slick, self-mythologizing piece of Netflix content that follows the two comedians on the recent arena shows they teamed up on, is aimed at comedy fans — even if much of it will be familiar to them. The story of how Eddie Murphy spotted Rock at The Comic Strip (now Comic Strip Live) and offered him a job on the sequel to “Beverly Hills Cop” has been told many times. And any stand-up fan on social media knows that Hart presented a goat to Rock at the end of their recent show at Madison Square Garden (as well as whether or not Dave Chappelle would show up). That doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons to watch.Rock’s disastrous first television stand-up set is shocking even if you’ve seen it. Keith Robinson, a Comedy Cellar regular who mentored Hart when he was known as Lil’ Kev the Bastard, steals the show as a Jedi master for comedians. Directed by Rashidi Natara Harper, the film (which feels more like a commercial than a documentary) works best as a behind the scenes hang with an odd couple. Hart is chatty, constantly narrating his own life, building up this show as a successor to the Kings of Comedy tour. Rock is not just more shy. He looks slightly irritated with the entire production, waving away the cameras, saying the main reason he’s doing it is just to spend time with Hart. At the end, he says you can’t be in the Hall of Fame and still play the game. He’s still playing.Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners OnlyNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel Addressed ‘the Slap’ in His Opening Monologue

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      In naming Jimmy Kimmel the host for a third Oscars, this year’s producers, Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner, cited the veteran’s readiness to handle anything that live television might throw at him.On Sunday, the late-night TV host wasted little time acknowledging recent snafus at the Oscars in an opening monologue that hyped the return of moviegoing and also included joking jabs at some of Hollywood’s most famous figures.“All the top 10 highest grossing films this year were sequels or franchises. They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas,” Kimmel said. “I mean, poor Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg.”Kimmel’s opening remarks, which lasted roughly 15 minutes, also alluded to Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at last year’s ceremony.“We know this is a special night for you. We want you to have fun; we want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe,” he said. “So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute long speech.”“If anything unpredictable or violent happens during this ceremony, just do what you did last year,” he added. “Nothing. Sit there and do absolutely nothing.”Here is a transcript of the full monologue:Give me a second to adjust my danger zone here. My banshees are caught in my Inisherin right now.Welcome, and congratulations. Welcome to the 95th Oscars. You made it. Congratulations. I know that being here tonight is a dream come true for most of the people in this room. Thank you for inviting me to be a part of it, especially this year, when the world finally got out of the house to see the films you worked so hard to make, the way you intended them to be seen: in a theater. I also want to say that I am happy to see that Nicole Kidman has finally been released from that abandoned AMC, where she has been held captive for almost two full years now. It’s good to have you back, Nicole. And thank you for encouraging people who were already at the movie theater to go to the movie theater. You look great. Everybody looks so great. When I look around this room, I can’t help but wonder: Is Ozempic right for me?We have so many first-time nominees here. In the acting categories alone, there are 16 first-time nominees, including Jamie Lee Curtis, including Ana de Armas, Colin Farrell, Michelle Yeoh, Brendan Fraser, Ke Huy Quan. This is, I think, a great piece of Oscars trivia. Thirty-one years ago, in 1992, Brendan Fraser and Ke Huy Quan were in a movie together. Do you remember which movie it was? “Encino Man.” Two actors from “Encino Man” are nominated for Oscars. What an incredible night this must be for the two of you, and what a very difficult night for Pauly Shore. Maybe it’s time to reboot “Bio-Dome.” Why not? All the top 10 highest grossing films this year were sequels or franchises. They say Hollywood is running out of new ideas. I mean, poor Steven Spielberg had to make a movie about Steven Spielberg. Congratulations, Steven.Look at this, by the way. I want to say, right here, this is my favorite duo of the year. Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen. What a pair. The Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood. Seth, what are you on right now? Be honest. Nothing? Mushrooms, right? Did you give one to Steven? Give him one. Let’s see what happens. Maybe he’ll make something crazy. Steven claims he’s never even smoked weed, which I find hard to believe. You mean to tell me you were sober when you made a movie about an alien who eats Reese’s Pieces all day and can’t remember how to phone home? You were high as a bike when you made that movie.Steven is the first director to be nominated in six different decades for an Oscar. Remarkable. This time, as you know, he is nominated for “The Fabelmans,” which is by far his most personal film. They say, “Write what you know.” And they say, also, “Write what you know your mom did with your dad’s best friend.” And Steven did that, and the result was yet another Oscar nomination for the great Michelle Williams, who is right there. And “The Fabelmans” wasn’t an easy shoot for Michelle. After almost every take, Spielberg would rush up to her with tears in his eyes, and he’d scream, “That’s not how Mommy said it!”I also want to extend congratulations to Steven’s longtime collaborator, the maestro John Williams, who is now the oldest nominee in Oscar history. And he looks great. John turned 91 years old last month and he’s still scoring, if you know what I mean. And by the way, if you’ve never made love to the score from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” do yourself a favor. Only Walt Disney — this is great — only Walt Disney has been nominated for more Oscars than John Williams. He’s been nominated 53 times; he’s won five. Which, honestly, is not that great. But good luck tonight.It was a very good year for movies. Business is booming. I know people like to debate now which is better, movies or TV, but here’s the thing. No matter how good a show is, there are some things movies can do that TV just can’t. For example, a TV show can’t lose $100 million. Is the gang from “Babylon” here? They know. I was just asking if they were here. I was welcoming them. At least “Babylon” got released. In August, Batgirl became the first superhero to be defeated by an accounting department. And then we have the big one: the long, long, long awaited “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which gave the director and producer Jim Cameron another opportunity to do what he loves to do more than anything else: drowning Kate Winslet. The sequel to “Avatar” is the most expensive movie ever made. Disney spent $2 billion on this movie. Just to break even, all of Nick Cannon’s kids had to see “Avatar” four times. And they did, I guess. James Cameron is not here, by the way, tonight. You know a show is too long when even James Cameron can’t sit through it. Some of the cynics are saying Jim Cameron isn’t here because he didn’t get a best director nomination. And while I find that very hard to believe about a man of such deep humility, he does have a point. I mean, how does the Academy not nominate the guy who directed “Avatar”? What do they think he is, a woman? Thank you, ladies.It was some year for diversity and inclusion. We have nominees from every corner of Dublin. Five Irish actors are nominated tonight, which means the odds of another fight onstage just went way up.And while we’re on the subject of diversity, I want to say, especially those of you watching at home, there are a number of excellent films and performances that were not nominated tonight, including “Till” and “The Woman King,” which are both based on true stories, with great performances from Danielle Deadwyler and Viola Davis, that are very worthy of your time if you haven’t seen them, as is a small independent film called “Top Gun: Maverick.” The movie that saved the movies. Everyone loved “Top Gun.” Everybody. I mean, Tom Cruise with his shirt off in that beach football scene? L. Ron Hubba Hubba, you know what I’m saying? You know, Tom and James Cameron didn’t show up tonight. The two guys who insisted we go to the theater didn’t come to the theater. So if you’re hoping to get a look at Tom Cruise, he is not here. Or maybe he is here. Maybe that’s Tom Cruise right there, wearing a Judd Hirsch “Mission Impossible” mask. There’s only one way to find out for sure. Judd, we’re going to need you to drive a motorcycle off the roof of the theater.You know who else is here, the right excellent Rihanna is with us tonight. Rihanna got her first Oscar nomination for the song “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” Last month, she performed at the Super Bowl, and tonight, Rihanna will be performing at our halftime in just about four and a half hours from now. Rihanna has a 9-month-old backstage, and he’s very cute. He pooped during rehearsal. You know who the last person who pooped backstage at the Oscars was? That accountant who mixed up the envelopes.Rihanna is here, Lady Gaga is here, wonderful. My God, even Elvis is in the building tonight. There he is, Austin Butler. Austin, as you know, is a first-time nominee. He was so convincing as Elvis, still is. This is a good Hollywood story: Before they started shooting “Elvis,” Tom Hanks gave Austin a vintage typewriter as a gift and in it, Tom wrote, he left a note written from Col. Tom Parker to Elvis. So then Austin used the typewriter to write Tom back as Elvis Presley. And they got to know each other by sending letters back and forth as Elvis and Tom. Which just goes to show you how incredibly silly this all is. We have silly jobs. But Austin, you are so talented. I know Elvis would’ve loved your performance; in fact, according to my QAnon Reddit page, he did.We know this is a special night for you. We want you to have fun; we want you to feel safe. And most importantly, we want me to feel safe. So we have strict policies in place. If anyone in this theater commits an act of violence at any point during the show, you will be awarded the Oscar for best actor and permitted to give a 19-minute-long speech. No, but seriously. The Academy has a crisis team in place. If anything unpredictable or violent happens during the ceremony, just do what you did last year: nothing. Sit there and do absolutely nothing. Maybe even give the assailant a hug. And if any of you get mad at a joke and decide you want to come up here and get jiggy with it, it’s not going to be easy. There are a few of my friends you’re going to have to get through first. You’re going to have to get through the heavyweight champ Adonis Creed before you get to me. You’re going to have to do battle with Michelle Yeoh before you get to me. You’re going to have to beat the Mandalorian before you get to me. You’re going to have to tangle with Spider-Man. You are going to have to tangle with Fabelman. And then you’re going to have to go through my right-hand man, Guillermo, if you want to get up to this stage. Oh, wait a minute. The other Guillermo. Not del Toro. Yes, that one. OK, there you go. I know he’s cute, but make no mistake. You even so much as wave at me, that sweet little man will beat the Lydia Tár out of you.There will be no nonsense tonight. We have no time for shenanigans. This is a celebration of everyone here. You told us you wanted all the categories back in, and we listened. They’re all back in. We will be showing all 23 categories live tonight, except for one. Earlier tonight, best picture went to “All Quiet on the Western Front.” Congratulations to Germany. We put all the categories back in, because the movie community wanted it. Almost as much as the television community didn’t want it. So no complaining about how long the show is. I saw all your movies. Now it’s my turn to make you sit in a theater for three and a half hours. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to hear you speak; we do. We want your speeches to be moving. We also want to keep it moving. So if your speech goes on too long, this year, we’re not going to play you offstage. Instead, we have a group of performers from the movie “RRR” who are going to dance you offstage. If you go too long, we’re going to Bollywood “Gong Show” your ass. So let’s get this going. Please welcome our first presenters of the night, Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt. More

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      How Will Smith’s Slap Has Changed the Oscars

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      The Slap is sure to figure into the Oscars this year, even if the academy would prefer we all move on from the shocking moment on March 27, 2022, when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage. The organization has said tonight’s telecast will not dwell on the episode. Then again, it has set up a crisis team to deal with any unexpected developments at the ceremony, proof that the incident continues to cast a long shadow. It will inform what you will — and won’t — see at the Dolby Theater tonight.The encounter itself unfolded quickly: Rock, on hand to present best documentary, fired off a series of jokes targeting stars in attendance. After he made a crack about Jada Pinkett Smith’s close-cropped hair, her husband, Will Smith, left his seat in the audience, walked onstage and struck Rock. After sitting down again, Smith yelled at Rock to keep Pinkett Smith’s name out of his mouth. Rock said he would, then quipped, “That was the greatest night in the history of television.”He was clearly stunned and the incident has reverberated in the months since. Here’s a look at the fallout:Will Smith: The star, who went on to win the best actor Academy Award that night for “King Richard,” was banned from the Oscars ceremony for 10 years (though he is still eligible to win awards). Tradition calls for the previous year’s acting winners to present statuettes this year, but he won’t be onstage tonight.The ban was imposed after Smith resigned from the academy and issued an apology on social media. He followed that up with a much longer apology a few months later on YouTube aimed at Rock, Rock’s family, Smith’s family and Questlove, who won the documentary prize but was overshadowed by what had just transpired. As for a direct conversation between Smith and Rock, the actor noted he had been told the comedian wasn’t ready to talk.The academy is not Hollywood, and in the industry Smith’s career continues to roll on. In January, it was announced that he was reteaming with Martin Lawrence on another sequel in the “Bad Boys” franchise.Chris Rock: In the aftermath of the incident, the comedian said little. At a standup show a few days later, he told a sold-out crowd, “I’m still kind of processing what happened.” Fast-forward nearly a year and Rock was clearly ready to talk on his livestreamed Netflix special Saturday night. Rock laid into Smith, criticizing him for picking on someone much smaller — “Will Smith is significantly bigger than me. We are not the same size. Will Smith does movies with his shirt off. You’ve never seen me do a movie with my shirt off” — and relishing any takedown of Smith: “Now I watch ‘Emancipation,’ just to see him get whupped,” Rock joked. (For a fascinating perspective also delivered via standup comedy, try Marlon Wayans’s new HBO Max special, which is all about the Slap from the point of view of an artist who has known the Smiths and Rock for decades.)Jada Pinkett Smith: The actress rolled her eyes when Rock spoke about her hair, and part of the controversy has focused on the insensitivity of the line given that she has alopecia, a condition involving hair loss. She has made a few comments over the past several months on social media but did not address the joke itself. (In his apology video, Will Smith took care to point out that Pinkett Smith had nothing to do with his decision to hit Rock.) Mainly the actress’s focus was on healing between the two men. On “Red Table Talk,” her Facebook Watch show, she said, “My deepest hope is that these two intelligent, capable men have the opportunity to heal, talk this out and reconcile.”The academy: Heavily criticized for doing little that night (officials asked Smith to leave, apparently, and he refused), the organization has issued a few mea culpas for its response, most recently at the nominees’ luncheon last month. “It was inadequate,” said Janet Yang, the academy president. “We learned from this that the academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis, we must act swiftly, compassionately and decisively.”How do they plan to do better next time? A crisis team will be stationed at the ceremony, according to a Time magazine interview with the academy chief executive, Bill Kramer, who explained: “We have a whole crisis team, something we’ve never had before, and many plans in place. We’ve run many scenarios.”“Emancipation”: This slave drama starring Will Smith was expected to be a strong Oscar contender this year — until the Slap greatly clouded its prospects. Though Smith could still have been nominated despite the ban, academy voters avoided that possibility when they omitted both the star and the film from the nominations.Jimmy Kimmel: The academy C.E.O. said over the summer that the 2023 telecast would not address the Slap, even in joke form. (“We want to move forward and to have an Oscars that celebrates cinema.”) But the Oscars host, Jimmy Kimmel, doesn’t seem to have gotten the message. His commercial promoting the Oscars includes several references to Rock, a former host himself. And the spot, a spoof of “Top Gun: Maverick,” explains that ABC was intent on finding an M.C. “who’s unflappable — and unslappable.” Kimmel’s response: “I can’t get slapped, I cry a lot.” More

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      Review: Chris Rock’s ‘Selective Outrage’ Strikes Back

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      A year after Will Smith slapped him at the Oscars, Rock responded fiercely in a new stand-up special, Netflix’s first experiment in live entertainment.One year later, Chris Rock slapped back. Hard.It was certainly not as startling as Will Smith hitting him at the Oscars, but his long-awaited response, in his new Netflix stand-up special “Selective Outrage” on Saturday night, had moments that felt as emotional, messy and fierce. It was the least rehearsed, most riveting material in an uneven hour.Near the end, Rock even botched a key part of one joke, getting a title of a movie wrong. Normally, such an error would have been edited out, but since this was the first live global event in the history of Netflix, Rock could only stop, call attention to it and tell the joke again. It messed up his momentum, but the trade-off might have been worth it, since the flub added an electric spontaneity and unpredictability that was a drawing card.At 58, Rock is one of our greatest stand-ups, a perfectionist whose material, once it appeared in a special, always displayed a meticulous sense of control. He lost it here, purposely, flashing anger as he insulted Smith, offering a theory of the case of what really happened at the Academy Awards after he made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s hair, and in what will be the most controversial part of the set, laid much of the blame on her. This felt like comedy as revenge. Rock said he long loved Will Smith. “And now,” he added, pausing before referencing the new movie in which Smith plays an enslaved man, “I watch ‘Emancipation’ just to see him get whooped.”One of the reasons Netflix remains the leading stand-up platform has been its ability to create attention-getting events. No other streamer comes close. Through a combination of razzle dazzle and Rolodex spinning, the streaming service packaged this special more like a major sporting event than a special, a star-studded warm-up act to the Oscars next week.It began with an awkward preshow hosted by Ronny Chieng, who soldiered through by poking fun at the marketing around him. “We’re doing a comedy show on Saturday night — live,” he said, before sarcastically marveling at this “revolutionary” innovation. An all-star team of comics (Ali Wong, Leslie Jones, Jerry Seinfeld), actors (Matthew McConaughey) and music stars (Paul McCartney, Ice-T) hyped up the proceedings, featuring enough earnest tributes for a lifetime achievement award. As if this weren’t enough puffery, Netflix had the comedians Dana Carvey and David Spade host a panel of more celebrations posing as post-show analysis.This was unnecessary, since Netflix already had our attention by having Rock signed to do a special right after he was on the receiving end of one of the most notorious bad reviews of a joke in the history of television. Countless people weighed in on the slap, most recently the actor and comic Marlon Wayans, whose surprisingly empathetic new special, “God Loves Me,” is an entire hour about the incident from someone who knows all the participants. HBO Max releasing that in the last week was its own counterprogramming.Until now, Rock has said relatively little about the Oscars, telling a few jokes on tour, which invariably got reported in the press. I’m guessing part of the reason he wanted this special to air live was to hold onto an element of surprise. Rock famously said that he always believed a special should be special. And he has done so in previous shows by moving his comedy in a more personal direction. “Tamborine,” an artful, intimate production shot at the BAM Harvey theater, focused on his divorce. This one, shot in Baltimore, had a grander, more old-fashioned vibe, with reaction shots alternating with him pacing the stage in his signature commanding cadence.Dressed all in white, his T-shirt and jeans hanging loosely off a lanky frame, and wearing a shiny bracelet and necklace with the Prince symbol, Rock started slowly with familiar bits about easily bruised modern sensibilities, the hollowness of social media and woke signaling. He skewered the preening of companies like Lululemon that market their lack of racism while charging $100 for yoga pants. Most people, he says, would “prefer $20 racist yoga pants.”Rock’s special, shot in Baltimore, had a grander, more old-fashioned vibe.Kirill Bichutsky/NetflixIf there’s one consistent thread through Rock’s entire career, it’s following the money, how economics motivates even love and social issues. On abortion, he finds his way to the financial angle, advising women: “If you have to pay for your own abortion, you should have an abortion.”A commanding theater performer who sets up bits as well as anyone, Rock picked up momentum midway through, while always hinting at the Smith material to come, with a reoccurring refrain of poking fun at Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z before making clear it’s just for fun: “Last thing I need is another mad rapper.” Another running theme is his contempt for victimhood. His jokes about Meghan Markle are very funny, mocking her surprise that the royal family is racist, terming them its originators, the “Sugarhill Gang of racism.”On tour, his few jokes about Smith were once tied to his points about victimhood. But here, he follows one of his most polished and funny jokes, comparing the dating prospects of Jay-Z and Beyoncé if they weren’t stars but worked at Burger King, with a long, sustained section on the Oscars that closes the show. Here, he offers his theory on Will Smith, which is essentially that the slap was an act of displacement, shifting his anger from his wife cheating on him and broadcasting it onto Rock. The comic says his joke was never really the issue. “She hurt him way more than he hurt me,” Rock said, using his considerable powers of description to describe the humiliation of Smith in a manner that seemed designed to do it again.There’s a comic nastiness to Rock’s insults, some of which is studied, but other times appeared to be the product of his own bottled-up anger. In this special, Rock seemed more raw than usual, sloppier, cursing more often and less precisely. This was a side of him you hadn’t seen before. The way his fury became directed at Pinkett Smith makes you wonder if this was also a kind of displacement. Going back into the weeds of Oscar history, Rock traced his conflict with her and Smith to when he said she wanted Rock to quit as Oscar host in 2016 because Smith was not nominated for the movie “Concussion” (the title that he mangled).That her boycotting that year’s Oscars was part of a larger protest against the Academy for not nominating Black artists went unsaid, implying it was merely a pretext. Rock often establishes his arguments with the deftness and nuance of a skilled trial lawyer, but he’s not trying to give a fair, fleshed out version of events. He’s out for blood. There’s a coldness here that is bracing. Describing his jokes about Smith’s wife at the ceremony in 2016, he put it bluntly: “She started it. I finished it.” But, of course, as would become obvious years later, he didn’t.Did he finish it in this special? We’ll see, but I think we’re in for another cycle of discourse as we head into the Academy Awards next week.At one point, Rock said there are four ways people can get attention in our culture: “Showing your ass,” being infamous, being excellent or playing the victim. It’s a good list, but this special demonstrates a conspicuous omission: Nothing draws a crowd like a fight. More

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      Will Smith Film ‘Emancipation’ Will Be Released in December

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      Apple said the movie, Mr. Smith’s first since his infamous slap at the Oscars, will be in theaters on Dec. 2 and begin streaming on Dec. 9.The Will Smith film “Emancipation” — the actor’s first since his infamous slap at the Oscars this year — will be released in December, making it eligible for the upcoming awards season.While releasing a trailer for the film on Monday, Apple said “Emancipation” will have a limited theatrical release on Dec. 2 before becoming available on the company’s streaming service on Dec. 9. The announcement followed a long discussion of whether Apple would release the film this year or delay it until 2023, considering the controversy surrounding Mr. Smith after he slapped the comedian Chris Rock during the Academy Awards ceremony in March. Apple had declined to comment on its plans for the film.After the incident with Mr. Rock, Mr. Smith won the best actor Oscar that night for his performance in “King Richard.” It was his first Academy Award, but shortly afterward he resigned from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, saying he had “betrayed” its trust. The academy then barred him from the organization and all of its events for the next decade.That punishment does not preclude the actor from being nominated for his work, though it did not augur well for “Emancipation,” which had been considered an awards candidate before Mr. Smith slapped Mr. Rock. The decision to release the film in a limited number theaters ahead of its debut on the service suggests that Apple is planning to push it for award consideration this year.That could backfire. The academy has signaled that it is ready to move on from the slap. Bill Kramer, the organization’s chief executive, said it would not even be joked about at the next Academy Awards ceremony.“Emancipation” stars Mr. Smith as Peter, a real-life figure from the 1800s who escaped slavery and fought for the Union Army. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by William N. Collage, the film had its first public screening in Washington on Saturday night, during the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 51st Annual Legislative Conference. The event was followed by a question-and-answer session featuring Mr. Fuqua and Mr. Smith, who has remained largely out of the public eye since the Oscars.Mr. Smith issued a public apology on his YouTube channel on July 29. It has been viewed close to 3.9 million times. More