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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches’ and Awards Shows

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      A new documentary about Frederick Douglass debuts on HBO. And both the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards air this weekend.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 21-27. Details and times are subject to change.MondayTHE ENDGAME 10 p.m. on NBC. An F.B.I. agent (Ryan Michelle Bathe) and a mysterious criminal mastermind (Morena Baccarin) fight to one-up each other materially and verbally in this new thriller series. The plot revolves around a series of major bank robberies in New York City. Expect fireworks: The “Fast and Furious” director Justin Lin is an executive producer of the show and directed Monday night’s debut episode.TuesdayFANNIE LOU HAMER’S AMERICA: AN AMERICA REFRAMED SPECIAL 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This feature-length documentary special looks at the influential civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer. The program shows Hamer’s legacy as an advocate for voting and women’s rights and explains how she went from working as a sharecropper in Mississippi to organizing grass-roots campaigns.WednesdayFREDERICK DOUGLASS: IN FIVE SPEECHES (2022) 9 p.m. on HBO. David W. Blight’s Pulitzer-winning 2018 book, “Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom,” is the foundation of this new documentary, which includes commentary by Blight and the scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. that speaks to the abolitionist’s crucial place in American history. But the documentary also takes advantage of its own medium, emphasizing the power of Douglass’s words: It features five actors — Jeffrey Wright, Nicole Beharie, Colman Domingo, Jonathan Majors and Denzel Whitaker — performing words from five Douglass speeches from several different decades. A sixth actor, André Holland, narrates.ThursdayAIN’T THEM BODIES SAINTS (2013) 5:15 p.m. on Showtime 2. The filmmaker David Lowery had proven himself a skilled maker of moody dramas by last year, when he released the Arthurian romance “The Green Knight.” Lowery’s reputation is due in part to this somber quasi western. In it, Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck play Bob and Ruth, a couple that gets involved in a shootout. The fight leaves one man dead and a sheriff’s deputy (Ben Foster) injured. Bob goes to prison, and Ruth gives birth to their daughter. Later, Bob escapes and journeys back to Ruth. But he’s wanted, and things get complicated.FridayDaniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith in “Queen & Slim.”Universal PicturesQUEEN & SLIM (2019) 7:35 p.m. and 10:20 p.m. on FXM. Both the outlaw romance “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” (above) and Melina Matsoukas’s “Queen & Slim” feature couples whose lives are transformed, quickly, by violence. The story of Queen and Slim (played by Jodie Turner-Smith and Daniel Kaluuya) opens with an awkward first date that leads into a deadly encounter with an aggressive white police officer (Sturgill Simpson). They become fugitives on the run, and “Queen & Slim” turns into a road movie and a love story. What lingers, A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times, “are strains of anger, ardor, sorrow and sweetness, and the quiet astonishment of witnessing the birth of a legend.”SaturdayRyan Reynolds and Jodie Comer in “Free Guy.”20th Century StudiosFREE GUY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. This action comedy was a pandemic-era box-office success story. Now it can be a watch-from-home Saturday night diversion. A sugary sci-fi romp with notes of “The Truman Show” and “The Matrix” (but filtered through the director of “Night at the Museum”), “Free Guy” casts Ryan Reynolds as Guy, an Everyman who learns that he’s a side character in a video game. When he meets a player named Millie (Jodie Comer), Guy is drawn into a mission to stop the C.E.O. of the studio that created the game (Taika Waititi) from enacting evil deeds. The movie is “perky though predictable,” Maya Phillips wrote in her review for The Times.53RD ANNUAL N.A.A.C.P. IMAGE AWARDS 8 p.m. on BET. One of the joys of the N.A.A.C.P.’s annual Image Awards show is that it allows for some matchups that you don’t see at the Oscars, Emmys or Grammys. The ceremony recognizes movies, TV shows and music. Some of the categories in this year’s edition are fairly typical: Halle Berry, Andra Day, Jennifer Hudson, Tessa Thompson and Zendaya are all up for the best actress in a film award, while “Encanto,” “Luca, “Raya and the Last Dragon,” “Sing 2” and “Vivo” will compete for best animated movie. But other categories break genre boundaries: The nominees for entertainer of the year are Jennifer Hudson, Lil Nas X, Megan Thee Stallion, Regina King and Tiffany Haddish.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      ViacomCBS renames itself as it plays catch-up with Paramount+, its streaming service.

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      On Tuesday, Shari Redstone staged her second hourslong investor presentation in two years. Both events were designed for the same purpose — to reposition her old-line media company, ViacomCBS, as a streaming giant in the making, one capable of competing head-on with Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, despite a late start.This time, there was less snickering.“Some of you thought we were on an impossible mission,” Robert M. Bakish, the chief executive of ViacomCBS, said during the presentation on Tuesday. “It’s not only possible. It’s happening.”To highlight the importance of its fast-growing Paramount+ streaming service, Ms. Redstone, the company’s chair, announced that ViacomCBS would rename itself Paramount Global.Paramount+ had 32.8 million subscribers worldwide at the end of its most recent quarter, up from fewer than 19 million a year earlier. In the three months that ended on Dec. 31, Paramount+ added 7.3 million customers, the result of offerings like “1883,” the prequel to “Yellowstone”; “Clifford the Big Red Dog”; and National Football League games. (A year earlier, ViacomCBS was adding about a million streaming subscribers a quarter.)The company’s streaming portfolio (Paramount+ and niche services from Showtime, BET and Nickelodeon) now has about 56 million subscribers. Mr. Bakish said that number would grow to 100 million by 2024, more than the roughly 70 million the company had previously forecast. The company also raised its 2024 streaming revenue goal to $9 billion, from $6 billion.Streaming brought in about $4.2 billion last year, including advertising sales from the free Pluto TV service.Paramount+ unveiled a barrage of additional programming to fuel continued growth. The expanded lineup will include fresh content from franchises including “Yellowstone,” “Beavis and Butt-Head,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Real World,” “Dora the Explorer,” “NCIS,” “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “Transformers” and “South Park.” Paramount+ will be the exclusive first stop after theatrical distribution for all Paramount Pictures movies beginning in 2024. (Many previously went to Epix, a premium cable channel.)Starting this summer in the United States, Paramount+ subscribers will be able to upgrade to receive Showtime content, including the new hit drama “Yellowjackets” and older series like “Billions.”ViacomCBS shares declined about 6 percent in after-hours trading. Richard Greenfield, a founder of the research firm LightShed Partners, cited investor concern about Mr. Bakish’s “meaningfully stepping up spending” on content.It may be growing quickly, but Paramount+ continues to lag behind competitors like Disney+, which added 11.8 million subscribers worldwide in its most recent quarter to reach 129.8 million. Netflix has about 222 million. More

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      ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 3 Recap: Street Fighting Man

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      Prince forms an unsavory alliance to help make a giant land grab. Chuck grabs a bullhorn.“I look at every competitor as a potential partner … right up until I can’t anymore.” As far as one-sentence encapsulations of the Mike Prince Method go, it’s hard to beat this statement by the billionaire coprotagonist of the sixth season of “Billions.” In this week’s episode, titled “S.T.D.” (it’s not what you think), Prince drives one such competitor — one of the more odious figures in the “Billions” legendarium — to the edge of defeat, then rides in to save his bacon and enrich them both.It’s a feat of bargaining so impressive that it literally drives Prince’s enemy Chuck Rhoades into the street, wielding a bullhorn instead of his authority as Attorney General. In the end, Chuck may find the former more effective than the latter.The episode begins with a late-night rallying call by Ben Kim, one of the more timid soldiers in Prince Cap’s newly acquired army. As a friend of Mafee, who quit the firm with Dollar Bill after Bobby Axelrod’s ouster, Ben hears that Mafee and Stern’s outfit is snapping up land in anticipation of New York City’s 2028 Olympic bid. Their bank roller: none other than the disgraced former treasury secretary Todd Krakow (the ever-delightful Danny Strong).Rather than allow Krakow to elbow him out of the position he himself planned to take, Prince offers an alliance and is rebuffed. So he takes his case to the city’s new mayor, Tess Johnson (Gameela Wright), advising her to speak out against plans to build a new stadium in Manhattan, seen as crucial to the Olympic bid.At the same time, Chuck’s ace, Kate Sacker, uncovers Krakow’s role in the Olympics ploy and kills his various land deals. This sends Krakow scampering into Chuck’s office, demanding to know why on earth he would help Mike Prince on a matter like this. Chuck, who wasn’t previously aware of Prince’s involvement, advises Krakow to resubmit his real-estate plans on the up-and-up instead of through shell companies, the better to stick it to Prince.But the mayor’s anti-stadium news conference kills Chuck and Krakow’s anti-Prince maneuver — which, in turn, drives Krakow and Prince into each other’s arms. Krakow has the deals. Prince has the bankroll. All they need is a developer to help them out, whom they find in Bud Lazzara, the mogul Chuck humiliated in the previous episode.Now all Prince needs to come out on top is a way to placate employees like Ben Kim, Taylor Mason and Wendy Rhoades, who have sentimental attachments to the rival firm established by Mafee and Dollar Bill. This he produces in the form of a bailout by the venerable I-bank Spartan-Ives; it’s enough for Mafee to reinstitute his weekly dinner meet-ups with Taylor, to say nothing of saving the bacon of his and Dollar Bill’s firm, High Plains Management. (Its logo is two crossed six-shooters. Yee-haw!)With all his ducks in a row, Prince plans to go forward with a Manhattan stadium after all. Despite having single-handedly convinced the mayor to oppose such a development, he now woos her back with the promise of converting the athletes’ quarters he plans to build into low-income housing. It’s enough to lure her into a joint news conference for the city’s Olympic ambitions.But drawing on the lessons of his successful showdown with the upstate billionaire Melville Revere, Chuck is not about to be outdone. He literally stops traffic outside the news conference, then starts walking on top of the stopped cars, megaphone in hand. The billionaire class, he says as the top of some poor commuter’s car buckles under his dress shoe, will not be allowed to quintuple traffic and displace the city’s citizens — not on his watch, anyway. “Take back our city!” he exclaims, leading the assembled onlookers in a chant to that effect. As the Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” drops on the soundtrack, Prince, Lazzara and Krakow can only stand and watch as their moment of triumph is co-opted.Running parallel to all this is a drama taking place behind the scenes at Michael Prince Capital: the struggle of Prince’s right-hand man, Scooter Dunbar, and his predecessor in the second-banana role, Mike Wagner. Wags still has the office adjacent to the boss’s, but after watching Scooter traipse back and forth from his comparatively distant digs, he finally relents and offers up the space to his replacement. Of course, this gives him an excuse to relocate to the lower floor, where all the grunts work, making him a man of the people.Dunbar, no dummy, recognizes the ploy and winds up offering half of his office to Wags — a maneuver that dovetails nicely with Prince’s repeated insistence that the two men work together, which they do rather well in the task of wooing the suave Colin Drache (Campbell Scott), a sort of Olympics whisperer. By bringing him aboard, they grease the wheels for Prince’s New York Olympic bid, but it’s their shared, teary-eyed love of the Harry Chapin song “Cat’s in the Cradle” that truly cements their new partnership. Wags crying real tears over this sentimental ode to the tenuous relationship between father and son? Stranger things have happened, especially on this show … but not very many.Loose change:The classic-rock needle drops keep on coming: This episode also offers up a double shot of Allman in the form of Gregg’s solo version of “Midnight Rider” and the Allman Brothers Band’s “Ramblin’ Man,” not to mention Chuck’s quoting Bruce Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad.” Do I miss the days when Bobby Axelrod introduced, like, Motörhead’s “Ace of Spades” into the equation? Yes I do. But speaking as a Long Island native, a little Harry Chapin is always welcome.“I like being rich — ain’t gonna end up like Trump,” says Todd Krakow; unless I’m mistaken, this is the show’s most direct reference yet to the former president.Perhaps the show’s most breathtaking moment is the sight of the business-casual enthusiasts Mafee and Dollar Bill fully suited up for their big news conference with Krakow. I never knew they had it in them.I’m always here for a good “Billions” wrestling reference. Between Tuk’s “Austin 3:16” T-shirt (a reference to the former champion “Stone Cold” Steve Austin) and Mafee’s labored analogy of Wendy and Taylor’s maneuvers to an unprotected pile driver (a move in which a wrestler drives his upside-down opponent headfirst into the mat), this episode scratched that squared-circle itch.No “Godfather” references that I could spot this week, but the cinematic callbacks flew fast and furious; Mafee’s early quote from “Tombstone” and the comparison of Wags and Scooter to Riggs and Murtaugh from “Lethal Weapon” were just the tip of the iceberg.A giant portrait of Stacey Abrams on the wall? Michael Prince Capital really is different from Axe Cap. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Missing in Brooks County’ and ‘Sisters With Transistors’

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      A documentary about a Texas border region plays as part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series. And a documentary about women in electronic music airs on Showtime.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 21-Feb. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2021) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Hundreds of people have died trying to migrate from Mexico to the United States through Brooks County, Tex., in the past two decades. This documentary looks at what makes the region, on the southern end of Texas, so perilous for those crossing the border, and explores work that activists and community members are doing to address the crisis. It focuses on two families who turn to Eddie Canales, the founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center, for help finding missing family members.CELEBRATING BETTY WHITE: AMERICA’S GOLDEN GIRL 10 p.m. on NBC. This hourlong special celebrates the life and career of the comic actress Betty White, who died in December at 99. Many famous people will pay tribute to White, including Drew Barrymore, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Goldie Hawn, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart and President Biden.TuesdayA scene from “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power.”Greenwich EntertainmentBARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (2021) 8 p.m. on Starz. “A Super Bowl touchdown roar.” That’s how The New York Times described the reception that Representative Barbara Lee received from an audience in Oakland, Calif., at a community gathering in October 2001. The reason for the crowd’s enthusiasm: Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. This documentary looks at Lee’s life both before and after that pivotal move. Interviewees include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the CNN commentator Van Jones and the actor Danny Glover.Remembering Betty WhiteThe actress, whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades, died on Jan. 31. She was 99. Obituary: After creating two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history,  White remained a beloved presence on television. Remembered Fondly: Hollywood stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute after her death was announced. Final Prank: People magazine found itself in an awkward spot when a cover for White’s upcoming 100th birthday hit the newsstands right before her death.From the Archives: In a 2011 interview, White shared the memory of a relationship she held dear to her heart — with an elephant.WednesdayLUCY IN THE SKY (2019) 7:15 p.m. and 9:50 on FXM. Earlier this month, the “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley released a dark new novel, “Anthem,” that imagines teenage characters several years after the Covid-19 pandemic. For a multiformat double feature, pair the book with Hawley’s film “Lucy in the Sky,” where Natalie Portman is a lovesick astronaut.ThursdayThe composer Maryanne Amacher in a scene from “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary that explores how women shaped electronic music.Peggy Weil/Metrograph PicturesSISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (2021) 6:30 p.m. on Showtime. When the multimedia musician and composer Laurie Anderson mentions “radical sounds” while narrating this documentary, the phrase has a clear double meaning. Not only did synthesizers and other digital technology, a focus of the film, create never-before-heard sounds during the 20th century, but it gave opportunities for female composers like Daphne Oram, Maryanne Amacher and Clara Rockmore to innovate outside of the traditional, male-dominated music industry. The film explores the work of these women and more, arguing that their importance in shaping electronic music has been overlooked. The result, Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times, is “informative and often fascinating.”SCREAM (1996) 8 p.m. on BBC America. The shrieks came with a laugh in “Scream,” Wes Craven’s horror-parody that gave new life to the slasher genre when it hit theaters just over 25 years ago. The movie spawned a slew of sequels — the latest of which came out earlier this month — but even this first entry feels like something of a sequel, so filled is it with references and callbacks to previous, genre-defining movies, including “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” It introduced the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a suburban teenager who is stalked by a masked killer with a long face. BBC America is airing it alongside its first sequel, SCREAM 2 (1997).Friday2022 WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on NBC. The Winter Olympics in Beijing formally begin on Friday with an opening ceremony set to include the traditional cauldron lighting and parade of nations. (Other than athletes, American presence at the games will be subdued: The United States is among the countries whose governments have planned for a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing human rights abuses.) The ceremony will be covered live at 6:30 a.m., then rebroadcast at 8 p.m. as a more polished special.STAND AND DELIVER (1988) 10 p.m. on TCM. The actor Edward James Olmos took a break from the sheen of “Miami Vice” to play a schlubby (but deeply gifted) math teacher in this late ’80s drama. Directed by Ramón Menéndez and based on actual events, the film casts Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a teacher at a public high school in East Los Angeles whose ability to motivate his students leads to impressive test scores that were called into question by prejudiced standardized-testing authorities. Olmos plays the part to “inspiringly great effect,” Janet Maslin said in her review for The Times in 1988. (He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance.) “If ever a film made its audience want to study calculus,” Maslin wrote, “this is the one.”SaturdayWillem Dafoe, left, and Bradley Cooper in “Nightmare Alley.”Searchlight PicturesNIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. After its recent release in theaters, Guillermo del Toro’s latest haunted house of a movie hits smaller screens via HBO on Saturday night. Set primarily amid a grimy carnival, “Nightmare Alley” centers on a 1930s con man (Bradley Cooper) who finds success putting on a mentalist act. The real star, though, might be the setting: In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis praised del Toro’s textured, polished world building, but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the rest of the film. “The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks,” she wrote. “But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.”SundayGUY’S CHANCE OF A LIFETIME 9 p.m. on Food Network. Some competition shows offer their winners a cash prize that they can retire on. “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime” offers an opportunity: Contestants vie for ownership of a Guy Fieri-branded chicken joint in Nashville. A winner will be revealed on Sunday night’s season finale. More

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      Kamau Bell: Bill Cosby Is Key to Understanding America

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      When W. Kamau Bell was growing up, Bill Cosby was the “wallpaper of Black America” and an inspiration, Bell said in a recent interview. Bell’s new documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” surveys the star’s long career and cultural impact, as well as the accusations of sexual assault that culminated in his conviction, on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, in 2018. Cosby was freed from prison in June 2021 after an appeals court ruled that his due process rights had been violated.The four-part documentary — which premieres on Showtime on Sunday — consists of clips from his shows and standup act, conversations with women who accused Cosby and a parade of other interviewees who try to process the Cosby story and his legacy.As a comedian and host of shows like CNN’s “United Shades of America,” Bell said he has become known as a guy who is willing to have difficult conversations. But the one about Cosby was tougher than most, generating criticism from both sides: Some Cosby accusers didn’t talk to him because they didn’t want to be part of a project that includes Cosby’s achievements. At the same time, Bell said, he has been accused of tearing down a Black role model when he could be examining white transgressors instead.Last week, Cosby criticized the project through his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, who added that Cosby continues to deny all allegations against him. Wyatt also praised Cosby’s work in the entertainment industry. “Mr. Cosby has spent more than 50 years standing with the excluded,” he said in a statement.As a reporter who covered Bill Cosby’s trials for The New York Times, I am familiar with the accusations against him. But the documentary sets those accusations in a deep context of American culture and Cosby’s career.Recently I spoke to Bell by video call about making the series, and about his belief that Cosby’s story is a story about America. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Hi Kamau. How are you doing?[Laughs.] You’ve covered this story a lot, so I think you probably have some sense of how I’m doing. And then add Black into it.You’ve described to me the trepidation you felt about getting involved in something that had the potential to be “toxic.” What do you mean by that?We reached out to people, and we got so many “no”s so quickly. At the time, he was still in prison, and I thought, Oh maybe we can finally have the productive Bill Cosby conversation. But with every note I got from people who were really doing well in show business, what I’m hearing is, “This is a bad idea.” Not that they would say that outright, but the feeling was, No, I don’t want to touch that. Maybe they didn’t want to touch it with me, but I think generally they don’t want to touch it.Why would they say that?I mean specifically for Black people, whether you were involved indirectly or not, it’s hard to have a productive conversation about Bill Cosby without frustrating some of your audience who still wants to support him, whether they believe he did these things or not..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;}How did the idea for the documentary come about?The idea came very naturally in a conversation with [Boardwalk Pictures Production]. I liked their work, they liked my work, and we started talking about comedian documentaries. Generally, there are not enough great comedian documentaries, and then through that conversation it was, “Could you do one about a comedian who has fallen?” There are any number to hold up, but Bill Cosby was the one we talked about. And I’ve been thinking about this Bill Cosby conversation for years.What did you hope to achieve?When I started making it, as we say in the doc, he was in prison. It sort of felt like the Bill Cosby story was, in large part, over. So maybe now we can have the conversation, and it’s a conversation I was already having in my head and with other people. Seeing people online trying to have it, the conversation wasn’t happening in a productive way.We have to learn something from this. If we don’t have the conversation, I don’t think we’re going to learn. The guy that I believed he was when I was growing up and when I was a young adult — that guy would want me to learn something from this.So on some level, your example, Bill Cosby, led me to try to figure this out.So what did you figure out?[Kierna Mayo, the former editor in chief of Ebony magazine] said something to the effect of, “Bill Cosby is key to understanding America.” To me, that’s what this is about.There are two runaway forces of oppression in America: One, how we treat nonwhite people. The other is how we have treated women through the history of this country. And if you look at Bill Cosby’s career, you can see things he did that makes this better and makes this worse. I believe there’s a lot to learn there.Kierna Mayo, the former editor in chief of Ebony, is among the interviewees who try to process the Cosby legacy in “We Need to Talk About Cosby.”ShowtimeYou use a timeline device in a powerful way that allows you to talk about the highlights of his career and also locate the timing of the accusations against him.I don’t like when documentaries tell some personal story but they don’t connect to history. Because you want to know what was happening when that happened — that helps give us the sense of why this is even more interesting.It doesn’t make sense to talk about Bill Cosby as if he was a solo man in the world. You have to really see how the boys-will-be-boys culture of Hollywood, specifically in the ’60s, invites a kind of behavior that allows predators to hide.It also lays this timeline of his career, the timeline of America and the timeline of the accusations on top of each other, which helps you see them in a new way.You raise the question about who else knew at the time about the accusations against Cosby, but you don’t come up with many specific answers. Did you try to talk to senior figures in the industry?Yeah. but we didn’t have access to any of those people. And I’m not an investigative journalist, so there’s a point at which I have to accept that I’m here to take all that we know and start to figure out what were the circumstances through which this went down.Ultimately, the bigger thing is it’s clear that the industry overall is not doing a good job, and the people who run the industry are probably still not doing the best job they can do. That’s the bigger issue to me.At times, it seems that the “We” in “We need to talk about Cosby” refers mainly to a Black audience. Are there some complexities of the Cosby case that are particular to Black people?I would say the “We” is those of us who feel connected to Bill Cosby. Now it just so happens that a lot of those people are Black people. But let’s be clear: He was America’s dad, not Black America’s dad. He was universal. Everybody who worked on this, no matter what their race was, if they were of a certain generation, they were like, “Yeah, I watched that show and felt like I was part of that family, too.”Even this interview is complicated: For a lot of people, I will be tearing down a Black man in a white newspaper in front of a white man. And the question is, why isn’t this interview about Harvey Weinstein, or Trump, or other people who have had allegations of sexual assault? Those are the questions that are coming at me now on social media — like, why this man?What do you say to your detractors?I learned long ago you can’t win those battles on social media, so I’m sort of allowing them to happen. I’m going to handle it by talking to you and other outlets, and by making sure I talk to Black press outlets, places where maybe those people will go. But I don’t think there’s any resolving it. If those people watch it, they will learn it is a more nuanced conversation than I think they believe it is.This is another trite thing to say, but we have to be on the right side of history here. Can this be an opportunity for a large percentage of this country to actually work to make the system and structures better, from the highest levels of show business and corporate America, through working-class America, all the way down to how sex education is taught in schools? There are so many levels of this — those of us who want to be on the right side of history have to do the work to rebuild these systems. You ask many times in the documentary, “Who is Bill Cosby now?” Did you come to a conclusion yourself?Somebody who has always taught us about America and is still teaching us about America, even if it’s in ways he does not want to. And it is very important for us to learn all of the lessons of Bill Cosby if we’re actually going to be a better society.Also embedded in that, and it’s hard to say it, but in the greater context: [Cosby is] one of the key figures for Black America and America in the 20th century. And one of the greatest standup comedians of all time. And the creator of one of the best sitcoms of all time. And, throughout a lot of his career, an advocate for Black excellence. But if you want to engage with that, you have to engage with the other stuff.Cosby was released from prison before you finished the documentary. How did his release change things?I didn’t want this, but it gave it a more immediate feel — this is an active situation again. He’s out in the world again, which means all the defenders are out there in the world again and feel emboldened. So it feels both more important to tell this story and scary to tell this story, because people are invested in protecting him.The most valuable conversation to me isn’t the film — it’s the conversation that we all have after we watch the film. No matter what you think about Bill Cosby’s story, it is critical that we create a society that treats survivors of sexual assault better. More

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      Another Peloton Heart Attack on TV? ‘Billions’ Says It’s a Coincidence.

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      Peloton’s stock dropped last month after the premiere of the “Sex and the City” reboot, which ended with Mr. Big dying after riding one of the company’s bikes.This article includes mild spoilers for the Season 6 premiere of “Billions.”Mr. Big wasn’t the only one.In an early scene of the Season 6 premiere of the Showtime white-collar crime drama “Billions,” a main character on the show, Mike Wagner (played by David Costabile), has a heart attack while riding a Peloton, the high-end stationary bike.Television viewers may well experience déjà vu after seeing the character dismount his Peloton and react to a wave of chest pain amid luxury furnishings. In the premiere episode last month of HBO Max’s “Sex and the City” revival, “And Just Like That …,” Carrie’s husband, known as Mr. Big (Chris Noth), dies of a heart attack after finishing his 1,000th Peloton ride.One difference in the bizarrely similar plot points is that Costabile’s character, an executive at the hedge fund at the center of the show, survives. And when he returns to the office after his heart attack, the show took a chance to address the plot parallel head on.“I’m not going out like Mr. Big,” Wagner, better known as Wags, says triumphantly to his employees.Peloton said in a statement that the company had not agreed to the use of its brand or intellectual property on the show, and that it had not provided equipment for the episode.“As referenced by the show itself,” the statement said, “there are strong benefits of cardiovascular exercise to help people lead long, happy lives.”The Season 6 premiere was given a surprise early release on Friday morning ahead of its scheduled on-air premiere Sunday night. The episode will be available free until April 10 across multiple streaming platforms, including on Showtime’s own website, Showtime.com, and on YouTube.In a statement, the show’s executive producers said the scene was written and shot last spring, months before Mr. Big’s onscreen demise. The line of dialogue about Mr. Big was overdubbed only recently in postproduction.“We added the line because it was what Wags would say,” they said in the statement. Showtime did not immediately respond to a question about whether Peloton was aware of the cameo before the episode debuted.The ill-fated “Sex and the City” cameo became a problem for Peloton: After the episode debuted, the company’s stock dropped.The company tried to turn the unflattering cameo around by quickly filming an online ad featuring Noth, who lounges cozily with his Peloton instructor by the fire. But that move backfired when, later that week, The Hollywood Reporter published an article in which two women accused him of sexual assault. Peloton deleted the ad from its social media accounts. (Noth called the accusations “categorically false” and has since been accused of and denied sexual misconduct by multiple others.)The company has already been facing challenges this week. After CNBC reported that the company planned to pause the production of its bikes, Peloton’s chief executive released a statement denying the report but saying that the company is considering laying off some workers. Peloton’s stock dropped 24 percent on Thursday.The scenes were devised as restrictions kept people exercising at home during the pandemic, but demand for Peloton’s equipment has been waning as the country returns to old routines. More

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      Melanie Lynskey on That Chilling ‘Yellowjackets’ Finale

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      The actress discussed her character’s cool under pressure, her favorite fan theories and one thing she insisted to writers that Shauna would never do.This interview contains major spoilers from the season finale of “Yellowjackets.”Melanie Lynskey and I are going to talk about the tragic final twist in the “Yellowjackets” season finale in a moment. But first, I’m still reeling from the opening minutes.Shauna, with an electric carving knife, in the bathtub?“I know, right?” said Lynskey, 44, who plays the adult version of Shauna on Showtime’s buzzy psychological horror series “Yellowjackets,” about a high school girls soccer team that becomes stranded in the wilderness after a plane crash in 1996. We’ve seen just enough to know that their time in the woods didn’t end well, especially not for those who wound up literally butchered and eaten by the survivors. But it’s pretty clear that surviving — which is to say, having been reduced to murder and cannibalism — took a toll as well.Case in point: the relative calm with which the adult Shauna, in the present day, dismembers her new boyfriend … to hide the evidence of having accidentally stabbed him to death with a different, nonelectric knife.“There are moments with this character when we have to remember that she’s operating on Autopilot,” Lynskey said of Shauna. “There’s a problem, and she’s just like, OK, let me get through this part of the problem until another problem arises. She’s just trying to keep one foot in front of the other.”Lynskey, a New Zealand actress whose Kiwi twang morphs into a flawless American accent on “Yellowjackets,” was calling from her daughter’s bedroom last week in Atlanta (“I’m hiding,” she explained), the city where she’s shooting the coming Hulu series “Candy.” In that series, she plays a woman on the other end of a blade: Betty Gore, a Wylie, Tex., woman who was murdered with an ax by her best friend, Candy Montgomery, in 1980.Lynskey as Shauna with Warren Kole, who plays Shauna’s husband, Jeff. “She’s scared to look too closely at ‘Who is this person I’m with?,’” Lynksey said of her character’s decision to marry him.  Kailey Schwerman/Showtime“I like things with a little bit of darkness,” Lynskey said. “I like seeing how normal people can get to a desperate point.”Lynskey’s high-profile roles in “Yellowjackets,” for which she earned a Critics Choice Award nomination, and in Adam McKay’s star-studded apocalyptic Netflix satire, “Don’t Look Up,” are the latest successes in a career that, in recent years, has included major roles in the HBO series “Togetherness” (2015-16); in Macon Blair’s 2017 critically beloved film, “I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore”; and in the FX on Hulu historical series “Mrs. America” (2020).But although the parts and the budgets keep getting bigger, the roles are still the kind she loves to play: real women, wrinkles, curves and all.“A lot of women out there look like me,” Lynskey said of Shauna’s come-as-you-are appearance. “That was really important to me.”In an interview, she discussed her favorite fan theories, Shauna’s uncanny resolve and the one thing she told the writers her character would never do. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.First things first: Where does Shauna find the resolve to chop up her lover’s body in a bathtub? We even see it when she’s in the wilderness in high school, volunteering to slit the deer’s throat.I’m hoping that we meet members of her family so we can see why she is who she is. She seems like a completely self-sufficient person even before she’s stranded in this situation. I think there’s something inside her that’s a little bit scary even to her, but it feels like the most honest part of herself.It’s not just young Shauna who butchers animals — as an adult, she guts a rabbit in the kitchen. Are you squeamish when it comes to blood?I’m a vegetarian — I haven’t eaten meat since I was 10 years old. I didn’t want to have to do that with a real rabbit, so they made me this crazy prop rabbit — it was all magnets, sticking pieces together. It looked so real!How else are you like and not like Shauna?She’s able to switch into a cold, calculating veneer that I don’t know if I have — I guess I must, because it can come out of me. But she’s also someone who has a great capacity for love, so we’re alike in that way. She’s a lot more confident than I am, but she still has moments of self-doubt, which can lead her to make some of her biggest mistakes.What about when it comes to survival skills?If I’m going anywhere, I have to read every single TripAdvisor and Yelp review just to make sure the hotel is going to be as nice as I need it to be. I’m very particular, very princess-y. When I was a child, I went to nature camp for a few days, and the entire thing was torture. At the end of it, everyone in the class had to write a letter to the person who impressed them the most, and I got every letter because people were like: “You got through it. You cried the entire time, but somehow, you did it.”The director Ariel Kleiman with Lynskey and Peter Gadiot during production of the series. Gadiot plays Shauna’s lover, whose affair with her becomes complicated by a kitchen knife. Michael Courtney/ShowtimeLet’s talk about Jeff (Warren Kole). Why does Shauna stay with him?Before the wilderness, there was chemistry, and they really liked each other, but Shauna felt like it was temporary. And then she came back from this experience with a ton of survivor’s guilt. But she’s not dealing with any of it — she’s just stuffing it all down, and she feels like the responsible thing to do is to now marry Jeff. She’s scared to look too closely at “Who is this person I’m with?” in case she has to do something difficult. It’s a similar situation with Adam [the former lover in the bathtub, played by Peter Gadiot], where she just kind of jumps into things. She’s so scared of finding out something she doesn’t want to know that she just lets things happen to her.How much did you know about Shauna’s character going into the series?The writers had told me what happened to Jackie [Ella Purnell], because when she started appearing in front of me in flashbacks, I said I needed to know specifics. And I knew the trajectory of the Adam relationship. I knew the trajectory of the Jeff relationship and that he was the blackmailer. I think sometimes writers are scared that if an actor has all the information, they’re going to give things away in their performance, but it’s helpful for me to have so I can do something layered that’s fun for people to go back and watch.Such as?When Jeff and I are driving back from brunch with Jackie’s parents [in Episode 6], we’re talking about Jackie, and I say, “Do you wish you had ended up with her?” And he says, “No, I was just the high school boyfriend.” We’d never had a conversation about that, and that’s something he knew Jackie had said because he read Shauna’s journals. And so I was able to react to that moment like, That’s a bit interesting. I don’t know why he said that or how he knows that.To clarify, Jackie is for sure dead — she’s not pulling a Van?As far as I know. I don’t see how she comes back from [freezing to death]. [Laughs.] And I think Ella’s contract was always just a year.A slew of fan theories about Shauna have cropped up on social media. Do you have any favorites?It was so interesting to me that nobody was like, “What if Adam just likes her?” Part of it is that it’s a mystery show, and he’s a suspicious character. And part of it is that it’s an unconventional relationship where he’s more conventionally attractive than me, he’s younger than me, he’s thinner than me. So it’s very hard for people to accept that that might just be a relationship that they’re witnessing. And then there were some theories that were just so nuts — so many people were like, “He’s Shauna’s wilderness baby.” I wish I could remember all the crazy ones. “He’s Jackie” was a funny one.What kind of input do you have into your character?It’s not often, but there are times when I read something and am just like, “This doesn’t feel real to me.” When I was about to go on a date with Adam, they had me stealing a pair of my daughter’s underwear — like a thong — to wear. And I just was like, “Guys, first of all, as a mother, no.” That’s so gross. I know that Shauna doesn’t have boundaries, but that’s, like, a step too far. And, realistically, they wouldn’t fit me. There’s no woman in the world that’s going to watch that scene and be like, “I believe that she’s comfortably wearing those underpants.” But they’re very good about listening to me!Have they told you anything about Season 2?I know they haven’t even gotten into the writers’ room yet, so I want to give them a minute. But I definitely want to ask questions. I really think I probably drive them crazy. More

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      ‘The Real Charlie Chaplin’ Review: Not Enough Funny Business

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      The documentary attempts to restore a sense of mystery to Chaplin’s life and work, but the filmmakers mostly run through a well-trodden timeline.The biographical documentary “The Real Charlie Chaplin” looks to restore a sense of mystery to its beyond-famous subject. The filmmakers, Peter Middleton and James Spinney, mostly run through the well-trodden timeline of Charlie Chaplin’s life and fame — from poverty to ubiquity to exile in Switzerland — but they keep up a wondering, questing approach.Narrated by the actress Pearl Mackie (“Doctor Who”), the film maintains a sprightly tempo, trying out angles on Chaplin: his technique of working out comedy bits and scenes on camera; the story of an impersonator named Charlie Aplin; his satire of Adolf Hitler in “The Great Dictator”; and his virtuosic creation, the Little Tramp, which is linked to the star’s impoverished upbringing in South London. There is also commentary by the actor and director Mack Sennett, the actress Virginia Cherrill (star of “City Lights”), and Lita Grey Chaplin, who worked for Chaplin at 12 years old and married him at 16.The film features two dramatizations of audio interviews by lip-syncing actors (a method the directors also used in “Notes on Blindness”). In one chat, Chaplin imparts behind-the-scenes tidbits to Life magazine at his Swiss mansion; in the other, an older neighbor in South London reminisces about Charlie to Kevin Brownlow (who himself co-directed the important three-part 1983 series “Unknown Chaplin”). There’s also a recreation of a contentious press conference from 1947.Middleton and Spinney address Chaplin’s romantic scandals but sympathetically dwell on his persecution by anti-Communists in the United States. The tell-all promise of the film’s title dwindles away into predictable perspectives from members of his family. But this introduction to Chaplin shines whenever he performs, displaying his comic genius for doing everything wrong to absolute perfection.The Real Charlie ChaplinNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters, and on Showtime platforms Dec. 11. More