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      ‘The War on Disco’ Explores the Racial Backlash Against the Music

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      “The War on Disco,” a new PBS documentary, explores the backlash against the genre and the issues of race, gender and sexuality that informed it.The plan was simple enough: Gather a bunch of disco records, put them in a crate and blow them to smithereens in between games of a doubleheader between the Chicago White Sox and Detroit Tigers at Comiskey Park. What could possibly go wrong?This was the thinking, such as it was, behind Disco Demolition Night, a July 1979 radio promotion that went predictably and horribly awry. The televised spectacle of rioters, mostly young white men, storming the field in Chicago, sent shock waves through the music industry and accelerated the demise of disco as a massive commercial force. But the fiasco didn’t unfold in a vacuum, a fact the new “American Experience” documentary “The War on Disco” makes clearer than a twirling mirror ball.Premiering Monday on PBS, “The War on Disco” traces the rise, commodification, demise and rebirth of a dance music genre that burned hot through the ’70s, and the backlash against a culture that provided a safe and festive place for Black, Latino, gay and feminist expression. Originating in gay dance clubs in the early ’70s and converted into a mainstream sensation largely through the 1977 movie “Saturday Night Fever,” disco engendered simmering resentment from white, blue-collar kids who weren’t cool enough to make it past the rope at Studio 54 and other clubs. The film details disco’s role as a flashpoint for issues of race, class, gender and sexuality that still resonate in the culture wars of today.“Saturday Night Fever” helped turn disco from a club phenomenon into a mainstream sensation.Alamy, via PBS“These liberation movements that started in the ’60s and early ’70s are really gaining momentum in the late ’70s,” Lisa Q. Wolfinger, who produced the film with Rushmore DeNooyer, said in a video call from her home in Maine. “So the backlash against disco feels like a backlash against the gay liberation movement and feminism, because that’s all wrapped up in disco.”When the Gay Activist Alliance began hosting feverish disco dances at an abandoned SoHo firehouse in 1971, routinely packing 1,500 people onto the dance floor, the atmosphere was sweaty and cathartic. As Alice Echols writes in her disco history book “Hot Stuff,” gay bars, most of them run by the mob, traditionally hadn’t allowed dancing of any kind. But change was in the air largely because of the ripple effect of the Stonewall uprising in 1969, when regulars at a Greenwich Village gay bar fought back against the latest in a series of police raids. Soon discos were popping up throughout American cities, drawing throngs of revelers integrated across lines of race, gender and sexual orientation.Some of disco’s hottest artists were Black women, including Gloria Gaynor and Linda Clifford (who is a commentator in the film). Many of the in-demand DJs, including Barry Lederer and Richie Rivera, were gay. In its heyday disco was the ultimate pop melting pot, open to anyone who wanted to move through the night to a pulsating, seemingly endless groove, and a source of liberation.“The club became this source of public intimacy, of sexual freedom, and disco was a genre that was deeply tied to the next set of freedom struggles that were concatenate with civil rights,” said Daphne Brooks, a professor of African American studies at Yale University who is featured in the film, in a video interview. “It was both a sound and a sight that enabled those who were not recognized in the dominant culture to be able to see themselves and to derive pleasure, which is a huge trope in disco.”Studio 54 in 1978, as seen in “The War on Disco.” The club was famous for its glamorous clientele and restrictive door policy.Alamy, via PBSAll subcultures have their tipping points, and disco’s began in earnest in 1977. The year brought “Saturday Night Fever,” the smash hit movie about a blue-collar Brooklynite (a star-making performance from John Travolta) who escapes his rough reality by cutting loose on the dance floor. Inspired by the movie, middle-aged thrill seekers began dressing up in white polyester and hitting the scene. The same year saw the opening of Studio 54 in Manhattan, which became famous for its beautiful-people clientele and forbidding door policy.“There was this image of the crowd outside the door on the news, with people being divided into winners and losers,” said DeNooyer, the “War on Disco” producer. “And the majority were losers because they didn’t get by the rope. It was an image that spoke powerfully, and it certainly encouraged a view of exclusivity.”At least one man had reason to take it all personally. Steve Dahl was a radio personality for Chicago’s WDAI, spinning album rock and speaking to and for the white macho culture synonymous with that music. On Christmas Eve in 1978 Dahl lost his job when the station switched to a disco format, a popular move in those days. He didn’t take the news well. Jumping to WLUP, Dahl launched a “Disco Sucks” campaign and, together with the White Sox promotions director Mike Veeck, spearheaded Disco Demolition Night.Organizers expected around 20,000 fans on July 12, 1979. Instead, they got around 50,000, some of whom sneaked in for free. Admission was 98 cents (WLUP’s frequency was 97.9), leaving attendees plenty of leftover cash for beer. Located in the mostly white, working-class neighborhood of Bridgeport, Comiskey Park had a built-in anti-disco clientele.During the first game of the doubleheader, fans threw records, firecrackers and liquor bottles onto the field. By the time the crate of records was blown up, the place was going nuts, with patrons storming the field and rendering it unplayable. The White Sox had to forfeit the second game.The Disco Demolition Night promotion at Chicago’s Comiskey Park quickly spun out of control, with thousands of people storming the field.Chicago History Museum, via PBSThere were other anti-disco protests around the country in the late ’70s, but none so visible or of greater consequence. As the film recounts, reaction was swift; radio consultants soon began steering toward nondisco formats. “Disco Demolition Night was a real factor, and it did happen very quickly,” DeNooyer said. “And we hear from artists in the film who experienced that.” Gigs started drying up almost immediately.Commercial oversaturation didn’t help. Disco parodies were becoming rampant, including a memorable one in the 1980 comedy “Airplane!,” and novelty songs had been around since Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” in 1976 (followed up by the lesser-known “Dis-Gorilla” in 1977). But the film makes clear that the Disco Demolition fiasco and resultant coverage was a major factor in the death of disco’s mainstream appeal.“The War on Disco” also features a 2016 interview with Dahl, who insists racism and homophobia had nothing to do with that particular display of anti-disco fervor. Demolition Night attendees who were interviewed for the film echo this sentiment.“I would not dispute that is their truth,” Brooks said. “But I think one of the insidious ways that white supremacy has done a number on this country is that it permeates every aspect of our cultural lives. People don’t want to be told that they’re entangled in something that’s not entirely of their control.”It’s also important to note that disco didn’t die so much as its more mainstream forms ceased to be relevant. The music and the culture morphed into other dance-ready genres including house music, which ironically emerged in Chicago. When you go out and cut loose to electronic dance music, or EDM, you are paying homage to disco, whether you know it or not. The beat is still pulsating. The sexual and racial identities remain eclectic. The Who may have bid “Sister Disco” goodbye in their 1978 song, but the original spirit lives on. As Brooks put it, “Its vibrancy and its innovations just continued to gain momentum once the spotlight moved away from it.”The culture, and its devotees, outlived the clichés. Disco is dead. Long live disco. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: BravoCon and a Classic Rom-Com

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      Andy Cohen’s annual convention airs on Bravo, and HBO plays “Definitely, Maybe.”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, Oct. 30-Nov. 5. Details and times are subject to change.MondayHALLOWEEN BAKING CHAMPIONSHIP 9 p.m. on Food Network. Though I am not the biggest fan of Halloween, sign me up for anything that involves spooky-looking desserts. On the most recent episode of this competition, hosted by the stand-up comedian John Henson, contestants were judged on their torta della nonnas (an Italian custard tart) with monster tattoos added on top and then a healthy but tasty chocolate orb. It ended in one elimination with three bakers heading into the finale.TuesdayAlexander Karim, left, and Oliver Masucci in “The Swarm.”Fabio Lovino/Beta FilmsTHE SWARM 9 p.m. on the CW. This week, the CW is back to doing what it does best: bringing international shows to a U.S. audience. This show, which originally aired in Germany, is a science fiction story about the fight against swarm intelligence living in the ocean. If you are like me and had no idea what “swarm intelligence” is, it refers to the collective behavior of a natural or artificial self-organized system — a.k.a., some spooky stuff. The first season wraps up this week.WednesdayINK MASTER 9:30 p.m. on MTV. This show about tattoo pros is beginning its 15th season this week. Hosted by the Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden, this competition will have 15 tattoo artists competing against one another. The show was briefly canceled in 2020 but was brought back onto Paramount+ last year. This season, the artists are not just competing for the title of “Ink Master” but also aiming for a $250,000 prize.ThursdayBAD MOMS (2016) 10 p.m. on TNT. Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn are one of the funniest teams to hit the big screen. In this movie, they play overworked and overtired moms who finally let loose and go a little wild before deciding to face Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate), who, along with an army of other perfect moms, rules the P.T.A. “What makes ‘Bad Moms’ funny (aside from its lineup of gifted performers) isn’t that Amy and her friends go wild; they don’t, not even close,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The New York Times. “It’s the women’s shared, near-orgiastic pleasure in their freedom and friendship.”LOVE ISLAND GAMES 10:30 p.m. on Bravo. With Bravo’s “Winter House,” ABC’s “Bachelor in Paradise” and MTV’s “All Star Shore,” it seems like there is a trend in reality television: Gather up known reality stars and put them all together on a different reality show. That is the gist of this “Love Island” spinoff, with contestants from the British, American and Australian versions of the show, perhaps most notably including the fan favorite Curtis Pritchard (the professional ballroom dancer) from Season 5 of the U.K. edition. This is not all that different from the original version of the show; there are just more couple and group challenges.FridayGroucho Marx in “Duck Soup.”Paramount PicturesDUCK SOUP (1933) 8 p.m. on TCM. The Marx Brothers are one of cinema’s most famous comedy groups, and this movie was really their time to shine. The story follows Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) as he becomes the president of a tiny bankrupt country. This film isn’t so much about the plot but more about the shenanigans that ensue as the spies Pinky (Harpo) and Chicolini (Chico) are sent from a neighboring country to start a revolution. Don’t worry, Zeppo is there, too — he plays Firefly’s secretary.SaturdayDEFINITELY, MAYBE (2008) 10:45 p.m. on HBO. As a romantic comedy connoisseur, I can wholeheartedly say that this is one of the best movies to watch when you want to have a laugh, shed a few tears and feel your heart grow a couple of sizes. The story follows Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds), who, amid a separation from his wife, tells his daughter (Abigail Breslin) about the three women who he loved throughout his 20s and 30s as she tries to guess which one of them is her mom. The cast also features Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks.SundayFrom left: Shannon Beador, Ramona Singer, Andy Cohen and Dorinda Medley at BravoCon in 2019.Amy Lombard for The New York TimesBRAVOCON LIVE WITH ANDY COHEN: THE BRAVOS 10:15 p.m. on Bravo. Andy Cohen is hosting the event known as BravoCon for the third time but this year. But for those of us who can’t make it to Las Vegas, we get to follow along at home. A slate of Bravo-related events will take place next week during the normal “Watch What Happens Live” time slot, but the festivities are going to kick off on Sunday with the first-ever award show for the network.Eight awards will be handed out, including the “Who Said That?” Award for Colloquial Excellence, the Dorit Kemsley Award for Chicest Bravolebrity, and the Greatest Shade Thrower. Vicki Gunvalson of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” will present the biggest award of the night: the Wifetime Achievement Award. You know there is nothing I love more than a slew of “bravolebrities” in a room together. More

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      ‘Annika’ Star Nicola Walker on the Book She’d Save From a Burning Home

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      When it comes to the actress’s favorite things, give her the American version of “Alone” and a true-crime podcast from Australia.No one broods quite like Nicola Walker, whose eyes have transfixed viewers in television shows like “Unforgotten,” “Last Tango in Halifax” and “The Split.”In “Annika,” the British crime drama now in its second season on PBS, she holds that gaze as a marine homicide detective, her speedboat slicing through the waters near Glasgow.But in a video interview while just outside London, where she lives with her husband, the actor Barnaby Kay, and their teenage son, Harry, Walker was radiant and witty. When she agreed to talk about her cultural essentials — true-crime podcasts, the theater director Ivo van Hove, the harrowing reality series “Alone” — she recalled her agent asking if she was going to be truthful.“I said, ‘Is it bad if I tell them that really one of my cultural highlights this week has been sitting in my underwear, eating a bag of Spanish Lays crisps with a can of Coke, watching the ‘Beckham’ documentary?’”“Now I’m in love with both of them,” Walker added. “David and Victoria.”These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Touching the ArtWhen I was a young girl, we moved to rural Essex, and the nearest town was Harlow — one of the new towns built post-World War II. Frederick Gibberd, the architect, thought that ordinary people should brush up against art in their everyday lives. On the way to the shopping center, I’d walk past sculptures by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Rodin. I used to climb all over Hepworth’s “Contrapuntal Forms,” and no one ever stopped you. Hepworth said statues must be touched — that’s how they begin.2Stewart LeeI’ve always loved stand-up because I could never do it, and Stewart is, for me, the best stand-up working for years now. I recommend “Content Provider.” It’s like he smashes up the rules of comedy, glues them back together and then throws them at you.3Ivo van HoveWatching Ivo or being directed by Ivo is like having an injection of energy and hope, because he makes theater in a way that you realize you’ve always wanted theater to be made.4Toni MorrisonI lost my mother a very long time ago. Too young. She bought me a copy of “Beloved” when I went up to university, and she wrote in it, “To My Beloved.” That thing they say about what you would save from your burning house, apart from pets? That book. I was 19, and it opened up the whole world.5The U.S. Version of ‘Alone’The U.K. one was like a family camping trip gone wrong: They’ve got lost in the dark and they’re scared of the foxes and the owls hooting. Then we happened to see “Alone USA.” Crikey. Ten people. Bears, wolverines. I watched a man win a series because he shanked a musk ox to death.6‘Closing Time’When I was pregnant, I played “Closing Time” on a loop, and Harry used to sort of wriggle. I don’t know whether I’ve made that up, but all I know is he loves Tom Waits. When Harry was about 3, I went for a fitting at a famous costumier, and Tom Waits walked in. I was too scared to say, “My 3-year-old knows all the words to ‘Closing Time.’” I really regret it, and my son has never forgiven me.7Sylvia PlathWhen I was 16, I really identified with her. All that introspection of youth. You’re allowed to be that doom-laden because you’re so young. As a 53-year-old, I don’t see myself. I see Sylvia Plath, and I want to literally jump in the book and save her.8Reciting PoetryI love reading poetry out loud. This might be due to studying English at Cambridge. One of my favorite poems is Billy Collins’s “Introduction to Poetry” — the idea that you have to tie the poem down to a chair and beat it into submission to give up its meaning. I felt that’s what I did as a student, and it took me ages to find my way back to poetry because, for me, it was work. But now I think it’s flesh and bones when you say those words.9Playlists for RolesThey give me the confidence to step out of the caravan and walk on set. Annika’s playlist was fabulously eclectic: Benjamin Clementine’s “Nemesis,” David Bowie’s “Fill Your Heart,” The Darkness’s “I Believe in a Thing Called Love.”10Murder ShowsI have a guilty obsession that a lot of women have (as “S.N.L.” pointed out in a very good musical skit): true crime. There’s this Australian podcast, “Casefile,” and the guy always starts with this warning, “This podcast contains stories of a sexual nature, injury to women,” or whatever. And my husband’s shouting, “Are you listening to that bloody man talking about killing women again?” Yeah, I am. Why am I? It’s the same reason we like crime dramas. Because the comfort of watching something that terrifies you and seeing it resolved makes you feel a little bit safer. More

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      Richard Moll, Towering Bailiff on ‘Night Court,’ Dies at 80

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      In a career that spanned more than four decades, the actor was best known for playing the imposing but lovable Bull Shannon on the NBC sitcom.Richard Moll, the 6-foot-8 actor who delighted television audiences with a childlike charm in his role as the hulking bailiff on the NBC sitcom “Night Court,” died on Thursday at his home in Big Bear Lake, Calif. He was 80.His death was confirmed on Friday by his publicist, Jeff Sanderson. No cause was given by the family.In a career of more than four decades, Mr. Moll played a variety of roles on television shows and in films. But he was best known for portraying the baldheaded, wide-eyed Aristotle Nostradamus (Bull) Shannon on all nine seasons of “Night Court,” which ran from 1984 to 1992 and competed with other hit television sitcoms like “The Cosby Show” and “The Golden Girls.”Mr. Moll worked as an actor and voice-over artist as late as 2018.Kathy Hutchins/Hutchins Photo Agency, via Associated PressBull Shannon’s dimwitted persona offered an air of lighthearted innocence on the series, which was set inside a fictional municipal night court in Manhattan and starred Harry Anderson, who played Judge Harry Stone and died in 2018, and John Larroquette as the prosecutor, Dan Fielding.Mr. Moll was “larger than life and taller too,” Mr. Larroquette, said Friday in a post on X.Richard Charles Moll was born on Jan. 13, 1943, in Pasadena, Calif. to Harry and Violet Moll. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1964, with a degree in history and passed over his father’s wishes that he pursue a law career, to take up acting.He started with theater work, performing in Shakespeare plays in California. His first television and film roles came in the late 1970s, and included a part in the 1977 movie “Brigham” and an appearance in an episode of the television series “Welcome Back, Kotter” in 1978.“Probably auditioning for ‘Night Court’ would be my first big break,” Mr. Moll said in a 2010 interview with MaximoTV. He noted that he had been asked if he was willing to shave his head for the part.“I said ‘Are you kidding?’ ” he recalled. “‘I’ll shave my legs for the part. I’ll shave my armpits. I don’t care.’”After “Night Court” ended in 1992, Mr. Moll went on to do voice-over work on various cartoons, including roles as Two-Face, a disturbed villain with a disfigured mug on the “Adventures of Batman & Robin” on Fox, and as Scorpion, one of the many adversaries on “Spider-Man: The Animated Series,” on the same network.Richard Moll, far right, with the cast of Night Court in 1988.Gary Null/NBC, via Getty ImagesThough largely known for his comedic work, including in movies such as “Scary Movie 2” and “But I’m a Cheerleader,” Mr. Moll was also featured in horror and science-fiction films. His first major movie roles included the 1985 horror feature “House” and the 1986 indie fantasy “The Dungeonmaster.”Mr. Moll worked as an actor and voice-over artist as late as 2018, according to IMDb. His final notable appearance was in the 2010 live-action film “Scooby-Doo: Curse of the Lake Monster,” in which he played the mysterious lighthouse keeper Elmer Uggins.Mr. Moll retired to Big Bear Lake in the Southern Californian mountains, where, according to his family, he reveled in the idyllic scenery and exercised his love of bird-watching.He is survived by a daughter, Chloe Moll; a son, Mason Moll; his ex-wife, Susan Moll; and two stepchildren, Cassandra Card and Morgan Ostling. More

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      Stephen Colbert Calls Out Mike Johnson’s First Fail

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      The “Late Show” host chided the new House speaker for offering little more than thoughts and prayers to survivors of the Maine shooting on his first day in office.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Major FailAddressing tragedies like mass shootings has become a regular part of late night. On Thursday night, Stephen Colbert spoke about a shooting in Lewiston, Maine, that killed 18 people and injured 13 others on Wednesday.“Some people are going to say ‘This is a mental health issue,’ others are going to say, ‘It’s a gun issue,’ but there’s no reason it can’t be both,” Colbert said. “For instance, some people are going to look at this tragedy and say, ‘We don’t have enough guns in America.’ That alone proves some of us are mentally ill.”Colbert pointed out that most Americans want bans on assault-style weapons and for Congress to take action to prevent more mass shootings, yet no one on either side of the aisle has successfully stopped them from happening.“So, ask your representative, ‘What will you do?’ If they don’t have an answer immediately at hand, if they say it’s too soon to talk about this, that means they’ve never really given it any serious thought. Because they’ve had plenty of time since Uvalde and Marjory Stoneman Douglas and Sandy Hook and the Pulse nightclub. So if they don’t have an answer now, they will never have an answer.” — STEPHEN COLBERTHe expressed disappointment over a lack of new ideas from recently elected House speaker Mike Johnson, “a self-professed devoutly religious man,” who offered little comfort to Americans in a statement during his first day in office, which amounted to little more than thoughts and prayers.“We’re already capable of hope and prayer ourselves. You’re capable of governing, theoretically. And I’m sorry if that sounds like too hard of a job for you. If that seems like too hard of a job, you know who’s really got a hard job now? The people in Lewiston, Maine.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And there are very few people like Mainers. I know Mainers. I love Mainers. They’re strong people. They’ve got Moxie — literally, it’s the name of the official state soft drink. It tastes like carbonated cough syrup, but they drink it anyway, ’cause Mainers are tough. These are people whose idea of a beach is a collection of jagged rocks near freezing water. Their state flower, the Maine state flower — and this is true — is a frickin’ pine cone!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And I dare anyone in power to show a fraction of the courage of all the families who have faced their tragedies and faced our failure to change.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Getting to Know You Edition)“Republicans yesterday elected Mike Johnson the 56th speaker of the House, which is crazy ’cause a month ago, we were only at 12.” — SETH MEYERS“Meanwhile, earlier today, Mike Johnson met with President Biden for the first time since becoming speaker. Johnson is pretty famous for being an election denier, so it got pretty awkward when he said, ‘Good to meet you, ‘President Biden. ’” — JIMMY FALLON“But the meeting was very friendly. Biden even invited Johnson to pet his dog.” — JIMMY FALLON“Biden told a story about his days in Congress, and by the time it was over, Johnson was already voted out as speaker.” — JIMMY FALLON“Johnson is also extremely anti-LGBTQ, saying: ‘Homosexual marriage is the dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic.’ If you’re doin’ it right.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian Jeff Ross dressed down kids in Halloween costumes for “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutCailee Spaeny in “Priscilla.”Sabrina Lantos/A24Adapted from Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir, “Elvis and Me,” Sofia Coppola’s new film, “Priscilla,” re-examines the King from his young wife’s point of view. More

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      Halloween TV: Five Shows That Mix Horror and Humor

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      “Creepshow,” “The Fall of the House of Usher” and other shows serve up humor with their horror.Sorting through the seasonal bounty of horror and supernatural television series timed to Halloween, I have focused on shows that approach the grim task with a sense of humor. Here, in alphabetical order, are five series released this month that put more emphasis on wit than on sheer terror.‘30 Coins’The Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia careens through the conventions of the religious conspiracy thriller in this preposterous and highly enjoyable series that combines a “Da Vinci Code”-style premise with extremes of gore and a circling, tenuously comprehensible plot.In the first season, a Spanish village became the site of a battle among Roman Catholic cabals and emissaries of Satan over Judas’s 30 pieces of silver, which if collected would give their owner unimagined power. Or something like that. Fighting back against these forces of evil was a motley crew that included a renegade priest, the village’s unhappily married mayor and a plucky veterinarian.Paul Giamatti plays a cult leader in the new season of “30 Coins.”Manolo Pavón/HBOIn Season 2, which premiered this week on HBO and Max, the apocalypse has been averted but its likelihood is still palpable, and the number of creepy beasts in the manner of Bosch and Guillermo del Toro has exponentially increased. Also joining the show is Paul Giamatti as a science-fiction-writing cult leader who is human in form but as frightening as any beast.‘Creepshow’Now in its fourth season on the horror-centric streaming service Shudder (as well as AMC+), this anthology series wears its comic-book sensibility and B-movie aesthetic proudly. And the best of its 22-minute stories (two per episode) also exhibit the cleverness and industriousness that contribute to real pop-culture satisfaction. You’ll see the first twist coming, but the second and the third may take you by surprise.“Creepshow” doesn’t reach too far for its inspirations — Season 4’s familiar scenarios include a persecuted vampire family, a werewolf in a “Little Red Riding Hood” situation, a haunted video game and a cursed pair of 3-D glasses.But along with its unpretentious nature comes a willingness to be self-referential and provide fan service, and some of its most entertaining segments are unabashed in-jokes. The Season 4 opener, “The Hat,” suggests that the novels of a writer strongly resembling Stephen King were actually composed by a snappy homburg that refuses to stop writing. In “George Romero in 3-D,” Romero comes back to life in animated form to battle ghouls of his own creation. King and Romero were, of course, the writer and director of the 1982 film “Creepshow” from which the series was spun off.‘The Fall of the House of Usher’Mike Flanagan’s fifth horror mini-series for Netflix (a collection that began with “The Haunting of Hill House”) is, if you care about consistency with the source, a serious mismatch. The genuinely morbid intensity of Edgar Allan Poe’s writing, on prominent display in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is out of tune with Flanagan’s well-upholstered, tongue-in-cheek, slightly synthetic approach to horror, where everything is right there on the surface.But that surface is often diverting, if not particularly frightening or memorable, and Flanagan can be counted on for large, capable casts. The eight-episode “Usher” offers Bruce Greenwood and Zach Gilford as current and past versions of Roderick Usher, reimagined as a Sackler-like big-pharma executive; Carl Lumbly as a prosecutor named Auguste Dupin; a raspy Mark Hamill as a corporate fixer named Arthur Gordon Pym; and T’Nia Miller as an Usher offspring named Victorine Lafourcade. The Flanagan regular Carla Gugino cycles through costumes and makeup, “Kind Hearts and Coronets”-style, as a seductive angel of death.Dupin, Pym, Lafourcade and many others are named after Poe characters who had nothing to do with “Usher,” an indication of how Flanagan’s series is less an adaptation of the original — it isn’t really that at all — than a Frankenstein’s-monster collage of references to numerous Poe stories and poems. Episode titles — “Murder in the Rue Morgue,” “The Pit and the Pendulum” — clue you in to the style of gruesome death that’s about to take place. Passages of Poe’s prose and poetry are frequently incorporated into the dialogue, making for very flowery conversations. Gugino’s character is named Verna, an anagrammatic nod to Poe’s favorite bird.Flanagan’s biggest change is to expand and update the story into a carnivalesque critique of capitalist greed and inhumanity. Roderick Usher, childless in the original story, now has six heirs whose lives are a catalog of wealth-and-entitlement motifs: nightclub bacchanals, sex with subordinates, wellness profiteering, antiquities looting, crisis management, A.I. infatuation, baking silly trompe l’oeil cakes. Poe’s Ushers were doomed by malaise and sheer malevolent ambience; Flanagan’s have to die because they’re a virus on the earth. As apocalyptic metaphors go, his “Usher” is reasonably entertaining.‘Shining Vale’Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan’s series cunningly blends horror, satire and situation comedy in its picture of a modern American woman’s dilemma: Has Pat Phelps, the struggling writer played by Courteney Cox, been driven crazy by the stresses of marriage, motherhood and career? Or does she act like a crazy person because her house is haunted and she’s fighting off demonic possession?Courteney Cox, left, and Mira Sorvino, in the new season of “Shining Vale.”StarzThe first season of “Shining Vale” on Starz was a riff on “The Shining,” with Pat eventually taking an ax to her suburban Connecticut manse and to her feckless husband, played with simpering perfection by Greg Kinnear. Season 2, whose third episode premieres Friday, tackles another celebrated film, “Rosemary’s Baby”; the herbal tea a neighbor provides to calm Pat’s nerves after her release from a psychiatric ward has the unexpected side effect of reversing her menopause.The avenging (but often friendly) spirit played by Mira Sorvino in Season 1 has supposedly been electro-convulsed out of Pat’s head, but luckily Sorvino returns, now playing the concerned neighbor. She and Kinnear, along with a stellar supporting cast that includes Judith Light, Merrin Dungey, Parvesh Cheena, Allison Tolman and the great Harriet Sansom Harris (Bebe in the original “Frasier”), bring a comic harmony to the show’s indelicate balance of tones.‘Wolf Like Me’A melancholy Australian romantic dramedy with werewolves, Peacock’s “Wolf Like Me” mixes tones and tropes in the manner of “Shining Vale” but with a quieter, less satirical effect. When “Shining Vale” sags, it goes flatly jokey; when “Wolf Like Me” runs out of energy, it gets blandly sentimental.But when the creator, writer and director of “Wolf Like Me,” Abe Forsythe, is on his game, it’s a funny, lovely and moving show that can tap straight into your emotions. Also crucial are the performances of Isla Fisher as Mary, an American werewolf hiding from the world in Adelaide, Australia, and the young actress Ariel Donoghue as Emma, a girl devastated by the loss of her mother who becomes Mary’s de facto stepdaughter and develops a fierce loyalty to her. Josh Gad plays Gary, Emma’s father and Mary’s unlikely new boyfriend, and does a nice job of staying out of Fisher and Donoghue’s way.Season 1 brought this accidental trio together, introduced a teasing note of magical realism (along with the outright full-moon supernaturalism) and established the theme of love’s triumph over grief and alienation. In Season 2, the focus shifts to Mary’s pregnancy, which is both a blessed event and a five-alarm crisis. Forsythe’s inventiveness occasionally runs low, and the characters can get strident and unengaging, but he builds to an exciting and wrenching finale that’s also a dire cliffhanger. More

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      Richard Roundtree, Star of ‘Shaft,’ Dies at 81

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      Richard Roundtree, the actor who redefined African American masculinity in the movies when he played the title role in “Shaft,” one of the first Black action heroes, died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 81.His manager, Patrick McMinn, said the cause was pancreatic cancer, which had been diagnosed two months ago.“Shaft,” which was released in 1971, was among the first of the so-called blaxploitation movies, and it made Mr. Roundtree a movie star at 29.The character John Shaft is his own man, a private detective who jaywalks confidently through moving Times Square traffic in a handsome brown leather coat with the collar turned up; sports a robust, dark mustache somewhere between walrus-style and a downturned handlebar; and keeps a pearl-handled revolver in the fridge in his Greenwich Village duplex apartment. As Mr. Roundtree observed in a 1972 article in The New York Times, he is “a Black man who is for once a winner.”In addition to catapulting Mr. Roundtree to fame, the movie drew attention to its theme song, written and performed by Isaac Hayes, which won the 1972 Academy Award for best original song. It described Shaft as “a sex machine to all the chicks,” “a bad mother” and “the cat who won’t cop out when there’s danger all about.” Can you dig it? The director Gordon Parks’s gritty urban cinematography served as punctuation.A fictional product of his unenlightened pre-feminist era, Shaft was living the Playboy magazine reader’s dream, with beautiful women available to him as willing, downright grateful, sex partners. And he did not always treat them with respect. Some called him, for better or worse, the Black James Bond.He played the role again in “Shaft’s Big Score!” (1972), which bumped up the chase scenes to include speedboats and helicopters and the sexy women to include exotic dancers and other men’s mistresses. In that movie, Shaft investigated the murder of a numbers runner, using bigger guns and ignoring one crook’s friendly advice to “keep the hell out of Queens.”In “Shaft in Africa” (1973), filmed largely in Ethiopia, the character posed as an Indigenous man to expose a crime ring that exploited immigrants being smuggled into Europe. The second sequel lost money and led to a CBS series that lasted only seven weeks.But the films had made their impact. As the film critic Maurice Peterson observed in Essence magazine, “Shaft” was “the first picture to show a Black man who leads a life free from racial torment.”Mr. Roundtree in a scene from the 1972 movie “Shaft’s Big Score,” the first of two sequels.Stanley Bielecki Movie Collection/Getty ImageRichard Arnold Roundtree was born on July 9, 1942 (some sources say 1937), in New Rochelle, N.Y., the son of John and Kathryn (Watkins) Roundtree, who were identified in the 1940 census as a butler and a cook in the same household.Richard played on New Rochelle High School’s undefeated football team and, after graduating in 1961, attended Southern Illinois University on a football scholarship. But he dropped out of college in 1963 after he spent a summer as a model with the Ebony Fashion Fair, a traveling presentation sponsored by a leading news and culture magazine for Black readers.He moved back to New York, worked a number of jobs and soon began his theater career, joining the Negro Ensemble Company. His first role was in a 1967 production of “The Great White Hope,” starring as a fictionalized version of Jack Johnson, the early 20th century’s first Black heavyweight boxing champion. A Broadway production starring James Earl Jones opened the next year and won three major Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for drama.After “Shaft,” Mr. Roundtree made varied choices in movie roles. He was in the all-star ensemble cast, which also included Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner, of the 1974 disaster movie “Earthquake.” He played the title role in “Man Friday” (1975), a vibrant, generous, ultimately more civilized partner to Peter O’Toole’s 17th-century explorer Robinson Crusoe.In “Inchon” (1981), which Vincent Canby of The Times described as looking like “the most expensive B movie ever made,” he was an Army officer on the staff of Gen. Douglas MacArthur (Laurence Olivier) in Korea. He starred with Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds in “City Heat” (1984) and with a giant flying lizard in “Q” (1982).On the small screen he played Sam Bennett, the raffish carriage driver who courted Kizzie (Leslie Uggams), in the acclaimed mini-series “Roots” (1977). That show was transformational, Mr. Roundtree said in an ABC special celebrating its 25th anniversary: “You got a sense of white Americans saying, ‘Damn, that really happened.’”Richard Roundtree in 2019. He remained busy as an actor for more than four decades after his first big role.Celeste Sloman for The New York TimesMr. Roundtree’s name remained associated with the 1970s, but he was just as busy during the next four decades.He was an amoral private detective in a five-episode story arc of “Desperate Housewives” (2004); appeared in 60 episodes of the soap opera “Generations” (1990); and played Booker T. Washington in the 1999 television movie “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.” He was a big-city district attorney in the film “Seven” (1995) and a strong-willed Mississippi iceman in “Once Upon a Time … When We Were Colored” (1996).After the year 2000, when he was pushing 60, he made appearances in more than 25 small-screen series (he was a cast member of or had recurring roles in nine of them — including “Heroes,” “Being Mary Jane” and “Family Reunion”) and was seen in half a dozen television movies and more than 20 feature films.In 2020, he starred as a fishing boat’s gray-bearded captain in “Haunting of the Mary Celeste,” a supernatural maritime movie mystery. In 2022, he acted in an episode of “Cherish the Day,” Ava DuVernay’s romantic drama series.Mr. Roundtree married Mary Jane Grant in 1963. They had two children before divorcing in 1973. In 1980, he married Karen M. Cierna. They had three children and divorced in 1998.Mr. Roundtree is survived by four daughters, Kelli, Nicole, Taylor and Morgan; a son, John; and at least one grandchild.The Shaft character, created by Ernest Tidyman in a series of 1970s novels, endured — with Hollywood alterations. Samuel L. Jackson starred as a character with the same name, supposedly the first John Shaft’s nephew, in a 2000 sequel titled “Shaft.”In 2019, another “Shaft” was released, also starring Mr. Jackson (now said to be the original character’s son) and Jessie T. Usher as his son, J.J. Shaft, an M.I.T.-educated cybersecurity expert. The film felt something like a buddy-cops comedy, but the smartest thing it did, Owen Gleiberman of Variety noted in a review, was to take Mr. Roundtree, “bald, with a snowy-white beard,” and “turn him into a character who’s hotter, and cooler, than anyone around him” and whose “spirit is spry, and tougher than leather.”Orlando Mayorquin More

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      in Television

      Why ‘The Golden Bachelor’ Terrifies Me

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      Television celebrates older people — but only for seeming like sexy young ones.In the first episode of ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor” — the new 60-plus addition to the decades-old “Bachelor” franchise — Gerry Turner, 72, puts in his hearing aids, dons a tuxedo and cries within the first three minutes of airtime. Gerry, our Golden Bachelor, has been widowed for six years. His wife, Toni, died suddenly, of an infection, and in describing her passing he cannot contain his grief. We see photos of their lives together, from young marrieds to parents, from middle-aged partners to retirees enjoying themselves on a boat. Gerry is uncommonly slim and good-looking and seems to have been so throughout these various life stages. Toni, whose age is not specified, ages less magically. Her waist and eyeglasses thicken, as these things tend to. Clearly these changes did not dampen Gerry’s adoration. The type of tears he sheds on camera over her passing reveal what looks like a deep and enduring love — the thing every contestant on the set of “The Golden Bachelor” is now competing to find with him.Like the original, “The Golden Bachelor” presents around two dozen women, all vying for lasting happiness through marriage to a single, eligible catch. Other than the fact that contestants range in age from 60 to 75, the formula is familiar. Like “The Bachelor,” the season aims to end with a proposal. Like “The Bachelor,” most action takes place in a mansion full of bunk beds. Like “The Bachelor,” the contestants are typically lithe, sexy and hyperactive; some wear stilettos to breakfast, along with tube tops and hot pants and all manner of plunging décolletage; there are boobs everywhere, often huge ones. As the contestants emerge from their limousines, one by one, near the start of the first episode, making grand entrances with their mermaid hair and Pilates abs and buns of steel and snatched cheekbones and pneumatic-looking lips, often all over Gerry within minutes, a truth seems to dawn on the septuagenarian widower: Older women are not what they used to be. They are nothing at all like what they used to be. As if to underline this point, one of the contestants emerges from her limo with curler-set gray hair, baggy dress and walker — only to rip the whole kit off, fling the walker onto the paving stones and reveal her true self. This is Leslie, a 64-year-old dancer and former aerobics champion in a tiny lace corseted minidress. Leslie looks about 40 and acts even younger. The show, of course, is fun to watch. Many of the women are beautiful and spirited and accomplished. Gerry seems like a lovely man. Still, there is something here that sends a chill down my spine. The show has received glowing coverage from predictable corners (USA Today) and scored huge ratings for ABC. But is any of this actually good? For older people? Or even for younger people? I mean, this is “The Bachelor,” a mainstay of reality TV — a certain amount of desperation and superficiality is built into the DNA of the genre. But plunging older people into this context and then valorizing them because, perhaps with some nipping and tucking, they can just about fit? This feels more like a denigration of aging. Some of these people have been on Earth for 75 years. Here is an opportunity for them to demonstrate that life, comfortingly, has many chapters — that there is always change and that this change is not only natural, but good. Instead, we get a tight-and-toned show in which success involves being able to repeat Chapter 3 for as long as possible. This version of freedom has nothing to do with wisdom or respite, with taking stock or giving back or the hard-won succor of age. It is about working extremely hard to remain the same as you were when you were younger (or maybe even more fabulously youthy), especially if that youthful you was wont to grind barelegged to “Don’t Stop Believin’” in a tinsel handkerchief dress.A state of nubile teenagehood already coats the age spectrum, from 8-year-olds with gel nails on Snapchat to middle-aged dads in hoodies on longboards. Now it is creeping ever further up the life span. Martha Stewart expanded from her cardigans and sheet-pan suppers to moue on TikTok and chitchat on talk shows about how she should date Pete Davidson. Madonna accuses critics of ageism as she rids her face and body of signs of time, to the point of looking like a different person. The idea of not aging is not only normalized but treated as an accomplishment. No surprise, then, that one “Golden Bachelor” contestant shows up on a motorcycle or that another, age 70, flashes Gerry her “birthday suit” upon meeting him or that everyone stays up all night dancing in skyscraper heels, apparently bunion- and sciatica-free. Other than the odd passing remark about “ear candy” (code for hearing aids) or taking the bed nearest to the bathroom, this show — sold as a showcase for how fabulous and free growing old can be, and how “it’s never too late” to find love — actually negates aging, erases lateness. More than 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 in America every day; by 2034, there will be more Americans over age 65 than children. What we are being told is that they will be vital and relevant mostly insofar as they have maintained arms like Jessica Biel and off-the-chart libidos.A couple of weeks ago, I watched a few episodes of the 1980s sitcom “The Golden Girls” with my daughters. Like any other woman of 50 who knows how old those mostly gray-haired characters were supposed to be — at the start of the series, Blanche, Dorothy and Rose were in their early 50s — I experienced some cognitive dissonance. “Do they seem like they are the same age as me?” I asked my 11-year-old. No, she said. They seemed “more comfortable, like grandmothers used to.”Odd, but true: The kind of aging depicted on “The Golden Bachelor” is itchy and awkward. We hear a contestant say it’s nice to see older women enjoy how they feel in their skin; we hear contestants say they are breaking stereotypes of what it means to be old. But what good is that when those stereotypes are instantly replaced with “Girls Gone Wild” stereotypes about what it means to still be young? In Episode 1, after most of the contestants have sashayed into the mansion, another woman emerges. She is 84. She is wearing a nice blouse and forgiving trousers and flat shoes, like a normal person in her 80s. She says she is Jimmy Kimmel’s aunt — Aunt Chippy, as featured on his show — and she just wanted to meet Gerry, as she was sure he was lying about his age. The gag is that she is not really in the game, because she is old. Sitting with the other women in the mansion, she says: “I don’t belong here. Those ladies are really something. Look at this one. I’m in the wrong place.” She is later caught napping; at least one person here is comfortable with where she finds herself.But of course, Chippy leaves the set. I imagine her going home, making coffee, putting her feet up and calling a grandkid or an old friend to talk about the truly weird day she had, and how — thank God — she doesn’t need to be like that anymore, with the hair and the boobs and the sex. Because she was already young once, and even then it was exhausting, and now? She can’t even imagine.Source photographs for illustration above: Brian Bowen Smith/ABC; Ricky Middlesworth/ABC; Rosemary Calvert/Getty Images; Jonathan Knowles/Getty Images. More