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      A New Pee-wee Herman Documentary Peeks Inside the Playhouse

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      Though he is well-known for only one, the performer and writer Paul Reubens lived many lives.As the new documentary “Pee-wee as Himself” details, before he created his alter ego Pee-wee Herman, Reubens was a successful child actor in regional theater. Growing up in the circus town of Sarasota, Fla. (the longtime home of Ringling Bros.), he was surrounded early on by self-proclaimed freaks. He became an Andy Warhol-loving cinéaste; a serious collector of kitsch; and, by his 20s, an aspiring performance artist.Among the many revelations in the three-hour documentary — which premieres Friday on HBO, in two parts — is his acknowledgment that he is gay, and that he was out of the closet before deciding early to barricade back in.Reubens’s death, at age 70 in 2023, was another surprise; the cancer he lived with for years had been a secret to almost everyone. (The filmmakers, who captured 40 hours of footage with him, were unaware of his illness; he was still due to sit for his final interview.)In 2010, Reubens took a version of “The Pee-wee Herman Show,” which debuted originally in 1981, to Broadway. Sara Krulwich/The New York Times NYTCREDIT: Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesEven more startling, and illuminating, is the audacity of Reubens’s lifelong ambitions — and his vast and continuing influence. During his heyday in the ’80s, with the hit movie “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” and the Saturday morning children’s show “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” he offered fans a world of outlandish creative possibility, where anyone could be anything they dreamed up. Also, chairs gave hugs, the floor talked, and a mechanical Abraham Lincoln cooked you pancakes.Pee-wee was bizarre at the time, too, but in retrospect, the global superstardom Reubens achieved is downright bonkers. With a B.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts, he viewed his creation as conceptual art. He also meant to be famous. He was an avant-gardist, but “he wanted to be a superstar,” said Matt Wolf, the director of the documentary.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      For the Creators of ‘Adults,’ Maturity Is Overrated

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      Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold graduated from college in 2018. At commencement, they gave a speech in which they talked about moving on from Yale. As the speech went on, it appeared that Shaw was also moving on from Kronengold. A video clip of the speech went viral, not least because Hillary Clinton, that year’s speaker, can be seen giggling at a joke about Yale’s endowment.Shaw and Kronengold were briefly famous. Days later, jobless, they moved back in with their respective parents. She returned to the Upper West Side. He was back on Long Island.“All of my autonomy and independence and this beautiful sense of self I’d cultivated, no one cared about it anymore,” Kronengold said.Shaw and Kronengold were still together — the breakup had been a comic bit — but separated by the L.I.R.R. They missed school, they missed their friends, they missed having a schedule and a sense of purpose. Adulthood, it turned out, was kind of a bummer.Bored and isolated, they began to sketch out a show about five housemates living together, clumsily, in Queens, New York, a “Friends” remade for an extremely online, acutely self-conscious Gen Z crowd.“We were clearly lonely and, like, imagining this fantasy where all our friends lived with us,” Kronengold said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Sirens’ Is a Poppy Summer Getaway

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      The new Netflix series, starring Meghann Fahy, Milly Alcock and Julianne Moore, isn’t breaking any boundaries, but it is often entertaining.“Sirens,” a five-part mini-series on Netflix, brims with trendy TV elements, a mythology-tinged beach drama with a weepy trauma plot and a poppy attention to cult sagas. It’s more summer fling than marriage material, but who doesn’t like to get away?Meghann Fahy stars as the down-and-out Devon, who dresses in black, smokes cigarettes, has casual sexual encounters and tries to care for her ailing father with dementia in Buffalo. Milly Alcock is Simone, her little sister, a live-in assistant on Martha’s Vineyard whose outfits seem ripped from a Lilly Pulitzer lookbook. Devon arrives, unbidden, because she needs help, but she soon becomes worried that Simone is in a cult led by her employer, Kiki (Julianne Moore), an ethereal, overwhelming ex-lawyer married to a frustrated billionaire (Kevin Bacon).“Sirens” is “White Lotus”-adjacent, thanks in part to its “rich people: they are actually very sad sometimes” elements and especially thanks to Fahy, its lead and a “White Lotus” alumna. It shares an “Upstairs, Downstairs” behind-the-scenes energy and a fascination with birds with “The Residence.” As in the dopey yet engrossing thriller “Paradise,” there is something unsettling and amiss about the luxury here. Every mysterious streaming drama needs a parade of famous faces, and “Sirens” gives us Moore, Bacon and Glenn Howerton. And as with dozens of other poor-little-rich-folks series, primo real estate is the backbone of the show.Those are relatively chichi shows to resemble, but “Sirens” is perhaps more in keeping with trends from the other end of the prestige spectrum: It often feels like a Hallmark Channel movie.“Sirens” swims from campy to grounded and back, feeling sometimes refreshingly unpredictable and other times confusingly disjointed. When the oddities amplify each other, the show takes on an eerie, alluring dreaminess. But then the show backs away from its boldest ideas, as if it had this bolder, grander plan and then just said, “Eh, never mind.”The draw here is the goofy luminosity of it all and the commitment of the performances. It is also a show that could be told entirely through hair: Each perfect ponytail is an instant character biography; frizz stands in for personal failure; face-framing waves that crest right at the cheekbone might as well be a halo; and a stick-straight blowout cuts deeper than a knife in the back. More

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      Late Night Thinks Trump’s ‘White Genocide’ Video Was a Bit Much

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      “The guy who couldn’t find South Africa on a map of Africa” subjected its leader to an extremely dubious video about his own country, Jimmy Kimmel said.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.Lie, the Beloved CountryOn Wednesday, President Trump lectured the visiting president of South Africa, claiming that genocide was being carried out against white farmers in his country (and subjecting him to a dubious video on that subject). In turn, Trump got a lecture from late-night hosts, who dismantled his false claims.“There’s a right-wing conspiracy theory bubbling right now that says they’re killing all the white people in South Africa,” Jimmy Kimmel explained on Wednesday night. “Trump apparently has seen this online, so he brings the president in, he turns the lights down and makes him sit through a multimedia presentation about his own country titled ‘White Genocide.’”“I mean, seriously, does anyone at the White House — does anyone around him ever say, ‘Oh, Mr. President, this one is wrong, this is not real, this one makes you look demented and dumb’? Nobody does.” — JIMMY KIMMELOn “The Daily Show,” Ronny Chieng said Trump had turned the White House meeting “into a murder podcast.”“Trump is convinced that there is white genocide going on in South Africa, which of course means there is no white genocide happening in South Africa. It’s not even mathematically possible. I mean, you’ll never run out of white South Africans when one of them is making 5,000 kids a week.” — RONNY CHIENG, referring to Elon Musk“But still, Trump thinks there is one, and you know he cares about it because he said ‘white genocide.’ It’s like someone told him, ‘Hey, it’s not just a genocide, it’s a white genocide. You know, the bad kind.’” — RONNY CHIENG“During the meeting, this is real, things got pretty heated, and the president of South Africa actually said, ‘I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.’ And then, to mess with Trump even more, he gave him tickets to see a Springsteen concert in New Jersey.” — JIMMY FALLON“Trump asked some tough questions, like, ‘How did you get rid of Elon? I’ll tell you what I did. How did you do it?’ — JIMMY FALLON“If you really want to impress Trump, you should have given him one of your golf courses. Then Trump would be like, ‘Hell, yeah! Sorry, white South Africans, if that’s even a real thing. Thoughts and prayers.’” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Golden Dome Edition)“President Trump has unveiled plans for a ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense shield that could cost tens of billions. Here is a schematic of what the golden dome would look like. The best part about the defense shield? He says the Klingons will pay for it.” — GREG GUTFELD“We’re fine. Gold doesn’t melt. It’s the strongest metal on earth.” — GRACE KUHLENSCHMIDT of “The Daily Show”“Yes, gold. Because when I think impenetrable, I think of stuff that pirates can bend with their teeth.” — STEPHEN COLBERTWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Review: ‘Pee-wee as Himself’ Finds the Man Behind the Man-Child

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      This fascinating though incomplete documentary tells Paul Reubens’s story despite the subject’s doubts about the project.The title of “Pee-wee as Himself,” the two-part documentary that airs Friday on HBO, is a bit of a ruse, or maybe a riddle.Pee-wee Herman, the manic, bow-tied man-child, was the greatest creation of Paul Reubens, who died in 2023. But Reubens was someone else, a self whose nature was obscured, sometimes by the overshadowing fame of his alter ego, sometimes by his own choice.The question that hangs over this fascinating and tantalizing film is how much Reubens the director, Matt Wolf, will get out of Reubens. Before his death, Reubens cooperated on the documentary — but not without reservations, which he airs from the first moment he appears onscreen.“I could have directed this documentary,” he says, but adds that he was told he would not have the appropriate perspective. In his interviews with Wolf, he still seems not entirely convinced. He wants to tell his story; he is not so sure he wants his story to be told for him. He wants to show us his nature, but it is not simply going to explode out of him as if somebody said the secret word on “Pee-wee’s Playhouse.”What unfolds, over more than three hours, is in part a public story: How Reubens channeled his genius into an anarchic creation that bridged the worlds of alternative art and children’s TV, then had his life derailed by trumped-up scandals that haunted him to the end.It is also partly a spellbinding private story about artistry, ambition, identity and control. What does it mean to become famous as someone else? (The documentary’s title refers to the acting credit in “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” as a result of which Reubens remained largely unknown even as his persona became a worldwide star.) And what were the implications of being obscured by his creation, especially for a gay man in a still very homophobic Hollywood?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jeff Goldblum Says Jeff Goldblum Is ‘Not a Performance’

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      Listen to and Follow PopcastApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTubeAt 72, Jeff Goldblum has not lost a step. He may, in fact, be picking up the pace.An unmistakable screen presence since the mid-1970s, when he stole scenes in “Death Wish,” “Nashville” and “Annie Hall,” Goldblum has recently hammed it up as the Wizard of Oz, in last year’s “Wicked” (and this year’s sequel), and Zeus himself, in Netflix’s “Kaos.”Beyond film and television — where he’s also popped up in recent years on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and the millennial-skewering “Search Party” — Goldblum has become a fixture in the worlds of fashion (attending two consecutive Met Galas), music (having recently released “Still Blooming,” his fourth jazz album) and the internet variety show circuit (gamely eating hot wings and shopping for sneakers).To each role, fiction and non-, Goldblum brings a contagious enthusiasm and plenty of Jeff Goldblum, working his amiably offbeat public persona, born from defining roles in “The Big Chill,” “Jurassic Park” and “Independence Day,” into everything he does. To watch him move through the world is to witness that immutable movie-star magic incarnate as he kisses hands, asks questions and makes the days of strangers with solicitous eye contact and effusive approachability, seemingly without ever flagging. (Goldblum is also the father of two children under 10, who are being raised by Goldblum and his wife, Emilie, a former Olympic rhythmic gymnast, in Florence, Italy.)Jeff Goldblum at The New York Times’s office in Manhattan. “It’s not a performance, and I don’t feel like it’s inauthentic,” he said of his public persona. “I feel like my interest in people is real.”It can all seem exhausting — and that’s before learning that Goldblum found the time to personally sign thousands of copies of his new album, which features appearances by his “Wicked” co-stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Yet in a recent interview on Popcast, the actor and musician insisted that the perpetual Goldblum experience — influenced by his study of the Meisner technique — is not an act, but his lifeblood.“It’s not a performance, and I don’t feel like it’s inauthentic,” he said. “I feel like my interest in people is real and I’m thrilled to be here, when I have an opportunity to let that run free and express itself. That feels wholesome to me, and nourishing.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      David Lazer, Executive Who Joined the World of Muppets, Dies at 89

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      At IBM, he hired a young Jim Henson to make humorous corporate films using his puppet creations. Mr. Henson later hired Mr. Lazer to help run his company.David Lazer, who as an IBM executive in the mid-1960s hired Jim Henson’s Muppets to star in a series of short films that injected laughs into sales meetings — and who a decade later joined Mr. Henson’s company as a producer — died on April 10 at his home in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 89.His death, which had not been widely reported, was confirmed by Doyle Newberry, a manager of Mr. Lazer’s estate. He did not cite a cause.“What David brought to the company was class,” Brian Henson, Mr. Henson’s son and the chairman of the Jim Henson Company, said in an interview. “Even my dad would say you couldn’t call Muppets Inc. classy. Up until then, it was a bunch of beatniks making weird stuff.”In 1965, Mr. Lazer was making commercials and sales training films for IBM’s office products division and had learned the importance of keeping in-house audiences at the company interested during meetings. Intrigued by a reel of commercials and short films made by Mr. Henson, Mr. Lazer wanted to bring his “sense of humor and crazy nuttiness” to IBM, he told Brian Jay Jones for his book “Jim Henson: The Biography” (2013).The star of Mr. Henson’s early films for IBM was Rowlf the Dog, who typed letters to his mother on a series of IBM manual and electric typewriters in which he described his new career as a salesman for the company. He promoted real products; he also plugged an electric guitar from IBM’s “Hippie Products Division” that, improbably, dispensed coffee.In another short, an early version of Cookie Monster devoured a talking coffee machine.“The idea is that if you can give people a good laugh, they’ll listen better,” Mr. Lazer told The Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1985.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ronny Chieng Takes Issue With Kristi Noem’s Takes on Immigration

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      “We’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.,” the “Daily Show” host said after the homeland security chief couldn’t correctly define habeas corpus and suggested a game show for citizenship.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.Flunking OutPop quiz time — what’s the definition of habeas corpus? The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, fumbled the answer to this question during congressional testimony on Tuesday, and “The Daily Show” was not about to let it slide.“If Kristi Noem was just a random person on the street, I’d get it if she was, like, ‘Habeas corpus? That’s a Harry Potter spell, right? Makes you invisible?’” Ronny Chieng said.“But the secretary of homeland security should know that habeas corpus prevents the president from deporting you without due process, not that it lets the president deport you without due process. That’s the opposite of what it means! And I didn’t know you could have dyslexia for laws.” — RONNY CHIENG“A reality TV show for citizenship is somehow the most un-American and most American thing I’ve ever heard of. Although we already have a contest to prove who’s the most American, and it’s called the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. What’s more American than eating until your colon explodes and then going bankrupt from medical bills?” — RONNY CHIENG“It might be a nicer way to get deported. Instead of I.C.E. agents disappearing you up in unmarked vehicles, Ryan Seacrest walks into your living room with a TV crew, and is, like, ‘Carlos, we’re taking you out of the U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENG“Kristi Noem, you still don’t know the basics of American law, so I’m sorry to say, we’re going to have to take you out of U.S.A.” — RONNY CHIENGThe Punchiest Punchlines (Big, Beautiful Edition)“Right now, Trump’s little Republi-buddies are on Capitol Hill trying to figure out a bill, but they’re coming close to fisticuffs over his heartless, tax-cutting boondoggle, which he’s been calling his [imitating Trump] ‘big, beautiful bill.’ It really sounds less like legislation, and more like the husky guy at a male strip club. ‘OK, ladies. Coming up on the main stage is Big Beautiful Bill! You know him, you love him, the dad-bod Adonis! He’s going to eat a whole potpie with his bare hands. Grab onto those handles, ladies, before he runs off to Home Depot!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They’re trying to get Republicans to fall in line with what he keeps calling his ‘big, beautiful bill.’ And now, he somehow has got all the dummies around him calling it that, too. Big Beautiful Bill would be a good wrestling name, right?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’ll take food out of the mouths of millions of hungry children who get SNAP benefits, and it contains a provision to eliminate a sales tax on gun silencers. It will make what they call suppressors more affordable, to which I say, it’s about time. One thing I think we can all agree on is the gun violence in this country is too loud.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I read that Americans who are anxious about tariffs are skipping the salon and opting for at-home beauty treatments. Yeah, and after people cut their own bangs, tariffs will be the least of the their problems. ‘Summer’s ruined!’ Hey, here’s my advice: If you want a hot stone massage, just put your phone on your body and open five apps at once.” — JIMMY FALLONWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More