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      Donald Wildmon, Early Crusader in Conservative Culture Wars, Dies at 85

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      He founded the American Family Association, which became a juggernaut in the Christian right’s campaign against sex and gay themes in art, television and pop culture.Donald E. Wildmon, a conservative activist whose alarm over indecency on television spawned a national organization, the American Family Association, a once powerful cog of the Christian right, and who led boycotts over sexuality and gay themes in some of America’s most popular TV shows and in the arts, died in Tupelo, Miss., where he lived, on Dec 28. He was 85.The cause was Lewy body dementia, according to a statement posted by the American Family Association.Mr. Wildmon’s crusades beginning in the 1970s against boundary-pushing trends in popular culture and the arts — including high-profile attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts — were an early thunderclap of the culture wars that have moved from the fringe of the Republican Party to its mainstream.A former pastor in the United Methodist Church, Mr. Wildmon became a lightning rod for liberals, who attacked him for bigotry and stifling free speech. In 1981, the president of NBC, Fred Silverman, a champion of socially conscious television, said that Mr. Wildmon’s threats to boycott advertisers were “a sneak attack on the foundation of democracy.”“A boycott,” Mr. Wildmon responded in an interview with The New York Times that year, “is as legal and as American as apple pie.”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?  More

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      Pat McAfee Apologizes Over Role in Aaron Rodgers-Jimmy Kimmel Feud

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      Rodgers, the Jets quarterback, suggested during an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” that Kimmel had a connection to Jeffrey Epstein, leading Kimmel to threaten legal action.Pat McAfee on Wednesday apologized for airing comments that Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers made toward Jimmy Kimmel on McAfee’s ESPN television show a day earlier suggesting the late-night talk show host had a connection to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.“Some things obviously people get very pissed off about, especially when they’re that serious allegations,” McAfee said. “So we apologize for being a part of it. I can’t wait to hear what Aaron has to say about it. Hopefully those two will just be able to settle this, you know, not work-wise, but be able to chitchat and move along.”Speaking on his weekly Tuesday appearance on McAfee’s television show on ESPN, Rodgers, a four-time winner of the N.F.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award, suggested that Kimmel, the host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on ABC, was acquainted with Epstein, who was accused of having sex with minors and in 2019 died by suicide while in jail. Epstein was a longtime friend to powerful politicians and business executives, and the names of some of his associates are expected to be publicly released soon in court documents.“There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, really hoping that doesn’t come out,” Rodgers said on McAfee’s show. Kimmel denied the allegations on X, formerly known as Twitter, and threatened potential legal action against Rodgers.“Your reckless words put my family in danger,” Kimmel said. “Keep it up and we will debate the facts further in court.”ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney, placing McAfee and both entities in an uneasy situation. The predicament highlights the leeway ESPN gives McAfee, including the regular appearances by Rodgers, who has used his time on the show to speak out against vaccines and even challenged Travis Kelce to a debate during a recent appearance. In October, McAfee confirmed a report that Rodgers had been paid over $1 million to appear on the show.Spokesmen for ABC and ESPN did not immediately respond to requests for comment.ESPN signed McAfee, a former N.F.L. punter, to a reported five-year, $85 million contract last year to bring his popular digital show to the network and to appear on other programing. The hire came as ESPN underwent layoffs as part of an overall cost-cutting strategy from Disney.McAfee stands out among the network’s other personalities, often using profanity on what had long been family-friendly programming and eschewing the usual business-casual attire for tank tops. Though he has scaled back on the coarse language, ESPN has hoped his show’s freewheeling format would attract new viewers as the network’s business model changes.“We’re not putting a suit and tie on him,” Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of content, told The Wall Street Journal in September. More

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      Best Movies and TV Shows Streaming in January: ‘Echo,’ ‘True Detective’ and More

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      We’ve rounded up of the titles most worth checking out in the coming month, including an adaptation of “The Expatriates” and the return of “True Detective.”Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of January’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Expats’Starts streaming: Jan. 26Based on Janice Y.K. Lee’s best-selling novel “The Expatriates,” this low-key melodrama is set in Hong Kong, where three very different Americans find their lives intertwining. Nicole Kidman plays Margaret, a socialite and mother whose seemingly idyllic world has been recently marred by tragedy. Sarayu Blue is Hilary, Margaret’s once-close friend, who has drifted away as her own domestic situation has soured. And Ji-young Yoo is Mercy, a younger working woman who takes jobs that put her in the orbit of the rich. The indie filmmaker Lulu Wang (best-known for “The Farewell”) serves as a writer, director and creative supervisor for the miniseries, which is about women enduring crises big and small while trying to make homes for themselves in a foreign land.Also arriving:Jan. 5“Foe”“James May: Our Man in India”Jan. 12“Role Play”“Uninterrupted’s Top Class: The Life and Times of the Sierra Canyon Trailblazers”Jan. 19“Dance Life” Season 1“Hazbin Hotel” Season 1Jan. 23“Kevin James: Irregardless”New to AMC+Clive Owen brings the classic Dashiell Hammett character Sam Spade to the South of France in “Monsieur Spade.”Jean-Claude Lother/AMC‘Monsieur Spade’Starts streaming: Jan. 14The writer-director-producer Scott Frank follows up his hit drama “The Queen’s Gambit” with this offbeat mystery series, created and written with Tom Fontana, the creator of “Oz.” Clive Owen plays Dashiell Hammett’s famed detective Sam Spade, who in the show’s first episode moves to a sleepy village in the South of France in the early 1960s and settles into semiretirement. But Spade’s neighborly interest in the locals’ lives eventually gets him back into the snooping business — especially after a horrific crime at a nearby convent outrages the community. Frank and Fontana are aiming for a soft-boiled Euro-noir vibe with “Monsieur Spade,” staging this story of murder and regret against a backdrop of vineyards and villas.Also arriving:Jan. 4“Sanctuary: A Witch’s Tale”Jan. 8“Cheat”Jan. 12“Destroy All Neighbors”Jan. 15“Alex Rider” Seasons 1 & 2Jan. 22“The Guff” Seasons 1 & 2Jan. 26“Suitable Flesh”Jan. 29“Crossroads” Season 2“No Offense” Seasons 1-3New to Apple TV+‘Criminal Record’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 10The British writer-producer Paul Rutman (creator of the historical drama “Indian Summers” and a writer for the cop show “Vera”) continues his fascination with brutal crime and social divisions in his new series “Criminal Record,” a modern murder mystery in which the perception of the evidence differs depending on who is doing the examining. Cush Jumbo plays Detective Sergeant June Lenker, who while following up on a phoned-in tip becomes convinced that one of her superiors — Detective Chief Inspector Daniel Hegarty (Peter Capaldi) — intentionally nabbed the wrong man in an old case. Lenker’s drive to see justice done sets her against the London police force’s old guard, who suggest that as a Black woman with less experience, she may be looking for bias where none exists.‘Masters of the Air’Starts streaming: Jan. 26A companion piece to the popular, award-winning World War II dramas “Band of Brothers” and “The Pacific,” this miniseries covers the men of the 100th Bomb Group, who suffered heavy casualties while running crucial missions deep into Nazi territory. Austin Butler stars as a handsome officer who heads overseas with visions of glory and soon finds that the realities of combat are more challenging and devastating than he could have imagined. As with the earlier series, this new one (produced again by Gary Goetzman, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg) is an ensemble piece, showing how camaraderie helps fighting men endure. “Masters of Air” also features an all-star team of directors drawn from the acclaimed indie film and prestige TV ranks, including Cary Joji Fukunaga, Dee Rees, Tim Van Patten and the duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck.New to Disney+Alaqua Cox in the new Marvel series “Echo,” a spinoff of the series “Hawkeye.”Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios, via Disney+‘Echo’Starts streaming: Jan. 9The television arm of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is going through changes, moving away from having every movie and TV series connect closely to a larger transmedia narrative. Although “Echo” is a spinoff from the Avengers-adjacent miniseries “Hawkeye” — with Alaqua Cox reprising her role as a deaf Native American with the power to mimic other people’s fighting styles — and although it will feature the Marvel villain Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio), the show is meant to stand alone, appealing even to viewers who have never even heard of the likes of Daredevil or She-Hulk. “Echo” will be available on both Hulu and Disney+. It is the first TV-MA Marvel series, reflecting its more mature story, about a woman who has to reckon with her past in Oklahoma in order to get some killers off her trail.‘Bluey’ Season 3, Part 3Starts streaming: Jan. 12It’s a major event whenever Disney+ imports any new “Bluey” episodes from Australia, where the series airs months before it hits the United States. This latest batch of 10 includes episodes in which the imaginative puppy Bluey and her sweet kid sister, Bingo, build an elaborate furniture fort, take a trip to the beach, pretend to be office workers, play a game with a store’s security monitors and more. Will America’s parents and children be patient enough to parcel out these seven-minute doses of joy over multiple days, or will they burn through them all in one night?Also arriving:Jan. 17“Siempre Fui Yo” Season 2Jan. 24“A Real Bug’s Life”Jan. 31“Choir”New to Hulu‘Death and Other Details’Starts streaming: Jan. 16The “Knives Out”/“Only Murders in the Building” trend toward colorful whodunits continues with this stylish mystery series, set mostly on a high-end cruise ship in the Mediterranean. Violett Beane plays Imogene Scott, a young woman with a tragic past, who ends up becoming the prime suspect in a tricky locked-room murder case. Mandy Patinkin plays Rufus Coteworth, a celebrity detective who 20 years earlier disappointed the adolescent Imogene with his inability to bring her mother’s killer to justice. Reluctantly, she puts her remarkable memory together with Rufus’s keen eye for detail, working with him to find out which of the wealthy, fabulously well-dressed people on a luxury liner may have harpoon-gunned a man to death.Also arriving:Jan. 3“Ishura”Jan. 4“Daughters of the Cult”Jan. 7“The Incredible Pol Farm”Jan. 9“Beyond Utopia”“Safe Home” Season 1Jan. 12“Miranda’s Victim”“Self Reliance”Jan. 17“A Shop for Killers”Jan. 18“Invisible Beauty”Jan. 22“Superhot: The Spicy World of Pepper People” Season 1Jan. 24“Tell Me That You Love Me” Season 1Jan. 28“R.M.N.”New to Max‘True Detective’ Season 4Starts streaming: Jan. 14The latest edition of the HBO crime anthology “True Detective: (now subtitled “Night Country”) has a new show runner in Issa López, who continues the series’s tradition of attracting big-time movie stars to do television. Jodie Foster plays Liz Danvers, an Alaskan police detective whose contentious relationship with her colleague Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) complicates their investigation into two strange, possibly intertwined cases: the murder of an Indigenous social activist and the disappearance of eight scientists from an Arctic Research Station. The stellar cast includes John Hawkes as Danvers’s slack underling, Christopher Eccleston as their fussy boss and Fiona Shaw as a local with a strange spiritual connection to this dark, desolate, wintry landscape.Also arriving:Jan. 8“Going to Mars: The Nicki Giovanni Project”Jan. 18“On the Roam”“Sort Of” Season 3Jan. 22“Rick and Morty” Season 7New to Paramount+ With Showtime‘Sexy Beast’Starts streaming: Jan. 25The arty 2000 gangster movie “Sexy Beast” became a favorite among both cinephiles and crime story aficionados for its darkly comic story of aging British crooks. This prequel TV series is set in the ’90s and catches these men and women in their heyday, when they ruled London’s underworld but also as they began heading in the directions that would later pull them apart. James McArdle plays Gal Dove, a sharp-witted hustler whose attraction to the adult film actress Deedee Harrison (Sarah Greene) gets him to start thinking about a life away from his overly intense partner Don Logan (Emun Elliott) and their boss Teddy Bass (Stephen Moyer).Also arriving:Jan. 11“SkyMed” Season 2Jan. 16“June”Jan. 19“The Woman in the Wall”New to PeacockThe title bear of the prequel series “Ted,” as voiced by Seth MacFarlane.Peacock‘Ted’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 11This prequel to the writer-director Seth MacFarlane’s hit movies “Ted” and “Ted 2” jumps back to 1993, following the early misadventures of the Boston-area teenager John Bennett (Max Burkholder) and his walking, talking, swearing teddy bear (voiced by MacFarlane). As Ted joins his best buddy, Johnny, in high school, the series riffs on the old John Hughes teen misfit movies and weird family TV shows like “Alf,” in which one kid’s journey through the usual coming-of-age rituals is complicated by his unconventional domestic situation. As with the “Ted” films, MacFarlane gets laughs from the matter-of-fact way that full-sized humans interact with a small, adorable, unapologetically vulgar stuffed animal.Also arriving:Jan. 12“The Traitors” Season 2Jan. 25“In the Know” Season 1 More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix in January

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      Sofia Vergara’s narco queenpin miniseries and a crypto documentary highlight this month’s slate.Every month, Netflix adds movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of January’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)‘Bitconned’Now streamingThe collapse of big-time cryptocurrency exchanges like FTX grab a lot of headlines, but these are far from the only crypto businesses that have misled investors into losing fortunes. The documentary “Bitconned” tracks the rise and fall of Centra Tech, a company that promised — dubiously, in retrospect — to make crypto assets accessible via a debit card. Directed by Bryan Storkel (best-known for the quirky docs “The Pez Outlaw” and “The Bad Boy of Bowling”), the film is anchored by extensive interviews with the Centra Tech masterminds, as well as with some of the journalists who figured out early that something was fishy here. The details of the story are at once amusing and alarming, involving easily persuaded celebrity spokespeople, phony apps engineered to demonstrate a nonexistent technology and a FOMO culture where the bold promise of quick cash drowns out common sense.‘Fool Me Once’Now streamingThe author Harlan Coben’s novels are prime adaptation fodder for two simple reasons: He creates sympathetic protagonists with relatable anxieties; and he writes twisty plots that keep readers guessing. In the British miniseries “Fool Me Once,” Michelle Keegan plays a typical Coben hero, Maya Stern, an ex-military special operations agent who is shocked one day to look at the footage from her home security camera and see her husband, Joe (Richard Armitage), whom she thought had been murdered. Her investigation into this mystery leads to Maya crossing paths with a distrustful homicide investigator (Adeel Akhtar) and Joe’s rich and powerful mother (Joanna Lumley) — as well as some family members of her own who believe Joe’s strange case may be tied to the death of Maya’s sister.‘Society of the Snow’Starts streaming: Jan. 4In 1972, a plane crash in the Andes left over two dozen passengers stuck on a remote, icy mountain, with little hope of rescue and only a small amount of food to share. Famously — or infamously — the survivors resorted to cannibalism while waiting for the spring thaw. But the director J.A. Bayona (adapting a book by the journalist Pablo Vierci) doesn’t make the eating of human flesh the primary point of emphasis in his film “Society of the Snow.” He’s more interested in hardships like extreme cold and sudden avalanches, and in how a desperate situation strengthened the bond between these people, many of whom played together on the same rugby team. This is film about young men fighting hard to stay alive for each other’s sake, in a landscape at once picturesque and cruel.‘The Brothers Sun’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 4The two brothers in the action-dramedy “The Brothers Sun” couldn’t be more different. One is Bruce (Sam Song Li), a cash-strapped Los Angeles college student with aspirations to be an improv comic; the other is Charles (Justin Chien), a skilled amateur chef who also happens to be a top-level assassin in a Taiwan triad. Michelle Yeoh plays the boys’ mother, Eileen, who has been sheltering Bruce from the criminal life in America. But when killers from the old country start invading her suburban sanctuary, she has to get her gangster groove back to keep her family safe. Created by Brad Falchuk (a creator of “Glee” and “American Horror Story”) and Byron Wu, this series combines dynamic martial arts sequences with scenes where the dysfunctional Suns relearn how to trust each other.‘Griselda’Starts streaming: Jan. 25Sofia Vergara plays the notorious drug lord Griselda Blanco in this miniseries, created by the writer-producer Ingrid Escajeda alongside some of the team behind the Netflix favorite “Narcos.” (Vergara, a Colombian herself, is also a producer on the project.) Blanco’s story has been told before in documentaries and TV movies, most of which treat her as a larger-than-life criminal legend. “Griselda” aims to be more grounded, following the cocaine queenpin from her origins in Medellín to her dominance of the Miami market, while frequently jumping back and forth in time to compare the mild-mannered immigrant mother that Blanco once seemed to be with the ruthless woman who went on to outfox the mob’s macho men.Also arriving:Jan. 1“You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment”Jan. 5“Gyeongseong Creature” Season 1, Part 2Jan. 10“The Trust: A Game of Greed” Season 1Jan. 11“Champion” Season 1“Detective Forst” Season 1“Sonic Prime” Season 3Jan. 12“Lift”“Love Is Blind: Sweden” Season 1Jan. 19“The Bequeathed” Season 1“Sixty Minutes”Jan. 22“Not Quite Narwhal” Season 2Jan. 23“Jacqueline Novak: Get on Your Knees”“Love Deadline” Season 1Jan. 24“Queer Eye” Season 8“Six Nations: Full Contact”Jan. 30“Jack Whitehall: Settle Down”Jan. 31“Baby Bandito” More

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      ‘Fargo’ Season 5, Episode 8 Recap: Rude Awakenings

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      Dot learns some harsh truths about her past and present. Danish takes an ill-advised trip to North Dakota.Season 5, Episode 8: ‘Blanket’When Dot was kidnapped early in the season and then she simply returned home as if nothing had happened, it was absurd on its face. No one, other than Wayne, could believe that she had stepped out for a while and come back in time to whisk up some Bisquick for their daughter. And even though she knew that her abductors would lay siege to the house again, she was determined to enjoy Halloween with her family, even as she laid out booby traps like Dustin Hoffman in “Straw Dogs.” She’s the sort of determined fantasist who believes she can bend reality to her will.That bubble is punctured in two lines in this week’s episode, as Roy finally has her back at his ranch in North Dakota, shackled to the floor like an animal. “You’ll end up same as Linda,” he hisses. “I’ll bury you right next to her.” We had just spent most of the previous episode at Camp Utopia, the women’s shelter that Dot had conjured in a reverie over pancakes, which seemed at the time like a clever way to fill in a crucial piece of her back story. But now it’s clear that she was clinging to the idea that Linda had fled Tillman Ranch to save herself and perhaps could one day reappear to make amends with Dot and be a mother again to her wayward son, Gator, who has gone to the dark side in her absence.In the time leading up to Roy’s revelation about what really happened to Linda, Dot is still dead set on returning to the fantasy life that she has nearly succeeded in making real. She needs to order an ice cream cake for Scotty’s birthday. She has her duties as a den mother for a girl scout troop. She has 13 seasons of “Call the Midwife” to get through with Wayne. Yet the incontrovertible truth about Roy is that he is a killer with a badge, unrestrained by the laws of man or the influence of a powerful lawyer like Danish Graves, who smugly assumed he had the upper hand in a negotiation. From her shelter on the ranch, Dot can see that corpse disposal is so routine for Roy that he has a pit on site for it.At this point, it may be worth questioning how sincere “Fargo” is about domestic violence. As skillfully as the show’s creator, Noah Hawley, has spun his serio-comic yarn this season, it can be difficult to reconcile the glib, knowing, referential tone of the show with the content warnings that have bracketed the last two episodes. When Roy takes his long walk back to Dot in the shelter, following his humiliation at the county sheriff’s debate, a Lisa Hannigan cover of the Britney Spears hit “Toxic” blankets the soundtrack and it strikes a bum note. “Dark” covers of pop songs have become a staple of movie trailers, and here it’s the coming attraction to a type of abuse the show isn’t sober enough to handle. What worked for the puppets in Camp Utopia feels more like genre exploitation here.It doesn’t help that the prelude to violence is so extravagantly silly. Lorraine and Danish’s plan to spoil Roy’s re-election campaign surely ranks as the strangest of the onerous debt consolidation options offered by Redemption Services. In order for the plan to work, Danish has to get name changes approved for three Roy Tillmans, secure spots for each of them on the debate stage for Stark County sheriff and provoke the real Roy Tillman so shrewdly that he melts down and slugs the female moderator. Those seem like a lot of unpredictable variables, but the scene itself is reasonably funny, with the fake Roys echoing the real one like siblings pranking their older brother.Now that the Roy-Dot-Linda situation has been clarified, can we get a puppet-assisted back story on how Indira and Lars Olmstead ever became a couple? Because whatever it is that Lars brought to the table when they fell in love and got married, there’s no evidence left of it now. Indira catching Lars with another woman adds infidelity to a long list of flaws that she itemizes one last time before kicking him out of the house. Throughout the season, Indira’s troubles at home have been placed in contrast with Dot’s blissful marriage to Wayne, and it has offered a different picture of domestic toxicity than Dot’s abuse at Roy’s hands. They are both women fighting for their own happiness, and the show has engineered an unspoken bond between them.The final shot of Dot peering out a small, broken window on the ranch, fully awake to Roy’s capabilities, introduces a genuine fear that we haven’t yet seen from her. “You don’t have a plan, do you?,” she asked him earlier. She intended it as a rhetorical taunt, but perhaps now she realizes that his not having a plan is a terrifying proposition. He will assert his authority over her. He hasn’t planned anything after that.3 Cent StampsDot knowing the truth about what happened to Linda does increase the possibility that Gator will turn on his father, especially given the vulnerability he shows at any mention of his mother. He will have to survive Ole Munch first, however.Nice to see Deputy Witt Farr re-emerge in the hospital, where he tries to pry Dot away from Roy’s clutches. He has shown a lot of courage already in standing up to the Tillmans, but it’s his insistence on repeatedly calling Dot “Mrs. Lyon” that is touching in this context. He wants her (and Roy) to know that he recognizes who she really is.One Coens reference in this episode: Indira’s opening the bedroom closet door on Lars’s mistress recalls when George Clooney discovers Brad Pitt hiding out in “Burn After Reading.” The mistress gets off a little easier, though.Kudos to the people of Stark County for packing the house for a sheriffs debate. You don’t expect such things to be standing-room-only media events.Another small movie reference: The squeaky windmill above the spot where Roy dumps his victims seems like a nod to the famous opening of “Once Upon a Time in the West,” where such a squeak is among the new sounds we hear in the pregnant moments before three outlaws ambush Charles Bronson at a train station. It’s also a callback to the place where she hid the postcard from Linda in her reverie. More

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      Do You Know These Imaginary Worlds in Popular Fantasy Novels?

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      “A Song of Ice and Fire,” George R. R. Martin’s fantasy series, is best known for its first book, “A Game of Thrones,” which was published in 1996. In the novels, as well as the HBO television adaptation titled “Game of Thrones,” much of the action takes place on the continent of Westeros. Name two of the powerful families in Westeros. More

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      Why Anime Fans Hate the Growing Use of C.G.I.

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      As the industry continues to embrace computer-generated work, some audiences struggle to accept the change.The filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, a founder of the animation house Studio Ghibli, is one of the last practitioners of hand-drawn animation. His new coming-of-age fantasy, “The Boy and the Heron,” has been praised for a style that seems like a relic from the past. The IndieWire critic David Ehrlich called it “among the most beautiful movies ever drawn,” a much-needed salve “after a decade of ‘Minions’”; it’s also a likely Oscar contender.But while much of “The Boy and the Heron” was illustrated with pencil and paint on paper, the movie — like virtually every modern anime film — makes extensive use of computer animation, including digital compositing and visual effects. The classical, naturalistic style of the film does not call attention to such techniques, though they were a fundamental part of its design and production. They’re most evident in small flourishes: the vibrant flicker of a flame, the swirling flight of an arrow.Atsushi Okui, director of animation photography on “The Boy and the Heron” and a longtime Studio Ghibli cinematographer, said in an interview that the studio regards C.G.I. as “a complementary tool in graphic production that puts hand-drawn 2-D animation as its principal axis.”Many recent high-profile anime movies have embraced computer-generated work more blatantly, in some cases forgoing the 2-D style entirely. “The First Slam Dunk,” released in the United States in July, and “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” (2022) were animated in a style known as 3DCG anime, which combines the hard outlines and flat planes of traditional 2-D animation with 3-D models and movement. The result looks a bit like a video game. These are extreme cases of a shift that’s been occurring industrywide. In different ways and to varying degrees, all anime has been going digital.The 3DCG style is well-suited to the kung fu battles of “Dragon Ball Super: SuperHero.”CrunchyrollThe transition has been a box office success: “The First Slam Dunk” ($152 million and counting) and “Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero” ($86 million) have been incredibly lucrative for Toei Animation, and both are among the highest-grossing anime titles of all time.But hard-core fans — a fickle bunch — have not been as easy to please. To them, the rise of digital stirs passionate debate. Message boards are rife with complaints about the look of computer-generated animation and 3DCG in particular; on YouTube, videos highlighting especially flagrant instances of bad visuals rack up millions of views. The writer Callum May addressed the topic in an article for the Anime News Network, with the headline “Why Do We Hate 3DCG Anime?”“Fans often balk at any announcement that a show will be produced in 3-D, especially when it’s from an established franchise,” May said in an interview. “The gap between good and bad C.G. anime is wide, and fans can spot mediocre 3-D animation easily thanks to having seen decades of top-range American 3-D films.”Some 3-D anime has fared better with fans. The series “Beastars” and “Land of the Lustrous,” from the studio Orange, have won acclaim for their innovative style and visual effects, and tend to be admired even by skeptics.But these are exceptions. Rayna Denison, a film professor at the University of Bristol in Britain and the author of the book “Anime: A Critical Introduction,” said that the aversion may have to do with the art form’s roots. “A lot of anime is based on manga, which is a 2-D medium,” she said. “Anime takes these flat images and allows them to move. That’s very different than presenting a 3-D model of a character that you know as 2-D.”Perhaps, she continued, it may just be a case of resistance to the new. Anime fans have for decades been “very familiar with anime aesthetically and stylistically, and when you change that it becomes quite jarring.”“The First Slam Dunk” is among the 3DCG box office hits.GkidsOf course, the use of computers in the production of anime isn’t a new phenomenon: Animators have been integrating their hand-drawn visuals with digital effects since the early 1980s, when rudimentary C.G.I. was used to help bring to life models that would have been too complex to illustrate by pen and paper. In “Golgo 13: The Professional” (1983), computer-generated helicopters fly through a 3-D cityscape in a lengthy action sequence. Though the blocky, awkward-looking choppers are extremely dated by today’s standards, they added a flourish of spectacle that simply would not have been feasible by traditional means.“The style has evolved a lot, but in some ways ‘Golgo 13’ had it right,” May said. “C.G. is still most commonly used when the creators want to feature a mechanical vehicle, which is something most 2-D animators don’t have the training to do, or when they want the camera to fly through an environment, because 2-D-animated backgrounds are very labor intensive.”In other words, the limitations of hand-drawn animation are much the same as in 1983 but the technology is far more advanced. The 3DCG approach is ideal for stories that feature complex machinery or adventures across sweeping landscapes. It’s also well suited to the explosive kung fu battles of “Dragon Ball Super” and the propulsive basketball action of “Slam Dunk.”“Once you have C.G.I. you get much more dynamic camera movements,” Denison said. “It’s created a much more exciting action landscape for anime.”In this way, C.G.I. is basically another element in an animator’s tool kit, a way to expand what’s possible onscreen. More practically, it also cuts costs. Creating visuals on a computer is usually much faster and cheaper than creating one painstaking frame at a time by hand.“I feel like the large insurgence of 3-D anime comes from the dream of an easier production,” said Austin Hardwicke, a 3-D animator who specializes in anime that is heavy on digital effects. In part, that’s because it’s easier to maintain consistent quality. “Thanks to the enormous video game industry, there are hands available across the globe, making it easy to scale a team up or down at will. And it’s famously difficult for veteran 2-D animators to teach junior animators up to their level, but 3-D animation is infinitely easier to teach.”Hardwicke, who has worked on the 3DCG series “Trigun: Stampede” and “Godzilla: Singular Point,” said that those and other reasons can make switching to digital so enticing that studios often overlook problems. While there is nothing inherently wrong with digital effects, they “can look out of place, ugly or like a cost-cutting measure,” he added. In short, when anime fans see C.G., many are inevitably skeptical because the poor precedents seem to thwart the hope that it might be good: “Visible C.G. in anime can be seen as a bellwether that the show will be bad in general.”Okui, the cinematographer, said that Studio Ghibli regards it as “unavoidable that the tools are shifting from paper and pencil and paint to digital tools” in modern anime. But, he added, “I would hope that in Japan the shift will not occur so completely.” As the masters of the classical style like Miyazaki age out — he is 82 — it’s up to a new generation of animators to carry the mantle. “We can’t continue this way unless we have capable animators,” Okui said, “for which training people is the key.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ and the Golden Globes

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      The competition show featuring drag queens comes back for a 16th season. The annual award show airs on CBS.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. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.Monday2023 ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME INDUCTION CEREMONY 8 p.m. on ABC. Though celebrating music highlights of 2023 on the first day of 2024 feels a little belated, for Missy Elliott and Sheryl Crowe I’ll let it go. This ceremony, which took place in Brooklyn in November, includes performances by Elliott and Crowe, inductees that year, as well as appearances by Stevie Nicks, Elton John and LL Cool J.From left: Harpo, Zeppo, Chico and Groucho Marx in “Monkey Business.”Film Society of Lincoln CenterMONKEY BUSINESS (1931) 8 p.m. on TCM. The title of this movie aptly portrays the shenanigans that go on when the Marx Brothers stow away on an ocean liner, stirring up drama and laughs while they avoid the wrath of the captain and his crew.TuesdayFINDING YOUR ROOTS 8 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This show has told us that Bernie Sanders and Larry David are in fact related, the best-friend duo Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are 10th cousins (once removed) and Kevin Bacon shares relatives with his wife, Kyra Sedgwick. Now it’s back for its 10th season, hosted, as always, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. The first episode will feature the singers Ciara and Alanis Morissette.WednesdayI CAN SEE YOUR VOICE 8 p.m. on Fox. “The Voice” allows judges to hear contestants’ singing before laying eyes on them. This competition show does the opposite. Judges on the show, hosted by Ken Jeong, have to rate contestants based on lip-sync challenges and facts about them. The answers are revealed when the celebrity judges, including Adrienne Bailon-Houghton and Cheryl Hines, sing a duet with the contestant — either it goes really right or really wrong.ThursdayTHE POWER OF FILM 8 p.m. on TCM. This original six-part documentary series uses storytelling devices to take a closer look at some of the most popular films of the last century. Using more than 50 film scenes, the episodes go through themes of paradoxes, character relationships and heroes and villains to illuminate what makes a film powerful.Maurice Benard and Lexi Ainsworth on “General Hospital.”ABC/Adam LarkeyGENERAL HOSPITAL: 60 YEARS OF STARS AND STORYTELLING 10 p.m. on ABC. The first episode of “General Hospital” had its premiere on April 1, 1963 — and it is now the longest running soap opera still in production and has a record for most outstanding daytime drama award wins. This special, celebrating the show’s 60 years (and counting!), features some of its actors, including Maurice Benard, Jane Elliot, Genie Francis, Finola Hughes, Kelly Monaco and Laura Wright. They will share behind-the-scenes memories, bloopers and a fan tribute.FridayRUPAUL’S DRAG RACE 8 p.m. on MTV. The new year is exactly when we need to hear: “If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?” RuPaul Charles returns for the 16th season of this drag queen competition show; as usual, we will see amazing customs outfits, passionate lip syncs from the queens and panels of celebrity guest judges, including Charlize Theron, Becky G and Ronan Farrow.SaturdayMeryl Streep and Steve Martin in “It’s Complicated.”Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal PicturesIT’S COMPLICATED (2009) 10:30 p.m. on E! Just because the holidays are over doesn’t mean we have to say goodbye to Nancy Meyers — the filmmaker has plenty of movies for every occasion. This one stars Meryl Streep as Jane, a restaurateur who is divorced from Jake (Alec Baldwin), except their romance has been rekindled — until Jane finds out Jake is remarried and she is now “the other woman.” Meanwhile, the architect Adam (Steve Martin) starts remodeling Jane’s kitchen (one of the most gorgeous I have ever seen), and you can guess what happens next.SundayTHE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. This award show has been struggling to get back on its feet after NBC bowed out as the broadcaster in 2022 because of ethical concerns and a lack of diversity within the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which hosts the event. In June, the Golden Globes brand was bought by Eldridge Industries and Dick Clark Productions, and the voting body expanded to about 300 — so change is in the air. For movies, “Barbie” leads the nominations with nine, followed by “Oppenheimer” with eight — for television, “Succession” has the most nominations at nine.THE GREAT NORTH 9:30 p.m. on Fox. This animated adult cartoon is back for a fourth season. Nick Offerman voices Beef Tobin, an eccentric dad trying to keep his equally eccentric children close. The season begins with Ham Tobin (Paul Rust) enlisting his family to help out with a speech he has to present during his public speaking class. More