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      ‘Alan Cumming’s Paradise Homes’ Is a Cheeky and Fabulous Distraction

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      Need a healthy does of escapism right about now? Look no further than this series on BritBox.There are certain television shows that seem as if they were created as an excuse for famous people to take nice vacations. “Alan Cumming’s Paradise Homes” is one such program. But that doesn’t mean the series, streaming now on BritBox, isn’t a charming, escapist watch.Cumming is the Scottish actor known for his work on Broadway in the likes of “Cabaret” and his stint on “The Good Wife,” but recently he has been using his thick brogue for reality TV hosting gigs. His stint lording over the bickering competitors of Peacock’s “The Traitors” won him an Emmy earlier this year. “Paradise Homes” continues the trend, but it features far less back stabbing.In the five-episode first season, Cumming travels around Europe and North America, poking his nose into extraordinarily designed homes. Cumming bills himself as an architecture buff who has designed several building projects of his own, and as he tours each spot, he evaluates it based partly on whether it is the type of place he picture himself in. It makes the entire enterprise feel like “Architectural Digest” by way of your most fabulous friend with a judgmental side.While I’m no expert, the houses really are incredible, mostly modernist palaces in unusual locales. Still, as is the case with most shows like this, the entertainment value varies based on who is living in the homes. The best subjects have the most curious houses, like the couple in rural Ontario who revamped a 19th century cabin with sleek and contemporary additions, painted black. The couple also get Cumming’s sense of humor, and they invite him to sing karaoke in their hot tub with them.For all the gorgeous scenery, Cumming, with his penchant for snooping and his stylish suits, is really the main attraction. He wants to have a good time, and when he vibes with the homeowners, the show sparks. He is also delightfully thrilled by tasty (vegan) food and splendid (alcoholic) beverages.“Paradise Homes” is light on the nitty-gritty of how these living spaces are funded and built, leaving the financial details vague. The lack of transparency can at times feel a little tone-deaf, but maybe it’s better that the show doesn’t get too bogged down in reality: “Paradise Homes” is an excellent distraction. For a couple of hours you can imagine you’re living the good life, sipping on wine with a amusingly cheeky guide. More

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      Late Night Processes Donald Trump’s Re-Election

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      “Trump returning to the White House is a huge historic comeback for someone who literally never went away,” Jimmy Fallon 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.Infernal FlameLate-night hosts spent Wednesday processing the 2024 election results and former President Donald Trump’s sweeping win.On “The Daily Show,” Desi Lydic lamented that “instead of breaking the glass ceiling, last night America decided to get back with her dirtbag ex.”“Yep, it’s official. America elected its first criminal president before electing its first female president. What a day for proud felonists.” — DESI LYDIC“We’ve had two qualified, accomplished women nominated for president, and both times they lost to the worst man in the whole country.” — DESI LYDIC“Yup, Trump could be the first president to be under White House arrest.” — JIMMY FALLON“All day yesterday, I was walking around proudly wearing my ‘I voted’ sticker. Today, I wore my ‘I am questioning my fundamental belief in the goodness of humanity’ sticker.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, as a late-night host, people often say to me, ‘Come on, part of you has got to want Trump to win because he gives you so much material to work with.’ No, no. No one tells the guy who cleans the bathroom, ‘Wow, you must love it when someone has explosive diarrhea — there’s so much material for you to work with!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I guess this election wasn’t rigged. That’s weird, though, right? I mean, he said it would be rigged. He said it was being rigged while people were in line voting. Isn’t it remarkable that this time, the fix wasn’t in? Last time, the Democrats cheated. This time, we chose not to, I guess.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Donald Trump is like the emperor from ‘Star Wars.’ He’s old, he’s evil and he keeps coming back with no reasonable explanation whatsoever.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Four More Years Edition)“Let me tell you, that was the worst Taco Tuesday of my whole life.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump returning to the White House is a huge historic comeback for someone who literally never went away.” — 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

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      Virginia Carter, a Feminist Adviser to Norman Lear, Dies at 87

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      A physicist who headed a chapter of the National Organization for Women, she took a career detour to be a feminist voice in Mr. Lear’s empire of socially aware sitcoms.Virginia Carter, a physicist whose activism for the National Organization for Women led the sitcom impresario Norman Lear to hire her in the early 1970s to be his feminist conscience as he presided over taboo-breaking shows that touched on sensitive social issues, died on Oct. 17 at her home in Redondo Beach, Calif. She was 87.Her friend Martha Wheelock, a filmmaker, confirmed her death but did not specify a cause.In 1973, Ms. Carter was at a turning point. Her success at Aerospace Corporation, a nonprofit think tank that advised the Air Force on space programs and satellite systems, was tempered by being underpaid and receiving inadequate credit for her work.“Out of the depths of my own insecurities, I’d think, ‘Gee whiz, Virginia, you’re not good enough,’” she told The Chicago Tribune in 1978. “And I’d work harder and harder.”But she had also been the president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW, building its membership and fighting for feminist issues like the Equal Rights Amendment, which the California State Legislature ratified in November 1972.“I began to change, to speak publicly,” she told The Tribune. “And I found people outside of physics.”One of them was Frances Lear, a feminist activist who was Mr. Lear’s wife at the time (the couple divorced in 1985). She suggested that Ms. Carter meet with her husband, who by then was producing sitcoms that sometimes touched on feminist and political themes — “All in the Family” and, to a much greater degree, “Maude.” But Ms. Carter wasn’t immediately convinced.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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      Trump’s Win Unfolded on TV as a Muted Reboot

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      Election night on 2024 played like an enervated replay of 2016. Was it a harbinger of how the culture will respond to a second Trump term?If you stayed up into the early morning hours to watch the Blue Wall gradually bleed red and Donald J. Trump give a rambling victory speech surrounded by an entourage, you might have thought that you had seen this show before.You had. But not quite in this way.The long election night unfolded on TV much the way Mr. Trump’s first two did — similar stakes, similar battleground states. But it played very differently. His win in 2016, after a campaign in which he was often covered as an outrageous novelty who would never really win, landed in news studios like an asteroid. In 2020, networks were prepared to fact-check his defiant, false claim of victory after a night that ended up surprisingly close for him.His re-election, on the other hand, was unusual but not unanticipated. It was within the range of possible outcomes suggested by polling, and networks went on the air with the presumption that both he and Vice President Kamala Harris had a solid chance to end up president-elect.So the re-election of a president who had attempted to overturn the results of the last contest — and the return to top billing of America’s most divisive media star — was covered, at least in its first hours, largely as a matter of math.There were seven battleground states, and within them, layers and layers of numbers and variables to unpack. On channel after channel, guys in shirtsleeves with smart-screens — Steve Kornacki, Bill Hemmer, John King — zoomed into America’s electoral anatomy. A CNN map showed in shades of brown which areas of the country had suffered most from recent inflation, a vista of amber waves of pain.The percentages were plentiful but the broader perspective elusive. In the early hours, it could be tough for a channel hopper to get a sense of who was doing well and poorly. On Fox News, Jesse Watters gloated over the “cannonball” splash of Mr. Trump’s win in Florida, while ABC saw early hope for Harris in Pennsylvania.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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      Reinventing the ‘Theater Kid’ Label With Help From Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga

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      For stars like Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga, showmanship is a virtue. That’s a big change from the days when Anne Hathaway was vilified for her effortful work.Ariana Grande used to downplay the fact that she was a theater kid.Yes, she began her career as a teenager on Broadway in the musical “13” before finding fame on Nickelodeon. But when she first set her sights on international pop stardom, she concealed that side of herself. She adopted a disaffected persona and wore oversize sweatshirts as dresses with thigh-high boots. That version of Grande was acting like a girl who didn’t care. (In 2015, she infamously licked some doughnuts and created a national scandal.)Now Grande cares a lot. As a star of “Wicked” alongside Cynthia Erivo, she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the role of Broadway baby, making it clear that she owes as much to Kristin Chenoweth’s coloratura as she does to Mariah Carey’s whistle tones. She has gone out of her way to demonstrate her commitment to “Wicked,” discussing her long-held love for that Stephen Schwartz musical, dying her hair blond, and announcing on Instagram that she had “decided to put a temporary pin in all things that are not ‘Wicked’ for now.” Grande and Erivo have shown up to multiple events wearing their characters’ signature pink and green. They are not just in “Wicked.” They are living and breathing “Wicked.”Even beyond “Wicked,” this fall’s movie offerings have provided vindication for theater kids everywhere. In addition to Grande and Erivo, a Tony winner for “The Color Purple,” Lady Gaga brought her theater-kid showmanship to Gotham City in “Joker: Folie à Deux.” And two forthcoming art house musicals — “Emilia Pérez,” from the French director Jacques Audiard, and “The End,” from the documentarian Joshua Oppenheimer — embody the theater kid in essence even if they are less Broadway and more Off Broadway in spirit.Ariana Grande in “Wicked.” She has embraced her Broadway beginnings.Giles Keyte/Universal PicturesThe theater kid is also making headway in other areas of entertainment. The pop star Sabrina Carpenter, in her highly kitschy arena tour, comes across as if she’s auditioning for Lola in a revival of “Damn Yankees.” (At a Halloween-themed show in Dallas on Oct. 30, she sang “Hopelessly Devoted to You” in costume as Sandy, Olivia Newton-John’s character from “Grease.”)Carpenter also briefly appeared on the Great White Way for two performances as Cady Heron in “Mean Girls” before the show was shut down because of Covid. Cady’s bully, Regina George, was played by Renée Rapp, who in recent years has turned to sexy, radio-ready ballads, while reminding us of her past as a winner at the Jimmy Awards, the high school musical theater competition. Rapp reprised the role of Regina in the movie version of the “Mean Girls” musical earlier this year. And then there’s Chappell Roan, who borrows from drag as she sings her peppy queer anthems, but whose preference for elaborate costumes has gotten her labeled a theater kid, too.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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      Jon Stewart Tries to Find Good News on Election Night

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      “Look at all the little glass-half-fulls out there,” Stewart said as his “Daily Show” audience applauded a Democratic Senate victory in Maryland.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.Put on a Happy Face“The Daily Show” went live for election night on Tuesday with “Indecision 2024: Nothing We Can Do About It Now.” (The other shows took the night off.) As the night kept looking better for former President Donald J. Trump, Jon Stewart tried to “find some positivity and some good news” to report.“We are obviously digging through the results to find some that you like because you were nice enough to come here, and I’m just going to come here and [expletive] all over you?” Stewart said. “No, I’m not going to do that.”Stewart managed to find that good news in places like Maryland, where Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat, defeated former Gov. Larry Hogan to keep a Senate seat. As the audience enthusiastically applauded, Stewart said, “Look at all the little glass-half-fulls out there.”“It appears to be down to the ‘blue wall’ states that haven’t been called yet, but we do have some good news that we found here: District of Columbia is being called for Kamala Harris, ladies and gentlemen! And, to be clear, that was through voting, not insurrection.” — JON STEWART“I have one result for you, and please understand if you’re watching at home, I’m only giving results of places I can drive to. So we do have the spinoffs for New York — Kamala Harris has won New York!” — JON STEWARTWith Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania pulling out of a scheduled interview, and with little more good news to offer by the end of the show, Stewart tried to leave on a positive note.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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      A Hollywood Drought and a Game Show Dream

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      It’s tough to get work in film and television these days. So one unemployed writer decided to study up on “The Price Is Right.”There is very little work to go around in Hollywood these days. So to stay inspired over the past several months, Emily Winter has met with a writing group on Zoom each weekday morning at 10 a.m.Celeste, do you have a meeting? You look fancy.Do you play softball? I can put you on the sub list!What’s everyone working on today?During one such meeting last spring, Winter remembered that she had tickets to an upcoming taping of “The Price Is Right,” where every audience member is eligible to win prizes like a billiards table or a car. “My hottest iron in the fire,” she explained to her writing group.Then she took a beat to think.She had used up all of her unemployment. She was starting to panic about her dwindling savings account. And she did not have anything better to do. Why not figure out how to increase her chances of being selected to compete on the game show?“Let’s win some $$$,” she wrote in an email to two friends when she invited them to attend the taping in May, “or a weird boat!!!!!”Building a CareerTo keep her sanity and make some money while between writing gigs, Winter has turned to standup comedy.Alex Welsh for The New York TimesWe 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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      Late Night Addresses Your Election Eve Anxiety

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      “It feels like the whole country is waiting to get the results of a biopsy,” 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.Performance AnxietyThe late-night hosts seem to be as anxious about the election as you are.“It feels like the whole country is waiting to get the results of a biopsy,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday.“These polls — they’re mood rings. That’s all they are. They bring you up, they bring you down. Poll is short for ‘bipolar.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Tomorrow is Election Day and ‘Late Night’ is officially endorsing Xanax 0.5 milligram, twice a day as needed.” — SETH MEYERSOn “Real Time” on Friday, Bill Maher made one last appeal to undecided voters, or as he called them, “the Christmas Eve shoppers of politics — they know the big day is coming, but they just can’t get themselves to do anything about it until the last minute.”“The phrase I hear so much that makes me just want to un-alive myself is, ‘How’s she going to help me?’ Like the president is your personal genie. It’s Kamala, not ‘Kazam.’” — BILL MAHER“And so, dear Christmas Eve voter, I say to you: Things aren’t that bad, but they might get a hell of a lot worse under the rule of a mad king. Do I love everything about Kamala? No. Who told you you get to love everything? Do I wish she came up with a better reason to be president than ‘I’m not Trump’? Yeah, it would have been very helpful. But let’s not forget, ‘I’m not Trump’ is still a really great reason.” — BILL MAHER“But things look so good for Trump, Democrats have already impeached him.” — GREG GUTFELD“The Harris campaign is cautioning against getting too excited. Too late! I have to be excited because I’ve only got two other choices: absolute terror or Absolut vodka.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“If you see someone in the fetal position drenched in sweat, they either just ran the New York City Marathon or they’re waiting for tomorrow’s election.” — JIMMY FALLON“Look, I love this country. I’m an immigrant — I chose to be here. In the words of the late Lee Greenwood, I’m proud to be an American. And I’d argue there is nothing more American than having a healthy adversarial relationship with those in power, even if you voted for them.” — JOHN OLIVERWe 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