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      ‘Dune: Prophecy’ Season 1, Episode 4 Recap: Ol’ Blue Eyes

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      The sisters have a terrifying vision. Desmond gives a terrifying display of his power and loyalty. Any connection?Season 1, Episode 4: ‘Twice Born’Two blue lights shine in the darkness, like the eyes of an insectoid machine. Guttural sounds, like speech in a language not yet invented, accompany them, but only for a second.Throughout “Dune: Prophecy,” this menacing pairing of sight and sound has recurred in dreams and visions. Are they the eyes of God, judging the Sisterhood, as Sister Emeline argues? Are they the eyes of the tyrannical force that Raquella, the Sisterhood’s first Mother Superior, warned about with her dying breaths? Are they the eyes of whatever entity gives Desmond Hart his “beautiful, terrible” power to burn people alive with his mind? Are all these things one and the same?I suspect we’ll get the answer eventually, but part of me thinks that’s a shame. Right now, the blue lights and the garbled grunts are the most Lynchian thing this franchise has served up since the director David Lynch himself was in charge of it 40 years ago. And as Lynch has demonstrated time and again, sometimes the mystery is its own reward.Not that the Sisterhood would agree. From Emeline on down, all of them — with the alleged exception of Sister Jen — experience simultaneous nightmares one night. They each begin differently, but they end in the same place: in the sands of Arrakis, standing before a sandworm’s maw, ready to fall in and meet that pitiless blue-eyed gaze. Mother Tula’s experiment with automatic drawing to uncover the meaning of the dreams almost ends in disaster when she completely loses control of the trance into which she places the acolytes, leaving them in the clutches of whatever force sent the dream in the first place.In a time of apocalypse, cults of personality spring up like fungus. So it is in the Sisterhood: Emeline revives the teachings of Valya’s rival, Mother Dorotea, whose death, we learn, was labeled a suicide by the Harkonnen sisters and their cronies. (In reality, Valya used the Voice to command Dorotea to kill herself.) In what appears to be a nightmare or a vision — though by the end of the episode, that distinction is slim indeed — Emeline confronts Tula with the truth, vowing to inform the Imperium; then Tula slits her throat. (This is the same fate Emeline met in her own nightmare, though in the dream it was she who wielded the blade against herself.)But the next thing Tula knows, she is sitting placidly by the side of Sister Lila’s stasis chamber once again, where Emeline found and confronted her. There’s no evidence Emeline has been there. But Lila is gone, broken free of her chamber; she emerges from the shadows, her eyes bright blue from overexposure to the psychoactive spice. Are those the eyes everyone is so afraid of?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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      Hunter Biden and Matt Gaetz Are Church Lady’s Guests on ‘S.N.L’

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      Playing his old familiar character, Dana Carvey talks about Jesus, tweaks celebrities for their sins and skewers Satan.A quick primer for the younger readers of this recap: The late 1980s were a creatively fruitful time for “Saturday Night Live” where for some reason every third sketch was a fake talk show. Among the most popular of these recurring bits was a segment called “Church Chat,” in which a piously persnickety host known simply as the Church Lady (played by Dana Carvey) would roast celebrities of the day and accuse pretty much everyone of working in the service of Satan.After a yearslong hiatus, “S.N.L.” brought back “Church Chat” to open this weekend’s broadcast, which was hosted by Paul Mescal and featured the musical guest Shaboozey. Carvey, once again clad in the prim attire of the Church Lady and seated in front of a stained-glass window, said he was back to “ring out the end of 2024, the most satanic year in history.”“Everywhere you look, you’ve got 11-year-olds dressing up like that vixen Sabrina Carpenter,” Carvey proclaimed. “You know who’s the best carpenter? Jesus.”Church Lady then introduced the first “Church Chat” guest, Matt Gaetz (Sarah Sherman), the former representative from Florida, who last month withdrew from consideration as President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attorney general.“Are you OK, Matt?” Carvey asked Sherman. “You look a little surprised to be here.”“No, this is just how my face is,” Sherman answered.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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      How I Aged Into the Bad Christmas Movie

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      When I first discovered the existence of made-for-television Christmas movies, maybe 15 years ago, they struck me as sentimental and anti-feminist. Also, they seemed to be made for older people. The leads were always floundering in midlife until their romantic and professional lives were reformed through the magic of Christmas. Then, one December morning, I awoke to find that I had transformed into the target demographic. I am older now, and the movies are made just for me.The crop of Christmas movies released this year — broadcast most prominently on the Hallmark Channel, though increasingly rivaled by Netflix’s holiday machine — are sprinkled with millennial bait. They feature weathered stars from nostalgic childhood properties and crib plots and vibes from touchstone films. They have anticipated my critiques, modulating the melodrama with self-conscious winks and dialing up the sexual innuendo.Romantic comedies are about one party lowering her defenses and another raising his game until they finally meet on level ground. That’s what’s happened here: The bad Christmas movies grew more cynical, and I grew softer. As I neared the end of “Our Little Secret,” a Netflix Christmas movie starring Lindsay Lohan, I actually cried.Lindsay Lohan, star of “The Parent Trap” and “Mean Girls,” is now building a midlife holiday empire at Netflix, including “Our Little Secret.” Chuck Zlotnick/NetflixWhat’s happening to me? In recent years, my feelings about work, romantic love, big city living, small town charm and secular holiday cheer have not appreciably changed. It’s my relationship to rote sentimentality that has shifted. Recently I have felt so pummeled by stress and responsibility that I have found it difficult to turn on a compelling new television show at the end of the day. I have no extra energy to expend familiarizing myself with unknown characters, deciphering twists or even absorbing scenes of visual interest.What I’ve been looking for, instead, is a totally uncompelling new television show — one that expects nothing from me, and that gives me little in return. The bad Christmas movie’s beats are so consistent, its twists so predictable, its actors and props so loyally reused, it’s easy to relax drowsily into its rhythms. The genre is formulaic, which makes for a kind of tradition. Now it plays through the winter like a crackling fireplace in my living room.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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      Miho Nakayama, Japanese Music and Movie Star, Dies at 54

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      A top-selling pop singer as a teenager in the 1980s, she also had an award-winning career as a dramatic actress.Miho Nakayama, a reigning J-pop star of the 1980s who broke through to become a critically acclaimed dramatic actress and gained international attention for her starring role in the sentimental Japanese drama “Love Letter,” died on Friday at her home in Tokyo. She was 54.Ms. Nakayama was found dead in a bathtub, according to a statement from her management company. The statement added, “We are still in the process of confirming the cause of death and other details.”The Japan Times reported that Ms. Nakayama had canceled an appearance at a Christmas concert in Osaka, Japan, scheduled for that same day, citing health issues.Ms. Nakayama — known by the affectionate nickname Miporin — rocketed to fame in 1985, becoming one of Japan’s most successful idols, as popular young entertainers there are known, with the release of her first single, “C.” That same year, she took home a Japan Record Award for best new artist.She exploded on both the big and small screens that same year with starring roles in the comedy-drama series “Maido Osawagase Shimasu” (roughly, “Sorry to Bother You All the Time”) and the film “Bi Bappu Haisukuru” (“Be-Bop High School”), an action comedy set on a dystopian campus filled with uniformed schoolgirls and brawling schoolboys.Such stories were popular teenage fare at the time, as evidenced by her subsequent role in “Sailor Fuku Hangyaku Doumei” (“The Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance”), a television series that made its debut in 1986, in which Ms. Nakayama played a member of a group of martial arts-savvy girls who squared off against wrongdoers at a violence-marred high school.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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      Silvia Pinal, Golden Age Star of Mexican Cinema, Is Dead

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      She found outsize success in her native land and gained international recognition for her work with the acclaimed Spanish surrealist director Luis Buñuel.Silvia Pinal, an award-winning actress who was considered one of the great stars of Mexico’s golden age of cinema, and who earned worldwide acclaim for her work with the groundbreaking Spanish-born Surrealist director Luis Buñuel, died on Nov. 28 in Mexico City.Her death, in a hospital, was announced on social media by President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, who said that Ms. Pinal’s “cinematic and theatrical talent is part of Mexico’s cultural memory.” She was generally believed to be 93, although some news reports gave her age as 94.A star of both stage and screen, the golden-haired Ms. Pinal, who collected more than 100 film and television credits in a career that began in the late 1940s, was known for balancing urbane glamour with saucy humor and sensuality.The Mexican television network Las Estrellas posted on social media that she was her country’s “last diva.” She starred with celebrated leading men like Pedro Infante, the dashing screen idol and celebrated ranchera singer; Germán Valdés, known as Tin-Tan; and the comedy heavyweight Mario Morena, known as Cantinflas.Ms. Pinal won her first of three competitive Ariel Awards — the Mexican equivalent of an Oscar — as best supporting actress for her performance in the 1952 film “Un Rincón Cerca del Cielo” (“A Corner Near Heaven”), which starred Mr. Infante as a poor man who encounters love and hardship after moving to Mexico City.The award helped vault her to lead actress status, and she enhanced her budding stardom with a sultry performance in the 1955 thriller “Un Extraño en la Escalera” (“A Stranger on the Stairs”). The next year, she teamed with Mr. Infante again in the comedy “El Inocente” (“The Innocent”), in which she played a moneyed and capricious woman who takes up with an auto mechanic.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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      Luke Wilson Finds Inspiration in Michael Heizer’s Desert ‘City’

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      “Probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in person,” said the actor, one of the stars of the Netflix TV series “No Good Deed.”The concept of a self-reliant solitary figure “working hard toward a singular goal” appeals to the actor Luke Wilson.“That’s kind of my idea of being a hero,” he said during a video interview.It was mid-November, and he was doing publicity for “No Good Deed,” a dark comedy on Netflix, set to begin streaming Thursday, in which he plays a failed soap star who’s anything but self-reliant. The character is ensnared in what Wilson, 53, describes as a “Svengali-type relationship” with a micromanaging wife.“He’s not very intelligent. We probably have that in common,” he joked, before singing the praises of a few noted individualists, including those he’s watched onscreen or onstage, those he’s read about, and one he’s known all his life. These are edited excerpts.My Mother’s PhotographyWhen I was growing up, she always took pictures, always had a Nikon. In the late ’70s, she went to work for Richard Avedon. From there, she started to publish her own books. Her last book, “The Writers,” I think she worked on for 12 years. She went all over the world, from Mexico to Scotland, and got all these incredible writers. It was interesting how many didn’t want their picture taken, and she kept at them. I admire how hard she worked.Blue JaysI’m from Dallas. In the fall, you hear blue jays, and it always means the heat is over, the cool weather’s coming and it’s football season leading into the holidays. I was just back home, walking around the little house that my dad used as an office and, sure enough, I heard some blue jays, and that really moved me.‘Off to the Side’ by Jim HarrisonA great book about a writer and about the craft. I’ve found a first edition and a signed copy. I just feel a connection to this guy. He was in that hard-drinking, ’70s novelist/poet group that came out of Key West. There was something kind of gentle and poetic about them, even though they were such hard-living guys.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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      Jimmy Kimmel Says Pete Hegseth Cameos Could Be a Thing This Christmas

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      The late-night host wondered if the embattled pick for secretary of defense could end up appearing on the online platform in time for Christmas.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.Bad BehaviorPresident-elect Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, continues to face allegations of raucous behavior while working for Fox News.Jimmy Kimmel said that reports of excessive drinking by Hegseth and accusations of sexual misconduct have overshadowed that he is “not even remotely qualified to be secretary of defense — that, we’ve already forgotten about.”“Something tells me we might be able to get Pete Hegseth Cameo videos for Christmas this year.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The latest allegation is that at a 2016 ‘Fox & Friends’ Christmas party, Hegseth reportedly caused a disturbance, leading to a human resource department intervention. Ooh, human resource interventions are the worst: ‘Pete, when you drink, it makes me feel like the company is legally liable.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The H.R. talking-to clearly didn’t work, because soon after, Hegseth attended the wedding of a Fox News colleague, where he reportedly got so drunk that he struggled to stay upright in a men’s bathroom, and friends asked a producer who was there to get him a ride home. OK, finally! ‘Someone at Fox News who’s responsible,’ is what I would say if that sentence did not end with ‘So he could make it to the set by 6 a.m.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden’s Last Stand Edition)“Earlier tonight, they had the national Christmas tree lighting at the White House. Yeah. It was a fun night. When President Biden came out, all the kids were like, ‘Look, the Ghost of Christmas Past!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Not only did he light the tree this year, he gave it a pre-emptive pardon just in case it falls over on someone or gets all coked up and throws its gun in the dumpster. Who knows?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They kept referring to it as ‘Biden’s final tree-lighting ceremony,’ which, when you’re his age, is probably not what you want to hear.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Meanwhile, during tonight’s ceremony, the winds were over 40 miles an hour. Yeah. Biden’s skin looked like when a bulldog sticks his head out of the car window.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingRonny Chieng caught up with Charles Yu, the creator and executive producer of Hulu’s “Interior Chinatown,” on Thursday’s “Daily Show.”Also, Check This OutAmy Adams channels her feral side in “Nightbitch,” directed by Marielle Heller.Searchlight PicturesAmy Adams stars as a mother who begins to believe she’s a dog in “Nightbitch,” Marielle Heller’s film adaptation of the Rachel Yoder novel. More

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      ‘The Sticky’ Is a Taut and Tasty Heist Thriller

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      Starring Margo Martindale, the six-episode Amazon series, based loosely on a true story, tells a gonzo tale of a maple syrup heist.“The Sticky,” available Friday on Amazon Prime Video, is the latest quirky crime dramedy to begin with a title card disavowing its veracity: “This is absolutely not the true story of the great Canadian maple syrup heist.” Indeed, “The Sticky” is inspired only loosely by the actual heist of 2011-12, in which thieves in Quebec stole $18 million worth of syrup over the course of several months. The clearer inspiration for the show is all the other shows it resembles, all the far-flung cousins at the “Fargo” family reunion.This is to the show’s advantage. “The Sticky” has learned from its predecessors’ mistakes, and like maple syrup itself has been reduced down into its most concentrated and tasty form: six half-hour episodes. There is one timeline, and the screws tighten precisely and constantly. Things move from “ … should we?” to “ack!” with a winning urgency. This tidiness, though, can sometimes feel like oversimplification, with lines that land as childish and pat. “Look at you and look at me,” the villain says to our hero. “What makes you possibly think you can win?” One yearns for the musical number that would follow this in a Disney movie.Margo Martindale stars as Ruth, a woman who has run afoul of the local syrup licensing rules but is desperate for money because her husband is in a coma. She teams up with an in-over-his-head mob underling (Chris Diamantopoulos) and the security guard at a syrup warehouse (Guillaume Cyr), and they form an imperfect but endearing trio. Hot on their tails are the warm local cop and the icy big-city cop.Martindale is the draw here, and she more than delivers, but Cyr is the highlight. His Remy is doofy, aggrieved, awkward, but more sweet than menacing — often underestimated, but also often vulnerable. Even the other characters call him “the Oaf.” The scenes between Cyr and Martindale are when the show feels fullest, like its best self.Central to the show are syrup taps and barrels, and the story itself overflows its container a bit: Some of the big twists and important developments happen in the codas, after the first moments of end credits. And few shows in living memory have set up their second seasons with such juicy dun dun dunnns, so much so that it feels like taunting the cancellation gods. More