Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3, Episode 4 Recap: A Sinking Ship

      by

      In this week’s “Picard,” the crew of the Titan is powerless in more ways than one.Season 3, Episode 4: ‘No Win Scenario’All the world’s a stage, and all the cadets are merely players.Jean-Luc Picard, on some level, has been playing a part. That much is clear in this week’s “Picard.” When he sits down with his haddock and regales the eager cadets with stories of his biggest professional successes, he is putting up a front. The purposeful blocking makes this clear: The lunch table is the stage. The cadets are the audience. And in a brilliant bit of acting by Patrick Stewart, you can see that he’s hamming it up for the cadets. Underneath it, there’s a loneliness.It’s an interesting window into Jean-Luc: He likes the attention, but especially because he doesn’t get it from other places. It’s not ego. It’s insecurity.In that same bit of theatrics, Jean-Luc blithely discusses the accident that killed Beverly’s husband, Jack Crusher’s namesake, and smiles as he describes himself as being “a little bit reckless” in those days.So later in the episode, when the cadets part to reveal a younger Jack at the bar asking Jean-Luc about a life outside of Starfleet and “a real family,” it’s a visual “Let’s cut through the garbage” moment. Jean-Luc’s answer: “Young man, Starfleet has been the only family I have ever needed,” followed by applause from Starfleet cadets. But that’s not as revealing as the visual: They are applauding him, but Jean-Luc is eating alone.One can understand why Jack didn’t feel the need to have Jean-Luc be a part of his life. Jack is established to be a teenager when he shows up to this bar. He learns that Picard never cared about having a family and views the death of the man Jack is named after as an amusing story to be used to charm cadets. It surely rings hollow to Jack on the holodeck in the present day story line when Jean-Luc remarks to Jack, “I think we all need connection, don’t we?”In some ways, Jean-Luc and Jack are very alike: They are both putting up a front about not needing other people and mostly focusing on work; Jean-Luc on his career in Starfleet and Jack on his medical supply runs.Meanwhile, Riker and the rest of the crew’s situation on the Titan is quite bleak. The ship is sinking in a gravity well and losing power rapidly. The officers on the bridge inform Riker that the situation is nearly hopeless. So hopeless that Riker tells Jean-Luc to get his affairs in order and that everyone is essentially about to die. Jonathan Frakes puts in a wonderful performance describing the death of Riker and Troi’s son, and how it created a gulf between grieving parents — one who thrives on sensing emotion, and the other trying his hardest to be numb to the pain.“This is the end, my friend,” Riker tells Picard. “And if I were you, I’d take the next few hours to get to know your son.”I would put Frakes’s work in this episode among the best of any he has done as Riker, including the movies and “Next Generation.”But when Jean-Luc takes his son to the holodeck for some father-son bonding, it’s an extraordinarily distracting plot point. One of the first scenes of the show features officers talking about the hopelessness of the situation because the power is draining from essential systems. Yet, Jean-Luc and Jack go to a perfectly functioning holodeck to have a drink? Jean-Luc waves this away by saying the holodeck relies “on a small, independent power cell for this very reason so that in times of distress it can be a kind of sanctuary.”In other words: plot armor. No one thought to tap into the holodeck for extra power when they are so desperate?(The Picards can handle their whisky. In the “Next Generation” episode “Relics,” Picard throws back a glass of whisky with Scotty as if it is absolutely nothing.)As Jean-Luc and Jack bond, they are interrupted by several crew members who arrive to commiserate. Uh, hey Titan crew? Your ship is falling. Maybe the bridge crew could use a hand with repairs? Or you know, anything? Why are you in a bar?This goes double for Shaw. Seven recruits him to help find the changeling, which is, on its face, a great idea. But why is Shaw in his quarters rather than on the bridge of the ship he is supposed to be commanding? If he’s well enough to perform a complex maneuver to save the ship, why isn’t he well enough to, you know, be captain?And that’s before does he go to the holodeck himself to hang out! In the previous three episodes, Shaw has been painted as putting the concerns of his crew above all. So the notion that as the ship is rapidly losing power, he would just go chill at the bar to yell at Jean-Luc while his bridge crew and Riker try to figure out a way out feels ridiculous.But let’s leave that aside — because I don’t want my head to explode — and examine the big reveal here: the reason for Shaw’s antipathy toward Jean-Luc and Riker. Shaw angrily (and unprofessionally) yells to the whole bar that he was at Wolf 359, and saw many of his fellow crew members die as a result of Locutus, a.k.a. Captain Picard. (Benjamin Sisko was angry at Picard for similar reasons in the pilot of “Deep Space Nine.”) Jean-Luc is accustomed to adoring crowds in bars. He’s not used to being confronted about all the deaths that he — or a version of himself — caused.Todd Stashwick does a nice job conveying Shaw’s righteous anger at Jean-Luc, but it is a bit odd that he selected Seven to be his first officer. Unless she was thrust upon him, he chose a former Borg to be his most trusted commander. (Then again, people are complicated. Maybe he wanted to see past that, and that’s why he insists she go by Annika.)Odds and EndsA cadet asks Jean-Luc about an encounter with the Hirogen. The Hirogen were a predatory species that Voyager encountered in the Delta Quadrant, and I am certainly curious how Jean-Luc’s Enterprise would have encountered them.Riker offers to keep Seven in an “unofficial capacity” to root out the changeling, rather than reinstating her command. You can see how much more comfortable Seven is with an off the books arrangement rather than playing by the rules.Jack mentions offhand to Jean-Luc in the holodeck that he’s been to M’Talas Four, a “vile place.” Raffi has been doing intelligence work at M’Talas Prime this season, and one wonders if these two things are connected. (I’m not entirely clear what M’Talas Four is.)I am also wondering if Vadic’s boss — obscured by, uh, changeling goo — is someone we will find familiar in the future. It demands that Vadic go on a suicide mission, while also making clear the Shrike does not matter in the grand plan.Beverly’s solution of moving “with the wave,” and seeing the old “Next Generation” pals work together to get out of the sticky situation had the feel of the old show. Beverly had the best line: “Look where we are. Here, all of us in this moment. So let’s do what we spent our entire lives learning to be great at.”Does anyone want to command the Titan? Shaw hands it off needlessly to Riker for no discernible reason in a previous episode. In this one, Riker hands it to Jean-Luc for no reason. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Late Night Can’t Believe Tucker Carlson’s Texts About Trump

      by

      “Oh, my God, it turns out the Trump hatred was coming from inside the house!” Seth Meyers 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.Fox News and FrenemiesNew documents released as part of the defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News revealed that the popular host Tucker Carlson sent several denigrating texts about former President Donald Trump. In one text, Carlson wrote of Trump, “I hate him passionately.”“Oh, my God, it turns out the Trump hatred was coming from inside the house!” Seth Meyers said.“Wait, wait, are you telling me Tucker Carlson is secretly sane? I would feel so betrayed if I was a Fox viewer. This is like if you joined a cult, sold all your belongings, shaved your head, moved to the desert, and then it turns out the cult leader is just, like, a Methodist.” — SETH MEYERS“You hate him? But talking about him is the thing that pays your big salary!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, Tucker Carlson said he couldn’t wait to ignore Trump and that he hated Trump passionately. That’s as damning as the time I got caught texting Trump, ‘Real talk, I also think windmills kill birds.’” — SETH MEYERS“The only thing I thought Tucker was capable of hating with a passion were female M&M’s who are a seven or lower.” — SETH MEYERS“That’s fighting words! White-on-white crime, let’s go!” — MARLON WAYANS, guest host of “The Daily Show”“To be fair, I feel like every friend group has a second group text for that one person they secretly hate.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Banned by Biden Edition)“Well, guys, the White House just backed a bipartisan Senate bill that would give President Biden the power to ban TikTok, or as they’re calling it on TikTok, the ‘trying to lose the election’ challenge.” — JIMMY FALLON“I wouldn’t worry just yet. As of now, Biden thinks TikTok is the clock on ‘60 Minutes.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course, Biden could end TikTok at any time simply by making an account.” — SETH MEYERS“Don’t worry — to make it up, Biden promised us that he’d give everybody 100 free hours of AOL.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, officials think China is using TikTok to spy on us, and China was like, ‘Yeah, well, we had a backup idea, but you shot it down.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingKerry Washington played a guessing game with Jimmy Fallon called “Mmm Hmmm Hmmm” on “The Tonight Show” on Wednesday.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightLily Tomlin and Jane Fonda will appear on “Late Show” on Thursday.Also, Check This OutFans and new readers alike will appreciate this list of essential works by the mystery writer Patricia Highsmith. More

    • 88 Shares159 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Ponders a Trump-Kari Lake Ticket

      by

      Donald Trump is said to be considering the Arizona politician, who also denies having lost an election. Colbert says she’s the “governor of the state of denial.”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.Who’s the Lucky Lady?A report says Donald Trump is considering a female running mate for 2024, in hopes of winning over suburban white women. On Tuesday, Stephen Colbert noted that Kari Lake, who still denies that she lost Arizona’s gubernatorial race last year, was said to be a contender.“Lake lost her election and refuses to admit it, but she has got one win under her belt,” Colbert said, referring to a conservative conference in Washington where a straw poll found her to be the top choice for the vice presidency.“She must have been so honored to have MAGA voters choose her as the next vice president they try to hang.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Of course, since it’s Trump, he’ll make the decision after holding a Miss Vice President pageant.” — JIMMY FALLON“But Lake found a way to deny this election as well, saying through a spokesperson, ‘We’re flattered, but unfortunately, our legal team says the Constitution won’t allow for her to serve as governor and V.P. at the same time.’ That’s a good point — Kari Lake is currently the sitting governor of the state of denial.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Mona Lisa Edition)“Sightseeing, my Black [expletive]. If you have to punch a cop on your way in, you’re not sightseeing, you fightseeing.” — MARLON WAYANS, on the Fox host Tucker Carlson’s insistence that the Jan. 6 Capitol protesters were “sightseers”“All Tucker Carson proved is that you can make anything better by not showing the bad part.” — MARLON WAYANS“You guys know we can see what you’re doing, right? Kevin McCarthy, who is Trump’s Waylon Smithers, gives all the footage to Tucker, Tucker shows only the tame parts, and then Trump claims the rioters were framed. It’s like watching a magic show where the magician is wearing sheer sleeves.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden reacted to scary new wax figures of British royalty on Tuesday’s “Late Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightSt. Vincent will perform on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutThe writer Adam Bradley offers a “new Black canon,” listing 20 undervalued books that reflect “the infinite number of ways of being Black in America — and of being in the world.” More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Joseph Zucchero, Whose Mr. Beef Sandwich Shop Inspired ‘The Bear,’ Dies at 69

      by

      Mr. Beef, the Chicago restaurant Mr. Zucchero co-founded in the 1970s, specializes in the Italian beef, a classic American sandwich. The acclaimed FX series “The Bear” was partly filmed there.Joseph Zucchero, a co-founder of the popular sandwich shop that inspired the acclaimed FX restaurant drama “The Bear,” and was where much of the series was filmed, died on March 1 at a hospital in Chicago. He was 69.His death was confirmed by his son, Christopher Zucchero, an owner of Mr. Beef, the family’s restaurant in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, who said a cause was not known.The restaurant specializes in the Italian beef sandwich, a Chicago classic made with thin-sliced roast beef and giardiniera or roasted peppers. All of that is typically piled on a sandwich roll, and it is either drizzled with or dipped in beef juice.“He loved being there,” Joseph Zucchero’s son, Christopher, said of his father. “He was there day and night.”To create “The Bear,” a series about a young chef who leaves a career in New York’s high-end restaurant scene to run his family’s sandwich shop, FX shot inside and outside Mr. Beef, fictionalized as the Original Beef of Chicagoland in the show. It also created a replica of the restaurant’s kitchen in a Chicago studio, Mr. Zucchero’s son said.The series, which premiered on Hulu last summer, drew acclaim from food writers and restaurateurs. And in a fine example of life imitating art that imitated life, its success led to a nationwide surge in demand for the Italian beef sandwich, including at Mr. Beef itself.“Mr. Beef’s always going to be attached to that, and we’re very grateful for that,” Christopher Zucchero said of the TV series. “They’re together. It’s symbiotic for sure, but I don’t want it to overshadow what my dad did.”Joseph Zachary Zucchero was born on Feb. 21, 1954. He grew up on Chicago’s northwest side and started his career as a butcher, Christopher Zucchero said.In the late 1970s, Mr. Zucchero and his brother, Dominic, opened Mr. Beef on North Orleans Street in Chicago’s River North neighborhood, a once-gritty area that has since been heavily gentrified.On a visit to the restaurant in the mid-1990s, a New York Times reporter found customers eating $3.50 Italian beef sandwiches at a Formica countertop near an autographed picture of Frank Sinatra. The short menu posted above the grill was not really necessary, because virtually everyone ordered the same thing.“You want a hot dog, you go to a hot-dog stand,” Mr. Zucchero said. “You want a beef sandwich, you come here.”In addition to his son and his brother, Mr. Zucchero is survived by his wife, Camille; his daughter, Lauren; and his sister, Claudine Grippo.Mr. Beef on North Orleans Street in Chicago in October.Aaron M. Sprecher, via Associated PressMr. Zucchero was a movie fan, his son said, and his restaurant had admirers in Hollywood. The actor Joe Mantegna and the comedian Jay Leno “would come in all the time,” Christopher Zucchero said. He said that he has been friends with Christopher Storer, who created “The Bear,” since the two were in kindergarten, and that they spent time at Mr. Beef as children.During filming, the older Mr. Zucchero visited the movie studio on Chicago’s West Side where Mr. Storer’s team had built a replica of his restaurant. What he saw made his jaw drop.“I mean, from the floor to the ceiling to the countertops to the equipment,” he told NPR last year, “you actually walked inside and walked into Mr. Beef.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Fallon Recaps Trump’s ‘Off the Rails’ CPAC Speech

      by

      Fallon said Donald Trump “made some pretty intense promises” in his headlining speech on Saturday.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.Leader of the PACDuring a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, former President Donald Trump made what Jimmy Fallon referred to as “some pretty intense promises.”“In 2016, I declared, ‘I am your voice,’” Trump said. “Today I add, I am your warrior, I am your justice, and, for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.’”“He’s like, ‘I’m the captain now. I am the one who knocks. I am the walrus. Koo-koo-ka-choo,’” Fallon joked on Monday night.“He’s either running for president or auditioning to be the next John Wick.” — JIMMY FALLON“He was such a terrible president, and now he’s auditioning to be Batman.” — SETH MEYERS“Problem is, he would never respond to the bat signal, because there’s no way he’s ever just looking pensively out the window. You’d have to text it to him or just shine it on Sean Hannity’s forehead. Oh, you know what you could do? You could project it on a solar eclipse — he looks at those.” — SETH MEYERS“It was so empty, the guy started vacuuming because he thought the event was over.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (The Karens and the Darrens Edition)“But let’s be real, the funniest comedy special last weekend was the CPAC, or as I like to call it, crazy white people.” — MARLON WAYANS, guest hosting “The Daily Show”“Turns out, CPAC really stands for ‘Crazy to Put Up all Those Chairs.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“If you don’t know about it, it’s an annual event where all the Karens and their husbands come together, and they complain about the rest of us. The Karens and the Darrens.” — MARLON WAYANS“And some of that [expletive] make no sense at all. Like, Nikki Haley said, ‘wokeness is more dangerous than a pandemic.’ I never had to miss two weeks of work because of wokeness.” — MARLON WAYANS“Yes, wokeness is such a dangerous virus that it apparently killed two-thirds of her audience. It’s got to be stopped.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden revealed Tessa Thompson’s first acting role in a music video at the age of 6.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightThe author Margaret Atwood will appear on Tuesday’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”Also, Check This OutIn Chris Rock’s new Netflix stand-up special, “Selective Outrage,” the comedian brings up last year’s “slap heard around the world.”Kirill Bichutsky/NetflixThe comedian Chris Rock responds to being on the receiving end of Will Smith’s Oscars slap in his new comedy special “Selective Outrage.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘Perry Mason’ Season 2 Premiere Recap: Keeping It Civil

      by

      New season, new showrunners, same Perry. Who knew that a show with such a grisly beginning could wind up becoming such great comfort viewing?Season 2, Episode 1: ‘Chapter Nine’It’s been nearly two and a half years since we last saw Perry Mason. In that time we’ve weathered (sort of) a global pandemic, a presidential election and an attempt to overturn that election. We’ve also seen the purchase of HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia, by Discovery, along with all the changes that the newly minted chief executive David Zaslav has wrought for prestige TV’s most storied brand.Even the “Perry Mason” showrunners have been swapped out. Goodbye, Rolin Jones and Ron Fitzgerald, who have moved on to other creative endeavors; hello, Jack Amiel and Michael Begler, creators of the Steven Soderbergh-directed period piece “The Knick.”The times, in short, have changed.Judging by its Season 2 premiere this week, though, “Perry Mason” hasn’t noticed. The cast, led by Matthew Rhys in the role made famous by Raymond Burr decades earlier, is largely intact. So is the jazzy score by the trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard, a million miles removed from the sound of pretty much any other show on television. Ditto the overall vibe of rumpled, boozy Los Angeles noir, pitting the wealthy and sinister against the beaten-down but mostly noble working stiffs who make up Perry and his peers.Funny, isn’t it? A series that began with the mutilated corpse of a murdered infant has become a kind of comfort food.Still, it’s fair to say the time away has not been kind to Mr. Mason. For one thing, he has already retreated from the field of criminal law, despite having successfully navigated his very first, and very complicated, case as a defense attorney during the previous season: the defense of a bereaved mother, Emily Dodson (Gayle Rankin), from the charge of murdering her own baby.The Return of ‘Perry Mason’The second season of the HBO show, which is based on an Erle Stanley Gardner book series that inspired a classic TV courtroom drama, began on March 6.Season 2 Premiere: “Perry Mason” returned with a new season and new showrunners but the same Perry. Who knew that a show with such a grisly beginning could wind up becoming such great comfort viewing?Chris Chalk: The actor has pushed himself hard lately, playing deeply conflicted roles like the ex-cop turned private investigator Paul Drake in “Perry Mason.”Being Perry Mason: The showrunners reimagined a capable, no-nonsense attorney as a schlemiel with unresolved trauma. Casting the actor Matthew Rhys meant that Perry could go even more tragic.Through a harrowing dream sequence, we learn that Dodson has since drowned herself after months of sending unanswered postcards to Perry demanding to know what the point of it all was. Perry has no more of an answer to that than Emily did; perhaps that’s why he races a motorcycle he was given by a client until he crashes. It’s not as if he has his family farm to give him solace: That was sold long ago to Lupe (Veronica Falcón), Perry’s enterprising bootlegger ex-girlfriend.Perry’s current and decidedly lower-stakes focus now is civil law, and his most recent gig is representing the grocery store impresario Sunny Gryce (Sean Astin) against a former employee (Matt Bush) who invented many of Sunny’s successful sales techniques and then used them to start his own store. Perry has no taste for hanging this poor guy out to dry, but he is a very good attorney, as it turns out, and he does what he has to until a favorable verdict is won.The job seems good enough for Della Street (Juliet Rylance), Perry’s assistant and de facto co-counsel, who takes advantage of their steady stream of paying clients to hire an actual secretary (Jee Young Han) to do the work she herself was once tasked with. The civil case work is much less beneficial, however, to the Black ex-cop turned private investigator Paul Drake (Chris Chalk), whose new baby demands a regular source of income that Perry is no longer able to provide. Perry’s former partner, Pete Strickland (Shea Whigham), is able to help by providing Paul with some surveillance work for the ambitious (and, like his friend Della, secretly gay) district attorney Hamilton Burger (Justin Kirk) … but Paul’s family still makes a point of inviting Perry to the cookout when his birthday rolls around. Paul’s wife, Grace (Diarra Kilpatrick), at least, is aware of where his bread can truly be buttered.While Perry quietly rages against his new role as the defender of the petit bourgeois and Della entertains the offer of a date from a woman she encounters at a restaurant — whose gaydar, it seems, is next-gen — the case that will seemingly dominate the season unfolds. A scion of privilege named Brooks McCutcheon (Tommy Dewey), son of a ruthless magnate named Lydell (Paul Raci), spends his days choking his sex partners behind his wife’s back, his nights torching the speakeasy boats of the competition, and is obsessed with trying to convince somebody, anybody, that there is an audience for baseball in Los Angeles. (He is at least two decades ahead of his time in this respect, at least.)Both his sinister father and the crooked Detective Holcomb (Eric Lange) warn him to tread softly, but that doesn’t save Brooks’s life, as we learn when a child in a creepy mask discovers his corpse just before the credits roll.In short, you’ve got everything you would want a Prohibition Era murder mystery to include. Bootleggers, real-estate swindlers, hard-luck investigators, life in the closet, people bearing coins with strange insignia (a star-and-crescent, to be specific), the sense that Los Angeles is an ephemeral fantasyland that nothing so respectable as Major League Baseball would want anything to do with — it’s all there.So are the charming characters — often charming despite themselves — that made the show’s first season a success. Rhys’s resting sour face makes him perfect for Perry, the disgraced veteran of the Great War whose skill at ferreting out other people’s deceptions‌ has made him, in turns, a great detective and a rock-solid lawyer. Della’s competence and ebullience make her equally indispensable to both Perry and Los Angeles County’s most eligible bachelorettes. Drake is a good guy and a good cop in a system with no practical use for either.On the shadier side of the street, the McCutcheons are a solid substitute for the pack of rich evangelical elders who drove the first season’s story along. And it’s fun to trace the parallels between Sunny Gryce and Lupe, both of them thriving in the quasi-legal shadow that capitalism inevitably casts.Working off a script by Amiel and Berger, the director Fernando Coimbra — with Blanchard’s invaluable help — crafts a convincing and familiar 1930s Los Angeles atmosphere for this motley crew of strivers and sad sacks to inhabit; it truly is hard to notice the creative handoff that has occurred between seasons. We’re back in business with Perry, and so far, business is good.From the case files:No graphic violence. No nudity. No explicit sex. Certainly no murdered babies. There’s a distinct ratcheting-down of the taboo from the first season premiere to the second.Isn’t it funny how Della’s dynamism leaves you rooting for her to betray her current partner and cheat with the glamorous woman she meets in the ladies’ room at lunch?“We’re where everyone wants to be!” Brooks hollers when his ballplayer partner communicates the league’s reticence to relocate any teams to Los Angeles. “You think anyone dreams of moving to [expletive] Cincinnati?” Well, that depends, Brooks. Has Skyline Chili opened yet?The closing credits, which on “Perry Mason” take on the role of opening title sequences on other shows, feature sand castles being washed away. If that isn’t the core anxiety at the heart of the California dream, I don’t know what is. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Tyler James Williams Lifts His Spirits With bell hooks and Tom Ford

      by

      The “Abbott Elementary” star keeps nourished, body and soul, with D’Angelo’s music, Earl Grey lattes and early 2000s rom-coms.Tyler James Williams has had a winning season.A Screen Actors Guild award that he and his “Abbott Elementary” castmates won for their work on the ABC mockumentary about an underfunded public school in Philadelphia.A Golden Globe for best supporting actor for his own performance in the series, as Gregory Eddie, a substitute teacher who finds a sense of purpose and permanence in the job.And, as he took the Globes stage, a standing ovation from Eddie Murphy.“The award is great — I appreciate it. But that did more for me than anything ever could,” Williams admitted in a video call from Los Angeles.The actor, 30, has also morphed into something of a heartthrob in the role, which the “Abbott Elementary” creator Quinta Brunson, whom he’d met on “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” wrote for him after they became lockdown pals.All of the accolades don’t overshadow what he considers his most significant achievement.“We haven’t seen characters like Gregory and Janine” — a teacher played by Brunson with whom Gregory has a slow-burn kind of thing — “exist on television,” Williams said.“There’s not a heavy trauma story line. It’s just Black people living everyday lives and seeing the beauty in that,” he added. “Very rarely do we see that recognized in the awards platforms, so that for me is what I hope that win does.”Still, Williams, who has Crohn’s disease, may have never arrived at this moment had he not had a near-fatal flare-up when he was 23.“When I came out of the other side of it, I realized I had a choice,” he said. “I could be really busy and try to make a bunch of money. Or I could do things that felt like my heart was just bathed.”A few days after wrapping the second season of “Abbott” last month, Williams talked about his deep dive into bell hooks’s work, how D’Angelo captured the feelings of his youth and the Burberry trench he can’t leave behind. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1bell hooksIn 2020, when it became apparent that we were going to be locked down for some time, I was getting book recommendations from people. I had just finished “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” and Miss Lawrence, who was a castmate, had recommended “We Real Cool” by bell hooks. I read it and fell in love with her voice, and felt seen in a way I had never felt seen before, and understood things about myself I didn’t know. Then everything she had ever written, I was just diving through. To me they really question masculinity standards, particularly Black masculinity standards, which, with Gregory, I try to dismantle as many of those as I can.2‘Voodoo’ by D’AngeloI had to be 8 or 9 the first time I heard that album played in my house. And I was like, “Who did this? Who took my insides and made it sonic?” I listen to that album once every day, usually at the top of the day. D’Angelo, he’s kind of everything to me.3CinemaSinsIt’s a YouTube channel that points out all the tropes and archaic things that happen in our industry, where everything is so austere and we make art. It’s usually how I end my night when I’m in bed and winding down. Just to have some guy somewhere break it all down and dismantle it is really funny to me.4Earl Grey LatteDue to Crohn’s, I had to stop drinking coffee when I was younger, and I was a big latte person. So I got this great combination of Earl Grey teas that you mix together. Froth up the milk. It feels like a coffee, but you have the flowery notes that are in the tea. In the wintertime, you could do a dash of nutmeg, even some cinnamon, and a single sugar. And if it’s one of those days where it’s like, “This is going to be a heavy lift,” you do two tea bags.5Skywalker MarijuanaThat’s my favorite strain. Also Crohn’s-related, my doctors wanted me to eat more. My appetite response isn’t the same as everybody else’s — I need something to tell me that I’m hungry. And they were like, “Hey, there’s marijuana.” It seems to do all the things we need it to do.6Tom Ford CandlesI was shooting a show called “Whiskey Cavalier” in Prague, right before “Abbott,” and I stumbled on this candle at one of the stores on Parizska Street. There’s notes that are very masculine, but then there’s this soft powder behind it that’s feminine and light. I was like, “This is what I want my house to smell like at all times.”7‘Brown Sugar’This movie felt like a story that could happen to me: Two New York kids who love hip-hop could essentially just fall in love over that. It was simple. I’m a huge fan of the ’90s/early 2000s rom-com. I feel like we peaked as a society right there.8GoldThere’s something about it aesthetically that has always brightened my day. I’ve tried to get into silver, but it doesn’t really do it for me. There’s something about the way sun hits gold that the world gets brighter. It’s kind of like when you take sunglasses off. Everything becomes more vibrant.9Black Burberry Trench CoatI don’t buy a lot of things, and my closet’s very small. I just have stuff that I’m absolutely in love with. And Burberry has always done the trench better than everybody else. It’s something that I pull out literally all the time. It goes so perfectly with everything, always. I left it in New York when I came back from Christmas to finish shooting, and I was like, “What am I doing? I have to go back and get this.” I need this everywhere I go.10DuragsDuring the pandemic, my hair was really long. I couldn’t see a barber, so I ordered a durag and would put it on. I would compress over and over and over again and just kind of brush it out because I didn’t have any other choice. By the time we had shot the pilot of “Abbott,” I had been wave brushing for almost a year, and that became Gregory’s look. More

    • 100 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Review: ‘History of the World’ Repeats, as Farce

      by

      Mel Brooks’s human comedy gets a ‘Part II’ for streaming TV, with a sketch-star cast and a sharp makeover.Before his many lives as America’s tummler-in-chief — movie star, director, Broadway producer — Mel Brooks was a TV guy. He wrote for Sid Caesar’s “Your Show of Shows,” the Big Bang from which much of the TV comedic tradition exploded forth. His 1981 film, “History of the World, Part I” (in which Caesar appeared as a cave dweller), applied an episodic approach, as if it were meant to be a sketch-comedy series.Now, with a little help and a few changes, it is. The eight-part “History of the World, Part II,” which debuts two episodes a day from Monday through Thursday on Hulu, is a screwball tour of civilization that gives the Brooks formula enough contemporary updates that you could think of it as “Evolution of TV Comedy, Part I.”And in an era of dutiful brand extensions and pointless revivals, it turns out to be history that’s surprisingly worth repeating.The 96-year-old Brooks is a writer and producer of the new series and assumes the narrator role performed by Orson Welles in the film. He has limited screen time now — the heaviest lifting is done by the writer-producer-performers Ike Barinholtz, Nick Kroll and Wanda Sykes — but he is responsible for the show’s first sight gag, in which he’s digitally altered into a young, musclebound hunk.Like that image, “Part II” aims not simply to reproduce the Mel Brooks of the last century but also to bring his comedy into 2023. It’s a collaborative production (the cast is so vast it might be easier to list TV-comedy fixtures who don’t appear) that is more diverse in both faces and comedy styles. Beyond the callbacks to the movie and affectionate recreations of Brooks’s slapstick and Jewish humor, the series combines elements of “Kroll Show,” “Drunk History,” “Documentary Now!,” “Sherman’s Showcase” and more.“Part I” was less a parody of actual history than of movie history. Its ancient Rome was lifted from swords-and-sandals epics; its French Revolution was, as the New York Times critic Vincent Canby wrote, very much the one imagined in M.G.M.’s “A Tale of Two Cities.”“Part II” is thoroughly made of TV and pop-media references. The story of Jesus Christ begins with a dead-on parody of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” with Kroll as a Larry Davidian Judas riffing with J.B. Smoove as the apostle Luke; later it becomes a drawn-out sendup of the Beatles documentary “Get Back.”“Part II” is hit-and-miss, much like “Part I” and nearly every sketch comedy ever made. When it hits, it’s an almost perfect marriage of style and subject. The strongest extended sketch stars Sykes as Shirley Chisholm — the Black female congresswoman and 1972 presidential candidate — in a note-perfect sendup of a ’70s sitcom. It’s not just impeccably executed and detailed, it’s sharp, smart history, accented with the laughter of a “live Black audience.”When the show misses — well, another advantage streaming has over the movie theater is the fast-forward button. A running bit about Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (Barinholtz) trying to kick his booze habit starts off strong with Timothy Simons as a cranky Abraham Lincoln but becomes a grinding war of attrition. The limp gag of imagining historical figures on social media (Galileo, Typhoid Mary, Princess Anastasia) doesn’t improve with repetition.The many guest stars include, from left, Rob Riggle, Richard Kind and Zazie Beetz.Aaron Epstein/HuluThere’s also the occasional reminder of the changed cultural sensibilities that “Part II” was made for. Brooks was a yukmeister provocateur, who made fun of the horrors of the 20th century (and beyond) while trusting his audience to get the absurdity. His “The Producers” — about the making of a deliberately offensive musical about Hitler — was about that kind of trust backfiring, and it generated backlash in real life.But as Brooks said on “Fresh Air” last year, “If we’re going to get even with Hitler, we can’t get on a soapbox because he’s too damn good at that.” (I guess I should note that Brooks is Jewish, even if that’s news only to Homer Simpson.) In that spirit, the closing credits of “Part I” tease a sequel including the segment “Hitler on Ice.” It’s assumed that the audience, without nudging, sees the ridiculousness of showing a genocidal monster pirouetting on skates.The first episode of “Part II” turns that brief joke into a full sketch with Barinholtz, Kroll and Sykes as sports announcers. Through the routine, their insults of the Nazi skater — “He’s a thug and bad for the sport” — grow sharper and more vulgar, as if to make clear that the depiction does not equal endorsement. It’s a funny bit, too, but funny for a more cautious, earnest time that prefers its problematic comedy more clearly underlined and bracketed.One advantage “Part II” has over its movie predecessor is the freedom of small scale. It can execute a one-joke premise and get out fast, as when it has Johnny Knoxville play the famously hard-to-kill czarist adviser Rasputin as the star of a Russian “Jackass.” (This also distinguishes it from Netflix’s “Cunk on Earth,” which can be screamingly funny but is condemned to repeat its Ali G-esque joke a little too long.)Still, “Part II” doesn’t entirely forget where it came from. A series of musical sketches featuring Kroll as a Jewish peasant selling mud pies during the Russian Revolution is the most Brooksian in style and setting. In a showstopping number, Kroll and Pamela Adlon fend off a murderous Cossack neighbor and duet about the trade-offs of city vs. shtetl life. (“Why seek out death and fear? / We’ve got plenty of it here!”)It’s just the dish to celebrate Mel Brooks’s legacy: Mud pie, à la mode. More