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    Kevin Costner Couldn’t Get His Golden Globe Due to California Storms

    When the Golden Globes returned to NBC on Tuesday night after last year’s telecast was canceled amid concerns about the organization that gives out the awards, it was an open question whether Hollywood’s biggest stars would come back. Plenty did, making the evening feel in many respects like a return to shows of the past.But a handful of winning actors and actresses were not there to collect their awards.Cate Blanchett, who won for her portrayal of a virtuosic conductor in “Tár,” was not on hand to accept her Globe for best actress in a motion picture drama; she was said to be filming in Britain. And Amanda Seyfried, who won for her portrayal of the failed biotech founder Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout,” was unable to accept her award; she was said to be working on a new musical.Kevin Costner could not pick up his statuette for best actor in a TV drama series for “Yellowstone” for another reason: he was prevented from driving to Beverly Hills from his home in Santa Barbara by the severe rainstorms and flooding that have hit California. Nearly 50,000 residents across California have received evacuation orders, and at least 17 people have died since December.“This is a sad story right now,” said Regina Hall, who accepted his award, as audience members laughed. “He’s stuck in Santa Barbara. Let’s pray, everyone.”Zendaya, who plays the troubled teen in “Euphoria,” won best actress in a TV drama series and was also absent from the award show. The actress apologized on Instagram for not being able to attend, thanked the Golden Globes and shared her admiration for her fellow nominees. More

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    Netflix's ‘The Lying Life of Adults’ Depicts Ferrante’s Naples

    A new adaptation of the novel “The Lying Life of Adults” features formidable female protagonists and an Italy with distinct social classes.Like the novel by Elena Ferrante on which it is based, the opening line of Netflix’s “The Lying Life of Adults” is spoken by the precocious teenage protagonist, Giovanna, who is listening at the door while her parents talk about her.“Before leaving home, my father told my mother that I was ugly,” Giovanna says, adding forlornly that he had compared her to his estranged sister Vittoria, an insult so vile that it prompted Giovanna’s mother to counter: “Don’t say that. She is a monster.”Thus the viewer is introduced to Giovanna (Giordana Marengo) and Vittoria (Valeria Golino), fitting new entries in the pseudonymous Italian author’s rich stable of formidable female protagonists. Brought to life onscreen in a recent six-episode adaptation of Ferrante’s 2019 novel, they are as complex and contradictory as Lila and Lenù, the protagonists of Ferrante’s four best-selling novels chronicling their friendship, a version of which appeared in HBO’s “My Brilliant Friend.”In “The Lying Life of Adults,” too, Naples provides a socially textured setting for this coming-of-age story, which propels Giovanna from the innocence of childhood into the world of adults’ complex and contradictory compromises. Set in the mid-1990s, the series underscores the slippery social standing of Italian girls, and women, seeking to find a footing in a world where men call the shots.The show is “rightly” Ferrante’s world, according to Domenico Procacci, the chief executive of Fandango, an Italian entertainment company that produced “Lying Life” for Netflix, who spoke at a news conference presenting the series in Rome last month. Fandango also co-produced “My Brilliant Friend” with HBO, RAI, the Italian national broadcaster, and others.From left, Giovanna (Marengo), Angela (Rossella Gamba) and Beniamino (Antonio Corvino) in the series. The girls begin experimenting with the freedoms offered by Naples.Eduardo Castaldo/NetflixIn “Lying Life,” Giovanna navigates two distinct Neapolitan neighborhoods so drastically diverse that it is hard to believe they belong to the same city. She lives in the Rione Alto, an upper-middle-class neighborhood mostly developed in the 1960s and ’70s capping the Vomero hill with breathtaking views of the Gulf of Naples. “Outside of the Vomero, the city scarcely belonged to me,” Giovanna says in the novel.Inside the World of Elena FerranteThe mysterious Italian writer has won international attention with her intimate representations of Neapolitan life, womanhood and friendship. Beginner’s Guide: New to Elena Ferrante’s work? Here’s a breakdown of her most important writing.English-Language Translator: The work of Ann Goldstein has helped catapult Ferrante to global fame. Humility is a hallmark of her approach.‘My Brilliant Friend’: The HBO series based on Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels is a testament to the elusive writer’s ability to create inscrutable characters.‘The Lying Life of Adults’: The novel, which was published in English in 2020 and is now being adapted into a TV series by Netflix, is “a more vulnerable performance, less tightly woven and deliberately plotted,” our critic writes.But in her determination to meet her aunt, Giovanna opens her world to the lower city neighborhood that her father, Andrea (Alessandro Preziosi) escaped, but that Vittoria still inhabits: a run-down district called Pascone in the novel, which was shot in the formerly industrial rough-and-tumble Poggioreale neighborhood.“I don’t think there is any city in Italy where the differences between social classes are as evident as Naples, and at times where this difference counts so little,” Francesco Piccolo, one of the show’s four screenwriters, said at the news conference. In the series, viewers who do not speak Italian might miss the fact that the contrast is underscored by the difference in the Neapolitan dialect spoken between the two neighborhoods. In the wealthy Vomero, the dialect is spoken “for pleasure, for fun,” Piccolo said, while in the other, it is “a totally emotional dialect.”Getting Vittoria right, her movements as well as her dialect, weighed on Golino, who may be best remembered by American audiences for her star turn in the films “Rain Man” and “Hot Shots!” She, too, grew up in the Vomero neighborhood, on “the good side of the tracks,” she said in a telephone interview, and confessed to never having seen the “Naples of Vittoria,” to the point that she “had to go find it, understand it.”A voice coach taught what was to her essentially a new language. “Even though I am Neapolitan, I had never spoken in that way,” Golino said. “It was a sound that I had heard in the city, but it was never part of my world.” To embody the earthy bawdiness of Vittoria “was difficult,” the actress said. “I had to study the words, a way of moving, a way of inhabiting space,” which was foreign to her. “So I spent a lot of time in Naples, which is my city, but Naples is made of many layers,” she said.Golino, center, was nervous about getting the character of Vittoria right. “I had to study the words, a way of moving, a way of inhabiting space,” the actor said.Eduardo Castaldo/NetflixIn turn, Marengo, 19, who made her screen debut as Giovanna after being selected from among 3,000 girls auditioning for the role, said Golino had nurtured her throughout the series. “She gave me a lot of advice,” Marengo said, and the two created a strong bond that Marengo thought was apparent on screen, she said in a telephone interview.“We really helped each other,” Golino said. “We were both in the same state of mind. She because it was her first time, I because I was constantly afraid of making a mistake.”Marengo said she had felt the responsibility of portraying the protagonist of a story that evolves entirely from Giovanna’s perspective. “At first, I was anxious that I wouldn’t be able to make it,” she said. But the director and the crew made sure she did not feel that responsibility, “and that really calmed me down,” she said.In the novel, Giovanna’s inward gaze is even more pronounced. But Edoardo De Angelis, the show’s director, said transposing that inner rumination into visual form was a natural extension of Ferrante’s writing.“Every single word contains an evocation that suggests and invokes a multitude of images,” De Angelis said in a telephone interview. “The words always suggested the path to take because Ferrante’s evocations are always very concrete, even if they begin with an interior thought.”De Angelis’s Naples involves a cacophony of colors and sounds, the underground music scene in the city’s avant-garde community centers and the nostalgia of summer festivals hosted by Italy’s once-powerful Communist Party.Ferrante, the famously elusive author who has never officially made her identity public, has a screenwriting credit, and De Angelis, who is also credited with writing the script with Piccolo and Laura Paolucci, said that correspondence with Ferrante had involved “many letters to find a common language.”In transposing the novel to television, the story also took an unexpected turn, a plot twist that is not in the novel but that Ferrante signed off on, De Angelis said: She was well aware that moving from the pages to the screen “was an occasion to express elements that were only suggested and left to the imagination in the novel,” while on the screen, “the imagination becomes image,” offering the possibility of “more radical choices.”These radical choices open new avenues, and the episodes end with a series of unresolved questions to be answered, perhaps, in a possible sequel. (To this reader, the ending of the novel also suggested that a second book could follow.)Just as Golino worried about doing the character of Vittoria justice, “our series aims to show the authenticity of Italy, even outside of stereotypes,” Eleonora Andreatta, affectionately known as “Tinny,” the vice president of Italian originals at Netflix, said at the news conference. She also worked on the “My Brilliant Friend” series in her previous job at RAI.“Portraying a character that is not edifying, in which you draw out the human, the real human that makes mistakes,” and who was “disobedient” was one of the reasons that she had accepted the role, “even though it frightened me,” Golino said in the telephone interview.“A good actor doesn’t have to be a good liar, but usually they are,” she said at the news conference, eliciting laughs. “If they have to tell a lie, a good actor tells it very well.” More

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    Prince Harry Engages in ‘Group Therapy’ With a Glass of Tequila

    “This is the other side of the story,” the prince said of his new memoir, “Spare,” while chatting with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday.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.‘The Other Side of the Story’Prince Harry discussed his new memoir, “Spare,” on “The Late Show” on Tuesday, with Stephen Colbert offering Harry a cocktail at the start.“I hear you like tequila,” Colbert said, pouring each of them a glass.Keeping a comfortable and friendly rapport, Prince Harry answered Colbert’s probing but respectful questions about his life and family.“This feels a little bit like group therapy,” Harry said at one point with a laugh.Colbert asked Harry about early leaks of the memoir that were published in the British tabloids. The prince cautioned people to be wary of the stories, stressing the importance of context.“Context is everything, and unfortunately, due to those leaks, the British press, which are central to so much of my story in my 38 years up until this point, and after spending two years focused on context, what I am going to share, how I am going to share it and being able to piece it all together, they intentionally chose to strip away all the context and take out individual segments of my life, my story and every experience that I’ve had and turn it into a salacious headline.” — PRINCE HARRY“This is the other side of the story. There’s a lot in here that perhaps makes people feel uncomfortable and scared.” — PRINCE HARRY“Look, I’m not going to lie — the last few days have been hurtful and challenging and not being able to do anything about those leaks that you refer to. Perhaps — well, not perhaps, without doubt — the most dangerous lie that they have told is that I somehow boasted about the number of people that I killed in Afghanistan.” — PRINCE HARRY“My words are not dangerous, but the spin of my words are very dangerous.” — PRINCE HARRYPrince Harry also spoke about leaving the royal family and Britain with his wife, Meghan Markle, and his assumption that they would be left alone.“That was a real eye-opener for me. I never thought that they would be away from it completely, but I did think that we would get some form of peace. But that is when I realized that actually our mere existence outside of that institutional control was more of a threat. And you know, there’s a similar thing that happened to my mom as well. And, look, they always knew that my wife was going to leave because of the way they were abusing her, but I think the most embarrassing thing was that I decided to leave with her.” — PRINCE HARRY“I have never seen the level of abuse and harassment that I witnessed over my wife. Other members of the family, they have experienced different forms of that, but to see it happen the way it happened, I was naïve going into it and I didn’t realize that the British press would be so bigoted. But even if I had, I wouldn’t have accepted or understood that they could get away with it. But here we are, and I’ve created — or we have created — a fantastic life here in California.” — PRINCE HARRYColbert asked Harry what his mother, Princess Diana, would have thought about the current family dynamic, especially between Harry and his brother, Prince William.“It is impossible to say where we would be now, where those relationships would be now, but there is no way that the distance between my brother and I would be the same.” — PRINCE HARRY“I’ve really felt the presence of my mom, especially the last couple of years. I detail in the book my brother and I talking at her grave and how he felt as though she had been with him for a long period of time and helped set him up with life and that he felt she was moving over to me. And I have felt her more in the last two years than I have the last 30.” — PRINCE HARRYHarry admitted that he has watched “The Crown.” Colbert asked if he fact-checks the series while he watches.“Yes, I do, actually. Which by the way, by the way — another reason why it is so important that history has it right.” — PRINCE HARRYThe Punchiest Punchlines (What’s Up, Docs? Edition)“Today, Obama was like, ‘Nothing to worry about. If Joe had access, it wasn’t important.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Biden was shocked and said he had no idea how the documents got there. Then Hunter Biden was like, ‘OK, so don’t get mad.’” — JIMMY FALLON“There are said to be just under a dozen documents related to Ukraine, Iran and the U.K., and for the MAGA crowd, this was like Christmas and the McRib coming back at the same time.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Is this just what every president does now, just scatter a trail of intelligence like Johnny Document-seed?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Wow, it’s alarming when you realize how much of our national security relies on old men keeping track of loose pages.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingLeslie Jones teased her upcoming gig as a “Daily Show” guest host on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe rapper and actor Common will visit Seth Meyers on Wednesday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutSimona Tabasco broke through to American audiences in the second season of “The White Lotus.” Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty ImagesThe “White Lotus” star Simona Tabasco shares her love of “Titane,” the Tate Modern and other cultural touchstones in this week’s My Ten. 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    Tarnished Golden Globes Return to TV, and Hollywood Plays Along

    The companies behind the tarnished Golden Globe Awards pushed forward with a rehabilitation effort on Tuesday, with Hollywood luminaries making their way through a waterlogged Los Angeles to accept trophies for film and television achievements.The stand-up comedian Jerrod Carmichael hosted the 80th Globes ceremony, foregoing the typical monologue (zingers about high-wattage attendees) for a subdued opening directly addressing the lack of diversity that kept the show off the air last year. In several moments, a quiet awkwardness fell over the room, as when he noted that the group that awards the Globes didn’t “have a single Black member until George Floyd died.”“One minute, you’re making mint tea at home, the next you’re invited to be the Black face of an embattled white organization,” he continued, explaining how he came to take the gig. “Life really comes at you fast, you know?” He cracked that a friend, upon learning that he would get paid $500,000, told him to “put on a good suit and take them white people’s money.”“The Fabelmans,” a semi-autobiographical family drama from Steven Spielberg, won the Globe for best film, drama, and the award for best director.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Spielberg said while accepting the directing prize. “I’ve been hiding from this story since I was 17 years old.” He joked that his mother, Leah Adler, was in heaven “kvelling about this.”“The Banshees of Inisherin,” a windswept tragicomedy about a moldered friendship, was named best film, musical or comedy, also picking up Globes for Martin McDonagh’s screenwriting and Colin Farrell’s acting.But behind the sharp jokes, fervent acceptance speeches, Champagne and couture lurked another sad truth: After two years of upheaval caused by an ethics, finance and diversity scandal — culminating with NBC’s refusal to broadcast the 2022 ceremony — Hollywood has dropped any pretense that the Globes are meaningful as markers of artistic excellence.The Globes are about business, plain and simple.Most movie studios view the Globes telecast and accompanying red carpet spectacle as crucial marketing opportunities for winter films, especially dramas, which have been struggling at the box office. In a study released in 2021, economists at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania found that, on average, films that win Globes earn an additional $16.5 million in ticket sales.“I’m really, really happy about this,” Steven Spielberg said while accepting the award for best director.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty Images“The Fabelmans,” which cost $40 million to make, not including marketing, was one of the films with the most to gain. It has collected $13.4 million at the domestic box office since its release in November.James Cameron, a best director nominee for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” had received the memo. He turned a red carpet moment into a sales pitch. “We’re back to theaters — as a society we really need this,” he said. “Enough with the streaming already!”The lead acting Globes for dramas went to Austin Butler (“Elvis”) and Cate Blanchett (“Tár”). Ke Huy Quan was honored for his supporting performance in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” while Angela Bassett won the Globe for best supporting actress for her regal role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.”In a surprise, HBO’s “Game of Thrones” spinoff “House of the Dragon” won the Globe for best television drama. (Awards prognosticators had predicted that “Severance” on Apple TV+ would get the prize.) “Abbott Elementary,” the ABC comedy set in a Philadelphia school, was named best comedy.“Thank you for believing in this show,” Quinta Brunson, the “Abbott Elementary” star and producer, said earlier as she collected the trophy for best actress in a comedy. “It has resonated with the world in a way that I couldn’t even imagine it would have.”“The Banshees of Inisherin” and “Abbott Elementary” had the most nominations going into the night among movies and TV shows. “Banshees” was up for eight film prizes, while “Abbott Elementary” figured into five TV categories.Martin McDonagh, holding the trophy, and Graham Broadbent, a producer, are among the group accepting best film, musical or comedy, for “The Banshees of Inisherin.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesFarrell won the Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical for his baffled “Banshees” performance, taking time to thank studio executives, his co-stars, his family and the donkey that appeared in the film. Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a comedy or musical for “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a zany twist on superhero movies.“I think all of you women understand this — as the days, the years and the numbers get bigger, it seems like opportunities start to get smaller,” Yeoh said, noting that she turned 60 last year and referencing the discrimination she has faced in Hollywood. She then started to say how grateful she was for the role when show producers started playing music to nudge her offstage. “Shut up, please,” she said, to cheers, before continuing.Michelle Yeoh won best actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy, for “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesPeople who assist stars behind the scenes (agents, publicists, stylists) will tell you that very few were eager to attend the ceremony, either as nominees or presenters. At least 20 nominees did not attend, including Julia Roberts, Blanchett and Zendaya, who was named best actress in a television drama for “Euphoria.” Some of the no-shows cited work conflicts, but the weather didn’t help, with the event coming on the heels of what meteorologists said was the worst rainstorm to sweep through Los Angeles since 2005.Still, most nominees went through the motions — smiles! smiles! smiles! — because they care greatly about Oscar nominations, and voting by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences begins on Thursday.The Golden Globe Awards broadcast also generates tens of millions of dollars for various Hollywood businesses. Catering companies, party planners, chauffeurs, banquet workers, florists and spray tanners count on the show to generate a significant part of their winter income. “This is so exciting,” Marc Malkin, a senior Variety editor, said at the start of Variety’s red carpet preshow, sounding like he was still trying to convince himself. (Globes producers actually put down a gray carpet for stars to walk, explaining that it was part of a “new palette.” Some of the biggest stars walked the carpet but did not give interviews, perhaps to avoid awkward questions about why they decided to come.)Advertisers bought roughly $50.3 million worth of airtime during NBC’s most recent Globes telecast, according to Kantar, a media research firm. NBC paid about $40 million for rights to this year’s show, money that went to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the unorthodox nonprofit organization that bestows the Globes, and Dick Clark Productions, which mounted the telecast.As host, Carmichael veered from serious to lighthearted to boorish (vulgar language, a Whitney Houston joke) during a ceremony that was notable for the diversity of winners and those in contention. The show even made time for a taped message about freedom by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.Eddie Murphy and the television producer Ryan Murphy (“Pose,” “Glee,” “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”) received lifetime achievement awards. Growing up gay in Indiana, Ryan Murphy said, “I never saw a person like me getting an award or even being a character on a TV show.”Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award.Rich Polk/NBC, via Getty ImagesNBC canceled the 2022 telecast amid an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the foreign press association. Citing extensive reforms by the group, NBC in September agreed to return the ceremony to its air — under a one-year trial. The press association has overhauled membership eligibility, recruited new members with an emphasis on diversity, enacted a stricter code of conduct and has moved to end its tax-exempt status and transform into a for-profit company with a philanthropic arm. The 96-member organization now has six Black members — up from zero — and has added 103 nonmember voters, a dozen or so of whom are Black.NBC billed the 2023 Globes as “the party of the year” in advertisements. In truth, however, Hollywood tried to pare back the glamour and excess, in part to send a signal — the Globes are still on probation — and in part because studios have been cutting costs and laying off staff to cope with setbacks at their streaming businesses. In the past, the Beverly Hilton has hosted as many as six separate after parties; this time around, there was one scheduled.Even so, the movie capital does not do austerity terribly well. Moët & Chandon was expected to supply more than 100 cases of Champagne, including its Rosé Impérial. Globes attendees were served Icelandic salmon with “citrus-scented celery purée, Maya Pura honey brulée, roasted watermelon radish” and “herb dust.” More

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    Golden Globes Winners 2023: The Complete List

    The winning films, TV shows, actors and production teams at the 2023 Golden Globe Awards.Going into a typical awards show, the big question is, of course, who and what will win the top honors. This year’s Golden Globes ceremony is not a typical awards show.The 80th Golden Globe Awards will be the first edition of the annual spectacle to be on TV since an ethics, finance and diversity scandal involving the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the group behind the awards, led NBC to decide not to air the 2022 ceremony. So the biggest question is really whether the show’s organizers can win back the trust of viewers, the network and the Hollywood figures whose presence it relies on.Still, there will be formal winners. As in years past, the show will hand out honors in both film and TV categories. Nominees in the top film categories include “The Fabelmans,” “Tár,” “Elvis,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “The Banshees of Inisherin.” TV shows up for multiple awards include “Abbott Elementary,” “House of the Dragon,” “Better Call Saul” and “The Crown.”The ceremony is set to air on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time (5 p.m. Pacific time) on NBC, and to be streamed on NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock. Follow below for updates as winners are announced. More

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    How Damar Hamlin’s Recovery Allowed Us to Breathe

    This weekend the narrative around the Buffalo Bills player flipped, from soul-searching about the violence of America’s most popular sport to something more hopeful.Last week came the horror of watching Damar Hamlin, the Buffalo Bills safety, suffer cardiac arrest live on television, followed by days of national soul-searching about the violence of America’s most popular sport. This weekend, the narrative flipped.On Saturday night, before the Tennessee Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars faced off for a division title and a trip to the playoffs, both teams gathered at midfield, then knelt and prayed together. Sunday afternoon, on the usually macho CBS pregame show, Boomer Esiason confessed his love for each of the other panelists individually, which prompted Nate Burleson, another former player, to say, “Love you, too, brother.”Before the opening kickoff of Sunday’s game pitting the Bills against the New England Patriots, Jim Nantz, the first-string play-by-play announcer for CBS, then delivered the N.F.L.’s message: “What we’ve really seen this week is a glimpse of humanity at its very best.” Nantz’s partner in the broadcasting booth, Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboys quarterback, underscored the point. “People came together and put their differences aside,” he said. What started as a tragedy, he added, “has slowly turned into a celebration of life.”So what’s the ultimate takeaway? If Hamlin weren’t making a remarkable recovery, off his breathing tube, talking, tweeting and neurologically intact, it would probably be different. There would still be the outpouring of public good wishes but not the joy or shared pride and sense of common purpose. Like the movies and other forms of popular culture, football is a national barometer, after all. And the last week seems to have illuminated the country’s erratic condition — the violence but also the longing, or at least the posture of longing, for unity in polarizing times.Looking back, what made Hamlin’s collapse all the more shocking last Monday night was how it followed the most routine of tackles. At this point it’s a fair guess that no play all season has been watched more often online. The telecast didn’t keep showing the tackle out of a sense of decency. Instead, cameras lingered over the players’ anguished reactions, showing teammates huddling around Hamlin’s body on the field, weeping and praying while medics struggled to save him for nearly 10 minutes.On Saturday night, before the Tennessee Titans and the Jacksonville Jaguars faced off for a division title and a trip to the playoffs, both teams gathered at midfield, then knelt and prayed together.Gary Mccullough/Associated PressThe scene may have summoned to some minds famous paintings by artists like Giotto, Titian, Caravaggio and Dürer of mourning crowds surrounding Jesus as he is taken down from the cross or entombed. For centuries, church- and museum-goers have gaped, with something approximating the same mix of fear and confusion, at these pictures of violence and despair. America certainly didn’t invent rubbernecking.Or violent sports. Twenty-nine Formula 1 drivers died during the ’60s in Formula 1 or other racing cars; 18 during the ’70s. Auto racing was popular in Europe and considered all the more glamorous for being dangerous. Things changed after the death of Ayrton Senna, the sublime Brazilian driver, in 1994. New regulations and technologies arrived. A culture of safety emerged. In the United States, navel-gazing about football and violence is nothing new. Between 1900 and 1905, 15 years before the National Football League was founded, at least 45 college players died from broken necks and backs, concussions and internal injuries they suffered playing football, according to The Washington Post. The death toll troubled Americans enough that President Theodore Roosevelt and a number of university presidents pressed for reforms. Today we gather in front of our screens by the tens of millions to witness collisions of increasingly spectacular brutality with the expectation that modern players, vastly better trained and equipped than they were a century ago, will pop back up like John Wick and Spider-Man.Of course, we know that sometimes they don’t. The long-term effects of concussions have increasingly become a topic of public concern, alongside gun control, mass shootings and crime. But Americans juggle conflicted feelings about the violent game. Some parents, and even former N.F.L. stars, are discouraging their young children from taking up tackle football. At the same time, football, like no other sport, crosses politics, gender, race, age and class in the United States. N.F.L. games accounted for a whopping 82 of the 100 most-watched television broadcasts last year, according to Nielsen, making it the last remaining form of water cooler entertainment in our atomized culture.Not coincidentally pro football only took off as a national sport during the late ’50s and ’60s when it embraced television, which marketed football’s brutality as a counterweight to baseball’s languor. The league cooked up documentaries and highlights shows, memorably narrated for years by John Facenda, the voice of God. “The game is a time warp where the young dream of growing up and the old remember youth,” he intoned. As the writer James Surowiecki put it, NFL Films “tried to simultaneously convey the gritty reality of the game and mythicize it in a Homeric fashion.”This was also the era of America’s metastasizing debacle in Vietnam. A 1967 documentary, “They Call It Pro Football,” exalted N.F.L. linebackers who, like American soldiers in Da Nang and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, were on “search-and-destroy” missions. Head coaches like Vince Lombardi were lionized as tactical generals leading self-sacrificing armies of clean-cut soldiers to victory. The nation was on the verge of coming apart and football needed its own counter culture representative, who arrived in the green and white uniform of the New York Jets in the upstart American Football League. While campuses were erupting with antiwar protests, the Jets’ playboy quarterback, Joe Namath, with his long hair, fur coats and bedroom eyes, famously predicted the Jets would beat the N.F.L.’s ultra-establishmentarian Baltimore Colts and win Super Bowl III.When the Jets won, football not only survived the upheaval. It came out richer, more popular than ever and unified. At least on Sundays, Americans could dream about Hollywood endings despite their divisions.We are again a nation divided, and reading more than ever into the meaning of the game and what, wishfully or otherwise, it says about us. Buffalo fans this Sunday suggested Hamlin’s recovery was a metaphor for the resilience of a city battered by storms, decline and crime. As if on cue, the Bills returned the opening kickoff against the Patriots for a touchdown, the first time the team had done that in 18 years. A nail-biter through the first half, Buffalo pulled away in the second. “We all won,” Hamlin tweeted from his hospital bed. As Nantz, the announcer, put it: “Love for Damar, it was definitely in the air. Not just here. All across this league, this nation.”Then he asked the melancholy question that seemed to sum up the week. “The love, the support, the prayers,” he said, “why can’t we live like that every day?” More

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    Golden Globes: How to Watch, What to Know About the Scandal

    The group that puts on the ceremony has promised reforms since it plunged into scandal two years ago. On Tuesday, it will try to win back viewers.In 2021, actors accepted Golden Globes remotely at a time when organizers were just beginning to grapple with a growing scandal around finances, ethics and diversity in its ranks.Last year, NBC refused to air the show at all, saying that the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the troubled organization at the center of the scandal, needed time to make “meaningful reform.”But on Tuesday, the 80th annual Golden Globe Awards are back on NBC with a show that will attempt to win the trust of viewers and participants.What is not yet clear is how many of those viewers will return, after a precipitous drop in ratings during the pandemic, and whether celebrities and other members of the industry will appear en masse.The Globes have long had a reputation for booziness and irreverence. Will the revived ceremony still be seen as a less-staid alternative to the Academy Awards? Or will the Hollywood Foreign Press take the show more seriously?Here’s a brief history of the ceremony’s downfall, how its organizers are trying to rehabilitate it and what to expect from this year’s telecast.What brought down the Golden Globes?Days before the ceremony in 2021, an investigation by The Los Angeles Times took account of financial and ethical lapses at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and revealed that it had no Black members.Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown.Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy.The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves.A Lovelorn Romantic: An ‘80s child star, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blending action and drama.The Costume Designer: Shirley Kurata, who defined the look of the movie, has a signature style that mixes vintage, high-end designers and an intense color wheel.Gotham Awards: At the first big show of awards season, which is a spotty Oscar predictor but a great barometer for industry enthusiasm, the film took the top prize.At the time, there were 87 total members in the group, and a lawsuit filed by a Norwegian reporter, Kjersti Flaa, who had thrice been denied admittance to the group, accused members of accepting “thousands of dollars in emoluments” from members of the industry who were campaigning for recognition at the Globes. (A lawyer for the association said the lawsuit was a “a transparent attempt to shake down the H.F.P.A. based on jealousy,” The Los Angeles Times reported.)One story of wooing voters became emblematic of a reputation for accepting lavish perks. The Netflix comedy series “Emily in Paris,” which was the subject of lackluster reviews, received two nominations after dozens of association members flew to Paris to visit the “Emily” set and were put up by the Paramount Network at a five-star hotel.There was also scrutiny over how much members were paid for their involvement. According to filings from the tax year ending in June 2019, the nonprofit paid more than $3 million in salaries and other compensation to members and staff. Serving on one committee, for instance, meant $1,000 a month, a 2021 internal association report shows.How did the H.F.P.A. react?At the ceremony in 2021, the hosts, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, made repeated jabs at the press association over its lack of Black members, and midway through the program, leaders of the group took the stage and pledged to increase the diversity of its membership.In the two years since, it has recruited new members, overhauled eligibility rules and enacted a stricter code of conduct. All existing members — some of whom have had their journalistic credentials questioned over the years — needed to reapply. The 96-member group now has six Black members — up from zero in 2021 — and has added 103 nonmember voters, a dozen or so of whom are Black.Todd Boehly, the interim chief executive, has moved to end the association’s tax-exempt status and turn it into a for-profit company with a philanthropic arm. (He has been awaiting final governmental approval for that plan, after which he is expected to disband the H.F.P.A.)How has Hollywood responded?The H.F.P.A.’s practices have been scrutinized for decades, but this time, Hollywood couldn’t turn away.Netflix, Amazon and WarnerMedia said they would not work with the association unless changes we made.There were condemnations by A-list stars and producers. Shonda Rhimes called out the organization for its treatment of her shows; Tom Cruise returned his Globe trophies; Scarlett Johansson suggested the industry step back from the H.F.P.A. until it tackled “fundamental reform.”And more than 100 Hollywood publicity firms called on the association to “eradicate the longstanding exclusionary ethos and pervasive practice of discriminatory behavior, unprofessionalism, ethical impropriety and alleged financial corruption.” Until the group made its plans for change public, the firms said, they would not advise their clients to engage with the group’s journalists.Now that the organization has outlined its plans for reform, publicists and agents say that some stars are open to participating, while others want the Globes to be permanently retired. Based on this year’s list of presenters — which include Billy Porter, Natasha Lyonne and Quentin Tarantino — many are planning to show up on Tuesday.When and how do I watch?Wait, aren’t awards shows usually on Sunday? Typically, but this one was bumped to avoid clashing with NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”Held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., the telecast will air at 8 p.m. Eastern time, 5 p.m. Pacific time on NBC. For the first time, the show will also be available simultaneously online, through NBCUniversal’s streaming service, Peacock.Who is the host?The comedian Jerrod Carmichael will be the master of ceremonies. His HBO special “Rothaniel,” in which he came out as gay, won an Emmy and was considered among the best of 2022. And he may be familiar to NBC viewers from his 2015-17 sitcom, “The Carmichael Show,” or from his turn as host of “Saturday Night Live” last year.Who is expected to attend?The show has announced a list of presenters, including Ana de Armas, who is nominated for her performance as Marilyn Monroe in the Netflix biopic “Blonde”; Jamie Lee Curtis, who is up for a supporting actress award for “Everything Everywhere All at Once”; and Niecy Nash, who is nominated for her role in Netflix’s “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”Also listed as presenters are Ana Gasteyer, Colman Domingo, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, Nicole Byer and Tracy Morgan. Eddie Murphy and the producer Ryan Murphy are receiving special honors.It is not likely to be clear until Tuesday whether a significant group of celebrities intends to boycott the ceremony.Brendan Fraser, who is nominated for best actor in a drama for his performance as a morbidly obese man in “The Whale,” has said that he would not attend the ceremony, citing the H.F.P.A.’s handling of his accusation that a former leader of the organization, Philip Berk, groped him at a luncheon in 2003. Berk denied the accusation and is no longer a member.Who is up for awards?The film with the most nominations is “The Banshees of Inisherin,” an Irish drama from the writer-director Martin McDonagh about a fractured friendship. It is up for eight awards. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” — the sci-fi comedy about a Chinese immigrant and laundromat owner, which is co-directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert — is up for six.The best film directing category contains some heavyweights — James Cameron for “Avatar: The Way of Water,” Steven Spielberg for “The Fabelmans” and Baz Luhrmann for “Elvis” — as well as McDonagh, Kwan and Scheinert.On the television side, the schoolroom sitcom “Abbott Elementary,” created by Quinta Brunson, is up for the most awards, with five nominations, including best musical or comedy series.In the increasingly prestigious limited series category, the talked-about drama “White Lotus” is up against “Pam & Tommy,” “The Dropout,” “Black Bird” and “Monster.”HBO Max and Netflix are tied with the highest number of nominations, at 14 each.Brooks Barnes contributed reporting. More

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    Simona Tabasco, ‘White Lotus’ Fan Favorite, on the Best Parts of Italy

    The actress shares some of the places she loves the most, and the art that both inspires and disturbs her.The day Simona Tabasco got a callback for “The White Lotus” with the show’s creator, Mike White, she tested positive for Covid-19. So she auditioned over FaceTime and landed the part.A month later, she was on set in Sicily playing Lucia, one of the two local prostitutes — the other played by her real-life friend, Beatrice Grannò — who spend the television show’s second season charming and swindling Americans on vacation. By the time the season ended in December, the duo had become fan favorites, inspiring memes, think pieces, conspiracy theories and style tips.“I’ve never been part of a project of this magnitude, something that was so big and involves so many artists — people that, yes, are famous, but also such amazing artists,” Tabasco, 28, said in a video interview from Rome, where she plays an undercover police officer in the Italian TV series “I Bastardi di Pizzofalcone.”Speaking through a translator, the Neapolitan actress talked about why the city where “The White Lotus” was shot is so meaningful to her — as well as some of the other places she loves in Italy — and the horror movie she couldn’t stop thinking about even though it annoyed her. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Taormina It’s where we filmed “The White Lotus,” and it’s where I received an award for best young actor after my first film, “Perez,” at the film award ceremony Nastro d’Argento. One of the local cafes, Bam Bar, is known for its granita. My favorite flavor is almond. It became a tradition for Beatrice and me to have breakfast there together on days we didn’t have to wake up too early. Every time we went, we saw someone from the “White Lotus” cast or crew.Inside the World of ‘The White Lotus’The second season of “The White Lotus,” Mike White’s incisive satire of privilege set in a luxury resort, is available to stream on HBO.End of a Journey: The actress Jennifer Coolidge discussed the ending of the second season and where the series, already renewed for a third season, might go from here.Dressing Gen Z: The costume designer for “The White Lotus” sees your mean tweets about how the younger characters dress. She told us how she created the chaotic and divisive looks.Michael Imperioli: The “Sopranos” star is enjoying a professional renaissance after years of procedurals and indies. In the new season of “The White Lotus,” he tries his hand at comedy.F. Murray Abraham: The buzzy series is one of several featuring the actor, who at 83 is finding some of the most satisfying work of his career.2. Nuovo Cinema Olimpia This theater in central Rome is special for me. It has only two rooms, and it’s not like the other cinemas in the city. There are usually very few people, and it’s where I like to have movie marathons. I’ve spent hours in there watching films. Sometimes I just need to binge on movies, and for me, this is the perfect place to do it. Right after, I like to drink a beer and talk about what I’ve just seen with friends. It can sound a little boring, but I have so much fun during these kinds of days.3. Monti I used to live in this neighborhood with classmates way back when I was in acting school. Known as the artists’ quarters, it’s a beautiful area. It’s small, and it kind of gives you the feel of being in a little village, which is rare for such a big city like Rome. It’s also filled with vintage clothing stores, which I started going to because of auditions. My favorite vintage shop is called King Size.4. “Titane” I love this movie, which is a horror/sci-fi mix, because it disturbs me. It’s a film that annoys me. I went to see it and then I had to go see it again. I thought about it for days. And I think that’s how art should be — I love when art is that way. It’s something that you encounter by chance, or not, and then it changes your day or your life.5. Tate Modern Five years ago, I was staying in London for a month to enjoy the city and practice English, and I think I went every day for seven days. The first time I went in, I had this sense of shock because it looked like such a big empty space. I would go and listen to this tower of radios, Cildo Meireles’s “Babel,” and I was totally blown away. I’m not sure what the artist wanted to say, but that’s also the beauty of art. Maybe the artist had one idea and whoever witnesses an installation like that then has a different reaction.6. Kintsugi My favorite thing about visiting Japan in 2017 was seeing the art of kintsugi, which is their practice of putting back together broken things with gold and varnish. They turn something that seems like it no longer has purpose into something extremely beautiful through the act of repairing it. It’s a very powerful symbol of resilience.7. “Lo Potevo Fare Anch’io” by Francesco Bonami The title of the book translates to “I could have done it too,” which the author wrote because he wanted to bring people closer to and push people farther away from contemporary art, which I think is very provocative. One of the artists mentioned in the book is Robert Ryman, who creates these paintings and sculptures using only white paint, which is something that gives you the impression of being incredibly simple when you first think about it, but then you realize that it’s impossible to replicate. It tells you that art can be — and most of the time is — simple.8. Sziget Festival I went when I was 24. I wanted to see Budapest, because I think it’s a great European city to visit and to live in. During the day, I would explore local neighborhoods and in the evening, I would go to the festival. The setting is so crazy; it’s this island off Budapest with 60 different stages. It becomes difficult to see everything that you want to but attending is one of my favorite memories. I love music. One of my dreams is to go to Burning Man; it’s on my list.9. Naples I probably have a better relationship with Rome because it’s where I’ve built a life, but the thing I love about Naples is the state of mind that it puts me in. It reminds me of my family, of my childhood. Most of what I am and how I grew up — my mannerisms, the way I talk, the way I move — most of it comes from there. It’s something that I try to bring with me whenever I’m on set because it’s such a big part of who I am.10. “Je So’ Pazzo” You could classify Pino Daniele’s music as blues, but what we say in Naples is just that it’s “Pino’s music,” because it’s its own thing. He was so incredible because of his technical talent but also because of the way he used his music to express a moment in time in Italy, specifically in Naples. This song talks about Masaniello, a kind of spokesman of the Neapolitan people. It literally translates to “I’m crazy.” More