Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 63 Shares129 Views

      in Theater

      The Breakout Stars of 2022

      by

      Here are the actors, pop stars, dancers and artists who broke away from the pack this year, delighting us and making us think.For many of us, 2022 was the year we emerged more fully from our pandemic cocoons, venturing out to movie theaters, museums, concerts — exploring our entertainment with eager, if weary, hearts and eyes before returning home to our TVs. Along the way, artists and performers across the world of the arts had, for the first time in years, the chance to connect more closely and fully with audiences, and deliver big. Here are seven stars who captured our attention in this moment and gave us a fresh perspective.TelevisionQuinta BrunsonIn 2014, Quinta Brunson had a viral Instagram hit on her hands: a series of videos called “The Girl Who’s Never Been on a Nice Date.” At Buzzfeed, where she was first paid for taste-testing Doritos, she made popular comedic videos for the site and then sold the streaming series “Broke” to YouTube Red. In 2019, she starred in and wrote for the debut season of HBO’s “A Black Lady Sketch Show.”That trajectory set her up to deliver a rare feat: a warmhearted but not saccharine network sitcom with a pitch-perfect ensemble cast that has managed to delight critics and audiences — all while illuminating the problems of underfunded public schools. The mockumentary-style comedy, “Abbott Elementary,” which she created and stars in, debuted on ABC in December 2021 and was nominated for seven Emmy Awards this year, of which it won three.“I think a lot of people are enjoying having something that is light and nuanced,” Brunson, 32, told The New York Times Magazine earlier this year. “‘Abbott’ came at the right time.”MoviesStephanie HsuIn “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Stephanie Hsu plays a despairing daughter named Joy and the chaos-inducing villain Jobu Tupaki.A24When Stephanie Hsu was a child, she told her mother that she wanted to be an actor. Her mother “pointed at a TV screen and said, ‘There’s nobody that looks like you — that seems impossible,’” Hsu, 32, told Variety this year. Turns out, her presence onscreen was both possible and unforgettable, particularly her jaw-dropping performance in this year’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” a mind-twisting acid trip through the multiverse (and the human condition) that was a box-office hit and had critics raving.In “Everything,” her first feature film, Hsu nailed the complex role of both a depressed, despairing daughter (opposite Michelle Yeoh as her mother) and the maniacally evil, chaos-inducing villain Jobu Tupaki.“I think it’s so rare that you get to experience the scope of range within one character in one movie,” Hsu told The Times.Next up for the actress is a role in the Disney+ action-comedy series “American Born Chinese”; in Rian Johnson’s Peacock series, “Poker Face,” alongside Natasha Lyonne; and in “The Fall Guy,” an action movie starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.Pop MusicJack HarlowThe rapper Jack Harlow, who released the album “Come Home the Kids Miss You” in May, earned three Grammy nominations in November.Eduardo Munoz/ReutersThose on TikTok probably first caught wind of the rapper Jack Harlow in 2020 with his viral track “Whats Poppin.” But it wasn’t until his verse on Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” last year — the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 — that his star really began its ascent.Now, the laid-back Harlow, 24 and a Kentucky native, had his first solo No. 1 hit, the Fergie-sampling “First Class,” from his second major-label album, “Come Home the Kids Miss You,” which dropped in May. In November, he earned three Grammy nominations, including for best rap album. And in October, he served as both host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live.”“I’m looking to get away from rapping in a way where people can marvel at it and more something we can all enjoy together,” he told The Times this year.Soon, Harlow will star in a remake of the 1992 film “White Men Can’t Jump.”ArtTiona Nekkia McCloddenThe artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden in her studio; she had three major presentations of her work in New York this year.Hannah Price for The New York TimesOver the last few years, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, 41, “has emerged as one of the most singular artists of our aesthetically rich, free-range time,” Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic of The Times, wrote in her review of McClodden’s exhibition “Mask/Conceal/Carry,” a meditation on guns shown at 52 Walker in TriBeCa this year. Smith called it a “brooding beast of an exhibition, bathed in blue light.”And that was only one of three major presentations of McClodden’s work in New York in 2022. At the Museum of Modern Art, she presented a room-size fetish-themed tribute to Brad Johnson, a Black gay poet who died in 2011. At the Shed, she celebrated the groundbreaking 1983 festival Dance Black America with a program that included custom dance floors and video portraits of dancers.McClodden, who was a star of the 2019 Whitney Biennial (she won the Bucksbaum Award), emerged as a filmmaker before expanding to boundary-pushing art installations.Amid the pandemic and the George Floyd protests and counter protests, she decided to learn how to shoot guns, an activity that bore “Mask/Conceal/Carry.” “The statement is that I’m in the world, I didn’t try to run away from my position in this world, and I wanted to be able to defend myself,” she told The Times this summer.TheaterJulie BenkoA scene from the Broadway musical “Funny Girl” with Jared Grimes, left, as Eddie Ryan and Julie Benko as Fanny Brice.Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade, 2022Few can say they’ve seized an opportunity like Julie Benko, whose monthlong summer run as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of “Funny Girl” changed a lot for the actress-soprano who stepped into the role full-time between Beanie Feldstein and Lea Michele in the highly talked-about production. But even that degree of pressure didn’t weigh her down.“When you get the chance to play such an amazing role, there’s no need to take it too seriously,” Benko told the Times. “You just have to enjoy it.” Now, Benko has the title of “alternate” in “Funny Girl,” not “understudy,” performing the lead in most Thursday night shows (with an extra performance on Monday, Dec. 26, and for a full week in late February).Benko, 33, had understudied several roles before “Funny Girl,” including in the national “Spring Awakening” tour in 2008, and later in the “Les Misérables” tour, where she worked her way up to Cosette, the protagonist, from roles like “innkeeper’s wife.”In December, she will be performing at 54 Below in New York alongside her husband, the pianist Jason Yeager.Classical MusicDavóne TinesThe bass-baritone Davóne Tines performs a scene in “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife)” by Tyshawn Sorey at the Park Avenue Armory.Jeenah Moon for The New York Times“No one could accuse Davóne Tines of lacking ambition,” Oussama Zahr, a classical music critic, wrote recently in The Times when reviewing “Recital No. 1: MASS,” the bass-baritone’s personal and thoughtfully arranged Carnegie Hall debut“I really like structures,” Tines, who is in his mid-30s, told The New Yorker of “MASS” last year. “The ritualistic template of the Mass is a proven structure — centuries of culture have upheld it. Anything that I put into it will assume a certain shape. And what I put into it is my own lived experience.”Accolades for Tines have been mounting, including for, this fall, his performance in a staged version of Tyshawn Sorey’s “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife),” at the Park Avenue Armory; and for “Everything Rises,” his collaboration with the violinist Jennifer Koh, which opened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.In the work, Tines and Koh recount their complicated relationships with classical music as people of color. “I was the moth, lured by your flame,” Tines sings. “I hated myself for needing you, dear white people: money, access and fame.”DanceCatherine HurlinThe ballerina Catherine Hurlin, who was recently promoted to principal dancer at American Ballet Theater, in “Of Love and Rage,” by Alexei Ratmansky at the Metropolitan Opera House.Julieta Cervantes for The New York TimesShe may only be 26, but the ballerina Catherine Hurlin has been ascending for more than half of her life. As a girl, she secured a full scholarship to the American Ballet Theater’s Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School. Not long after, she became an apprentice with the A.B.T., then a member of the corps de ballet and eventually a soloist in 2018.Then this summer, she was one of three dancers promoted to the role of principal.“The simple serenity of Hurlin’s face, framed by cascading curls, is riveting, as is the daring amplitude of her expressive, singular dancing,” Gia Kourlas, the dance critic of The Times, wrote in June of Hurlin’s performance in Alexei Ratmansky’s “Of Love and Rage.”And in July, when Hurlin made her debut in the double role of Odette-Odile in “Swan Lake,” Kourlas called her “the future of Ballet Theater, the kind of dancer who has a fresh take on story ballets.”Her nickname? Hurricane. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Kimmel: Trump NFTs Are ‘Literally Cards Against Humanity’

      by

      “At least last time, you got a red hat. Now he’s selling you nothing,” Kimmel said of Trump’s new digital trading cards.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.‘Cards Against Humanity’On Thursday, former President Donald Trump made what he’d promoted the day before as a major announcement: the release of digital NFT trading cards featuring Trump as a superhero, an astronaut and several other fantastical figures, for $99 each.Jimmy Kimmel complained that they’re not even real trading cards, but digital ones, “which is another way of saying nothing.”“At least last time, you got a red hat. Now he’s selling you nothing! It’s literally Cards Against Humanity.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know your campaign isn’t going well when your re-election strategy is, ‘Maybe people will like me as a Pokemon.’ Trump was like, ‘These cards are like classified documents — you’ve got to catch them all.’” — JIMMY FALLON“The ex-president of the United States, the ex-most powerful man in the world, has launched a line of trading cards. It’s Grope-e-mon, with Pikacoup.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This is the least-dignified attempt at post-presidential merchandising since the launch of Tickle-me-Truman.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And by the way, we already have Donald Trump trading cards — they’re called subpoenas.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“In a way, this is all kind of gratifying to me, because a monster who tried to install himself as our fascist strongman is now reduced to hawking a line of trading cards. It’s like if Hitler escaped the bunker and released Mein Komic Book.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (QAnon Meets QVC Edition)“After teasing a ‘major announcement’ on his social media platform Truth Social, former President Trump announced today he is releasing a collection of digital trading cards. It’s what his doctors are calling ‘a new symptom.’” — SETH MEYERS“I know we say ‘This is crazy’ a lot, but this is crazy! He’s selling NFTs like a crypto bro — while he’s running for president.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He’s a business genius! Jumping in on the NFT market, when it’s at its hottest. Next, he’s releasing an exclusive line of rotary phones.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Also, got to love the timing of a former president launching his NFT line the same week a crypto scammer gets arrested. [imitating Trump] ‘They got S.B.F.? Looks like there’s an opening available, then!’” — SETH MEYERS“The timing, too. It’s astonishing. Three days after that FTX guy got arrested for fraud, Trump said, ‘Now is the time to get into the imaginary baseball card market.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If you saw that at 2 a.m., would you be like, ‘Am I having an Ambien dream?” — JIMMY FALLON“Oh, look at this — it’s like QAnon meets QVC, it really is.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Even the most die-hard Trump supporters were like, ‘OK, now I’m worried.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Even the MyPillow guy was going, ‘I think Trump’s lost it.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingAnderson Cooper and Andy Cohen joined Stephen Colbert for “Rescue Dog Rescue” on Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This Out“Drama is something I’ve always wanted to do from the beginning, and just went a long way round to get to it,” said Eddie Izzard, who for most of her career has been best known for comedy.Josefina Santos for The New York TimesThe British comedian and actor Eddie Izzard will play every character in a new Off Broadway adaptation of “Great Expectations.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Movies

      Harrison Ford Loves His Craft. ‘1923’ Tested His Limits.

      by

      LOS ANGELES — In the course of 20 months and in the midst of a pandemic, Harrison Ford filmed a “Raiders of the Lost Ark” sequel in England. He shot a 10-part comedy, “Shrinking,” in Burbank. He herded cattle up a mountain in subzero Montana temperatures for “1923,” the latest prequel to the hit western series “Yellowstone.”He also celebrated his 80th birthday.“I’ve been working pretty much back-to-back, which is not what I normally do,” said Ford, unshaven, wearing bluejeans and boots and easing into a chair at the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel here earlier this month. He was in Los Angeles for one night, for the premiere of “1923,” debuting Sunday on Paramount+. From here, it was on to Las Vegas the next morning for the next screening, yet another stop after a stretch of filming, travel and promotion that would exhaust an actor half his age.“I don’t how it happened,” Ford said, taking a sip from his cup of coffee. “But it happened.”It has been 45 years since Ford leaped off the screen as Han Solo in the first “Star Wars” movie, laying the foundation for a blockbuster career in which he has personified some of the most commercially successful movie franchises in film history. He has appeared in over 70 movies, with a combined worldwide box office gross of more than $9 billion. By now, it would seem, he has nothing left to prove.But at an age when many of his contemporaries have receded from public view, Ford is not slowing down, much less stepping away to spend more time at his ranch in Jackson, Wyo. He is still trying new things — “1923” represents his first major television part — still searching for one more role, still driven to stay before the camera.“I love it,” he said. “I love the challenge and the process of making a movie. I feel at home. It’s what I’ve spent my life doing.”And why should he slow down? Ford shows no sign of fading, physically or mentally — he was fleet and limber as he strode into the Luxe for our interview, cap pulled down, and later, as he worked the room at the post-premiere party at the Hollywood restaurant Mother Wolf. In his pace and eclectic choice of roles, including the weathered and weary rancher Jacob Dutton of “1923,” he seems as determined as ever to show that he can be more than just the swashbuckling action hero who gave the world Han Solo and Indiana Jones.“He can rest on his laurels: He doesn’t need to work financially,” said Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars” and who, at 71, does not miss the 5 a.m. wake-up calls and the hustling for the next role. “To be doing another ‘Indiana Jones’ — I’m in awe of him.”Ford is known for being gruff and nonresponsive, an actor not given to introspection and with little patience for “put me on the couch” questions. There were flashes of that during our 45 minutes together. “I know I walked myself into that dark alley where you’re now going to have to ask me to describe the character,” he said at one point. “And I don’t want to.”But for the most part Ford was forthcoming, relaxed and contemplative. This was a promotional tour, and after a half-century in the business, he knows how to do this. “I’m here to sell a movie,” Ford said, though, of course, he was there to sell a TV show — and to some extent, himself.“I don’t want to reinvent myself,” he said. “I just want to work.”Ford, center, as Jacob Dutton, an earlier patriarch of what will become the Dutton ranching empire of “Yellowstone.”Emerson Miller/Paramount+Jason Segel, left, with Ford in the Apple TV+ show “Shrinking,” of which Segel is a creator. Ford will play a psychiatrist, his second major TV role.Apple TV+FORD WAS ALWAYS more than just another charismatic Hollywood action star. He could act. There was the swagger and the smirk, but they were put to service in presenting complex heroes with flaws and self-doubt, including John Book, the detective in “Witness”; Jack Ryan, the C.I.A. analyst at the center of the Tom Clancy novels that inspired the films; and Rick Deckard, battling bioengineered humanoids in “Blade Runner.”That style distinguished him for much of his career from monosyllabic, musclebound action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jean-Claude Van Damme, and it has always been integral to his appeal: Hamill said he was struck by it the first time they acted together.“He was impossibly cool, world-weary, wary, somewhat snarky, flippant,” Hamill said.Television isn’t entirely new territory for Ford. When George Lucas cast him as a white-cowboy-hat-wearing drag racer in the 1973 film “American Graffiti,” Ford was 30, making a living as a part-time carpenter in Los Angeles. By then he had already been picking up modest roles in series like “Ironside,” “The Virginian” and “Gunsmoke” since the late 1960s.His role in “1923” is anything but modest: the great-great-great uncle of John Dutton III, the family patriarch portrayed by Kevin Costner in “Yellowstone,” TV’s most popular drama. As with “Yellowstone,” the scope of “1923” is vast — the Western vistas, the sweeping aerial shots, the complexity of the characters and their stories. It also features another major star, Helen Mirren, as his wife, Cara, the tough matriarch of the family.Ford watches little television — he said doesn’t have the time — and he knew little about “Yellowstone” when his agent first brought him the role. (In preparation, he watched some of “1883,” the first “Yellowstone” prequel, which follows an earlier generation of Duttons as they travel west by wagon train to establish the family ranch.) Based on an advance screener of the pilot, the cinematic ambitions of “1923” would be familiar to anyone who has watched “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad.” But they have, these past four months, been a pleasant surprise for Ford.“They keeping calling it television,” Ford said, gesturing with a twist of his upper torso to a television screen in the next room. “But it’s so un-television. It is, you know, a huge vista. It’s an incredibly ambitious story that he’s telling in epic scale. The scale of the thing is enormous I think for the television.”Ford said he had agreed to the role after Taylor Sheridan, the lead creator behind the “Yellowstone” franchise, brought him to his ranch outside Fort Worth and sketched out the character. (“I’m 80, and I’m playing 77,” Ford said with a wry grin. “It’s a bit of a stretch.”) Ford was intrigued by Dutton, a stoic and somber rancher who must battle in the final years of his life to protect his land and family.“The character is not the usual character for me,” Ford said, likening it to his role playing a psychiatrist with Jason Segel in “Shrinking,” created by Segel and Bill Lawrence and Brett Goldstein (of “Ted Lasso”), debuting next month on Apple TV+. “I’ve never been to a psychiatrist in my life.”“I’m aware of the interest in the politics of the characters,” he said of the “Yellowstone” franchise. Of his own character, he added: “I’m not interested in the man’s politics.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesFilming “1923” tested his resilience and his love of the craft. Montana proved a brutal place to work; the cast and crew encountered blinding blizzards and stunningly cold temperatures during 10-hour days spent almost entirely outdoors.“It was a nightmare,” said Timothy Dalton, a former James Bond, who plays a rancher who challenges Ford for control of the land. “We are on top of a hill with a blasting wind coming at us. The cameras freeze up. Your toes freeze up.”Ben Richardson, who directed most of the “1923” episodes, described filming Ford as he rode horses up steep mountains, against knife-sharp winds, as Dutton herds cattle to higher altitudes and the promise of fields to graze.“I’ve never had a complaint from him,” Richardson said. “I can’t express how much of a team player he is — to the point that it’s shocking. He’s Harrison Ford. He could be doing anything. I’m sure there are people who would prefer to have a double standing in. He did not.” He added that he had “probably seen ‘Blade Runner’ 20 times,” studying how Ford presented himself onscreen.“There’s something truly compelling about watching him deal with difficult situations,” he said.From Ford’s earliest days as Han Solo, he has been wary of being typecast as a go-to action hero. He agreed to do the blockbusters urged on him by a Lucas or Steven Spielberg, but he also sought more than laser guns and bullwhips, gravitating to films like Peter Weir’s “Witness” (1985), and to directors like Alan J. Pakula (“Presumed Innocent,” “The Devil’s Own”).“I always went from a movie for me to a movie for them,” he said, referring to directors — and audiences — with a taste for action-hero blockbusters. “I don’t want to work for just one audience.”So it is that Ford will play a rancher in “1923” and a therapist in “Shrinking”— six months before his fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, “The Dial of Destiny,” opens in June.“He doesn’t get the credit for the diversity of his choices that he has chosen,” Hamill said. “Everybody loves ‘Indiana Jones,’ but we know what it is, and we’ve seen it before — he could do those for the rest of his life. The fact that he is doing something more challenging and more thought-provoking is something I admire about him.”Ford (right, with Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill) leaped off the screen in his breakout role as Han Solo in the first “Star Wars” movie 45 years ago.20th Century FoxFord, left, with Sean Connery in the third movie of the “Indiana Jones” franchise, “The Last Crusade.” The fifth is scheduled for June 2023.Paramount Pictures, via Everett CollectionA CENTRAL PARADOX of Ford’s biography is that “Star Wars,” the franchise arguably most responsible for reshaping the industry in its image, made him one of the last true movie stars, a man whose name alone could sell tickets; Hollywood’s shift from star vehicles to intellectual property, from big screen to small, can now be neatly tracked over the arc of his career.“Star Wars” united a country — crossing geographic, class and political lines — enthralling audiences who gathered in theaters to share in its fairy-tale story of love and adventure. These days, audiences are made up of friends and family gathered in a living room, and Ford faces questions about whether the “Yellowstone” franchise is a paean to Red America.“I’m aware of the interest in the politics of the characters,” he said, adding that he had no interest in the political beliefs of Jacob Dutton. (Ford, who was born in Chicago to Democratic parents and supported Joe Biden against Donald Trump in 2020, suggested that the audience for “Yellowstone” was so vast that it was unlikely to be made up of only Republicans.)When Ford began working on “1923,” Sheridan told him to approach it as if it was 10 hourlong movies. “And that’s the way it feels to me,” Ford said. “But we’re working at a television pace. There’s something about movies that allows for, you know, a little bit, you know, a kind of luxury of time and a certain …”He hesitated as he considered the risks of a road better not taken, of Harrison Ford weighing in on the merits of movies versus television. “I don’t think I really want to get too deep into this because there’s no place to go with it, for me.”“I’m doing the same job,” he said. “It’s just being boxed and distributed in a different way.”At a time when many contemporaries are winding down, Ford still keeps a demanding schedule. “I love it,” he said of his work. “It’s what I’ve spent my life doing.”Chantal Anderson for The New York TimesFord is not a pioneer. He resisted television for many years, and in finally relenting, he is following other major box office stars — Kevin Costner on “Yellowstone” and Sylvester Stallone on “Tulsa King” — who have joined Taylor Sheridan television productions.Still, as he prepared to attend the premiere of “1923,” at a big screen tucked away in an American Legion Hall in Hollywood, it was clear where his heart remained.“The important thing is to go into a dark room with strangers, experience the same thing and have an opportunity to consider your common humanity,” Ford said. “With strangers. And the music — the sound system is better, right? The dark is deeper, right? And the icebox not so close.”Ford paused at his revealing reference to a kitchen appliance from another era — the era when he grew up. He could not help but laugh at his lapse. “Icebox!” he said. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Kimmel Jokes About Elon Musk’s Business Acumen

      by

      Maybe Musk “finally read ‘The Art of the Deal,’” Kimmel said, after reports emerged that Twitter had stopped paying its bills. 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 for BusinessElon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person, following a drop in Tesla shares. And one of his other companies, Twitter, has stopped paying rent on its offices and has stiffed some of its vendors, according to reports.“Of all the problems I would have guessed the second-richest man in the world would have, paying rent wasn’t one of them,” Jimmy Kimmel said. “Maybe he should change the name from Twitter to ‘Squatter,’ you know?”“Don’t worry, Elon. You still have your sparkling wit and personality.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Here’s what happened: Most of Musk’s fortune comes from Tesla, but in the last year, Tesla stock has lost about 50 percent of its value, in part because Musk’s Twitter politics are adding pressure on Tesla’s brand image. And it doesn’t help that the new Model X comes pre-loaded with Kanye’s tweets.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“He’s also apparently stopped paying his vendors. I guess, I don’t know, maybe he finally read ‘The Art of the Deal’ and now he’s doing it Trump-style.”— JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Holding Out for a Hero Edition)“Is he announcing Dean Cain as his running mate?” — JIMMY FALLON, on a post from Donald Trump promising a “major announcement,” with a video featuring Trump as a superhero“I think the major announcement is that Trump has a lot of time on his hands.” — JIMMY FALLON“Right after that was released, Ron DeSantis’s poll numbers shot up another 20 points.” — JIMMY FALLON“Maybe Eric learned to tie his shoes? Who knows?” — JIMMY KIMMEL, speculating about the nature of the announcement“I don’t know about you, but I won’t be able to sleep tonight, waiting to find out.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden was incredulous to learn that the “Late Late Show” band doesn’t like Mariah Carey’s iconic Christmas anthem.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightBesties Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper will pop by Thursday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutThe director Alexandra Pelosi, right, recording her mother, Nancy Pelosi, for the documentary “Pelosi in the House.”HBOAlexandra Pelosi directed the new HBO documentary about her mother, Nancy, “Pelosi in the House.” More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Boss, Dancer and Reality TV Star Known as tWitch, Dies at 40

      by

      Mr. Boss spent nine years with “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” as D.J., guest host and, eventually, an executive producer.Stephen Boss, a charismatic hip-hop dancer and television personality known as tWitch who rose to fame on the reality show “So You Think You Can Dance” before becoming a regular on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” died on Tuesday in a motel room in Los Angeles. He was 40.The death was ruled a suicide by the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office.Mr. Boss joined “So You Think You Can Dance” in 2008 as a 25-year-old with a talent for popping — a dance form associated with hip-hop that involves isolating parts of the body with a staccato rhythm — and an ability to make the judges burst into laughter with his facial expressions and theatrics.He soon found himself dancing unfamiliar styles like the waltz and the tango on national television, and he finished the show’s fourth season as runner-up. Later on in the series, Mr. Boss performed a hip-hop duet with Ellen DeGeneres — featuring him as a therapist in a sweater vest and her as his client — that would end up shaping the rest of his career.As a bubbly presence on TV who liked to wear a fedora and often broke into dance, Mr. Boss spent nearly a decade with “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” as D.J., guest host and, eventually, an executive producer. “I count on him to look over at and make silly jokes,” Ms. DeGeneres said in an episode this year, the show’s last. “He’s my pal, he’s my sidekick.”In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. DeGeneres said she was “heartbroken” over the death, calling Mr. Boss “pure love and light.”Stephen Laurel Boss was born on Sept. 29, 1982, in Montgomery, Ala., to Connie Boss Alexander and Sandford Rose. He started dancing as a teenager and earned the nickname tWitch because he could not stop moving in school or in church.“Dance constitutes a lot of the conversation that I have,” Mr. Boss told the website Collider in 2014. “While I’m not a ridiculous wordsmith and I can’t clearly verbalize the things that I’m feeling sometimes, I’d say that I can emote how I feel by dancing, 100 percent of the time, and fearlessly at that.”By the time Mr. Boss made it onto “So You Think You Can Dance,” he had already competed on “Star Search” and the MTV show “The Wade Robson Project,” in addition to more traditional dance training at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.If he had not been chosen for “So You Think You Can Dance,” he said in interviews, he planned to join the Navy. But the show embraced him, and for years he would return to dance with new contestants and serve as a judge.Mr. Boss’s marriage also had its origins on the reality show. After dancing with Allison Holker — a contemporary dancer who had performed on Season 2 — at a party at the end of a later season, they became inseparable.“We danced and we were together, like holding hands the very next day, and never looked back,” Ms. Holker Boss told People magazine this year.Dance was often at the center of their relationship: Mr. Boss proposed while the couple were filming choreography for a Microsoft commercial, and the dance — later posted online — turned into a romantic duet. They married in 2013 and built a significant social media following, hosting a reality TV show and posting both dance videos and peeks into their life raising a family.“Stephen lit up every room he stepped into,” Ms. Holker Boss said in a statement. “He valued family, friends and community above all else, and leading with love and light was everything to him.”In addition to his wife and his parents, Mr. Boss is survived by a son, Maddox; a daughter, Zaia; a stepdaughter, Weslie; a brother, Deondre Rose; a grandfather, Eddy Boss; and two grandmothers, Elnora Rose and Marie Boss.After finding fame as a dancer, Mr. Boss explored an acting career. He appeared in films in the “Step Up” franchise and in the second “Magic Mike” movie. (In his role as Ms. DeGeneres’s sidekick, he had his body hair waxed on her show in preparation for “Magic Mike XXL.”)With Ms. DeGeneres’s show ending this year after 19 seasons, Mr. Boss called his return to “So You Think You Can Dance” as a judge a “full-circle moment” in an interview on the “Today” show. He then put his talk-show charm on display as he gave the hosts dance lessons in salsa, popping and locking, and the robot.If you are having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Doesn’t Want to Editorialize, but He Will

      by

      Colbert was shocked by a report that 34 lawmakers texted Mark Meadows about subverting the 2020 election. “That is unbelievable — 34 people wanted to talk to Mark Meadows!” he 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.He Gets AroundStephen Colbert was amazed by a report that 34 Republican lawmakers had exchanged text messages with Mark Meadows, the former Trump chief of staff, about overturning the 2020 election results.“That is unbelievable — 34 people wanted to talk to Mark Meadows!” Colbert said on Tuesday night.“These members of Congress communicating with Meadows were — and it’s not my place to editorialize — stupid, evil traitors who were trying to do crimes against democracy, for which they should be punished with decades of jail time.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Turns out the calls were coming from inside the House — and the Senate.” — JIMMY KIMMELJimmy Kimmel said “all the usual suspects” were among the 34, including Ted Cruz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan. “It’s like a gang of Batman’s dumbest enemies,” he said. Another was Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who was said to have written that “we are at a point of no return in saving our Republic!! Our LAST HOPE is invoking Marshall Law!!”“But instead of ‘martial’ he spelled it ‘Marshall,’ like the chain of off-price department stores. And if Marshall Law doesn’t work, we’ll mobilize the TJ Maxxinistas.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Thank God this coup wasn’t planned by people who could solve the Wordle. We’d all be in a lot of trouble right now.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Respecting Marriage Edition)“Today, President Biden hosted a ceremony on the South Lawn to sign a bill that mandates federal recognition for same-sex marriages. When he heard, Mike Pence was like, ‘Barkeep, give me a shot of whole milk. Just leave the whole carton.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Respecting marriage? Wow, he really is undoing all of Trump’s orders.” — SETH MEYERS“That bill passed with strong bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Wow, even the partisanship was bi. That’s really great.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, the bill protects all marriages, unless you’re one of those couples who feed each other in public. Then you’re on your own.” — JIMMY FALLON“That is great news. And I hope you were listening, Alan and Brad. No more excuses. Grandma’s not going to live forever. I booked the Doubletree by the lake for June 9. Get a linen suit.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingSeth Meyers took Lizzo day drinking on Tuesday’s “Late Night.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightTegan and Sara will perform a song from their new album “Crybaby” on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutSZA revels in mixed emotions on her second studio album. Jemal Countess/Getty ImagesSZA puts complex craftsmanship into songs that sound like spontaneous confessions on her new album, “SOS.” More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      Stuart Margolin, Emmy Winner for ‘The Rockford Files,’ Dies at 82

      by

      A sought-after character actor for decades, he worked frequently with James Garner. He also wrote and directed.Stuart Margolin, a character actor best known for playing the sidekick to James Garner’s private detective on the hit series “The Rockford Files,” a role that won Mr. Margolin back-to-back Emmy Awards as best supporting actor in 1979 and 1980, died on Monday in Staunton, Va. He was 82.His family said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.Mr. Margolin was all over television from the early 1960s into this century, turning up in episodes of dozens of shows as well as in assorted TV movies. He also had a substantial behind-the-scenes career: He wrote several TV movies and directed episodes of “The Rockford Files,” “The Love Boat,” “Touched by an Angel” and numerous other series. In 1987 he and Ted Bessell shared an Emmy nomination for directing for “The Tracey Ullman Show.”Mr. Margolin’s career was tied to that of Mr. Garner, one of Hollywood’s top stars, at several points. Before “The Rockford Files,” which was seen on NBC from 1974 to 1980, he and Mr. Garner were in “Nichols” (1971-72), a short-lived western; Mr. Garner played the title character, a sheriff, and Mr. Margolin played his deputy.After “Rockford,” the two men were in another western, “Bret Maverick” (1981-82), a sequel to “Maverick,” the show that helped make Mr. Garner a star in the 1950s and early ’60s. Mr. Margolin also directed Mr. Garner in several “Rockford Files” TV movies.“Jim has been better to me than anyone else in my life except my father,” Mr. Margolin was quoted as saying in “The Garner Files,” a 2011 memoir by Mr. Garner, who died in 2014.Mr. Margolin in 1978. His ability to create memorable impressions, often with very little screen time, made him a fixture of casting directors’ call lists. Associated PressMr. Garner may have helped his career along, but it was Mr. Margolin’s ability to create memorable impressions, often with very little screen time, that made him a fixture of casting directors’ call lists. That was true even of his Emmy-winning role as Angel Martin, who once served prison time with Rockford and was both his friend and a thorn in his side.“Stuart Margolin, as Angel, is not on the show every week,” the syndicated columnist Dick Kleiner wrote in 1979. “And even when he is on, mostly he is in for little bits and pieces.”“But,” he added, “Margolin has created a vivid character in Angel, no matter how little he is seen. He is notably sleazy — in mind and body — and that’s what makes him fun.”In his memoir, Mr. Garner gave Mr. Margolin full credit for making the most out of the character.“I confess that I’ve never understood why Rockford likes Angel so much, because he’s rotten to the core,” he wrote. “But there’s something lovable about him. I don’t know what it is, but it’s all Stuart’s doing.”NBC had not wanted Mr. Margolin, Mr. Garner wrote. But he was cast in the pilot, and Angel made several more appearances.“NBC still didn’t want him and they told us point-blank not to use him again,” he wrote. “Then he got an Emmy nomination.”Stuart Margolin was born on Jan. 31, 1940, in Davenport, Iowa, to Morris and Gertrude Margolin. He spent much of his childhood in Dallas, where he learned to golf. His first newspaper mentions were in write-ups of the results of golf tournaments.He became good enough at the sport that, he said, he had scholarship offers from several universities. But he was more interested in acting — he caught the bug when he played Puck in a local production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at age 8 — so, after graduating from a boarding school in Tennessee, he went west to study at the Pasadena Playhouse in California.He appeared in numerous stage productions, and he continued to work in the theater throughout his career. But in 1961 he landed his first TV role, on “The Gertrude Berg Show,” and soon television was dominating his résumé.He achieved a new level of visibility when he landed a role as a regular on “Love, American Style,” a buzz-generating series that debuted in 1969 and on which his brother Arnold was an executive producer.That series consisted of several vignettes per episode, with comic skits in between. He was among the cast members performing those skits. Sample bit: Mr. Margolin is behind the wheel in a car, complaining to someone in the back seat that “every time you fix me up with a chick, she turns out to be a dog.” The camera pans to the passenger seat, where, sitting next to Mr. Margolin, is an actual dog.In a 1981 interview with The Associated Press, Mr. Garner said Mr. Margolin’s work on that show caught his attention, especially a skit in which Mr. Margolin had a cell door slammed in his face.“I fell out of my chair,” Mr. Garner said. And he knew he had found his “Nichols” sidekick.“I love comedy and I study comedy and comedians,” Mr. Garner recalled. “I said, ‘That’s the guy.’”Mr. Margolin, who lived in Staunton, is survived by his wife, Patricia Dunne Margolin, whom he married in 1982; his brothers, Arnold and Richard; a sister, Anne Kalina; two stepsons, Max and Christopher Martini; a stepdaughter, Michelle Martini; and four step-grandchildren. His marriage to Joyce Eliason ended in divorce.In addition to acting and directing, Mr. Margolin dabbled in music. In 1980 he released a country-rock album, “And the Angel Sings,” for which he was a co-writer on some of the songs. Reviewing it in The Detroit Free Press, Mike Duffy called it “an album of style, wit and lowdown fun.”“It’s almost as if Soupy Sales and Willie Nelson got together,” he wrote. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Movies

      How Science Fiction Movies Prepared Us for the Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

      by

      The promise of a new, bountiful energy source, not to mention the giant lasers, may sound familiar to fans of science fiction and comics.Today we step into the future. And it looks a lot like a movie we’ve all seen.Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced Tuesday that they had made a major breakthrough in studying fusion, a.k.a. the thermonuclear reaction that keeps the sun going. The news, about trying to harness literal star power the likes of which Hollywood could only dream, stirred great hopes because, if replicated and controlled, it could one day provide a bountiful source of carbon-free energy.If that sounds like science fiction, well, that’s because we’ve been amply primed for this discovery in pop culture, where alternative versions of our present and fantastical imaginings of our future have shown us impossible technologies powered by some combination of special effects and incomprehensible jargon.You probably already have some familiarity with fusion thanks to movies.At the end of the 1985 sci-fi classic “Back to the Future,” Dr. Emmett Brown, played by Christopher Lloyd, soups up his tricked-out time-traveling DeLorean by feeding trash into a canister called the Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor attached to the top of the car. And in “Spider-Man 2,” from 2004, the well-meaning scientist Dr. Octavius (a.k.a. Doc Ock, played by Alfred Molina) creates a fusion reactor with an artificial sun at the center. But when it gets out of control, so does he, transforming into a villain who aims to re-create the dangerous machine.Pop culture’s fascination with fusion goes beyond a process that sustains robotics and machinery; our culture’s collective dreams of safe, unlimited energy have even been epitomized by some of our heroes.Comic book protagonists like Captain Atom and Doctor Solar have bodies that can manipulate atoms to create blasts of energy. Firestorm, who was a regular in the CW’s Arrowverse, can change the particle structures of any substance and transmute it; and he himself is a kind of metaphor for the power of fusion, in that he was, in his first incarnation, a combination of two different people, Ronnie Raymond (played by Robbie Amell) and Martin Stein (Victor Garber). The DC Comics hero Damage has a body that functions as a biochemical fusion reactor, and then there’s the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s darling, Tony Stark, an engineer who Einsteins himself a miniature arc reactor (that glowing bit of chest jewelry) to power his Iron Man suit and keep him alive.The New York City of the M.C.U. is transformed by Stark technology, most prominently the arc reactor. Stark Tower appears in various Marvel movies and TV shows as the symbol of an alternate reality in which energy — and possibilities, superheroic or otherwise — are limitless.The same is true in many popular science-fiction universes, like “Star Wars,” where there are mentions of fusion generators and fusion reactors, and “Star Trek,” where the engineering systems of Federation starships use a “fusion reaction subsystem.”The workings of these fictional sciences are functional, plot-wise, but not always precise, clear or accurate. No matter how many times I watch my favorite sci-fi films and series, I still can’t tell a parsec from a cylinder of drugstore plutonium. And even now that fusion energy might be in our future, my relationship with it remains unchanged: Leave science to the scientists and MacGuffins to the writers.As long as we’re not breaking any scientific laws or introducing blatant contradictions, as a viewer I’m just here for the ride. Because it will be some time before we’re using fusion reactors to power our personal supersuits and fly off to boldly go where no sci-fi creator has gone before. Still, the science of today will lead us into a tomorrow where — great Scott! — there is no cap on the possibilities. More