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      Michaela Watkins Shares A Few Photos from Her Phone

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      Seven PhotosThe Dog Days of Michaela WatkinsThe star of “Paint” contemplates work, canines, a coyote attack and mortality while bouncing between the coasts.April 7, 2023Michaela Watkins describes herself as an actress who doesn’t know where she’s going to be next week. That’s only a small exaggeration.“Paint,” the comedy loosely based on the painter Bob Ross and co-starring Owen Wilson and Wendi McLendon-Covey, will be her fourth film to open this year. It premieres the same day as “Tiny Beautiful Things,” a Hulu mini-series in which Ms. Watkins appears with Kathryn Hahn.“There’s nobody better,” Ms. Watkins, 51, said of Ms. Hahn. “The only person better is Julia Louis-Dreyfus.” Ms. Louis-Dreyfus and Ms. Watkins shared the screen this year in the film “You Hurt My Feelings.” (And in case you’re curious, Ms. Watkins’s other two films this year are “The Young Wife” and “History of the World: Part II.”)With her work taking her away from her home in Ojai, Calif., where she lives with her husband, Fred Kramer, and their two dogs, to New York, London and beyond, Ms. Watkins makes good use of her time off. When we caught up, she was thoroughly enjoying a mini-vacation in California’s wine country. “I probably could drink my own urine and be drunk,” she said. “I’ve just had so much wine in the last 48 hours.”Be that as it may, she was fresh-faced, sober and ready to talk through seven photos she had taken during her recent travels across the East and West Coasts.These are edited excerpts from the interview.This is one of my dogs, Wuzzabear. I call her “fatty bum bum,” thanks to one of my dear British friends. She’s our puppy we got during the pandemic, and she’s not perfectly socialized because of that, but she loves attention from other dogs. She’s so thirsty on the playground, and it’s really embarrassing.I’m suspicious of people who don’t let their dogs on their beds. That’s like 80 percent of why dogs are the best: just the “schnoogles,” the cuddling, the hot breath on your face, the weight of their body on you. If, God forbid, I have a terminal disease, just put me in a bed with 1,000 dogs and just let me waste away.When I was in New York, I did what I called the “aging parents tour.” We saw my mother-in-law and we saw my father and his wife. When I was visiting my father, he gave me these Depression-era glasses. They’ve been in his cabinet as long as I can remember. This idea that he says “I’m not going to need this” is very sad.My dad is really fit. He’s 86 and he’s active. He rides his bike, he kayaks, he hikes, he plays trombone in a band, he’s learning Italian, he’s teaching literacy. He’s phenomenal. But we went for a hike in the snow and he was having trouble. It really gets to him.I stopped by my friend Ari Graynor’s. She’s a fellow actress and she bought a farmhouse in upstate New York. Her partner, Michael, is an incredible chef. He does these incredible things called “Death Over Dinner,” where they have a nice dinner and talk about death.What better place to talk about dying than while we’re with people and experiencing really incredible joy with life? And to feel sated with food and drink, while you talk about the thing that you don’t want to talk about, which is our inevitable death. I do not like small talk, I just want to roll up my sleeves and get into it.This is my friend Aya Cash — she’s a phenomenal actress. I worked with her on a movie recently called “The Young Wife,” which just debuted at South By Southwest. She’s a peer, but in this movie she played my stepdaughter, which is weird. Whatever.This is her right after she performed in “The Best We Could.” It’s a beautiful play, and what I really loved about it is that Aya really fell in love with acting again. I’m a little afraid to do theater again. It’s been so long that I’m scared, which makes me think even more I should do it. For five years after I graduated from college, I did regional theater and I always had impostor syndrome. Even though I was getting parts, I felt like I didn’t truly deserve them.My dad’s wife said to me one-time, “You were so great in this play, and boy, you used to be terrible. We were really scared.” At least she was honest.This is at the premiere of “Tiny Beautiful Things,” which is Kathryn Hahn’s new show. In the middle is Cheryl Strayed, who is my hero. Cheryl saved my life. She used to have an advice column called “Dear Sugar,” and my friend Joey Soloway turned me on to her. I was going through a breakup, the death of a friend — a really awful time. I was super depressed and worried that I’d ruined my own life. Her letters breathed life into me and got me through a really hard time. I kept saying, “I feel like I know her.” I didn’t know her, but it turns out we both lived in Portland in the ’90s around the corner from each other. I don’t really fangirl, but when I meet her, my whole personality goes out the window. I just kind of sit there and smile and laugh too hard at everything she says.Tess Morris is a writer friend of mine. She’s in New York now writing on “Only Murders in the Building.” She and I became really good friends when she came out to Ojai and there was a coyote attack on my dog. All the dogs survived, but barely. And I survived, but barely. I was in the hospital for a few days with a bone infection. Anyway, it bonded us.When we were in New York, we went to the “Succession” premiere, which is my all-time favorite show. I think it’s the greatest comedy that’s ever been. We thought we both looked pretty spiffy, so she’s taking a picture of me and I’m taking a picture of her.This just pretty much sums up L.A. It’s a city that makes no sense. Somebody just randomly thought, I’ll put this beautiful flower pot here! And somebody just smashed their garbage bins up against it. And then this fence, which is like, Keep out! You don’t belong here! And, Smile! You’re on Camera. It’s a little snapshot of Los Angeles. More

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      ‘Yellowjackets’ Season 2, Episode 3 Recap: Hunger Games

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      Adult Shauna tries to fill the gaping hole inside. Teen Misty gives an interesting monologue.Season 2, Episode 3: ‘Digestif’This week’s episode of “Yellowjackets” is a tale of two monologues.First, we have adult Shauna, pointing a gun at a carjacker to get her minivan back. “Have you ever peeled the skin off a human corpse?” she asks. “It’s not as easy as you might think. It’s really stuck on us, skin.”As she speaks, her eyes blaze with hunger. Maybe not quite a hunger for flesh, but the memory of that hunger is being funneled into her desire for something thrilling in her current life. She wants to kill, even if she doesn’t want to eat. “My hand wasn’t shaking because I was afraid,” she explains, countering the man’s earlier assumptions. “It was shaking because of how badly I wanted to do this.”Melanie Lynskey is phenomenal in the scene, her face a mixture of excitement and arousal. You can just about see the saliva forming around her lips as she contemplates (or resists) pulling the trigger. It’s not about the minivan or her daughter’s childhood toy inside. She has a blood lust. The threat is the closest she can come to getting what will satisfy her.And then there’s young Misty, in the woods, performing at Shauna’s depressing, post-cannibalism baby shower. Having tasted (and digested) the forbidden flesh, she, too, is looking for another way to fill her emptiness. Encouraged by her new friend Crystal, Misty decides to give Shauna the gift of theater, doing her best Sally Field in “Steel Magnolias” for her skeptical teammates.It’s a weird choice. “Did she really choose a scene about a dead daughter?” Tai wonders out loud. Misty squeals: “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. I can jog all the way to Texas and back but my daughter can’t,” invoking the sorrow of a woman who lost her child. Despite the initial skepticism, by the time Misty finishes, the other girls erupt in applause. Misty smiles. She is also being satiated in a way. Finally, she is getting more of that attention she so desires.Cleverly titled “Digestif,” this episode is shockingly less about the guilt of consuming Jackie’s corpse than one might think. Other than Taissa, who ate while technically asleep, the rest of the survivors have grimly come to terms with their actions. Natalie elects to bring what’s left of Jackie to the plane so she can be buried with the crash victims when the ground thaws. In her weariness, Natalie actually envies Jackie — “Way to make everyone jealous of you one last time,” she says — who will not have to endure the rest of the winter.There’s a bit of awkward discomfort regarding their cannibalism among the others, but also satisfaction. Misty and Crystal gab about how it wasn’t all that bad, and Crystal — that oddball — confesses it wasn’t the first time she had eaten a person. “I actually absorbed my identical twin in the womb,” she says. These two are giddy as if they had just shoplifted from the mall. The transgression is exciting rather than disturbing.The one person who remains hungry is Coach Scott, a.k.a. Ben, who didn’t partake and has now entered a fugue state, where he relives memories, or perhaps near-memories, of his time with an ex-boyfriend. At first, these scenes seem like straight flashbacks. Ben is resistant to committing to a relationship with Paul (​​François Arnaud) for fear of being outed. “You always say those girls are vicious little monsters,” Paul says, challenging Ben’s desire to stay with the team. Little did either of them know just how vicious the girls could be.But the more these sequences progress, the more they begin to seem like an alternate timeline, with Ben envisioning what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten on that plane. The moments between Ben and Paul are a little static. They feel like they come from another show, in which the dialogue and the actions are blunter. I started to wonder if that was an intentional choice by the showrunners. Before Ben descends into these fantasy memories, we see and hear the fuzz and sound of vintage TV static. He’s playing back these scenes as if rewinding a VCR. They have the schmaltz of a prime-time soap or a cheesy movie.Even just three hours into the new season, we can start to divide the Yellowjackets into who is aware of their own reality and who is not. Taissa — in the past and in the present — is not. In the ’90s, she follows the lead of the “man with no eyes” into the wilderness at night, not in possession of her own body. The current day Taissa is feeling that same force taking hold. With her wife in the hospital after the car accident Taissa caused, the shadow self is growing stronger, appearing in a bathroom mirror, contorting Taissa’s face.Something similar is happening to grown-up Lottie, who runs an entire enterprise on being in touch with one’s emotions but finds herself getting lost in her own head. Her latest hallucination comes courtesy of the bees she keeps on her commune. She has a vision of these creatures as dead, their hive filled with bloody honey. Lottie clearly identifies with the queen bee, and now she is besieged by an image of the hive’s demise, one that may foretell her own. She hears a voice say what sounds like “Il veut de sang,” French for “He wants blood,” before snapping out of the hallucination.On the other side of the spectrum are Shauna and Misty. Shauna is in full control of her faculties when she takes it upon herself to reclaim her family’s car, and Misty is still on the hunt for Natalie, now ensconced with Lottie. Now, however, Misty has an accomplice. Meet the brilliantly named Walter Tattersall, played by Elijah Wood, another message web sleuth who offers to help Misty in her investigation.Their interrogation of the doltish Randy (Jeff Holman) leads to some amusing “Cyrano”-like high jinks — even though Misty detests “Cyrano” — and Walter seems pleasant enough. Still, it’s hard to say whether he can be trusted. He comes clean, explaining that he didn’t bring his mother to the nursing home in order get Misty’s attention. Instead, he just recruited a random old lady. Misty is befuddled.“Maybe I’m just a bored Moriarty looking for his Sherlock,” he says.Wood has such an easy, cheery demeanor that you almost think he meant to say Watson, Sherlock’s partner. But no, he invokes Moriarty, Sherlock’s greatest foe. What is his game plan here? Or is “Moriarty” actually the perfect reference for the kind of person who performs a monologue about a dead daughter at a baby shower?More to chew on:Jeff is so wonderfully characterized as a huge dork. He thinks strawberry lube is for “bisexuals and Goths.” His idea of a spontaneous trip is to go to Colonial Williamsburg and churn butter. Oh Jeff, you silly, naïve loser.Once again, this show is expertly deploying Tori Amos. This time it’s “Bells for Her,” a song about the dissolution of a female friendship. “Can’t stop what’s coming,” Amos sings. “Can’t stop what’s on its way.”The symbol the Yellowjackets find in the woods is getting quite a workout. In the ’90s, Taissa is drawn to it in her sleep, finding it carved into a tree. In the present, she draws it on her wife. Past Lottie embroiders it on a baby blanket for Shauna, which may or may not have triggered a mass bird death around their cabin. Are we getting closer to finding out who or what it is?Travis determines that Ben is acting “weird.” At risk of sounding like a teenager: Duh, dude. More

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      Seth Meyers Defends New York City From Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      “I don’t go to her hometown and say nasty things about it, although I don’t know where she’s from,” Meyers said. “I’m assuming the videotape from ‘The Ring’?”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.Start Spreading the NewsIn a recent interview with Tucker Carlson, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene referred to New York City as “disgusting,” “filthy,” “repulsive” and “a terrible place.”“How dare you say that in the city that is home to Fox News headquarters!” Seth Meyers joked on Thursday.“Only Republicans would go to liberal cities and [expletive] on them — it doesn’t work the other way around. I don’t go to her hometown and say nasty things about it, although I don’t know where she’s from. I’m assuming the videotape from ‘The Ring’?”— SETH MEYERS“After attending a rally in Manhattan in support of former President Trump on Tuesday, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized New York during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson and said, ‘I think it’s a very terrible place.’ But the joke’s on you, Marjorie, because once you think that, you’re officially a New Yorker.” — SETH MEYERS“After visiting New York to protest Trump’s arrest, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene called the city ‘a terrible place that is disgusting, filthy and repulsive.’ But don’t worry, things got a lot better here after she left.” — JIMMY FALLON“The only people who are allowed to [expletive] on New York — the only people — are New Yorkers, because we love it and we love how mad it makes us. It’s not an easy city to live in — you fight and claw and you finally get the job of your dreams, and you move into a New York City apartment, and you give a little fist pump and you say, ‘Yes!’ and then your neighbor pounds on the wall and screams, ‘Keep the [expletive] noise down!’” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Old C.T. Edition)“I am sure this billionaire Republican didn’t want to influence nobody. He just — no, no, he — no! He just wanted to go on vacation with Clarence Thomas, you know, because we all know that Clarence Thomas is clearly a bag of fun. Just be straight up! Who wouldn’t want to pull up on Miami Beach with old C.T.?” — ROY WOOD JR., on Justice Clarence Thomas’s reported failure to disclose that he’d accepted luxury trips from a billionaire conservative donor“Here’s my question: If you’re going to buy a Supreme Court justice, why would you spend all that money on luxury yachts and planes for Clarence Thomas? You could have bought Brett Kavanaugh for a bottle of Jager and a Southwest boarding pass.” — ROY WOOD JR.The Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon invited a few talented dogs to show off their sports-related talents on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutPhoto Illustration: The New York Times; Photo: Noam Galai/Getty Images for Tibet House USThe indie rock singers Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus talk about their collaborative side project, boygenius, on this week’s Popcast! More

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      ‘Star Trek: Picard’ Season 3, Episode 8 Recap: Consequences Abound

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      Jean-Luc breaks Data in case of emergency. Vadic makes a move.Season 3, Episode 8: ‘Surrender’Much of this season of “Picard” revolves around familial relationships, particularly parenting. There’s how we choose to do it (Beverly). The consequences of avoiding it entirely (Jean-Luc). The weight of keeping our children safe (Geordi). How we grieve (Riker and Troi.)It takes being captured on a brutal enemy’s ship for Riker and Troi to finally have an impactful conversation about their marriage and the loss of Thad, their child. Riker wanted to bathe in his grief as his lone remaining connection to Thad. Troi wanted to protect Riker from that pain using her Betazoid abilities, which has the unintended effect of pushing a wedge between them. Riker wanted to cocoon himself, which was unacceptable to Troi.In their prison cell, they are honest with each other, as married couples should be. It turns out their grief is a prison unto itself. They disagree on how to grieve, but it shows the strength of the foundation of their relationship that they can finally talk like this. (Another indication: We learn that a changeling came to Riker and Troi’s home pretending to be Riker, which Troi snuffed out right away.)“You can’t skip to the end of healing,” Troi says.And then she embraces him, as a loving spouse would, rather than as the ship’s counselor we’ve come to know for decades. Troi also informs Riker that she doesn’t like their move to the intergalactic suburbs. Fair enough. Been there.This was just about the only scene that worked for me the entire episode in a season that has otherwise been great. When Worf shows up to rescue Riker and Troi, he gives a campy, borderline romantic speech about how he is now sensitive to Troi, which Riker notes is “inappropriate.” He’s right! It was weird!When things seem bleakest for the Titan, Jack has a deus ex machina at the ready: He is a living Professor X with Cerebro capabilities. He can control others’ movements, read their minds and see through them — although we don’t know why. It’s a handy tool when your ship has been overtaken. (Parenting looms over small moments of the season, too, as when Jack quips to Vadic that Beverly taught him “better manners than that.”)But it’s hard to separate this from the fact that none of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for another disastrous planned hatched by Jean-Luc in last week’s episode, which caused the crew to lose control of the Titan to begin with. Captured on the bridge, Shaw lectures Seven about the consequences of our actions. Jean-Luc placed the ship and its crew — once again — in great danger with a foolhardy plan to bait Vadic in last week’s episode. Now we see the consequences: T’Veen (Stephanie Czajkowski) is executed, a crew member that 100 percent died in a needless way.Speaking of Shaw: The writing of his character this season has been all over the place. It undermines his character, despite a strong performance from Todd Stashwick. When Vadic moves to execute one of his crew members, Seven tries to intervene and sacrifice herself. Shaw, the captain, holds her back, telling her there’s nothing she can do. This seemed out of character compared with the Shaw we saw earlier in the season — the rule-following captain who prioritizes the safety of his crew.Shaw strikes me as the type of person who would have offered to sacrifice himself, rather than interrupting Seven’s attempt to do so. Just moments before, Shaw upbraids Seven for not blowing up the turbolift with him inside to keep Vadic from taking over the ship. When T’Veen is executed, Shaw barely reacts. Given his emotiveness throughout the season, that stuck out like a sore thumb.Even so, this episode seemingly brings an end to Vadic, who is sucked out into space, and the Shrike, which is blown up by the newly emboldened Titan crew. As Vadic, Amanda Plummer played an excellent villain, but she deserved a better death — assuming it is a death — than to be so easily outsmarted by Jack. (Not to mention: What was Jack’s plan exactly? What if Vadic hadn’t moved the rest of the crew to another room?)Vadic also leaves with a secret: What’s the deal with Jack? Why is he Professor X? What’s up with the red door?I don’t have a great theory. But Troi says that there’s a “darkness” around Jack and a voice inside him that is “ancient and weak.” “Ancient” is an interesting hint. The Pah-wraiths perhaps? They would have had good reason to link up with changelings after what happened in “Deep Space Nine.”Odds and EndsI lied. One other part of the episode worked for me: seeing the original cast back together in one room for the first time all season. While the episode seemed rushed, this was the moment we’d all been waiting for as we head into the final episodes of the season.Data co-opts Lore’s brotherly resentment and uses it against his evil twin. Historically, Data has often had difficulty reading the room. But in this case, he diagnoses Lore’s jealousy and uses it to mold a whole new version of himself. It’s arguably the most human Data has ever been. Data seems to revel in Lore’s misery when he says, “We are me.” It’s possible that our favorite android has developed the ability to experience schadenfreude. (Also, some fun fan service when Data offers up his memories to Lore, such a Tasha Yar sighting.)Some of the behavior of this new contraction-using Data seemed silly to me, particularly when he “greets” the Titan and calls himself a “friendly positronic pissed-off security system.” If New Data is a combination of Data, Lore, B-4 and Lal, where would that language even come from? It seemed forced, just to get a laugh from the audience. But Data also seems to have a new purpose now: Instead of trying to find out what it means to be human, he’ll now contend with how to handle aging. (Data’s old friends should probably be more suspicious about Data than they seem. Lore has repeatedly shown up in their lives, and he seemed within seconds of taking over the android body entirely. How do they know that Data isn’t actually Lore taking advantage of their need to have their old friend back?)A commenter last week asked a question for which I don’t have an answer: A big part of the plot seems to concern what the changelings will do with the corpse of Jean-Luc, given that he is slated to speak at Frontier Day. But why would Jean-Luc still speak at a big Starfleet celebration when he is a fugitive?The Titan blows up the Shrike. I’m sure there’s no strategic advantage to examining a superior changeling ship’s technology when many of them have taken over Starfleet, but we digress.Vadic orders members of her crew to go find Jack. She has control over a good portion of the Titan. No one thinks to look for a doctor in sickbay? According to Beverly, Vadic didn’t have control of bridge consoles, so how did she have control of the ship? Why wouldn’t she spend her time trying to take command of the most essential section of the Titan? More

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      in Theater

      The Enduring Appeal of ‘Wagatha,’ Now on Stage and Screen

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      A dramatization of the trial between the wives of two soccer stars is returning to the West End in London, joining TV shows, podcasts and documentaries about the high-profile spat.With its stage transformed into a green soccer pitch, “Vardy v. Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial” at Wyndham’s Theater in London last November promised its nearly sold-out audience a game, and the two women onstage were both trying to score a goal.But as two pundits ooh’ed and aah’ed from the sidelines, the actresses sparring were not playing soccer stars but the women married to them, caught at the center of an Instagram feud turned high-profile libel case that captured the British public’s attention last May and peeled back the curtain hiding the machinations of British celebrity and the glitzy world of English soccer.“I see it as a comedy of manners,” said Liv Hennessy, the writer of the play, which returns to the West End on Thursday at the Ambassadors Theater. “It’s a theatrical way for us to look at the way people behave in our current society.”The play is just one recent retelling of the real-life case that became known as the “Wagatha Christie” trial, in which Rebekah Vardy, the wife of the Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy, sued Coleen Rooney, the wife of the former Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, for defamation. The catalyst: Rooney’s accusation, on Twitter, that Vardy had leaked her personal information to the British press.The wives and girlfriends of soccer players — commonly known in Britain by the acronym WAGs — have long been followed by tabloids, but Rooney’s post caused an online furor. Its escalation into the legal realm led to breathless coverage, drawing in powerhouse lawyers and unearthing revelations about both women’s personal lives.The legal side of the long-running saga came to an end last July, with the High Court ruling against Vardy, saying that the reputational damage from the scandal was not libel and ordering Vardy to pay almost all of Rooney’s legal costs, which amounted to about £1.7 million, or $1.9 million.But the case’s power as a story has lived on, with production companies, documentary makers, podcasters and journalists finding the unfolding trial and its cast of characters just too irresistible not to dissect, all helped by the availability of the weeklong case’s court transcripts.“It’s the old adage of: You can’t write this,” said Thomas Popay, the creative director of Chalkboard TV, which produced a two-part dramatization, “Vardy v. Rooney: A Courtroom Drama,” that aired on Channel 4 in Britain last December. “We literally didn’t. We took the transcripts and recreated them.”Alongside the West End play and Channel 4 show, offerings for followers of the feud include a BBC podcast called “It’s … Wagatha Christie” and the Discovery+ documentary “Vardy vs Rooney: The Wagatha Trial.” Rooney has signed a Disney+ deal for a three-part documentary looking at the events leading up to the trial, and the saga is reportedly being considered for a retelling as part of the series “A Very British Scandal.”Rebekah Vardy, left, lost her defamation case against Coleen Rooney, right, in London’s High Court last year. Rooney described how she concocted a sting operation to reveal the betrayer.Daniel Leal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“All of us can relate to the idea of being betrayed — especially betrayed by someone who we trusted,” Popay said. “And on Vardy’s side — we can all relate to not being believed.”In her 2019 social media post, Rooney described how she concocted a sting operation to reveal the betrayer by posting false stories that were visible to a single account — Vardy’s — to test if they would turn up in The Sun, a London tabloid.The popularity of the post led to Rooney being nicknamed “Wagatha Christie” — a portmanteau of WAG and Agatha Christie, the mystery writer — for her detective work. Vardy quickly denied she was the leaker and sued Rooney for defaming her.“We are absolutely interested in people’s misfortunes and what goes on in celebrity lives,” said Adrian Bingham, a professor of modern British history at the University of Sheffield who has studied media and gender issues. The women’s involvement with the soccer world gave their dispute resonance with a wider audience, he added, while the legal case gave the non-tabloid media a legitimate reason to cover it. Producers of the adaptations say they have asked their own lawyers to look over scripts, lest they find themselves accused of defamation.The court transcript itself had moments and revelations that many say were ripe for re-enactment: a phone with key evidence in the form of WhatsApp messages, apparently lost to the bottom of the North Sea; lawyers in wigs formally reading out text messages from the women, some containing profanities; Vardy’s tears on the witness stand after cross-examination by David Sherborne, Rooney’s lawyer.“It was positively Shakespearean in terms of how it went down,” said Popay. “We decided the best thing to do and the most accurate thing to do was to completely recreate the trial by using the court transcripts verbatim.” His company’s show, which was commissioned in May during the trial and aired in December, drew 1.5 million viewers.In the Channel 4 show “Vardy v. Rooney: A Courtroom Drama,” Vardy is played by Natalia Tena, seen here arriving at court.Channel 4Hennessy, the writer of the West End play, also relied heavily on the court transcripts, but took liberties by leaning into the soccer world, structuring the play like a game itself. Reading the transcripts, she said she was struck by the humanity of the two women, who have both been criticized (Vardy has said that people made abusive threats toward her and her unborn baby following that fateful post, while the trial laid bare tensions in Rooney’s marriage and her experience growing up with fame).“It does ask how complicit we are in creating public figures, and tearing them down when they don’t meet our standards,” Hennessy said.Even at a rehearsal in late March, before the play’s official return, it was clear the trial continued to intrigue and perplex even the cast members. During a pivotal scene in which Rooney is grilled by Vardy’s lawyer on precisely why she made the fateful decision to share the feud with the world, the actors broke character to pose their own burning questions: Was that decision one of a calculating woman, or a woman at a breaking point? Why had she not privately confronted Vardy? And what did it feel like to live, as they imagined Rooney did, in a world where one’s image could become a public commodity?Though celebrity gossip can be easy to dismiss as frivolous, the two opponents in the trial were both women from working-class backgrounds who laid out one aspirational pathway for others like them, said Rebecca Twomey, an entertainment correspondent who has covered both women closely.“We like to put people on pedestals — and bring them down,” she said, adding that many people enjoyed a modern-day pantomime. “You might think they’re airhead WAGs, but these are two sharp, intelligent women.”Still, the enduring appeal of the high drama of “Wagatha Christie” is also simple, Professor Bingham said.“The reason people are telling it is not because it’s insightful,” he added. “It’s because it’s a great story — with great lines.” More

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      Stephen Colbert on Trump: ‘Business Fraud Is His Brand’

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      Colbert recapped Donald Trump’s post-arraignment return to Mar-a-Lago, “where he held an angry rally for all his cult members.”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 Return of Florida ManFormer President Donald Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday after being arrested and arraigned on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.“And you know what? I’m not sure if that’s fair,” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday. “Business fraud is his brand.”“And after his arraignment, he hauled his ass to LaGuardia, got on his private jet, flew to Mar-a-Lago, where he held an angry rally for all his cult members.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Then it was time for the former president to take the stage and inspire a nation with a six-minute list of unresolved grievances. Well, come on, what do you expect? You’re listening to a 76-year-old man in Florida.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So he was arrested and released, and we never got a mug shot. But that did not stop the ex-president’s campaign from making one up and selling it on a T-shirt that says, ‘Not guilty.’ OK, but if he’s not guilty, why did you put him in a mug shot? Just sell a poster that says, ‘Wanted! for following too many laws.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Back So Soon?’ Edition)“Meanwhile, after his arraignment, Trump flew back home to Florida and held a rally in Mar-a-Lago. It’s always nice to have a traditional post-arrest reception.” — JIMMY FALLON“The whole staff looked at him like, ‘Back so soon?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Former President Trump spoke last night at Mar-a-Lago following his arraignment and said, ‘I never thought anything like this could happen in America.’ Honestly, neither did I. I mean, you got away with so many crimes for so long. Trump getting arrested was like ‘Avatar 2’ — I just figured it was never going to happen. Then it finally did, and I was like, ‘You know what? Worth the wait.’” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingJordan Klepper visited a Trump indictment rally in New York for Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightMolly Shannon will appear on Thursday’s “Tonight Show” ahead of hosting this weekend’s “Saturday Night Live.”Also, Check This OutDante ZaballaA dozen musicians, scholars and critics weighed in on the best music of the jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams. More

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      ‘Beef’ Review: Mad in America

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      A thrilling dark comedy explores the complexity of anger, through a road-rage feud between two drivers who are more alike than it seems.“I’m so sick of smiling,” says Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) in the first episode of Netflix’s “Beef.” You may have noticed that he’s not alone in this. Blame it on the pandemic, the culture, the economy, but people are mad right now, on planes and on trains and — like Danny and his car-crossed antagonist, Amy Lau (Ali Wong) — in automobiles.“Beef,” a dark comedy about a road-rage incident that careers disastrously off-road, has good timing, but that’s not enough to make a great TV series. What makes this one of the most invigorating, surprising and insightful debuts of the past year is how personally and culturally specific its study of anger is. Every unhappy person in it is unhappy in a different and fascinating way.Amy and Danny’s high-speed chase through suburban Los Angeles, following a run-in at a big-box-store parking lot, sets the tone for all 10 episodes (which arrive on Thursday). The show floors the accelerator with heedless gusto, racing a course of revenge, subterfuge and terrible decisions.But what gives “Beef” its interest is its attention to the motivations that brought the pair to that parking lot in the first place.Danny, a hard-working, hapless contractor saving to build a house for his Korean parents, is trying to return merchandise while fretting over his family and finances. Amy, an entrepreneur who married into art-world money, is trying to sell her small business to the big store’s owner, a deal she hopes will finally allow her to exhale after years of pressure. Each is this close to breaking, and each, after their near fender-bender, ends up being the other’s last straw.It is easy to see how this could have become a cynical class-war story: His working-class struggle vs. her upscale ennui, his pickup vs. her Mercedes. Instead the creator, Lee Sung Jin (“Dave”), couples a raucous story with a generous spin on the truism that the biggest jerk you meet is fighting battles you know nothing about.Danny’s problems are more existential and dire: He is the hard-working son who has taken his family on his back, including not only his parents but also his crypto-bro younger brother (Young Mazino) and his ex-convict cousin (a volatile David Choe), who become dangerously entangled in his payback schemes. It’s not just cash that he lacks; he feels an emptiness, which he tries to fill by stress-eating Burger King chicken sandwiches and by joining a rock-gospel church, an intriguing if underdeveloped subplot.Steven Yeun in “Beef.” Most of the major characters are shaped by their family and upbringing.NetflixAmy has a cushier living situation, but her stressors are not so different. She smiles through endless microaggressions from Jordan (Maria Bello), her business’s rich white potential buyer, and the intrusions of her wealthy mother-in law (Patti Yasutake). Her husband, George (Joseph Lee), has the sweet but irritating chill of privilege. She keeps a gun (paging Mr. Chekhov) in a home safe, a seeming symbol of Amy herself — a sleek container that keeps something dangerous locked away.As their battle escalates, Amy and Danny become enmeshed in each other’s lives, and their similarities become clearer. “Beef” develops into something of a love story, except about hate. You’d expect Yeun (“Minari,” “The Walking Dead”) to excel in the show’s drama and the comedian Wong (“Tuca & Bertie”) to nail the humor, but they do the reverse just as well. Wong especially taps the tension behind Amy’s exquisite octagonal glasses, the pressure to provide and be perfect — she’s like Rachel Fleishman with a gun instead of yoga.That nearly all of the major characters in “Beef” are Asian is both a casual fact of the setting and integral to its themes. These are characters given less social permission for anger in America, in part because of “model minority” stereotypes of docility. (“You have this serene Zen Buddhist thing going on,” Jordan tells Amy.)But they’re also shaped by their family and upbringing. Amy describes learning to repress her emotions from her father — “Chinese guy from the Midwest, I mean, communication wasn’t his forte” — and her mother, a Vietnamese immigrant who “thought talking about your feelings was the same thing as complaining.”As philosophy, self-help and “Star Wars” have taught us, anger is a destructive emotion. “Beef” provides ample evidence of this, in the cascade of escalations that builds to a climax so weird and explosive that it defies spoiling. And the personal war brings out the best in neither Amy, who insults Danny as “poor,” nor Danny, who calls Amy “some rich bitch from Calabasas.”But “Beef” also pushes past easy cant to explore the idea that anger — even petty, stupid anger — can be liberating. At the end of the first episode, Amy and Danny meet face to face, and it does not end well; she winds up chasing him down the street on foot. He, despite having bought himself trouble he can’t afford, wears a wide, childlike smile. She, planning her next countermove, relaxes into a tiny grin.It’s the first lightness you see on either of their faces. Their dispute will prove to be the worst thing that has happened to either of them, but in the moment, it is also the best. They fight not just out of pride but also out of their seeming belief that their rage might somehow make everything right.Among the motifs that Lee Sung Jin weaves through “Beef” is hunger. Danny has his Burger King addiction — he eats like it’s his job, straining and puffing — while Amy has a sweet tooth, a legacy of her depressed childhood, that she has passed on to her daughter. Which brings us back to this weird, remarkable show’s title.Colloquially, “Beef” means “feud.” But this series shows you how anger can also, for some people, be meat. It fills an emptiness, it sustains, it momentarily satisfies — even if, in excess, it’s terrible for your heart. More

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      Late Night Celebrates Donald Trump’s History-Making Arrest

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      “It is a great day to be in New York City — well, unless you’re one person,” Jimmy Fallon joked 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.Trump Makes History“It is a great day to be in New York City — well, unless you’re one person,” Jimmy Fallon joked on Tuesday night. Stephen Colbert said the day was “70 degrees and sunny with a chance of jail.”Former President Donald Trump’s arraignment was the talk of late night, with hosts noting he was the first U.S. president ever to be arrested and face criminal charges.“Trump made history. The only good news for Trump: In Florida, all the history books have been thrown out, so it’s all right.” — JIMMY FALLON“That guy was the president of the country. If you asked for the manager at Best Buy and that guy came over, you’d say, ‘No, the manager.’” — SETH MEYERS“That’s right, former President Trump was arraigned today in Manhattan. And, like anyone else, Trump is presumed innocent until he outright confesses on Truth Social.” — SETH MEYERS“At that point, of course, he was read his Miranda rights. Then he claimed Miranda wasn’t even his type, asked her to sign an N.D.A. and got indicted again.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Once he got inside the courtroom, Trump was formally charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, which are class E felonies. Yep, Trump was like, [imitating Trump] ‘Of course they were very classy felonies. Some would say the classiest of felonies.’” — JIMMY FALLON“And he alone. Ain’t none of your boys around no more — you gave them all pardons. And everybody know you don’t pardon all of your partners — you got to leave one in jail so you have somebody to talk to.” — ROY WOOD JR., guest host of ‘The Daily Show”The Punchiest Punchlines (Trump in Court Edition)“That’s him in court. Look at his face. This is the first time in his life anything’s ever dawned on him.” — SETH MEYERS, on a photo of Trump in the courtroom“Look at how sad Trump looks. My man look like somebody told him his dog died or that Mike Pence is still alive.” — ROY WOOD JR.“He looks like he’s watching another table at Applebee’s get their food first.” — JIMMY FALLON“Looks like he had to sit through two unskippable ads on YouTube.” — JIMMY FALLON“He looks like Ben Affleck at the Grammys.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe former host Jon Stewart popped by “The Daily Show” to talk about Trump’s arrest.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightCecily Strong, who stars in “Schmigadoon!” will appear on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutChucky, the sinister doll behind a horror franchise, is the subject of the documentary “Living With Chucky.”Cinedigm/ScreamBoxThe documentary “Living With Chucky” takes a personal look at the legacy of one of horror’s most lasting and loved villains. More