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      Stephen Colbert Rues the Fox Settlement

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      “I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames!” Colbert said of Fox News settling the defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems.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.Trial and ErrorDominion Voting Systems settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News on Tuesday, with the conservative news network agreeing to pay $787.5 million to avoid a trial.“I want my trial!” Stephen Colbert bemoaned on Tuesday.“I want it! You were supposed to provide me six weeks of delicious content! I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I guess it’s satisfying for Dominion that Rupey had to fork over a pile of cash, but that does nothing for our democracy. What we need is Fox News personalities to look straight into the camera, admit that they lied over and over again about the 2020 election, and then hurl themselves into Mount Doom.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I am glad that there is some accountability here. But still, I am pretty disappointed we are not going to get a trial, because all the Fox anchors would have been forced to testify. It would have been like the ‘Seinfeld’ finale, but instead of — instead of soup Nazis, it’s just Nazis.” — JORDAN KLEPPER, guest host of “The Daily Show”“Since Fox is going to have to pay nearly a billion dollars, they’ll need to implement cost-cutting measures. Sadly, they have to fire Brian Kilmeade’s reading tutor, Jeanine Pirro has to switch to the cheap box of wine, development on a third Doocy has been halted. They’re going to have to switch from Jesse Watters to tap waters. And of course, they’re going to have to put down Sean Hannity.” — JORDAN KLEPPERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Settling Up Edition)“You could tell Fox was stressed about the trial ‘cause they spent the day chugging Bud Light.” — JIMMY FALLON“It’s going to take a lot of reverse mortgage ads to pay that one off.” — JIMMY KIMMEL on the settlement“Immediately after the settlement, Fox issued a statement that said, ‘This settlement reflects Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards.’ They’re already lying in their statement about lying.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s a fitting lesson for the world from the American justice system. Yes, it is — there’s a price to pay for lying to the American people, and if you can afford that price, go for it!” — JAMES CORDEN“Fox News has to pay Dominion nearly $800 million. It’s so much money, they’ve already started selling ad space on Tucker Carlson’s forehead.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingJordan Klepper took “Daily Show” cameras inside the world’s largest gun show.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightMichelle Obama will appear on “The Tonight Show” on Wednesday.Also, Check This Out“I wanted to be considered for a range of roles,” Chita Rivera writes in her new memoir, “and for the most part I succeeded.” Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesThe 90-year-old singer-dancer Chita Rivera reflects on her life and career in “Chita: A Memoir.” More

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      Happy 100th Birthday, 16-Millimeter Film

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      The format was initially a boon to amateurs. Now, with moviemaking gone digital, it’s the choice of auteurs like Darren Aronofsky and Kelly Reichardt.One hundred years ago, the Eastman Kodak Company introduced a shiny new camera that promised to revolutionize moviemaking. The company had been selling filming devices for more than two decades by then, but this novel contraption — the Ciné-Kodak camera, sold with the Kodascope projector — offered a new thrill: the ability to make and screen movies at home, with no special expertise.The technical marvel, however, wasn’t just the camera but also the film inside. Until 1923, the film used most commonly in motion pictures was 35 millimeters wide. That year, Kodak produced a new format that was only 16 millimeters. The image wasn’t as sharp when you blew it up on the big screen, but it allowed for smaller, cheaper and more portable cameras.16 millimeter ushered in a new era of movies made outside the Hollywood system. Regular folks could now record their own lives, journalists and soldiers could film in the midst of war, and activists could shoot political documentaries in the street. Until digital video arrived in the late 1990s, 16-millimeter film was the mainstay of the amateur or independent filmmaker, requiring neither the investment nor the know-how of commercial cinema.Last week, at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which holds thousands of 16-millimeter reels in its collection, the film archivist Elena Rossi-Snook projected some shorts for a group of undergraduates from Marymount Manhattan College. As the projector whirred, a beam of light cut through the darkened room, painting the screen with scenes from the 1946 animated “Boundary Lines,” a stirring movie by Philip Stapp about social integrity in the wake of World War II. That was followed by “The End,” an antiwar stoner comedy directed by a teenager, Alfonso Sanchez, in 1968. The third film, “Black Faces” from 1970, was an ebullient, one-minute montage of portraits of Harlem residents.These productions, precious documents of the lives and concerns of ordinary Americans, have endured, Rossi-Snook explained, because their makers had relatively cheap and convenient access to film, a medium that can last hundreds of years if stored properly.Natalie Portman in “Black Swan,” another Aronofsky film shot on 16 millimeter.Niko Tavernise/Fox Searchlight PicturesToday, 16 millimeter is no longer optimal for the amateur filmmaker. Analog film is increasingly expensive, fewer and fewer labs can process it, and the format doesn’t allow the nearly unlimited shooting and instant playback that video does. But even as it turns 100, 16 millimeter still has a unique look that neither 35-millimeter film nor video can rival.When projected on the screen, analog film has a three-dimensional, pointillist texture called “grain,” a product of its synthetic makeup. There is more grain in 16 millimeter than in 35 millimeter, resulting in a fuzzier, flickering picture. In the 20th century, that was a drawback for professional filmmakers seeking crisp, theatrical images. But today, as high-definition media saturate our lives, some directors choose 16 millimeter precisely for its rougher look. It reminds us that what we’re watching is not the world as is, but filtered and transformed, with great creativity, through a chemical process.The filmmaker Darren Aronofsky has shot several movies on 16-millimeter film, including “The Wrestler” (2008), “Black Swan” (2010) and “Mother!” (2017). But when he was making his debut feature, “Pi” (1998), 16 millimeter was a necessity, not a choice. The resolution of available digital cameras wasn’t good enough for feature filmmaking at the time, and Aronofsky couldn’t afford 35 millimeter. But he and his cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, soon realized that 16 millimeter — especially the high-contrast stock they used called reversal film — emphasized the hallucinatory style of “Pi,” a black-and-white psychological thriller that delves into the obsessions of a paranoid number theorist.“We decided to really lean into 16 millimeter,” Aronofsky said in a phone interview. “I wanted the big grain and the contrast-y look. It’s funny, because we just had the 25th anniversary of the film, and we blew it up for IMAX. And the IMAX people were nervous because of how grainy it was. They wanted to know if I wanted to clear out some of the grain with computer technology. And we said, absolutely not. We loved the look of it.”Several TV shows from the late ’90s and early 2000s, including “The O.C.” and “Sex and the City,” used Super 16, a variation of 16 millimeter with a larger picture area that gave them a sense of real-time immediacy. The first 10 seasons of “The Walking Dead” were also largely shot on 16 millimeter to capture the grimy, crumbling feel of classic horror cinema.The cinematographer John Inwood, who filmed 150 episodes of the comedy “Scrubs,” recalled that 16-millimeter cameras, which are smaller and lighter than their 35-millimeter counterparts (and even many contemporary professional video cameras), were crucial in developing the series’s frenetic mockumentary style.“It was good for ‘Scrubs’ because we moved the cameras a lot, and we were sometimes in tight spaces,” he told me. “We shot in an actual hospital, the former North Hollywood hospital, and we shot in every square inch of it, even down to the morgue.”Chadwick Boseman in a flashback to the Vietnam War in Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods.” The director wanted those scenes to look as if they were archival newsreel footage.NetflixAs digital cameras have become sharper and more versatile, many filmmakers have turned to 16 millimeter to evoke the analog past and the blurry, precarious nature of memory. In an interview with Gold Derby, Newton Thomas Sigel, who filmed Spike Lee’s “Da 5 Bloods” (2020), said the director had insisted to Netflix that they use 16-millimeter reversal film for the sequences set amid the Vietnam War, despite the costs and logistical challenges. The film had to be shipped from Vietnam to an American lab for processing, and by the time the crew members could see what they had shot, Chadwick Boseman’s acting schedule had already ended. But Lee was adamant that the scenes look authentic, like archival newsreels filmed in the field in the 1970s.The veteran cinematographer Ed Lachman used Super 16 on two of his collaborations with the director Todd Haynes, both of them period dramas: the mini-series “Mildred Pierce” (2011), and “Carol” (2015), which garnered him an Academy Award nomination.On both projects, the format was chosen to mimic photographic images from the 1940s and ’50s, and the grittiness of postwar America. But Lachman realized that the grain also brought “tension to the surface of the image,” paralleling the repressive qualities of the characters in both “Mildred Pierce” and “Carol.”For Lachman, the appeal of 16 millimeter transcends nostalgia. It comes down to cinema’s status as an art, meant to stylize rather than simply reproduce reality. He likened film to painting, and grain to brushstrokes. “The grain changes in each frame with exposure,” he said. “It’s like breathing, almost like an anthropomorphic quality.”Kelly Reichardt turned to 16 millimeter after video shots of the snow looked too flat.Sony Pictures ClassicsThe filmmaker Kelly Reichardt recalled that when she started shooting her 2016 feature, “Certain Women,” she didn’t have the budget for 16 millimeter. But when she and her cameraman, Christopher Blauvelt, did test shoots in Montana, where the film is set, Reichardt was horrified at how “flat” the snow looked on video.“With film stocks, things weren’t so real looking,” Reichardt said. “A lot of it is grain, and 16 has more grain than 35. So when you blow it up, you don’t get the hard lines that you get in HD, which is what you see in sports.”A grant ultimately allowed Reichardt to shoot “Certain Women” on 16 millimeter. It made the production more laborious, but the results — soft, textured images of wide roads, snowy mountains and grassy plains, all shimmering with light, dust and shadow — made it worth it.“I guess it’s about beauty, in a way,” Reichardt said. “I remember on ‘30 Rock’ they did a little thing where Lemon walks in front of the HD camera, and it’s like, she’s a skeleton hag. You know? You see every single thing. It’s very unforgiving. For nature, too.” More

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      In ‘The Diplomat,’ Keri Russell Shows Her Good Side

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      The actor’s first substantial TV role since the Soviet spy drama “The Americans” finds her switching sides, starring as a savvy civil servant tasked with upholding America’s reputation abroad.On a recent Thursday afternoon, the actress Keri Russell paused in a corner of Brooklyn Bridge Park to admire a starling.It was technically spring, though the weather had other ideas, and Russell, in subdued plumage, braved the wind in chunky boots and a black puffer jacket. Her hair was tousled. Liner ringed each eye, possibly a souvenir from the previous night’s too many margaritas with friends. She didn’t look much like a woman who devoted years of her life to undermining the American democratic project. Or like a woman now charged with safeguarding it.But Russell has been both of those women (and a lot of other women besides). At this point in her career, she is probably best known for her six seasons on the FX drama “The Americans” as Elizabeth Jennings, a Soviet sleeper agent with an ambitious collection of ruses and wigs who earned Russell three Emmy nominations. Now Russell has taken on an opposing role: In the “The Diplomat,” a Netflix series debuting on Thursday, she stars as Kate Wyler, a savvy U.S. civil servant tasked with upholding America’s reputation abroad.A veteran ambassador, Kate is about to take a post in Kabul when an international incident shunts her and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), to London. An English manor house is not a war zone, but Kate behaves otherwise. Armored in punishing heels and sleek sheath dresses, she treats even polite conversation as battlefield maneuvers. But in a departure from “The Americans,” Kate’s work is almost entirely aboveboard. She wears no wigs.As some Canada geese waddled nearby, Russell considered the disparities between these two roles. “It was fun being a baddie, doing sneaky stuff,” she said. But “The Diplomat” also has its pleasures, she insisted. “It’s awesome to be smart and capable and dress people down and be so steady about it,” she said.If Elizabeth is a baddie, does that make Kate a goody? Russell gave a cagey smile. “We’ll see,” she said.In “The Diplomat,” Russell plays a veteran ambassador who is about to take a post in Kabul when an international incident shunts her and her husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), to London. Alex Bailey/NetflixRussell began her career as a teenage dancer in “The Mickey Mouse Club” and then starred in “Felicity” as a capricious college student and the patron saint of dithery girls everywhere. She did not necessarily expect to spend her midcareer playing hypercompetent women while also showing the uncertainty that undergirds that competence. In addition to playing Elizabeth and Kate, she has also recently appeared as an indomitable mother in the horror comedy “Cocaine Bear” and as a cool, if not especially effective, assassin in “Extrapolations.”Felicity would not have excelled at either espionage or high-stakes diplomacy. “Felicity would write a poem about it,” Russell said. But that was 20 years ago. Russell, who in person is outspoken, unfussy, charmingly profane and so candid that she encourages similar candor in others and now absolutely has kompromat on me, has grown up. She has since become a mother. She has two children with her former husband, Shane Deary, and a young son with her partner Matthew Rhys, her co-star on “The Americans.”“Moms are like that!” she said of these recent capable characters. “You’re going to make it happen. A mom can do 37 things in one day!”Russell comes to this park, near the home that she shares with Rhys and her children, on the rare occasions when she has an early morning to herself. Sometimes, before anyone else is awake, she’ll ride her bike through the park’s loops. “It’s a beautiful, happening place,” she said, pointing out the roller rink, the basketball courts, a meadow, the indelible view of Manhattan across the East River.Over the last year or so, those mornings have been rarer. It was during the Christmas holiday of 2021, when Russell had volunteered to cook dinner for the children’s three sets of grandparents, that she received the scripts for “The Diplomat.” With Rhys already away for part of the year filming the gloomy HBO revival of “Perry Mason”—“I was already punishing him with guilt for not being home,” she said — she wasn’t looking for another starring role.Russell has played several indomitable mothers, including in the horror comedy “Cocaine Bear.”Universal PicturesStill, something in Kate’s ambition and savvy, as well as the humor of her marital tussles with Hal, called to her. She agreed to a video call with the show’s creator, Debora Cahn, a veteran of “Homeland” and “The West Wing.”Cahn had wanted Russell for the role, trusting that Kate would benefit from Russell’s beauty, grace and ability to convey emotions even in characters who control and repress their feelings. But Kate was a more neurotic proposition than past Russell characters — gorgeous enough to be the subject of a Vogue spread in the show but also sweaty, squirrelly, with a lot of angst behind the poise.“There’s a part of Kate that is itchy and twitchy and always uncomfortable in her own skin,” Cahn said in a recent phone interview.Russell was a woman of far more poise, Cahn assumed, but she knew that Russell was also a skilled actor. She could perform that discomfort. And yet, as she watched Russell squirm through the video call, she discovered that discomfort was part of the Russell package, too.“I get really nervous,” Russell confirmed in the park. “I do really sweat a lot.” (She didn’t seem to be sweating here, though it was quite cold.)This contradiction — glamour in the front, social anxiety in the back — helped Cahn explore the thesis of “The Diplomat,” which is that everybody sweats, even (or especially) the bodies in power.“In Buckingham Palace, in the Great Hall of the People, everybody in there is still a leaky human,” Cahn said.Kate, on the show, puts it more tartly. “You show people the nice parts because, believe me, that’s all that anyone wants to see,” she says.The effort that Kate makes to maintain a flawless veneer resonated with Russell, though largely because she has never had much patience with or talent for the public-facing aspects of her profession — the interviews, the award shows, the times when she has to perform a more idealized version of herself. She used to beat herself up for this unease, but she has since accepted it.“I’m like, that’s who I am,” she said.“I like to never be busy,” Russell said, despite recent evidence to the contrary. “I like to like drift away and roam the park.”Celeste Sloman for The New York TimesAnd yet, sets are places where she has always felt at home. “The Diplomat” filmed last summer, mostly in London and mostly on location. Sewell had never met Russell, his work wife, until they were both in the hair and makeup trailer, but he was struck by her openness and ease.“She immediately was very friendly and personable and easy,” he said. “I automatically thought it was going to be relatively straightforward working with her, because she was a lot of fun.”Fun is not necessarily a word that anyone would apply to Kate or that Kate would apply to herself. However sweaty Russell feels herself to be, she moves through the world, or at least through the park, with less strain and tension. (And she is fun. At one point, she pulled out her phone and showed a picture of herself looking unhinged in an ash-blond wig, an outtake from “The Americans.” She sends the picture to her friends when it’s time to party. “We don’t let her have chardonnay anymore,” she said of the image.)While Kate is a creature of ambition, Russell has always held her work more lightly, even as she pushes herself to give vivid, committed performances.“When I’m there, I work hard,” she said. “I want to be good.” But she drew a distinction between herself and Rhys, even though they take on many of the same projects. (He is in “Extrapolations” and “Cocaine Bear,” too.)“He likes to be busy,” she said. “I like to never be busy. I like to like drift away and roam the park.”She was near the river now. The sun turned the gray water gold. Ducks dabbled. Unlike Kate, no one needed her to save the world today or to sweat through her clothes while neutralizing some new crisis. Hypercompetence could wait. She needed only to find her way back through the park and text Rhys to see if he could meet her at an Italian restaurant close by. Among the 37 things, there was just time for a beer before school pickup. More

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      Why TV Can’t Quite Take a Stand on Stan Culture

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      “Dave” and “Swarm” try to demystify extreme fandom but end up pledging fealty to celebrity.The “stan,” a word that comes from Eminem’s seminal 2000 song about obsessive, sometimes violent superfans, has become a locus for celebrity anxiety in recent years. Popular fan bases can be malicious in defense of their idols — see Taylor’s Swifties, Nicki’s Barbz and Beyoncé’s BeyHive. (Selena Gomez recently had to chide her fans for sending death threats to Hailey Bieber because of a convoluted rivalry instigated in part by eyebrow lamination.) It can create an awkward dynamic for the famouses: Denounce your fan base’s zealotry, and you risk seeming ungrateful. And while obsessive fans have existed for as long as celebrity has, the internet, which is conducive to acts of anonymous virulence, has made stan fury particularly potent. It was only a matter of time before scripted TV tackled this subject. In the FX comedy “Dave,” Lil Dicky (Dave Burd), the annoying or — depending on your tolerance for anxiety-ridden white rappers — endearing M.C. at the center of the series, has several uneasy encounters with fans in the Season 3 premiere. While trying to destroy a concrete bust of his head that a fan gives him after a show, he meets a young woman named Campbell (Jocelyn Hudon), and they strike up a conversation. “Sorry, I don’t know you,” she says. Relieved, Lil Dicky confesses that he prefers that anonymity. She invites him to a house party, during which one of her friends inadvertently reveals that Campbell is actually a huge Lil Dicky fan and that her mission was to have sex with him.Later, party guests ask to see Lil Dicky’s penis; he refuses. They surround him, yelling and screaming. They rip his clothes off. Eventually he flees. The escape is played mostly for laughs, but a current of unease and even violence lurks in the scene. FX“Dave” has always possessed a meta, synergistic relationship to fame. Burd, who’s also a creator of the show, essentially plays an exaggerated version of himself; he became popular thanks to his catchy, puerile raps under the same moniker he shares with his alter ego. His hypeman, GaTa, is also his hypeman in real life. Travis (Taco) Bennett, who plays Elz, Lil Dicky’s producer, was part of the rap collective Odd Future. Celebrities like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Justin Bieber, Kourtney Kardashian and Doja Cat have played themselves. During the first season, Lil Dicky desperately desires the spotlight, and the show — as if expressing its bona fides — brings out a constant parade of famous people to heighten its verisimilitude. But what’s notable about the second and third seasons (at least based on the first three episodes) is their focus on fame’s darker side, how it distorts the ego and emboldens zealous, even aggressive fans. Stan worship is taken to its most extreme conclusion in “Swarm,” a new Amazon Prime Video limited series created by Janine Nabers and Donald Glover. The show’s protagonist, Dre (Dominique Fishback), kills anybody who speaks ill of her pop idol, Ni’Jah (Nirine S. Brown), a clear stand-in for Beyoncé, whose fan base is notoriously overprotective, to put it diplomatically. After Dre loses her foster sister, Marissa (played by the R.&B. singer Chloe Bailey), to suicide, she fixates on the people who tweeted something mean about Marissa or Ni’Jah. But Dre’s uncontrollable urges extend to Ni’Jah herself. After some ingenious maneuvering, Dre shows up at an after-party she knows Ni’Jah is attending and — in a winking nod to a Tiffany Haddish story about an actress who bit Beyoncé in 2017 — bites her idol on the chin. In the final episode, Dre, after killing a ticket scalper to get in, commandeers her way to the front row at a Ni’Jah show. The series ends on a deliberately surrealist note, which calls the logic of the entire series into question. But the takeaway remains unclear. The ambiguity seeps into the framework of the show, which, as compelling and mordantly funny as it is, can’t seem to figure out what exactly it’s trying to say about stan culture. Is Dre really a stan? Or a deeply disturbed young woman who fixates on a pop star as a way to cope with grief? Or both? The “Dave” premiere ends in a similarly ambiguous place, though that show’s embrace of sophomoric sexual humor undermines its more salient points about the frightening consequences of standom. Both “Dave” and “Swarm” opt for dark humor, the better to highlight the absurdity of toxic stan behavior — an affection so passionate that it turns vicious. And both shows seem ultimately ambivalent and unsure about this state of affairs, gesturing toward the dangers of such fandom before retreating into fantasy. There’s an odd uncertainty at their cores, a sense that even the writers don’t quite know where to land on the fierce relationships people have with celebrity. The phrase “parasocial relationship” has been bandied about as of late, defining the warped one-sided dynamic that some fans have with their favorite celebrities. But perhaps some of the confusion “Dave” and “Swarm” seem to convey lies in the fact that the critique is coming from inside the house. Their creators — Burd and Glover — are both famous. Both shows question the excessive adoration some fans feel for pop stars but rely in part on securing public figures to appear in them. (In addition to Bailey, who’s signed to Beyoncé’s label, Billie Eilish and Paris Jackson, daughter of Michael, make guest appearances on “Swarm.” And Malia Obama wrote for the series.) As bizarre as Dre and Campbell’s actions are, fame’s corrosive force goes both ways. Nicki Minaj, for example, is notorious for siccing her most rabid fans on people who dare to tweet criticism. Other celebrities (including, notably, Beyoncé) don’t always engage with their fan bases enough to tell them to cool it when their devotion turns threatening. Critiquing such passion while benefiting and sometimes even exploiting celebrity clout is an inherently untenable position.“Dave” seems to understand this tension to some degree; there are plenty of episodes that mock Lil Dicky’s growing egocentrism. “Swarm” doesn’t really engage with Ni’Jah’s celebrity from her point of view. She remains a cipher — another nod to Beyoncé’s real-life inscrutability — but the decision to characterize her that way further blunts the show’s critique of stan culture. Even the “Swarm” brain trust seems to acknowledge their awkward proximity to the show’s main theme. In a recent interview with Vulture, Nabers said she wrote Beyoncé a letter about the show to explain their intention. At another point in the conversation, she mentioned that Glover and Beyoncé are friends. In a different interview, Fishback politely demurs from naming the BeyHive as the inspiration behind Ni’Jah acolytes at all. “It’s an amalgamation of different celebrities and our current climate’s being kind of intense about our love for celebrity.” Their deference to Beyoncé is telling. Even they seem to fear her fans’ venom.Source photographs: Byron Cohen/FX. More

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      Late Night Skewers Clarence Thomas for Not Disclosing Gifts

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      “The Daily Show” guest host Jordan Klepper joked that Thomas has “taken more free vacations than all the Bravo housewives combined.”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 Best of FriendsJustice Clarence Thomas is under fire for unreported gifts, trips and other financial transactions with the conservative donor Harlan Crow.On Monday, the “Daily Show” guest host Jordan Klepper joked that Thomas is “the Supreme Court justice who’s taken more free vacations than all the Bravo housewives combined.”“Last week, we learned that Thomas had secretly accepted luxury trips from right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow. And that’s his actual name, not his ‘Game of Thrones’ cosplay character.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“Crow is an arch-conservative who’s known for his assorted Nazi memorabilia and garden full of statues of the 20th century’s worst despots. It’s so impressive that they put him on the cover of ‘Hitler Homes and Goebbels.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“On top of that, Clarence Thomas’s mom is still living in that house rent-free, and Harlan Crow is paying for thousands of dollars of renovations. All of which Clarence Thomas should have disclosed by law — although, in his defense, the law is complicated, and he is only a Supreme Court justice.” — JORDAN KLEPPER“Justice Thomas claims that he did not have to report all these gifts because he and Crow are such close buds. But this must be one hell of a friendship because on Thursday we learned that, back in 2014, Harlan Crow bought property from Clarence Thomas, including the house where Thomas’s elderly mother was living. That might give him a little influence.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, Crow claims there’s nothing corrupt about this, saying, ‘My intention is to one day create a public museum at the Thomas home.’ Just a reminder, Harlan Crow has Hitler’s napkins and a statue of Stalin in his garden. So building you a museum? Not a huge compliment.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Love is Blind Edition)“Netflix is apologizing after last night’s ‘Love is Blind’ live reunion was delayed due to technical issues. Yeah, even though they couldn’t see the reunion, ‘Love is Blind’ fans still managed to fall in love with it anyway.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingFreddie Highmore, a guest on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” shared horror stories from previous talk show experiences (though he would not name names).What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightFresh from her Coachella performance, the rapper Glorilla will perform Tuesday on Jimmy Kimmel.Also, Check This OutJessica Hecht, left, said she and her “Summer, 1976” castmate, Laura Linney, right, share a “clarity of purpose.” She added: “I’m interested in plays that talk about intimacy.”Thea Traff for The New York TimesLaura Linney and Jessica Hecht play intensely intimate friends in David Auburn’s new play, “Summer, 1976.” More

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      Hollywood Writers Approve of Strike as Shutdown Looms

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      The writers have not gone on strike in 15 years, and the vote gives their unions the right to call for a walkout when their contract expires on May 1.Hollywood is getting ever closer to a shutdown.The unions representing thousands of television and movie writers said on Monday that they had overwhelming support for a strike, giving union leaders the right to call for a walkout when the writers’ contract with the major Hollywood studios expires on May 1.The unions, which are affiliated East and West Coast branches of the Writers Guild of America, said more than 9,000 writers had approved a strike authorization, with 98 percent of the vote.W.G.A. leaders have said this is an “existential” moment for writers, contending that compensation has stagnated over the last decade despite the explosion of television series in the streaming era. In an email last week to writers, the lead negotiators said that “the survival of writing as a profession is at stake in this negotiation.”With two weeks to go before the contract expires, there has been little sign of progress in the talks. In the email, the negotiating committee said the studios “have failed to offer meaningful responses on the core economic issues” and offered only small concessions in a few areas.“In short, the studios have shown no sign that they intend to address the problems our members are determined to fix in this negotiation,” the email said.The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of Hollywood production companies, said in a statement that a strike authorization “should come as no surprise to anyone.”“A strike authorization vote has always been part of the W.G.A.’s plan, announced before the parties even exchanged proposals,” the statement said. “Our goal is, and continues to be, to reach a fair and reasonable agreement.” It added, “An agreement is only possible if the guild is committed to turning its focus to serious bargaining by engaging in full discussions of the issues with the companies and searching for reasonable compromises.”The last time the writers went on strike was in 2007, and that strike lasted 100 days.Nick Ut/Associated PressIn recent weeks, Hollywood executives have begun preparing for a strike, both by stockpiling scripts and by getting ready to produce a torrent of reality series, which do not need script writers. David Zaslav, the chief executive of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns the Warner Bros. film and TV studios as well as HBO, said at a news media event last week that he was hopeful a deal would be reached. He added that “a strike will be a challenge for the whole industry.”Still, he said, the company was fully prepared if there was a walkout.“We’re assuming the worst from a business perspective,” he said. “We’ve got ourselves ready. We’ve had a lot of content that’s been produced.”A strike authorization does not guarantee writers will take to the picket lines in two weeks. In 2017, a last-minute deal was struck with the studios not long after 96 percent of the writers voted to authorize a strike. The last time the writers went on strike was in 2007. That stoppage dragged for 100 days, into early 2008, and cost the Los Angeles economy an estimated $2.1 billion.If a strike begins in early May, late-night shows like “Saturday Night Live” and talk shows hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel and Seth Meyers will go dark immediately. It would take a strike of several months before viewers began to notice an effect on scripted television series and movies.The streaming era has resulted in a significant rise in the number of scripted television series that are produced, but writers say working conditions have not kept pace.“Writers are working more weeks for less money,” said Eric Haywood, a veteran writer and producer, and a member of the W.G.A. negotiating committee. “And in some cases, veteran writers are working for the same money or, in some cases, less money than they made just a few years ago.”In some cases, veteran writers are working for the same money or, in some cases, less money, than they made just a few years ago,” said Eric Haywood, right, a veteran writer and producer, and a member of the W.G.A. negotiating committee. Sarah Stacke for The New York TimesThe timing of the talks has an added complexity given the current financial challenges for all media and entertainment companies.Over the last year, share prices for those companies have nose-dived after Wall Street began questioning why many streaming services were losing billions of dollars a year. The studios are quickly trying to make those streaming services profitable, after years of focusing primarily on growth. The shift is coming at a cost.Disney is in the midst of 7,000 job cuts. Warner Bros. Discovery, confronting a debt load of about $50 billion, shelved projects and laid off thousands of workers last year. Other media companies are taking similar cost-cutting measures.The writers do not appear to be sympathetic.“The current status quo is unsustainable,” Mr. Haywood said.The writers have taken particular aim at so-called minirooms. There is no one definition of a miniroom, but they have proliferated in the streaming era.In one example, the studios will convene a miniroom before a show has been picked up by a studio and scheduled to air. A small group of writers will develop a series and write several scripts over two or three months.But because the studios have not ordered the series, they will use that as justification to pay writers less than if they were in a formal writers’ room, union leaders said. And given the relatively short duration of the position, those writers are then left scrambling to find another job if the show is not picked up.One union leader likened minirooms to “labor camps” during the negotiations, according to two people familiar with the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.A W.G.A. spokesman said the reference was not literal and had come during a presentation lasting an hour and a half.“Development work has always been paid at a premium because you’re coming up with the idea,” Ellen Stutzman, the chief negotiator for the W.G.A., said in an interview. “If you’re going to have these rooms before you pick up a show or a season, you should pay writers a premium.”The writers have also said residuals — which Ms. Stutzman called “the profit participation of the middle-class writer” — have been affected in the streaming era. Before streaming, writers could receive residual payments whenever a show was licensed, whether that was for syndication, an international deal or DVD sales.But in the streaming era, as global services like Netflix and Amazon have been reluctant to license their series, those distribution arms have been cut off and replaced with a fixed residual, Ms. Stutzman said.“If an overwhelming majority of the content writers create is for the streaming platforms where they are completely cut out of global growth and success, that is a very big problem,” she said. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Amityville: An Origin Story’ and ‘Revengineers’

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      A docuseries on MGM+ delves into the history of the real Amityville house of horrors, and a new prank show from Mark Rober and Jimmy Kimmel premieres on Discovery.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, April 17-23. Details and times are subject to change.MondayFrom left, Kevin Garnett, LaKeith Stanfield and Adam Sandler in “Uncut Gems.”Wally McGrady/A24UNCUT GEMS (2019) 5 p.m. on SHO2e. This film from the Safdie brothers “blows in like a Category 4 hurricane” with its “tumult of sensory extremes,” Manohla Dargis wrote in her review for The Times. The movie follows Howard Ratner (​​Adam Sandler), a debt-ridden New York City jeweler and gambling addict, as he attempts to retrieve and sell a large black opal in order to keep his debt collector — also known as his mafia-adjacent brother-in-law (Eric Bogosian)— at bay. As Ratner juggles familial obligations and relationships with his own survival, “the Safdies don’t judge Howard or, worse yet, ask us to,” Dargis writes. “Instead, they situate him in a specific historical moment (the year is 2012), throwing him into a late-capitalist, wholly transactional, anxiously insecure world.”TuesdayDEADLIEST CATCH 8 p.m. on DISCOVERY. This reality series about fishing crews in the Bering Sea near Alaska is back for its 19th season, in which a new generation of skippers will partner with the show’s veteran fishing captains to start their careers and learn how to become successful in a dangerous industry.Michael Cera, left, and Elliot Page in “Juno.”Doane Gregory/Fox Searchlight PicturesJUNO (2007) 8 p.m. on MAX. This Academy Award-winning film from the director Jason Reitman tells the story of Juno MacGuff, a wisecracking, smart teenager who becomes pregnant. The film follows Juno “on a twisty path toward responsibility and greater self-understanding” as she decides to move forward with the pregnancy and give the child up for adoption. This journey is “a message that is not anti-abortion but rather pro-adulthood,” A.O. Scott wrote in his review for The Times. “‘Juno’ could not be further from the kind of hand-wringing, moralizing melodrama that such a condition might suggest.” Instead, he wrote, it “evolves from a coy, knowing farce into a heartfelt, serious comedy.”WednesdayM. Sanjayan in “Changing Planet II.”Jennifer Jones/BBC StudiosCHANGING PLANET II 9 p.m. on PBS. This show about the changes affecting some of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world — and what local experts and scientists are doing to combat those changes — returns for its second year, as Ella Al-Shamahi, a paleoanthropologist and stand-up comic, and Ade Adepitan, a television presenter and children’s author, join the global conservation scientist M. Sanjayan in revisiting the communities featured last year. From Brazil to California, Greenland to the Maldives, and Kenya to Cambodia, the series highlights the progress and setbacks of a series of conservation projects across the world.ThursdayREVENGINEERS 11 p.m. on DISCOVERY. This new prank show from Jimmy Kimmel and the NASA engineer turned YouTube star Mark Rober follows Rober and his team as they exact revenge on social wrongdoers through a series of elaborately engineered pranks. After identifying their targets, the series documents Rober’s team as they brainstorm funny and technically interesting ways to catch the wrongdoers in the act. The show is a companion series to “This Is Mark Rober,” a behind-the-scenes series of Rober’s viral video ideas, which premiered last week.FridayTupac Shakur in “Dear Mama.”FXDEAR MAMA 10 p.m. on FX. Titled after the rapper Tupac Shakur’s 1995 hit song “Dear Mama,” this five-part docuseries from Allen Hughes (“The Defiant Ones”) explores the relationship between Tupac and his mother — the civil rights activist Afeni Shakur — as well as their individual lives and legacies. Archival footage and interviews with Tupac and Afeni are interspersed with Tupac’s music as a way to link mother and son across the decades in this documentary, which tells their stories in the context of Black activism, hip-hop and the struggle for human rights.CONTINUUM: JASON MORAN & CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE 10 p.m. on PBS. In this new episode from PBS’s “Next at the Kennedy Center,” a series that spotlights cultural leaders from various genres of music, theater and dance, the bassist Christian McBride and the pianist Jason Moran come together to play music by jazz masters like Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus and Louis Armstrong, and tell stories about their teachers and students. Revered as modern jazz luminaries, McBride and Moran hold eight Grammys and a MacArthur fellowship between them.SaturdayCHASING THE RAINS 8 p.m. on BBCA. Timed to premiere on Earth Day, this three-part documentary series follows a different animal matriarch in each episode — a cheetah, an elephant and an African wild dog — as they fight to take care of their families amid one of the worst droughts in decades. The series is filmed in the Kenyan wilderness and narrated by Adjoa Andoh (“Bridgerton,” “Invictus”).Dustin Hoffman, left, and Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men.”Associated PressALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN (1976) 8 p.m. on TCM. Based on the best-selling book of the same name by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, this multiple Academy Award winning film follows Woodward (Robert Redford) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) as they uncover and break the story of the Watergate scandal that ultimately brought down the Nixon presidency. In his 1976 review for The Times, Vincent Canby described the film as “an unequivocal smash-hit,” praising its accuracy and writing that it is “a vivid footnote to some contemporary American history that still boggles the mind.”SundayAMITYVILLE: AN ORIGIN STORY 10 p.m. on MGM+. This four episode docuseries delves into the real story behind what happened at the Orchard Avenue home in Amityville, N.Y., after the 1979 film, “The Amityville Horror,” inspired by the book of the same name by Jay Anson, generated a slew of paranormal theories, movies and books. Beginning with the DeFeo family’s murder in 1974, and continuing with an examination of the Lutz family’s 28-day stay in the house, this series uses archival footage, along with interviews with family members, witnesses and former investigators to try to find out what exactly transpired in this Long Island “house of horrors.” More

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      ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 4 Recap: A Coronation Demolition Derby

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      Just when Logan’s inner circle thinks that it might finally be free of his mercurial nature, he springs one more annoying surprise.‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 4: ‘Honeymoon States’How do you sum up a media giant and a political visionary like Logan Roy? The day after his death, the newspapers call him “a complicated man.” (Kendall’s translation: “Threw phones at staff.”) He was a “sharp reader of the national mood.” (Roman: “He’s a bit racist.”) He was “very much a man of his era.” (Kendall: “Again, racist. Also, relaxed about sexual assault.”) As Logan’s family, friends, employees and admirers gather at his home to mourn — and to plot — no one can seem to agree on who he really was. After reading yet another glowing tribute, Shiv jokes: “Dad sounds amazing. I’d like to have met Dad.”Yet just when Logan’s inner circle thinks that it might finally be free of his mercurial approach to business and family matters, he springs one more annoying surprise from beyond the grave. In Logan’s safe, the estate’s executor, Frank, finds a piece of paper from four (or more) years ago, naming Kendall as Logan’s preferred successor.But there are a handwritten notes and markings on the page — including a line partially under Kendall’s name and partially through it. Was Logan emphasizing that he wanted his son to take over? Or was he indicating that he definitely did not?After last week’s emotionally wrenching episode, “Succession” comes back with one of the funniest of the series, filled with quotable lines and sick burns. Any feelings of sadness or sentimentality among the Roy children fades as soon as they realize Waystar’s top executives — Frank, Gerri, Karl and Tom — are disappearing behind closed doors to begin what Shiv calls a “a coronation demolition derby.” The ensuing bumps and scrapes are perversely entertaining.On the old-timers’ side, everyone speaks with a brittle politeness masking deep hostility. Gerri puts herself forward as the logical choice to be chief executive, having already done it on an interim basis. When Karl balks, she delivers a wicked backhanded compliment, saying: “I think you’re a corporate legend. What you did in the ’90s, with cable? Huge.”Tom, meanwhile, insists that all he wants to do is serve, adding: “If there’s a ring, my hat is in. Respectfully.” To that, Karl suggests that the board might have questions about Tom, and he frames those “as a friend,” saying, “You’re a clumsy interloper and no one trusts you.”As for the Rebel Alliance — now possibly interested in rejoining the Empire, if the pay is competitive and management positions are available — they seem initially more united. They all jump on a call to one of Lukas Mattson’s lackeys, where Shiv waves away a question about which one of them is the leader, saying, “We’re a pretty fluid group.” But it is perhaps an ominous sign that she physically recoils after saying that. It is also not good that Mattson demands that one of the three fly out to GoJo’s strategy retreat within the next 24 hours. (Shiv: “You obviously know what happened here yesterday, right?” Lackey: “Oh sure, yeah, we really feel for you guys. Bad one.”)This is when Frank comes across the “rather worrying piece of paper.” (It is so worrying that he wonders if maybe it could be flushed down a toilet. He and Karl then clarify that they are merely “speculating in a comic mode.”) Both the old and young factions gather in an upstairs room, where Roman diminishes the document’s meaning, saying to Kendall, “This thing is old, and you’ve tried to put him in jail, like, 12 times since then.”One thing seems clear: Both the children and the Waystar executives want the GoJo sale to go through. After that, there will be no more Waystar to control and the siblings can proceed with their original plan to run Pierce Global Media together, perhaps now merged with ATN. Since the chief executive position would be temporary anyway, Kendall pounces, saying: “Anyone can do that. And since he said. …”Something about Kendall’s eagerness does not sit right with Roman and Shiv, although they have trouble articulating why. Maybe it is the gleefully vicious tone he takes when he snaps that Logan’s document “doesn’t say Shiv.” Or maybe it is the way he keeps trying to corner both of them, warning that they should not give the company away to Gerri or anybody else “just because we didn’t talk.”Ultimately, Roman buys the idea that the board and the markets might see Kendall’s pitch for himself as “same-old but with a vibe-y new banner.” And the executives come around when they realize they can package Kendall as a co-leader with Roman, who still has an official title as Waystar’s chief operating officer. Shiv is cut out of this leadership group. Her brothers insist that she is still a part of an unofficial triumvirate, but while she has them make “a Dad promise, on yesterday” (referring to how they all bonded in their shock and grief), she is so upset by the mini-coup that she falls down a small set of stairs while fleeing the house.There are other power-plays afoot this week. Logan’s estranged wife Marcia (Hiam Abbass) is no longer — as Kerry once said — “shopping in Milan, forever.” She conspicuously positions herself as a greeter at the wake, asserting that she still spoke to her husband every day. She also refuses Kerry entry to the upstairs and has her removed from the premises, right as Kerry is gathering her personal effects and nervously babbling to Roman about Logan’s big plans for her.And then there is Tom, as always treading the line between “sweetly helpful” and “snaking around.” He tries to show Shiv some kindness, reminding her of when they first got together and how he flew to France to be with her. Shiv, as uncertain as the rest of us as to whether Tom is merely making a play, replies coolly, “That was a while back.”It is Kendall, though, who ends the day in the lead. He and Roman entertain a pitch from Hugo and Karolina about strengthening their executive bona fides by getting it out into the press that Logan was a mentally unstable abuser who had not really been in charge of Waystar in years. Roman nixes this unequivocally. But Kendall — who knows that Hugo has some potential insider-trading trouble to bury — comes to him privately about the “Bad Dad” plan and says, “Action that, but soft … no prints.”Before he meets with Hugo, Kendall is staring at a picture on his phone of Logan’s sloppy succession plan — and his own crossed-out or underlined name. The old man remained inscrutable to the end, for sure. But the sickening smile on Kendall’s face right before the credits roll raises questions, too. Is he smearing Logan because, as he claims, that is exactly the kind of nasty maneuver his father would pull? Or is Kendall still bent on revenge?Either way, one thing is sure: Kendall is his father’s son.Due DiligenceThe title of this episode, “Honeymoon States,” refers to the itinerary Connor has set for his post-wedding travels with Willa: Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania … all swing states in his presidential campaign. Connor also moves without Willa’s permission to buy Logan’s home from Marcia for $63 million. When Willa reminds him of the old advice not to make big decisions while still in mourning, he counters with, “They also say it’s pretty smart not to pay Realtors’ fees.”As the nation’s conservative thought leaders — who call Logan “L.R.” — raise a toast to “a man of humility, grace, dignity,” Tom can’t resist leaning over to Greg to whisper, “who died fishing his iPhone from a clogged toilet.” (Rumor has it Karl clogged it.)Greg is briefly allowed into the meeting about Logan’s estate, where it is noted that Greg is “an addendum of miscellaneous matters, in pencil, with a question mark” on the controversial piece of paper. When he asks hopefully whether Logan meant for him to be Kendall’s second-in-command, the ensuing riotous laughter is probably about as joyous as anybody in that room feels all day.We need to talk about Shiv’s big news, which she does not share with anyone in this episode. In the opening, she gets a phone call from a doctor about a test that shows “everything looks healthy,” and she hears that she will have to come back for “the 20-week scan.” It is strongly implied that Shiv is pregnant — which makes her tumble later in the episode more alarming.Speculation corner! If Kendall keeps playing hardball, how long until his siblings make use of what he confessed to them last season about accidentally killing a cater waiter? (Also: Shiv is definitely going to fly off to see Mattson within the next 24 hours, right?)This whole episode is about how nobody really knew Logan. (Was he a neocon? A paleo-libertarian? An anarcho-capitalist?) This point is driven home further when Waystar’s new co-chiefs, Kendall and Roman, step into Logan’s office at the end of the episode and are surprised to discover that their father liked to do Sudoku puzzles. More