Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Is Charmed by Republican Concerns About Ron DeSantis

      by

      “It’s true. DeSantis is best on paper — specifically, that roll by the toilet,” Colbert said.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.This Charming ManRepublicans are eyeing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an alternative presidential candidate to Donald Trump for 2024, but G.O.P. insiders are struggling with DeSantis’s perceived lack of charm, saying he’s better on paper.“Oh, come on! You’re telling me this man lacks charm?” Stephen Colbert said on Tuesday. “He’s got the smooth style of a nonplayable character in a PlayStation 2 game.”“Hey, get out of my bank with your skateboard, Tony Hawk!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT, imitating a stiff DeSantis as a character in a video game“It’s true. DeSantis is best on paper — specifically, that roll by the toilet.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“In a new episode of a podcast, former President Trump said that he heard Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis may challenge him for the Republican presidential nomination and added, ‘We’ll handle that the way I handle things.’ So, get ready, Ron — he’s gonna cheat on you.” — SETH MEYERSThe Punchiest Punchlines (Brady’s Big Loss Edition)“Last night, the Dallas Cowboys knocked Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers out of the playoffs. Yeah, and now fans want to know, will Tom Brady retire, or retire then immediately unretire?” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, after the game, Brady was thinking about retiring, but then he saw the price of eggs and was like, ‘I can’t retire now.’” — JIMMY FALLON“I don’t know what else Brady wants to accomplish, though. It’s kind of like Jeff Bezos playing Mega Millions. It’s like, you already have all the money.” — JIMMY FALLON“He was 7-0 against Dallas lifetime, now he’s 7-1. Brady was reportedly so upset after the game, he ate a carb.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“According to a new report, three N.F.L. teams are considering pursuing quarterback Tom Brady when he becomes a free agent. Not to mention about a dozen bocce leagues.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Late Night” writers Amber Ruffin and Jenny Hagel returned for another segment of “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell” on Tuesday.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe “Shotgun Wedding” star Jennifer Lopez will stop by “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Wednesday.Also, Check This OutBen WisemanBroadway has deepened its gayness of late with new plays and musicals exploring queer themes, characters and songs. More

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Late Night Chides Biden Over Birthday Gaffe

      by

      Stephen Colbert and other hosts poked fun at the president for seeming to forget the name of Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter-in-law while singing her a birthday tune on Monday.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.Forget-Me-NotLate night hosts poked fun at President Joe Biden on Monday after he seemed to forget the name of Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter-in-law while singing her happy birthday at an event honoring the civil rights leader.“People are accusing him of forgetting her name,” Stephen Colbert said. “That’s not fair — he clearly never knew her name.”“Or maybe they’re just such good friends that he’s calling her by her nickname: ‘Lar-lurh.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“First rule: Don’t start singing ‘Happy Birthday’ unless you know the person’s name.” — JIMMY FALLON“There’s a reason why the birthday song at TGI Fridays doesn’t have the name in it.” — JIMMY FALLON“Rookie move, Joe. Every singer knows that when you forget the lyric, that’s when you point the mic towards the crowd.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Clue Edition)“The White House announced over the weekend that a third batch of classified documents was found at President Biden’s Delaware home. You know, finding new ones every few days isn’t helping. What are you guys doing over there? Searching one drawer at a time? Did he hide the documents in an advent calendar?” — SETH MEYERS“Over the weekend, five more classified documents were found at his home in Delaware, along with 9,000 stolen packets of Sweet’N Low” — JIMMY KIMMEL“At this point, they’ve found documents in so many places, it’s like we’re playing Clue. It’s like, ‘North Korea’s nuclear codes in the garage with the Corvette!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yup, the scandal has gotten so big, today Hunter Biden told his dad, ‘I can’t be seen with you right now.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Joe’s making me do something I swore I would never do: care about what happens in Delaware.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“This might not even be the end, because sources say there are multiple additional spots that could be searched and it’s possible additional documents could still be found. Well, if this goes on till the spring, they can kill two birds and combine the search with the White House Easter egg hunt.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingNatalie Portman, Stephen Yeun, Danny DeVito, and several other actors performed a dramatic re-enactment of a NextDoor thread on Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightLeslie Jones will kick off a weeklong guest-hosting residency on “The Daily Show” on Tuesday.Also, Check This OutA selection of designer sunglasses owned by the late Andre Leon Talley are among his possessions to be auctioned by Christie’s.Christie’s“The Collection of André Leon Talley” is a 448-lot estate auction that will go on a three-city tour this winter, with proceeds benefiting Black churches. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Independent Lens’ and ‘Night Court’

      by

      A documentary about racial reparations in the United States airs on PBS. And NBC reboots the 1980s and ’90s sitcom “Night Court.”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, Jan. 16-22. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: THE BIG PAYBACK (2023) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). In 2021, Evanston, Ill., became the first American city to approve a compensation program intended to address historical racism and discrimination, a significant step for proponents of racial reparations, an issue that has long been frozen by political concerns. This documentary looks at how the measure passed, paying particular attention to a former alderman, Robin Rue Simmons, who was a primary architect of it, and to its place in the context of the larger conversations about race in the country.JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH (2021) 9:30 p.m. on TNT. Daniel Kaluuya won an Oscar for his portrayal of Fred Hampton, the Illinois Black Panther Party leader who was killed in an infamous 1969 police raid, in this drama. Directed by Shaka King, the film is told from the perspective of William O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), an informant who helped the F.B.I. orchestrate Hampton’s killing. The result is a “tense, methodical historical drama,” A.O. Scott said in his review for The New York Times. “The script,” Scott wrote, “by King and Will Berson, is layered with ethical snares and ideological paradoxes, and while King’s fast-paced direction doesn’t spare the suspense, it also makes room for sorrow, anger and even a measure of exhilaration.”TuesdayMelissa Rauch and John Larroquette in “Night Court.”Jordin Althaus/NBCNIGHT COURT 8 p.m. on NBC. Melissa Rauch (“The Big Bang Theory”) picks up the gavel once held by the actor Harry Anderson in this reboot of “Night Court,” the 1980s and early ’90s NBC sitcom that followed a young judge, Harry Stone (Anderson), working the night shift in a Manhattan municipal court. The new version of the show casts Rauch as Stone’s daughter, Abby, who lands in her father’s old gig (the latest example of a nepo baby?) and has to contend with a cast of bizarro characters. One of them is Dan Fielding, a now-former prosecutor played by John Larroquette, reprising his role from the original series.WednesdayDIRTY OLD CARS 10:03 p.m. on History. Car enthusiasts and neat freaks alike might take some pleasure in this new series, which follows a group of vehicle restorers who bring moldy, rusted-out old cars back to life. (It’s more “Revive My Ride” than “Pimp My Ride.”) The first episode includes a pair of classic American cars: a 1981 Chevrolet Camaro and a 1972 Ford Maverick.ThursdayFrom left, Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”A24EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE (2022) 4:30 p.m. on Showtime. “An exuberant swirl of genre anarchy” is a label A.O. Scott used to describe “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in his review for The Times. That swirl turned out to be a potent mix: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s universe-bopping tale of a laundromat owner (Michelle Yeoh) fighting evil in a multiverse has turned into an awards-season heavy hitter. Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, one of her co-stars, won Golden Globes last week for their performances in the film. And it’s set to be a wonderfully weird presence in the Oscars discussion.FridayGAME THEORY WITH BOMANI JONES 11 p.m. on HBO. The sharp sports commentator Bomani Jones returns for a second season of his HBO series. The show mixes commentary, comedy and reporting — it’s something like a “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” for sports. The first season included episodes about nepotism among N.F.L. coaches, the draw of historically Black colleges and universities for many sports recruits, and the N.F.L. draft.GLASS (2019) 5 p.m. on FXM. The filmmaker (and twist-maker) M. Night Shyamalan is set to return to theaters early next month with a new movie, “Knock at the Cabin.” For a refresher on Shyamalan’s style, consider revisiting “Glass,” which brings together characters from two of his previous movies — “Unbreakable” (2000) and “Split” (2016) — for a superhero story with horror trappings.SaturdayRUNNING ON EMPTY (1988) 5:45 p.m. on TCM. Judd Hirsch, the veteran stage and screen actor, leaned into a juicy supporting role recently in Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” in which he plays an oddball great-uncle who briefly shows up and injects some idiosyncratic, chaotic energy into the titular family’s home life. Hirsch played a father dealing with a different kind of familial chaos in this 1988 drama directed by Sidney Lumet. The plot centers on Arthur (Hirsch) and Annie (Christine Lahti), a husband and wife who for years have been on the run from the F.B.I. because of their involvement with extreme antiwar activities during the Vietnam War. Their children, Danny (River Phoenix) and Harry (Jonas Abry), have been brought up to play along with the fugitive life — until Danny, the elder sibling, starts to wrestle with a desire to break free of it. In her review of the film for The Times, the critic Janet Maslin wrote that the screenplay is uneven, but that “the actors are often so good that they’re able to be real and touching even when the material sounds strained.”SundaySissy Spacek in “Carrie.”United ArtistsCARRIE (1976) and CHRISTINE (1983) 4:45 and 7 p.m. on AMC. Cars and teenagers. These are two things that can be frightening and bewildering — especially when mixed — both in our own world and in Stephen King’s fictional ones. And both factor heavily into these two King adaptations. Up first, Brian De Palma’s take on King’s debut novel, “Carrie,” about a bullied 16-year-old (Sissy Spacek) who learns she has supernatural powers and uses them for revenge. Next, John Carpenter’s adaptation of King’s “Christine,” which follows another socially challenged teenager, Arnie (Keith Gordon), who buys a psychotic car. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      ‘The Last of Us’ Series Premiere Recap: Fungus Among Us

      by

      It’s too soon to say whether HBO’s big-budget video game adaptation will become a zombie classic. But it delivers one heck of an opening catastrophe.‘The Last of Us’ Season 1, Episode 1: ‘When You’re Lost in the Darkness’Every great post-apocalyptic saga should begin with a killer “here’s where everything went wrong” sequence.Think of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” with its single zombie lumbering through a graveyard, chasing after a young woman and her obnoxious brother. (“They’re coming to get you, Barbara!”) Or think of the 2004 remake of Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead,” or the first episode of “The Walking Dead,” both of which begin as the heroes wake up in a nightmarish world that collapsed while they were asleep. We understand right from the start what these people have been through because we go through it right along with them, minute by agonizing minute, as they panic and flee from the bloodthirsty ghouls and the mounting mayhem.It’s too soon to say whether HBO’s big-budget adaptation of the video game “The Last of Us” will become a classic like Romero’s “Dead” movies. But I’ll say this for the series’s creators, Craig Mazin (the Emmy-winning writer and producer of “Chernobyl”) and Neil Druckmann (a creator of the video game): They do deliver one heck of an opening catastrophe.The first half-hour of the show’s 80-minute premiere is set mostly in Austin, Texas, in 2003, where a construction worker named Joel (Pedro Pascal); his teenage daughter, Sarah (Nico Parker); and his brother, Tommy (Gabriel Luna) endure a harrowing 24 hours. It begins with them minding their own business on Joel’s 36th birthday. It ends with them trying to escape a city that has been devastated by rampaging monsters, trigger-happy soldiers and exploding vehicles.Mazin (who also directed the episode) and Druckmann spend a lot more time than one might expect with these three characters in Austin, given that their story’s primary action is set 20 years later and hundreds of miles away — and especially given that Sarah does not survive the day. Most of the Texas scenes are from Sarah’s point of view, too, although there are sly hints throughout that something bigger is happening. In one scene we hear radio reports about “disturbances in Jakarta.” In another, the next door neighbors’ grandmother twitches in the background, her mouth gaping unnervingly wide.Inside the Dystopian World of ‘The Last of Us’The post-apocalyptic video game that inspired the TV series “The Last of Us” won over players with its photorealistic animation and a morally complex story.Game Review: “I found it hard to get past what it embraces with a depressing sameness, particularly its handling of its female characters,” our critic wrote of “The Last of Us” in 2013.‘Left Behind’: “The Last of Us: Left Behind,” a prologue designed to be played in a single sitting, was an unexpected hit in 2014.2020 Sequel: “The Last of Us Part II,” a tale of entrenched tribalism in a world undone by a pandemic, took a darker and unpredictable tone that left critics in awe.Playing the Game: Two Times reporters spent weeks playing the sequel in the run-up to its release. These were their first impressions.The Austin sequence matters, though, and not only because it grabs the viewer with some thrillingly chaotic spectacle. By the time we leave 2003 — with Sarah laying dead from a soldier’s bullet and Joel emotionally wrecked — we have learned some plot-relevant details. We know that humans all over the world are becoming infected with something that turns them into ferociously violent savages. We see during the escape that Joel is willing to ignore other people’s suffering, or even to inflict harm wantonly, in order to protect himself and his family. And we discover that the government’s response to this crisis can be as destructive as the crisis itself.A short scene before the opening credits is just as important. Set in 1968, the prologue features a TV interview with a scientist who explains that his greatest fear isn’t a “global pandemic” (a term that, in a moment of dark humor from Mazin and Druckmann, is defined by another guest for the blissfully ignorant ’60s audience) but rather a mind-controlling fungus that could one day thrive on a warming planet, turning humans into fiends. This, put concisely, is what the characters in “The Last of Us” are going to be dealing with: “Billions of puppets with poisoned minds.”But as Romero showed over and over again with his zombie pictures, it isn’t always the infected alone who turn monstrous. The second half of this first episode takes us to the overgrown ruins of Boston in 2023, where in a “quarantine zone” Joel is taking odd jobs — some legal, some not. He does general cleanup work for the same kind of gun-toting authoritarians who killed his kid. (In 2023, they are called “FEDRA,” for the Federal Disaster Response Agency.) And he smuggles drugs with his business and romantic partner, Tess (played by the magnificent Anna Torv, beloved of science-fiction/fantasy/horror fans from her days on “Fringe”). They are trying to scrape together enough money to buy a battery and a truck so they can reunite with the still-alive and possibly endangered Tommy in the wilds of America, where the danger of the fungus creatures is rivaled by the viciousness of roving noninfected gangs. Nowhere, it seems, is safe.If the last half of the pilot is less exciting than the first, it also has to do the hard work of setting up the rest of the series. Beyond establishing the miserable conditions of 2023, Mazin and Druckmann must introduce the show’s other leading character: Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a feisty 14-year-old who is the only known person to survive an infection — and, hence, could be the key to saving humanity. When Joel and Tess’s truck battery plan goes awry, they take an assignment from the anti-FEDRA resistance fighter Marlene (Merle Dandridge) to shepherd Ellie to one of the safe houses of her organization, the Fireflies. So the real story begins.Still, even when they’re just moving pieces into place, the creators keep adding fascinating little wrinkles that make their world and its inhabitants more multidimensional. The best touch is also the quirkiest. It seems Joel has stayed in contact with the outside world — including with Tommy — by way of encoded radio messages. With a well-thumbed volume of “The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits” by his side, he waits to hear specific songs that signal whether it’s safe to venture beyond the Q.Z.Unfortunately, Joel and Tess have already left the apartment when the radio crackles to life and starts blaring Depeche Mode’s “Never Let Me Down Again.” That’s a song from the 1980s, which is a sign that there is trouble all around. Our heroes will have to find out for themselves what bad business awaits out there. And Joel will have to see if he can live up to the song’s lyrics — or if, for the second time in his life, he will fail to save a young girl.Side QuestsBy the way, “Never Let Me Down Again” never reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts, but we can let that slide, because it’s a great song. Besides, I believe this show is a work of fiction, given that we don’t live in a 2023 where half the population has been taken over by fungi.Mazin and Druckmann do a good job of setting the stage and telling their story through visual cues and subtle dialogue rather than blunt exposition. The most devastating example is in the first Boston scene, when an injured boy stumbles into town and is immediately checked over by the authorities. We can see in the background that the boy’s fungus test is glowing red, but he is told nothing of it, promised he’ll receive a good meal and a pile of toys once they give him some medicine — “just a little needle.” Later, we see the kid’s body in a pile of corpses Joel is burning. We can fill in the rest ourselves.Full disclosure: I have never played “The Last of Us,” and I am not really a gamer (though I have spent a lot of time watching my gamer wife and gamer kids play the likes of “Breath of the Wild” and “Xenoblade Chronicles”). So as I write about the show, I will be focusing on how it works as a television series, and not on how well it does or does not adapt the game.Make sure to read the extensive coverage of “The Last of Us” that the Times has run this week, including Brian Tallerico’s primer on the show and the game, Conor Dougherty’s behind-the-scenes look at the making of the series, Douglas Greenwood’s interview with Ramsey and James Poniewozik’s review. More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      ‘Emily in Paris’ Star Would Like Your Paris Tips

      by

      Lily Collins explores the city, and the world, with the help of Monocle, word searches and Norwegian coffee.Lily Collins has been “Emily in Paris” for so long that she’s expected to be a Parisian authority. Three seasons into her run as Emily Cooper, an American marketing executive on assignment in the City of Light, she spends large portions of the year in France and is constantly asked for recommendations. But she’s there to work.“I don’t have as much free time as I wish that I had to explore,” she said in a phone interview, which she conducted from her car, parked next to the road in Los Angeles before an appointment. “I’m constantly discovering new places and asking for people’s lists because I like the non-tourist spots.”Collins, 33, has been building her own list by scootering along the Seine, making regular visits to Canal Saint-Martin, and getting to know the side streets around the Clignancourt flea market. But, she admits, one of the best sights in the city is still its most famous.“Whenever I’m in the city and I look up and I see the Eiffel Tower, it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve seen it, I still get giddy,” she says. “It’s such a feat.”Season 3 of “Emily in Paris” began streaming on Netflix last month. Collins spoke with us about Five Minute Journals, the concept of hygge and other things she gravitates to at home, in Paris and beyond. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Greeting Cards I have a box where I keep cards that I’m saving for people. Some are over 10 years old. I have people in mind and I’ll get them cards knowing that one day they’re going to have a 25th birthday and they will need this card. I love the idea that a single piece of paper can say so much about how you’ve been thinking of someone.2. Self-Portraits It’s so interesting when an artist or a photographer paints, draws or takes a self-portrait because it’s such an inside look into how someone views themselves. The late photographer Vivian Maier is a really beautiful example.3. The Five Minute Journal It gives you easy prompts to answer and helps you be aware of how you can view things in multiple different ways. Instead of saying the crap that happened to you that day and how you were so upset about something, you get to look at how you could have handled certain things throughout the day better, what you were grateful for, what you’re excited about and what’s good in your life. You also write daily affirmations and things that you would like to accomplish. It’s beautiful to look back to previous journals and see how far you’ve grown.4. Treehotel One of the bucket-list places that I’d been wanting to stay in was the Treehotel in Swedish Lapland, which is basically a collection of beautiful tree houses. Each tree house looks like something different — a bird’s nest, a U.F.O., a steel dragonfly. My husband booked us one during our honeymoon that’s high in the trees. Staying there, you get to feel like an adventurer and you get that little kid feeling that I’ve always loved.5. Word Searches I have always carried a word search book with me on flights. It’s a way to turn my mind off. They put me in a kind of meditative trance. Also, I get a weird sense of accomplishment when I complete one.6. Dried Flowers When we go to farmers’ markets, I always end up finding amazing dried flowers. I sometimes keep them for years so I can look at different flowers and remember where I got them. If I get them from a farmers’ market in a different city or in a different country, I push them in books and bring them back. They’re such romantic mementos.7. “Van Go” On the Magnolia Network show “Van Go,” Brett Lewis converts things like vans and sprinters into homes, stores, food trucks — whatever people want. It’s an interesting way to see what people need, what they want and what their aesthetics are. It’s also a look at what the core necessities are when you pare things down and what can be done in such a small space.8. Hygge I’ve always been someone who loves being cozy: cozy socks, my grandma’s cozy sweater, a fire going, playing a game with friends or family — being cozy in an environment is so important to me. When I learned about the Danish concept, hygge, I felt seen, like, oh my God, someone gets me.9. Coffee I look for coffee shops everywhere I go. In a foreign city, they can provide a sense of home and a sense of comfort. There’s a Norwegian coffee brand called Tim Wendelboe that I’ve discovered on our many trips to Denmark. It’s probably the most incredible coffee I’ve ever had.10. Monocle When we’re traveling, we sometimes schedule our trips around things we read about in Monocle magazine. Art, fashion, you name it, they have the places where residents go and that celebrate local artisans. It also can help dictate where we go next. If there’s a place that is so cool and has all these amazing places to visit that we didn’t know about, maybe that’s the next destination. More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert: ‘Say It Ain’t So, Joe!’

      by

      Late night hosts lamented that more classified documents were found, this time in President Biden’s Delaware garage.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.‘Car-a-Lago’Late night hosts ribbed President Biden on Thursday after additional classified documents were uncovered in his care, this time in the garage of his Delaware home.“No!” Stephen Colbert cried at the top of his monologue. “Say it ain’t so, Joe!”“I know you’re retirement age — are you starting a collection? They’re classified documents, not spoons from the Delaware Train Museum!” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The White House announced today that President Biden’s aides found classified documents at several locations inside his Delaware home. And he’s had them for a while, because a lot of them have to do with the Louisiana Purchase.” — SETH MEYERS“You’ve heard of Mar-a-Lago — this is Car-a-Lago.” — JAMES CORDEN“Good Lord, apparently presidents lose classified documents the way we lose AirPods.” — JIMMY FALLON“Which is more dangerous: Joe Biden having classified documents in his garage, or Joe Biden having the keys to a Corvette?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He calls it ‘Stud Force One.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL[imitating Biden] “It’s in a locked garage. You think I might leave my sweet cherry Vette out on the main drag where some street thugs could scuff it with their switchblades? No sirree. I keep that baby locked up tight in my garage. Sunday afternoons, I go in there and buff it with a handful of missile maps.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (No Shame in His Blame Edition)“Back in 2017, Trump floated the idea of nuking North Korea and blaming the attack on another country. The old ‘Canada did it’ routine.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“According to a new book, then-President Trump discussed in 2017 the possibility of striking North Korea with a nuclear weapon and then blaming it on another country. Even weirder, he wanted to blame it on Belgium.” — SETH MEYERS“That’s right, Trump discussed the possibility of striking North Korea with a nuclear weapon and then blaming it on another country. Oh, my God. Seriously? It’s nuclear war, not a fart.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingThe Property Brothers performed a cover of The Righteous Brothers’ hit “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutJoni Mitchell, in 2022.Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesJoni Mitchell has been named this year’s recipient of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song and will be honored with a tribute concert on March 1 in Washington. PBS will air the special on March 31. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Jimmy Kimmel Jokes About Biden Aides Finding More Classified Documents

      by

      After the discovery of a new batch of documents tied to President Biden, Kimmel joked that America is “one episode of ‘Storage Wars’ away from finding out who killed J.F.K.”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.What’s Up, Docs?After finding a stash of classified documents earlier this week, aides for President Biden discovered another batch of them at a second undisclosed location on Wednesday.Jimmy Kimmel joked that America is “one episode of ‘Storage Wars’ away from finding out who killed J.F.K.”“So staffers for Joe Biden are now searching everywhere he could’ve possibly left documents — his knapsack, his pill organizer, under the arch at the 1904 World’s Fair.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They could be in a birthday card he sent to his grandkids next to a crisp two-dollar bill. No one knows.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And, of course, any time documents are mishandled, top-secret documents, it needs to be taken seriously. That’s something Republicans and Democrats believe, although Republicans have only believed it since Monday.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Major F.A.A.-il Edition)“Early this morning, all flights across the U.S. were grounded due to a failure with the F.A.A.’s computer system. Yeah. Zero flights took off, but somehow everyone’s luggage still ended up in Pittsburgh.” — JIMMY FALLON“Their system went down, resulting in an awful morning for travelers, and a great morning for Southwest Airlines. They were like, ‘Wasn’t our fault this time!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Well, this is what happens when you run your entire aviation system off a Boingo hotspot.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, no one could fix the computer glitch. One guy at the F.A.A. said, ‘I don’t know, maybe unplug it, plug it back in?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Meanwhile, the outage happened while some planes were in the air. If there’s one thing you don’t want to hear from your pilot, it’s ‘Attention, passengers: Do yourselves a favor and stay off Twitter for a little bit.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan came by to direct Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightSigourney Weaver, star of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” will sit down with James Corden on Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutValeria Golino, left, and Giordana Marengo in a scene from “The Lying Life of Adults,” a six-episode adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s 2019 novel.Eduardo Castaldo/Netflix Netflix’s new adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel “The Lying Life of Adults” follows two young women coming of age in Naples. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Movies

      Is Stephanie Hsu the ‘Dark Horse’ of Award Season?

      by

      Every time Stephanie Hsu thinks she has gotten used to the reactions to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” something new manages to throw her for a loop.And on Friday night at a West Hollywood hotel bar, it was Steve Buscemi.“I’m sorry to be so rude,” said the 65-year-old actor, who sidled up to our table during an interview to say hello to Hsu. It turned out that Buscemi was a major fan of “Everything Everywhere,” the sci-fi hit in which Hsu plays the unhappy daughter of Michelle Yeoh’s multiverse-skipping savior: He’d seen the movie multiple times, including at an actors guild screening earlier that evening.Hsu, 32, is often stopped by people who love “Everything Everywhere,” but this was a pinch-me moment that she met with a big grin. Buscemi asked for a picture, and the buoyant Hsu leaped out of our booth to pose with him, then returned to her dirty martini. “That was crazy,” she told me after he left. “It’s all crazy!”Though the film came out nearly a year ago, its award-season afterlife has proved so potent that “Everything Everywhere All at Once” has begun to sound less like a title and more like the organizing principle of Hsu’s day planner. On the day we met, she had just completed several interviews and a pit stop at the Palm Springs International Film Festival; a few days later, she’d attend the Golden Globes, where her co-stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan and Yeoh were all nominated and where the latter two won major awards.Hsu was not nominated for a Globe, and as the ensemble’s least-known member, she has sometimes been left out of the awards conversation, though she did receive a Screen Actors Guild nomination on Wednesday morning. Funny and refreshingly honest, Hsu understands that nothing is guaranteed this awards season, and many may see her as an underdog. “The elephant in the room,” she said, “is the dark horse of me.”Still, even if Hsu isn’t as famous as her veteran co-stars, her presence is no less pivotal. In “Everything Everywhere,” Hsu plays Joy, who is crestfallen that her mother, a Chinese American laundromat owner named Evelyn (Yeoh), makes so little effort to understand her. It’s crucial that we feel for Joy because we soon learn that in every other universe but ours, she’s a flashy, universe-collapsing supervillain named Jobu whom our Evelyn is charged with defeating. Hsu drew a map to track how fed-up Joy became the nihilistic Jobu, and tried to imbue her baddie with a strong emotional core: Underneath it all, this is a supervillain who wants nothing more than to be embraced by her mother.Hsu bristled initially when Jamie Lee Curtis advised her to stay centered with the film starting to take off. But Hsu added, “As the year has unfolded, I’ve realized how little I knew about anything.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThe result is a big-screen breakthrough for Hsu, who had been best known for playing Mei Lin on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and for Broadway roles in “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical” and “Be More Chill.” She likens her awards-season stint to film school on steroids. “There are moments where it’s so fun, so joyous, so inspiring,” Hsu said. “And then there are moments where maybe you feel a little bit icky, because you realize that something’s happening behind the curtain that perhaps you were always suspicious about, but you just didn’t know how political it gets.”Still, whenever she gets too caught up in award shows and industry attention, Hsu endeavors to remember the often-tearful reactions of the fans who have flagged her down to talk about how much “Everything Everywhere” moved them.“I’m witnessing other people’s humanity in a way that is very alive,” she said, “and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, we did that. We did something that made people start crying even when they think about it.’ And that’s crazy. That came from our labor of love.”Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown.Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy.The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves.A Lovelorn Romantic: An ‘80s child star, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blending action and drama.The Costume Designer: Shirley Kurata, who defined the look of the movie, has a signature style that mixes vintage, high-end designers and an intense color wheel.Gotham Awards: At the first big show of awards season, which is a spotty Oscar predictor but a great barometer for industry enthusiasm, the film took the top prize.Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.It’s been almost a year since “Everything Everywhere” came out, and you’re still going. How does it feel at this late date?A whole pandemic happened between when we filmed and now, so it’s kind of surreal. Obviously, it’s my first time on a press run like this, and it’s been wild, but so many people haven’t actually seen the movie yet, and it’s been really delightful to still bring it into people’s lives. I think its superpower is to somehow be able to make you feel a part of the mess of humanity again. To feel those roller-coaster feelings beside a stranger is a special thing.This script came to you shortly after you wrapped the third season of “Mrs. Maisel,” which you shot alongside “Be More Chill.” Did you feel ready for it?That was the first year where I finally admitted to myself that I was an actor. I’ve always been a little bit punk rock — probably in an impostor syndrome way — where everything always felt like an accident: How did I stumble onto Broadway? How did I stumble onto this TV show? And to do a show on top of that, it asked so much of my discipline and rigor that I was like, “OK, this is what I do.” And with that came a lot of responsibility and weight.It’s not fun to talk about identity or race because you want to talk about art and the craft, but the reality was that I’d never seen myself as a lead on Broadway because I was like, “I’m not a ‘Miss Saigon’ person, so there’s no path for me there.” And I never thought I could be in a period piece on television because every version I’ve ever seen of that is incredibly offensive. And so that year, I was breaking down all these barriers that had been placed around me, carving my own path in a really real way.Hsu, left, with Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh and James Hong in “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”Allyson Riggs/A24, via Associated PressBefore you had those stage and screen roles, you spent a lot of time doing experimental theater. Do you think you were rejecting the mainstream because you thought it might reject you?At the time when I was finishing school and living in New York, those roles were not available in the mainstream. And I had no interest in selling myself or just shrinking myself to an inappropriate cameo just so that I could say I added one more thing to my résumé. I remember in 2012, I went into a commercial audition and they were like, “OK, could you do it again, but with a more Asian accent?” And I said, “I’m so sorry, but this role is not for me. I don’t do that and I’m not interested in this part.”I walked out and I was fuming. I sat next to this actor and asked him, “Did they ask you to do an accent?” He was Asian and spoke perfect English, and he was like, “Well, yeah.” And I’m like, “Did you do it?” And he said, “I have no other choice.” I understand that people want to make it and they only see one path and have to bend and fold to have a life in the arts, but I always thought if that’s how it’s going to go for me, then I’m going to work at a bar or in a wood shop. I have to make things that matter to me. Life is too short to completely dehumanize yourself.When you came on board “Everything Everywhere,” did you think about how the movie would resonate for people who also don’t tend to see themselves onscreen?I knew the movie was going to be special, but I had no idea it was going to do what it has done. And it’s been really healing for me to hear how many people have been affected by it. So many daughters and mothers have been coming to me crying, saying, “I saw myself in the movie,” or “My relationship with my mother is just like that.”When you say that it’s been healing, what was it healing in you?I don’t know if I could ever make this film again because at that point in my life, I had nothing to lose. There really were no eyes on me, so I got to bring everything I value as an artist into that role, and the affirmation I have received has validated that the wildness and imagination inside of me is really resonating with a large mass of people.Your directors, Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, said this awards season has been emotional for the cast and crew. How have you experienced it?At the Gotham Awards, [the “Tár” director] Todd Field said we have to eradicate the word “best” when we talk about how we value art, and I felt that so deeply. But also on the same evening, when Ke won best supporting actor, I stood up so fast and screamed so loud that I almost passed out. And then when we won best picture, I couldn’t believe it. I’m not sentimental about this kind of stuff and yet I could not stop crying onstage.Why do you think you reacted that way?Even as a kid with ideas, I just never thought it could be me up there with my friends, making something I believe in that is being celebrated. I remember sitting in front of a TV when Halle Berry won at the Oscars — the only woman of color who’s ever won best actress — and I don’t remember anyone else who won that night, but I remember that moment. I’ve been reflecting on that a lot, because I didn’t realize how much I had deleted the possibility from my mind that I could actually ever be a part of this industry in a real way, doing something that I value and love. So to get to be there and feel this big hug from our peers felt completely surreal.I’m still processing all of it. I’m trying to allow myself to also feel vulnerable in this ride, because there are highs and there are definitely a lot of lows. I think the biggest thing I’ve been trying to balance is how to genuinely receive the goodness while not protecting myself too much that I can’t enjoy the ride. It’s a sweet, sweet moment that may never come again. But also, you can’t get attached to the sweetness, because then you start chasing something that’s not real.Hsu saw few actresses of color winning honors when she was coming up: “I didn’t realize how much I had deleted the possibility from my mind that I could actually ever be a part of this industry in a real way.”Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesTell me more about those highs and lows.After Jamie Lee Curtis saw the movie at South by Southwest, she took me aside and said, “This year is going to be a total roller coaster for you. Center yourself.” And I remember thinking, “Jamie, listen, I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ve been around the block. I know how to stay centered.” But as the year has unfolded, I’ve realized how little I knew about anything.You have to hold onto your self-worth in such a profound way, and it’s hard, because it feels like other people’s opinions of you are going to affirm whether or not you get to keep making movies, which is such a crazy trap and also very real, right? But I’ve had to continue to remind myself that I got to this moment without anyone ever knowing anything about me, so it really is just all about the work.And it’s work that people are responding to with a lot of passion.Yeah, but this industry is weird. You have moments like the one we just had with Steve Buscemi, and then you also have moments where you walk on a carpet and people are like, “Lana Condor, Lana Condor!”No! Did that happen?It was just once, but it was very pronounced. In everybody’s defense, my mom also thinks I look like Lana Condor: She sent me a picture of Lana Condor a year ago and was like, “You look like this woman.” But after the Lana Condor thing happened, we were at a screening in New York, and a bunch of people kept going up to my publicist and the Daniels’ publicist, who are both Asian, and they were like, “Congratulations, your performance is incredible.” And they were like, “Huh?”So listen, this ride is amazing, but that is real. We have not transcended this moment, right? James Hong [who plays Yeoh’s father] started acting at a time when people wouldn’t even say his name, they would literally just call him “Chinaman” and say “Get on your mark.” Michelle waited almost 40 years for her first chance of being No. 1 on the call sheet, and Ke left acting for [nearly] 20 years. As successful as this film has been, the biggest fear on the other side is “What if this is my last chance?”How different are you now than you were a year ago?The biggest thing I’ve learned from this past year is how to continue to show up for myself. This is not something I ever thought I would be in the conversation for, but I know I brought something to this project that is completely singular. Sometimes, things have made me want to just completely disappear into the background, but there are people who felt something in this character, people who are rooting for roles like this to exist, people who are rooting, also, for me to elbow more space or even just to stand here.And so it really is the masses that have been continuing to push me forward to show up for myself. Because as confusing as all of this is, I am so proud of our movie and what I was able to bring to it, and proud for it to be my big introduction to what I believe art can or should be. Whether that is clean enough for people to digest, that’s a whole other story. More