Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Theater

      The 75th Tony Awards: Time, Hosts and How to Watch

      by

      The ceremony returns to Radio City Music Hall on Sunday night.The Tony Awards, which honor plays and musicals performed on Broadway, will take place this year on Sunday, June 12, with a four-hour ceremony that begins on a streaming service and continues with a television broadcast.The evening is the first Tony Awards ceremony to recognize shows that opened after the long shutdown of theaters brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. The theater season was extraordinarily challenging, with ongoing Covid disruptions and fewer tourists than normal, and the ceremony is expected to highlight Broadway’s perseverance.The nominators spread out their admiration quite widely: Of the 34 eligible shows, 29 got at least one nod, including the critically scorned “Diana.”Here’s what to look out for on Sunday night:How Do I Watch?The main event, at Radio City Music Hall, starts at 8 p.m. Eastern time and is to be hosted by Ariana DeBose; it will be both broadcast on CBS and available to stream on Paramount+.The broadcast show will be preceded by a one-hour segment, hosted by Darren Criss and Julianne Hough, that will begin at 7 p.m. Eastern time and be viewable only on Paramount+. That hour is expected to include the announcement of many of the design and writing awards, as well as some performances.The 2022 Tony AwardsThis year’s awards, the first to recognize shows that opened after a long Broadway shutdown during the pandemic, will be given out on June 12.Hosting Duties: Ariana DeBose, who will host the ceremony, vows that this edition will celebrate the often unsung actors who have stepped in during the pandemic.Ruth Negga: The actress, who is nominated for her role as Lady Macbeth in Sam Gold’s staging of the play, infuses the character with intensity, urgency and vitality.Hugh Jackman: The actor may potentially win his third Tony Award for his role in “The Music Man.” He shared some thoughts on his life between film and theater.Choreography: Musicals like “MJ” and “Paradise Square” take on dances of the past but miss some opportunities to elevate the dancing; “For Colored Girls” effectively weaves language and motion.There will also be a red carpet earlier in the evening; New Yorkers with Spectrum cable can watch coverage of the red carpet starting at 6 p.m. on NY1.What Should I Expect?The broadcast will feature performances from all six shows nominated for best new musical — “Girl From the North Country,” “MJ,” “Mr. Saturday Night,” “Paradise Square,” “Six: The Musical” and “A Strange Loop” — as well as from two of the three shows nominated for best musical revival, “Company” and “The Music Man.” And, of course, many awards will be bestowed.Some of the presenters include Chita Rivera, Cynthia Erivo, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson, Sarah Silverman, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Bebe Neuwirth. Paris Jackson and Prince Jackson, two of Michael Jackson’s children, are expected to spotlight “MJ,” a jukebox musical about their father that is nominated for 10 awards, including best new musical and best book of a musical.Among the other expected highlights: a tribute to the composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who died in November; a 15th anniversary reunion of the cast of “Spring Awakening”; and a lifetime achievement award for Angela Lansbury.What Are Some of the Key Races?Best new play: This Tony Award seems certain to go to “The Lehman Trilogy,” a riveting history lesson that chronicles the rise and fall of the Lehman Brothers financial empire. Two dark comedies are also in the running: “Clyde’s,” by Lynn Nottage, is set in a sandwich shop employing recently incarcerated individuals; and “Hangmen,” by Martin McDonagh, takes place at a bar run by Britain’s second-best executioner just after that country banned capital punishment. The other contenders are “Skeleton Crew,” Dominique Morisseau’s play about a group of workers at an automotive plant facing shutdown, and “The Minutes,” Tracy Letts’s look at the dark secrets kept by a small-town governing body.Tony Awards: The Best New Musical NomineesCard 1 of 7The 2022 nominees. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Music

      Julee Cruise, Vocalist of ‘Twin Peaks’ Fame, Dies at 65

      by

      In projects for the director David Lynch, she brought an eerie, otherworldly style to “Falling” and other songs.Julee Cruise, a singer who brought a memorably ethereal voice to the projects of the director David Lynch — most famously “Falling,” whose instrumental version was the theme for Mr. Lynch’s cult-favorite television show, “Twin Peaks” — died on Thursday in Pittsfield, Mass. She was 65.Her husband, Edward Grinnan, said the cause was suicide. He said she had struggled with depression as well as lupus.Ms. Cruise was building a career off Broadway in the early 1980s when serendipity struck: She met the composer Angelo Badalamenti when they worked on a show together.“I was in this country-and-western musical in the East Village,” she told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1990. “I was a chorus girl with a big skirt and a big wig, singing way too loud. Angelo was doing the music for the show, and we became friends.”A few years later, Mr. Badalamenti was engaged by Mr. Lynch, who was still early in his career, as a vocal coach for Isabella Rossellini in the 1986 Lynch movie “Blue Velvet” and ended up writing the score for that film as well. Mr. Lynch and Mr. Badalamenti had written a song for the film that needed a vocalist.“Angelo asked me to find someone to sing a song for the soundtrack called ‘Mysteries of Love,’ but he didn’t like any of the singers I recommended,” she told The Chronicle. “He wanted dreamy and romantic. I said, ‘Let me do it.’”Ms. Cruise had always thought of herself as “a belter,” as she often put it (she had once played Janis Joplin in a musical revue called “Beehive”), but the voice she came up with for “Mysteries of Love” was something else entirely, enigmatic and wispy. It suited that and other Lynch-Badalamenti compositions perfectly. One writer called her style “angel-on-Quaaludes vocals.”The three were soon collaborating on Ms. Cruise’s first album, “Floating Into the Night,” which featured songs by the two men, including “Mysteries of Love” and “Falling.” They also collaborated on a stage production called “Industrial Symphony No. 1,” performed at the New Music America festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in November 1989, with Ms. Cruise performing amid an elaborate set that included an old car.“Often, Ms. Cruise floated far above the stage, like a prom-gowned, bleached-blond angel,” Jon Pareles wrote in his review in The New York Times. “At one point, her body plummeted to the floor and was packed into the car’s trunk by helmeted workmen; later, she re-emerged to face a video camera and sing ‘Tell your heart it’s me,’ as 10 chorus girls in gold lamé danced next to her image on television screens.”Ms. Cruise achieved a longtime goal when she performed at the Public Theater in New York in 2003 in “Radiant Baby,” a musical about the artist Keith Haring. She played his mother (among other roles).Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesNational exposure came the following April when “Twin Peaks” premiered on ABC, with an instrumental version of “Falling” serving as its theme. Ms. Cruise appeared in the pilot and subsequent episodes as a roadhouse singer.The show quickly became the talk of television, and in May 1990 it led to an appearance by Ms. Cruise on “Saturday Night Live.” She wasn’t in the original lineup, but the controversial comic Andrew Dice Clay (he called himself “the most vulgar, vicious comic ever to walk the face of the earth”) was the scheduled host, which led to protests from at least one cast member, Nora Dunn, who refused to appear in that episode, and caused the original musical guest, Sinead O’Connor, to drop out at the last minute.Ms. Cruise was one of two acts summoned to replace her. Mr. Grinnan said in a telephone interview that Ms Cruise, who was still not well known, was working as a waitress at the time and had to skip out on her job. But, he noted, she didn’t call in sick.“She said that she called in famous,” he said.Though “Twin Peaks” brought Ms. Cruise wide exposure, Mr. Grinnan said she found a stint touring with the B-52’s in the 1990s to be particularly enjoyable. She replaced Cindy Wilson, an original member, when Ms. Wilson took a break from the band.“It was probably the happiest performing of her life,” Mr. Grinnan said.Julee Ann Cruise was born on Dec. 1, 1956, in Creston, Iowa, to Wilma and Dr. John Cruise. Her father was a dentist, and her mother was his office manager.Ms. Cruise was something of a musical prodigy on the French horn, her husband said, and received a music degree in the instrument from Drake University in Iowa. He said she had applied the delicacy and phrasing of classical French horn to the voice she came up with for the Lynch projects.But once she graduated, she thought that acting and singing would be more appealing than playing in an orchestra. She went to Minneapolis, a good city for theater, and spent several years performing with the Children’s Theater Company there before moving to New York in about 1983.After “Twin Peaks,” Ms. Cruise made another album with Mr. Lynch and Mr. Badalamenti, “The Voice of Love” (1993). She also continued acting. Mr. Grinnan said it was her performance in an Off Broadway musical, “Return to the Forbidden Planet,” in 1991 that caught the attention of the B-52’s. Mel Gussow, reviewing that show for The Times, said she stood out.“Only Julee Cruise invigorates the show with musical personality,” he wrote. “Well remembered for her singing on ‘Twin Peaks,’ she is spunky as well as amusing, although the script unwisely keeps her offstage for most of the first act.”Ms. Cruise later toured with Bobby McFerrin and worked with electronic musicians like Marcus Schmickler. In 2003 she fulfilled a longtime goal of performing at the Public Theater in New York when she was cast in the musical “Radiant Baby,” about the graffiti artist Keith Haring.Ms. Cruise as Andy Warhol, one of four roles she played in “Radiant Baby,” with Daniel Reichard, who played Keith Haring. The hardest part of performing in that show, she said, was “the costume changes.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesIt was a demanding assignment. As The Times wrote, she played “Andy Warhol, Haring’s mother, a demonic nurse and a critic who resembles Susan Sontag.”Which of the roles was most difficult, a reporter asked?“The costume changes,” she said. “I’m the oldest person in this cast.”Ms. Cruise alternated between homes in Manhattan and the Berkshires. In addition to her husband, whom she married in 1988, she is survived by a sister, Kate Coen.Ms. Cruise reprised her “Twin Peaks” role in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me,” Mr. Lynch’s 1992 film, and, a quarter-century later, in an episode of Showtime’s reboot of the TV series. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2017, she reflected on her long “Twin Peaks” ride.“It was so much fun to be part of something that just went ba-boom!” she said. “You didn’t know it was going to do that. What a nice surprise life takes you on.” More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Steven Knight Isn’t Ready for ‘Peaky Blinders’ to End

      by

      The cult British show’s final season is now on Netflix, but its creator has plans for a spinoff movie and says he wants to follow the Shelby family into the 1940s and ’50s.LONDON — Steven Knight knew something special was happening around “Peaky Blinders,” his TV crime drama, a few years ago, when the rapper Snoop Dogg asked to talk with him.The pair met in a London hotel room, Knight said in a recent interview, and for three hours discussed the show, which is based on the real-life Shelby family that operated in Birmingham, in central England, in the shadow of World War I. “Peaky” reminded the rapper of how he got involved in gang culture in Los Angeles, Knight said.“How the connection occurs between 1920s Birmingham and South Central, I don’t know,” Knight, 62, said. “I think you just get lucky with some projects and it resonates with people.”Since premiering in Britain in 2013, the tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), and set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years, has resonated with many.Devotees hold weddings themed around the show’s early-20th-century aesthetic and cut their hair like the characters. The official “Peaky” brand extensions have been diverse, weird and wonderful, including an official cookbook, despite fans noting that Tommy is never seen eating; a Monopoly board game; a virtual reality game; and a dance show which premieres in Britain this year.The tumultuous fortunes of the Shelby family, headed by Tommy Shelby (Cillian Murphy), are set against the backdrop of the political and social tumult of the interwar years in Britain.Robert Viglasky/NetfilxNow, after six seasons, the cultural hit is drawing to a close, its final outing dropping on Netflix on Friday. (The season aired in Britain earlier this year.) While Season 6 is the official conclusion of the show, Knight has trailed a spinoff movie and other projects, framing the final season as “the end of the beginning.”In a recent video interview, he discussed the development of “Peaky,” and what he has planned for the future. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When did you first have the idea to dramatize the story of the Peaky Blinders?These stories were told to me when I was a kid by my parents because they grew up in Small Heath in Birmingham, and so they sort of experienced that world. When they told me stories, I always thought it would make a great drama.I first thought about doing it as a TV series probably 20 years ago, and I’m really thankful that it didn’t happen then because I don’t think there was the technology to have done it justice. Then I was off writing movies and, when television started to become what it is now, someone said, do you have any television ideas? It was an idea that I had sort of in the bottom drawer.Why did those stories resonate with you as a child, did you see them as heroes?Yes. My dad’s uncles were illegal bookmakers known as the Peaky Blinders, so he was in awe of them as a kid — whenever he saw them he was terrified and impressed, they were heroes to him. He would see them in immaculate clothes with razor blades in their hats and drinking whiskey out of jam jars.And I know those streets, I know the pubs, I know the Garrison pub — the real one — and when I wanted to do “Peaky” I decided to keep the mythology rather than be like, what was it really like?I wanted to keep it as if they were being viewed through the eyes of a kid. The horses are all beautiful. The clothes are all magnificent. I was a big fan of westerns; it’s like a western, and that’s how I wanted to keep it.“My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed?” Knight said.NetflixDo you think the show has changed how Birmingham is viewed? In Britain at least, the city and the accent have often been maligned.Part of the challenge in the beginning was to try and make Birmingham — which was a blank canvas at best before — cool. To give it a story. Liverpool has the Beatles and Manchester has the nightclub scene, Birmingham never really had anything.There was a suggestion in the early days of moving the story to London or another city, and I said no. I think the fact that Birmingham was a blank canvas helped because there were no preconceptions.According to people I know from Birmingham, when they go abroad and they speak, instantly people mention “Peaky Blinders.” And it’s not a bad thing, it’s always good. I think it has given Birmingham an identity that perhaps it didn’t have, purely in the media.The show could easily have been ahistoric, but you weave contemporary social movements and political goings-on throughout the seasons. Why was that important to you?If you’re setting something in the 1920s, if you look at what was really going on historically, it gives you an enormous amount of material to use.I didn’t look at history books because I think they, first of all, don’t really tell the history of the working class anyway, and also they tend to look at trends and patterns that eventually made everything that happened seem inevitable when it wasn’t.If you look at newspapers and wherever you can get word-of-mouth testimony about the way life was, it’s so fascinating. And if you can bring that into the work, it just gives it — even though this is very heightened and mythological — a real base.The show takes place in a similar time frame to “Downton Abbey.” As in that series, British period dramas usually show working-class characters as servants.Servants or figures of fun or whatever. What I wanted to do was have these working-class characters where we’re not looking at them and saying, ‘Isn’t it a shame? Wasn’t it awful? Wasn’t their life so dreadful?’ Their lives are amazing and romantic and tragic.An abiding critique of the show is its portrayal of violent masculinity. What do you think about claims that “Peaky” glorifies violence?I think there’s lots of things going on. First of all, you’re depicting life in the ’20s and ’30s and it was very different — to suggest that people behaved the way they behave now, would be the same as saying they didn’t smoke. But also, the way that I look at it, any act of violence in “Peaky” has a very big consequence. If they get scarred, they stay scarred.There’s a scene in one of the early series where Arthur [a Shelby family member] is in a boxing ring and kills someone because he loses his temper. In the next season, that boy’s mother turns up at the Garrison with a gun and wants to get revenge for what happened. In other words, it’s not like this is parting violence. All violence has a consequence.The show is coming to an end, but you have spoken of spinoffs, including a movie. Why do you want to keep returning to the show’s world?It’s partly to do with the fact that it seems to be going up and not down in terms of audience. And I’m interested in concluding during the Second World War. So the film will be set during that war, and then the film itself will dictate what happens next.But I’m quite interested in keeping that world going into the ’40s and ’50s and just seeing where it goes because as long as there’s an appetite, then why not do it? I probably won’t be writing them all, but the world will be established.“Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination,” Knight said of the lead character. “He just does these things.”Robert Viglasky/NetflixTommy Shelby is a deeply complicated character. How did you want his story to end?I always imagine that before Episode 1 of Season 1, he put a gun to his and decided, ‘Well, I’m not going to kill myself, I’m just going to do whatever I want.’ There’s a great Francis Bacon quote about how, since life is so meaningless, we might as well be extraordinary. Tommy doesn’t think there’s a point, he doesn’t think there’s a goal, he doesn’t think there’s a destination, he just does these things.Then over the six seasons, he, bit by bit, comes back to life. It’s like something that’s frozen is thawing out, but obviously that process is very painful. My take is that Season 6 is asking the question: Can Tommy Shelby be redeemed? And I think that question is answered in the last 10 minutes. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Recaps Jan. 6 Hearings’ ‘Episode One’

      by

      He called the prime time congressional hearings “this summer’s most compelling drama.”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 First EpisodeLate night hosts weighed in on the first Jan. 6 hearing on Thursday night, or as Stephen Colbert referred to it, “Episode One of this summer’s most compelling drama.”“It’s like ‘Stranger Things’ — we met the monster years ago, and we’re pretty sure the Russians are involved.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Well, guys, we had a great lead-in tonight. We’re following the Jan. 6 hearing, so, you guys ready for some comedy?” — JIMMY FALLON“That’s right, earlier tonight, Congress held the first public hearing on the Jan. 6 attack, and it aired in prime time across all major networks. Yep. The footage is rough to get through. Right after the hearing, I watched an episode of ‘Dateline’ just to lighten the mood.” — JIMMY FALLON“Five minutes in, even Mike Pence was like, ‘I’ve had enough — let’s see what’s happening on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race.’” — JIMMY FALLON“After two hours of documentary evidence and testimony, we learned that this insurrectionist conspiracy was, like everything else associated with that last administration, exactly what you thought, but worse than you could have imagined. The next episode drops on Monday morning, and to quote the former president, ‘Be there. Will be wild.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Bad News Edition)“It was such a juicy burger that Fox News knew that even their viewers would be tempted to take a bite, which is why — and this is true — for the first hour of his show opposite the hearings, Tucker Carlson took no commercial breaks. Do you understand what that means? Fox News is willing to lose money to keep their viewers from flipping over and accidentally learning information.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, the Jan. 6 committee aired a 90-minute hearing tonight, which was carried live by all the major news networks except Fox News. Though Fox ended up with better ratings by just airing the original Capitol attack.” — SETH MEYERS“Instead, they’re showing reruns of Jan. 6 with a laugh track.” — JIMMY FALLON“Of course Fox isn’t airing it — they’re a key suspect in it. They would be — that would be like if Court TV’s coverage of the O.J. trial had been hosted by O.J.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee took Republicans to task for the gun violence epidemic on this week’s “Full Frontal.”Also, Check This OutMembers of the Jane Collective, an activist group that helped provide safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade.HBOHBO’s new documentary “The Janes” spotlights the women activists who banded together to form Jane, a clandestine group providing safe abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade. More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Song Hae, Beloved South Korean TV Host, Dies at 95

      by

      Born in what is now North Korea, he was known for his cheeky grin and folksy wisecracks as the host of South Korea’s weekly “National Singing Contest” for more than three decades.SEOUL — Song Hae, who fled North Korea as a young man during the Korean War, became a beloved television personality in South Korea and was recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world’s “oldest TV music talent show host,” died at his home in Seoul on Wednesday. He was 95.His death was confirmed by Lee Gi-nam, the producer of a 2020 documentary on Mr. Song’s life, which charted a tumultuous course that reflected South Korea’s modern history through war, division, abject poverty and a meteoric rise. No cause of death was given.A jovial Everyman figure known for his cheeky grin and folksy wisecracks, Mr. Song became a household name in South Korea when he took over in 1988 as the host of the weekly “National Singing Contest,” a town-by-town competition that mixes down-home musical talent, farcical costumes, poignant life stories and comedic episodes.Mr. Song was recognized by Guinness World Records in April as the “oldest TV music talent show host.”Jung Yeon-Je/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHis talent show, which he announced with his booming voice piped into households in South Korea every Sunday, ran for more than three decades. Mr. Song traveled to every corner of South Korea and to the Korean diaspora in places like Japan and China, and even to Paraguay, Los Angeles and Long Island, N.Y. He continued as host until the show went on hiatus during the coronavirus pandemic, and officially remained at its helm at the time of his death.While the show was on hold, his health seemed to deteriorate without his weekly outlet, according to Jero Yun, director of the documentary, “Song Hae 1927.”“It was, in some ways, the driving force of his life, meeting people from all walks of life through the program and exchanging life stories,” Mr. Yun said. “People would always recognize him, crowd around him and want to talk to him.” Referring to the K-pop megagroup, Mr. Yun added, “He might as well have been BTS.”Mr. Song was posthumously awarded a presidential medal for his contributions to South Korea’s culture, the president’s office announced on Wednesday. He was entered into Guinness World Records in April.Mr. Song was born Song Bok-hee on April 27, 1927, under Japanese occupation in what is now Hwanghae Province in North Korea. His father was an innkeeper. A few months after the Korean War broke out in 1950, he left his home at 23 to avoid being drafted to fight for the North, and made his way south. He eventually boarded a U.N. tank landing ship, not knowing where it was headed. Staring out at the water, he would later say, he renamed himself Hae, for the character meaning sea.He left behind his mother and a younger sister in North Korea, and well into his 90s, any mention of them would reduce him to tears.After the ship took him to the South Korean city of Busan, on the peninsula’s southern coast, he served as a signalman in the South’s army. He had said in interviews that he was one of the soldiers who tapped out the Morse code in July 1953 transmitting the message that there was a cease-fire halting the war.After his discharge from the army, he peddled tofu in impoverished postwar South Korea before joining a traveling musical theater troupe, in which he sang and performed in variety shows. He eventually became a radio host, anchoring a traffic call-in show that catered to cab and bus drivers. It aired an occasional segment in which the drivers would dial in for a sing-off.In 1952, Mr. Song married Suk Ok-ee, the sister of a fellow soldier he had served with in the war, and they had three children. After 63 years of marriage, Mr. Song and his wife held the wedding ceremony they never had, having originally married in the poverty and turmoil of their youth. She died in 2018.He is survived by two daughters, two granddaughters and a grandson. In 1986, his 21-year-old son was killed in a motorcycle accident, and Mr. Song could not bear to continue working on his radio traffic show. Around the same time, he was tapped to host the singing contest for the national broadcaster, KBS.With Mr. Song at its center, the show quickly became a national pastime, particularly among older residents and those in rural communities — groups that the program spotlighted and that were seldom seen on television.Grandmothers break-danced and rapped; grandfathers crooned sexy K-pop numbers. Countless young children charmed the host onstage, some of whom went on to become stars. Once, a beekeeper covered in bees played the harmonica while a panicked Mr. Song cried out, “There’s one in my pants!”Mr. Song never fulfilled his lifelong dream of revisiting his hometown in North Korea, but because of his show, he came tantalizingly close.A memorial to Mr. Song at a hospital in Seoul on Wednesday.Korea Pool/Yonhap via APIn 2003, during a period of détente between the Koreas, the show filmed an episode in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. The songs were carefully screened by the North’s censors to include only propagandist ones, and the atmosphere was so tense that Mr. Song never broached the possibility of visiting his hometown, Chaeryong, even though it was just 50 miles south of the capital, he said in interviews.At one point during the trip, he recalled, he got drunk with his North Korean minder, who told him that he wouldn’t recognize his hometown anyway because everything had changed in the intervening five decades and most of the people had moved away.In a 2015 biography of Mr. Song, Oh Min-seok, a poet and professor of English literature, wrote: “As a refugee who fled south during the Korean War, there is a loneliness that is wedged in his heart like a knot. He has no problem connecting with anyone, from a 3-year-old to a 115-year-old, from a country woman to a college professor, from a shopkeeper to a C.E.O. That’s because inside, he’s always pining for people.”In South Korea, the show’s contestants and adoring fans became his family. Women — including the show’s oldest contestant, a 115-year-old — took to calling him “oppa,” or older brother, Mr. Song later recalled.“Who else in the world can claim to have as many younger sisters as I do?” he said. “I’m happy because of the people who boost me, applaud me, comfort me.” More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Are Jan. 6 Hearings Flashy Enough for Prime Time? Late Night Isn’t Sure.

      by

      “Hanging over the hearings is one question that could define the future of our republic: Who cares?” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday.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.Are You Still Watching?The Jan. 6 committee hearings will be televised beginning Thursday night, but late night hosts wondered if Americans would pay proper attention.“Hanging over the hearings is one question that could define the future of our republic: Who cares?” Stephen Colbert said on Wednesday.“Yeah, it doesn’t have to look like ‘Top Gun,’ but just in case, they’re going to have Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin play hot shirtless volleyball.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“What they need to do, you want people to watch in America, is you have to spice things up. You know, have a kiss cam going for the witnesses. Yeah, get Shakira to do a halftime show.” — TREVOR NOAH“Americans like entertainment; Congress wants Americans to pay attention to politics. Those two don’t mix. But there is one person who can make political machinations interesting for the masses; there is only one man: Lin-Manuel Miranda.” — TREVOR NOAH“You know who is going to be torn about the coverage of this? Donald Trump. Yeah, ’cuz think about it: On the one hand, he doesn’t want anyone to know what he did on Jan. 6, but on the other hand, you know he would love his hearings to get the highest ratings of all time. You know it. He’s going to be out there like [imitating Trump] ‘Don’t watch the hearings, folks. The fake news is saying I overthrew the government, which I didn’t do. But it was the biggest overthrow of all time, but I didn’t do it.’” — TREVOR NOAH“In other political news, tomorrow night, the Jan. 6 committee will hold a special prime time hearing, which will air live on all the broadcast networks, and it’s being produced by a former ABC executive. And even more exciting, the halftime show will be performed by Imagine Dragons featuring Congresswoman Liz Cheney.” — JAMES CORDEN“The hearing is being produced by a former ABC executive, which is why it’s being marketed as, ‘Extreme Takeover: Capitol Building Edition.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Fox News Stays on Brand Edition)“Fox News announced this week that it will not air carry live coverage of Congress’s prime time hearings over the Capitol attack. To focus on more important news like, ‘Would it kill Mulan to wear a dress?’” — SETH MEYERS“Yeah, they’re going to be spending all night talking about the real culprit: [imitating Tucker Carlson] ‘Why is nobody talking about how Congress has too many doors? If there was only one door in and out, this never would have happened. The crowd would have peacefully dispersed after hanging Mike Pence, huh?’ ” — TREVOR NOAH“Fox, by the way, has decided not to carry the hearings about Jan. 6 on their news network tomorrow night. Instead, they will show their new special, ‘Tucker Carlson presents: A Racist Cat Meows Confederate Battle Hymns.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It doesn’t surprise me that Fox isn’t airing the hearings. Fox is news the same way ‘The Kardashians’ is reality. Just once, I’d love to see an actual reality TV show, something called, I don’t know, ‘A Man Quietly Eating a Cinnabon Because He Missed His Connection at LaGuardia.’” — SETH MEYERS“It’s not a surprise, because Fox constantly says the opposite of what the hearings will say. The committee will lay out the truth of what happened, and Fox will lie. It’s that simple. The hearings will say Jan. 6 was a violent insurrection fomented by an outgoing president who nearly pulled off a detailed plan for an attempted coup to unlawfully cling to power that would have installed him as an unelected autocrat and destroyed American democracy. And Fox will say it was just a pro-freedom, patriot party where everyone peacefully toured the Capitol like they were on a school field trip, having to find items their teachers gave them on a worksheet.” — SETH MEYERSThe Bits Worth WatchingPresident Biden sat down with Jimmy Kimmel for a lengthy conversation about the modern Republican Party, gas prices and gun violence, among other things.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightDemi Lovato will appear on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutJuancho Hernangómez, left, and Adam Sandler in “Hustle.”Scott Yamano/NetflixAdam Sandler and Juancho Hernangómez, a Utah Jazz player, star in “Hustle,” a crowd-pleaser about the N.B.A. draft. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Television

      Ken Bode, Erudite ‘Washington Week’ Host on PBS, Dies at 83

      by

      Beginning in 1994, he brought to the moderator’s role credentials as a political activist, an academic and a national correspondent for NBC News.Ken Bode, a bearded, bearish former political operative and television correspondent who, armed with a Ph.D. in politics, moderated the popular PBS program “Washington Week in Review” in the 1990s, died on Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. He was 83.His death, in a care center, was confirmed by his daughters, Matilda and Josie Bode, who said the cause had not been identified.Beginning in 1994, Mr. Bode (pronounced BO-dee) coupled congeniality and knowledgeability in steering a Friday night discussion among a rotating panel of reporters about the issues of the day coming out of Washington. His role, as he saw it, was to “bring in people who are really covering the news to empty their notebooks and provide perspective, not to argue with each other,” he told The Washington Post in 1999.As host of the program, now called “Washington Week,” he succeeded Paul Duke, who had helmed that roundtable of polite talking heads for two decades, and preceded Gwen Ifill, a former NBC News correspondent who died in 2016 at 61. The program, which debuted in 1967, is billed as TV’s longest-running prime time news and public affairs program. The current host is Yamiche Alcindor.The program’s loyal and generally older viewers were so brass-bound in the 1990s that when Mr. Bode took over, even his beard proved controversial. He proceeded to introduce videotaped segments and remote interviews with correspondents and bring more diversity to his panel of reporters.He also took more liberties with language than his predecessor.Mr. Bode moderating an episode of “Washington Week in Review.” He hosted the program from 1994 to 1999 while teaching politics at DePauw University in Indiana. PBSEnding an interview with Bob Woodward of The Washington Post about President Bill Clinton’s economic policies, Mr. Bode quoted a British newspaper’s snarky prediction that the president’s impending visit to Oxford, England, would present people with an opportunity to “focus on one of the president’s less well-publicized organs: his brain.” He described a vacancy on the Supreme Court as constituting “one-ninth of one-third of the government.”Still, Dalton Delan, then the newly-minted executive vice president of WETA in Washington, which continues to produce the program, wanted to invigorate the format. He proposed including college journalists, surprise guests and people-on-the-street interviews and replacing Mr. Bode with Ms. Ifill (she said she initially turned down the offer) — changes that prompted Mr. Bode to jump, or to be not so gently pushed, from the host’s chair in 1999.Kenneth Adlam Bode was born on March 30, 1939, in Chicago and raised in Hawarden, Iowa. His father, George, owned a dairy farm and then a dry cleaning business. His mother, June (Adlam) Bode, kept the books.Mr. Bode in his office in 1972, when he was involved in Democratic politics.George Tames/The New York TimesThe first member of his family to attend college, Mr. Bode majored in philosophy and government at the University of South Dakota, graduating in 1961. He went on to earn a doctorate in political science at the University of North Carolina, where he was active in the civil rights movement.He taught briefly at Michigan State University and the State University of New York at Binghamton, and then gravitated toward liberal politics.In 1968, Mr. Bode worked in the presidential campaigns of Senators Eugene McCarthy and George S. McGovern. He became research director for a Democratic Party commission, led by Mr. McGovern and Representative Donald M. Fraser of Minnesota, that advocated for reforms in the selection process for delegates to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. He later headed a liberal-leaning organization called the Center for Political Reform.His marriage to Linda Yarrow ended in divorce. In 1975, he married Margo Hauff, a high school social studies teacher who wrote and designed educational materials for learning-disabled children. He is survived by her, in addition to their daughters, as well as by a brother and two grandsons.After working in politics, Mr. Bode began writing for The New Republic in the early 1970s and became its politics editor. He moved to NBC News in 1979, encouraged by the network’s newsman Tom Brokaw, a friend from college, and eventually became the network’s national political correspondent. In that role he hosted “Bode’s Journal,” a weekly segment of the “Today” show, on which he explored, among other issues, voting rights violations, racial discrimination and patronage abuses, as his longtime producer Jim Connor recalled in an interview.Mr. Bode left the network a decade later to teach at DePauw University in Indiana, where he founded the Center for Contemporary Media. While at DePauw, from 1989 to 1998, he commuted to Washington to host “Washington Week in Review” and wrote an Emmy-winning CNN documentary, “The Public Mind of George Bush” (1992).Beginning in 1998, he was dean of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism for three years and remained a professor there until 2004.Mr. Bode said he retired from broadcast journalism for family reasons. “I was raising my kids from 100 airports a year,” he said. As he told The New York Times in 1999, “I knew then that my problem was, I’ve got the best job, but I’ve also got one chance to be a father, and I’m losing it.” More

    • 113 Shares129 Views

      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Will Go Live After Jan. 6 Hearings

      by

      “They are destined to go down in the annals of live TV like the Watergate hearings, the moon landing, and the time Walter Cronkite was swallowed by a python,” 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.Not Too ProudStephen Colbert announced that “The Late Show” will go live on Thursday night after the prime-time Jan. 6 committee hearings.“They are destined to go down in the annals of live TV,” Colbert said on Tuesday, “like the Watergate hearings, the moon landing, and the time Walter Cronkite was swallowed by a python.”“Now, here’s the deal: all the major news outfits — CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN — will be covering the hearings live, while the Fox News Channel will stay with its usual prime-time lineup. Well, that’s actually good. No, it’s actually good. We’ll hear directly from the people who planned the coup.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The Proud Boys are going to be prominently featured during the live hearings on Thursday, because the committee intends to present live testimony from a British documentarian who was filming the group, with their permission, during the riot. Why do you let a film crew follow you while you commit treason? Well, same reason Benedict Arnold commissioned that painting of him handing over the plans.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’ve got to tell you, seeing those guys arrested makes this boy proud.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, if you’re not familiar with the Proud Boys, that sounds lovely. But as a refresher, they’re a far-right, anti-immigrant, all-male group who take their name from an obscure show tune from the Disney musical ‘Aladdin’ entitled ‘Proud of Your Boy.’ It was actually their second Disney song choice. Originally, they were the Supercalifragilisticexpiali-douchebags.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Going to the Dogs Edition)“According to a new study, dogs are more effective at detecting Covid than rapid tests. I’m glad we’ve reached the point in the pandemic where the C.D.C. is like, ‘I don’t know, dogs?’” — JIMMY FALLON“Knowing the C.D.C., in two days, they’re going to be like, ‘Never mind, it’s actually rabbits, I’m sorry.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Seriously, I have no idea what’s going on. Today, I saw Sarah McLachlan snuggling a person with Covid asking pets to help.” — JIMMY FALLON“Here’s how it works with dogs: If you have symptoms, they sniff your crotch. One hump — one hump means you’re negative, two humps means you’re positive.” — JIMMY FALLON“Apparently, dogs are better at detecting Covid than rapid tests, which explains now when you take an at-home test, the instructions look a little different. Yeah, now the steps are: ‘One, open package. Two, remove at-home Covid test. Three, walk and feed at-home Covid test.’” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSeth Meyers went day drinking with Post Malone on Tuesday’s “Late Night.”What We’re Excited About Wednesday NightPresident Biden will visit “Jimmy Kimmel Live” on Wednesday.Also, Check This OutCustomers in Bookmongers of Brixton, a book store in London. Apps have struggled to reproduce the kind of real-world serendipity that puts a book in a reader’s hand.Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesNew apps like Tertulia are helping avid readers discover new books. More