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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘How to Survive a Pandemic’ and the Grammy Awards

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      A documentary about the race for the Covid-19 vaccine airs on HBO. And this year’s Grammy Awards are on CBS.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, March 28-April 3. Details and times are subject to change.MondayWARRIOR WOMEN WITH LUPITA NYONG’O 8 p.m. on Smithsonian. In the Marvel movie “Black Panther,” Lupita Nyong’o starred as a skillful combatant fighting for the fictional nation of Wakanda. Her character was partly inspired by the Agoji warrior women of West Africa, known for fighting on behalf of the Kingdom of Dahomey, an empire that existed for more than 200 years beginning in the 17th century in present-day Benin. In this program, Nyong’o hosts an exploration into the history of these real-life women.WRITING WITH FIRE 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Nominated for the Academy Award for best documentary feature, “Writing With Fire” highlights the journalists of Khabar Lahariya, India’s only women-led news outlet. The reporters, who are in the Dalit caste, work to expose injustices, corruption and other social issues in the country amid a male-dominated media landscape. “At a time when the profession faces increasing dangers in India, the film’s faith in the powers of grassroots journalism is nothing short of galvanizing,” Devika Girish wrote in a review for The New York Times.TuesdayHOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC (2022) 9 p.m. on HBO. This feature-length documentary looks at the journey to develop and distribute Covid-19 vaccines. It begins in early 2020 and follows the largest public health effort in history, following the work of scientists while exploring the way corporate greed and governmental failures may have affected their progress.WednesdayMichael Cera, left, and Jonah Hill in “Superbad.”Melissa Moseley/Columbia PicturesSUPERBAD (2007) 5 p.m. on E! Michael Cera and Jonah Hill play two awkward high school best friends in this comedy. a classic in the genre of boyish coming-of-age movies. Before graduating from high school, the two set out to score some liquor and head to a party — and the process is less than smooth. Make it a 2000s comedy double feature with Adam McKay’s STEP BROTHERS (2008), which airs right after at 7:30 p.m. on E! Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly play another awkward pair, who engage in an escalating rivalry when they become stepbrothers in their 30s and must live in the same house.ThursdayTO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962) 8 p.m. on TCM. The film adaptation of Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel garnered critical success and three Academy Awards. Set in Alabama, it details Atticus Finch’s defense of Tom Robinson, a Black man accused of raping a white woman. Narrated by Atticus’s daughter, the film is a powerful, delicately told story of the Jim Crow era.Pete Holmes in “How We Roll.”Cliff Lipson/CBSHOW WE ROLL 9:30 p.m. on CBS. This new series is based on the professional bowler Tom Smallwood, played by the comedian Pete Holmes. Tom loses his job at an automotive plant in Michigan, but with the support of his wife and kids, he decides to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional bowler. In an interview with The Times, Holmes, who starred in the HBO show “Crashing” but is probably best known as a stand-up comic, said he was excited to have another TV role. “If it’s funny, I’ll do it,” he said. “I love acting — and this is almost blasphemy in my circle — as much as I love doing stand-up.”FridayJERROD CARMICHAEL: ROTHANIEL 9 p.m. on HBO Jerrod Carmichael is an open book in his third HBO stand-up special, which was taped in February 2022 at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York City. “I’ve been trying to be very honest because my whole life is shrouded in secrets, and I figured the only route I haven’t tried is the truth,” he says in a teaser for the show. The special airs in advance of his “Saturday Night Live” hosting gig on Saturday.A scene from “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” at the Metropolitan Opera.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesGREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET: FIRE SHUT UP IN MY BONES 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Terence Blanchard, the jazz trumpeter and composer best known for scoring a host of Spike Lee films, became the first Black composer to have a show put on by the Metropolitan Opera with “Fire Shut Up in My Bones,” which was also the company’s first in-person production after its Covid-19 shutdown. The opera is based on a 2014 memoir by the Times columnist Charles M. Blow about growing up in Louisiana. “In his score, Blanchard deftly blends elements of jazz, blues, hints of big band and gospel into a compositional voice dominated by lushly chromatic and modal harmonic writing, spiked with jagged rhythms and tart dissonance,” Anthony Tommasini wrote in his review for The Times.SaturdayTHE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER (1968) 8 p.m. on TCM. John Singer (Alan Arkin) is a deaf and mute man who moves to a small Southern town to be closer to his friend Spiros Antonapoulos (Chuck McCann), also deaf and mute, who has been committed to a mental institution. The film follows John as he befriends people in the new town and makes an impact on their lives.SundayTHE 64TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS 8 p.m. on CBS. Originally scheduled for Jan. 31 in Los Angeles and postponed in response to a surge in Omicron cases nationwide, the Grammys are finally slated to take place in Las Vegas on Sunday. BTS, Lil Nas X, Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish are among this year’s performers, and Trevor Noah will return as the host. With 11 nominations, the composer and bandleader Jon Batiste leads all artists. Doja Cat, Justin Bieber and H.E.R. follow with eight nominations each. In the lead-up to the event, organizers announced that Kanye West would not be allowed to perform, citing troubling online behavior, but he is still in the running for five awards. More

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      ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 10 Recap: The Dragon’s Heart

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      Neither Chuck nor Prince has really moved on, even if everyone around them seems ready to.Season 6, Episode 10: ‘Johnny Favorite’There’s a valedictory note in the air. It starts in the office of the New York state attorney general, where Chuck’s newly minted replacement, Dave Mahar, leads a send-off toast to her ex-boss. It is echoed in an all-hands meeting called by Mike Prince, held at his own home — a meeting that turns into a booze and molly-fueled dance party D.J.ed by Questlove.Even Chuck relents eventually to letting his father; his best friend, Ira; and his buddy Judge DeGiulio (Rob Morrow) drag him to a fancy Lake George retreat, where the hope is that he can forget his troubles for a weekend and be steered toward his next station in life: chief counsel for a defense contractor, perhaps? Nothing a few drinks, some bison rib-eyes and some short-term female companionship — with a little boost from Dr. Swerdlow (Rick Hoffman) — can’t sort out.But neither of our two central antagonists has really moved on, even if everyone around them seems ready to. Prince’s shindig is largely an attempt to change the narrative, and Chuck’s only personal breakthrough after obsessing over Prince all weekend is in having determined his next move against him. Guys like them don’t take losing lightly, and in the span of two episodes, Chuck has destroyed Prince’s Olympic dreams, and Prince has destroyed Chuck’s political fortunes. For both men, the fight is far from over.From the start, Chuck is openly wary of the excursion his father and friends have put together for him. He refuses to relinquish his phone, preferring to remain tapped into the grid in order to establish his next route to power. When it comes to clay pigeons, he easily outshoots the rest of his party, metaphorically displaying his still extant killer instinct. (Chuck with a gun: Now there’s an image.) His turn in a sensory immersion chamber becomes a battle with a rich loudmouth named Ronald Chestnut (Matthew Lillard), a fight that continues when Chestnut attempts to pick up the group of women attached to Chuck’s gang at the retreat’s bar.Chuck dispatches this goon with his usual verbal dexterity, earning a round of applause from the whole establishment. But even as Swerdlow and his father retire to their rooms with their conquests of the evening, Chuck is planning his next line of attack. You simply cannot take the fighter out of him.As for Prince, he recognizes that his team is still smarting from the Olympic loss and needs to share in the spoils of his victory, however pyrrhic, over Chuck. He triggers the fight-or-flight instincts of all his employees — with one important exception — by giving them a day off and calling for an all-hands meeting at his home that evening. His plan is relatively simple: To use his favored analogy, he has slain his dragon; now all that remains is for the army that backed him to share in the devouring of the dragon’s heart, in the form of a celebratory rager.And it is indeed a wild night, from the perspective of a “Billions” fan at least. Making good on weeks of tension, Taylor Mason makes a pass at the witty and glamorous Rian; Rian rebuffs Taylor, saying she could never risk falling in love with a co-worker — only to wind up spending the night with Prince. In this relatively sexless season of the show, this is wild stuff.But there is one Prince Cap employee not in attendance: Wendy Rhoades. It’s not that she objects to Prince’s defenestration of her ex-husband; on the contrary, she seems to understand and accept this as something Prince needed to do. It’s the why of it, not the what of it, that concerns her as the company’s performance coach. What is it that Prince seeks, she wonders. Fear? Respect? Love?Over the course of a lengthy colloquy, Prince admits to requiring all three. By leaving the staff in suspense as to the nature of the all-hands meeting, he taught them to fear him. By centering the meeting on Chuck’s ouster, he earned their respect. And by turning it into a bacchanal, he won their love. It’s a psychological-manipulation hat trick!If you get the sense from all this that Prince thinks very highly of himself, compared with even his own most valued employees, you’re correct. Punishing Chuck isn’t enough to make up for having lost the Olympics. He tells Wendy that his end goal is to become that once-in-a-millennium figure who uses his talent, power, and fortune to leave the world a better place than it was when he found it, rather than, in Wendy’s profane parlance, “[expletive] the world up.” (How this squares with sleeping with one of his employees is anyone’s guess; it certainly casts doubt on his repeated promise to his semi-estranged wife, Andy, to prioritize their relationship.)And oh, did you know that Wendy is writing a book, and has in fact finished it by the time this episode ends? It sure was news to me!When you put all the pieces together, you’re left with one of the strangest and most unsettling, and unsettled, episodes of “Billions” in quite some time. Chuck, Prince, Taylor, Wendy — they all seem to be “at the precipice of a crossroads,” as “The Sopranos” would put it. For all its complexity, this episode is essentially a holding pattern, a brief reprieve before the masters of the universe at its heart select their next lines of attack.Here’s hoping they let the power go to their heads. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have much of a show, would we?Loose Change:In a side plot, Kate Sacker is steered by Wags to a working relationship with Bobby Axelrod’s black ops guy, Hall (Terry Kinney). It’s Hall’s job to dig up the kind of dirt on Kate that no one else can find — precisely the sort of dirt that could be dredged up and used against her by a determined congressional opponent. In fact, Hall uncovers dirt even Kate didn’t know existed: Turns out, her father (Harry Lennix) paid off her prep school’s headmaster in order to prevent serious consequences for Kate’s vandalism of an administration building during a protest. When she angrily confronts her old man about this, he frames it as a matter of safeguarding the progress of Black people generally. It’s enough to put Kate’s dreams of high office on standby.In another relatively minor story line, Taylor meets with Mafee and is aghast to learn he hasn’t done anything to grow the small fortune in cryptocurrency gifted to him by Bobby Axelrod. Mafee insists that had he tried to parlay the gift into something bigger, the money would have owned him rather than the other way around. I’m not quite sure how this plays into Taylor’s later decision to make a pass at Rian, but it does seem connected in some ineffable way.“You see a bully, you have to step in”: This is Ira’s assessment of Chuck’s fundamental character. It ties in with Chuck’s fixation on the fact that Prince attended the hearing that led to Chuck’s ouster instead of letting it play out from a distance. Prince is a person who has to see his victories happen firsthand, which makes him vulnerable.It’s worth noting that Chuck very clearly chafes at Dave’s takeover of his office. He hired her to work for him, not to replace him. I wonder if he’ll ever get over it.Chuck compares the immersion chamber to the film “Altered States,” written — and subsequently disavowed — by Paddy Chayefsky. In fact, he’s surprised that this is the first Chayefsky reference the employees have heard. Is he talking about the staff at the retreat, or the writers of “Billions”?The episode takes its title, “Johnny Favorite,” from the name of a character in the director Alan Parker’s supernatural noir film “Angel Heart,” starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet. It’s a movie Rian and her co-worker Winston have become obsessed with, growing less sure of their interpretations of the story with each new viewing. You’ve gotta love a movie that makes you more confused over time rather than less.Speaking of movies, Chuck and his crew go through a lengthy recreation of the U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue from “Jaws,” only in this case it’s Charles Sr. ruing the deaths of dozens of people burned to death in a nightclub he owned during his stint as — let’s be blunt — a slumlord. It’s hard to tell which he regrets more, the deaths or his implication in them. Yikes. More

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      Jimmy Kimmel: Ted Cruz ‘Outslimed Himself’ This Week

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      Kimmel happily reported that the children’s book Cruz singled out to make a point about race at the Senate hearings for President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee this week became a No. 1 best seller.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 Opposite of Oprah’s Book Club’In his Thursday night monologue, Jimmy Kimmel said Ted Cruz “even outslimed himself” at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Senate confirmation hearings this week.“On Tuesday, you know, he singled out this children’s book called ‘Anti-Racist Baby’ for promoting critical race theory, which it actually doesn’t. He said the book teaches that babies are born racist, which it also doesn’t. And, as a result of Ted’s tirade, that book is now number one on Amazon — it’s the number one seller. It’s like the opposite of Oprah’s Book Club or something.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And not only is the book selling well, since Cruz’s little grandstand, Amazon is also seeing a spike in sales of psoriasis medication, wart remover, nose hair trimmers, male Spanx, slug repellent and mullet combs.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“If you’re wondering what Ted Cruz was really focused on during the hearings, somebody got a shot of him on his phone searching for his own name on Twitter. How embarrassing. And can you imagine being Ted Cruz and still wanting to know what people were saying about you online?” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Emergency Photo Op Edition)“The president is in Brussels right now for an emergency summit with our NATO allies. Together, the leaders of the G7 nations put out a forceful statement warning Russia not to use chemical or nuclear weapons on Ukraine, and also posed for a series of awkward photographs, starting with a group shot.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, it was an emergency summit, but don’t worry: NATO leaders still had time for a family photo.” — JIMMY FALLON“I don’t know, this seems unnecessary for an emergency meeting.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Looks like the sales team at a Honda dealership, doesn’t it? I’m expecting them to all say together, ‘We’re ready to serve you.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, it’s a very diverse group. There are suits of every color.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, that’s either a NATO summit or a conference for ‘men who don’t know what to do with their arms’ photo.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Uncharted” co-stars Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland popped by the bodega on Thursday’s “Desus & Mero.”Also, Check This OutFrom left: Ally Bonino, Phillipa Soo, Taub, Hannah Cruz and Nadia Dandashi in the musical “Suffs” at the Public Theater.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesShaina Taub’s musical “Suffs” explores women’s crusade for the vote through a movement often divided along generational, class and racial lines. More

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      John Korty, Director of ‘Miss Jane Pittman,’ Is Dead at 85

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      He was best known for a series of ambitious television movies that examined racism, disability and other social issues.John Korty, a director best known for ambitious made-for-television projects, including the 1974 film “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” which won nine Emmy Awards, died on March 9 at his home in Port Reyes Station, Calif. He was 85.His brother, Doug Korty, said the cause was vascular dementia.“Miss Jane Pittman,” a CBS presentation based on the Ernest J. Gaines novel in which a Black woman recounts more than a century’s worth of memories, featured an acclaimed performance by Cicely Tyson as the title character. John J. O’Connor, reviewing the film in The New York Times, called it “a splendid night for television.”“John Korty’s direction is cool and restrained,” he added, “never underlining and always avoiding what could easily be mawkish.”The Emmys the film won included one for Mr. Korty for best directing of a single program, comedy or drama.Mr. Korty on the set of the 1974 television movie  “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” which went on to win nine Emmy Awards, including one for Mr. Korty.via Korty Family Cicely Tyson as the title character, a woman who recounts more than a century’s worth of memories, in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.”Bettmann via GettyMr. Korty also won both an Oscar and an Emmy for “Who Are the Debolts? And Where Did They Get 19 Kids?,” a documentary about a couple whose many children included hard-to-place adopted ones with disabilities or other challenges. American television networks weren’t interested in the documentary when Mr. Korty first offered it; it was initially released as a film in Japan, then shown at the San Francisco Film Festival in 1977, where it received a standing ovation.That brought it an Oscar for best documentary feature, but Mr. Korty still wanted to get it in front of TV audiences. With some persuasion from Henry Winkler, whose role as Fonzie on “Happy Days” had made him one of the network’s biggest stars, ABC finally broadcast a cut-down version in late 1978; that version won the Emmy for outstanding individual achievement for an informational program.Although Mr. Korty also directed lighter fare and the occasional Hollywood feature, including “Oliver’s Story,” the 1978 follow-up to the hit 1970 movie “Love Story,” he gravitated toward television movies that touched on social issues.In addition to “Miss Jane Pittman,” which covered a century’s worth of the Black experience, he directed “Go Ask Alice” (1973), about teenage drug addiction; “Farewell to Manzanar” (1976), about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II; “Second Sight: A Love Story” (1984), about a blind woman; “Resting Place” (1986), about a family’s attempt to have a Black officer who was killed in Vietnam buried in his hometown’s all-white cemetery; and “Eye on the Sparrow” (1987), about a blind couple trying to adopt.“I wouldn’t give up television movies,” Mr. Korty told The Times in 1986. “There is nothing like the response you get. Fifty million people saw ‘Jane Pittman’ in one night. That’s very different from even the biggest hit movie.”Mr. Korty on the set of “Farewell to Manzanar,” his 1976 TV movie about the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.via Korty FamilyIn the best of his television work, Mr. Korty sought to illuminate subjects and perspectives not often addressed in the mainstream. In an essay he wrote for The San Francisco Examiner in 1978, he said that was his hope for the “Debolts” film, in which he showed the children’s disabilities in unflinching detail, rare for TV at the time.“It seems that most physically handicapped people have their greatest struggles not with their crutches, but with their identities — being accepted as individuals rather than as a distasteful class of outcasts,” he wrote. “We hope that by the end of our film the audience will forget who is on crutches and who isn’t.”John Van Cleave Korty was born on June 22, 1936, in Lafayette, Ind. His father, Richard, was an engineer, and his mother, Mary (Van Cleave) Korty, was a nurse.“I started drawing when I was 5 years old,” Mr. Korty said at a 2013 panel discussion of his work, “and for many, many years I thought I was going to be what you’d call a commercial artist.”But in 11th grade a teacher showed the class some of the innovative animated films of Norman McLaren, and Mr. Korty found a new interest. He soon made his first animated film, but, as he told The Abilene Reporter-News of Texas in 1986, he couldn’t afford new film stock. Instead he somehow obtained a reel of a Mickey Mouse cartoon and dumped bleach on it in his parents’ bathtub to erase the images, then hand-painted images on its 2,600 frames. The trick worked, he said, but it took him a week to scrub the bathtub clean.He earned a bachelor’s degree at Antioch College, where he continued to experiment with animation. In about 1963 he settled in the Bay Area, where he set up his own studio. One of his earliest professional efforts, “Breaking the Habit,” a documentary about smoking produced in cooperation with the American Cancer Society, was nominated for the short-subject documentary Oscar in 1965.Mr. Korty directed the independent features “The Crazy-Quilt” (1966), “Funnyman” (1967) and “riverrun” (1968) before he made his first television movies, drawing some critical acclaim and the attention of other young filmmakers who were interested in working outside the Hollywood system. Among them were Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, who came to visit his setup in 1968.“They showed up in two station wagons, and when Francis walked in, his mouth dropped open,” Mr. Korty told The Marin Independent Journal in 2011. “He said, ‘My God, you’ve done exactly what we want to do: get out of Hollywood and set up a studio. If you can do it, we can do it.’”A year later Mr. Coppola and Mr. Lucas would found their American Zoetrope studio in San Francisco. Mr. Korty had an office there for several years and went on to work with Mr. Lucas. He and Charles Swenson directed “Twice Upon a Time,” an animated feature made with Mr. Lucas’s Lucasfilm company in 1983, and the next year Mr. Korty directed “Caravan of Courage,” a Lucasfilm TV movie based on the Ewok creatures from the “Star Wars” movie “Return of the Jedi.”“I wouldn’t give up television movies,” Mr. Korty said in 1986. “There is nothing like the response you get. Fifty million people saw ‘Jane Pittman’ in one night. That’s very different from even the biggest hit movie.”via Korty FamilyThough the success of “Miss Jane Pittman” brought Mr. Korty offers to direct Hollywood films, he rarely accepted. “Oliver’s Story,” which he directed in 1978, was an exception. It was a bigger-budget movie than he normally attempted, with big stars — Ryan O’Neal, Candice Bergen — and Mr. Korty wasn’t entirely comfortable.“It’s the first movie I’ve ever made that I’ve felt not a part of,” he told The Sacramento Bee in December 1978 as the early reviews, many of them unflattering, were coming in. “I know I put things in this movie that I liked and the audience wouldn’t — and vice versa.”Mr. Korty’s marriages to Carol Tweedie in 1959 and Beulah Chang in 1965 ended in divorce. In 1989 he married Jane Silvia, who survives him, along with his brother; a sister, Nancy Korty; two sons from his second marriage, Jonathan and David; a son from his third marriage, Gabriel; and three grandchildren. More

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      Late Night Approves of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s High Ratings

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      A poll found strong support for the judge’s Supreme Court nomination, but “speechmaking and hissy-fitting” continued in the Senate, said Jimmy Kimmel.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.Upon ApprovalWednesday was the final day of questions for the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, or, as Jimmy Kimmel referred to it, “another day of grandstanding, speechmaking and hissy-fitting in the Senate.”A newly released poll, conducted before the hearings began, found that 58 percent of Americans supported Judge Jackson’s appointment to the court.“It is the most support a Jackson has had since ‘Thriller’ came out.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Right now, Biden’s like, ‘Hey, I nominated you — it’s only fair that we split that approval rating, come on.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, the only way it could have been higher is if she ended today with a water bottle flip.” — JIMMY FALLON“She said the fact that she was even nominated shows how far we’ve come as a country, and so some of the Republican senators on the committee have been hard at work to show how far we haven’t.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“This is how low the United States government has fallen. We’ve gone from ‘Let’s put a man on the moon within the decade’ to ‘Maybe someday we can get at least one Republican to vote for a qualified woman.’” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Uninvited Edition)“In other news, despite the current state of affairs, Vladimir Putin is still planning to attend the G20 summit with other world leaders in Bali this fall — which explains this year’s theme: ‘Awkward.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Seriously, what is he doing? It’s like getting kicked out of high school and then showing up for the reunion.” — JIMMY FALLON“Yeah, it’ll backfire on Putin when he realizes it’s not a G20 summit; it’s an intervention.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth Watching“The Late Late Show” celebrated Reggie Watts’s 50th birthday by giving him a racecar bed.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightGwen Stefani will pop by Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutThe artists Mónica Arreola, left, and Andrew Roberts, selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s 2022 Biennial, titled “Quiet as It’s Kept,” at the graffitied border wall in Tijuana.Alejandro Cossio for The New York TimesThe curators of this year’s Whitney Biennial expanded their reach to include Mexican perspectives on the border. More

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      Late Night Sees Through Republican Questions for Ketanji Brown Jackson

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      “It’s funny listening to the same people who let the president get away with trying to overthrow the government call anyone ‘soft on crime,’ but that’s how it goes,” Jimmy Kimmel 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.Soft SpotsJudge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings continued on Tuesday, and late-night hosts couldn’t help but notice how Republicans made their biases clear.“I think your dog whistle’s busted, guys. Everyone can hear it now!” Jimmy Kimmel said.“Today was the first of two days where senators can ask the nominee direct questions, so Democrats asked things like ‘Why are you so great?’ and Republicans asked things like ‘Why aren’t you Donald Trump?’” — JAMES CORDEN“But despite the gratuitous attacks, Judge Jackson has been very cool under pressure. They don’t have anything real to criticize, so they’ve been trying to portray her as being soft on crime, which is interesting because she’s been endorsed by both the International Association of Police Chiefs and the Fraternal Order of Police — and the band The Police. Even Sting is in her corner.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“How soft are Republicans talking here, do we think? Like, ‘not handing out maximum sentences’ levels of soft or, you know, ‘deciding to look the other way after Jan. 6’ levels of soft?” — JAMES CORDEN“It’s funny listening to the same people who let the president get away with trying to overthrow the government call anyone ‘soft on crime,’ but that’s how it goes.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (More K.B.J. Edition)“Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson made an opening statement yesterday, got praise from both sides of the aisle. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley said he liked it and his wife liked it, too. Judge Jackson got the coveted Barbara Grassley seal of approval.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But not every Republican was impressed. Senators Marsha Blackburn and Josh Hawley were like, ‘You lost us at Ketanji.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yep, these hearings are never really fun, but then again there’s always a paper crinkle to really liven things up.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSavannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb surprised Jimmy Fallon with a performance of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightSandra Bullock and Channing Tatum, “The Lost City” co-stars, will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutPerformers at the “Bridgerton” ball, which will travel to Washington, Chicago and Montreal after its Los Angeles run.Maggie Shannon for The New York Times“Bridgerton” fans can enjoy a royal ball straight out of their favorite Netflix series. More

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      Amanda Bynes, Former Child Star, Is Released From Conservatorship

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      A judge in California freed the former Nickelodeon star from the arrangement that had governed her life after highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A judge ruled on Tuesday to end the conservatorship that for the better part of a decade has governed the life of Amanda Bynes, who shot to fame as a child star on Nickelodeon and went on to have highly publicized struggles with substance abuse.A court in California first ordered that Ms. Bynes be put in a conservatorship — a legal arrangement typically reserved for people who are older, ailing or have disabilities — in 2013, after erratic public behavior and a series of arrests. Over the years, Ms. Bynes’s parents have overseen her life, taking control of medical and mental health decisions and, for a time, her finances.The conservatorship system has come under intense scrutiny in the last year, after Britney Spears condemned her own as abusive and accused her father and others of exploiting her and seeking to capitalize off her wealth and stardom. A judge agreed to terminate Spears’s conservatorship in November.But Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship appeared to reach a smoother ending. Her mother, Lynn Bynes, who had acted as her conservator, told the court that she agreed that her daughter was now ready to live without that level of oversight, and a psychiatrist signed off, writing that Ms. Bynes had “no apparent impairment in alertness and attention, information and processing, or ability to modulate mood and affect.” Ms. Bynes’s lawyer, David A. Esquibias, held her case up as an example of how a conservatorship could be effective in rehabilitating a person while allowing them a degree of autonomy.“For the most part, mom has allowed Amanda to live freely,” Mr. Esquibias said. “She never wanted to be conserved, but she understood why.”At Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Roger L. Lund granted Ms. Bynes’s request to terminate the conservatorship. “She’s done everything the court has asked over a long period of time,” Judge Lund said.Ms. Bynes, 35, gained prominence as a young cast member of “All That,” Nickelodeon’s “Saturday Night Live”-style show, before headlining her own sketch comedy program, “The Amanda Show,” which helped define the network’s goofy brand of non sequitur humor. Ms. Bynes then graduated to roles in mainstream romantic comedies including “She’s the Man” and “Easy A.”A series of run-ins with the law in 2012 and 2013 drew intense media coverage, as she was arrested and accused of driving under the influence, hit and run and possession of marijuana. Ms. Bynes was held involuntarily in a psychiatric hospital in 2013 after setting a small fire in a driveway, and was later ordered into a temporary conservatorship.In an interview with Paper Magazine in 2018, Ms. Bynes said, “I got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.” She told the magazine that she had been sober for nearly four years.At a time of reassessment of how the media, the entertainment industry and the public have treated female celebrities going through mental health or substance abuse struggles — spurred in part by Ms. Spears’s case — Ms. Bynes offers another example of a young woman raised in the spotlight whose subsequent breakdown was breathlessly covered by tabloids.In recent years, Ms. Bynes’s life has stabilized, her lawyer said. She is now studying at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles and lives in an apartment community for women “poised to transition into an autonomous lifestyle,” according to papers filed with the court last month that requested Ms. Bynes’s conservatorship be terminated.“Ms. Bynes desires to live free of any constraint,” the filing said.The former actress has said little publicly about the conservatorship, aside from a video posted to social media in which she took issue with the cost of her mental health treatment.Conservatorships, often called guardianships, have received a great deal of public interest as a result of Ms. Spears’s case, disability rights advocates say, and a bill in California making its way through the state legislature would make it easier for conservatorships to be terminated and would require courts and potential conservators to consider alternative options first.Judy Mark, the president of Disability Voices United, a nonprofit organization that is working to get the legislation passed, said that while she supports the termination of Ms. Spears’s and Ms. Bynes’s conservatorships, she is not seeing it getting easier for a more typical conservatee to assert their freedoms.“Not everyone has Instagram accounts with millions of followers and a fan base that cares about them,” Ms. Mark said. “Most people conserved are normal people with disabilities, and most courts are very paternalistic.”Ms. Bynes and her parents have long been preparing for the termination of the conservatorship to ensure a smooth transition, said Tamar Arminak, a lawyer for Ms. Bynes’s parents. (The conservatorship of Ms. Bynes’s estate was ended several years ago, leaving the conservatorship in charge of her person, which involved medical and basic life decisions.) The court’s ruling allows Ms. Bynes to make personal choices that she did not have before, such as getting married to her fiancé, Ms. Arminak said.“The moment that it was clear and apparent that Amanda would do well off this conservatorship we agreed to terminate this conservatorship,” she said. More

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      Kanye West’s Stormy Relationship With the Grammys Erupts Again

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      The musician, nominated for five awards, was told he will not be able to perform at the ceremony on April 3. The decision came after weeks of erratic and troubling public behavior.When the latest Grammy nominations were announced in November, Kanye West picked up five nods, including album of the year, teeing up a potential reconciliation between one of pop music’s most mercurial stars and the institution he has spent much of the last two decades criticizing, challenging and sometimes outright insulting — even as West has yearned for its affirmation.But last Friday, a little more than two weeks before the 64th annual Grammy Awards ceremony, set for April 3 in Las Vegas — and weeks into negotiations over a planned performance at the show — organizers told West’s team that he would not be allowed to perform, according to a representative of the rapper and producer.The organizers cited West’s erratic and troubling public behavior in recent weeks, according to a person with knowledge of the decision, who was granted anonymity to discuss an internal matter.That behavior included the release of an animated music video that portrayed the kidnapping and burial of a figure who looked a lot like Pete Davidson — the comedian who has been dating Kim Kardashian, West’s former wife — and an Instagram post taunting Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” who is hosting this year’s Grammys, with a racial slur that resulted in West being banned from Instagram for 24 hours. (Noah said on Twitter that he had not called for West to be cut. “I said counsel Kanye not cancel Kanye,” he wrote.)For West, music’s perennial chaos agent, the episode may have been just the latest blur of sensational headlines. But for the Grammys, it is also a setback in a campaign to lure West back to the fold. He is perhaps the most vocal of a circle of high-profile Black creators — also including Jay-Z, Drake, the Weeknd and Frank Ocean — who have condemned the Grammys for often failing to recognize the work of creators of color, particularly in hip-hop, in its most high-profile categories.A Guide to the 2022 Grammy AwardsThe ceremony, originally scheduled for Jan. 31, was postponed for a second year in a row due to Covid and is now scheduled for April 3.Jon Batiste Leads the Way: The jazz pianist earned the most nominations with 11, including album and record of the year. Here’s his reaction.The Full List: Pop stars like Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and Billie Eilish were recognized in several categories. See all the nominees.Snubs and Surprises: From a big shock to smaller slights, The Times music team breaks it all down.Performers: Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, BTS and Lil Nas X are among the first performers announced for the April 3 show, which will be available on CBS and Paramount+.A Major Change: The awards will be the first since the Recording Academy ended its heavily criticized anonymous nominating committees.The Recording Academy, which presents the awards, has made extraordinary efforts to accommodate West, who has won 22 Grammys in his career. For the latest show, a last-minute rule change resulted in West being added to the ballot for album of the year.In an interview with Billboard, Harvey Mason Jr., the academy’s chief executive, said that when the initial slate of nominees was prepared with eight contenders in the major competitions, he noticed a dearth of rap in the top categories. Within days, a proposal to expand the ballot to 10 slots in those categories was approved by the academy’s board, bringing “Donda,” along with Taylor Swift’s “Evermore,” into consideration for best album.Since becoming the academy’s chief last year, Mason has made personal appeals to dissenting artists, including West. That outreach, and the album of the year nomination, stirred frustration and anger among some members of the academy, who have been appalled by West’s past antics, such as posting a video on social media in 2020 that shows a Grammy trophy apparently being defiled in a toilet bowl.“How vile and disrespectful,” Diane Warren, the Grammy-winning songwriter of hits like “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,” said at the time.West’s recent behavior on social media has made mending fences even riskier for the Recording Academy. Always an oversharer, West has lately used his Instagram account to air grievances over custody and child care issues amid his divorce from Kardashian. That dispute has coincided with West’s attacks on Davidson, as well as figures like Noah who have criticized the musician’s posts as verging on threats and harassment.Still, for the Recording Academy, reconciling with West could have symbolic power, suggesting that the institution’s efforts to revamp its voting membership and adapt to a faster-moving music business with a younger, more diverse listenership were working.West’s complaints about the Grammys go back at least 17 years. In 2005, even before that year’s nominations were announced, West was telling Grammy voters that if he did not win album of the year for “Late Registration,” his second LP, he would attribute the loss to a judgment on his personal behavior rather than his artistry.“I don’t care if I jumped up and down right now on the couch like Tom Cruise,” he told MTV News at the time. “I don’t care how much I stunt — you can never take away from the amount of work I put into it.” (He lost to U2’s “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb.”)Since then, West’s criticisms of the Grammys have been sporadic but unrelenting. In 2015, for example, after Beck won album of the year for “Morning Phase,” West demanded that the alt-rock musician give the award to Beyoncé instead, in an echo of his infamous moment with Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. He warned that such choices by Grammy voters would alienate “real artists.”“Because what happens is,” West said, “when you keep on diminishing art and not respecting the craft and smacking people in the face after they deliver monumental feats of music — it’s disrespectful to inspiration.”While West will not perform at this year’s Grammys, he is still invited to attend as a nominee — which presents a tricky problem for the academy if West wins a major award like album of the year. Would he use the opportunity of a speech on live television to make more inflammatory comments, either about his personal life or about the Grammys itself?As a safeguard for producers of the show, and for CBS, the Grammys’ longtime broadcast network, standard editing delays are built into the show. In 2017, for example, the Grammy audience heard Adele blurt out a frustrated profanity after she flubbed the opening of a George Michael tribute; people watching at home just heard bleeps.Joe Coscarelli contributed reporting. More