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      Late Night Rips Rudy Giuliani’s ‘Masked Singer’ Appearance

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      Jimmy Kimmel joked that only Giuliani would attempt to overthrow the government “and then try to rehabilitate his image by singing ‘Shake Your Groove Thing’ dressed as a pineapple.”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.Take It OffLate-night hosts couldn’t get over reports that Rudy Giuliani, personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump, recently taped an episode of the new season of Fox’s reality show “The Masked Singer.”“The guy who’s trying to destroy our country? He’s singing on a show!” Jimmy Kimmel said.“That’s right, the criminal goon that we know for a fact is being investigated for trying to overthrow our democracy for his idiot emperor was yukking it up on a reality show. There hasn’t been anything this shocking since Lee Harvey Oswald made a guest appearance on ‘Gilligan’s Island.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“How does this even happen? I mean, a lot of people at Fox had to sign off on this. Not one of them was like, ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t have the guy who is under investigation for helping to plot an insurrection singing on our show’?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Only Rudy Giuliani would try to overthrow the government, break wind loudly in court, sweat hair dye all over one press conference, have another one next to a dildo store and then try to rehabilitate his image by singing ‘Shake Your Groove Thing’ dressed as a pineapple.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“America is truly, truly, truly, truly, the greatest country on earth. Because this is the only place in the world where entertainment trumps everything. Because a year ago — I mean just a year ago — this guy tried to overthrow America’s democracy and now he’s a contestant on a reality show? Is there anyone they won’t have on? Like, one of these days, a masked singer is going to take off their head and it’s going to be literally the coronavirus.” — TREVOR NOAH“The Fox network should be ashamed of themselves. They should have another show after ‘The Masked Singer’ that night called ‘The Masked Executives.’ All the Fox executives come out in costumes; the one who greenlit this idea takes off the mask and gets voted out of television forever.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (More Rudy Unmasked Edition)“Now, if you’re not familiar with ‘The Masked Singer,’ congratulations.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Once again, Rudy Giuliani ruins the day by showing people his face.” — TREVOR NOAH“Rudy’s episode has not aired yet, so we don’t know much beyond that. Fox isn’t revealing what his swan song was, or which animal costume Rudy wore, though it was safe to assume he was a jackass.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Why would Rudy even agree to this? Did he think he was going to ‘The Masked Singer Landscaping Company’?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“One of the most chilling phrases in the English language is ‘Surprise! It’s Rudy Giuliani!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The only people who should be unmasking Rudy Giuliani is the gang from ‘Scooby Doo,’ you know?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I just think it’s impressive that they were able to get a member of the Trump administration to wear a mask in the first place.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee, who was born in Canada, tackled the bizarre racist imagery some Ottawa truckers are using to protest coronavirus vaccine mandates on Thursday’s “Full Frontal.”Also, Check This OutFrom left, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kristin Davis in “And Just Like That …,” which wrapped up its first season on Thursday.Craig Blankenhorn/HBO MaxThe creators of the “Sex and the City” revival “And Just Like That …” discuss the show’s reception, middle-age miseries and why Chris Noth was edited out of the season finale. More

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      Broken Lights, No Glue: ‘Abbott Elementary’ Has Teachers Talking

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      A new sitcom by Quinta Brunson about a Philadelphia public school is a relatable balm during a period of intense stress for educators.In the second episode of “Abbott Elementary,” a new ABC mockumentary about a group of (mostly) dedicated educators in an underfunded public school in Philadelphia, a second-grade teacher named Janine resolves to fix a flickering hallway ceiling light that the school had ignored.“The more senior teachers are just used to giving in,” says Janine, the bright-eyed protagonist (played by the show’s creator, Quinta Brunson), “but I, however, am young, sprightly and know where they keep the ladder.”For Maurice Watkins, a 28-year-old music teacher in Maryland, Janine’s take-charge approach was laughably familiar. Just recently, he had taken a trip to a discount store to buy mops and brooms to clean the classroom floors of the three public schools where he teaches. While the traditional classrooms undergo a regular cleaning, the spaces where he teaches band and orchestra do not.“As a teacher, you’re left to fix it yourself,” said Watkins, who works with fourth through sixth graders. “Almost every day I go through one of those situations.”(Luckily, Watkins’s attempts at janitorial duties did not go sideways like Janine’s did: After she adjusted a loose wire, much of the school’s power went out.)Six episodes in, Brunson’s “Abbott Elementary” has quickly become a talker among teachers who see themselves and their colleagues reflected in the show’s main characters, who are repeatedly pushed to their wits’ end by administrative chaos, paltry resources and the antics of their students. On social media, some viewers gushed about how relatable the show is to them.The ratings have been strong thus far, with more than 7 million total viewers across all platforms over roughly the first month after the premiere, according to ABC. (There’s Hollywood buzz, too: On Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show, the host brought on Joyce Abbott, Brunson’s sixth-grade teacher whom she named the show after, bringing the actress to tears.)Teachers say they recognize the fictional school’s staff in their own halls: the young teacher who is too new to be cynical, the self-serving principal, the ace veteran teacher who is stubbornly set in her ways and the white teacher who falls all over himself trying to seem progressive around his Black students and colleagues.Watkins said that the day after the first episode of “Abbott Elementary” aired in December, “every teacher at school was talking about it.” For some, though, it hit too close to home.“Some teachers I know can’t even watch it,” Watkins said.Teachers say they identify strongly with the challenges Janine and her colleagues face on a daily basis: a persistent lack of funding, behavioral problems of students and struggles with introducing new educational technologies.“D — all of the above,” said Alisha Gripp, a principal at a charter middle school in Kansas City, Mo. One aspect of the show that she adamantly does not identify with, however, is the school’s incompetent principal, Ava Coleman (played by Janelle James), who spends her time trimming her Chia Pet and organizing student files by who has the hottest dad.“I think she’s hilarious — but I am nothing like her,” Gripp said with a laugh.In one episode, teachers take to TikTok to drum up school supplies for their students; Janelle James, right, plays the principal. Gilles Mingasson/ABCGripp, who has been an educator for 17 years, said she thought “Abbott Elementary” was a more true-to-life depiction of teaching than those in much other Hollywood fare, including “Boston Public,” a Fox drama from David E. Kelley. That show tended to lean into melodrama in the fictional high school where it was set, making Gripp think to herself, “They’d be fired; they’d be fired; that kid would be suspended.”“It really is cool to have a more realistic, but still entertaining, take on education,” she added.Much of the show’s background comes from Brunson’s mother, who was a public-school teacher in Philadelphia for 40 years, according to two of the show’s executive producers, Justin Halpern and Patrick Schumacker. The producers and writers also interviewed teachers, school staff members and board members about their jobs.Many of the plot points come from real-life educators, including the main arc of an episode in which Janine becomes wildly successful at using TikTok to ask people to donate school supplies. It comes off as both funny and grim because she has to resort to social media for basic materials like scissors and glue.The TikTok episode reminded Kristina A. Holzweiss, a 52-year-old former teacher and librarian who is now an education-technology specialist at a Long Island high school, of a time several years ago when she independently raised more than $100,000 to buy enrichment materials like Chromebooks and a 3-D printer for her library. This was before TikTok took off, but teachers could use a website called DonorsChoose, which helped them with crowdfunding for their classrooms.“Teachers should not have to do this; this is not in our job description,” Holzweiss said, “but teachers always put their students first.”For some, a show that highlights hard-working, committed educators is particularly welcome right now. As schools across the country reopened after extended pandemic closures, teachers were put in the center of battles over mask mandates and in-person versus remote learning.The struggles of teaching during a pandemic — as well as long-term issues around low pay, benefits and erratic hours — contributed to a nationwide labor shortage at schools, which have struggled to find substitutes for sick teachers and teachers who quit.Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter, left) and Janine in an episode about a new gifted program that goes awry.Liliane Lathan/ABC“When the pandemic happened and everything closed, teachers were heroes,” said Jennifer Dinh, a 31-year-old second-grade teacher in Chino Hills, Calif. “But as soon as the next school year rolled around, it all went out the door.”“Abbott Elementary” tackles the issue of teacher burnout from the outset, showing a young teacher walking out of the building carrying a box of her belongings and raising a choice finger on her way out. (“More turnovers than a bakery,” quips Barbara Howard, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, who has been teaching in the school district for 20 years.)A theme of the show is the clash between young, newer teachers like Janine, who are learning the physical and emotional toll of trying to fix a dysfunctional school, and the more experienced teachers, who have learned to accept certain things — a flickering light, for example — so that they avoid burnout.“If we burn out, who’s here for these kids?” asks Melissa Schemmenti (played by Lisa Ann Walter), a straight-talking, Sicilian American second-grade teacher.After more than three decades of teaching, Jocelyn Hitchcock, a 57-year-old fan of the show, is determined not to burn out. After 20 years as a music teacher, she grew frustrated by dwindling funding for the arts and shifted to the core subjects. This past fall, Hitchcock started teaching at a small elementary school on the Walker River Paiute reservation in Nevada.Her school has recently dealt with a serious shortage of teachers (the principal has had to teach in the classroom), and she now spends time before and after school tutoring children to help them catch up from the learning deficits created by the pandemic.In “Abbott Elementary,” she said, she finds validation in seeing people on TV going through what she experiences day to day.But because the show is set in a nonpandemic world (at least thus far), Holzweiss said she thought the show was missing an exploration of the greatest challenges that teachers face right now: hybrid teaching, staffing shortages and students lagging behind academically and socially.“It’s an entirely different world now,” she said. More

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      Late Night Comments on the Washington Commanders

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      The hosts didn’t think much of the N.F.L. team’s long-awaited new name. Jimmy Kimmel pointed out that it’s also the name of the president’s dog.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.Command PerformanceThe Washington Football Team, formerly known as the Redskins, announced its new name and logo on Wednesday, rebranding as the Washington Commanders.“And just like that, she made racism disappear!” Jimmy Kimmel joked of the team’s co-owner Tanya Snyder, who handled the unveiling of the new uniforms.“The ‘W’ stands for ‘Why did it take you two years to come up with this?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL on the team’s new logo“‘The Commanders’ kind of sounds like an action movie where Dolph Lungren and Sylvester Stallone join forces to defend their assisted living facility.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s the Washington Commanders. That really feels like a waste of a drumroll.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“‘Commanders’ might be the only name more generic than ‘Football Team.’ I was hoping for something fun and new, like ‘The Washington Balloons’ or ‘The Fightin’ Dolly Partons.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Interestingly, the franchise now shares a name with President Biden’s dog, who is also named Commander. Good thing they didn’t name it after Trump’s dog. ‘The Washington Pences’ — it doesn’t have the same ring to it.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The Washington Football Team announced today that it officially changed its name to the Washington Commanders, as in ‘Rams 37, Commanders 3.’” — SETH MEYERS“I mean, call them whatever you want, they haven’t been able to command a winning season since Obama was in office.” — JAMES CORDEN“To give you an idea of how fans reacted, shortly after the announcement, this is true, the word ‘terrible’ trended on Twitter, which is surprising, considering how Twitter is normally so welcoming and so positive.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Six More Years of Winter Edition)“This morning, all eyes were on Gobbler’s Knob, which I can’t believe I can say on CBS.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Today was Groundhog Day, and Punxsutawney Phil says we’ve got about six or seven winters left.” — SETH MEYERS“That is so unfair, because if Africans were doing [expletive] like this and you heard that we pulled animals out of the ground? Like, there are villages in Africa where people wear animal skins, and if I tried to explain that Americans use groundhogs to predict the weather, they would be like, ‘But why not just use the satellite data?’” — TREVOR NOAH“Yeah, that’s right, we spend all year telling people to trust science, then ask a large rodent to predict the weather.” — JIMMY FALLON“You know, they could just flip a coin, but coins aren’t known carriers of rabies and hepatitis, so it’s more fun to go with the groundhog.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I was thinking, actually, about Feb. 2, 2020 — two years ago exactly. We still hadn’t had a single Covid death in the United States. Exactly six weeks later, the whole country was in lockdown, six weeks to the day. But how could we have known this was coming? Who, on Feb. 2, could possibly have predicted what would happen in exactly six weeks?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And by the way, we looked into it — the Farmers’ Almanac calls the few animals who hibernate in winter ‘the seven sleepers.’ You want to know who two of the seven sleepers are? Groundhogs and bats.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Daily Show” correspondent Roy Wood Jr. profiled the creator of Proud Puffs — the “Jackie Robinson of breakfast cereal” — for this week’s Black in Business.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightNicki Minaj will appear on Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutA depiction of the Anderson-Lee wedding (featuring Lily James and Sebastian Stan) in “Pam & Tommy.” In real life, the couple met, fell in love and were married in the course of four days.Erin Simkin/HuluHulu’s “Pam & Tommy” is a picaresque romp through the history of the stolen sex tape that changed pop culture. More

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      Danai Gurira Will Star as Richard III at Shakespeare in the Park

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      The actress, known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” will headline a return to semi-normal for the annual festival, which will also present “As You Like It.”The Public Theater, anticipating a semi-normal summer this year, is planning two full-scale productions for Free Shakespeare in the Park, including a run of “Richard III” starring Danai Gurira in the title role.The annual festival, ordinarily a highlight of summer in New York, took place via radio in 2020 (the play was “Richard II”), and then last year featured a single, small-cast show before a reduced-capacity audience (it was called “Merry Wives” — even the title was abbreviated) as the theater tried to adapt to shifting safety protocols necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic.Both pivots won praise, but this summer the Public is ready to go big again, with a two-show season and full-capacity audiences. “Richard III” will feature a cast of about two dozen, and it will be followed by a reprise of the Public’s 2017 production of “As You Like It,” which, by featuring New Yorkers from all five boroughs alongside professional actors, will have a cast of several hundred.“Last summer was a lifesaver, and this summer is going to be a huge shot of energy,” Oskar Eustis, the Public’s ebullient artistic director, pledged in an interview. “We are planning to have a full summer and to produce in as large and vibrant a scale as we ever have.”Of course, the pandemic’s not over, and there will be rules. At the moment, the Public is still planning to require patrons to show proof of vaccination, including a booster shot for those who are eligible, and to require mask wearing by patrons. Also, Eustis said the goal will be to keep both productions short enough that they can be performed without an intermission, which means some serious trimming for “Richard III,” originally one of Shakespeare’s longest plays.The production of “Richard III” will be directed by Robert O’Hara (“Slave Play”), who is no stranger to trimming — his halved production of “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” is now running at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theater downtown.Eustis said that he and O’Hara chose “Richard III” because it has not been seen at Shakespeare in the Park for many years, and because it felt relevant.“Let’s just say that ‘Richard III’ is the artistic work that for the first time really examined a political figure who utterly committed to the big lie — whose entire career is based on telling blatant falsehoods and somehow getting away with it,” Eustis said. “The idea that showmanship, devoid of content, has become a powerful political force makes it very germane for this moment.”Gurira, Eustis said, was an obvious choice to star: Best known for “The Walking Dead” and “Black Panther,” she is also an accomplished playwright (“Eclipsed”), a member of the Public’s board and a Shakespeare in the Park alumna (“Measure for Measure”).“She is a great actress who has become super-famous without people necessarily seeing the work she’s greatest at,” Eustis said. “Richard III is a spectacularly theatrical and rich character to play, and somebody with her ferocity and intelligence is going to make a spectacular Richard.”Darius de Haas, center, as a banished duke with a welcoming message in the 2017 Public Works production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It.”Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesAnd what will it mean to have a woman play Richard? “We are not going to re-gender the role, but what that means exactly we won’t know until we’re doing run-throughs,” Eustis said. “I know where we’re starting, but that doesn’t mean we know where we’re ending.”“Richard III” has been staged at Shakespeare in the Park four times previously, most recently in 1990, starring Denzel Washington.This summer’s production of “As You Like It” is a remounting of a production that had a short run in 2017, staged as part of the theater’s Public Works program, which integrates amateur performers from throughout New York City into musical adaptations of Shakespeare plays. In the years since it was created at the Public, this adaptation has been staged 35 times in school, community and professional theaters, including at the Dallas Theater Center, Seattle Repertory Theater, and the National Theater in London. The Public had hoped to give it a full run in 2020, but the pandemic prevented that.This “As You Like It” was adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery; Taub wrote the music and lyrics, and Woolery is the director, with choreography by Sonya Tayeh (“Moulin Rouge!”). As with the earlier version, this summer’s production will feature Darius de Haas, Joel Perez and Taub.The dates for the two productions, as well as the full casts, will be announced later.Shakespeare in the Park has since 1962 been staged at the 1,830-seat Delacorte Theater in Central Park, and last week the city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved plans for a $77 million renovation of the theater. Construction is expected to begin this fall, after the summer season ends; Eustis said that he is hopeful that construction can be phased and contained to off-season periods, so that Shakespeare in the Park can continue without further interruptions. More

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      ‘Pam & Tommy’: A Story of Sex, Crimes and Videotape

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      A new Hulu series starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan is a picaresque romp through the history of the stolen sex tape that changed pop culture.Back when 1995 was young, Pamela Anderson and her new husband, Tommy Lee, the drummer for the flashy metal combo Mötley Crüe, were on top of the world. She was starring in the TV hit “Baywatch,” and while his band was past its 1980s prime, he could still live la vida rocka in their Malibu mansion.You can’t blame them for wanting to preserve some of their happiest moments — including some very naked, very sexual ones — for posterity, with the help of a Hi8 camcorder.And then, much to the couple’s dismay, the footage got out. And got around.Those events and their fallout are dramatized in the eight-part scripted series “Pam & Tommy,” a wild, picaresque romp through the nightclubs, palaces and porn dens of mid-90s Hollywood, which debuted Wednesday on Hulu. But the show has more on its mind than celebrity antics or period-perfect riffs on the outlandish trials and tribulations of its lead couple — although it has those, too.The series uses the scandal — which begot fortunes, ruined lives and made the celebrity sex tape a defining artifact of the internet age — as a guide through a transitional period in American culture. It depicts a time when glam gave way to grunge and when cheap video and dial-up modems exponentially expanded the reach — and the invasiveness — of the business of sexual imagery.“We’re still living in that today,” said D.V. DeVincentis (“The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”), a writer, executive producer and co-showrunner of the series. “You could argue it all comes from, if not this moment, then this period, and it’s something you’ll never get back in the bottle.”It is hard now to grasp the scope of the affair, which has become shrouded in a mist of 1990s nostalgia.“Obviously Pamela was so a part of everyone’s world, and even just that time in the ’90s is very sort of romanticized in my head — this wild time of crop tops and Spice Girls,” said Lily James, 32, who portrays Anderson in “Pam & Tommy.” “But we also talked about how there’s this deeper, untold story that was largely missed by the headlines.”A depiction of Anderson and Lee’s wedding (with Alberto Manquero, left) in “Pam & Tommy.” In real life, they met, fell in love and were married in the course of four days.Erin Simkin/HuluSeth Rogen, left, and Nick Offerman play the miffed contractor who stole the tape and the porn producer who helped him distribute it.  Kelsey McNeal/HuluSeth Rogen, 39, who is among the show’s executive producers, plays Rand Gauthier, the real-life electrician who stole, duplicated and distributed the tape. Rogen recalled by phone his first awareness of the footage. “I was 13, 14 years old when it came out, so I did not know the full story by any means,” he said. “I just knew it was this thing that was floating around my social group a little bit — that was looked on as this mythical thing, like ‘Lord of the Rings’ almost.”But how to tell such a story, with its obvious sex appeal, in a way that is entertaining but doesn’t add to the exploitation? (Anderson and Lee were not involved in the production.) It was a tricky proposition, especially since the truth is so fanciful that it might enhance the myth.Based closely on an eye-popping investigative Rolling Stone article from 2014, written by Amanda Chicago Lewis, the show takes off with the narrative equivalent of a Miata’s screeching tires. The man who sets the wheels in motion — and who, in early episodes, appears to be the show’s moral center — is Gauthier, the son of minor Hollywood royalty. (In 1975, his father, Dick Gautier, played Robin Hood in the short-lived Mel Brooks sitcom “When Things Were Rotten.” Rand modified his own last name’s spelling.)As depicted in “Pam & Tommy,” Gauthier was helping remodel Lee and Anderson’s mansion when he was fired, with money still owed by a capricious and stingy Lee (Sebastian Stan). Already out thousands of dollars, Gauthier returned to recover his tools, when, as Gauthier alleges in the article, Lee stuck a shotgun in his face. (Lee and Anderson declined to comment for the Rolling Stone article.)Incensed, he plotted an elaborate scheme to recoup his losses by stealing a six-foot-tall safe from Lee’s home, contents unknown. One of the show’s funniest scenes depicts Gauthier trying to fool Lee’s security camera by covering his back with a white pelt and getting down on all fours to look like Lee’s giant dog.“Because I’m involved in the show, people assume it was made up,” Rogen said, laughing.Lee had stored the precious video in that safe, alongside his guns and Anderson’s jewelry. The tape was out of sight and out of mind until early 1996, when the couple discovered that footage featuring their X-rated activities on a boat on Lake Mead had begun to surface publicly. Anderson and Lee, now the object of prurient attention, belatedly realized the tape had been stolen and were soon the butt of late-night jokes.James required four hours in the makeup chair daily and Stan three, many of them dedicated to the painstaking application of Lee’s many tattoos.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesIn a plot progression worthy of the Coen brothers, the caper metastasized, spreading into louche corners across North America. The real-life cast of characters grew to include bikers, gamblers, a brutal money lender named Butchie (Andrew Dice Clay) and assorted bottom feeders like Gauthier’s accomplice Milton Ingley (Nick Offerman), a pornographer in the San Fernando Valley.Bawdy touches accentuate the sleazy vibe of mid-90s Los Angeles, particularly in early episodes. In one scene, the famously well-endowed Lee discusses his love for Anderson with an animated version of his penis (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas). It is as funny as it is surreal, but it isn’t a flight of comic fancy on the screenwriters’ part: Such tête-à-têtes run throughout Lee’s 2004 memoir, “Tommyland.” (A spokesman for Hulu said the series’s dialogue is original.)Many times, such tricks are done with digital effects in postproduction, said Jason Collins, whose company, Autonomous FX, designed and built the many prosthetics used in the show. But Lee’s chatty member was brought to life by two puppeteers crouching out of camera range and armed with remote controls.“Doing it like this allows the director and the creators to feed lines to the puppeteers and to Sebastian,” Collins said, “so they can have maybe a little bit of extra improv and be a little bit looser on the scene that day.”As the episodes progress, viewers’ allegiances keep switching. Rogen, whose production company with Evan Goldberg, Point Grey, developed the series with Annapurna Pictures for Hulu, was drawn to Gauthier and his ambiguous role in the events.“I think you like him at first because he’s a simple dopey guy who is trying his best — you don’t think he’s doing anything that bad because he doesn’t think he’s doing anything that bad,” Rogen said.“The fact is that he truly didn’t consider anyone other than himself,” he added. “And he had a huge negative impact on people’s lives.”Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson had two children and were divorced in 1998, but they had an on-and-off relationship for many years after.Henny Ray Abrams/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesEven Lee can be endearingly goofy, showering Anderson in affection and reveling in every rock-star cliché. But gradually, Anderson emerges as the story’s emotional and moral heart. And she is always a step ahead of most everybody around her, especially her husband, even as her instincts and intelligence are repeatedly ignored.“She’s ultimately our main character,” said Robert Siegel (“The Wrestler”), the show’s creator and a co-showrunner. “She gets the worst of it from a career and a public-perception standpoint, but she certainly gets out of our show as the best person.”To that end, the show took measures, DeVincentis said, to underscore the vastly diverging ways in which Anderson and Lee lived through the events. Lewis, who wrote the Rolling Stone article, was a consultant for the series; two of the writers were women, and later episodes were directed by women, including Lake Bell, Gwyneth Horder-Payton and Hannah Fidell. (Craig Gillespie, who directed “I, Tonya,” directed the first three.)“These two people had the exact same experience on film, that film was shown to the world, but she was slut-shamed out of the business and he was saved from being a has-been and reinvented as a sort of sex god,” DeVincentis said. “The only difference between them was gender.”Some early reviews have accused “Pam & Tommy” of trying to have it both ways — to seek redress for Anderson’s humiliation while also capitalizing on the inherent sexiness of the subject. It tells the hidden story of a non-consensual leak, but it was made without Anderson’s consent. The sex and nudity are mostly matter-of-fact, but they’re hardly disguised.Citing anonymous sources close to Anderson, multiple news outlets, including Entertainment Tonight, US Weekly and The Sun, have reported that she is unhappy about the series. Producers said that they tried: Anderson declined multiple requests by the production to be involved with the series, a Hulu spokesman said. (Anderson did not respond to requests for comment for this article.)“We were constantly monitoring the fine balance of revealing how Pam was victimized while portraying people who lived rock ‘n’ roll lives,” the showrunners said in a follow-up email. “Everyone involved in making the show was in a near-constant dialogue about how our portrayal would thread that needle.”James, a British actress best known for parts in “Downton Abbey,” “Cinderella” and “Baby Driver,” said that her attempts to contact Anderson were unsuccessful. Siegel acknowledged that James was in some ways a counterintuitive choice for the role, but he had wanted to subvert expectations.“A lot of people assumed we would cast whoever the biggest bombshell is,” he said. “But one of the takeaways of the show is that Pam is not who you think she is, and we’ve all underestimated her. You’re misjudging Lily maybe the way you’re misjudging Pam.”Stan and James tried to contact their respective subjects, but only Stan succeeded. It made James “even more committed to giving my absolute all to play her authentically and do her justice,” she said. Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesJames and Stan, 39, had to disappear into their characters. Both talked about having to lose weight and exercise steadily for their role. Stan acknowledged being somewhat intimidated by the drumming scenes, especially since Lee operated at a gonzo level of intensity. (Lee was not asked to participate in the series, but Stan talked with Lee, who Stan said seemed “very touched” that they had connected; Lee declined to comment for this article.)“You’ve got to remember he was a guy who would be playing upside down on a roller coaster,” he said, referring to something that routinely happened in concert. “You’ve got to have a lot of energy to handle that.”And then there were the lengthy makeup sessions: James required four hours daily; for his various adornments, Stan needed three, many of them dedicated to the painstaking application of Lee’s tattoos.“It’s pretty wild because Lily and I didn’t really see each other outside of those costumes until the end,” he said. “Even now, we see each other for press, and we’re like, ‘This is your hair?’”Both actors put those hours to use by watching countless YouTube videos and practicing their elocution. James’s task was further complicated by having to put on a different accent (Anderson was born in Canada) while wearing prosthetic choppers.In the end, getting the appearances right didn’t matter as much as getting the characters right. But if James couldn’t meet with Anderson in person, it only motivated her further.“I just was even more committed to my own research — even more committed to giving my absolute all to play her authentically and do her justice,” she said. More

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      Late Night Talks Tom Brady’s Retirement

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      “You know you’ve been around a long time when you debuted the same year as ‘The Thong Song,’” Jimmy Fallon joked on Tuesday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Bye-Bye, BradyQuarterback Tom Brady officially announced his retirement from the N.F.L. on Tuesday, writing on Instagram that other things require his attention.“Man, when they said everyone is quitting their jobs during the pandemic, they meant everybody,” Jimmy Fallon joked.“Other things that require my attention? That’s a weird reason to retire. It sounds like he’s got, like, household chores: ‘I’ve loved playing in the N.F.L. but I’ve got 20 years of laundry piling up, so, it’s time to call it quits.’” — TREVOR NOAH“What he’s accomplished is amazing: 22 years in the league, seven Super Bowl victories, five M.V.P. trophies, and all while eating just one almond a day.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“A quarterback retiring at 44 is like the rest of us retiring from our jobs at 95.”— JIMMY KIMMEL“Brady’s now in his mid-40s, jobless and has no real traditional work experience, so he’s going to fit right in in Florida.” — JAMES CORDEN“So Tom Brady did a lot for the Patriots and for Tampa and the sport of football, but he’s also done a lot for goats. You know, people don’t mention, before they were associated with him, they were like the twelfth-most popular farm animal.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Now, if we’re being honest, this retirement isn’t a surprise to anyone, right? What is surprising is that at 44 years old, this dude was still dominating the N.F.L. Think about it: the N.F.L., where people car accident each other for a living, and this guy was doing that in his 40s. Most people I know in their 40s are, like, ‘Ah! Ah! My back hurts — I think I slept too long.’” — TREVOR NOAH“But this is amazing. Brady is walking away with the most Super Bowl appearances, wins and M.V.P.s. It’s strange to say, but he’s basically the N.F.L.’s Meryl Streep.” — JIMMY FALLON“And now that he’s put up his cleats, the question is, was Tom Brady the best football player of all time? Some people say yes because he holds all the records and won the most Super Bowls. Other people say, ‘No, because he didn’t do that for my team!’ So it will be a big debate for a while.’”— TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Shredded Edition)“So you know how Trump had to hand over all his records related to Jan. 6? Well, when the documents, when they finally handed them over — they were forced to — many of them had been torn into pieces and had to be taped back together. They’d been personally ripped up by Trump. The National Archive didn’t explain how they know they were ripped up by Trump. My guess is tiny little barbecue sauce fingerprints.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Sounds like during the pandemic, the people at the National Archives also got into puzzles.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, it violates the Presidential Records Act to tear up official documents, but the former president had a very good reason: He was afraid of going to jail.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Trump had such a habit of ripping up important documents, they had to hire people whose job was to tape them back together. I love that Robert Mueller couldn’t get him, but Trump might finally get brought down by a roll of Scotch tape.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“According to White House advisers, he once ate a sensitive document. He would have eaten more sensitive documents, but he ran out of ranch.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingTrevor Noah and the “Daily Show” correspondent Ronny Chieng dug into the hot trend of green burials.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightMartha Stewart will appear on Wednesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutA scene from “Marry Me,” featuring Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson as her love interest.Universal PicturesJennifer Lopez is back on the big screen with the romantic comedy “Marry Me.” More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to HBO, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More in February

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of February’s most promising new titles.(Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)Olly Sholotan, left, as Carlton Banks and Jabari Banks as Will Smith in “Bel-Air.”Evans Vestal Ward/PeacockNew to Peacock‘Bel-Air’Starts streaming: Feb. 13At the start of each episode of the teen-friendly 1990s sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” the show’s star, Will Smith, would rap the premise of the show: all about how his character, Will, was shipped out of Philadelphia to live with rich relatives in Los Angeles after a fight threatened to derail his promising future. In 2019, Morgan Cooper wrote and directed a trailer for an imaginary “Fresh Prince” reboot, re-conceiving the original as a lurid, soapy modern prime-time drama for adults. Smith liked what he saw and bought the concept. The resulting series has the newcomer Jabari Banks playing Will: a smart and athletic kid torn between his obligations to his old West Philly crew and the expectations of his upper-crust Los Angeles kin.Also arriving:Feb. 3“Dragon Rescue Riders: Heroes of the Sky” Season 2Feb. 11“Marry Me”Bradley Cooper in Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.”Kerry Hayes/Searchlight Pictures, via Associated PressNew to Hulu‘Nightmare Alley’Starts streaming: Feb. 1In the end-of-year crunch of blockbusters and awards contenders, the director Guillermo del Toro’s visually sumptuous and thematically rich take on William Lindsay Gresham’s creepy 1946 crime novel, “Nightmare Alley” (previously adapted, beautifully, in 1947), didn’t draw as much attention or as big of an audience as it deserved. Now that it’s arriving on Hulu, fans of film noir will have another chance to catch up. Co-written by del Toro and Kim Morgan, “Nightmare Alley” has Bradley Cooper playing a sketchy drifter who gets a job at a carnival, where he learns the secrets of a mentalism act and starts passing himself off in high society as a psychic. As usual with del Toro’s work, the elaborate set designs and memorably offbeat characters are eye-catching, pulling viewers into a morally unsteady world where nearly everyone is either a hustler or a mark.‘Pam & Tommy’Starts streaming: Feb. 2The mini-series “Pam & Tommy” is partly about the tumultuous romance and tabloid scandals of the rock drummer Tommy Lee and the actress Pamela Anderson. The show’s third major character is played by one of its producers and creators, Seth Rogen, who takes on the role of a disgruntled carpenter looking to exact some revenge on the celebrity couple, selling their homemade sex tape in retaliation for an unpaid bill. Sebastian Stan plays Lee and Lily James plays Anderson in the series, which also features the work — and the ironic sensibilities — of the director Craig Gillespie (“I, Tonya”) and the screenwriter Robert D. Siegel (“The Wrestler”). While “Pam & Tommy” is based on a true story, it has a satirical edge, commenting on how the public sometimes prefers to be entertained by celebrities’ private lives more than by their actual work.Also arriving:Feb. 1“Your Attention Please” Season 2Feb. 3“The Deep House”Feb. 4“Beans”“The Beta Test”Feb. 5“Rick and Morty” Season 5Feb. 10“Gully”Feb. 11“Dollface” Season 2Feb. 17“A House on the Bayou”Feb. 18“The Feast”“The King’s Man”Feb. 22“How It Ends”Feb. 24“The Last Rite”“Snowfall” Season 5Feb. 25“No Exit”Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher and Martin Roach as Picard in “Reacher.”Amazon StudiosNew to Prime Video‘Reacher’ Season 1Starts streaming: Feb. 4The author Lee Child’s best-known creation is Jack Reacher, a stoic, hulking ex-military policeman and inveterate wanderer who, in over two dozen novels, has frequently stumbled into dangerous situations where he has felt compelled to right wrongs and help the helpless. Tom Cruise played Reacher in two solid action movies, but fans of the books complained that the actor’s physical type was never quite right. The tall and muscular Alan Ritchson looks much more like Child’s character in the pulpy TV series “Reacher.” Its first season adapts the first Reacher novel, the 1997 “Killing Floor,” in which the beefy do-gooder kicks around the suspicious locals in a small Georgia town to unravel a murder mystery.‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ Season 4Starts streaming: Feb. 18Season 3 of this award-winning period dramedy ended on a down note, with the stand-up comedian Midge Maisel (Rachel Brosnahan) being kicked off a lucrative tour and her manager, Susie Myerson (Alex Borstein), dropping into deep debt. After a two-year hiatus, “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” is due for a reset — because this isn’t the kind of series where characters wallow for long. The creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and her writing-directing partner (and husband), Daniel Palladino, will keep moving their story further into the 1960s, when American popular culture started becoming a bit freer and Midge and Susie can find more outlets for a frank, funny, fast-talking kind of comedy.Five Movies to Watch This WinterCard 1 of 51. “The Power of the Dog”: More

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      After Moving Online, BBC Three Returns to the Airwaves

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      The British public broadcaster moved a youth-focused channel online, but now it’s changing course as viewing habits continue to mutate.LONDON — When the BBC took its youth-focused TV channel off the air and moved it online in 2016, the broadcaster was going where its viewers seemed to be.Streaming services like Netflix and Amazon had transformed how people — both in Britain and the U.S. — watched TV, and BBC Three’s target audience of 16- to 34-year-olds were apparently turning their backs on traditional television channels.Now, Britain’s public service broadcaster has done a U-turn: BBC Three — home to shows like “Fleabag” and “Normal People” — is back on terrestrial TV.The move reflects the continued challenges of understanding how the internet is changing TV habits. And it shows how the BBC is doubling down on youth programming as it deals with competition and potential budget cuts.Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal in a scene from “Normal People.”Enda Bowe/HuluBBC Three was launched in 2003 as a younger sibling to the BBC’s two long-running TV channels. It produced provocative comedies like “The Mighty Boosh” and “Little Britain” that appealed to a younger audience than the more conventional programming on BBC One and Two. The decision to turn BBC Three into a streaming channel also came with a massive cut to its budget, from 85 to 30 million pounds (about $114 million to $40 million).“It was a disaster. And it was an immediate disaster,” Patrick Barwise, co-author of the book “The War Against the BBC,” said of the move.Time spent watching the channel soon fell by more than 70 percent, and it also lost the same proportion of reach among its target viewership, according to data from Enders, a research company.There is wider evidence that millions of households haven’t, in fact, moved to streaming. In an interview, Fiona Campbell, the head of BBC Three, pointed to a recent report on American TV habits from Nielsen that showed 64 percent of viewers still regularly watch cable television, compared to 26 percent who watch streaming.The idea that young people are turning their backs on traditional TV also seems more complicated than it did six years ago. BBC Three’s relaunch is also intended to make its programming more accessible, Campbell said, especially to less affluent and more rural viewers who may not have high-speed internet and are less likely to be streaming.Fiona Campbell, the head of BBC Three, said on-air broadcasting would make the channel more accessible.via BBCAccording to Barwise, many young viewers are also taking a hybrid approach. “People are watching Netflix or other video some of the time, and then they’re watching broadcast” television, he said. Despite a decline, younger viewers still watch more than one hour of live television a day, according to Ofcom, the British media regulator.During its online-only years, BBC Three still produced some of the broadcaster’s most popular shows, and the renewed investment in the channel — its programming budget will return to 80 million pounds — comes at a time when the BBC is facing pressure from several sides.The British government recently announced that the country’s license fee, which is charged each year to all households with a TV and is the main source of funding for the BBC, will be frozen for the next two years. With inflation rising fast in Britain, this is likely to mean another round of cuts, and the BBC chief Tim Davie has said that “everything is on the agenda.”“To have a freeze in the BBC license fee at precisely the time when genuine inflation is really high, and inflation in the broadcasting industry is really high, can’t be a good moment,” said Roger Mosey, a former head of BBC Television News. “Not only have you got competition from the streamers for audiences, you’ve also got competition for talent.”In this context, the public broadcaster is betting on BBC Three’s track record for producing buzzy shows in combination with the allure of traditional “linear” television. In Britain, despite the availability of seemingly infinite streaming content, viewers have been gravitating toward weekly appointment viewing.The BBC releases many of its popular programs as complete seasons on iPlayer, its streaming service, at the same time as the first episode airs on broadcast television. Charlotte Moore, the BBC’s head of content, said in a phone interview that with “The Tourist,” a drama starring Jamie Dornan, “we were still getting two million people choosing to watch it on a Sunday night even though it’s all available on iPlayer.”When the BBC Three show “Normal People” aired on the broadcaster’s traditional TV channels, it was regularly a trending topic on British social media. “When we do shows that really drive conversation,” Campbell said, “people want to be in for the live moment. And that’s why channels still have a role.”Campbell also believes there are drawbacks to only distributing shows via streaming, since viewers may be more hesitant to engage with documentaries on challenging public-service topics. Citing a recent series on revenge porn, she said, “They’re very challenging subjects, and people would be going, ‘Do I really want to go there?’ Whereas if they encounter it on linear, it can be less intimidating.”While Moore wouldn’t say whether BBC Three would be immune from the next round of budget cuts, she indicated that youth programming would remain a core focus. “Obviously we’ll look at our whole funding envelope to work out how we are going to meet all audience needs, with the money that we have,” she said. “But of course, young audiences are going to continue to be a critical part of that.”A scene from “The Fast and The Farmer(ish),” a tractor racing competition.Alleycats TV, via BBCWith its return to broadcast, Campbell also hopes to make BBC Three stand out from its commercial streaming rivals by telling stories from across Britain. Upcoming programs include “Brickies,” which follows young bricklayers in the north of England, and a tractor racing competition called “The Fast and the Farmer(ish)”, filmed in Northern Ireland and created to appeal to the 11 million young people who live in the British countryside.“You want to reflect the current challenges and pressures and difficulties people are having now, all the more so after the pandemic,” Campbell said. “If we don’t reflect that, then why do they need us in their lives?” More