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      Concert Drowns Out A.F.C. Halftime Analysis

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      As the “NFL on CBS” crew broke down the first half of the game, a performance by the country music singer Walker Hayes was so loud, it made the commentary all but inaudible.At halftime of the A.F.C. championship game on Sunday, Kansas City led the Cincinnati Bengals, 21-10. For the Bengals to win, they would need to make some adjustments.But those hoping to listen to some halftime analysis on the CBS broadcast were unlikely to hear any commentary. It was nearly inaudible.As the “NFL on CBS” crew, made up of James Brown, Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, Bill Cowher and Nate Burleson, were breaking down the plays of the first half, the country music singer Walker Hayes was performing the halftime show at Arrowhead Stadium.Mr. Hayes’s music was so loud, it all but drowned out the halftime analysis.When Mr. Burleson explained what changes the Bengals would need to make, the music was so loud that his colleague beside him, Mr. Esiason, couldn’t help but laugh.“I have no idea what you just said,” Mr. Esiason said after Mr. Burleson finished his comments. “I can’t hear a thing that anybody said.”The indiscernible commentary quickly drew attention online, with clips garnering tens of thousands of views on Twitter.Sarah Spain, a commentator on ESPN, said on Twitter that she couldn’t hear a word of the halftime broadcast.“Yikes, don’t think CBS realized how disruptive the Walker Hayes halftime show would be during *their* halftime show,” she wrote. Craig Miller, a sports radio host in Dallas, said on Twitter that the “halftime show audio disaster” was “highly entertaining.”CBS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night.In a dramatic overtime finish, the Bengals defeated Kansas City, 27-24, with a game-winning field goal that will take them to the Super Bowl to face the Los Angeles Rams. Thankfully, for the “NFL on CBS” crew and those watching at home, there was no live musical performance to interrupt any postgame analysis. More

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      Why the ‘Euphoria’ Teens Listen to Sinead O’Connor, Tupac and Selena

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      The hit HBO show’s maximalist, era-jumping soundtrack is unconcerned with realism, packing in dozens of songs, from the underground to the instantly recognizable.A modern high schooler’s birthday party, chaperoned by an inebriated mother with no household rules except discretion, gets going to the sound of Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It,” that indelible 1990s relic. “I love this song!” the mom squeals, with an added profanity.At the same time, three teenagers in a beat-up ride are on their way to shoplift some alcohol. “Trademark USA” by Baby Keem, a rising rapper of the moment, blasts from the car speakers.Not long after, a troubled father skims a gay bar jukebox, looking for INXS’s “Kick” but finding Nicki Minaj’s “The Pinkprint” instead. He settles for a nostalgic slow dance to “Drink Before the War” by Sinead O’Connor, a devastating power ballad from 1987. Back at the birthday party, a wasted girl in a bathing suit melts down, belting along simultaneously to the same track, one released long before she was born.For some television shows, this would be an episode’s worth of big music moments. But on “Euphoria,” the maximalist hallucination of high school currently in its second season on HBO, it was but one stretch of carefully curated songs and references that, like the series itself, aimed for emotional resonance over superficial accuracy.Often cramming a couple of dozen tracks into a single hour — from the underground to the instantly recognizable, the 1950s to the 2020s — the show doesn’t do emphatic needle-drops so much as a TikTokian shuffle of aural and visual stimuli, bouncing between genres, eras and moods.In addition to O’Connor and Keem, Sunday’s episode featured a meta-montage of pop culture allusions set to Townes Van Zandt’s “I’ll Be Here in the Morning,” plus the premiere of a new song by Lana Del Rey and an onscreen, neo-gospel performance by the singer and producer Labrinth, who also handles the show’s score.Tasteful spareness has never been the objective. “We were not interested in playing by those rules,” said Julio Perez IV, the show’s lead editor, who recalled conceiving of their “own sonic galaxy” with the “Euphoria” creator, writer and director Sam Levinson. “We were interested in plenty of music — too much music for some. The show, in a sense, would be a musical.”A collage of flashbacks, daydreams, nightmares and rhythmic music video-esque sequences, “Euphoria” uses the interplay between its eclectic soundtrack and Labrinth’s recurring score to create a “wild fantasia that blends a raw naturalism with hyper-reality,” Perez said.Jen Malone, the show’s music supervisor, has also overseen the songs of “Atlanta” and “Yellowjackets,” where a strict sense of place and period guide the choices. “Euphoria” has no such boundaries.“If it works, it works,” she said in an interview, describing the show’s creative ethos and noting that Levinson writes to music, frequently including his song choices in the script. “The library of music that he has in his brain is endless,” Malone added.She and her team are then tasked with making Levinson’s vision a reality, making their own suggestions, seeking clearance from the music’s many rights holders and filling in gaps where necessary.In the show’s second season, episode prologues that tell characters’ back stories function as short films of their own, with distinct tones and time frames. One jumps from an Elvis Presley cover to Bo Diddley, Harry Nilsson, Curtis Mayfield and Isaac Hayes, while another burns through tracks by INXS, Depeche Mode, Roxette, Erasure, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Cult, Lenny Kravitz and Dan Hartman, all in the span of 15 minutes.“It’s just insane the amount of music in this show,” Malone said.Complicating her job further is the fact that “Euphoria” revolves around lurid transgression — lust, substance abuse and violence, in particular — and scenes must be described in detail during the music approval process. “We do have to get clever with how we word certain things, but sometimes there’s just no way around it,” Malone said.The sequence ultimately set to an Elvis cover that opened this season featured nudity, drugs, guns and gore — “all the red flags you could possibly think of” — leading to a few denials before the show settled on Billy Swan’s rendition of “Don’t Be Cruel,” following appeals to the music’s publisher and the Presley estate.In securing use of O’Connor’s “Drink Before the War,” the “Euphoria” staff had to confirm that it would not be played over any sexual violence, “because I think she knew the show,” Malone added.Flashbacks in the second season detail character back stories to tracks like Billy Swan’s “Don’t Be Cruel.”HBO MaxHBO MaxBut labels and artists have been pleased to see the surge in interest that a placement on “Euphoria” can trigger, whether for an emerging act like Laura Les, whose track “Haunted” plays in a recent episode, or an established one like Tupac Shakur, whose caustic “Hit ’Em Up,” from 1996, is rapped along to by a teenage drug addict. Featured tracks by Gerry Rafferty and Steely Dan have even started popping up on TikTok.Whether or not the show’s Gen Z characters would actually be listening to this music has sparked some debate and eye-rolling. (“The Euphoria Teens’ Taste in Rap Is Ridiculous,” Pitchfork ruled.) But as with their designer wardrobes, verisimilitude is beside the point.“Realism is secondary,” said Perez, the editor. “There’s a certain amount of romanticism to the approach,” with “the psychological intricacies of inner worlds” taking precedence.A song choice can signal something, as when Selena’s “Como La Flor” plays faintly in a scene featuring a character whose Mexican American heritage is alluded to, but not explored. Or it can just simply sound good.In the playlist era, “Cool kids are into loads of stuff,” said Labrinth, who mirrors the show’s range in his “limitless” original music for the show, which fuses hip-hop, rock, funk and electronic sounds. He compared Levinson to a crate-digging D.J. as likely to reference an ’80s punk band as an obscure Italian composer.For those not already in the know, “Euphoria” can also function as a recommendation engine for a new generation, like the films of Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino that it’s constantly nodding to.“Knowing that our audience is very much Gen Z, it’s almost like, ‘Hey guys, listen to some of this,’” Malone said, noting that a party scene where Juvenile and DMX songs are played also included more recent, little-known tracks by artists like Blaq Tuxedo and G.L.A.M.“‘Oh, you like all of this that’s out now? Listen to this!’” she added. “We’re giving them the mixtape that I got when I was in high school.” More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Missing in Brooks County’ and ‘Sisters With Transistors’

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      A documentary about a Texas border region plays as part of PBS’s “Independent Lens” series. And a documentary about women in electronic music airs on Showtime.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Jan. 21-Feb. 6. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: MISSING IN BROOKS COUNTY (2021) 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Hundreds of people have died trying to migrate from Mexico to the United States through Brooks County, Tex., in the past two decades. This documentary looks at what makes the region, on the southern end of Texas, so perilous for those crossing the border, and explores work that activists and community members are doing to address the crisis. It focuses on two families who turn to Eddie Canales, the founder of the South Texas Human Rights Center, for help finding missing family members.CELEBRATING BETTY WHITE: AMERICA’S GOLDEN GIRL 10 p.m. on NBC. This hourlong special celebrates the life and career of the comic actress Betty White, who died in December at 99. Many famous people will pay tribute to White, including Drew Barrymore, Cher, Bryan Cranston, Ellen DeGeneres, Tina Fey, Goldie Hawn, Anthony Mackie, Tracy Morgan, Jean Smart and President Biden.TuesdayA scene from “Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth To Power.”Greenwich EntertainmentBARBARA LEE: SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER (2021) 8 p.m. on Starz. “A Super Bowl touchdown roar.” That’s how The New York Times described the reception that Representative Barbara Lee received from an audience in Oakland, Calif., at a community gathering in October 2001. The reason for the crowd’s enthusiasm: Lee was the only member of Congress to vote against invading Afghanistan in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks. This documentary looks at Lee’s life both before and after that pivotal move. Interviewees include Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, the CNN commentator Van Jones and the actor Danny Glover.Remembering Betty WhiteThe actress, whose trailblazing career spanned seven decades, died on Jan. 31. She was 99. Obituary: After creating two of the most memorable characters in sitcom history,  White remained a beloved presence on television. Remembered Fondly: Hollywood stars, comedians, a president and seemingly the entire internet paid tribute after her death was announced. Final Prank: People magazine found itself in an awkward spot when a cover for White’s upcoming 100th birthday hit the newsstands right before her death.From the Archives: In a 2011 interview, White shared the memory of a relationship she held dear to her heart — with an elephant.WednesdayLUCY IN THE SKY (2019) 7:15 p.m. and 9:50 on FXM. Earlier this month, the “Fargo” and “Legion” showrunner Noah Hawley released a dark new novel, “Anthem,” that imagines teenage characters several years after the Covid-19 pandemic. For a multiformat double feature, pair the book with Hawley’s film “Lucy in the Sky,” where Natalie Portman is a lovesick astronaut.ThursdayThe composer Maryanne Amacher in a scene from “Sisters With Transistors,” a documentary that explores how women shaped electronic music.Peggy Weil/Metrograph PicturesSISTERS WITH TRANSISTORS (2021) 6:30 p.m. on Showtime. When the multimedia musician and composer Laurie Anderson mentions “radical sounds” while narrating this documentary, the phrase has a clear double meaning. Not only did synthesizers and other digital technology, a focus of the film, create never-before-heard sounds during the 20th century, but it gave opportunities for female composers like Daphne Oram, Maryanne Amacher and Clara Rockmore to innovate outside of the traditional, male-dominated music industry. The film explores the work of these women and more, arguing that their importance in shaping electronic music has been overlooked. The result, Glenn Kenny wrote in his review for The Times, is “informative and often fascinating.”SCREAM (1996) 8 p.m. on BBC America. The shrieks came with a laugh in “Scream,” Wes Craven’s horror-parody that gave new life to the slasher genre when it hit theaters just over 25 years ago. The movie spawned a slew of sequels — the latest of which came out earlier this month — but even this first entry feels like something of a sequel, so filled is it with references and callbacks to previous, genre-defining movies, including “Halloween” and “Friday the 13th.” It introduced the character Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell), a suburban teenager who is stalked by a masked killer with a long face. BBC America is airing it alongside its first sequel, SCREAM 2 (1997).Friday2022 WINTER OLYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY 6:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. on NBC. The Winter Olympics in Beijing formally begin on Friday with an opening ceremony set to include the traditional cauldron lighting and parade of nations. (Other than athletes, American presence at the games will be subdued: The United States is among the countries whose governments have planned for a diplomatic boycott of the games, citing human rights abuses.) The ceremony will be covered live at 6:30 a.m., then rebroadcast at 8 p.m. as a more polished special.STAND AND DELIVER (1988) 10 p.m. on TCM. The actor Edward James Olmos took a break from the sheen of “Miami Vice” to play a schlubby (but deeply gifted) math teacher in this late ’80s drama. Directed by Ramón Menéndez and based on actual events, the film casts Olmos as Jaime Escalante, a teacher at a public high school in East Los Angeles whose ability to motivate his students leads to impressive test scores that were called into question by prejudiced standardized-testing authorities. Olmos plays the part to “inspiringly great effect,” Janet Maslin said in her review for The Times in 1988. (He later received an Oscar nomination for his performance.) “If ever a film made its audience want to study calculus,” Maslin wrote, “this is the one.”SaturdayWillem Dafoe, left, and Bradley Cooper in “Nightmare Alley.”Searchlight PicturesNIGHTMARE ALLEY (2021) 8 p.m. on HBO. After its recent release in theaters, Guillermo del Toro’s latest haunted house of a movie hits smaller screens via HBO on Saturday night. Set primarily amid a grimy carnival, “Nightmare Alley” centers on a 1930s con man (Bradley Cooper) who finds success putting on a mentalist act. The real star, though, might be the setting: In her review for The Times, Manohla Dargis praised del Toro’s textured, polished world building, but wasn’t so enthusiastic about the rest of the film. “The carnival is diverting, and del Toro’s fondness for its denizens helps put a human face on these purported freaks,” she wrote. “But once he’s finished with the preliminaries, he struggles to make the many striking parts cohere into a living, breathing whole.”SundayGUY’S CHANCE OF A LIFETIME 9 p.m. on Food Network. Some competition shows offer their winners a cash prize that they can retire on. “Guy’s Chance of a Lifetime” offers an opportunity: Contestants vie for ownership of a Guy Fieri-branded chicken joint in Nashville. A winner will be revealed on Sunday night’s season finale. More

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      ‘Billions’ Season 6, Episode 2 Recap: No One Is Safe

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      Prince and Chuck make the world a better place, each in his own underhanded way.Season 6, Episode 2: ‘Lyin’ Eyes’If you’re looking for the future of “Billions,” two quotes from this week’s episode point the way forward, I think. The first comes from Wendy Rhoades, describing to Taylor Mason her fear that their boss, Mike Prince, might suffer from narcissistic personality disorder: “He thinks he’s better than everyone else, and he won’t stop till he gets what he wants.”The second comes from Chuck Rhoades, describing the method to his newfound rabble-rousing madness: “No one is safe.”We’ll tackle Chuck’s half of the episode first. Inspired by the bravado of Gene Hackman’s thief character in the David Mamet crime film “Heist,” which he watches in the comfort of his upstate farm, Chuck returns to New York City with the intention of raising some hell. He finds what he’s looking for in the plight of the city’s doormen, who have worked long and hard on behalf of mega-rich tenants who fled the city when Covid-19 struck, leaving their servants on the front lines of the pandemic.The problem is that despite responding favorably to Chuck’s fiery rhetoric, the doormen’s union is perfectly happy with the 2 percent raise the tenants and property management board are prepared to offer them. So Chuck unilaterally turns up the temperature, first by blowing up the negotiations with a 5 percent ask, then by threatening to sick the tax authorities on the union if they don’t go on strike at his behest.Having successfully cowed the union into doing his bidding, he turns his attention to his prime targets: the billionaires, whom he refers to as “the criminal class,” represented by the rude and ruddy-faced Bud Lazarra (Wayne Duvall). The defiant Lazzara thumbs his nose at Chuck’s threats and convinces the union to call off the strike and take the original deal — but only through bribery, an act caught on camera by Chuck’s lieutenant Karl Allard, who wanders by in full Vincent (The Chin) Gigante bathrobe attire to record the incriminating footage.When Chuck confronts Lazzara with his intel, the bigwig bends … but Chuck betrays him to the press anyway. The message is clear: His war against the billionaires is in full no-prisoners mode.Considering the idiosyncratic behavior of Mike Prince elsewhere in the episode, this may well be the right approach. Oh, things start off well enough, with Prince announcing his intention to tank the stock of an athletic apparel company called Rask because of its use of forced labor in China’s Uyghur mass internment camps.The move makes heads spin all across Michael Prince Capital. Victor Mateo (Louis Cancelmi), the firm’s resident hard case, warns that the company is all but unsinkable. No matter, says Taylor Mason, anticipating the boss’s next move: They’ll use athletes and influencers to ruin the brand’s reputation while they’re busy shorting its stock.Rian (Eva Victor), the rising star of Taylor Mason Carbon, sees an opportunity: There are other players in the sector with even filthier human-rights records, and Mase Carb could easily gobble up the whole sector. When Taylor tells her not to make the play, she does it anyway, leading Taylor to confer with Wendy Rhoades as to whether firing Rian is the right move. They decide it’s too Axe-like by half, and a chastened Rian is spared the ax, no pun intended.Finally there’s Wags, who has the most comical reaction of the whole crew: He is worried on behalf of Rask’s chief executive, with whom he formed an Eagles cover band at a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy camp. His surreptitious tip-off almost enables the company to salvage itself with a buyout until Prince and his right-hand man, Scooter Dunbar, force Wags to kill the deal by dishing even more dirt: Rask has been in bed with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un for years. The maneuver kills the company for good, though it also leads to Wags’s expulsion from the band. You win some, you lose some!At this point you may be wondering, where would a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder for Prince come into play here? After all, he did exactly what he said he would do: take down a crooked company.But as Taylor puts it, he is playing on a much bigger chessboard than just the markets. Prince’s real plan was to scupper the Rask-sponsored Olympic hosting duties of Los Angeles, in hopes of relocating the 2028 games to the Big Apple — which would bring his estranged wife, Andy (Piper Perabo), an Olympic-level rock climbing coach, back into his orbit. Indeed, she’s so impressed with his scheme that she takes him up on his offer of dinner, an overture she previously rejected.So maybe it all was a grand romantic gesture, as Wendy and Taylor contemplate — or maybe it was the move of a self-appointed master of the universe, bending world events to his will. But when you have the kind of money and power that Mike Prince has, is there any distinction between personal desires and sociopolitical manipulation? I know the answer Chuck Rhoades would give.Loose ChangeThis week’s appearing-as-themselves guest stars: the rock climber Alex Honnold, the golf expert Michael Breed, and the journalist Olivia Nuzzi. Honnold and Nuzzi were even factored prominently into the show’s story lines, with Honnold leading the charge of online influencers against Rask and Nuzzi outing Lazzara’s bribery scheme.Since I’ve heard directly from several readers who upbraid me when I lose track of this, I’ll state for the record that I spotted two “Godfather” references: Chuck’s reference to Lazzara as the shot-calling Don Barzini of New York’s landed gentry, and Wags’s name-drop of Frankie Pentangeli from “Part 2” when it came time to make a killing on the market. (Rian bucks the trend by quoting a different Francis Ford Coppola film, “Apocalypse Now.”)Though it does depict mask use at large gatherings, such as the meeting of the doormen’s union, the episode occasionally refers to the pandemic in the past tense, as if the worst were behind us when it was filmed. Ah, were we ever so young?One subtle but impressive bit of acting by Corey Stoll as Prince: silently chuckling as he learns that Rask is declaring bankruptcy, its chief executive is being dragged before congress, and the Olympics have withdrawn from Los Angeles. Typically, laughing at the success of your master plan is the stuff of supervillains; Prince has the perspicacity to do it quietly, at least.As an avowed Wags fan, it pains me to learn he’s an Eagles fan; my position on the band is best expressed by the Dude in “The Big Lebowski.” (But speaking as someone who was a teenager in 1992, I was a big fan of opening the episode with “Plush” by Stone Temple Pilots.)“I’m definitely against concentration camps, but ——” Let me stop you right there, Ben Kim!Scooter Dunbar working connections in Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office to further the anti-Rask ploy. Chuck Rhoades reading Thomas Piketty’s “Capitalism and Ideology.” The times, they are a-changin’.Seeing the Olympics committee dump a host city for human-rights violations is the kind of thing that reminds you what you’re watching is fiction. More

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      Kamau Bell: Bill Cosby Is Key to Understanding America

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      When W. Kamau Bell was growing up, Bill Cosby was the “wallpaper of Black America” and an inspiration, Bell said in a recent interview. Bell’s new documentary, “We Need to Talk About Cosby,” surveys the star’s long career and cultural impact, as well as the accusations of sexual assault that culminated in his conviction, on three counts of aggravated indecent assault, in 2018. Cosby was freed from prison in June 2021 after an appeals court ruled that his due process rights had been violated.The four-part documentary — which premieres on Showtime on Sunday — consists of clips from his shows and standup act, conversations with women who accused Cosby and a parade of other interviewees who try to process the Cosby story and his legacy.As a comedian and host of shows like CNN’s “United Shades of America,” Bell said he has become known as a guy who is willing to have difficult conversations. But the one about Cosby was tougher than most, generating criticism from both sides: Some Cosby accusers didn’t talk to him because they didn’t want to be part of a project that includes Cosby’s achievements. At the same time, Bell said, he has been accused of tearing down a Black role model when he could be examining white transgressors instead.Last week, Cosby criticized the project through his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, who added that Cosby continues to deny all allegations against him. Wyatt also praised Cosby’s work in the entertainment industry. “Mr. Cosby has spent more than 50 years standing with the excluded,” he said in a statement.As a reporter who covered Bill Cosby’s trials for The New York Times, I am familiar with the accusations against him. But the documentary sets those accusations in a deep context of American culture and Cosby’s career.Recently I spoke to Bell by video call about making the series, and about his belief that Cosby’s story is a story about America. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Hi Kamau. How are you doing?[Laughs.] You’ve covered this story a lot, so I think you probably have some sense of how I’m doing. And then add Black into it.You’ve described to me the trepidation you felt about getting involved in something that had the potential to be “toxic.” What do you mean by that?We reached out to people, and we got so many “no”s so quickly. At the time, he was still in prison, and I thought, Oh maybe we can finally have the productive Bill Cosby conversation. But with every note I got from people who were really doing well in show business, what I’m hearing is, “This is a bad idea.” Not that they would say that outright, but the feeling was, No, I don’t want to touch that. Maybe they didn’t want to touch it with me, but I think generally they don’t want to touch it.Why would they say that?I mean specifically for Black people, whether you were involved indirectly or not, it’s hard to have a productive conversation about Bill Cosby without frustrating some of your audience who still wants to support him, whether they believe he did these things or not..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How did the idea for the documentary come about?The idea came very naturally in a conversation with [Boardwalk Pictures Production]. I liked their work, they liked my work, and we started talking about comedian documentaries. Generally, there are not enough great comedian documentaries, and then through that conversation it was, “Could you do one about a comedian who has fallen?” There are any number to hold up, but Bill Cosby was the one we talked about. And I’ve been thinking about this Bill Cosby conversation for years.What did you hope to achieve?When I started making it, as we say in the doc, he was in prison. It sort of felt like the Bill Cosby story was, in large part, over. So maybe now we can have the conversation, and it’s a conversation I was already having in my head and with other people. Seeing people online trying to have it, the conversation wasn’t happening in a productive way.We have to learn something from this. If we don’t have the conversation, I don’t think we’re going to learn. The guy that I believed he was when I was growing up and when I was a young adult — that guy would want me to learn something from this.So on some level, your example, Bill Cosby, led me to try to figure this out.So what did you figure out?[Kierna Mayo, the former editor in chief of Ebony magazine] said something to the effect of, “Bill Cosby is key to understanding America.” To me, that’s what this is about.There are two runaway forces of oppression in America: One, how we treat nonwhite people. The other is how we have treated women through the history of this country. And if you look at Bill Cosby’s career, you can see things he did that makes this better and makes this worse. I believe there’s a lot to learn there.Kierna Mayo, the former editor in chief of Ebony, is among the interviewees who try to process the Cosby legacy in “We Need to Talk About Cosby.”ShowtimeYou use a timeline device in a powerful way that allows you to talk about the highlights of his career and also locate the timing of the accusations against him.I don’t like when documentaries tell some personal story but they don’t connect to history. Because you want to know what was happening when that happened — that helps give us the sense of why this is even more interesting.It doesn’t make sense to talk about Bill Cosby as if he was a solo man in the world. You have to really see how the boys-will-be-boys culture of Hollywood, specifically in the ’60s, invites a kind of behavior that allows predators to hide.It also lays this timeline of his career, the timeline of America and the timeline of the accusations on top of each other, which helps you see them in a new way.You raise the question about who else knew at the time about the accusations against Cosby, but you don’t come up with many specific answers. Did you try to talk to senior figures in the industry?Yeah. but we didn’t have access to any of those people. And I’m not an investigative journalist, so there’s a point at which I have to accept that I’m here to take all that we know and start to figure out what were the circumstances through which this went down.Ultimately, the bigger thing is it’s clear that the industry overall is not doing a good job, and the people who run the industry are probably still not doing the best job they can do. That’s the bigger issue to me.At times, it seems that the “We” in “We need to talk about Cosby” refers mainly to a Black audience. Are there some complexities of the Cosby case that are particular to Black people?I would say the “We” is those of us who feel connected to Bill Cosby. Now it just so happens that a lot of those people are Black people. But let’s be clear: He was America’s dad, not Black America’s dad. He was universal. Everybody who worked on this, no matter what their race was, if they were of a certain generation, they were like, “Yeah, I watched that show and felt like I was part of that family, too.”Even this interview is complicated: For a lot of people, I will be tearing down a Black man in a white newspaper in front of a white man. And the question is, why isn’t this interview about Harvey Weinstein, or Trump, or other people who have had allegations of sexual assault? Those are the questions that are coming at me now on social media — like, why this man?What do you say to your detractors?I learned long ago you can’t win those battles on social media, so I’m sort of allowing them to happen. I’m going to handle it by talking to you and other outlets, and by making sure I talk to Black press outlets, places where maybe those people will go. But I don’t think there’s any resolving it. If those people watch it, they will learn it is a more nuanced conversation than I think they believe it is.This is another trite thing to say, but we have to be on the right side of history here. Can this be an opportunity for a large percentage of this country to actually work to make the system and structures better, from the highest levels of show business and corporate America, through working-class America, all the way down to how sex education is taught in schools? There are so many levels of this — those of us who want to be on the right side of history have to do the work to rebuild these systems. You ask many times in the documentary, “Who is Bill Cosby now?” Did you come to a conclusion yourself?Somebody who has always taught us about America and is still teaching us about America, even if it’s in ways he does not want to. And it is very important for us to learn all of the lessons of Bill Cosby if we’re actually going to be a better society.Also embedded in that, and it’s hard to say it, but in the greater context: [Cosby is] one of the key figures for Black America and America in the 20th century. And one of the greatest standup comedians of all time. And the creator of one of the best sitcoms of all time. And, throughout a lot of his career, an advocate for Black excellence. But if you want to engage with that, you have to engage with the other stuff.Cosby was released from prison before you finished the documentary. How did his release change things?I didn’t want this, but it gave it a more immediate feel — this is an active situation again. He’s out in the world again, which means all the defenders are out there in the world again and feel emboldened. So it feels both more important to tell this story and scary to tell this story, because people are invested in protecting him.The most valuable conversation to me isn’t the film — it’s the conversation that we all have after we watch the film. No matter what you think about Bill Cosby’s story, it is critical that we create a society that treats survivors of sexual assault better. More

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      Joe Exotic Is Resentenced to 21 Years for ‘Tiger King’ Murder-for-Hire Plot

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      Joe Exotic, the former Oklahoma zoo owner who was the central figure in the 2020 Netflix documentary series “Tiger King,” was resentenced to 21 years in prison on Friday for the failed murder-for-hire plot targeting Carole Baskin, a self-proclaimed animal-rights activist who had criticized his zoo’s treatment of animals, his lawyers said.The new sentence reduces his punishment by one year. The original sentence, for 22 years in prison, was vacated as improper by a federal appeals court last summer.John M. Phillips, a lawyer for Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, said in a statement, “We are unsatisfied with the court’s decision and will appeal.” At a news conference, he said that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was disappointed.In court documents on Friday, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said, “Please don’t make me deal with cancer in prison waiting on an appeal.”In November, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said he received a diagnosis of an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer.Mr. Maldonado-Passage, 58, was initially sentenced to prison in 2020 after twice attempting to hire people — including an undercover F.B.I. agent — to kill Ms. Baskin; their rivalry was one of the main plot lines of “Tiger King.” He was also found guilty of falsifying wildlife records and violating the Endangered Species Act for his role in trafficking and killing tigers.Last summer, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled in favor of Mr. Maldonado-Passage’s appeal that his sentence was too long. Lawyers for the reality TV star had argued that a Federal District Court in Oklahoma had not grouped his two murder-for-hire convictions when his sentence was calculated. If the two counts had been grouped instead of considered for separate sentences, his prison term could have been as short as 17 and a half years, the court said.After the ruling, in a recording that his lawyers provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maldonado-Passage said his original sentence was “absolute crap.”Mr. Maldonado-Passage has always maintained his innocence and waged public campaigns, mostly through social media, for his release from prison. He failed to receive a pardon from former President Donald J. Trump in 2021 after months of petitioning and has since refocused his efforts on President Biden. After he received his cancer diagnosis, Mr. Maldonado-Passage was later transferred to a medical facility in North Carolina, according to his lawyer, Mr. Phillips.The next month, court documents showed that Mr. Maldonado-Passage was delaying treatment until after his resentencing, according to The Associated Press.At the courthouse in Oklahoma City on Friday, supporters of Mr. Maldonado-Passage attended the hearing, some wearing animal-print masks and T-shirts that read: “Free Joe Exotic,” The A.P. reported.Johnny Diaz More

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      Late Night Supports Biden’s Supreme Court Strategy

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      Trevor Noah joked that Biden will nominate a Black woman to replace Stephen Breyer “because he cares deeply about representation and winning Georgia.”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.He’s Got a TypeOn Thursday, Justice Stephen Breyer officially announced his plans to retire from the Supreme Court. President Biden reaffirmed his campaign promise to nominate a Black woman to the court, “because he cares deeply about representation and winning Georgia,” Trevor Noah joked on “The Daily Show.”“After White House press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday that President Biden will stand by his commitment to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, a Fox News panel criticized the administration’s selection process. I’ll take a wild guess and say they have exactly two problems with a Black woman.” — SETH MEYERS“Joe Biden is going to pick a Black woman who is also qualified. These people act like Biden is just going to show up at the mall and be, like, ‘Yo, Shaniqua, come with me.’ ‘Uh, my name is Regina.’ ‘It doesn’t matter — just put on these robes, I need help with abortion.’” — TREVOR NOAH“No, she’s going to be qualified — and why is that a bad thing? Why not make the Supreme Court a little more representative of the country it represents? I mean, their rulings impact the lives of every person in the country, so it would be nice to have at least one justice on there who’s had to ask the Walgreens guy to unlock the shampoo shelf.” — TREVOR NOAH“At the same time, I also hear what the Fox people are saying, you know? It shouldn’t matter whether you’re Black or white, this position should only go to the most qualified judge who also thinks that guns are people.” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Minnie’s New Look Edition)“In honor of the park’s 30th anniversary and Women’s History Month in March, Disneyland Paris announced yesterday that Minnie Mouse will wear a dark blue and black, polka-dotted pantsuit designed by Stella McCartney. Unfortunately, that still won’t make up for the fact that you brought your wife to Paris and then took her to Disneyland.” — SETH MEYERS“Minnie’s new look will debut in March at Disneyland Paris, which is just like regular Disneyland, only more existential.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Unfortunately, Donald Duck is still running around with his cloaca out, just waving in the wind.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s a fun little story, and you’d have to be a desperate, culture war troll to take issue with it, which is why Fox News took issue with it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No one is talking about Minnie Mouse on the other channels. If Minnie Mouse getting a new outfit upsets you, I would recommend turning 4 years old.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Honestly, genuinely, I’d wear it.” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee made a case for why Kyrsten Sinema has annoyed Democrats for longer than most Americans might be aware.Also, Check This Out“Playing ‘Jeopardy!’ has been the most fun I’ve ever had and I didn’t want it to end,” Amy Schneider said. “I knew it would some time, but it was tough to realize that the moment was finally there.”via Jeopardy Productions, Inc.Amy Schneider’s whirlwind “Jeopardy!” winning streak ended with a loss during her 41st game on Wednesday. More

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      Directors Guild Nominations Focus on Veterans Like Jane Campion and Steven Spielberg

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      The Directors Guild of America announced its feature-film nominees on Thursday, recognizing Paul Thomas Anderson (“Licorice Pizza”), Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”), Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Steven Spielberg (“West Side Story”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune”). Branagh is the category’s sole first-time nominee; the others have each been nominated by the guild before and Spielberg holds the record for most DGA wins with three.All five of the nominated directors also saw their films recognized earlier Thursday by the Producers Guild of America, which suggests they comprise the upper tier of this Oscar season’s best-picture contenders. The Directors Guild’s nominees also tend to match four out of five when it comes to the Oscars’ best-director category. Last year, only DGA pick Aaron Sorkin (“The Trial of the Chicago 7”) fell out; he was replaced in the Oscar nominations by Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”). The year before, the Oscars went for Todd Phillips (“Joker”) instead of Taika Waititi (“Jojo Rabbit”).Campion’s inclusion marks the first time in DGA history that women were nominated in back-to-back years: Last season, both Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”) and eventual winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) made the cut. And in the DGA category recognizing first-time filmmakers, four of the six nominees were women this year.Here is a rundown of the nominees in the major film and television categories. For the complete list, including commercials, reality shows and children’s programming, go to dga.org.FilmFeaturePaul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza”Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast”Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog”Steven Spielberg, “West Side Story”Denis Villeneuve, “Dune”First-Time FeatureMaggie Gyllenhaal, “The Lost Daughter”Rebecca Hall, “Passing”Tatiana Huezo, “Prayers for the Stolen”Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Tick, Tick … Boom!”Michael Sarnoski, “Pig”Emma Seligman, “Shiva Baby”DocumentaryJessica Kingdon, “Ascension”Stanley Nelson, “Attica”Raoul Peck, “Exterminate All the Brutes”Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, “Summer of Soul”Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, “The Rescue”TelevisionDrama series“Succession,” Kevin Bray (for the episode “Retired Janitors of Idaho”)“Succession,” Mark Mylod (“All the Bells Say”)“Succession,” Andrij Parekh (“What It Takes”)“Succession,” Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman (“Lion in the Meadow”)“Succession,” Lorene Scafaria (“Too Much Birthday”)Comedy series“Hacks,” Lucia Aniello (“There Is No Line”)“Ted Lasso,” MJ Delaney (“No Weddings and a Funeral”)“Ted Lasso,” Erica Dunton (“Rainbow”)“Ted Lasso,” Sam Jones (“Beard After Hours”)“The White Lotus,” Mike White (“Mysterious Monkeys”)Television Movies and Limited Series“The Underground Railroad,” Barry Jenkins“Dopesick,” Barry Levinson (“First Bottle”)“Station Eleven,” Hiro Murai (“Wheel of Fire”)“Dopesick,” Danny Strong (“The People vs. Purdue Pharma”)“Mare of Easttown,” Craig Zobel More