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      Late Night Is Happy Twitter Booted Marjorie Taylor Greene

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      Seth Meyers said that living in a world with the Republican congresswoman’s “insane” screaming was “like trying to have a conversation with a friend on the street next to a jackhammer.”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.Five Strikes and You’re OutMajorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia, was permanently kicked off Twitter on Sunday for violating a policy against spreading misinformation about the coronavirus.On Monday’s “Late Night,” Seth Meyers pointed out how Greene had repeatedly lied about vaccines and called for a “national divorce.” “Which is, I guess, the sequel to ‘National Velvet’?” Meyers joked.“How would a national divorce even work? Who would get the White House? Who would pay alimony? Who would get custody of Eric? It would probably just be the two sides pushing him back and forth: ‘He’s a Republican, so he should go with you.’ ‘But he’s a New Yorker, so he should go with you!’” — SETH MEYERS“Looks like you finally got that divorce you wanted.” — SETH MEYERS“And regardless of how you feel about the ethics of kicking politicians off Twitter, it’s just a huge quality-of-life improvement. Like when Trump got kicked off Twitter. Trying to live in a world where people like Trump and Greene are constantly screaming insane [expletive] on Twitter is like trying to have a conversation with a friend on the street next to a jackhammer.” — SETH MEYERS“Now to spread the word about Jewish space lasers, she’ll have to use Mormon carrier pigeons.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They only banned her personal account, not her congressional account, which is also known as her crazy-lite account.” — JAMES CORDEN“Greene had been temporarily suspended in the past for spreading Covid misinformation, but her latest online lie violated Twitter’s five-strike policy. Yes, five strikes. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, you only get two more foolins’ after that.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“On the bright side, she is still a full-fledged member of the United States Congress.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (C.D.C. Edition)“Meanwhile, the C.D.C. has cut their recommended isolation time in half, and now it says you only need to quarantine for five days. Yeah, a lot of Covid regulations keep changing the longer the pandemic goes on. For example, back then, doctors said to cough directly into your elbow; now, doctors say just have fun out there.” — JIMMY FALLON“They added that today is basically over, so it’s really four days. Plus, Sundays don’t count, so three day — you know what? Just take the weekend.” — SETH MEYERS“They also said you can swim right after you eat, breaking a mirror only gives you four years bad luck, and stepping on a crack won’t break your mother’s back; her back will just be very disappointed.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Then the C.D.C. said to avoid large indoor gatherings. Now the C.D.C. says parties are fine as long as you set up a smaller ‘tested positive’ table.” — JIMMY FALLON“Also, back then you had to wash your hands for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice. But now, you can sing it at the speed Applebee’s employees do when you can tell they’re not really into it.” — JIMMY FALLON“And, finally, back then they said to avoid misinformation by staying off the internet, but now the internet is where you live now — it is your home.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingA “Tonight Show” viewer spotted a White Sox fan resembling Jimmy Fallon during a recent game.What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightSt. Vincent will perform on Tuesday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutSofia Kourtesis’s “La Perla” lands somewhere between hope and melancholia.Christopher BouchardThe Peruvian producer Sofia Kourtesis’s “La Perla” and “Paul Bearer” from the Michigan-based rapper BabyTron are just two of 15 underrated tracks from 2021. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ and ‘Batman Forever’

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      The 14th season of RuPaul’s Emmy-winning competition series premieres on VH1. And “Batman Forever” airs on BBC America.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. 3-9. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF DESIRE 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This documentary explores how real-life connections are being replaced by virtual relationships within the fast-paced livestreaming industry in China. Through a closer look at the popular YY streaming platform, it exposes the impact of technology as a revenue-generating platform, and what younger generations consider success in a never-ending online popularity contest.TuesdayMY SALINGER YEAR (2020) 5 p.m. on Showtime. Adapted from the memoir of Joanna Rakoff, this film follows a young writer, Joanna (Margaret Qualley), who lands a job as assistant to a technology-averse literary agent, Margaret (Sigourney Weaver), in New York City. Joanna is assigned the dull task of sorting through the fan mail of J.D. Salinger, the agency’s reclusive top client, and decides to bend the rules, personally responding to letters that would otherwise go unread.Tommy Lee Jones, left, and Jim Carrey in “Batman Forever.”Warner BrothersBATMAN FOREVER (1995) 6 p.m. on BBC America. In this Joel Schumacher-directed installment of the “Batman” series, Batman (Val Kilmer) faces off against the cackling split personality of Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the relentlessly wacky, neon-green-clad Riddler (Jim Carrey) in Gotham City, where everyone seems to have a secret. Brought together by their shared hatred of authority (in this case, Bruce Wayne and his company, Wayne Enterprises — and of course, Batman), the dastardly duo team up and devise a plot to drain the brains of the citizens of Gotham City to uncover the true identity of Batman. Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne finds himself a ward, Dick Grayson (Chris O’Donnell), soon to be Robin, and tries to sort out his feelings for Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), a psychologist new to the city.WednesdayTHE AMAZING RACE 8 p.m. on CBS. In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced a pause on production after the first three legs of this competition show’s 33rd season were already recorded, sending the teams and crew into a nearly 20-month hiatus before they could resume racing around the world. Finally, they’re back. The two-hour Season 33 premiere shows us 11 teams composed of internet personalities, father-daughter duos, best friends and married couples, all competing in challenges for a chance to win $1 million.ThursdayFaye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in “Bonnie and Clyde.”Warner BrothersBONNIE AND CLYDE (1967) 9:30 p.m. on TCM. The original tagline from Warner Brothers says it all: “They’re young. They’re in love. They kill people.” When the ex-con Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) meets Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) in a small humdrum town in the 1930s, they’re both enthralled. Soon, the two are off causing mayhem and robbing banks across four Southern states, charming each other to death. In February 1968, months after its release, The New York Times reported that “Bonnie and Clyde” was banned in Norway for being “too brutal.”FridayRUPAUL’S DRAG RACE 8 p.m. on VH1. Gaze upon 14 shimmering, glittering drag stars — make no mistake, they’re queens, not contestants — as they compete in lip sync battles, bizarre challenges and create showstopping head-to-toe looks in hopes of being crowned America’s Next Drag Superstar by the one and only RuPaul. The 14th season premiere is turning heads for more than one reason, with the show’s controversial first-ever “straight queen” added to the roster, yet this Emmy Award-winning series continues to celebrate the journeys of all of its queens. “We, as queer people, that’s kind of our thing,” Symone, the winner of the 13th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” said in an interview with The Times. “We look up to our heroes. They give us strength.” Now, sashay away!SaturdayMartin Freeman in “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”James FisherTHE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012) 5 p.m. on HBO. For some millennials, the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy “occupies the same role that ‘Star Wars’ might for those who grew up from the late ’70s into the ’80s,” Nikita Richardson wrote in a recent article in The Times. But long before Frodo Baggins begins his journey, his distant cousin Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) embarks on a mission of his own. At the request of wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen), Bilbo leaves the comfort of his home and travels across the evil-creature-riddled land of Middle-earth to the Lonely Mountain, where a community of dwarves have lost their home to a greedy, gold-hoarding dragon. Adding to an origin story of grand proportions, a certain “precious” gold ring slips into Bilbo’s hands, with the power to alter the fate of all Middle-earth.THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION (1994) 7 p.m. on Paramount Network. Based on a 1982 Stephen King short story, this film follows Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) after he is convicted of his wife’s murder and sent to Shawshank Prison. Although quiet and reserved, Dufresne befriends a few inmates, including Red (Morgan Freeman), the film’s narrator and the one on the inside who can get you anything. “Without a single riot scene or horrific effect, it tells a slow, gentle story of camaraderie and growth, with an ending that abruptly finds poetic justice in what has come before,” Janet Maslin wrote in her review for The Times in 1994.SundayROBIN AND MARIAN (1976) 8 p.m. on TCM. This take on the legend of Robin Hood follows that hero (played by Sean Connery) as he returns to Sherwood Forest some 20 years after the original “steal from the rich, give to the poor” story took place. Upon his return from fighting in the Crusades, Robin Hood finds himself taking on his greatest adventure of all: attempting to win the heart of Maid Marian (Audrey Hepburn). In true medieval fashion, the journey boasts many a duel, heroic exchanges, cruel foes (notably the Sheriff of Nottingham, played by Robert Shaw) and no shortage of romance. More

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      Noah Hawley Keeps Changing Lanes

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      AUSTIN, Texas — Noah Hawley tries never to approach a story the same way twice.When FX asked if he’d like to make an X-Men television series, Hawley came up with “Legion,” a surrealist mind-bender in which the protagonist hears and sees things that aren’t real.He has made four seasons of “Fargo,” a show loosely — very loosely — based on the Coen brothers’ film. Every season, he replaces the characters, picks a new setting and still calls it “Fargo.”His sixth novel, “Anthem,” out this week from Grand Central Publishing, is an exploration of contemporary America laced with magical realism. It features vicious political divisions, climate change, an insurrection and a study of what it’s like to be young in a collapsing world. It also includes a witch who is impossible to kill, a teenager who has regular chats with God and an outbreak of teenage suicides.Hawley, as you see, is busy. An author, show runner and director, he even sang on the soundtracks for “Legion” and “Fargo.” These days, he said, he just calls himself a storyteller.“A big part of what I’m trying to do,” he said over iced tea in Austin last month, “is to bypass that part of your brain that’s been trained by the thousands of stories that you’ve consumed in your lifetime.”A composed presence, with some salt in his chocolate-colored hair, Hawley, 54, started out wanting to be a musician. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1989, he moved to Brooklyn with his band and got a day job as a paralegal for the Legal Aid Society. His band, Bass Nation (the name “came off looking like the fish,” he said), played gigs and toured a bit — Hawley played guitar and sang — but it didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. So he started writing.“What’s it adding up to if I’m playing Limelight on Thursday night at nine o’clock?” he recalled of an old club in New York City. “Am I making progress? Am I not making progress? If you write 10 pages, you’ve got 10 pages. There’s something very literal about it, and I could do it myself. It didn’t involve living in a van with three filthy, penniless men.”“A big part of what I’m trying to do,” Noah Hawley said, “is to bypass that part of your brain that’s been trained by the thousands of stories that you’ve consumed in your lifetime.”Lauren Withrow for The New York TimesA few years later, when he was living in San Francisco, he sold his first novel, “A Conspiracy of Tall Men.” His mother, Louise Armstrong, was also an author, and through her, Hawley said, he found an agent. (“I asked him once what his accent was,” Hawley recalled, “and he said ‘pure affectation.’”)One of Hawley’s first attempts at a novel, set at a college, had been sent around to editors but never sold. One editor, he was told, felt Hawley was reluctant to make changes. That was news to him.“I will change anything you want!” he remembered thinking. But in the intervening years, that perception about his openness to feedback doesn’t seem to have changed much.“What I’ll hear is, ‘Oh, the network has a note, but they’re afraid to give it to you,’” Hawley said. “Which is so interesting because I never yell at anybody about anything. But that’s good because I don’t necessarily want the note,” he joked — or he seemed to be joking.“I can be difficult to read sometimes,” he said. “But on some level, that can be good, too, because a lot of this is a poker game.”After his first book was published, Hawley wrote a screenplay and an adaptation of his novel, and from there started writing TV pilots. Three of his pilots were bought and never made. In 2004, he moved to Los Angeles and took a job on the procedural series “Bones” so he could learn how to make a show.It was a good move, so good that he didn’t have to stay in L.A. for long. Five years later, Hawley and his family moved to Austin, where they have lived off and on ever since.Today he and his wife, Kyle, live on a sort of mini-compound on a half-acre with their two kids, who are 9 and 14, his wife’s aunt and three dogs. The property originally held four small cottages, built as housing for workers at a lumber company, two of which have been connected to make the main house.Two cottages remain, one of which is Hawley’s office. It has an area that can be transformed into an editing bay, a few instruments (a guitar, a bass and a mini drum set for his son) and a big roll of brown paper mounted near his desk. He started thinking about stories visually a few years ago, he said, and sometimes likes to lay them out using bubbles, arrows and grids.Natalie Portman, who starred in the movie “Lucy in the Sky,” which Hawley directed and co-wrote, said she was struck by how he balanced work and life.“It felt like he was prioritizing his family,” she said in an interview, “in a way that is not very common for directors.” If they weren’t in town during shooting, for example, he’d fly back to Austin over the weekend, she said. His decision to make his home there, she added, helped him to keep a bit of distance from the world of his work.“Even while, obviously, being incredibly successful in Hollywood, he’s been deliberately maintaining an outsider perspective, which is wonderful,” she said. “You feel it. It feels like friends of mine, not like people I work with. He feels very much of the world, and not of the entertainment industry.”“Anthem” is the latest book from Noah Hawley.Despite his many years in TV, Hawley said he has a love-hate relationship with writers’ rooms. “I tend to think of them as a group of very different people with very different brains, and the only common language they speak is plot,” he said. “That’s not necessarily how I tell the story.”People are trained that back story equals front story, he explained. Say a character’s mother left when he or she was very young; traditionally, that’s going to take the wheel of the narrative. But it doesn’t have to. What you want to avoid, he said, is getting to a point where you, as a writer, are just “holding on while the plot plays itself out.”The kernel that became “Anthem” started percolating about five years ago. Hawley had published his previous novel, “Before the Fall,” with Hachette, and Michael Pietsch, the company’s chief executive, was eager to sign him up for another. Hawley’s editor had just left the company, so Pietsch offered to edit the book himself.“You could do worse than the guy who edited ‘Infinite Jest,’” Hawley said of Pietsch.During the summer of 2019, Hawley was planning to work on the book during a two-month family vacation in Europe. At a bookstore in London, he collected a stack of novels that had been “eureka moments” for him, he said, including “The New York Trilogy,” by Paul Auster; “The Unbearable Lightness of Being,” by Milan Kundera; “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” by Gabriel García Márquez; and “Song of Solomon,” by Toni Morrison.“And now you’re traveling around with a box of books, and you’re like, ‘Why didn’t I just buy two?’” he recalled. “But it felt critical that I get them all.”“Anthem” is woven together using a number of contemporary threads, mostly seen through the eyes of teenagers who are battling to save themselves and one another. One of the main characters, Simon, is the scion of a pharmaceutical fortune made by selling opioids. A culture war descends into armed conflict, in a way that reads like it must be a riff on Jan. 6 — except that Hawley wrote it the previous October.“One of the ideas explored in the book is what unifies us now when there are so many things that tear us apart,” Pietsch said. “Imagine being a kid, hearing that the oceans are dying, that the bees are dying, reading about the opioid epidemic, seeing these political battles and reading about sexual predation. This sense that the world you’re growing into is being destroyed before your eyes, and what’s going to be there for you? What must that be like, and what can you do?”The book feels cinematic and at times fantastical. An insurrectionist points a gun at one of the protagonists and says, “There is no God,” and then a missile explodes behind him. An enchanted Amazon truck magically supplies materials for our heroes’ needs, whether it’s to hogtie an adversary or stitch up a wound.“The magic realism of the book,” Hawley said, “it was a relief, because magic realism has a way of making ugly things beautiful. Think about Márquez and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ and the amount of tragedy in that book that’s offset by the whimsy, and the beauty of just not knowing what could happen next.”Hawley hasn’t started thinking yet about another book, but he has been sketching out ideas for the next season of “Fargo” on those big sheets of brown paper.“I have the luxury of when I have ideas, I think, ‘Well, what is it?’” he said. “‘Is it a show? Is it a movie? Is it a book?’ But for something to be a book, it means you’re going to live with it for three or four or five years. There has to be enough there. It has to be about things — for me — that are more than just: ‘Is he going to get the girl? Are they going to get away?’” More

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      12 Things Our Critics Are Looking Forward to in 2022

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      ‘Better Call Saul’ returns, Cecily Strong stars in a one-woman show, and Faith Ringgold gets an overdue retrospective.As a new year begins in uncertain times (again), our critics highlight the TV, movies, music, art, theater, dance and comedy that promise a welcome distraction.Margaret LyonsThe End of ‘Better Call Saul’Bob Odenkirk stars as Jimmy McGill in AMC’s “Better Call Saul,” which returns for its final season this spring.Greg Lewis/AMC, via Associated PressI’ll be sad forever when “Better Call Saul” is over, so part of me is actually dreading the sixth and final season. I never want to say goodbye to Jimmy or Kim — but man, am I dying to see them again. By the time “Saul” returns on AMC this spring, it will have been off the air for two full years. (Bob Odenkirk, its star, recovered from a heart attack that occurred on set this year.) If there was ever a show that knew how to think about endgames, it’s this one, among the most carefully woven dramas of our time. Of course, thanks to “Breaking Bad,” we know exactly where some of these characters are headed but not how they get there or how they feel about it or whom they’ll hurt along the way. Hurry back! But also, go slow.Salamishah TilletA ‘Downton Abbey’ Sequel Travels to FranceThe sequel “Downton Abbey: A New Era” is partly set in the South of France; from left, Harry Hadden-Paton, Laura Carmichael, Tuppence Middleton and Allen Leech.Ben Blackall/Focus FeaturesOK, so yes, it was weird that my friends Sherri-Ann and Amber and I were the only Black people in the theater when we saw the movie “Downton Abbey” in 2019. At the time, we agreed that despite the absence of people of color in the theater and onscreen, we still found delight in the grandeur — the clothing, the castle, the cast of characters, especially the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley, marvelously played by Dame Maggie Smith. Now that we’ve set our calendars to March 18, 2022, for the sequel, “Downton Abbey: A New Era,” I’m looking forward to seeing how the franchise tries to reinvent itself on the cusp of a new era, the 1930s, and how it fares in the current racial moment. (A Black female face pops up in a trailer.) Partly set in the South of France after the Dowager Countess learns she has inherited a villa there, the movie sends the upstairs Crawley clan and their downstairs employees off on another adventure, with another wedding. While Julian Fellowes, the creator of “Downton,” has a new show, “The Gilded Age,” premiering on HBO in January — which seems to be a bit more thoughtful in its take on race, class and identity — here’s hoping that this sequel to “Downton” takes a bow in grand Grantham style.Jesse GreenCecily Strong in a One-Woman ShowCecily Strong, left, and the director Leigh Silverman; Strong is starring in “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” at the Shed.Caroline Tompkins for The New York TimesJane Wagner’s 1985 play “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe” was custom-made for the chameleonic gifts of her life partner (and, later, wife), Lily Tomlin. Who else could have inhabited its 12 highly distinct characters — among them a runaway punk, a bored one-percenter and a trio of disillusioned feminists — with such sardonic sympathy? When Tomlin won a 1986 Tony Award for her work, it seemed to seal the idea that the performer and the play were forever one. But in the kind of casting that makes you smack your head with delight, Cecily Strong takes up Tomlin’s mantle in a revival directed by Leigh Silverman at the Shed, expected to open on Jan. 11. Strong — whose “Saturday Night Live” characters include Jeanine Pirro, the Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With at a Party and, most recently, Goober the Clown Who Had an Abortion When She Was 23 — seems like another custom fit, nearly four decades later.Jon ParelesAfrofuturism at Carnegie HallSun Ra Arkestra will perform its galactic jazz as part of the Afrofuturism festival that starts in February.Nate Palmer for The New York TimesStepping outside its own history as a bastion of Western classical music, Carnegie Hall will be the hub of a citywide, multidisciplinary festival of Afrofuturism: the visionary, tech-savvy ways that African-diaspora culture has imagined alternate paths forward. Carnegie’s series is expected to start Feb. 12 with the quick-cutting, sometimes head-spinning electronic musician Flying Lotus. (One challenge might be the main hall’s acoustics.) Shows at Zankel Hall include the galactic jazz of the Sun Ra Arkestra with the cellist and singer Kelsey Lu and the spoken-word insurgent Moor Mother (Feb. 17); the flutist Nicole Mitchell leading her Black Earth Ensemble; and the clarinetist Angel Bat Dawid with her Autophysiopsychic Millennium (Feb. 24); the African-rooted hip-hop duo Chimurenga Renaissance and the Malian songwriter Fatoumata Diawara (March 4); and the D.J., composer and techno pioneer Carl Craig leading his Synthesizer Ensemble (March 19). There’s far more: five dozen other cultural organizations will have festival events.Anthony TommasiniThe Metropolitan Opera Rethinks VerdiThe set model for a new production of Verdi’s “Don Carlos,” which is expected to open at the Metropolitan Opera in February.Metropolitan OperaVerdi’s “Don Carlos” may not be a flawless opera. But it’s a profound work; I think of it as Verdi’s “Hamlet.” Written for the Paris Opera, it nodded to the French grand style and included epic scenes and massed choruses. But at its 1867 premiere, it was deemed overly long and ineffective. Verdi revised the opera several times, making cuts, translating the French libretto into Italian, leaving a confused legacy of revisions. The Metropolitan Opera is giving audiences a chance to hear the work as originally conceived in its five-act French version, which many consider the best. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who has led superb Met performances of the Italian adaptation, will be in this pit for this new production by David McVicar. The starry cast, headed by the tenor Matthew Polenzani in the title role, includes Sonya Yoncheva, Elina Garanca, Etienne Dupuis, Eric Owens and John Relyea. When performances begin on Feb. 28, be prepared for a five-hour show with two intermissions; I can’t wait.Mike HaleTrue-Crime, Starring Renée ZellwegerRenée Zellweger is starring in the true-crime mini-series “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThis winter brings more than the usual number of big stars taking time out for the small screen, like Uma Thurman (“Suspicion”), Christopher Walken (“Severance”) and Samuel L. Jackson (“The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray”). The one that piques my interest the most is Renée Zellweger, taking on only her second lead television role in “The Thing About Pam,” premiering March 8 on NBC. Zellweger can be hit or miss, but her hits — “The Whole Wide World,” “Chicago,” “Judy” — keep her in the very top rank of American actresses. Here she plays Pam Hupp, who is implicated in multiple deaths and is currently serving a life sentence for one of them, in a true-crime mini-series whose showrunner, Jenny Klein, was a producer on solid TV offerings like “The Witcher” and “Jessica Jones.”Jason FaragoAt 91, Faith Ringgold Gets a RetrospectiveA retrospective of the work of Faith Ringgold opens at the New Museum in February and will include “Dancing at the Louvre: The French Collection Part I, #1,” from 1991. Faith Ringgold/ARS, NY and DACS, London, via ACA GalleriesWhen the Museum of Modern Art opened its expanded home in 2019, its most important Picasso suddenly found itself with a new companion: a tumultuous, panoramic painting of American violence that Faith Ringgold painted in 1967. Ringgold, born 91 years ago in Harlem, has never been an obscure figure: Her art was displayed in the Clinton White House as well as most of New York’s museums; her children’s books have won prizes and reached best-seller lists. But she has had to wait too long for a career-spanning retrospective in her hometown. The one at the New Museum, which opens Feb. 17, will reveal how Ringgold intertwined the political and the personal: first in her rigorously composed “American People” paintings, which channeled the civil rights movement into gridded, repeating, syncopated forms; and then in pieced-fabric “story quilts” depicting Michael Jackson or Aunt Jemima, and geometric abstractions inspired by Tibetan silks and embroideries. The show comes with a major chance for rediscovery: the first outing in over two decades of her “French Collection,” a 12-quilt cycle that recasts the history of Paris in the 1920s through the eyes of a fictional African-American artist and model.Maya PhillipsA Viking Prince Seeks RevengeAlexander Skarsgård in a scene from “The Northman,” a story about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father, directed by Robert Eggers.Focus FeaturesRobert Eggers has directed only two feature films, and yet he’s already known as a maker of beautifully strange, critically acclaimed movies. “The Witch,” from 2016, was followed three years later by the grim and perplexing “The Lighthouse.” Both established Eggers as a stylistic descendant of the Brothers Grimm, a crafter of macabre fables that descend into torrents of madness. Which is why I’m excited to see his third feature film, “The Northman,” expected to premiere on April 22, about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father. Steeped in Icelandic mythology, the story is based on the tale of Amleth, the inspiration for Prince Hamlet, my favorite sad boy of English literature. Eggers wrote the screenplay with the Icelandic poet Sjón, so we can surely expect an epic with epic writing to match. There’s also a stellar cast, including Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe — and Björk as a witch. I’d watch for that alone.Gia KourlasTransformation, Via Tap and Modern DanceA still from Ayodele Casel’s “Chasing Magic”; from left, Anthony Morigerato, John Manzari, Casel and Naomi Funaki.Kurt CsolakThere are times, however rare, when a virtual dance can be just as stirring as a live one. Ayodele Casel’s joyful and galvanizing “Chasing Magic,” presented by the Joyce Theater in April, was just that. Now the tap dancer and choreographer unveils a new version of the work, directed by Torya Beard, for the stage — an actual one — starting Tuesday, barring any Covid cancellations. And the following month, “Four Quartets,” an ambitious evening-length work by the modern choreographer Pam Tanowitz, lands at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (Feb. 10-12). Based on T.S. Eliot’s poems, the production features live narration by the actress Kathleen Chalfant, music by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho and a set by Brice Marden; in it, Tanowitz continues her exploration of the relationship between emotion and form. It’s true that one is tap; the other, modern dance. What do they have in common? Both have much to say and to show about the transporting, transformative power of dance.Isabelia HerreraThe Rapper Saba Explores TraumaSaba, a rapper from Chicago, will release a new album, “Few Good Things,” on Feb. 4.Mat Hayward/Getty ImagesDiaristic and quietly intense, Saba, a rapper from Chicago, is the kind of artist who navigates grief with a cool solace. In 2018, his record “Care for Me” considered this theme in the aftermath of the murder of his cousin and collaborator, who was stabbed to death a year earlier. Out on Feb. 4, his next album, “Few Good Things,” confronts equally gutting life challenges: the anxiety of generational poverty and the depths of survivor’s guilt. It reprises Saba’s slithering and poetic flows, which breathe out a profound sense of narrative. The beats are still buttery, jazzy and meticulously arranged. But this time around, there is more wisdom — a recognition that living through trauma means finding gratitude and affirmation in the moments you can.Jason ZinomanComedian Taylor Tomlinson on TourThe comedian Taylor Tomlinson in her Netflix special “Quarter-Life Crisis,” from 2020; a new one is in the works.Allyson Riggs/Netflix“Quarter-Life Special,” the debut stand-up special from Taylor Tomlinson, introduced a young artist with real potential. Tomlinson tautly evoked a clear persona (cheerful but not the life of the party; more like, as she put it, “the faint pulse of the pot luck”) and told jokes marked by a diverse arsenal of act outs and manners of misdirection. She covered standard territory (dating, sex, parents, kids) with enough insight and dark shadings to get your attention. Most excitingly, every once in a while, she let her thought process spin out into deliriously unexpected directions, like the story that led her to imagine a test for sadness conducted by the police. “Instead of a breathalyzer,” she explained, “they have you sigh into a harmonica.” This Netflix special made a splash, but it would have probably been a bigger one if it didn’t come out in March 2020. One pandemic later, she has another hour ready, and another Netflix special on the way. She’s now performing it on tour, which is expected to stop in New York in January at Town Hall and then the Beacon Theater. More

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      Betty White, a Beloved Sitcom Actress, Is Dead at 99

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      Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of January’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.)Danny McBride as the debauched eldest son of a megachurch pastor in “The Righteous Gemstones.”HBO MaxNew to HBO Max‘The Righteous Gemstones’ Season 2Starts streaming: Jan. 9With “Succession” and “Yellowstone” both on hiatus, fans of stories about larger-than-life businessmen and their deeply damaged offspring can redirect their attention to the second season of HBO’s pitch-black social satire “The Righteous Gemstones.” Danny McBride, who also created the series, stars as Jesse, the eldest son of Eli Gemstone (John Goodman), an evangelical pastor leading a thriving megachurch. Season 1 dealt with a series of scandals that rocked the Gemstones, widening the divisions between the libertine Jesse and his two siblings, the unpredictable Judy (Edi Patterson) and the pious Kelvin (Adam DeVine). Expect these new episodes to build on what McBride and his team did with their first run, which mercilessly mocked a family of pompous, hypocritical Southern preachers and established the complex history that provides context for their corruption.‘Peacemaker’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 13Before the writer and director James Gunn made the blockbusters “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “The Suicide Squad,” he worked on two low-budget, subversive superhero movies: “The Specials” and “Super.” Gunn’s new TV series, “Peacemaker,” is ostensibly a spinoff of “The Suicide Squad,” following the dimwitted, hyper-macho antihero Christopher Smith (John Cena) as he starts working with an eclectic splinter group of rogue government operatives. The spirit of “Peacemaker,” however, is more aligned with Gunn’s earlier, grubbier films, which make crime and crime-fighting alike seem like warped endeavors, suffused with a strange melancholy. Equal parts violent and comic, the show explores the psyches of the men and women who dabble in costumed adventuring.‘The Gilded Age’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 24The “Downton Abbey” creator Julian Fellowes turns his attention to 1880s New York City with his long-in-development “The Gilded Age,” another opulent melodrama about the mores and machinations of high-society types and their poorer relations and servants. The star-studded cast includes Christine Baranski and Cynthia Nixon as eccentric sisters who take in their bankrupt niece (Louisa Jacobson); Denée Benton as an aspiring writer defying the racial stereotypes of the age; and Carrie Coon as a shrewd social climber married to a nouveau riche tycoon (Morgan Spector). Those are just a few of the dozens of characters Fellowes weaves through stories of romance, politics, resentments, betrayals and the social upheaval that defined the end of the 19th century.Also arriving:Jan. 1“Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts”Jan. 7“Search Party” Season 5Jan. 9“Euphoria” Season 2Jan. 16“Somebody Somewhere”Denzel Washington as Macbeth in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘The Tragedy of Macbeth’Starts streaming: Jan. 14The latest big-screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s Scottish play marks the solo feature-filmmaking debut of Joel Coen, working without his longtime creative partner and brother, Ethan Coen. Denzel Washington takes on the role of the ambitious Lord Macbeth, while Frances McDormand plays his wife, who encourages him to do whatever he must — even commit murder and destroy families — to seize power. Kathryn Hunter gives a striking performance as a trio of prophetic witches, playing them as unnervingly alien. The acting is terrific across the board, and the direction is as visually dynamic and snappily paced as Coens classics like “Miller’s Crossing” and “Fargo.”Also arriving:Jan. 7“El Deafo”Jan. 21“Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock”“Servant” Season 3Jan. 28“The Afterparty”Amir Jadidi as a down-on-his-luck Iranian businessman in “A Hero.”Amirhossein Shojaei/Amazon StudiosNew to Prime Video‘A Hero’Starts streaming: Jan. 21The two-time Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi has made one of his best movies yet with “A Hero,” a gripping morality play that persistently subverts its audience’s expectations. Amir Jadidi plays Rahim, a luckless but likable entrepreneur who has been unemployed and stuck in a debtors’ prison since a business deal that went awry. When his girlfriend finds a purse containing gold coins, a furloughed Rahim decides to return it, and the resulting good publicity initially turns his fortunes around. But the seemingly selfless act also raises questions about his real motivations and the circumstances of the discovery. As the scrutiny intensifies, Rahim scrambles to cover his tracks, in what becomes a riveting story about a good person making terrible choices for the right reasons.Also arriving:Jan. 7“The Tender Bar”Jan. 14“Do, Re & Mi”“Hotel Transylvania: Transformania”Jan. 21“As We See It” Season 1Jan. 28“Needle in a Timestack”Hilary Duff and Francia Raisa in “How I Met Your Father.”Patrick Wymore/HuluNew to Hulu‘I’m Your Man’Starts streaming: Jan. 11In this German science-fiction romance, Dan Stevens plays “Tom,” a realistic humanoid robot companion being given a three-week trial by Alma (Maren Eggert), a lonely archaeologist who resents the assignment — even though Tom has been specifically engineered to make her happy. The charming Stevens is a superb choice to play an idealized version of an attractive, attentive gentleman. But “I’m Your Man” director Maria Schrader (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Jan Schomburg) is ultimately more interested in Alma, whose personal life and career have both been defined by her thwarted desires. This is a thoughtful drama about humanity’s yearning to let machines provide for our needs — and how that dream can only be realized if people can articulate what they really want.‘How I Met Your Father’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 18This gender-flipped follow-up to the hit 2000s sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” has been in the works since 2013, going through multiple creative teams. The extended gestation may have been benefited “How I Met Your Father” head writers Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger, allowing them to bring the series more in line with the expectations of 2020s audiences — primarily by including more cultural diversity. Hilary Duff stars as a lovesick modern-day New Yorker named Sophie, while Kim Cattrall plays Sophie in the future, looking back at the days when she was trying to figure out which of the handful of men in her social circle might be her perfect match. The new show’s approach hews close to the original, using an old-fashioned sitcom style as it follows a bunch of bright and optimistic young people, stumbling through the early stages of adulthood.Also arriving:Jan. 1“Falling for Figaro”Jan. 3“The Year of the Everlasting Storm”Jan. 7“Pharma Bro”Jan. 10“Ailey”“Black Bear”“The Golden Palace” Season 1Jan. 13“Madagascar: A Little Wild” Season 6Jan. 14“Bergman Island”“Sex Appeal”Jan. 17“Georgetown”Jan. 20“The Estate”Jan. 27“Mayday”Jan. 30“Small Engine Repair”Josh Gad and Isla Fisher in “Wolf Like Me.”Mark Rogers/PeacockNew to Peacock‘Wolf Like Me’ Season 1Starts streaming: Jan. 13In this Australian romantic dramedy, Josh Gad plays a widowed father named Gary who has a chance encounter with an advice columnist named Mary (Isla Fisher) and feels the kind of personal connection he hasn’t known since his wife died. Mary likes Gary, too, but she has a big, scary secret that makes it hard for her to stay with any man for long. “Wolf Like Me” was written and directed by Abe Forsythe, whose 2019 horror comedy “Little Monsters” (also starring Gad) blended bloody zombie attacks into a relatively grounded story about people coping with everyday personal problems. This six-episode series is similarly genre-bending, injecting suspense and even a hint of the supernatural into a character study of a lost, lonely man, seeking companionship for himself and his child.Also arriving:Jan. 14“Use of Force: The Policing of Black America”Jan. 20“Supernatural Academy” Season 1“True Story with Ed & Randall” Season 1 More

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      Clifton Collins Jr. Hopes ‘Jockey’ Makes Him a Familiar Name

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      Every time Clifton Collins Jr. boards a flight midproduction, the possibility of the aircraft crashing petrifies him. “I’ve got to finish the film,” the actor thinks to himself midair.Once the movie is completed, turbulence, ups and downs? None of that matters, because he knows “I got another film in the can, especially if I’m hopeful that it’s going to be good,” he said. “I don’t care if it goes down. I’d feel bad for the other people, but me personally, I’m OK. I finished.”Collins, 51, has maintained such intense focus for more than 30 years as a character actor embellishing the ensembles of renowned directors like Steven Soderbergh (“Traffic”), Alejandro González Iñárritu (“Babel”) and Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”), though you might know him better for scores of appearances on television series like “Westworld” and “Ballers.”Now the actor is breaking through, finally, with a rare lead role. In Clint Bentley’s heartfelt indie, “Jockey” (in theaters Dec. 29), Collins plays Jackson Silva, an aging horseman confronting physical ailments and potential fatherhood. The visceral performance, born of immersive preparation, has already earned him a best male lead nomination from the Independent Spirit Awards, a first for him, and a special acting prize at Sundance. It’s not his only role in a prominent picture this season — Collins plays a carny in Guillermo del Toro’s lush noir “Nightmare Alley” — but it may be the one that makes the biggest difference.Collins, pictured here with Moises Arias in “Jockey,” worked as a grunt at a racetrack so that other riders would see him as one of their own.Adolpho Veloso/Sony Pictures Classics, via Associated PressDuring a recent interview at a restaurant in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, where he wore a fittingly unpretentious Pink Floyd T-shirt, Homeboy Industries cap and cozy flannel shirt, he explained, “I’ve had other leading roles, just not like this.”The distinction isn’t only about screen time but also about his continuing collaboration with Bentley, a first-time director, and the producer Greg Kwedar, who cast him in his directorial debut, “Transpecos,” a 2016 thriller in which he played one of three Border Patrol agents forced into an illicit drug-trafficking mission. For “Jockey,” Collins expanded his investment, and put his money on the line as an executive producer.To play Jackson, Collins dropped some weight from his already thin build to match the scrawny frame of a jockey. But that was only the superficial transformation. At Turf Paradise, the Phoenix racetrack where the film was shot, he became a grunt, hanging around every day and helping with the horses, to rid himself of the performer label in the eyes of the real riders.“I didn’t want to be seen as an actor. I didn’t want to be treated special,” he explained, adding, “To be embraced by the very people you are portraying is the biggest gift that any actor could ask for.”When it comes to the integrity of a character, Collins goes all in, however small the part. For the 2001 prison drama “The Last Castle,” he consulted multiple speech therapists before agreeing to play a character with a speaking impediment, even if it was only a supporting role. On another job, the 2009 comedy “Sunshine Cleaning,” he nearly refused to embody an amputee because the director hadn’t thoroughly considered the details of the fictional man’s condition.His requests weren’t self-aggrandizing but a way of respecting the experiences of individuals for whom these circumstances aren’t a costume but their truth. “You can’t just desecrate the challenges real people out there are trying to overcome,” he said.The actor was inspired by his grandfather, a self-made entertainer who appeared in the western “Rio Bravo” and “was the only person who said, ‘Yes, you can do it,’” Collins said.  Carlos Jaramillo for The New York TimesOn “Jockey,” Collins shares scenes with actual jockeys whom he tried to guide through the cinematic process with patience and space for spontaneity. The affecting banter in a hospital scene with an injured jockey, played by a real rider, Logan Cormier, resulted from the camaraderie he built over time with nonactors.“You might take it for granted when he’s being generous alongside Clint Eastwood” in “The Mule,” Bentley said. “But to have that same generosity with somebody who’s never acted before and in some cases is never going to act again speaks volumes to his quality as a person and artist.”Collins, who was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, also channeled memories of his father, who, when sober enough, would take him and his sister to his trailer in Inglewood, Calif. When his father met friends at Hollywood Park, a racetrack nearby, he would occasionally let Collins tag along and taught him how to bet on horse races from a tender age. The final speech Jackson delivers in the film — about Jackson’s father being an angry man who only showed affection while drunk or gambling — came precisely from these bittersweet childhood memories.Del Toro turned to Collins for “Nightmare Alley” (their second collaboration, after the kaiju epic “Pacific Rim”) because the actor “seems incapable of anything but being truthful and present and brimming with ideas,” the director said via email. Collins “has a cadence, rhythm and delivery that no one else has,” del Toro added. “He has cinema in his bloodline and his eyes. His eyes command the camera and our attention completely.”For the actor, wandering through the set of “Nightmare Alley” felt like stepping into the bygone realm of his maternal grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez, a proud Tejano and self-made entertainer whose career began in traveling tent shows, or carpas. The vaudeville-esque Mexican American diversions, like La Carpa Garcia, were popular during the first half of the 20th century, and Collins’s grandfather mostly performed for other Latinos working the fields in Texas. He would go on to work as a contract player for John Wayne, most notably in the seminal 1959 western “Rio Bravo.”Where you’ve seen Collins: In “Transpecos,” above.Samuel Goldwyn FilmsIn the drama “One Eight Seven.”Warner Bros. Opposite Amy Adams in “Sunshine Cleaning.” Lacey Terrell/Overture FilmsAnd in the series “Westworld.”John P. Johnson/HBO“My grandpa was the only person who said, ‘Yes, you can do it,’ and all it takes is one voice, one person you respect, to say it,” said Collins, who first tried to go college for engineering before dedicating himself full-time to acting, with his grandfather’s blessing.Collins said that it was his work on “Capote” (2005), in which he played the death-row inmate Perry Smith, that convinced Gonzalez-Gonzalez he’d have a future in acting. “He was really worried if I was ever going to be successful or make it in this business,” Collins said.One evening while shooting “Nightmare Alley” in Toronto, del Toro encouraged Collins to write a screenplay about Gonzalez-Gonzalez. Collins began writing that very night.Gonzalez-Gonzalez himself received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2011, five years after his death and decades after he first sought it. Instinctively switching to Spanish whenever quoting his grandfather, Collins recalled: “When he got cancer, the second he told me, ‘Mijo, I’ve had a life bigger that I could ever dreamt of, the only thing I never got was that pinche star,’ and I said, ‘Grandpa, I promise you I’m going to get you that star.’”The promise was kept thanks in part to the advocacy of Samuel L. Jackson, whom Collins considers a father figure. The two starred together in the 1997 crime drama “One Eight Seven,” in which Collins played a young gangbanger opposite Jackson’s high school teacher, and have remained close friends ever since.Collins embodies the “there are no small parts, only small actors” truism, Jackson said, citing “the preparation, the attention to detail, the love of the craft.” Collins is “the kind of actor that demands your best and gives you his.”Onscreen, Collins has walked on both sides of the law, as a border agent on several occasions, and many others as men behind bars, like Cesar in “One Eight Seven.” But there’s a double standard for Latinos, he said, when it comes to roles that, while psychologically three-dimensional and rich, are not positive portrayals or seem to perpetuate stereotypes. With “One Eight Seven,” mainstream critics discredited him, the actor said, by suggesting the production had simply found a real criminal for the part, as if he couldn’t have been an actor who worked on the role. Meanwhile, he said, the ALMA Awards, which honor American Latinos in entertainment, wouldn’t consider his performance because they only highlight what they consider to be edifying representation.“How come Robert De Niro and Al Pacino can get awards for playing gangsters of their communities? But when we play gangsters of our communities, they say, ‘Don’t do that. We got to be the good immigrants.’”Collins said he and other Latino actors faced a double standard with roles that are psychologically rich but not necessarily positive. Carlos Jaramillo for The New York TimesOne of his most notable criminal characters was the morally conflicted robber Jack “Bump” Hill in the mini-series “Thief,” for which he received an Emmy nomination. The show’s creator, Norman Morrill, recalled that Collins wasn’t enthusiastic about doing more television work. The actor admits his hesitation came from arrogance. He had romanticized the struggling actor persona.Convinced of his magnetism, Morrill persuaded him to join the cast opposite Andre Braugher. “A lot of actors need words to communicate; the really great ones don’t. Cliffy’s silence sizzles,” the showrunner said. “The camera can just sit there and you go, ‘I’m going to watch this.’ That’s about as great an accolade anybody can get.”Bentley also saw the silent fire within, notably in the very last scene of “Jockey,” when Jackson is walking away after a defining moment. “It’s about three minutes long on his face, and he’s going through this whole color wheel of emotions,” the director said. “You could not write dialogue that would get across what he’s giving the audience. We get exactly what he’s going through.”With “Jockey” and “Nightmare Alley” behind him, a determined Collins has shifted focus back to polishing the script about his grandfather. Having honed his storytelling skills for years helming music videos for country performers like the Zac Brown Band (“Chicken Fried”) and Jamey Johnson (“High Cost of Living”), he also aims to direct it.“That’s the only singular goal I have,” Collins said. “I can’t see past that.” More

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      Our Favorite Arts Photos of 2021

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      After 15 months of darkness, live music returned. In New York, Foo Fighters reopened Madison Square Garden.Photograph by Tim Barber for The New York TimesOur Favorite Arts Photos of 2021These are the pictures that defined an unpredictable year across the worlds of art, music, dance and performance.Laura O’Neill More