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      Watch These 9 Movies and Shows Before They Leave Netflix in October

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      Titles leaving U.S. Netflix this month include a cult comedy hit, a hilarious game show and solid offerings from Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone.This month, subscribers to Netflix in the United States will have one more chance to watch an uproariously funny game show, a beloved girl-power comedy, a family film that adults may love more than kids and two wild cult comedies.All of those, along with some good stuff from Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone, are among the best films and TV shows leaving Netflix in October. Learn more about them below. (Dates reflect the final day a title is available.)‘Free Fire’ (Oct. 20)If you don’t like shootouts, then move along, nothing to see here. But if you do love shoot-outs, or if you love inventive gunplay and threatening gun-cocking and artful reloads and the films of John Woo, boy is this the movie for you. This action extravaganza from the writer and director Ben Wheatley (“Kill List”) is essentially a feature-length gunfight, in which various parties assemble in an isolated warehouse for a gun buy before turning on one another. Wheatley finds ingenious variations throughout, keeping the action energetic and fresh, while his first-rate cast (including Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy and Jack Reynor), resplendent in ’70s duds, squeeze in as much characterization as they can between shots.Stream it here.‘Rango’ (Oct. 27)Plenty of filmmakers have livened up family movies by sliding in winking gags and pop culture references for the grown-ups. But few have done it as unapologetically (and successfully) as the “Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski, who livens up this story of a desert lizard’s adventure in several surprising ways. First, he constructs it as a kiddie “Chinatown,” with our hero stumbling into a Western town where the battle over water rights is getting ugly. And he apparently instructed his leading man, Johnny Depp, to voice the role as a riff on his turn as Hunter S. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” even throwing in visual and verbal nods to that very R-rated adaptation. But Verbinski also doesn’t alienate the target audience: Kids will likewise delight in this visually inventive and frequently funny treat.Stream it here.‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ (Oct. 30)Rarely has a title been so accurate in its description as it is here, and the writer and director Kevin Smith (“Clerks”) tells the tale of two longtime friends (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks), desperate for cash, who turn to the seemingly lucrative world of adult entertainment. The leering title and premise don’t tell the entire story, however. This isn’t just some silly, gross-out sex comedy (though, to be sure, there’s plenty of that). As in his indie hit “Chasing Amy,” Smith knows that there’s no such thing as “just sex,” and, with the help of his charismatic leads, thoughtfully explores what happens when platonic pals decide to take that big leap.Stream it here.‘Billy on the Street’: Seasons 1-5 (Oct. 31)Few contemporary comedians have a persona as distinctive as Billy Eichner’s. A frenzied, impatient pop culture connoisseur, he is quick with a quip and so sly with his insults that they often fly past their targets. Eichner is an unabashedly 21st century personality, which makes it especially amusing that he is best known for the “man on the street” interview — a comedic device that stretches back to Steve Allen and the earliest days of television comedy. “Billy on the Street” is, on paper at least, a game show; he and his celebrity guests offer passers-by the opportunity to win cash and prizes for answering questions and participating in their reindeer games. But the stakes are low and the games are silly; the show exists primarily as a vehicle for his unique sensibility and wit.Stream it here.‘Catch Me if You Can’ (Oct. 31)Leonardo DiCaprio’s apparent agelessness is one of his most fascinating features — we all still think of him as a matinee heartthrob, even in middle age — and Steven Spielberg puts it to fine use in this dashing 2002 comedy-drama, based on the memoir of the con artist and fabulist Frank Abagnale Jr. (which may, itself, have been fabricated). DiCaprio’s Abagnale is a born swindler, masquerading as a doctor, lawyer and airline pilot while kiting checks across the country; the actor’s sensitive portrayal captures gee-whiz likability that made him so successful, while subtly conveying the pain underneath. Tom Hanks is in top form as the by-the-books treasury agent on his tail, but the M.V.P. is Christopher Walken, Oscar-nominated for an atypically understated turn as Abagnale’s absentee father.Stream it here.‘Legally Blonde’ (Oct. 31)When this Reese Witherspoon vehicle hit theaters in 2001, a fair number of critics dismissed it as lightweight, disposable fluff — a reaction strangely appropriate to this story of a young woman whose peers underestimate her based on looks and impressions. But just as Elle Woods thrived, against all odds, at Harvard Law School, this summer comedy has become a cultural touchstone thanks to its quotable dialogue, masterfully modulated lead performance and timeless message about self-determination in the face of adversity.Stream it here.‘Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You’ (Oct. 31)The term “living legend” has been bandied about so freely that it doesn’t seem a grand enough descriptor for Norman Lear, the now 99-year-old writer, producer and philanthropist behind some of the most popular (and groundbreaking) television programs of the 1970s, including “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons” and “One Day at a Time.” This energetic bio-documentary from the directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady tells his story with the appropriate gusto and showmanship, taking a thematic rather than chronological approach that separates it from the standard biographical showcase.Stream it here.‘Snowden’ (Oct. 31)There’s a real “back to basics” feeling to this 2016 based-on-a-true-story drama, for which the director Oliver Stone returned to his wheelhouse with this story of government malfeasance, fear and paranoia, framed by one man’s dedication to what he believes is right. Here, that man is Edward Snowden (played with quiet dignity by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the National Security Agency contractor who became the whistle-blower for one of the largest illegal surveillance operations in history. Stone tells the tale with his trademark bristling intelligence and righteous indignation, and he marshals an impressive supporting cast, including Nicolas Cage, Shailene Woodley, Melissa Leo, Zachary Quinto and Tom Wilkinson.Stream it here.‘Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny’ (Oct. 31)Casual moviegoers assumed Jack Black just fell out of the sky when he stole scenes by the handful in “High Fidelity” and became one of Hollywood’s most valuable comic supporting players. But fans of indie comedy had been watching him for years, primarily as one-half (alongside Kyle Gass) of the comical music duo Tenacious D, a kind of Smothers Brothers for former metal heads. In 2006, the duo made a play for mainstream popularity with this movie, which chronicles their epic quest for a magic guitar pick. It didn’t quite land (box office was middling and reviews were mostly negative), but that’s OK: Tenacious D was always a cult act, so it’s appropriate that they made what has become a cult movie — and a wickedly, weirdly funny one at that.Stream it here.Also leaving: “Beowulf,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Inception” (all Oct. 31). More

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      ‘Sex Education’ Gets More Inclusive in Its Intimacy

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      With its new nonbinary characters and its scenes depicting chest binding and disabled intimacy, the British teen comedy-drama continues to widen its lens.Layla (Robyn Holdaway) slides a bin in front of the bedroom door, takes a small wicker box from its hiding place in a drawer full of clothes and opens it to reveal a roll of Ace bandages and a tin of safety pins.The scene that ensues, from Season 3 of “Sex Education,” depicts a routine that is all too familiar for many nonbinary and transgender youth. Layla — who, like Holdaway, uses they/them pronouns — proceeds to wrap the bandages tightly around their chest, which is already bruised and bloodied from unsafe chest binding.Later in the episode, Cal — another new and nonbinary character this season, played by the Sudanese American actor Dua Saleh — shows Layla a safer alternative: a chest binder, which is a compression undergarment often made of spandex and nylon.“I did it for a while with Ace bandages,” Cal tells Layla, who tries on a borrowed chest binder. “Until I nearly broke a rib.”Layla looks into the mirror, laughs incredulously and says with joy, “It feels so much better.”Laurie Nunn, the creator of this British dramedy, said that presenting such interactions, matter-of-factly with plenty of detail, is part of the show’s effort “to progress these conversations forward.”“It felt important to me that we see two nonbinary characters communicating with each other onscreen,” she said in a recent video interview. “It’s not just representation; it’s having as much of it as possible within the scope of the show.”Over two seasons, “Sex Education” has been widely praised for its frank but sensitive depictions of teen sexuality. In Season 3, now out on Netflix, the series has widened its lens to include more stories about queer relationships, gender presentation, intimacy with a disability and other experiences that rarely are explored on mainstream television.To do so in an authentic but respectful fashion, the producers use intimacy coordinators and a healthy dose of communication. “The show goes to great lengths to make sure that our actors are as protected as possible,” Nunn saidAt the same time, stars like George Robinson, who, like his character Isaac, uses a wheelchair, found themselves serving as both performers and de facto consultants, ensuring that the details and dynamics of their scenes were accurate. “Obviously, he’s playing a character, but it’s making sure that it feels authentic and true to his experience as a disabled actor,” Nunn said.George Robinson’s love scene was a rarity for a disabled actor, but everyone involved “stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene,” he wrote in an email.Sam Taylor/NetflixOne such scene unfolds in Episode 4, when a dinner date between Isaac and Maeve (Emma Mackey) turns toward the intimate. Isaac is paralyzed from the chest down, like Robinson. Maeve starts kissing him, then pulls away. “Can …” she whispers, trailing off.“You want to know what I can feel?” Isaac asks.“Yeah,” Maeve replies.“Well, I can’t feel anything below my level of injury,” Isaac says. “If you put your hand on my chest, I’ll show you.”Isaac was originally conceived as an amputee, but the show’s producers decided to rewrite the role around the disability of whoever landed the part. Isaac is a painter, a brother, a lover and crucially, in Season 2, a jealous deleter of voice mail messages. His sense of humor is laced with cynicism, like Maeve’s.When asked how it felt to film the dinner date scene, Robinson responded in an email, “The easy and instinctive answer would be to think that in the moment, it felt like a real privilege to be a part of a ‘cultural moment’ type scene like that.“However, I have realized that in actual fact we (myself, Emma and the creative team) purposefully stayed away from thinking too much about the significance of that scene within the landscape of TV, film and media. We came to the conclusion that in order to make the scene successful, we had to make sure that it worked within the story and for the characters at that time in their relationship.”Kelly Gordon, a trainer at Enhance the UK, a charity run by disabled people, and Chris Yeates, an outreach and support coordinator at Back Up Trust, a charity that supports people affected by spinal cord injury, consulted on Isaac’s story line. The scene works because it’s not about the fact that Isaac uses a wheelchair. It’s a story about two awkward teenagers, an expression of affection and a burned lasagna.David Thackeray, an intimacy coordinator, worked on all eight episodes of Season 3, including this scene with Isaac and Maeve. Thackeray choreographs each take as if it were a dance sequence or a fight scene, mapping out physical boundaries with each actor beforehand.“We’re all sitting together, discussing the scene; we mark out where we’re happy to be touched,” Thackeray said. “Even to sit on George’s lap was like, ‘Are you happy with that?’ You keep that communication going.”Coordinators and consultants checked in constantly on the cast’s comfort levels. Jodie Mitchell, a consultant who advises productions about how to depict nonbinary characters and themes (and who also uses they/them pronouns), was initially brought on only to work on the script with the writers. Then one of the show’s directors, Runyararo Mapfumo, called, wanting to double check the details of scenes featuring nonbinary characters.“And then she really wanted me to come on set, which I think is indicative of how much this program really wants to get things right,” Mitchell said in an interview. “It’s not just about posturing for them or ticking the box of like, ‘Oh, we’ve checked it’s OK with someone.’ They really want to follow through to the highest level they can.”Mitchell worked on set for three days, focusing on nonbinary story lines, mostly consulting on those chest binding scenes involving Layla and Cal. Holdaway, who plays Layla, had the option of having an intimacy coordinator present for every scene.“But for a few of the scenes around bindings specifically, they were like, ‘Oh, actually, I just want someone who is trans and has lived experience with being trans in the room with me,’” Mitchell said. “So I was there.”Saleh, who plays Cal and also uses they/them pronouns, was a poet and musician before moving more seriously into acting (their third EP comes out Oct. 22). While Saleh has performed in some transgender- and queer-centric plays (“WAAFRIKA 1-2-3”) and theater groups (20% Theatre Company in Minneapolis), “Sex Education” was their TV debut.In a past theater production, “we had a lot of intimacy scenes, but we didn’t have a coordinator there,” Saleh said in a video interview last month. “So coming to ‘Sex Ed,’ it felt surprising how thoughtful and careful they were about our bodies, and about the ways that they helped us set boundaries with each other, and say what we weren’t and what we were comfortable with.”Like others on “Sex Education,” Saleh is a fan of the show as well as a star, and occasionally got caught up in resonant moments this season. Saleh was particularly moved by scenes portraying Eric Effiong (Ncuti Gatwa), a gay Ghanaian-Nigerian character who attends a family wedding in Nigeria. Eric sneaks out of the reception to go instead to an underground club pulsing with color, queerness and gender nonconformity.“When I was a teenager, if I had seen this show, I wouldn’t have held onto all of the gross feelings about myself, just in me being me,” Saleh said. “I wouldn’t have been as shameful about just existing.” More

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      'Squid Game,' the Netflix Hit, Taps South Korean Fears

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      The dystopian Netflix hit taps South Korea’s worries about costly housing and scarce jobs, concerns familiar to its U.S. and international viewers.In “Squid Game,” the hit dystopian television show on Netflix, 456 people facing severe debt and financial despair play a series of deadly children’s games to win a $38 million cash prize in South Korea.Koo Yong-hyun, a 35-year-old office worker in Seoul, has never had to face down masked homicidal guards or competitors out to slit his throat, like the characters in the show do. But Mr. Koo, who binge-watched “Squid Game” in a single night, said he empathized with the characters and their struggle to survive in the country’s deeply unequal society.Mr. Koo, who got by on freelance gigs and government unemployment checks after he lost his steady job, said it is “almost impossible to live comfortably with a regular employee’s salary” in a city with runaway housing prices. Like many young people in South Korea and elsewhere, Mr. Koo sees a growing competition to grab a slice of a shrinking pie, just like the contestants in “Squid Game.”Those similarities have helped turn the nine-episode drama into an unlikely international sensation. “Squid Game” is now the top-ranked show in the United States on Netflix and is on its way to becoming one of the most-watched shows in the streaming service’s history. “There’s a very good chance it will be our biggest show ever,” Ted Sarandos, a co-chief executive at Netflix, said during a recent business conference.Culturally, the show has sparked an online embrace of its distinct visuals, especially the black masks decorated with simple squares and triangles worn by the anonymous guards, and a global curiosity for the Korean children’s games that underpin the deadly competitions. Recipes for dalgona, the sugary Korean treat at the center of one especially tense showdown, have gone viral.A shop in Seoul selling “Squid Game”-themed dalgona.Heo Ran/ReutersLike “The Hunger Games” books and movies, “Squid Game” holds its audience with its violent tone, cynical plot and — spoiler alert! — a willingness to kill off fan-favorite characters. But it has also tapped a sense familiar to people in the United States, Western Europe and other places, that prosperity in nominally rich countries has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as wealth disparities widen and home prices rise past affordable levels.“The stories and the problems of the characters are extremely personalized but also reflect the problems and realities of Korean society,” Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s creator, said in an email. He wrote the script in 2008 as a film, when many of these trends had become evident, but overhauled it to reflect new worries, including the impact of the coronavirus. (Minyoung Kim, the head of content for the Asia-Pacific region at Netflix, said the company was in talks with Mr. Hwang about producing a second season.)“Squid Game” is only the latest South Korean cultural export to win a global audience by tapping into the country’s deep feelings of inequality and ebbing opportunities. “Parasite,” the 2019 film that won best picture at the Oscars, paired a desperate family of grifters with the oblivious members of a rich Seoul household. “Burning,” a 2018 art-house hit, built tension by pitting a young deliveryman against a well-to-do rival for a woman’s attention.The masked guards in “Squid Game” mete out violence during the competitions.NetflixSouth Korea boomed in the postwar era, making it one of the richest countries in Asia and leading some economists to call its rise the “miracle on the Han River.” But wealth disparity has worsened as the economy has matured.“South Koreans used to have a collective community spirit,” says Yun Suk-jin, a drama critic and professor of modern literature at Chungnam National University. But the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s undermined the nation’s positive growth story and “made everyone fight for themselves.”The country now ranks No. 11 using the Gini coefficient, one measure of income inequality, among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the research group for the world’s richest nations. (The United States is ranked No. 6.)As South Korean families have tried to keep up, household debt has mounted, prompting some economists to warn that the debt could hold back the economy. Home prices have surged to the point where housing affordability has become a hot-button political topic. Prices in Seoul have soared by over 50 percent during the tenure of the country’s president, Moon Jae-in, and led to a political scandal.“Squid Game” lays bare the irony between the social pressure to succeed in South Korea and the difficulty of doing just that, said Shin Yeeun, who graduated from college in January 2020, just before the pandemic hit. Now 27, she said she had spent over a year looking for steady work.“It’s really difficult for people in their 20s to find a full-time job these days,” she said.South Korea has also suffered a sharp drop in births, generated partly by a sense among young people that raising children is too expensive.“In South Korea, all parents want to send their kids to the best schools,” Ms. Shin said. “To do that you have to live in the best neighborhoods.” That would require saving enough money to buy a house, a goal so unrealistic “that I’ve never even bothered calculating how long it will take me,” Ms. Shin said.Characters in the show receive invitations to participate in the Squid Game.Netflix“Squid Game” revolves around Seong Gi-hun, a gambling addict in his 40s who doesn’t have the means to buy his daughter a proper birthday present or pay for his aging mother’s medical expenses. One day he is offered a chance to participate in the Squid Game, a private event run for the entertainment of wealthy individuals. To claim the $38 million prize, contestants must pass through six rounds of traditional Korean children’s games. Failure means death.The 456 contestants speak directly to many of the country’s anxieties. One is a graduate from Seoul National University, the nation’s top university, who is wanted for mishandling his clients’ funds. Another is a North Korean defector who needs to take care of her brother and help her mother escape from the North. Another character is an immigrant laborer whose boss refuses to pay his wages.The characters have resonated with South Korean youth who don’t see a chance to advance in society. Known locally as the “dirt spoon” generation, many are obsessed with ways to get rich quickly, like with cryptocurrencies and the lottery. South Korea has one of the largest markets for virtual currency in the world.Like the prize money in the show, cryptocurrencies give “people the chance to change their lives in a second,” said Mr. Koo, the office worker. Mr. Koo, whose previous employer went out of business during the pandemic, said the difficulty of earning money is one reason South Koreans are so obsessed with making a quick buck.“I wonder how many people would participate if ‘Squid Game’ was held in real life,” he said.Seong Gi-hun, the show’s protagonist, entering an arena for one of the games.Netflix More

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      Clint and Ron Howard Remember When They Were Just ‘The Boys’

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      In a new memoir, the showbiz siblings recall their experiences growing up on “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Star Trek” and other Hollywood classics. But they weren’t all happy days.Growing up, Clint and Ron Howard never had to dream of stardom, because as children they’d already achieved it. Ron was just 6 when he was second-billed on “The Andy Griffith Show” and 8 when “The Music Man,” featuring him crooning “Gary, Indiana,” was released. Clint, his younger brother, was racking up roles on “Bonanza,” “Star Trek” and “Gentle Ben.”Today they are both Hollywood veterans: Ron, 67, is an Academy Award-winning director (“A Beautiful Mind”) and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment, while Clint, 62, is a prolific character actor who’s shown up everywhere from “Seinfeld” to the “Austin Powers” movies.But their lives were transformed by their time as child actors and the influence of their parents, Rance Howard and Jean Speegle Howard, who left Oklahoma to pursue their own ambitions of becoming actors — goals that were surpassed countless times over by the accomplishments of their two sons.Ron and Clint Howard retrace this formative period in a new book, “The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family,” which will be released by William Morrow on Tuesday. In their alternating accounts, the Howards look back on their parents’ lives, their own upbringings and their success at staving off the darker aspects of their profession — at least until the realities of adolescence and adulthood reared their heads.“The Boys” will be released on Oct. 12.William Morrow, via Associated PressWhen the brothers spoke in a video interview last month, they talked about how writing “The Boys” had helped reconnect them to each other and to their family history.“We’ve remained close, but we’re 3,000 miles apart and busy with our own families,” Ron Howard said, adding that the book “has everything to do with trying to put our lives into the context of who our parents were and what they gave us.”“We wouldn’t have done it just to tell our story,” he added. “Once again, Mom and Dad pulled us together.”Clint and Ron Howard talked about their early starts in show business, their earliest brushes with fame and how their parents helped them keep it together. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.It’s well-known that you’re the children of actors, but you’re not exactly Barrymore scions. What were your parents like? How did they find it in Hollywood?RON HOWARD There’s no reason they should have succeeded. They didn’t know a thing about where they were going. They weren’t bohemians, they weren’t hippies, but they certainly were not conservatives. But they had this dream. They had to chase that horizon. And when they got to the horizon, they never really fit in. They were always a little cornpone. Hence the term that they applied to themselves, sophisticated hicks.Were you ever made to feel that you were the breadwinners of your family?CLINT HOWARD We didn’t take show business home with us. Both Dad and Mom worked their tails off. Mom was just a championship mom. She was on the P.T.A., she was a basketball mom, she was a baseball mom.RON Dad was a kid-actor whisperer. But he said, I work with you boys because you’re my sons and I think you can learn something. I don’t think he believed this was our career for the rest of our lives. I don’t think he wanted to project that desire upon us.The book he and his brother wrote, Ron Howard said, “has everything to do with trying to put our lives into the context of who our parents were and what they gave us.”Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesYou probably could have lived much larger on the money you were earning — why didn’t you?RON We always lived on Dad’s salary. Somebody wanted to do an Opie line of clothing — I’m sure it would have meant hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of the day. Mom and Dad turned that down for me because they didn’t want me wasting my time on that.CLINT We were never short for anything. But we didn’t go on vacation. They didn’t buy new cars. Once a year, Ron and I got new school clothes. No one was chasing those intoxicating elements that modern life or show business can overwhelm you with.As children, you were regularly crossing paths with venerated Hollywood artists. Clint, you got to meet Walt Disney when you were working on “The Jungle Book.” What was that like?CLINT I was completely blown away when Walt walked in and said, “You’re doing a fine job, Clint.” I was truly a Disney baby. But I was a little irritated that I hadn’t worked in more Disney shows. [Laughter.]RON Too bad you didn’t just say, “What took you so long? Walt, how many times have I been to Disneyland? Where’s the quid pro quo here, Walt?”CLINT These people all seemed pretty friendly but they weren’t handing out the contracts. I never got on “The Mickey Mouse Club.”Were either of you ever jealous of each other?CLINT Our age difference was ideal. Being five years apart, I would look at my brother and go, there’s no chance that I can kick his butt. There were a few times we would get into a fight over baseball cards or a toy, and Dad would physically pull us apart. He would say, you boys are going to want to be good friends when you grow up. So why don’t you just knock it off?RON He would say you have a chance to be good friends when you grow up.There’s a period you describe in the book, where things were starting to wind down for Ron on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Clint was beginning to take off on “Gentle Ben.” Did that create tension between you?RON I felt envy over what Clint was achieving. He was really popular at school, an excellent athlete, gregarious, smart, confident. Things that I don’t necessarily feel or exude. And I admired that about his persona. And I could see it in the work he was doing as well. He was a hell of a good child actor. The system is set up to make child performers feel like failures as they go through adolescence, that most vulnerable period, and I was beginning to experience that. Clint experienced a version of it later.CLINT I worked on “Gentle Ben,” I was one of the coleads of a television series that was really popular for a short period of time. What really knocked my chin in the dirt was getting hired to work on a TV series called “The Cowboys.” The job ended up just sucking. It was a bad show. I was still making money but the work was poor. That, and then pimples. Dad and Mom warned us about this period of show business. We knew it was coming. There was just no way to really quantify how I was going to feel about it.“We were never short for anything,” Clint Howard said. “But we didn’t go on vacation. They didn’t buy new cars. Once a year, Ron and I got new school clothes. No one was chasing those intoxicating elements that modern life or show business can overwhelm you with.”Rozette Rago for The New York TimesIn an era and an industry where drugs were prevalent, Ron avoided them fastidiously while Clint had a long period of addiction and recovery. Why do you think you had such different experiences?RON I was very introverted and my group of friends were likewise. I wasn’t really allowed to go to parties. If I was invited once or twice, I think my parents said no. But Clint was in a different group, much more socially mature. I also resented some of the restrictions that my parents put on me, and I was constantly imploring them to use a lighter hand with Clint.CLINT I had just some sort of odd fascination with smoking weed. To the point where I literally practiced — I took some pencil shavings from my pencil sharpener and I twisted up a joint and tried to smoke it. Ron was the first, he was a little more nerdy. I was socially more outgoing. I ended up with a group of friends where it was no big deal. The problem is, once that train leaves the station, it can get going pretty darn fast. It’s a slippery slope and I was throwing down the Crisco.Ron, did you ever feel guilty that you had somehow let your little brother down and hadn’t protected him from this?RON Yes, I did feel that. When we knew Clint was smoking pot, I said, look, it’s not the horrible curse of the demon you fear it might be. But as Clint started to go further, by then I was married and beginning to have kids. I was concerned and I tried to offer support and go to meetings. I continued to work with Clint and cast him when it made sense. I remember telling him pretty late in his period of abuse — we used a lot of baseball terminology — I said, you’re a bona fide .300 hitter who’s batting about .217.CLINT I have that letter. You wrote it on stationery from a New York hotel room.RON I was thinking about you while I was on the road. But I was very proud of Clint for having navigated it. That achievement meant so much to Mom and Dad, probably more than anything any of us had achieved.CLINT My recovery wasn’t easy-peasy, clean and snazzy. Ron had a lot to do with it and Dad had a lot to do with it, too. I struggled with Mom passing away, but I was very proud of the moment I could drop my nine-year chip in her coffin. I only wish it was a 10-year chip.What’s your favorite performance that your brother has given?RON Clint was tremendous in “The Red Pony.” But as I was doing research for this, I had forgotten that we had both been on “The Danny Kaye Show,” and there was this sketch where I was supposed to be this kid James Bond character and Clint was my boss. He nailed that scene. When I watched it, I said, my God, look how present he is. He really is playing a 50-year-old, hard-bitten guy, and I buy it.CLINT He talks about me being in “The Red Pony,” but I never got a chance to do what he did in “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” There’s a scene in that movie where he has this panic attack that turns into a tantrum, and he just was so believable. I’m going, the guy’s got chops. Also, as a young man, he did a movie, “Act of Love.” That was weighty material and he nailed it.RON That was a euthanasia story, based on a real event, where a younger brother had been beseeched by the other to end it after a horrible accident. There’s a courtroom scene where he’s talking about how much he loves his brother and Clint was going through a difficult time during this period. It was one of the most personal moments I ever generated onscreen, because I was channeling my own sense of love and despair for what Clint was going through. The tears and the emotions were real — they came from my own gut. More

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      Stephen Colbert Spoils Stephanie Grisham’s Tell-All Tidbits

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      Colbert joked that the former White House press secretary had titled her Trump tell-all “I Just Recently Grew a Spine.”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.Too Little Too LateStephen Colbert lamented having to drudge up Donald Trump again on Tuesday night.“No matter how hard I try not to, sometimes the news forces me to talk about our former president, Scrooge McSchmuck,” Colbert said.This week, the topic was Stephanie Grisham’s new tell-all about her time working in the Trump White House, and Colbert said he wanted to spoil all the juicy bits so as not to give her a sales boost.“Stephanie Grisham worked in the White House for four years, and as press secretary, she famously never gave a single press conference. But now she’s spilling all the tea in her new book, ‘I Just Recently Grew a Spine.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“In the book, Grisham uses a lot of colorful language to describe the administration, calling it ‘a clown car on fire running at full speed into a warehouse full of fireworks.’ Or as Fox News would put it, ‘a brave band of flaming harlequins rushing patriotically into the explosive jaws of danger.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yeah, just a reminder: She knew all about the fiery clown car and she still called shotgun for four years.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Grisham goes on to write, ‘I can give you endless metaphors: living in a house that was always on fire, or in an insane asylum where you couldn’t tell the difference between the patients and the attendants, or on a roller coaster that never stopped.’ Ooh, ooh, let me try: Being in his administration is like sliding blindfolded down a 50-foot razor blade into a tub of gin. It’s like walking through a minefield led by a baby trying to change his own diaper. Driving a manure truck over a cliff into a pit of other manure trucks. Deep-sea diving surrounded by sharks who won’t shut up about winning Wisconsin.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Facebook Fallout Edition)“Ladies and gentlemen, I come to you tonight from a room full of warriors. Heroes. Survivors. Forget World War II, this is the greatest generation, because yesterday, every single person in this room had to dig down deep within themselves and find the strength to make it through Facebook’s six-hour worldwide outage.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Facebook went offline yesterday for over six hours. Wow, they finally found something they couldn’t fix with horse paste.” — SETH MEYERS“Everyone’s parents came this close to joining TikTok.” — JIMMY FALLON“Besides Zuckerberg, it was also a rough time for conspiracy theorists because for conspiracy theorists, Facebook is basically their WebMD.” — JIMMY FALLON“Well, in a statement, Facebook said the cause of the problem was, quote, ‘configuration changes on the backbone routers.’ Then they continued, ‘which caused the frontbone flexbox to dislodge the tungle switch and toggle the pixel dock florpcord, which then jolted the compshank’s codedox’s popknob causing a triple spanx zip-donk.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Facebook said that no user data was compromised during the blackout. It was not a hack, all your information is safe with them: your age, your height, weight, eye color, blood type, your birth date, your hopes, your dreams, your kidneys — all totally secure in the Facebook vaults.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The blackout was followed by a devastating congressional panel investigation this morning. Democrats and Republicans in the Senate finally found something they can agree on: They both hate Facebook.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, today, a Facebook whistle-blower testified for more than three hours in front of Congress and said some pretty damaging things. That’s right, the whistle-blower said Facebook has repeatedly misled the public and that is not OK. We already have an app for misleading the public — it’s called Tinder.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden and his staff debated who among them would win in a fight.What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe cast of the Netflix dystopian hit “Squid Game” will appear on Wednesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutWith “In These Silent Days,” Brandi Carlile reaffirms her ambitions and polishes them, too.Ricardo Nagaoka for The New York TimesBrandi Carlile’s seventh album, “In These Silent Days,” braves the extremes of her songwriting. More

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      Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Reinvigorates Dalgona Candy

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      Interest in the South Korean treat has spiked since the debut of the Netflix drama “Squid Game.”One of Maddy Park’s earliest memories of street food was when vendors set up a portable stove outside her elementary school in Seoul, South Korea, to sell a candy for about a dime. It was part sweet treat, part game.Candy makers melted sugar and frothed it up with a pinch of baking soda to make this dalgona candy, Ms. Park recalled. They then pressed the mixture flat and pushed shapes like a circle, triangle, square, star or umbrella into the center. Ms. Park’s classmates determinedly tried to pick out the stamped shape using a needle without breaking it — a game called ppopgi. If the children successfully removed the shape from the brittle candy, they won another treat for free.“Dalgona was one of the cheapest, unhealthiest, yet the most addictive gamble for 7-year-old me,” said Ms. Park, now 28 and living in Downtown Brooklyn, N.Y.Ms. Park is one of many Koreans whose memories of dalgona candy, also called ppopgi, have surfaced thanks to the release last month of “Squid Game” on Netflix. The fictional series follows a group of cash-strapped people willing to die playing childhood games for a chance to win a jackpot. Episode 3 is all about ppopgi.Read more about “Squid Game” on Netflix.“There’s a gambling sort of element to it, kind of like in the ‘Squid Game’ but without life or death,” JinJoo Lee, 55, the Korean food blogger behind Kimchimari, said about ppopgi. Her recipe for dalgona candy, which she posted online in 2018, has had a 30 percent increase in traffic in the past few days. Similar candies are popular around the world, she said, but they go by different names.Dalgona candy filled a sweet void in postwar South Korea for children who had grown accustomed to the free chocolates given away by American soldiers, said Albert Park, an associate professor with expertise in Korean history at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, Calif. Dalgona was inexpensive and accessible, he said.At first, glucose was used because raw sugar was expensive, Mr. Park said. But vendors likely began using sugar after the Korean War, when companies began to process it from its raw form, he said. The toffee-colored honeycomb candy became common in the 1960s, and was sold outside elementary schools and toy stores.Dalgona vendors started to disappear in the early 2000s as online shopping became more popular and toy stores began to close, Mr. Park said. It’s also likely that South Korea’s booming candy industry, and its proliferation of other types of inexpensive candies, put many of the mom-and-pop dalgona candy makers out of business.Contestants on the “Squid Game” pick out shapes from their dalgona candy, also known as ppopgi, in a life-or-death contest that featured challenges with childhood games.NetflixBut because of the popularity of “Squid Game,” the candy has made a comeback as a retro, nostalgic snack, Mr. Park said. “For some of these young Koreans, I don’t think they consciously think it’s Korean candy, but it’s a way to connect to their history that they don’t want to necessarily do in a history book,” he said.Social media has shepherded its leap to worldwide fame, introducing the candy to people outside South Korea.The name dalgona became more familiar to Americans in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic because of the popularity of the whipped coffee also known as dalgona. The beverage gained fame in January 2020 after the actor Jung Il-woo tried it in Macau on “Stars’ Top Recipe at Fun-Staurant,” a South Korean television show. He said it reminded him of the dalgona candy, unofficially naming the drink in the process. It then feverishly spread to South Korea’s coffee shops and eventually made its way to the United States.Some people, though, say dalgona candy’s spread through social media can divorce it from its cultural significance. “Dalgona candy is representative of fetishizing K-pop and K-dramas, and seeing one thing and saying, ‘Wow I’ve discovered Korean culture,’” said Nancy Wang Yuen, a sociologist and expert on race and racism in Hollywood, “when in fact the candy, the cinema, the television series, all of these things, have been in existence.”Fans love the candy’s blend of bitter, nutty and sweet tastes. “The flavor, for some reason, stays with you,” said Annie Yoo, 46, of Düsseldorf, Germany.Ms. Yoo’s most vivid memories of South Korea are those of foods like dalgona candy, as she was only 6 years old when she immigrated to the United States. She remembers the dirt roads she took to get to the dalgona street vendors under their tarps.“I really miss that candy,” she added. “In the midst of all the stuff we were going through, you barely get any treats. It was really magical.”In a YouTube video in which the “Squid Game” cast reacts to some of the scenes, Chae Kyung-sun, the show’s art director, reveals that dalgona candy was the trickiest prop to work with. Behind the scenes, she said, there was a professional who kept making the candy as they were filming.Those who have played the candy game approach it with different strategies. Hwang Dong-hyuk, the show’s writer and director, incorporated his own into the series: The show’s main character, Seong Gi-hun, repeatedly licks the candy to loosen the umbrella shape from the middle. It’s a trick the director said he used to win prizes when he was younger.But Ms. Park, who ate the candy outside her elementary school in Seoul, never did manage to win a free candy.Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice. More

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      Alan Kalter, Longtime Voice of Letterman’s ‘Late Show,’ Dies at 78

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      Far more than just an announcer, he contributed all sorts of outlandish, incongruous comic bits to “Late Show With David Letterman.”Alan Kalter, the announcer for the “Late Show With David Letterman” for some 20 years and a participant in a ridiculous array of comic bits during that run, died on Monday at a hospital in Stamford, Conn., where he lived. He was 78.The death was announced by Rabbi Joshua Hammerman of Temple Beth El in Stamford, the synagogue Mr. Kalter attended. No cause was given.Mr. Kalter would welcome viewers with an opening quip (“From New York, home of mad cab disease … ”) and a recitation of the guest list. He would introduce the nonsensical “secret word” of the day and tell Mr. Letterman what was to be put to the “Will It Float?” test, a recurring comic bit. He would work himself into a lather over this or that and run off down the street shirtless.But, just as incongruously, he once sang a heartfelt version of “Send In the Clowns” for no particular reason, bolting offstage afterward overcome with emotion as the audience stood and applauded. Another time, he turned what at first seemed like some fatherly advice about attending the prom into a painful confessional about going to the prom with his own mother, “her middle-age body squeezed like a sausage into a sequined gown, her makeup and perfume a cruel mockery of the womanhood your hormones crave.”His transformation from announcer to all-purpose comic started early. On his first day, he said, Mr. Letterman, who had an Olympic diver as a guest, had Mr. Kalter jump into a pool while wearing his best suit.“I’m floating on my back, looking up at the cameraman, going, ‘This is what it’s like to announce on Letterman,’” he recalled in an interview on CBS New York in 2015, when Mr. Letterman ended the show.“If you’re going to have a talk show,” Mr. Letterman said on Tuesday in a telephone interview, “you’ve got to have a strong announcer, and he filled that way beyond what is required.”Mr. Kalter replaced Bill Wendell in September 1995, after Mr. Wendell retired. Mr. Letterman said that Mr. Kalter’s audition tape had left no doubt when he and his producer at the time, Robert Morton, heard it.“It was like, ‘Oh, my God, here we go,’” Mr. Letterman said.Mr. Kalter’s voice was already familiar to television viewers by then; he had announced on game shows like “To Tell the Truth” and “The $25,000 Pyramid” and provided voice-overs for numerous commercials. Mr. Letterman’s “Late Show,” though, brought him an entirely different kind of fame. His red hair and rumpled good looks made him instantly recognizable, and Mr. Letterman gave him ample opportunities to display his aptitude for both deadpan and over-the-top comedy.Mr. Kalter in 2015. “I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” David Letterman said in an interview.John Palmer/MediaPunch /IPX via Associated PressBarbara Gaines, the longtime “Late Show” producer, said Mr. Kalter had fit right into the show’s zaniness.“Alan would good-naturedly do almost anything we asked of him,” she said by email, “which is how we like our people.”Mr. Kalter said that he had always been given the option of declining to do a particularly nutty stunt or asking that it be modified, but Mr. Letterman remembered him as being perpetually game.“I don’t recall the guy ever saying no to anything,” he said, “and I guess that tells us something about his judgment.”And, he added, “it wasn’t begrudgingly — it was, ‘I’m all in.’”But Mr. Letterman also noted that, for him, Mr. Kalter and his music director, Paul Shaffer, were steadying influences.“He and Paul, to me, they were fixtures every night,” he said. “You’d look over and see Alan and see Paul and know that it’s going to be OK just like last night.”Guests, too, found Mr. Kalter to be a calming force.“Appearing with Dave triggered its own unique set of nerves,” Brian Williams, a frequent “Late Show” guest, said on Monday night on his MSNBC news program. “But seeing the smiling face of a nice man like Alan Kalter backstage was always the tonic needed in that moment.”The show may have made Mr. Kalter a celebrity, but he kept a low profile when off the set and at home in Stamford, where he had lived since the 1970s.“I played cards in a poker group for a year and a half,” he told The Stamford Advocate in 2003, “before somebody said, ‘Somebody told me you were in broadcasting.’”As for his “Letterman” job, Mr. Kalter was grateful for the opportunity and the long run.“I loved what they let me be,” he told The Pulteney Street Survey, the magazine of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where he was once a student, “a 10-year-old, paid for doing stuff my mom would never have let me get away with.”Alan Robert Kalter was born on March 21, 1943, in Brooklyn. He started announcing on WGVA radio in Geneva, N.Y., while at Hobart. The radio job had a fringe benefit.“In my off hours,” he said, “I would create the music tapes for all our fraternity parties from the 45’s that came in to the radio station.”After graduating in 1964 he studied law at New York University, then taught high school English for three years, at the same time recording educational tapes and working weekends in radio in the New York suburbs. The pull of radio eventually proved irresistible.“I left teaching for an afternoon radio show at WTFM,” he told the college magazine, “and was hired to be a newsman at WHN Radio in New York, which quickly became a four-year gig interviewing celebs who came into town for movie and Broadway openings, as well as covering nightclub openings three or four nights a week.”When WHN went to a country format in 1973, he turned to making commercials, and then got into game shows.He is survived by his wife, Peggy; a brother, Gary; two daughters, Lauren Hass and Diana Binger; and five grandchildren.Mr. Kalter’s do-almost-anything commitment to “Late Show,” Mr. Letterman said, was a nice counterpoint to Mr. Letterman’s more laid-back style.“I never liked to put on funny hats,” he said. “Alan would dress like a Martian and make it work.”“He filled in so many blanks on that show,” Mr. Letterman added, joking, “he probably deserved more money.” More

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      Stephen Colbert Kicks Facebook While It’s Down

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      “As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” Colbert joked.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.Face(book) DownFacebook, Instagram and WhatsApp were down for several hours on Monday.“So if you wanted to share photos, you had to go door-to-door with Polaroids of your brunch,” Stephen Colbert joked.Colbert mocked audience members who admitted to trying to reload their accounts throughout the day, telling them to “seek help.”“For hours, users were left in suspense about whether their second cousin thinks the vaccine gives your pancreas Wi-Fi.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“People started noticing something was wrong this morning when they felt happy for more than 30 minutes.” — JAMES CORDEN“As the panic grew, Facebook did not say what might be causing the outage. Now, I’m no computer expert, but my theory is a just god?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Now, clearly, this is the day the machines have risen up and are taking over, but don’t panic: They only know our thoughts, feelings, family, friends, location, facial patterns and banking data.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Meanwhile, people who couldn’t use Instagram spent the day posting their weekend pumpkin-patch selfies on LinkedIn.” — JIMMY FALLON“It was so bad that the only way Facebook could let the world know what was going on — and this is true — was by posting a message on Twitter. ” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That must hurt. Facebook communicating problems on Twitter? That’s like Burger King running out of fries and having to announce it on a Big Mac.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Social Outing Edition)“Yes, Facebook’s entire site crashed. They were like, ‘Oh, my god, this is the best press we’ve had in months!’” — JIMMY FALLON“Facebook was only down for a day and in that short time, everyone got the vaccine.” — JIMMY FALLON“Before Facebook, I had no problems with any of my aunts or uncles. It was all — all birthday checks in the mail.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I gotta check out Facebook one of these days. I hear bad things.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“With no social media, I ended up spending most of the day talking to my son. He’s really nice!” — JAMES CORDENThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Daily Show” correspondent Dulcé Sloan argued with New Yorkers over trivial things like pizza, golf and reality television in her new segment “Prove Me Wrong.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightQueen Latifah will pop by Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This Out“If you can’t eat and enjoy food,” Stanley Tucci said, “how are you going to enjoy everything else?”Charlotte Hadden for The New York TimesThe actor Stanley Tucci has a new career as a foodie. More