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The company known for measuring television ratings said Netflix and YouTube are far ahead of their digital rivals, but viewers still spend more time watching cable and network TV.Nielsen on Thursday announced that it had moved a step closer toward cracking one of the great questions of the modern entertainment world: How big, exactly, is streaming? More
This week the television critics of The New York Times shared their picks for the best American comedies of the 21st century. Did your favorites make the list?Television in the 21st century is an endless buffet, with networks and streamers serving up more tasty offerings than any one person could possibly binge. The array can be overwhelming, so every so often, those of us on the TV desk at The New York Times like to push back from the table and take a broader look at the medium and its most exceptional shows.A couple of years ago, we used the 20th anniversary of “The Sopranos” as an opportunity to assess the best dramas of the previous two decades. This week, we’re taking on comedies.Our list of the 21 best comedies of the 21st century was, like most lists, the product of much discussion, disagreement and negotiation. (In a postscript, we each named our most heartbreaking omissions.) But the result feels like a nice snapshot of the era’s defining shows and of the way cable and streaming has created room for TV comedy to become more idiosyncratic and diverse in its perspectives — a departure from the big-tent network sitcoms (many of them also great) that dominated prime-time in the 20th century.We limited our purview to American sitcoms and sketch shows — so no “Fleabag” or British “Office” or “Schitt’s Creek” — that premiered on Jan. 1, 2000, or later. Beloved comedies that aired this millennium but debuted earlier — “Friends,” “Saturday Night Live,” a hundred others — didn’t qualify. (Anyone still wanting to fight about whether the 21st century started in 2000 or 2001 can do that elsewhere.)Now it’s your turn to let us know: What did we overlook? What do we love too much? What’s your favorite American comedy of the 21st century, and why? As James Poniewozik, The Times’s chief TV critic, wrote in the intro, “We have no absolute answers, only the arguments that resulted in this list.” I’m sure you have plenty of your own, too.What is the best American comedy of the 21st century?Our critics have weighed in. Now it’s your turn. More
This paean to the trailblazing Puerto Rican actress is also a case study in the highs and lows of showbiz for a woman of color.Most documentaries about famous people tend to be exercises in celebrity worship, and “Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It” is no exception. Directed by Mariem Pérez Riera, the film is a portrait filled with dazzling archival footage and shorn of ambiguities and unflattering viewpoints. Yet it is not your average paean because Moreno, a trailblazing Puerto Rican actress whose career spans more than seven decades, is not your average star.The film’s primary talking head among a parade of former collaborators and Latino luminaries — including Lin-Manuel Miranda (co-executive producer), Gloria Estefan and Eva Longoria — Moreno is given full rein of her story, which doubles as a case study in the highs and lows of showbiz for a woman of color.Under studio contract in the 1950s and ’60s, Moreno recounts the painful times she spent playing “illiterate, immoral island girls” and fending off Hollywood executives who demanded sexual favors. In one, likely staged, scene in the documentary, we see Moreno watching the 2018 Christine Blasey Ford testimony in her dressing room on the set of the Netflix series “One Day at a Time.” It’s a clunky way of transitioning to her own experiences with abuse, but nevertheless situates Moreno and her lifelong commitment to social activism along a feminist historical trajectory.After winning a best supporting actress Oscar for “West Side Story” in 1962 (she is one of only two Latina recipients of an acting Academy Award; Lupita Nyong’o, who was born in Mexico, became the second in 2014), Moreno’s career did not skyrocket in the way one might expect. Instead, it expanded across mediums and genres.This documentary credits her turn to comedy, television and stage acting for liberating her from her exotic sexpot persona. It’s almost hard to believe that the radiant Moreno we see in the film — who at 89 continues to epitomize that ineffable and rare quality we call star power — was ever restrained. Though this contrast is precisely what makes her story so enthralling and vital.Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for ItRated PG-13 for mature thematic content, suggestive material and some strong language including a sexual reference. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. In theaters. More
“I had a feeling those two weren’t going to make it to the hometown date,” Jimmy Kimmel joked after the leaders cut their meeting short.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Ending Things EarlyPresident Biden’s short, tense meeting in Geneva with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was the talk of late night on Wednesday.“I had a feeling those two weren’t going to make it to the hometown date,” Jimmy Kimmel said in a reference to the dating show, “The Bachelor.”“The ‘Boniva in Geneva’ didn’t have to clear a very high bar. It just had to be less embarrassing than the ‘Stinky in Helsinki.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“That’s right, President Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Geneva today for about four hours with a few breaks, but no meals because nobody would volunteer to be the food taster.” — SETH MEYERS“Biden went into the day hoping to promote ‘predictability and stability,’ also the name of the most boring Jane Austen novel.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“The meeting was expected to be five hours, but lasted only half that time. Not a great sign when your summit is barely longer than ‘Peter Rabbit 2.’” — JIMMY FALLON“It was pretty much the opposite of the ‘Friends’ reunion.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (‘Chicken Soup for the Russian Soul’ Edition)“‘In life there is no happiness.’ That’s basically how Russian soccer moms say ‘Live, laugh, love.’” — TREVOR NOAH, on Putin’s quoting Leo Tolstoy in a news conference.“That’s actually an excerpt from Putin’s new book, ‘Chicken Soup for the Russian Soul.’” — JIMMY FALLON“‘There’s no happiness in life’ sounds like the slogan for Russian Applebee’s.” — JIMMY FALLON“You do not want this guy giving a toast at your wedding. [imitating Putin] ‘Congratulations to Jeffrey and Diane. May the specter of happiness haunt you. Now, please have some cake. It is made of vanilla and children’s tears, for what is life but a difficult birth astride a grave? The light gleams for an instant, then it is night once more. Mazel tov!’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“I’m guessing this is probably why Putin isn’t asked to speak at a lot of graduations.” — JAMES CORDEN“There’s another expression that goes ‘If Vladimir Putin gives you pudding, don’t eat it — because it’s probably filled with plutonium.’” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden took the cast of “Friends” for a ride around the Warner Bros. studios, ending on their iconic set.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightSaweetie will perform on Thursday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”Also, Check This OutHBO“Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Pen15,” and “Atlanta” are among the 21 best comedies of the 21st century (so far). More
Late-night hosts were unimpressed with the Georgia congresswoman’s apology for comparing pandemic restrictions to the Holocaust.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. Looking for more to watch? Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now. More
In an interview, the actor discussed the end of Season 4, the future of the show and the emotional toll of playing “an ugly, pathetic, misogynist monster.”This interview includes spoilers for the season finale of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”Praise be, at last: Fred Waterford, the inscrutably sadistic commander at the center of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” has met his demise. And Joseph Fiennes, the actor who plays him, couldn’t wait to peel off his skin. More
A mainstay of the New York stage, she also acted in films, including “Gone Girl.” She died 10 days after she was struck by a scooter as she was crossing a street in Manhattan.Lisa Banes, a versatile actress who came to prominence on the New York stage in the 1980s and went on to a busy career that also included roles on television and in the films “Cocktail” and “Gone Girl,” died on Monday of head injuries she sustained 10 days earlier when she was struck by a scooter in Manhattan. She was 65.Her death, at Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, was confirmed by the New York Police Department, which said she had been struck by the scooter on June 4 as she was crossing Amsterdam Avenue near West 64th Street in Manhattan.The operator of the scooter had driven through a red light before crashing into Ms. Banes and then fled, said Sgt. Edward Riley, a police spokesman. Sgt. Riley said on Tuesday that no arrests had been made.Ms. Banes lived in Los Angeles and had been in New York visiting friends, her wife, Kathryn Kranhold, said.Known for her wry humor and confident, elegant presence, Ms. Banes appeared in more than 80 television and film roles, as well as in countless stage productions, including on Broadway.Ms. Banes, as the mother of a missing woman, with Ben Affleck in the 2014 movie “Gone Girl.” Alamy Stock PhotoShe found quick success in the theater after coming east from Colorado Springs in the mid-1970s and studying at the Juilliard School in New York.In 1980, when the Roundabout Theater revived John Osborne’s “Look Back in Anger,” with Malcolm McDowell in the lead role as the angry Jimmy Porter, she played his overstressed wife.“Lisa Banes has a remarkably effective final scene,” Walter Kerr wrote in The New York Times, “on her knees in anguish, face stained with failure, arms awkwardly searching for shape and for rest.”The next year, at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn., she was in a production of the James M. Barrie comedy “The Admirable Crichton,” playing a daughter in an upper-crust British family that becomes shipwrecked on a deserted island.“As Lady Mary,” Mel Gussow of The Times wrote in his review, “Lisa Banes has a regal disdain. Gracefully, she plays the grande dame, and with matching agility she becomes a kind of Jane of the jungle, swimming rivers and swinging on vines — a rather far-fetched transformation, brought off with panache by this striking young actress.”Off Broadway roles kept coming. Later in 1981 she and Elizabeth McGovern had the lead roles in Wendy Kesselman’s “My Sister in This House” at Second Stage Theater. In 1982, at Manhattan Theater Club, she was the sister Olga in Chekhov’s “Three Sisters,” part of a starry cast that included Dianne Wiest, Mia Dillon, Jeff Daniels, Christine Ebersole and Sam Waterston.In 1984, when Ms. Banes was in the midst of a run in Wendy Wasserstein’s comedy “Isn’t It Romantic” at Playwrights Horizons, The Times named her one of 15 stage actresses to watch. She was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for her performance in that play. More
HILLSBOROUGH, Calif. — Live from his home kitchen in the Bay Area, Martin Yan flashed a smile, raised his cleaver and chanted the catchphrase that the 150 or so people watching him online were clamoring to hear: “If Yan can cook, so can you!” More
