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      ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Recap: Lost in America

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      The often thrilling first episode of this Disney+ series is likely to satisfy Marvel fans who’ve invested years in keeping track of these characters and their many, many problems.‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’ Season 1, Episode 1Although the title of the latest Marvel Comics television series is “The Falcon and the Winter Solder,” the show is defined by another superhero entirely: the absent Captain America. Both the high-flying military operative Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) and the brainwashed, ageless assassin Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) spent time as sidekicks to the original Captain, Steve Rogers, who at the end of the 2019 Marvel movie “Avengers: Endgame” retired from the hero business, leaving his old friends without a partner — or a mission. The question haunting Sam and Bucky now is, “What’s next?”That’s also a good question for the bosses at the streaming service Disney+, who are coming off the recent success of “WandaVision,” their first big post-“Endgame” Marvel TV project. The highly assured, often thrilling first episode of “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is different from “WandaVision” — in that it’s an international action-adventure and not a surreal riff on classic sitcoms. But Episode 1 is likely to satisfy Marvel fans who’ve invested years in keeping track of these characters and their many, many problems.Directed by Kari Skogland and written by the show’s creator Malcolm Spellman, this first episode opens with a rousing aerial chase sequence, reminiscent of some of the better set pieces in Disney+’s “The Mandalorian.” The Falcon and his U.S. Army handler Lt. Torres (Danny Ramirez) pursue enemy agents through the hills, deserts and canyons of North Africa, trying to nab their target before they fly into Libyan airspace and touch off an international incident.Skogland and Spellman provide minimal setup to what’s going on, beyond loosely identifying the bad guys: a band of criminals known as “the L.A.F.,” who’ve kidnapped an Army officer. Most of this show’s first 10 minutes is pure visceral excitement, as we watching Sam in his high-tech flying outfit, dodging bullets and blades, attacking dudes in jumbo jets and helicopters and diving after them when they bail out in glider suits. It is super-heroics at their niftiest, culminating in a daring midair rescue.Sam then gets another moment of triumph before he returns to his post-Captain America existential crisis. While sitting in a Tunisian cafe, Sam talks (in perfect Arabic) to a stranger who thanks him for helping to restore reality, after “the blip” that sent half of the sentient creatures in the universe into limbo for five long years. Like “WandaVision,” “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” isn’t just set in a world still recovering from the trauma depicted in “Avengers: Infinity War” and “Endgame.” It’s also directly about how both the superpowered and the ordinary have been coping with all the loss and the confusion.A big case in point for Sam: After his covert mission in Africa ends, he returns to his family home in Louisiana, where his sister Sarah (Adepero Oduye) has been struggling to turn their parents’ beat-up old fishing boat into a viable business. Sam hopes that his fame and prestige as an Avenger will help swing them a bank loan. But like billions of other people who disappeared in the blip, he hasn’t earned any income for five years, which — perhaps coupled with some old-fashioned institutional racism — means the Wilson siblings don’t get help.Bucky has even bigger troubles. He spent a half-century as a mind-controlled killer, before finally regaining consciousness not long before being blipped away. Since returning, he’s been trying to make amends for the harm he caused, hoping to push back some of the nightmarish memories that torment him at night. But he’s finding that even being kind can be complicated.Bucky doesn’t see as much action this week as Sam does. He’s at the center of one big fight sequence, in a flashback to an old mission from his international assassin days. Instead, most of his story line involves him going on his first date in about 80 years, at the urging of an elderly Asian-American neighbor. The twist? Bucky murdered that neighbor’s son, after the kid witnessed the hit depicted in the flashback.Sebastian Stan in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.”Marvel StudiosMuch of this episode is about the sense of disconnection and alienation these two title heroes feel — not just because they were absent from Earth for a half-decade, but because they have weird jobs. Bucky, who fought in World War II before he was captured by the enemy and turned into a monster, ruefully notes at one point that he probably hasn’t danced with a girl “since 1943.” Sam is a wizard with the advanced Stark technology he works with every day, but he fumbles when it comes to getting his family’s boat motor cranking. When Bucky’s therapist tries to ease his troubled mind by reminding him, “You’re free,” he mutters, “To do what?”By the end of this initial 45-minute chapter, the series’s plot begins to kick in, on two fronts. Early in the episode, Torres tells Sam he’s on the trail of an underground revolutionary group called “the Flag Smashers,” who think life was better during the blip years. Torres locates their leader in Switzerland — sporting a creepy mask with a red handprint across the face — and gets beaten brutally for his troubles. Meanwhile, Sam — who was offered the job of Captain America at the end of “Endgame” by Steve Rogers himself — is rudely surprised when the shield he donated to the Smithsonian is retrieved by the U.S. government and handed to a new guy.We’ll surely learn more about this new Cap (played by Wyatt Russell) next week, seeing whether he lives up to the idealistic comment Sam makes when he donates the shield: “Symbols are nothing without the men and women who give them meaning.” Clearly, in between the white-knuckle action sequences, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” is going to leave space for some thoughtful rumination on what the American dream means in a world where, as Sam also says, “Every time things get better for one group, they get worse for another.”For now though, he appears to be a living embodiment of that trade-off. When he opted out of becoming Captain America himself, Sam may have thought he could control the legacy of his old friend, by letting his iconography pass into history. Instead he’s finding that whatever he doesn’t take, someone else will — and maybe at his own expense.The All-Winners SquadThe Smithsonian’s Captain America exhibit includes what looks to be the Jack Kirby-drawn cover from 1941’s “Captain America Comics” #1.Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe surely perked up when Don Cheadle appeared as James “Rhodey” Rhodes, counseling Sam at the Smithsonian. But this episode also featured a more deep-cut M.C.U. character in the kickboxing mercenary Georges “the Leaper” Batroc (Georges St-Pierre), who appeared as the main villain in the opening action sequence of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” and serves a similar function here, as the man behind the kidnapping the Falcon foils.Speaking of parallels to “The Winter Soldier,” in that movie Captain America nonchalantly jumps out of the back of a plane, and the Falcon does the same thing at the start of this episode … but with a little more flair. More

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      Stephen Colbert Is Skeptical of Putin’s Best Wishes for Biden

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      “That is ominous,” Colbert said of Vladimir Putin’s wishing the president “good health” on Thursday. “But then again, when Putin says anything, it kind of sounds ominous.”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. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.From Putin, With LovePresident Vladimir V. Putin of Russia responded to President Biden’s comments this week about his being a killer by saying on Thursday that “it takes one to know one” and that he wished Biden “good health,” clarifying that it was without irony or insinuation.Stephen Colbert took glee in the trading of barbs, saying, “Someone dust off Dolph Lundgren and get him hunting for Red October because the Cold War is back on, baby, and this time we’re gonna waterboard Billy Joel until he tells us who started the fire.”“Putin is famous for being a killer. It’s kind of his thing, along with horses and nipples.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“So not going with a denial. Interesting.” — JAMES CORDEN“He’s killed so many people that in 2017, The Washington Post was able to publish a list of 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways. His greatest hits are hits.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“As if the pandemic wasn’t enough, let’s throw in tension with a nuclear enemy into the mix.” — JIMMY FALLON“That is ominous. But then again, when Putin says anything, it kind of sounds ominous.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Putin has poisoned infector sushi, he’s thrown journalists out of windows, he’s tried to assassinate his most vocal domestic critic, Aleksei Navalny, by putting the lethal nerve agent Novichok in his underpants. It was an episode of Putin’s prank show, ‘Murdered.’”— STEPHEN COLBERT“But it is funny that Putin had to clarify that he is not joking when he wishes Biden good health. Because, let’s face it: The man has killed so many people, everybody assumes that is what he means.” — TREVOR NOAH“In other words, if you know what’s good for you, don’t drink the chamomile tea.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (March Madness Edition)“The N.C.A.A. March Madness basketball tournament began today, and it’s extra exciting because there was no tournament last year. So this is my first chance in two years to get furious at 19-year-olds I hadn’t heard of five minutes ago.” — SETH MEYERS“This is the year that answers the question, ‘How do you have an office pool when there’s no one at the office?’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That’s right, everyone is doing their office pools. Of course, this year that means it’s you against your wife, your 2-year-old and your dog. ‘Rusty, you picked Gonzaga, too?’” — JIMMY FALLON“President Obama went out on a limb. He took No. 1 seed Gonzaga to go all the way, which is interesting when you consider that Gonzaga, as I have pointed out in the past, is not even a school. it doesn’t exist — it’s imaginary. They made it up to win basketball tournaments. It’s a pretend place. It’s like Wakanda for white people.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingMichelle Obama and Jimmy Fallon crashed random Zoom meetings on Thursday’s “Tonight Show.”Also, Check This OutCynthia Erivo, a Grammy and Tony winner, portrays Aretha Franklin in Season 3 of “Genius,” including all the singing.Richard Ducree/National Geographic, via Associated PressCynthia Erivo shines as the soul singer Aretha Franklin in Season 3 of National Geographic’s bio-anthology “Genius: Aretha.” More

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      Review: ‘Genius: Aretha’ Speaks Loudest When It Sings

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      Cynthia Erivo is dynamic in a bio-series that is strongest when it makes the case for the Queen of Soul as a creative force.At a recording session in 1967, Aretha Franklin (Cynthia Erivo) sits at the piano and plays a chord none of her studio musicians recognize. It’s “funky,” one of them says. But it’s also “celestial.” Earth and heaven. Body and soul.To create something new out of nothing more than vibrations in the air is as good a definition of genius as any. And it expands on the definition implied in the first two seasons of National Geographic’s bio-anthology, which focused on Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso. These “Think Different” poster stars were not exactly out-of-the-box choices, and “Genius,” its title notwithstanding, plodded in that mushy middle ground where dutiful biography meets mediocre storytelling.Choosing Franklin, who died in 2018, for Season 3 is a statement, not just because it breaks the series’s Great Man pattern to focus on a Black, female popular entertainer. It’s also an extension of Franklin’s own career-long project: to be recognized not simply as a volcanic performer but as a thoughtful interpreter, artist and creator.So “Genius: Aretha,” which airs eight episodes over four nights starting Sunday, has an argument, and an opportunity to shake up the format. It does — sometimes.The new “Genius” spends most of its time in routine music-biopic mode: exposition, childhood traumas, historical checkpoints. But in the moments when it finds its groove, thanks to Erivo’s incandescent performance and its insight into Franklin’s process, it socks it to us.The showrunner, Suzan-Lori Parks (a Pulitzer Prize winner for her play “Topdog/Underdog”) hopscotches decades in her narrative. One thread follows Franklin through the meat of her career (from her 1960s breakthrough to the 1970s, in the seven episodes screened for critics). The other has Little Re (a luminous Shaian Jordan) finding her voice, literally and figuratively, as the daughter of C.L. Franklin (Courtney B. Vance), a high-profile pastor in Detroit.The elder Franklin was a civil-rights advocate and gospel-caravan preacher, who, as people say of him, loved Saturday night as much as Sunday morning. The breakup of his marriage over his infidelities weighs on Little Re and the older Queen of Soul. But as a performer in his own right — Vance finds the rolling-thunder musicality in his sermons — he recognizes and promotes his daughter’s talent early. (He also keeps a hand in her career long into her adulthood.)The indispensability of the Black church to American culture — it gave our song music and lyrics — is a through line of “Aretha.” (It would make a good companion to PBS’s recent “The Black Church.”) Another through line: Franklin’s determination to maintain her independence and vision among the men in her life, first C.L., then her first husband and manager, Ted White (Malcolm Barrett), given to jealous fits and violent tantrums.Unfortunately for those hoping to hear the hits, “Aretha” did not have the rights to “Respect” and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” But this shifts the season’s focus toward more unexpected, artistically revealing choices, like her finding the gospel sway in Elton John’s “Border Song.”It’s no surprise that Erivo, a Grammy and Tony winner for “The Color Purple,” can re-create Franklin’s gale-force vocals. But her performance is more than imitation. It’s an idea of the character, her passion and dignity, her release and control, the way that music transports her.Projecting confidence and protecting her image is key to Franklin, in an industry that would gladly tell her who she is. After a frustrating effort to break out as a jazz singer, she forms a long, sometimes contentious partnership with the producer Jerry Wexler, a curiously cast David Cross. (Fairly or not, it’s hard not to see and hear Cross’s “Arrested Development” persona in his bearing and speech; while the show brings the funk, he brings the Fünke.)Courtney B. Vance playing Aretha’s father, C.L. Franklin, in one of many flashback scenes starring Shaian Jordan as the singer’s younger self, nicknamed Little Re.Richard DuCree/National GeographicThe most interesting parts of “Aretha” are in the stage and the studio, not just for the excellently produced songs but also for the series’s rendering of her art. Franklin, as “Aretha” presents her, knows who she is.She is a musician, not formally trained, but with an acute producer’s ear. (During one session she has someone return an empty pizza box to the top of her piano for the ineffable tone it gives the instrument.)She is Black, and Blackness becomes increasingly central to her music and her politics — which are also rooted in her early church experience. (Her conversations with the family friend Martin Luther King Jr., played by Ethan Henry, recall the discussions in “One Night in Miami” about the obligations of the Black artist.)All these aspects converge in the sixth episode, about the recording of her 1972 live album, “Amazing Grace,” at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, filmed by Sydney Pollack for a movie that would stay in the can for nearly a half century. Just as the performance synthesized Franklin’s history and identity, her personal vision and community consciousness, so the episode brings together the threads of “Aretha.” It might have made a strong movie, or the centerpiece of a more tightly focused series.But “Aretha” feels bound, like the earlier “Genius” seasons, to give us the usual encyclopedia entry of life moments. The high points are connected by overfamiliar biopic beats and historical moments conveyed through TV news broadcasts. The scripts and the direction hold the viewer’s hand, using melodramatic scoring and imagery and blunt dialogue. (“You’ll get there,” Wexler says, “when you realize you’re Aretha Franklin and nobody else.”)While the series has an animating sense of Franklin as an artist, she is a moving target as a person. Her determination could make her difficult, with colleagues and family, and “Aretha” faces this — when, for instance, she undercuts her sister Carolyn (Rebecca Naomi Jones), also an aspiring singer. But the series sometimes seems caught in the void created by Franklin’s careful image management; the central figure turns reserved and enigmatic at key moments.This adds up to a revealing portrait of Franklin’s art inside a fuzzier bio-series of her life, which is a trade-off, but better than the reverse. After all, the name of the franchise is “Genius,” and Parks’s story sings convincingly of why Franklin deserves the same title as Einstein and Picasso. “Aretha” is a vibrant effort to give her artistry some R-E-S-P-E-C-T, even if we don’t entirely find out what it means to her. More

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      Late Night Gets Serious About the Georgia Shootings

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      “Your murder speaks louder than your words,” Trevor Noah said of the man accused of killing eight people, most of them women of Asian descent.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. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.‘We Saw It Coming’The hosts got serious on Wednesday, addressing the shootings in the Atlanta area that killed eight people, most of them women of Asian descent. Trevor Noah said angrily that America saw this coming.“And what’s been sad about the story is not just the loss of life, but all of the auxiliary things that have been happening around the story, you know?” Noah said. “Like one of the first things that’s been the most frustrating for me is seeing the shooter say, ‘Oh, it wasn’t racism; it was sex addiction.’ First of all, [expletive] you, man. You killed six Asian people. Specifically, you went there. If there is anyone who’s racist, it is a [expletive] who killed six Asian women. Your murder speaks louder than your words.”“And you know, in a way, what makes it even more painful is that we saw it coming. We see these things happening. People have been warning. People in the Asian community have been tweeting, saying: ‘Please, help us. We’re getting punched in the street. We’re getting slurs written on our doors. We’re getting people coming up to us to say, “Thanks for Covid; thanks for spoiling the world! Thanks!”’ We are seeing this happening, and while we’re fighting for it, there are many people who have been like, ‘Oh, stop being so woke, so dramatic. Kung flu, come on, ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha! It’s just a joke.’ Yeah, it’s a joke that comes at one of the most tense times in human history.” — TREVOR NOAH“Why are people so invested in solving the symptoms instead of the cause? America does this time and time again. A country that wants to fight the symptoms and not the underlying conditions that cause those symptoms to take effect — racism, misogyny, gun violence, mental illness. And, honestly, this incident might have been all of those things combined, because it doesn’t have to be one thing on its own; America is a rich tapestry of mass-shooting motivations.” — TREVOR NOAHStephen Colbert tied the shootings to the larger issues about immigration that the United States continues to face.“The only answer that comes to mind is a simple but strangely difficult one these days, and that’s not to hate each other, to recognize our common humanity; to acknowledge that we’re a nation of immigrants. We might believe different things, we might not look the same, but we’re all Americans. We share a common belief that all men are created equal, and it is that belief itself that makes people want to come here.” — STEPHEN COLBERTAnd on “The Late Late Show,” James Corden said the killings were a consequence of hateful speech.“When you think about the casual racism that’s been pervasive over the past 12 months, then we can start to see the link between language and action. There are real consequences to repeatedly hearing hateful speech. People get hurt and people die. This mass murder is the product of a system that repeatedly leaves women of color and sex workers in a place where they are invisible. They are vulnerable and targeted. Identifying these actions as a hate crime isn’t just about semantics. And because this is a hate crime, it falls on all of us to address the hate.” — JAMES CORDENThe Punchiest Punchlines (Rotten Potatoes Edition)“Well, guys, I want to start off by wishing everyone a very happy St. Patrick’s Day. Yep, instead of Pfizer and Moderna, people just stayed home and did shots of Jameson.” — JIMMY FALLON“Today is March 17, which means it’s St. Patrick’s Day. It is the day Irish people say, ‘Kiss me, I’m Irish,’ and people say, ‘No, you’re not, Governor Cuomo, stop that.’” — TREVOR NOAH“It’s a big day for me, since I’m Irish. I’m a Colbert, I’m a Tuck, I’m a Fee, I’m a Conley, I’m a Tormie, I’m an O’Neill. In fact, I scored 100 percent on Rotten Potatoes.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Because of the pandemic, St. Patrick’s Day is very different this year. For instance, here in New York, they couldn’t hold the normal parade. They just had a small one to keep the tradition technically alive. And to ensure no crowds would show up, organizers invited Bill de Blasio.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Yep, all day we got to play a fun game: Drunk Co-worker or Bad Zoom Connection.” — JIMMY FALLON“St. Patrick’s Day during Covid is pretty strange. You’ve got to stay six feet apart, or as Irish dads call it, hugging.” — JIMMY FALLON“My question is, is it really St. Patrick’s Day if I can’t watch a guy on Fifth Avenue puke into a green hat at 8 a.m., you know? I mean, are we really celebrating when I can’t see a subway grate blow a kilt over a man’s head?” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingSamantha Bee opened “Full Frontal” with a look into the recent rise in violence against women.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightJustin Bieber will talk to James Corden on Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutWilliam Singer, a central figure in the college admissions scandal that is the subject of “Operation Varsity Blues.”Netflix The new Netflix documentary “Operation Varsity Blues” delves into the headline-making 2019 college admissions bribery scandal. More

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      Stephen Colbert Mocks Republicans’ Suspicious Minds on Vaccines

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      “Despite vaccines becoming more available, there’s still one thing holding Americans back: Americans,” Colbert lamented on Tuesday.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. We’re all stuck at home at the moment, so here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Calling TrumpStephen Colbert gave an update on the Covid-19 vaccination campaign on Tuesday night, lamenting that progress has been slow with a certain group of people.“Despite vaccines becoming more available, there’s still one thing holding Americans back: Americans,” Colbert deadpanned before launching into reports that Republicans were refusing vaccines in high percentages.“Because in a CBS poll, a third of Republicans said they would not be vaccinated. Come on, Republicans! Not everything is political. How do we convince you that you want it? Would it feel safer if the vaccine was administered by an AR-15?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Many of the Republicans polled cited ‘distrust of government’ as a reason to not be vaccinated. They worry the vaccines were produced too quickly. Duh! It was produced quickly because all of science dropped everything because your president wanted them to, and they did everything right with clinical trials! You wouldn’t stand in front of your burning house and tell the Fire Department, ‘Hold on, there, hold on — you fellas got here suspiciously fast.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“One potential side effect of the coronavirus vaccine is that people are exposed to the idea that government can get things done.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThere have been suggestions that Donald Trump, who did not appear with the four other living former presidents in a recent ad promoting the vaccines, should do more to encourage his supporters to get inoculated.“I don’t know why Trump isn’t promoting the vaccine. I mean, maybe he doesn’t want to help Joe Biden end the pandemic. You know, maybe he’s still trying to unload all that hydroxychloroquine that he bought last summer. The question is, why are Republicans so hesitant to get the vaccine in the first place? Well, it might be because their most trusted friends are telling them it can’t be trusted.” — TREVOR NOAH“And I can’t say that I’m surprised that Trump isn’t making an effort to get people vaccinated. I mean, the man barely did his job when he had his job; you think he’s going to start working now? For free?” — TREVOR NOAHThe Punchiest Punchlines (Sister Act Edition)“But President Biden has been trying to reach out to North Korea for weeks. Kim Jong-un isn’t having it. I don’t know if he’s tried sending a love letter — I hear Kim is really into those.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“At first I thought the reason for the lack of response might be that Kim Jong-un uses a fax machine, but then I remembered Biden does, too, so.” — JIMMY FALLON“After a long period of silence, Kim Jong-un’s sister, Khloé Jong-un — or, I mean, is it Kourtney? Kourtney Jong-un lashed out.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“She warned the Biden administration that if it wants peace it had better, quote, ‘refrain from causing a stink at its first step. We take this opportunity to warn the new U.S. administration trying hard to give off powder smell in our land.’ I’m sure it sounds more threatening in Korean.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You don’t need to ask the ‘No malarkey’ guy to not cause a stink. He’s got it covered.” — JAMES CORDEN“That’s not how you talk to another country, is it? That’s how you talk to a spouse right before you go to a dinner party. You’re like: ‘Please avoid talking to Hank about politics. I don’t want you causing a stink.’” — JAMES CORDEN“Also I like that Kim Jong-un had his sister deliver the message. It’s like North Korea’s version of ‘I heard a noise in America; go check it out.’” — JIMMY FALLON“By the way, it’s rare that a dictator’s sibling speaks out. I don’t remember reading about any stern warnings from Lois Hitler.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s funny because North Korea thinks these statements they make are sick burns but they always sound like riddles instead. It’s like: ‘If you wish to cross the bridge, be wise not to anger us like the cat who swallowed mushrooms unwashed.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yeah, nice try, North Korea, but we’re America — we haven’t slept well for the past five years.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Bits Worth WatchingThe “Late Night” writers Jenny Hagel and Amber Ruffin poke fun at the Utah Black History Museum and myths that vaccines can turn people gay in Tuesday’s return of “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightThe actress Laverne Cox will pop by Wednesday’s “A Little Late With Lilly Singh.”Also, Check This Out“I’m finally being honest with myself,” the singer Demi Lovato said.Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThe singer Demi Lovato opened up to The New York Times about her queerness, her near fatal overdose and her journey to living her truth. “I’m ready to feel like myself,” she said. More

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      Nicola Pagett, ‘Upstairs, Downstairs’ Actress, Dies at 75

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      She preferred the stage, but she won praise for her work on television as the rebellious and thoroughly spoiled Elizabeth Bellamy, and later as Anna Karenina.Nicola Pagett, the actress who played the rebellious and thoroughly spoiled Elizabeth Bellamy on the beloved British television series “Upstairs, Downstairs” and the title role in an acclaimed BBC version of “Anna Karenina,” died on March 3 at a hospice center in suburban London. She was 75.The cause was a brain tumor, her daughter, Eve Swannell, said.Ms. Pagett was 26 when she was cast in the original “Upstairs, Downstairs” (1971-76), the prestigious, multi-award-winning British drama set in a spacious Belgravia townhouse during the first three decades of the 20th century. The Bellamys, Richard and Lady Marjorie, live there with their two grown children and about a half dozen servants, as the world of London aristocracy changes around them.In the first season, Elizabeth comes home from school in Germany, a changed girl-woman of 17. She reads Goethe, talks politics incessantly, refuses an arranged marriage with a rich Scotsman, walks out on her debutante ball, rejects her parents’ conservatism and entertains ill-mannered socialist poets in the morning room.Then she marries a charming poet (played by Ian Ogilvy) who shares her progressive social attitudes but not her physical desires. In Season 2, inconveniently pregnant by his publisher (from an assignation the husband had arranged), she goes home to her parents. She gives birth to a daughter, goes to jail with fellow suffragists, has an affair with an Armenian financier and tries running a hat shop before sailing away to New York, leaving others in the household to deal with England’s experience of World War I, the Spanish flu and the stock market crash.“Nothing more could have happened to me anyway,” she told The Washington Post years later about her decision to leave the show. “I could see the writers saying, ‘What the hell do we do with her now?’”Ms. Pagett remained busy onscreen, most notably in “Anna Karenina” (1977), a lush 10-part, eight-hour BBC production of Leo Tolstoy’s novel. Her performance as the doomed, adulterous title character earned glowing reviews.Ms. Pagett in the 10-part BBC adaptation of Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” (1977). She received glowing reviews for her performance as the doomed, adulterous title character.AlamyAnd she had a thriving London theater career for decades. She toured with “The Contessa” (1965), starring Vivien Leigh. She appeared with Alec Guinness in “A Voyage Round My Father” (1971). In 1974, she tackled the work of three great playwrights (Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen) at once during a special Greenwich Theater season. She was Ophelia in “Hamlet,” Masha in “The Seagull” and Regina in “Ghosts.”A favorite of the playwright Harold Pinter, she played Helen when he directed Jean Giraudoux’s “The Trojan War Will Not Take Place” (1983). In a 1985 revival of Pinter’s “Old Times,” she was the center of an emotional triangle in which her husband and her long-ago roommate compete to prove their love. She was part of the original London cast of his “Party Time” (1991), about a cocktail-hour gathering of fashionable narcissists, chatting about island vacations and past love affairs while a violent conflict rages outside.In 1995, while playing a psychiatrist’s purposeful wife in Joe Orton’s black comedy “What the Butler Saw,” she had a breakdown. Doctors said she had manic depression, more often referred to now as bipolar disorder.During this period, Ms. Pagett wrote love letters to Alastair Campbell, the press secretary of Prime Minister Tony Blair, with whom she had become obsessed after watching him on television. With the help of the drug lithium and more than one stay in a psychiatric hospital, she largely recovered, but she soon retired from acting.She had gone “completely noisettes,” she wrote in “Diamonds Behind My Eyes” (1997), a memoir about her psychiatric crisis, but asked not to be described as mentally ill. “It gets right up my nose.”Nicola Mary Paget Scott was born on June 15, 1945, in Cairo, to British parents who had met in Egypt. Harold Scott was a Shell Oil executive, and Barbara (Black) Scott was stationed there with the Women’s Royal Naval Service.Nicola spent her childhood abroad. When she was 8 or so, she played Snow White at her convent school in Yokohama, Japan, and decided to make acting her career.At 17, she entered the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for a two-year program, then appeared in repertory productions and changed her name (including adding a “T” to Paget). She made her London stage debut in “The Boston Summer” in 1968.By then Ms. Pagett had already begun her screen career, mostly by making guest appearances on British television series. In the film “Anne of the Thousand Days” (1969), she was Princess Mary, the teenage daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. In “There’s a Girl in My Soup” (1970), she was a radiant young bride ravished by a lecherous TV host (Peter Sellers) during her wedding reception.She later appeared in “Frankenstein: The True Story” (1973), a television movie whose co-writer was Christopher Isherwood. She played a socialite in “Scoop” (1987), based on Evelyn Waugh’s novel; a mother-of-the-bride who fancies the father-of-the-groom in the series “A Bit of a Do” (1989); and a second-rate Liverpool stage actress in the film “An Awfully Big Adventure” (1989).Ms. Pagett in her final screen role, in the British mini-series “Up Rising” (2000).ITV/ShutterstockHer final screen role was in “Up Rising” (2000), a mini-series about a retired couple in a village of oddballs.Ms. Pagett married the actor turned writer Graham Swannell in 1975. He was the co-author of her memoir, but they divorced after its publication.In addition to her daughter, a film and television production manager, Ms. Pagett is survived by a sister, Angela. Like many actors, Ms. Pagett preferred theater to film, especially after the movie “Oliver’s Story” (1978), the largely forgotten “Love Story” sequel, in which she played Ryan O’Neal’s shy furniture-designer blind date. Many of her scenes were cut.Yes, a live theater audience’s immediate reaction was great. But also, as The Telegraph quoted her as saying: “Onstage for two hours, I’m my own mistress. I can’t be cut or stopped or changed — or lost.”Besides, Ms. Pagett had learned what really mattered. As she told The Independent in 1992, her original ambition was “to open in the West End and have men with cloaks take me out to dinner.” But she soon discovered a bigger thrill.“I like looking into the eyes of someone whose work I respect,” she said, “and seeing them look back as if to say, ‘I think you can do it, too.’” More

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      Alex Newell Finds Inspiration in Whitney Houston, Billy Porter and ‘Dreamgirls’

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      The “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” star talked about the performers he recognizes himself in, coming full circle with Mariah Carey and his signature banana pudding.It’s the line repeated every awards season — that it’s an honor just to be nominated.But Alex Newell sounded pretty convincing last month as he discussed his Critics Choice nomination for “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist,” which returns to NBC on March 28.“I was like a toddler seeing Christmas for the very first time,” he said of his best supporting actor recognition for Mo, the self-embracing, gender nonconforming building manager whose serious pipes reverberate through Zoey’s apartment wall. And sometimes in her head.“When you’re in front of the camera, you don’t get instant gratification like you do on a stage, where you can control how the audience feels,” Newell, 28, said. “You just have to hope that what you’re doing is brilliant and resonates and makes somebody feel something.”Alas, Newell didn’t win. But he has been making people feel a sweeping range of emotions since his performance on the reality competition show “The Glee Project” led to a guest spot that morphed into a recurring role (and for a season, a main cast credit) on “Glee” as Wade/Unique Adams, a transgender teen.But by his early 20s, Newell had determined that life in Hollywood “was going to be just about my appearance,” he said. So he moved to New York in search of greater acceptance and not long after raised the roof in his Broadway debut as Asaka in the revival of “Once on This Island.” Jesse Green, the chief theater critic of The New York Times, proclaimed him “ferocious.”Newell has since found a support system among his idols — some of whom, like Billy Porter and Tituss Burgess, grace his list of cultural essentials, which he elaborated on in a call from Vancouver, where “Zoey’s” is shot. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1. Whitney Houston She was my all-time icon. She is the voice of a generation and those to come after her. She is a hot topic right now in my friend group with how we idealized the Fairy Godmother [in “Cinderella”] for so long. Her take on that role with such beauty and grace and vocal prowess was just wonderful. Even having that behind-the-scenes moment of her nurturing a talent like Brandy, when she was so young, was just everything that I strive to be for the generation coming after me as well.2. “The Preacher’s Wife” That movie was such a staple in my household — with my mom and my dad and I watching for as long as I can remember — every holiday season. Seeing the Black church in such a palpable way, and the hardships of keeping a small church open in tough times. Also, my love of gospel and the Georgia Mass Choir that Whitney was singing with was amazing. I remember listening to them every Sunday with my dad as he was driving the church van. I lost him when I was six, and that heart of the memory is still topical with who I am.3. “Dreamgirls” I am talking about the good old Broadway version with Jennifer Holliday, Loretta Devine, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Cleavant Derricks. I first discovered that musical right around the time that they were announcing the movie, and it really shaped who I am today. We all know the Supremes story that the musical is loosely based on. But when I read the synopsis and listened to the music, Effie White rang true to who I am. You see this beautiful Black woman who was passed over because she was not as thin or as commercial as her friend who she grew up with. And I’ve gotten passed over for a lot of things because I’m not as thin or not as commercial. I’ve had people tell me that I was too big to play a role. I’ve been cut out of scenes in musicals because I didn’t fit the costume plot. And it does take a toll on you. You do get very angry and jaded and spiteful because you see all of your own self-worth, but nobody else is seeing it. And then you feel that everybody’s turning on you. It’s one of those things that I watched in Effie — how you have to jump over the mental hurdle of that and find solace in yourself and the beauty in life.4. Family Cookouts I loved family cookouts because it was when I got to see everybody for a good amount of time. To see family and to have so much food and laughter and love and joy around, even if it were just for one day — even the drama of it all — was always something fun to do to reset the year.5. “The Watsons Go to Birmingham — 1963” by Christopher Paul Curtis I remember reading the book as a kid and just being so intrigued by it. My mother is from Birmingham, and she was a child around the time that the book took place. In reality, she was at a church down the street from the church that was bombed on that Sunday. And to think that that could have been her church, or that I personally couldn’t have been here had anything happened to her, is something that as an adult rings so much truer.6. “Charmbracelet” by Mariah Carey The first album that I bought with my own money. Don’t ask me why it was that one, but I played that CD until I lost it. I think my mother took the CD and broke it. I still hold in the back of my mind that I sang Mariah Carey to Mariah Carey. I sang “Hero.” I don’t tell people because I hated the performance. But my mother has a picture of me and Mariah Carey after with her with this big smile and me being me. It was the whole full-circle moment.7. Banana Pudding It’s this random connection that me and my mom have. Any time there’s a function where food will be made, banana pudding is what people ask both of us to make. I remember my mother making banana pudding from actual scratch in the kitchen, and I’d be like, “I don’t have the time to sit here and stir the pot for 20, 30 minutes while it’s on the stove.” If I told anybody I wouldn’t be famous anymore, but mine is the same exact recipe.8. Billy Porter and 9. Tituss Burgess I remember when I heard Billy Porter’s voice eons ago when Billy was in “Grease” as Teen Angel, singing “Beauty School Dropout.” And I was first introduced to Tituss Burgess when he was doing “The Little Mermaid” on Broadway as Sebastian. The first time that you see someone that sounds like you and reminds you so much of who you are, you obsess and fawn over them and you learn how they sing and how they perform and how they act. And when you meet them and they’re all that you could have wanted and still human at the end of the day — and they lift you up and praise you — I say, “Thank you.” It’s just this mutual respect. I appreciate and adore both of them so much. They keep me wanting to strive for more daily.10. Nell Carter My mother cultured me a lot by putting me in front of the television and letting me watch all of these old shows that she grew up with, countless hours of PBS performances. And I remember the replay of “Ain’t Misbehavin’,” which I had seen at my local theater a couple of years prior. Seeing this plus-size woman being phenomenally talented at singing and how light on her feet she was and her acting beats and the chops that she had. And how she could hold an entire audience in the palm of her hand with such confidence and control. And how she was just so self-aware of her body and who she was. The love that you could see that she had for herself was amazing. More

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      The ‘Sentimental Excess’ of Sarah Stiles

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhat I LoveThe ‘Sentimental Excess’ of Sarah StilesThe actor, who stars in the Netflix series ‘The Crew’ and is a regular on ‘Billions,’ is like a slightly goofy sitcom neighbor with an otherworldly home.Sarah Stiles’s Otherworldly Style14 PhotosView Slide Show ›Katherine Marks for The New York TimesMarch 16, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETSarah Stiles’s first address in New York was the Stratford Arms, an Upper West Side building that serves as campus housing for students at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. Fittingly, the experience had its share of theatrics.The year was 1999. Ms. Stiles’s parents, though long divorced, jointly shepherded her from “the hippie woods of New Hampshire” to the urban jungle of West 70th Street. “And when we got there, there was a giant inflatable rat in front of the building, and people were picketing,” said Ms. Stiles, 41, a star of the new Netflix comedy series “The Crew” and a recurring cast member — Axe Capital trader Bonnie Barella — on Showtime’s “Billions.”The room at the Stratford Arms was too small to accommodate a standard twin bed, and at the time, some of the building’s nonstudent residents were being treated for mental illness, she recalled.“There was a guy who would scream ‘Maria’ at me every night in an angry voice,” said Ms. Stiles, a two-time Tony nominee — for her performance in the play “Hand to God” and her showstopping turn in the musical “Tootsie.” “Things could only go up from there.”The Upper West Side apartment shared by Sarah Stiles, a two-time Tony nominee and a star of the new Netflix series “The Crew,” and her husband, Jeff Dodson, has an otherworldly feeling. She prefers the term “sentimental excess” to describe her style.Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York TimesSarah Stiles, 41Occupation: ActorHome comforts: “I’m the kind of person who makes a home out of anywhere I go. If I’m working regionally or shooting a movie far away, I bring things like photos.”And they did. After bouncing around the boroughs, followed by a brief marriage that landed her in Washington, D.C., and a lot of couch-surfing when she returned to New York, Ms. Stiles got the fairly steady use of a two-bedroom rental not far from that Upper West Side residence hall. Now she lives there full-time — and officially — with her husband of almost six months, Jeff Dodson. (The second bedroom has been outfitted to accommodate Mr. Dodson’s two daughters, Lily and Addy, who spend part of each week there.)“This place has major history for me,” Ms. Stiles said.It began almost 20 years ago, when she visited the apartment as a plus-one for a game night; her future first husband was a pal of the host. Soon, Ms. Stiles became the host’s pal, too. The friendship survived the breakup of her marriage, and Ms. Stiles often used the apartment as a crash pad.“When ‘Hand to God’ came around, my friend’s roommate was moving out and my friend was spending a lot of time in Los Angeles,” she said. “So, basically, it was my own place for this really incredible time in my life both personally and professionally. I did a lot of growing up here.”In the fall of 2018, two years after she met Mr. Dodson, who is the head electrician at the Samuel J. Friedman Theater, Ms. Stiles moved from the apartment she loved to the Inwood apartment of the man she loved. Three months later, just about the time she had finished redecorating Mr. Dodson’s apartment, and right before the start of rehearsals for “Tootsie,” her friend called. He was vacating the apartment for good and wanted to sign the lease over to her. “He said that he wanted me to live there with Jeff and Jeff’s daughters,” recalled Ms. Stiles. She was happy to oblige.Ms. Stiles has a thing for squirrels, so the acorn lamp makes perfect sense.Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York Times“We moved everything in, like, a weekend,” she said. “We repainted. We got some furniture, and now it’s our house.”Several years and several rentals ago, Ms. Stiles made an unsuccessful stab at minimalism. Recently, she has contemplated following the example of a friend whose apartment was done in shades of cream and gray. “It was beautiful,” she said.But she knew perfectly well that the red plastic chair that is part of her reading nook in the main bedroom, and the layered, multicolored tasseled rugs and pea-green side chair in the living room would be out in the cold with such a restrained palette. She loves bright colors. She loves bold patterns.Ms. Stiles is the square root of a charming but slightly goofy sitcom neighbor. Her apartment reflects those qualities. The aesthetic may best be summed up as otherworldly woodland: tarot cards and an abundance of crystals mix with tiny figures created from sticks and twigs. A bird made of straw seems poised for flight in one window. In another, there’s a plush pigeon — a gift from Mr. Dodson, who, when he was first courting Ms. Stiles, saved the day when an actual pigeon flew into the apartment. Squirrels and their accouterment are represented in many forms: The base of a bedside lamp, for example, is shaped like an acorn.Ms. Stiles prefers the term “sentimental excess” to describe her style.Paintings by her aunt, her grandmother and great-grandmother hang in the living room and the main bedroom. Every window sill has a vignette, composed in part of drawings by Ms. Stiles’s niece and nephew, keepsakes from friends and tender mementos like the pine cone from a hike Ms. Stiles and Mr. Dodson took the day before their wedding.“This apartment, the way it is with Jeff and his kids and me, is the most comfortable space I’ve ever had,” said Ms. Stiles (in Riverside Park with Mr. Dodson and her stepdaughters, Lily Dodson, left, and Addy Dodson).Credit…Katherine Marks for The New York TimesA map of Oklahoma, Mr. Dodson’s home state, hangs in the bedroom. “Everything is here for a reason, and it all means something to me,” Ms. Stiles said.The apartment isn’t perfect, and she’d be the first to say so. It’s either too hot or too cold. No matter how often she scrubs the bathtub, it doesn’t look clean. Because of a wall, the refrigerator barely opens a foot.And yet. “It feels like I’ve been waiting my whole life to feel as safe and comfortable in a physical place as I do in this apartment,” Ms. Stiles said. “The things that my family and I love are here. We don’t think, ‘Oh, we’ll get nicer versions when we have more money.’ We’d choose them regardless.”For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More