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    Golden Globes 2021: What to Watch For

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonHow to Watch the GlobesWhat to ExpectOur Movie PredictionsGolden Globe NomineesGolden Globes SuitAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGolden Globes 2021: What to Watch ForThe Hollywood awards season starts in earnest with a socially distanced show that begins on Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Streaming services are expected to dominate.Amanda Seyfried and Gary Oldman in “Mank,” about the making of “Citizen Kane.”Credit…NetflixFeb. 27, 2021, 5:00 p.m. ET More

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    How to Watch the Golden Globes 2021: Date, Time and Streaming

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonHow to Watch the GlobesWhat to ExpectOur Movie PredictionsGolden Globe NomineesGolden Globes SuitAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow to Watch the Golden Globes 2021: Date, Time and StreamingHere’s a quick guide with everything you need to know for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association film and television awards. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are the hosts of this year’s ceremony.Credit…Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesFeb. 27, 2021, 9:27 a.m. ET More

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    ‘WandaVision’ Fills In Gaps in Marvel History

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘WandaVision’ Fills In Gaps in Marvel HistoryThis week, the series drew from many other Marvel shows, movies and comics. Here’s a breakdown of some of the key references.Elizabeth Olsen, left, and Kathryn Hahn in “WandaVision.”Credit…Disney+Feb. 26, 2021, 5:52 p.m. ETGrief and personal loss fill in gaps in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Friday’s episode of “WandaVision,” the eighth of the season and, at 48 minutes long, the longest to date. Titled “Previously On,” it is the installment that most clearly ties the show’s events to other Marvel movies and TV shows, like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”At the same time, it is an origin story for the disorienting sitcom world that much of “WandaVision” has inhabited. Through a series of extended flashbacks, the tortured superheroine Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) relives the traumatizing events that led her to transform the contemporary New Jersey suburb of Westview into the Hex, a TV-addled neighborhood that she has surrounded with a mysterious energy dome and cut off from the outside world.More often than not, Wanda’s flashbacks suggest that she is consistently motivated by the death of her loved ones, especially the loss of her parents, Iryna and Olek Maximoff (Ilana Kohanchi and Daniyar) and her brother, Pietro (Evan Peters). “Previously On” also hints at what motivates Wanda’s witchy rival, Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), whose antagonistic behavior in “WandaVision” contrasts with her cryptic but benign personality from earlier Marvel comics.Here are some of the key comic book and movie references in this week’s “WandaVision” episode. Major spoilers follow.Agatha Harkness’s Salem Witch TrialsThe episode begins by flashing back to Salem, Mass., in 1693, when Agatha was confronted and almost burned at the stake by a coven of witches. Evanora (Kate Forbes), the group’s leader and Agatha’s mother, accuses Hahn’s villainess of betraying her fellow spellcasters. This flashback parallels the beginning of Vision and the Scarlet Witch No. 3, when the aggrieved members of Salem’s Seven, Agatha’s coven, successfully burn her alive. (She had previously revealed to the Fantastic Four the location of New Salem, a secretive witch community, in Fantastic Four Annual No. 14.)Beyond that association, Agatha Harkness is otherwise distinct from how she’s depicted in the comics: She casts a spell on and destroys her mother and her fellow witches, a jarring change from the comics’ general narrative that also immediately announces this week’s focus on revisionist history.Wanda’s Parents and the Unexploded BombWanda first revisits the death of her parents, Iryna and Olek, which happens when the American military destroys their Sokovia hometown, Novi Grad, with bombs manufactured by Stark Industries. Wanda’s parents were first mentioned in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and in that movie she and her brother, Pietro (played in that movie by Aaron Taylor-Johnson), blame the industrialist turned superhero Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) for their parents’ death, which leads them to ally with the megalomaniacal robot Ultron (James Spader).Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.”Credit…Jay Maidment/Walt Disney Studios Motion PicturesWanda also relives another moment that is mentioned, but not shown, in “Avengers: Age of Ultron”: During the bombing of Novi Grad, she and her brother were pinned under rubble for two days, waiting for one of Stark’s bombs to detonate. In “Previously On,” we learn that the bomb never exploded because Wanda defused it with her “chaos magic” powers. This unexploded bomb resembles the drone missile that was sent into the Hex by the superhero-regulating government agency S.W.O.R.D. (or, Sentient Weapon Observation and Response Department) in “On a Very Special Episode …,” the fifth episode of “WandaVision.”HYDRA, the Mind Stone and Loki’s ScepterAfter revisiting her childhood Novi Grad home, Wanda remembers when she, as an adult, volunteered to be a test subject for deadly experiments that were conducted by HYDRA, a Nazi-like terrorist organization that served as the main villains in most of Marvel’s recent movies as well as the “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” TV series.Wanda recalls and expands on the post-credits scene from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” when she and Pietro were imprisoned by the HYDRA leader, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker. (Strucker’s name might ring a bell with “WandaVision” fans: There’s an ad for Strücker brand wristwatches in the show’s second episode.)In the comic book tie-in “Avengers: Age of Ultron Prelude — This Scepter’d Isle,” Strucker and his men explain how, just before the “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” post-credits scene, they gave the Maximoff twins superpowers using a magical scepter that they swiped from the Norse trickster god Loki (played in the films by Tom Hiddleston).Loki’s staff also connects Wanda with her android husband, the Vision (Paul Bettany), since the scepter’s reality-altering powers come from the same Mind Stone that Ultron used to give life to the Vision in “Avengers: Age of Ultron.” This week, Agatha suggests that the Mind Stone significantly “amplified” Wanda’s psychic powers, which would have “otherwise died on the vine.”The Snap: S.W.O.R.D. HeadquartersWhen Wanda remembers retrieving the Vision’s body from S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, TV news tickers in the lobby announce “families reunite” and “[celebrations] for the returned.” This alludes to a cataclysmic event from “Avengers: Infinity War” known as “The Snap.” That was when the philosophically inclined alien warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin) halved the world’s population simply by donning his all-powerful Infinity Gauntlet and snapping his fingers.This means Wanda took the Vision’s body some time after “Avengers: Endgame,” which was when Wanda and her teammates undid the Snap’s effects.Paul Bettany as the Vision in “Avengers: Infinity War.”Credit…Marvel/DisneyThe Vision’s Vibranium BodyDuring Wanda’s visit to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters, the S.W.O.R.D. director, Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg), explains that the Vision’s body must be destroyed because he is “one of the most sophisticated sentient weapons ever made.” That’s because the Vision’s body is made of Vibranium, an alien element that crash-landed in the African nation Wakanda (the main setting of “Black Panther”) during a meteor shower and was subsequently developed into an indestructible metal — it is used in some of the Marvel world’s most sophisticated and highly sought after technology and weaponry, including Captain America’s shield. Ultron created the Vision’s body in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” using Vibranium stolen by the deranged and questionably accented South African arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis).The Snap: LagosEagle-eyed viewers will also note that Thanos’s fateful snap is subtly referenced twice this week. The first time is on a Westview mural advertising something called “Snap,” which can be seen briefly after Wanda uses her superpowers to transform the town into a sitcom fantasy. That same mural also mentions the Nigerian city Lagos, a reference to a scene from “Captain America: Civil War” when Wanda accidentally destroyed a building full of Wakandan civilians while trying to disarm a bomb.The Vision’s New LookThe real Vision comes back to life during a mid-credits scene this week, but he doesn’t look the way he used to. He was destroyed twice in “Avengers: Infinity War”: first by Wanda, who was trying to stop Thanos from taking the Vision’s Mind Stone, and then by Thanos, who later used the Infinity Gauntlet to travel back in time and steal the stone.Outside of Westview, Hayward reanimates Vision’s body using the chaos magic that rubbed off on the drone missile back in Episode 5. Comics fans might recognize the Vision’s new off-white costume from West Coast Avengers No. 45, when an international team of spies deleted the android’s old personality and redesigned him after he, under the influence of the evil supercomputer I.S.A.A.C., tried to take over the world.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Seth Meyers Is Excited to See Trump’s Tax Returns

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightSeth Meyers Is Excited to See Trump’s Tax ReturnsMeyers said it shouldn’t be hard for the Manhattan D.A. to find a crime in “the tax records of a guy who claims to be a billionaire, yet paid only $750 in federal income taxes when he was president.”“That’s right, the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed that it’s in possession of Trump’s tax records, as evidenced by the white smoke coming from the Statue of Liberty’s torch,” Meyers joked.Credit…NBCFeb. 26, 2021, 1:43 a.m. ETWelcome 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.The Return of Trump’s TaxesFormer President Donald Trump’s financial records were turned over to the Manhattan district attorney this week as part of a tax and bank-fraud investigation.“That’s right, the Manhattan district attorney’s office confirmed that it’s in possession of Trump’s tax records, as evidenced by the white smoke coming from the Statue of Liberty’s torch,” Seth Meyers joked on Thursday.“The Manhattan district attorney’s office today confirmed it is now in possession of former President Trump’s tax records and, yes, both of them.” — SETH MEYERS“I wonder how many pages of the Cheesecake Factory menu he snuck in there.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And look, I’m no prosecutor, but it can’t be that hard to find a crime in the tax records of a guy who claims to be a billionaire, yet paid only $750 in federal income taxes when he was president.” — SETH MEYERS“You can tell that they’re Trump’s real tax returns because under total loss, he still didn’t declare the election.” — JIMMY FALLON“And yes, there are plenty of technically legal ways that the wealthy and corporations avoid taxes, which is a scandal in itself, but something tells me Trump doesn’t just limit himself to the legal stuff. I’m guessing he commits crimes the way the rest of us order apps for the tables: ‘Let’s just get — should we just get one of everything?’” — SETH MEYERS“This whole thing started with Stormy Daniels. Donald Trump is the only guy who can cheat on his wife and his taxes in the same bed.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The crazy thing is that the part about paying no taxes on millions of dollars — that isn’t what he might get busted for. That was probably legal. He could claim huge losses, pay no taxes, and still live like a billionaire. It’s what they call ‘Orange Privilege.’ It’s specific to him. And hopefully he’ll be in an orange jumpsuit very soon, too.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“But this really is big news, because after they thoroughly go through each document, Trump could be charged around the year 3000.” — JIMMY FALLONThe Punchiest Punchlines (Dropping the Mr. Edition)“There was a major announcement from Mr. Potato Headquarters today: Hasbro is dropping the ‘bro.’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Mr. Potato Head is no longer a ‘mister. ’ And not, as I originally assumed, because he finally finished his Ph.D — his potato head doctorate.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“No, it’s because Hasbro is giving the spud a gender-neutral new name: ‘Potato Head.’ But if it’s not assigned a gender, what bathroom will it use?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Naturally, when this news hit Twitter, the world’s top idiots weighed in. Piers Morgan tweeted, ‘Who was actually offended by Mr. Potato Head being male? I want names. These woke imbeciles are destroying the world.’ Yes, they’re destroying the world. How will children grow up without a strong male potato role model? Won’t someone think of the tots?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Even in death, they found a way to cancel Don Rickles.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Why are we still putting eyes and lips on potatoes anyway? Isn’t this what children did during the Depression?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“And by the way, Hasbro isn’t the only one dumping the ‘mister.’ From now on these popular American products will be known as ‘Salty, ‘Peanut,’ ‘Rogers,’ ‘T’ and ‘Clean.’ No word yet from ‘Magoo,’ but we’ll see.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJames Corden took Prince Harry on a socially distanced tour of Los Angeles on Thursday’s “Late Late Show.”Also, Check This OutJulien Baker’s “Little Oblivions” is an unrelentingly reflective album.Credit…Alysse GafkjenThe queer, sober, Christian singer-songwriter Julien Baker plays every instrument on her third studio album, “Little Oblivions.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    How a TV Critic Turned to Podcasts During a Pandemic

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s NotebookHow a TV Critic Turned to Podcasts During a PandemicTV meant to be responsive to the moment seemed distant. But podcasts, with the intimate production values, felt more immediate and relevant than ever before.Credit…Hudson ChristieFeb. 25, 2021, 5:02 a.m. ETIn a year otherwise defined by loss, one area of our lives has remained untouched; abundant, even. Movie theaters closed and blockbusters were delayed. Music and theater venues shuttered. But TV marched on. The number of original scripted shows dipped slightly, but international series and older shows arriving on the streaming platforms more than filled the void of shows canceled or delayed.And yet, as the pandemic months piled up, TV’s seeming imperviousness to the halt of all other cultural activities started seeming less like a virtue and more like a vice, like denial, like a dispatch from a faker world. Much in the way I grew to prefer an old-fashioned phone call to a video chat, podcasts, not television, became my go-to medium in quarantine. With their shorter lead times and intimate production values, they felt more immediate and more relevant than ever before.As a TV critic, I had a policy to stay on top of it all, which was, “if I’m home, I’m watching something.” Then I was home for a year, and that policy, like everything else, changed.Also, I was alone. Alone as I have ever been. I went weeks without making eye contact with anyone. Zero hugs between March 11 and July 4. And all my shows just kept making it worse — everyone was always touching, those lucky bastards. A crowd scene would make my heart race, a character’s cough made me feel as if my skin was shrinking.Even TV meant to be responsive to the moment felt distant and curdled. Late-night hosts did their monologues from home, but the format and rhythms of the material stayed the same, and their jokes hung in empty air, sentences with no punctuation. Scripted shows about the pandemic, like “Love In the Time of Corona,” were brittle at best, and even when dramas like “Grey’s Anatomy” addressed the disease directly, mass death was less dramatic than a surprise cameo. Goofy shows, like “Floor Is Lava,” designed to be an escape, instead felt degrading. People are dying! Society has collapsed! I don’t want to watch dumdums fall down.I’ve spent years happily watching 70 hours of television a week, even listening to shows in the shower. But suddenly TV was no longer cutting it. I could no longer focus, and now I’m not even sure I remember what focusing is.At least with podcasts, you’re supposed to half-do something else, even if that something else had previously been “ride the subway,” and now it is “do the dishes for the 9,000th time.”You’re also supposed to listen to podcasts alone, but maybe I wasn’t quite all by myself, because I was listening to other people commiserate about kitchen woes on the podcast “Home Cooking.” This pandemic-oriented food and cooking advice show from Hrishikesh Hirway and Samin Nosrat was easily the podcast highlight of the year, bright but not phony, filled with suggestions and compassion and jokes.There were plenty of good TV shows that came out this past year, and even a few great ones, beautiful and surprising and fascinating — “I May Destroy You,” “Ted Lasso,” “Teenage Bounty Hunters,” “How To With John Wilson.” But oftentimes I wanted more direct reflections of the world around me, the kind of contact that was, that is, impossible when you’re effectively housebound. I wanted something more like validation, where everyone was miserable too.I listened to Esther Perel counsel couples in various lockdowns on “Where Should We Begin.” When self-recrimination spirals took over for generalized malaise, I listened to “Dead Eyes,” a podcast where the actor and comedian Connor Ratliff investigates in tremendous detail the time he was fired from “Band of Brothers” — a real making-lemonade-from-deep-emotional-wound lemons.I never miss an episode of “Stop Podcasting Yourself,” a genial Canadian comedy chitchat podcast hosted by Dave Shumka and Graham Clark whose overheard (and “overseen”) segment is now even more of a treasure to me, given how little in-person overhearing we do these days. This is the longest I’ve gone in my life without singing in a group, and an entire wing of my spirit has atrophied, so I listen to the pop music theory show “Strong Songs.”Turns out the prudes are right, and too much screen time will fry you from the inside. Characters appeared in my dreams, or I’d catch myself thinking, “who was I just talking to about this?” when the answer was “that conversation happened on a TV show.” But then quarantine hardened me I guess, and now it feels as if everything is behind glass, and TV shows barely register unless I’m concentrating extra hard on them for work. To keep it together this year, though, required a state of emotional hibernation alongside the physical one, and podcasts are just small enough to get into my small little loser bear cave. There’s less emotional buy-in than with a scripted drama, but they possess a legitimacy and honesty largely absent in reality and unscripted television.In the coming months, when, please, oh please, aspects of our old lives re-emerge, and we all slither out of the anti-chrysalis that turned us back into caterpillars, maybe I will go to a ballgame, or the theater, or to the movies, or, oh God, even a party. And on my way there, I will be listening to a podcast.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Podcasting Is Booming. Will Hollywood Help or Hurt Its Future?

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPodcasting Is Booming. Will Hollywood Help or Hurt Its Future?A frothy adaptation market is just one sign of the rapid evolution of the industry. But some worry that big money will stifle the D.I.Y. spirit that has driven much of its success.Once seen as a marginal forum for comedy, tech talk and public radio programming, podcasting is one of the hottest corners in media, with Hollywood hungry for TV and film adaptations.Credit…Hudson ChristieFeb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETIn November, production began in Los Angeles on a new series with the trappings of a potential hit.“Unwanted” is a buddy action comedy told with a wink, part “Beverly Hills Cop” homage and part Seth Rogen-esque genre sendup. It stars Lamorne Morris (“Woke” and “New Girl”) and Billy Magnussen (“Game Night”) as slackers who stumble on criminal intrigue in between bong hits, and its script is stocked with gross-out humor. (Sample line: “When I told you I dropped my phone in the toilet, that wasn’t the whole story.”)But “Unwanted” is not the latest Netflix comedy; it’s a podcast — or at least is starting out that way. The show’s first two episodes were released this week by QCode Media, a two-year-old company whose podcasts, with big names and high production values, are all but audio pitches for film and television. In July, for example, QCode introduced “Dirty Diana,” an erotic drama starring Demi Moore; by September, Amazon made a deal to turn it into a TV series.A frothy adaptation market in Hollywood is just one sign of the rapid evolution of podcasting. Though the format dates to the early 2000s — it is named after the iPod — podcasting has had an expansive growth spurt the last few years. Since 2018, the number of available shows has more than tripled, to around two million. Spotify, Amazon, SiriusXM, iHeartMedia and other major streaming and traditional media companies have poured about $2 billion into the industry, both chasing and fueling its growth. Celebrities, even former presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, are piling in, looking at on-demand audio as a key brand-building channel.Once seen as a marginal forum for comedy, tech talk and public radio programming, podcasting is one of the hottest corners in media. Yet its formats and business practices are still developing, leading producers, executives and talent to view the medium as akin to television circa 1949: lucrative and uncharted territory with plenty of room for experimentation and flag-planting.“It’s a new frontier, and we love it,” said Morris, who is also a creator and executive producer of “Unwanted.”But along with the optimism come worries that big money may stifle the D.I.Y. spirit vital to podcasting’s identity. Indie podcasters, used to an open and decentralized distribution system, fear being marginalized if the tech giants push through pay walls and exclusive deals. And as podcasting becomes big business, there is unease that the diversity of voices in our earbuds — never a strong suit of the industry — could be put at risk too.Nick Quah, who writes the Hot Pod newsletter, said that corporate interests tend to run contrary to what has always made podcasting interesting: the idea that anyone, anywhere, can bubble up and find an audience.“As we move forward and more of these platforms assume a stronger gatekeeping position,” Quah said, “there’s a strong possibility for new voices to get pushed out of the space. That’s a real concern.”Lamorne Morris, left, and Kyle Shevrin, are the creators of the buddy action comedy podcast “Unwanted.”Credit…Daniel Dorsa for The New York TimesCracking the Code of the Podcast AdaptationFor the average listener, the most noticeable change in podcasting’s immediate future may simply be higher-quality shows.The influx of money — from tech platforms, advertisers and Hollywood — has attracted talent and driven spending on production resources. Podcasting executives say they are now flooded with pitches for new shows, often from A-list writers, directors and performers.“What you’re seeing now is this incredible flowering of creativity,” said Lydia Polgreen, a former HuffPost and New York Times editor who is now managing director of Gimlet Media, a Spotify-owned studio.For Hollywood, the podcasting space has become a farm team for intellectual property — where story lines can be tested out and promising material scooped up relatively cheaply. And with the movie business dominated by remakes, superhero franchises and other tent-pole mega-productions, the freedom podcasting provides is also refreshing, said Rob Herting, a former agent at the Creative Artists Agency who founded QCode.“I had gotten tired of the repurposing of old intellectual property,” Herting said. “I kind of yearn for original stories. This felt like such a great outlet for those, a place where you can go to be bold, experiment and move quickly.”QCode launched in early 2019 with “Blackout,” starring Rami Malek as a radio D.J. in a small New England town when the national power grid mysteriously goes dark. The company now has a portfolio of 11 series, including “Hank the Cow Dog,” a children’s show with Matthew McConaughey, and “Carrier,” a thriller starring Cynthia Erivo that showcases another feature of many of the best podcasts: intense, consuming sound design. QCode plans 15 new podcasts in 2021.Modest budgets and quick turnaround time enable more risk-taking. Most of QCode’s shows cost in the low to mid six figures to make, Herting said — orders of magnitude less than a film or TV project — and an eight-episode podcast can be taped in just a week or two. A comparable TV season, Morris said, could take two months to shoot.“Unwanted” is the studio’s first comedy, and Morris, who had a part in “Carrier,” said he was unsure whether it would work. For one thing, taping during the pandemic meant working remotely; using audio gear shipped to them at home, actors communicated via Zoom.But Morris said that his worries evaporated the first day on the virtual set. His character, Ben, is introduced pleading for an extension on his student loan, before he is revealed to be calling from a strip club. In the background, the comedian Ron Funches announces the dancers like a lascivious carnival barker: “Put your hands together for the beautiful … Desssstiny!”“I heard the raw playback and I was dying laughing,” Morris recalled. “You forget how immersive audio can be until you sit down and just plug in,” he added. “It really takes you there.”A successful adaptation into film or television can generate $1 million or more for podcast creators, far exceeding what most shows can collect from advertising. (The entire ad market for podcasts was estimated to be less than $1 billion last year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.)But as the audience for podcasts grows — at last 104 million Americans listen each month, according to a survey last year by Edison Research and Triton Digital — TV and film properties are increasingly being adapted into audio shows as well.“It really is a two-way street,” said Josh Lindgren, a podcast agent at C.A.A. “It’s not just that Hollywood is coming to gobble up all the podcast I.P. and turn it into TV shows.”Warner Bros. is creating podcasts for Spotify based on DC Comics characters; Marvel is bringing a slate of podcasts, including a scripted series, “Marvel’s Wastelanders,” to SiriusXM. And Ben Silverman, the TV producer behind the American version of “The Office,” whose company Propagate Content made an oral history of that show for Spotify, has struck a new deal with SiriusXM that will establish a new franchise of entertainment oral history podcasts.“There are no rules anymore,” Silverman said. “If you are a creative person, you can go anywhere.”Walled Gardens and the Future of IndiesEmily Cross channeled her inner Seinfeld with “What I’m Looking At,” a podcast where she spends 20 to 30 minutes just talking about what she’s looking at.Credit…Tom Jamieson for The New York TimesHollywood deals have taken podcasting far from its shoestring origins. But the growth story has been building for years.The first mainstream hit arrived in 2014 with “Serial,” an investigative look at the murder of a teenage girl that was made by veteran public-radio journalists. The show — and the media attention it received — demonstrated the format’s storytelling and marketing potential.New stars were minted. Leon Neyfakh was a Slate staff writer in 2017 when he hosted the first season of “Slow Burn,” a meticulous examination of the Watergate scandal.As a writer, Neyfakh said, he was dispirited to find that long feature stories, which had taken months of work, would yield just a few minutes of “average engaged time” from readers. But “Slow Burn” fans would spend hours with the show, listening through to the end of episodes that lasted 30, 40 minutes or more.“People are just willing to give you more of their attention in podcasting than they are in print,” Neyfakh said.Epix turned the Watergate season of “Slow Burn” into a TV documentary and an anthology series starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn is heading to Starz.Along with high-minded journalism came a flood of comedian-led talk shows, pop-culture gabfests, sex and self-help shows, and every niche dive imaginable. In 2017, Emily Cross, an indie-rock musician, was joking with a friend about the glut of podcasts when she hit on a “Seinfeld”-inspired idea.“What if I just did a podcast about nothing? A podcast about just what I’m looking at,” Cross recalled. “I was like: Actually, I really like that idea. So I just started doing it.”For 20 to 30 minutes each week, “What I’m Looking At” features Cross calmly describing random objects — her shoes, an apple, a box of toothpicks — in soothing detail, like a combination Zen relaxation ritual and conceptual art project. She earns no money from it directly (she has supporters on Patreon), but has built a small community of followers who email her comments after every episode.Shows like “Slow Burn” and “What I’m Looking At” exemplify the power and charm of podcasting — an intimate, technologically simple medium that can help forge a connection with an audience over any topic, weighty or whimsical.That power, and the lure of greater advertising dollars, has begun to draw big investment. In 2018, iHeartMedia, the broadcast radio giant, paid $55 million for Stuff Media, the studio behind hits like “Stuff You Should Know.” Last year, SiriusXM acquired Stitcher, a popular app and distributor, for at least $265 million. And in late December, Amazon agreed to buy Wondery (“Dr. Death,” “Dirty John”) at a price estimated at more than $300 million.Over the last two years, Spotify has paid more than $800 million for a series of podcasting companies, like Gimlet, the Ringer and Anchor. Spotify has also struck content deals with the Obamas, Kim Kardashian West, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and the comedian Joe Rogan, whose no-holds-barred talk — including with guests like Alex Jones — has made him podcasting’s closest thing to Howard Stern.Spending has amped up competition among platforms, many of which have begun to protect their investments by keeping content inside so-called walled gardens, accessible only to subscribers. Spotify, which keeps some shows within its walls, has made it clear that it views podcasts as a way to attract new customers to its service. This month, Spotify said that a quarter of its 345 million customers listen to podcasts.“There is no question that podcasting is helping drive more people to Spotify than ever before,” said Dawn Ostroff, the company’s chief content and advertising business officer. “That’s really our goal at this point.”Consumers have grown accustomed to content arms races among streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. But in podcasting, it has led to fears of corporate Balkanization of what has long been a platform-neutral medium, in which anything but the most high-profile shows could effectively be suppressed.For now, there are signs of experimentation in the distribution model — or at least a hesitancy by platforms to wall off too much of their content. When “The Michelle Obama Podcast” came out in July, for example, it was only on Spotify, but within two months it was widely available, including on Spotify’s archrival, Apple.SiriusXM, which owns Pandora and Stitcher, has developed a hybrid approach to take advantage of the offerings on each of those three brands. The company circulates free podcast versions of some of its subscriber-only radio shows, like Kevin Hart’s “Comedy Gold Minds,” to Pandora and Stitcher, in part as marketing for SiriusXM’s paid service.“We love our three-barrel attack,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s president and chief content officer.A Diversity Downside?Lory Martinez, whose Studio Ochenta makes “Mija,” said starting her own company may have been the only way to get her shows — and her multilingual, multicultural approach — to market.Credit…Carolina Arantes for The New York TimesLory Martinez, a Colombian-American podcaster, keeps her grandfather’s press card at her desk in Paris.He was a newspaper reporter in Colombia who covered the country’s Indigenous communities, and saw his role as bringing those people’s stories and perspectives to the entire nation. His approach inspired the mission of Martinez’s company, Studio Ochenta: “Raising voices across cultures.”Ochenta began a year and a half ago with “Mija,” a short-form podcast about the life of an immigrant daughter from Queens — modeled after Martinez herself — that was released in English, Spanish and French. It reached No. 1 on iTunes’s fiction podcast charts in 13 countries, and its third season, about an Egyptian Muslim character in Britain and the United States, will be released in April in English, Spanish and Arabic.“There is now more of a space for voices than you would traditionally hear, and they are appearing in podcasting,” Martinez said. “They’re not only making podcasts, they are starting companies. That’s what’s so exciting about this time.”But Martinez said that starting her own company may have been the only way to get her shows — and her multilingual, multicultural approach — to market.“I don’t think ‘Mija’ would have been made if I pitched it elsewhere,” Martinez said.Increasing corporatization, and the incentive for platforms to favor the shows they own, has intensified concerns that podcasts from underrepresented groups could enjoy less promotion, find fewer listeners and collect less advertising revenue — a vicious cycle that would repeat many of the failings of the old media model.For all the rah-rah talk of podcasts as a democratized medium, building diversity has been a slow undertaking. In 2008, for example, 73 percent of monthly listeners in the United States were white. In those days, “the average podcast you listened to was two white dudes talking about internet routers, and the audience reflected that,” said Tom Webster of Edison Research.Last year, Edison and Triton found that white listeners’ slice of the pie had narrowed to 63 percent, nearly mirroring the 60 percent of Americans who identify as white in census data. But the representation behind the microphone still lags.Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, a former journalist at NPR and The Atlantic who founded a production company focused on work by people of color, said that media and tech companies should look at diversity as a business imperative, given the country’s shifting demographics and the devoted audiences that companies like Studio Ochenta are building.“In the rush to secure the players that look like sure bets,” Lantigua-Williams said, “they are overlooking the creators who are really growing audiences that are going to stay with them five, 10 years down the line.”Yet some podcasters have found success navigating the corporate world from within. Spotify’s “Dope Labs” features two young Black women, Titi Shodiya and Zakiya Whatley — both working scientists with Ph.D.s — who came to podcasting via a Spotify-sponsored accelerator program, Sound Up, that aims to bring talent from underrepresented groups into the medium.“Dope Labs” mingles hard-nosed science and pop culture, with episodes on coronavirus vaccinations, racism in science and the history of Afrofuturism. The show has more than 100,000 followers — a midlevel hit.“People have this stereotypical box of what a scientist looks like, what they sound like and what they care about,” Shodiya said. “And we say, no. We don’t only care about these things. We’re really into fashion. We’re really into music. We’re really into food. We like to break the mold.”Sound Up awarded Shodiya and Whatley $10,000 and offered them training in basics like interviewing and using recording equipment. They were free to take their show anywhere, and Shodiya said they pitched it to other companies, which asked for changes the women did not want to make. They stuck with Spotify.“Spotify seemed to get it,” Shodiya said. “They really appreciate our voices and what we bring to the platform.”Opportunities for CreativityFor a star like Morris, the question of access to media is less of an issue. But even for him, podcasts offer a rare opportunity — to test a new idea, quickly and cheaply.“When you’re a creative person, you need an outlet,” Morris said. “You can’t always say, ‘Let’s go and make a $50 million movie.’ But you can sit down, record, say your idea out loud.”For now, many podcasters say, the money spent by platforms, media companies and advertisers has helped enable experimentation in the format and a sharpening of storytelling techniques.Early fiction hits like Gimlet’s “Homecoming,” from 2016, about a therapist working with returning soldiers, demonstrated some of the potential for innovation, with crosscut scenes and varying audio treatment of voices to indicate different environments — a high-tech take on techniques first heard in 1930s radio dramas. (“Homecoming” became a TV series on Amazon starring Roberts and then Janelle Monáe.)More recently, shows like Audible’s “When You Finish Saving the World,” a five-hour drama by Jesse Eisenberg, have tinkered further with narration and storytelling in long-form audio.“Unwanted,” Morris said, could very well be a film or television project. (A spokeswoman for QCode said no negotiations to adapt it have taken place yet.) The story, he said, was just one of “millions” of ideas that he and Kyle Shevrin, his co-creator and writing partner, have bandied about, and podcasting allowed it to become a reality.“It’s a proof of concept,” Morris said, “to say to the industry: This works, this is fun, this is something that can be done.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Late Night Laughs Off Mike Pence’s Renewed Loyalty to Trump

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightLate Night Laughs Off Mike Pence’s Renewed Loyalty to Trump“I don’t know where the line is between forgiving and being a doormat, but Mike Pence crossed it a long time ago,” Trevor Noah said.“Staying loyal after he sent a mob to kill you?” marveled Trevor Noah. “Man, that shows how committed Mike Pence is to his principles: he won’t even abort a friendship.”Credit…Comedy CentralFeb. 25, 2021, 1:41 a.m. ETWelcome 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.That’s a Good Boy“Obedience school seems to be working well for Mike Pence, who has apparently patched things up with his former owner, Donald Trump,” Jimmy Kimmel said on Wednesday night, after Mike Pence was reported to have told a group of conservative lawmakers that he and Donald Trump still had a “close personal friendship.”“Staying loyal after he sent a mob to kill you? Man, that shows how committed Mike Pence is to his principles: he won’t even abort a friendship,” Trevor Noah said.“I believe Mike Pence has spent the last month doing a little something called ‘weighing his options’ and found that it would be better to be friends with Donald Trump.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“I guess at this point, there’s nothing Trump can do to Pence that would make Pence turn on him. They basically have the same relationship that we have with our Alexa: ‘Ugh, Alexa, I hate you. I wish you would die!’ [imitating Alexa] ‘I’m sorry you feel that way. Is there anything I can help you with?’” — TREVOR NOAH“And I don’t know where the line is between forgiving and being a doormat, but Mike Pence crossed it a long time ago. I mean, yeah, the Bible says to turn the other cheek, but at the same time, one of the Ten Commandments is ‘Thou shall not be a [expletive].’” — TREVOR NOAH“You know what would be fun? If I were Donald Trump, I’d announce that I need a kidney, and I’d make all of these guys — Lindsey Graham, Rudy, Mike Pence — I’d make them all give me one kidney to choose which one I like best.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Keep on Truckin’ Edition)“There’s exciting news in the world of mail delivery. Yeah, brace yourself. The U.S. Postal Service just unveiled their new fleet of delivery trucks, and the future is adorable.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They asked the designers to come up with something that looks unremarkable and yet vaguely unsettling. And I think they succeeded.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“They’ve already spent $482 million on testing and designing it. Wasn’t the post office bankrupt like four months ago? Now they’re buying new cars? It’s like a bad brother-in-law or something.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“That thing’s about to be the first mail truck to go on the TV show ‘Botched.’” — JIMMY FALLON“That thing’s just a couple eyeballs away from a Pixar movie. You really get the feeling that engine is going to be going ‘pucket-a, pucket-a, pucket-a, pucket-a.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“But of course there’s a controversy. Many of the new trucks will be electric, but not all of them, and ‘the precise mix has already elicited criticism from environmentalists.’ I understand their concern — I mean, you want the greenest vehicle possible when you’re delivering thousands of pounds of Amazon Rainforest that are now Amazon boxes.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth Watching“Jimmy Kimmel Live” tried to find someone — anyone — at the Farmers Market in Los Angeles who could properly identify Kamala Harris’s husband.What We’re Excited About on Thursday NightThe actress Regina King, a Golden Globe nominee, will chat with Stephen Colbert on Thursday’s “Late Night.”Also, Check This OutEddie Murphy, left, at home in the Hollywood Hills and Arsenio Hall in Los Angeles. “There’s never been a period where we haven’t been friends,” Murphy said.Credit…Photographs by Brad Ogbonna for The New York TimesThe longtime friends and co-stars Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall talk about their careers and the new sequel to “Coming to America.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Stephen Colbert Didn’t Realize America Had Been Canceled

    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBest of Late NightStephen Colbert Didn’t Realize America Had Been Canceled“Although I’m not surprised — the last season was pretty unbelievable,” Stephen Colbert said of CPAC’s 2021 theme: “America Uncanceled.”“Still, better than last year’s CPAC theme: ‘Giving the flag the clap,’” Colbert joked on Tuesday.Credit…CBSFeb. 24, 2021, 2:31 a.m. ETWelcome 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.Early CancellationThe annual Conservative Political Action Conference kicks off this week in Orlando, Fla., where Republican leaders will discuss the future of their party. Late-night hosts poked fun at this year’s conference theme: “America Uncanceled.”“I didn’t know America was canceled. Although, I’m not surprised — the last season was pretty unbelievable,” Stephen Colbert joked on Tuesday.“Of course, with all the crises facing our nation, conservatives are focusing on the most pressing issue of all: fascists being kicked off of Twitter.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“It’s like Comic-Con for neo-cons and neo-Nazis, too.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“It’s a who’s who of ‘Who needs that many guns in their rec room?’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Still, better than last year’s CPAC theme: ‘Giving the flag the clap.’” — STEPHEN COLBERT“According to CPAC, ‘It’s time to stand up for Americans whose views have gotten them canceled,’ which is why they kicked things off by canceling an appearance from one of their panelists for a history of making anti-Semitic claims. Good — conservatives don’t want to be associated with anyone like that. It could sully the good name of the mob with aluminum bats trying to murder Mike Pence.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“They tweeted, ‘We have just learned that someone we invited to CPAC has expressed reprehensible views.’ Only one?” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The canceled man in question is a rapper named Young Pharaoh, who was pulled from the lineup after journalists pointed out his record of publicly rejecting the existence of Judaism outright. OK, pretty bold stance to reject the existence of the world’s oldest monotheistic religion. They’ve been around for a while, and they write it all down. It’s kind of their thing.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“Young will not be appearing at CPAC after he tweeted, ‘Judaism is a big lie that was created for political gain.’ Oops. Sorry, Jared. Sorry, Ivanka.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know who could tell Young Pharaoh that Judaism exists? Old Pharaoh. There’s a pretty famous old book about it. There’s even a new book about it.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“CPAC apparently hadn’t known about Young Pharaoh’s history of anti-Semitism, and called his views ‘reprehensible,’ saying they have ‘no home’ with their conference. Yes, conservatives would never doubt the existence of Jewish people. Otherwise, who’s operating the space laser?” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Biden and Trudeau Edition)“Well, guys, today in Washington, President Biden met virtually with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the first time since taking office. Yep, Biden did the best he could to fix our relationship with Canada. He was like, ‘Hey, about the last four years — [imitating Canadian accent] sorry.” — JIMMY FALLON“In response, Trudeau was like, ‘On behalf of Canada, thank you for your friendship, for your support, and for taking Ted Cruz.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Yep, Trudeau and Biden had a typical video chat between a 49-year-old and a 78-year-old. Trudeau spent the first 20 minutes trying to tell Biden he was on mute.” — JIMMY FALLON“But it was a productive meeting, other than when Biden started talking about his second cousin who once went over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel.” — JIMMY FALLON“The two leaders discussed the most pressing issues facing Canada, like Covid-19, climate change, and how long Drake is going to keep that heart in his hair.” — JAMES CORDEN“You just know they spent the entire time trash-talking Trump and then were like, ‘Yeah, uh, we talked about Covid and stuff.’” — JAMES CORDEN“This was the president’s first virtual bilateral meeting, which sounds sexy, but it wasn’t. Next week he’s planning a TikTok with Angela Merkel, so that’ll be fun.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Bits Worth WatchingJimmy Fallon and Tom Holland guessed movies based on spoiler clues on Tuesday’s “Tonight Show.”What We’re Excited About on Wednesday NightStanley Tucci will stop by Wednesday’s “Late Late Show” to chat with James Corden about his new CNN travel series, “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy.”Also, Check This OutMedusa is one of the hip-hop artists featured in Ava DuVernay’s 2008 documentary “This Is the Life.”Credit…Array“This Is the Life,” Ava DuVernay’s debut documentary about Los Angeles hip-hop in the ’90s, is available for the first time on Netflix.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More