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      The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in February

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      #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 storyThe Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in FebruaryOur streaming picks for February, including ‘Parks and Recreation,’ ‘News of the World’ and ‘Bliss.’‘Parks and Recreation’Credit…NetflixFeb. 1, 2021Every month, streaming services in Australia add a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for February.New to NetflixFEBRUARY 1‘Parks and Recreation’ Seasons 1-7With all the social and political unrest around the world, now is as good time as any to revisit this refreshingly optimistic sitcom. Set in the dysfunctional Middle American city of Pawnee, the show stars the very funny Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a midlevel bureaucrat who motivates a community of skeptics and kooks into making their town more livable. Though “Parks and Recreation” mostly focuses on the relationships between its cast of lovable eccentrics, it’s also about how good-hearted and determined civil servants can make a difference.FEBRUARY 2‘Kid Cosmic’Although the animated science-fiction/superhero series “Kid Cosmic” sprang from the mind (and the pen) of “The Powerpuff Girls” creator Craig McKracken, it looks and feels different from the work he’s done before. This is a more serialized adventure, featuring a group of misfits from a New Mexico desert town who rely on superpowered alien jewels to fight off invaders from outer space. “Kid Cosmic” has a remarkable design, with its loosely sketched lines and pale colors resembling fading old fantasy magazines and comic books.FEBRUARY 3‘Firefly Lane’Based on Kristin Hannah’s popular tear-jerker novel, “Firefly Lane” stars Katherine Heigl as a glamorous but lonely TV personality. Sarah Chalke plays her longtime best friend, whose own life as a wife and mother has recently been disrupted by divorce. The series frames these two women’s diverging situations as a kind of existential mystery. Frequent flashbacks to the characters’ teenage and young adult years allows viewers to make key connections between the troubles of the past and the anxieties of the present.‘Malcolm & Marie’Credit…NetflixFEBRUARY 5‘Malcolm & Marie’The writer-director Sam Levinson — best-known for the social satire “Assassination Nation” and the provocative teen drama series “Euphoria” — shot his intimate, two-character “Malcolm & Marie” during the pandemic. John David Washington and Zendaya play a bickering couple, airing their grievances over the course of one tense night. Levinson cenhances the stripped-down story by shooting his two striking-looking actors in handsome black-and-white, making a movie that echoes the low-budget psychodramas of the indie film pioneer John Cassavetes.FEBRUARY 10‘News of the World’How did it take so long to get Tom Hanks into a western? In “News of the World,” Hanks plays Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, who in the 1870s ekes out a living riding from town to town, reading newspapers to the locals. Helena Zengel plays Johanna, a preteen kidnap victim whom Kidd tries to return to her family. Based on a Paulette Jiles novel, this film has an episodic structure, designed to lead viewers through a tour of a postwar America still deeply divided. Hanks is the sturdy anchor for a winding story.‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever’Credit…NetflixFEBRUARY 12‘To All the Boys: Always and Forever’In Netflix’s energetic and emotional movie adaptations of Jenny Han’s novel “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before” and its two sequels, Lara Condor plays a lovestruck teenager named Lara Jean Covey, while Noah Centineo plays her college-bound crush Peter. Last year’s “P.S. I Still Love You” introduced some complications to the first film’s happy ending; and now the third and final part in the trilogy, “Always and Forever” tells the story of how Lara Jean and Peter handle an unexpectedly complicated transition from high school to college.FEBRUARY 19‘I Care a Lot’Don’t look for any sympathetic characters in J Blakeson’s “I Care a Lot,” a blackly comic neo-noir film in which two oddly charismatic creeps try to outwit one another. Rosamund Pike plays a high-class grifter, who exploits the systemic flaws in the elder-care industry to make money off the helpless. Peter Dinklage plays a drug kingpin living under an assumed name, who risks revealing himself when his mother (Dianne Wiest) gets caught up in the scam. Like Blakeson’s entertainingly nasty 2009 debut film “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” this is a well-acted and twisty movie, made for audiences who enjoy watching clever folks be shamelessly awful.FEBRUARY 23‘Pelé’This documentary about the legendary Brazilian footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, is focused primarily on his four World Cup appearances, from 1958 to 1970. Between those years, he went from being an unknown teen from a poor São Paulo neighborhood to becoming universally acknowledged as one of the best ever. The “Pelé” directors Ben Nicholas and David Tryhorn have a wealth of exciting footage of the man in action, but their film is just as much about how Brazil and the world changed during the 1960s.FEBRUARY 24‘Ginny & Georgia’Fans of “Gilmore Girls” should find a lot to like about “Ginny & Georgia,” a drama about a precociously mature teenage girl (Antonia Gentry) and her more free-spirited and libertine mother (Brianne Howey), who are both adjusting to a new life in a quaint New England town. In a reversal of the “Gilmore Girls” premise — where the mom was born of privilege and then fled to a more middle-class existence — in “Ginny & Georgia” the family has seen hard times and is now striving for something better. The core of the show remains the often shaky relationship between a strong-willed parent and her equally headstrong child.Also arriving: “Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready” Season 2 (February 2), “Black Beach” (February 3), “Hache” Season 2 (February 5), “Invisible City” (February 5), “The Last Paradiso” (February 5), “Little Big Women” (February 5), “Space Sweepers” (February 5), “Strip Down, Rise Up” (February 5), “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” (February 10), “The Misadventures of Heidi and Cokeman” (February 10), “Capitani” (February 11), “Red Dot” (February 11), “Squared Love” (February 11), “Buried by the Bernards” (February 12), “Nadiya Bakes” (February 12), “Xico’s Journey” (February 12), “Hello, Me!” (February 15), “Behind Her Eyes” (February 17), “Tribes of Europa” (February 19), “2067” (February 19), “Classmates Minus” (February 20), “High-Rise Invasion” (February 25), “Bigfoot Family” (February 26), “Caught by a Wave” (February 26), “Crazy About Her” (February 26).New to Stan‘Punky Brewster’Credit…StanFEBRUARY 3‘Race to Perfection’The archivists for Formula One auto racing have emptied out their vaults for this seven-part docu-series, which covers the past 70 years of the sport from multiple angles. Packed with original interviews and exciting vintage footage, “Race to Perfection” documents both the history and the evolution of various aspects of racing: from the advances in technology to the personalities of the drivers to some of F1’s most controversial incidents. It’s pitched at longtime fans and novices alike.FEBRUARY 5‘The Virtues’The writer-director Shane Meadows and the actor Stephen Graham are frequent collaborators, best known for their decade-spanning “This Is England” series. The pair reunites for the four-part mini-series “The Virtues,” a heavy drama about a man belatedly confronting childhood trauma. Graham plays an alcoholic whose life is in utter disarray when he returns home to reconnect with his estranged sister. The trip reminds him of incidents he’d long-suppressed, while also pushing him toward a woman (Niamh Algar) with issues of her own.FEBRUARY 12‘Clarice’This thriller series’s title character should be familiar to fans of either the novel or the movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” The show is set one year after the events of “Silence,” and follows the FBI agent Clarice Starling (Rebecca Breeds) as she tackles new cases. Expect a mix of short and longer narrative arcs, splitting the difference between a traditional TV procedural and the more novelistic serialized approach. But don’t expect any direct mention of the infamous serial killer Hannibal Lecter; the character’s rights are owned by a different production company.FEBRUARY 26‘Punky Brewster’In its original incarnation, the 1980s sitcom “Punky Brewster” starred Soleil Moon Frye as an abandoned child, taken in by a cranky old widower and raised with the help of some kindly neighbors and teachers. Frye returns for the revival, playing Punky now as a quirky divorced mother, who upends her family’s life when she considers become a foster parent to a kid a lot like herself. Some of the original cast members will appear, in a series that aims to charm and uplift.Also arriving: “Doll & Em” Seasons 1-2 (February 2), “The Pleasure Principle” (February 4), “The Green Mile” (February 9), “Hassel” (February 11), “Chasing Life” Seasons 1-2 (February 12), “Lucy” (February 12), “Ex Machina” (February 15), “United 93” (February 17), “Perfect Places” (February 18), “The First Team” (February 19), “Children of Men” (February 21), “Casino” (February 23), “Indian Summers” Seasons 1-3 (February 23), “Angel of Death” (February 25), “Scarface” (February 26), “American Gangster” (February 27).New to Amazon‘Bliss’Credit…AmazonFEBRUARY 5‘Bliss’Owen Wilson plays a lonely, hopeless man named Greg in the writer-director Mike Cahill’s haunting science-fiction drama “Bliss.” Greg is experiencing a run of bad luck when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), who persuades him that they’re both actually living in a computer simulation. Cahill makes both Greg’s dreary “real” world and Isabel’s more utopian version seem equally valid, leaving the audience wondering until the end whether she’s savvy or crazy. Along the way, he raises pointed questions about whether humans need some kind of misery in their lives to achieve happiness.‘Tell Me Your Secrets’The lives of three very different characters — a woman on the run (Lily Rabe), a desperate mother (Amy Brenneman), and a sexual predator (Hamish Linklater) — intersect in this mystery/suspense series. As a crime from the past draws this trio closer together, they each reveal secrets about themselves they would’ve rather kept hidden, while also learning more about their friends and neighbors than they may have wanted to know. “Tell Me Your Secrets” is about the lies and delusions that sustain some people; and about what happens when they’re finally told the truth.Also arriving: “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” (February 12).AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Dustin Diamond, Actor on ‘Saved by the Bell,’ Dies at 44

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDustin Diamond, Actor on ‘Saved by the Bell,’ Dies at 44Mr. Diamond played Screech on the NBC high school sitcom, but struggled to find work and reconcile with cast members in the decades after the show ended.Dustin Diamond as Samuel “Screech” Powers on “Saved by the Bell,” a Saturday morning staple on NBC from 1989 to 1992.Credit…Paul Drinkwater/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 6:17 p.m. ETDustin Diamond, the former child actor who found fame on the enduring NBC Saturday morning sitcom “Saved by the Bell” but struggled to find work in later years, died on Monday in Florida. He was 44.A representative for Mr. Diamond, Roger Paul, confirmed the death. He said that the cause was carcinoma and that Mr. Diamond died in a hospital.After Mr. Diamond went “through some medical testing,” in January, his representatives said in a statement that he had cancer.From 1989 to 1992, Mr. Diamond played Samuel “Screech” Powers on “Saved by the Bell,” which developed a cult following among millennials and members of Generation X and grew into an internet obsession for some fans.The show followed the day-to-day adventures of a group of loudly dressed friends at the fictional Bayside High School in California.Saturday morning viewers watched Mr. Diamond grow up on the show as he played Screech, the sweet-natured, geeky underdog and the dunce among his friends. An ongoing plotline was the character’s unrequited crush on Lisa Turtle, who was played by Lark Voorhies.Screech was also the comedic sidekick to Zack Morris, the popular student who was played Mark-Paul Gosselaar. The show’s cast also included Mario Lopez as Slater, Elizabeth Berkley as Jessie and Tiffani Thiessen as Kelly, who rounded out the circle of friends.The show also starred Dennis Haskins as the school principal who mentored and disciplined the group. Mr. Diamond appeared in all 86 episodes.Memorable plot lines included a caffeine pill addiction by Ms. Berkley’s character, the friends competing in a dance competition hosted by the radio disc jockey Casey Kasem and when “Screech” is asked to make fake IDs so the guys could go to a club.Mr. Diamond was born on Jan. 7, 1977, in San Jose, Calif., according to IMDB.com, and he said he began acting when he was 8. He also appeared in other series, including “The Wonder Years.”He originated the role of Screech in 1988 when he was cast in “Good Morning, Miss Bliss,” the Disney Channel series that was the forerunner to “Saved by the Bell” and introduced many of its characters.After “Saved by the Bell” ended in 1992, a prime-time spinoff show called “Saved by the Bell: The College Years” followed the gang in college. That show ran for one season, ending in 1994. From 1994 to 2000, he reprised the role of Screech in another spinoff series, “Saved by the Bell: The New Class.”After the series ended, Mr. Diamond became known for his post-stardom troubles, and spoke openly about his struggles finding work.“The hardest thing about being a child star is giving up your childhood,” Mr. Diamond said in 2013 on “Oprah: Where Are They Now?” While he was working on “Saved by the Bell,” he said, he feared being replaced, saying, “You don’t get a childhood, really.”After the series ended, he said: “I didn’t really know what I was going to do. It was hard to get work that wasn’t Screech-cloned stuff.”He added: “I had been working for the last 10 years, every single week, and I felt lost. As I mature I realize, wow, I was kind of going through my rebellious teens in my 20s.”Seeking a payout in the mid-2000s, Mr. Diamond found tabloid fame with the release of a sex tape that he later spoke of with regret.“The sex tape is the thing that I’m most embarrassed about,” Mr. Diamond said on Ms. Winfrey’s documentary show. Although he made some money from the tape, he said, “it wasn’t worth what the fallout was.”He was also featured on reality shows including “Celebrity Boxing 2” in 2002 and “Celebrity Fit Club,” on VH1, in 2007.In 2009, he released a tell-all book called “Behind the Bell” that claimed that members of the show’s cast were using drugs and having sex. Years later, Mr. Diamond expressed regret about the book as well, saying it was written by a ghostwriter.“The book was another disappointment of mine,” he said in Ms. Winfrey’s documentary. “I was a first-time author, so they had a ghostwriter. I talked to a guy a few times, so the book has some truth in it, and a lot of the stories were just kind of throwaways.”Mr. Diamond’s problems also extended to court. In 2015, he was accused of stabbing a man during a fight in a Wisconsin bar. Mr. Diamond said he had pulled a knife to defend himself; he was convicted on two misdemeanors, sentenced to four months in jail and ordered to pay more than $1,000 to the man who was stabbed.In a 2016 interview on “Extra,” Mr. Diamond told Mr. Lopez that were he to meet his other former “Saved by the Bell” castmates, he would “ask for forgiveness for any kind of misunderstandings that may have come about by the book.” He said he had not seen some of his co-stars for decades.Mr. Diamond was repeatedly omitted from reunions. In 2015, he was left out of a skit that reunited the cast on “The Tonight Show,” and in 2020, when “Saved by the Bell” was rebooted on NBC’s Peacock streaming service, Mr. Diamond was not part of the new series.Information about Mr. Diamond’s survivors was not immediately available.Christopher Mele contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The 10 Best Titles Leaving Netflix This Month

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      #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 storyThe 10 Best Titles Leaving Netflix This MonthAn array of great movies and TV shows are leaving for U.S. subscribers by February’s end. It’s a short month; stream these while you can.From left, Will Ferrell, Steve Coogan and Mark Wahlberg in “The Other Guys,” from 2010, a kind of bridge for the director Adam McKay between films like “Talladega Nights” and “The Big Short.”Credit…Macall Polay/ColumbiaPicturesFeb. 1, 2021, 4:52 p.m. ETThis month’s batch of Netflix exoduses feature some big names — Eastwood, Scorsese, Soderbergh, Verhoeven — and a variety of pleasures, from cop comedy to gangster sprawl to historical documentary, as well as the erotic thriller that launched a thousand imitators (and parodies).Catch these 10 titles before they leave Netflix in the United States by the end of February. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)‘The Other Guys’ (Feb. 11)Adam McKay began his film career making broadly funny, crowd-pleasing Will Ferrell comedies like “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights”; these days, he is known as the Oscar-winning writer and director of the sharp-edged sociopolitical studies “The Big Short” and “Vice.” This 2010 comedy was the unlikely hinge between those worlds. On its surface, “The Other Guys” is a sendup of buddy cop movies, with Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as second-string New York police detectives. But McKay uses those spoof elements as cover, smuggling in a pointed indictment of the shenanigans that led to financial meltdown, culminating in an informative end credit sequence that now plays like a prologue to “The Big Short.”Stream it here‘Hostiles’ (Feb. 14)Making a Western in the 21st century is a tricky bit of business: It’s a genre knotted up with leftover stereotypes and assumptions, and reckoning with the true legacy of that era, particularly with regard to the genocide of Native Americans, is a bigger job than most filmmakers are willing to accept. This 2017 effort from the writer and director Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart”), on the other hand, deals with those issues head on, focusing on a cavalry officer (Christian Bale) who must put aside his bigotry when he’s forced to escort a dying Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) back to his Montana home. Cooper refuses to romanticize the era or soft-pedal its brutality. It’s a blunt, difficult movie, but a rewarding one.Stream it hereFreddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga as Norman and Norma Bates in a scene from “Bates Motel.”Credit…Joe Lederer/A&E‘Bates Motel’: Seasons 1-5 (Feb. 19)When A&E debuted this “Psycho” prequel series back in 2013, it sounded like a beating-a-dead-horse situation (especially since the franchise had already yielded three sequels, a TV movie and a remake). But the series quickly came into its own, supplementing its original exploration of the rich psychological dynamic between a young Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), with expansive story lines about their family history and the town around them. Ultimately, however, the show works thanks to Highmore and Farmiga, who flesh out two of cinema’s most iconic characters into living, breathing, complicated people.Stream it here‘Basic Instinct’ (Feb. 28)The runaway commercial success of this 1992 mystery would kick-start a yearslong cycle of erotic thrillers — steamy, provocative portraits of murderously attractive women and the reckless men who must have them. But few were put together with the kind of sleek style and sweaty sleaze created by the combustible combination of the director Paul Verhoeven and the writer Joe Eszterhas. Its most controversial elements haven’t aged well, yet it remains a case study in the specific skills required to make truly great trash. It also made Sharon Stone a star, and it’s not hard to see why; her work here is a pulse-quickening combination of noir femme fatale, icy Hitchcock blonde and unapologetic MTV-era sexuality.Stream it here‘Easy A’ (Feb. 28)Another Stone — Emma — also became a star, 18 years later, thanks to her work as a big-screen “bad girl,” although in this case, it’s all an act. The director Will Gluck’s clever riff on “The Scarlet Letter” features Stone as the splendidly named Olive Penderghast, whose entirely fictitious promiscuity turns her into a high school cause célèbre. Bert V. Royal’s screenplay asks properly pointed questions about gender roles and identity while providing juicy roles for a stellar supporting cast (including Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, Malcolm McDowell and best of all, Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive’s parents). But the main attraction remains Stone, who puts across the character’s intelligence, wit, self-awareness and self-doubt with charm and poignancy.Stream it here‘The Gift’ (Feb. 28)The actor Joel Edgerton (“Loving”) made his feature debut as a writer and director with this moody, unnerving 2015 psychological thriller. He also co-stars as Gordo Moseley, who tries a bit too hard to ingratiate himself into the life of a former high school classmate (Jason Bateman) and his wife (Rebecca Hall). Edgerton’s crisp screenplay deftly dramatizes the delicacy with which social norms and “good manners” can hide our deepest secrets, and he coaxes a disturbing turn out of Bateman, giving a pre-“Ozark” hint of the darkness lurking beneath his established persona of cheerful ironic detachment.Stream it hereFrom left, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro in “Goodfellas.”Credit…Warner Bros.‘GoodFellas’ (Feb. 28)This 1990 gangster epic from Martin Scorsese seems to come and go from Netflix every couple of months, but it’s going again, so catch it while you can. Ray Liotta stars as the real-life wiseguy Henry Hill, a low-level grinder for a New York crime family whose high-spirited, backslapping life of crime descends into a paranoid nightmare of drugs and death. Robert De Niro is both affable and terrifying as Hill’s mentor, while Joe Pesci won an Oscar for his unforgettable role as a hot-tempered gunman with an itchy trigger finger. (He’s very funny, but don’t tell him that.)Stream it here‘Gran Torino’ (Feb. 28)Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this 2008 drama about a bitter and bigoted Korean War veteran who spends most of his days sitting on the porch of his Detroit home and growling at his Hmong neighbors — until he strikes up an unlikely friendship with young Thao (Bee Vang), and begins to understand the difficulties of Thao’s life. Much as his 1992 masterpiece “Unforgiven” complicated and re-contextualized Eastwood’s many Western films, “Gran Torino” subtly examines the casual racism of the actor’s police dramas, suggesting one of the most quietly daring ideas of his late filmography: that it’s never too late to change the limited ways we see the world.Stream it here‘Haywire’ (Feb. 28)Steven Soderbergh is known for many types of movies — indie character studies, Oscar-winning dramas, crowd-pleasing heist movies — but few thought of him as an action director until he built this vehicle for the mixed martial artist Gina Carano in 2012. Eschewing many of the more irritating techniques of contemporary action cinema (like cut-to-ribbons editing and overpowering music), “Haywire” is essentially a gender-flipped James Bond adventure, with Carano as a for-hire operative who gets burned by her employer (Ewan McGregor) and has to save her own skin. The results are sleek and action-packed, offering the distinct pleasure of watching Carano pick off an all-star cast (including Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Channing Tatum and Michael Fassbender) one by one.Stream it hereDan Lindsay and T.J. Martin’s documentary “LA 92” looks at the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.Credit…Nick Ut/Associated Press‘LA 92’ (Feb. 28)On the 25th anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles uprising (following the acquittal of four white police officers who were caught on tape beating a Black motorist, Rodney King), the Oscar-winning documentarians Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin (“Undefeated”) assembled this harrowing ticktock of the protests, rioting and unrest of those days. Jettisoning such documentary standbys as contemporary retrospective interviews and “voice of God” narration, the filmmakers instead rely solely on archival footage from the time. The effect is shattering, creating a visceral immediacy that parachutes the viewer into that earthshaking moment, with no clear resolution in sight.Stream it hereAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Keegan-Michael Key Will Do Anything for a Laugh

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      #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 storyKeegan-Michael Key Will Do Anything for a LaughHis new 10-part podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” is a surprising and earnest defense of a relatively unsung art form.Keegan-Michael Key in 2018. His new podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” involved a lot of research. “I loved school,” he said, so delving into a subject “kind of lights my fire.”Credit…Benjamin Norman for The New York TimesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 4:33 p.m. ETThere are people who enjoy comedy, people who are nerdy about comedy and then there is Keegan-Michael Key, an actor and producer whose deep and affectionate connoisseurship of jokes puts him closer to the realm of a jurist or sommelier.On Key’s new Audible-exclusive podcast, “The History of Sketch Comedy,” he plays resident historian, taking listeners on a laugh-laden and discursive journey — from ancient Sumer to 16th-century Rome to Abbott and Costello — in a lighthearted but earnest attempt to demonstrate the enduring power and understated complexity of the art form.For Key, who has spent the half-decade since the end of his award-winning TV show “Key & Peele” zigzagging between interesting projects onscreen and off, the podcast was a labor of love. It was directed by and co-written with his wife, Elle Key, last year. On a recent phone call, he discussed the impetus for the show, performing without a true audience and the role his adoption played in his love of comedy.These are edited excerpts from the conversation.When you hear about a celebrity starting a podcast, you generally think of something personality driven, or an interview show with other famous people. You don’t think of an in-depth, 10-part history lesson. What made you want to do this project as a podcast?KEEGAN-MICHAEL KEY Well, one of the things that brought me and my wife, Elle, together is our love of humor and of comedy, even the science of it: What makes a good turn? What makes the joke work? I’m an academically minded person — I loved school. So being able to do research and delve into a subject and turn that around and share with other people is something that kind of lights my fire. For years, Elle has been suggesting that with all of the combined knowledge and passion for this art form that we have, we should figure out a way to share it with others. And when the pandemic started, we used all of our time in quarantine to put it together. Her pitch to Audible was: “If Keegan-Michael Key was a guest lecturer at N.Y.U. doing a 10-week course called ‘The History of Sketch Comedy,’ it would be a very popular class.”Have you always been a student of the history of sketch comedy?KEY That’s something that started in my 20s probably, when I was an undergrad fine arts and acting major [at the University of Detroit Mercy]. I never gave much thought to the history of comedy until I started studying commedia dell’arte. I was like, “Wait a second, you mean there are archetypes? Warner Brothers didn’t just invent the phenomenon of Bugs Bunny? The primary characteristics [of Bugs] have existed for hundreds of years?” When my professor said that, my mind got peeled back. I wrote a paper [in graduate school, at Pennsylvania State University] making a comparison between vaudevillian poster advertisements from the late 19th century and the images that you would see on Greek and Roman friezes from the comedies of Plautus and Terence and Aristophanes, just because that kind of stuff fascinated me.Keegan-Michael Key and Elle Key, who directed the podcast, at the Vanity Fair Oscar party last year.Credit…Danny Moloshok/ReutersHad you done much comedy of your own at that point?KEY Yeah, I think comedy afforded me social currency. You don’t have to be particularly athletic, you don’t have to be super strong and you don’t have to be on the dean’s list to be able to execute a pratfall or tell a funny joke or do a dead-on impression. That was the route that I went as a painfully shy, very skinny kid. That was the only power I knew how to wield. I remember once, when I was a kid, seeing my father, who was this very large, stoic, soft-spoken guy, guffawing at this impression. It was revelatory to me that a person could have that kind of power over somebody who was a thousand miles away, or 10,000 miles away.Did you try and make him laugh yourself?KEY I would try to impress him. If I had gone to see a movie, I would go home to my mom and my dad and act out the movie. Or, if they hadn’t seen a trailer for a movie, I would act out the trailer. Sometimes I would also use that as a kind of pre-Power Point presentation, trying to convince them to let me go see the movie if it was rated R. They were thoroughly entertained, but alas, it did not work.That’s really funny given what you ended up doing for a living, especially all the movie-inspired sketches of the “Key & Peele” show.KEY Exactly. It’s not a surprise at all. Also, I’m adopted; so to say that I spent a lot of time trying to get my parents’ approval is kind of an understatement. I’ve been acting since I was born, you know what I mean? I’ve been putting my tap shoes on for people’s approval for a long time.You chose an interesting starting point for the show, going all the way back to a Sumerian fart joke from 1900 B.C., which I couldn’t believe was real. How did you decide how far back to go?KEY It started with the joke from the film “Airplane.” Lloyd Bridges storms in and he goes: “All right, everybody. I need this piece of information. I need that to happen over there, this to happen over here, and we have to start at the beginning.” And then the guy says to him: “OK. Well, first, there was dinosaurs, and then …” So we actually decided to use that joke as the basis for the beginning. Like, “What would it look like if we start at the beginning? Let’s talk about hieroglyphics.” And then the hieroglyphics brought us to the Sumerians. I think, at our most basic level, the way we captivate each other as human beings is through explaining the journey or the ordeal that one goes through. Literature, cinema, theater — they’re all basically the same at the core, but we express them in a different way.The series begs the question of just what is a sketch. I’m curious how you define it.KEY I think one of the biggest components of sketch is brevity. The modern definition is: premise plus escalation equals sketch, or premise plus escalation equals comedy, which means that a sketch is just kind of an elongated joke that builds on itself. So I was trying to affix that measuring stick to these other pieces of art throughout history. There are lots of scenes in movies and plays where you could move it surgically out of the larger piece, and it could stand as its own piece of comedy. To me, that’s sketch.How did you approach doing all the research for the show? Did you have to brush up on your William Dunlap or your Mathurine de Vallois?KEY Well, a lot of what Elle did is that, as we were putting the structure together, we started to go through history and just say, “What do we know about comedy and where there were comedic performers in history?” Then we just started putting them on the timeline. I discovered through our research about female jesters — was not aware that they existed. There are a lot of wonderful things that I discovered, like the “rural purge” and Beyond the Fringe.Putting all that on a timeline and then being able to kind of zoom out, did it make you see comedy in a different way? Or affirm things you already knew?KEY I think that it probably affirmed things. One of those affirmations was the basics: that people figured out tens of thousands of years ago that it was satisfying to watch someone overcome obstacles to achieve a goal. That is somehow inherent in our programming, to excite us and bring us meaning.Yours is the only voice we hear in the series, and you act out a lot of the sketches you discuss. Was it strange to perform without an audience?KEY Technically speaking, I wasn’t alone: I had Elle in the booth, the engineer and a production assistant. I’d be in the booth looking at them [while performing], and I’d see them start to smile. To me, if I start improvising and I see people start to grin, that’s chum in the water and I’m a great white shark. I’m going to go right the [expletive] off script and do everything in my power to make them burst out in laughter. In certain episodes, you actually hear me talking to Cameron [Perry], the engineer. I go, “Right, Cameron? I mean, it’s a pretty filthy joke, but you’re laughing. Everybody, Cameron’s laughing.”What have you liked most about working in audio?KEY One thing I like is the fact that sometimes it allows you to go bigger. It allows you to be broader, more energetic, because you have to convey something through a microphone. Especially when you’re doing animation work — the figure of what you’re performing with your voice is often so exaggerated that it gives you license to be peculiar or over the top. You can say to the director, “What if I just was like [yodels loudly and cartoonishly]?” And the director will go: “That might work.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Jamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJamie Tarses, Executive in a Hollywood Rise-and-Fall Story, Dies at 56She broke barriers as a woman in the TV industry and turned out hit after hit, only to see it all fizzle under a very public spotlight.Jamie Tarses in 1996. At 32 she was named president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.Credit…Steve GoldsteinFeb. 1, 2021, 3:09 p.m. ETLOS ANGELES — A young, female executive arrives in the men’s locker room that was broadcast television in the 1990s and snaps a few towels of her own, working with writers to shape juggernaut comedies like “Mad About You” and “Friends.” She is so good at spotting hits that she becomes, at 32, the president of entertainment at ABC, the first woman ever to serve as a network’s top programmer.But she fizzles in epic fashion, brought down by corporate dysfunction, unvarnished sexism, self-sabotage, weaponized industry gossip and scalding news media scrutiny.Such was the show business life of Jamie Tarses, who died on Monday in Los Angeles at 56. Her death was confirmed by a family spokeswoman, who said the cause was “complications from a cardiac event.” She suffered a stroke in the fall and had spent a long period in a coma.Ms. Tarses (pronounced TAR-siss) broke a Hollywood glass ceiling in 1996, when she became president of ABC Entertainment. ABC badly needed fresh hit shows, and Ms. Tarses, who had worked at NBC, had a reputation for serving up a steady supply — especially zeitgeist-tapping sitcoms. She had shepherded the cuddly “Mad About You” and the neurotic “Frasier” to NBC’s prime-time lineup. “Friends,” which she had helped develop, was the envy of every network.“Jamie had a remarkable ability to engage writers — to understand their twisted, dark, joyful, brilliant complexity and really speak their language and help them achieve their creative goals,” said Warren Littlefield, who was NBC’s president of entertainment from 1991 to 1998. “She was highly creative herself and, of course, came from a family of writers.” (Her father, Jay Tarses, wrote for “The Carol Burnett Show” and created “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd,” an acclaimed comedic drama, from 1987 to ’91. Her brother, the comedy writer Matt Tarses, has credits like “Scrubs” and “The Goldbergs.”)Even so, Ms. Tarses faced extreme challenges.Upstart broadcast competitors — the scrappy Fox, UPN, the WB — were siphoning young adult viewers away from the Big Three networks. So were cable channels. In 1996, about 49 percent of prime-time viewers watched ABC, CBS or NBC, down from roughly 74 percent a decade earlier, according to Nielsen data. HBO was moving into original programming with shows like “Sex and the City,” further diluting the talent pool.The Walt Disney Company had purchased ABC shortly before Ms. Tarses arrived, heightening Wall Street scrutiny and intensifying corporate politics. “ABC was a snake pit in those days,” said Jon Mandel, who ran MediaCom, a television ad-buying agency. “Some people spent more time trying to assassinate internal rivals than actually doing their jobs.”Ms. Tarses in 1997 as president of ABC Entertainment. At NBC she had served up a steady supply of hit sitcoms, including “Mad About You,”  “Frasier” and “Friends.” Credit…Kevork Djansezian/Associated PressThen came The Article.After a year at ABC, Ms. Tarses, who had alienated some colleagues by not returning calls and missing morning meetings, gave the journalist Lynn Hirschberg unfettered access for an 8,000-word cover story in The New York Times Magazine. The piece portrayed Ms. Tarses as “a nervous girl” who swung erratically between arrogance and insecurity. “Women are emotional, and Jamie is particularly emotional,” one male agent, speaking anonymously, was quoted as saying. “You think of her as a girl, and it changes how you do business with her.”The article, which pointedly discussed Ms. Tarses’s hairstyle and feminine way of sitting, helped color the rest of Ms. Tarses’s career. Once someone is typecast in Hollywood, even as an executive, getting people to see that person in a different light can be a never-ending battle.“A lot of it was pure sexism,” said Betsy Thomas, a screenwriter and friend.Even so, Ms. Tarses was criticized at times as showing poor judgment. In 1998, ABC hosted more than 100 television critics and entertainment journalists from across the United States at a promotional event in Pasadena, Calif. ABC stars were also invited, including a young Ryan Reynolds, then appearing on a sitcom called “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.” As the evening wore on, reporters witnessed Ms. Tarses and Mr. Reynolds go outside and become amorous.The indiscretion, which was reported on by some newspapers, contributed to a narrative that had congealed around Ms. Tarses: She was too impetuous for such a big job.Her bosses, including Robert A. Iger, then chairman of the ABC Group, had been applying patches to the situation. A veteran television executive, Stuart Bloomberg, was installed above Ms. Tarses. Then, as part of a restructuring, yet another manager, Lloyd Braun, was placed over her in what was essentially a demotion. Vicious infighting ensued, what The Wall Street Journal later deemed “a case study in dysfunctional corporate relationships.”Thomas Gibson and Jenna Elfman in 1998 in “Dharma & Greg,” a popular sitcom that Ms. Tarses developed at ABC. Credit…Jerry Fitzgerald/ABCMs. Tarses resigned in 1999. She left ABC with one popular sitcom, “Dharma & Greg,” and one comedy that was a hit with critics, Aaron Sorkin’s “Sports Night.” She also put “The Practice,” a popular legal drama from David E. Kelley, on the ABC schedule.“I just don’t want to play anymore,” she told The Los Angeles Times when she left ABC. “The work is a blast. The rest of this nonsense I don’t need.”Sara James Tarses was born in Pittsburgh on March 16, 1964 to Jay and Rachel (Newdell) Tarses. The family moved to suburban Los Angeles, where her father became a successful sitcom writer (first on “The Bob Newhart Show”).Ms. Tarses attended Williams College in Massachusetts, studying play structure and receiving a theater degree in 1985. She was a production assistant on “Saturday Night Live” in New York for a season before returning to Los Angeles in 1986 to become a casting director for Lorimar Productions. She joined NBC in 1987 in the “current” comedy programming division (shows already on the air), where she monitored scripts for shows like “Cheers” and “A Different World,” starring Lisa Bonet.Brandon Tartikoff, NBC’s much-admired entertainment chief, became her mentor. He swiftly promoted Ms. Tarses to the network’s comedy development department, where she worked on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which turned Will Smith into a household name; the oddball “Wings,” set at a New England airport; and “Blossom,” centered on a teenage Mayim Bialik.Ms. Tarses’s departure from NBC was ugly.Michael Ovitz, the polarizing former power agent, had become Disney’s president. He began talking to Ms. Tarses about taking over ABC. But she was under contract at NBC. Gossip swirled in Hollywood that she solved the problem by claiming that she had been sexually harassed by Don Ohlmeyer, a senior NBC executive. (Mr. Ohlmeyer blamed Mr. Ovitz for the rumor and publicly called him “the Antichrist,” leading to a media frenzy.) Ms. Tarses and NBC denied the story, as did Mr. Ovitz, but it continued to hound her, making the young Ms. Tarses appear as someone “who would do anything to get ahead,” as Ms. Hirschberg wrote.When she arrived at ABC in the spring of 1996, Ms. Tarses was the second-youngest person ever to be the lead programmer of a network. (Mr. Tartikoff was 31 when he took over at NBC.) Her age, along with her status as the first woman to have that prestigious job, resulted in an unusual amount of scrutiny, often negative. Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, referred to her as “Minnie Mouse” in one article and “scarily ruthless” in another.Karey Burke, who ran ABC from 2018 to 2020 and is now president of 20th Television, a leading TV studio, said of Ms. Tarses in a statement: “She shattered stereotypes and ideas about what a female executive could achieve, and paved the way for others, at a cost to herself.”After quitting ABC in 1999, Ms. Tarses avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Several television pilots failed, but she ultimately found a few modest hits, including “My Boys,” a comedy created by Ms. Thomas and centered on a female sportswriter, and “Happy Endings,” a sitcom that dusted off the “Friends” formula.“She was a hands-on, deeply involved producer who just so totally got my voice and my sense of humor,” Ms. Thomas said. “She knew how to pull the best out of you without trying to change your writing or make it into something different.”Ms. Tarses in 2018. After quitting ABC she avoided the spotlight and remade herself as a producer. Credit…Emma Mcintyre/Getty ImagesIn addition to her brother, Matt, Ms. Tarses is survived by her partner, Paddy Aubrey, a chef and restaurateur; their two children, Wyatt and Sloane; her parents; and a sister, Mallory Tarses, a teacher and fiction writer.Even decades after she had left ABC, Ms. Tarses continued to serve as a lightning rod in Hollywood. To some, she was the victim of a misogynistic television industry. Others stubbornly viewed her as a callous climber.“She had smarts, drive, family connections, money, the mentor everyone wished they had, very good looks, absolutely everything going for her,” Mr. Mandel said. “That automatically created jealousy and resentment.”He continued: “Yes, she made mistakes. But the same could be said about any guy in Hollywood — especially then — and none of them had the added pressure of breaking a glass ceiling.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’

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      #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 storyWhat’s on TV This Week: ‘9to5: The Story of a Movement’ and ‘The Equalizer’A new documentary on PBS looks at the roots of a women’s rights organization. And Queen Latifah stars in a reboot of “The Equalizer” on CBS.“9to5: The Story of a Movement” revisits an organization that fought for better treatment of women in the workplace.Credit…Richard BermackFeb. 1, 2021, 1:00 a.m. ETBetween network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, Feb. 1-7. Details and times are subject to change.MondayINDEPENDENT LENS: 9TO5 — THE STORY OF A MOVEMENT 10 p.m. on PBS. The filmmakers Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar (“American Factory”), co-directed this new documentary about the founding of 9to5, National Association of Working Women. The organization was started by a group of secretaries in Boston in the 1970s. The documentary revisits its roots, and the larger groundswell of feminist activism from which it grew. It includes interviews with the organization’s founders and others related to the movement — including Jane Fonda, who starred alongside Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the 1980 farce “Nine to Five,” which took inspiration from the organization’s back story.TuesdayA scene from “Fake Famous.”Credit…HBOFAKE FAMOUS (2021) 9 p.m. on HBO. Nick Bilton, a journalist who has written extensively about technology for publications including Vanity Fair and The New York Times, is the director of this new documentary. The film follows Bilton as he gathers a trio of relatively unknown young people — an actress, a real-estate professional and a fashion designer — and helps them try to become “famous” social-media influencers. He uses a variety of artificial tactics to do that, like setting up photo shoots that make the subjects’ lifestyles appear lavish, and helping them purchase fake Instagram followers. The documentary includes at least one scene in which one of its subjects drives a car while holding two smartphones.GROUNDHOG DAY (1993) 8 p.m. on AMC. Real-life Groundhog Day is on Tuesday, so naturally AMC is showing this classic comedy about an ornery weatherman (Bill Murray) reliving the same day over and over and over. You can also see it at 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (seriously).WednesdayA RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) 10 p.m. on TCM. The first week of Black History Month is a fitting time to revisit “A Raisin in the Sun.” Lorraine Hansberry made history with it in 1959, when she became the first Black woman with a play produced on Broadway. The original Broadway cast — including Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Claudia McNeil — later starred in this classic film version. Its screenplay, which Hansberry adapted from her original play, retells the story of the Youngers, a Black family that has to decide what to do with a large insurance payment, and faces relentless discrimination when its members try to buy a home in a fictional white neighborhood in Chicago.ThursdayCynda Williams and Denzel Washington in “Mo’ Better Blues.”Credit…David Lee/Universal City StudiosMO’ BETTER BLUES (1990) 6:50 p.m. on Showtime. You can watch a trio of Spike Lee movies on Showtime on Thursday night, beginning with Lee’s 1994 Bed-Stuy coming-of-age story “Crooklyn” at 4:55 p.m., and ending with Lee’s 1989 opus “Do the Right Thing” at 9 p.m. In between those two, the network will show “Mo’ Better Blues,” Lee’s music-heavy comedy-drama about a jazz trumpeter, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington). The music in the movie is largely by Lee’s father, the jazz bassist and composer Bill Lee; its plot involves Bleek’s complicated love life and his band’s financial issues, which are driven by their gambling-addicted manager (Lee), and which raise questions about the relationship between art and money. “An artist has to be a businessman today,” Lee explained in an interview with The Times in 1990. “Money means a lot. It equals power. If my films did not make the money they make, I couldn’t make the demands I make. A studio knows I’ll have final cut.”FridayBADLANDS (1973) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. Terrence Malick took inspiration from a brief, bloody real-life episode for this, his directorial debut. Based loosely on a string of murders committed in the 1950s, “Badlands” casts Martin Sheen as a 25-year-old Midwestern garbage collector and Sissy Spacek as an underage girl who runs off with him. The two take a murderous road trip across the Midwest. The film, Vincent Canby wrote in his review for The Times in 1973, is “ferociously American.”SaturdayRose Byrne and Steve Carell in “Irresistible,” a satire about a political operative.Credit…Daniel Mcfadden/Focus FeaturesIRRESISTIBLE (2020) 8 p.m. on HBO. After years of staying away from the social media center of couch commentary, Jon Stewart finally joined Twitter last week, weighing in on — of all things — the internet-fueled stock market kerfuffle revolving around the video-game retailer GameStop. Stewart’s voice has largely been absent from the political-commentary realm since he stopped hosting the “Daily Show” in 2015, but he dipped his toe back into it last year with “Irresistible,” a satire about a savvy political consultant in Washington, D.C., named Gary Zimmer (Steve Carell), who swoops into a small Wisconsin town to run a mayoral campaign. Gary’s quest to get his candidate — a farmer and retired Marine played by Chris Cooper — elected is complicated by the arrival of a Republican adversary (Rose Byrne). The result is a film that feels like “a stale corn chip trampled into Party-convention carpeting,” Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for The Times. But, she notes, Byrne “gives Faith a bitingly droll politesse that tells us she has Gary’s number: She knows he’s as comfortable with his privilege as she is with hers.”SundayIn “The Equalizer,” Queen Latifah stars as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante.Credit…Barbara Nitke/CBSTHE EQUALIZER 10 p.m. on CBS. The 1980s action series “The Equalizer” got a pair of ultraviolent film adaptations during the 2010s, with Denzel Washington taking over for the original series’s star, Edward Woodward, on laying-waste-to-bad-guys duty. The franchise comes full-circle with this new TV reboot, which stars Queen Latifah as a fresh version of the show’s fleet-footed vigilante. CBS clearly has high hopes for the new series; they’re airing it right after the Super Bowl, which begins on the network at 7 p.m.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO Max, Hulu and More in February

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      #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 storyThe Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Amazon, HBO Max, Hulu and More in FebruaryEvery month, streaming services add a new batch of titles to their libraries. Here are our picks for February.Jan. 31, 2021, 5:03 p.m. ETNote: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our twice-weekly Watching newsletter here.Waldorf, left, and Statler in a scene from “The Muppet Show.”Credit…DisneyNew to Disney+‘The Muppet Show’ Seasons 1-5Starts streaming: Feb. 19Fans of the puppeteer and filmmaker Jim Henson have been waiting a while for his TV series “The Muppet Show” — perhaps his most enduring masterpiece — to arrive on a subscription streaming service. For five seasons and 120 episodes between 1976 and 1981, Henson and his team of writers, craftspeople and performers brought joy and whimsy to the small screen, through the conceit of a low-rent variety show run by high-strung weirdos. From its catchy songs to its string of A-list guest hosts (including pretty much every big-name entertainer of the era), “The Muppet Show” helped define the popular culture of its time while always remaining family-friendly. The complete series has never been released on any home video format and isn’t currently running on any U.S. cable network, so this addition to Disney+ is a major event.Also arriving:Feb. 19“Flora & Ulysses”Feb. 26“Myth: A Frozen Tale”Salma Hayek and Owen Wilson in “Bliss.”Credit…Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Amazon StudiosNew to Amazon‘Bliss’Starts streaming: Feb. 5In his films “Another Earth” and “I Origins,” the writer-director Mike Cahill has pondered big ideas — alternate universes, the existence of God — via muted character studies which skirt the edges of science fiction. In his latest movie, “Bliss,” Owen Wilson plays Greg, a mopey divorcé who is in the middle of one of the worst days of his life when he meets Isabel (Salma Hayek), a homeless eccentric who convinces him they are living in a computer simulation, controlled with the help of special crystals. Is she right? Or are Greg and Isabel both mentally ill drug addicts? Cahill keeps this question unanswered for as long as possible, while making both scenarios seem plausible. What results is a strange trip through multiple realities, moving at a faster pace than Cahill’s earlier films but still ultimately concerned with the existential angst of ordinary people.‘Tell Me Your Secrets’Starts streaming: Feb. 19The secrets in the title of the mystery/suspense series “Tell Me Your Secrets” are buried deep, and unearthed slowly over the course of the show’s 10-episode first season. Across multiple interwoven plotlines, the creator Harriet Warner follows three main characters: a woman in hiding (Lily Rabe), a mother (Amy Brenneman) doggedly fighting to find out what happened to her long-missing daughter and a psychopath (Hamish Linklater) offering his help to law enforcement to atone for old crimes. The sometimes surprising and often grim details of the connections between these people and the mistakes they are trying to make up for drive the narrative of a crime show that’s about how hard it is for the victims of violence and trauma to move on with their lives.Also arriving:Feb. 12“The Hunter’s Anthology”“The Map of Tiny Perfect Things”Feb. 19“The Boarding School: Las Cumbres”Andra Day, center, as Billie Holiday in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”Credit…Takashi Seida/Paramount Pictures/HuluNew to Hulu‘Nomadland’Starts streaming: Feb. 19Likely to be a strong contender at the Academy Awards this year, the slice-of-life drama “Nomadland” is a vivid and emotionally affecting depiction of a growing American subculture: people who live in mobile homes and roam the country, working a succession of seasonal jobs. Frances McDormand plays a recent widow who had worked most of her life at a plant that closed and who now has to adjust to living on the road, with the help of some fellow travelers who’ve turned their paycheck-to-paycheck circumstances into a quasi-communal lifestyle. The writer-director Chloé Zhao — loosely adapting Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book — avoids big confrontations and heavy plotting, instead emphasizing the everyday stresses and unexpected wonders of a life on the edge.‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’Starts streaming: Feb. 26The source material for the historical drama “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” sets it apart from a typical biopic. Instead of covering one person’s entire life, the director Lee Daniels and the screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks have adapted passages from Johann Hari’s book-length exposé, “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs,” in which the author uses profiles of a few well-known addicts, including Billie Holiday, and dealers to critique the ways some governments have tackled the narcotics trade. The Grammy-nominated R&B singer Andra Day gives a bracing performance as the jazz legend Holiday, who so scandalized the establishment with the anti-lynching song “Strange Fruit” that — according to this raw and hard-hitting film — some reactionaries in the U.S. government conspired to use her drug habit to stifle her.Also arriving:Feb. 1“Possessor”Feb. 12“Into the Dark: Tentacles”Feb. 13“Hip Hop Uncovered”Feb. 25“Snowfall” Season 4A scene from “Earwig and the Witch” from Studio Ghibli.Credit…Studio Ghibli/HBO MaxNew to HBO Max‘The Investigation’Starts streaming: Feb. 1The accomplished Danish screenwriter and director Tobias Lindholm tackles a bizarre recent true-crime story in “The Investigation,” a six-part mini-series about what happened after the Swedish journalist Kim Wall’s dismembered corpse was found scattered around Koge Bay in Denmark in 2017. Lindholm doesn’t dramatize the incident itself, which eventually led to the arrest and conviction of the entrepreneur Peter Madsen, who had invited Wall to interview him on his submarine right before she went missing. Instead, he follows the two cops on the case (played by Soren Malling and Pilou Asbaek) as they doggedly pursue the gruesome clues, sacrificing their personal lives in the name of justice. “The Investigation” is a different kind of procedural, detailing how the time it takes to build a case weighs heavy on both the victim’s family and the detectives.‘Earwig and the Witch’Starts streaming: Feb. 5The animators at Japan’s venerable Studio Ghibli make their first foray into full computer animation with this adaptation of a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, whose book “Howl’s Moving Castle” was previously adapted by Ghibli’s co-founder Hayao Miyazaki. His son Goro directed “Earwig and the Witch,” the story of a plucky and bossy 10-year-old orphan adopted by a pair of curiously gruff adults who teach her more about her birth family’s history with rock ’n’ roll and the occult. Fans of the Miyazakis and Ghibli may balk initially at the look of this film, which is different from classics like “Spirited Away” and “Kiki’s Delivery Service.” But “Earwig” covers similar themes of spiritual wonder and youthful independence, and there’s something distinctive about Goro Miyazaki’s visual style, which is much simpler than Pixar’s fine detail.‘Judas and the Black Messiah’Starts streaming: Feb. 12In 1969, Fred Hampton — the chairman of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party — was killed during a police raid on his Chicago apartment following an extended federal law enforcement campaign to tag him as a dangerous radical. In the political drama “Judas and the Black Messiah,” Daniel Kaluuya gives a knockout performance as Hampton and is matched scene-for-scene by Lakeith Stanfield as William O’Neal, a small-time crook recruited by the FBI to inform on the Panthers. The writer-director Shaka King and the co-writer Will Berson capture the revolutionary fervor of the times, subtly noting the parallels to today in the raging arguments about overzealous cops and systemic racism. The film focuses on Hampton’s complex, passionate and surprisingly open-armed political philosophies, as well as on the circumstances that forced a man who might otherwise have been a devout disciple to betray him.Also arriving:Feb. 2“Fake Famous”Feb. 4“Esme & Roy”“The Head”Feb. 18“It’s a Sin”Feb. 22“Beartown”Feb. 26“Tom & Jerry”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      How to Improve the Oscars? We Asked Five Culture Journalists

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Awards SeasonNetflix’s First Winner?Our Best Movie PicksNew Diversity RulesOscar-Winning DocumentariesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderHow to Improve the Oscars? We Asked Five Culture JournalistsYes, even in a year when the show will be held during a pandemic, the question is predictable. But these answers aren’t.The Academy Awards, which will be held on April 25, could do more to be fan-friendly.Credit…Matt Petit/Getty ImagesJan. 31, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The New York Times’s Culture desk recently looked at how the 93rd Academy Awards, scheduled for April 25, will take shape during the pandemic. One article features five Hollywood insiders talking about ways the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could make the Oscars more entertaining. Below, five of the journalists on the desk offer their thoughts on the same topic — well, four of them do.Live from … New Orleans?I’m in the camp that believes the Oscars would benefit from brevity, or at least finishing on time. (We on the East Coast have tight deadlines and work in the morning!) But aside from that, my dream is for the academy to host the ceremony in a different location each year, like the Super Bowl. The film industry has expanded in Atlanta, New Orleans and Austin, Texas — it could be another economic boon for those cities. Hollywood is often criticized for being out of touch with regular people. What better way to combat that notion? And fans would get a kick out of it. — Maira Garcia, digital news editorTime to retuneRethink the musical numbers. Songs in movies are written to help tell stories, not to be bellowed, devoid of context, by off-key pop stars backed by phalanxes of chorines. The orchestral arrangements and attempts at dance are too often informed by a generic idea of Hollywood spectacle — or, on the other hand, of pop spirituality. Get more specific! And since the Oscars take place in a theater, get a theater choreographer to stage them. — Jesse Green, chief theater critic‘I’d like to start my puzzling tangent immediately’After nominations have been announced, all finalists would have to submit to the academy the names of agents, managers, publicists, assistants and any other professional colleagues that they would have otherwise thanked in their acceptance speeches; these names would then be posted on the academy’s website or displayed alongside the eventual winner during the Oscars broadcast. Winners would thus have to focus their acceptance speeches on inspirational lessons gleaned from the making of their movie; ribald needling of rival nominees in their category; endorsement of fringe political beliefs that they are trying to articulate for the first time; and heartfelt expressions of gratitude to parents, mentors and school-age children watching at home. (Any violations of these rules would be enforced by catapult.) — Dave Itzkoff, culture reporterBest (loved) pictureAt a time when Hollywood has lamented the loss of moviegoing (I sorely miss it, too), wouldn’t it be nice if the Academy Awards celebrated moviegoers? One way to do that would be to let audiences nationwide vote on their favorite film and award a new Oscar to the winner. This wouldn’t be the same as the academy’s proposed prize for “achievement in popular film.” That short-lived, much maligned idea would have left the decision up to the organization’s members. This would give fans a voice. And who knows? Their favorite could match up with best picture. A win all around. — Stephanie Goodman, film editorLet Oscar be OscarI’m not sure the Oscars need to be, or can be, “improved,” at least as a TV show. (Whether they really measure the best work in movies is another question.) They will always be a mixed bag on average. They inevitably have to serve a casual audience along with a smaller audience of movie buffs. You can hire good producers and cast good talent and make room for spontaneous moments, but beyond that, it’s a matter of chance and whether lightning strikes. It’s easier to make an awards show bad — with ill-conceived stunts, e.g. — than to make one good. But I also don’t think there was any golden age when awards shows were better than they are now. This may be a terrible thing for a TV critic to say. But, just watch them or don’t! If you’re dissatisfied with the Oscars, you may just not be a person who likes awards shows very much, and that’s fine. — James Poniewozik, chief television criticAdvertisementContinue reading the main story More