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      in Movies

      With ‘Companion’ and ‘Novocaine,’ Jack Quaid Makes Comedy Painless

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      Jack Quaid can guess what people must think of him: Entitled. Overconfident. A jerk, no doubt about it.“Who I am comes with a certain expectation,” he said over breakfast — black coffee, fruit plates — on a Thursday in late January.Quaid, 32, is the son of the actors Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. (That DNA is strong. You can see his father when he smiles, his mother when he squints.) He grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., grabbing snacks from the craft services table on his parents’ sets and attending a private school with a common room where he could screen his camcorder movies. (An early magnum opus: “Bicycle Cops.”) Which is all to say that Quaid grew up with privilege, and he knows what privilege, unexamined and unacknowledged, can do to a person. He can turn that arrogance on for auditions, which explains why his first role was as a villain in “The Hunger Games” and why he can now be seen as a very bad boyfriend in the thriller “Companion” (in theaters).But the real Quaid is earnestly, acutely, even painfully aware of his privilege. In rooms where people don’t know him, he finds himself, he said, “apologizing for existing.” He isn’t jealous of his parents. (Please, he has been to therapy.) He loves his parents. He loves the life they have given him. “But there’s definitely a need to prove myself,” he said. “There is a little bit of something with identity and thinking, do I have any value outside of them?” As he said this, the divot in his forehead, which deepens when he’s stressed or concerned, had become a crevasse. “Not to say I’m complaining,” he added.Jack Quaid, the son of the actors Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, is earnestly aware of his privilege.Hannah Edelman for The New York TimesOver the last several years, Quaid has proved himself. And as the star of two movies out this winter, his value as a leading man is confirmed. He is beautifully smarmy in “Companion,” a romantic thriller with a sci-fi twist. (Avoid the trailer if you don’t want that twist unfurled.) And he is a sweetheart of an accidental action hero in the punchy thriller “Novocaine,” due March 14, in which he plays a timid assistant bank manager with a congenital inability to feel pain. (Quaid’s own pain threshold: “Not high!”) He is also currently wrapping the fifth and final season of “The Boys,” Amazon’s body fluid-soaked antisuperhero show. He leads the cast as Hughie, a normal-ish guy in an enthusiastically abnormal world. And he has two other movies in postproduction, the thriller “Neighborhood Watch” and the action comedy “Heads of State.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Stephen Colbert Laughs Off New York Mayor’s Staffing Woes

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      This week, Colbert said, Eric Adams’s problems “stopped being funny and started becoming hilarious.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Rat RaceNew York City’s mayor, Eric Adams, has had a challenging start to his week, with four of his eight deputy mayors announcing their resignations. Stephen Colbert called it the moment when “Adams’s controversies stopped being funny and started becoming hilarious.”“The resignations were from the first deputy mayor, deputy mayor for health and human services, deputy mayor for operations, and deputy mayor for public safety. So, at this point, the city is evidently being run by the remaining deputy mayor: 100 rats in a trench coat.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe resignations came after several federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York quit, having come under pressure from the Trump administration to drop charges in the mayor’s corruption case.“That takes courage. Thankfully, all these lawyers found jobs at the new firm of Wegot, Balls & Howe.” — STEPHEN COLBERTColbert reminded viewers that Adams has “been involved in controversy for years now.”“For instance, while he was running to be the mayor of New York, no one could tell if he lived in New York or New Jersey; once he became mayor, he appointed, and later had to remove, his brother as deputy police commissioner. He announced a personal war on rats, introduced a Times Square RoboCop that failed as a police officer but thrived as a public urinal, and claims that the Big Apple is littered with unique crystals that give out a special energy. Yes, in fact, I saw a gentleman enjoying some of those unique crystals in the Port Authority bathroom yesterday. He definitely radiated a ‘special energy.’” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Punchiest Punchlines (Reality Bites Edition)“This is the worst ad I have ever seen. It’s a virtual support group for singles, but it looks like an A.A. meeting for ‘Animal Crossing’ villagers.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSON on Meta’s new ad for its VR game, “Horizon Worlds”“CGI has gotten very good — ‘Avatar,’ ‘Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ — get it together! You’re telling me this is the best you can do? It looks like an animated show for children made by even younger children.” — TAYLOR TOMLINSONWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares174 Views

      in Television

      ‘Best Interests’ Is a Deeply Empathetic British Series

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      Starring Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen, the four-part series, on Acorn TV, is a heartbreaking look at two parents in an impossible situation.There are no villains in “Best Interests,” a heartbreaking limited series that arrives on Acorn TV on Monday. Instead, the series, a four-part British drama starring Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen, is about two people in impossible circumstances who are trying to do what they think is right.The episodes follow Nicci (Horgan) and Andrew (Sheen), a married couple whose daughter Marnie (Niamh Moriarty) has a form of muscular dystrophy. Early on, the cheerful Marnie ends up in the hospital with an infection that leads ultimately to brain damage. Her doctor (Noma Dumezweni) recommends stopping treatment.This is where Nicci and Andrew, whom we immediately understand to be dedicated parents, diverge. Andrew looks at his child and believes the girl he once knew is gone; Nicci sees a callous system that wants her disabled daughter to die. The writer Jack Thorne, known for “His Dark Materials,” never allows one side to be the “right” one. Horgan’s passion convinces you there is a chance for Marnie; Sheen’s despair makes you believe there isn’t.In the middle there is Nicci and Andrew’s other daughter, Katie, played by Alison Oliver of “Conversations With Friends.” Katie is a teen who has always existed in the shadow of her high-needs sister. She copes by sneaking cigarettes and wants desperately to appease both her parents. While Oliver portrays Katie’s pain well, her story ends up being the weakest because of an ill-advised plotline involving a bad girlfriend and the theft of Marnie’s unused drugs. It is the most outlandish the series gets.“Best Interests” is at its most fascinating, though, when it invests in the emotional compromises all these people make as they try to fight for Marnie. Andrew is shocked, for instance, that Nicci would align herself with a Christian organization, which is likely anti-abortion, in order to pursue a court case against the hospital. Nicci, on the other hand, sees Andrew’s resistance as abandonment.Horgan and Sheen propel the show with their wonderfully complicated performances. Horgan, best known for sharp-edged comedies like “Catastrophe” and “Bad Sisters,” brings wry humor to Nicci even in her character’s darkest moments. But she also depicts the unimaginable agony of a parent in limbo. In Sheen’s dejected, empathetic depiction of Andrew, you see how crushed he is by the notion that Marnie is already gone.Sadly, the voice that is missing is Marnie’s. Her life is rendered through flashbacks that feel like rosy, one-dimensional glimpses of what once was. But as a depiction of what happens once she can no longer speak for herself, “Best Interests” is devastatingly complex. More

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      in Theater

      Hear How a ‘Smash’ Song Got a Broadway Makeover

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      “Let Me Be Your Star,” which evokes an actor’s longing to shine, has come a long way from its TV days. Here’s how the song evolved on its way to the stage.On a recent morning at a rehearsal room on 42nd Street, the actress Robyn Hurder stood atop a pedestal, red lips parted, arms outstretched, blond curls vibrating as she sang the final notes of “Let Me Be Your Star.” Then she collapsed, breathless.“This number’s hard,” she said, her face glistening with sweat. “Who did this?”Well, plenty of people. “Let Me Be Your Star” was written over a dozen years ago for the pilot episode of NBC’s “Smash,” a backstage-set nighttime soap about the hectic creation of a Broadway musical, “Bombshell.” There were plans to bring “Bombshell,” a biomusical about Marilyn Monroe, to the real Broadway, but those plans never came to fruition. Neither did “Smash,” which was canceled after two seasons.But “Let Me Be Your Star,” a classic “I want” song that its composer and co-lyricist, Marc Shaiman, has described as a “neck-bursting showstopper,” endures. Originally sung at the close of the pilot by Megan Hilty and Katharine McPhee, the song, which was nominated for Grammy and Emmy Awards, has been covered by Andrew Rannells on “Girls,” by Jonathan Groff and Jeremy Jordan at MCC Theater’s Miscast benefit, by Ben Platt and Nicole Scherzinger in concert and by masses of fans (and the occasional Muppet, on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Ostensibly a song about Monroe’s life, it resonates for any actor — and really, anyone — who longs to shine.Now it’s been reimagined as the opening number of “Smash,” a new Broadway musical that riffs on the TV show. Hurder plays Ivy Lynn, a Broadway actress tasked with playing Marilyn in “Bombshell.” This opening version of “Let Me Be Your Star” is staged by the director Susan Stroman and the choreographer Joshua Bergasse (also a veteran of the TV “Smash”) as a Great White Way fever dream featuring elaborate harmonies, athletic dance and a brassy, big-band sound. The song recurs, in a very different style, at the end of the first act, though the producers are keeping those details secret. And it may return a third time.“It’s possible!” Stroman said.The stage version of “Smash” follows the backstage meltdown of a fictional show called “Bombshell” as it approaches opening night.Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York TimesAt that morning rehearsal, Stroman had Hurder and the ensemble run the number again. There were flips, lifts, mambo moves, thrilling vocal frills. More

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      in Television

      Maher Knocks Trump’s Gutting of the Federal Work Force

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      “America is in shock that the guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re fired’ is firing everybody in government,” Bill Maher said of President Trump on “Real Time.”Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Hulk SmashPresident Donald Trump’s first month in office has been eventful.On Friday’s episode of “Real Time,” the host Bill Maher referred to the last several days as “week four of Hulk smash,” saying that Trump’s administration “dissects a frog with a hand grenade — this is their method.”“We were so scared that the government was going to turn into ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ that we didn’t see that the big threat was from the guys on ‘The Big Bang Theory.’” — BILL MAHER“America is in shock that the guy whose catchphrase was ‘You’re fired’ is firing everybody in government.” — BILL MAHER“He wants to suck our blood? That is not what I voted for when I voted for Dracula.” — BILL MAHER“Maybe this is why Gen Z’s approval rating of Trump has dropped 30 points in one month. Hey, kids, a little tip: The time to pay attention is before the election.” — BILL MAHER“Look, I believe government is too bloated, but the way they’re doing it is ridiculous and horrible and now they went — maybe this is the one that’s too far — they went and fired almost everybody in the agency that’s responsible for maintaining our nuclear weapons. Fired — and then, of course, they had to walk that back because somebody said, ‘This is a national security crisis.’ Duh.” — BILL MAHERThe Punchiest Punchlines (Presidents’ Day Edition)”It is Presidents’ Day, so to those who celebrate, why?” — STEPHEN COLBERT“All government offices will be closed, although I think that was the plan anyway.” — BILL MAHER“When I was a kid, it wasn’t Presidents’ Day; we celebrated Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays. Every February, we would hang our stockings and wait for Abraham Lincoln to fill them with wooden teeth.” — STEPHEN COLBERTThe Bits Worth WatchingThe comedian Andy Richter and the lawyer and activist George Conway joined the panelists to dog DOGE on the Season 2 premiere of “Have I Got News For You.”What We’re Excited About on Tuesday NightGeorge Clooney will discuss his Broadway debut in “Good Night, and Good Luck” on Tuesday’s “Late Show.”Also, Check This OutDozens of current and former “Saturday Night Live” cast members, along with dozens of former hosts and musicians, gathered onstage with the show’s creator, Lorne Michaels (front row, second from left), to close out the show.Theo Wargo/NBC, via Getty ImagesThe “Saturday Night Live” 50th anniversary special was sweet, self-satirizing and star-studded. More

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      in Television

      ‘S.N.L.’ Celebrates 50 Years With Star-Studded Prime-Time Special

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      Stage and audience alike at Studio 8H were packed with cast, alumni and other celebrities in a night that was in turns sweet and self-satirizing.After a half-century of comedy and music (and what at times felt like an equal amount of buildup and hype), how do you at last kick off a prime-time 50th anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live”? Calmly and serenely, it turns out.The long-awaited “SNL50: The Anniversary Special” opened on Sunday with the musicians Paul Simon (an “S.N.L.” stalwart through the decades) and Sabrina Carpenter (who was its musical guest in May 2024) sharing the stage at the show’s familiar home base at Studio 8H at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.They exchanged a simple joke, setting a theme that would recur for the rest of the night: Time passes, whether you like it or not. Simon said they were about to play a song that he had performed on the show with George Harrison in 1976. “I was not born then,” Carpenter said, “and neither were my parents.”“I’m glad they’ll get the chance to hear it tonight,” Simon replied. And together he and Carpenter performed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound,” the first musical number in a night that also included performances by Paul McCartney, Miley Cyrus with Brittany Howard and Lil Wayne with the Roots.And who else could perform the opening monologue on this occasion but Steve Martin, a 16-time host whose own rising star in the 1970s imparted some needed credibility and momentum to “S.N.L.” when it was just starting out.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares114 Views

      in Television

      ‘Suits L.A.,’ Plus 7 Things to Watch on TV This Week

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      A reboot of the popular law series airs on NBC. And the second season of the “Yellowstone” prequel “1923” returns to Paramount+.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that air or stream this week, Feb. 17-23. Details and times are subject to change.A reboot six years later.From the original iteration of “Suits” came a princess, a Netflix phenomenon and endless YouTube edits of relationships on the show — so what will the reboot, “Suits L.A.,” bring? Whereas the original was set at a corporate law firm in New York City, the new version takes place in Los Angeles with attorneys dealing with entertainment law. But of course, there is still cockiness, borderline inappropriate flirting and the glitz and glam that comes with being a rich lawyer. Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC.Award season continues.Dave Chappelle will be honored at the N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesAs we head further into winter, though also an inch closer to spring, award season is still in effect. First, there is the 56th N.A.A.C.P. Image Awards, which celebrates the achievements of people of color across entertainment. The comedian Dave Chappelle is set to receive the N.A.A.C.P. President’s Award. Kendrick Lamar, who has had a big month after taking home five Grammys and performing at the Super Bowl halftime show, is nominated for entertainer of the year, alongside Cynthia Erivo, Keke Palmer, Kevin Hart and Shannon Sharpe. Saturday at 8 p.m. on BET.The next night, Kristen Bell is hosting the 31st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, which could give us a good idea of which movies might win at the Oscars. The difference between this award show and others is that it honors exclusively actors, which this year includes the nominees Kieran Culkin, Mikey Madison and Jonathan Bailey, to name a few. Sunday at 8 p.m. on Netflix.There’s never a lack of true crime stories.A memorial for Gabby Petito.Brittainy Newman/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares95 Views

      in Television

      ‘The White Lotus’ Season 3 Premiere Recap: Thai Up

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      The premiere of the new season of the HBO anthology drama, set in Thailand, suggests that Mike White’s formula retains plenty of pop.Season 3, Episode 1: ‘Same Spirits, New Forms’Take a moment. Focus on your breathing. Calm your mind. Let the sounds of the external world fade away. Did you just hear gunshots? Ignore them. Embrace the now. Find in your minds what is timeless. Pay no attention to the corpse floating by you.If you watched either of the previous two seasons of the HBO hit “The White Lotus,” you probably were not surprised to see Season 3 kick off with a dead body. This show is effectively an anthology drama, with each new edition following a different set of rich tourists and well-meaning service industry employees at high-end international resorts. The writer-director Mike White has developed a sturdy blueprint for this series, combining beautiful locations, talented actors, dark social satire, gentle humanism and just a little bit of mystery. Think “Fantasy Island,” but with a TV-MA twist.Because White takes his time establishing characters and telling their stories, he hooks the audience in the opening minutes of each season with a tease of where the plot is headed. Someone — as yet unidentified — is going to die. Please stay tuned.In the Season 3 premiere at least, this formula retains plenty of pop. We begin in a sun-dappled Thailand jungle, where one of the White Lotus chain’s wellness-centered seaside getaways is nestled among thick groves of trees filled with monkeys and wild birds. There, a stress-management session is interrupted by some loud pops and a cadaver. And away we go, rewinding to the start of the story, one week earlier.Once again, White has assembled a stellar cast, easily sorted into four different groups who will all, no doubt, interact before the season’s over.The largest is the Ratliff family, North Carolina blue bloods led by Timothy (Jason Isaacs), a business bigwig with no interest in any of the resort’s spiritual healing exercises. Parker Posey plays Tim’s wife, Victoria, a brassy belle who thinks everything her children do is a hoot. Patrick Schwarzenegger plays the eldest son, Saxon, a beefy finance bro who works for Tim and is on a constant hunt for sexual partners. Sarah Catherine Hook is Piper, the daughter, a University of North Carolina student working on a thesis project about eastern religions (and who is the reason the other Ratliffs are, semi-reluctantly, in Thailand). And Sam Nivola is the youngest son, Lochlan, a high school senior who just got into Duke but isn’t sure he wants to follow in his father’s and brother’s heavy footsteps.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More