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      From No Home to a Perch in Hollywood, a Filmmaker Finally Breaks Through

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      Fresh from a year of attending the prestigious Sundance labs and armed with a script that would become her first feature, the director Victoria Mahoney thought her life as a filmmaker was about to begin. It was 2006 and she was attending a party at the Sundance Film Festival for industry professionals to meet the new crop of lab graduates. Agents, producers and others were there to mine new talent for future collaborations.Mahoney and her pal, the documentary filmmaker Kirsten Johnson, stood in that room and waited to be approached. Crickets. Finally, an agent came over and asked about their involvement in the labs. They responded effusively. But instead of inquiring about their work, he asked if they could introduce him to one of their male colleagues. That agent signed that colleague in the room. Mahoney? Nothing. Not on the mountain. Not after the festival ended.It would take Mahoney 11 years to land an agent and 20 more to make her first studio film. That movie, “The Old Guard 2,” debuted this week on Netflix.Charlize Theron in “The Old Guard 2,” directed by Mahoney. (Theron reteams with Chiwetel Ejiofor, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts and others for this sequel.)Eli Joshua Ade/Netflix“We all believe the fables of what happens when you’re at Sundance and you’ve come through the labs; we’ve seen it,” Mahoney said in a recent interview. “We weren’t viable. We weren’t anything. It’s indicative of a thousand things.”Mahoney’s story is not unfamiliar. So many toil in the film industry and are not rewarded with sustainable careers even when they receive accolades early on. What makes Victoria Mahoney distinct is that there never was a Plan B. She lived without a safety net for a decade, couch surfing at friends’ homes, even experiencing true moments of homelessness — nights when she didn’t know where she would be resting her head. But her belief in herself that she was destined to be a filmmaker? That never ebbed, regardless of her setbacks.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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      Will Sharpe, Star of Lena Dunham’s ‘Too Much,’ Is a Renaissance Man

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      When Will Sharpe arrived at Cambridge University in the mid-aughts, he was one of many undergraduates wanting to join Footlights, the storied sketch comedy troupe that had launched the careers of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson. His friends thought it best to spend a few months figuring out what kind of comedy Footlights might favor before applying, but Sharpe wanted to jump right in.At a first-semester showcase open to nonmembers, Sharpe and his friends performed a wacky sketch that involved pretending to eat a tub of Vaseline by the handful. He was made a member and was later elected president of the troupe.Sharpe’s biweekly Footlights performances — which also included playing a white crayon that was sad it was never taken out of the box — “definitely encouraged a risk-taking attitude, because you could fail and try again, and fail and try again,” Sharpe recalled in an interview at a woodland cafe near his North London home.In the two decades since college, Sharpe, now 38, has tried — and often succeeded at — a variety of creative projects, including writing, directing, acting, playing music and performing comedy. Claire Foy, whom Sharpe directed in the 2021 biopic “The Electrical Life of Louis Wain,” described him in an interview with The New York Times as “a Renaissance man” — “a kind one.”American audiences, though, know Sharpe best from his chameleonic run of recent acting gigs: the stoic tech hunk in Season 2 of HBO’s “The White Lotus”; the earnest tour guide in Jesse Eisenberg’s Oscar-winning movie “A Real Pain”; and now, as Felix, the enigmatic indie musician in the rom-com “Too Much,” Lena Dunham’s new Netflix series arriving on July 10.Will Sharpe and Megan Stalter in “Too Much,” a new show by Lena Dunham for Netflix.NetflixWe 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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      The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Disney+, Amazon, Max, AMC+ and More in July

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      A “Jaws” documentary, “Sinners,” “Washington Black” and the low-budget “Monster Island” arrive, and “Foundation” and “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” return.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of July’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Ballard’ Season 1Starts streaming: July 9A spinoff of a spinoff, this cop drama stars Maggie Q as Renée Ballard, a dogged Los Angeles police detective first introduced in Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels. Ballard made her TV debut in Season 3 of “Bosch: Legacy,” the follow-up to the popular crime series “Bosch.” In the new show, Ballard is assigned to lead a new team consisting mostly of volunteers and police department reserves, tasked to investigate some of the city’s oldest, coldest cases. As often happens in these situations, sometimes the trail of clues leads to some dangerous places, where the powerful people dwell. The detective has to rely on her wits and determination — along with some occasional help from the now-retired cop Bosch (Titus Welliver), who knows a lot about defying authority.Also arriving:July 2“Heads of State”July 11“One Night in Idaho: The College Murders”July 17“Surf Girls: International”July 21“Justice on Trial” Season 1July 23“Shiny Happy People: A Teenage Holy War”Callum Woodhouse, left, and Dean Fujioka in “Monster Island.”ShudderNew to AMC+‘Monster Island’Starts streaming: July 25Though its title may conjure up images of Godzilla and King Kong, this gritty low-budget monster movie actually features a human-scaled nemesis: a ferocious fish-man known as the Orang Ikan, which resembles the title beastie from “Creature From the Black Lagoon.” Written and directed by Mike Wiluan, “Monster Island” is set during World War II, and has Callum Woodhouse playing a captured British soldier and Dean Fujioka playing a Japanese soldier. When the two are shipwrecked, they have to put aside their prejudices and work together to survive the predator that is stalking them both. Working with little funds and just a few locations — plus one nifty-looking creature costume — Wiluan delivers the kind of intense action and moments of gory horror that genre fans enjoy.Also arriving:July 4“The Luckiest Man in America”July 7“The Madame Blanc Mysteries” Season 4July 11“Push”July 17“The Furry Detectives: Unmasking a Monster”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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      Dana Carvey Calls His Biden Impression a ‘Delicate Thing’

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      For his portrayal of the former president on “Saturday Night Live,” Carvey admitted that he had to toe a careful line.Dana Carvey, the comedian and actor, said that impersonating former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the just completed 50th season of “Saturday Night Live” was a challenge because he said he believed Biden “was compromised mentally.”Carvey made the comment on a recent episode of his and David Spade’s podcast “Fly on the Wall” while discussing his portrayal of Biden, a Democrat, during his re-election bid in 2024. “It was a delicate thing in the comedy world,” Carvey added. “There were a lot of people that did not want to do anything that would kind of ding him in, like, an awkward way.”Carvey, a former “S.N.L.” cast member known for his many impersonations, including his portrayal of George H.W. Bush in the 1980s and 1990s, said that in order to make his version of Biden funny, it had to be recognizable, which is why Carvey mastered the former president’s squint and chuckle, as well as his lapsing into non sequiturs like insisting on “being serious right now,” even if what he last said was not a joke.In one episode that aired in late September, Carvey as Biden joined Kamala Harris, played by Maya Rudolph, at a rally after she won the Democratic nomination. He slowly walked to the podium and tossed out a number of Biden’s signature phrases (“by the way,” “guess what?”) before being rushed offstage, only to wander back. In another skit from November, after Donald J. Trump, the Republican nominee, won the election, Carvey’s Biden advises him to watch how he talks as president but stammers over his own words in doing so.It took two years for Carvey to master his impression of Biden, he said, and that the first six months of Biden’s presidency did not provide much material until he heard the president whisper and yell.“Biden eventually was my favorite because he had like 10 hooks,” Carvey said. “I loved it. It was in entering and exiting, but it was a real challenge to make it acceptable.”Biden’s age and mental state became flash points during the 2024 presidential election cycle. Conversations about it reached a fever pitch shortly after the first presidential debate in June, in which Biden meandered and mumbled through his answers. Weeks later and under intense pressure from members of his party, Biden dropped out of the race.Since then, there has been a litany of discussions and even books that examine the former president’s decline while in the White House. In May, Biden was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. More

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      Anatomy of a Comedy Cliché

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      <!–>An early example is from the movie “Punchline,” when Tom Hanks chokes up telling a club audience that he disappointed his father, failing out of medical school:–> <!–>In “Obvious Child,” Jenny Slate stops joking in one set to say she was cheated on. Things get dark:–> <!–>After his jokes are met with awkward silence, Kumail […] More

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      ‘Squid Game’ Season 3 Recap: More Misery and a Surprise Cameo

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      The final season of the Netflix hit brought the story to a largely predictable conclusion, with one last twist at the end.This article includes spoilers for all of the final season of “Squid Game.”The final season of Netflix’s international sensation “Squid Game” is officially labeled Season 3. But who are we kidding here? The six episodes that end this series feel very much like a continuation of the seven episodes that aired earlier this year as Season 2, covering the same characters, still in the middle of the same deadly tournament. Nothing new is introduced here in the “Squid Game” homestretch. The show’s writer and director, Hwang Dong-hyuk, just connects the last few dots. It’s no wonder then that Season 3 feels so dispiritingly rote.This new set of episodes begins with the show’s protagonist Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) completely demoralized. In Season 1, he had survived a secret competition on a mysterious island — where the losers are killed and the ultimate winner takes home a fortune — for the entertainment of obscenely wealthy “V.I.P.s.” Shaken by the experience, Gi-hun in Season 2 tried to find and expose the tournament’s backers before deciding the only way to destroy the operation would be from the inside, by competing again.The season ended with a massive miscalculation by Gi-hun, as he attempted to lead some other players in an armed revolt against the games’ guards and bosses, unaware that one of his supposed allies, Hwang In-ho (Lee Byung-hun), was actually the operation’s manager — “the Front Man” — playing incognito in order to keep a close eye on him.At the same time, In-ho’s brother Hwang Jun-ho (Wi Ha-jun) — a former police detective working with Gi-hun to end the games for good — kept searching for the island, unaware that the captain of the boat he chartered was in league with the Front Man and steering him far away from his target.It may not have been the best idea to return In-ho to his Front Man duties at the end of Season 2, separating him from the now-despondent Gi-hun. One of the most rewarding elements of Season 2 were the conversations between In-ho, a misanthropic cynic pretending to be a compassionate human being, and Gi-hun, a fierce idealist determined to prove to the games’ masters that people are not inherently greedy, selfish and shortsighted. With In-ho out of the game and Gi-hun deflated, Season 3 loses some juice right from the start.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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      ‘The Bear’ Is Back, but Where’s the Beef?

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      The restaurant’s business challenge in Season 4 — balancing comfort food and haute cuisine — is also a metaphor for the show’s creative issues.This article discusses events through Season 4 of “The Bear,” now available on Hulu.The new season of “The Bear” is the story of a struggling restaurant and a successful restaurant. They are both the same restaurant.The struggling restaurant is, of course, the title establishment. Season 3 ended with the chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) speed-reading a crucial newspaper write-up. (There is no better way to flatter critics than to make your cliffhanger about the contents of a review.) Season 4 reveals that it was mostly a pan, and not the nice, carbon-steel kind. Now the Bear is on a ticking clock — an actual, physical clock — counting the seconds until the “parachute” of investment cash runs out.Bustling happily alongside is the beef-sandwich window, a legacy of the restaurant’s origins as the humble neighborhood joint the Original Beef of Chicagoland. Overseen by Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson), an eager, soft-spoken culinary-school dropout, it hands out dripping Italian beef sandwiches to an endless line of customers.Unlike the Bear, the Beef (if we can call it that) is not fancy. It does not change its menu daily. It does not serve flavored steam or desserts that double as magic tricks. It is not trying to dazzle you with technique. It does one satisfying thing, then comes back and does it again. And, Season 4 suggests, it could be the salvation of the foundering business, as Ebraheim’s new consigliere (Rob Reiner) steers it toward becoming a local franchise.When is a sandwich not just a sandwich? “The Bear,” like many shows about creativity, seems to contain its own critique. The dichotomy of the Bear vs. the Beef embodies an argument over how to make art, one that very much applies to this show — and one that is to some extent the show’s subject.It’s about ambition vs. accessibility, change vs. repetition, consistency vs. risk, complexity vs. simplicity. What do you want when you watch TV — a good sandwich or a challenging tasting menu? Beef or Bear?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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      ‘Tour de France: Unchained,’ Plus 9 Things to Watch on TV this Week

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      Netflix airs the documentary series on the bike race and various networks release shark stories.Between streaming and cable, there is a seemingly endless variety of things to watch. Here is a selection of TV shows and specials that are airing or streaming this week, June 30-July 6. Details and times are subject to change.Wide-ranging documentaries.On July 7, 2005, London’s public transportation system was targeted in an attack that involved four suicide bombings during morning rush hour. The terrorist attack killed 52 people and nearly 800 were injured. The new four-part documentary series “Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 Bombers” shares unseen footage and features interviews with politicians, emergency workers and relatives of the victims to tell the story of the attack and the aftermath. Streaming Tuesday on Netflix.The summer Olympics happen once every four years, but if you are looking for a yearly sport to get invested in, the Tour de France might be for you. Airing on NBC and streaming on Peacock this month, the annual men’s race, with multiple stages over the course of approximately 2,000 miles and 23 days, not only tests the endurance of athletes but also provides scenic views around France. A new season of the documentary series “Tour de France: Unchained” gives an in-depth look at the 2024 race, following several different teams and athletes. Streaming Wednesday on Netflix.In 1971, Ms. magazine was co-founded by Gloria Steinem and was first published as an insert in New York magazine. By January 1972, the first stand-alone issue was released on a monthly basis. The three-part series “Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print” looks at the magazine’s founding and its history as a publication that focuses on women-centered issues, including abortion, work balance and sexual politics in a primarily male-dominated space. The documentary also features interviews with Steinem, her co-founders Letty Cottin Pogrebin and Pat Carbine, and the first editor of the magazine, Suzanne Braun Levine. Wednesday at 9 p.m. on HBO and streaming on Max.Reality check-in.If you thought we had seen enough of this group of Swig-sipping, drama-creating ladies of MomTok, you were sorely mistaken. Nearly two months since the second season aired, the women of “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” are back for a reunion this week, hosted by Nick Viall of “The Bachelor” fame. Lots of fights, feuds and snarky quips have continued with the group after the show has aired, so there is lots left to discuss. Let’s just hope that no one makes them play another round of pregnancy test roulette. Streaming Tuesday on Hulu.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