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      ‘The Survivors’ Is a Polished and Potent Murder Mystery

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      Based on the book by Jane Harper, this six-part Australian drama takes place in a coastal Tasmanian town, where the bodies keep surfacing.Perhaps all of streaming television is one giant conspiracy to persuade us not to dream of beach town living. They’re the murder capitals of TV, these towns, with their craggy shores and generational secrets, their prodigal sons and nosy outsiders. Stay away from the water! Reject those quaint houses and majestic vistas! This is not a place of honor!“The Survivors,” a six-episode Australian murder mini-series on Netflix, is a tasty, polished instantiation of the form. Based on the book by Jane Harper, the coastal misery here takes place in Tasmania, where Kieran (Charlie Vickers) is returning home to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the night of a terrible storm. Kieran himself nearly drowned, and his brother and a friend died trying to save him.Those were not the only two people who died that night. A teen girl, Gabby, also disappeared and presumably drowned, but she is rarely acknowledged in all the public grieving. In the present day, a young woman who was conducting her own investigation into Gabby’s death turns up dead, and now a whole other mystery is crying out to be solved.Though it covers a lot of familiar angles, “The Survivors” outshines most of its brethren. The relationships here are knotty, the characters multidimensional in intriguing, moving ways. People can be both wonderful and cruel, loving but maybe not loving enough, loyal but also dishonest.Mia (Yerin Ha), Kieran’s wife, was Gabby’s best friend, and now she isn’t sure how to relate to Gabby’s bereft mom and sister, who disagree with each other about the need to investigate Gabby’s death further. Kieran’s mother, Verity (Robyn Malcolm), struggles with grief and blame — and care taking. Kieran’s father, Brian (Damien Garvey), has worsening dementia, and when the police grill him about what he might have witnessed, his recollections are fractured, mixed up.But who doesn’t struggle with painful memories? Doesn’t everyone have something he or she wants to forget? There’s plenty of sorrow to go around, even as the characters argue about who has it the worst, desperate for their suffering to be beheld, to be legitimized.The show picks up as it goes, and its plot lines nest like Russian dolls, giving the story a real sense of heft and potency. More

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      Trump’s New ‘Apprentice’ Boardroom: The Oval Office

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      The stately room has long been a site of diplomacy. But the reality-star president often does not come there to make friends.“This is going to be great television, I will say that.”So concluded President Trump after a stunning Oval Office confrontation in February, in front of live cameras, in which he and Vice President JD Vance took turns castigating President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and held out the prospect of withholding support for the country invaded by Russia.At a May meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Mr. Trump brought his own television, playing video clips to support his false claims that white South African farmers have been the victims of genocide. The ambush, which also found Mr. Trump showing a news image actually taken from the Democratic Republic of Congo, left Mr. Ramaphosa scrambling to respond. But again, the cameras broadcast it all.The confrontations were shocking compared with how diplomacy has long been conducted in that stately office. But they were not surprising — at least, not to anyone who had watched Mr. Trump during his 14 seasons as the capricious, demanding host of the NBC business-competition series “The Apprentice.”In his high-drama Oval Office meetings, carried live on cable news, Mr. Trump has created himself a reality show right inside the White House. It is a serial production, tailored to his tastes for attention and drama, in which his guests submit to judgment and win a blessing or a tongue-lashing.The dynamic in these showdowns is oddly similar to the climactic “firings” Mr. Trump conducted on the NBC show. Then, as now, Mr. Trump was installed in a set designed to magnify his power — in “The Apprentice,” it was a sleek “boardroom” custom-built to improve on Trump Tower’s underwhelming real-life offices.Reality competition shows and Mr. Trump’s politics operate on the same principles: shock value, conflict, shows of dominance. Escalating a fight is almost always better for ratings than defusing one. So it was in Mr. Trump’s TV career; so it is in his administration, whether the tussle is with a world leader or Elon Musk.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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      Desi Lydic Wants Trump to Leave the Troops Alone

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      Hosts ripped into his comment during a speech to troops about former President Joe Biden never having been “the sharpest bulb.”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.‘Two Tacos Short of a Happy Meal’President Donald Trump visited soldiers at Fort Bragg on Tuesday, where he delivered a speech to “his favorite men in uniform who aren’t in the Village People,” Desi Lydic said on Wednesday’s “Daily Show.”“Oh, my God, give these troops a break already! They have to sit through your show, they have to invade Los Angeles, and now they have to parade for you?” — DESI LYDICDuring his speech, Trump attempted to criticize former President Joe Biden’s intelligence, saying, “He’s never been the sharpest bulb.”“He was there to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the army, so, of course, he ended up discussing Joe Biden.” — DESI LYDIC“What a wordsmith. See, see, most people would’ve gone with ‘brightest bulb,’ or ‘sharpest tool,’ but Donald Trump took half of both and smushed them together. That is what makes him the cream of the litter.” — DESI LYDIC“But that’s Trump — he’s not the brightest knife in the drawer. Some say he’s two tacos short of a Happy Meal.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“He wasn’t the sharpest bulb, no. He wasn’t the brightest knife in the drawer.” — JIMMY FALLON“When Trump’s staff told him that he misquoted the idiom, he was, like, ‘Hey, who are you calling an idiom?’” — JIMMY FALLON‘Nothing $300 Million Couldn’t Fix’Elon Musk addressed last week’s tweets concerning President Trump on Wednesday, posting on X: “I regret some of my posts about President @realdonaldtrump last week. They went too far.”Jimmy Fallon said he was shocked: “I didn’t know Elon was programmed to feel human emotion.”“Yeah, apparently, Trump and Elon spoke over the phone on Monday night. Trump was very gracious. He was, like, ‘This is nothing another $300 million donation couldn’t fix.’” — JIMMY FALLON“Which ones went too far? Was it the one where you called for him to be impeached and replaced by JD Vance? Was it the one where you said his big, beautiful bill was a disgusting abomination? Was it the one that said he wouldn’t have won the election without you buying it for him? Or the one where you insinuated he is a pedophile on the Epstein list? I really would like to know.” — JIMMY KIMMELWe 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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      Review: Thomas Vinterberg’s ‘Families Like Ours,’ on Netflix

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      In Thomas Vinterberg’s series on Netflix, climate change forces a country to close, and everyone has to leave.The mini-series “Families Like Ours” on Netflix has an attention-grabbing premise: An entire country, Denmark, decides to shut itself down before climate change can do the job for it. Six million Danes start looking for new homes. Relocation plans are drawn up with Scandinavian efficiency, but European neighbors look upon waves of relatively well-off white refugees with the same distaste they show for Africans and Middle Easterners.The seven-episode series is the first from the Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg, known for founding the no-frills Dogme 95 movement with Lars von Trier and, 26 years later, being nominated for a best director Oscar for “Another Round,” which won best international feature in 2021. The handsomely appointed “Families Like Ours,” which Vinterberg wrote, with Bo Hr. Hansen, and directed, breaks just about every rule in the Dogme manifesto, as his films have all along. It is a high-class consumer item, deliberate and hushed.It does, however, have something in common with his one true Dogme film, “The Celebration” from 1998. It subjects an extended Danish family to pressure and traces the fissures of guilt and dependency, the outbreaks of bad behavior and gallantry, that result. “The Celebration,” released when Vinterberg was 29, did this via transgressive, occasionally puerile black humor; “Families Like Ours” offers restrained, tasteful domestic drama. The contrast is startling, but the underlying satisfactions are similar.The new series (it premiered Tuesday on Netflix) will be categorized as a climate-change drama, and it is that. The story appears to take place in an unspecified but near future when waters have risen and efforts to hold them back have met with varying success. But the evidence of danger is mostly offscreen; the crisis is suggested through newscasts and ominous puddles. Vinterberg imagines that the climate crisis will arrive not in floods and heat but in bureaucracy and confusion — endless lines, indecipherable rules, arduous journeys, a constant assault on hope. His vision may not be easily dramatic, but it is convincing.(The overall premise is a more difficult sell. Would the Danes, as disciplined and regimented as they might be, really leave their country as obediently as the series portrays? Wouldn’t many congregate on high ground and fight to stay? The show’s failure to take on that possibility is a problem.)The show is also defined, in part, by the obvious reversal it plays on our expectations for stories about refugees. It is formerly comfortable white people who are standing in the lines, yelling across bank counters and nakedly pleading for handouts and favors. They are shocked by the conditions they face once they make it to Paris or Bucharest.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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      From ‘The Materialists’ to ‘The Bear,’ Pop Culture Takes Up Smoking Again

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      From movies and TV shows to music, the habit is no longer taboo. It’s even being celebrated for the way it makes characters look cool or powerful.In the new romantic dramedy “Materialists,” about 21st-century dating, Dakota Johnson loves cigarettes.Playing Lucy, a New York matchmaker, she’s puffing when she gossips with a pal during a work party. Later, she holds a lighted cigarette near her face while flirting with an ex. There’s no hand-wringing over her smoking. She’s just a smoker. And she’s wildly on trend. That’s because, at least in the world of entertainment, cigarettes are once again cool.“Materialists” is just the tip of the ash. The musicians Addison Rae and Lorde both mention smoking in recent singles. The stars of “The Bear” are smokers on- and offscreen. The “Housewives” count many among their ranks. Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd smoke in the big-screen comedy “Friendship,” while the chic Seema (Sarita Choudhury) on the series “And Just Like That” does as well. In the kitschy video for her track “Manchild” Sabrina Carpenter uses a fork as a cigarette holder. Even Beyoncé has lit up onstage during her Cowboy Carter Tour. In one instance, she throws the cigarette on a piano, which artfully ignites as she performs “Ya Ya.” If Beyoncé is doing it, you know it’s reached the upper echelon of culture.And these smokers are largely celebrated. The overwhelming sentiment is: Sure, cigarettes are bad for you, but they make you look good — as evidenced by Lucy, who keeps her smokes in an elegant silver case, perhaps to emphasize how sleek the habit is, and brandishes them to show just how effortlessly hot she can look bringing one to her lips.In a still from her music video for “Aquamarine,” Addison Rae wields not one but two cigarettes.Jared Oviatt, the man behind the Instagram account @Cigfluencers, which features photos of celebrities glamorously smoking, told me he had noticed an upswing in material recently. When he started the account in 2021 he had to look harder to find content.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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      How Jon Bernthal Became Hollywood’s Most Dependable Bruiser

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      When Jon Bernthal was cast as a petty drug dealer in “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Martin Scorsese’s 2013 white-collar crime epic, the actor wasn’t even supposed to have many lines. But Bernthal went into that film intending to take his shot. So he came in for a wordless B-roll scene in which the script had him lifting weights in a backyard, asked the second-unit director to mic him and riffed for 45 minutes. Scorsese wasn’t there that day, but here’s what he saw in the footage: a shirtless Bernthal curling dumbbells, tormenting some teenage boys with a baseball bat and peacocking his virility. “Bring some of them chicks around here sometime,” he says. Then Bernthal makes a brilliant little decision about his tough guy’s whereabouts. “Hey, Ma, we got chicken or what?” he yells toward the house. “Ma!” There was no “Ma” in the script. No one even said he lived with his mother.The role introduced Bernthal as an excellent character actor. Since then, he has become the guy who shows up onscreen unexpectedly, delivers the most memorable performance in a scene or two and then vanishes. This is perhaps why he’s so often playing dead men in flashbacks. He’s the dramatic center of gravity in FX’s “The Bear,” appearing just once or twice per season as the deceased family patriarch, and the tragic romantic in the 2017 Taylor Sheridan film “Wind River.” Bernthal was so good in “The Accountant,” an improbable 2016 Ben Affleck-led movie about an autistic accountant turned gunslinger, that the filmmakers made this year’s sequel a two-hander.Bernthal has had leading roles too, most notably in “We Own This City,” the HBO miniseries about Baltimore police corruption in which the actor’s performance was criminally overlooked. But for the most part, he has carved out a career of supporting roles. So it made perfect sense when he told me that one of his favorite movies is “True Romance,” Tony Scott’s 1993 adaptation of Quentin Tarantino’s first script. Christian Slater may have been the lead, but it was the supporting characters played by Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt and Dennis Hopper who stole the film. “There are so many people who are in it for a scene or two,” Bernthal said, “but you could have made a movie about any one of those characters.”We were having breakfast in Ojai, Calif., where Bernthal lives. The previous day, he returned from New York where he was promoting “The Accountant 2.” Before that he was in Greece and Morocco, filming a role in “The Odyssey” with Christopher Nolan, which is perhaps the greatest honor that can be bestowed on a dramatic actor these days. In front of him was a pile of egg whites, spinach, fruit and gluten-free toast. “I’m like a gorilla,” he said. “I eat a lot.”Most actors, once they get lead roles, are advised to turn down anything smaller. But Bernthal is allergic to strategizing about how to become a leading man or listening to agents and managers who want to find him a “star vehicle.” The only real mistake he made in his career, he told me, happened because he let that sort of thinking get in his head. But he has switched agents since then. He knows he has become the guy who everyone calls for a favor, but then again “The Bear” was a favor. And that turned into one of the most rewarding experiences of Bernthal’s career. The intensity he brought to the role won him an Emmy, and now he has even co-written an episode in the upcoming season. “I can’t imagine deciding what you’re going to do in this super-tenuous field while being so dependent on some businessman’s strategy,” he said.Jon Bernthal, right, with Jeremy Allen White and Abby Elliott in the 2023 episode of “The Bear” that earned him an Emmy.Chuck Hodes/FX, via Everett CollectionWe 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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      Jimmy Kimmel Calls Trump an ‘Arsonist With a Hose’

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      The L.A.-based host said the city’s problem was the president, not the protests: “We have more so-called ‘unrest’ here when one of our teams wins a championship.”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.Fake NewsOn Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel, who’s based in Los Angeles, mocked the idea that protests against immigration raids have turned the city into “some kind of totalitarian hellscape” — a notion pushed by President Trump (and some cable news outlets) as he sent in Marines and the National Guard.“He wants there to be a war going on here, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt in it. There’s no riot outside. We have more so-called ‘unrest’ here when one of our teams wins a championship.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Not only is it not an apocalypse, they’re having a Disney Pixar movie premiere right now, for ‘Elio,’ a movie about aliens. Don’t tell Trump, he’ll send the Green Berets in, too.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“You know, when we had the wildfires that devastated big chunks of our city, he did absolutely nothing. Now that we’re in the middle of a nonemergency: ‘Send in the National Guard!’” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Putting out a fire you purposely start doesn’t make you a firefighter, it makes you an arsonist with a hose.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Yes, nothing calms down a situation like a military invasion.” — DESI LYDIC“You know, I’m beginning to wonder if Trump is intentionally trying to escalate this situation because more chaos allows him to portray blue states as centers of crime, while positioning himself as the strongman that the country needs to rally around. No, that’s silly. I’m sure he’s just doing what’s best for everyone.” — DESI LYDIC“Now, as we speak, Trump has sent thousands of troops into downtown L.A. to quell what historians will remember as the Battle of That Video of a Burning Waymo Car They Kept Showing on Cable News.” — STEPHEN COLBERT“And to those of you in the National Guard who have been thrust into this: When Donald Trump orders you to do something that you know is immoral, try to get your dad’s podiatrist to write a note to say you have bone spurs.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“The president of the United States has been tougher on L.A. than on Russia. Remember that two-week deadline he gave Putin to sit down for peace talks with Ukraine? As of tomorrow, it’s two weeks. But, by all means, send the Marines to The Grove.” — JIMMY KIMMEL“Trump’s terrible policy has generated a huge backlash, which he’s responded to by overreacting, which is going to generate another backlash. We don’t know how this is going to end, but at least we know it’ll be a huge waste of money.” — DESI LYDIC“I just want to say, thank God for President Trump and the heroes at ICE for protecting us from these bloodthirsty fruit stand vendors, spreading their dangerous pineapple chunks and mangos with a squirt of lime all over the city.” — JIMMY KIMMELThe Punchiest Punchlines (Meanwhile on Fox News Edition)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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      ‘Taskmaster’ Is a Mischievous, Unpredictable British Panel Show

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      The American comedian Jason Mantzoukas is a contestant this season, and his gleeful maniac persona fits perfectly.“Taskmaster” has long been one of my favorite shows, and among my favorite things about it is that there are no bad seasons. In each outing, five performers, mostly comedians, compete in a series of kooky challenges, then regroup in front of a studio audience to see how they’ve done. In addition to being silly and enchanting, “Taskmaster” is breathtakingly novel: I’m amazed by its capacity to remain unpredictable to both its viewers and its participants.The gap between “this is the best episode of the best season” and “this is the worst episode of the worst season” is minuscule. That said, this season — Season 19 (19!) — is among the best of the best, and it’s an ideal entree for new viewers. The American comedian Jason Mantzoukas is one of the contestants this season, and his gleeful maniac persona fits perfectly with the show’s sense of mischief. He is also clearly a student of the game … not that it helps him win.The contestants most familiar with the workings of the show are no more likely to win a task than those least familiar, and no single virtue is more desirable than another. Nervous pedantry earns a certain amount of mileage, but a “Cs get degrees” approach leads often to a faster, funnier conclusion. Brazenness and preciousness are equally valuable. Athleticism has its rewards, but defaulting to an athletic method can and does backfire. There are a lot of ways to be funny, and on “Taskmaster” there are also a lot of ways to be smart.I was curious how the show would incorporate Mantzoukas’s antic energy, but everything feels harmonious — and no one person is singing the melody. Mathew Baynton, the creator and a star of the original British version of “Ghosts,” brings a twee braininess, and the comedian Fatiha El-Ghorri’s impeccable timing and tough-girl shtick add warmth, raunch and surprise. Stevie Martin’s sweet openness and Rosie Ramsey’s grounded wit keep everything in balance.All 19 season on are on the show’s YouTube channel, with new episodes of Season 19 arriving weekly on Fridays. And if you burn through all those, seek out the international versions.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