The Bear (TV Program)

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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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      Best Movies and Shows Streaming in June: ‘The Bear,’ ‘Phineas and Ferb,’ and More

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      “Phineas and Ferb,” ”The Bear” and “The Gilded Age” are coming back, and “We Were Liars,” “Hell Motel” and “Stick” debut.Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of June’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‘We Were Liars’Starts streaming: June 18This adaptation of E. Lockhart’s award-winning young adult novel of the same name follows Cadence (Emily Alyn Lind), one of a group of teenage relatives known in the family as “the liars.” (Their parents and their billionaire grandfather, Harris Sinclair (David Morse) called them that because of all of the mischief they got up to and then lied about when they were little.) When one of the summers together at the Sinclair family’s oceanfront estate goes tragically awry, Cadence is left with only vague memories of what happened. She has to piece together the details, with very little help from her bickering aunts or her suddenly and inexplicably aloof cousins. The mystery winds through a flashback-filled story, covering the romances and the regrets of the very rich.Also arriving:June 12“Deep Cover”June 15“The Chosen” Season 5June 25“Countdown” Season 1June 27“Marry My Husband”Eric McCormack in “Hell Motel.”Anthony Fascione for Shaftesbury/ShudderNew to AMC+‘Hell Motel’ Season 1Starts streaming: June 17In the opening scene of the Shudder series “Hell Motel,” a newlywed couple stops on a stormy night at a remote roadside inn, where they are ritually slaughtered by Satanists. Thirty years later, a handful of true-crime enthusiasts and influencers are invited to the motel to promote its reopening. When the guests start dying in gruesome ways, the survivors have to figure out who among them might be responsible. “Hell Motel” was cocreated by Aaron Martin and Ian Carpenter, whose anthology series “Slasher” paid similar homage to classic horror and mystery tropes. Eric McCormack stars as a creepy celebrity chef, whose snide attitude exemplifies the kind of questionable characters who have gathered at this place, any one of whom could be a potential victim — or a potential killer.‘Nautilus’ Season 1Starts streaming: June 29A reimagining of Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas,” this adventure series has Shazad Latif playing the infamous Captain Nemo. In this version of the story, Nemo has been held in a prison in India, forced to do slave labor in helping to design and build a technologically advanced submarine, the Nautilus, for a tyrannical British mercantile company. When Nemo and several of his cellmates break out of jail and steal the ship, they embark on a mission to the farthest reaches of the seas, to find treasure and infuriate colonialists. “Nautilus” plays a little like an ocean-bound, steampunk “Star Trek,” following a motley crew of honorable outlaws as they explore the unknown.Also arriving:June 1“Dead Silence”“Insidious”June 2“Relative Secrets”June 5“The Killer Clown: Murder on the Doorstep”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

      “Shogun” Emmy Win Lifts FX Past Bigger Rivals

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      The network has been a darling among critics for years. But it hit a new high on Sunday, with “Shogun” winning best drama and “The Bear” picking up several awards as well.When the “Shogun” writer and producer Justin Marks stormed the Emmys stage after his show won best drama on Sunday night, his first order of business was to pay tribute to the people who helped bring him there: the executive team at FX.How, he wondered aloud, did the network approve a show that was extremely expensive, and would be mostly subtitled in Japanese?“I have no idea why you did that, but thank you for your faith in this incredible team,” he said.For roughly two decades, that team at FX has been a darling to television critics with series like “American Horror Story,” “The Americans,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Atlanta.” But the network, with less money at its disposal than rivals such as Netflix and HBO, had never won television’s most prestigious prize, best drama, until Sunday.And that’s not all it won.“Shogun,” an adaptation from a 1975 best-selling book centered on 17th century feudal Japan on the brink of civil war, had a dominant night at the Emmys. It set a record for most Emmys won by a show in a single year, winning 18 in all. It was also the first time a foreign language show (roughly 70 percent of the show was in Japanese) had taken the best drama award that is normally the domain of shows that take place in the United States, the United Kingdom or Westeros.Hiroyuki Sanada in a scene from “Shogun.”Katie Yu/FX, via Associated PressAnother FX show, “The Bear,” won several major Emmys on Sunday night, including three acting awards. But in an upset, Max’s “Hacks” defeated “The Bear” in best comedy series.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

      Jeremy Allen White, of ‘The Bear,’ Wins Emmy for Best Actor in a Comedy

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      Another Emmy? Yes, Chef.Jeremy Allen White, who plays a chef always on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the FX series “The Bear,” won the Emmy for best actor in a comedy on Sunday.In the show, White plays Carmen Berzatto, known as Carmy, a high-profile chef in New York who comes home to Chicago to take over an Italian beef sandwich shop, after his brother dies by suicide. In Season 2, which was under consideration in Sunday’s ceremony, Carmy tries to transform the spot into a Michelin-worthy destination. This was his second nomination and win for the role.“My heart is just beating right out of its chest,” White said in his acceptance speech before professing his love for his castmates.“This show has changed my life,” White said. “It has instilled a faith that change is possible. If you are able to reach out, you are really truly never actually alone.”White beat Steve Martin and Martin Short of “Only Murders in the Building,” Matt Berry of “What We Do in the Shadows,” D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai of “Reservation Dogs” and Larry David of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”“The Bear” was a heavy favorite heading into the 76th Emmy Awards, as the show made Emmy history in July when it notched 23 nominations for its second season, setting a record for most nominations for a comedy series in a single year. (The record belonged previously to “30 Rock.”) White was also widely favored.In an unusual quirk of timing, this is the second time this calendar year that White has won an Emmy for playing Carmy. For his work in Season 1, he accepted the best lead actor award in January, when the 75th Emmy Awards aired because of delays caused by the writer and actor strikes. More

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      Liza Colón-Zayas Wins Her First Emmy for ‘The Bear’

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      Liza Colón-Zayas, a celebrated Off Broadway actress who found a breakout television role as Tina in FX’s “The Bear,” has won her first Emmy.Accepting the award, a shocked Colón-Zayas said that her husband, the actor David Zayas, had told her to write a speech. “I didn’t,” she said, overawed. Tina, the sous chef of restaurant at the center of the show, is a maternal figure in the kitchen and a woman coming to know her own worth. While the show’s most recent season included an episode entirely focused on Tina (and co-starring her husband, David Zayas), this win is for her work in Season 2, in which Tina refines her culinary skills and discovers that what she has thought of as a job may actually be a calling.Colón-Zayas was a surprise winner as Hannah Einbinder of “Hacks” and Meryl Streep of “Only Murders in the Building” were favored. The other nominees were Sheryl Lee Ralph of “Abbott Elementary,” a past winner; Ralph’s “Abbott” co-star Janelle James; and the legendary comedian Carol Burnett, nominated for her turn in “Palm Royale.” Colón-Zayas celebrated these other nominees and ended in an emotional speech exhorting the audience to vote. More

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      in Television

      How a TV Critic Navigates an Age of Endless Content

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      James Poniewozik, The New York Times’s chief television critic, discusses the state of modern television and the struggle to watch it all.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.James Poniewozik has a tough job: He gets paid to watch TV.“There’s a lot to keep up with,” Mr. Poniewozik, 56, the chief television critic for The New York Times, said in an interview. “But much of the time it is really interesting.”For nearly three decades, he has written about dramas, comedies, presidential debates, court hearings, interactive art installations and anything else that plays out on the small screen. Mr. Poniewozik began writing about television as a media columnist for Salon and later became the TV and media critic for Time magazine. He joined The Times in 2015, focusing his coverage on the intersection of TV, culture and society at large.Ahead of TV’s biggest night — the Emmy Awards — on Sunday, Mr. Poniewozik shared the TV trends he’s watching and how he decides what shows to cover in the seemingly infinite modern TV landscape. These are edited excerpts.Fourteen percent of American adults say they get their news from TikTok, up from 3 percent in 2020. Is TV still a force to be reckoned with?TikTok has certainly become more influential. But I was struck while covering the presidential debate between Biden and Trump that it was possibly the most politically consequential TV broadcast ever: Because of one or two hours of TV, a candidate for president changed. All of the reasons Biden dropped out were present before the debate, but once you had tens of millions of people focused on one performance at one time, it became an unstoppable force.How do you weigh how many people will watch a show against its quality when deciding what to review or cover?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

      Feel Good T.V. Is Great. But Lonely T.V. Gives Us What We Need.

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      Dark comedies like “The Bear” and “Sunny,” provide a contrast to contemporary comedy’s relentlessly upbeat streak.Masa is a hikikomori — a shut-in or hermit of sorts — who has been holed up in his room for years. His dirty dishes are piled into towers. His mother is so worried about him that she calls his estranged father, Hiromasa, who offers for Masa to stay in his empty cabin on Lake Biwa, northeast of Kyoto. Masa will still be alone, but at least he will get a change of scenery.In the cabin, Masa retreats even further into his sullen isolation — until he meets Sho the trashbot. Sho is short and squat and looks like a glorified garbage can on wheels, complete with a claw arm to grab trash. He has been programmed to pick it up, but he is not very good at picking it out: Sho can’t quite tell why a KitKat wrapper goes in the garbage but Masa’s electronics don’t.Trained as an engineer, Masa suddenly has a passion project on his hands: He is determined to teach Sho the difference between trash and not-trash. When Hiromasa stops by to drop off groceries, he pauses at the doorstep, pleased by the scene unfolding behind the window: A gleeful Masa fist bumps Sho’s claw arm, pouring out a shot of whiskey to celebrate Sho’s finally figuring it out. The cabin floor is strewn with litter — remnants of countless trial runs — but Masa is grinning for the first time in years.This scene, from a recent episode of Apple TV+’s “Sunny,” is a rather pointed instance of something TV has been telling us for a while now: Mess brings meaning; people forge genuine connections in the midst of disorder. A spate of recent shows — “The Bear,” “Big Mood,” “Beef” and “This Is Going to Hurt” — pairs that somewhat saccharine sentiment with black comedy. Along with slightly older series like “Fleabag” and “I May Destroy You,” these shows stand in stark contrast to their relentlessly upbeat counterparts: “Ted Lasso,” “Abbott Elementary,” “The Good Place,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Parks and Recreation,” to name a few. In a world that’s bleak enough already, feel-good, heartfelt comedy feels like more of a salve; earnest sitcoms seem to counteract the vitriol of the real world. But the dark comedies, by their very nature, feel truer to life than their more wholesome peers. Rather than building worlds from novel, even quirky premises — an American football coach dispatched to lead an English soccer team, philosophy lessons set in an off-kilter heaven, musical theater in an exuberant precinct — these new shows settle into grittier worlds. Dark comedies accomplish what classic sitcoms like “All in the Family,” “Good Times,” “Maude” and “Roc” did: They plumb humor from everyday tragicomedy.Sometimes the subject of a dramedy leads to category confusion. “The Bear” has spawned a debate over whether it is, in fact, a comedy at all, because it deals so often with such heavy themes: the punishing atmosphere of restaurant kitchens, family dysfunction, alcoholism, addiction, trauma. The dramedy follows Carmen Berzatto, known as Carmy, in the aftermath of his older brother Michael’s suicide. Carmy interrupts his prestigious culinary career to come home to Chicago and run the family’s Italian-beef sandwich shop, inherited from Michael. Under Carmy and his sous chef, Sydney, the original no-frills sandwich shop evolves into a high-end restaurant, hungry for a Michelin star. “The Bear” is at its best in episodes like the critically acclaimed “Fishes,” bursting with the sheer chaos of the Berzatto family. In the show’s third, most recent season, the episode “Ice Chips” opens on Carmy’s sister, Natalie Berzatto, who goes by Sugar, sweating on a Chicago highway, en route to the hospital. She is in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and she is going into labor. Sugar has called every person she can think of, and no one is picking up. She grits her teeth and, as a last resort, calls her mother.Donna Berzatto is an alcoholic with mood swings and a fiery temper — she drove a car through the wall of the Berzatto family home at Christmas in “Fishes.” And right now, she is getting on Sugar’s last nerve. Donna insists that Sugar use a specific breathing technique (“hee, hee!”) and scares her off of delivering without drugs. But as the episode progresses, the “hee, hee!” starts to help, and when Donna suggests that ice chips might be soothing, something between mother and daughter starts to soften.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 Movies

      Food Porn Gets Dark

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      Shots of extravagantly composed dishes have become cliché. “The Bear” and two other summer releases use well-plated food to convey darker themes.We love sexy food: the dressed-up dishes on cooking shows, a camera zooming in on an angelically lit plate. The influencer’s video that’s less about food than vibes. The ambrosial spreads in ads. Food porn titillates the senses to sell an idea, a product or an experience: the memorable opulent meal, the communion of sharing food as a sacred rite. But three recent releases have perverted this approach, offering extravagantly composed plates that traumatize, not tantalize.In “The Bear,” the meaning of the beautiful food that Chef Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) creates now that he is finally running his own upscale establishment has changed. It represents old grievances, lingering fears and simmering power struggles. Season 3 opens with an expressionist self-portrait: no plot, just scenes of Carmy working, interspersed with flashbacks of him in kitchens run by chefs he’s idolized.Some of the memories evoke a visceral joy: Carmy wistfully strolling among fields of veggies and making vibrantly detailed illustrations of menu ideas. He admires a photo of one successful creation that could be a salad, arranged like a bouquet. A sunburst of something orange lies petaled and sectioned like a flower, resting on a bed of wild greens. Carmy texts a picture of the arrangement to his brother, Mikey, who is baffled. The message is clear to the audience, though. It’s not just sustenance we’re admiring; it’s art.When Carmy shares an artfully curated dish, Mikey isn’t sure what to make of it.FXScenes of present-day Carmy lack this brightness, literally and figuratively. Kitchen shots are harshly lit to match his clinical approach to the work. Instead of loving glances of plated dishes, we get unsatisfying teases of food that fly by in succession. When Carmy’s frustration mounts and his expectations become impossible for anyone — even him — to meet, mouthwatering meals are swept aside. Two juicy-looking strips of Wagyu beef are flung into the trash, the metal kitchenware clanging violently against the lid, because, Carmy says curtly, “the cook is off.”Carmy’s diminishing relationship with food provides the closest thing “The Bear” has to an enticing conflict. As he settles into the early weeks of running a fine-dining hot spot, he’s increasingly haunted by memories of his tutelage under the sadistic David Fields (Joel McHale). In flashbacks we see Chef David craning over Carmy predatorily, ready with a bitter rebuke or challenge. By season’s end, food is no longer a comfort for Carmy; producing the requisite artful plate of food is necessary to his restaurant’s survival.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

      ‘The Bear’ Breaks the Record for Emmy Nominations for a Comedy

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      “Yes, Chef” is now part of Emmy history.“The Bear” notched a record-breaking 23 Emmy nominations on Wednesday, setting a new high for the most nominations in a single year for a comedy series. The record previously belonged to “30 Rock,” which earned 22 nominations 15 years ago.“The Bear,” which was honored on Wednesday for its second season, which premiered in June 2023, scored significantly more nominations compared with its first season, when it had 13. Its principal actors — Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri and Ebon Moss-Bachrach — all landed nominations. It also got nods in technical categories like sound mixing and picture editing.“The Bear,” which already won best comedy at the strike-delayed Emmys in January, will be the heavy favorite going in.The record-setting status of “The Bear,” however, will surely draw a renewed round of scrutiny of how shows get slotted into different categories at the Emmys. Going back to last year, some industry insiders gnashed their teeth at the Emmy success of “The Bear.” Should it be honored? Absolutely. But, seriously, in the comedy categories?Alan Sepinwall, a TV critic for Rolling Stone, raised the point recently, asking whether “this story of toxic workplaces, addiction and mental illness, and ruinous personal relationships was a barrel of laughs.” Given that “The Bear” beat out “30 Rock” — a beloved series that would never be mistaken for anything other than a straight-up comedy — to break the record, it could set off howls of outrage from comedy nerds.Emmy categorization controversy is nothing new, of course. The Peak TV era unleashed a torrent of dramatic comedies (try “Atlanta”), and comedic dramas (how about “Succession”?). Netflix’s “Orange Is The New Black” was nominated as a comedy one year, and as a drama the next. Long gone are the days when shows like “Cheers” and “The West Wing” had a crystal clear Emmy lane.There is one more obstacle for “The Bear.” Though Emmy voters will be weighing the series’ much-celebrated second season, they’ll start casting votes in August, on the heels of the recently released third season. The third season has a considerably lower audience score on Rotten Tomatoes compared to the first two seasons. The Daily Beast even asked earlier this month, “Why Is Everyone Saying ‘The Bear’ Is a Bad Show?”It remains an open question whether any backlash to the current season, along with is-it-actually-a-comedy industry debates, will affect its chances to win big in September.Other comedies have come close to the “30 Rock” record in recent years. “Ted Lasso” recently earned 21 nominations, one shy of tying the record. And “Saturday Night Live,” technically a sketch variety series and not a recurring comedy series as defined by Emmy rules, earned 22 nominations in 2017. More