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      in Movies

      Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee and Other Stars Endorse Harris

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      Barbra Streisand lent her support to Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile stars and celebrities who have coalesced around her candidacy since President Biden endorsed her as his successor.“President Biden and Vice President Harris ushered this nation out of the Trump chaos,” she said in a statement to The New York Times on Monday. “I’m so grateful to President Biden and so excited to support Kamala Harris. She will work to restore women’s reproductive freedom and continue with the accomplishments begun in the Biden-Harris administration.”Ms. Streisand praised Mr. Biden as “an honorable and compassionate leader” and called former President Donald J. Trump “a convicted felon” and a “pathological liar” who had been found liable for sexual assault and who had “incited an insurrection against our democracy.”Endorsements from Hollywood’s most recognizable figures can add cultural cache to candidates, and have traditionally helped campaigns raise money, turn out crowds at rallies and generate excitement on social media. Some campaigns have been leery of appearing too close to celebrities, fearing accusations of elitism. Both parties seek them; at the Republican National Convention last week, Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock and Dana White were among the celebrities supporting Mr. Trump.Since Mr. Biden announced he would not seek re-election, some stars have praised his decision, others have gotten behind Ms. Harris, and a few who made their views known earlier in the cycle have stayed quiet. Here’s a look at where some notable names in Hollywood now stand:George ClooneyMr. Clooney’s essay in The New York Times this month calling on Mr. Biden to not seek re-election rattled the Biden team and dealt a highly visible blow to the campaign at a particularly vulnerable moment, underscoring the power that stars can wield.A spokesman for Mr. Clooney said on Monday that the actor was not commenting on the latest developments in the race.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

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in Television

      Donald Trump Promised a Softer Image. He Delivered Hulkamania.

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      The last night of the Republican National Convention featured glimpses of a more sober tone — and a whole lot of testosterone.Who is Donald J. Trump?After over four decades of tabloid celebrity, reality-TV stardom and presidential politics, you would think this would be a settled question. But after his near assassination in Pennsylvania, the Republican National Convention teased that the former president was going to unveil a softer, changed version of himself. He would recast his acceptance speech to emphasize “unity,” a word that, in four days of TV coverage, was endlessly parroted and rarely defined.Mr. Trump turned himself into his own surprise guest. Would the final night of the convention portray him as a bellicose, combative alpha male, or as a sensitive late convert to empathy and self-reflection?The answer was: Yes, and yes. The night began with a pageant of hypermasculinity, with musclemen and ripped garments. It led to Mr. Trump’s taking the stage with a new, somber voice as he recounted his brush with death. Then, over the course of a digressive hour-and-a-half speech, he somehow changed back before our eyes.First came The Man Show. The introductory hours of the night featured a rotation of admirers, heavily male, who cited Mr. Trump’s close call and defiant survival as testimony to his macho fighting spirit.This is what male identity politics looks like. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality — who has embraced the alt-right angst over testosterone levels — spoke off the cuff, suggesting that the shooting established Mr. Trump as a leader on a biological level. “A leader is the bravest man,” Mr. Carlson said. “This is a law of nature.” Kid Rock retooled his rap-metal anthem “American Bad Ass,” exhorting the delegates to throw up their fists and “Say fight! Fight! Say Trump! Trump!” Dana White, the beefy chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, introduced Mr. Trump.But the splashiest spectacle brought Hulkamania to Milwaukee. Terry G. Bollea, the handlebar-mustached wrestler who performs as Hulk Hogan, took the stage in character to praise “my hero, that gladiator,” working himself into a rage over the attempt on Mr. Trump’s life and ripping open his shirt to expose a “TRUMP-VANCE” tank top.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

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      Jack Black Ends Tenacious D Tour After Bandmate Jokes About Trump Shooting

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      At a concert in Australia, Kyle Gass made a comment suggesting that he wished the shooter had not missed former President Trump during an assassination attempt.Tenacious D, the American comedy-rock duo that includes the movie star Jack Black, announced on Tuesday that the remainder of its tour would be canceled and that all future plans were on pause after the band’s other member, Kyle Gass, made an offhand comment onstage about the assassination attempt on former President Donald J. Trump.A representative for the duo confirmed that Black had brought out a cake at the ICC Sydney Theater in Australia on Sunday to celebrate Gass’s 64th birthday. When Black asked Gass to “make a wish,” Gass responded, “Don’t miss Trump next time.” Videos of the moment were circulated widely online.In a statement posted to social media on Tuesday, Black, known for “School of Rock” and “King Kong,” said he “was blindsided by what was said at the show,” adding, “I would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form.”“After much reflection,” he continued, “I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold. I am grateful to the fans for their support and understanding.” In June, Black, 54, attended a star-studded fund-raiser for President Biden, at which he gave a speech in American flag-themed overalls.Gass posted an apology to social media on Tuesday morning, stating that “the line I improvised onstage Sunday night in Sydney was highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake.”“I don’t condone violence of any kind, in any form, against anyone,” he wrote. “What happened was a tragedy, and I’m incredibly sorry for my severe lack of judgment. I profoundly apologize to those I’ve let down and truly regret any pain I’ve caused.”Michael Greene said on Tuesday that Greene Talent, Gass’s talent agency, had parted ways with him.Shortly before the announcement that the entire tour was canceled, the band, which has been active since 1994, postponed its Tuesday date in Broadmeadow, Australia.In the wake of Gass’s onstage remarks, Senator Ralph Babet of the center-right United Australia party called for the duo to be deported. In a lengthy statement posted online, he said, “Tenacious D should be immediately removed from the country after wishing for the assassination of Donald Trump at their Sydney concert.”During a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a man fired shots toward the stage while the former president was speaking. One spectator was killed, and Trump was rushed off, blood visible around his right ear. The shooter was killed by the Secret Service, and his motive remains unclear.It is not the first time a celebrity has faced fallout from a joke about Trump. In May 2017, Kathy Griffin’s career was put on ice after she posed for a photograph holding a severed-head Halloween mask of Trump, who was then the president, doused in blood-like ketchup. More

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      in Television

      Trump Returns to RNC With a Different Look, but Some Things Were Familiar

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      The first night of the Republican National Convention sought to strike a new note. But some of the lyrics were familiar.Donald J. Trump, a former reality-TV star, has always been conscious of his set dressing as a presidential candidate. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, he made a pro-wrestling-style walk-on in front of blinding lights. In 2020, he used the White House itself as the backdrop for his acceptance speech.But on the first night of the 2024 convention, Mr. Trump — in a way that he could not have anticipated before Saturday — was his own biggest prop.Just as the major networks’ prime-time coverage began, Mr. Trump entered the V.I.P. box in Milwaukee with a large white bandage on his injured right ear, the result of a close call on Saturday with a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania. A reminder of mortality, a badge of survival — it was a blank rectangle on which the crowd could read what it wished, and that made it the most potent placard in the hall.Mr. Trump’s rallies and appearances have always been about firing up big feelings: rage, fear, grievance, defiance. This, as Mr. Trump walked out to the sounds of Lee Greenwood performing “God Bless the U.S.A.,” was something a little different.The mood of the moment was emotional and warm. Much of the night felt like a merger of political rally and gospel service, full of exhortations for divine protection, not simply for the country but also for the party’s returning leader.And Mr. Trump, who has said in interviews that he does not cry, looked as close to misty as I can remember in decades of seeing him onscreen.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 Shares139 Views

      in Television

      This Debate, We Could Hear Biden Speak. There His Troubles Began.

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      The CNN presidential debate kept the volume down, for a change. That didn’t make it more intelligible.With the plans for the 2024 presidential debates, President Biden’s campaign appeared to get much of what it wanted. It got its preferred timeline, with Thursday night’s debate in Atlanta far earlier on the calendar than usual. It got the live audience removed. It got, above all, an agreement to mute the microphone on the candidate who wasn’t speaking, to avoid the cross-talk that made his first 2020 debate with Donald J. Trump a cacophonous mess.After Thursday night, Mr. Biden — and his party — might have wanted the cross-talk back.The changes that CNN instituted staved off the shouting matches and the competitive cheering that have marked past debates. But they could not prevent Mr. Biden from starting his rushed opening remarks in a papery rasp that, before the debate was over, his campaign was stressing to reporters was the result of a cold. It did not keep him from getting lost in the corn maze of his sentences, answer after answer.And it did not keep him from finishing an argument on tax reform and health care with a spiral that was surely saved instantly to the hard drives of Republican campaign operatives: “Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with, the, uh, with the Covid, excuse me, with, um, dealing with, everything we had to do with, uh … look … if — we finally beat Medicare.”There was no interruption. Mr. Biden came across loud and unclear.You can at least credit Mr. Biden for one accomplishment: For perhaps the first time since Mr. Trump announced for president nine years ago, he managed to hold a debate in which Mr. Trump’s performance was not the biggest news afterward.The former president and challenger had his own issues. He blustered, dodged, made false statements and repeated his denials of his 2020 election loss. He cited his golf game as proof of his acuity and uttered the line, “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.” But Mr. Trump, kept to glowering between answers by the mute button, was outrageous and misleading in a familiar way; it was the standard man-bites-fact-checker story.The debate in Atlanta — sorry, the “CNN Presidential Debate,” as the ubiquitous branding emphasized — was fairly bare-bones. (It was also simulcast on the other major news networks.) The moderators, Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, spread questions across a variety of topics, not correcting candidates in the moment. The pushback they gave was limited to reminding the debaters of how much time they had left and firmly asking them, again, to answer questions they had sidestepped, as Ms. Bash did when asking Mr. Trump if he would accept the results of this election as he had not in 2020. (He gave the qualified answer that he would accept a “fair” and “legal” election.)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

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Television

      Jon Stewart Is a Little Stressed Out About That Debate

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      Hosting a live “Daily Show” after the Biden-Trump spectacle, Stewart said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”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.Jon Stewart went live hosting “The Daily Show” on Thursday, recapping the debate between President Biden and Donald Trump. Stewart wasn’t in the best of spirits.Things started out strong: “Both men are ambulatory. They are both upright. Level one cleared,” Stewart joked over a clip of the candidates taking the stage. But it wasn’t long before the host said he needed “to call a real estate agent in New Zealand.”One rambling Biden answer — ending with the non sequitur “We finally beat Medicare” — had Stewart staring into the camera in horror.“OK, a high-pressure situation. A lot of times, you can confuse saving Medicare with beating it. I’m sure it’s not something that repeated throughout the debate, causing Democrats across the country to either jump out of windows or vomit silently into the nearest recycling bin. Anybody can [expletive] up talking.” — JON STEWART“I’m not a political expert, but while Biden was preparing at Camp David — for a week — did anyone mention he would also be on camera?” — JON STEWART“A lot of people have resting 25th Amendment face.” — JON STEWARTStewart also called out Trump for his many falsehoods.“Just so we’re all clear, everything that Donald Trump said in that clip is a lie,” he said after one montage. “Blatant and full. And we were tight on time putting this [expletive] together. There’s plenty more. Really makes you wonder: What’s R.F.K. Jr. doing tonight?”“Let me just say after watching tonight’s debate, both of these men should be using performance-enhancing drugs, as much of it as they can get, as many times a day as their bodies will allow. If performance-enhancing drugs will improve their lucidity, their ability to solve problems, and in one of the candidate’s cases, improve their truthfulness, morality and malignant narcissism, then suppository away.” — JON STEWART More

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      in Movies

      Trump Biopic ‘The Apprentice’ Nears Distribution Deal

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      “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump, has faced fierce criticism from the former president and his allies.Hollywood executives love to characterize themselves as fearless. The truth is that they spend most of their time trying to minimize risk.It’s why theaters are clogged with vacuous sequels. It’s why so many Hollywood power players hide behind P.R. people. And it’s why all of the big movie studios and streaming services — and, in fact, most indie film companies — declined to distribute “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump that the former president has called “malicious defamation” and showered with cease-and-desist letters.But the movie business still has at least one wildcatter: Tom Ortenberg.Mr. Ortenberg, 63, and his Briarcliff Entertainment are pushing to complete a deal to acquire “The Apprentice” for wide release in theaters in the United States in September or early October — close enough to the presidential election to bask in its heat, but far enough away to avoid final-stretch media overload. Briarcliff’s pursuit of the $16 million film was confirmed by five people involved with the sale process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private negotiation.“Tom’s got more courage than most people in Hollywood combined,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school. “His interest in this kind of movie involves business, of course. He sees money to be made by leveraging millions of dollars in free publicity. But part of it is wanting to do his bit. He’s liberal and cares about social issues.”Hurdles remain, the people cautioned. “Apprentice” producers cobbled together the money to make the movie from various sources. One was Kinematics, an upstart film company backed by Dan Snyder, the former Washington Commanders owner — and a Trump supporter. Kinematics, which invested about $5 million, would need to sign off on the Briarcliff deal and has balked, calling the offer subpar, according to the five people involved in the sale process. The Kinematics snag was reported earlier by a Puck newsletter.So producers have put together a package to buy out Kinematics at a premium. The sides are now haggling over terms, including the timing of payment.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

      Age and the Image of Capacity

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      “Watch me,” President Biden likes to say when he’s asked — he’s asked a lot, these days — whether he is too old to serve a second term. He is getting his wish.For the first three years of his administration, in contrast to the last president’s chaotic omnipresence, Mr. Biden kept himself scarce. Now his smallest appearance brings with it a thousand remote diagnoses from armchair gerontologists. A major speech, like his State of the Union address in March, is assessed not for its policy but its fluidity as spoken-word performance. A minor gaffe, like bungling a single sentence at a Philadelphia rally in April, is dissected as possible evidence of decline.At a campaign rally in April, President Biden fumbled during his speech, urging Americans to choose “freedom over democracy.”He is facing an image problem that time exacts on everyone. Now the first presidential debate of 2024 is happening months earlier than usual, in part because the Biden campaign wants to overcome a mounting concern that the president, at 81, is not up to four additional years of service. “Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre” — or so Philip Roth’s “Everyman” howled in 2006. Electorally, this year, it might be both.The president is indeed rather old, older than anyone who has held the office. When he first won his Senate seat in 1972, the current leaders of Britain, France and Italy were not yet born. If Mr. Biden serves a full second term, he will retire to Delaware at 86. Already, after three-and-a-half years in a job that superannuates everyone, he appears a different man from the days of the Covid campaign, his hair thinner, his gait tighter. His age may be nothing but a number. But the perception of his age has become desperately entangled with cultural connotations of elderliness, formed over centuries, handed down to us through religion and literature and art.His predecessor and rival is also old, and also has trouble speaking clearly. But the same polls that have Mr. Biden trailing the 78-year-old Donald J. Trump, even after the latter’s conviction on 34 felony counts, show too that only one of these men is facing such widespread anxieties about the way of all flesh. The principal roadblock to the incumbent’s re-election, the polls keep telling us, is not policy. Younger Democrats, to his left and right, outpace him down-ballot.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