Television

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

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

      by

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

    • 150 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Ron Travisano, Adman Behind Singing Cats and Joe Isuzu, Dies at 86

      by

      The art director for Meow Mix and other memorable commercials, he began his career at the dawn of a creative revolution on Madison Avenue.In the early 1970s, the madcap advertising executives Ron Travisano and Jerry Della Femina were struggling to find a gimmick to sell an undistinguished brand of pet food.Watching interminable and unremarkable footage of cats eating, Mr. Travisano and an editor, Joe Lione, spotted one that kept opening and closing its mouth in a manner that appeared to simulate singing.In fact, the cat was choking on its food. But in an eye-of-the-beholder eureka moment, the admen were inspired to create the classic singing-cat commercial that put Meow Mix on the map.The original commercial for Meow Mix won a Clio Award.Della Femina AdvertisingThe endearing “Meow, meow, meow, meow” commercial for Ralston Purina — accompanied by the tagline “The cat food that cats ask for by name,” written by Mr. Travisano’s collaborators Neil Drossman and Bob Kuperman, who also came up with the name Meow Mix — won a Clio and other industry awards. Nearly two decades after the ad debuted, The Times described it as having “one of the best known, most readily sung commercial jingles.” (The insistent meowing, mouthed by the singer Linda November, was presumably less endearing when played repeatedly to torture terrorism suspects at the U.S. prison compound at Guantánamo Bay.)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 US Politics

      Seth Meyers on Trump and Musk: ‘They’re trying to rip you off’

      by

      Late-night hosts took aim at Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s too-close relationship and how one is clearly in control of the other.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers spoke about how voters have been most concerned about grocery prices yet Trump has been “easily distracted by silly stuff” and placed his attention elsewhere.This week saw him elected chair of the Kennedy Center, which led to Meyers joking that the next round of honors would include “Kid Rock, Lee Greenwood and Big Mouth Billy Bass”.It’s meant that he’s had less time to help Musk in his project of “dismantling the government”. Meyers joked that it’s “fun sometimes to pretend bad things might be good things”.In audio from a call about the Kennedy Center, Trump said he was going to make it “hot” again like he had also made the presidency. “You didn’t make the presidency hot unless you mean hot like a low-grade fever,” he said.Another “frivolous distraction Trump is obsessed with” concerns him renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has led to Associated Press journalists being banned from official press events as they refuse to obey. “At least give people like a week to process it!” Meyers said.He also said that “we should stop waiting for tech companies to be part of the pushback” with both Google and Apple following the change on official maps.Meyers played a clip of Trump trying to explain Musk’s dismantling, which was a ramble about magnets, tractors and planes. “Every time Trump speaks I feel like a guy who started season two of Severance without watching season one,” he said.He said they want to avoid talking about what’s really happening as “the reality of what they’re doing is unpopular and illegal” and Musk essentially wants “direct control of the government” by taking over the regulatory group that would otherwise be able to stop his business practices.He said that there is “a lot of bad stuff happening right now” and “they’re trying to rip you off and they hope you’ll be distracted by all the nonsense going through Trump’s head”.Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host spoke about the nationwide shortage of eggs with grocery stores hiking prices and limiting the number of eggs customers can purchase.He said that regular eggs are now “more valuable than Faberge”.For Valentine’s Day, he joked that Trump has “got a little something for his sugar vladdy” after a call with Vladimir Putin in which the Russian dictator was given essentially everything he wanted out of the negotiation.Kimmel said it is “honestly amazing the guy only bankrupted three casinos” while saying that “if you attack and murder our allies, it will make no difference at all”.Trump’s rambling explanation led Kimmel to say that we are “one weird press conference away from Trump saying he wants to move Ukraine to Gaza”.Then, “as if we don’t have enough to worry about”, Kimmel said that “measles and wide-leg jeans are back”, joking about Kendrick Lamar’s outfit choice at the Super Bowl.He reassured us that “Bobby Brainworm is on the job” to fix measles with the outspoken anti-vax crusader confirmed as the new head of health and human services.In a press conference, Robert F Kennedy Jr said that God sent him Trump. “Next God is gonna send us diphtheria,” Kimmel joked.The clip saw Kennedy engage in “triple-A ass kissing”, which Kimmel said would have aroused Trump. “Melania couldn’t turn him on like that the first night they met,” he joked. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Theater to Watch at Home: ‘Uncle Vanya’ and an Alice Childress Revival

      by

      A bare-bones Chekhov, a critically acclaimed revival of “The Wedding Band” and the cult TV series “Smash” are all available for streaming.‘The Wedding Band’Stream it on Stratfest@Home.In 2022, Alice Childress’s play about love and hate, written in 1962, received its first major revival in 50 years, to much acclaim. The following year, “The Wedding Band,” was staged at the Stratford Festival in Ontario, making it a welcome second coming for our theater critic.The play about an interracial couple — a Black woman, played by Antonette Rudder, and a white man, Cyrus Lane — who, in 1918 South Carolina, can’t wed, is a searing examination of a miscegenation nation. Writing for The New York Times, Jesse Green called the 2023 Stratford production, directed by Sam White, a “revelation,” adding that the festival’s revival “confirms the play’s vitality.”From Green’s critic’s notebook:It’s a joyful thing when a great play that seemed to be lost is found. How much more so when its greatness is confirmed and the play takes root in the soil of a new time. That was my experience seeing Alice Childress’s “Wedding Band” … The director Sam White’s production unexpectedly adds another layer of tragedy. Her staging emphasizes the hard-won pleasures of the central relationship, so that something valuable is felt to be lost when the world intervenes. … We see how the tragedy of racism makes victims of everyone.‘Vanya on 42nd Street’Stream it on Amazon Prime, Pluto TV or the Roku Channel.New York is experiencing something of an explosion of Chekhov. “The Seagull” featured prominently in Theaterlab’s recent production of “Nina”; “The Cherry Orchard” is coming to St. Ann’s Warehouse next month, along with “Vanya,” an adaptation of “Uncle Vanya,” starring Andrew Scott, Andrew Scott and Andrew Scott (he plays every role). Its Off Broadway debut comes after a highly praised run in London. The one-man show, adapted by Simon Stephens and directed by Sam Yates, won last year’s Olivier Award — Britain’s equivalent of the Tonys.But you don’t have to be in a theater to take in Chekhov. If you’ve never seen “Vanya on 42nd Street,” the 1994 Louis Malle film of André Gregory’s production, now is a timely moment to watch.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 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers on Musk and his agency’s corruption: ‘It’s so transparent’

      by

      Late-night hosts talked Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s bizarre Oval Office press conference and their dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.Seth MeyersThough Trump promised throughout his campaign to lower grocery prices as president, to date, “we still don’t have a plan for lowering eggs prices,” said Seth Meyers on Wednesday night. “But we do have a plan for building hotels in Gaza.”The Late Night host had a theory for why Trump remained so fixated on his “plan”, announced seemingly on a whim at a press conference, to expel Palestinians and build hotels: “It’s called the Gaza Strip, and the only other strip he knows is the Vegas Strip, so he thinks that can work there,” Meyers explained. “And if you think the people around him are going to say, ‘Actually, sir, it’s a different kind of strip,’ just remember that the people around him also suggest Red, White and Blueland” as an alternative name for Greenland.“This is what Trump does,” Meyers continued. “We’ve seen it for years. It’s nothing new. He’s hoping voters will pay attention to his plans for Gaza and Greenland, and ignore what he’s doing to the rest of the government.”Such as disbanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). After firing its employees, Musk tweeted “CFBP RIP” with a tombstone emoji. “First of all, don’t announce policy via emoji,” Meyers said. “Second, think about how corrupt this is: they’re eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the agency that stops companies from ripping you off. It’s so transparent.” Meyers noted that Musk is in the process of turning X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that he owns, into a peer-to-peer payment and financial services app, while also dismantling the agency that oversees payments and financial services.At a press conference in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Musk defended his conflicts of interest, claiming transparency via posts to the Doge handle on X. Meyers didn’t buy it – “so to find out what our government is up to, we just have to wade through a sea of Nazis, trolls, ads for Cheech & Chong weed gummies and bots with women in bikinis offering to send us 1m units of something called Sex Coin as long as we send our social security and bank routing numbers.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host ripped into Trump’s proposal on Gaza. “Blob the Builder is still going all in on his ridiculous and potentially disastrous plan to force nearly 2 million Palestinians who live in Gaza to go live somewhere else,” he explained. “There seems to be no thought put into this plan outside of just what he says at the press conference.”Asked if the Palestinians didn’t want to leave, Trump answered: “They’re going someplace beautiful, they’re going to be in love with it.”“This is not what you say to people you’re evicting from the place where they live!” Kimmel exclaimed. “This is what you say to your parents when you’re about to put them in a retirement home.”In other Trump chaos, the White House banned reporters from the Associated Press because the outlet refused to call the Gulf of Mexico by Trump’s self-proclaimed new title, the Gulf of America. “They’re going to keep kicking journalists out until all they have left are Fox, Newsmax, OAN, OnlyFans and Golf Digest,” Kimmel joked.Google and Apple Maps both fell in line, relabeling the body of water for just American users. “It’s basically the equivalent of giving Trump a binky and hoping he shuts up,” said Kimmel.The Daily ShowAnd on the Daily Show, Jordan Klepper recapped an Oval Office presser hosted by Trump and Musk. “It’s good that we have Elon Musk here,” said Klepper, “because we’ve been watching him slashing programs and shuttering agencies for a month now, and we can finally ask Elon, ‘Why are you doing this?’”Musk defended his unofficial “department of government efficiency” (also known as Doge) because: “It’s incredibly important that the president, the House and the Senate decide what happens, as opposed to a large, unelected bureaucracy.”Though Musk disparaged unelected bureaucrats, Klepper had to ask: “Isn’t that you …? Am I going crazy? Because it feels like I’m watching Drake sing Not Like Us at karaoke. Like, does he not know?“Is having this one unaccountable bureaucrat in charge better than having those other unaccountable bureaucrats in charge?” he continued. “Because at least the others have to follow transparency laws. The only thing transparent about Doge is Elon’s skin.”As Klepper noted, Musk’s financial disclosures are being kept secret, the ‘efficiency’ agency is exempt from open records laws, and when someone on X posted the names of Doge employees, the account was suspended and Musk tweeted “you have committed a crime” – “which, we tried to factcheck with career officials at the FBI, but they’re all working at a Panera now”, Klepper quipped.Musk also defended himself against obvious conflicts of interest, saying: “I fully expect to be scrutinized and get a daily proctology exam.”“Well, I did the exam, and what an asshole,” Klepper retorted.Send us a tip
      If you have information you’d like to share securely with the Guardian about the impact of cuts to federal programs, please use a non-work device to contact us via the Signal messaging app at (646) 886-8761. More

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Fox Acquires Firm Behind Conservative and True Crime Podcasts

      by

      Tucker Carlson, Nancy Grace, Megyn Kelly and Piers Morgan are among the clients of Red Seat Ventures, which now joins Rupert Murdoch’s empire.The Fox Corporation said on Monday that it had acquired Red Seat Ventures, a growing digital media company that has become a go-to partner for old-media stars like Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Piers Morgan as they create their own independent online programming.Red Seat and its founding partners, the brothers Chris and Kevin Balfe, will continue to operate independently within Fox’s Tubi Media Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire focused on digital and streaming ventures. A purchase price was not disclosed.The acquisition moves the Fox Corporation into the heart of the online “creator economy,” where media personalities who once relied on old-school corporate distributors — like, say, the cable networks owned by Fox — have struck out on their own to build podcasts and streaming shows that rack up millions of subscribers on platforms like YouTube and SiriusXM.Red Seat’s lengthy client list includes Dr. Phil, Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly, the former “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen and the “President’s Daily Brief” podcast. Last month, The New York Post, which is also owned by Mr. Murdoch, retained Red Seat to develop a new daily podcast and audio division for the newspaper.The deal means that Mr. Carlson and Mr. O’Reilly — former Fox News stars who both lost their shows — will once again be tied to the Murdoch universe, albeit at a remove. (The same goes for Ms. Kelly, who rose to fame on Fox News before leaving for NBC in 2017.) Because Red Seat is only a service provider, none of the three will be paid by Fox or report to its executives. In addition, Tubi Media and Fox News are housed in separate divisions of the Fox Corporation.Red Seat, founded a decade ago, has about 80 full-time employees and is based out of a loft space in the NoMad district of Manhattan, a neighborhood popular with tech start-ups. Among its most popular podcasts are those of Mr. Carlson and Ms. Kelly, which routinely rank near the top of Apple’s podcast charts.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 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Critics Choice Awards Winners 2025: See the Full List

      by

      Here’s who went home a winner from the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards.See all the arrival photos from the 2025 Critics Choice Awards red carpet.The 30th annual Critics Choice Awards were held in Santa Monica, Calif., on Friday. Here’s who walked away with hardware from one of the last major bellwethers before the Oscars.FilmBest Picture“Anora”Best ActorAdrien Brody, “The Brutalist”Best ActressDemi Moore, “The Substance”Best Supporting ActorKieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”Best Supporting ActressZoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”Best Young Actor or ActressMaisy Stella, “My Old Ass”Best Acting Ensemble“Conclave”Best DirectorJon M. Chu, “Wicked”Best Original ScreenplayCoralie Fargeat, “The Substance”Best Adapted ScreenplayPeter Straughan, “Conclave”Best CinematographyJarin Blaschke, “Nosferatu”Best Production DesignNathan Crowley and Lee Sandales, “Wicked”Best EditingMarco Costa, “Challengers”Best Costume DesignPaul Tazewell, “Wicked”Best Hair and MakeupStéphanie Guillon, Frédérique Arguello and Pierre-Olivier Persin; “The Substance”Best Visual EffectsPaul Lambert, Stephen James, Rhys Salcombe and Gerd Nefzer; “Dune: Part Two”Best Animated Feature“The Wild Robot”Best Comedy“A Real Pain”“Deadpool & Wolverine”Best Foreign Language Film“Emilia Pérez”Best Song“El Mal,” from “Emilia Pérez”Best ScoreTrent Reznor and Atticus Ross, “Challengers”TelevisionBest Drama Series“Shogun”Best Actor, Drama SeriesHiroyuki Sanada, “Shogun”Best Actress, Drama SeriesKathy Bates, “Matlock”Best Supporting Actor, Drama SeriesTadanobu Asano, “Shogun”Best Supporting Actress, Drama SeriesMoeka Hoshi, “Shogun”Best Comedy Series“Hacks”Best Actor, Comedy SeriesAdam Brody, “Nobody Wants This”Best Actress, Comedy SeriesJean Smart, “Hacks”Best Supporting Actor, Comedy SeriesMichael Urie, “Shrinking”Best Supporting Actress, Comedy SeriesHannah Einbinder, “Hacks”Best Limited Series“Baby Reindeer”Best TV Movie“Rebel Ridge”Best Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieColin Farrell, “The Penguin”Best Actress, Limited Series or TV MovieCristin Milioti, “The Penguin”Best Supporting Actor, Limited Series or TV MovieLiev Schreiber, “The Perfect Couple”Best Supporting Actress, Limited Series or TV MovieJessica Gunning, “Baby Reindeer”Best Foreign Language Series“Squid Game”Best Animated Series“X-Men ’97”Best Talk Show“John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.”Best Comedy Special“Ali Wong: Single Lady” More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Seth Meyers on Elon Musk’s US takeover: ‘A billionaire coup’

      by

      Late-night hosts spoke about the damage being caused by Donald Trump’s new right-hand man as well as the president’s unconvincing attempts to show off his Christian side.Seth MeyersOn Late Night, Seth Meyers started by saying that despite the recent election, “the real president is Elon Musk”, who has shown he is in control despite being “very unpopular” with voters.He said the billionaire has been launching a “de facto takeover of the federal government” with his “team of unaccountable hatchet men”.Recent polls have shown that Americans are unhappy with Musk’s increased control but Trump has been defending him during typically hard-to-understand rambles, resembling “a real-time version of Mad Libs”.Musk has been frantically figuring out what to keep and what to cut within the government, with Meyers showing that he ultimately wants a “wholesale removal of regulations”.Meyers called it “a billionaire coup”.Musk has been busy dismantling USAid, with elected senators recently being blocked from entering the agency’s headquarters. “I’d be so embarrassed if I was a senator and I couldn’t enter the building based on something called Doge,” he said.Stephen ColbertOn The Late Show, Stephen Colbert also criticised Musk and his “crew of teenage mutant incels” who are busy trying to “tear apart 250 years of democracy like seagulls fighting over a bag of french fries”.They are trying to fire many people within the federal government and part of that has seen the White House ordering the CIA to send an unclassified email with the names of all employees hired over the last two years.Colbert calmed viewers by saying that according to an official, the people would be protected as the list only included the first names and first initial of the last name. “Well then we’re fine,” he said. “That is an uncrackable code.”He then joked that no one would be able to figure out who he was targeting if he said that it would be funny and good for the US if “obvious fascist Elon M got his junk stuck in a four slice toaster”.Colbert then said “Trump’s goons are also doing increasingly useless things just to scour the government clean of any trace of DEI” including taking down any reference to diversity or inclusion on walls or desks. “No federal agency is safe from the anti-compassion cyberdorks,” he said.They have also been ensuring that bathroom signs comply with Trump’s ruling. “What a waste of time,” he said. “The only bathroom signs that should be taken down are the confusing ones in theme restaurants.”He then continued by saying that “it’s not all bad news, some of it is also scary” as he spoke about a second bird flu strain that has now infected cattle. “This can mean only one thing: the birds are having sex with the cows,” he said. “Please no one tell the bees, they’re going to feel so betrayed.”Jimmy KimmelOn Jimmy Kimmel Live! the host spoke about this weekend’s Super Bowl, “also known as ‘get drunk at a friend of a friend’s weird living room’ evening”.Kendrick Lamar is the half-time performer, which means that it will lead to the “largest group of people ever to see anyone call Drake a bitch ever”.Trump will be in attendance and Kimmel joked that “he said he’s gonna let Elon pick the winner this year”.This week also saw the president attend the National Prayer Breakfast because he “doesn’t like it when people worship anyone but him”.He added that “of all the unbelievable things about Donald Trump, religious people believing he is also a religious person might be the toughest one to understand”.Kimmel said that if Trump met Jesus, “he’d call him a loser, he’d tell him to get a haircut and put a shirt on”.He also said the only reason he is going to the Super Bowl is because “he can’t stand to have even one day when he’s on TV less than Taylor Swift”. More