You need a strong constitution to attempt a hot yoga class. The same is true even if you only want to watch Eva Orner’s Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator, a documentary about the form’s champion, Bikram Choudhury. Both can make you feel nauseated. The film opens with archival footage of the younger Choudhury—he’s beautiful, boastful, and […]
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Maybe you’ve heard the rumor about the tattoos. Some people believe that Dolly Parton’s arms — which haven’t been seen bare in public for decades — are secretly covered in ink. Roseanne Barr claims to have once spied the elusive tats (“No black or blue lines,” she told Craig Ferguson in 2011, “all like, pastel […]
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The explosions at the House impeachment hearings Wednesday were not the work of a mad bomber. The man deploying the bombshells seemed oddly to be enjoying himself. The testimony of the ambassador to the European Union, Gordon D. Sondland, was deeply serious in substance: that he and his colleagues “followed the president’s orders” in pressuring […]
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First, I needed coffee. After I found a seat in the packed ballroom before the first panel on the first day of the first BravoCon this past Friday, I headed to the concession stand in search of caffeine. It was a little before 10 a.m. “Sorry, we aren’t open yet,” the woman behind the counter […]
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For Democratic presidential candidates, this week’s debate in Atlanta comes with the political equivalent of home field advantage: A lead sponsor is the cable network MSNBC, whose liberal-leaning talk shows are as mandatory on the campaign trail as diners in Des Moines. So what happens when the home team runs into trouble? MSNBC is part […]
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First came the “OK Boomer” memes on social media. Then came the T-shirts, phone cases and other merchandise emblazoned with the viral retort. Now, get ready for an all-out war at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and a possible television series using the phrase. On Nov. 11, Fox Media filed a trademark application […]
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With the arrival of Disney Plus and Apple TV Plus — and with HBO Max and NBC’s Peacock coming next year — we’re nearing a time when almost every major media conglomerate will have its own subscription streaming service. But for a variety of reasons, some beloved TV series remain locked away. Often, the original […]
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The third season of “The Crown,” Netflix’s opulent show about Queen Elizabeth II’s reign and family, kicks off with an episode called “Olding.” The title refers to both the queen’s reaching middle age and to a spy scandal at the heart of the British establishment, a blending of the royals’ private lives and state affairs […]
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Watching is The New York Times’s newsletter for film and TV recommendations. Sign up here. Apple TV Plus and Disney Plus have arrived to shovel even more series and films into the overstuffed maw of the TV viewing public, the first of several giant new streaming services entering a marketplace currently dominated by Netflix, Amazon […]
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The three top winners in “Jeopardy!” history are set to compete against each other during a prime time event on ABC in January. It was announced Monday that “Jeopardy” alums Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer will vie for the title as top champ of the champs on the popular game show. They will […]
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In a television event unlike anything “Jeopardy!” has staged before, three of the game show’s record-breaking players — James Holzhauer, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter — will compete against each other for the sweeping title of “greatest of all time.” The show’s announcement on Monday came shortly after Holzhauer, the most recent player to become […]
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LOS ANGELES — Every three decades, or roughly once a generation, Hollywood experiences a seismic shift. The transition from silent films to talkies in the 1920s. The rise of broadcast television in the 1950s. The raucous “I Want My MTV” cable boom of the 1980s. It is happening again. The long-promised streaming revolution — the […]
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You knew that “Saturday Night Live” would tackle the impeachment inquiry into President Trump in its opening sketch this week, and that it would include an unannounced appearance from a celebrity ringer. (This time it was Jon Hamm as William B. Taylor Jr., the top United States diplomat to Ukraine). But were you expecting it […]
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When President Richard Nixon’s Watergate misconduct was being dissected before congressional committees in 1973 and 1974, Republican support for him collapsed because most Americans shared news sources and inhabited a similar political reality. In short, facts mattered. Aides to Nixon did propose to him a plan to create sympathetic television news coverage; Roger Ailes backed […]
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For a glimpse at the country’s divided political reality, look no farther than a pair of television studios on opposite sides of the Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. From her set inside MSNBC headquarters, Rachel Maddow opened her prime-time coverage of the Trump impeachment hearings by calling the first day’s testimony “a double-barreled […]
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In May, CBS employees received an email introducing a new plan for handling sexual harassment complaints. There would be a “very expanded and visible” structure, the email said, with “highly trained HR executives” at every CBS program to “ensure safety and build trust.” Trust was an issue at CBS. In the last two years, the […]
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Much of “Dollface” and its critique of contemporary womanhood is barely skin-deep, but it has such a good skin care routine it’s hard to mind. Beyond its festive magical realism, it has almost nothing to say — it’s a “rosé all day” shirt come to life, a show where a desire to go to SantaCon […]
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He scored big with a Daily Double clue about the first multipurpose charge card. After a commercial break, she hunted down the next Daily Double, a clue about the film that made Kathryn Bigelow the first woman to win an Oscar for directing. (The answers are below.) Much of the game that aired on Friday […]
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Before we get to “The Mandalorian,” let’s talk for a minute about Martin Scorsese. Exaggerating to make a point — and tweaking the imperial pretensions of the phrase Marvel Cinematic Universe — Scorsese recently maintained that Marvel movies were “not cinema.” Now I would like to think that Scorsese, like me and most of the […]
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Have you heard of “The Mandalorian”? If not, you most certainly will, given that the Walt Disney Company signed up an impressive 10 million subscribers for the streaming video service it rolled out this week. “The Mandalorian” — a bounty-hunting, cape-heavy spinoff of the “Star Wars” franchise — is the flagship of the many original […]
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After Wednesday’s opening impeachment hearings, there were complaints, in some pundit analysis, that the sober testimony of two U.S. diplomats was insufficiently whiz-bang. One write-up from NBC News, seeming to channel a talent scout from the 1930s, said the hearings lacked “pizazz.” Obviously, you will find the word “pizazz” nowhere in the impeachment section of […]
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SALISBURY, England — The corgis just wouldn’t behave. Mid-take, they ran off, causing general hilarity. “Sit, sit!” Olivia Colman called out. “Strong voice!” prompted the dog handler, standing nearby. “Yes, thenk you,” said Colman demurely, in her best Queen Elizabeth accent. She frowned imperiously at the frolicking dogs. “SIT!” They sat. It was a chilly […]
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It was like a dream. One of those dreams where you think you’re at home, except it’s not really home, but a weird, alternate version of home. And then you wake up. But I was already wide-awake. I was on Stage 21 on a set at Broadway Stages in Greenpoint Brooklyn, nine miles north of […]
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