Telluride Film Festival: A Sneak Peek at \'Argo\'

By A.O. SCOTT

TELLURIDE, Colo. - Telluride is not exactly a secret film festival- there are enough journalists and publicists here in the San Juan Mountains to get the word out to the masses below - but discretion is among the local traditions. According to custom, the lineup for the 39th edition of the festival was announced only Thursday, 24 hours before the first screenings, and as usual a number of spaces on the schedule were left mysterious, marked TBA. Some of those slots are reserved for “sneaks”-movies that pop into town like sudden thunderstorms - and rumors immediately began to fly about what special extras might be in store this year. Would Clint Eastwood (or at least his new movie, “Trouble With the Curve”) stop by on his way home from Tampa? Would we get a peek at “Cloud Atlas” or “The Master”?

The mystery-or at least one of them-appeared to be solved when Ben Affleck appeared at the Patron Brunch, an annual ev ent at which benefactors, filmmakers and members of the press gather at a nearby ranch to schmooze, eat and gawk at the scenery and one another. A few hours later there was a special sneak screening of Mr. Affleck's new film, “Argo,” at the Chuck Jones Theater, and Telluride had reclaimed its role as an early site of Oscar-race tea-leaf reading. (The last two best-picture winners, “The Kings Speech” and “The Artist,” both made North American landfall here.)

“Argo,” which opens Oct. 12, is based on real events that took place in Iran after the seizure of the American Embassy in 1979 (the details were declassified in 1997). The movie, Mr. Affleck's third feature as a director (after “Gone Baby Gone” and “The Town”), is a fast-moving throwback to the politically tinged thrillers of the '70s, with a knowing show-business satire thrown into the mix.

Mr. Affleck plays Tony Mendez, a C.I.A. operative trying to re scue six Americans who escaped the embassy and took shelter with the Canadian ambassador. Mendez's cover story is that he and his charges are part of a crew scouting locations for a “Star Wars” ripoff, and to make the ruse plausible he enlists two savvy industry types played by John Goodman and Alan Arkin. The combination of clandestine action, Hollywood intrigue and geopolitics is likely to play well with audiences here, serious cinephiles who also like secrets, surprises, and the chance to see movie stars strolling down Colorado Avenue.

Graphic Books Best Sellers: Six New Arrivals on the Manga List

By GEORGE GENE GUSTINES

Our manga best-seller list has six new entries this week. They tell stories about life, death, dreams - and high school. At No. 1 on the list is volume 10 of “Soul Eater,” about an arms expert who wants to hone the ultimate weapon for Death. At No. 2 is “Tenjo Tenge,” which sounds like “Fight Club” set in a high school where all the students are brawlers. Volume 13 of “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya,” at No. 7, is about a school club interested in the paranormal and a club member who has the power to destroy the universe.

The remaining three entries are all a bit mystical: “Puella Magi Madoka Magica,” at No. 3, is about Madoka Kaname, who wonders if her magical dreams are coming true. In “The Betrayal Knows My Name,” at No. 4, Yuki Sakuragi is burdened by his telepathy. And in “Omamori Himari,” at No. 5, a cat-spirit must protect a teenager who discovers, on his 16th birthday, that there are creators out to destroy him. Happy sweet 16, indeed.

As always, the complete lists can be found here, along with an explanation of how they were assembled.

At N.Y.U. Film Department, a Faculty Dispute Over a 30-Year-Old Show

By LARRY ROHTER

4:56 p.m. | Updated

“The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana” was a forgettable made-for-TV movie broadcast by CBS in 1982. But it has re-emerged 30 years later at the center of an esoteric but messily contentious dispute about screenwriting credits involving faculty members at New York University's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts.

In mid-August, the Maurice Kanbar Institute of Film and Television, part of the Tisch School, announced the appointment of Janet Grillo, an Emmy Award-winning producer and former studio executive at New Line Cinema, as a full-time faculty member, teaching courses in film production. Ms. Grillo's credits include writing, producing and directing the recent independent feature “Fly Away,” as well as having been a producer on projects like “Spanking the Monkey,” “House Party,” “Hangin' With the Homeboys” and “Pump Up the Volume .”

But on Aug. 22, Chat Gunter, a film and television sound recorder and mixer who is also an associate professor at the university, sent an email blast to fellow faculty members and others suggesting that Ms. Grillo, who was once married to the film director David O. Russell, had inflated her resume. Along with her better-known projects, she included a reference to having been a “story writer” on the “Charles and Diana” project, an assertion that Mr. Gunter claimed was false.

“We live in a small town and by coincidence my wife worked on ‘The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana' for CBS,” he wrote. “So I researched the credits for the production and nowhere does Janet Grillo's name appear.” He added: “Why she would make this specious claim, I have no idea.”

Though Mr. Gunter did not give his wife's name, she is Selma Thompson, who is credited as a co-writer of “Charles and Diana,” along with Robert L. Freedman and three others, and is a former classmate of Ms. Grillo. Ms. Thompson was until recently an adjunct faculty member at the Tisch School and, according to the Internet Movie Data Base site, has written or co-written 11 scripts.

The next day, Ms. Grillo replied, via email, noting a difference between her role as an intern assigned to “research and write a detailed story outline” for what became “Charles and Diana” and that of the authors of the final teleplay. That distinction is common in film and television, where egos are often large and insecure and pecking orders therefore jealously guarded, but Ms. Grillo's participation was significant enough that it qualified her to join the Writers Guild of America, which verified Ms. Grillo's account in an attachment.

In the same email, Joe Pichirallo, a former newspaper reporter and film executive who became chairman of the undergradute film and television institute last year, chastised Mr. Gunter for making so “serious” an accusation outside of prescribed channels, and apologized to Ms. Grillo. “Though I am still new, it is my understanding that charges of this type are typically brought directly either to the chair or one of the deans, not circulated in the public arena before they are adjudicated,” he wrote.

Ms. Thompson weighed in by email herself, accusing Ms. Grillo of “further untruths” and maintaining that mere “employment has nothing to do with film credit.” Mr. Freedman, who has also taught at Tisch, chimed in, too, with an email in support of his writing partner.

“We are lucky that the Writers Guild has developed a careful, fair and deliberate system to safeguard its members from unworthy claims,” he wrote. He added, in a reference to Ms. Thompson: “I believe you are the one who is owed an apology.”

Mr. Gunter and Ms. Thompson did not respond to telephone messages and e-mails requesting comment on the matter. M s. Grillo said by email: “I respect Selma Thompson's accomplishment and never intended to detract from it by referencing my own employment as a writer on the project. I have every confidence in N.Y.U.'s ability to resolve this matter equitably.”

Mr. Pichirallo, who is likely to be involved in adjudicating the dispute, declined to comment, referring a reporter's request to John Beckman, a university spokesman.

“As it would in any case such as this, the Tisch School will look into the matter fairly, thoroughly, and carefully,” Mr. Beckman wrote in an email. “This matter seems to have blown up to its current level more by the manner in which the question was raised-through a widely distributed email that even included people outside the school, rather than being brought to the chair's or dean's office-than by the question itself.

“Without prejudging the matter,” Mr. Beckman continued, “there seems to be wide agreement that the faculty member involved did co-write a story outline for this production that enabled her to join the Writers Guild. What's at issue is the precise characterization of that work.”

The Week in Culture Pictures, Aug. 31

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

More Photographs

A slide show of photographs of cultural events from this week.

Venice Film Festival: Michael Cimino Revisits \'Heaven\'s Gate\'

By DENNIS LIM

VENICE - Most box office flops rarely even attain the status of film-history footnote. But “Heaven's Gate,” the 1980 epic by Michael Cimino, became a legend. Its notoriously troubled production and disastrous premiere turned it into a punch line, a cautionary tale, a symbol of all that was wrong with the Hollywood system and its excesses. In the popular telling at least, this sprawling western, which recounts the violent conflict between wealthy cattle barons and poor European settlers in 1890s Wyoming, is the film that derailed the career of its ambitious young director (who had won an Oscar for “The Deer Hunter”) and sank its studio, United Artists.

In some ways the themes of the film predicted its fate. “Heaven's Gate” offers a grim view of American capitalism, and Mr. Cimino's big sin was not in spending money so much as in losing it: the budget ballooned during the long, difficult shoot (from $7 million to more than $30 million), and it earned only $3 million in the United States. (The imbroglio was famously documented in a book by the former United Artists executive Steven Bach.) Detractors of Mr. Cimino blamed his youthful arrogance; defenders called him a scapegoat.

While the first American reviews of “Heaven's Gate” were almost uniformly savage, it has always enjoyed a healthier reputation in Europe, where the film's virtues - not to mention its historical context and political dimension - have not been overshadowed by its colorful production back story. It is only fitting then that the current revival of “Heaven's Gate” got under way Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where a new digital restoration by the Criterion Collection was shown in the presence of Mr. Cimino.

On the stage of the Sala Perla here, Mr. Cimino, a trim 73-year-old wearing sunglasses, was in a jovial mood even as he spoke candidly about the psychic toll of a movie that went on to d efine his career for all the wrong reasons. It was the producer of “Heaven's Gate,” Joann Carelli, who asked Mr. Cimino to be involved in the new restoration. He acknowledged that he was initially reluctant. “I've had enough rejection for 33 years,” he said. “I don't need more. Being infamous is not fun. It becomes a weird kind of occupation in and of itself.”

But there was nothing resembling rejection here: the rapt audience greeted the film with a sustained standing ovation. (This 216-minute version is essentially the same as the original release - Mr. Cimino removed a 2-minute intermission and made several minor tweaks.) Time has been kind to “Heaven's Gate,” which may well strike viewers who don't know the back story, as a grand, eccentric yet elegiac rethinking of the myths of the West (and the western), with an uncommonly blunt take on class in America. (“It's getting dangerous to be poor in this country,” someone says at one point. The rejo inder: “It always was.”)

In an interview at a beachside restaurant at the Excelsior Hotel here Friday morning, Mr. Cimino said that this was the first time he had seen the film all the way through since its New York premiere in August 1980. He summed up the experience in a single word: “Strange.”

He was subdued at first, reluctant to reopen old wounds and wary of speaking on the record to a newspaper he regards as an old adversary. (Vincent Canby's review in The New York Times pronounced “Heaven's Gate” “an unqualified disaster.”) But over the course of what turned into a leisurely conversation, Mr. Cimino warmed up, holding forth on his love of American landscape and Russian literature, and the joy of rediscovering some aspects of the film: the light and color of the images and the performances of Kris Kristofferson, Christopher Walken and Isabelle Huppert, whom he said he hoped finally get recognition for their work in the film.

He acknowl edged that the standing ovation was gratifying, but he was especially happy for Ms. Carelli, who was also present and who “never lost faith,” he said.

“I was moved,” he said. “I thought my heart was going to explode. But I was thrilled for Joann to have her work acknowledged. She made this movie happen.”

The restored “Heaven's Gate” will be shown in the Masterworks section of the New York Film Festival on Oct. 5, with Mr. Cimino in attendance. Criterion will release the film on DVD and Blu-ray in November.

Book Review Podcast: Christopher Hitchens\'s \'Mortality\'

By JOHN WILLIAMS

Podcast Archive

Listen to previous podcasts from the Book Review.

This week in the New York Times Book Review, Christopher Buckley reviews “Mortality” by Christopher Hitchens, a slender book that collects the essays Mr. Hitchens wrote after being stricken with esophageal cancer. Mr. Buckley writes:

The first seven chapters are, like virtually everything he wrote over his long, distinguished career, diamond-hard and brilliant. An eighth and final chapter consists, as the publisher's note informs us, of unfinished “fragmentary jottings” that he wrote in his terminal days in the critical-care unit of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. They're vivid, heart-wrenching and haunting - messages in a bottle tossed from the deck of a sinking ship as its captain, reeling in agony and fighting through the fog of morphine, stru ggles to keep his engines going.

On this week's podcast, Mr. Buckley talks about “Mortality”; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; Barry Gewen discusses George Orwell's diaries; and Gregory Cowles has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.

The Sweet Spot | Aug. 31, 2012

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

Check your appropriateness at the door, because this week A. O. Scott and David Carr are talking about people in the nude.

Navy Seals Embark on a Hellish Literary Adventure

August 31, 2012, 12:53 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Since its announcement last week, the book “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden,” written by a pseudonymous member of that Navy SEAL team mission, has stirred up unintended controversies over its author's right to disclose the details of the operation; his identity; and any perceived political motives behind its publication.

Meanwhile, a fictional counterpoint to that book is deliberately trying to catch hell.

A new novel by Weston Ochse, called “SEAL Team 666″ and being published by Thomas Dunne Books on Dec. 11, is positioning itself as “SEAL Team Six meets Stephen King,” according to the publisher's catalog copy, in which a cadet named Jack Wal ker is brought into a special-ops squad that fights “demons, possessed humans, mass-murdering cults and evil in its most dark and ancient form.”

Mr. Ochse, whose book “Scarecrow Gods” won a Bram Stoker Award in 2005 for best first novel, said that he was inspired to write “SEAL Team 666″ last May, when he was attending a writers' convention and saw TV news reports about the raid on Bin Laden's compound.

“I'm a dark fiction author,” Mr. Ochse said Friday in a telephone interview. “That's the stuff I like to write and the kind of stuff I like to read, and I just thought to myself, What if there was a special SEAL team â€" an even more special SEAL team â€" that protected America against supernatural attack? And what if this was a secret? And even, what if some of the bad guys out there that we're following aren't really human?”

In his biography for Thomas Dunne Books, Mr. Ochse identifies himself as working for the Defense Intelligence Age ncy. (“Just call me an intelligence officer,” he said. “That's the safest way to put it.”) He said he knows several members of SEAL Team 6, and was surprised to hear about the publication of “No Easy Day.”

“Frankly, I didn't think anything was going to be published because getting stuff cleared is pretty hard,” Mr. Ochse said. “My stuff is easy because it's all purely fiction.”

Mr. Ochse said any extra attention (or blog posts) that “SEAL Team 666″ might enjoy because of “No Easy Day” was coincidental, though he prided himself on the attention to detail in his novel.

“The military parts are absolutely accurate,” he said. “The techniques, the modalities, the weapon systems â€" everything else is accurate. The only thing that's not quite true is who they actually go after, which is the supernatural enemies.”

That hasn't stopped readers from asking Mr. Ochse if Team 666 exists in real life. “I just tell them that if there was, we'd never know,” he said.

This Week\'s Movies: August 31

August 31, 2012, 10:57 am

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

In This Week's Movies, the New York Times critics share their thoughts on “The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate,” “For a Good Time, Call … ” and “Side by Side.” Full reviews can be found here.

Taymor, \'Spider-Man\' Producers Reach Undisclosed Settlement on Dueling Lawsuits

By DAVE ITZKOFF

A settlement has been reached between Julie Taymor, the former director of the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” and its producers, a federal district court judge announced on Thursday.

Ms. Taymor, the Tony Award-winning director of “The Lion King,” was fired from the $75-million “Spider-Man” production in March 2011 amid disputes over changes to the show's script and staging. In November, Ms. Taymor filed a breach of contract suit against the musical's lead producers, Michael Cohl and Jeremiah J. Harris, saying that they were continuing to profit from her creative contributions to the show without compensating her. Mr. Cohl and Mr. Harris filed a countersuit in January saying that she violated the terms of her contract and “could not and would not do the jobs” she was hired to do, and thus was not entitled to further royalties.

A notice from Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern Di strict of New York said that Ms. Taymor had reached an agreement with Mr. Cohl and Mr. Harris as well as with Glen Berger, a “Spider-Man” book writer who was named as a defendant in her suit.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed and representatives for Ms. Taymor declined to comment further on Thursday. A press representative for “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Adaptation of Jonathan Franzen Essay Heads to Stage

By JOHN WILLIAMS

“House for Sale,” a play adapted from an essay by Jonathan Franzen, is coming to Off Broadway.

In the essay, Mr. Franzen wrote about selling his family's house in Missouri after the death of his mother.

Daniel Fish adapted the essay and will direct the show. Mr. Fish's last production, “A (radically condensed and expanded) SUPPOSEDLY FUN THING I'LL NEVER DO AGAIN (after David Foster Wallace),” featured performers listening to Wallace's voice through headphones and reciting what they heard.

Mr. Fish described “House for Sale” as “five actors covering Franzen's essay, the way a band would cover a song.”

The show is being produced by the Transport Group and will be staged at the Duke on 42nd Street. Previews begin Oct. 13, with opening night planned for Oct. 21. The show is scheduled to run through Nov. 18.

“It doesn't take the form of a play, with characters acting out scenes in the es say,” Mr. Fish said. “It's more five people, all of whom have a story, and everyone's story happens to be the same story, and everyone plays that story differently. In that sense, it's like the Wallace piece.”

He added that the play would present Mr. Franzen's essay “word for word.”

Rob Campbell, Lisa Joyce, Christina Rouner, Merritt Janson and Michael Rudko make up the cast.

Telluride Film Festival Announces Lineup

By MICHAEL CIEPLY

The Telluride Film Festival, keeping with its practice, made a last-minute announcement of the program for its proceedings, which begin in Colorado on Friday and continue through Monday. The festival includes 25 documentary and narrative films, like the Cannes Palme d'Or winner “Amour,” from Michael Haneke; “Midnight's Children,” based on the Salman Rushdie novel; and “The Act of Killing,” a nonfiction film in which former members of death squads in Indonesia re-enact their killings as if they were scenes from favorite films.

As always, the Telluride lineup includes an early look at some pictures that will also show up at the Toronto International Film Festival, which begins next week, and the New York Film Festival later in September. Among the films at all three are Noah Baumbach's “Frances Ha,” Sally Potter's “Ginger and Rosa,” Dror Moreh's “Gatekeepers,” and Roger Michell's “Hyde Park on Hudso n.” With the arrival of festivals in Telluride, Venice and Toronto, the movie awards season begins, though the heat of August has not quite burned off.

GLAAD Gives Networks Passing Grade for TV Portrayals of Gays

By BRIAN STELTER

Most of the broadcast networks are satisfactorily portraying gays and lesbians on television, a leading media advocacy group said in a report released on Thursday.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, in its annual check-up of sorts on the networks, found that gay characters “are increasingly presented as matter-of-fact manner rather than a curiosity” and lauded the CW in particular. But it also labeled one broadcaster, CBS, as “failing” and called for more ethnic and cultural diversity in the portrayals of gay characters.

The group has been critical of CBS shows in the past for having fewer gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender characters than the shows on other networks. Last year, citing progress, the group labeled CBS as “adequate,” but this year it was labeled “failing” once more. The grades by GLAAD are seen by some as a way to pressure the networks to be more inclusive. The cable chann el TBS was labeled “failing” for the fourth year in a row, as was the History channel, which was monitored by the group for the first time.

“Americans expect to see their off-screen worlds represented onscreen and today more than ever that includes LGBT people and families,” said Herndon Graddick, the president of the group, in a statement. “Storylines of families like Mitchell and Cameron on ‘Modern Family' and young people like Emily on ‘Pretty Little Liars' are not only growing acceptance of our community, but have found praise from viewers and critics alike at a time when visibility and acceptance of LGBT people is at an all-time high.”

Gym, Tan, Later: MTV Ending \'Jersey Shore\'

August 30, 2012, 12:45 pm

By DAVE ITZKOFF

The fists will continue to pump and the spray-on tans will continue to be applied in Seaside Heights, N.J. But the reality-TV adventures of Snooki, JWoww, the Situation and their fellow beach-side revelers will soon be no more: MTV said on Thursday that the coming season of “Jersey Shore” will be its last.

When it made its debut on MTV in December 2009, “Jersey Shore” seemed superficially like one more entry in a familiar reality format that the network all but invented, where young people are made to live, work, party and sleep together while the videotape rolled.

But the combination of outspoken (if not entirely camera-ready) thrill-seekers like Michael Sorrentino (a.k.a the Situation), Nic ole Polizzi (alias Snooki), Jennifer Farley (that's JWoww to you) somehow blended together like gym, tanning and laundry: by the end of its first season, “Jersey Shore” was drawing nearly 5 million viewers an episode for new broadcasts. At its peak, the series was bringing in more than 8 million viewers an episode, making media sensations of its young cast members and providing MTV with a brash and youthful new identity.

But time passes; housemates come and go; and Ronnie and Sammi break up, renew their relationship and break up once again. The “Jersey Shore” cast traveled to Miami and to Italy, and ratings for the series began to fall back to earth. (The series remains one of MTV's strongest performers with the young viewers it covets.) Spinoff series “The Pauly D Project” and “Snooki & JWoww” were introduced, and, in the surest sign that the cast's seemingly perpetual youth was over, Ms. Polizzi gave birth to a son, Lorenzo, on Sunday.

MTV said that the final season of “Jersey Shore” will make its debut on Oct. 4. A series retrospective called “Gym, Tan, Look Back” will be shown on Sept. 6 prior to the MTV Video Music Awards.

A New Rolling Stone Documentary Is Announced

August 30, 2012, 11:54 am

By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.

A new documentary about the Rolling Stones, which chronicles their early years and their rise to stardom, will debut on HBO in the United States on Nov. 15, as part of the band's 50th anniversary celebration, the network announced on Thursday.  The film, “Crossfire Hurricane,” was directed by Brett Morgen, the documentary filmmaker known for films like “The Kid Stays in the Picture” and “Chicago 10.”

The band gave the project its blessing and acted as executive producers, opening up private collections of photos and film footage.  Mr. Morgen has said “the film will deliver the original, bold, sexy and dangerous flavor of the iconic rock band,” tracing their tumultuous rise in the music business, riots and all. It will contain never-released footage and fresh interviews with the band members, he has said.

David Bowie Denies Involvement in British Exhibition of His Clothing

August 30, 2012, 11:36 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

As if it weren't bad enough that his song “Life on Mars” was not, in fact, the first song broadcast from Mars, David Bowie has briefly resurfaced on planet Earth to say he is not involved in a coming exhibition of his fashion and costumes at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

In recent days, various publications have reported that a retrospective of Mr. Bowie's famously forward-thinking attire, from his codpiece- and kimono-favoring days of “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” and beyond, was coming to the Victoria and Albert Museum next year. The Guardian, for example, reported that Mr. Bowie was to “part-curate” this exhibition and had worked with the museum's director in selecti ng its contents.

But in a post published at his official Facebook page, Mr. Bowie denied these accounts.

“Contrary to recently published reports relating to the announcement by the V&A of an upcoming David Bowie Exhibition, I am not a co-curator and did not participate in any decisions relating to the exhibition,” his statement said. “The David Bowie Archive gave unprecedented access to the V&A and museum's curators have made all curatorial and design choices. A close friend of mine tells me that I am neither ‘devastated,' ‘heartbroken' nor ‘uncontrollably furious' by this news item.”

(Mr. Bowie's language appeared to be a playful rejoinder to the British tabloids that cited anonymous sources suggesting the singer had had a falling out with the museum's curators.)

Though he is not much seen or heard from in any part of the galaxy these days, Mr. Bowie similarly reemerged last November to say that he had not licensed his work and was not involved in discussions for a British stage musical that would have been built around his catalog of songs.

A press representative for the Victoria and Albert museum said on Thursday that its official announcement of the exhibition would not occur until next Tuesday and that it would have no additional details until that time.

An American press representative for Mr. Bowie declined further comment.

Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival Sets Lineup

August 30, 2012, 10:28 am

By JASON ZINOMAN

Brooklyn comedy is bustling. The Brooklyn Academy of Music recently started a stand-up series. Spaces like Littlefield and the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg have become reliable homes for great comedy. And Louis C.K. has made a habit of working out early versions of his annual stand-up specials at the Bell House. But the anchor of the Brooklyn scene is probably Eugene Mirman, the comic who runs a weekly Sunday show at Union Hall (where much of Mike Birbiglia's movie “Sleepwalk With Me” was set) and curates and hosts the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival. This freewheeling, talent-packed event has none of the stuffy air of more established festivals. It takes place Sept. 13-16 at the Bell House and Union Hall . Veteran comedians like Jon Glaser, Todd Barry and Sarah Silverman will appear. So will young, emerging comics like Michael Che and Brent Sullivan. You can also expect some special guests. The events include a Saturday show titled “Uh Oh: Dangerous, Inappropriate Comedy for Teenagers” and a film festival of short films on Sunday.

Contested Will Delays Burial of \'Jeffersons\' Star Sherman Hemsley

August 30, 2012, 10:12 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

More than a month after his death, the “Jeffersons” star Sherman Hemsley has not yet been buried. His embalmed body remains refrigerated at a funeral home in El Paso while a dispute over his will is resolved, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Hemsley, who played the bullheaded dry-cleaning mini-mogul George Jefferson on “All in the Family” and its spinoff “The Jeffersons,” died of lung cancer at his El Paso home on July 24. He was 74.

In a will cited by The A.P., Mr. Hemsley left his estate, valued at over $50,000, to a woman named Flora Enchinton, whom he identified in the will as a “beloved partner.” Ms. Enchinton told The A.P. she had been Mr. Hemsley's friend and manager for more than 20 years.

That will has been contested by Richard Thornton, who lives in of Philadelphia, where Mr. Hemsley grew up. Mr. Thornton says he is Mr. Hemsley's brother and that the will he left behind may not have been written by the actor.

The A.P. said Mr. Thornton is being represented by a El Paso lawyer named Mark Davis. A lawyer by that name did not immediately return a message left on Thursday morning.

Ms. Enchinton told The A.P. she lived with Mr. Hemsley and another friend, Kenny Johnston, after a time when “they came running from Los Angeles with not one penny, when there was nothing but struggle.” In all that time she said Mr. Hemsley never told her he had any relatives.

“Some people come out of the woodwork - they think Sherman, they think money,” Ms. Enchinton said.

Q. and A.: Caroline Skinner, Executive Producer of \'Doctor Who\'

By STEVE SMITH

On Saturday night, fans of the long-running British science-fiction series “Doctor Who” will celebrate the start of a new season that may be among its most ambitious and turbulent. In a paradox that a dimension-spanning Time Lord from Gallifrey would surely appreciate, the new season, the seventh since “Doctor Who” was revived in 2005, leads up to celebrations next year for the 50th anniversary of the show's birth in 1963.

In an interview at the BBC America offices in Manhattan, just before a preview screening of the season-premiere episode, “Asylum of the Daleks,” at the Ziegfeld Theater, Caroline Skinner, an executive producer for the series, talked about the rising American profile of the show and its star, Matt Smith; the imminent departure of Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill, who portray the Doctor's companions; the arrival of a new companion, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, in this year's Christmas special; an d the plans Steven Moffat, the chief writer and an executive producer, is hatching for the present season and beyond. Below are edited excerpts of the conversation.

In years past, “Doctor Who” attracted a devoted cult following in the United States, but now the show seems to be breaking into mainstream consciousness. What does success in America mean to the health and profile of the franchise back at home?

Well, it's a thrill, for a start: Last year we were top of the U.S. iTunes, which Steven and I were so delighted by. “Doctor Who” is one of the most quintessentially British ideas; for anyone in the U.K., you're kind of born with “Doctor Who” in your DNA, to a certain extent. Obviously we work very hard to reach out to the U.K. mainstream audience, but the fact that it's cutting through in the U.S., where there isn't that context, is just phenomenal. One of the things that was so exciting about shooting over here was that you very much felt from the reaction that we were getting â€" and from the viewing figures and the download figures â€" that it's not “‘Doctor Who,' that quintessentially British show that we import”; it's just “Doctor Who,” and everybody knows what it is as a show in its own right.

Did filming last year's season-opening episodes in America have a discernible impact on how the show is consumed here? Is that what brought you back here to shoot Amy and Rory's farewell in New York?

Since Steven and Matt took over the show, there's been a marked increase in audience appreciation and ratings over here. The stories that Steven's been telling in the last couple of series, and Matt's performance with such dexterity and wit, seem to really speak to that kind of fresh American audience. The demographic over here is slightly different to the one in the U.K., because it's really appealing to a slightly cultier, twentysomething audience. And I think that that is a combination of Matt's crazy brilliance and the absolute gymnastics and massive imagination of Steven's writing.

We've been pushing the production values on every episode, which is one of the reasons why we've been shooting abroad more often. The U.S. is always one of those places where as soon as you start to talk about big genre ideas â€" it's just the place to come to. This year, we set out to make five big movies every week. Steven, when he briefed the writers, was very clear that he wanted each of those pieces to be a big genre piece, which is then sideswiped because it's got a crazy “Doctor Who” spin on it. As a result, we've done three foreign shoots in the space of five episodes, which is pretty amazing going, really.

You've filmed new episodes in the U.S., Spain and …

The U.S. and two in Spain. For “Asylum of the Daleks” we went up into the Spanish mountains to shoot some of those enormous shots of the cast landing in the snow. Then Stev en briefed Toby Whithouse, who's the “Being Human” show runner, to do the biggest “Doctor Who” western episode ever â€" of course, we took it to Spain, which, joking aside, is where they shot the majority of the spaghetti westerns. We went down to two fort towns by Almería, in the south of Spain. The production values you can get there, and the sheer authenticity, feel absolutely amazing.

Then obviously we decided to set Karen and Arthur's last adventure in New York. From the moment that Steven decided he wanted their final story to be a Weeping Angels story, it just always felt that New York was right. He'd been over here on a family holiday and started pacing the city, visualizing the existing statues turning into monsters. In terms of atmosphere and tone, and also in terms of the scale of the landscape, it feels as if it was absolutely the right decision to make. It's such a city of dreams, and it needed to be somewhere that was huge and magical, that had t hat backdrop in every shot. It's a script that's going to break your heart, and there's just nowhere better to set it.

Is it liberating to know that replacing your principal actors and characters is part of the show's architecture?

Change is the essence of “Doctor Who,” and I think it's one of the reasons, or maybe the main reason, why the show has lasted so long in the U.K. Its core values are to keep refreshing itself and keep surprising you, and I think that's something that audiences always respond to.

Are you at all apprehensive about losing Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill?

It's a proper double-edged sword, because they're just so fantastic. Actually, I think that them leaving in the middle of this series was probably the perfect decision, sad as it was to see them go. They've been the longest-serving companions on the modern show. We're getting to a point where you're vaguely familiar and quite comfortable with who those three characters are and how they operate together. Steven and the writers have really been pushing them into quite interesting and funny and very dark places, and really challenging what that relationship means over the course of these episodes.

And then when they finally go, I think it will break everybody's hearts, because you've kind of grown up with them over those series. And it's meaningful; it feels like it's a proper loss. But that said, Jenna stepped onto the Tardis with Matt and completely changed everything about the show, but also about who the Doctor is in the context of that relationship. Those episodes, going forward from Christmas onward, are a real thrill. That's the joy and the heartbreak of “Doctor Who,” really, that you can feel both those things at the same time.

Colorful Pigeons in St. Mark\'s Square Stir Controversy

By LARRY ROHTER

They may not rank with the Bridge of Sighs or gondolas as Venice's top tourist attractions, but the pigeons of St. Mark's Square definitely have their fans - and protectors. That has been amply demonstrated in recent days as the result of an art project undertaken as part of this year's Architecture Biennale in Venice, in which two European artists have tinted some of the St. Mark's flock in gaudy colors.

The colors range from brilliant blues and reds to vibrant greens and yellows, not to mention royal purple. The sudden appearance of the pigeons of St. Mark'sâ€"considered so much a public nuisance that the local government made it illegal to feed them in 2008â€"in something other than the standard gray seems to have delighted the tourists. But it also seems, perhaps just as predictably, to have outraged animal rights defenders.

The project is the work of a Swiss artist named Julian Charriere, aided by a German photogra pher, Julius von Bismarck. In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, Mr. Charriere said his objective was to cast a bird that is almost universally loathed in an attractive new light, giving anonymous members of the species a bit of individuality and character. “That way pigeons will be better accepted,” he argued. Animal rights advocates were not amused. “Are works of art justified as such even when they involve other, non-consenting living beings?” was the philosophical question raised on one Italian arts blog and answered roundly in the negative by some other bloggers.

Mr. Charriere defended himself by saying that his project had been carried out “without any danger to the animals” - in contrast to a piece at last year's art biennale in Venice which consisted of more than 2,000 taxidermied pigeons mounted above the entrance to the main Palace of Exhibitions and on pipes throughout the interior of the building. Despite Mr. Charriere's precautions, one blogger complained that “an initiative with so little respect for defenseless animals is to be condemned.” Perhaps no one in Italy has yet heard of Damien Hirst.

Trey Songz Reaches No. 1; Adele Drops Out of Top 10

By BEN SISARIO

On the music charts this week: The fifth time is a charm for the R&B singer Trey Songz, Adele is finally bumped from the Top 10, and a South Korean pop song goes viral.

Trey Songz (real name: Tremaine Neverson) reached No. 1 on Billboard's album chart for the first time with his fifth release, “Chapter V” (Songbook/Atlantic), which opened with 135,000 sales, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Last week's top seller, 2 Chainz's “Based on a T.R.U. Story” (Def Jam), dropped to No. 2 with 48,000.

High-charting new releases include DJ Khaled's “Kiss the Ring” (Cash Money/Universal Republic), at No. 4 with 41,000 sales, and Owl City's “Midsummer Station” (Universal Republic); helped by “Good Time,” a hit song with the singer Carly Rae Jepsen, Owl City opened at No. 7 with 30,000.

After 78 weeks in the Top 10 - including 24 at No. 1 - Adele's “21” (XL/Columbia) fell to No . 12 this week with 24,000 sales. Billboard's chart experts note that with music sales still in their late-summer doldrums, “21” could still return to the Top 10 next week, but would likely soon fall out again as major new albums start to come out in September.

Taylor Swift's  latest song, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” which had a big opening last week, holds at No. 1, although its download count has dropped by half. The song sold 307,000 copies in its second week, down from 623,000.

The most surprising song on the charts, however - and, really, the most entertaining - is “Gangnam Style” by the South Korean rapper-singer Psy. Thanks to a music video that has the lovably buffoonish Psy and his pretty backup dancers mimicking a horse trot and lasso swing, the song has become a surprise summer hit on both sides of the Pacific. (Part of the fun has been reading Western attempts to parse the phenomenon of K-Pop, South Korea's extremely popula r bubblegum genre.)

“Gangnam Style” - its title refers to an upscale neighborhood in Seoul - holds at No. 1 for a fifth week on Billboard's K-Pop chart, which was started a year ago. The song remains a huge hit on YouTube: it has been viewed 71 million times, and this week it replaces Ms. Jepsen's “Call Me Maybe” as No. 1 on YouTube's music chart.

So far, though, that has not translated into blockbuster record sales. “Gangnam Style” is No. 74 on Billboard's digital songs chart, with 23,000 downloads in the United States, but it is climbing: a week ago it was No. 158 with half as many.

PEN American Center Announces Literary Awards

By JULIE BOSMAN

The PEN American Center has announced the winners of its annual literary awards, naming Susan Nussbaum, the author of “Good Kings Bad Kings,” the recipient of the $25,000 Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, a new prize given to the author of an unpublished novel. Vanessa Veselka, the author of “Zazen,” was named the winner of the $25,000 Robert W. Bingham Prize. James Gleick won the E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, and $10,000, for “The Information.” Christopher Hitchens, who died in December, was named the winner of the $5,000 Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for “Arguably,” his 2011 book of essays. Dan Barry, a columnist for The New York Times, won the $5,000 ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing for “Bottom of the 33rd.” Robert K. Massie was the recipient of the Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, worth $5,000, for “Catherine the Great.” All 18 winners a nd the runners-up will be honored at a ceremony on Oct. 23 in New York City.

FX Orders 90 More Episodes of \'Anger Management\'

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Here's something no one has been able to say about Charlie Sheen for a while: now he knows what he'll be working on for the next two years, or, at least, where he's supposed to go when he's working. On Wednesday, FX said that it had committed to an additional 90 episodes of “Anger Management,” the sitcom that has served as Mr. Sheen's comeback vehicle after his - didn't you hear? - tumultuous departure from “Two and a Half Men.”

“Anger Management,” which is loosely adapted from the Adam Sandler comedy, stars Mr. Sheen as a therapist still nursing his own unresolved issues. The series is produced by Lionsgate Television and syndicated by that studio's subsidiary Debmar-Mercury; Mr. Sheen is also one of its executive producers. As part of a deal struck when “Anger Management” was announced last year, FX committed to showing 10 episodes to start, and an additional 90 if the series met certain (unspecified) rating s thresholds.

At its debut in June, “Anger Management” drew nearly 5.5 million viewers before leveling off to about 2 million viewers for first-time broadcasts of new episodes. FX said on Wednesday that the series had averaged 4.53 million total viewers during its run (and 2.5 million viewers in the coveted 18-to-49 demographic) and that the ratings targets had been met.

Chuck Saftler, executive vice president of FX Networks, praised Mr. Sheen and the “Anger Management” series creator Bruce Helford in a statement, saying: “Bruce Helford has created a sitcom that works extremely well in our pre-10 p.m. programming lineup. Charlie Sheen and the entire cast did an amazing job in the first ten episodes, which were produced in a very tight window. I have no doubt that the producers and cast will be able to pull off the Herculean task of producing 90 episodes over the next two years.”

Mr. Sheen has said that he intends for “Anger Management” to be the “swan song” to his acting career, after which he will focus on raising his children. “When I'm done with this business it's just going to be about soccer games and amusement parks,” he told The New York Times in June. “And when this ends, I'm done.”

Watching the Convention From the Peanut Gallery

By JASON ZINOMAN

If Chris Christie ever runs for president, America will continue to lead the world in fat jokes. That is abundantly clear to anyone who was paying close attention to the vast peanut gallery that is Twitter last night. Comedians, who have embraced the form as much as any other artist, were hard at work reacting to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., especially the major speeches of Mr. Christie, the New Jersey governor, and Ann Romney, wife of the G.O.P. nominee, Mitt Romney. Relying on Witstream, a Web site that collects tweets from the comedy world, as well as some searching, I hereby offer a few of the best jokes suitable for a family newspaper.

A fun thing to do at the Republican National Convention would be to get onstage and ask if anyone knows a good place to buy khakis.

- Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) August 28, 2012

Ann Romney kept saying how funny Mitt is.Only his earlier films.

- Albert Brooks (@AlbertBrooks) August 29, 2012

 

I think the thing I'm most surprised about is that a high school girl would talk to a boy named Mitt. #RNC #alsothenameofaglove

- Rachel Hastings (@rachelhastings) August 29, 2012

Christie was the Key Lime Speaker.

- ben schwartz (@benschwartzy) August 29, 2012

 

If Chris Christie's speech ends with him doing Chris Farley's Chippendale dance, I'll vote for Romney. #RNC

- Steven Amiri (@StevenAmiri) August 29, 2012

Christie is a good man, the fat jokes are cheap. He kept flags at half mast for Whitney Houston. Cuz he was too tired to raise them all way.

- CJ Sullivan (@CJVLR) August 29, 2012

Humor and Horror: Victor LaValle Talks About His Novel \'The Devil in Silver\'

August 29, 2012, 12:00 pm

By JOHN WILLIAMS

In Victor LaValle's third novel, “The Devil in Silver,” a man called Pepper is taken to a psychiatric hospital in Queens by three cops who don't want to be bothered with taking him to jail for assault. He's told he will be there for 72 hours of observation, but the days stretch to months. Mr. LaValle is known for an approach that mixes various literary influences and tones, from humor to horror. While Pepper struggles to get decent treatment from an indifferent staff, he also forges alliances - some shakier than others - with his fellow patients and marshals them to fight a beast that has the withered body of an old man and the large head of a bison. In a recent e-mail interview, Mr. LaValle discussed “On e Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,” the art of making a monster, van Gogh's kinship with his characters and more. Below are edited excerpts from the conversation:

Is Pepper mentally ill? And how deeply troubled is he, even if he doesn't belong in this setting?

Pepper isn't mentally ill; he's just a guy with a temper and a hero complex. I think everyone knows a person like Pepper, someone who acts before he thinks and causes trouble though he has good intentions. It may be a flaw in his character, but I see him as a generally decent guy who gets thrown into a place that makes it difficult to stay decent.

What kind of research about hospitals did you do for the book?

I spoke to a few professionals, two doctors in particular, working in the public health care system now. I've also had a lot of personal experience with psychiatric units. I've spent my life visiting a handful of people who are very close to me when they've been committed to one hospital or a nother in New York.

Did you have a particular inspiration for the monster's attributes? Put another way, what do you look for in a monster?

The best monsters are our anxieties given form. They make sense on the level of a dream, or a nightmare. Bram Stoker's Dracula was a story about the fear of immigration; the bad old bloodsucker swooping in from Eastern Europe and also preying upon “our” vulnerable women. The American zombie (from George Romero on) bubbled up because our country has no culture of ancestor worship. In America, when you're dead you're gone. (Until Big J returns, I suppose.) Who else would find it so terrifying that the dead have returned?

My devil, I realize now, is my nightmare embodiment of our country as we suffer the convulsions of terrifying change. The bison is a fabled beast of our romanticized past. The withered, livid body bears a resemblance to our current moment. The creature is beautiful and h orrifying. I'm afraid you could say the same about us.

Were you interested in consciously echoing “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” at all or interested in avoiding echoes as much as possible?

You can't write a story about a mental hospital in the United States without facing the grand example of “Cuckoo's Nest.” I was very aware of this as I wrote the book. So much so that I had the patients talk about the book, briefly, within my own book. But they do so to make an important distinction: that book isn't really about mentally ill people or even the health care system. It's about how Ken Kesey's generation feared the lobotomizing effects of the culture their parents had created. The book and film have lasted because they both capture that era, and its essence, so well.

But I don't really write about my generation like that. I write about my class. The class I grew up in, at least. This class has long understood what some only began to grasp around 2 008: many of us are trapped in a system that is killing us. But I didn't want to write a novel of mere despair. So my characters find they can fight back against the forces trying to destroy them.

Do you think the book is scary in a jump-out-of-your-seat way? There are many humorous moments as well. How do you balance humor with trying to scare people?

The reactions of readers so far have been interesting. Most people have been frightened by the chilling stuff and they appreciate - even need - the humor to help modulate the tone of the book. But there have been a small subset of people who don't seem to want humor mixing in with their horror. It's like the old Reese's commercial but played backward. They want the peanut butter without the chocolate. Didn't they learn anything from the ads in the '80s? You've got to have both.

The book's epigraph comes from Vincent van Gogh; a museum devoted to his work plays a small role; and one chapter moves away from the hospital setting to tell the story of his life. How did you decide to feature him?

My wife and I lived in Amsterdam for about six months in 2010. We made trips to many amazing museums, including the Van Gogh Museum. Of course I loved his paintings, but the museum is set up so you might also become interested in the trajectory of his life, how he tried and failed, tried and failed, until he finally stumbled onto his particular greatness toward the end of his too-short life.

He was a man who wanted to do good but whose hot temper and strident ideas consistently got in the way. He was someone who hoped to help others, but regularly drove people away from him. He suffered moods that made him seem irrational, even insane. He was committed to mental hospitals. He died with no understanding of how much his efforts and his art would mean someday. That trajectory could summarize the lives of nearly everyone in my novel. He became the patron saint of the book.

What scares you most?

I've got a young son, 15 months, so these days all my fears are about some kind of harm coming to him. He, on the other hand, seems to have no fear at all. So far he's still breathing and generally unscratched, so my worst fears haven't come true.

What's next, and will it maintain the blend of humor and fright?

I'm working on a short novel and something much meatier. The short novel is about warring book dealers who spiral into a kind of competitive madness. The long novel is still in the earliest stages, but I'm thinking of it as “Anna Karenina” in Queens. Neither one seems overtly supernatural, but knowing myself there will be lots of jokes and plenty of chills.

Seth MacFarlane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Daniel Craig to Host \'Saturday Night Live\'

August 29, 2012, 10:05 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Coming off a summer in which his directorial debut, “Ted,” was the season's breakout hit comedy, Seth MacFarlane will take a victory lap as the host of “Saturday Night Live” for its premiere on Sept. 15, NBC said on Wednesday. Mr. MacFarlane, the creator and star of the Fox animated comedy “Family Guy” (who moonlights as a big-band singer), will be joined for the start of the 38th “SNL” season by musical guest Frank Ocean, and a cast that is still in flux but will include stalwarts like Bill Hader and Fred Armisen.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who didn't have such a shabby summer himself in films like “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Premium Rush,” will make his second appearance as an “SNLâ € host on Sept. 22, in an episode that will also feature Mumford & Sons as its musical guest.

And if parachuting into the London Olympics with Queen Elizabeth II weren't exciting enough, Daniel Craig will leap into his first hosting role on the Oct. 6 broadcast of “Saturday Night Live,” with Muse, the British rock band that created the official song for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Mr. Craig will be promoting the new James Bond movie, “Skyfall” â€" yes, “Skyfall” â€" which opens on Nov. 9.

A Very Different Ending for Sunday\'s \'Breaking Bad\'

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Warning: the above video will definitely spoil the outcome of Sunday's episode of “Breaking Bad” if you haven't already seen it. Also, it was recommended to us by Josh Groban, so caveat emptor.

Joss Whedon Creating \'S.H.I.E.L.D.\' Pilot for ABC

By DAVE ITZKOFF

The recent announcement that the “Avengers” director and screenwriter Joss Whedon would be developing a television pilot as part of a larger deal with Marvel Studios (under which he's also handling an “Avengers” sequel) set off ripples of speculation: would Mr. Whedon focus on the better-known characters of the Marvel pantheon, home to heroes like Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, or aim for the more obscure reaches of its comic-book universe? Sorry, fans of Brother Voodoo and Ego the Living Planet, but today is not your day.

Instead, Mr. Whedon, the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” is working on turf more familiar to “Avengers” viewers and preparing a series based on S.H.I.E.L.D., the Marvel Comics espionage agency run by Nick Fury. The Hollywood Reporter said that ABC has ordered a pilot of “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” which Mr. Whedon will write with his brother Jed Whedon, and Jed's wife, Maurissa Tancharoe n, his collaborators on the online musical “Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.” If his schedule permits, Joss Whedon may also direct the pilot episode about the shadowy paramilitary organization that recruits the disparate members of the Avengers to work together in a group, and which somehow maintains its covert status while operating from a giant flying aircraft carrier.

Variety reported that Mr. Whedon said the “S.H.I.E.L.D.” pilot would be “autonomous” from the “Avengers” sequel, planned for a May 2015 release. It was unclear if “Avengers” cast members like Samuel L. Jackson (who plays Nick Fury in the Marvel movies), Cobie Smulders and Clark Gregg would be involved. But Mr. Gregg appeared to rule out the return of his character, Agent Phil Coulson, writing on his Twitter account: “The Walking Dead Coulson?”

An Art Show for Pussy Riot

By MELENA RYZIK

The Russian performance artists and punk activists known as Pussy Riot, three of whom were sentenced to prison in Moscow this month, continue to garner international support, most recently from the art world. On Sept. 10, the group will be the subject of a pop-up exhibition and fundraiser at Lombard-Freid Projects, a Chelsea gallery. The event is to be organized by Victoria Dushkina, a curator from Moscow, and Amnesty International, which has supported the cause of Pussy Riot for months.

“We consider Pussy Riot prisoners of conscience and continue calling for their immediate and unconditional release,” Ilona Kelly, interim director of the individuals-at-risk program at Amnesty International USA, told Bloomberg News.

Lea Fried, a partner in Lombard-Freid, added: “This is not about raising awareness or protesting anymore. This is about raising money for the women, their families and defense.”

On August 17, N adezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Maria Alekhina, 24, and Ekaterina Samutsevich, 30, were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred for performing a profane, 40-second-long “punk prayer” in an Orthodox cathedral; they were sentenced to two years each in prison. Their case drew widespread global protests and words of support from Madonna and Paul McCartney.

Ms. Dushkina, a curator at the Gary Tatintsian gallery in Moscow, said she was organizing the exhibit independently, in solidaritywith Pussy Riot. “I share their spirit of opposition,” she told Bloomberg. “I feel like I could have participated in one of their performances. I could have been in their place.”

The show will include five looped video pieces featuring Pussy Riot members sloganeering, over a crunching guitar soundtrack.

“I'd like to create the atmosphere of absurdity and hysteria that characterized the Pussy Riot trial,” Ms. Dushkina said.

Since the trial, several re maining members of Pussy Riot may have fled Russia, according to a recent posting on their Twitter feed. On Monday, a lawyer for the three convicted women filed an appeal in Moscow.

New Will.i.am Song Broadcast From Mars

By KENNETH CHANG

In the first-ever planet-to-planet music broadcast, NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, beamed a new song by Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas to Earth on Tuesday, playing a digital music file to an audience of engineers and students at the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

“Why do they say the sky is the limit when I've seen the footprints on the moon?” Will.i.am sings in the song, “Reach for the Stars,” which made its solar system premiere after a 330-million-mile trip, from Earth to Mars and back again. (Alas, any nearby Martians were out of luck: the rover does not have speakers to broadcast music to its surrounding landscape, and the thin Martian air would have distorted the sound.)

The song debut, part of Will.i.am's efforts to cheerlead for science and mathematics education, did not require any advances in space technology, but perhaps reflected a more media-savvy approach by the space agen cy in making its work seem glamorous. The singer was among a parade of celebrities who descended on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on Aug. 5 to watch Curiosity, an automobile-sized mobile science laboratory, touch down on Mars; others included the actor Morgan Freeman, the director Barry Sonnenfeld, the comedian Seth Green and the actress Nichelle Nichols (who played Lt. Uhura on the original Star Trek).

But this is not the first time that NASA has dabbled in music from outer space. The radio emissions of Saturn, recorded by the Cassini spacecraft, were shifted into audible frequencies, and the Kronos Quartet then incorporated the space sounds into a composition called “Sun Rings.” In 2008, NASA celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Beatles song “Across the Universe” by transmitting it into deep space.

So far, the galaxy appears ungrateful. “Obviously, deep space hasn't sent us anything back,” a NASA spokeswoman noted.

Playwright Will Stage Her \'Topdog\' With Brothers in Lead Roles

By ERIK PIEPENBURG

Ten years after Suzan-Lori Parks's dark comedy “Topdog/Underdog” won the Pulitzer Prize for drama, Ms. Parks will be directing a new production of the play at Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J. this fall. The show begins performances on Sept. 8, and continues through Sept. 30, with opening night set for Sept. 14.

For Ms. Parks, the author of the reworked book for the “The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess,” directing “Topdog” has given her a chance to revisit a work that she's seen only once since it opened on Broadway in 2002, and hasn't read again either.

“I haven't really clung to it,” she said. “I hadn't re-read it intentionally. I sat there on the first day of rehearsal and I had that wonderful feeling of, who wrote this? It's such a beautiful play. I have that feeling you get when you are very deep into your own work, and very free with it. I've felt that with other plays, but I felt it a lot here.”

John Dias, Two River's artistic director, and Michael Hurst, its managing director, worked with Ms. Parks for many years at the Public Theater, where they were involved in the development and premieres of many of her plays, including the original production of “Topdog/Underdog.” Ms. Parks has directed other productions of her work, but this will be the first time for “Topdog/Underdog,” which she describes as being about “all those beautiful and complicated feelings about family.”

In the roles of the two brothers, Ms. Parks has cast real-life siblings: Brandon J. Dirden (“Clybourne Park”) will play Lincoln, and his younger brother, Jason Dirden (“Fences”), will be Booth. Jeffrey Wright played Lincoln and Don Cheadle was Booth in the show's original 2001 production at the Public Theater. Mos Def replaced Mr. Cheadle when Mr. Wright reprised his role in the show's transfer to Broadway the next year.

“They really are Lincoln and Booth,” Ms. Parks said of the brothers Dirden. “Not in the specifics of the difficult family circumstances but in the psychological dynamics of little brother and big brother. They completely understand that. It's funny to watch. I get to play mom.”

Series of Events to Mark Public Theater\'s Renovations

By ROBIN POGREBIN

The Public Theater's $40 million revitalization of its downtown home at Astor Place will be unveiled Oct. 4 with a series of events to mark a re-dedication to its founding principles of artistic development and public accessibility.

The theater's eight weeks of events - many of which are free - include a movie night featuring the Public's Tony-nominated 1972 production of “Much Ado About Nothing” starring Sam Waterston; a discussion on the life of American cities with Anna Deavere Smith, the actor and playwright, and David Simon, creator of the HBO series “The Wire”; and an evening of songs from the Public's musical “February House” that reunites the original cast and band.

“This beautiful revitalization links the stage and the street, making the building a living manifestation of our mission to create a dynamic, diverse and democratic culture,” said Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater's artistic director , in a statement. “We want to invite the entire city to join us as we celebrate this milestone and begin our next chapter.”

Times Readers Recommend \'School Books\'

August 28, 2012, 12:43 pm

By JOHN WILLIAMS

Last week, in anticipation of the start of this year's classes, Times staffers shared some of their favorite books set in or around schools. On Twitter, I then asked readers to suggest a few of their own. Below is a selection of their answers, from Hogwarts (“of course!”) to the unnamed English university in Kingsley Amis's “Lucky Jim.”

[View the story "Selected #schoolbooks Suggestions" on Storify]

\'Jekyll & Hyde\' Revival Sets Spring Broadway Opening

August 28, 2012, 11:49 am

By PATRICK HEALY

Add the Frank Wildhorn musical “Jekyll & Hyde” to the list of shows being revived on Broadway not that long after their last appearance there.

A 25-week national tour of “Jekyll & Hyde” will begin this fall and then come to the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York in April 2013, according to a spokeswoman for the revival, confirming a Twitter post on Monday by the production's star, Tony Award nominee Constantine Maroulis (“Rock of Ages”).

Mr. Maroulis will play the title characters. The spokeswoman had no additional details on Tuesday.

“Jekyll & Hyde,” based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novella, is one of the more commercially successful shows by Mr. Wildhorn, a composer and p op song writer who has had several flops on Broadway (most recently “Bonnie & Clyde,” “Wonderland,” and “Dracula”). The original Broadway production of “Jekyll & Hyde” opened in April 1997 and ran for nearly four years, a respectable stretch (the original Broadway production of “Evita” ran about as long). But ticket sales were not strong enough for the show to turn a profit on Broadway; the musical has since gone on to be a moneymaker in overseas productions.

“Jekyll & Hyde” is one of several Broadway revivals that are coming not long after earlier productions of the shows; the plays “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” “Glengarry Glen Ross,” and “Cyrano de Bergerac” are all being staged on Broadway this fall, only a few years after their last outings there.

As for the Broadway marketplace for musicals in the 2012-13 theater season, several of the announced shows feature family-oriented plots about growing up (“Annie,” “Mati lda,” “Cinderella,” “A Christmas Story,” “Elf”). “Jekyll & Hyde” is more fantastical, by contrast, with a mix of romance and tragedy.

The show has music by Mr. Wildhorn and a book and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse. The director of the production is Jeff Calhoun, a recent Tony nominee for “Newsies the Musical.”

\'In the Heights\' Composer Began Career Working on Political Ads

Lin-Manuel Miranda has had a busy few years since his musical “In the Heights,” a hip-hop-infused celebration of the grit and dreams of Latino immigrants in Washington Heights, became a hit on Broadway and won a shelf full of .

He has rapped for President Obama at the White House. He has bantered with Big Bird on “Sesame Street.” He got married, and more than 2.5 million people watched a YouTube video of him, his father-in-law and the bridal party singing and dancing to the song “To Life” from “Fiddler on the Roof.” Now, at 32, he has his third credit on Broadway, as one of the creators of “Bring It On: The Musical,” about cheerleading competitions.

But as the composer's fame spreads, one piece of Mr. Miranda's past has been little noted: In his 20s, while he was writing and revising “In the Heights,” he supported himself in part by composing music for advertisements for local political candidates.

Thanks to his father, Luis A. Miranda Jr., a New York political consultant who has been a close adviser to Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president and mayoral candidate, and State Senator Adriano Espaillat, the younger Mr. Miranda's jingles found their way into English- and Spanish-language advertisements for politicians including not only Mr. Ferrer but also H. Carl McCall, the former state comptroller, and Eliot Spitzer, the former governor. All those politicians are Democrats.

“He'd say, ‘I have a Sharpton radio ad - I need 60 seconds of smooth jazz,' ” Lin-Manuel Miranda recalled the other day.

For the elder Mr. Miranda, hiring his son provided a dual benefit: His son charged less than other composers, and needed work.

Luis Miranda said he had encouraged his son - fruitlessly - to go to law school, noting that the salsa singer Rubén Blades had a law degree. But when it became clear that the younger Mr. Miranda was determined to focus on “In the Heights,” his father wanted to be able to help him.

“The work with me allowed him to sort of dedicate his life to art,” Luis Miranda said.

The younger Mr. Miranda said he did not consider his political jingles his most inspired work. He agreed with his father that music played a more important role in Spanish-language political campaigns than in English ones. But he said the parameters of the job were fairly limited.

The music is “generally accompanied by footage of the candidates shaking hands, doing very task-oriented things, so it's got to have a pulse, and it's got to be generally hopeful,” Mr. Miranda said.

A more complex advertisement might start out with something negative about the opposing candidate, requiring 10 seconds of downbeat music - “Sad strings: ‘Under bad candidate, this happened,' ” he suggested - before a transition to a more upbeat, aspirational melody.

“It's a little like movie scoring,” Mr. Miranda said. “If you've got a scary scene, you've got to write music for the scary scene.”

On only one occasion did he get to deploy his talent for writing hip-hop lyrics, when his father asked him to ghostwrite a robocall that the rapper Fat Joe was expected to make for Mr. Ferrer's 2005 mayoral campaign.

“I remember the hook was ‘Freddy ready' - that's about all I remember from it,” Lin-Manuel Miranda said. “I don't think it ever got used.”

He said he did not meet or know much about many of the candidates he wrote music for. An exception was David S. Yassky, whose 2009 campaign for the Democratic nomination for city comptroller he wrote a jingle for, even though “In the Heights” was already on Broadway and he no longer needed the money.

The younger Mr. Miranda said he had met Mr. Yassky and liked him, so was happy to do it.

About the ad, Mr. Yassky said, “I kind of tried to angle for an opportunity to sing in it, but I was politely declined.” (Mr. Yassky ultimately lost in a runoff to John C. Liu. He is now the city's taxi and limousine commissioner.)

These days, the younger Mr. Miranda is juggling several projects: writing songs for “Sesame Street”; working on a television pilot with his hip-hop group, Freestyle Love Supreme; and revising a hip-hop song cycle about Alexander Hamilton.

Now, when he gets involved in politics, it is not for money but out of conviction. In January, for instance, he hosted an Obama fund-raiser at the Apollo Theater, where the president sang a couple of bars of Al Green's “Let's Stay Together” to the electrified audience.

Locally, he is raising money for a childhood friend, Mayra Linares, who is running for the seat in the Assembly currently occupied by her father, Guillermo Linares. (In the byzantine and rivalrous world of uptown politics, Guillermo Linares, a close friend of Luis Miranda, is mounting a primary challenge against Mr. Espaillat, the elder Mr. Miranda's longtime client.)

Lin-Manuel Miranda said he had known Ms. Linares since childhood, when they accompanied their fathers to political events.

“She's like the Nina to my Usnavi,” he said, referring to two “In the Heights” characters. “She's the girl who stayed in the neighborhood and made good.”

He said he wasn't sure whether Ms. Linares would have any television advertisements, but he said they had talked about her blasting some “In the Heights” music from the trucks that political candidates in Washington Heights usually have driven around the neighborhood to advertise their campaigns.

“If she ever needed music for radio ads or spots, I'd of course be happy to do that,” he said.

Luis Miranda said he was not sorry that his son was now too busy to write background music for political ads.

“I thought I was going to have to give work to Lin-Manuel for the rest of my life,” Luis Miranda said, chuckling.

“Now he actually can support me after I retire.”

Avast, Ye Readers! Memoir Coming From Michael Bolton

August 28, 2012, 11:14 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow, a pirate so brave on the seven seas - wait, sorry, scratch that: this is the tale of the singer Michael Bolton, the latter-day crooner with hair spun from gold, who'll be unspooling his life story in a new memoir. The Center Street imprint of the Hachette Book Group said on Tuesday that it had acquired a book titled “The Soul of It All” from Mr. Bolton, the singer-songwriter (and devoted fan of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, at least according to a recent Lonely Island/”Saturday Night Live” video).

Center Street said in a news release that “The Soul of It All” will chronicle Mr. Bolton's upbringing in New Haven, Conn.; his teenage years spen t hitchhiking on Route 66 and babysitting for the young Paula Abdul; an age of excess in the 1960s and 70s; and finally his commercial breakthrough as a songwriter for Laura Branigan (“How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?”) and in his own solo career (“Time, Love and Tenderness”).

Mr. Bolton said in a statement that “The Soul of It All” is about “the heartfelt emotions and vital forces created in a lifetime spent developing gifts and pursuing passions.” He added: “Like a sculptor working with stone, I want to remove all that is less wise, less noble, less patient, less present, until I become something closer to perfection.”

If he can be pulled away from another “Pirates of the Caribbean” marathon, Center Street plans to release Mr. Bolton's memoir on Nov. 13.

Van Cliburn Has Advanced Bone Cancer

By DANIEL J. WAKIN

The pianist Van Cliburn, who famously triumphed at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1958, has “advanced bone cancer,” a spokeswoman said on Monday.

Mr. Cliburn, 78, is undergoing treatment and “resting comfortably at home” in Fort Worth, where he is receiving around-the-clock care, said the spokeswoman, Mary Lou Falcone.

He was diagnosed in the past 10 days, she said. Ms. Falcone did not specify the treatment. Mr. Cliburn was in New York in May to deliver a lecture at the New York Public Library and for the auctioning by Christie's of furniture, jewelry and artworks in his collection and of his family piano.

\'Best Man,\' \'One Man, Two Guvnors\' Turn a Profit

By PATRICK HEALY

Only a fraction of Broadway musicals ever turn a profit, and even rarer are plays that end up making money for their investors. But in the last week, two did: The producers of the “Gore Vidal's The Best Man” announced on Monday that they had recouped their $3.25 million capitalization costs, a few days after producers of the comedy “One Man, Two Guvnors” said they had recouped their investment of $3.25 million as well.

“The Best Man,” a revival of Vidal's 1960 play about backroom deal-making at a presidential convention, was a bigger hit at the box office (thanks to stars like James Earl Jones and, in its first months, Angela Lansbury) than with critics or Tony Awards voters; the show lost out at the Tonys in June. “One Man, Two Guvnors,” an import from London's National Theater about a bumbling manservant caught in a web of lies, had strong reviews and word-of-mouth buzz for its Tony-winning lead actor, Jam es Corden.

Ticket sales for both plays continued to be solid last week, even as many other shows saw declines amid the traditional late-summer doldrums and vacations of star actors. “One Man, Two Guvnors,” which is scheduled to close on Sunday, grossed $746,407, or 80 percent of the maximum possible amount â€" a strong showing for a play.“The Best Man,” which closes Sept. 9, grossed $575,811, or 53 percent of its maximum potential.

Overall, Broadway musicals and plays grossed $19.3 million last week, compared to $20.9 million the previous week and $11.6 million for the comparable week last August (when several performances were cancelled due to Hurricane Irene). The top-grossing Broadway shows last week were the musicals “The Lion King,” “Wicked,” “The Book of Mormon,” “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” and “Once.”

New York Film Festival Adds \'Heaven\'s Gate\' to Masterworks Lineup

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Set aside 219 minutes of your life and get ready to stake out a position on one of the more controversial works of contemporary cinema: “Heaven's Gate” is coming to the New York Film Festival. That 1980 Michael Cimino western - which, depending on your perspective, is either an underrated epic that was misunderstood in its day or the overwrought behemoth that brought down an entire motion-picture studio (or possibly both); but definitely features Kris Kristofferson on roller skates - will be presented as part of the festival's Masterworks lineup, the Film Society of Lincoln Center said on Monday.

Other films that have been added the Masterworks bill include a restored version of Federico Fellini's “Fellini Satyricon”; a 40th anniversary presentation of Bob Rafelson's “King of Marvin Gardens”; the director's cut of Frank Oz's “Little Shop of Horrors” (including the original, apocalyptic, talking-plants-eat-the- world ending); Alfred Hitchcock's “Marnie”; Laurence Olivier's “Richard III”; and the world premiere of a restored version of “Charlie Is My Darling,” Peter Whitehead's documentary of the Rolling Stones' two-day tour of Ireland in 1965.

The Film Society also said that it will hold public interviews with the directors Abbas Kiarostami (on Oct. 6), David Chase (Oct. 7) and Robert Zemeckis (Oct. 13), as well as an event featuring Brian De Palma in conversation with Noah Baumbach (Oct. 7).

This year's New York Film Festival will run from Sept. 28 through Oct. 14.

After Unpaid Tickets, Singer\'s Van Is Towed and Sold

By JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.

If you need proof that New York City is serious about parking tickets, talk to Joseph Arthur, the singer-songwriter and painter. The city towed Mr. Arthur's van from outside a Brooklyn garage where it was being repaired, because he said he had failed to pay $361 in parking tickets from earlier this year.

That would be a big headache in and of itself. But there was a failure of communication between Mr. Arthur, who was traveling, and his manager in Canada about whether the tickets had been paid and whether the car had been returned to the garage. So when Mr. Arthur returned from a trip to Mexico, he discovered the city had sold his car at auction. Inside were several vintage amplifiers he uses, a number of paintings he had done onstage, a hand-drawn set of tarot cards he was working on and merchandise

“My manager was Canadian and didn't understand the seriousness of the situation,” Mr. Arthur said Monday. †œIf I could turn back time I would, man.”

The city marshal who seized the vehicle, Robert F. Solimine of Brooklyn, has declined to identify the buyer of the van, a white 2003 Dodge Ram. This has caused Mr. Arthur no small amount of grief, but Ronald L. Kuby, the civil rights lawyer, has agreed to help him. Mr. Kuby said the city apparently followed the letter of the law in taking custody of the vehicle (the trigger for seizure is $350), so the only recourse is to beg city officials to reveal the buyer and hope that person will take pity on Mr. Arthur.

“I am hoping whoever bought it - at a good deal - has a soft spot in his or her heart for art and artists,” Mr. Kuby said. “Maybe he or she wants to do good in addition to doing well.”

Mr. Arthur was to play a gig with rented equipment on Monday night. “Hopefully we will find the new owner and just be able to buy it back,” he said.

Mr. Solimine did not ret urn a call seeking comment. The van was seized on July 26 outside Brooklyn Auto Collision and was sold at auction on Thursday.

“I have never sent the city do anything this fast,” Mr. Kuby said. “We have people wait longer to go to trial for coke sales.”

NBC Searches for \'New Normal\' Home in Salt Lake City

By BILL CARTER

When the NBC television affiliate in Salt Lake City decided against showing “The New Normal,” a sitcom about a gay couple adopting a baby, network executives were not surprised. That station, KSL-TV, which is owned by a subsidiary of the Mormon Church, has a long history of steering clear of NBC programs it deems of questionable content. Last fall it blocked the NBC drama “The Playboy Club” last fall and for years it has refused to carry one of the pillars of NBC entertainment, “Saturday Night Live.” It also blocked a previous NBC comedy considered too racy, the short-lived “Coupling.”

In this case, Jeff Simpson, the chief executive of the parent company that owns the station, told The Salt Lake City Tribune, which first reported the news last week, “For our brand, this program feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time.”

The show, which has the same creative team as the Fox hit, “Glee,” centers on a young woman who makes an arrangement to be a surrogate for two gay men, who will adopt her baby. It also includes the character of the woman's mother, played by Ellen Barkin, who is a flagrant bigot in terms of both race and homophobia. Ms. Barkin reacted personally to the station's decision by noting that it apparently has no trouble broadcasting the NBC drama “Law & Order SVU,” which deals with sex crimes. She tweeted a message: “Shame on u @kslcom not airing @NBCTheNewNormal. So L&O SVU (rape and child murder) is OK? But loving gay couple having a baby is inappropriate?”

NBC itself has had little official reaction. The network issued a brief statement: “The New Normal,” is a contemporary look at how families are defined today, portrayed through a comedic prism. We are confident that the show will find another home in the Salt Lake City market.“

The logical alternative in Salt Lake in an independent statio n, KUCW, which has become the home of “SNL” in that city and also picked up “The Playboy Club” last year. NBC is in talks with the station to add “The New Normal,” but as of Monday afternoon it had not finalized a deal to relocate the comedy.

\'Motown: The Musical\' Announces Broadway Opening Date and Lead Cast

By JAMES MCKINLEY, JR.

Brandon Victor Dixon will play Berry Gordy Jr. and Valisia LeKae will play Diana Ross when “Motown: The Musical” opens on Broadway in April, the producers announced on Monday.

The show, which uses material from the Motown catalog as it traces Mr. Gordy's life in the music business, will begin previews at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on March 11 for an April 14 opening.

According to a statement from the producers, “Motown” tells “the story behind the hits,” narrating how Mr. Gordy shaped the careers of Ms. Ross, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder and other singers. It begins in 1959, when Mr. Gordy, a struggling prizefighter, borrowed $800 to start an R&B label, then chronicles his mercurial rise in the Detroit music scene. Mr. Gordy, who is a producer on the project, also wrote the book for the musical, which will be directed by Charles Randolph-Wright.

Building shows around pop hits has proven to be a commercially successful formula on Broadway, as musicals like “Mamma Mia!” and “Jersey Boys” have enjoyed long runs. “Motown” is the only such show announced so far for the 2012-13 season.

Mr. Dixon is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Harpo in “The Color Purple” on Broadway, for which he was nominated for a Tony Award in 2006. Ms. LeKae has had a lower profile, but has appeared in several Broadway musicals, among them “The Book of Mormon” and the 2009 revival of “Ragtime.”

Jonathan Banks of \'Breaking Bad\' Discusses Sunday\'s Episode

August 27, 2012, 11:46 am

By DAVE ITZKOFF

Warning: this post contains spoilers about Sunday's episode of “Breaking Bad.”

From the moment he first appeared on AMC's “Breaking Bad,” Mike Ehrmantraut, the laconic drug-ring henchman played by Jonathan Banks, was someone you did not want to mess with. As the perpetually calm enforcer of the meth kingpin Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), and then as cleanup man after Fring's demise, Mike spoke softly but carried a big gun. He took care of those who were loyal to him and loved his granddaughter, but he'd sneak up on you in your own home and try to kill you if you got in the way of his plans.

Alas, Mike never quite saw eye to eye with Walter White (Bryan Cranston), and on Sunday's episode their disagreements came to a fatal conclusion. (Last warning for spoilers!) After a heated argument, Walt shot Mike, who got out of his car, propped himself up near a placid riverbed and expired in his own tranquil, Mike-like way.

Mr. Banks, who has appeared on “Breaking Bad” since its second-season finale, and who has also acted on shows like “Modern Family” and “Wiseguy” and in films like “48 Hrs.,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Airplane,” spoke in an interview on Monday morning. These are excerpts from that conversation.

It hurts to lose you.

You know what? It hurts to be lost.

Tell me about how the news was broken to you, what was going to transpire with Mike in the episode we saw on Sunday night?

It's been at least 9, 10 months since Vince [Gilligan, the "Breaking Bad" creator] told me. With such ease, that he said: “You're going to die.” But listen, Vince is the best. We're all on borr owed time. Especially if you're one of the bad guys. I always expected to be killed. Financially, it would have been nice to have waited a few more shows, but there you go.

I know you refer to Mike as one of the bad guys, but within the world of bad guys, he had his own code and he lived by it. Is there a certain injustice there?

No, because of what Mike's done. Mike is wise enough or smart enough to know that what he does is a loss of his own soul in the first place. He lost his soul a long time ago, and he knows it. Those lines about, will you ever be forgiven for what you've done? The answer's no. I don't think he thinks that.

The scene that becomes the final confrontation between Mike and Walt, how was that worked out and how was that shot?

I'm at the mercy â€" and, for the most part, what a wonderful mercy it is â€" of the writers' pens. And that was chosen, that site by the river, and I got to tell you, at the end of the day, because there was a lot going on that day, we were running out of light. Because it's not a feature, you don't have the luxury of, “Oh, yeah, we'll come back in the morning.” I don't know that features have that luxury anymore either. That was a hard day.

I was going to say, just about Mike, I hope I've brought some of myself to him. Vince gave me this wonderful gift of this character and in the end, jeez, I'm thinking, it's hard not to do Mike anymore because I loved Mike. [laughs]

I'm judging you based on only a few minutes of conversation, but already you seem more animated and lively.

Oh absolutely. There's a sadness, a morose quality that you can't get over. You can't do those things and not be affected. Death becomes the easy part.

The day that he died, was that literally your last day of filming?

No, I had to go back, and that was very hard, to then go back and keep shooting. It wasn't much longer, and I can't remember exactly how many days. But it was a few. It was hard in this whole arc. As much as I loved what I was given, it was hard knowing that it was going to end. This is the first conversation I've had with anybody about this. [laughs] As soon as I say something once, I just despise saying it a second time, I really do.

So that's how you're like Mike in real life.

I guess.

Even the way that we saw Mike die â€" that Michael Corleone-style keeling over â€" was that a choice that you made for yourself?

I don't remember, but I think that's me. That's me just slumping over. But what a wonderful shot that Michael Slovis [a director and cinematographer for "Breaking Bad"] decided, to go up on that hill and you see my back from a distance. How cool was that? It was perfect, as far as I'm concerned.

You've had a long career and other great roles, and then “Breaking Bad” gives you a new opportunity to connect with people and sink your teeth into a good character. When something like that com es along, do you think to yourself, “Hey, I've been here all along â€" why are people only just being reminded of what I've done?”

I'm going to speak to you directly. Here's the difference in our ages. I've been alive so long that it doesn't surprise me at all. All the wonderful actors out there that languish, as trite as it may sound, you say to somebody: “You go into this business, you better not go in for the money. And you certainly better not go in it for the fame. You better love it because you love the art.” So at 65 years old, do I feel like, oh, jeez, I wish this, that, dada dada? If I do feel that, it is certainly less than it used to be. And the balm of being able to do “Breaking Bad” and play Mike cures a lot of those feelings. It's a long-winded way of saying, I've been around long enough that I know it ain't fair.

There's no bitterness about it. I get it. Bryan [Cranston] is a perfect example â€" he did “Malcolm in the Middle,” and t hen all of a sudden you give this wonderful actor a chance to do something that is so nuanced and a hyper nerve ending â€" he's great.

It seems like “Breaking Bad” has given you new opportunities, too. Did the “Modern Family” role happen because of that?

Jeff Greenberg, the casting director over there, and I go back a thousand years. He's a dear friend. We go back to Gordon Hunt's acting class together in the mid-70s. And then Christopher Lloyd, the writer, knew me from “Fired Up.” And then Ed O'Neill and I have known each other forever. And we look alike.

One thing I only just recently learned about you is that some of your earliest acting was onstage, in musical theater. Has any of that carried over into the roles you've played in films and on TV?

Offhand, no. I totally fell into it. I was a stage manager for the musical “Hair,” and one thing led to another and I ended up re-staging it in different places â€" re-staging the national tour as a director, and I was quite young when I did that. I had a dreadful, sorrowful production of “Grease” in Australia. There was the New York production, the London production and then the Melbourne production. And boy, did the Australians have their own '50s, and did I ever learn that, quickly. I was torched.

But you charted a path for yourself, in spite of that.

Again, I'm going to sound so sappy, but what a good career. What a lucky career. C'mon. I'm a lucky guy.

For a Song and for a Cause, a Flight of the Conchords Reunion

By DAVE ITZKOFF

It was on a gray day at the end of 2009 that Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, the New Zealand comedians and singer-songwriters who make up the humorous musical duo Flight of the Conchords, announced that they were ending their HBO series and moving on to greener (sheep) pastures. Since then the two men rarely seem to be in the same place at the same time: Mr. Clement has moved on to roles in films like “Men in Black 3″ while Mr. McKenzie won an Academy Award for “Man or Muppet?,” a song he wrote for the soundtrack of “The Muppets.”

But as Mashable reports, last Friday saw a surprise Flight of the Conchords reunion in which Mr. McKenzie and Mr. Clement created the above video for Red Nose Day: Comedy for Cure Kids, a charity that funds research on life-threatening childhood illnesses. During a visit with some very precocious New Zealand school children, the Conchords quiz them on their understanding of health and banking (and the “Muppets” soundtrack), then compile those results into a new song, “Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That).”

The results are adorable, and maybe if we clap our hands loud enough, Flight of the Conchords will come back for a new American TV series. (Note: new Flight of the Conchords TV series not guaranteed.)

A Warm Welcome for \'Doctor Who\' in New York

By STEVE SMITH

You might have anticipated a minor riot on Saturday night at the Ziegfeld Theater on West 54th Street, where BBC America screened the premiere episode from the forthcoming season of “Doctor Who” for a select audience of lucky fans. BBC America had mounted similar events in New York for previous seasons of this long-running science-fiction franchise, filling an East Village theater with hard-core fans who had queued for hours in hopes of being among the chosen few.

In keeping with the ever-expanding pull of “Doctor Who,” which in July became the first British television series to be featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly, BBC America opted for the Ziegfeld, Manhattan's largest single-screen theater. Advance tickets priced at 11 cents, in honor of the current 11th Doctor, played by Matt Smith, were teased on a variety of Web sites earlier this month, with sales touched off by a Twitter post on Aug. 16.

Minor pandemonium ensued. While many purchasers had no problem acquiring tickets on MovieTickets.com, which handles Internet sales for Ziegfeld screenings, the barrage of would-be buyers crashed the system. Users waited in limbo for long minutes before learning they had been shut out. Some reported seeing the credit-card details of strangers on their purported receipts.

Even after BBC America apologized, you half-expected protest to manifest at the Ziegfeld with the cold efficiency of the Judoon, the mercenary police force introduced to “Doctor Who” viewers in 2007, such was the rage and indignation expressed on Twitter by some fans. Instead, an eager throng dotted with bow ties and fezzes, in honor of Mr. Smith's geek-chic Doctor, congregated with downright civil enthusiasm and scoured a BBC America pop-up shop in the Ziegfeld lobby.

As the screening time approached, the audience cheered explosively when Chris Hardwick, the nerd -icon comic who hosted the event, introduced the guests of honor: Mr. Smith; Karen Gillan, who portrays the Doctor's companion, Amy Pond; and Caroline Skinner, who became an executive producer for the show last year. (Mixing media, if not time-travel metaphors, Mr. Smith and Ms. Gillan had arrived at the Ziegfeld in a DeLorean sports car.)

That “Doctor Who” has outgrown its cult-classic status since its 2005 reboot has been increasingly evident, not least in post-broadcast sales: According to a BBC America spokeswoman, the show was the most-downloaded series on iTunes in 2011, eclipsing popular favorites like “Mad Men” and “Glee.” Its devoted fandom was evident in the delighted shrieks that greeted the sight of David Tennant, Mr. Smith's predecessor as the Doctor, and Burn Gorman, a star of the “Doctor Who” spinoff series “Torchwood,” in a preview trailer for the BBC mini-series “Spies of Warsaw.”

And it was surely a sign of the fidelity â €œDoctor Who” has inspired to learn while watching the premiere of “Asylum of the Daleks” that several substantial revelations had not leaked after previous screenings in London and Edinburgh.
True to its title, the episode brings back the Doctor's most durable and tenacious alien foe. Actually, all of them: Steven Moffat, the show's head writer and an executive producer, reportedly rounded up every one of the pestilential pepper-pots in existence for the episode.

Vast in ambition and cinematic in scope, the episode properly sets up what stands to be a tumultuous season: one that will see the departure of Ms. Gillan and Arthur Darvill (Amy Pond's husband, Rory Williams) during an episode filmed in New York City in April; and the arrival of Jenna-Louise Coleman, the Doctor's next companion, in this year's Christmas special.

A question-and-answer session after the screening yielded no further revelations, though it did prompt a daffy impromptu Lady Macbe th spin-and-dash enactment from Ms. Gillan. Mostly, the chat rewarded a theater full of devotees for their faith and perseverance, and then tasked them with the responsibility of keeping the show's secrets safe until the new season commences on BBC America on Saturday night.