Steve Pond's Blog, page 163

‘SNL’: Trump Signs Executive Orders Defending Bill Belichick, Chris Columbus and J.K. Rowling in Cold Open | Video

President Trump (James Austin Johnson) celebrated the first 100 days of his second term in this week’s “Saturday Night Live” cold open by signing a new slew of executive orders in support of Columbus Day, Bill Belichik and “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling.

The president was joined by White House Deputy Chief of Staff and “Lord of the Shadows” Stephen Miller (Mikey Day), whose remark that it was “an absolute pleasure” to be in the Oval Office with him prompted Johnson’s Trump to joke, “Wow! Even the nice things you say sound like Kylo Ren!” Trump then announced he would be bringing Columbus Day back from the ashes in support of beloved Italian Americans like Tony Soprano and Childish Gambino.

After introducing another executive order that would “reduce the number of interracial couples in TV commercials,” Day’s Miller then presented a document that “will make it socially acceptable for a man in his 70s to date a 24-year-old.” “That’s right! We’re calling it the Belichick Law,” Johnson’s Trump commented. “We’re gonna make girlfriends young again, OK? Old men can now date far younger women. We like that! It’s hot! But in reverse it’s quite disgusting, right? Very ‘Dateline,’ you know?”

You can watch the “SNL” cold open yourself below.

Following a brief discussion about Belichik’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson, Trump then signed a pardon for Rowling, who has become an increasingly controversial figure in recent years for her anti-trans views. “Jackie Rowling! We love Jackie. She created a whole Wizarding World, a wonderful place for overweight millennials to stake their entire identity well past the point of it being cute,” Johnson’s Trump told viewers. “‘I’m a Hufflepuff!’ No, b—h. You work at Staples.”

Day’s Miller and Johnson’s Trump dragged out Secretary of State Marco Rubio (Marcello Hernández) to reluctantly co-sponsor another executive order that would strangely forbid “all Hispanic babies from getting their ears pierced.” Hernández’s Rubio made it clear that the bill in question was not his idea, but that didn’t stop Johnson’s Trump from quickly moving on to more executive orders dedicated to making the New York Times’ Connections game easier and outlawing… ghosts.

“We’re sick of the ghosts,” Johnson’s Trump explained. “We don’t like them. You know, every Christmas Eve I get visited by three ghosts. I don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. They’re like, ‘Sir, you have to change. You did bad things and you have to change,’ and I’m like, ‘Stop rattling those chains, OK? I’m trying to enjoy my dark, lonely Christmas Eve!'”

The post ‘SNL’: Trump Signs Executive Orders Defending Bill Belichick, Chris Columbus and J.K. Rowling in Cold Open | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Chris Hayes Explains the GOP’s ‘Sesame Street’ Problem After Trump’s PBS Cuts: ‘Those Things Are Popular’ | Video

The Republican Party has a “‘Sesame Street’ problem,” MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said Friday night — and it’s due to the GOP’s quiet support for Donald Trump’s “flagrantly unconstitutional” dismantling of PBS and NPR as well as the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities from the federal budget.

Republicans have had this problem for “a long time,” Hayes said. “There are so many things Republicans want to destroy, defund, slash, and cut in the government that they can’t because those things are popular” — like “Sesame Street.”

“That is the context for what we have seen in the first hundred days. It is the reason that somewhat counterintuitively or paradoxically, Republican members of Congress who should want to protect their constitutional power of the purse, that’s the biggest thing they have, have instead been so eager to let Donald Trump and Elon Musk slash and burn entire agencies and programs because it saves them from having to do the unpopular stuff directly,” Hayes continued.

In other words, “It protects them from their own voters. Put another way. It protects them from democracy.”

Trump’s greatest success so far has been to “essentially rewrite the Constitution such that the president unilaterally gets to control spending can elimatine or defund the entire independent entities that were established by Congress itself and signed a law by previous presidents from USAID to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”

Courts have “slowed or stymied” those attempts, “but what they’re trying to do is overcome politis in a way that makes them not accountable to us.” The GOP is comfortable with this course of action “because it allows them to slash spending, which they finally want to do on a lot of these programs, without being the ones who have to take the political risky vote to say, end Alzheimer’s research as we know it, which is a thing they’re doing right now.”

Such cuts are “flagrantly unconstitutional,” Hayes also said.

“What I think is the MAGA movement the Republican Party kind of wants to dissolve politics,” he concluded, “So it’s no longer an obstacle. So you’re no longer accountable to people. And the only way to stop that, in addition to the courts, is for members of Congress who are going to have to vote for someone’s agenda to really feel some pressure from their constituents that they would much rather ignore.”

Watch the clip from “All In With Chris Hayes” in the video above.

The post Chris Hayes Explains the GOP’s ‘Sesame Street’ Problem After Trump’s PBS Cuts: ‘Those Things Are Popular’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Trump Condemned by New York Catholic Leaders Over Image of Himself as Pope

Donald Trump was condemned by the New York State Catholic Conference Saturday after the White House shared an AI-generated photo of the president styled as the Pope. “There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” the organization wrote on X.

“We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us. https://t.co/ortxbkDlT5

— NYS Catholic Conference (@NYSCatholicConf) May 3, 2025

Trump, who is not Catholic, first shared the image himself on Truth Social Friday night, only days after attending the funeral for Pope Francis. The White House reposted the image on X.

The image was widely condemned and mocked on the latter platform.

Pope Francis died April 21. Trump was later criticized for saying he was looking forward to the funeral and for wearing a blue suit to it instead of black.

The post Trump Condemned by New York Catholic Leaders Over Image of Himself as Pope appeared first on TheWrap.

The 5 Best Florence Pugh Movies, Ranked

In recent years, Florence Pugh has become one of the most celebrated and recognizable actresses of her generation. Since giving her breakout performance in the 2016 drama “Lady Macbeth,” Pugh has starred in an impressively varied array of movies, dipped her toes into two popular franchises and even nabbed a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for herself in 2020. Now, Pugh is returning to movie screens around the world in “Thunderbolts*,” the Marvel crossover film that sees her emerge as the unlikely leader of a team of misfits and comic book anti-heroes.

In honor of her return as Yelena Belova in “Thunderbolts*,” here are Pugh’s five best movies, ranked.

“The Wonder” (Netflix)5. “The Wonder” (2022)

Perhaps the most underrated film that Florence Pugh has ever made, “The Wonder” is an absorbing, ingenious gothic drama. Based on a novel by “Room” writer Emma Donoghue, the film follows an English nurse (Pugh) who arrives in Ireland shortly after the country’s Great Famine to monitor and observe a young Irish girl, Anna (Kíla Lord Cassidy), who claims to be fasting and surviving without food longer than is believed to be possible. As Pugh’s Elizabeth spends more time with Anna and within her puritanical community, she comes to discover the power of faith and the importance of stories.

Bookended by a fourth-wall-breaking device that is designed to simultaneously disorient viewers and further immerse them in the superstitious world of its characters, “The Wonder” is directed with patience and elegance by Sebastián Lelio and firmly anchored by Pugh’s magnetic, increasingly desperate performance. From all of its many, compelling parts emerges a film about the lies we tell ourselves, and the power they have to either destroy or save us, depending on which we choose to believe.

“Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros. Pictures)4. “Dune: Part Two” (2024)

Florence Pugh has a small but important role in “Dune: Part Two,” director Denis Villeneuve’s immaculately constructed adaptation of the second half of author Frank Herbert’s highly influential 1965 sci-fi novel. The actress stars in the film as Princess Irulan, the daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV (Christopher Walken) and promising initiate to the ever-scheming Bene Gesserit. For most of “Dune: Part Two,” Irulan is recording the events of Arrakis and reacting from afar to Paul Atreides’ (Timothée Chalamet) unlikely return and rise to power.

She is brought front and center in the film’s chamber-piece finale when she agrees to marry Paul, simultaneously cementing his ascension and also guaranteeing herself a powerful future. Irulan will be a larger presence in Villeneuve’s planned “Dune: Messiah,” but Pugh still makes a lasting impression in “Dune: Part Two,” a film so big that it could have completely outshined a lesser actress, especially one with such minimal screen time. For that reason, “Dune: Part Two” is further proof of Pugh’s innate star power. She can do nothing but stand and look across the room at another person, and she still manages to constantly hold your attention.

“Oppenheimer” (Universal Pictures)3. “Oppenheimer” (2023)

As is the case in “Dune: Part Two,” Florence Pugh does not have as large of a role in “Oppenheimer” as some of her other films. No list about her best movies could reasonably exclude “Oppenheimer,” though, a 3-hour biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the father of the atom bomb, that ranks solidly as writer-director Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious film — and perhaps his best. Pugh has a supporting role in the Oscar-winning ensemble drama as Jean Tatlock, the lover of Murphy’s Oppenheimer whose ties to the Communist Party come to haunt him almost as severely as their own, torrid love affair.

Pugh takes full, commanding force of one of the film’s more underwritten characters — providing yet another face to the human costs of Oppenheimer’s work with the U.S. government. She is one of many ghosts featured in “Oppenheimer,” a film that reaches some of the greatest, most explosive highs of Nolan’s career and yet does not settle for sheer spectacle alone. There is a deep well of regret, fear and grief lurking beneath the surface of “Oppenheimer,” and to watch the film is to find yourself slowly but surely sinking into it.

“Midsommar” (A24)2. “Midsommar” (2019)

“Oppenheimer” is arguably a better, more impressive film than “Midsommar.” Pugh’s greater presence in “Midsommar,” however, gives it the edge over “Oppenheimer” on a list like this. Writer-director Ari Aster’s sun-soaked, nightmarish follow-up to “Hereditary” stars Pugh as Dani, a young American girl grieving the deaths of her entire family who travels with her emotionally distant, noncommittal boyfriend (Jack Reynor) and a few of his friends to Sweden to celebrate the year’s midsummer festival in a remote village.

Once there, Dani’s grief is compounded by the ritualistic violence committed by the village’s cultish members, who lead her (and viewers) into a finale of ridiculous, stomach-churning horror. Like Toni Collette in “Hereditary,” Pugh is asked to channel nerve-shredding levels of grief in “Midsommar” as her character edges closer and closer to a psyche-breaking point of extreme emotions. She more than rises to meet the film’s challenges — giving a performance that constantly feels like it is teetering on the edge of complete emotional disintegration. It is a fitting star turn for a film that also feels like it is constantly balancing on a knife’s edge between recognizable reality and alien, chilling surreality.

“Little Women” (Sony Pictures Releasing)1. “Little Women” (2019)

An adaptation so good it makes one question whether it can ever be topped, Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” is an intelligent, dense drama that feels both faithful to its source material and ripped straight out of Gerwig’s own heart and mind. Based on Louisa May Alcott’s seminal 1868 novel, the film charts two periods in the lives of the March sisters — Jo (Saoirse Ronan), Amy (Pugh), Meg (Emma Watson) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) — as they come of age and struggle with early adulthood in 19th century Massachusetts and New York City.

Blending the two separate sections of Alcott’s novel together, Gerwig’s ambitious, visually dazzling film explores the pains of growing up, the joys of sisterhood and the difficulty of finding your place in the world. Ronan’s lead performance as Jo is a towering achievement — one arguably deserving of more awards recognition than it got — and the same is true of Pugh’s scene-stealing supporting turn as Amy. She may have once been the exact opposite of a fan-favorite among “Little Women” readers, but Amy is given both a biting intelligence and startling practicality by Gerwig and Pugh that make her impossible to dislike — or forget.

The post The 5 Best Florence Pugh Movies, Ranked appeared first on TheWrap.

Florence Pugh Praises ‘Thunderbolts*’ and Marvel for Mental Health Story: ‘It’s a Huge Deal’

Florence Pugh understands that “Thunderbolts*” is special. The actress reprises her role as Yelena Belova in the anti-hero film, which also costars Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, David Harbour, and Hannah John-Kamen. The movie has strong themes about mental health and depression, something Pugh described as “a huge deal.”

“Oh my God, it’s massive,” she told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published Saturday. “It’s a huge deal. It’s a huge deal that that theme was made with a Marvel budget, and they cared enough about it to make it the main event. And that is so important, so important for everybody right now.”

Pugh added that she believes her Marvel debut, the 2021 film “Black Widow,” touched on the same topics. “It was the story of those girls and those women and the control that they were put under, that really made me want to be a part of that story,” she explained.

“And I was like, ‘Whoa, loads of girls are going to go and watch this movie and they’re going to be educated and inspired, and that’s so cool.’ And I feel the same with this. So many people, adults and children, are going to watch this, and if they need it, they’re going to see themselves or their friends or their partners in it, and it’s so wonderful to be able to make a movie for the masses that you know is going to be helpful.”

The movie’s director Jake Schreier, who produced and directed the first season of “Beef,” told the outlet he intentionally set out to make a different kind of Marvel movie.

“These themes are not niche anymore; that we all struggle with this and that they were universal ideas,” Schreier said. “And even if it felt scary for a big Netflix show or a Marvel movie to take that on, the audience is out there, and these aren’t things that we push away so much. They’re things that everyone confronts.”

Read the interview with Pugh and Schreir on Entertainment Weekly.

The post Florence Pugh Praises ‘Thunderbolts*’ and Marvel for Mental Health Story: ‘It’s a Huge Deal’ appeared first on TheWrap.

‘Lavender Men’ Review: This Quasi-Historical, Fabulously Theatrical Film Smashes Expectations

It’s rare to watch a film as rich as Lovell Holder and Roger Q. Mason’s “Lavender Men.” It’s based on a play. It looks like a play. It is intricate and complicated cinema. There are those who behave as though cinema and theater are polar opposites, and that to be “cinematic” is to evade any whiff of the “theatrical.” Remove thyself from a single location, and only then art thou in a film.

But film captures life and life takes place at the theater, at least whenever we’re in there. For those to whom all the stage is a world, those people who make live theater breathe , a film about their lives must take place on stage. And in “Lavender Men,” Roger Q. Mason plays a theater manager whose contributions to a rather unremarkable play about Abraham Lincoln are unsung, or only sung with the wrong pronouns. When the theater clears out, and after the actor playing Lincoln reveals himself to be an awful creep, Mason — playing the lovelorn, creatively stifled Taffeta — takes the spotlight.

Taffeta’s life becomes a fantasia, as they like to call it, in which historical revisionism dangles like a carrot in front of Abraham Lincoln (Pete Ploszek) and his purported lover, Elmer E. Ellsworth (Alex Esola). In real life both men met tragic ends, and as Taffeta brings them back to life on stage, Lincoln in particular rejects the offer of yet another biographical drama, sick to death as he is of dying. But this, Taffeta promises, is their fantasia, and anything can happen, history be damned. (It’s usually straight white propaganda anyway.)

I am in no way an American history scholar, but “Lavender Men” is more than history. It’s a mortal document, the vital connection between past and present. The complicated relationship Taffeta — who plays every other character in Lincoln and Ellsworth’s lives, sometimes to their consternation — has with the past, a white cisgender romanticized past, is fraught. At times Taffeta finds themselves swept up in that romance, in spite of themselves or because of themselves. But they also reject historical platitudes about Lincoln’s heroism, throwing back in his face the president’s less-frequently discussed opinions about Black people, and the enormous role political convenience played in his most legendary accomplishments.

Most pointedly, Lincoln and Ellsworth’s romance — as depicted in “Lavender Men,” at any rate — doesn’t much correlate to Taffeta’s own experience. Taffeta has no love in their life, only failed flirtations, hurtful hookups, leering fetishists, and lonely nights with an eating disorder. They know that they are beautiful, that they deserve to be loved and wanted. They also catch themselves doubting it, since there aren’t a lot of people backing them up on that self-confidence. “Lavender Men” is a kaleidoscope of self-love, self-indulgence, self-consciousness, self-respect, all while wrestling with the ongoing legacy of a man whose identity seems solidified; he’s literally engraved on the country’s currency. Taffeta controls a stage when nobody else is around. Lincoln ran a country. And apparently he had a sexier queer love life too.

All of this takes place on the stage, save for a few flashbacks to Taffeta’s disappointing relationships. Lovell Holder never shies away from the unabashed theatricality of Mason’s play. The film avoids throwing Lincoln and Ellsworth into real locations. Maybe budget was a factor, but maybe the artificiality of the theater is the point. Mason, and Taffeta, never pretend that this representation of Lincoln’s gay love affair is reality… although perhaps it was. The point is, that approach would make this Lincoln’s story, another vaunted retelling of his greatness, or at least of his significance. Lincoln would tower over Taffeta in a more conventionally cinematic narrative because “Lavender Men” would take place in his world, not theirs. So “Lavender Men” sticks almost exclusively to the stage. A magical and manipulated stage, but a stage nevertheless. And never once does it feel stodgy or limited. It feels like we — and Taffeta, and Lincoln, and Ellsworth — are in the right place, and that place demands to be filmed.

“Lavender Men” may look like a low-budget indie, and I suppose it inarguably is, but it’s got more going on than most of its expensive competition for the audience’s eyes and ears, these days or any other. It’s a film with potent ideas, inner conflict, historical imagination, dramatic challenge, queer power, human fragility, humor, sex, pathos. It’s hard to pin down exactly what makes it great, and that’s what makes it great. There’s so much to its muchness that the veneer can hardly contain it, not unlike Taffeta themself.

The post ‘Lavender Men’ Review: This Quasi-Historical, Fabulously Theatrical Film Smashes Expectations appeared first on TheWrap.

The 7 Best New Movies Streaming Free on Tubi Right Now

From cord cutter to cutting subscriptions? Not to worry, there are still plenty of great films you can find streaming for free since the rise of ad-supported streaming services, and Tubi has libraries of them all, from vintage deep cuts to recent award winners. The only drawback? You never really know what’s streaming where.

This month has quite the haul, and we’ve combed through to put together a hand-picked selection of the best new movies streaming on Tubi. Whether you’re looking for a throwback favorite or an A24 thinker, here are our picks for what to watch this month.

“After Yang”A24

Grief-stricken but so lovely, “After Yang” is Kogonada’s second feature after his much-celebrated debut “Columbus.” Ambitious but understated, “After Yang” is a low-flourish sci-fi that side-steps spectacle and uses the constructs of the genre to dig deeper into questions about life and nature. Colin Farrell and Jodi Turner play adoptive parents to a young girl (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), all of whom are thrown into a complicated grieving process when their beloved android, Yang (Justin Min), dies unexpectedly.

What does it mean to live (and die) as an android — and what does it mean to grieve one? Those are among the many ideas at play in Kogonoda’s approach to identity, experience and interpretation, and he plays them out through the quiet, consuming story of Jake’s attempt to revive and then put to peace this lost part of his family. Strangely calming for the heartbreak within, “After Yang” is something of true beauty, meditative and affirming, even when it asks more than it answers.

“Batman Returns”Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in “Batman Returns” (DC)

For my money, still the best “Batman” movie of them all, Tim Burton’s “Batman Returns” threads a fabulous fine line between all-out comic book silliness and crime film grittiness. Following up their hit first film, filmmaker Tim Burton and star Michael Keaton return for another adventure of the Caped Crusader, this time facing down Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and Danny DeVito’s Penguin — both utterly iconic. Dripping with Burton’s stylistic flourishes and probably a bit darker than you remember, “Batman Returns” is tense, thrilling, sexy and so very fun.

“The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift”Universal Pictures

Barring some cinematic miracles, the “Fast and Furious” franchise sadly seems poised to go out with a whimper and not a bang. It’s always been a wild, evolving franchise with high highs and low lows, so if you want to revisit one of the highest points of them all, you’ve got to revisit “Tokyo Drift.” The third film in the franchise, 2006’s “Tokyo Drift” brought aboard filmmaker Justin Lin, who became the mainstay and driving creative force for the next four films (and returned again for the deliriously excessive “F9,” before leaving again early on “Fast X”).

He hadn’t yet fully settled into the franchise sweet spot here (that really solidified in “Fast Five”), but that raw and unrefined quality is part of what makes “Tokyo Drift” so delightful. Over-the-top, gleaming, silly and so fun, this one didn’t get quite the reception it deserved at the time, but it endures as one of the most fun “F&F” films of them all, and undebatably the one that redefined the scope, scale and tone of what it would become.

“Revenge”Shudder

Before she defied expectations on the awards circuit with acclaimed, Oscar-nominated body horror “The Substance,” filmmaker Coralie Fargeat defied expectations with her feature debut, “Revenge.” An unexpected, absurdly gory reinvention of the usually lurid, often abysmal rape-revenge subgenre, “Revenge” subverts the standard, following a vain and not particularly scrupulous young woman, Jen (Matilda Lutz), to a weekend hunting getaway with her married lover, where she becomes prey for him and his horrible friends — but Fargeat’s lense never takes a high horse, so “Revenge” is never a punishment or cautionary tale.

Instead, Jen is reborn like a phoenix, emerging like a late-franchise Rambo, ready to exact her vengeance in chunks of flesh and torrents of blood. Two films in, Fargeat is easily one of the most exciting new filmmakers in the game, so if you were blown away by her vision and tonal command in “The Substance,” now’s your chance to catch her first film streaming for free.

“But I’m a Cheerleader”Starz/Lionsgate

Wildly critically misunderstood in its time, “But I’m a Cheerleader” has endured and long since been reappraised as a cult favorite, and for good reason. Directed by Jamie Babbit, the camp rom-com stars Natasha Lyonne, fresh off her breakout role in “Slums of Beverly Hills,” as a teen dream cheerleader who gets thrown into conversion therapy after her parents grow convinced she’s a lesbian — and once she’s there, she realizes they’re right.

It’s a light, fluffy feel-good rom-com for femmes with a strange and silly sense of humor that was ahead of its time. Outstanding “Edward Scissorhands”-inspired production design makes it a visual treat too, but it’s Lyonne’s chemistry with co-star and lifelong friend-to-be Clea DuVall that makes the movie such a sweet and charming romance.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once”A24

A24’s action-packed Oscars juggernaut, which took home seven Academy Awards in 2023, is now streaming free on Tubi, so if you missed it during the storied awards run, now’s your chance to get caught up. Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn, a burnt-out laundrymat owner who gets thrust into the multiverse and fights for the life and family she was taking for granted.

From “Swiss Army Man” and “Turn Down for What” filmmaking duo Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, “Everything Everywhere” is hard to put into words, a frenetic genre-mashup with big, messy ideas and precision technical execution. It also brought Ke Huy Quan back to the spotlight, perhaps the film’s best gift of all.

“Warrior”Starz/Lionsgate

If you need a good cry but you also love blistering, bone-beaking fight scenes, “Warrior” is the movie for you. Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton star as estranged brothers who find their way back to each other in the most unlikely of ways: throwing ‘bows in an MMA tournament. Tommy (Hardy) is a furious ex-marine and certified beast in the ring, who bitterly recruits his recovering alcoholic father (Nick Nolte) to train him for the tournament, while Brendan (Edgerton), his brother, is a total underdog, a family man and history teacher fighting out of desperate financial distress.

It sounds like it would be easy to know who to root for, but it never is in “Warrior,” a film that packs a real emotional wallop alongside all the flying fists — and total knockout performances from both stars.

The post The 7 Best New Movies Streaming Free on Tubi Right Now appeared first on TheWrap.

7 Netflix Shows to Watch After ‘You’

“You” is over, but there are plenty of murderous shows with morally questionable characters yet to be binged on Netflix.

The hit Lifetime-turned-Netflix series wrapped up its five-season story recently leaving many fans with a Joe Goldberg-sized hole in their life. Fear not, the streaming giant has plenty of options for a new bloody binge to soak up the “You”-less hours of the day.

These are seven shows available on Netflix to watch after “You.”

BBC AmericaKilling Eve

If the cat-and-mouse aspect of “You” played between Joe and whoever had caught his eye in a particular season was what tickled your fancy, then “Killing Eve” is begging to be your next binge. The series follows MI-5 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) tasked with tracking down skilled assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer).

The series ran for four seasons and during the course of Eve and Villanelle’s pursuits, the latter began finding herself growing more and more infatuated with Eve. If f–ked up romantic entanglements are your bag this is the show for you.

ShowtimeDexter

Joe Goldberg fancied himself a killer who practiced his craft for the greater good. There is no bigger “good guy” killer than Dexter Morgan. “Dexter” follows the titular character as he sates his Dark Passenger – aka his need to kill – by strictly sticking to killing terrible people who slip through the justice system. This is all while he juggles his day job as the head of the forensics department for the Miami police.

For the fan of “You” who struggled to justify rooting for Joe throughout the series, “Dexter” may not help, but it may continue to scratch that itch.

The End of the F***ing World

“The End of the F***ing World” is a coming-of-age road trip story about two kids – a girl searching for her estranged father and a boy who’s a self-diagnosed psychopath who has decided to graduate to killing a person. For the fans of “You” yearning for a prequel series about a young Joe Goldberg, this Netflix adaptation of a popular comic book might hit the mark.

Jenna Ortega in “Wednesday” Season 2 (Credit: Jonathan Hession/Netflix)Wednesday

If you were waiting with bated breath to see if Jenna Ortega reprised her role as Ellie in “You” Season 5 and were disappointed when it didn’t happen, it might be time to revisit “Wednesday,” which satisfies seeing Ortega do what she does best by honing an angst not dissimilar to Joe Goldberg, but certainly much less destructive. Taking place in a fantastical world created by Tim Burton, “Wednesday” might be a welcome reprieve after seeing Joe in his darkest, most terrifying form in “You” Season 5, while still giving viewers a sometimes violent hero, whom viewers will likely feel much better about rooting for than Joe. And, like Beck’s wish, Wednesday Addams definitely doesn’t need a white knight to save her.

NetflixDead to Me

Killing and murder cover-ups does not have to be as grim as “You.” If you want a more light-hearted version of the series there are few options better than Netflix’s “Dead to Me.” Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini soar as a pair of new friends who initially bond over the grief of their dead spouses but really get close when they realize they’re covering up a crime.

Turn to this show if you want a heaping helping of laughs with your murder.

Michael Tompkins/USA NetworkThe Sinner

If what you want is to see what the other side was like during Joe’s many country criss-crossing crimes, then “The Sinner” is your next stop. The show is an anthology series starring Bill Pullman as a detective who is tasked with solving a different horrific crime each season.

The show’s debut outing featured an equally phenomenal Jessica Biel in a performance that will have you questioning who the hero and villain is, much like each season of “You.”

Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in “Dahmer” (Netflix)Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

“Dahmer” – the first outing in Ryan Murphy’s “Monster” series that recently featured The Menendez Brothers story – chronicles the horrific story of one of the most notorious serial killers to exist – Jeffrey Dahmer. The parallels between Dahmer and Joe Goldberg are far-reaching so turning to this series after “You” is a no-brainer.

The post 7 Netflix Shows to Watch After ‘You’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Trump Calls for National Endowment for the Arts to Be Eliminated in Latest Budget Proposal

In his latest draconian budget proposal, Donald Trump called for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

Trump previously attempted to eliminate the agencies during his first term in office, but was thwarted by bipartisan support for both.

The budget described the potential changes as “consistent with the president’s efforts to decrease the size of the federal government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”

In March the National Endowment for the Arts removed Trump’s “gender ideology” requirements from grant funding applications in response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU. The move allowed arts organizations to apply for funding without following Trump’s “anti-woke” guidelines.

The National Endowment for the Arts provides funding to arts-related organizations, events, and projects in every congressional district in the United States. Though most grants are not large in size, they can be leveraged to attract major donors, the lifeblood of many small organizations.

The agency was previously led by Maria Rosario Jackson, who announced her resignation after Trump took office for a second time. In her apolitical resignation letter, Jackson praised the organization “for the experience and the honor of working alongside a dedicated and talented team of public servants committed to ensuring all Americans can benefit from the arts.”

Trump’s attacks on the arts and public broadcasting have increased in recent weeks. In February he announced plans to fire several board members of the Kennedy Center for the Arts; in April the organization quietly cancelled a slew of events planned as part of the WorldPride Festival in Washington, D.C., in June.

On Thursday, May 2, Trump issued an executive order that slashed funding for PBS and NPR. The move was met with a wide range of criticism, including from documentarian Ken Burns. While speaking to Anderson Cooper Friday, Burns insisted, “Public broadcasting is “the Declaration of Independence applied to broadcasting. I couldn’t have made, Anderson, any of the films I’ve made, nearly 40 films over the course of the last 45 years, at any other place than PBS.”

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Warren Buffet to Step Down as Berkshire Hathaway CEO by End of Year

Legendary investor Warren Buffet plans to step down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway by the end of the year, he announced Saturday during the company’s annual shareholder meeting.

Buffet said he will ask the company’s board to approve vice chairman Gregory Abel as his successor atop the trillion-dollar conglomerate, formalizing a plan Buffet first announced in 2021.

Abel, who currently serves as CEO of subsidiary Berkshire Hathaway Energy, already oversees all of the parent company’s non-insurance related business.

In Saturday’s meeting, Buffet told shareholders he would “still hang around and conceivably be useful in a few cases,” but insisted Abel would have the “final word” on all business decisions.

His announcement drew a standing ovation, after which Buffet joked, “The enthusiasm from that response can be interpreted in two ways.”

The announcement marks an enormous change for one the most successful American businesses of the last 60 years, with potential implications not only for the world of business but also politics. Buffet, 94, is one of the most prominent Democratic Party donors and has served as an unofficial kingmaker, notably in 2008 when he endorsed Barack Obama and in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton.

Buffet also criticized Donald Trump during Saturday’s meeting, saying in part that “trade should not be a weapon. I don’t think it’s right and I don’t think it’s wise.”

Instead, Buffet said, the U.S. “should be looking to trade with the rest of the world. We should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best.”

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