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Dave Itzkoff

Articles written by the author

Entertainment
8 Aug 2024

Paul Rudd, the One-Man Double Act

Like many other moviegoers, Paul Rudd emerged from “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” thinking a lot about Brad Pitt. Having spent a couple of hours this summer in a darkened theater, where he watched the effortlessly self-assured Pitt spar with Bruce Lee, pal around with Leonardo DiCaprio and strip off his shirt to fix a television antenna, Rudd left feeling slightly bedazzled and slightly intimidated, but also feeling that his own place in the cultural hierarchy had been clarified.
Paul Rudd, the One-Man Double Act
Entertainment
6 Aug 2024

'SNL' Celebrates Mother's Day With Emma Thompson, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler

It’s become something of a recent tradition at “Saturday Night Live” for the annual pre-Mother’s Day broadcast to feature a tribute of sorts from current cast members to their real-life moms. That custom was upheld in this weekend’s episode, hosted by Emma Thompson and featuring the Jonas Brothers as musical guests. But for her opening monologue, Thompson (who said her daughter, Gaia Wise, was in the audience) was joined by two other moms with long histories at “SNL” — former cast members Tin...
Entertainment
6 Aug 2024

How 'Avengers' Was Assembled, Before Marvel Was Mighty

Today, we think of Marvel as the monolithic studio that each year reliably releases two or three blockbusters based on its costume-clad comic-book superheroes. It has built movies like “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther” into money-minting franchises, and when its latest offering, “Avengers: Endgame,” is released April 26, it will conclude a narrative spanning some 22 films that started with “Iron Man” in 2008.
Entertainment
2 Aug 2024

Saying Goodbye to 'Broad City'

When Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer came to the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn in December, every sight, structure and storefront seemed to remind them of the formative days of “Broad City.” There was the waterfront where, more than a decade ago, they would sit and imagine what the future held for them. There were the former offices of Lifebooker, the defunct beauty-and-lifestyle bargain website, where they worked intermittently while they wrote the earliest episodes of the “Broad City” onlin...
Saying Goodbye to 'Broad City'