‘American Buffalo’ Review: Starry but Flat Broadway Revival Doesn’t Make the Case for David Mamet

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticThe partial meltdown at the nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 was a perfect coalescing of factors in two senses. First, a series of cascading mechanical and human errors brought the plant close to a catastrophe that would have potentially made much of the East Coast uninhabitable, we’re told in the new documentary “Meltdown: Three Mile Island.” Second, coming as it did both within memory of the height of Cold War paranoia and days after the release of the film “The China Syndrome,” the disaster was perfectly primed to set off anxieties about the danger of atomic energy.“Meltdown: Three Mile Island,” a new four-part documentary on Netflix, does an elegant job of braiding those two truths — that Three Mile Island was a narrowly averted nightmare scenario and that it lives on in the public imagination as an argument against nuclear energy.

Kaley Cuoco and her ‘Flight Attendant’ co-star Zosia Mamet decided to get the sweetest matching tattoos to celebrate their friendship!The two actresses shared some photos from the special moment on social media, after going to Arbel Nagar’s tattoo studio in Los Angeles, showing the beautiful design and writing some meaningful messages about their new ink.Kaley and Zosia got the word ‘Boop’ tattooed on their inner arms with a fine line design and in black italic script. The star of the HBO show took a moment to explain the meaning of her new tattoo and showed her appreciation for the body art, “I ‘booped’ you many years ago,” adding “Glad we made it official.

EXCLUSIVE: Sirens, a rock doc about Beirut all-female thrash metal band Slave to Sirens, will get a theatrical run after Oscilloscope Laboratories bought the North American rights.

Amyl and the Sniffers have made their US television debut with an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers, delivering a raw, blistering rendition of their song ‘Hertz’.The track is lifted from the band’s second studio album, last year’s ‘Comfort To Me’, serving as its final single. Upon its release, frontwoman Amy Taylor called the song “a daydream about being repulsed by confinement, and frustrated over being stuck in one place”.Watch Amyl and the Sniffers perform ‘Hertz’ on Seth Meyers below:Amyl and the Sniffers are currently in the midst of a North American tour that includes appearances at Coachella and headline shows in Texas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Toronto, New York and more.Next month, the band will embark on a UK and European run that will include a slot at Wide Awake Festival in London, plus headline dates at O2 Academy Brixton, Bristol and Oxford.

HARDCOVER FICTION1. “The Investigator” by John Sandford (G.P. Putnam's Sons)2.

Ayanna Prescod Ntozake Shange’s iridescent choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf” is the story of Black women and their often-disregarded human experiences. Whereas the stereotyped characterization of the strong Black woman creates a façade that she is incapable of experiencing trauma, Shange’s delicate marriage of dance, music and monologues gives Black women the stage to be unapologetically human and vulnerable — to be seen in all their complicated glory.“For Colored Girls…” first played Broadway in 1976 following a successful run at the Public Theater. Now this new revival of Shange’s masterwork returns to the same theater after another critically acclaimed production played the Public in 2019.

Sam Rockwell is opening up about his new Broadway show!

Darren Criss, who just welcomed his first child into the world three days ago, is celebrating the opening of his Broadway play American Buffalo!

Darren Criss as Bobby, a naive young meathead who wants to be like both of them. Worst mentors ever! Rockwell, shockingly, has only worked with Mamet once before on the 2001 film “Heist,” which the playwright wrote and directed.

Offstage, and sometimes on, David Mamet can be infuriating and exasperating, as anyone who has witnessed his recent nonsensical, offensive media blitz can attest, and then along comes something like American Buffalo – possibly his greatest work, all due apologies to Glengarry Glen Ross – with a cast so in sync with the playwright’s “profane poetry” that for a couple hours it’s not impossible to put aside whatever it is Mamet thinks needs saying on Fox News these days.

EXCLUSIVE: Dennis Haysbert, known for his role as President David Palmer in Fox’s hit series 24, among many other credits, has signed with A3 Artists Agency for representation. Haysbert received two SAG Award nominations as well as a Golden Globe nom for his performance in the role.

HARDCOVER FICTION1. “Run, Rose, Run” by Parton/Patterson (Little, Brown)2. “Sea of Tranquility” by Emily St.

Thirteen years after John Travolta’s son Jett’s death, the actor honored his late child on what would have been his 30th birthday.

Florida passed a so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bans sexual orientation or gender from being taught to children under 10.“We have to take back control,” Mamet said. “If there’s no community control of the schools, what we have is kids being not only indoctrinated but groomed in a very real sense by people who are, whether they know it or not, sexual predators.“Are they abusing the kids physically? No, I don’t think so.

Molly Shannon is looking back at her early days in Hollywood!