Paul Rudd and Jason Segel dissected the nature of adult male friendships in 2009’s “I Love You, Man,” and Rudd is back exploring similar terrain in “Friendship,” which plays like a cracked mirror version of the former film.

The igniting agent here is Tim Robinson, the sketch comedy oddball who has made his Netflix series “I Think You Should Leave” an uproariously funny piece of outsider art. Robinson, in his first feature film starring role, brings such an absurd, wild-card presence that he turns “Friendship” into its own demented, extended “I Think You Should Leave” sketch, stretched to feature length and ramped up for maximum awkwardness.

Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a nerdy, socially inward desk worker at Universal Digital Innovations, a tech company that implements strategies to make people more addicted to their phones. He’s married and has one teenage son with his wife, Tami (Kate Mara), who recently beat cancer and passively (but also not so passively) mentions her ex-boyfriend as frequently as she can.

Craig gets stars in his eyes when he brings a misdelivered package to the door of his neighbor, Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), a weatherman at the local TV station. Austin smokes cigarettes, plays in a band and knows sewer routes below the city (they live in generic Clovis, USA), all of which make him seem like the kind of awesome guy that every 12-year-old boy or stunted male adolescent would think is the most radical dude in town. (It helps that Rudd plays him as coolly and casually as he has any character since “Anchorman.”)

At first, Craig and Austin strike up a casual friendship, and the feeling of companionship gives Craig a sense of belonging he hasn’t felt in years. You can see his inner fire burning again. But their friendship is short lived, and when Austin tries to break things off with his new pal after a night gone awry, Craig refuses to let go, and like many a Tim Robinson character before him, he keeps digging the hole deeper and deeper until he can no longer see the surface above him.

“Friendship” is an exaggerated study of modern masculinity and the corroded, festering wound of male loneliness. Robinson is a hilarious time bomb of discomfort, and it’s a credit to writer-director Andrew DeYoung that he applies the brakes and doesn’t let the movie go pitch black in tone. That would be almost too easy to do, but it would also be a cop out, and he leaves a little light at the top of the hole that Robinson’s character digs for himself. It’s a friendly, compassionate gesture.

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The film identifies small moments of bizarro humor — Craig buys all his clothes from fictional clothing label Ocean View Dining, a psychedelic trip results in a monumentally mundane trip to a popular fast food establishment — that seem to come straight from the “I Think You Should Leave” playbook. That makes “Friendship” feel like an extension of the already existing Tim Robinson universe rather than an invite to newcomers to come on board. If you’re already seated, make yourself at home. Everyone else may want to wait for the next train to leave the station.

‘Friendship’

Grade: B

MPA rating: R (for language and some drug content)

Running time: 1:40

How to watch: Now in limited theatrical release; expands nationwide May 23

During an interview in late April with Dr. Phil, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reiterated his appeal to parents on vaccine safety: “We live in a democracy, and part of the responsibility of being a parent is to do your own research.”

The U.S. health secretary has also announced his own investigation, pledging to find an answer to the autism “epidemic” by September. It’s an ambitious goal. It’s also a realistic one but only if he already has an answer in mind.

To tell the story you want with statistics, you don’t have to lie or fabricate data — though that happens, too. More often, statistics are manipulated, figures massaged and results skewed through subtler means. Sometimes, it’s sloppiness or unconscious bias at work. Other times, the distortion is deliberate.

Whether the numbers attempt to tell a story about the economy, immigration, education or public health, we should empower ourselves to recognize the deception.

Vaccine data are far from immune to statistical trickery and its consequences.

Not only might individuals skip a vaccine and get unnecessarily sick, but the viral spread of misinformation can poke holes in the herd immunity needed to protect a population. One new, untampered statistic tells a chilling story: A meager 10% drop from today’s already dangerously low measles vaccination rates could spark an estimated 13-fold increase in annual cases.

Statistics wield incredible power. I developed a deep respect for them during my first career as a biostatistician. Today, as a journalist, I see numbers leveraged for good and for bad. I’ve seen them help the public and policymakers interpret complex data, detect patterns and make better decisions — evidenced in my reporting on data dashboards during the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve also seen data withheld and statistics doctored for less-than-noble aims by chemical companies, the gun industry, police departments, the U.S. military, climate change deniers and vaccine skeptics, to name a few.

If left unaware of the deceit, the public can’t hold these groups accountable. And if citizens base their votes and other decisions — like whether to vaccinate their child — on distorted or false information, our democracy and our health lose again.

Fortunately, inoculation against misinformation is available. As Kennedy and his collaborators dig into vaccine and autism data, as measles cases mount, and as you “do your own research” or simply digest your news and social feeds, here are red flags to watch for.

The infamous paper that launched the vaccine-autism controversy was based on just 12 children.

Its author claimed that eight showed signs of developmental regression after receiving the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. The study was later retracted for scientific misconduct. But even without fraud, the sample size should raise alarm. Chance alone could explain such a small cluster of cases. Contrast that with rigorous studies — like one in Denmark with more than 650,000 participants — that consistently find no relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism.

We should be just as wary when studies test a grab bag of possible outcomes.

Suppose researchers ask whether a vaccine causes heart disease, diabetes, any of a dozen types of cancer or any of five neurodevelopmental disorders. Even if the vaccine is in reality not affecting any of those 20 outcomes, when researchers try to study so many things all at once, statistical noise can mean one may erroneously appear “significant” just by chance. A more rigorous and targeted study would be far less likely to give that false positive.

Big numbers can impress. But quality counts.

In 2021, the Delphi-Facebook survey estimated near real-time COVID-19 vaccine uptake using weekly responses from around 250,000 people. On paper, the large sample size conveyed statistical confidence. But in practice, the data missed the mark. The sample was biased and unrepresentative of the overall population. By late May, the study had overestimated vaccine uptake by a wide margin — 70% compared with the true rate of 53%. That inflated figure may have lulled the public and policymakers into a false sense of security.

Beware, too, of the misuse of raw data.

Figures from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System appear in many papers and posts asserting vaccine harms. But this system was set up only as an early warning system. Anyone can submit a report on a suspected reaction. If a hint of a pattern emerges, then researchers will investigate to determine if the signal represents an actual risk. As its own website warns, the initial reports may be “incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable.” People may be apt to connect an event that occurs shortly after vaccination with the shot itself, for example, especially if they personally fear the safety of vaccines. To demonstrate the system’s fallibility, a doctor filed a report saying he turned into the Incredible Hulk after receiving a flu vaccine. The entry was initially accepted into the database.

One study circulating in the anti-vax community was led by David Geier, the same figure tapped by Kennedy to head his federal autism and vaccine investigation. The study found a connection between autism and vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal. But it hinges on a critical flaw: Cases of autism and the comparison group came from different time periods. Because vaccination rates changed dramatically over time, the design introduced a spurious association.

Among myriad ways to manufacture a desired conclusion is the strategic choice of time frame, analysis method or how the data are presented.

By plotting only convenient variables or truncating inconvenient values, for example, you can tell the story of your choosing. One COVID-era graph appeared to show that vaccines did not prevent deaths. The trick? It compared vaccine uptake with cumulative deaths— a number that can only rise over time, and so of course would broadly move in the same direction as the uptake rate of a desperately needed new vaccine that the public is clamoring for.

— Another sleight of hand to play down the size of a problem: Acknowledge a not-so-unusual number of outbreaks while ignoring how large or how deadly those outbreaks were, just as Kennedy did in February with measles.

A widely shared study recently referenced by Kennedy reports a link between vaccination and neurodevelopmental disorders among 9-year-olds in Florida. This one, too, is riddled with problems — namely, its failure to account for other factors that could explain the results. Children whose parents more regularly use the health care system, for example, are more likely to get both vaccinated and diagnosed. Healthcare engagement confounds the relationship. So, we can’t say the vaccine caused neurodevelopmental disorders any more than we could say that increased consumption of margarine resulted in a higher divorce rate in Maine. These are cases of correlation, not causation.

Something similar and even more interesting cropped up when people compared death rates by COVID-19 vaccination status. At first glance, an unexpected pattern emerged: The vaccinated were dying at about twice the rate of the unvaccinated. The catch here? The analysis didn’t account for age. Older people were more likely both to die and to get vaccinated. Once researchers broke the data down into age groups, a more accurate — and reverse — picture emerged: The unvaccinated were dying at higher rates.

Talk of an uptick in autism diagnoses often skips crucial context: expanded awareness, broader diagnostic criteria and financial incentives for diagnosis. There could well be a surge in the number of cases without any surge in the true incidence of the disorder.

Also, discussions motivated by a desire to explain autism or to oppose vaccines tend to omit the robust studies that have debunked any link between vaccines and autism — because those would be unhelpful to the agendas. Vaccine opponents may further ignore the glaring conflicts of interest behind many of the studies still pushing that autism narrative. Geier had a study retracted, in part, for not disclosing his involvement in vaccine-related litigation.

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Conflicts of interest surround Kennedy as well. He has spent years pushing anti-vaccine claims despite overwhelming evidence of vaccine safety and despite not being a doctor or a scientist. Now that he is in a position of authority over public health, he should at least be held to the same ethical standards as a scientist. Modern scientific practice calls for statisticians to specify their hypotheses and analysis plans before data are collected. This ensures transparency and objectivity, and reduces the risk of data dredging and misleading results. Statisticians follow where the data lead rather than mold or seek out data to fit a predetermined narrative.

Kennedy’s team appears to be following a different playbook. According to a former top vaccine official, Kennedy’s team requested a wish list of data seemingly to justify their autism theory: The team asked for cases of brain swelling and deaths caused by the measles vaccine. The official said there are no such cases. Someone who keeps hunting for evidence to back up his discredited theory is not conducting science.

Our stories should be malleable. Our statistics should not.

Lynne Peeples, a science writer, is the author of “The Inner Clock: Living in Sync With Our Circadian Rhythms.” She wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

For broadcast networks, the evening news broadcast is a cherished part of their legacies — having brought the likes of Walter Cronkite, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings into living rooms over the decades.

But with pressures mounting on the traditional TV business, the American institution is in a period of flux.

The traditional TV audience is a slow melting glacier, with network evening newscasts down nearly 1 million viewers in the 2024-25 season compared to the previous year, according to Nielsen. As a result, network news executives will be on edge this year, with two of the three broadcasts undergoing major overhauls.

Next month, NBC will replace longtime “Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt with Tom Llamas, 45, who helms the streaming NBC News Now program “Top Story.” It will mark only the fourth change in the “Nightly” role since 1983.

This comes after “CBS Evening News” in January replaced Norah O’Donnell with a duo of John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois. Conceived by outgoing “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens, the new “CBS Evening News” has aimed to do longer segments instead of the headline-driven style the broadcasts are known for.

Although broadcast networks have largely ceded scripted TV shows to streaming, they are still protective of the news programs. Both NBC and CBS are trying to improve their competitive position against “ABC World News With David Muir,” which has its largest lead over the second-place peacock network in 30 years.

Like other TV newscasts, evening programs are in a battle to maintain relevance amid competition from not only cable and streaming but also YouTube, which attracts older audiences as well as younger, digital-savvy viewers.

“No one wants a tombstone that reads ‘Here lies the guy who killed the evening news,’” said Jonathan Wald, a veteran producer who worked with Brokaw on “NBC Nightly News.”

Evening newscasts on ABC, CBS and NBC — all of which launched in the late 1940s — are among the few shows that still drive appointment viewing.

They’ve held up better than most TV network genres. Nielsen data show the programs are watched by an average of 18 million viewers a night and reach 71 million each month despite competition from 24-hour cable news and a barrage of platforms available digitally.

There are many weeks throughout the year when Muir’s broadcast is the most watched program in all of TV, often averaging 8 million viewers.

So far, the audience isn’t buying the changes on “CBS Evening News.” The program has dropped below 4 million viewers in some weeks since its launch and occasionally gets topped by “Special Report With Bret Baier” on Fox News.

Tom Llamas in 2023. (Nathan Congleton/NBC/TNS)

NBC News executives believe Llamas can provide a fresh spark for “Nightly News.” They’re encouraged that he led in the 25-to-54 age group on recent nights when he filled in for Holt.

“We think he’s exactly the right guy at this moment,” said Janelle Rodriguez, executive vice president of programming for NBC News. “He is someone who has worked at this literally since he was a kid.”

But there is always risk involved when an anchor change occurs — programs typically see a shift of 500,000 viewers in the aftermath. A single audience share point decline in the Nielsen ratings can mean about $10 million less in ad revenue.

Evening news broadcasts are still profitable businesses and have benefited from increased advertiser demand for audiences watching live TV. In 2024, ad spending on the three network evening newscasts, including the weekend editions, hit $669 million, according to measurement firm iSpot.tv, an increase of 12% over the previous year.

The programs also still provide an identity for ABC, CBS and NBC. A recent study by research firm Magid found that 50% of consumers cite news as their top reason for watching a network TV affiliate.

Most of the people tuning in at 6:30 p.m. to watch are older viewers who likely grew up with the habit, as evidenced by the commercial breaks. The data from iSpot show around 46% of the ad dollars spent on the programs are for pharmaceutical products.

Competitors have long taken shots at “World News,” calling it a shallow broadcast that delivers a lot of of stories without much detail. ABC News executives counter that Muir has traveled around the world to do lengthier reports that are expanded into documentaries for Hulu.

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“We spend a lot of time making sure the show is informative visually and reflects a modern, elegant broadcast,” said Chris Dinan, Muir’s executive producer. “David knows television. He’s a student of it.”

Viewers, who like Muir and the visual sizzle of “World News,” have made it No. 1 for nine consecutive years.

“You can’t listen to the chattering classes,” said Wald. “The show is watchable and consistent. You know what you’re going to get.”

Muir’s success has been rewarded. After sharing special coverage anchor duties with George Stephanopoulos, he is now the dominant face of ABC News. Muir’s former longtime executive producer, Almin Karamehmedovic, became president of the division last year.

For most of his tenure, Muir has maintained a neutral image that protected him from right-wing claims of bias made against many mainstream journalists.

That changed last fall as Muir and colleague Linsey Davis became targets after they vigorously fact-checked President Trump at the second presidential debate in September. “I’m not fans of those guys anymore,” Trump said during a Fox News appearance. “And his hair was better five years ago.”

Trump’s anger at Muir has had no impact on the ratings for “World News,” which have remained steady. Nielsen data show the program’s audience is down only 1% in the 2024-25 TV season compared to a year ago, while “NBC Nightly News” is off 6% and “CBS Evening News” is down 8%.

While Holt’s departure from “Nightly News” was presented as his decision, NBC News is historically unsentimental when it comes to making talent transitions, always looking for the next generation.

Llamas, 45, has spent three years at the helm of “Top Story” on NBC News Now, the network’s 24-hour streaming news service that draws a younger audience than the broadcast network.

Like Muir, Llamas has been immersed in TV news since he was a teenager.

Muir worked in a local Syracuse TV newsroom where staffers tracked his growth spurt with pencil marks on a wall. A 15-year-old Llamas landed an internship at a Miami TV station with the help of Jorge Ramos, the longtime Univision anchor. (Ramos’ children were patients of Llamas’ father, who has a dental practice in Miami.)

Llamas interned at “NBC Nightly News” and went on to jobs at MSNBC and as a local anchor at NBC’s Miami and New York stations. He moved to ABC News in 2014, where he was anchor of the weekend newscast and often filled in for Muir. He returned to NBC in 2021, leading to immediate speculation that he was being developed as Holt’s heir apparent.

“He’ll be a great steward for what ‘Nightly’ is now and maybe even extend its lifespan by injecting some youth,” said Wald.

The question at CBS News — which has been distracted by a lawsuit filed by Trump against “60 Minutes” and the pending sale of parent company Paramount Global to Skydance Media — is whether it will make tweaks to its evening news format before viewers start sampling again after Holt departs.

CBS News declined to provide an executive to speak on the record about the newscast. But two people close to the show said management continues to support the alternative approach to the broadcast and there are no imminent changes.

People who work on “CBS Evening News” but were not authorized to comment publicly said the program has already moved to shorter pieces. The producers are also expected to get some notes from Tom Cibrowski, the new CBS News president who comes from ABC News, where there is an emphasis on being viewer-friendly.

But the challenges faced by CBS demonstrate how hard it is to make changes to evening news when continuity and familiarity matter to the audience.

Muir was a longtime weekend anchor and then primary substitute for Diane Sawyer during her five-year run on “World News.” Holt was a fill-in for Brian Williams before his abrupt departure in 2015.

CBS has likely been hurt by changing evening news anchors six times since Dan Rather ended his 20-year run at the desk in 2005. The program has long suffered from a weak audience lead-in from its local stations, a problem that goes back to the mid-1990s, when a number of its affiliates switched to Fox after CBS lost its NFL package.

But broadcast networks are aware that the downward trend in appointment viewing on traditional TV is never going to reverse. It’s why the networks have expanded their evening news programs online.

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Llamas will continue to do “Top Story” on NBC News Now after he takes over for Holt in June. Dickerson has done an additional half-hour, which includes a longer newsmaker interview and a brief commentary at the end, on “CBS Evening News Plus,” which is shown on CBS News Streaming after the network broadcast.

All of the evening newscasts stream full episodes on YouTube, each attracting several hundred thousand viewers a night, as well as getting repeat airings on the 24-hour streaming news channels. “NBC Nightly News” clips reached 43 million on TikTok in the first quarter of 2025.

“As people move across different distribution points, we need to be ready for them,” Rodriguez said.

Of all the constellations we see through the year, Virgo the Virgin is the second-largest. The only problem is that it’s also one of the faintest. With a lot of visual digging, Virgo can be found in the low southeast evening sky this time of year. Virgo does possess one bright star, though. It’s Spica, easy to see because it’s by far the brightest star in the low southeast. Even if you have to put up with light pollution you’ll have no trouble spotting Spica.

Virgo is also one of only three constellations that portray a woman. The other two are Andromeda the Princess, seen in the autumn and winter, and Cassiopeia the Queen, seen all year round in the northern sky. Cassiopeia is a really bright constellation that looks like a “W.” This time of year, Cassiopeia is barely above the northern horizon in the early evening. It’s easily seen, since its stars are as bright as the stars that make up the Big Dipper. By the way, that “W” allegedly outlines the throne that Queen Cassiopeia is tied into, because she boasted that she was more beautiful than all the hundreds of Nereids, the daughters of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. Poseidon had a tantrum, forced her onto her throne, bound her to it, and tossed her into the sky. He taunted Cassiopeia, telling her that she could now show off her “beauty” to everyone on Earth. It’s never a good idea to tick off the Greek gods!

Admittedly, Virgo is not a constellation for beginners. It’s a real challenge, although this week you have a better chance of spotting it because there’s hardly any moonlight in the early evening sky. Even after you’ve found Virgo, it’s beyond imagination how that oddball-shaped constellation is supposed to be a lady lying on her side holding a shaft of wheat!

The place to start your Virgo challenge is to find Spica, Virgo’s only bright star. That’s an easy task. Start out by looking in the very high northeastern sky for the upside-down Big Dipper. Follow the curve of the Big Dipper’s handle beyond the handle and you’ll run right into the bright orange star Arcturus in the high southeast heavens. Arcturus is the brightest star in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman, and also the brightest star in the night sky right now. Continue the arc beyond Arcturus, and the next-brightest star you’ll run into will be Spica in the southern sky, which more or less marks the left hand of Virgo the Virgin. The name Spica is a Latin name that roughly translates to English as “ear of grain.” The funny thing is that most interpretations of Virgo have the virgin holding the ear in her right hand….Go figure. Spica is actually a double star system around 250 light-years, or a little over 1,400 trillion miles, away from Earth. Both stars are much larger than our sun and kick out much more light. Both have surface temperatures well over 40,000 degrees. Our sun is only about 10,000 degrees.

(Mike Lynch)

Suppose you’re lucky enough to have access to a larger telescope, and you’re really out in the boonies. In that case, you can see at least a few of the many galaxies that make up the Virgo cluster of galaxies, about 60 million light-years from Earth. As you can see in the diagram, these galaxies are a little to the right of the main constellation. Since Virgo is so faint, it’s easiest to use the star Spica as a bearing. The Virgo cluster will be 20 degrees, or about two fist-widths at arm’s length, to Spica’s upper right. To be entirely above board with you, you’ll probably be much less than overwhelmed with how these galaxies appear in your scope, even if you have a larger one. At best, they will be mainly fuzzy patches, but those fuzzy patches are entire stellar islands, some of which are made up of one of billions and billions of stars.

In Greek mythology, Virgo the Virgin is the daughter of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest and fertility of the earth. In many ancient cultures, the first sighting of Spica in Virgo was a cue to start their spring planting. When Spica and Virgo leave the evening sky in late summer, the growing season is ending. According to the story, when Virgo leaves the living land, she sets out on her annual search in the underworld for her slain husband Tammuz. At last report, she hasn’t found him yet, but she resumes her search after every growing season. The grand lady of the night sky doesn’t give up easily!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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