Kourtney and Travis, Issa Rae, Donald Glover Shine on Emmys Red Carpet

Two quick questions: What makes great art great? And: When does Steven Soderbergh sleep?

That first query is the quietly thrumming engine behind The Christophers, a dual character study that, at any given moment, threatens to swerve down the side streets of an art-world thriller, an odd-couple buddy comedy, and an off-the-cuff theater piece. In this corner, we have an incorrigible, politically incorrect painter of the old guard — a bad-boy archetype who thrived in the Swinging Sixties and isn’t above dropping famous names for effect. (He used to hang with Ringo, “but not the Ringo you’re thinking of.”) In the other corner, a young artist whose ambition was smothered and has entered his orbit under false pretenses. The raging immovable object will butt up against the cool, collected irresistible force. The fight is over quaint philosophical concepts such as legacy, standards, inspiration, talent, and whether any of those things actually play into channeling the divine onto a blank canvas.