Too long; do not read.
There is much talk these days of the embarrassment of riches to be found on television these days; TV is the new cinema, as we are told by an endless succession of thinkpieces by TV critics eager to defend the importance of their jobs. This both is and is not …
Excitement is hardly in short supply this year when it comes to politics, but the Republican Party, apparently committed to its position as a third-place network who will throw absolutely anything at the viewing audience just to see what sticks, is offering us fare like those overstuffed modern dramas where something …
Last night, the Chicago Cubs were swept out of baseball’s post-season after being completely manhandled by the New York Mets, and today, they will prepare to do what they have done for the last 107 years: watch two other teams play in the World Series. I enjoyed watching the Cubs …
Chantal Akerman died two weeks ago. Her death was a shock to the film world, or at least that part of it that still considers cinema to be an art form and its geniuses worthy of commemoration; she was only 65 years old and in relatively good health, and she …
Peggy Guggenheim’s relationships with men were difficult, to put it mildly. As the new documentary Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict makes clear, the heiress and collector was far ahead of her time, both in recognizing the value of modern paintings and sculpture and in navigating the world of fine art — a world often …
Laurie Anderson has had a lot to deal with over the last few years. Since 2013, she was faced with, in rapid succession, the death of her mother Mary Louise, her husband Lou Reed, and her beloved dog, Lolabelle. Never one to let such matters overwhelm her, though, she dealt …
Just prior to beginning work on his first feature film, 1979’s Real Life, comedian Albert Brooks had been making short subjects for the show that would eventually become known as Saturday Night Live (or, as the bewildered Phoenix city councilman puts it when introducing Brooks in the film, “Good Night Saturday”). …
It is odd to say that the book on writing by a famous writer is a curious beast; there are, after all, so many of them, how odd could they be? But they occupy a very strange niche in the literary world. They’re something akin to a Lifetime Achievement …
It happened while my partner was watching Keith Richards: Under the Influence. “This isn’t bad,” she said, “but it seems so much like an advertisement for his book.” I couldn’t help but agree; taken all in all, Under the Influence, Life, and Crosseyed Heart seem less like disparate threads in one man’s artistic …
Ever since the Hays Code took a fatal nosedive in the 1960s, movies have been cursing like there’s no tomorrow. At one point, movies, no matter how much they sublimated their sex and forefronted their violence, were as sanitary as a dentist’s tools. Sometimes this resulted in some finely suggestive …
Fargo was such a singular movie, such a unique and multilayered take on the typical heist-gone-wrong film, that it was almost unthinkable that it could be remade, rebooted, adapted or made sequel in anything like a satisfying manner. That someone actually managed to do so almost twenty years later — …
As campaign season rolls on, we are being treated to the usual colorful fall display of Republicans showing off their economic policies. Well, it’s actually not all that colorful; in fact, it’s downright monochromatic. The G.O.P. doesn’t like to talk about economic policy very much, because they don’t really have …
The problem with the comedy of humiliation… No, no, let’s start again. That seems dated. Ever since Seinfeld creator Larry David unleashed his… No, that’s predictable. Everybody’s gone there already. Might as well be doing riffs on the American Office. Let’s try one more time. When you’re making a comedy about extremely …
Paul Kingsnorth is the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project, a collective of artists and intellectuals who believe that mankind has irretrievably poisoned the environment. They are producing writing, art, and thought informed by the idea that we are living in the last days of human dominance; their ideas are …
Today is the United Nations’ International Day of Peace. You would be forgiven if you think this is another fake celebration of high ideals cooked up by public relations interns, and, in truth, a lot of it is. Hashtag marketing, pointless celebrity endorsements, feel-good concerts and media events, and related …
