A new wave of Russophobia is sweeping the nation, surely the high-water point for such shenanigans since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It’s familiar; much of it echoes the anti-communist rhetoric of Ronald Reagan, the closest analogue in presidential history to Donald Trump, only this time our …
When the announcement was made a few months ago that Netflix would be shepherding a new series entitled The Santa Clarita Diet, I didn’t exactly mark my calendar, because that name is terrible. I was even less inspired when it was announce that the show would be a zombie comedy, a …
It can be extraordinarily difficult to write about mental illness, in fiction and in reality. Even now, as I write this, I select my words with care when I say that the current trend in television to try and make entertainment out of mental illness — intelligent and empathetic entertainment, …
Who among us does not practically break a leg running to the box office when we hear those magical words “three-hour bittersweet German art dramedy”? The third film by the director Maren Ade, whose work I have never seen but which has been highly praised by those who have, seems like …
There is a moment, late in I am Not Your Negro, where the great writer and thinker James Baldwin is appearing on Dick Cavett’s talk show to discuss the one subject that consumed him like no other during his life: America’s compulsive reluctance to address the reality of its treatment of …
In professional foot-ball’s “Super Bowl”, the New England Patriots, owned by a man who vocally supports a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure, defeated the Atlanta Falcons, vocally supported by an owner who is a rich, horrible billionaire authority figure. This brings to a close America’s most recent sporting season; until such …
La La Land has, as I write this, been nominated for an astounding 14 Academy Awards, and it is very likely going to win most, or even all, of them. It has a chance of becoming the most decorated film in motion picture history, and if you follow the absurd …
Ever since the early days of film and television, the question has been asked: how much fidelity does an adaptation owe to its source material? I don’t think there’s any one useful answer to this question. there have been exceedingly faithful adaptations that have been wonderful (John Huston’s version of The …
The question so memorably posed by Jack Nicholson’s Joker in Tim Burton’s Batman — “Hubba hubba hubba, who do you trust?” — has become of rather grave importance in recent years. With Donald Trump in the White House, the Republican war antagonism to the press, at a low boil at the best of …
When you get right down to it, for capitalists, slavery was a hell of a good deal. It opened up new markets, it was a self-reproducing form of labor, and best of all, it provided a very inexpensive and largely docile workforce. Its failure, if you remove morality from the …
Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight — his second feature film and a quantum leap from his first, the fascinating but slight Medicine for Melancholy — is a film that builds itself up by little moments. Very little happens in the movie itself; it is slow and deliberate, with many of its major events implied …
My origin story with hip-hop still burns in my brain like it happened yesterday. Run-D.M.C.’s Raising Hell had just been released, and for me — a white suburban kid who’d been raised an only child in a house full of outlaw country and ‘beautiful music’ — it seemed like something being …
When I was much younger, a writer named Paul Slansky put out a book that had a huge effect on me. The Clothes Have No Emperor: A Chronicle of the Reagan ’80s was formulated by its author as a defense mechanism, what we’d call today a means of self-care — …
With some things, you have to learn by either seeing it or participating in it. And you know yourselves that there are people walking around your community today that have all types of degrees that should be at this meeting, but are not here. Right? Because you can have as …
I don’t really care for outdoor music festivals. For one thing, I am a hundred and seventeen years old, and it is something that young people do, like smart drugs, the Banana Sprite Challenge, and being a well-dressed neo-Nazi. It also robs being outdoors of its major appeal (peace and tranquility), …
