A compendium of all the artistic efforts I'm interested in
P!nk should host every awards show. I’m serious – she’s the only host out of the last major shows that has kept the night breezy, fun, and on schedule. She highlighted the amazing talent on offer on Broadway, while keeping the show breezy, fun, and on schedule. Going into the night, did this role make …
Continue reading “Every Award Show Should Be Like the 2026 Tonys”
Oh, how I cried. I know many people have shed tears while watching Chloe Zhao’s unbelievably somatic Hamnet, but that is precisely why I’m reiterating the experience now. Rarely does a film elicit such a uniform emotional response from a general audience. Hamnet is the film that makes you cry. Cynics have labeled the film …
Car go fast. That’s all there really is to say about Joseph Kosinski’s delirious F1. If I wanted to give it more credit, I’d say that it also serves as a meta-commentary on Brad Pitt’s career, pointing out his long standing utility in Hollywood. And thank God: Isn’t it finally time to stand up and …
Josh Safdie’s new film, Marty Supreme, follows a narcissist, Marty Mauser, as he attempts to stand supreme above all others in his profession. His chosen domain? Ping pong. The silliness of this area of expertise proves to be a real benefit to Safdie, who is freed from matters of great importance and can instead turn …
“Nothing really ends. For things to stay the same they have to change again.” So begins Beyoncé’s ambitious, transformative eighth album, Cowboy Carter. It sets the tone well – a little heavy handed, but unabashedly confident in its message. The album, release late in March 2024, is the second in a series of her work …
I’ve spent the last week of my life living in a haze of cinema about competence. Competence can be diegetic (that is, a function of the plot) or authorial (that is, the craft of the film is masterful). Having one does not preclude the other, but I would like to talk about two films today …
Does anyone think Parade is a smash hit? Chances are, you’ve never heard of it. The show, which premiered on Broadway in 1998 (where it won Best Book and Best Score at the Tony’s), was recently revived on Broadway in 2023 with a glitzy production starring Ben Platt (ick) and directed by Michael Arden. At …
It’s a big night for movies! Who’s excited? I ask that rhetorically because it likely isn’t that many people. The Oscars … you know, they happen. They air on TV. They award some good movies. But they’re not relevant to the culture in any real way. They make Film Twitter mad, they make Letterboxd bros …
2025 may be off to a disastrous start, but at least I’ve been feasting on good music as the world burns. February saw the release of no less than FOUR albums from the niche, mostly UK- and Ireland-based artists I regularly follow: Inhaler’s Open Wide, The Wombats’ Oh! The Ocean, Saint Motel’s Saint Motel and …
Poor Odysseus. The ancient Greek hero has unfortunately been cast adrift in a new adaptation of The Odyssey written by Kate Hamill, now playing at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. Aptly questioning the value heaped upon Odysseus’s orchestration of the eradication of the Trojans, the production nonetheless has no main idea or guiding light, …
The Z-Files