Articles
Articles I recommend, approximately sectioned & then ordered by when I read them. Extremely vulnerable to broken links — if you notice one, contact me, and I’ll do my best to fix it if it’s fixable.
Culture
Film & TV
Criticism & essays
The Transformative Dream Of ANNIHILATION by Priscilla Page for Birth.Movies.Death.
“Senior year burns brightly. There is a vividness in worlds coming to an end”: Lady Bird’s aesthetic of memory by Anna Leszkiewicz for New Statesman
What About “The Breakfast Club”? by Molly Ringwald for The New Yorker
Life in Drag by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Great Expectations by Fran Hoepfner for Bright Wall/Dark Room
The Year of the Death Wish by Fran Hoepfner for Bright Wall/Dark Room
An Undead Elegy For the American Dream: On 300 Episodes of “Supernatural” by Tess McGeer for Flood Magazine
Bad TV by Andrea Long Chu for n+1
‘Til Death Do Us Part by Haley Mlotek for The Hairpin
It’s Only An Island If You Look At It From The Water by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Martin Scorsese’s Late Style by Scout Tafoya for Los Angeles Review of Books
Isn’t Everything Amazing? by Ethan Warren for Bright Wall/Dark Room
The Valedictory Anthem That Takes Us Inside Inside Llewyn Davis by Nate Chinen for Criterion Current
Tory Porn by Jonathon Sturgeon for The Baffler
The Old Man and the Screen by John Saward for Vice
I’m Enduring It by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Il Maestro by Martin Scorsese for Harper’s Magazine
Martin Scorsese: I Said Marvel Movies Aren’t Cinema. Let Me Explain. by Martin Scorsese for The New York Times
Review: A Promising Young Woman by Ayesha A. Siddiqi
I Don’t Know How to Do Anything Else by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
“I Said ‘Zoo’ and You Came” by Frank Falisi for Bright Wall/Dark Room
All the Good Boys by Elizabeth Purchell for Letterboxd Journal
Bonnie and Clyde by Pauline Kael for The New Yorker
Lyons on Mad Men: Ginsberg Was Always Struggling — He’s a Martian, After All by Margaret Lyons for Vulture
Everyone Is Beautiful and No One Is Horny by RS Benedict for Blood Knife
Citizen Kane: The Once and Future Kane by Bilge Ebiri for Criterion Current
The Beatles Were Friends by Jeremy Gordon for Gawker
Queer & Now & Then: 1947 by Michael Koresky for Film Comment
Kiss Me or Kill Me: Sexual Desperation and Identity Erasure in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
To Where You Once Belonged by Frank Falisi for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Buster Keaton: A Life and the Times by David Hudson for Criterion
Death’s Angel: Peter Fonda in Easy Rider by Chuck Stephens for Criterion Current
Steven Soderbergh: A Smooth Operator for 21st-Century American Cinema by Ruairi McCann for Mubi Notebook
Videodrome: The Slithery Sense of Unreality by Gary Indiana for Criterion Current
Queer, There, and Everywhere by Michael Koresky for Criterion Current
Classic Corner: Cutter’s Way by Jason Bailey for Crooked Marquee
The End of Joachim Trier’s “Oslo Trilogy”; The End of Art and Community by Laura Staab for Another Gaze
Mikey and Nicky (Essay for the DVD) by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Spies Like Us by Brianna Ashby for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Good Boys by Mark Asch for Animus
If Life Were Only Moments by Julia Sirmons for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Tom Cruise’s Last Stand by Bilge Ebiri for Vulture
The Top Gun Volleyball Scene Is Not Homoerotic. It Is Homosexual. by Dave Holmes for Esquire
TCM Diary: Elvis, Actor by Sheila O’Malley for Film Comment
The Writing Plot: Life as Art in “Bergman Island” by Rafaela Bassili for Mubi Notebook
Despite All His Cage by J.W. McCormack for The Baffler
On Paris Blues by Darryl Pinckney for The Paris Review
Written on the Wind: No Good End by Blair McClendon for Criterion Current
Rumble Fish: Lose Yourself by Glenn Kenny for Criterion Current
The Graduate: Intimations of a Revolution by Frank Rich for Criterion Current
Dont Look Back: Everybody Loves You for Your Black Eye by Robert Polito for Criterion Current
All That Jazz: Stardust by Hilton Als for Criterion Current
The Big Chill: These Are Your Parents by Lena Dunham for Criterion Current
The Big Chill: Surviving by Harlan Jacobson for Film Comment (via Criterion Current)
A Hard Day’s Night: The Whole World is Watching by Howard Hampton for Criterion Current
Naked: Desperate Days by Derek Malcolm for Criterion Current
Shallow Grave: A Film Called Cruel by Phillip Kemp for Criterion Current
Seconds: Reborn Again by David Sterritt for Criterion Current
Blow Out: American Scream by Michael Sragow for Criterion Current
Living by Michael Wood for London Review of Books
Police and Thieves: On Tony Gilroy's "Andor" by Aaron Bady for LA Review of Books
From Strength Comes Forth Sweetness: "Top Gun: Maverick" and Tom Cruise's Terribilità by David Garry Hughes for Mubi Notebook
By the Bomb’s Filmic Light by Nicholas Russell for The Baffler
Maybe So, Sir, but Not Today: The Fragile Humanity of Top Gun: Maverick by Tom Ralston for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Fifty Years On, A Hard Day’s Night Is Still Revelatory by Stephanie Zacherak for Village Voice
What advertising does to TV. by Emily Nussbaum for The New Yorker
Boxcar Love: Scarecrow’s Not-So-Modern Bromance by Duncan Birmingham for Bright Wall/Dark Room
Riding the Goddamn Elephant by A. S. Hamrah for The Baffler
everything I've watched in however long it's been since the last one of these, part one by Helena Fitzgerald for griefbacon
The Crown and the Crown by Luke McKernan
An almost perfect film by Luke McKernan
Industry
What if Star Wars never happened? by Kevin Lincoln for Polygon
The Slow Death of Hollywood by Matt Stoller
The pain of cinema closures isn’t just economic by James Greig for The Guardian
Don’t Let Amazon Eat the Film Industry by Patricia Aufderheide for The New York Times
Digital Rocks by Will Tavlin for n+1
‘It took me years to see how responsible Terry Gilliam was for my terror’ by Sarah Polley for The Guardian
They Made a Movie Out of It by James Pogue for The Baffler
Remember Me on This Computer by A. S. Hamrah for n+1
‘No Aliens, No Spaceships, No Invasion of Earth’ by Rachel Handler for Vulture
Shortsighted by James Wham for The Baffler
Elegy for the Screenshot by Nora DeLigter for Screen Slate
Interviews, profiles, obituaries
Don’t Cry for Mitski by Matthew Schnipper for Pitchfork
Alice Rohrwacher: ‘We imagine that a good man does good, but it’s an illusion’ by Manuela Lazic for Little White Lies
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino: A Big, Beautiful 50-Year Friendship by Zach Baron for GQ
Caught in the Act by John Lahr for The New Yorker
The Trouble With Johnny Depp by Stephen Rodrick for Rolling Stone
My Buddy by Patti Smith for The New Yorker
‘This is the best moment of my life,’ he said, lying in the bath: Ian Holm remembered by Richard Eyre for The Guardian
Charles Grodin Finally Reveals His Brief Tryst With Miss Piggy by Charles Grodin for Vulture
John Swartzwelder, Sage of “The Simpsons” by Mike Sacks for The New Yorker
Crime in Counterpoint: Michael Mann on his Restored Masterpiece “Heat” by Bilge Ebiri for The Village Voice
Frank Oz on life as Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and Yoda by Hadley Freeman for The Guardian
Conversations with Schrader by Alex Abramovich for London Review of Books
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Theory on Driving at Night by Bilge Ebiri for Vulture
Celine Sciamma’s Quest for a New, Feminist Grammar of Cinema by Elif Batuman for The New Yorker
Francis Ford Coppola’s $100 Million Bet by Zach Baron for GQ
Robert Altman Speaking by Jan Dawson for Film Comment
The Metamorphosis of Robert Pattinson by Daniel Riley for GQ
Al Pacino Looks Back at His Breakthrough Role in ‘The Godfather’ by Dave Itzkoff for The New York Times
Life Is Suffering: David Cronenberg on Kidney Stones, NFTs, and Crimes of the Future by Nick Newman for The Film Stage
The undying optimism of Ethan Hawke by Ben Allen for GQ
Robert Eggers’s Historical Visions Go Mainstream by Sam Knight for The New Yorker
Nicolas Cage Can Explain It All by Gabriella Paiella for GQ
Where the Magic Happens: On Set with Mary Ellen Mark by Rebecca Bengal for Criterion Current
The Follow: A. S. Hamrah, Critic by Abe Beame May for Passion of the Weiss
Martin Scorsese on Ray Liotta in Goodfellas: ‘The new guy never missed a beat’ for The Guardian
The Feast of Sevarance by Anne Helen Petersen for Culture Study
David Cronenerg’s Dreams and Nightmares by Adam Nayman for The New Yorker
James Caan’s Vulnerable Machismo by David Hudson for Criterion Current
Moxie to Burn: Natasha Lyonne on Barbara Stanwyck by Hillary Weston for Criterion Current
Lessons from Bob Rafelson by David Hudson for Criterion Current
What Bob Dylan Wanted at Twenty-three by Nat Hentoff for The New Yorker
Jean-Luc Godard Was Cinema's North Star by Richard Brody for The New Yorker
Our Godard by Blair McClendon for n+1
"In Movies, Comedy and Tragedy Are All the Same": Jean-Luc Godard Interviewed by Hal Hartley for Filmmaker Magazine
James Wong Howe's Way with Light by Walter Chaw for Criterion Current
The wildness of Barry Keoghan by Douglas Greenwood for GQ
Godard is perhaps dead by Martin Scorsese for Cahiers du Cinema
Nicolas Cage and John Carpenter are cinema's most studious eccentrics by Hannah Ongley for Document Journal
It isn’t the lines by Bee Wilson for London Review of Books
Puzzled Puss by John Lahr for London Review of Books
Harrison Ford: “I Know Who the F*** I Am” by James Hibberd for The Hollywood Reporter
Silver Screen by Carlos Valladares for n+1
Ben Affleck on ‘Air’, New CEO Gig and Those Memes: “I Am Who I Am” by Rebecca Keegan for The Hollywood Reporter
Stronger Together by Shonni Enelow for Film Comment
Voice and Hammer by Jeff Sharlet for VQR
Other cultural criticism & essays
How Big Is Adam Driver in Burn This? by The Cut
In Praise of Food Dad, Nigel Slater by Ruby Tandoh for VICE
÷ by Laura Snapes for Pitchfork
A Couple Thousand Words On Charli XCX’s “Boys” by Fran Hoepfner for Bright Wall/Dark Room
What I Don’t Tell My Students About “The Husband Stitch” by Jane Dykema for Electric Literature
The Perseverance of Eve Babitz’s Vision by Molly Lambert for The Paris Review
Normal Novels by Becca Rothfeld for The Point
Hanya’s Boys by Andrea Long Chu for Vulture
I’ve Got a Feeling and The Banality of Genius: Notes on Peter Jackson’s Get Back by Ian Leslie
The Alternative Press in Retrospect by Eugenia Williamson for The Baffler
Otessa Moshfegh Is Praying for Us by Andrea Long Chu for Vulture
The Radical Woody Guthrie by Gustavus Stadler for Tribune
Edge of Reality is the podcast that proves reality TV is even worse than you thought by Amelia Tait for British GQ
Social Distortion: Weegee's Marilyn by Marya E. Gates
His Dreaminess Had Will by Janique Vigier for The New York Review of Books
Annie Ernaux's Total Novel of Life by Jamie Hood for The Baffler
What Was Brangelina? by Angelica Jade Bastién for Vulture
The Dirt on Pig-Pen by Elif Batuman for Astra
To Let an Author Die: Remembering Sylvia Plath, 60 Years On by Jimin Kang for Los Angeles Review of Books
What’s a God to a Machine? by Jeff Weiss for The Ringer
Why Is Everything So Ugly? by Mark Krotov for n+1
Norman Mailer's Ripe Garbage by Rob Madole for The Baffler
The Genesis of Blame by Anne Enright for London Review of Books
Grieving Redness in the West: Reading Malcolm Harris after Mike Davis by Michael Docherty for Los Angeles Review of Books
Trespassing on Edith Wharton by Alissa Bennett for The Paris Review
History
The Sordid Story of the Most Successful Political Party in the World by Samuel Earle for The New Republic
At the Gay Bar by Andrew Durbin for London Review of Books
The Kept and the Killed by Erica X Eisen for Public Domain Review
The Other American Frontier by Evan Malmgren for The Baffler
The Age of Houseplants and The Secrets of the Plant People by Anne Helen Petersen for Culture Study
That Ol’ Thumb by Mike Jay for London Review of Books
Tom Hayden According to the Enemy by M. Delmonico Connolly for Los Angeles Review of Books
Smash the Computers! by Kieron Monks for Tribune Magazine
A Reliquary of Modern Wales by Kirill Kobrin for Tribune Magazine
Politics & environment
The Book of Jeremy Corbyn by Anthony Lane for The New Yorker
‘We’re doomed’: Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mention by Patrick Barkham for The Guardian
The “Cancel Culture” Con by Osita Nwanevu for The New Republic
Amid the Wildfires: Mike Davis’s forecast for the left by Micah Uetricht for The Nation
Anti-Asian racism is its own particular brand of bigotry by Siam Hatzaw for Gal-dem
The Property Cult by Ronan Burtenshaw for Tribune Magazine
The Four-Day Week Can Help Save the World by Joe Ryle for Tribune Magazine
How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled by Laura Sullivan for NPR
Pfizer Walk With Me by Bearice Adler-Bolon and Artie Vierkant for The New Inquiry
Despair Fatigue by David Graeber for The Baffler
Promised land: how South Africa’s black farmers were set up to fail by Eve Fairbanks for The Guardian
Redefining the Working Class by Samira Ibrahim for The Baffler
Against school by John Burnside for New Statesman
The Death Parade by Andrew O'Hagan for London Review of Books
Attica Prison Diary by Celes Tisdale for The Paris Review
Andrea Dworkin's Conviction by Amia Srinivasan for London Review of Books
Off His Royal Tits by Andrew O’Hagan for London Review of Books
Not Much like Consent by Daniel Trilling for London Review of Books
Tech
Crash: how computers are setting us up for disaster by Tim Harford for The Guardian
the earthly shadow of the cloud by Anne Boyer
HERE IS THE ARTICLE YOU CAN SEND TO PEOPLE WHEN THEY SAY “BUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES WITH CRYPTOART WILL BE SOLVED SOON, RIGHT?” by Everest Pipkin
Underpaid Workers Are Being Forced to Train Biased AI on Mechanical Turk by Aliide Naylor for Motherboard
Is This Peter Thiel-Backed Startup Trying to Monopolize the Astral Plane? by Piper McDaniel for Mother Jones
Never send to know for whom the brain worms; it worms for thee by Max Reed
The Communal Mind by Patricia Lockwood for London Review of Books
The Stock Market At The End Of The World by Ed Z
Iron Musk by Marco D’Eramo for Sidecar
Competition is for Losers by David Runciman for London Review of Books
The Internet is Broken. Can We Fix It? – A Review of Ben Tarnoff’s “Internet for the People” by Z.M.L. for LibrarianShipwreck
ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web by Ted Chiang for The New Yorker
The Shut-In Economy by Lauren Smiley
Longform reporting & essays
How the sandwich consumed Britain by Sam Knight for The Guardian
Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change by Nathaniel Rich for The New York Times
Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? by Kate Julian for The Atlantic
In Japan, the Kit Kat Isn’t Just a Chocolate. It’s an Obsession. by Tejal Rao for The New York Times
No Heart, No Moon by Matt Jones for The Southern Review
The ‘Glasgow effect’ implies cities make us sad. Can the city prove the opposite? by Fleur Macdonald for The Guardian
What’s Left of Conde Nast by Reeves Wiedeman for New York Magazine
Royal Bodies by Hilary Mantel for London Review of Books
The End of Evil by Sarah Marshall for The Believer
The Watcher by Reeves Wiedeman for The Cut
Fear is only information by BDM
The Judgement of Paris by Lizzie O’Shea for The Baffler
Where water used to be by Rosa Lyster for London Review of Books
A Coal Mine for Every Wildfire by James Butler for London Review of Books
Three Bodies in Texas by Mallika Rao for Beliver
Closing Time by Hettie O’Brien for The Baffler
The Strange & Curious Tale of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel for GQ
FLooding in the Sacrifice Zone by Tarence Ray for The Baffler
Collective Turn-off by Sophie Lewis for Mal Journal
The Golden Suicides by Nancy Jo Sales for Vanity Fair
I Really Didn’t Want to Go by Lauren Oyler for Harper’s Magazine
When digital nomads come to town by Stephen Witt for Rest of World
Personal essays
Everything I know about a good death I learned from my cat by Elizabeth Lopatto for The Verge
The Machine Stops by Oliver Sacks for The New Yorker
this virus by Anne Boyer
Musician Lucy Dacus Wonders If She Ever Really Came Out by Lucy Dacus for Oprah Daily
Britney Spears Was Never in Control by Tavi Gevinson for The Cut
How Do We Write Now? by Patricia Lockwood for Tin House
Tinder Hearted by Allison P. Davis for The Cut
The new quantified self by Haley Nahman
Slay by Heather Havrilesky
You Have a New Memory by Merritt Tierce for Slate
#148: Too much music by Haley Nahman
Fiction/Poetry
The Husband Stitch by Carmen Maria Machado for Granta
What I Like about You, Baby by Anne Carson for London Review of Books
Daughter by Carol Ann Duffy for The Guardian
Café Loup by Ben Lerner for The New Yorker
Odorless Animals by Brittany Dennison for The Baffler
the one horse & the nextover by Anne Boyer
Saturday Night as an Adult by Anne Carson for The New Yorker
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