The Columbusing of Black excellence by white opportunists has long been prevalent in popular culture — never more so than in the realm of music, where everything from Elvis’ hip-shaking to Miley’s twerking have been erroneously attributed. For decades, Black music was ghettoized, pushed into the shadows. It didn’t matter …
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“Once,” writes Elena Ferrante in her 2006 novel The Lost Daughter, “I had a very closeup view of what it means to be in love, the powerful and joyous irresponsibility that it unleashes.” In the span of a sentence, Ferrante — in the voice of heroine Leda Caruso — renders …
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You may remember that Guillermo del Toro’s last film — the strange, somewhat surprisingly Oscar-laden adult fairytale The Shape of Water — ended, appropriately, in water: a plunging turquoise expanse, an eternal resting place for two doomed, sinking, but finally unencumbered lovers. His latest film, however, begins on literal fire, …
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“When I was in high school, I felt a lot of emotions,” Colin Kaepernick explains late in the six-episode run of the new Netflix miniseries Colin in Black & White, in which the former NFL quarterback revisits his life as a teenager, where he’s played by actor Jaden Michael. The …
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The title of B.J. Novak’s new FX on Hulu series, The Premise, feels like an ironic one, because exactly what the show is about, and why, proves so elusive. FX’s press notes describe it as a “curated collection of character-driven episodes [that] challenges our shared morality tales, choosing art over …
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“Do you want a dozen angry rodents crawling up your ass?” “My answer might not be what you expect!” Thank goodness for the brutish, maximalist, shitbag silliness of The Suicide Squad, which is a bit overstuffed, exhausting in its commitment to every single one of its too-many bits, and emotionally …
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When the premiere episode of Apple TV+’s Mr. Corman ends, the first four names in the credits all belong to Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He directed it, wrote it, created it, and stars in it. He’s also a producer and helps write the music performed by his title character, a fifth grade …
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M. Night Shyamalan knows you’re thinking: Wait for it. And, Everything is a clue. He knows that, ever since The Sixth Sense, with its late-stage, near-spontaneous clicking into place of suggestions and hints many viewers didn’t even know they were meant to be looking out for, audiences have watched his …
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In the new season of the Apple TV+ comedy Mythic Quest, creative directors Ian (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) struggle to design an expansion for the wildly popular online video game they run together. The deeper their struggles get, the easier it is to wonder if the two of …
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The great Bryan Cranston is both an enormous help to the new Showtime miniseries Your Honor, and, through no fault of his own, a pretty big hindrance. Cranston’s talent and fundamental gravitas are essential to generating any emotional investment in this convoluted tale of a New Orleans judge repeatedly breaking …
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