The Rise of CliffsNotes Cinema
Oversimplified literary remakes miss the point of the works they are adapting.
Culture
Why Justin Bieber Played YouTube Onstage for Thousands of People
The pop star transformed the normal act of browsing your laptop into something interesting—and unsettling.
The New Age of Performance Anxiety
With the rise of screen culture, all the world has stage fright.
Where Did ‘Let Them’ Come From?
Years before Mel Robbins published her best-selling self-help book, a struggling writer posted a poem with a similar message.
Nicole Kidman’s Perpetual Trick
The actor has excelled at embracing female artifice—and then demolishing it from the inside out.
Men on Trips Eating Food
Why TV is full of late-career Hollywood guys at restaurants
The Sauron Problem
The mistake that The Rings of Power keeps making
Kamala Harris’s Most Successful Power Play
In her debate with Trump, she didn’t need the mic.
This Election Actually Is About Taylor Swift
The singer is a perfect bogeywoman for almost everything the GOP is targeting in 2024.
James Earl Jones Was Never Just One Thing
The actor, who died yesterday, was a towering figure whose work spanned genres, mediums, and generations.
A Film That Could Fix Our Relationship With the Internet
Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing ushered a generation of kids onto the computer. A new documentary shows what happened next.
Kaos Offers a Sharp Twist on a Familiar Story
Thousands of years into their telling, the Greek myths haven’t lost their power.
The Allure of Living a Radically Different Life
What the proliferation of multiverses in pop culture reveals
What Tucker Carlson’s Spin on World War II Really Says
Forget the villains of history. The true enemies, in his world, are the culture warriors of the present.