Category: Culture
On Bradley Cooper’s Surprising A Star is Born
by Cyrus Cassells | Jan 15, 2019 | CultureWhen Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine, a country headliner who’s “faded as his jeans,” and Lady Gaga’s working-class Ally (a fed-up waitress and fledgling singer-songwriter who moonlights in a drag bar) suddenly ignite in concert for the first time, the newly created song they perform, “Shallow,” is so lucid and expressive (the alcoholic Jackson sings, poignantly, […]
Demonic Glamour: On The Assassination Of Gianni Versace
by Cyrus Cassells | Dec 12, 2018 | Culture, TelevisionRather than offering standard gore and merely giving us the willies, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Ryan Murphy’s second installment of American Crime Story on the FX channel (now available on Amazon Prime Video and ITunes), is one of the rare serial killer dramas genuinely interested in sexual mores, complex character, spiky history, and salient […]
Judge Kavanaugh, I Feel For You
by Jules Feiffer | Nov 19, 2018 | Media, PoliticsStrip by Jules Feiffer. The Ghost Script, Jules’s new graphic novel, is just out. This piece originally ran in Tablet magazine, at tabletmag.com, and was reprinted with permission in the November issue of The Spectator.
New Handmaid’s Tale Season Is At Once Darker and Closer to Reality
by Cyrus Cassells | Nov 19, 2018 | Culture, TelevisionI’ve finally caught up with Hulu’s spectacular The Handmaid’s Tale, just in time for its unsettling second season. What seemed far-fetched in 1985, when Margaret Atwood’s knife-keen, dystopian novel first appeared, has now become all too feasible, what with Trump’s rise and the Right’s increasingly brazen tangos with fundamentalism and white supremacy. It’s easy to […]
Annals of the Press
by Jacob Brackman | Oct 15, 2018 | Media, PoliticsJacob Brackman was a 21-year-old features editor on The Harvard Crimson when, in 1965, he wrote this vivid profile of Izzy Stone, the ingenious and curmudgeonly proprietor of I.F. Stone’s Weekly. Corporate media was ascendant even in those early years, and Stone’s independence, fearlessness, and legendary work ethic earned him a unique standing at a […]
Email Signup
Editor’s Picks
-
Dancing in the Dark: Steps to Avoid a Constitutional Coup in the 2024 Election
By Mark Medish and Joel McCleary
-
The Wide Angle: Is a UFO Hoax a Ticking Time-bomb for Biden?
By Dave Troy
-
How Christian Nationalists, Big Oil and the Big Lie Seized the Speaker’s Gavel
By Anne Nelson
-
By Art Levine
From the Editor’s Desk
Podcast
Listen to “Paranoia on Parade”, a 3-part audio podcast with commentary from author Dave Troy, Jack Bryan, director of the 2018 film “Active Measures," and Hamilton Fish, Editor of The Washington Spectator.