The ‘Trespassers Will’ of Childhood
No offense, Walt Disney. But to really understand the magic of Winnie-the-Pooh, you need to read it. Open the book and you walk into a comfortable, wryly funny and beautiful world. You track Woozles. You attend birthday parties. You sail through the Hundred Acre Wood in an umbrella. My mom read A.A. Milne’s beloved stories […]
Culture Clips: Fall of a Hollywood Kingpin
The bigger you are, the harder you fall goes the old cliché. But in Harvey Weinstein’s case, that seems to be true. Weinstein, one of Hollywood’s most successful kingmakers, was summarily ousted from his namesake movie distribution company after The New York Times revealed that the producer had been the subject of several sexual harassment […]
Television Learns That It’s Nice to Be Nice (And It Makes Money, Too)
We’re in the heart of the new television season, and I’ve noticed something a little odd about it. It’s trying to be nice. Strange, right? For the last several years, television has been besotted with undoubtedly gripping, unbearably grim prestige TV. HBO’s Game of Thrones revels in its episodic cruelties, both physical and political. Hulu’s […]
Blade Runner Runs Into Trouble
Picture a landscape filled with amazing technological advances, but one that feels curiously depressing—something teeming with simulated life, yet strangely lifeless. The Los Angeles megalopolis from Blade Runner 2049? No, I’m talking about the box office from this weekend. Blade Runner 2049 zoomed into theaters with a strong pedigree, lots of ooh-ahh special effects and […]
Culture Clips: No Words
We suffered through a week of loss and grief, a week that left us looking for answers. We know the who, what and where of the tragedy in Las Vegas, when a gunman opened fire on a stadium filled with country music fans, killing 58 of them and injuring hundreds more. But the why remains […]
IT Rises From the Grave
Here’s the problem with supernatural, undying beasties. They are, by definition, really difficult to finish off. It’s pretty much a horror-movie cliché: Monsters only look dead until you kill ’em three or four times. Contenders for this weekend’s box-office crown discovered that to their detriment this week, as two-time champ IT—which last week had sunk […]
Culture Clips: Emmys Put on a Red Shawl
Back in the day, television was considered something of a cultural unifier—the very definition of mass entertainment that would serve as a focal point for familial, communal, and even intergenerational gatherings. Yeah, about that. The Emmy awards—from the tone of the show to the awards themselves—illustrated a certain cultural divide. “In an age of hyper-polarization, […]
IT Still a Hit
After a second-straight week at the top of the box office, one thing should be abundantly clear: IT ain’t clowning around. The high-grossing (and kind of gross) horror flick scared the willickers out of its competition and officially became the largest September release ever. IT dragged an estimated $60 million into the sewers. That pushes […]
The Great Television Content Rush Gets a Bit … Purer
Way back yonder, folks came out West to find a new life, raise families and … well, who am I kidding, get stinkin’ rich. They’d travel to the gold fields of California or Colorado or the Yukon, visions of shiny yellow metal flashing in their nugget-hungry noggins. Some of them indeed struck it rich. Many […]
Culture Clips: Hey, Siri! Can You Tell Me How to Pay for You?
Apple unveiled its nifty new iPhone yesterday—one that weighs in at a delicate 6.14 ounces and costs a hefty $999. What do you get for that kind of moola? A phone with a wall-to-wall screen (sans home button), better cameras, a wireless charging system, and … well, some other cool stuff, apparently. And while some […]
