The Petition Response Strikes Back
The White House recently turned down a petition to build a Death Star. More responses from the official rejection pile.
Movies
A collection of 87 issues
Attica Locke
Our man in Boston talks to screenwriter and novelist Attica Locke about writing in Hollywood, the origins of her second novel, and where exactly British prisoners locate the moral heart of The Wire.
The Master and Moviemaking
Once again, we convene our film scholars, plus critic Michelle Orange, to discuss a major movie: “The Master,” by Paul Thomas Anderson—a masterpiece of craftsmanship, or merely an exercise of cinema and violence with no story in the center?
Secret Horror
Yes, yes, “The Exorcist” and “Night of the Living Dead” are reliably traumatizing, but at this point they’re comfort food, and there’s plenty more to discover in the world of horror cinema.
Here There Be Monsters
A professor teaches his students skepticism by instructing them to create hoaxes with the web as their laboratory.
Soldier’s Heart
A post-World War II documentary, banned by the military in 1946 but lately released online, is one of the earliest depictions of psychotherapy. But it says even more about contemporary Americans’ interest in the veterans they love to praise.
Coming to a Theater Near You
With blockbusters like “Snow White and the Huntsman,” “Zombie Overkill,” and “Yahtzee: Alien Invasion,” it’s already a smash hit for summer movies. But film buffs know Summer 2013 will be even better—and we’re not just talking about Jerry Bruckheimer’s live-action “Hungry Hungry Hippo Apocalypse.”
Uncanny Kingdom
Our film scholars and Wes Anderson watchers, along with movie critic Michelle Orange, evaluate the filmmaker’s latest release, “Moonrise Kingdom,” where people get struck by lightning as a matter of course.
Burn All the Liars
An unfinished autobiography and a 1980s biopic turned Frances Farmer, one of the great golden-era stars, into a lobotomized zombie. The main trouble: Frances Farmer wasn’t lobotomized. An investigation to set one of Hollywood’s most convoluted stories straight.
As Time Goes By
In the past 20 years, movies and the quotes they’ve sprinkled across American pop culture have occupied a shrinking proportion of our social mindshare. It’s time to mark and celebrate the death of the movie catchphrase.