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.
Why Do Collaborators Do It?
In a new novel, Daniel Kehlmann considers why the director G. W. Pabst worked with the Nazis.
The Comic Who’s His Own Worst Enemy
The Rehearsal takes the prankster’s quest for self-betterment to new extremes.
Is This the Worst-Ever Era of American Pop Culture?
An emerging critical consensus argues that we’ve entered a cultural dark age. I’m not so sure.
The SNL Sketch That Captured Millennial Anxiety
The guest host Quinta Brunson was the perfect fit to introduce “Forever 31.”
Skin a Rabbit
A short story
The Most Infamous Narcissist in Literary History Gets a Smartphone
A new stage production of The Picture of Dorian Gray conveys the cost of posturing online.
Fox and Frenemy
Trump may lash out at the network. But the two will always make up.
Marvel Doesn’t Have to Try So Hard
The new film Thunderbolts* understands that bigger does not mean better.
The Jim Crow Economy Is the True Horror in Sinners
The film illustrates the near-impossibility of upward mobility during the segregation era.