World
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” Transcends the Holiday-Movie Genre
It wasn’t on my list of likely occurrences that a nostalgic and sentimental holiday movie would provide some of the year’s sharpest characterizations on film and also boast a...
The End of Kamala Harris’s Campaign
At nearly every Harris rally I attended, whether at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago or at an arena in Savannah, Georgia, a lone protester would stand up in...
Offering Dignity for Those Who Die Alone in “People Like Us”
Sonia Bermúdez divides her time between two cemeteries. In the town of Riohacha, Colombia, she manages the Central Cemetery, a quiet maze of white-walled mausoleums decorated with crosses and...
“A Real Pain” Fails to Stay in Its Discomfort Zone
A road movie with a twist, “A Real Pain”—which Jesse Eisenberg wrote, directed, and stars in—builds the eventful but thin foreground of its journey on a deep foundation of...
The Artificial State
“Jacob Javits of New York is the first United States senator to become fully automated,” the Chicago Tribune announced in 1962 from the Republican state convention in Buffalo, where...
Helen, Help Me: What If You’re Dining with a Jerk?
We don’t always get to choose our dining companions. What’s the right move when you’re seated next to a boor at a restaurant to which you’d like to return?...
Dorothy Parker and the Art of the Literary Takedown
When I think of Dorothy Parker’s hangovers, and I do, the image that comes to mind is that of the U.S.S. Arizona. A sunken battleship resting at the bottom...
How Far Can Political Ads Go to Swing the Vote?
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago—sun high, wind cool—I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the...
In “Juror #2,” Clint Eastwood Judges the System Harshly
It’s commonplace to acknowledge Clint Eastwood as one of the most distinctive and original political filmmakers. What’s surprising about his new film, “Juror #2,” is that the politics it...