Visually, Mitchell’s images are sumptuous, stylish, and seductive, channelling the old-school photographic glamour epitomized by Richard Avedon, one of Mitchell’s idols. Conceptually, Mitchell’s work has its roots in his undergraduate education at N.Y.U. A mentor there was the artist and photographic historian Deborah Willis, whose scholarly excavations of photographs of Black beauty, stretching back to … Read more
The year’s best culinary titles include a food history of the United States, a guide to being an excellent dinner-party guest, and a collection of recipes that people decided to take to their graves.
Historically, medicine’s power rested on a specific kind of cultural authority—the ability to determine not only what diseases exist, who has them, and what to do about it, but also what counts as evidence or truth. In “The Social Transformation of American Medicine,” first published in 1983, the Princeton sociologist Paul Starr describes two pillars … Read more
Josh Safdie’s hectic new film “Marty Supreme,” set in 1952, mainly in New York, is, essentially, “Uncut Gems” but with a happy ending. That recklessly exuberant 2019 drama, which Safdie co-directed with his brother, Benny, stars Adam Sandler as a jewelry dealer in Manhattan and a compulsive gambler who takes thrilling risks to pay off … Read more
Modernists like Woolf developed an attitude, which T. S. Eliot called “impersonality,” meant to reclaim their mental lives from the habits they unknowingly followed. The philosopher Raymond Geuss has a story that captures the idea nicely. Geuss recalls a mentor—a school teacher of his—dispensing advice about becoming a visual artist. “Set aside half an hour … Read more
Also: Graciela Iturbide’s tranquil photographs of Mexico, Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson in “Song Sung Blue,” the coke-rap of Clipse, and more.
My habit of seeking out new music began with a few strokes of good luck. I grew up in a college town in the early to mid-nineties, during one of the golden eras of college radio. I spent a significant portion of my time with my ear pressed against a cheap hand-me-down AM/FM boom box, … Read more
In the Chinese director’s third feature, the pop idol Jackson Yee plays a shape-shifting dreamer who gets lost in a densely allusive maze of stories and genres.
Cross and Broderick here offer studies in otiose passivity. Each gets big laughs from portraying inertia: their performances abound in side-eyed glances and awkward pauses followed by “So . . .” These gags can be funny, but the propulsive mechanics of farce require more of a sense of movement. As in many Molière plays, the setting (designed here … Read more
“Pastoralia,” the title story in this collection, is about two people who work in a theme park, pretending to be cavemen. Like in “Atropia,” the main character is completely obsessed with maintaining authenticity, and is deeply frustrated by his co-worker, who is always breaking character, and by the inanity of the visitors who come and … Read more