Film & TV
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Stories of revolution have long faced the struggle of delivering a message meant to agitate through a medium designed to satisfy and entertain.
Oliver Stevens
Oliver Stevens is a graduate of Hamilton College with honors in Cinema and Media Studies, a connoisseur of minor league baseball, and a recently converted devotee of döner kebabs.
Film & TV
Anxiety is the Cinematic Spirit of the 2020s
Artists like Nathan Fielder and Tim Robinson are playing out our social fears on the screen, and the results are equal parts hilarious and disturbing.
Film & TV
Movies Are Better When They Know How to Shut Up
Dialogue is great. We all love dialogue. But when movies let it go, they can ascend to even greater, more distinctly cinematic heights.
Weekly Newsletter
The Cartoon That Predicted 2025
Nearly 100 years later, she remains louder, bolder, and stranger than ever. Plus: Grizzly Man, Art Basel, UT Austin Research, and more.
Film & TV
What Grizzly Man Tells Us About Creating Our Own Meaning
Is Timothy Treadwell, as presented in Werner Herzog's documentary, a role model or a cautionary tale? In fact, he's both at the same time.
Movies used to be sexy without trying, now they aren’t. What changed?
Casual eroticism that took sex as intrinsically valuable has disappeared from the movies. What made it vanish and how might it come back?
Film & TV
The Doctrines and Debauchery of Baseball and Pool
In Bull Durham and The Color of Money, sports are sex, success is self-discipline, and serenity is surrender.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Anatomy of a Perfect Fight Scene
There are flashy fights and there are story-driven fights. In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, we get a fight that does both.
Docking With the Future
In comparable scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Interstellar, we see how science fiction has evolved in what it holds important.
How to Make a Great Title
Get right to the point or go for something poetic? Deliver the plot or try to encapsulate the themes? There are many ways a title can be effective.
Film & TV
What Does “Greatest Movie of All Time” Mean, Exactly?
We have an obsession with lists and aggregated polls that crown a single film as the champion of the art form, but we think precious little about what we mean by that prestigious label.
Film & TV
Sinners and the Dangers of Integration
Ryan Coogler's bluesy horror shows us that fusing cultures together often means suffocating the less privileged one.