Culture

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story “We’re a vanishing breed,” Lombroso’s grandmother told him. “So, if you want to do this, you’d better hurry.” A week after Donald Trump won the Presidency, I sat in a folding…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Some of the main conflicts in Todd Haynes’s new film, “May December” (which opens Friday), are practically shouted from behind the camera, and they drown out other ones on which the…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story A few years back, I returned from a trip to Rome with a coffee-table book of photographs of the city taken over the decades. In the months that followed, I leafed…

Master and Commander: Far Side of the World is slavish to reality in trivialities, and pure fantasy in much greater, more complicated matters. Credit: Julio Nayan How I long for a good new movie. I can only watch the good…

Peter Weir’s cult classic suggests that something is lost in a world without hierarchy. When Robert Peel was appointed Under-Secretary for war and the colonies for Great Britain in 1810, in the middle of the greatest war it had seen,…

 Master and Commander’s box office failure was a harbinger of the cultural decline to come. Credit: Comefilm I like to think that I first saw Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World under near ideal circumstances—ideal…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story In December of 2021, Jaswant Singh Chail, a nineteen-year-old in the United Kingdom, told a friend, “I believe my purpose is to assassinate the queen of the royal family.” The friend…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Alex BaraschCulture editor You’re reading the Goings On newsletter, a guide to what we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. Last year,…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyYou’re reading the Food Scene newsletter, Helen Rosner’s guide to what, where, and how to eat. Sign up to receive it in your in-box. Some skepticism is warranted whenever a restaurant has…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story When Britney Jean Spears was sixteen years old, she put on a pleated skirt and channelled an archetype: the schoolgirl, underage temptress. It was a persona Spears wore like a polyester…