For the polymath, there is always a cardinal subject, a chief preoccupation around which all the other interests spin. For the fashion designer Virgil Abloh, the polymath of his cohort, who died on Sunday of a rare cardiac cancer, offensively…
In the first season of Terence Nance’s HBO series “Random Acts of Flyness,” from 2018, he makes use of the episodic nature of serial television to do what a narrative feature film can’t: by collaborating with other writers and directors,…
A family meal can have a certain magic. At the outset of Laura Gonçalves’s animated short “The Garbage Man,” a group of relatives gather around a table, and the conversation drifts—naturally, inevitably—to Manuel Botão, the filmmaker’s late uncle. Botão watches…
In January, 1977, while most Americans were busy watching “Roots,” seventeen thousand people convened in Lagos, Nigeria, for the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC). A monthlong extravaganza that featured delegations from more than fifty…
Quite a few lovers of English literature raised a glass—specifically a Macallan single malt Scotch with a dash of water—this past April. The occasion? The centennial of the birth of the greatest comic writer of his generation, and kingfish of…
Oh, the reality television we’ve seen! In the past couple of decades, we’ve had a show where complete strangers wed, in order to see whether they can grit their teeth and stay together (“Married at First Sight”); a show in…
Vinyl records have made a comeback in recent years, with music fans opting for the warm sound and tangible experience of vinyl over digital formats. According to a study, vinyl sales have grown steadily in recent years, and are now…
It was 1948 or so, and the comedy duo Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll faced a dilemma. Radio was no longer the nation’s dominant form of entertainment, and Gosden and Correll’s long-running program, “Amos ’n’ Andy,” about a…
Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The trend toward long movies has a commercial aspect and an artistic one, and occasionally, as in the new live-action version of “The Little Mermaid,” they converge. With heavy competition from…
One of the last videos taken of Elliott Smith shows him at the Fonda Theatre, in Los Angeles. He’s sitting in a metal stacking chair, wearing faded dark pants and a T-shirt that says “I 💔 METAL.” He’s slumped over…