The AtlanticWatchmen Watchmen Is a Blistering Modern AllegoryThe Atlantic - Sophie GilbertThe new HBO series is a stunning, timely departure from its graphic-novel origins. HBO’s Watchmen is the strangest show to come to TV in a minute: the kind of fictional world where FBI agents carry locked
The AtlanticCulture The Genre-Defying Singer Inspired by Japanese FunkThe Atlantic - Hannah GiorgisBerhana, the Atlanta musician behind 2016’s “Janet,” talks about incorporating diverse geographic influences in his debut album, HAN. When Berhana, the 27-year-old singer born Amain Berhane, finished film
The AtlanticCulture The Books Briefing: Trapped in a World That Uber BuiltThe Atlantic - Sarah HolderThe seeds that could grow into the dystopias of tomorrow are being planted right now. Your weekly guide to the best in books. At CityLab, The Atlantic’s sibling site, we write about people in cities and
The AtlanticLighthouses A Man Moves Into a Lighthouse. Strangeness Ensues.The Atlantic - David SimsRobert Eggers’s new film, starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, is an enthralling exploration of the mania of isolation. Through almost every moment of The Lighthouse, there’s a howling noise in
The AtlanticCulture Why Season 2 of Succession Was So ExtraordinaryThe Atlantic - Sophie GilbertThe HBO show had teased a “blood sacrifice” in its thrilling season finale, and it didn’t disappoint. This article contains spoilers through the finale of Succession Season 2. Water is never a good omen
The AtlanticJojo Rabbit Jojo Rabbit Is a Fraught Tonal ExperimentThe Atlantic - David SimsTaika Waititi tries to balance zany comedy and grim realism in his new coming-of-age film set in Nazi Germany. He doesn’t quite succeed. Is Hitler funny? Yes, that Hitler, the one who presided over an
The AtlanticWashington Nationals The Washington Nationals’ Persistence Paid OffThe Atlantic - Robert O'ConnellBreaking a pattern of first-round heartbreak, the decade’s most downtrodden playoff team finds itself in the World Series. The Washington Nationals took the fast track to ignominy. Baseball lore favors
The AtlanticCulture Two Ways of Looking at The Terror: Infamy’s FinaleThe Atlantic - Nancy MatsumotoAMC’s series about the Japanese American internment ends with a message about the importance of remembering the past. But it forgets the historical horror at the heart of the show. The best scene in AMC’s
The AtlanticCulture Disney Delivers a Truly Bizarre Sleeping Beauty SequelThe Atlantic - David SimsMaleficent: Mistress of Evil probably shouldn’t exist, but it is at least transfixing and stars a genuinely charismatic Angelina Jolie. The first Maleficent film, released in 2014, offered a storytelling
The AtlanticCulture Keep Your ‘Frenemies’ CloserThe Atlantic - Ben ZimmerA newcomer used the term in a presidential debate for the first time ever—and it turned out to be the most apt descriptor of the night. At last night’s Democratic presidential debate, the candidate who
The AtlanticCulture One More Thought on Succession’s Ridiculous BanterThe Atlantic - Spencer Kornhaber“I’m saying this, but I don’t believe it.” Kendall Roy, in the Season 2 finale, summed up what makes the show such brilliant satire. All he had to do was say yes. But when a congressional hearing opened
The AtlanticJulie Andrews The Charming Candor of Julie Andrews’s New MemoirThe Atlantic - Sophie GilbertIn Home Work, the legendary actor comes to terms with an acting career she couldn’t always control. In 1971 the actor Julie Andrews and her husband, the director Blake Edwards, went to a party hosted a
The AtlanticCulture How Bong Joon-ho Invented the Weird World of ParasiteThe Atlantic - David Sims“It all came to me, and I wrote like it was a hurricane.” Bong Joon-ho never met a genre he couldn’t subvert. For almost 20 years, the South Korean director has been making movies that span every category.
The AtlanticPhilip Pullman Philip Pullman’s Problem With GodThe Atlantic - James ParkerIn His Dark Materials, now an HBO series, the author takes on organized religion. It’s not a fair fight. In a bone-picking mood, I will sometimes imagine that I have a problem with the English writer Pullman,
The AtlanticCulture If You Could Go Back in Time and Change One Thing, What Would It Be?The AtlanticI wish that Radical Reconstruction had been made a reality after the end of the Civil War. This would have entailed the promised 40-acre land grants to the formerly enslaved, their right to full political
The AtlanticCulture Chinese Rappers Will Not Be SilencedThe Atlantic - Emily BuderIn 2017, the television series Rap of China debuted to 100 million views in the first four hours of its release. Prior to the show, rap had existed in China only in underground circles; it had become overnight.
The AtlanticWoody Harrelson Woody Harrelson Is a Surprisingly Effective Joe Biden for SNLThe Atlantic - David SimsThe Cheers actor’s impression of the former vice president this season is less friendly and more glossy than the show’s previous attempts. When Saturday Night Live debuted Alec Baldwin’s impression of
The AtlanticCulture The Bodily Horrors of SuccessionThe Atlantic - Megan GarberInfestation. Insects. Ointment. This is not the stuff you might expect from a work of prestige TV that takes extreme wealth as its subject. Late in Season 2 of Succession, HBO’s satirical dramedy about
The AtlanticCulture Ways of BeingThe Atlantic - Stephanie BurtAssigned one gender at birth, we’d felt like the other since childhood. That feeling—which had nothing to do with sexual desire—grew until life in the wrong gender seemed not worth living. So we came as
The AtlanticDebbie Harry Debbie Harry Stares BackThe Atlantic - Spencer KornhaberThe Blondie singer’s memoir, Face It, wryly recounts making the most of being ogled. After speeding through Debbie Harry’s eventful life in just 245 pages, the Blondie singer’s memoir, Face It, in its
The AtlanticCulture The King Sacrifices the Best of Fact and FictionThe Atlantic - David SimsDavid Michôd’s rendering of the saga of Henry V sacrifices both the realism the director wants to convey and the humor of Shakespeare’s plays. The epic cycle of Shakespeare’s Henriad is a narrative feat
The AtlanticCulture The Jussie Smollett Episode of Law & Order: SVU Was Surprisingly NuancedThe Atlantic - Hannah GiorgisThe show turned a sensational real-life case into a story about the rarity of false reporting and the importance of having compassion for victims. It’s been nearly nine months since the Empire actor and
The AtlanticNews (Hong Kong) The Books Briefing: The Revolution Will Be Written AboutThe Atlantic - Rosa Inocencio Smith“Show me what democracy looks like.” Your weekly guide to the best in books. As mass pro-democracy demonstrations continue to rock Hong Kong and student-led strikes around the world call for action against
The AtlanticJesse Pinkman What the Breaking Bad Film Gets Right About JesseThe Atlantic - Shirley LiEl Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie gives him a ruminative and riveting send-off. This review contains light spoilers for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and major spoilers for the Breaking Bad series. In
The AtlanticCulture The Most Unique Golf Course in the WorldThe Atlantic - Emily BuderMost golf courses look the same: large, bright-green stretches of closely cropped lawns, flanked by lush vegetation and peppered with ponds and sand-filled bunkers. Golfers drive around the courses in
The AtlanticCulture Deborah Levy’s Disorienting, Captivating FictionThe Atlantic - Rachel DonadioThe British novelist’s wry books veer from concrete realism to fractured blends of dream and memory. In her autobiographical essay Things I Don’t Want to Know (2013), the British novelist, playwright,
The AtlanticJoe Maddon Joe Maddon Was Doomed by His Own SuccessThe Atlantic - David BaumgartenThe Chicago Cubs say goodbye to the manager who led them to their first World Series victory in 108 years. Over a century and a half marked primarily by disappointment, the Chicago Cubs have fired their
The AtlanticBong Joon-ho The Less You Know About Parasite, the BetterThe Atlantic - David SimsBut if you want to read something about the best film of the year so far, you could do worse than this review. “If I had all this, I would be kinder.” So says Kim Ki-taek (played by Song Kang-ho), one
The AtlanticJane Austen Restoring the Sex and Rage to Jane AustenThe Atlantic - Helen LewisA new wave of adaptations is uncovering a hidden side of the novelist. Demand for Jane Austen far exceeds supply. When the novelist died in 1817 at the age of 41, she left only six full-length novels,
