Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
END “MORE ON” SINGLE STORY BOX v. 2 TriStar Pictures; Touchstone PicturesWhen Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers hit theaters 16 years ago today, most American critics slammed it. In the New York Times, Janet Maslin panned the “crazed, lurid spectacle,” as featuring “raunchiness tailor-made for teen-age boys.” Jeff Vice, in the Deseret News, called it “a…
Photo Credit Christophe Vorlet It is hard to avoid the feeling that our current economic problems are more than just a cyclical downturn. We know that the economy has gone through some bad times. But what exactly are we experiencing? One relatively optimistic view is that observed deficiencies — like slow growth in real wages…
Taylor Swift premiered her star-studded, futuristic, neo-noir video Sunday night at the Billboard Music Awards after a highly publicized teaser campaign on her social media sites. Sidebar Everything We Know About Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood’ Video » As promised, Selena Gomez, Kendrick Lamar, Jessica Alba, Lena Dunham, Ellie Goulding, Hayley Williams and others in Swift’s…
For thousands of years, religious people have gathered together in houses of worship to sing songs, celebrate sacred rituals, and lift up prayers to God(s) on high. And on July 1, a new religious group in Indiana intends to do just that — but with a lot more emphasis on the “high” part. A little…
It turns out that one of the Grand Old Party’s biggest—and least discussed—challenges going into 2016 is lying in plain sight, written right into the party’s own nickname. The Republican Party voter is old—and getting older, and as the adage goes, there are two certainties in life: Death and taxes. Right now, both are enemies…
There was a moment when it looked as if both Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney would be running for president. Then, apparently, meetings were convened in the modern-day equivalent of smoke-filled rooms, and Romney decided to bow out, allowing Bush to be the graybeard choice of the party Establishment. More and more, it seems as…
It’s been over two decades since CGI came careening through the silver screen to murder cops, lawyers, and other civil servants in Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park. Since then, both films have been praised for their inexplicably realistic effects, even though both movies have birthed a handful of sequels with much more powerful special effects…
WHEN our family moved from the West Village to the Upper East Side in 2004, seeking proximity to Central Park, my in-laws and a good public school, I thought it unlikely that the neighborhood would hold any big surprises. For many years I had immersed myself — through interviews, reviews of the anthropological literature and…
Credit: Vittorio Zu Salma Hayek is my new heroine. This morning at the Kering Talks (Kering is a sponsor of the festival and Hayek’s husband François-Henri Pinault is the CEO) this woman dropped epic truth bombs for about an hour. Her co-speaker Matthias Schoenaerts didn’t get to say much but his performances are speaking for him; I saw…
I wrote earlier today about my frustrations with The Simpsons‘ voice work, which has become the least interesting part of a show that’s doing its best to creatively tread water. A number of people have already responded that the solution to the show’s casting problems is for The Simpsons to finally end. That almost happened in…