World
The Torment of a Neighbor’s Noise in “Beeps”
Kirk Johnson’s documentary short follows two young men, one of whom is driven to distraction by a nearby dying smoke alarm, on their quest to make things right. ...
How Much Should You Know About Your Child Before He’s Born?
When the writer Amanda Hess was twenty-nine weeks pregnant with her first child, her doctor, looking at an ultrasound, “saw something he did not like.” He suspected a rare...
Who Wants a Second Helping of “The Wedding Banquet”?
It takes a while for “The Wedding Banquet,” Ang Lee’s 1993 hit romantic comedy, to get to the big event of the title, but it’s worth the wait. The...
The Powerful Films of the L.A. Rebellion
In the nineteen-seventies, U.C.L.A.’s Ethno-Communications program, founded to increase minority enrollment, attracted a critical mass of young Black filmmakers. They quickly began to make a widely varied range of...
London Theatre Shimmers with Mirrors and Memory
Long before Richard II ran afoul of mutinous nobles, and almost two centuries before Shakespeare wrote Richard’s portrait in majestic verse, the King took refuge in the Tower. Near...
Kurt Weill Kept Reinventing Himself
“Music is no longer a matter for the few,” Kurt Weill declared in 1928, the year he wrote “The Threepenny Opera.” In Weill’s opinion, composers educated in the classical...
“The Handmaid’s Tale” Reflects the Exhaustion of Liberal Feminism
You almost forget that Elisabeth Moss can smile. The lead actor on Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” now in its sixth and final season, spent much of her screen time...
