Новости за 11.01.2017

It’s our first show of 2017 and our very special 50th episode, in which we answer a ton of questions from you, our lovely, wonderful listeners, because there are no interesting new movies being released (sorry, Monster Trucks), and because it’s not time for Oscar nominations yet.

Thus! We answer your questions about what’s acceptable to snack on in a movie theater, what we’ll remember Tom Cruise for, what we think really happened at the end of The Lobster, what bad movie we would remake... Читать дальше...

We know you’re still getting caught up on the big Oscar contenders, but 2017 is here and we’re already blown away by some of the offerings on the schedule. Since last year was a particularly excellent year for movies, 2017 has a lot to live up to. Here are ten films we’re looking forward to this year.

Vsevolod Mikhailovich Garshin, by Ilia Efimovich Repin, 1884.The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Humanities Fund Inc., 1972.

Charles Dickens was paid by the word. This was junior high, we were reading A Tale of Two Cities, and this fact, when it was first uttered, raced like a rumor through the classroom, overtaking everything. Suddenly, every other word in Dickens’s novel seemed like unnecessary padding, every sentence overstuffed, wasteful, filled with excessive detail. It didn’t matter... Читать дальше...

Alienation is as old as storytelling itself. In earlier days, we used to explore our feelings of isolation and disconnection through salivating monsters, because we used to think about the monster as a figure that hovered at the edges of human society, looking in. In Beowulf, Grendel hears the humans celebrate indoors while he mopes around the moors, alone. Frankenstein’s monster lurks outside a peasant family’s house, only to be driven away when they catch sight of him. In the stories we told ourselves... Читать дальше...

Meryl Streep’s rebuke of Donald Trump during the Golden Globes ceremony on Sunday has revived the familiar complaint, heard from the left and right, that Hollywood’s liberalism hurts the Democratic Party. In Jacobin, Eileen Jones argued that Streep “strikes me as about the worst possible spokesperson imaginable for the Left in an era of working-class rage, so naturally she’s embraced even more tightly by liberals doubling down on their delusional Clinton Democrat worship.” National Review’s David... Читать дальше...

“What can I do?”

That plaintive cry for guidance continues to echo throughout Liberal America. There is no perfect course of action. Many will protest on the streets, starting with next week’s inauguration. Online petitions will pile up. Congressional offices may find their phones ringing off the hook. Some citizen-activists will take bigger leaps, campaigning for their favored candidates in the midterm elections, or even running for office themselves.

All are fine ways to participate in our democracy. Читать дальше...