Staff Reviews
The Milken Center in D.C is a shrine to capitalism
The brand-new Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream is weirdly evasive about capitalism's messy entanglement with the state. One might have expected that topic to come up, given the museum's location:…
‘Death by Lightning’ dramatizes James Garfield’s forgettable assassination
Mike Makowsky opens Death by Lightning, a four-part miniseries he wrote and produced, with a chilling line: "This is a true story about two men the world forgot. One was the 20th president of the United States. The other…
‘Muscle Man’ novel comments on men and weightlifting
In the years since the pandemic, weightlifting has frequently been associated with right-wing and even neofascist politics. In the media, guys—and it's always guys—who lift are regularly portrayed as authoritarian thugs,…
Review: Tron: Ares Reminds Us That Artificial Intelligence Is Not the Enemy
Will a hyperadvanced AI be a danger to humanity? That's nothing compared to the threat posed by military contractors. That's the implicit conclusion of Tron: Ares, the third installment in the series that began with…
‘The Sound of Music’ is an anti-authoritarian musical
The Kennedy Center hosted director Jack O'Brien's production of The Sound of Music from September to October. O'Brien's rendition left little to criticize: stunning sets, apt casting, and exquisite vocal…
Review: Wayward Spotlights the Dark Secrets of Troubled-Teen Programs
Netflix's Wayward follows Abbie and Leila, two best friends trying to escape Tall Pines Academy—a disciplinary boarding school in a small town—as well as Alex, a police officer who just moved to town with his wife. Abbie…
‘Project Mind Control’ book documents MKUltra project
Project Mind Control tells the lurid tale of the CIA's attempts to discover the scientific principles that would allow people to control subjects' thoughts and actions. The author, University of Texas historian John…
‘Tradecraft’ book chronicles John le Carré’s career
John le Carré's characters were the opposite of James Bond. Like Bond creator Ian Fleming, le Carré was a veteran British intelligence officer who wrote spy novels. But unlike Fleming's action hero, le Carré's…
‘The Paper’ parodies work at a struggling newspaper
Peacock attempted to recapture the magic of The Office in The Paper, a spin-off series set at a local newspaper. The mockumentary follows the travails of the Toledo Truth Teller, a once-thriving paper that now shares an…
Earth’ is a prequel to the 1979 movie
The 1979 movie Alien was part deep-space monster movie, part dystopian extrapolation of the era's economic concerns. The movie's main antagonist was a chest-bursting alien with acid for blood, but an all-powerful…
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