Culture

True Detective is Headed Somewhere, Isn’t It?

So, seven episodes of True Detective down, one to go. I don’t entirely know where we’ve been. I have no idea where we’re headed. I guess I know where I am right now, but that could be a lie.

From Hardcore to Oysters on the Lower East Side

Victim in Pain, the debut album by New York’s Agnostic Front, turns 30 this year. At just over 15 minutes, it’s the perfect product of a fraught time and perilous place—an essential document of a Lower East Side that is, for better or worse, unrecognizable today.

Oscar’s Best Songs vs. Billboard’s Number Ones

At this Sunday’s Academy Awards, Pharrell could become the first musician to win an Oscar for Best Original Song while atop the Billboard charts. The Academy and the People tend to diverge on greatness in music—whose taste is superior? We investigate.

The Endangered Art of the Movie Novelization

Most aspiring scribes don’t dream of writing, say, the novel version of Man of Steel, any more than movie buffs dream of reading it. But the best novelizers in the game can speak to the art of translating a film into a new medium, and fan boys can speak to the fruits of their efforts.