Culture

Listening to a man you yourself find funny laugh at jokes you don’t get is, in retrospect, a master class in learning to read social cues.

The New York Times film critic on the mistrust of critical vocabulary, making a case for his own abilities, and Ratatouille. 

The rising influence of women in Indian film has been crucial to how their stories are told on and off-screen, putting more power into their hands. 

Following allegations of abuse, we often have conversations about “separating art from the artist.” But what if said art helped you through your own assault?

Bowie was the one who alerted me to pop as a medium, its shimmering fields of plastic. Even his most mercenary projects were sincere in the gesture’s moment.

Listening to Bowie gave you the strength to be strange. 

Bowie was a suave enigma who never quite cared about connecting—it hardly seems appropriate to mourn him as a flesh and blood human being. Yet the music he leaves behind has a life of its own.

A great heaving portion of pleasure comes from the mystery of sex. No wonder humans most often use metaphors to talk about fucking. 

The actor and writer joins us on the telephone from his Great Aunt Doris's home in Murray Hill.