“Beef,” “The Drama,” and the New Marriage Plot
In 2019, marriage rates in the United States hit their lowest point in a hundred and forty years. They still haven’t rebounded. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and A...
16 Apr 53min
The Guilty Pleasure of the Heist
Last fall, a group of masked men broke into the Louvre in broad daylight and made off with some of France’s crown jewels. The stunt swiftly became an online phenomenon. On this episode of Critics at L...
9 Apr 49min
“DTF St. Louis” and the New Story of the Suburbs
In the new HBO miniseries “DTF St. Louis,” Jason Bateman plays a weatherman living with his wife and kids in a sleepy town just outside of St. Louis. He befriends a coworker, Floyd Smernitch (David Ha...
2 Apr 52min
The Soft Power of BTS
The K-pop group BTS—by many metrics, the most popular band of all time—had a meteoric ascent before its members were called away by mandatory South Korean military service. Now, nearly four years late...
26 Mars 50min
“Love Story” and Why We Cling to the Kennedy Myth
“Love Story,” an FX series produced by Ryan Murphy, drops audiences straight into the lives of one of the most talked-about couples of the nineties: J.F.K., Jr., and the style icon Carolyn Bessette. O...
12 Mars 55min
The Hall of Fame—and of Shame—of Oscars Hosts
On this episode of Critics at Large, with the ninety-eighth Academy Awards just around the corner, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by their fellow staff writer Michael ...
5 Mars 53min
Critics at Large Live: “Wuthering Heights” and Its Afterlives
When Emily Brontë published “Wuthering Heights,” in 1847, critics were baffled, alarmed, and mostly unimpressed. James Lorimer, writing in the North British Review, promised that the novel would “neve...
26 Feb 53min
The Truth of Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison was many things in her lifetime—Nobel laureate, renowned author, Princeton professor, and generous mentor to young writers. Her appeal translated seamlessly to the internet, where old in...
19 Feb 55min
