New York

Hats off to the guy on 6th Ave talking on the giant 1980s cellphone. Or maybe hats on. I haven’t decided. Stand by.

In 1967, Terence Young, director of several 007 movies, gave us Wait Until Dark, in which a blind woman is terrorized in her home by criminals who believe their contraband is hidden there. Its title, a command, refers both to its villains’ nocturnal scheming and to its heroine finding empowerment in her disability.

In 2016, Mike Flanagan, whose Oculus was a modest horror hit, gave us Hush, in which a deaf woman is terrorized in… See more →

In 2013, Edward Snowden provided proof that the American government’s scope of surveillance around the world – including its own citizenry – was even more massive and pernicious than most of us thought. The revelation landed, more or less, with a thud, largely because much of the news media focused more on the size of the leak than the substance of it.

This wasn’t without reason.

With the increasing overreach of the Patriot Act and… See more →

Written documentation of last night’s Wolves in the Throne Room fan who solemnly held aloft a single invisible orange for several minutes.

“Dude, you have orange earplugs! I hate orange. I like green!” says the smiling guy at this show with a novel approach to making friends.

Yeah, so @TheActualMuffs kicked all of the asses tonight, so wherever you are, if your ass is hurting, there it is.

I am just about ready to write a lengthy, diagram-heavy essay on the lack of a communally understood etiquette for standing in subway doors.

When you realize that you accidentally gave a tourist bad directions, and it kinda ruins your day.

I’ll be at @TypographicsNYC on Friday and Saturday. Say hello if you see me!

The aforementioned building is apparently actually known as the Police Building Apartments. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/240_Centr…

Lately my favorite part of my commute is passing the Chinatown Planning Council building. google.com/maps/@40.72057…

My block just got NYC’s new LED street lights, which is good news for anyone with a burning desire to see my neighborhood from outer space.

Beiber show in my hood tonight. Easily accessible via Long Island Railroad and 11 subway lines. The night air is a cacophony of car horns.

☔️

Spike Lee’s block party honoring Prince is the first thing I’ve smiled at all day.

Spike Lee and friends celebrate Prince. 💜

Spike Lee’s Prince block party. 💜

Taking a slightly different route home tonight.

The regrettable two-handed nature of the post-iPhone 6 landscape has infected the NYC subway with a wicked scourge of pole-huggers.

Big congrats to the @saintvitusbar crew on their fifth anniversary! They’ve created a truly special place. villagevoice.com/music/greenpoi…

Midnight Special is a road movie, and the bulk of its story takes place in the rear-view mirror. Who is this kid, and what are the extent and origin of his strange powers? Why are he and his family being relentlessly pursued by a religious cult and the FBI? Where are they going, and why? Amid the frenetic chase, Midnight Special selectively doles out backstory with patient precision, which makes it quite compelling early on,… See more →

Waiting to see Midnight Special at @nitehawkcinema. I know absolutely nothing about this movie.

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee!

On my second viewing of The Witch, I found a lot more to chew on, thanks in large part to the perspective afforded me by Katy Waldman’s analysis in Slate, especially this bit about the ending:

I can’t overstate just how shocking this moment feels, when you realize that the movie has up until now perpetrated a fundamental deception about its own point of view. All along, [director Robert] Eggers has stood on the Devil’s… See more →

NYC’s latest tourist destination dessert is basically the milkshake equivalent of The Homer.

Just saw a fascinating presentation from @Adrian_Benepe, former NYC Parks Commissioner now leading The Trust for Public Land (@tpl_org).

Hundreds of rock shows have surely wreaked havoc on my ears over the years, but maybe not so much as the screeching wheels of the C train.

I walked into the theater with my skin practically peeled back in invitation, but The Witch just couldn’t quite get under it, and I’m not sure why. The film is exquisitely crafted, with thoughtful attention to period details, desaturated cinematography that is underlit to terrific effect, and a spare, dread-inducing score. The script is an often compelling examination of a deteriorating family, and how communal isolation intensifies the ill effects of religious fervor and gender… See more →

As successfully as any film I can recall, Carol captures the desperation that accompanies falling in love, and its fuzzy 16 mm rendering gives it the feel of a memory whose potency is undiminished by distance.

As I’ve mentioned before, I am wary of the seductive power of nostalgia. The original Star Wars trilogy loomed so large in my generation’s childhood that any meaningful attempt to revive it was going to be met with uncritical optimism. So as I cheered along with a packed theater on the opening night of The Force Awakens, I remembered that I had done much the same thing sixteen years earlier for The Phantom Menace, which,… See more →

Stop toying with me, ticket stub!

On an emotional level, the aspect of Spotlight that had the biggest impact on me was its journalists’ team dynamic, and the team’s (mostly) unfailing trust in each other to do the job right, even in the middle of the highest-stakes investigation of their careers. In a discussion about the film, this was described with a colloquialism I hadn’t heard before, and which I found too perfect not to make a note of here: competence… See more →