PEN15 always captured my own distinct subspecies of early-‘00s teenage awkwardness with horrifying and delightful accuracy, but I don’t know if it got sadder in 2020 or if I did. Read More
PositionContributing Editor
JoinedFebruary 23, 2018
Articles12
The best sports documentaries are those that remind us that these sweeping cultural legends center around protagonists who share our mundane flaws, who disappoint those they care about, who aren’t immunized against suffering and self-sabotage any more than the rest of us normals. Read More
It’s brilliant, on a meta level, to let Molly's Game falter for the same reasons Molly does. Read More
Nicole Holofcener's Enough Said, a quiet, charming romantic comedy, is also the most stressful movie ever committed to film. Read More
Instead of taking issue with the facts of what Frank Sheeran tells us, The Irishman unravels the way he positions himself within his account. Read More
I avoided both Heat and Jackie Brown until 2019. I recognize that this is irrational self-sabotage. It is, in this case, especially irrational behavior given that my number-one all-time celebrity crush is mid-‘90s Robert De Niro. Read More
Broadcast News presents adulthood as an exercise in weathering the relentless sensation of being not-quite-enough and not-quite-right. Read More
It’s not death and disaster and grievous harm that incite my anxiety if I consume too many consecutive episodes of ER—it’s the randomness of those things, the way the show forces me to grapple with the uncontrollability of our physical and psychic vulnerabilities, and the fact that pain is an inevitable consequence of having a human body. Read More
The meals in Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child and Landline are not extravagant as dining experiences, but they are meaningful as relational ones: small, comforting rituals that provide a moment of constancy amidst chaos. Read More
Karen Hill's development is the backbone of Goodfellas, the piece that enables much of its thematic and emotional heft. Read More
To this day, whenever I meet someone else who loves Drop Dead Gorgeous, I know we’ll get along. Read More
Arrival is as much about the value of working to understand an unfamiliar other as it is about working to be understood. Read More