A deep dive into the Bridgerton season 2 craze and Pride and Prejudice (2005). The recent release of the second season of the popular Netflix show, Bridgerton, has broken my brain. Based on the paperback romance novels by Julia Quinn, the show has audiences and entertainment news outlets hailing its modern tone embedded within the […]
Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin Perhaps no other author has painted a whole portrait of a young man as James Baldwin has in Go Tell It on the Mountain. Baldwin begins and ends the story with John Grimes, the stepson of a violently abusive Baptist preacher, on the day of his […]
Anatomy of a Fall dir. Justine Triet The first half of Anatomy of a Fall, the recent film from French writer and director Justine Triet, tells you many times over what it will not do. When the central character (and suspect) Sandra tells her lawyer Vincent that she is innocent, he says (if a little […]
At the beginning of the new year, our writers gathered to discuss our reading goals for 2024, and the conversation devolved from there. Here is a brief collection and transcription of our discussion. It has been edited for length and clarity. EU: Eugene EL: Elise P: Peyton On reading goals: EU: In terms of reading […]
“Change” by Big Thief I listened to the album Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You by Big Thief for the first time earlier this month and its first track, “Change,” just hit the hardest for me. Adrianne Lenker’s voice is beautiful–lingering and haunting–as she contemplates what change looks like at different levels and […]
The Devil’s Plan, Netflix My favorite game show ever–and what I believe to be the best reality TV show ever made–is The Genius, a South Korean show that aired for four seasons in 2013-2015. The Devil’s Plan, a 2023 Netflix show, was created by the same showrunner and acts as the unofficial sequel and inheritor […]
Speed (1994) dir. Jan de Bont I cannot talk about Speed without talking about Los Angeles. On screen LA is represented frequently but not accurately—it is often the site of the apocalyptic, the superficial and fake, or it acts as a synecdoche for the Hollywood industry. I am not a stickler for realism in my […]
Close Read has been writing and recommending for a year now, and what is the one month we skipped? The one month that represents two of our writers (not a small number–that’s 66.66666etc of staff)? We were so focused on finding something different to write about for Pride that we never wrote, well, anything. (What […]
Without consulting each other, our authors watched a different Wong Kar-wai film and then chose it as their recommendations. What can we say? We were in that romantic August mood. In the Mood for Love (2000) written & directed by Wong Kar-wai This movie has been on a to-watch list for a while, and it […]
EVERGREEN by PVRIS It’s hard to determine which PVRIS single is the best forerunner to their new album EVERGREEN. Was it “Monster,” which uses similar distorted guitars and vocals? Was it “My Way,” the lyrics and title of which make clear the manner frontwoman Lynn Gunn has chosen for her sound: “My my my way […]
Game Changer via Dropout The comfort of the game show is that you have the same set-up every time. Perhaps, like your classic game shows, you keep spinning the wheel and asking for vowels. Or perhaps the challenge changes every episode, but they’re all still based in physicality or strategy, all working within the same […]
