Memories of David Niven
I recall nothing of our lunch conversation, which has evaporated after fifty years. But I do have a clear memory of the icon of cinema
Books and Arts
Thursday
This month in culture: December 2024
What to watch this December
Barcelona turns thirty
Revisiting Whit Stillman’s sophomore picture
Monday
Bored of the rings: ‘wokery’ takes on Tolkien
The chief sin of Amazon’s The Rings of Power is that it is often simply dull
The powerful, brutal story of Polish resistance fighter Elżbieta Zawacka
In Agent Zo , Clare Mulley has written a thrilling, consistently tense page-turner
How music can be weaponized
Rebel Sounds is an uplifting compendium of hidden histories of those who have produced, performed and distributed music in times of war
The Position of Spoons is flawed but fascinating
Deborah Levy’s latest book is a sketch of the author in motion
Why Shakespeare remains the great playwright
Rhodri Lewis’s book offers so many fresh insights and well-turned phrases that I had to buy a new notebook to fit them all in
The real Kennedy men
Maureen Callahan challenges us to ask whether our American heroes are really who we think they are
How controversial is The Apprentice?
Abbasi’s heady weaving of the antic and the deadly serious may explain some of the criticism that’s been leveled at the film
Twenty-five years of Fight Club and American Beauty
What the notorious films have to say about masculinity in crisis?
War, one artwork at a time
Ukrainian nationals and their allies have been working tirelessly to promote the voices of a people under siege
A classic monument for World War One
Sabin Howard brings classicism back to the Mall
This month in culture: November 2024
What to watch this November
Thursday
Michael Richards’s memoir is heavier on introspection than laughs
Entrances and Exits shows the Seinfeld actor’s clever, energetic, dissatisfied, self-critical mind at work
Charles Baxter’s Blood Test is a necessary novel
The novel’s central conceit serves as a sharp satire of our data-driven, algorithmic age
Will Self’s impressive paean to his mother’s frustrating life in the US
In Elaine , Self has shown that understanding is possible, across generations and across time
Back to the birth of the Greenwich Village music scene
David Browne’s latest book pivots around 1961
Caligula’s second wind
The notorious film may be the most expensive, most unpleasant adult movie ever made
The world needs more Lars von Triers
The director has spent his time pushing the boundaries of cinema to the extreme