The individualistic talents of the Pet Shop Boys
The eccentricity and idiosyncrasy of Britain’s most commercially successful duo should be cherished and extolled
Books and Arts
Wednesday
The new revival of The Wiz is psychologically bland
The original cultural punch of the 1970s production has been replaced with gaudy, empty commercialism
The digital Ozymandias: Egyptologist Peter Der Manuelian on his mission to make Giza last forever
‘I’d like to say we’re trying to be the repository for Giza’s past, Giza’s present and Giza’s future’
This month in culture: June 2024
Our guide to what should be on your radar
Tuesday
The wild times on the late, great John Belushi’s most famous film
Daniel de Visé’s entertaining — if that is the right word — canter through Belushi and Aykroyd’s lives and times covers a fair number of bases
The ups and downs of the long road toward workplace parity
Josie Cox has persuasively documented the steady but halting progress that women have made in the workplace
The talented Evan S. Connell
He might be the greatest American novelist you’ve never heard of
Gabriel García Márquez’s posthumously published novel is unconvincing
Until August has a curiously half-baked feel, as if it’s a souvenir of a great man’s legacy rather than a work in itself
A revelatory account of the post-war exploits of the House of Windsor
Alexander Larman’s Power and Glory is a tale of survival
Christopher Nolan, creator of worlds
The filmmaker has Hollywood at his feet
A cultural summer in the city
New York is great in summer, but the art scene can sometimes be fleeting
An Enemy of the People is hit-or-miss
The language itself — and the on-the-nose themes that Amy Herzog has unsubtly emphasized — feel like they could be sourced directly from Twitter/X
Sotheby’s latest gamble
The storied auction house is making a major change to its fee structure. What will it mean for the art world’s future?
Sunday
Where is the clarity in modern center-right foreign policy?
Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negrea suggest a response to the new isolationism that is essential for understanding contemporary foreign policy debates on the right
An impressive examination of the conjoined fates of Iraq and the United States
Steve Coll’s title alludes to Homer, and his subject matter has the arc of Greek tragedy
An unvarnished insight into the mind of Sonny Rollins
Even if jazz has developed stylistically in ways the jazz saxophonist might not have foreseen, its founding attitudes are enduring
A look into Billie Holiday’s final year
Paul Alexander is on a mission to correct what he sees as misrepresentations of the singer’s life and personality
Who’s afraid of Judith Butler?
The gender theorist’s first mainstream publication is unconvincing
The intriguing revival of the British gangster picture
It is unlikely that either Sexy Beast or The Gentlemen will have their legacies seriously challenged by the television series based on them
Reconsidering Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice
If the Thomas Pynchon novel adaptation has anything to say about the American dream, it is to mock its high-falutin’ nature