Arts Archives

This Christmas, listen to Mary Did You Know?

Trads and progressive Christians alike wrongfully criticize this powerful song

December 18, 2025

Does Spielberg’s new movie have real UFOs?

Steven Spielberg might be the most beloved and popular American director of the 20th century, but it is also unavoidably the case that, since 2005’s Munich, he has been on something of a disappointing run. While many of his films, not least The Fabelmans and West Side Story, have been critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated, there

December 17, 2025

Nicholas Lynch

Have Americans lost their sense of humor?

Books and Arts

Humor has become serious business. A nation of anxious primates trapped in a silicon casino of likes, retweets and dopamine-soaked drudgery, America is suffering from what the comedian Norm Macdonald called a “crisis of clapter.” Terrified of saying the wrong thing, needing punchlines to be spoon-fed – what was once the funniest place on Earth

Diane Cole

In defense of Renoir’s pretty pictures

Books and Arts

Those who think it’s chic to dismiss Renoir have a rethink coming, courtesy of the absorbing, highly informative exhibit Renoir Drawings, now on view in New York. Not so long ago, the idea of ousting Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) from the canon of western art sparked a movement of sorts. “RENOIR SUCKS AT PAINTING,” proclaimed a protester’s

Julia Friedman

What monuments stand to teach Americans about themselves

Books and Arts

Why do we raise monuments? Why do we tear them down? These questions hover over MONUMENTS, now on view at Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art and the Brick. The premise is straightforward enough: gather the remains of America’s shattered sculptural conscience – decommissioned Confederate statues and their graffiti-marred plinths – and display them alongside

Alexander Larman

Arcade Fire extinguished

Books and Arts

Amid the many disappointments and commercial flops the music industry saw this year, perhaps the most egregious was the complete failure of Arcade Fire’s album Pink Elephant. The failure represents not merely the probable end of the band, but also the death of Obama-era rock. Pink Elephant received dismal reviews and didn’t even chart on the Billboard

Isaac Sligh

When Dylan went folk

Books and Arts

For all the billions Taylor Swift has made from guiding her career into carefully delineated “eras,” it was Bob Dylan who pioneered this career path. With practically every new album, Dylan traded one persona for another. There’s the folkie hobo of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the pill-popping beat poet of Blonde on Blonde, the cleaned-up country crooner

December 16, 2025

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

The new Tom Hanks play is a drag

This World of Tomorrow is a waste of time travel

Tom Hanks in This World of Tomorrow (Photo: Marc J. Franklin)

December 15, 2025

Alexander Larman

RIP Rob Reiner

Remember him for his great works, not his horrific end

December 13, 2025

Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore

Liberation is a witty, genuine snapshot of second-wave feminism

Books and Arts

In the second act of Liberation the main cast quietly, and without fuss, starts to undress. By the time the lights go up, all six women are naked. In this masterful play by Bess Wohl, the moment does not feel shocking or gratuitous but somehow comforting. In 1970s Ohio, a group of women meet weekly

Peter Jones

Stoppard, Sappho and me

Books and Arts

Many years ago, and well retired, I was working in my study at home when the phone rang and a voice said, “This is Tom Stoppard. David West put me onto you.” David was the professor of Latin at Newcastle University and it emerged that Tom used him when he had queries about Latin, but