Criticism
||||
Kidnapping, Probing, Impregnation: How Men Become the Victims in Alien Horror Movies
As a horror aficionado, I have to admit that I struggle to watch alien horror movies. I don’t love the—often terrible—CGI when the alien is revealed in all its weird, usually pale and oddly skinny glory. But more than that, I cringe in the anticipation of what has become akin to a joke: they’re going to be probed.
My Semi-Analog Week
In the spring, while writing about the influence of multitasking on content production, I stumbled across a horrific little study. Meant to explore the neural processes associated with media multitasking, the study observed that individuals who tend to spend more time consuming multiple forms of media simultaneously often have “smaller gray matter density.”
Big Moods, Big Ideas, and, Occasionally, Big Mistakes
There is something almost charming about Maggie when she is in a “big mood.” She is funny and magnetic, full of ideas that seem brilliant (well, mostly to her) because she is so convinced of them. In the opening scenes, she moves through the world with the kind of confidence that can make recklessness look like spontaneity and impulsivity look like freedom. It is easy to understand why people love her, but past the first episode, it is also easy to understand why loving her can become exhausting.
It’s Alive! How International Horror Movies Are Brought Back to Life for the American Audience
What’s more classic to the horror movie genre than scream queens, final girls, calls coming from inside the house, or bloody murders? Remaking all of them. No other film genre sees such blatant repetition as horror. Classic, popular horror monsters get pulled like taffy and stretched across prequels, sequels, remakes, reboots, and reimaginings with little regard to canon or past lore. While this fad is never-ending in horror, the early 2000s saw the biggest boom in horror movie remakes.
Emotionally Charged Canvas: Artificial Intelligence and Technology’s Impact on Abstract Art
While, yes, if you asked someone to replicate a Rothko painting, they probably could get close to the original work, but the true meaning of abstract art doesn’t lie in technique.
My Two Cents on 50 Cent
In October of 2025, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was sentenced to 50 months in prison. The gust of media attention on the international case came to an abrupt halt. His sexually exploitative conduct had been established, Cassie had gotten justice, and another rich, powerful man had been exposed in the seemingly dark underbelly of the Elite’s depraved sexual proclivities.
The magic of reading . . . tired trope or transcendence?
Stuck at home taking care of a sick cat, my partner and I were in the market for some light viewing when we discovered that “The NeverEnding Story” was streaming for free. It had been about twenty years since I’d watched the 1984 fantasy epic, and I was giddy at the prospect of reminiscing with the life-size puppets and miniature set pieces that had ignited my childhood imagination and stalked my nightmares. But beneath the thrill of scratching that ever-present itch of nostalgia was an underlying anxiety: What if this movie that occupied such a halcyon realm in my early memories didn’t hold up? Would a rewatch uncover previously overlooked racism (à la “Lady and the Tramp”)? I could hardly recall a theme or moral—what if the whole thing was incoherent or worse, cringingly saccharine?
Tell me about a complicated woman; please, I am begging you.
But here’s the thing The Odyssey is not: complicated. Nolan’s Odyssey is an adaptation of the famous epic, but instead of pulling from older translations, Nolan references Emily Wilson’s work, the first woman to ever translate the Odyssey into English. In Wilson’s translation she starts, controversially, with a request: “Tell me about a complicated man.” Nolan’s adaptation fundamentally refuses that request.
Honey, Are We Watching Morality Island Tonight?
When June rolls around, people all around the country look forward to watching the newest season of Love Island USA. Hot, young, single strangers enter a foreign villa hoping to find a romantic connection. At the same time, people sit back at home and watch these relationships develop, dissolve, and occasionally surprise everyone involved. The entertainment comes from watching seemingly ordinary, everyday people navigate attraction in real time. Someone might enter the villa convinced they have found their person and change their mind a week later, while another couple that seemed destined to win could fall apart overnight.
Chicken or the Egg: Kerouac, Writers and Alcohol
Many, many of the greatest writers have suffered with substance addiction, with alcohol as a frontrunning favorite. That got me wondering, what is the relationship between writing and alcohol? Does one come before the other?
Love Island’s Newest Bombshell
It was virtually impossible to avoid Kalshi ads this summer. Kalshi is a prediction market platform launched in 2021 that people use to bet on everything from the weather to military outcomes, though for the past few years, its primary use has been to facilitate sports betting. As Love Island USA returned with a bang, still trying to recreate the magic it found two seasons ago, Kalshi turned its attention to the reality dating show.
My Beef With the UN: When Did Effort Stop Buying Opportunity?
Work has become pay-to-play; degrees. Internships. Volunteering. Networking. Freelancing. Personal branding. Newsletters. LinkedIn. Tailored cover letters. The list of preconditions for employment keeps growing while stable employment itself becomes harder to reach. Being employed as an occupation of itself has become inaccessible, the process of finding a job has become more demanding than unemployment itself once was.
No Matter What, He Must Step Down
Found guilty? We’ve let another attain a position of federal power. Found innocent? Democrats lose all ethical standing to prosecute for the Epstein files. Platner staying in this race, whether he has support from his party or not, sets a precedent that I’m not sure can ever be undone.
2016: The Fever Dream of Optimism
The problem with this 2016 brand of optimism is that it is an obfuscation. It directs our attention to shimmering ideals of liberty and away from the very real issues of rising wealth inequality, entrenched racism, environmental devastation, and the obstinate refusal of our leaders to do anything to fix these problems. Instead of interrogating the idiosyncratic American goal of forging a classless society on an economic system reliant on the existence of a labor class, or acknowledging the malignant grip of whiteness on our meritocratic mythologizing, 2016 gave us Hamilton, which laundered the images of the founding fathers, and hipsterism, which presented a more inclusive and quaint brand of whiteness.
What Happened to Euphoria?
When Euphoria ended, I wasn’t only left wondering why every storyline hadn’t been resolved. I was left wondering when the series had become so different from the one that had first drawn audiences in years earlier. Not because its characters grew older — that was obviously forthcoming — but because somewhere between its glitter-soaked dreamscapes and final chapters, the series exchanged one emotional language for another.
Apocalypse With Friends: A Love Letter to the Fabulous Killjoys
So much of our world today feels isolated. Our political movements take place online and are rife with infighting and sometimes even hatred for each other. Every day, it feels like I’m watching the world end from behind a phone screen. Danger Day’s shows joy in the inevitable and resistance against impossible odds. Even when we fail, we have to keep going, to keep caring about each other.
Why Everyone’s Obsessed with Obsession
The worst of Bear comes in his interactions with Nikki after he makes the wish. He continues to sleep with Nikki, even though she isn’t herself anymore. As they have sex, the camera focuses on Nikki’s face, devoid of any emotion, staring off at the wall as she goes through the motion of moaning and making sex sounds. The one time Nikki recovers her agency enough to talk to Bear and she begs him just to kill her to free her from the wish. All Bear can say in response is, “What would be so bad? What's so bad about being with me?”
Michael Jackson, Misunderstood
At the height of his fame, Michael Jackson was the most famous man alive. One of the most prolific entertainers of all time, 'Michael Jackson' is as much myth as he is man. Decades after his death, the public remains divided over what exactly that myth represents. So when Lionsgate attempted to bring Jackson's life to the screen, controversy was inevitable.
Make College a Choice Again
From the moment we enter high school, college is pushed on us in every assembly, every AP level class, and every extracurricular activity. Undertaking a Bachelor’s degree becomes an assumed inevitability rather than an academic or career step. For many, it becomes a delay; by staying in academia, they aren’t forced to enter the job market. The college preparation obsession in American high schools has led many students onto degrees without a proper assessment of their options post-high school. “Among recent high school graduates, fewer than half said their school prepared them for any option other than college or a job.” I was fortunate enough to know what I wanted to study by my senior year of high school but many high school students apply and commit to colleges without a clear vision. While I believe college can be beneficial in allowing students to engage with a wide-range of subjects, it’s a hefty price tag for a self-discovery retreat.
Don’t worry, No One’s Paying Any Attention Anyways
Expanded internet access and the ubiquity of smartphones have turned us into a society of glancers and scrollers; the potential to get ahead on messages or promote our work or enrich our knowledge buzzes frantically from our pockets at all hours. With such effortless access to so dazzling a breadth of resources, the compulsion to partake is consuming. Not picking up the phone means squandering an opportunity for self-improvement.