There needs to be a reckoning over his toxic relationship with the vox populi — By Craig Jenkins It’s a special kind of hell we live in right now when a celebrity who has admittedly never voted can claim to be running for president four months before the general election and catapult the internet into many days of trenchant debate about his motives for entering…

The streaming platform raised $1.75 billion and secured a roster of A-list talent, but it can’t get audiences to notice — By Benjamin Wallace Last year, Scott Gairdner, a comedy writer and director who had worked on Conan and created the animated series Moonbeam City, went to the Hollywood offices of the new streaming platform Quibi for a pitch meeting. He is also the co-creator of a viral Adult Swim video…

How a young talent from East London went from open-mic nights to making the year’s most sublimely unsettling show — By E. Alex Jung Michaela Coel is not a Christian anymore, but the spirit has never left her. The Bible is the reason she started writing. Her first poem, “Beautiful,” was inspired by Psalm 139, and it’s still as clear as crystal. “I am fearfully and wonderfully made,” she recites…

Until Reiner came along, nobody outside the business knew about the writers’ room; today we all do — By Christopher Bonanos A week ago on Twitter, Carl Reiner remarked that he was proudest of two pieces of his work: the 2000-Year-Old Man sketches he’d recorded with Mel Brooks, and creating The Dick Van Dyke Show. They seem only nominally related: One was a recurring improv bit in which…

As HBO Max temporarily removes Gone With the Wind, we should all cast a skeptical glance at gestures that cost nobody a dime and change nothing — By Mark Harris Even in our current era of the corporate-cultural double backflip, the latest chapter in the tortured saga of America’s relationship with Gone With the Wind was impressively swift. BOOM! Screenwriter John Ridley writes a Los Angeles Times op-ed urging HBO Max, the new streaming service you still…

It is unclear whether each book supplies a portion of the holistic racial puzzle or are intended as revelatory islands in and of themselves — By Lauren Michele Jackson I have this pet theory about book recommendations. They feel good to solicit, good to mete out, but someone at some point has to get down to the business of reading. And there, between giving and receiving, lies a great gulf. No one can quite account…

And what will a post-pandemic theater look like? — By Bilge Ebiri In the autumn of 1918, as the second wave of the deadly influenza epidemic that had been rampaging across the world reached the U.S., people started staying away from movie theaters. Soon, as more people got sick, local authorities would order them shuttered. In many cases, theater…

Jerry Saltz on eating and coping mechanisms, childhood and self-control, criticism, love, cancer, and pandemics — By Jerry Saltz As soon as my wife and I started sheltering in place, I got concerned emails and queries on social media: “Jerry, how are you eating and drinking coffee during this?” I haven’t seen anyone else asked this. These queries were specific to me and my wife, Roberta…

“Anyone who says that everything is not totally f — — d is lying” — By Chris Lee Inside Hollywood’s corridors of power, the industry shutdown due to COVID-19 has come to be known by various nicknames. The studio executives and talent agents responsible for keeping the business part of showbiz beating ever forward against the tide have referred to the worldwide pandemic as “nuclear…