Silo – S03E07 – Radio – Review
What the Stars Cost "Radio" runs nearly a third of its length before the opening titles even arrive, and it spends that stretch doing…
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Criticism, close readings and long-form articles across film, television, books and culture.
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House of the Dragon – S03E08 – The Treasons at Tumbleton – Review
The Queen Who Stopped Asking Rhaenyra opens the season finale sobbing on Daemon's shoulder, undone by news that Aegon and Sunfyre are both alive…
Silo – S03E06 – The Drive – Review
Juliette trades her own clarity for two strangers' lives — and the Algorithm was never planning to honor the deal. A sharp hour in…
Red Rocks (Les Roches Rouges, 2026) – Review
Bruno Dumont's new film opens with a boy climbing onto a scooter he cannot possibly drive, next to a girl who cannot drive it…
House of the Dragon – S03E07 – The Dragon in Winter – Review
Larys abandons his king to die. Aegon refuses to run. And Sunfyre — half his face burned away — answers anyway. The season's best-staged…
Silo – S03E05 – Memory – Review
On its own terms, hour for hour, "Memory" is the best-constructed episode the show has produced all season — dense, propulsive, finally trusting its…
House of the Dragon – S03E06 – Faceless Men – Review
No duel, no songs, no glory — just three arrows. "Faceless Men" denies Criston Cole the death he promised himself, while Rhaenyra weaponizes Alicent's…
Troy (2004) Review: Glory and Its Discounts
Troy strips out every god and bets the whole film on human vanity instead. It's a bet that pays off in the Hector-Achilles duel…
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974) – Review by Pauline Kael
Herzog is a film poet, all right, but he's a didactic film poet, given to heavy folk-art ironies; he says that society puts you…
Teorema – Review by John Simon
In this caustic review, John Simon dismantles Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema, mocking its divine stranger, symbolic sexuality, fragmented narration, and critical reputation as empty…
Fantasies of the Art-House Audience
Kael delivers a sharp, witty indictment of contemporary film culture, targeting the perceived intellectual hypocrisy and pretension of mid-century art-house moviegoers and critics.
The Odyssey (2026) Review: What Works and What Doesn’t
From the horse half-buried in the sand to Samantha Morton's body-horror Circe, from Hades to the climactic massacre: a scene-by-scene analysis of Nolan's Odyssey…
Politics and the English Language
In Politics and the English Language, George Orwell argues that careless writing, political jargon and ready-made phrases weaken thought, clarity and democratic honesty.
Silo, Season 3, Episode 3: “A Dark Web” – Recap
Two timelines, one rule: power deletes what remembers it. Juliette gambles her life in the gassed mines while Camille agrees to a murder she…
Nolan’s the Odyssey and the Women Homer Built
Never mind the Cyclops. On the eve of Christopher Nolan's $250 million Odyssey, the only question that matters is three thousand years old: what…
“The Rich Don’t Have to Be Honest”: Power, Servitude, and Moral Pluralism in Aravind Adiga’s the White Tiger
In The White Tiger, servants carry millions in cash and never steal a rupee — not from piety, but terror. An essay on Adiga's…
The Perfumed Man: “House of the Dragon” Season 3, Episode 4 Review
James Norton's perfumed zealot turns a hostage town into a classroom and a Targaryen boy into his weapon. "Tumbleton" is an hour of prelude,…
Tequila Sunrise (1988) – Review by Pauline Kael
By rational standards the movie is flimsy and stupid, but by romantic standards it's delectable. The three talented stars are smashing, and the film's…
Working Girl (1988) – Review by Pauline Kael
This Cinderella story seems to have been concocted by people at the top of the skyscraper who have no fellow-feeling for losers. The film…
Another Woman (1988) – Review by Pauline Kael
Read Pauline Kael's sharp, critical analysis of Woody Allen's Another Woman.
Trash with a Cause
Uwe Boll's cheap, incoherent "Citizen Vigilante" proves a movie doesn't need to be good to go viral — just banned in Germany and posted…
Toy Story 5 Review: To Infinity, but Not Beyond
Pixar's "Toy Story 5" is tender, ravishing, and afraid of its own best idea—a movie about obsolescence made by people terrified of becoming obsolete.
The House That Keeps Burning Down – Scream 7 Review
Sidney Prescott answers the phone again. Seven films in, Scream 7 knows exactly how it ends before it begins — and so, by now,…
Wuthering Heights: The Moors, Instagrammed
Emerald Fennell's Wuthering Heights dazzles with style but sacrifices Brontë's soul. A review of the film starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.