‘Black Mirror’ Season 5 Should Be Its Last
It makes perfect sense that 2019 — the last year of the decade — should also be the last year for one of the 2010s' best shows. To continue would be a disservice to viewers.
Alex Leininger
Alex Leininger is a writer, journalist and movie lover living in Brooklyn.
‘Booksmart’ Is the Best Comedy of 2019 So Far
Olivia Wilde's directorial debut, Booksmart, featuring a lineup of superbly talented young performers, revels in a utopian view of progressive America.
Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir’ Is a Defiantly Autobiographical Domestic Drama
Director Joanna Hogg sheds nuanced light on a dysfunctional relationship similar to one of her own in The Souvenir.
Ted Chiang’s ‘Exhalation’ Calmly Stares Oblivion in the Face
With his second collection of short stories, Exhalation, master of existential science fiction Ted Chiang explores AI, time travel, and alternate realities with the studious eye of an anthropologist.
The ‘Twilight Zone’ Reboot Is an Uneven Anthology of Schlocky Horror
The first five episodes of The Twilight Zone (2019-) developed by Jordan Peele, Simon Kinberg and Marco Ramirez, vary wildly in quality, but even the best of the bunch lack nuance and bite.
Power, Sex and Love in Sally Rooney’s ‘Normal People’
Irish novelist Sally Rooney centers her drama, Normal People, around the desperations of youth under late-capitalism, but the novel’s psychological excavations, nuanced and piercing, owe just as much to the influence of Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf.
‘Her Smell’ Is a Rollicking Fever Dream of Abuse and Redemption
Director Alex Ross Perry, a master of acidic comedy, continues his stellar partnership with Elisabeth Moss in Her Smell, a fast-burning rock drama that takes place mostly behind-the-scenes.
Claire Denis Goes for Broke with Hallucinatory Space Thriller, ‘High Life’
High Life is more a series of tensions and breaking points than it is a traditionally satisfying space narrative, but Denis's allegiance to directors like Tarkovsky and Kubrick offers an intriguing view of humanity at the gates of the final frontier.
What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Literature? Olivier Assayas’ ‘Non-Fiction’
By satirizing the French literary intelligentsia, Assayas' Non-Fiction (Doubles vie) chronicles the hypocrisies of the modern psyche without attaching itself to any particular worldview.
Julianne Moore Anchors Sebastián Lelio’s Striking ‘Gloria Bell’
Sebastián Lelio's fascination with womanhood and desire have culminated in Gloria Bell, with actor Julianne Moore tailor-made to its particular kind of searching melancholy.
‘Broad City’ Season 5 is the Sharpest, Queerest and Most Essential
Their brilliant show may be ending, but the future looks bright for Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, who've already amassed several non-Broad City credits each.