Month: June 2019

Moscow law enforcement recently spent fifty-six hours torturing a man. Almost immediately, Moscow reporters mobilized to obtain and disseminate information about his arrest and detention, and, once they did, their audiences were able to observe the situation almost in real time. Journalists from the very few remaining independent Russian-language media outlets, and also those from […]

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Listen with: iTunes WNYC Stitcher TuneIn Masha Gessen co-hosts this episode of the New Yorker Radio Hour, guiding David Remnick through the fifty years of civil-rights gains for L.G.B.T.Q. people. From drag queens reading to children at the library to a popular gay Presidential candidate, we’ll look at how the movement for L.G.B.T.Q. rights has […]

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There’s no critical term more bedevilled than “auteur.” It’s used sometimes as an honorific, to praise directors with a strong artistic mark, and sometimes merely as a description, to suggest that directors bear the ultimate responsibility for a movie’s quality (or lack of it). It’s sometimes used as a power move to assert the responsibility […]

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The new comedy “Late Night,” about the comeback of a veteran female talk-show host, resonates beyond its conventional dramatic arc and its unexceptional style through the force of its main idea. The movie, directed by Nisha Ganatra and written by Mindy Kaling—who stars alongside Emma Thompson—virtually turns the camera around on itself and considers its […]

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