57 Thoughts I Had While Watching ‘And Just Like That…’ Season 3, Episode 5

Another day, another episode of And Just Like That… that doesn’t exactly blow my mind, but somehow still hits the spot. This week, Carrie and Miranda are roommates, which goes…

Black Sun, White Heat: Dark Cinema for the Summer Season

Although not a summer noir in the strict sense, this silent film classic by German director F. W. Murnau is the urtext for all subsequent cautionary tales about summer temptation.…

82 Thoughts I Had While Rewatching ‘Mississippi Masala’

In the wake of Zohran Mamdani’s handy victory over Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral primary on Tuesday, this seemed as good a week as any to rewatch the…

‘The Gilded Age’: The Real-Life Miserable Marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke of Marlborough

And Marlborough found a fiancé with something he desperately needed—money, which would ensure the upkeep of Blenheim. So much so that he broke things off with an English lady he’d…

‘The Gilded Age’: The Real-Life Miserable Marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke of Marlborough

And Marlborough found a fiancé with something he desperately needed—money, which would ensure the upkeep of Blenheim. So much so that he broke things off with an English lady he’d…

55 Thoughts I Had While Watching ‘The Gilded Age’ Season 3 Premiere

All right, I confess; I didn’t keep up religiously with Season 2 of The Gilded Age—maybe because I was getting my Cynthia Nixon fix from And Just Like That… and…

What We Lost With Barbara Walters

At her best, Barbara Walters was a singular television talent and a sharp interviewer. She was persistent in a sexist industry that often spurned her and she didn’t shy away…

60 Thoughts I Had While Watching Episode 1 of ‘The Waterfront’

I love recapping rom-coms and fun, frothy shows like And Just Like That…, but it’s important to change up your oeuvre every once in a while. In that spirit, I’ve…

Director Sarah Friedland and Actor Kathleen Chalfant on ‘Familiar Touch,’ Their Exquisite Portrait of ‘Coming of Old Age’

Writer-director Sarah Friedland remembers her grandmother, a poetry editor, as a “badass lefty intellectual” who wielded language with precision. When she later developed dementia and became nonverbal, Friedland, then studying…

The Real-Life Socialites and Historical Figures Who Inspired the Characters of The Gilded Age

Julian Fellowes doesn’t mask the true identity of Donna Murphy’s character in The Gilded Age: Mrs. Astor was, indeed, a real person and the queen bee of New York society.…