Tom Joudrey

I’m seeing Jürgen Habermas has died at the age of 96. His excoriation of crypto normative premises in the work of post-structuralists like Foucault will be a big part of his legacy.

Therapists call it the pulp fiction stage of the breakup

The disturbing prescience of Mala Noche Forty years ago, Gus Van Sant’s breakout film captured the terror and violence inflicted on immigrants in the United States. Lead actor Tim Streeter…

I wrote about Gus Van Sant, the new queer cinema, and the stalking of immigrants for @lwlies.com

lwlies.com/in-praise-of...

'The blight seeped into your soul': How Seven reflected fears in the US in the 1980s David Fincher's thriller began with its screenwriter's view of the urban decay and religious conservatism of the Reagan era. But it also predicted our obsession with true crime today.

What’s in the 📦?

I wrote about the hidden allegory in Se7en for the BBC.

www.bbc.co.uk/culture/arti...

I grew up on an apple orchard in rural Ohio, and most of the people who came to pick apples were lovely. Some weren’t.

Naturally, I wrote about the ones who weren’t.

slate.com/life/2025/09...

Thanks Johnnie! Good to know I rose above Salieri’s mediocrity. That was the only bar I wanted to clear really

'Slumming in a vision of hell': Why Requiem for a Dream is still so divisive, 25 years after its release Darren Aronofsky's radical drug-addiction drama was highly acclaimed and angrily slated when it came out in 2000. Today, this Hubert Selby Jr adaptation is no less contentious.

For the BBC, I wrote about the divisive legacy of Requiem for a Dream, 25 years on.

www.bbc.com/culture/arti...

🏊‍♂️ the 4️⃣0️⃣ ft 🍀

in my medieval era

81° today 🥵 and new ✂️

The shocking twist of "Dolores Claiborne"? Being a difficult woman isn't a crime New interviews with the "Dolores Claiborne" cast and creators reveal how it subverted a popular '90s trope.

www.salon.com/2025/03/23/d...

30 years ago, a film adaptation of a bestselling Stephen King novel was released, and it featured what was then a genuinely shocking twist: being a bitch isn’t a crime.

I wrote about DOLORES CLAIBORNE for its 30th anniversary. ⬇️

Me, Kate, and Bette.

The afterlife of corpses - The Boston Globe Western cultures once were obsessed with dead bodies. Today we dispose of them with clinical efficiency. Are we missing something important?

Lord Byron. Still mad, bad—and dangerous to know.

www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/29/o...

Democracy dies in darkness.

We just didn’t know Jeff Bezos would be the one turning off the f-ing lights.

Can this hellish month be the nail in the coffin of the idea that the billionaire class will “save” us—that, against all evidence, arsonists make the best firefighters?

'An unmistakable stab at the USSR': Could Amadeus be the most misunderstood Oscar winner ever? Released 40 years ago this month, Miloš Forman's best picture-winning Amadeus is often accused of historical inaccuracies – but the film's critics could be missing the point.

AMADEUS at 40.🎻

www.bbc.com/culture/arti...

Back to blonde 🌞

In defense of ‘The English Patient,’ a masterpiece of anti-imperialism - The Boston Globe First hailed, later mocked, the Oscar-winning epic deserves credit for subverting its own genre.

Seinfeld was wrong. THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a masterpiece.

And you betcha it deserved that Oscar over Fargo.

www.bostonglobe.com/2021/11/11/o...

Sunset Boulevard at 70: we’re all Norma Desmond now Sunset Boulevard showed the damage wrought by fame. Seventy years on, popular culture is more obsessed than ever with being seen

Unlike Norma Desmond, SUNSET BOULEVARD hasn’t aged a day

www.theguardian.com/film/2020/au...

post grammys glow

Sam and I hit it off

This weekend’s sequence of events

Just arrived from The Other Place—looking forward to checking this 🆕 place out!