Alissa Wilkinson

A question occasioned by the wrap-up of a class on Didion’s craft I teach sometimes: is there a good long essay or book on the history of the Saturday Evening Post out there? The more fun to read the better.

(I think it is Just Okay as a doc but the material is interesting)

Oh, I assumed you'd seen it!

Did you not like it?

Watch Rebel Hearts | HBO Max Watch Rebel Hearts on HBO Max. Plans start at $9.99/month. Nuns stand up to the patriarchy of the Catholic Church to fight for equality, their convictions and livelihoods against a powerful cardinal. ...

(She's in this doc, which was at one of the virtual Sundances:
play.hbomax.com/movie/e3908a...)

Protest, pop art, God

The bold spirit of Sister Corita Kent Known as the ‘Rebel Nun’ in the 1960s, she produced colorful serigraphs that blended Pop art, spirituality, and activism. Decades later, her work con (...)

I really think we're ripe for a revival of appreciation for Sister Mary Corita Kent's art these days:
www.artbasel.com/stories/sist...

we here at Sphere asked ourselves: what if we badly photoshopped the Wizard of Oz into a commercial for erectile dysfunction medication

Women actually really like meeting nice guys who are into women that they discover are good people, that they don’t feel attracted to, because they can introduce them to their other amazing single lady friends!! Which they always have many of!!

It’s politics now

A small element of the cultural anthropology course I used to teach to sophomores is that the rate of cultural change is asymmetrical, which is to say that it takes much longer to build up good stuff than to tear it all down.

Sometimes students would question that. I think about it a lot lately.

whyyyyy do they do this

I couldn’t help but wonder … what SJP thinks of Carrie’s novel

genuinely bananas that this movie came out one (1) year after SELENA

it is, you know, super 1998, but it also ruled

We watched OUT OF SIGHT last night and it ruled

Er sorry. I misunderstood. I think that’s a good movie, but to each his own

I’m kind of lost. What do you mean?

Reader, it is

But who would read it

Me to husband: “oh there’s a new Soderbergh at TIFF too”
Him: “so that’s what, his third this year?”

Every time I watch basically any Soderbergh movie I get the sneaking suspicion I could write a 600 page book on his work and not just because he makes more movies than anybody not named Hong Sang Soo

That’s what the nested thread is about

I mean … that’s awesome

I kind of want a Stitch one though

Anyhow his daughters run the Family Foundation and focus it on art therapy and making art accessible to all, partly stemming from the discovery of the trove of their father’s “darker” work that the film unearths. It’s really worth digging into the full story.

If you, like me, are one of those former evangelical kids who lost track of Kinkade in the late 90s and don’t know what I mean by “bizarre Disney collabs,” let me enlighten you. These are officially licensed by the corporation and you can buy them from the site. No he did not paint them.

Also, the Kinkade Family Foundation and the Kinkade Corporation, which licenses his work and is responsible for those IMHO bizarre Disney collabs, are separate entities and I think the latter is owned by a private equity firm? (I don’t know what the nature of the relationship between them is.)

It is not streaming yet but you can (and should) request a screening at the film’s website. It covers a lot of ground, including matters of evangelical mass culture and the rise of Christian nationalism. I know this world intimately and they did their homework.

www.artforeverybodyfilm.com

Less unexpected if you’ve been tracking with the Kinkade story. I recommend the documentary ART FOR EVERYBODY, which I selected as a Critic’s Pick when it was playing in New York earlier this year:

www.nytimes.com/2025/03/27/m...