James Wolcott

The soul-stirring high of putting on a new pair of pajamas.

Trans Images on Film November 17 & 24 | 11 FilmsWith the recent publication of “Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema,” Turner Classic Movies sheds light on the various perspe...

Turner Classic Movies is airing an 11-film exploration of trans identities in movies hosted by the authors of Corpses, Fools, & Monsters (great recent history of the topic) starting tomorrow at 8

It doesn't help that Tom Suozzi's reply was so Beltway-lame.

In fairness, the terribleness of MATERIALISTS can't be pinned on her.

I may have to abandon it and wait for season five of ASTRID.

Yes, agree, and needless to say Molly Haskell is never wrong.

There's definitely a White Woman Knows Best attitude in ep 2 that may be subverted later but left an acrid aftertaste.

More Miriam Shor, less Rhea Seehorn. #PLURIBUS

Hate to bust your dream but fellow Village Voice vet Tom Carson did a Gilligan's mashup in the novel GILLIGAN'S WAKE.

The fact that PLURIBUS has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes indicates that mind-melding reviewers would be redundant; they've already Borg'd.

Not digging PLURIBUS, if I'm savagely honest. Whole project seems off--overscaled, overconceptualized, overchoreographed (those delivery trucks), the set pieces show-offy self-contained & strangely weightless. It's all blatantly schematic, which Gilligan's always avoided, & the dialogue is crud.

He gargles before every bout of throat clearing to add extra volume.

When a some journalistic oracle (veteran hack) intones, "Rest assured...," I am less assured than ever. I am, in fact, the opposite of assured, instead Highly Suspicious.

Please say hello to my son

Preorder here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/646320...

Today at the White House -- a visit from Erika Kirk, future Vice President or First Lady (Peter Thiel hasn't decided yet.)

2026 City Journal Award Host Committee Levels Presenter: $250,000 Special Recognition in the Dinner Program; Recognition in the formal invitation; Special Recognition in Master of Ceremonies’ Remarks; Table of 12, Premier Se...

In February 2026 the Manhattan Institute will be bestowing its prestigious, extremely hinky City Journal Award on America's compact-sized sentimental of freedom, BEN SHAPIRO. This should go over swell!

manhattan.institute/event/2026-c...

Or as Sherman McDaniels put it more poetically, "Every man dies. Not every man truly gets *down,* right on, right on."

It's perturbing yet somehow delightful that Elise Stefanik is a dead ringer for Bari Weiss, a.k.a. Schmoopie. The only diff is that Bari wears studious glasses & is flanked by an elite unit of buff catalogue models, but otherwise they could be twins or maybe the same "op" hoaxing and hexing us.

Are there photos of the actual moment Bari Weiss crossed the picket line? Was she flanked by her hunky dance ensemble bodyguard crew? I'd love to get the full picture of her finkiness for the Historical Record. (Autocorrect tried to change finkiness to funkiness. Uh uh. Bari Weiss ain't funky.)

Hey, it's not a "cheap copy," it's a less expensive copy. Thriftbooks needs to work on its promo stuff.

The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and the... book Buy a cheap copy of The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and the... book. A finalist for the 2026 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction A delightful and majestic reckoning with the ascent of Ameri...

Another thing we should be doing before Jan 1 is buying/reading Gerry Howard's tremendous biography of Malcolm Cowley, The Insider. It's one of the top five books of the year and I don't know what the other four are yet.

www.thriftbooks.com/w/the-inside...

He has too much class to go off like this but Zohran ("he makes the sign of the Z") Mamdani ought to tell the New York Times Editorial Board, that old mother's cupboard of stale crackers and clapped-out wisdom, to take their advice on the municipal way forward, crumple it into a ball, and eat it.

But considering that Mamdani doesn't take the oath of office until Jan 1 we have the whole holiday season to drink Fresca, electric boogaloo down Broadway, and bask in the post-Nov 4 Continental Vibe Shift while scoping out revenge on Trump & all of his undead cohorts for the government shutdown.

Gawd listening pundits and people in real life (I do know a few) intone, "Now comes the hard part--governing."

Yeah, we KNOW. Governing comes after being elected and PRESENTS DIFFERENT CHALLENGES, that's not a lightning strike revelation. We heard the same gumminess after Obama won the first time.

"Ben Shapiro is being swung around by his ankles and let fly in the most vicious hammer throw I've ever seen among these pasty combatants.

I want all of these rightwing podcasters to go at each other in armed combat like news crews in ANCHORMAN. Work out their differences on the backlot battlefield like MEN.

"Attention all units, attention all units, Schmoopie is making an unscheduled stop at Carvel to pick up a Fudgie the Whale cake for Gayle King's going-away party, which could get ugly."

YouTube video by Vertical Stone Cold Fox | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical

I mean, judge Kiefer's masticatin' for yourself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFyW...

STONE COLD FOX looks like yet another Hollywood attempt to recapture the raucous road energy of '70s exploitation flicks but that neo-retro genre seems Tarantino'd out by now, though maybe it'll better than DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS/HONEY DON'T. As a cold stone psycho Kiefer Sutherland masticates a lot y'all

Michelle Pfeiffer is a goddess and should not be subject to the indignities depicted in the trailer* for OH. WHAT. FUN. (Amazon Prime), the first of which is casting the charmless Denis Leary as her husband. The slapstick looks painful. I just can't with this.

Remember, the trailer IS the movie.