Jesus, a trio of American titans in the space of 24-hours. Duvall, Fred Wiseman & now Jackson - feels like an alternative Mount Rushmore just collapsed www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/u...

So long to Frederick Wiseman, the dogged, quiet legend of documentary cinema, who found his films by making them www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Argh rats, what a loss, like an enormous bank of lights just went out. Duvall seemed elemental, I kind of hoped he'd shine forever www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

This week's Indie column, on Taxi Driver, John Lindsay & the 'bad apple' genre of 70s movies that first stained & then saved New York www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Trump’s ecocide squad: Russell Vought, Jeffrey B Clark, Mandy Gunasekara, Jonathan Brightbill & Myron Ebell. Knew the science & did it anyway www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/c...

I was thoroughly absorbed by James Meek's Your Life Without Me, a family saga dressed up as a terrorist plot. It's about destruction & renewal, the need (or urge) to rip it up & start again www.theguardian.com/books/2026/f...

I hadn't clocked the use of the Phantom Thread score in Melania, but the soundtrack also features [checks notes] Gimme Shelter, And Then He Kissed Me, Spandau Ballet's True & Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Were all of these properly cleared & approved? www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

The full transcript of Adam Shatz’s LRB winter lecture is lengthy, knotty & worth every second. What America means, in theory & in practice - & specifically what it means now www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Jeffrey Bezos is destroying the Washington Post for the same reason Musk destroyed Twitter and Ellison is destroying CBS—oligarchs oppose the free press when if it threatens their wealth and power. They don’t want normal people to see what is happening in America.

10 best westerns (not the motel chain)

Only Paul Thomas Anderson at the critics' circle awards last night (from 1hr.12mins). Good heavens, um thanks, I'm in a state of total shock www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXZE...

This looks kind of fabulous: an ICE-age parable, set in the dustblown wild west, starring Alex Cox as a courtly scoundrel/saint who buys the souls of dead Mexican workers. Here's @peterbradshaw1.bsky.social's review from Rotterdam www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

This week's @the-independent.com column, on the Oscar-nominated films that speak up while their makers remain mostly silent www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Dog, meet manger www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/u...

See Melania & almost die www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ja...

Packed house ahead of the first public showing of Melania

This is mind-bending. The Minnesota GOP Governor wannabe who volunteered as the 1st ICE murderer's legal counsel just DROPPED OUT of the governor's race (and seemingly the party) because he can't stomach the 2ND ICE murder www.startribune.com/chris-madel-...

Fine, bleak, clear-eyed M Gessen piece on America’s new era of state terror www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/o...

General strike & economic boycott. Break this government. Bring it down

Carney’s speech is the most articulate, shrewd & consequential assessment we’ve had so far. Full transcript here Globalnews.ca globalnews.ca/news/1162087...

My @the-independent.com column on The Chronology of Water, Kristen Stewart's directing debut, which is altogether precious in both senses of the word www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

My audience with head-spinning multi-hyphenate Alejandro Jodorowsky: actor, director, shaman, comic-book writer, psychotherapist, poet (over Zoom, but still) www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

The child porn AI bot built by his billionaire donor being integrated into the war machine by this idiot is the distillation of all Trump stories

No shit

Bela Tarr, 1955-2026 I interviewed him once & he smoked so much that the bar staff intervened & swore so hard that the translator refused to translate. Which is to say that he was as tough, hazardous & uncompromising as his films. Gone in a puff of smoke, hopefully raising hell someplace else

Nice to write a tribute to an aged Hollywood legend which isn't an obituary. Happy 100th birthday Dick Van Dyke, and yes I realise I got the Chitty toy reference wrong thanks for your concern www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

My piece on Cover-Up, Seymour Hersh & the state of modern-day journalism www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

Column for @the-independent.com, on the evergreen Sunset Boulevard & the rot on the Hollywood fringes www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Martin Parr, gone far too soon. I interviewed him a few years back, just after lockdown when he was undergoing chemo & he was sharp & combative & relishing his new role as a disabled photographer, a mobility-scooting drive-by shooter amid the British crowds. RIP. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Train Dreams is a stone cold masterpiece - one of the century’s great books www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/m...

At some point soon a journalist is going to lose patience & react as one would normally react when a bullying moron tries to shout you down - & they'll deserve every Pulitzer prize they can carry

I hesitate to bill this as an interview given that it basically involved sitting on a couch, listening to Hawke & Linklater chat & occasionally pitching in. But I wrote it up afterwards, so that officially counts as work www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

Sublime character actor who landed in a film like a pinch of peyote & made everything weirder, hazardous, better. RIP www.vulture.com/article/cult...

Spoke with Joel Edgerton & Clint Bentley about their fabulous Train Dreams, & the pleasures & pain of a life on the road www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

Delighted by this; it's a book that sticks around. Right alongside Denis Johnson, too, for the added real estate value

Whole fucking thing makes me sick to my stomach. An abject fucking liar, a man who lies as easily as he fucking breathes, threatening an organisation which strives for truthfulness. And plastic patriots like the Mail and Farage urging him on. Jackels.

By this logic, can the BBC now countersue Karoline Leavitt for labelling its output as “100% fake news”? Have her stand that up in court, with evidence, or the White House pays a billion in damages www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/w...

Waking up to wall-to-wall news of the BBC mugging & the Democrat collapse (8 turncoats, but that's all it takes) & it feels somehow seismic, a battle lost on two crucial fronts. 2025, what a year, constant cowardice & capitulation.

For @the-independent.com, on the self-admiring Jay Kelly & the constellation of stars who like to orbit themselves www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

I love to hear about the genesis of novels. The solitary seed that was planted years before it flowered. The seemingly random schmutter of ideas that slowly come together & spark www.theguardian.com/books/2025/n...

Jennifer Lawrence Oscar campaign up & running

One year ago

This week's @the-independent.com column: on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, that magnificent, swaggering, unreconstructed giant of 70s American cinema www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...

Good, stringent piece, Hannah Jane Parkinson taking no prisoners here (as opposed to Saudi, which takes literally thousands) www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/o...

40 years old this week. One of those rare life-changing albums when I first heard it at 16; the whole wild world kicking in the front door. ‘We sail tonight for Singapore …’

The one trait shared by all the worst people I’ve ever worked with was their habit of brazenly framing their disasters as triumphs.

Thomas Pynchon's Shadow Ticket. An antic noir adventure that plays like a postmodern Tintin story. A portrait of 1930s fascism that reminds us a little of now www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

This is an excellent, clarifying article that points out pretty starkly where we are all standing right now www.theguardian.com/environment/...