Subscribe to Popcast!Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube Last week saw the release of “Some Sexy Songs 4 U,” the collaborative album from Drake and the Toronto R&B singer and songwriter PartyNextDoor, a longtime collaborator. For the most part, the sound is a vintage one for Drake, feeling something like a retreat … Read more
The title character in “The Unbreakable Boy” is a whirlwind, a handful, a lot. Austin, an eighth grader with autism, is often in overdrive, whether he’s counting toys or rattling off the courtroom monologue from “A Few Good Men.” He also has a genetic brittle-bone disorder that frequently lands him in the emergency room. Crucially, … Read more
The British family that has steered the James Bond franchise for more than 60 years, zealously protecting the superspy from the indignities of Hollywood strip mining, has agreed to relinquish control to Amazon. The deal, which was announced Thursday morning, comes after a behind-the-scenes standoff between Barbara Broccoli, who inherited control of Bond from her … Read more
Romance tropes tend to spark debate. Does “enemies to lovers” normalize bullying? Is “fake dating” overused? What’s hotter, “brother’s best friend” or “oops, there’s only one bed”? As a romance author, I try not to pick favorites. But as a reader, I will boldly claim “second-chance romance” as the elite trope. There’s just something so … Read more
IN 1988, THE artist Lucas Samaras moved into the 62nd floor of what was then a new white-glove condo building on West 56th Street, an 814-foot-tall concrete high-rise that real estate agents have since named CitySpire. The block, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, is another fairly nondescript corporate street in Midtown Manhattan; perhaps the most … Read more
Wood isn’t one to let an opportunity slip through his fingers. “I ain’t from the land of dreams,” he told me this past fall. He was raised in Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., and his father was Roy Wood Sr., a radio-journalism pioneer who reported on Black platoons in Vietnam, South African apartheid and the … Read more
George Clooney has been sneaking outside to smoke. Not like his friend Barack Obama used to, when he was running for president and his wife, Michelle, was after him to quit. Clooney doesn’t even like smoking. “I had to get better at inhaling,” he said. “I go outside so the kids don’t see and smoke … Read more
Twenty-five years later, Hal (Theo James) is estranged from Bill and has his own son, named Petey, but only sees him once a year. Fearing that anyone he’s too close to will somehow become the monkey’s victim, Hal leads a lonely life. But you cannot outrun a curse like that one. Much of “The Monkey” … Read more
A conventional documentary about a distinctly unorthodox figure, “Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse” has a lot going for it, mostly its title subject and his circle of cool pals and champions. Intimate if oddly unrevealing, it offers an overview of Spiegelman’s life, times and inspirations, charting how a Queens kid created “Maus: A Survivor’s … Read more
