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
Arlene Gottfried was drawn to everyday folks who sparkled with the flair of performers. And through her eyes, New York took on the excitement of a circus. In her heyday, during the 1970s and 1980s, she prowled the city with her camera, finding colorful characters who responded with a knowing urban gaze. Typically, they were … Read more
Saar, whom White would eventually recruit to teach at Otis, grew up in Altadena in the 1930s and ’40s. Her neighborhood’s paperboy, she told me, was Jackie Robinson, who lived down the street. Her local landmarks included the five-and-dime store, where she bought trinkets and art supplies. Though she would eventually settle in Laurel Canyon … Read more
Sam’s transformation into the Captain could have easily been the M.C.U.’s version of “The Blind Side,” a tale of a Black man’s triumph under the tutelage of the true, original white hero. He also could have been the Uncle Tom Captain, a servile Black man unquestioningly putting his life on the line. But “The Falcon … Read more
A planet-size eyeball blinks in celestial light before the hero in Ultros awakens on a spaceship amid alien shrubbery the color of an acid-dipped rainbow. Traipsing about winding, overgrown passageways, grand halls and resplendent stained-glass altars, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by this strange place. Ultros belongs to the cryptically named genre of video … Read more