Forced* conversion therapy is bad. You either believe this or you (at least tacitly) advocate for the extermination of queerness, which makes you a bigot. This is a black-and-white matter, and, given the havoc attempts at turning queer youth straight wreaks on lives, it seems to gay old me that this is also a matter…

There is a moment on the new song “Orbit,” by NAO, that is both entirely characteristic of its surrounding album and yet totally bonkers. On it, one of several lovelorn tracks on the British singer-songwriter-producer’s sophomore album Saturn, NAO sings what is at once an ode to lost love and one to a new prospect.…

Robb Stark is back, baby!

On Sunday, after months of anticipation, Netflix debuted the first two episodes of former Daily Show correspondent Hasan Minhaj’s new comedy talk show, Patriot Act. In building a 32-episode show that will take on politics from the midterms until the 2020 election, Netflix was banking on Minhaj’s ability to…

It’s gotten quite trendy, over the past few years, to be a witch. Lana Del Rey casts spells on the President, movies and TV shows like The Love Witch and American Horror Story have taken witches to snarkier, sexier places, and even Sephora took a cue from Brooklyn magic shops to sell DIY witch kits alongside expensive…

Welcome to Albums I Loved That Are Actually Bad, a maybe one-time column about albums we loved at certain points in our lives that we—upon maturing—now realize are terrible. This time: Nirvana’s In Utero.

Let’s get one thing straight: Robyn has not disappeared.

In 2015, Elle King—born Tanner Elle Schneider, daughter of actor Rob Schneider—made her musical debut with the top 10 ear worm “Ex’s and Oh’s.” Unlike the hip hop and EDM-effected pop that dominated popular listening then and now, she made a name for herself at the intersection of retro rock and soul, a familiar,…

We shouldn’t ask art to be emblematic of the #MeToo movement, but sometimes its makers tell us that it is, regardless. Case in point: Those involved in the new Halloween have linked the film’s sensibilities to the current moment. In a recent interview, Jamie Lee Curtis, who is once again donning the role of Laurie…

If Big Mouth has taught us anything, it’s that adolescence isn’t just about hormones and pervy thoughts, but also growing pains. In Season 2 of the Netflix series, an endearingly filthy examination of puberty, we see 13-year-old Jessi (voiced by Jessi Klein) take a lonesome walk down the darkened hallways of her…

A Star Is Born dragged my heart all around for months and months before I could even experience it. On paper, it sounded like a disaster: a vanity project from Bradley Cooper (who in addition to starring would be making his writer/director debut) featuring Lady Gaga (whose prior acting was mostly wooden, Golden Globe…

If it seemed like A Star Is Born was christened a classic before it was even released, that’s because yes, the movie has been impossible to escape. There’s been months of marketing, memes, and a wealth of press (a lot of it from this website), throughout which Bradley Cooper somehow graduated from hottest man alive to …

Antoni Porowski, the food expert from Netflix’s Queer Eye reboot, is a polarizing figure. While his fellow host Bobby whips up massive renovations, and while Jonathan charmingly “yaasss queens” everyone to death, Antoni has earned the reputation for cooking... well, very little. His Season 1 recipes—guacamole, grilled…

Moviegoers have a challenge ahead of them whenever they finally get to watch Alex Ross Perry’s mock rock doc Her Smell: Try not to see Courtney Love in Elisabeth Moss’s performance as spiraling ’90s alternarocker Becky Something. In a recent interview with IndieWire, Moss pointedly did not mention Love as inspiration…

Before its release last Friday, Maniac was billed as Netflix’s latest, mysterious stab at prestige television-making. By all accounts, the series allows director Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) and creator Patrick Somerville (The Leftovers) to demonstrate their mastery of world-building—multiple worlds, in fact—over…

It’s a very American tradition to vilify women for daring to become the object of desire. The female form is used to sell everything from jewelry to chocolate to web hosting to hamburgers, and no one bats an eye when the profits of that routine exploitation flow into the pockets of already monied older men. But a…

The most generous thing I can say about Life Itself—a film written and directed by This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman—is that after watching it, I started crossing the street more mindfully. I felt so certain that something could and ultimately would kill me—a bus, a cab, a gun shot wound, old age, cancer, anything…

Plot spoilers ahead, so proceed with caution. One minor scene in A Star Is Born is also referenced below.

In order for A Simple Favor to hook us, it had to be in on the joke, which lies in its very premise: just say the words “mommy blogger mystery thriller” and try to avoid a laugh. Paul Feig’s movie adaptation of Darcey Bell’s novel of the same name does succeed in selling its inherent madness, and that’s largely to the…

What counts as “humanizing a Nazi?” It’s a question that will be debated quite a bit as director Amma Asante’s new film Where Hands Touch continues its press tour in the coming weeks (it hits theaters September 14), and it’s one worth asking and answering in good faith, considering the recent resurgence of Neo-Nazi…