Movies

From the editors at CultCritics.com This past weekend, something impossible happened. A movie about Formula 1—a sport many Americans might rank somewhere between competitive dressage and watching paint dry—didn’t just open, it exploded. With a staggering $144 million global debut, Joseph Kosinski’s “F1,” starring Brad Pitt, has become an undisputed blockbuster. The film, a visual […]

In the hallowed halls of cinematic history, few films stand as tall as Richard Attenborough’s 1982 epic, “Gandhi.” A sweeping, reverent, and visually stunning biopic, it garnered eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and a much-deserved Best Actor for Ben Kingsley’s transformative performance. For many, “Gandhi” was more than just a movie; it

High school graduation is more than just a ceremonial milestone in American life; it’s a ritual steeped in symbolism, tradition, and expectation. In popular culture, it functions as a narrative pivot point—the moment a character crosses the threshold from adolescence into adulthood. From the glittering stages of teen dramas to the heartfelt speeches in coming-of-age

Earlier this week, my eldest son turned twenty. As if timed by fate, the mailbox presented him with his first jury summons—a legal rite of passage that corresponded poetically with his entry into adulthood. Until that moment, the notion of civic duty had remained abstract for him. He knew of elections, heard of laws, perhaps

Introduction In the early 2010s, Tinder redefined dating. With a single swipe, love (or at least attention) was a thumb’s flick away. The app promised to modernize romance, to streamline and democratize attraction. Yet over a decade later, the digital dating scene is showing cracks. Users report “swipe fatigue,” disillusionment, and a deepening sense of

Introduction Spike Jonze’s Her (2013) was a hauntingly beautiful and prescient meditation on love, identity, and the entanglement of human emotion with artificial intelligence. Upon its release, the film was celebrated for its original storytelling and philosophical depth. More than a decade later, in 2025, the world it envisioned resonates in ways that Jonze might have only dimly