One of Music’s Biggest Stars Delivered a Divisive Coachella Performance. Critics Are Missing the Point. Audiences can’t decide if they loved or hated Justin Bieber’s Coachella set. Nothing could’ve been more fitting.

slate.com/culture/2026...

In defense of Justin Bieber’s Coachella performance:

One of the Biggest Debates About The Pitt Has Devolved Into a Lot of People Misunderstanding the Show In defense of one of The Pitt's most-maligned characters.

I wrote a defense of Langdon on THE PITT because I've been seeing some pretty callous takes online! He's complex, but he deserves grace!

Miyazaki’s Beloved Film Has a Fascinating Economic Story Behind It YouTube video by Slate

Slate Money's Felix Salmon and I have been having a few discussions about how money presents in different films. My favorite is the conversation we have about Spirited Away, which you can watch on YouTube <3

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Shj...

Riz Ahmed’s New Show About the Next James Bond Is Full of Interesting Ideas. But There’s a Problem. Bait starts with a fun premise and sets off wildly from there.

My review of BAIT—a fairly uneven show with a lot of heart that deserves your time!

It Was Supposed to Be the Comeback of a Lifetime for the World’s Biggest Band. What Happened? BTS has made a surprisingly rocky return after a four-year hiatus.

I broke down all of the commotion surrounding BTS' surprisingly divisive comeback! (With the tiniest nugget about my own personal thoughts on the album included.)

logo for nimrod campbell and the laboratory of yakub

nimrod campbell and the laboratory of yakub is a 2d point-and-click adventure game written by @netscape.bsky.social and yours truly. set in the year 1936, our game follows a trio of protagonists as they race against nazis and black muslim militants to unlock the secrets of the evil scientist yakub.

Chuck Norris Didn’t Become a Legend Until the Internet Made Him One He could slam a revolving door, make onions cry, and count to infinity—twice. Yet his real legacy is far more complicated.

"His vanishing cultural presence also exposed another inconvenient fact—that he was hardly as godly as the memes made him out to be." @nitishpahwa.com w/ a properly thorough sendoff of super OG MAGA soldier Chuck Norris.

Plushie Dreadfuls is a little controversial as a company, but the draw is they are looking directly at something that most people look past.

Whether that is enough to also look past the creator's infractions....that's a personal choice and one certainly worth contending with.

To be very honest for a moment: feeling sick without any recourse has dominated my life for a decade. The journey to being able to actually define and navigate my illness—feeling sick with recourse, I guess—has been frustrating, expensive, and exhausting but also validating.

A Strange Toy Followed Me Across the Internet. I Hated It. Then I Bought It. Where better to look for comfort than in a fluffy, smiling toilet paper roll?

When I began my, now months-long, journey of getting diagnosed with a chronic illness, I kept getting these ads for Plushie Dreadfuls—a brand of creepy-looking stuffed animals that are designed to represent various illnesses and disorders.

I thought it was all nonsense, until I bought one...

definitely! that is always the answer!

The Actor Who Stole Oscar Night Without Winning a Single Award Teyana Taylor was the best part of the Oscars.

She had a banner year, a front row seat next to Leo, didn't take home a statue and had the time of her life. @calllmenadira.net on the treasure that is one Teyana Taylor on Oscar night.

It's a good thing this is exactly what we do! Please read my piece on how Hollywood's most notorious boys club—cinematography—is changing little by little. slate.com/culture/2026...

on Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident, the best Oscar nominee likely to walk away with nothing

Somehow the Oscars Captured the Magic of What Might Be the Best Movie Scene of the Year The cast of Sinners—and a few surprise guests—took the whole Academy Awards to the juke joint.

The performance of Sinners’ “I Lied to You” at the Oscars earned that standing ovation. slate.trib.al/bUPDbrW

A Woman Just Won an Oscar Category for the First Time in Its 98-Year History. How … Is That Possible? In all 98 years of this category, every single winner has been a man—until now.

Sinners just made Oscars history, but it’s a long time coming. slate.trib.al/ZOV49Tj

He Was the Losingest Filmmaker in Oscars History. To Finally Triumph, He Changed Something. One Battle After Another’s writer-director told the academy, “You make a guy work hard for one of these.” He wasn’t kidding.

I wrote about Paul Thomas Anderson breaking one of the biggest losing streaks in Oscars history

if you missed the Slate Oscars Zoom, you missed @thehighsign.bsky.social, @calllmenadira.net and me wrestling with a truly diabolical FMK: Benicio del Toro, Wagner Moura, Michael B. Jordan

directors charles burnett and boots riley seated on the cover of film / culture magazine “a rabbit’s foot”

CHARLES BURNETT x BOOTS RILEY
on the cover of A RABBIT’S FOOT.

cover story by me! on newsstands 3/14.

Sinners vs. One Battle After Another: who should win Best Picture? : It's Been a Minute The stakes feel especially high for this year's top Oscars prize.It feels like every few years there are two films that really set the tone for where American culture is headed. In 2017: it was Moonli...

The best picture race has been so nuts that I’ve been flip flopping every single day on who’s winning best picture.

I spoke on @bmluse.bsky.social’s It’s Been a Minute on NPR with Nadira Goffe about the state of the race.

Sinners vs. One Battle After Another: who should win Best Picture? : It's Been a Minute The stakes feel especially high for this year's top Oscars prize.It feels like every few years there are two films that really set the tone for where American culture is headed. In 2017: it was Moonli...

Today on @npr.org's It's Been a Minute, I chat with @bmluse.bsky.social and Robert Daniels (@812filmreviews.com) about Sinners vs. One Battle After Another!

This was such a gratifying chat, I'm curious to know what other people think of these films...

Her Film Is an Oscar Nominee. It Almost Didn’t Make it to the U.S. In the film, emergency dispatchers must decide if they will wait for Israeli forces’ approval to send the ambulance.

For my What Next hosting debut: I interviewed Kaouther Ben Hania, the director of The Voice of Hind Rajab, about the difficulty of documenting tragedy and what awards even mean during occupation.

Avail. wherever you get your pods!

The Timothée Chalamet Backlash Has Been Building. This Was the Final Straw. This caps off a rocky awards season for the Marty Supreme actor.

I've seen this Timothee Chalamet story chugging along on various feeds for the past couple of days and had no interest in what was going on until @calllmenadira.net heroically summed it all up in a classic @slate.com explainer. slate.com/culture/2026...

Jessie Buckley's very silly cat controversy (as a cat person I forgive her!) reminds me that when I interviewed her in 2020, she talked about auditioning for the "Cats" movie after getting her start on a reality show with Andrew Lloyd Webber. "It's one of the most embarrassing moments of my life." /

An Oscar Front-Runner Told a Story About Cats. Then the Pet Lovers Came for Her. Are we really going to let this be the thing that costs Hamnet actress Jessie Buckley an Oscar?

ENOUGH. this jessie buckley cat discourse is BANANAS.

The BAFTA Tourette’s Controversy Isn’t So Simple. A Black Disability Advocate Explains Why. John Davidson shouted a racial slur at Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo at the BAFTAs. The worst kind of social media storm ensued.

"It’s not enough to just simply say, 'Oh, well he has a disability,' and explain it away, and tell people, 'Stop, he’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t be offended.' Black people have been policed into being offended about something or not offended."

slate.com/culture/2026...

The Warner Bros. Sale Is Even Worse Than It Looks The Ellisons might have beat Netflix, but their $111 billion deal still needs to survive lawsuits, regulators, and a mountain of debt.

so, the news about Paramount and Warner Bros. is devastating—there's no sugarcoating that. but there are a lot more obstacles in the way than you might expect, and a long, grueling process ahead for Larry and David Ellison. my primer on what happens next, and why Daddy's money is no sure thing:

The Zillennials Have Found Their Leonardo DiCaprio. I’m Not Ready. Timothée Chalamet is a new kind of movie star. I wish he could be something different.

There’s a reason it’s so hard to see Timothée Chalamet as anything other than Timothée Chalamet in his movies. It’s not his fault. slate.trib.al/zhY2Ce4

Fans Are Freaking Out Over the Future of One of Pop’s Hottest Acts. Let Us Explain. Katseye’s Manon announced a temporary hiatus. Things only got messier from there.

Is Manon on hiatus from Katseye or leaving? Here’s what we know. slate.trib.al/yVognLu