Even if you’re a true film buff, there’s always that one classic movie that you haven’t seen. Admitting it at parties is a reliable form of self-deprecating small talk: I…
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Contemporaries Essays, Get in the Cage
Contemporaries Essays, Get in the Cage
On the Brink of Breakdown
1 “Brandy was her name.”1 The pig’s, that is. The one that acted across from Nicolas Cage in Michael Sarnoski’s directorial debut Pig. The titular sow. She was untrained, and…
Contemporaries Essays, Get in the Cage
Cage Register
In Baxter’s view the care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.’ But fate…
Contemporaries Essays, Get in the Cage
Introduction to the Cage
Who is Nicolas Cage? The name itself is enough to conjure a whole host of associations not easily reconciled. There’s the star of beloved indies like Raising Arizona (1987) and…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
Literary, but Not Prestigious: Lupin and the Serious Pleasures of Amorality
Chapter 4 of Jason Mittell’s 2015 book Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television, on “Characters,” begins: “Nearly every successful television writer will point to character as the focal point…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
The History of True Crime in the Midwest:Writing and Intertextuality in Fargo
Why should we pay attention to the “literary” or “cinematic” dimension of a TV series? For some critics, approaches that focus on media and artistic convergence are likely to distinguish…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
Un-noveling Lovecraft Country
1. Lovecraft Country’s first season (2020) exemplifies recent prestige television’s changed relationship to “the literary” in that it rejects the authority of “the novel,” as a form entangled within centrist…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
Learning How to Read: Lovecraft Country’s Literary and Historical Interventions
Misha Green’s Lovecraft Country (2020) is a significant moderation of literature and literary forms beyond even its adaptation of Matt Ruff’s novel or its explicit references to H.P. Lovecraft. While…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
The Ordinary Literary World of Lodge 49
In January 2020, shortly after the official announcement that Lodge 49 (2018-2019) had been cancelled, I published a short piece on Medium, “Crying Over Lodge 49.” I shared it on…
Contemporaries Essays, New Literary Television
The Last Days of Books: ageism and the literary millennial in Younger
In Younger (2015-2021), the world of publishing is built on puns and parodies. Characters drink Bridget Jones Daiquiris, Margarita Atwoods, and Bloody Mary Shelleys. Stand-ins for Karl Ove Knausgård and…