Entertainment
Review: James Joyce, like Kim Kardashian, understood a sex scandal could be good for business
Book Review
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W. David Marx’s doomscroll through 21st century pop culture, “Blank Space,” is largely a catalog of cringe.
Kardashians keep barging in, joined by Paris Hilton, Milo Yiannopoulos, MAGA-hatted trolls, latter-day Hitler enthusiast Kanye West and more. The collection of Z-listers in the book runs so deep that there’s no room for even some of the most infamous Kevin Federline-level hacks to fit into its pages. In Marx’s reckoning, we’ve lived with 25 years of mediocrity, with no end in sight. Couture is now fast fashion. Art is IP, AI, the MCU and NFTs. Patronage has become grift.
“Where society once encouraged and provided an abundance of cultural invention, there is now a blank space,” Marx writes. Yes, he’s side-eyeing Taylor Swift, or at least her savvy-bordering-on-cynical approach to fandom. The title of the book, after all, is a nod to one of her hits. This might seem like get-off-my-lawn grousing from a critic who misses the good old days. But Marx’s critique isn’t rooted in pop culture preferences so much as concern with the ruthless ways that capitalism and the internet have manipulated the way we consume, discuss and make use of the arts. Algorithms engineered for sameness and profit have effectively sidelined provocation. Revanchist conservatism, he suggests, has rushed to fill the vacuum.
Weren’t we doing OK not so long ago? The Obama era might have been a high point of inclusivity on the surface, but the past decade has demonstrated just how thin that cultural veneer was. As Marx writes, in a brutal deadpan: “Trump won the election. Not even Lena Dunham’s pro Hillary rap video as MC Pantsuit for Funny or Die could convince America to elect its first female president.” MAGA, Marx argues, wasn’t simply a product of Donald Trump’s cult of personality; it was the culmination of years of ever-intensifying hotspots for macho preening like Vice magazine (cofounded by Gavin McInnes, who’d later found the Proud Boys) and manosphere podcasters like Joe Rogan. Trump — regressive, abusive, reactionary — wasn’t special, just electable.
“Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century” by W. David Marx
(Viking)
Marx’s background is in fashion journalism, and “Blank Space” can feel unduly cantilevered toward that world, detailing the history of hip lines like A Bathing Ape and luxury brands’ uncomfortable embrace of streetwear. But fashion writing is good training to make the point that the cultural flattening, across all disciplines, is rooted in matters of class and money. A certain degree of exclusivity matters when it comes to culture, especially for high-end brands, and it starts with street-level changes. But the street, now, is built on ideas of instant fame — “selling out,” once a pejorative, is now an ambition.
That shift, combined with the algorithm’s demand for attention, has made culture more beige and craven. Memes, #fyp, and Hawk Tuah Girl are our common currency now. Artists from Beyonce on down are dragged “into unambiguous business roles, and pushing fans to spend their money, not just on media, but across a wide range of premium, mediocre commodities,” Marx writes. “In this new paradigm, the ‘culture industry’ could no longer sustain itself on culture alone. Personal fame was a loss leader to sell stuff.”
There’s plenty of room to disagree with all this: You and I can reel off any number of novels, art films and TV shows that demonstrate the kind of boundary-pushing Marx says he seeks. (It makes a certain sense that highbrow books and movies would get short shrift in “Blank Space,” being relatively niche pursuits, but his relative neglect of prestige TV feels like a curious lapse.) Still, for every “Children of Men” there are a dozen “Minions” knockoffs, for every “To Pimp a Butterfly” a tidal wave of brain rot. The early-aughts “poptimism” that judged the judgey for demonstrating judgment opened the door to an everything-is pretty-OK lack of discernment.
Whether that’s what put us on a slippery slope to Kanye West peddling T-shirts with swastikas on them is open to debate. But there’s no question that artists are fighting uphill like never before. “How did advocating for timeless artistry at the expense of shallow commercial reality become an ‘elitist’ position?” Marx asks toward the end, pressing creators and consumers alike to sidestep poptimism’s guilt-tripping and operate outside the boundaries of the algorithm.
What would that look like? It may help to set the time machine to a century ago. In “A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls,” critic Adam Morgan considers the case of Margaret C. Anderson, who founded the literary magazine the Little Review in 1914. Though its circulation was as minuscule as its name suggests, it wielded outsize influence on Modernist writing. Recruiting firebrand poet Ezra Pound as her European talent scout, Anderson began publishing works by T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein and others, most famously serializing James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” a decision that made her a target of censors and conservatives.
“A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature” by Adam Morgan
(Atria/One Signal Publishers)
The woman at the center of what Morgan calls “America’s first modern culture war” was a poor fit for her times. Headstrong, queer and disinterested in Victorian pieties, she escaped her smothering Indianapolis family and headed to Chicago, where she hustled work as a bookseller and book reviewer. But her approval of then-risque fare like Theodore Dreiser’s “Sister Carrie” got her tut-tutted by editors. “What they wanted of me was moral rather than literary judgments,” she said.
She struck out on her own, launching the Little Review with her lover, Jane Heap. Anderson was enchanted by outsiders — not just avant-garde writers but radicals like Emma Goldman. She fired back at haters in the letters section. When money was tight, she relocated to a tent north of Chicago to keep the magazine afloat. And when moral scolds seized on excerpts of “Ulysses” — citing the Comstock Act’s ban on sending “obscene” material via U.S. mail — she protested. Copies of the magazine were seized and burned, and her lawyer’s argument that Joyce’s language was too complex to serve as pornography fell on deaf ears.
Even that lawyer, John Quinn, knew the effort was likely futile: “You’re damned fools trying to get away with publishing ‘Ulysses’ in this puritan-ridden country,” he wrote to Anderson and Heap. (The two were sentenced to pay a fine of $50 each, around $900 today.) Through the sepia filter of today, it can be easy to romanticize this tale — a lesbian champion of the arts making the world safe for Modernism. But one valuable thing Morgan’s history does is scrub the sheen off of Anderson’s accomplishment. Anderson had to play a long game, with no guarantee of success. She was forever pleading with patrons for support from month to month. She had to cloak her sexuality, make frustrating compromises in what she published, and absorb attacks and mockery from masses that treated her like a curiosity piece.
Yet it wasn’t wasted effort: Her advocacy for “Ulysses” paved the way for its eventual U.S. publication, with the controversy helping its cause. (James Joyce, like Kim Kardashian, understood a sex scandal could be good for business.) In her later years she lived largely as she pleased, collecting lovers and becoming a follower of weirdo mystic G.I. Gurdjieff. Anderson didn’t have an algorithm to battle, but she did have a censorious moral atmosphere to navigate around, and her story is an object lesson in the one virtue the algorithm has little tolerance for — patience. If we want more works like “Ulysses” in our world (and far less cringe), the financial and critical path is no easier now than it was then. But it will demand a stubbornness from creators and dedication from consumers that the current moment is designed to strip from us.
Athitakis is a writer in Phoenix and author of “The New Midwest.”
Film
Project Hail Mary
Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Pascal Pictures, General Admission, Lord Miller Productions
In Theaters 03.20.2026
The Oscars for the films of 2025 are this Sunday, and many of the races are tight. If I’m being honest, I’m struggling to care, in part because awards are a poor way to measure art. But mostly because Project Hail Mary is the first major studio release that’s a solid contender for Best Picture of 2026, and I’m far more stoked to see it again than I am to watch a three-hour ceremony.
Science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling, Drive, Barbie) awakens alone aboard a spacecraft light-years from Earth with no memory of who he is or how he got there. As fragments of his past slowly return, he realizes he’s the sole survivor of a desperate mission to the Tau Ceti system, sent to find a way to stop a mysterious organism draining energy from the sun and threatening to wipe out life on Earth. Armed only with his scientific know-how, stubborn ingenuity and a growing understanding of the stakes, Grace races to solve an interstellar puzzle that could save humanity. Along the way, he discovers he isn’t quite as alone as he thought — forming an unlikely partnership with an alien visitor he nicknames Rocky (voiced and puppeteered by James Ortiz), whose own world is facing the same cosmic catastrophe. Together, the two forge an extraordinary friendship while tackling a problem that neither species could solve alone.
Project Hail Mary is an adaptation of the bestselling novel by Andy Weir, the author of The Martian, and it’s adapted by the same screenwriter for that film, Drew Goddard. As with The Martian, the script here stays remarkably faithful to the beloved source material, bringing a perfect mix of science, humor and heart. The shadow-drained cinematography by Greig Fraser (Dune, The Batman) is luminous and atmospheric. The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were fired from their gig piloting Solo: A Star Wars Story, finally get the chance to prove that not only can they do live action just as well as animation, they belong among the stars. For a story that is so dependent on making hard science accessible and is predicated on the imminent destruction of the planet and the human race, Project Hail Mary manages to be a joyous crowd-pleaser that should find itself scoring with all audiences. It’s as if the cerebral majesty of 2001: A Space Odyssey were mixed with the warmth of a road trip buddy movie, and they sync together perfectly. Daniel Pemberton’s ethereal musical score is filled with such majesty that it would be worth the price of an IMAX ticket just to hear it on a great sound system, and even at 156 minutes, the pacing never lags.
Gosling is becoming one of Hollywood’s most consistently great actors, and he balances the comic and dramatic elements with equal aplomb. The presence of a practical effect for Rocky gives Gosling a stellar performer to play off of, and I’ll be very surprised if we see a more engaging character relationship all year. Sandra Hüller (Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest) brings both an icy aloofness and piercing sense of humanity to the role of Eva Stratt, a Dutch scientist who is in charge of the project, and she continues to blow me away with the depth that she brings to each performance.
Project Hail Mary isn’t just a great movie; it’s a cosmic journey of epic proportions, and it’s nothing short of a cinematic masterpiece. These may be lofty words, and I know that I run the risk of being told “you built it up too high for me,” but when a movie comes along that causes me to lose myself in an all encompassing experience – and I look at the silver through the eyes of a kid who is filled with wonder and has traveled to edges of existence and back again – I’m willing to take that risk. —Patrick Gibbs
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Entertainment
Oscars host Conan O’Brien says ‘we will find the right tone’ for ceremony amid Iran war
The big question surrounding last year’s Academy Awards was whether the show would address the L.A. wildfires, which had rattled the city mere months prior.
This year, the elephant in the room is the ongoing Iran war, which like last year’s wildfires, puts a celebration like the Oscars in sharp relief. But for Conan O’Brien, balancing gravity and levity is part of his job description as host.
“My job is to always try and hit this very, very thin line between entertaining people and also acknowledging some of the realities,” O’Brien said during a Wednesday news conference with the Oscars creative team.
“It’s a dance that goes on up until the show begins,” the former talk show host said, adding that he and his team of writers are still revising material ahead of the show to ensure their content is as relevant as possible.
“Between us,” he said, referencing Oscars telecast executive producers Katy Mullan and Raj Kapoor, “we will find the right tone.”
O’Brien also during the news conference recalled Johnny Carson’s turn hosting the Oscars during the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans, including diplomats and other personnel, were held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran from 1979 to 1981. The comedian remembered the television host parodying ABC’s “Nightline” with his joke, “It’s day 444 of the Oscars.”
“It was such a funny, topical joke that touched on something everyone was thinking about, and at the same time, got a big laugh and was unifying,” O’Brien said. “That was meaningful to me.”
Kapoor said during the news conference that the production team is putting systems in place to alleviate attendees’ safety concerns amid the tense global situation and reported threats to California.
“Every year, we monitor what’s going on in the world,” the showrunner said, adding that the ceremony has the support of the FBI and LAPD. “This show has to run like clockwork.”
He added, “Everybody that is coming to this show, that is witnessing this show, that is even a fan of the show when they’re standing outside the barricades — we want everybody to feel safe and protected and welcome.”
As for the telecast’s creative direction, the team cited “human touch” as a unifying theme — a not-so-subtle slight to AI.
“We’re celebrating human touch, human connection and what I like to call actual intelligence, as opposed to artificial,” said music director Michael Bearden. “We want to get back to the communal … and so the music will reflect that.”
That spirit of celebration will be especially tangible in the “KPop Demon Hunters” performance, Kapoor said. That performance will be complemented by a “Sinners” moment featuring Miles Caton and Raphael Saadiq as well as guests Misty Copeland, Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Bobby Rush, Shaboozey and Alice Smith.
“We have this lovely story celebrating Korean culture with authentic Korean drummers and singers and even choreography,” the producer said. “So again, we’ve expanded our reach, and we’re telling these global stories, celebrating international films that have had a global impact and doing things in a really different way.”
Mullan and Kapoor closed the news conference by teasing a pair of reunions featuring cast members from “Bridesmaids” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. “Bridesmaids” alum Rose Byrne is nominated for a lead actress Oscar for her role in “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You,” which marked O’Brien’s dramatic acting debut. (If Byrne wins, he said, “half that Oscar’s mine.”)
“We’re gonna have superstars, superheroes, and there is also going to be an extraterrestrial on the stage, so you can figure that one out,” Mullan said.
The 2026 Oscars will air live Sunday on ABC, with streaming available on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.
Reminders of Him, 2026.
Directed by Vanessa Caswill.
Starring Maika Monroe, Tyriq Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lainey Wilson, Lauren Graham, Jennifer Robertson, Zoe Kosovic, Monika Myers, Sindhyar Baloch, Bradley Whitford, Nicholas Duvernay, Jillian Walchuck, Hilary Jardine, Skye MacDonald, Rick Koy, Susan Serrao, Anne Hawthorne, Laird Reghenas, and Kevin Corey.
SYNOPSIS:
After prison, a woman attempts to reconnect with her young daughter but faces resistance from everyone except a bar owner with ties to her child. As they grow closer, she must confront her past mistakes to build a hopeful future.
Given that Maika Monroe’s just-released-from-incarceration Kenna immediately desecrates the gravesite of her love Scotty (which is unintentionally hilariously on the side of the road where a tragic car accident took his life) by stealing the wooden cross (with an inner voice muttering that he hated memorials anyway), tells another character she doesn’t like cats, and complains to someone else that all music is sad and that she doesn’t like it, it’s reasonable to get the impression that the latest adaptation from Colleen Hoover, Reminders of Him, is intentionally aiming for an unlikable lead. Nothing says “get the audience on the side of our protagonist” like all of the above.
The reality is that Maika Monroe is capable enough to inject a modicum of emotion and grounded sincerity even into a Colleen Hoover character, but that, directed by Vanessa Caswill (with Lauren Levine writing the screenplay alongside the author), these are all characters stuck reaching for depth far out of grasp in a hollow romance that is less about someone with a criminal record ingratiating themselves back into society after a seven-year vehicular manslaughter sentence and earning the trust of her dead boyfriend’s parents (Bradley Whitford and Lauren Graham), now the legal guardians of her five-year-old daughter, for visitation rights or anything that would force the novelist (this is her third book translated to screen in as many years) to write an actual character, and more a dull push-pull possible relationship with the former NFL star best friend picking up the pieces, living next door to those grandparents, and assisting taking care of the young girl.
Asking the question “what would it be like to fuck your dead boyfriend’s best friend” should be a hell of a lot more morally thorny and emotionally charged than this. Rather than engage with that, the filmmakers need to dedicate 70 minutes to an outrageously contrived setup in which Kenna and that best friend, Ledger (Tyriq Withers, also visibly trying to express some personality and humanity, but is left hanging by the script), have never met before. Yes, you read that right (and yes, those are the real ridiculous names of these characters, although the latter is presumably intended to honor the late great Heath Ledger, who once starred in romantic dramas and made them a hell of a lot more watchable).
Despite being best friends, Ledger not only never met his best friend’s girlfriend, but he apparently had never even seen a picture of her until her mugshot (which he conveniently forgets, never mind that Maika Monroe looks mostly the same seven years removed) following the car accident on Scotty’s (Rudy Pankow) birthday, which he bailed on for fitness exams in preparation for the NFL draft. In the present, he no longer plays, having “blown out a shoulder”, yet appears physically fine and in no pain during the numerous shirtless scenes and a couple of sexual ones. Before the film gets there, he is skeptical of going anywhere near Kenna once he discovers her identity. Of course, that doesn’t last long because these two hot leads are gravitating toward spending time together.
Much of this is, to put it bluntly, airless and lifeless despite an ensemble trying their best to elevate the proceedings, with what feels like significant chunks of the novel cut out; there is a single flashback to Kenna’s time in prison – being taken under the wing of a mentor of sorts on how to survive – and Scotty is allocated such a minimal screen time that he hardly feels like a character and is never allowed to feel like a presence looming over the story and the choices these characters make. For some reason, there is also a friend Kenna makes here with Down syndrome (Monika Myers) who seems to exist as a vessel for comedic relief, which might have sat better if, once again, there were actually a damn character behind that.
One waits and waits for the inevitable moment where, after snowcone dates and playful arguments about music, there is a release of sexual tension. However, the drama resulting from this is childish, dumb, and resolved about three scenes later. You won’t need a reminder that Reminders of Him, like all Colleen Hoover adaptations thus far, is bad, once again searching for a romantic pulse and eroticism at the expense of characters who feel like actual people or anything that gives weight to the attempts at thorniness.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=embed/playlist
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