Dysfunction Done Right in HBO’s “Rain Dogs”

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Television loves found families: the broods of urban singles (“Friends”), the gradual coalescence among dissimilar roommates (“The Golden Girls”), the incestuous intimacy between co-workers (“The Office”), and, more recently, the chosen…

Giancarlo Esposito Controls the Chaos

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story When Giancarlo Esposito stepped off the escalator at MOMA, a trio of security guards—all young men, Black or Latino—greeted him with knowing salutes. Who, I wondered, did they see? Was it…

Danielle Deadwyler’s Gravity-Shifting Intensity

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story “I like to keep the body active,” Danielle Deadwyler said, as she placed me in the center console of her car. It was a Monday in Atlanta, and we were video-chatting…

Highlights from the Under the Radar Theatre Festival

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Trying to see every play in January is a fool’s errand. The various experimental-theatre festivals all happen at once. Even if you run from pillar to post, you’ll miss something—some dreamy…

Ahmad Jamal Was a Modest Colossus of Jazz

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The musician Ahmad Jamal, who died on Sunday at the age of ninety-two, was a modest colossus of jazz who subtly cast his musical imagination across a wide spectrum of forms…

Lana Del Rey’s New Album Searches for Transcendence

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Lana Del Rey doesn’t toy with signs—of American glamour and its decay, of female melancholia and racial desire—so much as consecrate them.Photograph by Rich Fury / Getty One thing about Lana…