Warning: ‘Jaws’ Is Still Devouring Us by Manohla Dargis

Writing for The New York Times, Manohla Dargis looks back at Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster with acute insight and inspired wit. The opening paragraph alone is a little masterpiece. There’s so much ground to cover with Jaws, especially now that Amity Island’s mayor, Larry Vaughan, has become an ideal stand-in for politicians who blithely value capitalism over human life in a time of crisis. Dargis hits all the major points with laudable efficiency, astutely highlighting the reasons the film is one of the most enduring on Spielberg’s hefty resume.

In Conversation: Thandie Newton by E. Alex Jung

This interview definitely made the social media rounds this week, and with good cause. Gifted, too often underrated actress Thandie Newton speaks with thrilling candor about her journey through a business all too ready to brutalize actresses, an instinct compounded the further that performer’s skin is away from an alabaster ideal. Interviewer E. Alex Jung does an exceptional job of keeping the conversation going, giving Newton the secure space to speak her mind without ever slipping into cheap sensationalism with his questions. Newton is deeply intelligent and grandly charismatic, qualities that don’t always come through on the page but are fully present here. The article is published by New York.