The limits of “You have to see it on the big screen!” by Scott Tobias

Now that I’ve taken my first few forays back into the airborne disease incubator that is the movie theater, I greatly appreciate this consideration on the value of seeing films in their ideal environment. Writing for The Reveal, Scott Tobias thoughtfully offers a corrective that the only films that are necessary to see on the big screen are those with grand scope and booming visual effects. Tobias has long been one of my favorite film writers, in part because I can deeply relate to sentences such as this one: “There was a time when I used to catch double features like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and My Father, The Hero for no other reason than to be ‘in the know,’ so there’s clearly no limit to my depravity.”

The Straight Man by Michael Schulman

Maybe in part because it was published online with the more clickbait-y title On “Succession,” Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke, this profile of the portrayer of Kendall Roy has been causing quite the stir this week. Among other apoplectic reactions, I’ve seen roundabout discourse about what qualifies as Method acting and a spirited stampede of Strong’s colleagues racing to defend his honor despite the fact that the article, as The A.V. Club pointed out in a headline, not actually all that mean. Michael Schulman’s piece does manage to provide a compelling look at a complicated actor, including acknowledgement of the ways in which his burrowing approach can sometimes be burdensome to his castmates (something several of them have acknowledged well before this article saw print). This article is published by The New Yorker.