the smallest and most important pair of shorts by Helena Fitzgerald

Look, I am inclined by my own cinematic indoctrination to be helplessly susceptible to a personal essay that sets its foundation with conflicted affection for Lawrence Kasdan’s 1983 comic drama, The Big Chill. That Helena Fitzgerald hinges the piece on her youthful — and lingering — arousal at the sight of Kevin Kline in skimpy running shorts might put her experience with the film at a remove from my own, but it doesn’t blunt my recognition of the accuracy of every word here in the slightest. As she does as well as anyone, Fitzgerald sprouts her premise into a splendid snarl of tendrils covering personal identity, romantic partnership, and the allure and embarrassment of Halloween. Fitzgerald published this piece at her own Substack.

That Girl Can Sing by Wesley Morris

Prompted by the release of a new album of live recordings from an early-career set at the New York club the Bon Soir, Wesley Morris writes about Barbra Streisand as an emerging artist in the early nineteen-sixties. A partial review of the new release, the artist is mostly a compelling conjuring of what it must have been like to come across a once-in-a-lifetime talent in a small, smoky club at a time when the entertainment world was still comprised of small little pockets all brimming with possibility. This article is published by The New York Times.