Tag: essay

Read “’Not a Self-Portrait’: Lynne Sachs’ ‘Film About a Father Who’ Unspools the Collateral Damage of a Problematic Father” in the Los Angeles Review of Books

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I’m proud to publish my first essay in the Los Angeles Review of Books, a review of Lynne Sachs’ new documentary, “Film About a Father Who,” now available on the Criterion Channel.

“Film About a Father Who” raises tough questions about what it means for a filmmaker to make a documentary about their own problematic father.

The essay can be found in the “BLARB” section. Thanks so much for reading!

Read “No ‘I’ in Travel?: Travel writing in the Trump era” in The Startup

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Travel writing has a long and storied history, dating back to the time of Herodotus. But what is the place of travel writing in the 21st century?

Should travel writing be written by a traveler, or by people who live in the places being written about in question? Should travel writing use the first-person perspective? And how should travel journalists frame their coverage in the age of Trump?

I try to address these questions in my review of The Best American Travel Writing 2019 anthology: “No ‘I’ in Travel: Travel writing in the Trump era” published in The Start Up, Medium’s largest publication. Check it out at the above hyperlink; I hope it can at least distract you from the terrible public health crisis afflicting the globe.

Stay inside and wash your hands!

Read “The Rise of Skywalker’s Story Problem” on Medium

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Two years ago, I wrote The Last Jedi had a ‘snark problem,’ a critique that resonated with more than 10k readers and was featured as an audio story (!).

Well, this time The Rise of Skywalker has a ‘story problem’—a cavalier attitude toward storytelling that renders the movie into a series of cheap workarounds which discount the intelligence of its audience and bely its creators’ indifference to their own work, showcasing a greater problem in popular entertainment more generally.

Read my latest Star Wars review on Medium (spoiler alert). Thanks for reading!

Read: “Misinformation Cinema” on Medium

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At last week’s “Writers for Migrant Justice” event in Reno, I presented an essay I’d been thinking about writing for a long time, explaining why Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018) is an irresponsible film. Since I watched that film for the first time, the news has made the film more relevant as an example of the spread of misinformation through fiction.

I’ve since adapted that text for Medium. In this post, I explain the danger of stories that purport to be about real issues but indulge in problematic fantasies.

 Thanks for reading!

(Photo by Rachel Lynette French on Unsplash)

Read “Breaking My Nose” in Nassau Weekly 40th Anniversary Issue

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This week, The Nassau Weekly, a weekly newspaper at Princeton University, published an issue honoring its 40th anniversary. The Nass was founded in 1979 by three students, including David Remnick, current editor of The New Yorker. I became a contributor to the Nass in my senior year, and I’m glad it was part of my undergraduate experience.

I’m pleased to have an essay published in this issue, concerning a particular running accident I experienced as a freshman member of the Princeton Running Club in 2013. Though I suffered a severe injury, the event was infused with a humorous irony which made it quite revealing of human nature. Thanks to the ‘Nass’ for letting me share my story, available at this link.