Selected Essays: Film and Television
Vanity FairSix Amazing Oscar Heists and Five Happy Endings
VultureTaylor Swift Playing a Dead Body on CSI Sums Up Her Entire Brand
Literary HubPaul Giamatti, This One’s For You: In Praise of the King of Pathos
Was You’ve Got Mail Trying to Warn Us About the Internet? (Or Telling Us to Give Up?)
“Today’s Assignment: Kick Some Ass.” Top Gun: Maverick, School of Rock, and the Cool Teacher Movie
Poor Things is a Curious Phantasmagoria
Watching a Magazine, Reading a Movie: On Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch
Reprinted in Italian as Guardare una rivista, leggere un film, trans. Francesco Cristaudo, L'Eco del Nulla
Nope is a Masterclass on Our Relationship to Entertainment, Literary Hub
Reprinted in Italian as Nope è uno spettacolare film sullo sguardo, trans. Valentina Pesci, L'Eco del Nulla
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a Breathtaking Exercise in Transformation
Take a Sigh of Relief: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is Wonderful
In Licorice Pizza, Everyone is Pretending to Be a Grown-Up. Especially the Grown-Ups, Literary Hub
Reprinted in Italian as In Licorice Pizza tutti vogliono rimanere bambini, trans. Valentina Pesci, L'Eco del Nulla
On the Endless Symbolism of the Best Summer Movie Ever Made: Jaws
Bright Wall/Dark RoomUntil Lightning Strikes Again: Retribution and the Pursuit of Greatness in The Natural
The World of Love Wants No Monsters in It: The Depressed, Elegiac Vampirism of Bones and All
“Don’t Call Me Junior”: Honoring the Father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
CrimeReadsLife got you down? Watch Midnight Run
This Saint Patrick's Day, you should watch The Fugitive
Arsenic and Old Lace, Frank Capra's "Halloween Tale of Brooklyn," Is the perfect film for the season, CrimeReads
Reprinted in Portuguese as Este mundo é um hospício, "o conto de Halloween do Brooklyn" de Frank Capra, é o filme perfeito para o Dia das Bruxas, trans. Guilherme Coimbra, for Firula Films’s Frank Capra retrospective (May-June ‘23, Brazil)
I'll Always Be Chasing Bullet Train
A Love Letter to the Late, Great Charles Grodin
Die Hard with a Vengeance is the most relatable "summer in the city" movie ever
Let's Talk About Sneakers, the Most Charming, Baffling Espionage/Heist Movie of the 1990s
The Best 1990s Rom-Coms Are Detective Stories in Disguise
Poker Face is a Crackling, Groovy Heirloom PI Show
The Los Angeles Review of BooksOut from the Shadow of the Vampire: On Chris McKay’s “Renfield”
Public BooksDeep Focus: The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming
Blood Brothers: Dracula vs. Nosferatu
Politics/LettersWitches Who Work: Female Patriarchal Caretakers in Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Selected Essays: Literature, History, and Politics
Truly*AdventurousLapham’s QuarterlyThe Lady is a Detective: Tracing a Victorian literary trend, detective novels—but with women
The BafflerThe Serve-Us Industry: What's so funny about ads that turn workers into peons?,
Reprinted in Spanish as: El sector de los que están a nuestro servicio, trans. Paloma Farré, ctxt
Literary HubDid J.D. Salinger Wield Copyright as Self-Protection?
On Charles Dickens’ Devious, Hypocritical “Nice Guy” Cop
If you quote a Dickens character in a piece on weight loss drugs, don’t pick one who starves kids?
CrimeReadsRedemption for Doctor Watson, CrimeReads
The Westing Game may be a murder mystery—but it’s also a ghost story
A Cultural History of Nancy Drew, CrimeReads
The Real Dracula Is a Detective Story—and an Incredibly Complex, Fascinating Mystery
On the Lost Christmastime Tradition of Telling Ghost Stories
Selected Short Pieces and Listicles
Literary HubChristina Rossetti once wrote a poem calling out a suitor who would not take no for an answer
Did Mary Shelley actually lose her virginity to Percy on top of her mother’s grave?
Charles Dickens really, really hated his fanboy Hans Christian Andersen
What did Shakespeare mean when he wrote “let’s kill all the lawyers?”
CrimeReadsThe Copyright Battle that Gave Cinematic Life to Dracula
The 100 Best, Worst, and Strangest Sherlock Holmes Portrayals of All-Time, Ranked
The 45 Best Prison Escape Movies, Ranked
Every James Bond Movie, Ranked
What did Shakespeare mean when he wrote “let’s kill all the lawyers?”
Book Marks50 of the Best New Nonfiction Books About the Natural World
Selected Interviews
CrimeReadsRian Johnson and Olivia Rutigliano talk Poker Face, Knives Out, and Golden Age Mysteries
Tony Shalhoub and Andy Breckman on Monk's Return
Little Essays on Sherlock Holmes (Column at CrimeReads)
Writing for the Screen:
Renée Fleming—Christmas in New York, PBS
Walden: The Zombie Adaptation, The Toast