Oscar Second Opinion: 2014 Was a Bad Year for Actresses, Unless You Were in...
Oscar Second Opinion is a chance for Grantland writers to look back on some of the 2014 films that were nominated for Academy Awards with a fresh and wiser perspective. Gone Girl fails the Bechdel...
View ArticleThe Full Measure: ‘Better Call Saul,’ the Origins of Mike Ehrmantraut, and a...
Television has a way of finding its Mike Ehrmantrauts. The snub-nosed, crinkled-headed, frog-throated unprettys who populate shows, out of the spotlight but essential to the credits. They’re utility...
View ArticleCrank: The Unexpected Return of Charles Grodin, an Irascible Comic Genius
The world has left the sour ones behind. This is no longer a safe space for grumps and grouches. People are nicer to each other now, or they simply don’t talk — crankiness is rewarded with being...
View ArticleThought Experiment: What If HBO Had Picked Up ‘Mad Men’?
Earlier this month, in a conversation with Esquire about the development and closure of his series Mad Men, Matthew Weiner shared a striking American history What if: “When we got to the Cuban Missile...
View ArticleCultures Weren’t Opinions: Could a Band As Loud As Nirvana Ever Be Popular...
There is a moment in Brett Morgen’s documentary Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, which aired last night on HBO, when a young Cobain is heard having a phone conversation with a friend about teenage angst....
View ArticleSurf’s Up: Chance the Rapper, A$AP Rocky, and the Cresting Tide of Utopia Rap
Quick, name your favorite contemporary trumpet player. Is he or she under 40? Under 60? 80? Due respect to Wynton Marsalis, Terence Blanchard, Arturo Sandoval, and the thousands of working horn-blowers...
View ArticleThe Shape of R&B That’s Come: Elijah Blake, Leon Bridges, Miguel, Kali Uchis,...
Leon Bridges was no fan of Sam Cooke. When he was 20 years old, the Fort Worth singer wrote one of his first songs, a soul-hymnal called “Lisa Sawyer,” named for his mother. With its girl group...
View ArticlePrescription Filled: Dr. Dre’s ‘Compton’ Is Bold, Busy, and Unexpectedly Radical
The first time we see Dr. Dre in the new movie Straight Outta Compton, he’s sprawled in a pile of vinyl, his eyes closed as Roy Ayers’s “Everybody Loves the Sunshine” blares in his headphones,...
View ArticleThe Icon Factory: Apple Music, Beats 1, and How to Make a Superstar You Can Own
No one can agree on who deserves credit for Michael Jackson. In I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks and Rob Tannenbaum’s exhaustive account of the rise of the...
View ArticleCatching Cards on the River: ‘Mississippi Grind’ Solves the Poker Movie...
There are no highs in poker. There are lows. There are zoned-out middles. There are even euphoric moments of intellectual unconsciousness. (All of the plastic discs on this felt surface are mine now? I...
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