Taylor Swift, Underrated Canadian Singer-Songwriters, and More Influences on Shamir

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  11 minutes  |  2283 words  |  Aldo Pusey

It’s the first album he’s felt comfortable putting his name and face on. There’s been a question looming over Shamir’s career for the past five years: Could he ever follow up the success of Ratchet? When Shamir Bailey was just 20 years old, the singer-songwriter broke out with an infectious lo-fi dance album that Pitchfork deemed “best new music” and Spin called “the year’s best debut.” In a profile at the time, New York noted, “The biggest challenge Bailey may face is figuring out how to maintain that private-house-party vibe as his career explodes. [Read More]

That Time Gallagher Displayed His True Awfulness and Then Stormed Out on Marc Maron

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  9 minutes  |  1915 words  |  Aldo Pusey

Pod-Canon is an ongoing tribute to the greatest individual comedy-related podcast episodes of all time In the history of pop culture, few have been given as much, and appreciated it as little, as the sad, troll-like creature professionally known as Gallagher. By seemingly every standard other than his own, Gallagher has been obscenely, undeservedly, surreally lucky. Against impossible odds and the better judgment of the American public, Gallagher has managed to ride a silly, scatological gimmick involving taking a sledgehammer to watermelons into decades of fame, fortune and television infamy. [Read More]

The 10 Essential Fiction Podcasts That Shaped the Genre

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  7 minutes  |  1354 words  |  Elina Uphoff

Far from being a mere revival of radio dramas from days of yore, contemporary fiction podcasts have become vibrant sites of experimentation. They’re been around since the medium’s earliest years, at first mostly as shaggy affairs for fans of horror and science fiction. But the form really came into its own in the 2010s — particularly with the rise of Welcome to Night Vale, which radically sharpened the genre’s sensibilities and inspired a wave of similarly inclined creators. [Read More]

The 100 Sequences That Shaped Animation

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  162 minutes  |  34302 words  |  Zora Stowers

From Bugs Bunny to Spike Spiegel to Miles Morales, the history of an art form that continues to draw us in. The 100 Sequences That Shaped Animation Brought to you by Illustration: Giacomo Gambineri The 100 Sequences That Shaped Animation Brought to you by This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. All animation, whether it depicts a whistling mouse, a walking dinosaur, or a leaping superhero, is a kind of magic trick. [Read More]

The 17 Best Robot Movies of All Time

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  10 minutes  |  1948 words  |  Elina Uphoff

This post was originally published in 2015 with the release of Chappie. It has been updated (or should we say … upgraded?) to include two newer robot movies, including The Creator. Ever since the early years of cinema — even before the term “robot” was coined, in fact — the movies have been obsessed with them. They symbolize so many of our neuroses — our queasiness about technology and the unknown, our wonder at what it means to be human, our fear that, ultimately, we might be replaceable. [Read More]

The 20 Best Documentaries on Netflix

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  10 minutes  |  2017 words  |  Sherie Connelly

The Act of Killing. True stories have been a foundational part of the success of streaming services. When we fire up Netflix, we do it to learn about the impossible, exceptional, traumatizing, and historical real world as much as to experience fictional movies or TV. And the streaming giant is more than just a true-crime docuseries factory; it has won multiple awards for its original documentaries and takes seriously the curation of its nonfiction section. [Read More]

The 20 Best Horror-Movie Sequels

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  12 minutes  |  2441 words  |  Aldo Pusey

In a franchise-crazy landscape, sequels are a given in pretty much any genre, but they have been a virtual requirement in horror cinema for close to a century. We’ve been resurrecting monster after monster ever since Bride of Frankenstein rolled out in 1935, and there’s no sign of the trend losing steam any time soon. From The Nun II to Saw X to The Exorcist: Believer, the season of horror sequels is once again upon us, carrying on a time-honored tradition that scary-movie fans eat up like Halloween candy. [Read More]

The 2013-14 TV Season in One Really, Really Depressing Chart

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  3 minutes  |  463 words  |  Janel Helmers

The 2013-14 television season has officially bit the dust and, like the one before it, the nine months that just passed were marked by steep viewership declines for most of the broadcast networks. Factoring out the Olympic-size boost NBC got from the Sochi games, the Big Four managed to collectively average a 9.6 rating among viewers under 50, down about 10 percent from last year’s combined 10.1 rating in the key demo. [Read More]

The 2023 Tony Award Winners

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  6 minutes  |  1070 words  |  Sherie Connelly

J. Harrison Ghee makes history as the first nonbinary winner of the Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical Tony Award. The 2023 Tonys may be without writers in solidarity with the WGA, but it’s certainly not without awards, mama. Held on June 11, 2023, at the United Palace Theater, awards begin rolling out during the preshow at 6:30 p.m. on Pluto TV, hosted by Julianne Hough and Skylar Astin, and run through the main event starting at 8 p. [Read More]

The 25 Best Man Versus Nature Movies

 Posted on June 11, 2024  |  17 minutes  |  3480 words  |  Aldo Pusey

In the new romantic survival drama The Mountain Between Us, Kate Winslet and Idris Elba play strangers on a small chartered plane that crashes into snowcapped mountain peak, far from civilization. They have to survive the brutal cold, the threat of starvation and dehydration, and a pesky little mountain lion. But can they survive each other? (Yes, of course they can. This isn’t Alive.) Though The Mountain Between Us may not be the most sterling example, its Man Versus Nature theme plays to the strength of a medium that can wordlessly and powerfully express the pitiless beauty of the wild. [Read More]