The vicious genius of Adam Curtis
In an interview back in 2021, Adam Curtis explained that most political journalists couldn’t understand his films because they aren’t…
How do you exhibit living deities?
The most-watched TV programme in human history isn’t the Moon landings, and it isn’t M*A*S*H; chances are it’s Ramayan, a…
Wes Anderson’s latest is as hollow as anything AI could come up with
AI is coming for everyone’s jobs, but especially mine. There is absolutely no good reason for The Spectator to keep…
Proudly dumb – and all the better for it: The Monkey reviewed
The monkey is an organ-grinder’s monkey toy. Wind up the key jutting out of its back, and its lips will…
Tarot isn’t very old or esoteric – but it does work
Among my many fake and useless skills, I’m a reasonably decent tarot reader. I can do one for you now…
Please stop making Alien movies
In the Alien films, a xenomorph is a monstrous, all-consuming life form that exists only to make more and more…
The new Mad Max film is a betrayal of everything that made Fury Road so good
Action films are boring. This isn’t really an opinion, it’s just demonstrably true. Try it for yourself: put on any…
It’s time to free art from being ‘interactive’ and ‘immersive’
The American artist and critic Brad Troemel once pointed out that art galleries have all turned into a kind of…
Grey, gloomy, and utterly joyless: Ripley reviewed
If you’ve spent any time gawping at Netflix over the past half-decade or so, you’ll already know that human culture…
Hot air
Can anything serious come from podcasts, asks Sam Kriss
Back to the future
These days, everyone who was knocking around a few decades ago predicted the internet. Marshall McLuhan famously predicted the internet…
The pleasure principle
Sam Kriss on how we became addicted to ASMR
Fight club
Not all video games are war games but those that are do something deeply unpleasant to our brains, says Sam Kriss
A line in the sand
Sam Kriss on Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion eco-city
Factory setting
When Maurice Broomfield left school at the age of 15, he took a job at the Rolls-Royce factory, bending copper…
Keep on truckin’
Sam Kriss on why country-pop is the most modern music there is
Fantastic beasts
Sam Kriss on the power of paleoart
A sentimental surrealist
We’re doing multiverses now. Last weekend, a friend dragged me to see Marvel’s latest product, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse…
