For anyone who grows up in Maine, L. L. Bean, which was founded in 1912, is less an outdoor-apparel company than it is a public utility. Its flagship store, in Freeport, a handsome coastal town with a string of outlet Read More …
Only two years ago, when I was finishing my memoir of gardening obsession, “Rhapsody in Green,” I claimed that I had no time for houseplants. Prickly, diminutive, macramé-reliant: I’d rarely been less tempted by anything. Or so I believed. Dimly, Read More …
New York’s annual cornucopia of independent films, BAMcinemaFest, which begins on Wednesday night, follows the template of the New York Film Festival—some world premières along with movies first seen earlier in the year at other festivals (such as Sundance and Read More …
In the fall of 2007, I sat down to try to write a letter to Philip Roth, whom I’d never met. I’d started many letters to him in the past, only to put each aside, newly frustrated by my inability Read More …
Matthew Porterfield’s fourth feature, “Sollers Point,” which opens today, is an exceptionally sly and sneaky film in the best sense. It moves subtly and quietly in unexpected ways and offers surprises that register only after viewing, like time-release revelations. The Read More …
The last weekend of the New Directors/New Films series, at MOMA and Film Society of Lincoln Center, features two of the best films in the program: Shireen Seno’s “Nervous Translation” and Ricky D’Ambrose’s “Notes on an Appearance,” which have something Read More …
Disco may never overcome the collective yearning for the “classic” rock era it supposedly ruined. Synthetic, tacky, decadent, dead—disco’s had plenty of invective hurled at it, even as it persists in the form of late-night infomercials and books of louche Read More …
“The Simpsons” has so many running jokes—the location of Springfield, Bart’s prank calls, Burns’s hound-releasing, Lenny getting severe eye damage—but there are some that have never made it to air: Skinner Wears a Toupee He does! We just never show Read More …
Who are gardening programs really for? For those already obsessed with horticultural matters, any moments of free time are spent sowing, sniffing, and tending one’s actual plants. For non-horticulture fans, why does it matter whether or not hardy double-flowered fuchsias Read More …
Steven Spielberg’s “Ready Player One” is not a video-game-centered dystopian teen adventure but a horror film, a movie of spiritual zombies whose souls have been consumed by the makers of generations of official cultural product and regurgitated in the form Read More …