Post-Oscars Hangover

Catching up from a hectic month.

Hello from high above the midwest somewhere. I’m flying to Seattle, and from thence to Whidbey Island, where I’m the guest creative nonfiction lecturer tomorrow in the MFA program that I graduated from almost 11 years ago. Time, what is it, et cetera.

I’ll also be reading (for the first time!) from the manuscript of my next book, We Tell Ourselves Stories, which is very currently in the midst of revisions. It’s due out in about a year, and the only person on earth who’s read any of it besides me is my editor. I also don’t think I’ve ever given a reading from my books (Salty didn’t get much publicity, alas) and so this should be fun. I’m eager to hear what people think.

March has been a lot, and I am very eager to have the month behind me; I took on a few extracurricular projects a while ago, and somehow everything is due at once. Combine that with the chaos of the Oscars, three different festivals (two, mercifully, in New York City), and ongoing house projects, and I am ready to get through the next few weeks. But this is my first spring without grading or finals or a thesis to write since I was in my early 20s, and I am very excited to see what it’s like to do April without that particular mounting panic.

And luckily, this has been a season of very fun things at work! Here’s a catchup since the last time I sent this. (And a reminder that you can always find my work at the Times via this very handy author page, or on my socials: Twitter/X, BlueSky, Threads, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram in the stories.)

I was interviewed:

• By Thom Powers for the Pure Nonfiction podcast, in a very wide-ranging interview. We talk about my background as a critic, how I approach writing about movies — especially nonfiction movies — and a whole lot of other things.

• By Reddit, for an AMA (Ask Me Anything). This was excellent fun and by the end I thought my fingers might drop off.

Audio:

I’ve done a ton of audio across the paper’s various channels in the last month!

• Hopped on mic immediately after the Oscars (yes, it was after 10:30pm) to talk about the ceremony highs and lows and, above all, its Kenergy.

• Prior to the Oscars, I talked about a couple of nominees worth knowing: Colman Domingo, who was nominated for his lead performance in “Rustin,” and “The Zone of Interest,” which was undoubtedly one of the most formally bizarre and bold Best Picture nominees in recent memory.

• Joined the “Modern Love” podcast to examine what three Oscar nominees (“Maestro,” “Past Lives,” and “Poor Things”) had to say about, well, modern love.

• Joined the editor of the NYT Book Review, Gilbert Cruz, on the Book Review podcast to talk all things “Dune”: the book, the movies, the sandworms, the fundamentalism, The Devil Wears Prada. (Yes, really.)

• I was asked to read my review of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus” aloud for the paper’s “Reporter Reads” feature, and if you listen you’ll catch me talking a little bit about my own background as a pianist.

Reviews and Essays:

• Really proud of this essay on the sound design in (Best Picture winner) “Oppenheimer” and (Best Sound Design winner) “The Zone of Interest,” closely examining the way they use sound to create a sense of moral urgency in the audience.

• Manohla Dargis and I got up early the morning after the Oscars to write about what we liked and didn’t and, more importantly, what this year’s awards suggest about the turbulent and uncertain future of Hollywood.

• I also hopped in on the liveblog during the Oscars!

• Reviewed “Spaceman,” the Netflix film starring Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan, which is terrible but in an almost uniquely baffling way.

• Reviewed “Damsel,” the Netflix film starring Millie Bobby Brown, which is a bit of a bummer.

• Reviewed “About Dry Grasses,” from the Turkish master Nuri Bilge Ceylan, which is long and strange and asks some vital questions.

• Reviewed “A Revolution on Canvas,” streaming on Max, which tells the story of oppression and revolution in Iran through one family’s story.

• I could not resist pointing out Christopher Walken’s much weirder connection to “Dune: Part 2” than the role he plays in the new film — the 2001 Fatboy Slim music video for “Weapon of Choice.”

• Review of “The Tuba Thieves,” one of the more experimental and challenging docs I’ve seen in a while. (First saw it at Sundance in 2023!)

• Review of “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus,” a marvelous parting gift from a master. This pianist was thrilled.

Documentary Download column:

• On the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and following the death of dissident Alexei Navalny, I wrote about a few documentaries (especially “Veselka”) about the war and Ukrainian resilience.

• For “Dune: Part 2” weekend, I wrote about “Jodorowsky’s Dune,” one of the wilder documentaries you will ever see about the making a movie that never got made.

• For Oscar weekend, I wrote a little about one of my favorite Oscar-winning docs, the 1970 extravaganza “Woodstock.” (Longtime readers might remember that I wrote a full essay on this film a few years ago, too, for Vox.)

• On “Remembering Gene Wilder” and “Frida,” two docs that create the illusion (for better or worse) of intimacy with their subjects by harnessing their own words.