Critics at Large | The New Yorker

• War Movies: What Are They Good For?

  For nearly as long as we’ve been waging war, we’ve sought ways to chronicle it. “Warfare,” a new movie co-directed by the filmmaker Alex Garland and the former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, takes an unorthodox approach, recreating a disastrous real-life mission in Iraq according to Mendoza’s own memories and those of the soldiers who fought alongside him. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how “Warfare” ’s visceral account brings us closer to a certain kind of truth, while also creating a space into which viewers can project their own ideologies. The hosts consider how artists have historically portrayed conflict and its aftermath—referencing Virginia Woolf’s depiction of a shell-shocked soldier in “Mrs. Dalloway” and Vietnam-era classics such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Full Metal Jacket”—and how “Warfare,” with its emphasis on firsthand experience, marks a departure from much of what came before. “That personal tinge to me seems to be characteristic of the age,” Cunningham says. “Part of the emotional appeal is, This happened, and I’m telling you. It’s not diaristic—but it is testimonial.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Warfare” (2025)“Apocalypse Now” (1979)“Full Metal Jacket” (1987)“Beau Travail” (1999)“Saving Private Ryan” (1998)“The Hurt Locker” (2008)“Zero Dark Thirty” (2012)“Barry” (2018–23)“Mrs. Dalloway,” by Virginia Woolf“In Flanders Fields,” by John McCraeNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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• “The Studio” Pokes Fun at Hollywood’s Existential Struggle

  The tension between art and commerce is a tale as old as time, and perhaps the most dramatic clashes in recent history have played out in Hollywood. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz explore how moviemaking and the business behind it have been depicted over the decades, from Lillian Ross’s classic 1952 work of reportage, “Picture,” to Robert Altman’s pitch-black 1992 satire “The Player.” In “The Studio,” a new Apple TV+ series, Seth Rogen plays a hapless exec who’s convinced that art-house filmmaking and commercial success can go hand in hand. At a moment when theatregoing is on the decline and the industry is hyper-focussed on existing I.P., that sentiment feels more naïve than realistic. And yet the show’s affection for the golden age of cinema is infectious—and perhaps even cause for optimism. “Early auteurs were people who knew Hollywood and could marshal its resources toward the benefit of their vision,” Cunningham says. “I wonder if now is the time for people who are seasoned in the way of Hollywood to really think about how it can be angled toward making art.” Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Studio” (2025–)“Veep” (2012-19)“The Player” (1992)“The Pat Hobby Stories,” by F. Scott Fitzgerald“Picture,” by Lillian Ross“Why Los Angeles Is Becoming a Production Graveyard,” by Winston Cho (The Hollywood Reporter)The New Yorker’s Oscars Live BlogNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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• Gossip, Then and Now

  Gossip, an essential human pastime, is full of contradictions. It has the potential to be as destructive to its subjects as it is titillating to its practitioners; it can protect against very real threats, as in the case of certain pre-#MeToo whisper networks, or tip over into the realm of conspiracy. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz consider the role gossip has played in society over the centuries. They discuss Kelsey McKinney’s new book on the topic, “You Didn’t Hear This from Me,” which Schwartz recently reviewed in The New Yorker, and consider instructive cultural examples—from the Old Testament to “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” Today, many celebrities have embraced being talked about as a badge of honor, even as new technologies allow questionable assertions about anyone—famous or otherwise—to spread more freely and quickly than ever before. “Just being in public makes you potentially fodder for gossip,” Schwartz says. “I do worry about a world in which privacy is compromised for everybody.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“You Didn’t Hear This from Me: (Mostly) True Notes on Gossip,” by Kelsey McKinney“Is Gossip Good for Us?,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“A Lover’s Discourse,” by Roland Barthes“Grease” (1978)“The House of Mirth,” by Edith Wharton“The Custom of the Country,” by Edith Wharton“Moses, Man of the Mountain,” by Zora Neale Hurston“Emma,” by Jane Austen“Gossip Girl” (2007-12)“The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” (2010—)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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• Joe Rogan, Hasan Piker, and the Art of the Hang

  The first episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” released in 2009, consisted mostly of its host smoking weed, cracking jokes, and futzing with technical equipment. But Rogan quickly proved adept at the kind of casual, nonconfrontational interviews that have made the show such an enormous success in 2025: it regularly tops podcast charts and features hours-long conversations with the most powerful figures in politics. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz are joined by fellow staff writer Andrew Marantz to discuss where Rogan’s podcast sits within a growing new-media ecosystem that hinges on parasociality. Marantz recently profiled the Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who spends hours online every day addressing a viewership of tens or hundreds of thousands, to whom he issues leftist takes on the news in real time—alongside a healthy dose of gym content. Figures like Rogan and Piker, both of whom have won the loyalty of young men, stand to shape not only the views of their audiences but the art of politics itself. “Being able to hang in a kind of unscripted way. . . I think it just becomes more and more essential,” says Marantz. “There turns out to be a huge voting bloc of people who will, No. 1, vibe with you, and, No. 2, think about what you’re saying.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:Joe Rogan’s November, 2024 interview with Theo VonJoe Rogan’s February, 2025 interview with Elon Musk“The Battle for the Bros,” by Andrew Marantz (The New Yorker)Hasan Piker’s Twitch channel“This Is Gavin Newsom”New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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• Critics at Large Live: The Right to Get It Wrong

  In 1939, reviewing the beloved M-G-M classic “The Wizard of Oz” for The New Yorker, the critic Russell Maloney declared that the film held “no trace of imagination, good taste, or ingenuity.” The use of color was “eye-straining,” the dialogue was unbelievable, and the movie as a whole was “a stinkeroo.” This take might shock today’s audiences, but Maloney is far from the only critic to go so pointedly against the popular view. In a special live show celebrating The New Yorker’s centenary, the hosts of Critics at Large discuss this and other examples drawn from the magazine’s archives, including Dorothy Parker’s 1928 takedown of “Winnie-the-Pooh” and Pauline Kael’s assessment of Al Pacino as “a lump” at the center of “Scarface.” These pieces reveal something essential about the role of criticism and the value of thinking through a work’s artistic merits (or lack thereof) on the page. “I felt all these feelings while reading Terrence Rafferty tearing to shreds ‘When Harry Met Sally…,’ ” Alexandra Schwartz says. “But it made the movie come alive for me again, to have to dispute it with the critic.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Lies, Lies, and More Lies,” by Terrence Rafferty (The New Yorker)“Bitches and Witches,” by John Lahr (The New Yorker)“Don’t Shoot the Book-Reviewer; He’s Doing the Best He Can,” by Clifton Fadiman (The New Yorker)“The Feminine Mystique,” by Pauline Kael (The New Yorker)“The Wizard of Hollywood,” by Russell Maloney (The New Yorker)“The Fake Force of Tony Montana,” by Pauline Kael (The New Yorker)“Renoir’s Problem Nudes,” by Peter Schjeldahl (The New Yorker)“Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others,” by Vinson Cunningham (The New Yorker)“The Great Sadness of Ben Affleck,” by Naomi Fry (The New Yorker)“President Killers and Princess Diana Find Musical Immortality,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“Obscure Objects of Desire: On Jeffrey Eugenides,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The Nation)“Reading ‘The House at Pooh Corner,’ ” by Dorothy Parker (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

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