Arts and Culture

Conversations on inspiration and the public role of artists

From one fake blonde to another

The first time I ever saw Howl’s Moving Castle, I was entranced. I must have been around 10 or 11, on a manic Studio Ghibli marathon in the middle of the night. I fell in love with the vivid colours and warm characters. I fell in love with this entire fantasy world filled with witches and portals and eclectic characters.  Growing up,

Reflections on Madonna’s Like a Prayer 30 years later

The theme of broken family runs deep through Asghar Farhadi’s movies, and Everybody Knows, his latest, carries on this motif  in a grand, if not always plausible, way. This is a movie that begins with much happiness and celebration and ends in speculation and disbelief. That could make for a delicious little thriller, but somewhere

What a Twitch stream can teach us about activism

Content warning: HIV/AIDS, pornography, sex, unprotected sex James Allen Rideout Jr. died on October 10, 1988 from kidney failure due to substance abuse and AIDS. He was 22. Before he died, he starred in four very successful gay porn films under the name Kurt Marshall.   ***  My relationship with Marshall’s filmography begins down a Wikipedia hole. I am scrolling