To combine this darkly fascinating subject matter with the author’s straightforward narration initially seems a kind of alchemy; von Schirach promises to extract insights about “human beings—their failings, their guilt, and their capacity to behave magnificently” from the elements of hardboiled detective novels and television serials.

Director Sylvain Chomet’s loyalty to writer Jacques Tati’s memory prevents him from exercising his full creative powers, and the film suffers for it.

The changes that arts criticism is enduring will ultimately allow more people to engage more deeply with culture—but not without growing pains.

There are a lot of impoverished writers out there with an axe to grind against the big bad Internets.

In an article about Argentina’s bicentennial, n+1 founder and editor Benjamin Kunkel commented that in that country, “crisis has enforced creativity.”

“This is a weird town,” observes Frank, a visiting photographer, of Shirley, Vt., in Annie Baker’s “Body Awareness.”

Elif I. Batuman ’99 paused as she read from her new collection of autobiographical essays, “The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them.”

Although “Never Let Me Go” remains flawed, it also demonstrates a high level of technical skill that will serve the director well if he ever learns to trust in the intelligence of his audience.

An important subplot in Lan Samantha Chang’s “All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost” involves a mysterious poem that is never properly finished.

While an unassuming humanism underlied Franzen’s earlier work, the characters and places of this novel seem subordinate to his coldly rational exploration of space and independence in modern America.