Author: James Porter
James Porter
James writes about culture at the edge of what's mainstream — the films, shows, and ideas that haven't been explained to death yet.
Jordan Harper’s “A Violent Masterpiece” flips noir’s core pessimism, raising real questions about hope, the Epstein era, and what the genre can argue.
A Spanish firefighter’s warning about fires exceeding all response capacity points to a European crisis built from drought, heat, and decades of neglect.
Bari Weiss applies 60 Minutes-style balance to Lake Mead’s position relative to the Hoover Dam. The results are geographically ambitious.
Emily Eakin’s new book recovers the human lives behind French theory’s forbidding reputation, reviewed in The New Yorker August 2026.
Trump promised “really, really big news” before his prime-time election-fraud speech. The declassified, heavily redacted documents he delivered drew immediate comparisons to Pam Bondi’s Epstein binders.
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey adaptation faces “woke-ifying” accusations. But translation has always been interpretation — and Homer was never simple.
Writing a thousand words a day won’t fix being trapped in a submarine for 18 months. But it might be the only advice that still works down there.
Ross McElwee’s documentary Remake confronts the death of his son Adrian, a longtime subject of his films, and the ethics of that archive.
David Wain discusses his first film in eight years, the State’s legacy, and original comedy’s shrinking space in Hollywood.
The New Yorker asked luminaries to name their favorite American. The answers — scientists, playwrights, pop stars, bureaucrats, one cartoon — reveal more than any ranked list could.