Kate Winslet is the reigning queen of the HBO miniseries. She redefined an iconic heroine in Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce and disappeared behind the grimace of an embattled small-town detective in Mare of Easttown, earning Emmys for both roles. And she may well win a third for her astute portrayal of the fragile, eccentric demagogue at the center of HBO’s The Regime Read more
Taika Waititi may be known as the director of box office hits like Thor: Ragnarok. But the multi-hyphenate—he’s also an actor, writer, producer, and TV creator—can’t easily be put in a box as just a blockbuster auteur; he is just as comfortable working on indie projects.
Similarly, his style as a filmmaker is an unpredictable mix of light and dark. In a fr…
Read more
And Just Like That… has been filled with shocking life changes for Carrie Bradshaw, most recently her controversial decision to get back together with her former fiancé Aidan for the fourth time. But in episode 9 of season 2, which dropped on Max on Aug. 10, the stylish Manhattanite considers a decision that’s truly unthinkable: selling her beloved Upper East Side apartme…
Read more
Viola Davis has always been a great actress. She was great before she won an Oscar (for her supporting role in Denzel Washington’s 2016 film version of August Wilson’s Fences), and even before her earlier nominations (for John Patrick Shanley’s 2008 Doubt and Tate Taylor’s 2011 The Help). In other words, she was great before legions of film cri…
Read more
Ever since I retired from television writing at the ripe age of 38, people have asked me: “Why would you quit such a cool career?” Especially if they know I worked on popular shows like Friends, Freaks and Geeks, Desperate Housewives, and Breaking Bad. It’s impossible to answer this question over the course of a cocktail party conversation. Where would …
Read more
Planning to spend this summer at home? Don’t worry: There’s more than enough TV to keep you busy through Labor Day. In fact, it might be too much TV for one person to keep track of, so we’ve compiled a guide to help you sort through all the new shows, as well as returning favorites, that are slated to drop soon. (Yes, Stranger Things is finally back.)
Whether you&…
Read more
In the digital age, we have the technology to document our lives in extraordinary detail via photographs, voice recordings, and social media posts. In theory, this ability to effortlessly capture the important moments of our lives should enrich our ability to remember those moments. But in practice, people often tell me they experience the opposite.
I study the neuroscience of memory and …
Read more
Just how powerful are power poses? Not very, as it turns out.
Ever since a widely read study was published in Psychological Science in 2010 — which showed that taking a moment alone before an important meeting to assume one of two power poses can boost your self-confidence, and even change your hormone levels — power poses have become a self-help sensation. The poses …
Read more
A favorite trope of sleep research is to divide the entire human population into two cute, feathered categories: early birds (also called larks) and night owls. Often, these studies link people’s natural sleep patterns—called their chronotype—with some waking behavior or personality trait.
It doesn’t take long to see which team more often comes out on top. (Hint: …
Read more
If you had COVID-19 symptoms in 2020, you probably would have masked up and braved a visit to a laboratory, doctor’s office, or clinic to get a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. A health care worker would have shoved a swab up your nose, and then you would have waited a day or two, if not more, to get your results.
Now, you’d likely use an at-home test, which spits out res…
Read more