Nathan Fielder’s onscreen persona—flat, literal-minded, and seemingly baffled by ordinary social behavior—has made him one of our most distinctive cultural figures. On his Comedy Central series “Nathan for You,” his approach collided with the eagerness of ordinary people to be agreeable, and on the HBO series “The Rehearsal,” it became a kind of social scien ... Show More
Oct 8
“The Social Reckoning” Shows How It All Went Wrong
In 2010, Time magazine’s Person of the Year was not a world leader or entertainment icon but Mark Zuckerberg, the twenty-six-year-old creator of Facebook. That same year, Zuckerberg got the Hollywood treatment in the bio-pic “The Social Network,” directed by David Fincher and wri ... Show More
50 m
Sep 24
What Survival Stories Tell Us (and Should We Listen?)
On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the perennial appeal of survival stories. They trace the theme of man versus nature from early novels like Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” to new releases like “Heart of the Beast,” ... Show More
50m 11s