A Depression-era drama about bankruptcy and aging and the quiet moral failures of the petit bourgeois, Make Way for Tomorrow is the anti-Avatar. …more

There’s a moment in For All Mankind when a couple of astronauts are wandering around the surface of the moon, collecting rock samples and staring in amazement at the black horizon. They’re giddy with excitement, jumping around like toddlers on M&Ms and acid. …more

The last book I loved was Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin.

Martin has always been interesting to me because of the way he teeters between hilarious and laughably unfunny. Take The Jerk. That movie is genuinely funny, but about forty-five minutes in I always think about going to sleep or ordering a burrito. Cruel Shoes walks this line like Mary Lou Retton on a Russian balance beam. It is perfectly and weirdly confident. …more