Essays on TV and film — exploring stories, characters, and the choices behind them.
For one night in January 2006, Vince Young was the best football player alive. Texas trailed USC by five in the Rose Bowl with the national title on the line, and with nineteen seconds left Young ran it in himself, eight yards, nobody able to lay a hand on him. He finished that night with … Read more
Pickleball is the sport serious tennis players love to roll their eyes at: too easy, too social, played on a shrunken court with a wiffle ball and a paddle. The Dink, now the number one movie on Apple TV+, is the film version of that eye-roll and its answer at the same time. It is … Read more
Here is the answer most people are searching for: no, F1 is not based on a true story. Sonny Hayes, the burned-out driver Brad Pitt plays, was never real, and neither was APXGP, the last-place team he comes back to rescue. There was no eleventh car on the 2024 grid, and no thirty-years-later comeback … Read more