Culture

Obamacare and Its Discontents

Steven Brill's new book outlines the shortcomings, as well as the accomplishments, of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

Adam Gaffney

In Jauja, Cinema Takes on Colonialism, Slowly

Viggo Mortensen and Lisandro Alonso tour Argentina's dark, imperialist past in a new film.

Michael Atkinson

Big Data Is Watching You

The hidden price of Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Joanna Scutts

Labour Pains

There’s a U.K. General Election in May and I don’t know how to vote.

Jane Miller

I, Derivative Robot

In Chappie, Neill Blomkamp abandons his progressive instincts in favor of a trip through his DVD collection.

Jude Ellison Sady Doyle

The Dude Abides

Kent Russell seeks to lay claim to the raw, serious stuff of the American male past.

Chris Lehmann

Despite a Rosy Lens, Timbuktu Has Something to Teach Us About Resistance to Oppression

Abderrahmane Sissako’s Oscar-nominated film may be improbably beautiful and relatively apolitical, but it's worth seeing.

Michael Atkinson

Ai-jen Poo’s ‘The Age of Dignity’ Is a Wake-up Call for an Aging—and Unprepared—Nation

When it comes to providing care for an aging baby boomer population, Poo says, we need to think bigger.

Joanna Scutts

Fresh Off the Boat: At Last, a Show Where Asian-Americans Aren’t the Butt of the Joke

In a welcome departure from most depictions of Asian families, Fresh Off the Boat pokes fun at the ignorance and blandness of white American culture.

Julia Wong

Cuba’s Performance Problem

Havana closes down an open mic.

Coco Fusco

The War on Billie Holiday

The Bureau of Narcotics' strange obsession

Johann Hari

Portrait of the Artist as a Dying Class

Scott Timberg argues that we've lost the scaffolding of middle-class jobs—record-store clerk, critic, roadie—that made creative scenes thrive.

Joanna Scutts

American Sniper: Guns, God and Gallons of Testo’

Clint Eastwood treats Iraq like Iwo Jima. Will Americans really go for this horseshit?

Michael Atkinson

Drowning Cajun Country

Will the eaters of étouffée disappear along with the Louisiana bayou?

Kendra Pierre-Louis

Slacking Workers of the World Unite

We've made an art of wasting time at work. But to what end?

Lindsay Beyerstein

The 1950s: You Had To Be There

Post-WWII America was more complicated than we remember.

Jane Miller

Brother, Can You Spare a Euro?

By posing the choice between a coworker's job and 1,000 Euros, Two Days, One Night explores the state of worker solidarity.

Michael Atkinson

Land of the Free and Home of the Enhanced Interrogators

We need a truth and reconciliation commission to deal with our torture problem.

Chris Lehmann