The 25 Best Sports Documentaries of All Time |
For almost as long as cinema has existed, we’ve filmed sports. And why not? The beauty, courage, and determination of athletes are not only aesthetically compelling, but their struggles are inherently dramatic. So is the culture surrounding games and competitions. With the advent of televised sports—and, in recent decades, faster, more modern ways of documentation—sports documentaries\xa0have proliferated as a popular genre. \xa0 The styles run the gamut—from cinema verité to the stately\xa0Ken Burns\xa0approach—and there are dozens of incredible works that you won’t find on this list simply because there is too much great stuff to reduce to 25. So for those of you who sorely miss\xa0The Great American Cowboy\xa0(an Oscar winner),\xa0On Any Sunday,\xa016 Days of Glory,\xa0John McEnroe: In The Realm of Perfection, or any number of 30 for 30 segments, including\xa0The Two Escobars, well, we don’t blame you. But this is our list, and we stand by it. After all, what is a sports list if it doesn’t start an argument? |
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Why Are Debut Novels Failing to Launch? |
In December 2021,\xa0The New York Times\xa0called\xa0best-selling debut novels “the bald eagles of the book world.” Of the fifteen that appeared on the newspaper’s hardcover-fiction list that year, writer Elisabeth Egan wrote, “only five were by non-celebrity authors who had not been anointed by Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Jenna Bush, or the\xa0Good Morning America\xa0Book Club.” Today, it’s not enough to land a spot in one of these coveted book clubs. According to an editor at a venerable publishing imprint, debut novelists need three key publicity achievements to “break out”: one, a major book club; two, a boost from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Indie Next, and/or Book of the Month; and three, a major profile. \xa0 A few times a year, one of these breakout debuts lands on everyone’s reading list—think Jonathan Escoffery’s\xa0If I Survive You,\xa0R.O. Kwon’s\xa0The Incendiaries,\xa0and Stephanie Danler’s\xa0Sweetbitter—but those are few and far between. There were roughly five hundred thousand books published in 2023, per BookScan (which captures only about 85 percent of industry data), and no one knows how many debuts are published each year. Most come and go without much fanfare. The vast majority of titles\xa0sell fewer than five thousand copies, but across the entire industry, book sales are up. In 2004, there were at least\xa0648 million books sold\xa0in the United States, and in 2013, 620 million; last year, there were at least 767,360,000 books sold—a significant increase. If that’s the case, then why does it seem like it’s harder now for a debut writer to “break out”? |
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The Best Bars in America 2024 |
More bars these days seem to be a complete package, like a nightlife one-stop shop. They can be a club if you want—you know, the kind you dance in. They can be the place where you order a bottle of\xa0Champagne\xa0and endless\xa0oysters. They can be a jazz lounge. They can be the place where you think you’ve stumbled on a garage party attended by the city’s\xa0coolest people\xa0(in a city you didn’t know had cool people). They can be that dimly lit vault where you and everyone else become someone else. \xa0 Bars have always been that third place, the spot where you hang outside work and home. But as we’ve discovered crisscrossing the country over the past twelve months to visit the new bars, they’re doing that in more nuanced and varied ways than they have in a long time. It’s not just about the drinks. Then again, it’s never just about the drinks. |
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Bill Skarsgård Likes It Darker |
Before Skarsgård started filmingIt, the studio released a photo of him in costume to drum up excitement. Social-media feeds went wild, and fan blogs tore him apart. “I was so incredibly nervous to start this job, and then the Internet is having so many hateful opinions on the weird, strange look of the thing,” he recalls. \xa0 He couldn’t sleep. The insults echoed through his mind all night long. “This looks so stupid.” “Lame.” “Boooo.” But, in time, the haters forced him to make a decision that would change his approach to acting forever. “You can only make this performance to please yourself,” he says of the new attitude. He made himself both the creator and the audience in his mind, and he figured out what he wanted to see. What he thought was cool. Unsettling.\xa0Terrifying.“It unlocked something in me,” he admits. “And it gave me the confidence that I can take on any challenge.”\xa0 |
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12 Best Brands for Menswear Basics, According to a Style Editor |
As somebody who literally scours the Internet for the very best menswear out there\xa0for a living,\xa0I've seen it all. And over the years, I've come to know a few brands as the trusty, reliable ones, the ones I can always turn to for basics that are infallibly chic, enduringly cool, and infinitely high-quality. \xa0 Really, having solid basics is the foundation of having a great wardrobe. I don't just mean "get a\xa0white tee\xa0that fits you well" (although you should have that)—I mean you should reach for brands that are producing garments you can wear and pair with anything, that are offering plenty of bang for your buck. As a style editor, the 12 brands below are the most reliable ones that I consistently turn to for\xa0menswear basics. |
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All 77 Stephen King Books, Ranked |
There will probably never be another author like Stephen King. I’m not sure there ever could be.Since the publication of his first novel,\xa0Carrie, fifty years ago, King has held dominion over the landscape of horror. He arrived during a resurgent interest in all things frightening–following the success of Ira Levin’s\xa0Rosemary’s Baby\xa0(1967) and William Peter Blatty’s\xa0The Exorcist\xa0(1971)—and quickly set about reshaping the genre in his own image. King has regularly published two or three books per year, a stream of words flowing incessantly west toward Hollywood. Almost everything he has ever written has been optioned or adapted for the screen, in some cases several times. \xa0 Such prolificacy has often led to sniffing criticism from those who consider him “merely” a horror writer (as if horror is anything “mere”). But for millions of readers and writers, he is our North Star, our Southern Cross. We navigate by him. I have interviewed hundreds of horror writers from all across the genre’s wide spectrum, and when asked for their inspirations and their gateways to fearful fiction, so many leap immediately to King. Nat Cassidy, author of 2022’s\xa0Mary: An Awakening of Terror, put it best, describing King as his “mother tongue.” He is not just a writer; he is an industry, an aesthetic, a genre of one. |
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