Yes, chef: I spoke with Lionel Boyce — Marcus on The Bear — about that trip to Denmark and how his character functions as a tension release for a stressed out show. He was, not surprisingly, very chill.

As Chef Marcus on 'The Bear,' Lionel Boyce is all about keeping calm through the chaos

'Marcus is the release of all the tension,' the actor says he's been told about his character.

In We Burn Daylight, novelist Bret Anthony Johnston reimagines the Waco tragedy as a Romeo and Juliet story, with a teen romance torn asunder. Excellent book. I wrote about it for The Los Angeles Times.

Star-crossed lovers torn apart by a cult: How a new novel humanizes the Waco siege

With 'We Burn Daylight,' Bret Anthony Johnston tries to humanize the Waco siege, often remembered in sensational headlines.

In the summer of 1982 an armada of sci-fi movies invaded theaters. Some, like E.T., were hits. Others, including the genre classics Blade Runner and The Thing, were not. Studios were chasing that Star Wars money. Chris Nashawaty tells the story in The Future Was Now.

The summer of '82 changed sci-fi cinema forever

Just a few months brought “Blade Runner,” “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” “Mad Max 2,” “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” “The Thing” and “Tron.” What did studios learn from this glut?

Isolationism and its discontents: For The New York Times I wrote about The Fortress, a new paranoid thriller series in which Norway walls itself off from the rest of the world. Then they get their very own pandemic. Oops.

‘The Fortress’: A Norwegian Export About the Danger of Closed Borders

Both sociopolitical thriller and parable, this Viaplay series presents a future that can feel uncomfortably plausible.

A lot going on in Lady of the Lake, most of it quite intriguing. A story of two deaths in 1966 Baltimore, white privilege, and a very ambitious reporter. For The Los Angeles Times I spoke with stars Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram, novelist Laura Lippman, and series creator Alma Har’el.

Adapting 'Lady in the Lake' for TV meant centering the women at the core of the story

'Lady in the Lake,' premiering Friday on Apple TV+, is based on Laura Lippman's novel, and the TV adaptation, under the helm of Alma Har’el, aims to center two women's voices.

I’m in The New York Times today, writing about natural disasters of the cinematic and real varieties. (Note: the cinematic kind is a lot more fun).

Opinion | Watching ‘Twisters’ Amid the Wreckage of Hurricane Beryl

Disaster movies make for thrilling blockbusters. But the reality of a changing climate is slow-motion tragedy, broken bureaucracy and lingering tedium.

Always fun to be in my hometown paper The San Francisco Chronicle, in this case writing about the Louis C.K. documentary Sorry/Not Sorry. A solid look at the dude-bro comedy culture that protects its own, as long as its own are men.

I loved Ben Shattuck’s The History of Sound, an interconnected collection of short stories spanning centuries in New England. It’s the kind of book that reminds you of the genre’s possibilities. I reviewed for The Boston Globe.

In ‘The History of Sound,’ Shattuck’s stories sing - The Boston Globe

Ben Shattuck's short story collection bounces characters and story lines off each other, crafting a polyphonic choir of tales.

For The New York Times I wrote about how My Lady Jane gives cheeky, raunchy new life to the tragic historical figure Lady Jane Grey. Watch it along with The Serpent Queen and Mary & George and have yourself a Flexing Renaissance Women extravaganza.

‘My Lady Jane’ Asks: ‘What if History Were Different?’

A fantastical series about the very short-term 16th century queen Lady Jane Grey takes historical liberties in the name of reclamation — and fun.

New from me in The Texas Canon: Bonnie and Clyde and revolutionary shots fired in Hollywood. Side note: I had planned on dipping back into Mark Harris’ Pictures at a Revolution for research purposes. Instead I find myself re-reading the whole thing. Damn that book is good.

How 'Bonnie and Clyde' busted into Hollywood with guns a-blazin'

Today, the film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway is a sacred cinematic text. When it came out in 1967, it was almost dead on arrival.