Art and Culture

This article is taken from the June 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10. The biggest noise to be heard in orchestral music…
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5 days agoMark Savage,Music CorrespondentGetty ImagesFreddie Mercury, who died in 1991, was Queen's dynamic and charismatic frontmanSony Music is reportedly in talks to buy the music catalogue of the rock band Queen, including hits like…
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For anyone with a love of early-2000s R&B and hip-hop, the line-up poster for this year’s Lovers & Friends festival in Las Vegas is a dreamland. Janet Jackson, Usher, Alicia Keys, Nelly, Ludacris, Gwen Stefani and Lil Wayne are…
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How gratifying to chuck dirty money back in the face of a would-be benefactor. Such moments mark literature. Pip refusing funds from Magwitch, a convict. Will Ladislaw disdaining the charity of George Eliot’s corrupted Bulstrode. The…
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The owner of the hit online game Wordle is legally challenging a geography-based spinoff called Worldle.In the filing, the New York Times, which purchased Wordle for a seven figure sumin 2022, accuses its near-namesake of "creating…
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Should children be allowed to smoke cigarettes at school? Strange as it sounds, there was a time when senior educators in Ontario believed they should. In 1985, given the overwhelming evidence of smoking’s harms, the Ontario…
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Typically, the career path to film criticism doesn’t start with a 7-year-old in class declaring that they want to review movies when they grow up. As a kid from Nairobi, my journey toward a life dedicated to analyzing film began…
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Fast & Furious 6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Top Gun: Maverick. For decades, Memorial Day weekend has been a reliable time for unveiling a new installment in a popular film franchise, sometimes to the tune of more than…
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Matthew Strother (courtesy of Berta Willisch).This article is part of a new Persuasion series on the future of universities.Universities are in crisis—losing public support, shaken by internal divisions, facing angry donors and alumni,…
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A Canadian journalist is defending his decision to travel the U.S. in blackface and write a book about racism, after facing a storm of criticism online."Last summer, I disguised myself as a Black man and traveled throughout the United…
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