All Forms of Art

  There was something comforting about The Summer I Turned Pretty when it started . It was a coming-of-age story about first love, family, grief, and the strange realization that childhood is slowly disappearing. Even when Belly was frustrating, her choices felt believable for a teenager trying to understand herself. By the third season, though, everyone is older—and somehow, they don't seem to have moved very far. Season 3 is easily my least favorite of the series. It isn't that the show suddenly becomes completely unwatchable. There are still emotional moments that work, and some characters get surprisingly good arcs. But the story that once felt like a bittersweet exploration of growing up now feels increasingly stuck in the same romantic drama. Growing Up Is Hard The season jumps ahead in time, immediately reminding us that these characters are meant to enter a different stage of their lives. Belly ( Lola Tung ) has opportunities ahead of her, including an internship i...

  Tom Glynn-Carney is an English actor who has built an impressive career from a relatively small number of screen roles. Born in Salford in 1995, he trained at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama after studying musical theatre, and his background in theatre has remained an important part of his career. For many viewers, he is now best known as Aegon II Targaryen in House of the Dragon . But that role is only one part of what makes Glynn-Carney interesting. Before becoming one of the most unpredictable characters in Westeros, he had already demonstrated that he could move between very different kinds of characters, from a young man caught in the chaos of war to Shakespearean-style historical drama and acclaimed theatre. His Career Glynn-Carney began appearing on television with a small role in Casualty in 2013. His breakthrough on screen came in 2017, when Christopher Nolan cast him as Peter Dawson in Dunkirk . That same year, he also appeared on stage in Jez Butterwort...

  There is something strangely frustrating about the ending of House of the Dragon Season 3. The entire season has been building tension. Armies have been gathering, alliances have been shifting, dragons have been appearing, characters have been having visions, and everyone seems to be moving inexorably towards a much bigger conflict. And then, when we finally reach the point where everything should explode, the story seems to stop. This feels disappointing, but if you think about it, this season was never really to show us who wins the war. It was to show us what the war is already doing to the people fighting it. Rhaenyra Is Becoming What Alicent Feared Throughout the season, Rhaenyra ( Emma D'Arcy ) has grown increasingly desperate. Alicent ( Olivia Cooke ) understood that power changes people and tried to warn her, but she ignored it. Now, Rhaenyra is becoming harsher, more impatient, and, at times, surprisingly cruel. This is one of the things that frustrated me most abou...

  Hugh Laurie is one of those actors whose career can almost feel like two completely different careers. Before becoming internationally famous as the brilliant and difficult Dr. Gregory House, Laurie was already a successful British comedian, writer and performer, particularly known for his work alongside Stephen Fry. Born in Oxford in 1959, Laurie studied at Cambridge, where he became involved with the famous Footlights theatrical club. It was there that he met Emma Thompson and, through her, Stephen Fry. Their collaboration would become one of the defining partnerships of British comedy in the 1980s and 1990s. His early career included Blackadder , A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster , establishing him as a comic performer long before Hollywood gave him the role that would change his career forever. Hugh Laurie’s Most Important Roles 1. House — Dr. Gregory House It is almost impossible to talk about Hugh Laurie without talking about House . Between 2004 and 201...

  There is something interesting about trying to figure out what children today actually want from their stories. Adults often imagine that the answer has to be something completely new. New characters, new worlds, new aesthetics, new ways of telling stories. But perhaps children haven't changed as much as we think. They still want heroes. They still want to feel special. They still want friendship, adventure, glamour and the possibility that they could somehow make the world a better place. What has changed is the language we use to tell those stories. And KPop Demon Hunters seems to understand that very well. Instead of knights, superheroes or traditional fantasy warriors, we get K-pop idols. They have the glamour, the fame, the music and the huge performances that are already part of the cultural world many children and teenagers recognize. But underneath all of that is a surprisingly familiar story about identity, shame, belonging and hope. The demons are almost secondary....

  Some writers try to explain the universe. Douglas Adams looked at it, decided that it was fundamentally absurd, and asked why anyone expected it to make sense. Best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy , Adams became one of the defining voices of British science fiction comedy. But reducing him to the creator of a funny science-fiction series misses much of what made his writing special. His work combined absurd humor with philosophical questions, scientific curiosity, social satire, and a fascination with technology. He could make a joke about the end of the world while simultaneously asking what it means to be human in a universe that doesn't particularly care about us. And somehow, he made that comforting. Who Was Douglas Adams? Douglas Noël Adams was born in Cambridge in 1952 and studied English literature at St John's College , Cambridge, graduating in 1974. While at university, he became involved with the Cambridge Footlights, the famous comedy group t...