In the 1979 cult classic The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, a down-on-their-luck basketball team called the Pittsburgh Pythons is desperate for a change of fortune. They lose constantly, despite being led by the legendary Julius “Dr. J” Erving, and in a strange twist they turn to an astrologer (Stockard Channing) for help…

Nixon long portrayed himself as a victim of the press. However, from the 1952 Checkers speech to his post-presidency PR offensives, Nixon proved himself an able manipulator of the media.

We are hopeful not because what is lost can be recovered, but because an irrecoverable loss does not determine one’s sense of self and future.

Le Carré elevated quit lit into something sublime and deserving of literary awards, unlike my overwrought internet Weltschmertz.

Any film that so handedly breaks from the mainstream script about Cuba deserves our praise—and our scrutiny.

Writer Murray Browne looks back at Pynchon’s novel, once heralded by critics as “bonecrushingly dense,” in light of the age of Qanon.

What do the CIA and Gandhi have in common? Both were advocates of what historian Daniel Immerwahr calls “community development.”

Both films show how human faith falters in the face of planetary crisis. Only it’s not the Cold War anymore.