‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’ Is a Stinging Comedy of Banal Chaos
Radu Jude’s gonzo satire of post-Soviet Romania, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, hits a sweet spot between Luis Buñuel and Béla Tarr.
absurdism
On Helen McClory’s Parasocial Love for Jeff Goldblum in ‘The Goldblum Variations’
Metatexually dazzling yet absurdly soothing, Helen McClory's The Goldblum Variations will put a dent in your bad vibes.
Absurdism and Power: Robert Altman’s ‘Brewster McCloud’ in Today’s America
Robert Altman’s comedy Brewster McCloud is as relevant to our absurd society today as it was to our absurd society half a century ago.
Joseph Scapellato’s ‘The Made-Up Man’ Brings Forth 21st Century Absurdism
In rendering his most avant-garde characters as members of a kind of self-help conspiracy in The Made-Up Man, Joseph Scapellato offers not an update but a revision of absurdism, and as such, many social phenomena ripe for satire get off easy.
‘Space Opera’: A Galactic-scale Eurovision-style Life or Death Singing Contest
In Catherynne M. Valente's Space Opera, the Meaning of Life has a beat and, depending on your alien physiology, you might be able to dance to it.
Hello, Hypocrisy, My Old Friend: ‘The Religion of the Future’
Roberto Mangabeira Unger eats his own tail in his helpless "new" synthesis of philosophy, religion, and politics.
Looking for ‘The Stranger’: Albert Camus and the Life of a Literary Classic
Albert Camus’ classic The Stranger has finally earned its very own biography from esteemed scholar Alice Kaplan