What Does The Apprentice Director See in Trump? A Tragedy. |
Back in 2018, Ali Abbasi's first trip to the Telluride Film Festival hit a snag. The forty-three-year-old Iranian director was set to attend the North American premiere of his second feature film, Border, when President Donald Trump issued a travel ban. Miraculously, Abbasi was granted the very first exception. Producers and writers hounded him to make a movie about Donald Trump, volleying scripts at him left and right. Eventually, Abbasi read a script by Gabriel Sherman that serves as the basis for The Apprentice. Sherman's idea of Donald Trump painted the former president as a product of the system that molded him. Roy Cohn, the prosecutor who pushed to send Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair in 1953, served as his sculptor. For Abbasi, it was the perfect way to tell the story. |
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Gabriel LaBelle Is On the Cusp of Something Great |
If The Fabelmans was LaBelle's holy-shit-who-is-this-kid breakout, Saturday Night is the movie that will decide whether he can carry the weight of an ensemble cast of his peers—which includes fellow hopeful heavyweights such as Rachel Sennott, Dylan O'Brien, and Cooper Hoffman—on his shoulders. (An image of LaBelle hoisting the troupe like the Greek titan Atlas is the official poster for Saturday Night.) If LaBelle's booked his next role, we don't know about it yet. Life beyond Monday night at the Elgin is a question mark. Still, if all goes well, there's going to be an undeniable before and after Saturday Night for LaBelle. He's on the precipice of something, not so unlike those seven comedians in Studio 8H fifty years ago. |
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The 7 Best Tavern-Style Burgers in America |
It's not hard to find a good smashburger these days. In fact, it feels like they're everywhere. Beef smashed down into a thin patty, sandwiched between a soft and squishy round bun, and topped with a blanket of melty, yellow American cheese. Toppings can vary; some onions—raw or caramelized—a couple pickles, perhaps, and all of a sudden the whole becomes even greater than the sum of its parts. Salt. Fat. Acid. Beef. But the pendulum must swing the other way, I say. Nowadays I'm craving big, thick-pattied burgers. Some call these tavern burgers or pub burgers or even bistro burgers. Whatever you dub them, let's bring back the beef. You know the ones I'm talking about: the hamburgers you see at places like the old-school steakhouse Peter Luger in Brooklyn, where the patty is prominent and the beef has the unmistakable bite of high-quality meat and the smell of dry-age funk. That's what I want. Pink center, juices oozing down my wrist. (Though there's no one hard-and-fast rule in terms of size for these burgers, they should clock in at a good 8 oz/half pound of beef and measure one to two inches high.) |
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The Three Types of Suits Every Man Should Own |
Reports about the death of the suit are greatly exaggerated. Although it's no longer the universal Monday-to-Friday uniform, a tailored two-piece remains an essential. From weddings and work events to funerals and (ahem) court dates, there are still occasions for which a business causal button-up and chinos just won't do. So yeah, you need at least one good one. Probably—almost certainly—in navy worsted wool (aka, the solid, slightly shiny wool you'll see on the vast majority of suits at any given department store, which has long been closely associated with traditional business attire). It'll work in almost any situation where a suit isn't just a suggestion. But that's just the foundation. If you're going to be suiting up with any regularity, you'll need to expand your repertoire. Especially since sometimes you may want to wear a suit just for fun. Showing up in some spruced-up tailoring and a tee feels positively fantastic when everyone else is wearing bog-standard business casual, after all. As with many things, when it comes to starting a suit wardrobe that you can use consistently and build upon later, three is the magic number. |
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The Midlife Crisis? Try the Three-Quarter-Life Quandary. |
The close of a decade! The advent of a too-swift descent!? The week before I turned 49, I lay on the bed of a Dexa Body Scan machine, a contraption that measured my body fat, lean muscle, weight, and BMI. The week before I turned 49, an optometrist broke the news that my astigmatism had worsened to the point that bifocals would help. Don't worry, they make them now where you can't see the bifocal lenses, she tried to assure me. The week I turned 49, I got a physical and told my doctor that I'd developed a nagging pain in my shoulder to accompany the chronic pain in my groin, that the muscles in the sole of my right foot seized on the regular. The week I turned 49, I ended months of procrastination by completing the paperwork for my living will and trust. But of course it forced me to assess my lesser-than-they-should-be assets. What I hadn't predicted, though, was the dread of filling out a durable health-care power-of-attorney form (autopsy? organ donation?); ditto for the morbid angst of DNR and end-of-life elections. (Did I want my life prolonged if diagnosed with a terminal condition? And if so, for how long and in what ways?) My God! Ever since I was knee-high to grown folks, soon as I turned an age, I'd contemplate the next one. Turn nine, what will ten feel like? Turn 21, how underwhelming will 22 feel, how overwhelming 25? On trend, no sooner than I turned 45 did I begin imagining the big 5-0. |
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4K TVs Don't Get Better Than This TCL QLED |
I make a living writing about (and trying out) high-end electronics. Just the other day I spent hours testing a TV with a five-digit price tag. Let me tell you what I've learned: Most people reading don't buy the expensive shit. Why would they when you have brands like TCL? The Q65 55-inch QLED is a versatile 4K TV from one of my favorite manufacturers of TVs that real people actually buy. TCL has become a standard-bearer for smart, modern TVs at a price that won't hit you where it hurts. Fully loaded TVs like this 55-inch QLED are built for cinema lovers, sports fans, and gamers alike. I'm two of those three things and can attest that this is an awesome TV. Now it's time to have it wall-mounted. | |
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