On October 19th, a group of masked men broke into the Louvre in broad daylight and made off with some of France’s crown jewels. Suspects are now in custody, but the online fervor is still going strong. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the sordid satisfaction of watching a heist play out, both onscreen and off. They dive into the debacle at the Louvre, along with a range of fictional depictions, from the fantasy of hyper-competence in “Ocean’s Eleven” to the theft that goes woefully awry in Kelly Reichardt’s new film, “The Mastermind.” Part of the fun, it seems, lies in rooting for those who identify and exploit the blind spots of an institution. “Someone else, just like me, is seeing that everybody is an idiot. But, unlike me, they’re able to best those people in charge,” Fry says. “It’s an alternative morality—a morality of wits.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Mastermind” (2025)“Ocean’s Eleven” (2001)Stella Webb’s impression of “the Louvre heist Creative Director”Jake Schroeder’s “Ballad for the Louvre”“Showing Up” (2022)“The Italian Job” (1969)“How to Beat the High Cost of Living” (1980)“Drive” (2011)“Le Cercle Rouge” (1970)“This Is a Robbery: The World’s Biggest Art Heist” (2021)“Good Time” (2017)“George Santos and the Art of the Scam” (The New Yorker)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Critics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture. Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyyw
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44:40
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44:40
Critics at Large Live: Padma Lakshmi’s Expansive Taste
Padma Lakshmi is unquestionably a woman of taste. As a host of the beloved food-competition series “Top Chef” and the star of the culinary docuseries “Taste the Nation,” she’s spent nearly two decades artfully conveying—and critiquing—flavors and aromas for an audience. Before that, she was a fashion writer and model, cultivating her own sense of what’s worth wearing and seeing. And she isn’t done evolving: she’s recently begun performing standup comedy, an art form with a notoriously steep learning curve. In a live taping at The New Yorker Festival, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz talk with Lakshmi about the difference between discernment and pickiness, how travel has expanded her taste, and her approach to rendering judgement on TV. “I see my job as helping,” Lakshmi says. “I see my job as being the person in the kitchen who’s saying, ‘Does this need a little salt?’ ”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“Top Chef” (2006—)“Taste the Nation” (2020-23)“RuPaul’s Drag Race” (2009—)“American Idol” (2002—)“Project Runway” (2004—)“Padma’s All American,” by Padma Lakshmi“Padma Lakshmi Walks Into a Bar,” by Helen Rosner (The New Yorker)“Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (The New Yorker)Dijon’s “Baby”“Frankenstein” (2025)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
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36:24
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36:24
Why Horror Still Haunts Us
Horror movies are big business: this year, they’ve accounted for more ticket sales in the U.S. than comedies and dramas combined, bringing in over a billion dollars at the box office. And the phenomenon goes beyond a hunger for cheap thrills and slasher flicks; artists have been using horror to explore deep-seated communal and personal anxieties for centuries. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, along with the New Yorker culture editor Alex Barasch, use three contemporary entries—“The Babadook,” “Saint Maud,” and “Weapons”—to illustrate the inventive filmmaking and sharp social commentary that have become hallmarks of modern horror. “In the past, the horror would be something external that’s disrupting a previously idyllic town or life. Now there's a lot more of: the bad thing has already happened to you,” Barasch says. “You already have a trauma at the beginning of the film—or even before the film begins—and then that is eating you from the inside, or trying to kill you, and you have to grapple with that.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:“The Babadook” (2014)“Rosemary’s Baby” (1968)“Scream with Me,” by Eleanor Johnson“Hereditary” (2018)“The Substance” (2024)“Saint Maud” (2020)The “Saw” franchise (2004—)“The Exorcist” (1973)“The Case Against the Trauma Plot,” by Parul Sehgal (The New Yorker)“Weapons” (2025)“Barbarian” (2022) “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974)“Get Out” (2017)“Alien” (1979)“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)“Talk to Me” (2022)New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
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51:47
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51:47
In the Dark: Blood Relatives, Episode 1
On August 7, 1985, five family members were shot dead in their English country manor, Whitehouse Farm. It looked like an open-and-shut case. But the New Yorker staff writer Heidi Blake finds that almost nothing about this story is as it seems. New Yorker subscribers get early, ad-free access to “Blood Relatives.” In Apple Podcasts, tap the link at the top of the feed to subscribe or link an existing subscription. Or visit newyorker.com/dark to subscribe and listen in the New Yorker app. In the Dark has merch! Buy specially designed hats, T-shirts, and totes for yourself or a loved one at store.newyorker.com.
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46:13
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46:13
Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Generative A.I., once an uncanny novelty, is now being used to create not only images and videos but entire “artists.” Its boosters claim that the technology is merely a tool to facilitate human creativity; the major use cases we’ve seen thus far—and the money being poured into these projects—tell a different story. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the output of Timbaland’s A.I. rapper TaTa Taktumi and the synthetic actress Tilly Norwood. They also look back at movies and television that imagined what our age of A.I. would look like, from “2001: A Space Odyssey” onward. “A.I. has been a source of fascination, of terror, of appeal,” Schwartz says. “It’s the human id in virtual form—at least in human-made art.”Read, watch, and listen with the critics:TaTa Taktumi’s “Glitch x Pulse”Cardi B’s “Am I the Drama?”“Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE” (2024)“Dear Tilly Norwood,” by Betty Gilpin (The Hollywood Reporter)Tilly Norwood’s Instagram account“Holly Herndon’s Infinite Art,” by Anna Wiener (The New Yorker)“2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968)“The Morning Show” (2019—)“Simone” (2002)“Blade Runner” (1982)“Ex Machina” (2014)“The Man Who Sells Unsellable New York Apartments,” by Alexandra Schwartz (The New Yorker)“The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” by Walter Benjamin“The Death of the Author,” by Roland BarthesNew episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyywCritics at Large is a weekly discussion from The New Yorker which explores the latest trends in books, television, film, and more. Join us every Thursday as we make unexpected connections between classic texts and pop culture.
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Critics at Large is a weekly culture podcast from The New Yorker. Every Thursday, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss current obsessions, classic texts they’re revisiting with fresh eyes, and trends that are emerging across books, television, film, and more. The show runs the gamut of the arts and pop culture, with lively, surprising conversations about everything from Salman Rushdie to “The Real Housewives.” Through rigorous analysis and behind-the-scenes insights into The New Yorker’s reporting, the magazine’s critics help listeners make sense of our moment—and how we got here.Please help us improve New Yorker podcasts by filling out our listener survey: https://panel2058.na2.panelpulse.com/c/a/661hs4tSRdw2yB2dvjFyyw
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