Dana Stevens
@thehighsign.bsky.social
Film critic at Slate; co-host of the Slate Culture Gabfest podcast; repped by the Cheney Agency; member NYFCC. Camera Man, my book on Buster Keaton, is out: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Camera-Man/Dana-Stevens/9781501134203
Pinned
The New Wicked Is Not Going to Be As Popular As the First
Wicked: For Good suffers from the same problem as the Broadway musical, but one performer saves it.
slate.com
When Universal & director Jon M. Chu decided to divide Wicked into 2 movies they must have known they were taking a chance, since the show's 1st act is where nearly all the best songs are. So Wicked: For Good suffers from mild sequelitis--but see it anyway, for the divas.
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
This profoundly repellent man, who should be in a secure psychiatric facility, has made very plain his desire to kill as many of us as possible, and we are being repeatedly asked to read terrible prose about thirsting for him. NO! GET AWAY!
November 24, 2025 at 9:03 PM
This profoundly repellent man, who should be in a secure psychiatric facility, has made very plain his desire to kill as many of us as possible, and we are being repeatedly asked to read terrible prose about thirsting for him. NO! GET AWAY!
Doesn't start but ends there:
November 23, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Doesn't start but ends there:
If it weren't for the nature and bird accounts I follow I would have succumbed to poster's madness long ago. Just try to watch this half-minute of owl floof w/o feeling more relaxed.
November 23, 2025 at 5:11 PM
If it weren't for the nature and bird accounts I follow I would have succumbed to poster's madness long ago. Just try to watch this half-minute of owl floof w/o feeling more relaxed.
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Eagle Lake, Acadia NP, last night around 4pm
November 23, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Eagle Lake, Acadia NP, last night around 4pm
Reposted by Dana Stevens
TRUMP: and this Daniel, he went into the den?
MAMDANI: The lion's den, yes
TRUMP: surely they ate him
MAMDANI: Here's the part where it gets a little Broadway: they didn't
TRUMP: Unbelievable
MAMDANI: The lion's den, yes
TRUMP: surely they ate him
MAMDANI: Here's the part where it gets a little Broadway: they didn't
TRUMP: Unbelievable
November 21, 2025 at 9:41 PM
TRUMP: and this Daniel, he went into the den?
MAMDANI: The lion's den, yes
TRUMP: surely they ate him
MAMDANI: Here's the part where it gets a little Broadway: they didn't
TRUMP: Unbelievable
MAMDANI: The lion's den, yes
TRUMP: surely they ate him
MAMDANI: Here's the part where it gets a little Broadway: they didn't
TRUMP: Unbelievable
Reposted by Dana Stevens
When Universal & director Jon M. Chu decided to divide Wicked into 2 movies they must have known they were taking a chance, since the show's 1st act is where nearly all the best songs are. So Wicked: For Good suffers from mild sequelitis--but see it anyway, for the divas.
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
The New Wicked Is Not Going to Be As Popular As the First
Wicked: For Good suffers from the same problem as the Broadway musical, but one performer saves it.
slate.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:38 PM
When Universal & director Jon M. Chu decided to divide Wicked into 2 movies they must have known they were taking a chance, since the show's 1st act is where nearly all the best songs are. So Wicked: For Good suffers from mild sequelitis--but see it anyway, for the divas.
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
He desired desire. He was a desirer of desiring, who above all desired to let eels chomp on his flesh & for your children to die en masse of preventable diseases.
The head of health services in the United States, letting parasitic lampreys bite his arms for some godforsaken reason.
November 21, 2025 at 7:56 PM
He desired desire. He was a desirer of desiring, who above all desired to let eels chomp on his flesh & for your children to die en masse of preventable diseases.
Reposted by Dana Stevens
When the restaurant TVs have motion smoothing on
November 20, 2025 at 4:14 PM
When the restaurant TVs have motion smoothing on
Very fun roundup. Also read Matt's book Opposable Thumbs, an anecdote-packed tribute to the small-screen critical titans who changed lives--certainly those of us future movie critics.
50 years ago this week, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert made the first pilot for their TV show. In honor of this huge anniversary, I created my definitive “Best of Siskel & Ebert” article - 50 of their best reviews from across their entire career. 👍🏻👍🏻
The 50 Best Siskel & Ebert Reviews
screencrush.com
November 20, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Very fun roundup. Also read Matt's book Opposable Thumbs, an anecdote-packed tribute to the small-screen critical titans who changed lives--certainly those of us future movie critics.
When Universal & director Jon M. Chu decided to divide Wicked into 2 movies they must have known they were taking a chance, since the show's 1st act is where nearly all the best songs are. So Wicked: For Good suffers from mild sequelitis--but see it anyway, for the divas.
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
The New Wicked Is Not Going to Be As Popular As the First
Wicked: For Good suffers from the same problem as the Broadway musical, but one performer saves it.
slate.com
November 20, 2025 at 5:38 PM
When Universal & director Jon M. Chu decided to divide Wicked into 2 movies they must have known they were taking a chance, since the show's 1st act is where nearly all the best songs are. So Wicked: For Good suffers from mild sequelitis--but see it anyway, for the divas.
slate.com/culture/2025...
slate.com/culture/2025...
Fewer ICE officers abducting daycare workers, more mini-goats grazing in front of BLM yard signs.
Spied in Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood today. At least 5-6 small billy goats just roaming the sidewalk, with no human nearby. Charming, delightful, and utterly mysterious. Any locals know who these cuties belong to?
November 20, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Fewer ICE officers abducting daycare workers, more mini-goats grazing in front of BLM yard signs.
Drafting my letter to Santa already
November 20, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Drafting my letter to Santa already
"Things happen" sometimes, like when you walk into an embassy to apply for your marriage license while your bride-to-be waits outside, but then you get bonesawed to pieces for having exercised freedom of speech as an US-based journalist and have to be carried out in a series of suitcases.
Trump suggests Khashoggi had it coming: "You're mentioning someone that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen. But he knew nothing about it. You don't have to embarrass our guest."
November 18, 2025 at 11:18 PM
"Things happen" sometimes, like when you walk into an embassy to apply for your marriage license while your bride-to-be waits outside, but then you get bonesawed to pieces for having exercised freedom of speech as an US-based journalist and have to be carried out in a series of suitcases.
The way this guy always has a twinkling smile as he's talking on some news show or other about the most dystopian hellscape imaginable. Oh haha, those silly "new kids out of college" thinking they might someday get to have a job and eat food.
Kevin Hassett: "I think there could be a little bit of an almost quiet time in the labor market, because firms are finding that AI is making their workers so productive that they don't necessarily have to hire the new kids out of college and so on."
November 17, 2025 at 3:03 PM
The way this guy always has a twinkling smile as he's talking on some news show or other about the most dystopian hellscape imaginable. Oh haha, those silly "new kids out of college" thinking they might someday get to have a job and eat food.
Remember the recent middle-of-the-night apartment building raid where children were dragged outside naked & zip-tied in the street while black & Latino residents were _sorted by race_ and piled into separate vans while their apartments were ransacked & robbed? That raid? So it resulted in 0 arrests.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign and be criminally charged, according to critics who seized on a report revealing that zero people who were arrested in a high-profile raid were charged with a crime.
'Noem should resign over this': Fury over alleged DHS 'child kidnapping and trafficking'
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should resign and be criminally charged, according to critics who seized on a report revealing that zero people who were arrested in a high-profile raid were charged with a crime.ProPublica recently reported on the DHS raid on an apartment building that was al...
bit.ly
November 16, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Remember the recent middle-of-the-night apartment building raid where children were dragged outside naked & zip-tied in the street while black & Latino residents were _sorted by race_ and piled into separate vans while their apartments were ransacked & robbed? That raid? So it resulted in 0 arrests.
Reposted by Dana Stevens
In 1982, synthesizer innovator Wendy Carlos (born on this day in 1939) got the opportunity to play in a giant sandbox, creating a combination orchestral/synth score for Disney’s big-budget adventure ‘Tron.’ Complications ensued. crookedmarquee.com/pixel-perfec...
Pixel Perfect: How Wendy Carlos Gave an Extra Dimension to Tron
How synthesizer innovator Wendy Carlos created a combination orchestral/synth score for Disney’s big-budget adventure ‘Tron.’
crookedmarquee.com
November 15, 2025 at 1:15 AM
In 1982, synthesizer innovator Wendy Carlos (born on this day in 1939) got the opportunity to play in a giant sandbox, creating a combination orchestral/synth score for Disney’s big-budget adventure ‘Tron.’ Complications ensued. crookedmarquee.com/pixel-perfec...
Reposted by Dana Stevens
why is it so funny that it's lunch
Pope Leo XIV Will Have Lunch With 4 Trans Women in "Unprecedented" Meeting
https://www.them.us/story/pope-leo-xiv-lunch-trans-activists-alesia-nobile
https://www.them.us/story/pope-leo-xiv-lunch-trans-activists-alesia-nobile
November 15, 2025 at 12:49 AM
why is it so funny that it's lunch
Eyes as blue as the flame
Shedding tears for a rose:
Sights that wrench a girl’s heart
Like whale juice stings the nose
His love, so insatiable
Complex and dark
More perplexing by far
Than roadkill in a park
He promised a baby,
A bullet--no pain--
A future as long
As the worm in his brain.
Shedding tears for a rose:
Sights that wrench a girl’s heart
Like whale juice stings the nose
His love, so insatiable
Complex and dark
More perplexing by far
Than roadkill in a park
He promised a baby,
A bullet--no pain--
A future as long
As the worm in his brain.
November 14, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Eyes as blue as the flame
Shedding tears for a rose:
Sights that wrench a girl’s heart
Like whale juice stings the nose
His love, so insatiable
Complex and dark
More perplexing by far
Than roadkill in a park
He promised a baby,
A bullet--no pain--
A future as long
As the worm in his brain.
Shedding tears for a rose:
Sights that wrench a girl’s heart
Like whale juice stings the nose
His love, so insatiable
Complex and dark
More perplexing by far
Than roadkill in a park
He promised a baby,
A bullet--no pain--
A future as long
As the worm in his brain.
Can't wait to listen to this. Sepinwall is always a smart moderator who asks the right questions, and who doesn't want to hear Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn live onstage exploring their wildly fruitful creative partnership?
The PaleyFest Pluribus panel I moderated is now up on YouTube. (My favorite part comes around the 33-minute mark, where Rhea Seehorn off the cuff expertly dissects an aspect of Carol she hadn't even thought about before.)
PaleyFest NY 25: Pluribus
YouTube video by The Paley Center for Media
www.youtube.com
November 14, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Can't wait to listen to this. Sepinwall is always a smart moderator who asks the right questions, and who doesn't want to hear Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn live onstage exploring their wildly fruitful creative partnership?
Seems fine to me to uphold a consistent moderation policy that posting death threats, even non-serious ones, results in a brief suspension. The poster may not be expressing real-world intent, but maybe they're followed by nutjobs who hear it that way. & who couldn't use a 3-day grass-touching break?
November 14, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Seems fine to me to uphold a consistent moderation policy that posting death threats, even non-serious ones, results in a brief suspension. The poster may not be expressing real-world intent, but maybe they're followed by nutjobs who hear it that way. & who couldn't use a 3-day grass-touching break?
Shakespeare: There's Always a Tweet™
[Enter two other Senators with a Messenger.]
THIRD SENATOR
Thou hast painfully discover’d; are his files
As full as thy report?
THIRD SENATOR
Thou hast painfully discover’d; are his files
As full as thy report?
November 14, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Shakespeare: There's Always a Tweet™
*Turns in film-critic badge, walks dejectedly into the night*
November 13, 2025 at 4:53 PM
*Turns in film-critic badge, walks dejectedly into the night*
Reposted by Dana Stevens
Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.
November 12, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.
My former upstairs neighbor, out there doing the work <3
For folks (and journalists) who want to search the Oversight Committee email texts, I made a database for searching the 20k text files:
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
Epstein Document Search
splendorous-chaja-f79791.netlify.app
November 13, 2025 at 1:47 AM
My former upstairs neighbor, out there doing the work <3
Reposted by Dana Stevens
I hereby apologize to Eyes Wide Shut for thinking it was hyperbolic
November 12, 2025 at 10:10 PM
I hereby apologize to Eyes Wide Shut for thinking it was hyperbolic