Subscriber Exclusive
ONBOOK | OPINION: Jones releases 3d edition of ‘Classics Illustrated’
Most of us are generalists, who know -- or think we know -- a little bit about a lot of things.
Stories by Philip Martin
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: ‘Sugar’ hails from a place we can’t quite define
I'm about to reveal a major spoiler in the Apple TV+ noir detective series "Sugar." If you are faint of heart or character or subscribe to the idea that everyt…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: A quiet place
One of my professors at Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University 40 years ago was Alain A. Levasseur, who, I'm pleased to notice, is still assoc…
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Subscriber ExclusiveThe body cam loophole
I still have questions about why Bryan Malinowski is dead.
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: How ‘Baby Reindeer’ tells its truth
A black comedy in which you struggle to find the humor. (Donny gives us a concise review of his act: If people laugh, it's comedy. If they don't, it's performa…
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POPNOTES | OPINION: ‘Steel Magnolias’ not really a Southern movie, but it does have its moments
The South is freighted territory, thick with ghosts and nonsense, and performative professional Southerners who regularly lie to strangers, friends and sometim…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Where did the grownups go?
I thought there'd always be adults.
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Subscriber ExclusiveA nostalgic parable of the irons
One of the things I like to do is hit golf balls.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | ON BOOKS: ‘John Sandford’ provides thrills with book ‘Toxic Prey’
If you go to John Sandford's website and you click on the "author" tab, in the very first sentence you learn that "John Sandford is the pseudonym of John Roswe…
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Subscriber ExclusiveREVIEW | OPINION: ‘Boy Kills World’ blissfully violent anarchy
Calculatedly deranged, "Boy Kills World" is a refreshingly unambitious ''midnite'' movie that unabashedly lifts from all manner of violent and geeky pulp. It i…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOP NOTES | OPINION: The most influential record albums
Whenever someone posts the cover of an album that's important to them, it's one of the ways social media can knit a community together. So I decided to do it.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Baseball tonight
Want your faith in American restored? Go to a minor league baseball game.
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Subscriber ExclusiveCHEAP EATS | OPINION: Barbecue you can bank on — at Sims
Doc's truck always wanted to go the other way -- south down Arch Street rather than north up Broadway -- when he got the text from George to meet for lunch at …
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Subscriber ExclusiveA Rose in winter
Keith O'Brien's "Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose and the Last Glory Days of Baseball," is in bookstores now. While the last part of the subhead …
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Subscriber ExclusiveMUSIC | OPINION: Burnett’s new album achieves authenticity
The news release for T Bone Burnett's "The Other Side," out today on Verve Forecast records, says it is his first solo album in nearly 20 years. As I count it,…
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‘Ripley’: How many murderers?
Researching the character of Tom Ripley, the banal antihero at the heart of Netflix series "Ripley," suggests a thought experiment. How many murderers will you…
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POPNOTES | OPINION: Patricia Highsmith’s classic thriller gets another go-round in Netflix series
In 1955, Patricia Highsmith unleashed the character Tom Ripley on the world.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Sometimes forget
I try to be judicious when rerunning old columns; not only because imposter syndrome requires me to try to provide value for my paycheck, but because, as slow …
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Subscriber ExclusiveNegotiating the chaos
I'm agnostic about the hiring of John Calipari as the next University of Arkansas men's basketball coach. I hope it works out. Calipari seems as capable as any…
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ made a dent in the bland era after Elvis and before The Beatles
Can you imagine your grandparents as children? Maybe you've looked at photographs or saturated Super 8 reels; certainly you have seen some of the movies around…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Bold experiment, bold debacle? ‘Unlocked: A Jail Experiment’ is reality TV behind bars
The pretext of Netflix series "Unlocked: A Jail Experiment" is that it is a look inside a bold experiment in American correctional science undertaken by Pulask…
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Subscriber ExclusiveTHE BEST REVENGE | OPINION: Putting supplies misery to golfers
Ben Hogan missed the cut in the 1957 Masters, which was the first Masters tournament to have a cut. It was the first cut he'd missed since 1939.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The next epidemic
"It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of 50 million people--with the singlemindedness of a burglar blowing a safe."
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Subscriber ExclusiveJust another gun guy?
About 15 years ago, I considered writing a piece about gun shows.
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | ONBOOKS: ‘America Fantastica’ tells of a depressive alcoholic with a death wish
Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Amiable and affable ‘Amélie’ gets Blu-ray release
A Blu-ray of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Amélie" arrived the other day; the film has been re-released by Sony in a steelbook edition in advance of its 23rd anniversa…
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OPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Marks of sovereignty
"This is a question too difficult for a mathematician. It should be asked of a philosopher."
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: ‘Manhunt’ sticks to known facts of Lincoln assassination
We're watching "Manhunt," the Apple TV historical drama based on James L. Swanson's 2006 book "Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer."
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: Film connoisseur Michael Fitzgerald knew a lot about Hollywood and the people who worked there
EL DORADO -- All Darrin Riley really knew was that Michael Fitzgerald loved movies.
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Subscriber ExclusiveFLASHBACK | OPINION: ‘Gone With the Wind’ at 85
There is a story, perhaps too deliciously ironic to be true, that holds that when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer chief Louis B. Mayer told Irving Thalberg he was planning…
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Subscriber ExclusiveFrank Thurmond shares about debut novel ‘Lottie Deno’
University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor and prolific writer Frank Thurmond's just published first novel "Lottie Deno: A Novel of the Civil War and the …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: A few questions
It is midday Thursday, and the news has been confirmed that Bryan Malinowski, executive director of Bill and Hillary National Airport/Adams Field, who was shot…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: In the arena
"When he looks back, the critic sees a eunuch's shadow. Who would be a critic if he could be a writer? Who would hammer out the subtlest insight into Dostoevsk…
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Subscriber ExclusiveON BOOKS | OPINION: Historic ‘Lottie Deno’ is subject of historical fiction novel
In our Western folklore, Lottie Deno is a lady gambler, the "Queen of the Pasteboards," "Mystic Maud" and "The Angel of San Antonio."
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | REVIEW: Made with love: ‘The ’Vous’ is a hearty documentary
"The 'Vous" is one of my favorite documentaries to have come out over the past couple of years.
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REVIEW | OPINION: Film ‘You Have No Idea’ celebrates Evan James and his supporting village
The backstory of Shreveport-based, El Dorado-reared and Canadian-born Alexander Jeffery's affecting, sometimes funny and ultimately life-affirming documentary …
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: Careless and apathetic
I'll make an exception, if you want to save my life,
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POPNOTES | OPINION: Wristwatches in film tell us something about the character being played
Denis Villeneuve's "Dune" movies are set about 18,000 years into the future -- that's what my friend who's really into the Frank Hebert universe tells me. (Tho…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: The painstaking historian
Behavior is not hard-wired, not a genetic program that runs independent of our will. It is a process, an ongoing dialogue between our environment and that part…
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Subscriber ExclusiveNature
In his 2008 book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell writes that "10,000 hours [of practice] is the magic number of greatness." He argues that if you spend 10,000 hou…
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Subscriber ExclusiveCRITICAL MASS | OPINION: The ‘best’ of the films that ennoble and edify as well as entertain us
Three artists arrive in Los Angeles: a famous poet, a renowned painter of murals and an Academy Award-winning director. Each of them finds themselves stirred b…
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Subscriber ExclusivePOPNOTES | OPINION: HBO’s ‘The Regime’ takes chances — and risks failure
While "The Regime" might not feel as naturalistic as Iannucci's political satires. There is a hint of Wes Anderson in the wistful symmetry of its set design, b…
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Subscriber ExclusiveOPINION | PHILIP MARTIN: WhatsApp, doc?
I live in an affluent neighborhood bordered by a poor neighborhood that's not far from where any number of unhoused people sleep rough. You might imagine what …
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Subscriber ExclusiveDesperate to be seen
There's a truck I sometimes see in the neighborhood, late model, white, nondescript but for its bumper stickers which identify the driver as a man of strong, r…
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Subscriber ExclusiveON BOOKS | OPINION: ‘Wandering Stars’ a difficult sequel to Orange’s first novel
Tommy Orange's "Wandering Stars" brings back characters from his first book and reaches back to the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.
