“One man’s signal is another man’s noise”

The story of the scientists who try to predict earthquakes – and why their quixotic quest might never succeed.

Source: Nautilus
Published: Jul 14, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,184 words)

Him and Her

A Longreads Guest Pick from Rebecca Hiscott, a graduate student at NYU and a features writer for Mashable:

“I’m still marveling at ‘Him and Her’ by Mark Harris from the Oct. 14 issue of New York magazine. The piece is both a nuanced profile of director Spike Jonze — despite Joaquin Phoenix’s stony-faced cameo on the cover — and an eye into the making of Her, the quasi-sci-fi movie that aspires to be ‘a cautionary meditation on romance and technology’ and ‘a subtle exploration of the weirdness, delusiveness, and one-sidedness of love.’ The narrative follows Jonze through the process of writing, shooting and editing the film, and his subsequent efforts to correct a cinematic gamble that hasn’t paid off. Harris’s lush prose mimics Jonze’s aesthetic as a filmmaker, which the author describes as ‘disarmingly sincere, and melancholy in surprising places”; the article also has an evocative opening scene that perfectly captures the spirit of the film and its enigmatic director.”

Published: Oct 6, 2013
Length: 25 minutes (6,477 words)

The Day the Movies Died

“Fear has descended,” says James Schamus, the screenwriter-producer who also heads the profitable indie company Focus Features, “and nobody in Hollywood wants to be the person who green-lit a movie that not only crashes but about which you can’t protect yourself by saying, ‘But at least it was based on a comic book!’ “

Source: GQ
Published: Feb 17, 2011
Length: 20 minutes (5,177 words)

The Red Carpet Campaign

[Not single-page] Inside the singular hysteria of the Academy Awards race.

Published: Feb 7, 2010
Length: 29 minutes (7,354 words)

Will Somebody Please Save NBC?

The beleaguered and tattered Peacock Network deserves better than Jeff Zucker, Jay Leno, and maybe even Comcast.

Published: Nov 8, 2009
Length: 10 minutes (2,598 words)