Doreen St. Felix

Writer at The New Yorker

work in a lot of places / writer @newyorker.

Articles

Goings On Newsletter

1 week ago | link.newyorker.com | Inkoo Kang |Doreen St. Felix |D. T. Max

Our theatrical spring continues to be a bright one, with a bounty of audacious, boundary-breaking work emerging Off Broadway in the coming weeks. At the Atlantic Theatre Company, Mona Pirnot’s tribute to the downtown theatre scene, “I’m Assuming You Know David Greenspan,” is at Atlantic Stage 2, through April 30, and Eliya Smith’s kid-bereavement drama, “Grief Camp,” will be on the mainstage, through May 11.
The Shameless Redemption Tour of Jonathan Majors

2 weeks ago | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

What decade is “Magazine Dreams,” a spiritually stifled drama about a bodybuilder driven to fits of chemically induced rage, set in? In the early moments of the film, written and directed by Elijah Bynum, everything about the fashion, the setting, and the subject suggests the late seventies. Standing in the gaping maw of a garage is an Adonis, the bodybuilder Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors).
The Shameless Redemption Tour of Jonathan Majors

2 weeks ago | flipboard.com | Doreen St. Felix

1 day agoThe actor wants back in the industry’s good graces, but his new movie, Magazine Dreams—and the surrounding press tour—isn’t enough. The athlete’s physique is both a marvel and a weapon. Witness Killian Maddox, a bodybuilder whose formidable muscles gleam under golden light. He is a violent man—some …
Goings On Newsletter

3 weeks ago | link.newyorker.com | Helen Shaw |Namwali Serpell |Doreen St. Felix

Plus: Baz Luhrmann’s medieval Monsieur; Black femininity Off Broadway in “Wine in the Wilderness”; and the havoc of “The Threepenny Opera.” View in browser | What we’re watching, listening to, and doing this week. In today’s newsletter, up-and-coming film directors take the screen.
The Flawed Heart of “Adolescence”

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

Netflix is currently ranking the British miniseries “Adolescence” as its most-watched television show among Americans. The streaming service shrouds the methods by which it reaches these metrics in a lot of mumbo-jumbo. But this drama, about a thirteen-year-old boy who is suspected of killing a girl at his school, is, by my observations, creeping toward critical and fan consensus. Are Americans stunned by “Adolescence” because of the culture shock it offers?
“Paradise” Is Manna for the Moment

1 month ago | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

“Paradise,” on Hulu, is a political thriller with a vintage feel. Surely Hollywood’s obsession with the Presidency has produced this kind of drama before? There is the handsome white Commander-in-Chief, President Cal Bradford (James Marsden), shuttled to the high office through the maneuvers of his emotionally abusive baron of a father. And there is his Black sentinel, Agent Xavier Collins (Sterling K.
Kendrick Lamar and the Messy Art of Meta-Performance

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

A sense of abasement hovers over the performer of the Super Bowl halftime show. It is slight, but it is there. The musician selected must be an internationally recognized star, and yet that star also has to submit to stipulations and standards set by a conservative sports organization. (The Jay-Z of it all notwithstanding.) The production team is allotted mere minutes to erect the stage setup, and, after the spectacle is wrapped, they’ve got to disassemble it just as quickly.
“Eusexua,” the Dance-Floor Album That Doesn’t Need Berlin or Prague

2 months ago | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

This past fall, the artist FKA Twigs promoted her then forthcoming album, “Eusexua,” with a series of international raves. Londoners were told to meet her at the Cause, Angelenos at the Reserve, New Yorkers at the Chocolate Factory. The guests abided by the dress code—“scorched soil and steel”—even if it meant bribing a stylist friend to lend out the archival Rick Owens. Natural pupils were buried under starburst contacts; geometric symbols were painted on faces, mimicking Twigs’s style.
Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, and the Collapse of the Hollywood #MeToo Era

Jan 13, 2025 | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

In the faux aristocracy that is Hollywood, a Blake Lively should not have reason to meaningfully cross paths with a Justin Baldoni. Lively, best known for playing Serena van der Woodsen in the CW series “Gossip Girl,” is an ingénue of teen-soap television, who has parlayed a career as a film actor into a permanent role as a domestic diva slash style icon. In 2022, she co-chaired the Met Gala; two years later, she appeared on the cover of Vogue’s September issue. She is married to Ryan Reynolds.
Refinding James Baldwin

Dec 28, 2024 | newyorker.com | Doreen St. Felix

Your feelings of orphanage, say. The modern picture of Baldwin is dominated by the retrospective veneration slant. He has become a cross between the preacher and the Daddy, composing a portrait of the segregated world through his seer’s gift for ice clarity—a depiction that comes at the expense of other aspects of his character.