Shirley Li

Los Angeles, New York

Staff Writer at The Atlantic

@TheAtlantic staff writer. Zach Woods EGOT campaign manager. Messy tweeter. @EW alum. [email protected]

Articles

When ‘Mission: Impossible’ Had No Mission

6 days ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

Every major movie franchise has boxes to check. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs must run amok; in Planet of the Apes, apes have to meditate on intelligence; in The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel absolutely has to evangelize the benefits of family, Corona beers, and tricked-out cars. But Mission: Impossible took four films to fully establish its franchise must-have: the ever more blurred lines between its death-defying, stunt-loving star, Tom Cruise, and the superspy he plays.
When Mission: Impossible Had No Mission

1 week ago | yahoo.com | Shirley Li

Every major movie franchise has boxes to check. In Jurassic Park, dinosaurs must run amok; in Planet of the Apes, apes have to meditate on intelligence; in The Fast and the Furious, Vin Diesel absolutely has to evangelize the benefits of family, Corona beers, and tricked-out cars. But Mission: Impossible took four films to fully establish its franchise must-have: the ever more blurred lines between its death-defying, stunt-loving star, Tom Cruise, and the superspy he plays.
How Far Will a Man Go to Make a New Friend?

1 week ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

Men will literally, as the meme goes, do anything to avoid therapy. They’ll start wars. They’ll become obsessed with the Roman empire. They’ll join more improv teams than they could possibly need. The meme captures the exaggerated nature of the “male-loneliness epidemic” narrative: Despite a recent study finding that American men and women are roughly equally lonely, the idea that men are especially unable to cope with social isolation persists.
What Should You Let Your Kids Read? - The Atlantic

3 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

Giving them some independence can help rekindle their love of books.
‘Andor’ Was the Reawakening Star Wars Needed

3 weeks ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

This article contains spoilers through the end of Andor. Andor, the Disney+ Star Wars spin-off series that concluded this week, traveled far, far away from the generally wholesome and fantastical adventures of the Jedi. The gritty story of Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), a disillusioned smuggler turned Rebel Alliance operative, trained its attention on ordinary people trying to survive an oppressive system.
Maybe Star Wars Is Better Without Lightsabers

3 weeks ago | sg.news.yahoo.com | Shirley Li

This article contains spoilers through the end of Andor. Andor, the Disney+ Star Wars spin-off series that concluded this week, traveled far, far away from the generally wholesome and fantastical adventures of the Jedi. The gritty story of Cassian Andor (played by Diego Luna), a disillusioned smuggler turned Rebel Alliance operative, trained its attention on ordinary people trying to survive an oppressive system.
‘Warfare’ Re-Created One of the Worst Days of Its Co-Director’s Life

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

This article includes spoilers for the film Warfare. Since 2012, Ray Mendoza has been building a hefty Hollywood résumé: performing stunts, choreographing gunfights, and teaching movie stars how to act like soldiers in films such as Act of Valor and Lone Survivor. He also helped design the battle sequences in last year’s Civil War, the writer-director Alex Garland’s speculative thriller imagining America as an endless combat zone. These projects have been a particularly good fit for him.
The Catharsis in Re-Creating One of the Worst Days of Your Life

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Shirley Li

This article includes spoilers for the film Warfare. Since 2012, Ray Mendoza has been building a hefty Hollywood résumé: performing stunts, choreographing gunfights, and teaching movie stars how to act like soldiers in films such as Act of Valor and Lone Survivor. He also helped design the battle sequences in last year’s Civil War, the writer-director Alex Garland’s speculative thriller imagining America as an endless combat zone. These projects have been a particularly good fit for him.
‘The Rehearsal’: Nathan Fielder Is His Own Worst Enemy

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

Predicting how an episode of the HBO show The Rehearsal will end is nearly impossible. The pseudo-docuseries, in which the comedian Nathan Fielder stages elaborate exercises to help—or rather, “help”—ordinary people prepare for challenging interactions, tends to go down rabbit holes dictated by Fielder’s fixations. A Season 1 installment found him supporting a man who wanted practice having a difficult conversation only for the focus to shift to Fielder rehearsing his own confessions.
‘The Last of Us’ and the Big Twist That Could Have Been

1 month ago | theatlantic.com | Shirley Li

This article contains spoilers through the second episode of The Last of Us Season 2. Players of the game on which HBO’s postapocalyptic drama The Last of Us is based knew it was coming—“it” being the death of the show’s protagonist, Joel (played by Pedro Pascal).