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1 month ago | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Picasso. One of those historical figures so famous they fly solo in the name game. But who, or what, is Picasso, really? An umbrella or drinks coaster? T-shirt, necklace or bobblehead? Shopping bag or small family car? The commodification of the artistically prominent demands they be reduced to a token of modern life – an adornment, an implement, an everyday essential, even something in which to drive around – putting them everywhere and nowhere all at once.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
msn.com | Stephen McCarty
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Professor Brian Cox believes “we have to go to Mars eventually” – although not as a refuge after ruining planet Earth. “Mars is the only planet in the solar system we can go to. But this is extremely important – I interviewed Jeff Bezos once and he said this – our planet is the best planet in the universe for us, because we evolved on it and are entirely reliant on its ecosystem.
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Sep 20, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
This correspondent never needs one of those “please wake for meals” stickers when flying. Because he’s always awake – unlike his regular travel partner, who often sleeps through taxiing, take-off, landing, taxiing and much in between. To the exhausted insomniac, in the air or on the ground, the ability to sleep whenever, wherever, must seem a blessing. Or is it a magic trick that can be learned? A skill to be mastered?
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Sep 12, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Pachinko (Apple TV+) is arguably far more than a mere television series: it could amount to a medical breakthrough. Viewers who find they can’t stop swiping their phone should try watching this cinematically rich Korean-Japanese historical drama, a Korean-Japanese-American-Canadian joint production rendered in Korean, Japanese and English and told along two timelines – and realise they are cured, so engrossing are plot, acting and cinematography.
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Sep 10, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Where would the fashion industry be without television and film (and vice versa)? Haven’t we all dashed out to buy a Cillian Murphy flat cap in the hope of being mistaken for a Birmingham thug after a dose of Peaky Blinders on Netflix? Or a pair of block heels so we can copy Carrie Bradshaw, queen of New York, in HBO’s And Just Like That … ? Might we have imagined ourselves to be Prada-inspired, mid-century clothes horse Beth Harmon in Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit?
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
There is no monster in Loch Ness. Having gazed at its immeasurable expanse through cold spring rain arrowing in on gusting winds from the battlements of Urquhart Castle and detected nothing, I declare the tales of an elusive leviathan in Scotland’s most famous stretch of water a chronic hoax. Which is perhaps what the monster wants me to think.
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Phil Wang grew up to be a miracle worker. “Stand-up is like alchemy”, he muses. “Turning nothing into something. There’s something mystifying about that.
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Aug 28, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
Tony Bui is telling the story of the Vietnam war’s ‘napalm girl’, 25 years after Sundance hit Three SeasonsTony Bui has gone the extra mile to bring you this interview. Caught in one of China’s recent biblical rainstorms, the film director, writer and producer found himself lost in an unfamiliar, chaotic Beijing. “It’s my first time here,” he says via Zoom, almost two hours after our scheduled appointment, “and unfortunately I don’t speak the language.
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Aug 26, 2024 | 
scmp.com | Stephen McCarty
A tennis court inside Grand Central Terminal? The New York icon beloved by movie buffs and touristsNext time you’re making tracks to New York’s Grand Central Station, pack a tennis racquet. Just off the cavernous concourse familiar from so many movies stands an unremarkable bank of lifts. Ascend to the fourth floor, navigate a nondescript corridor and call for new balls, please, on the full-sized indoor court, whose arched windows look onto Manhattan’s 42nd Street.
