For Wesley, the most interesting thing about Taylor Swift’s latest album didn’t have much to do with the music. It was the critical response. Sure, there was plenty of enthusiasm. But there was also some exasperation and weariness. And to Wesley, that felt like a needed shift in pop music criticism. Which has gotten awfully nice lately. A little too nice.

That idea — that pop music criticism has lost its edge — was explored in a recent New Yorker essay by Wesley’s buddy and fellow critic, Kelefa Sanneh. The two get together to trace the history of the form and think about what’s lost when critical punches are pulled.

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Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson’s new movie, “The Smashing Machine,” sends him back to his natural habitat: the ring. But for the first time ever, Johnson finds himself in a role that grapples with what it means to move through the world in a body like his.

Wesley talks to Sam Anderson, who recently spent a day with Johnson for a Times Magazine profile. They think about the line between artifice and reality — in Johnson’s performance, and in Sam’s effort to get to know one of the most famous people on earth.

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Wesley Morris doesn’t go for cheap jump scares or gratuitous gore. Instead, his favorite horror movies fill him with a sense of dread. This Halloween, he invites film curator Eric Hynes to rewatch scenes from some of the scariest movies they’ve ever seen — some you’ll find in the horror section and some you won’t.

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Wesley Morris has been talking about movie stardom with Bill Simmons of The Ringer for as long as they’ve known each other. The actor and director Robert Redford is often invoked in their conversations as the definition of a movie star. In today’s episode, Wesley invites Bill to remember the roles that made Redford a household name and to ruminate on the state of the movie star in 2025. Do we have any true stars left?

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Paul Thomas Anderson is a very rare figure in Hollywood — he’s widely considered to be one of the very best directors of his generation, but he’s never really had a hit when it comes to making money. One Battle After Another might change that. It’s a big budget action movie with a bankable star. And to Wesley’s relief, that didn’t come with any compromises.

Wesley invites The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey to celebrate the merits of Anderson’s films and determine if this is his best.

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This season, “South Park” is taking on the Trump administration the only way it knows how: with stop-motion, expletives and jokes about the size of the president’s penis. But how is the show getting away with it? Wesley Morris and the comedian Wyatt Cenac discuss the special sauce that is allowing "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to survive the political pressure that’s come for their comedy peers. At least for now. 

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Six years ago, with the publication of The 1619 Project, Nikole Hannah-Jones argued that slavery was a foundational institution upon which the United States was built. President Trump called the project a crusade against American history — ideological poison that, “if not removed,” would “dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.” Now, his administration is making a similar argument to attack diversity programs, historical discussions of slavery, civil rights and more as he pressures museums, schools, government agencies, national parks and other civic institutions to de-emphasize race.

Wesley contributed to The 1619 Project, and he sits down with Nikole to trace the project’s journey from publication to this moment — when Trump has returned to power on a message that explicitly rejected its premise.

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