Inhaltsverzeichnis für March 2018 in Esquire

The neutrality of this information is disputed. And rightfully so. The U.S. space program (NASA) was created to explore what seemed interesting before Neil deGrasse Tyson started tweeting about it all the time. President Eisenhower founded it in 1958 with the innovation of a rocket that could be fueled solely by jealousy of the Soviet Union. The program was later expanded by President Kennedy, who challenged the country to “reach the moon before I reach Marilyn Monroe.” Naturally, the first projects, named Hubris and Icarus, were failures, but success was achieved with the Apollo program: The alleged “moon landing” of Apollo 11, in 1969, is considered the most accessible thing Stanley Kubrick ever directed. The first man to allegedly set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong, famously grabbed his crotch…

The novel that became Annihilation was brought to you by FSG Originals, an imprint within Farrar, Straus and Giroux that’s gained a cult following by betting on wild, weird, and otherwise risky material. “We look for work that defies categorization somehow,” says publisher Sean McDonald, who founded FSG Originals with director Emily Bell in 2011. The books they publish—check out Frank Bill’s country gothic Crimes in Southern Indiana and Jac Jemc’s surreal horror show The Grip of It—often exist at the fringes of literary fiction and genre, and the format plays into that mass appeal: Every title is paperback and compactly sized. “We want it to feel like you could slip the book in your pocket and keep it close,” says Bell. That’s assuming you’re able to put it down.…

“Insecurity is a prime factor” in comedy, the comedian Garry Shandling once wrote in a note to his parents, and Shandling, who died at age 66 from a pulmonary blood clot in 2016, never wanted for material. “My friends tell me I have intimacy problems,” he said. “But they don’t know me.” Although he never achieved the level of mainstream fame of his peers Jerry Seinfeld and David Letterman, Shandling was among the most influential talents of his generation, and odds are your favorite comic reveres him. Like Judd Apatow, for instance, who just directed The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, a two-part documentary for HBO (available March 26 and 27) built around the comedian’s actual diaries. As the film tells it, Shandling’s self-flagellating stand-up, as well as his postmodern…

We’re not saying the world’s top designers convene in secret to decide the next big fashion trend, but it sure can feel like it. Take the topstitch. Until now, it was a simple detail—a contrasting thread you might find on a shoe or a bag. That’s how it started out this year: on accessories from brands like Valentino and Loewe. It’s handsome stuff, but it’s not a fashion earthquake. Then the tremors hit the runway. Versace sent out a topcoat threaded with fine silver chain. (Versace really goes in for bling.) Dior’s tailoring also carried the stitch, making a strong argument for the “party suit.” (For the office? No. For Saturday night? Yessir.) Hermès stitched white leather braiding across a sweater. (This one is probably the easiest to pull off.)…

It’s not that I’m afraid of change; it’s that I embrace tradition. Season in and season out, I can’t bring myself to vary from the soccer shoe I’ve been wearing for two decades: the classic Adidas Samba ($70). The original hard-surface shoe, it debuted in 1950 and hasn’t changed much since. I play through a pair every year—in the after-work-league battles of attrition I run in, they hold up better than my game deserves. And when the last seam gives, I replace them with a second pair I’ve broken in off the field. Because of course you don’t need to play ball to wear these: Sambas are also perfect everyday sneakers. Coolly dark and low-slung, with mod white stripes, sturdy gum soles, and that suede “T” at the toe, they…

I was always into looking nice. Even when I was 11 years old, I liked to dress up. Obviously I wasn’t bothered about face creams as a boy. It wasn’t until later on that I really started to enjoy using products. Me and Victoria have been together for 20 years now. When you’ve got someone that buys the best stuff, then you just steal it. That led to me doing my own line. It was a natural progression. I haven’t got an hour to spend in the morning on my complexion. I have four kids. I want it simple. I get up, shower, sometimes cleanse depending on what I did the night before. I moisturize always; I use some eye cream and some hand cream. Hair, I just get out…

… Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane is the ultimate depiction of the power of money to destroy men. Now, nearly eight decades later, comes All the Money in the World, in which Christopher Plummer plays the world’s richest man, J. Paul Getty, who, upon learning that his grandson has been kidnapped in Italy, refuses to pay the ransom. While Plummer may not have scripted his words or directed his own performance, as Welles did, his achievement is no less staggering. Last fall, with the entire film in the can and weeks from being released, its director, Ridley Scott, decided to cut Kevin Spacey, his original Getty, after the actor was accused of sexually assaulting men and adolescent boys. Scott had nine days to reshoot all of Spacey’s scenes. Plummer, with only three days…

… At the end of Call Me by Your Name, the camera closes in on Timothée Chalamet’s face as his character, Elio, reflects on a summer affair with a handsome graduate student (played by Armie Hammer), displaying a complicated mix of emotions—sadness, anguish, relief, joy—all without saying a single word. It’s a commanding moment that caps a layered tour de force, one most actors twice his age dream of achieving. Overall, the “It boy” had a pretty enviable year: A few weeks before Call Me by Your Name’s release, a completely different Chalamet could be seen in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, as the title character’s bass-playing, Howard Zinn–reading, too-cool-forschool boyfriend. Chalamet comes from a showbiz family, but his gifts are all his own.…

… Dan Fogelman doesn’t consider himself a rebel. But what else do you call a man who creates a hit TV show about ordinary people—three flesh-and-blood siblings and their extended families—without a dragon, pleasure-bot, or rogue FBI agent in sight? With This Is Us, now finishing its second season on NBC, Fogelman has found a large and hungry audience. “There’s nothing that groundbreaking about a family drama,” he protests. “Maybe it’s the times we’re living in.” Well, it’s certainly that, but it must be something more. That everyday family life can be as dramatically charged as any zombie apocalypse is a theme Fogelman has explored before, in movies like Crazy, Stupid, Love and The Guilt Trip. But he distills it into elemental form in This Is Us. Fogelman’s next project…

… Ryan Murphy auditioned “hundreds of people” before casting relative unknown Sterling K. Brown as Chris Darden in the 2016 FX miniseries The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. It was a star-studded ensemble, but Brown—who’d spent the past decade playing one-off parts on network TV—stole the show. “When we started working together, I was like, ‘Oh,’” Murphy says. “This guy is, like, Marlon Brando good.” Emmy voters apparently agreed, awarding him the prize for best supporting actor. Brown was back at the podium the very next year for his role as the orphaned-then-adopted Randall Pearson on the family saga—and surprise network smash—This Is Us. This time, he won for best actor, the first-ever black man to do so for a TV series. In January, he won it…

… Ronan Farrow spent nearly a year investigating Harvey Weinstein, patiently gathering evidence of his innumerable abuses and eventually running afoul of the now-disgraced producer’s intimidation machine. But if you ask him, he’s just “a conduit.” The real heroes, the journalist says, are the silence breakers who spoke up at tremendous personal risk. “What I went through was nothing compared to the trauma that these women went through in reliving these experiences and speaking out. And I will forever be grateful to them.” As the aftershocks continue to rattle industry after industry, Farrow is focusing on lower-income women suffering the same abuses without the benefit of a microphone. “My hope is that the effect will be broader than Hollywood, and that people will recognize this for what it is, which…

… Woody Harrelson is a good-natured goof, a noted marijuana aficionado, and—little-known fact—one of the hardest-working men in show business. When you add it up, he has had a remarkable career: making the difficult transition from television to film, daring to play against his congenial Cheers character in Natural Born Killers and The People vs. Larry Flynt, and then returning to TV to reinvent himself on HBO’s True Detective. Harrelson has appeared in—count ’em—three franchises (The Hunger Games, Planet of the Apes, Now You See Me), with Solo: A Star Wars Story and the Spider-Man spin-off Venom in the works. But he’s also a staple of grownup cinema: He played a garrulous misanthrope in the indie Wilson, a free-spirited and unreliable father in The Glass Castle, himself in the gonzo…

… While walking his dog between shots, Sean Baker spotted a willow, uprooted but very much alive. It was the perfect metaphor, he thought, for The Florida Project—his deeply touching film about the transient lives of those on the unseen edges of Disney World. And so the tree was woven into the movie: Moonee, a six-year-old living in a lavender motel, sits on its trunk with her friend Jancey and says, “You know why this is my favorite tree? ’Cause it’s tipped over and it’s still growing.” Finding beauty and untold stories on the fringes is what Baker does. His previous film, Tangerine, was a comedy about transgender sex workers in the grittier parts of West Hollywood. Prince of Broadway centered on a Ghanaian immigrant in New York’s Garment District.…

I think we can all agree that the number-one problem facing Americans today is that the signs of the zodiac could be better. “Aquarius the Water Bearer”? Astrological signs are old, boring, hard to remember, and—honestly?—very Greek. What follows is a much-improved zodiac featuring modern star signs for today’s needs. I mean, seriously—who wants to be a Cancer? Here is your new sign and accompanying monthly horoscope. TREMINI • January 1–February 4 • The “Three Guys” symbolize being a bunch of guys. You have the classic Gemini trait of wisdom, plus the strength of one additional guy. Do not be afraid to try a sudoku, or to open a weird, old jar. But beware—the jar is haunted, and the sudoku is really hard. DANGERFRIENDS • February 5–March 9 • The…

Late last year, watching the cultural wildfire that began with Harvey Weinstein and spread coast-to-coast, a group of editors from Esquire and Marie Claire found themselves sitting around a conference table to talk about the subject that has tongue-tied, confused, outraged, liberated, and shocked the entire country: sexual harassment. That first gathering might best be described as, well, a little awkward: Most of the men, having decided that silence was the best strategy, didn’t talk, while most of the women, realizing what was going on, were almost made speechless themselves. The only way forward, we agreed, was to have an honest discussion that would raise questions and attempt to answer them. This became the guiding principle of “Sex, Lies, and Human Resources,” the ten-page feature that our combined teams—led by…

Why spring for designer logos when your own name already carries plenty of clout? Italian leather titan Bottega Veneta has been saying this for years, so much so that it’s become its motto: “When Your Own Initials Are Enough.” If you haven’t tried out a monogram, Bottega’s doctor’s bag (in rough-and-tumble suede, kicked up with sporty stripes) is the perfect place to start. To get it personalized, swing by one of BV’s stores. (If you’re in New York, we recommend the massive new flagship on Madison Avenue.) A branded bag like this could be your new calling card.…

We’ve all flirted with high-tech fitness gear—compression tights, wicking shirts, the works. But unless you’re an Olympian, you probably don’t need it. Which is why we’re calling for a return to old-school athletic cool. Try channeling John McEnroe circa 1981 (clean, sporty, graphic), then mix in updated pieces like the Nike Air VaporMax Flyknit, which has a cushion and a comfy fit that are very 2018. It’s all about taking the simple, stylish stuff guys have been sweating through for decades and pushing it into the present. THE GOODS SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF Stripped-down gym clothes are always a good call. But when it comes to tech and grooming, you’re going to want science on your side. Dove Men+Care Dry Spray The brand’s new Stain Defense antiperspirant goes on dry…

“Art is what you can get away with,” Andy Warhol famously said. Now Calvin Klein creative officer Raf Simons is pushing that maxim to its logical end point: superimposing the pop artist’s work on his own Calvin Klein pieces for a double dose of dark Americana. Simons partnered with Warhol’s foundation to adapt the “Death and Disaster” series, a collection of silkscreened images lifted from newspapers and police photo archives depicting suicides, car accidents, and electric chairs. (Man cannot live on Campbell’s soup alone.) This season, those works were reproduced on bandannas in their original lurid neons. Consider them the flag of the edgier, artsier Calvin Klein taking shape under Simons’s watchful eye. Consider, too, how thrilled Warhol would be to learn he’s right back at the buzzing intersection of…

“Doc, ever since I was born, everybody looks at me and says, ‘You’re ugly.’ Makes me feel mean.” —Boris Karloff, The Raven I’ve always been interested in people who make ugly work for them. Take the poet W.H. Auden, whose face became so wizened with age that David Hockney said after painting him, “I kept thinking, if his face looks like this, what must his balls look like?” Or take Janis Joplin, who made confetti from every familiar notion of female rock beauty. Or Roy Orbison, about whom the producer Sam Phillips said, “I knew his voice was pure gold. I also knew that if anybody got a look at him he’d be dead inside of a week.” There’s the ugly beauty, vastly more riveting than the standard sort, of…

… Caleb Landry Jones doesn’t mind his new nickname: “Hollywood’s Go-to Oddball.” In fact, he’s rather enamored of it. “It feels great just to be a part of Hollywood,” he says, laughing. Jones played a variety of eccentrics in a slew of 2017’s most prestigious films: a demonic lacrosse player in Get Out; a cheerful salesman in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri; a frustrated assistant motel manager (and Willem Dafoe’s son) in The Florida Project. His characters run the gamut from well-meaning weirdos to straight-up psychopaths, but Jones isn’t judging. “Even bad guys don’t think they’re bad,” he says. “There’s a lot to deconstruct, but all my characters seem to be pretty different. They all ask different things of me.” When he was approached to audition for David Lynch’s Twin Peaks…

… Fifteen minutes. That’s how long it took for every last presale ticket for Black Panther—the first Marvel movie to be led by both a black cast and a black director, namely the virtuosic Ryan Coogler—to disappear. Even Lupita Nyong’o, one of the film’s stars, was too late. “We get to see ourselves, and that’s something that you get excited about if you haven’t had the opportunity before,” Coogler says. “I think people take for granted how much people of color love pop culture.” Beginning with his first movie, Fruitvale Station—based on the true story of Oscar Grant III, who was shot by a police officer in Oakland, near where the director grew up—Coogler’s films have been fundamentally about place. “With Fruitvale, I was making a story about a guy…

… In Good Time, Robert Pattinson hurtles through a slightly surreal New York, trying to scrounge up the money to bail his mentally challenged brother out of Rikers Island. Throughout this onecrazy-night story, synths and samples as gritty and tense as the movie itself throb at a deafening volume. Inspired by Brad Fiedel’s scores for the early Terminator movies and Hans Zimmer’s work on Broken Arrow, Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, served up 2017’s most original—and unnerving—soundtrack. “I like disquieting music that tells a story, that has a protagonist,” he says. “I don’t like things that just kind of tumble along.” Good Time is the cult electronic composer’s third score (he also worked on Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring and the Australian thriller Partisan), and his first billed as…

… Here’s a superhero origin story for you: Two art-house-obsessed brothers in Cleveland, Anthony and Joe Russo, read a book that says you can make a movie for $7,000. They racked up credit-card debt shooting a nonlinear heist film that only screened at a couple festivals. But it somehow caught the attention of Steven Soderbergh (Joe: “He was probably the only person in Hollywood who would respond to a movie like that”), whose mentorship eventually led them to direct some of the best (and strangest) episodes of Arrested Development and Community. And while some were surprised when Marvel chose the brothers to helm Captain America: The Winter Soldier, their portrayal of Steve Rogers was like something out of Alan J. Pakula’s paranoia trilogy and got them hired to direct its…

… If you’re shopping a project no one else will touch, it pays to talk to Jason Blum. The founder of Blumhouse Productions has backed dark-horse films since 2009’s record-breaking Paranormal Activity by relying on a simple premise: Cheaper productions allow for greater risks. It’s proven true with horror flicks like Insidious and The Purge, the Oscar-winning drama Whiplash, and, most recently, Jordan Peele’s Get Out. “No one, but no one, but no one wanted to make that movie,” Blum says, adding that he “felt it had to be made because I’d never read anything like it.” Get Out garnered near-unanimous praise, inspired untold thinkpieces, and has grossed nearly $255 million to date. Not bad for a movie that cost $4.2 million to produce. Lately, Blum is focusing more on…

… In high school, Nick Meyer was both a competitive athlete and “this crazy cinephile.” That mix of grit and sophistication has served him well in the independent-film business. The former head of international films at Lionsgate (for which he bought Amores Perros, by a then-unknown Alejandro González Iñárritu) and Paramount Vantage (where he developed There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men) founded Sierra Pictures in the depths of the financial crisis. Established players—like Paramount, for instance—were closing their specialty divisions, but Meyer saw an opportunity. The production-finance-sales company, now Sierra/Affinity, has since earned a reputation as a one-stop shop for ambitious filmmakers operating outside the studio system. Some of the past decade’s best and most daring work—Spotlight, Nightcrawler, and Hell or High Water, not to mention…

… We all knew Kumail Nanjiani was seriously funny—as Dinesh on Silicon Valley, in a series of memorable cameos on Portlandia, and as, um, a mean-mugged orc in a Lord of the Rings video game. (YouTube it.) But Nanjiani surprised us with The Big Sick last summer. Inspired by his real-life relationship with writer Emily V. Gordon and filled with heart and hilarity, the film became one of 2017’s highest-grossing indies, marking Gordon and Nanjiani’s arrival as a writing duo with a voice like no other. So how do you follow up a story as personal as the courtship of your coma-induced future wife? “You are kind of like, ‘Okay, so after the thing that’s such an expression of me and my wife…what’s the next thing I want people to…

Mercedes-Benz 300 SL steering wheel (1954–63). With its impeccable details and attention-grabbing gull-wing doors, the fastest production car of its time was also one of the most stylish. Jaguar E-Type wire wheel (1961–75). These “knockoffs” meant faster tire changes while racing and are undeniably classy, but man, were they hard to clean. Porsche 912 speedometer (1966). Nearly all vintage Porsches have cult followings, but the 912 may have one of the cultiest because of its perfect minimalist design—just look at that typeface. Alfa Romeo Duetto Spider steering wheel (1969). When the unique Duetto Spider appeared in The Graduate, it put Alfa on the map in America. Ferrari 488 Challenge steering wheel (2017). The seriously stripped-down, race-only Ferraris may not have AC, but they do have drinks at the push of…

Alex Garland is nervous. Not chattering-teeth nervous, but he definitely gives off an air of a man who is, shall we say, uncertain about his immediate prospects. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do this again,” he says. “At some point I won’t get another chance.” The object of his uncertainty is his latest movie, Annihilation (out this month), which provides the biggest cinematic headfuck since that giant space fetus hove into view at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film follows a five-woman expedition, including Natalie Portman and the great Jennifer Jason Leigh, as they make their way through a mysterious, slowly expanding luminescent bubble covering acres of the U.S. coast referred to as Area X. Inside, communications don’t work, the flora and fauna…

Tired of the usual buttoned barrel cuff but think a French cuff and links are too oil tycoon for everyday wear? Consider the cocktail cuff. It’s a hybrid that channels the turned-back sweep of a French cuff without the flashy hardware. Sean Connery had his made at Turnbull & Asser when he starred as Bond, and the shirtmakers still produce them today (though we don’t recommend them for stunt work). Shirt ($335) by Turnbull & Asser. CUT BACK ON THE BRACELETS ALREADY It’s time you stopped stacking your wrist like a teenager fresh from summer camp. Instead, look for one simple piece and make it your signature. THE WRIST BRACE Hinders mobility, catches on sweaters. THE WRAPAROUND Simple, masculine, doubles as a weapon. (By Cartier) THE ID BRACELET Customizable, confers…

Mastering the office uniform isn’t about outdressing your coworkers. It’s about outdressing yourself: trying new trends and breaking old rules. This spring, you want to hit the sweet spot fashion types call “highlow.” That is, the perfect mix of upscale, dressy pieces and laid-back, everyday gear. Think of it as a balanced equation between style and comfort. It’s not quite calculus, but it can take some getting used to. So we picked three workhorse pieces and styled them exactly how you want to wear them now. (Then we did it again—this stuff is seriously versatile.) In total, that’s six ways to be the best-dressed guy in your workplace, whether you’re in the C-suite or the coffee shop. 1 Learn to Love the Bomber DOUBLE DUTY 2 Be Braver with Your…

Can luxury be digital? We’ve been debating that ever since the Apple Watch hit shelves (or at least since Hermès started producing handmade leather straps for it). I, for one, wonder how much a watch needs to intrude on my life beyond discreetly telling me the time. Others like to have their every step and heartbeat recorded. It’s all a matter of preference. But when the stars align just so, a high-end smartwatch can seduce even a die-hard analog guy like me. Louis Vuitton’s Tambour Horizon is such a device. Harnessing Vuitton beauty (a classic, Swissmade Tambour case, with 30 possible straps) and Silicon Valley brains (thanks, Google), it seamlessly blends Old World craftsmanship and high-tech innovation. Meaning yes, it’ll do a lot more than tell time. Vuitton recently began…

Lindsey Vonn has won seventy-eight World Cups in alpine ski racing—that’s the all-time record for women. In 2010, she became the first American woman to earn an Olympic gold medal in downhill skiing. She’s one of just two women ever to win four overall World Cup championships and one of six to win races in all five alpine disciplines. As a psychologist who studies motivation and meaning, I wanted to know what fuels her. Adam Grant: What did it feel like when you won at the Olympics? Lindsey Vonn: It was really emotional, which I rarely am. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten maybe a little bit more emotional, but at the [2010] Olympics, that was the first time I really cried in the finish. Even if you do take…

… How did Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk manage to combine the scale of a David Lean epic with a VR-like immediacy? By using fifty-four-pound, 65mm IMAX film cameras like a GoPro. For roughly three quarters of the production, director of photography Hoyte van Hoytema balanced one of the unwieldy units on his shoulder with a key grip behind him to steady it—“like two grown-up men dancing The Nutcracker,” he has said. “We tried to handhold as much as possible for the film—really to be in there, reacting.” He also custom-mounted one on the wing of Tom Hardy’s Spitfire to get the dogfighting scenes “in-camera” rather than rely on CGI. “We did a lot of engineering to get shots that you would normally never be able to see.” The Dutch-Swedish DP previously…

… In his final year of drama school, Australian actor Dacre Montgomery downloaded an app to practice his American accent. It helped score him a role in last year’s Power Rangers movie, and then took him to the sleepy, sinister town of Hawkins, Indiana, for season two of Stranger Things, as crazy-eyed, mulleted Billy, who first squeals into frame in a Camaro, blaring the Scorpions. He nailed the accent, and he also filled out the character with pitch-perfect improvisation: smoking while bench-pressing, rubbing a little aftershave down under before a night out. That unpredictable energy is one of his greatest strengths, but you won’t catch him making any sudden moves off-camera. “I’m trying to wait for the right thing,” he says. “I want a long, long career.”…

… Like a Gen X Wallace Shawn, Mike White is a born character actor whose best work is on the page. He wrote the 2003 hit movie and sleeper franchise School of Rock—also a TV series and an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical—which has afforded him the most precious commodity in Hollywood: independence. “I would be happy just living on a mattress in a room somewhere as long as I didn’t have to spend my day doing stuff I didn’t want to do,” White says. What he’s done, with the HBO series Enlightened and his recent scripts for Beatriz at Dinner and Brad’s Status (which he also directed), is create stories about how we oppress one another simply by living our own disparate lives. He isn’t afraid to lean into the…

… A lot of noise was made last year about Greta Gerwig’s directorial debut, Lady Bird (working title: Mothers and Daughters), being a big win for women. And for obvious reasons, it is. But in a better world, Gerwig would not have to be a representative for anything except what she is: a writer and director of the first rank. On one level, Lady Bird is about a self-invented Catholic schoolgirl growing up in Sacramento (which also broadly describes the director’s own adolescence). But on another, Sacramento is a metaphor, as is New York, where the character longs to go to college. “New York is like the green light in The Great Gatsby,” Gerwig has said. “It’s the thing on the other shore that, you’ll get there and you’ll realize,…

… Amy Pascal looks for one thing in a script: an unforgettable main character. That’s what drew the producer to a spec by Liz Hannah called The Post. “It’s the story of a woman who goes from being a mouse to a lion,” Pascal says, referring to Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham, who reluctantly assumed the job after her husband’s suicide and soon found herself defying a federal injunction—and her own board—by publishing the Pentagon Papers. It’s set nearly fifty years ago, but it’s hard not to see The Post as a mirror held up to the present. (Not long before this story went to press, the current occupant of the Oval Office was trying to halt the publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Like…

… Will Packer makes movies few others would make, and he makes them smash hits. Take last summer’s Girls Trip. It’s a road comedy, but one featuring a cast and a setting that depart markedly from the Hollywood-bromance template of, say, The Hangover. Any notion, however, that such a movie would have only narrow demographic appeal went out the window when Girls Trip opened second at the box office. You could call it luck, except that the producer has been doing this throughout his career: Stomp the Yard. Ride Along. Straight Outta Compton. What’s his secret? “Most rooms I go into in Hollywood, I’m the youngest. I am one of the few people of color. I don’t live in L. A., so I’m not in that bubble,” says Packer, who…

Here is what interests me about Donald Trump: He wants to be famous. He wants people to talk about him. He wants people to notice him. He wants people to write about him. He wants people to ask him for autographs and recognize him and invade his privacy; not that he seems to have any privacy; he doesn’t even seem to have a single solitary thought he manages to keep to himself, so perhaps there’s no privacy to invade. Perhaps that’s the secret. Who knows? It doesn’t matter. I tip my hat to Donald Trump, because except for an occasional churlish moment he seems to be genuinely enjoying the experience of fame in a way that no one in his right mind ever does, and the fact that he therefore…

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