Author Spotlight

Angelica Jade Bastién

Angelica Jade Bastién is a critic for New York magazine’s Vulture site. She lives in Chicago with her boyfriend and four cats.

6 Results
The Underground Railroad: The Wound and the Remedy

Barry Jenkins’s extraordinarily ambitious limited series distinguishes itself in the tradition of the cinematic slavery epic through its understanding that Black joy and Black trauma cannot be cleaved from each other.

By Angelica Jade Bastién

Nanny: Troubled Water

With the full force of her imagination, director Nikyatu Jusu examines the complicated nature of Black motherhood, as well as the importance of Black communion as an antidote to racial oppression.

By Angelica Jade Bastién

The Black Heart of Double Indemnity

Billy Wilder’s classic film noir is a powerful meditation on masculinity, desire, and the fantasies of white America.

By Angelica Jade Bastién

The Acrobatic Grace of Cary Grant

In the actor’s inimitable comedic work, he undercut his trademark suavity with moments of slapstick mayhem, creating a contrast that hinted at the chasm between his private life and public persona.

By Angelica Jade Bastién

An Unmarried Woman: The Business of Being a Woman

Paul Mazursky’s candid tale of self-discovery reflects feminist politics of the 1970s while also hearkening back to the glories of classic Hollywood women’s pictures.

By Angelica Jade Bastién

Notorious: The Same Hunger

In this pitch-perfect noir romance, Alfred Hitchcock explores what happens when the masks we wear in the world clash with our innermost desires.

By Angelica Jade Bastién