Tom Carson
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Tom Carson

Tom Carson won two National Magazine Awards during his stint as Esquire's "Screen" columnist and has been nominated twice more as GQ's movie reviewer. Formerly a staff writer at LA Weekly and The Village Voice, he is the author of Gilligan's Wake (a New York Times Notable Book of the Year for 2003) and Daisy Buchanan's Daughter.

Recent Articles

Watergate Finally Gets Its Novel

Thomas Mallon's new fiction humanizes the ultimate D.C. scandal.

Tom CarsonFeb 21, 2012

Watergate: A Novel. By Thomas Mallon, Pantheon Books, 448 pages, $26.95.

Mrs. Nixon: A Novelist Imagines a Life. By Ann Beattie, Scribner, 282 pages, $26.00.

Charles Portis's Guide to the GOP

An obscure book that just might explain the GOP race better than any pundit could

Tom CarsonFeb 17, 2012
(Flickr/Austin Kleon)

Does today's Republican Party baffle you? Then I can help. A too-little-known book called Masters of Atlantis explains absolutely everything: They're Gnomons. Gnomons, every last one. While this is an inflammatory charge, I don't think I'm being reckless. If Masters of Atlantis can be trusted—and for reasons that will soon be apparent, I see no reason why it shouldn't be—Gnomonism, or Gnomonry, was introduced to the United States soon after World War I by Lamar Jimmerson, an ex-doughboy reared under Indiana's placid blue sky.

Cowboy vs. Material Girl

In the Super Bowl culture contest, Eastwood's "Halftime in America" beat Madonna's halftime act.

Tom CarsonFeb 06, 2012

In case you haven't heard, the Giants won. Because nobody who wasn't raised in the Boston TV market can abide the New England Patriots as either will or idea, a nation rejoiced between guacamole-flavored burps. But well before then—before the game's second half, in fact—the great American public met the real titans dueling for supremacy in Super Bowl LXVI. Clint Eastwood versus Madonna was a celebrity death match for the ages.

Woody Allen's Excellent Adventure

Midnight in Paris is nothing more than a dilettante's guide to the City of Lights.

Tom CarsonFeb 03, 2012
AP Images

Up for four Academy Awards on February 26 and Woody Allen's biggest box-office hit ever, Midnight in Paris seems likely to overtake even 1977's Annie Hall as the man's most beloved movie. And I wish I could belove it myself, honest I do. In this case, it's no fun to disparage the core audience's genuine pleasure.

I Fought PBS and PBS Won

Downton Abbey gives the network a bona fide guilty pleasure.

Tom CarsonJan 27, 2012
AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Maybe I should have heeded Joe Strummer's obscene warning back in 1980. "He who fucks nuns/Will later join the church," the Clash's front man sang biliously on London Calling—and here I am 32 years later, watching Downton Abbey. I guess Joe had my number all along.

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