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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

An Addictive, Imperfect House of Cards

Tom CarsonFeb 06, 2013
AP Photo/Netflix, Melinda Sue Gordon

So help me, I almost gave up on House of Cards. After zipping through the first three or four episodes of Netflix's new 13-part, Americanized remake of the 1990 BBC miniseries about political intrigue, I figured I'd seen enough to cook up a reasonably brainy-sounding takedown, starting with how some of the supposedly sophisticated power plays executed by Kevin Spacey as scheming House Majority Whip Frank Underwood—a Democrat from South Carolina, and how likely is that in 2013?—would have left Machiavelli yawning at their crudeness in eighth grade. The idea that a single planted piece by a junior reporter could instantly vault someone into front-running contention for the job of Secretary of State had me groaning, and so on.

Superbowlistan, Louisiana

A dispatch from New Orleans, home to the Super Bowl for the first time since Hurricane Katrina

Tom CarsonJan 30, 2013
Perry Knotts/NFL

Perry Knotts/NFL

A giant football on display in New Orleans on Tuesday, January 29, 2013. 

The Peak of Her Game

Tom CarsonJan 25, 2013
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

With due respect to Barack Obama, his second inaugural address—containing not a single phrase likely to end up chiseled in stone, but a tactical masterpiece in its GOP-marginalizing, progressive redefinition of what the traffic will bear—wasn't the best political TV of the week. The best political TV of the week was Hillary Clinton's testimony in front of the Senate and then House Foreign Relations Committees on Wednesday. After licking their chops for weeks at the prospect, Republicans eyeing 2016—specifically, potential contenders Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, both of whom were among her quizzers—may be wondering why they didn't play it safe and summon Beyonce to grill her about lip-synching our furshlugginer national anthem instead.

Liberal Idealism, With a Healthy Dash of Satire

It may not be getting the same buzz as Girls, but Enlightened is growing nicely into its second season.

Tom CarsonJan 18, 2013

In case you don't know, Enlightened—co-created by its star, Laura Dern, with fellow cast member Mike White, and in its second season as of last week—is the show that currently airs right after Lena Dunham's Girls on HBO Sunday nights. To say it hasn't gotten as much attention as Girls is to riot in understatement, as Gore Vidal used to say.

More Downton Abbey, Less Grand Theft Auto? Not Gonna Happen.

Tom CarsonJan 08, 2013
AP Photo/Joe Skipper

Last week, my sort-of opposite number at ThinkProgress.org—culture blogger Alyssa Rosenberg, who also writes for The Atlantic and Slate—posted the kind of prescriptive think piece about Our Violent Culture that makes old geezers like me heave a hefty sigh as we finger our own dog-eared membership cards in the vast left-wing conspiracy. Just for the record, I should say that a) Rosenberg and I don't know each other at all, and b) she's someone whose work I enjoy and often glean dandy insights from, not least because our sensibilities and guiding premises are so different. If she's not at her best writing prescriptions, so what? That isn't really a critic's job in the first place.

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