Does anyone actually want to see Now You See Me 2? Slate couldn’t even pay its film critic Dana Stevens—freshly back from book leave—to do it. Instead, Steven rails against franchises that aren’t really franchises at all, writing, “The industry’s overreliance on the tried-and-true formula of giving the public more—several more—of any movie it even briefly exhibited signs of enjoying has resulted in a glut of sequels and spinoffs that the viewers themselves neither asked for nor show any signs of wanting.” It may have worked for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Jurassic World, but Stevens asks if studios may soon treat “even real megafranchises in the same tepid, who-cares? light as the Now You See Mes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutleses that plod their way weekly onto the release calendar.”
We may not have needed another installment of Now You See Me 2, but the answer to whether we need another TV show about O.J. Simpson in 2016 is a resounding yes, according to Jack Hamilton. He reviewed ESPN’s documentary O.J.: Made in America this week, calling it “the best piece of original programming the cable sports network has ever produced.” Hamilton writes that the show is “painstaking and enraging” as a documentary about law enforcement and “razor-sharp and remarkably nuanced” as a film about race in America but that its “greatest triumph” is its treatment of fame. The first part of the documentary airs this weekend.
It’s also Slate Book Review time at the magazine: Katy Waldman may have found your summer beach read in a novel that perfectly captures the heartbreaks of growing up. Christina Cauterucci introduces readers to a sexpert who writes in the voice of a “hip, super-knowledgeable babysitter, the kind you wish you’d had.” Mark O’Connell asks whether Virginia Heffernan is right to call the internet “the great masterpiece of human civilization.” Phillip Maciak says the reissue of Helen DeWitt’s The Last Sumurai is perfectly timed for the Netflix generation. Laura Hudson singles out a new comic series that puts adolescent girls at its center. Jacob Brogan writes about writing about cancer. Plus an interview with Yaa Gyasi, Lydia Millet and Jenny Offill, Susan Faludi’s new memoir, an Audio Book Club on Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible, and more.
A few extra links for your weekend reading:
- How Game of Thrones should end (but won’t)
- Beyoncé’s earth-shattering sneeze: an eyewitness account
- A black former Bachelor contestant evaluates this season of UnReal
- The documentary that shows Muhammad Ali in his prime
- How TV writers deal with pregnant actors
- Amadeus, an enduring portrait of genius and mediocrity
- Young gay actor Noah Galvin’s refreshingly candid interview
- Early elated reactions to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
