Nathan Pensky

Culture Writing

Movieline

• 9 Film Villains Who Actually Scared Me - March 9, 2012
• When - And How - Great Movie Narration Works - March 3, 2012
• Miscast Roles: A Case for Mark Ruffalo in ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’- February 24, 2012
• If You Liked ‘The Grey,’ You’d Better Check Out ‘The Edge’ - February 17, 2012
• Genius Films About Genius (and Other Pretenders) - February 10, 2012

New York Daily News

• A Few Holiday Diversions - December 24, 2011

Forbes

• Jewish Action Heroes: A Review of Neal Pollack’s ‘Jewball’ - November 23, 2011
• Hoop Dreams: An Interview with Neal Pollack - November 11, 2011
• A Review of Susan Orlean’s ‘Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend’ - October 17, 2011
• A Review of Maurice Sendak’s ‘Bumble Ardy’ - September 26, 2011

Boing Boing

• The Mixed Magic of “Looper” - October 12, 2012
• The Harry Potter/Glass Family Connection - October 10, 2011
• Twitter, Epigrams, and Alexander Pope - August 23, 2011

East Bay Express

• Fleet Foxes Outfoxed by Acoustics - May 11, 2011

PopMatters - Features

• The Best Twitter Comic on the Planet: An Interview with Rob Delaney - March 26, 2012
• No Formula For Funny: An Interview with Nick Kroll - February 16, 2012
• The Hippie That Wasn’t: An Interview with Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips - January 20, 2012
• Michael Has Issues: A Sad, Sad Conversation with Michael Ian Black - September 22, 2011
• Bright Future: An Interview with Starscream - July 6, 2011
• Motorcade of Consistency: An Interview with John McCrae of Cake - June 29, 2011
• Incidental Music: An Interview with Mark Oliver Everett of EELS - June 17, 2011
• Making Peace with an Emo Past: An Interview with the Get Up Kids - May 24, 2011
• ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ in the Fantasy Canon - March 9, 2011
• J.F.K Symbolism on ‘The Sopranos’ - February 25, 2011
• Probably Pop: An Interview with the Gin Blossoms - January 17, 2011
• The Cult of Memory in the Music of John Lennon and the Beatles - November 22, 2010
• The Individual as Institution: Power, Loss, and Madness in Kurosawa’s ‘Ran’ and Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ - October 22, 2010

PopMatters - Columns

• Trickster Heroes in ‘Buffy’ and ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ - September 8, 2011
• Voluntary Amnesia in ‘Dollhouse’ and ‘Pygmalion’ - July 26, 2011
• Characters Inside Out: Bryan Elsley’s ‘Skins’ and William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ - May 3, 2011

PopMatters - Reviews

• Absurdity Writ Small: ‘Mark Twain’s Autobiography 1910-2010’ - October 5, 2011
• ‘Children’s Hospital’ Season Three - Alicia Silverstone Arc - August 11, 2011
• ‘Attack the Block’ Engages the Brain and Quickens the Pulse - July 29, 2011
• ‘Shark Week 2011’ (24th Annual) - July 29, 2011
• Fake French: ‘Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour’ - July 20, 2011
• Starscream: ‘Future Toward the Edge of Forever’ - July 6, 2011
• ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ (35th Anniversary Re-Issue) - June 27, 2011
• Frameline35: ‘Bob’s New Suit’ - June 22, 2011
• Colin Firth’s Poor Little Rich Boy in ‘The King’s Speech’ - May 9, 2011

PopMatters - Blog Posts

• Images of Faces and Hands in ‘North By Northwest’ - March 30, 2011
• Five Hilarious TV Lines from the Last Ten Years - February 28, 2011
• The Problem with Happiness - February 17, 2011
• Against Awards, or Everything That Rises Must Not Converge - February 2, 2011
• Insufferable Human Drama as Catalyst in ‘The Birds’ - January 18, 2011
• Can a Film Be Both a Blockbuster and a ‘Cult Classic’? - January 6, 2011
• The Horror of ‘The Virgin Spring’ - January 6, 2011
• ‘The Walking Dead’ as Long-Form Zombie Tale - December 9, 2010
• ‘Jeeves and Wooster,’ A Very Funny Show About Nothing - November 24, 2010
• The Suchness of ‘The Social Network’ - October 28, 2010
• In Defense of Weezer - October 13, 2010
• The Deep Waters of ‘Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones’ - October 11, 2010
• ‘Chinatown’ via Rodgers and Hammerstein - September 27, 2010
• A Crash Course in Fake Cursing - September 15, 2010
• Tough Guys and the Women Who Love Them in ‘Notorious’ and ‘The Maltese Falcon’ - September 8, 2010
• Beyond the Pale: Lady Gaga’s ‘Alejandro’ - September 1, 2010
• It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got That Mach Shau - August 18, 2010
• Revisiting the ‘Star Wars’ Prequels - August 12, 2010
• Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Brian Eno - August 11, 2010
• Anatomy of a Joke: The Office’s “Fun Run” - August 5, 2010
• The Just In: The Hooters’ ‘And We Danced’ May Be the Worst Video of All Time - July 28, 2010
• The Facts of Life in ‘Inception,’ ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,’ and ‘The Matrix’ - July 23, 2010
• Word Painting with Elliott Smith and Rufus Wainwright - July 21, 2010
• Serious Men, Inglourious Basterds - July 12, 2010
• Parsing Post-Irony with Flo Rida and Insane Clown Posse - July 2, 2010
• Radiohead as Suburban Avant Garde - June 29, 2010
• The Artist Formerly Known as Thierry Guetta - June 22, 2010
• Wait, Wait, Wait… Betty White is Old…AND She an Act? - June 17, 2010