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Angelica Jade Bastién

Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine

Angelica Jade Bastién is a critic for New York and Vulture focusing on pop culture. She was once described by a close friend as “deliciously vulgar”.

  1. chat room
    Nicole Beharie on the Simple Beauty of Miss JuneteenthThe actress discusses her experience with tokenism on the TV, healing after Sleepy Hollow, and the making of her modest new film.
  2. tv review
    Insecure Is a Balm, Even When It FailsDespite a soapy twist, season four felt like solace, bristling with mature storytelling and beguiling aesthetic dimensions.
  3. movies
    What Are We to Do With Cinematic Monuments to the Confederacy?Gone With the Wind is a representation of the worst myths America still holds about itself. The answer isn’t to sideline it.
  4. tv review
    I May Destroy You Confirms Michaela Coel’s Stunning TalentAn unflinching, dynamic exploration of desire and consent stands on the strength of Coel’s work as a writer, director, and performer.
  5. friday night movie club
    Deep Cover Defies the Standards of Hollywood Stories About CopsThe film noir genre has always been good at laying bare the lies at the heart of the American dream.
  6. overnights
    Killing Eve Season Finale Recap: Do You Ever Think About the Past?Where did Killing Eve lose its way?
  7. movie review
    The High Note Is a Mostly Forgettable Hollywood Fairy TaleIn the end, Tracee Ellis Ross’s Grace Davis feels like a diva in search of real characterization.
  8. movie review
    On the Record Is Imperfect, Provocative, and Utterly NecessaryThe documentary detailing accusations of sexual assault against Russell Simmons proves to be a compelling and uneven work of the Me Too era.
  9. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: A Love of ChaosDeath knocks on Carolyn’s door again in an exceedingly fun episode packed with heart attacks and deaths, yearning gazes and near misses.
  10. movie review
    The Lovebirds Is a Staunchly Average Streaming Rom-ComThe Netflix movie is designed to be watched while performing a menial task — folding the laundry or washing dishes — in quarantine.
  11. summer 2020
    19 Horror Movies We’re Excited to See This SummerFrom Prime Video’s The Vast of Night to the Janelle Monáe–starring Antebellum to A Quiet Place sequel.
  12. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: GalvanizedVillanelle says she wants out, but is that really what she desires?
  13. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: My Mother’s DaughterVillanelle finds closure. But to what end?
  14. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: This Is Where You BelongHappy Birthday, Eve.
  15. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: Smell MeEve and Villanelle crash into each other.
  16. overnights
    Killing Eve Recap: Those Left BehindIn the wake of tragedy, Eve and Carolyn find their lives occupied by grief in dramatically different ways.
  17. close reads
    The Good Fight’s Most Scathing Episode Yet“The Gang Deals With Alternate Reality” is a study in not just the failures of corporate feminism but the white imagination itself.
  18. overnights
    Killing Eve Season-Premiere Recap: End of StoryDespite Eve’s best efforts, the darkness she’s trying to avoid worms itself back into her life in particularly heartbreaking fashion.
  19. read a book
    Join Samantha Irby for a Live Reading of Wow, No Thank You.Followed by a chat with Angelica Jade Bastién, tonight on Vulture’s Instagram Live.
  20. vulture recommends
    Introducing Six Degrees of One Kevin Bacon Movie, a New Quarantine GameWe asked our film writers to start with Mystic River and work their way through five more titles … ending on another Kevin Bacon movie.
  21. movie review
    Seriously, Why Is Vin Diesel a Star?In his latest movie Bloodshot, Diesel is like an unfinished statue, hulking and aggressively bland.
  22. close reads
    Is There Any Hope for Picard?The series still has the potential to reach greatness, but only if it can engage the Star Trek franchise’s most essential quality.
  23. friday night movie club
    Some Like It Hot Is a Perfect Comedy to Get Lost In TonightVulture’s first Friday Night Movie Club selection is filled with pure, unfettered joy.
  24. close reads
    It Doesn’t Take Much to Be Seen As an Unruly WomanTalk too much, too loudly, and that’s enough. Which is why Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn feels like the ultimate fantasy.
  25. chat room
    Jeri Ryan Loves Who Star Trek’s Seven of Nine Has Become on PicardAs first, bringing the Voyager character back after nearly 20 years filled the actor with “abject panic.” Then she found the key to this new Seven.
  26. movie review
    The Photograph Is an Imperfect DelightThe romantic drama is undoubtedly elevated by LaKeith Stanfield, who has proved over his short career that he has tremendous range.
  27. tv review
    Locke & Key Can’t Unlock Its Most Intriguing ThemesNetflix’s lightweight adaptation of the Joe Hill horror comic fails its own ideas about memory and grief.
  28. obits
    What Does It Mean to Mourn the Golden Age of Hollywood?On Kirk Douglas, his noir legacy, and the ways we reckon with legends.
  29. tv review
    Star Trek: Picard Stumbles Over Its Own LegacyPatrick Stewart is as great as ever in the series’s title role, but the show around him is struggling to live up to the standards of its predecessor.
  30. close reads
    The Good Place Doesn’t Need a Love StoryRemember when Eleanor and Chidi were just friends?
  31. movie review
    The Story of Clemency Plays Out on Alfre Woodard’s FaceHere is an actor in full command of her skills. That she won’t be considered for an Oscar is a travesty.
  32. tv review
    Avenue 5 Isn’t Great Yet, But It Could BeArmando Iannucci’s new future-set space comedy, starring Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad, isn’t without its flaws, but at least they’re intriguing flaws.
  33. vulture lists
    Every Brad Pitt Movie, RankedA closer look at the Oscar-nominated actor’s body of work.
  34. the gold rush
    The Oscars? Still So White.It’s difficult to see this year’s nominees as a result of anything other than the Academy’s continuing and glaring shortcomings.
  35. spoilers
    You Season Two Ends With an Arch, Revelatory TwistLove Quinn is a perfect mirror for Joe.
  36. the lost canon
    Juano Hernández Should Have Been a Hollywood LegendAn Afro-Latino actor, he remains curiously absent in reexaminations of black identity throughout film history.
  37. chat room
    Regina King Would ‘Absolutely’ Sign Up for Watchmen Season TwoBut only if it’s “at least comparable to this first season, which is going to be really hard to do.”
  38. what were the 2010s?
    What Did We Just Watch?A 257-show guide to Prestige, Peak, and every other kind of TV from the past decade.
  39. tv review
    You Season Two Is a Dark DelightThe gloriously deranged series returns on Netflix to explore the effects of violent masculinity and deconstruct the “Cool Girl.”
  40. movie review
    Black Christmas Is Bloody Holiday FunDirector Sophia Takal and co-writer April Wolfe are behind this reboot of a cult classic.
  41. spoilers
    Damon Lindelof Knows Exactly What Happens After Watchmen’s Cliff-hanger Finale“It didn’t feel that ambiguous to me.”
  42. overnights
    Watchmen Finale Recap: A Most Worthy AdversaryAngela Abar’s origin story reaches its culmination — or does it?
  43. what were the 2010s?
    Every Movie of the 2010s, RankedOur critics pored over 5,279 of the decade’s films. Here’s the best, worst, and mehst.
  44. overnights
    Watchmen Recap: FateThe season’s penultimate episode gives us some time-tripping insight into Angela and Doctor Manhattan’s complicated, unfortunately doomed love story.
  45. overnights
    Watchmen Recap: Hero’s JourneyWe get new insight into Angela’s past, Vietnam’s history as the 51st state, and the whereabouts of the most powerful being in the universe.
  46. movie review
    Queen & Slim Bursts With Style, But It Can’t Live on Beauty AloneMelina Matsoukas’s movie asks: In a country that is built on black suffering, is it not radical to capture joy wherever you can?
  47. spoilers
    Who Is Hooded Justice? Watchmen Has a Stunning Answer.Watchmen writer Cord Jefferson talks Hooded Justice, generational trauma, and the show’s best episode yet.
  48. overnights
    Watchmen Recap: … and Justice for AllThe series’ bold reimagining of one of Watchmen’s most mysterious figures is a truly singular episode of television.
  49. overnights
    Watchmen Recap: Mirror UniverseA graceful, moving episode gives us a peek behind the mask and into the lonely life of Looking Glass.
  50. tv review
    Dollface Is a Frothy Feminist Comedy in Search of Deeper MeaningThe Kat Dennings–led Hulu series tries to speak to millennial women’s concerns but ends up talking down to them.
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