Shirley as an Excellent Page-Turner of a Movie

Speaking from experience, the process of being a writer is an utterly strange one. One would like to imagine it's easy as just sitting down at a laptop and typing away at keys that magically produce the next great American novel. Instead, it's all about patience, trial-and-error. You'll write yourself into many dead ends. Distractions creep in easily. You might spend just as much time worrying about if you're doing enough writing as you actually do the writing. The process of writing is ultimately rewarding but boy does it have its strange effects. If the new Josephine Decker movie Shirley is any indication, author Shirley Jackson, the writer behind The Haunting of Hill House among other works, could attest to that.

Madeline's Madeline Is An Impressively Realized Surrealist Exercise That Hews Closely To Immersive Theater

SPOILERS FOR MADELINE'S MADELINE FOLLOW
In a Performances In Historical Context class I took last Fall, we learned about a form of theater storytelling known as Immersive Theater. Emerging in the 21st century, this format of theater broke away from traditional norms of stage performance to rely heavily on audience participation, allowing for the creation of a one-on-one experience between audience members and performers, while such shows also tend to incorporate social elements into the proceedings and take advantage of whatever environment the performance takes place in. Theater groups like Punchdrunk and Third Rail are probably the most famous examples of this format of theater storytelling that ensures that no two performances of any given show will be quite the same.