25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What's in Our Queue? ‘Overcompensating' and More
I like to know what people are talking about. And as a Times reporter it's not just a personal curiosity but a professional necessity. Still, sometimes I find quiet pleasure and actual respite in taking something in just because →
I heard my teenagers discussing this Prime Video series about a college freshman from Idaho who's struggling to avoid his reality (a closeted gay student who passes for bro). The show's creator and star is the comedian Benito Skinner. I wanted to text in sick to binge the whole season.
At a time when Supreme Court decisions are of enormous consequence, I have been ensconced in early episodes of this podcast. Its first episode devotes 40 minutes to the court's interpretation of three words in the Eighth Amendment: 'cruel and unusual.' It's hard to define what constitutes a riveting podcast, but I know it when I hear it.
An apolitical murder-mystery set in the White House's private residence, the Netflix series is led by Uzo Aduba and filled with zany 'upstairs-downstairs' plots. Each episode pays subtle homage to the classic film or book ('The Third Man,' for example) it's named for.
One of my favorite documentaries is 'Searching for Sugar Man,' about Sixto Rodriguez, a Detroit musician whose attempts in the 1960s and '70s to make it fell short until … well, there is a twist, and you should just watch. The film turned me on to Rodriguez's albums, and I have been listening a lot to 'Cold Fact.'
I recently read and loved Trent Preszler's memoir of growing up in South Dakota, which describes his experiences, including those of being gay in a family, religion and community that largely rejected difference. When Preszler's father died, he left his son his toolbox — talk about a metaphor — and Preszler uses it to make sense of his complex grief.
