Zack Munson is a writer who contributed to The Weekly Standard from 2008 to 2016. He wrote frequently for the magazine, covering cultural topics including comedy, entertainment, and media criticism across more than 30 articles.
"Are you looking for that perfect Malbec to pair with Donald Trump's xenophobic and misogynistic rally speeches?" Who isn't?! "Perhaps a complex Cabernet over which to discuss Bernie's case for democratic socialism?" Of course! "Maybe a simple Riesling to balance the rage you feel while watching…
Let me be frank: I am a terrible citizen. I haven’t voted in any election since 2008. I'm a registered independent and a card-carrying member of exactly zero civic organizations. I've never been a Young Republican or, for that matter, a middle-aged Democrat or an old Whig. I'm unlikely to Lean In…
With President Obama's historic trip to Cuba just behind us, a familiar lamentation has been in the air of late, namely that forthcoming American tourism is sure to bring "changes" to Cuba. While one would expect the acolytes of President Changemeister himself to greet such a development with hope,…
There are two candidates who have repeatedly defied expectations over this campaign season. And while less attention has been paid to Bernie Sanders than to Donald Trump, many people believe that Sanders, like Trump, has energized an authentic political movement that could reshape American politics.
In case you haven't seen it, there is a new television show out there more terrifying than anything that has ever made it to TV before (yes, even more than Thursday night's GOP debate). It is a horror-fest beyond imagining, brought to fruition by perhaps the most twisted mind in Hollywood, with a…
Well, Super Bowl 50 is in the books and the improbable has happened: Peyton Manning has still not officially retired. Forget about the game (pretty lousy), or the commercials (even worse), or the halftime show (about on par with this). The Peyton story is the only one that really matters coming off…
Well, I don't know how you feel, but it seems fitting to me that the day after this year's Iowa caucuses is Groundhog Day (and not because of the animal's resemblance to the thing that sits on The Donald's head). Just like Phil Connors in the 1993 Bill Murray-Harold Ramis classic, we find ourselves…
"Finally, somebody whiter than us!" So must have cheered the brain trust at Saturday Night Live last week, after the uproar about the conspicuously monochromatic nature of this year's Oscar nominees. NBC's late night comedy staple produced a sketch about the kerfuffle, which is actually not…
Much has been made of Sean Penn’s recently released secret interview with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, mastermind of two daring prison escapes, and the author of immeasurable suffering the world over. That Penn would shake hands with El Chapo isn't too surprising,…
Steven Avery is an innocent man, railroaded by the Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, Sheriff's Office and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. This is the only conclusion at which one could reasonably arrive after watching Netflix's new true crime documentary series Making a Murderer, which…
Aziz Ansari, for those of you recently emerged from your post-Obama-reelection survival bunkers, is a very funny comedian, known mainly as Tom Haverford on NBC's now defunct Parks and Recreation, as well as approximately 17,000 stand up specials. His new series Master of None, a half hour "dramedy"…
Los Angeles
Let’s face it, we millennials need all the help we can get. We’ve spent our 20s either engaged in Apatow-ian bromances or trying to figure out if we’re Mirandas or Samanthas. We invented Facebook and insist on using it at all hours of the day, for no earthly reason whatsoever. Heck, we even…
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that blogging is not the greatest byproduct of the advent of the information age. (That would be Double Rainbow Guy. Easily.) But it’s not the worst, either (acronyms, Rick Astley, Facebook, take your pick). Over the years, I’ve spent some time reading blogs,…
"It’s called art, dickhead.” So proclaims John D’Agata, a creative writing professor at the University of Iowa, in an email to Jim Fingal, an intern at the Believer magazine assigned to fact-check D’Agata’s article, “What Happens There,” ostensibly a work of nonfiction about a teenager who leaped…
Brooklyn
Courtesy of a terrifying report in the New York Times, we now have yet another side effect to worry about as a result of our current period of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change:
I’m not sure you’ve heard, but freedom of the press is on the wane in the United States. Just last week the U.S. dropped 27 places in Reporters Without Borders’ annual Press Freedom Index, in large part due to the “many arrests of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street protests.” Apparently we now…
Washington, D.C.
With still about a month until its American release, controversy is beginning to swirl around the new Harvey Weinstein produced Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. That a Hollywood film about the life of one of the 20th Century’s great conservatives might play fast and loose with the facts…
Well, Obama has done it again. Having rescheduled his super-great-amazing jobs speech for September 8, the president has set himself up to overlap with coverage of the NFL’s opening game. Despite the anticipation with which talking heads await the speech, I think NBC would be quite foolish, from a…
John Kerry announced today on Morning Joe that he believes the media should take some responsibility for keeping the Tea Party and its ideas out of our public discourse:
Democrats and their partisans in the mainstream media have been fully occupied these past few days with demonizing conservatives for their successful stand against tax increases in the debt ceiling compromise. To Thomas Friedman, the Tea Party is the “Hezbollah faction” of the Republican party.…
Albert Brooks is a comedian and filmmaker. He has now written a novel. The novel is called 2030, and it is about the future of America. This is how the novel is written. Like this. The way this review is written. In this manner of writing.
Bossypants by Tina Fey Reagan Arthur, 288 pp., $26.99
Hank Greenberg The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One by Mark Kurlansky Yale, 192 pp., $25
Who's to Say What's Obscene?
Me Cheeta
Too Fat to Fish
Comedy at the Edge