‘The Peasants’ Review: A Village Rendered in Oils

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together. Laurel Graeber grew up loving the theater and museums. But she never thought she would write about them for The New York Times — or that she would do so for nearly three decades. “I…

Ghostwriting is a secretive profession. It’s long been maintained that a good ghost writer, like a well-behaved child in the old proverb, should be neither seen nor heard. So it was unusual for a group of around 140 ghostwriters to gather, as they did in Manhattan on Monday, to schmooze and celebrate their work with…

After Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks spearheaded the epic 2001 World War II series “Band of Brothers,” Spielberg got some feedback from one of his most important critics. His father, Arnold, a World War II veteran who served in what was then called the United States Army Air Forces, liked the series. But he wanted…

When arts organizations began shunning the Sackler family over its role in the U.S. opioid crisis, it wasn’t just American institutions that cut ties. Museums in Britain that had accepted Sackler largess were among the first to take action. After the National Portrait Gallery in London canceled a $1.3 million Sackler donation in 2019, the…

I wasn’t expecting to cry as much as I did at “Godzilla Minus One.” The strong word-of-mouth made it sound like an awesome spectacle with cool action courtesy of the scaly title creature. And while there were awe-inducing showdowns with the monster, the Toho International production, written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki, is largely a…

When Melanie’s “Brand New Key” debuted in 1971, some people were confused. What did the singer, who died on Tuesday at 76, mean when she sang about having a brand-new pair of roller skates and someone else having a brand-new key? Melanie told one interviewer that she wrote the song in 15 minutes, after ending…