Writing - Dante A. Ciampaglia

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Features

Red Hook Star-Revue • 13 October 2021

A Call to Arms for American Journalism

Filmmaker Beth Levison and Storm Lake Times editor Art Cullen turn a newspaper documentary into “a treatise on civic engagement."

Sports Illustrated • 16 June 2016

How Superman vs. Muhammad Ali Happened

Artist Neal Adams and writer Denny O'Neil share the origin of the greatest, strangest comic book team-up.

Architectural Digest • 29 July 2019

How HGTV Became a Juggernaut

On its 25th anniversary, an inside look at the ubiquitous cable channel — and its multi-tentacled cultural influence.

Metropolis • 23 October 2018

Hip-Hop Architecture’s Philip Johnson Moment

A new show at AIA New York’s Center for Architecture makes the case for a growing global design movement that is forging its own canon.

The Daily Beast • 9 May 2018

The Secret Photographs of Stanley Kubrick

As a shooter for Look magazine, Kubrick evocatively documented ordinary New Yorkers, celebrities, athletes, and post-war playgrounds.

Architectural Record • 5 August 2014

Andy Warhol's Empire Turns 50

Filmmaker, critic, and organizer Jonas Mekas takes us inside the making of the notorious film that made the Empire State Building a star.

Metropolis • 21 March 2019

Tracking the Centuries-Old Debate Over Bicycles

Cycling in the City: A 200-Year History at the Museum of the City of New York casts a fresh light on an urban design battle that still rages today.

Architectural Record • 8 August 2017

Beginning a New Conversation About Modernism

The architectural mode gets a meditative yet passionate cinematic defense from filmmaker and video essayist Kogonada.

WIRED • 12 May 2018

The Crazy Legacy of Jack Kirby’s "2001"

Kubrick's "Space Odyssey" is a classic. Marvel Comics' adaptation by King Kirby? It's one of the least-remembered chapters of comics history.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 4 September 2020

Singing the Ballad of Pepe to Save American Democracy

Arthur Jones and Giorgio Angelini dig into their doc "Feels Good Man," tracking Pepe’s bizarre journey from alt comic to hate symbol.

Profiles

Architectural Record • 29 June 2022

Bruce Mau Makes the Case That We’re All Designers

Mau, a creative with limitless imagination and boundless optimism, is at once familiar and one-of-a-kind.

Newsweek • 5 March 2018

Liv Ullmann: The Muse

One of the great actors of world cinema discusses her life and work with legendary filmmaker Ingmar Bergman.

Time • 14 July 2015

Masanori Murakami: Baseball’s Forgotten Pioneer

The first Japanese person to play in Major League Baseball finally emerges from the footnotes of baseball history.

The Elective • 7 February 2022

10 Black Computer Science Pioneers Everyone Must Know

Celebrating overlooked and unsung innovators who built—and continue to shape—our digital (and IRL) lives.

The Elective • 17 June 2022

Discovering Her Purpose—and Defying Old Stigmas

The community Teanna Williams found in her AP classes turned a shy, anxious student into a confident, transformative leader.

Sports Illustrated Kids • 17 April 2014

Andrew McCutchen: Steel City Hero

Winning became a reality again in Pittsburgh. And you can give a lot of the credit to its MVP centerfielder, Andrew McCutchen.

Time • 1 December 2015

John Florea's Forgotten Images

The LIFE photographer's shock at the horrors of World War II translated into some of the most haunting images ever made of war.

Sports Illustrated Kids • 5 March 2014

True Patriot

Rico Roman's journey from disabled Iraq War Army vet to a starring role on the US Paralympic Sled Hockey team.

Sports Illustrated Kids • 8 September 2016

Conquering Hollywood With a Basketball Assist

Before boldly going into the Star Trek franchise, director Justin Lin was a hoops-obsessed immigrant kid in LA.

Sports Illustrated Kids • 26 October 2015

Baseball's Model Catcher

San Francisco Giants star Buster Posey is a star on the field — and in his Bay Area community.

Criticism

Los Angeles Review of Books • 9 June 2022

The Eternal Exile: On Jonas Mekas’s Cinema of Memory and Displacement

An examination of Mekas' filmmaking through a survey of his work mounted at New York's Jewish Museum.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 13 June 2023

Review: Celine Song’s Exquisite "Past Lives"

The debut feature from the playwright is wise and confident and the kind of film grown-ups are missing at the multiplex.

The Paris Review • 19 November 2015

Glutton for Punishment

John Huston's overlooked, late-career masterpiece “Fat City” is the best (and bleakest) boxing movie ever made.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 25 June 2022

The Evil That Men With Guns Do in John Ford’s America

What makes the classic "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" timeless is how it speaks to us across the decades — not always comfortably.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 17 February 2022

“Fight Club” In the Age of the Great Resignation

The tension of its central contradiction — between self-defeating violence and righteous self-actualization — only gets tauter as America becomes both increasingly aristocratic and nihilistic.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 15 July 2023

The Singular "Her" is Now Our Era’s Cinematic Urtext

The cinematic analog for our time isn’t "Terminator 2" or "The Matrix" or "Ex Machina," but a film less outwardly dystopian and more deceptively gentle and twee.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 11 April 2022

Review: "Everything Everywhere All At Once"

Daniels' bonkers multiversal genre mixtape is an oasis of imagination in a desert of soulless corporate synergy.

The Paris Review • 4 June 2016

Raving Maniac of the Cinema: Jonas Mekas’s Anti-criticism

While Sarris and Kael slap-fought at center stage of Film Culture, a third party lobbed firecrackers from the back of the theater — at them, at anyone, at everyone.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 20 December 2021

Seventy-Five Years On, How Wonderful is "It’s a Wonderful Life?"

Art that endures is art that evolves, that speaks to us across time and experience, that fully reveals itself only when we mature into its sensibilities. Frank Capra's film is such art.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 2 September 2021

Hollywood’s Forever War on Terrorism

For a decade, 9/11's lasting cinematic legacy seemed to be turning the Dream Factory into the Nightmare Mill. Then came the MCU.

Interviews

Metropolis • 4 March 2021

The Blueprint for Hip-Hop Architecture

With the publication of his new book, architect and professor Sekou Cooke cements the legitimacy of a proactive design concept.

Newsweek • 2 January 2018

How to Swear with Samuel L. Jackson

A lesson in swearing from the master during a conversation about Jackson's experience teaching and the people who helped shape him as an actor.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 16 November 2022

Hollywood’s Unsung Master

Dan Perri isn’t a name you see above a movie’s title. Because he designed the title. Lots of them. And many are as iconic as the films themselves.

The Elective • 15 October 2023

A CTE Paradigm in Massachusetts

A veteran of Bay State’s impressive voc-tech system, David J. Ferreira is spreading the good news to a nation hungry for new models.

Metropolis • 3 June 2019

Paul Goldberger Tackles Baseball Urbanism

"Ballpark: Baseball in the American City" traces the arc of American urban history through the ballparks' impact on cities, and vice versa.

The Elective • 15 October 2023

The Secret History of Women in Tech

Journalist Claire L. Evans’ book "Broad Band" proves it took more than dudes in a garage to imagine and build the future.

Newsweek • 22 December 2017

Better Call Bagdikian

"Better Call Saul" star Bob Odenkirk talks his crusading turn playing "Washington Post" reporter Ben Bagdikian in "The Post."

The Elective • 7 February 2020

Decoding American Democracy

Author and technology journalist Clive Thompson on the relationship between code, politics, government, and power.

The Elective • 15 October 2023

(Mostly) Everything You Wanted to Know About Pencils

Author and entrepreneur Caroline Weaver sharpens our pencil history in her new book "Pencils You Should Know."

Newsweek • 17 January 2018

Paul Walter Hauser Steals Every Scene in "I, Tonya"

In a breakout performance as a delusional, obese freeloader living in his parents' basement, the actor opts for nuance over slapstick.

Columns & Miscellany

Red Hook Star-Revue • 15 August 2023

The Hollywood Strikes are About the Future: Of Culture, Work, America

On the "fear of no longer being needed in a world of needless things" and the "surreality of much that is called work today.”

Belt Publishing • 18 October 2019

Under the Big Dome

Pittsburgh's historic Black neighborhood was destroyed — for an arena. (from the book "Midwest Architecture Journeys," published 2019)

Newsweek • 22 February 2018

Every Best Picture Oscar Winner, Ranked

If you want to feel bad about the Academy Awards, rank every best picture winner since the statuettes made their debut on May 16, 1929.

The Elective • 13 April 2022

Climate Change in the Classroom

Journalist Katie Worth investigates the challenges, conflicts, and opportunities impacting how students learn about the environment.

Sports Illustrated Kids • 22 April 2016

Burning Question: Should NASCAR Go Electric?

Superstar scientist Bill Nye thinks NASCAR can be a climate change leader, but physicist Dr. Leslie-Pelecky says it's not that simple.

Architectural Record • 30 July 2012

Batman's Paranoid City

Forgoing the fantastical, Chris Nolan's Gotham is tangible, based in existing physical spaces, yet anonymous enough to be anywhere.

HISTORY • 8 November 2018

Why Vietnam War Vets Were Treated Poorly

American soldiers returning home often faced scorn as the war they had fought in became increasingly unpopular.

Newsweek • 12 April 2018

Greece's Dirty Secret

Deadly air pollution may be the price for new jobs in Greece (photo essay)

Red Hook Star-Revue • 10 April 2023

100 Warner Bros. Films to Celebrate the Warner Bros. Centennial

An unimpeachable, completely not comprehensive watchlist of 100 of the best films made by Hollywood's golden studio.

Red Hook Star-Revue • 24 October 2022

Hollywood to Audiences: Drop Dead!

Hollywood is in a period of transition. But the pandemic warped something in the machine — or perhaps in the industry’s psyche.

A full archive of my writing, starting from 2008 (with a few older pieces), is also available.

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