Back in 2003, a new reality TV show hosted and co-created by Tyra Banks convinced an entire generation that they too might have what it takes to become America’s next top model. Now, a new Netflix docu-series wants us to know just how badly the contestants were treated — by the show and sometimes by Banks herself. To Wesley’s surprise, Tyra Banks agreed to be interviewed for the series, “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” and to revisit some of the show’s most cringe and painful moments. Was it a genuine attempt at accountability? And are we satisfied by what we're hearing? Wesley invites Michaela angela Davis, a writer, editor and stylist, to talk about it. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Seven years after Toni Morrison’s death, we’re experiencing what the critic Parul Sehgal describes as a “wave of Morrisonia.” Eleven of her novels are being reissued by her publisher. There’s a new book of criticism about her novels. You can feel the effort to shore up her legacy.

It’s an understandable impulse. This is the woman who wrote “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that, as Parul writes, “invented a language for unassimilable pain, for the horrors of the Middle Passage, of bondage and its systematized torture and sexual brutality.”

The book can feel like a kind of miracle. And Morrison, therefore, like a kind of saint. But sanctification — both Parul and Wesley fear — has its own risks. It puts Morrison up in the sky, where we can’t quite reach her. Too far away to touch.

So in this episode of Cannonball, that’s what Parul, Wesley and their editor, Sasha Weiss, set out to do. Touch Morrison’s work — as she wanted us to.

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Valentine’s Day weekend is over, and we’re left with a new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” Audiences are hot, bothered and swooning. Can you blame them? The trailer had promised — and the film delivers — a stunning Margot Robbie, a seductive Jacob Elordi and a lot of sticky substances (like, a lot.) Wesley Morris knows sex and shock to be the director Emerald Fennell’s specialty, and this flick is no different. But where’s the actual substance? To confront his suspicion head on, Wesley takes a movie buddy, the culture editor Sasha Weiss, to see the film that’s got everybody and their lovers in knots. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“We’re living in protest-y times! Where are all the protest songs?”

That was a question that Wesley Morris was asking in the time leading up to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show. He thinks the scarcity of direct protest art in this moment contributed to the intense speculation and anticipation about what Bad Bunny would do on that stage. Would it be a protest? And if so, what kind of protest?

Well, now the show’s over. So what did it turn out to be? To discuss, Wesley Morris sits back down with his friend Sasha Weiss, culture editor at The New York Times Magazine.

They also think about the role of protest music more broadly. When does a song need to hit us over the head? And when is subtlety useful — or called for?

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“The Pitt” is back for a second season, and it’s appointment viewing for Wesley Morris. Every Thursday at 9 p.m., the show serves up an emergency room’s worth of maladies and realities — sparing us none of the naked truths about being a human in a vulnerable body. Sasha Weiss, the culture editor at The New York Times Magazine, joins Wesley to talk about how the show is making an old-school television genre feel not just contemporary, but vital. Plus, a conversation with the writer and novelist Taffy Brodesser-Akner about when loving a work of art becomes an obsession. And Wesley has an unexpected reaction to the Grammys. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

“Marty Supreme” is a box office and critical hit. The film just received nominations in many of the most coveted Oscar categories — best picture, director and actor. And Wesley is glad about all of it. He loved the movie and its shameless protagonist, Marty Mauser.

But it turns out that a lot of people going to see this movie don’t share his feelings. In fact, a lot of them hate it. And much of that seems to have to do with a hatred of Marty himself.

Wesley’s friend and a culture editor at The New York Times Magazine, Sasha Weiss, thinks people may be missing the point. Which, to her, has a lot to do with the Jewishness of the film. She joins Wesley to talk it out.

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Cannonball is taking a short break and will be back very soon. In the meantime, listen to this special conversation:

Last November, Wesley spent an evening with Michelle Obama to celebrate the release of “The Look,” her new book about fashion and the power of style. It’s a heavy text – weighing in at about 4.12 pounds (Wesley checked). That makes it great for coffee tables. But it also reflects the weight of what it meant to Michelle Obama, as First Lady, to be looked at. Every outfit carried meaning and significance, and she knew it. 

Together, Wesley and Michelle reflect on her approach to fashion from day one in the White House, her time in the East Wing, and some of her most memorable looks.

• Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]
• Watch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcast
• For transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball

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Wesley has a practice as a new year begins of saying goodbye to those who won’t be coming with us. He could have easily done an episode on any number of household names. He could have done the same with people who weren’t the biggest names, yet still loomed large for many.

But out of all the artists who passed in 2025, Wesley decides to dedicate time to Roberta Flack.

The critic and scholar Daphne A. Brooks, a friend of Wesley’s, joins him to reflect on treasured moments in Flack’s music. They reminisce on the powerful range of her discography, the quiet it kept and the fire it sparked in others.

• Thoughts? Email us at [email protected]
• Watch our show on YouTube: youtube.com/@CannonballPodcast
• For transcripts and more, visit: nytimes.com/cannonball

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When a book publisher asked Wesley to write an introduction for a new edition of “The Great Gatsby,” he was confused. So many people had already written about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel since it was first published in 1925. What could he add? And why him?

But eventually, he realized he does in fact have a special relationship with this book. He has read it in three different phases of life, and each time, it seemed profound in an entirely new way.

So in the final week of the book’s 100th anniversary, Wesley talks to the novelist Min Jin Lee and Gilbert Cruz, editor of The New York Times Book Review, about why all three of them have found themselves in a decades-long relationship with this book.

 

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Wesley has been thinking a lot this week about what Rob Reiner gave us. Not the best movies. But our favorite ones. He wanted us to feel good. And for Wesley, no movie hit that pleasure center more than “When Harry Met Sally.” He watched it over and over as a teenager. It’s probably why he moved to New York. He wanted what they were having. This week, Wesley reflects on the impact Reiner had on his life, and shares a conversation he had on The Daily — involving a very extended appreciation of that famous diner scene. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today’s show, Wesley reveals his favorite film performances of the year — but his list is not an ordinary best-of list. He zeroes in on the specific details that make a performance great. Like, who did the best acting in a helmet this year? Who were the most convincing on-screen best friends? And who refused to play it safe? Find out in our first annual Cannonball Great Performers special.

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