Critics Hated Michael Jackson Biopic, Audiences Made It Top-Grossing

The Michael Jackson biopic, savaged by critics, has become the highest-grossing biopic ever, according to BBC. This widening gap between professional judgment and public taste is explored in The Ideas Letter, which wistfully recalls when criticism was glamorous, now reading like an obituary. The Atlantic questions whether Marcel Duchamp ruined modern art, a debate ongoing for decades. Meanwhile, AI is running two experiments: The New Yorker traces a homogenized 'AI design aesthetic' overtaking the internet, while The New York Times reports the same technology revives Cajun French and other dying languages. The Conversation asks how we relearn to read, as attention is out of practice.