Algorithm of the Night by A. S. Hamrah

Film critic A. S. Hamrah comes to Lost City to discuss the latest publication of his collected film writing, ALGORITHM OF THE NIGHT. About the book: "Unerring" (Bookforum), "hilarious" (Dana Spiotta), "our age's most irreplaceable critic" (Guernica), "a genius" (Kenyon Review), A. S. Hamrah returns with an extraordinary collection of his best film writing for n+1, The Baffler, The New York Review of Books, the Criterion Collection, and other publications. Algorithm of the Night assembles Hamrah's essays on films and filmmakers and his inimitable, aphoristic reviews--a body of work that, taken together, presents a powerful alternative to a culture mired in publicity and stale convention. A journey through the overlapping dystopias of the Trump years, the Covid years, and the Trump years, Algorithm of the Night attends with remarkable style and precision to a film industry in self-imposed crisis, a chronicle of failures and occasional miracles from AI to The Zone of Interest. Against the tides of ignorance and solipsism, Algorithm of the Night is film criticism as literature and--perhaps--prophecy. About the author: A. S. Hamrah is the author of The Earth Dies Streaming: Film Writing, 2002-2018 and Last Week in End Times Cinema, published in 2025 by Semiotext(e). He is the film critic for n+1 and writes for a number of other publications, including Harper's, Bookforum, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, Fast Company, The Baffler, and the Criterion Collection. He has worked as a movie theater projectionist, a semiotic brand analyst in the television industry, a political pollster, a football cinematographer, and for the film director Raúl Ruiz. He produced the feature-length documentary Bunker, directed by Jenny Perlin, which was the opening night film at the Museum of Modern Art's Doc Fortnight in 2022. He lives in New York. The conversation will be moderated by Chris Richards. Chris Richards is a writer and critic living in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is the former pop music critic for The Washington Post, and his work has recently appeared in The Guardian, NOTUS, POW Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, and most frequently in his music newsletter The Future is Ours to Make. Accessibility note: This event is up two flights of stairs and Lost City Books does not have an elevator. Please contact [email protected] with questions. Dato de accesibilidad: Este evento toma lugar en el segundo piso y Lost City Books no tiene ascensor. Favor de contactar [email protected] con cualquiera duda.