On June 14th, a little girl named Isabella stood at the corner of P Street and Wisconsin, clutching a Wonder Woman Barbie and wearing a pajama set styled after the superhero’s iconic spangled costume. Next year, she would start second grade at a D.C. elementary school, but today, Isabella was part of the growing crowd…
I’ve always had a really close relationship with my dad. We have the same bizarre sense of humor and love of music and movies. I have vivid memories of falling asleep in front of the TV leaning on his shoulder, struggling to keep our eyes open after watching our third movie. I was raised on…
The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989. The Washington Summit on nuclear arms reduction took place in December 1987. While this last event aptly set the tense stage for The Americans’ sixth and final season, the first two predicted its ending. Philip (Matthew Rhys) and Elizabeth Jennings’ (Keri Russell) mission…
In the past month, Childish Gambino released the most earth-shattering song and music video I’ve ever seen, the Met Gala convinced me to convert to Catholicism (and then the Catholic Conservative twittersphere unconvinced me), Kanye West dropped what I consider to be a terrible 23 minutes of music, and Ocean’s 8 murdered me and then…
So I clearly had a lot of thoughts about Pygmalion. In another article, I wrote about whether I consider Eliza Doolittle to be a feminist role model. But now I want to talk about the politicization of speech and the imposition of behavioral constraints in this novel. Speech plays an essential role in Pygmalion. Eliza,…
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a bookshelf full of books in your room at home just begging to be read. For holidays and birthdays, family members and friends contemplate gifts and immediately think “book.” You’ve done a fair bit of collecting yourself over the years, as used bookstores seem to be your weakness….
Ross Geller opens the door and says, “Hey. I just got my teacher evaluations. Check out what this one student wrote. ‘I loved Dr. Geller’s class. Mind-blowing lectures. Dr. Geller, you are definitely the hottie of the paleontology department.’” Chandler Bing responds, “Ah, hotties of the paleontology department. There’s a big-selling calendar, eh?” It’s…
At noon on Saturday, Prince Harry and Suits actress Meghan Markle wed, and it was a spectacle viewed by an estimated 1.9 million television viewers worldwide. If you weren’t awake and glued to your screens at 7 a.m. Eastern Time this weekend, I’m here to give you the highlights. The couple, who met on a…
There’s been good Marvel TV shows (Daredevil, Jessica Jones). There’s been bad ones (Iron Fist, Inhumans). And there’s even been ones that were just okay (Defenders). Marvel’s latest endeavor, Runaways, is something else entirely. The show opens with Alex Wilder (Rhenzy Feliz) trying to reunite with his friends Nico Minoru (Lyrica Okano), Karolina Dean (Virginia…
If you’re not crying almost immediately after Field of Dreams starts, then you’re not human. People always call it the best sports movie of all time, but it’s more than that. It’s one of the best narratives about humanity, family, taking chances, and following your heart. It’s simply one of the best movies of all…