Abby Webster

Abby enjoys sharing her opinions on film and talking about her days-long K-pop playlist. She was previously a Leisure Editor and a Contributing Editor.


Movies

Darius Marder makes hearing audiences the minority with Sound of Metal

Sound of Metal, the debut feature film from writer/director Darius Marder, is a sensory experience. It follows Ruben (Riz Ahmed), a drummer in a punk-metal duo with his long-term girlfriend... Read more

Halftime Leisure

Colorful liminalities in TXT’s “Blue Hour”

“Have you guys looked at the sky at 5:53?,” asked TOMORROW X TOGETHER (or TXT) member Taehyun last Monday during their comeback show. He was alluding to the Korean name... Read more

Leisure

Amidst a Black horror renaissance, Antebellum is a blunder

(CW: spoilers, mentions of racial violence and sexual assault) Antebellum (2020) begins with an undeniably stylistic long take. The camera follows a few soldiers, winding along the grounds of a... Read more

Music

BTS connects with fans through online concert Map of the Soul ON:E

Eight months ago, when BTS kicked off promotions for their new album Map of the Soul: 7 (2020) with a monumental performance of “ON” in an empty Grand Central Terminal,... Read more

Movies

Kelly Reichardt Pioneers a New American Western with First Cow

First Cow opens with a huge, rusty barge floating down the Columbia River at a glacial pace. Between the vessel’s entrance from the left of the screen and eventual exit... Read more

Movies

Birds of Prey is Pretty Freakin’ Fantabulous

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) needs a fresh start. When we are reintroduced to the Suicide Squad antiheroine, she has just been dumped by her “puddin,” the Joker. Cocktail-drunk and heartbroken,... Read more

Movies

The Voice Predicts the 2020 Oscars

Best Picture by Abby Webster Who Will Win: 1917 Who Should Win: Parasite For a brief moment in 2017, we lived in a world where the Academy made good decisions. Last year’s Gr**n... Read more

Halftime Leisure

Shameless Delivers a Surprisingly Good End to a Frustratingly Bad Season

(CW: brief mentions of sexual assault) Relentlessly boring, season 10 of Shameless—a sometimes dark, sometimes absurd dramedy about a family from Chicago’s South Side—set a new low for the long-running... Read more

Halftime Leisure

Halftime’s Favorite Holiday Films

Abby: Carol (2015) What makes a Christmas movie? Carol has everything the classics do—romance, snowy New York City streets, a capitalism-themed inciting incident—with an added lesbian period drama twist. Draped... Read more

Movies

Waves Will Sweep You Off Your Feet

Cinema is musical. When well-wielded, the language of film—rhythmic and lyrical—demands to be heard as well as seen. In the first moments of Waves (2019), a camera spins within the... Read more