Halftime Leisure

The Voice’s takes on all things media and culture.

Halftime Leisure

Reflections from Shadow and Bone, and a love letter to the fantasy genre

A privateer, a Sun Summoner, and a gang leader walk onto a battlefield—it almost sounds like the beginning of a “walks into a bar” joke. Shadow and Bone returned to... Read more

By April 18, 2023

Halftime Leisure

If you go down, I’m goin’ down too

Solidarity—standing up for a group you do not belong to and putting your own comfort aside in the process—is the linchpin to social justice. Historically, however, celebrities have dropped the... Read more

By April 17, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Taylor Swift’s “All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before” is a love letter to her partner’s past loves

Most people probably wouldn’t thank their lover’s exes. But Taylor Swift does just that in, “All of the Girls You’ve Loved Before,” a new single released to kick off her... Read more

By April 3, 2023

Halftime Leisure

The completely objective, undeniable list of the top 10 films of all time

Since the dawn of cinema, critics have time and again tried and failed (miserably) to come to a consensus on what truly makes a brilliant film. From timeless storytelling to... Read more

By April 1, 2023

Halftime Leisure

MILF Manor is the diabolical intersection of trash television and a Freudian nightmare

As an avid fan of trashy reality TV, I pressed play on MILF Manor knowing what to expect: an overdramatized, unorganized piece of junk that I would consume gluttonously. Despite... Read more

By March 25, 2023

Halftime Leisure

“KNIGHT CRAWLER”: your next hauntingly genius listen

“She do white like Home Alone.” “KNIGHT CRAWLER” by Trippie Redd featuring Juice WRLD, a dynamic rap hit from Redd’s latest album MANSION MUSIK (2023), has been topping international charts... Read more

By March 15, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Strange World: the most realistic Disney animation you’ve never heard of

The eerie silence surrounding the release of Disney’s latest animated film Strange World (2022) underscores the studio’s hesitancy to publicly support diverse representation in children’s media. Starkly contrasting the overwhelming... Read more

By March 13, 2023

Halftime Leisure

I watched all the 2023 Best Picture Nominees so you don’t have to

Content Warning: This article includes references to Sexual Violence. Listen, I get it. Who cares about the Oscars anymore? This year’s nominations saw several great pictures snubbed. Babylon (2022) and... Read more

By March 12, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Homer’s Odyssey takes center stage in EPIC

Greek mythology is, quite literally, timeless. Dating back to Ancient Greece, the stories’ motifs are historically present in media, from Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” to the 1950 French film... Read more

By March 4, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Harry and Meghan and a clash of cultures

The six-part docuseries tells the story of two cultures we don’t tend to think of as very different: the US and the UK. You probably know the story. In classrooms... Read more

By February 22, 2023

Halftime Leisure

What lies beyond Infinity: Lessons the MCU’s Phase 5 can learn from its shaky predecessor

This review contains spoilers for Phase Four of the MCU The year was 2019. After 11 years, 21 films, and several (retroactively canon) TV shows, each building upon a massive... Read more

By and February 17, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Fall Out Boy’s “Love From The Other Side” proves that they haven’t lost their emo touch

In the past six months, we have seen a throwback to the early 21st century, and for a moment it seemed like the Holy Emo Trinity was going to make... Read more

By February 16, 2023

Halftime Leisure

A Playlist of Anti-Valentine’s Day Songs

Because who’s actually celebrating anyway? I feel like most holidays (at least here in the United States) are commercialized to the point they don’t even seem real. Valentine’s Day is... Read more

By February 14, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Glass Onion adds a new layer to the conventional murder mystery

Director Rian Johnson was faced with an undeniable challenge this time around: how to make a satisfying sequel after such a strong first installment.

By February 8, 2023

Halftime Leisure

The Last of Us: A terrifying exhibition of a brutal apocalypse

A disheveled child stumbles through a New England forest. Clad in tattered clothes and dirty green sneakers, the boy comes to a ledge and peers out at his destination: Boston.... Read more

By February 7, 2023

Halftime Leisure

You’ll never be the same after After

One cursed weekend last February, my friends and I made a life-altering decision: to marathon the After movies. What we witnessed was a plot disaster propped up by toxic masculinity... Read more

By February 5, 2023

Halftime Leisure

The Voice predicts the 2023 GRAMMYs

  Album of the Year by Maanasi Chintamani Prediction: RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé Should Win: RENAISSANCE, Beyoncé This year’s Album of the Year nominations leave much to be desired, from puzzling omissions—like... Read more

By , , and February 5, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Kaleidoscope tries a little bit of everything and struggles with it all

Content warning: This article references racist and xenophobic rhetoric.  Author’s note: I watched the show in this order: “Yellow,” “Orange,” “Red,” “Pink,” “Green,” “Violet,” “Blue,” and “White.” Netflix’s newest heist... Read more

By February 5, 2023

Halftime Leisure

The Sex Lives of College Girls season two is a wild ride

Essex College represents an exaggerated college stereotype, and that’s ok.

By January 17, 2023

Halftime Leisure

Best (and worst) of 2022: Albums

BEST:  MUNA – MUNA  MUNA’s third studio album earns its self-titled status by presenting a sublime collection of songs embodying the group’s hallmark style: emotionally rich lyrics with an energetic... Read more

By , , , , , and December 9, 2022