Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem. FX NETWORKS If you’ve set a goal to better yourself and learn new things during this period of social distancing, then I can’t think of a more entertaining way to do so than by watching Mrs. America. The nine-episode series, now streaming on FX on Hulu (yes, “FX on Hulu” […]
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Meghan McCain Rails Against Jeff Bezos, Says Essential Workers “Should Have Their Pay Doubled”
It would be nice to hear some more actual Democrats say the same thing YouTube Screenshot Following Meghan McCain’s pandemic rendezvous with leftism has become one of my pandemic hobbies. Last week, the heir of Arizona thought we needed to “start easing up” on rents, prevent stock buybacks, and make Jeff Bezos pay. Today, she […]
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Game of Thrones and the Endgame of Fan Service
HBO If you’re not familiar with the history of the term “fan service”—introduced and mainstreamed by anime audiences in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s—you might feel like observing contextual clues is all you need. This is how dilettantism, and the majority of pop-cultural criticism, works: You look around, see other people saying a thing, maybe-sorta-kinda figure […]
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We Need to Talk About the “Live” Production of Rent on Fox
Wheelchair? Foot cast? So? It would have made the show better!
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Save Christmas by Disabling Fox News from Your Parents’ TV
#outfoxtheholidays Okay, this is kinda genius. Taking the idea of “parental controls” quite literally, a campaign called #OutFoxtheHolidays advises you to fiddle with your parents’ cable settings so that Fox News is blocked. It’s a simple idea, but an effective one, as the chances are pretty good that if your parents (or grandparents or aunts […]
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So Long, True Believers: Stan Lee, 1922-2018
Kevin Winter/Getty Images Stanley Martin Lieber was born on December 28th, 1922, in New York City. Over the course of his 95-years-long and amazingly eventful life, which ended in Los Angeles on November 12th, 2018, he came to inhabit many titles and many positions within the entertainment industry: Inkwell-filler. Proofer. Writer. Editor-in-Chief. Publisher. Chairman. The […]
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Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Is Better Than Anything Tom Clancy Ever Wrote
Who is Jack Ryan? No, really, I’m asking. The character, created by airport novelist and perennial dad favorite Tom Clancy, has been featured in dozens of novels, films, and video games—and, now, a TV show on Amazon. He’s been portrayed by a murderer’s row of leading men: Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October, […]
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Jack Ryan Review: Hey, John Krasinski Is Good at Playing a Straight Arrow!
Fortunately, the Amazon Series Has Other Stuff Going on, Too
The Amazon series based on Tom Clancy’s books has a lot of good stuff going on.
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WHO IS THE TURD BURGLAR?? (Also, Here’s the Trailer for American Vandal‘s Portland-Shot Second Season)
Every few weeks, there’s another GREAT NEW SHOW that YOU HAVE TO WATCH RIGHT THIS SECOND because EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT, and it’s fucking exhausting, and most of the time (sorry!) the show isn’t even that great. Meanwhile, some truly fantastic shows quietly coast by, just a bit further in the background. Last year, […]
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Matt Groening’s Disenchantment: High Fantasy, with Bulgy-Eyed Comedic Potential
Back in the olden days, before binge viewing, it sure was easier to give developing shows a fair shake. Disenchantment—Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening’s first venture onto Netflix’s fertile turf—feels, well, pretty much like the initial seasons of his other shows, with some clunky construction, slow-growing characterizations, and lots and lots of bulgy-eyed comedic […]
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Casting Call: Pretend to Be Naked or a “Portlander” for $$$ and Fame!
“You’re hired! Now put on these flesh-colored shorts.” Look, you need money and/or fame, correct? Well, your dreams of mad skrilla and people saying, “Aren’t you that person I saw in that thing?” could come true by signing up to work on one of two film/TV productions that will be shooting in Portland TOMORROW (Friday, […]
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Comedy Central’s Hilarious Detroiters Brings Detroit to the Rest of the World
Comedy Central I wonder if people in Detroit feel the same way about Detroiters as Portlanders felt about Portlandia. I doubt it—Detroiters’ cheerfully inclusive silliness is the polar opposite of of its Portland counterpart. Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s brand of smug, barbed humor was one of too-cool-for-school kids at the back of the classroom, […]