Ocean’s 8, the all-female heist film with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett leading a truly magnificent cast, opened this weekend to middling reviews—our own Ignatiy Vishnevetsky called it “more knock-off than spin-off,” giving it a C and calling Gary Ross’ direction “undexterous.” Many women on The A.V. Club staff…
There are so many A.V. Club staffers watching and discussing Legion that we’ve decided to add weekly roundtables to our coverage of season two. Consider them a complement to Alex McLevy’s recaps, expanding the conversation about a show that can always accommodate multiple interpretations and multiple perspectives.
Alex McLevy: Justice League has been out for a couple of weeks now, and to say opinions are mixed would be gentle. Some people love it, some hate it, but most, like we here at The A.V. Club, just think, “Meh.” To be fair, the film had an uphill battle. Its primary architect had to withdraw well before it was done, due…
Sean O’Neal: In the topic of “Worst Music Year,” 1997 is a frequent contender. Some of this can be attributed to distaste for a single genre—boy bands and the Spice Girls, mostly, whose dominance was complete anathema to anyone who’d spend the earlier part of the decade convinced the alt-rock “revolution” was anything…
GoldenEye 007 was an anomaly on so many levels. Hailing from storied British developer Rare, it came out two years after the James Bond film on which it’s based, a film that, for people of a certain age, has taken a cultural backseat to the game adaptation. And what an adaptation it was. In an era when licensed games…
Esther Zuckerman: Fran, I’ll start off this discussion by stating for the record that you and I are two adult women who enjoy Harry Styles. But is Harry Styles for us? Can we appreciate his persona and music without infantilizing ourselves?
Some background for those who are not familiar. Harry—as we’ll be referring to…
Marah Eakin: When news broke yesterday, Gwen, that Jennifer Morrison was leaving Once Upon A Time, we both had the same reaction: Her departure should mark the end of the show. As forlorn badass Emma Swan, Morrison has been one of the show’s central characters—if not its most central character—from its inception. And…
Sean O’Neal: Clayton, today is a day I’ve been both anticipating and dreading possibly more than my own demise. Today we saw the first trailer for Blade Runner 2049—a sequel to the 1982 film that I’ve spent most of my life obsessing over from the moment I first caught the lesser theatrical version with grudging…
Gwen Ihnat: The Cure didn’t exactly make a U-turn in 1987 with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, but it was a hell of a reroute. The iconically mopey band, led by head goth/grump Robert Smith, all of a sudden had a cheerful horn section in “Why Can’t I Be You?” that threaded throughout the double album. And while its…
WrestleMania week is upon us, and for pro wrestling nerds, this is Valhalla. The A.V. Club will cover NXT TakeOver: Orlando and provide live coverage of WrestleMania 33 this weekend. But before those shows, our staff’s two biggest wrestling enthusiasts—Matt Gerardi and Kevin Pang—chatted about the buildup to…
Erik Adams: The sound of “Purple Rain” blaring from a tour bus should’ve been the first indication. I was on vacation on April 21, 2016, nearing the end of a blissfully disconnected week of not reading email, not scrolling through Twitter, and not checking The A.V. Club. Any of those sources would’ve explained why a…
Caity PenzeyMoog: The Bachelor turns 15 this week. Alex McLevy and I—along with a glut of other A.V. Clubbers—recap the modern iteration of the show every season around the office’s proverbial watercooler (a LaCroix minifridge). So when we realized that the show has been on for 15 years this week, we wondered how much…
Clayton Purdom: Like everyone else, I’ve spent the past two weeks in thrall to Nintendo’s new Zelda. Breath Of The Wild feels like a cultural moment, one of those rare occasions when a new artwork is immediately and almost unanimously agreed upon as an all-time great. I’m thinking of albums like My Beautiful Dark…
Sean O’Neal: In 2009, the Academy announced that it would expand the list of Best Picture contenders to 10, a move that its then-president Sid Ganis characterized as a throwback to the crowded nominees of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as a bold step toward a future of recognizing a broader scope of movies. The…
David Anthony: Last night was the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, an event that, year after year, sparks the same debate: Do the Grammys actually matter? And while the question of awarding art is always up in the air, this year it was more apparent than ever that the Grammys really aren’t concerned with the awards…
Gwen Ihnat: This week, Variety reported that Saturday Night Live’s ratings are the highest they’ve been in over 20 years. The show recently placed second only to nerdy sitcom juggernaut The Big Bang Theory among viewers in the coveted 18- to 49-year-old demographic. There’s a pretty obvious reason for this ratings…
Katie Rife: We’ve been talking a lot, both amongst ourselves and on Facebook Live, about how even normally innocuous pop-cultural events have become politicized in the charged atmosphere of 2017. Thankfully, though, Super Bowl LI had none of that. Instead, we got to enjoy an increasingly rare moment of peace as we all…
Caitlin PenzeyMoog: The Oscars are more than three weeks away but have been a topic of discussion recently thanks to Donald Trump’s “Muslim ban,” so called because it targets immigrants of predominantly Muslim countries. Under the new executive order, Iranian filmmaker and Oscar contender Asghar Farhadi wouldn’t be…
Note: This article discusses plot points from La La Land.
Note: This article discusses plot points from Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life.
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