What’s that old saying about sex being like pizza? Even when it’s bad, it’s still good? There’s no such saying about bad sex scenes. It’s not uncommon for the movies to get sex wrong—to reduce it to a gauzily lit pantomime of pleasure, actors striking “passionate” poses beneath carefully positioned sheets, in some…
In 5 To Watch, five writers from The A.V. Club look at the latest streaming TV arrivals, each making the case for a favored episode. Alternately, they can offer up recommendations inspired by a theme. The reasons for their picks might differ, but they can all agree that each episode is a must-watch. In this…
Watch This offers movie recommendations inspired by new releases or premieres, or occasionally our own inscrutable whims. This week, we’re looking back on films that romantically pair real star couples.
Love Week is here and Valentine’s Day is around the corner, so Nick Offerman, who has been in a long, happy marriage with Megan Mullaly for a decade and a half, has some simple love advice for you: Live every day of your relationship like it Valentine’s Day.
We hope you’ve stocked up on conversation hearts and prepped your mixtapes (okay, playlists), because it’s Love Week here at The A.V. Club, an occasion that encompasses Valentine’s Day and its platonic, Parks And Recreation-inspired offshoot. To celebrate, we’ve got Watch This recommendations for romantic films…
As a lifelong lover of the much-maligned romantic comedy, I’ve always found it funny when people dismiss the genre as being too “unrealistic.” Those detractors aren’t necessarily wrong—they’re just mistaking a feature for a bug. Rom-coms aren’t aiming for realism and failing. They’re purposefully utilizing a…
It can’t be easy, acting in a Fifty Shades Of Grey movie. The series has a way of neutralizing even its positive attributes. Fifty Shades Freed, for example, begins with a scene that should be catnip to actors playing well-established characters. Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) is marrying Anastasia Steele (Dakota…
Underneath its self-consciously provocative BDSM trappings, the Fifty Shades Of Grey series has always been about as subversive as an ad for a honeymoon resort. As the series has unfolded, the fantasy being peddled to its overwhelmingly heterosexual female audience has revealed itself to be not about kinky sex, but…
In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, because it’s “Love Week” here at The A.V. Club, we’re picking our favorite songs to put on a mixtape.
Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by the week’s new releases or premieres. This week: In honor of Love Week, we’re revisiting our favorite television episodes featuring a marriage proposal.
An openly gay comedian who’s appeared on shows like Chelsea Lately, writes for The Mindy Project, and cohosts the podcast Pop Rocket, Guy Branum is used to putting his opinions out there. Like Mindy’s Dr. Mindy Lahiri and Lately’s Chelsea Handler, Branum doesn’t shy away from letting friends, strangers, and audiences…
The best love story on Grey’s Anatomy—a TV series that is for the, most part, built on love stories—was not between romantic partners. It was between two best friends: Cristina Yang (Sandra Oh) and Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo). Their love for each other is encapsulated in three little words: ”You’re my person.” At…
Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d…
In Hear This, The A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well. This week, because it’s “Love Week” here at The A.V. Club, we’re picking our favorite songs to put on a mixtape.
Chemistry is perhaps the most elusive of all cinematic ingredients. Critics can point to craft in elements like directorial technique, set design, editing, and the rest; great acting can be taught, and recognized as such. But chemistry is out of everyone’s hands. Either people have it with one another or they don’t.…
Buried in L.A. Noire’s vast soundtrack of dramatic orchestral and jazz pieces are several period-appropriate original performances from German singer Claudia Brücken. Backed by The Real Tuesday Weld, she croons about falling in love and reveling in breaking hearts. On “Torched Song,” though, she’s the one looking for…
Every day, Watch This offers staff recommendations inspired by the week’s new releases or premieres. This week: In honor of Love Week, we’re revisiting our favorite television episodes featuring a marriage proposal.
The bubbling cauldron of obscure fetishes and exotic sexualities that is the internet has produced some pretty strange micro-communities over the years. One of the strangest and most difficult to understand is objectophilia, the inclination to form emotional and sexual bonds with inanimate objects. You know, like…
Few pop culture unions have been as tumultuous as the one between reality television and the institution of marriage. Reality shows have taken cues from every facet of the culture with varying degrees of success, but they’ve never managed to do marriage justice. In fact, reality shows have treated marriage with such…
In Gameological Unplugged, Samantha Nelson looks at trends and new developments in the vast world of tabletop games.
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