How Seinfeld Truly Embraced Nothingness in The Chinese Restaurant
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 6 minutes
| 1259 words
| Elina Uphoff
‘Genie in a Bottle’ is a recurring feature where each week a different bottle episode (an episode set entirely in one location, often designed to save money) from a comedy series is examined
“Do you ever notice how happy people are when they finally get a table? They feel so special because they’ve been chosen. It’s enough to make you sick!”
It’s hard to talk about Seinfeld without bringing up a number of key episodes through the series’ production run.
[Read More]How Starzs The Girlfriend Experience Differs From Steven Soderberghs 2009 Film
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 818 words
| Aldo Pusey
L-R: Sasha Grey in the movie, Riley Keough on the show. In spring 2009, Magnolia Pictures released a film about a New York City–based escort losing herself amidst the chaos of the economic meltdown of 2008. Starring Sasha Grey — then a popular, celebrated porn performer — The Girlfriend Experience was something of a fall 2008 period piece, an exploration of the economic insecurity brought on by the burst of the housing bubble (and, of course, the imminent election), as well as a thoughtful look at the similarities between sex work and other service industries.
[Read More]How Television Without Pity Shaped Pop Culture
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 806 words
| Janel Helmers
Television Without Pity announced yesterday that the website would be closing up shop on April 4, with the forums going dark in May. The news was met with sorrow and hand-wringing from the TV devout, who were not just saddened that new recaps would cease — which I could tolerate; there are lots of good recaps out there on the web — but more distressed that the archive of old recaps would no longer be easily available.
[Read More]How the Jeopardy! Writers Room Comes Up With All of Those Questions
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 6 minutes
| 1113 words
| Janel Helmers
This. Is. Jeopardy!
The opening jingle of America’s favorite Canadian-hosted game show has been embedded in the public consciousness for decades, with Jeopardy! airing five times a week for the vast majority of a calendar year. But beyond Alex Trebek’s question-reading chops and the contestants’ fast-reacting buzzers, the real magic happens outside of the studio, where eight writers and seven researchers create and fact-check every single question that makes its way on the air.
[Read More]How to Set Up Your Own Fantasy Bachelor League
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 6 minutes
| 1181 words
| Sherie Connelly
133461_2533 The Bachelor returns to ABC tonight for its eighteenth season, this time with last year’s soccer-playing Bachelorette loser Juan-Pablo looking for love. And I will be watching — just as I have been for every season since 2002 (and the nine Bachelorettes). I take this show very seriously, so much so that last year I developed a Fantasy Bachelor League, designing an insanely detailed rulebook for my friends and myself: We have been intensely playing ever since.
[Read More]Hubie Halloween Lets Adam Sandler Be Adam Sandler Again, for Better and Worse
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 1044 words
| Sherie Connelly
Rejoice! The weird voice is back. Adam Sandler built his career on playing stylized oddballs. For years, his characters were dim bulbs and live wires who usually spoke in brittle, whiny tremolos — but they were made (mostly) likable thanks to the actor’s patented, noncommittal delivery, this sense that nothing he did was meant to be taken seriously, not even as comedy. That’s why we could so often enjoy Sandler at his most mean-spirited; it was all sketch-level shtick.
[Read More]I Couldnt Believe the Things I Was Aspiring to Be
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 18 minutes
| 3635 words
| Aldo Pusey
Selena Gomez and Alek Keshishian filming Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me. Selena Gomez is in the midst of a frenetic, painfully banal press tour. Traveling through Paris in an SUV, she’s visibly exhausted, wrung out and drawn, laying her head on her friend Raquelle’s lap. “How are you feeling?” asks Raquelle, looking concerned. “I’m very tired,” replies Gomez. Gently, Raquelle asks, “Do you want to do your morning meds?
[Read More]I Was Obsessed With YA Cancer Novels Long Before The Fault In Our Stars
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 4 minutes
| 838 words
| Aldo Pusey
The Fault in Our Stars has become something of a phenomenon, a staggeringly popular YA book that has spawned a high-profile movie (out this weekend) and somehow created a nation where young people are now familiar with the word cannula. And infinity mazel tovs to everyone involved: It’s a good book, and a good movie (I hear), and we all like a good cry now and then. But let’s not act like TFIOS invented teen cancer books.
[Read More]If Glen Powells Not Already a Star, This Movie Will Make Him One
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 5 minutes
| 995 words
| Janel Helmers
This review was originally published on September 7, 2023, out of the Venice Film Festival. We are recirculating it with Hit Man now on Netflix.
“How many of you really know yourselves?” Philosophy lecturer Gary Johnson (Glen Powell) posits this question to his University of New Orleans class early on in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. “What if your self is a construction, an illusion … a role you’ve been playing since the day you were born?
[Read More]If Taylor Swift Isnt Available, Try Taylor Sheesh
Posted on June 10, 2024
| 9 minutes
| 1829 words
| Sherie Connelly
It’s Taylor Sheesh. She may be hitting a total of 20 countries on her globe-spanning Eras tour, but Taylor Swift is in high demand to add even more locations — including the Philippines, which, to local fans’ dismay, wasn’t part of the initial Eras international-leg announcement. That means the only way for Filipino Swifties to see Tay in person is to travel to another country.
Well, that or go to a show starring Taylor Sheesh, the now-famous Taylor Swift drag persona from Mac Coronel.
[Read More]