X-Men: First Class is the latest installment of the Marvel film franchise to use comic book action to address some potent social issues.
X-Men: First Class is the latest installment of the Marvel film franchise to use comic book action to address some potent social issues.
I've written several times about how bored I am with comic-book movies, how tired and formulaic the whole genre has become - and how discouraging it i...
Mad Men matches these times much better than does West Wing, 2008's Bartlet-like politics of hope notwithstanding. It's just too bad that the mass audience eludes it.
The problem with using the singular brand name "feminism" is akin to using the word "women": It's too big, too vast to cover all the people who either consider themselves some kind of feminist or who are engaging in "feminist" acts.
There must be a factory that churns out action-thrillers the same way a factory produces furniture. No muss, no fuss, and a rotating list of actors who have fallen out of the 'A' list.
I knew we could never be so cocky to think we'd actually figured out Matthew Weiner's next move, but every time (every time!) he manages to shock us, and thank God for that.
It's the penultimate episode of the season, SCDP is desperate, and Don is making moves. We've come a long way since the beginning of the season, where Don struggled with his own identity, and now SCDP is struggling with theirs.
This week's Mad Men episode "Hand and Knees" got crazy. All of a sudden, the little dormant problems that have been brushed aside spring up to throw the characters down.
As we rejoin the remaining eight, Gretchen shares that not having Michael D there makes it feel more like a competition, as he was well-liked.
Last night's Mad Men episode, "The Beautiful Girls," centers around Faye, Sally, Miss Blankenship, Peggy and Joan -- all in different stages of life, dealing with their own roles as women as well as their roles with the men that rely on them.
This week the show begins with everyone (OK, Ivy and Michael D) tweezing their eyebrows in their pocket hand mirrors. Michael C dishes on Ivy to Andy and honestly, I can no longer feel sorry for him
The quality of Don's voiceover gives the episode a different dear-diary kind of feel. Instead of watching him experience subtle and intense emotion, he's actually telling us what he's thinking, taking control of the narrative.
The first part of this season is more pleasant to watch than the first part of last season. But until we know where we're going this season, I'm not sure how consequential it will all turn out to be.
This was the most routine of the episodes so far this season. But afterwards, I learned where Betty Draper has gotten herself to. She's joined The X-Men!
So far, Mad Men, with the guidance of creator Matthew Weiner and the rest of the writers, has avoided backlash with its continued high quality. That ultimate safeguard has continued as Season 4 gets underway.
Mad Men is, sadly, off the air till the summer. But it is definitely on a roll. Earlier in January, it won as best dramatic series at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Producers Guild, among others.
The last month has brought some good news, and some bad, from the Mad Men front.
What can you say about a 50-year old movie? If it's by Alfred Hitchcock, and it's a classic of suspense, humor, and style, and it's influenced the best series on television, Mad Men, quite a lot.
I've been thinking about the arc of the series, from 1960 to 1963. Where has the series been, where is it now, and where might it be going with creator Matthew Weiner?
My feelings about Mad Men's Betty Draper were so strong during this season that I began to wonder if they were really about the TV character at all, and not my own mother.