Eve Tushnet
at Jezebel: I don’t remember exactly how I played myself into wearing a tail for a week—I just know that it wouldn’t have happened were it not for my pride. more Read more
at Jezebel: I don’t remember exactly how I played myself into wearing a tail for a week—I just know that it wouldn’t have happened were it not for my pride. more Read more
Concussion Diary, Week Four I Think. (Previously, on “Concussion Diary”…) First of all, it’s weird looking back on the first day after my concussion and remembering how I assumed I’d be completely back to normal in a couple days. Ha ha. I can work normally now–I was able to read and concentrate without pain after about two weeks iirc–but my head still hurts and I still can’t sleep on my back because I have a knot on the back of... Read more
So they told me that James Spader and Robert Downey, Jr., in their misspent youth, once played semipunk delinquent BFFs. They did not have to tell me more. Tuff Turf (dir. Fritz Kiersch, and now I want to know why I don’t know this name already) is sort of John Hughes high-school class-war romance (only not annoying like John Hughes movies always eventually are), in the Reseda version of the school from Class of ’84. Gangs prowl and switchblades bristle,... Read more
in the Washington Post: In a sign that market solutions for the United States’ growing housing affordability crisis are beginning to earn bipartisan support, the White House this week unveiled its “Housing Development Toolkit,” which encourages state and local policymakers to undertake a number of long-overdue reforms. The tool kit draws on some of the best and most up-to-date research on housing affordability and cites such respected researchers as Harvard University economist Ed Glaeser. But for such reforms to benefit... Read more
Late last month Aleteia asked me to review “The Loser Letters” at CUA. I ended up giving it a negative review. They have now pulled that review from the website, which they’ve explained here. (I should say that I like Elizabeth a lot & realize she is trying to manage many conflicting demands and impulses.) I’m posting it largely because CUA chose to highlight the production and required all or most of their freshman class to attend, and I think... Read more
End Italian Immigration Now! Today, revolutionary anarchists seem archaic, almost quaint. But for around 50 years, from the 1880s to the 1930s, anarchists carried out terror attacks all over the world. Buildings blew up; world leaders and random civilians alike were killed. The parallels between then and now, when we face the threat of ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups, are many. During the decades of anarchist terrorism, it seemed like each week we heard of another incident carried out... Read more
The House at the End of Time: Twisty Venezuelan family/haunted-house horror about an older woman coming out of prison and sorting through what happened on the fateful night when her husband died and her son disappeared. A compassionate priest assigned to visit her (she’s sort of in house arrest in the haunted house) helps her unravel the mystery–and the final twist about the priest’s own history is genuinely moving. This is an emotionally-sincere, spooky film, and its climax is an... Read more
got a write-up in the Boston Globe! In his senior year at Yale University, Brian D. Hoefling became the go-to guy for friends with questions about alcohol consumption. His expertise was not solely a result of prodigious personal experience, however, but from weeks spent learning about classic drinks, a mission Hoefling took on after a few friends mentioned a fear of graduating without knowing how to “drink like adults.” “Once I start researching something, I have trouble leaving questions unanswered,”... Read more
The Birth of a Nation, Nate Parker’s searing life of Nat Turner, is a brilliant and iconic piece of Christian moviemaking–right up until Turner’s slave rebellion begins. Birth has attracted intense controversy in part because of rape charges against both Parker and his co-writer. I’m not going to get into that, largely because you’ll have your own beliefs on whether or how those charges should color your ticket-buying decisions, except to say that the portrayal of sexual violence in the... Read more
and tell CUA they made a big mistake: “The Loser Letters,” Mary Eberstadt’s tale of an ex-Christian’s attempt to improve the New Atheism via perky blog posts from rehab, is making its dramatic premiere at the Catholic University of America. The play, adapted from Eberstadt’s novel by Jeffrey Fiske, has three major elements. One of these is brilliant and charming; one is powerful but laced with melodrama; and one so underthought that it’s degrading to the audience. Unfortunately, I’ve named... Read more
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