1973 was a wild year in this country: Roe V. Wade was won, a gallon of gas was 35 cents, and Richard Nixon was the president – oh, how much has changed. And on September 20th, 1973, Billie Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in one of the biggest exhibition matches ever, nicknamed the “Battle of the Sexes.” After a long winning streak — in which he collected $100,000 by betting on himself — Riggs felt he needed a real challenge: Beating a woman at tennis. After...

  Deciding how to balance architecture and the art that accompanies it (or vice versa) is a delicate task. In museums with particularly iconic and idiosyncratic buildings, the task becomes even harder. After all, few people go to the Sistine Chapel to admire the building itself — they’re there for the ceiling, the Last Judgement, or the 15th-century wall frescoes by Italian masters. On the other end of the spectrum, architecture eclipses all else at New York’s Guggenheim Museum; it’s hard to fully appreciate the paintings...

  My first vivid memory of female friendship portrayed in film comes from Michael Goldenberg’s 1996 rom-com Bed of Roses. Pamela Adlon’s line, directed at her best friend’s love interest — “If you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you” — is, since adolescence, stored in my why-do-I-remember-this drawer. Fortunately, a sidekick in a rom com who is only there to provide relationship advice to the protagonist is not the full extent of how female friendship has been covered on the big screen. It matters if cinema reflects...

  A Hollywood success story that doesn’t make you want to barf is rare. When you encounter one, it is like encountering a unicorn. I interviewed ingenious comedy writer and wonderful person, Samantha McIntyre, about her debut feature film, Unicorn Store, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival, for this reason. Unicorn Store is the whimsical, existential, coming-of-age story of Kit (played by Brie Larson), an artist and a dreamer, who is faced with the painfully boring disappointment that is adulthood. Just as Kit is...

A rainbow of shotgun homes whipped past the window of our rental car. Maria Marrone, my production designer and honorary DJ, turned up the Beatles as we sped through the battered New Orleans streets and onto the highway. My director of photography, Joshua Herzog, nodded off in the passenger seat. An array of lighting gels and gaff tape jutted out from the backseat and lightly licked his arm.  The pre-production process, filled with hiccups and sleepless nights, had worn us down before we even began. After...

    This year marks the 20th anniversary of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, and we have been blessed with not one but FIVE original documentaries about her life and death. If you know who Princess Diana is, then you probably know that she and the media were frenemies of the worst kind. This complicated relationship put me in a pickle. Would watching these documentaries make me complicit in her exploitation? Probably. Would she have wanted this media blitz on the anniversary of her death?...

Shirley MacLaine Has Still Got Game! A legendary actor, singer, dancer, activist, author, and spiritual seeker, Shirley MacLaine has spent the last 60 years in the spotlight. Think you know what makes this 83-year-old dynamo go, go, go? Then take the quiz! 1. Born on April 24, 1934, in Richmond, VA, Shirley was named after what performer? a. Shirley Templeb. Shirley Basseyc. Shirley Hemphilld. Shirley Jones 2. The oldest of two kids, Shirley’s younger brother is also a star. Name him. a. Willie Nelsonb. Jack Nicholsonc. Warren Beattyd. Richard Simmons 3....

  The Room is perhaps the most lovable terrible movie of all time. Even if you haven’t seen the film, chances are you’ve at least seen some clips of some of the most quotable scenes: “I did not hit her. I did not. Oh, hi Mark”; “Oh hi Johnny, I didn’t know it was you”; “You are tearing me apart, Lisa!” While the film is something to behold, the star, screenwriter and director of the movie, Tommy Wiseau, is a mystifying character himself. In his latest film,...

Good news! Patty Jenkins will return to direct (and co-write and produce) Wonder Woman 2, and on top of that, she's making bank! Variety reveals: While an exact number could not be unveiled, sources say the number is in the $8 million dollar range to write, direct and produce making her the highest paid female director of all time. A substantial backend of box office grosses is also included in the contract. The Hollywood Reporter adds: Jenkins will receive directing and writing fees in the high seven figures (think...

  Having recently acquired a Los Angeles Public Library e-card, I immediately began watching not the Criterion Collection — with its plethora of film classics such as Rashomon, The 400 Blows, and other films I really should have seen by now — but  the uneven but ultimately charming Almost Adults, a 2016 independent film funded through a Kickstarter campaign, released on VOD earlier this year, and currently on Netflix. Starring Elise Bauman (Carmilla) as Mackenzie, a recently out lesbian, and Natasha Negovanlis (also of Carmilla) as her straight...