// Category Archive for: Feminism

Movie Review: Girls’ Night Out

By Richelle Charkot

Nearly 14 million women in America binge drink 3 times per month. Photo Credit: White Pine Pictures

It is perhaps a little too appropriate that I’m writing this review of Girls’ Night Out with an upset stomach because I’m growing more concerned that I might be allergic to beer, in spite of the fact that I for some reason keep going out and drinking beer.

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TV Review: Broad City S3 E01, “Two Chainz”

By Sachin Hingoo

It takes approximately zero minutes for the third season premiere of Broad City to scream, with all the unhinged joy of a Kelly Ripa girls night, that BFFs Abbi and Ilana haven’t missed a beat and that the shit is on.

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In Case You Missed It: February 14 – 20, 2016

By Less Lee Moore

We are thrilled to publish a Retro Review of The Zombies’ classic Odessey and Oracle album from none other than esteemed musician, Lenny Kaye!

The Witch, which has received an overwhelming number of positive reviews, opened on February 19. Far be it from me to tell you how to live your life, but I think you should go see it. Here’s why.

There’s been yet another death in the music world this week: Vanity, who most will remember as a Prince protégé and the singer for Vanity 6, but who also delighted movie and TV audiences in Action Jackson and Miami Vice, respectively. Unicorn Booty has the scoop on this, the return of Orphan Black, Kendrick Lamar’s secret stash, and much more.

It’s February, and that means it’s Women in Horror month. Maybe Angela Lansbury’s role on Murder, She Wrote wasn’t straight-up horror, but it’s still iconic. Did you know that she’s going strong at 90 years old? It’s true. Just last year, she reprised her role as Madame Arcati in the play Blithe Spirit, which toured North America. Here’s a great list of nine of the best Murder, She Wrote episodes.

There’s been a lot of talk about Silence of the Lambs recently, as the 25th year of its release approaches. While it’s still criticized for its depiction of trans and gay people, the character of Buffalo Bill was a composite of several real-life serial killers, including Ed Gein. Although most crimes are still committed by straight folks, as this article points out, freaky sex crimes and murders are equal opportunity. Here’s a list of ten scary but true gay psychopaths.

We’ve got TV recaps on Popshifter, y’all! The new episode of The X-Files (which is probably my fave yet in this tenth season), Outsiders (where you’ll learn about a “pitfight”), and Lucha Underground (spoiler alert: it involves baby oil).

What happened this week on Today In Pop Culture? Turntables, flying cows, Modern Art outrage, King Tut, and cats.

Music Review: Santigold, 99¢

By Melissa Bratcher

Santigold’s follow up to 2012s dark Master Of My Make-Believe, is 99¢, a brighter, single-packed outing. She’s joined by a passel of new collaborators, including Rostam Batmanglij, Zeds Dead, Haze Banga, and Sam Dew. Her new tracks are inventive and fresh, exploring the current commercial nature of our culture. “We have no illusion that we don’t live in this world where everything is packaged. People’s lives, persona, everything, is deliberate, and mediated. It can be dark and haunting and tricky, and freak us out, but it can be also be silly and fun and we can learn to play with it,” she says.

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Retro Review: American Psycho

By Jeffery X Martin

Toronto residents! If you haven’t seen American Psycho in a while or if you’ve never seen it on the big screen, you’ll get your chance February 17 at the Carlton, where The MUFF Society is putting on a screening of the film at 9:00 p.m.

The quirky genius of Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner’s film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel, American Psycho, lies in the generic nature of its characters and its excoriation of the wretched Yuppie movement of the 1980s. The movie is infused with comedy as dark as motor oil, and social commentary so sharp that watching the movie could cut your retinas. For a certain level of society, this is the definitive Eighties flick, even more cynical and astute than Oliver Stone’s Wall Street.

There is also an extended scene with a chainsaw, so that’s an automatic win.

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Music Review: Dressy Bessy, Kingsized

By Melissa Bratcher

After a seven-year hiatus, Denver-based Dressy Bessy have returned with the sugary popified, jittery delicious Kingsized. Joined by a who’s who of the what-used-to-be-college-radio stalwarts (but is surely called something else now), Kingsized is a return to form with an added grittiness. Guitars are fuzzy and heavy, providing a smart counterpoint to meringue light, sunshiny melodies and Tammy Ealom’s distinctive vocals (think: the sound of the Shangri-La’s smoking under the bleachers with the Slits).

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Music Review: Your Friend, Gumption

By Melissa Bratcher

Your Friend’s follow up to 2014’s self-recorded EP, Jekyll/Hyde, is richly textural and gorgeously produced. Gumption is enigmatic, with much to unpack. You can listen to the layers and loops, you can listen for Taryn Miller’s fascinating vocals, you can close your eyes and let the waves of sound wash over you. It’s an immersive, intriguing album.

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Music Review: Cait Brennan, Debutante

By Melissa Bratcher

When Sloan’s Jay Ferguson was writing “Waiting For Slow Songs,” he may have been writing about Cait Brennan, but didn’t even know it. “‘Cause you write the saddest songs / turn around and make it a singalong / the heart scratch melody / means there’s more than this for you and me.” Cait knows a heart scratch melody and knows how to swaddle a sad song in the prettiest, most glorious melodies and harmonies, and make it furiously catchy. I’ve had Cait Brennan’s Debutante on my iPod for quite a while now and every time one of the tracks pops up, I immediately need to rewind and hear it again. Simply put, Debutante is the kind of record that artists dream of recording. It’s been a long time coming.

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Music Review: Sonya Kitchell, We Come Apart

By Melissa Bratcher

Sonya Kitchell began her recording career in 2006 when she was 17 years old, which is impressive enough to note. Better yet, after her debut, Words Came Back To Me, Kitchell diversified by recording an EP of string quartets, collaborating with Herbie Hancock on The River: The Joni Letters, playing at Montreaux Jazz Festival, the Newport Folk Festival, and winning two Grammys (for The River: The Joni Letters, and Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Revelator). She’s a woman of many parts and a rich wellspring of talent.

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Today In Pop Culture: America, Meet Patsy Cline

By Jeffery X Martin

Country music has always been a male-dominated genre, from Hank Williams to Hank Junior to whatever the hell you want to call Florida-Georgia Line and Locash. You can hear a strong female voice every once in a while, but in a ratio comparison to men, those ladies are few and far between. But it is far to say that there was a female revolution in country, starting in the late 1950s when one of the most distinct female voices the world has ever known got her start on a national television show.

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