Twenty-five years ago, Amy Sherman-Palladino burst onto the scene with Gilmore Girls, which earned critical acclaim for its quirky characters and rapid-fire dialogue. After Gilmore Girls, it took Sherman-Palladino a while to land another hit. She and Daniel Palladino, her husband and creative partner, created The Return of Jezebel James, which was canceled after just […]

Like most Marvel offerings, Thunderbolts* requires so much background knowledge that fine print seems appropriate, which may explain the asterisk at the end of the official name of the film. That typographical addendum, much discussed by Marvel fanboys during the promotional lead-up, turns out not to mean anything at all, unless one counts an in-joke […]

It may not surprise you to learn that I was a pretty good student. Not perfect, of course — I put everything off to the last minute and did a fair amount of late-night cramming when I was in high school and college — but when the grades went out, I was almost always near […]

There’s a certain admirable honesty in those rebellious souls who turn away from religion entirely: the preacher’s daughter who gets a lip piercing and declares herself polyamorous, and libertarian firebrands such as the late Christopher Hitchens, who relished verbal battles with befuddled clergy. Stranger, however, are those cases who choose to remain in their chosen […]