Strang and Rare

Latest — Mar 20, 2023

Occasional thoughts about The Americans #2

Phil is the Turgenev of the Jennings: more popular in the West in his time, pursuing a bland liberalism, contemplating aesthetics not as indulgence but for their own sake, the introspection that can border on self-pity. But then Elizabeth couldn't write a book like Fathers and Sons.

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Occasional thoughts about The Americans #1

The Americans is a flawless entry into the canon of Imperialist Russian literature: 1. Massively hung up on abstract philosophical problems. It's a six-season meditation on the nature of ideology, liberalism, aestheticism, nihilism, intergenerational conflict ... just pick a lens. 2. Self-conscious regarding Russia's relation to the

It's not irony

I found awakening in feminist theory precisely because I was never comfortable with being (or being considered) a girl. To embrace feminism was to stake a claim that people like me deserved to be afforded full humanity and dignity. And now that I am out as non-binary, I believe more

It's a hot dog in a Beef T-shirt

The truly radical thing about The Bear is that, under all that damaged-antihero stuff that feels like a requirement for a series order, it's really wholesome. Not in a way that's saccharine or even particularly pleasant – just a bunch of people who are actually doing the

Film head-to-head no one asked for #1

What both Tenet (2020) and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021) offer the viewer: ✓ Sci-fi action flick ✓ Hot lead duo overcoming increasingly impossible odds ✓ An ending you have to see to believe What only Barb and Star can give you: ✓ Pure, unadulterated joy The win goes to

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