For anyone growing up in the 1970s or Eighties, the ensemble funk of Kool & the Gang — whose co-founder and chief songwriter Ronald “Khalis” Bell died on Wednesday at age 68 — was irresistible and inescapable. The group released a platinum- or gold-certified album every year between 1979 and …
Read More »Creator of Gender Reveal Parties Speaks Out Against the Practice (Again) on 'The Daily Show'
After a recent gender reveal party sparked massive wildfires in California, the creator of the original concept, Jenna Karvunidis, spoke with The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic about why it’s time to put the kibosh on the sometimes dangerous trend. “People should definitely stop doing that,” Karvunidis told Lydic after the …
Read More »'Mad at Disney': How an Angry Fan Made a Massive TikTok Hit
Last year’s release of The Lion King and Aladdin reboots brought on a wave of disappointment and criticism — a collective realization that Disney‘s strategy of releasing live-action versions of classic animated movies was a creatively bankrupt cash-grab. In Los Angeles, this sentiment spurred Salem Ilese, Bendik Møller, and Jason …
Read More »John Boyega on Racist Fan Abuse, Marginalization That Marred 'Star Wars' Experience
John Boyega discussed the marginalization and difficulties he experienced while working on Star Wars in an interview with British GQ. The piece marked his first major conversation about the films since the franchise’s main saga wrapped last year with The Rise of Skywalker. Boyega didn’t downplay the opportunity and career-boost …
Read More »Mike Pence Doubles Down on 'Miracle' as Plan for Moving Past Pandemic
Somewhat surprisingly, the Republican National Convention hasn’t shied away from addressing the coronavirus, which has killed over 175,000 Americans thanks largely to Trump administration incompetence. Unfortunately, the pandemic is being portrayed this week not as a crisis that is still very much ongoing, but as something President Trump’s decisive leadership …
Read More »'Lingua Franca' Review: A Transgender Love Story, Told Tenderly and Lyrically
Olivia (writer-director Isabel Sandoval) takes care of an elderly Russian patient in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach neighborhood. A transgender woman from the Philippines, she’s managed to carve out a small space for herself within the borough’s Filipino diaspora. Like a lot of immigrants living in the United States, Olivia lives in …
Read More »Chris Hillman on the Flying Burrito Brothers, Gram Parsons and the End of the Sixties
Chris Hillman couldn’t have chosen a better song title for this excerpted chapter from his upcoming memoir, Time Between — out November 17th via BMG. The chapter, which covers the end of the Sixties, is called “Sin City,” a song off the Flying Burrito Brothers‘ 1969 debut, In the Gilded …
Read More »Trump Says Gutting the Post Office 'Means You Can't Have Universal Mail-In Voting'
When it comes to voting rights in our pandemic election year, President Donald Trump has a habit of saying the quiet part out loud. In May, he tweeted that mail-in voting in 2020 would “LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY.” In June, he told Politico that the …
Read More »How Joe Biden's Plan Could Be a Transformative Step to Addressing the Climate Crisis
It’s hard to bend your mind around how much is at stake in the climate crisis, much less what to do about it. But this much is clear: It’s time — way past time — to go fast, and go big. Joe Biden’s $2 trillion climate proposal, despite its shortcomings …
Read More »John Lewis' Fight Goes On
When the Rev. Dr. William Barber II saw that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the first to eulogize the late John Lewis as he lay in state inside the Capitol rotunda on July 27th, the civil rights leader thought of Jesus admonishing the Pharisees. “We love the tombs of …
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