My First Foray into Austen: Douglas McGrath’s Emma

Everyone had an ‘introduction to Jane Austen,’ and the 1996 Emma was mine. At thirteen years old, I was an average homeschooled costume drama lover… I mostly wanted to watch movies or read books with historical settings and pretty dresses in them. We had a ‘free rental credit’ for Pay Per View, and I begged...

Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is one of my favorite movies for many reasons. It has some of my favorite actors, feel-good themes of love, forgiveness, hope, etc., and it allowed my teenage self to go, “See? School is a waste of time! Look how smart he is, and he doesn’t go to school.” However, my favorite...

When Dreams Come True: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Love makes fools of us all. What do we mean by a fool in love? If we love someone or someone loves us recklessly, without using our common sense? When we see only advantages and do not believe in disadvantages of our object of love? When that relationship seems like the result of witchcraft or...

How to Make a Great Adaptation 101: Clueless

Good adaptations are scarce. A lot tend to either completely rewrite the source material or cannot do it any kind of justice. And Clueless could have been another in a long list of failures. Here’s my list of reasons it’s not only a near perfect adaption but has earned its place as a 90s classic....

March / April 2021: Memorable 90s Movies

Whether you skated through the 90s as an adult, came of age during them, or weren’t born yet, there’s no denying that some of the most memorable films have stood the test of time and still remain crowd favorites to this day. The 90s had a lot of patterns—bratty kids who pull one over on...

Dad Should’ve Left Him On the Moon: Family Ties in Umbrella Academy

Here’s a question for you Umbrella Academy fans out there. Do the Hargreeves kids count as a found family? Found families are a staple of our television screens. The crew of misfits, forced to cooperate until bickering coworkers become bickering siblings. Until bosses become more like parents. Found families usually bond as adults, not children....

I Will Do Anything For You: Tony Stark’s Family

“I used to have nothing. Then I got this. This job... this family. And I was—I was better because of it.”Natasha Romanoff, Avengers: Endgame Natasha Romanoff (‘Black Widow’) says this line in Avengers: Endgame, but the writers could just have easily given the same words to Tony Stark (‘Iron Man’). Yes, he’s a billionaire. Yes,...

The Magnificent Seven on the Small Screen

You would think that teenage me would have loved the idea of a new western TV show. After all, the only western on network television in the late ‘90s was Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which was great fun, but not exactly crammed with cowboys. I loved westerns dearly already as a teen, so the logical thing...

Stockett’s The Help: Society’s Dependence on Mother-Daughter Bonds

I do not mean to “knock” relationships between dads and daughters, mothers and sons, etc., but Kathryn Stockett’s underlying commentary on the importance of mother-daughter bonds is a commentary that is undeniably important to note, not only for the plot of The Help, but also for society in the real world. Stockett, again and again,...

The March Sisters

The American classic Little Women has had a resurgence in popularity. Since the latest adaptation, it has developed a new following and Orchard House, the home of Louisa May Alcott, has received more visitors as of late than in previous decades. I hadn’t picked up Little Women in a decade and recently reread it. Not...