Category: Women

Lena Hall Stars in New Musical Film Becks- Videos and Photos

~ Metacrone

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Becks * 2/9/18 (Theatres & VOD) * Unrated, probably R * 90 Minutes

Becks is an indie film based on the real life experiences of singer-songwriter Alyssa Robbins, who also wrote most of the songs for the film. It’s about a struggling singer in NYC who moves back to St Louis when her girlfriend leaves her to move to California. She moves in with her mother, a former nun, and starts singing at a local bar. She meets and becomes closer to a married woman, Elyse.

The lead character, Becks, is played by the fabulous Lena Hall, who won a Tony for her portrayal of Yitzhak in the Broadway revival of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and who played Hedwig herself briefly during the opening stops of the national tour. Becks’ mother, the former nun who tries to be supportive of her daughter, is played by Emmy, Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning actress Christine Lahti. Elyse is played by Mena Suvari (Six Feet Under). Hayley Kiyoko, quadruple threat and all-around force of nature, plays Lucy, Becks’ soon to be ex-girlfriend.

This movie is worth seeing for the exciting female cast alone, but there were also women behind the cameras. Lena Hall gave an amazing, in depth interview to afterellen.com that mentions the largely female crew. From The Hollywood Reporter review:

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Agents of Shield Season 5 Episode 10: Past Life Recap

~ Metacrone

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This week, the Agents of SHIELD finally return to our present day, but it’s a difficult, winding journey to get there, of course. We say goodbye to the characters we’ve gotten to know over the future space arc, and learn more about the time loop, before the cliffhanger monolith jump at the end. Loyalty, the importance of making the best choice of who to align oneself with, and when to let go, always a focus on this show, continue to be major themes. Those themes are set up to affect the rest of the season, perhaps the series, in game-changing ways.

Also in this episode, Coulson proves he’s not the greatest leader when he treats Daisy like she’s his property to control. He may think he’s acting like a leader or father, but he takes Daisy’s choices away to the point of rendering her unconscious, while others risk being left behind without a word of complaint from him. That’s not the kind of caring he, or the writers, think it is. Overly possessive misogyny doesn’t stop being wrong because you convince yourself it’s for a good cause.

When the Zephyr pulls into the landing bay of the Lighthouse, Kasius and his guards are waiting for it. The first thing they see when the doors open is Sinara’s body, still hanging, impaled on the balcony railing. Kasius brain melts down. The lead guard orders the rest of the guards to search the ship.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 11: Nathaniel and I Are Just Friends!

~ Metacrone

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Same, Dr Akopian, same.

When episode 11 of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend opened with Dr Akopian in her bedroom, I had this joyous flashback to the early days of the show, when Rebecca and Heather broke into her house through the doggie door. My hopes were raised that the whiny, misogynist slog toward the finale would be interrupted by a fun, creative episode like the ones I fell in love with. But, no. That was not the case.

Instead, we got more of the pointless, endless “will they or won’t they” from Bex and Nathaniel, a huge amount of time spent on Heather realizing that being 8 months pregnant is no fun (solved by her taking a bath 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️), and another Paula is a b*tch story, with a side of betrayal from former bestie Sunil, to teach her a lesson. We also had an 8 month time jump, to move the story and characters along. Except almost everyone was stuck in exactly the same place.

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Counterpart Season 1 Episodes 1 & 2: The Crossing & Birds of a Feather- Review

~ Metacrone

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Counterpart is a new scifi/spy/thriller series from STARZ starring JK Simmons as two very different men who live in two different versions of the same world. The worlds are connected by a secret passage in Berlin that’s heavily guarded and controlled by the two world’s governments. Up until 30 years ago, there was one world, but then scientists caused it to split into two branching realities. The politics of each world spill over into the other world, causing friction and intrigue.

Each person has an “other” in the alternate reality, a duplicate self who may be nothing like themselves. The other self frequently becomes a target of political plots originated on the opposite side. Since the alternate realities have been kept a secret from the general public on both sides, this can cause some confusion.

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Humans Season 1 Episode 3 Recap

~ Metacrone

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The game of lost and found continues in episode 3, as Leo and the conscious synths continue their complicated lives together and apart, the Hawkins family searches for answers to the mysteries surrounding Anita, and George and Odi become separated on an outing. The death at the brothel is officially ruled an accident, sending Pete into an anti-synth tirade.

Hobb wakes Fred up. Fred refuses to speak during the entire scene, but he does subtly try to break the straps binding his wrists to the lab chair he’s in. Hobb says that he’ll do all of the talking for now, and spills everything he’s figured out about the conscious synths.

He believes there are five synths. One of them is the female the lab isolated from Fred’s memory of swimming (holds up a picture of Anita/Mia). Hobb thinks they were made by David Elster, who kept them a secret. When Elster died, they ran away and hid, but then they got separated, allowing him to capture Fred. Fred turns his head all the way to the right. The lab tech says that he’s hiding his thoughts from them. The screens that have been showing his memories go dark, then show only Hobb.

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Movie Review: Mudbound

~ Metacrone

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Mudbound * 2017 * Rated R * 2 Hours 15 Minutes

😸😸😸😸😸 Rated 5/5 happy lap cats

Spoiler Free:

Mudbound is a family saga of life in the 1940s Mississippi Delta for two farming families. One family is made up of hereditary black sharecroppers descended from former slaves. The other is a white family of former landowners and slaveowners who’ve fallen on hard times. They’ve bought land in Mississippi hoping to reestablish their wealth. The families become intertwined as their lives intersect and affect each other over the years, until a tragedy changes everything.

Mudbound was directed by Dee Rees, who also wrote the script with Virgil Williams, adapted from the book of the same name by Hillary Jordan. It’s been nominated for four Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Original Song for Mighty River, sung over the closing credits by Mary J Blige; Best Supporting Actress for Mary J Blige, who plays Florence Jackson, wife and mother of the Jackson family; and Best Cinematography for Rachel Morrison, the first woman to ever be nominated for this award.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 9: Nathaniel Gets the Message!

~ Metacrone

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This week, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend continues its sob fest over men’s problems, and I mean that literally. After Dr Shin encourages her to spend her free time helping others, Rebecca decides to save an engaged man from a bad marriage, no matter the cost. Darryl continues to struggle with the ramifications of deciding to have a baby alone. Nathaniel and White Josh bond over their romantic break ups, because no one understands the problems of hot, sensitive guys. Josh joins the party for a while, because he has problems, too. Rebecca stays away from the ex-boyfriends, for now, but she does decide to rescue Darryl. I don’t think she’s quite gotten the message about this whole “Stop obsessing about men” thing.

The episode picks up with Rebecca and Nathaniel’s break up scene. Except Rebecca explains that it’s not a break up. She just needs to avoid falling into old obsessive patterns again, so she can’t see him any more.

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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 3 Episode 8: Nathaniel Needs My Help!

~ Metacrone

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This week, the women of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are all about keeping the men happy. Rebecca is trying to make up for Nathaniel’s sad childhood and to prove that she’s still an A+ therapy student. Paula takes on Darryl’s babymaking decisions, because these things are just too complicated for a single dad to figure out on his own. Lourdes is kicking Josh out of her house, but she’s also making him grow up and stop being so lame. The mixed message here is that it’s the job of strong, independent, modern women to take care of men’s emotional and caretaking needs, at every stage of life, whether the men think they want it or not. Even if the men resent it at first, they’ll thank you for it later. Since empowering women through enforcing gender stereotypes doesn’t do it for me, this was another disappointing episode.

Lourdes is just about perfect in my opinion, so I don’t have much to complain about there. She’s starting up a home daycare business, and needs Josh’s bedroom for the toddlers. She has a muralist coming on Monday to paint dolphins on the walls, so Josh needs to clean out his closet and move in with Hector and his mom by Monday. Josh gets off to a slow start, fondling every memento and getting lost in memories. When he gets to his old Karaoke machine, it’s all over. He stays up all night singing every song.

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Metawitches Guidelines for Spotting Misogyny vs Female Equality in Entertainment and Media

~ Metacrone ~ 1 Comment
Jane The Virgin –“Chapter Four — Image JAV104A_155 — Pictured (L-R): Andrea Navedo as Xo, Gina Rodriguez as Jane and Ivonne Coll as Alba — Photo: Danny Feld/The CW — © 2014 The CW Network, LLC. All rights reserved.

This is the basic list of questions we ask ourselves while consuming media to help us determine if we’re seeing women being treated fairly or not. It’s not a yes or no checklist, or an easy, one sentence test, like the Bechdel test. But then, Alison Bechdel never meant for her test to become a widely used standardized instrument. This test requires some thinking about what you’re viewing. Misogyny is often subtle, and it’s pervasive. It’s easy to miss with one, casual viewing, but the message still gets into our heads and affects us.

That’s why these are guidelines, rather than a test. Some of these answers will be subjective, and reasonable people can disagree. We’re talking about art and the interpretation of art, after all. It also takes practice to start seeing things like camera angles and positioning, rather than letting it fly by. Hardly any of us can always spot gaslighting, especially when it’s being done by the writers and producers instead of the characters. These guidelines are just aspects of entertainment to keep in mind while viewing, to become more aware of what you’re seeing.

I (Metacrone) started working on this list in the late 80s, and it’s slowly grown. It’s still a work in progress, just like the entertainment industry. There are very few works that would pass every question with flying colors. Figure out how much you can live with watching, and the level that makes you take action. It’s okay to just watch and enjoy the show sometimes without feeling guilty, too. But, the more you can recognize the issues with entertainment and speak out, even if it’s only to one person, the more of an effect we all have on the entertainment industry.

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Theatre Review: Waitress National Tour in Denver

~ Metacrone

Waitress the Musical

Waitress * Book by Jessie Nelson * Music and Lyrics by Sara Bareilles * Directed by Diane Paulus * First National Tour at the Buell Theatre, DCPA, 12/19&20/17

Waitress is one of my favorite shows of all time. I’m telling you this up front because there’s no way that this can be an unbiased review. A company would have to butcher the show very badly for me not to enjoy it. Thankfully, the first national touring company, who began this tour in Cleveland, Ohio in October, are excellent across the board, so no worries.

Waitress is the story of a young diner waitress and master pie baker named Jenna (Desi Oakley), who discovers that she’s pregnant by her abusive husband, Earl (Nick Bailey). Her best friends and coworkers, Becky (Charity Angél Dawson) and Dawn (Lenne Klingaman) rally around her while also coping with their own romantic issues. As her pregnancy continues, Jenna becomes closer to her doctor, Dr Pomatter (Bryan Fenkart) and the diner’s elderly owner, Joe (Larry Marshall). The diner’s cook and manager, Cal (Ryan G Dunkin), provides a curmudgeonly foil to the ladies, while Ogie (Jeremy Morse), Dawn’s 5 minute date, brings some lightness to the diner.

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