Author: Matt Wolfson

The Academy Awards will be held on Sunday night, and one of the contenders for Best Picture is a little out of the ordinary when it comes to the Oscar circuit. Winter’s Bone, an independent film that won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, is

Sometimes big changes happen fast. Last week, Egypt was a case in point. After 18 days of trying to wait out the mass protests in Cairo, Hosni Mubarak finally gave up the Egyptian presidency. His last hours in power were schizophrenic ones; if the stakes had been lower, it might

MTV, proud producer of Jersey Shore, is making waves with its new hit show Skins. Two weeks ago, the media watchdog Parents Television Council pronounced that the wildly popular series was “the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen.” In response, Skins supporters praised the series for

I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but so far I’ve been disappointed by the movie adaptations. Not this time around. For me at least, the seventh Harry Potter film did what I thought was unthinkable: it improved on the parts of the novel it portrayed. The movie

What does it mean to be a modern family? The Emmy Award-winning TV show Modern Family, now in its second season, answers that question in two ways. The first fairly superficial answer that the show gives is that “modern families” are diverse. Cam and Mitchell are a gay couple who

What Jon Stewart amusingly but inaccurately dubbed “Indecision 2010” is finally over. The polls have closed and voters were decisive. Now things get interesting. America is once again under divided government and the battle lines are drawn: Republicans on the Hill vs. Democrats in the White House, John Boehner vs.

Over fall break I spent two hours watching Daniel Craig (a.k.a. James Bond) go toe-to-toe with an egomaniacal killer bent on world domination. In Bond’s universe, this is standard fare, but I didn’t think the overblown evilness of a 007 villain existed in reality until a day or two later,

One of life’s tragedies is that “Arrested Development” went off the air after only three seasons. Rubbing salt into the wound, the post-cancellation movie is now stalled. This upsets me a great deal because, with the possible exception of the Dunphys of “Modern Family,” the Bluths are my favorite American

As “The Apprentice” hobbled into its sixth season last week, TV spots ran the following tantalizing exchange from the show: Contender A: “I need you to calm down.” Contender B: “I need you to shut up.” I wasn’t compelled to tune in, but this piece of grist for Donald Trump’s

As all 5-C students have voluntarily committed at least four years of their lives to California, it seems appropriate to say a few words about Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and potentially the Terminator’s successor as the Golden State’s governor. Nowadays you can hear her on the radio