G.I. Joe & Company
How does the new crop of Iraq War movies stack up against Vietnam-era fare? And how did such an unspeakably bad movie as G.I. Joe ever get made?
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Alyssa Rosenberg is a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com. She is the pop culture blogger for ThinkProgress, where she writes about the intersection of politics and culture at thinkprogress.org/alyssa. More
Alyssa Rosenberg is a correspondent for TheAtlantic.com. She is the pop culture blogger for ThinkProgress, where she writes about the intersection of politics and culture at http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa.
Alyssa is also a columnist for the Washington Monthly and The Loop 21. Her career as a critic began at 8, when she began a children's book review column for her local paper, taking payments in gift certificates to the neighborhood bookstore. Since then, her interests have expanded to include Atlanta hip-hop, procedural television shows, and action movies she watches without any sense of irony whatsoever. Her writing on culture has appearedin Esquire.com, The Daily, The Daily Beast and the American Prospect, and she has written about politics and the executive branch for Government Executive, The New Republic and National Journal.How does the new crop of Iraq War movies stack up against Vietnam-era fare? And how did such an unspeakably bad movie as G.I. Joe ever get made?
What two restaurants are doing to make themselves safe for guests with dangerous food allergies. More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]I'm off for holiday travel early tomorrow morning. But I wanted to thank all of you for reading--and writing back this week--it's been a privilege to stop by and spend some time in this wonderful community you all have going here.Commenter Guster pointed out in an earlier thread that I'd been remiss in my duties by not doing any comics-related blogging, and he's right. Starting next week, though, I'll be posting a couple of times a week as I… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Apparently, Sarah Palin will resign the Alaska governorship in a few weeks, and her Lieutenant Governor will be inaugurated on July 25. As yet, there's no explanation for why she's doing this, which, frankly, seems plum crazy. I can't decide if it's worse for her politically if there's a real reason--a family illness, a pending indictment, whatever--or if there's none at all.Update: Video's below. Looks like the answer is "none at all."… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Ariel Levy's portrait of Nora Ephron as a romantic and a food-lover in this week's New Yorker is great, and you should go read it (only an abstract is online, for now, or I'd link). But I don't actually want to talk about Nora Ephron. Instead, I want to say that Ariel Levy has been an insanely terrific addition to the New Yorker staff, and to talk a little bit about why. And I want to do it because in an age when bloggers are the new… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Since it's apparently Lincoln Day here on the blog, I thought I'd dive into the Civil War fray, but from a somewhat different perspective. There's no question that racism is the primary social issue at stake in the war and Reconstruction, but the abolitionism also laid the groundwork for the campaign to give women the right to vote, and the war was, like World War II, profoundly disruptive to women's social roles. It's no accident that two of… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]So, I went to see Public Enemies last night, and ended up being far more deeply touched by it than I expected. It's certainly the best movie about banks, or bank-related malfeasance I've seen since the financial crisis started (for more details, see this piece just up on The Atlantic's homepage about Hollywood and the financial crisis. Some spoilers if you don't know much about John Dillinger, I guess). But there was one scene in particular… More »
From The International to Drag Me to Hell to Public Enemies, the movie industry is turning to the financial meltdown for inspiration—with uneven results.
[Alyssa Rosenberg]The day job's got me running all over Baltimore today. But I went to a midnight showing "Public Enemies" yesterday, and while I've got a piece on it forthcoming so I won't say much here, it reminded me of how much I love David Wagoner's poem, "The Shooting of John Dillinger Outside the Biograph Theater, July 22, 1934." So if you need a lunch break, and are in a mood for soulful gangsters, read it, here and continued below the jump. Chicago ran a… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]All respect to everything Ta-Nehisi is saying about Obama and gay rights, and how credit for speaking out should be apportioned. But I have to say, I'd be much more interested to hear what Bill Clinton has to say on the ways his views on equal marriage rights have evolved right now than I am to hear Obama talk about what he's going to do, at some point, in the next three years. Someone who is reflecting, and who can acknowledge his beliefs and… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Enough with the seriousness. I've been meaning for a while to complain about James Parker's piece in the July/August Atlantic about the problem of keeping the Harry Potter movies fresh as filmmakers tackle the later books and deal with their characters' development into sexually mature adults (Caveat: I really like Parker's work in general. The piece about Spongebob is delightful and insane.). And now that early reviews are calling the new… More »
For people with allergies, food becomes something to fear, especially in restaurants. More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]I was reading Dwayne's post on Juvenile Life Without Parole this morning, and the last paragraph really stood out me:"I don't think our justice system has evolved to something more productive and effective than it was fifty or a hundred years ago. In most other industrialized nations, life is something conceivable like 30 years or 50 years, and parole is an option. These nations have lower incarceration rates than the US - they have less crime.… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Today, Adam and Ta-Nehisi have things to say about Ricci, and I'm happy to let them talk about the decision. But because we'll get a pile of legal analysis today, I want to step back a little bit and talk about New Haven as a town, and what it meant to me. New Haven is to me what fatherhood is to Ta-Nehisi, I think, and because it's in the news today, even in a tangential way, I'd like to talk about the town a little.Why am I qualified to talk… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]I'm having trouble embedding it, but seriously, go watch Steve Martin parodying the Billie Jean video. If Michael's gift was his grace, Martin's is his awkwardness, and his utter lack of fear in exploiting it for our pleasure. The video makes Michael's talent clear by showing how awkward and gawky those moves would have been if they were performed by anyone else.Parenthetically, things like that video make me wonder what's going on in Martin's… More »
[Alyssa Rosenberg]Many thanks to Ta-Nehisi for letting me hang out here this week and represent the ladies. In my day job, I'm a staff correspondent at Government Executive, The Atlantic's sister publication about government management, and on the side, I write about pop culture for The Atlantic's website and do some other freelancing. I like science fiction, comics, British television dramas, unusual women singers, fast rhymes, baking, and bourbon. I'll get… More »
Riverdale’s favorite teen grows up—and chooses heiress Veronica over girl-next-door Betty. What a jughead!
A genre that once thrived by flipping off authority now has a place on the president's iPod. Where does rap go from here?
From Star Trek and Transformers to X-Men and Terminator, four sci fi blockbusters show that Hollywood has found its inner geek. And that’s a good thing.
For a Hollywood star vehicle, State of Play offers an unusually nuanced look at the life of the investigative reporter
