See these: Women's soccer, commercial artistry





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Adventures in moviegoing: A video store visit and "The Spy Who Dumped Me"

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Last week I was at a local video store. Yes, I still go to video stores. Yes, I know this is an ancient quest, and that Blockbuster has died. Even with movies available for streaming and download, and on various services, I like the physicality of browsing among the disks, looking at the back covers, checking out the prices. While I could scroll through on-demand options and Netflix lists, I prefer strolling to scrolling. And I get to witness scenes like the one that day, where a man with what appeared to be his two grandsons was renting "Ready Player One" and letting the kids look around. "Pop-Pop," the younger one, who looked to be about 7, said, "which is the best Michael Myers movie?" How the kid knew the "Halloween" epics is beyond me. But his older brother eventually said, "They're all the same." I think Pop-Pop declined to do any renting for comparison. As for my own shopping, whether solo or with the wife I have my ph...
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Women in the realms of men: "Bombshell," "The Testaments," "Little Women"

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The latest version of "Little Women," written and directed by Greta Gerwig, is a lovely adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's much-adapted novel, one made especially so by its emphasis on what it meant to be a woman in a world run by men. The options left to women are few: marriage is the main path to solvency, and writers of fiction must have young women married or dead by the end. That life turns out all right for most of them is appealing, but it's built on the idea that "Little Women" is a romance, and that in the real world sometimes you have to sell out a cherished idea in one area to achieve what you need elsewhere. And even though "Little Women" is set in the past, the idea of What Women Must Do is also part of the contemporary "Bombshell," as well as Margaret Atwood's novel "The Testaments." These are all blending in my head because I saw "Bombshell" and "Little Women" on consecutive days re...
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