By JIM SABATASO | STAFF The most controversial thing about Obvious Child is how uncontroversial it is. The new comedy by first-time director Gillian Robespierre stars Jenny Slate as Donna, a struggling Brooklyn standup comic, who, after a boozy one-night stand, discovers she’s pregnant and decides to get an abortion. That wasn’t a spoiler. While the…
By JIM SABATASO | STAFF Try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to binge watch Orange is the New Black. While the rest of the Internet has already devoured all 13 episodes of the Netflix original series, which debuted its second season June 6, I have decided to take my time. To date,…
By JIM SABATASO | STAFF [A version of this review appears in the June 12, 2014, edition of the Rutland Reader.] Don’t call it fake news. At best, that’s a lazy way to pigeonhole shows like The Daily Show or The Colbert Report. At worst, it allows the “real” news shows to passive aggressively dismiss them…
• The seven-day work week is so 20th century. Let’s get rid of it. (slate.com) Today, advances in automation, computation, and telecommunications have routinized the large-scale coordination problems that challenged America’s 20th-century economy. The knowledge economy runs differently, and there is no longer such an overwhelming imperative for large numbers of people and goods to…
• “Are these morons getting dumber or just louder?” The sad state of anti-intellectualism in The United States. (macleans.com) • The best cure for Shit Writing Syndrome? Dan Harmon. A great account by comedy writer Andy Bobrow about how his time on Community helped him become a better writer. (medium.com) • What’s up with that gunk…
The Plaid Crew 