Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 7:38PM
Over at Sundays With Cate, we continue recaping and reviewing Mrs. America starring Cate Blanchett. This week we tackle episodes 4 and 5 dealing with Betty Freidan (Tracey Ullman) and Brenda Feigen Fasteau (Ari Graynor) debating Phyllis Schlafly (Blanchett). My guest is staff writer at Backstage, Casey Mink.
What did you think of the latest episodes of Mrs. America?
Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 11:42AM 
Over at Sundays With Cate I’m recapping the first three episodes of Mrs. America which are currently available on Hulu. We dig into Blanchett’s performance and the all star cast. The show is structured so that each episode highlights one of the figures in the fight to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The first episode is about right wing polarizing organizer Phyllis Schlafly (Blanchett) and how she came to oppose the ERA. The second highlights Gloria Steinem (Rose Byrne) at the time she launched Ms. Magazine and the third takes place at the 1972 Democratic National Convention when Shirley Chisholm (Uzo Aduba) became the first African American woman to run for president. My guest on this episode is writer and filmmaker Tayler Montague. Have a listen!
Friday, March 27, 2020 at 5:00PM by Murtada Elfadl
A movie event of the highest order is a click away, at least for those of us in the US.
#1 Portrait of a Lady on Fire is now streaming on Hulu. You can watch right this very second if you want.
#2 There’s a lot of choices on streaming but this gives you the chance to swoon as you watch. Gorgeously shot, Portrait is a romance between an artist (Noémie Merlant) and her subject (Adèle Haenel) set in late 18th century France, that smolders with heat and passion...
Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 1:00PM
With all of us self isolating in quarantine the daily question of what to watch gains even more importance. Not only do you want to watch something good and entertaining but also something that will engross and really distract and take you away from the reality of the grave situation we are living in. Something soothing and comforting above all, however you never know where comfort might come from.
Last night I thought a comedy was in order and based on Wes Anderson’s recommendation in a sweet email to The Criterion Channel I chose Arthur Hiller’s The-Out-of-Towners (1970) with Jack Lemmon and Sandy Denis. However I turned it off 15 minutes into the film. Lemmon constantly yelling his entitlement was not comforting nor funny. The rants were well written and the situations would have probably been funny in another context. But not at this time.
Last week the movie was Francois Trauffaut’s The Last Metro (1980)...
Wednesday, March 25, 2020 at 2:05PM 
This review only covers the first three episodes of Little Fires Everywhere.
In the second episode of the new Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere rich privileged white woman Elena Richardson (Reeese Witherspoon) asks the nomad artist Mia (Kerry Washington), who is her new tenant, to be her maid. You see she means well. She saw Mia and her teenage daughter asleep in their car and of course as any upstanding citizen would do, called the police on them for trespassing. Out of guilt she leased them her open apartment when by coincidence she recognized them later in the day. Now Mia has told her that she needs to juggle more than one job to make ends meet. The offer comes out naturally out of Elena's mouth. Only after she finishes saying the words does she realize what she has said and how it can be misconstrued. She back tracks by changing the job to “house manager.”
That scene is fraught with racial, class and socio-economic tension. It made me excited for the series and for watching Witherspoon and Washington tackle these issues...
