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6 days ago | 
avclub.com | Shayna Maci Warner
In director Stephen Chbosky and screenwriter Liz Maccie’s straightforward, seemingly apolitical, cheese-heavy fare Nonnas, there is allegedly nothing that a good meal can’t fix. Based on the story behind the real Staten Island restaurant Enoteca Maria, famous for employing nonnas from all over the world, the film follows Jody “Joe” Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) as he emotionally blackmails his way into owning and running a homestyle Italian restaurant as a tribute to his dearly beloved mother.
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4 weeks ago | 
avclub.com | Shayna Maci Warner
In writer-director Andrew Ahn’s thoughtful, funny rom-com (and occasionally romantic melodrama) The Wedding Banquet, the menu consists of steaming, heaping portions of inherited trauma, served family-style.
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4 weeks ago | 
yahoo.com | Shayna Maci Warner
In writer-director Andrew Ahn’s thoughtful, funny rom-com (and occasionally romantic melodrama) The Wedding Banquet, the menu consists of steaming, heaping portions of inherited trauma, served family-style.
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1 month ago | 
letterboxd.com | Mitchell Beaupre |Dominic Corry |Shayna Maci Warner
Angela Robinson made her spy spoof gay rom-com D.E.B.S. the year after Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle hit theaters. As Roger Ebert noted in his 1.5-star review, Robinson’s lesbian spin on hot girls with guns felt like a direct response to that revitalized franchise. But D.E.B.S. wasn’t just a queering of the recent Charlie’s Angels films—or other new female action franchises like Lara Croft and Resident Evil—it was a satire.
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Jun 15, 2024 | 
kirkusreviews.com | Shayna Maci Warner |Stephanie Johnson |Brandon Stanton |
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer. A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s. Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters.
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May 11, 2024 | 
letterboxd.com | Adesola Thomas |Shayna Maci Warner |Mitchell Beaupre |Serial Mom
“Is this the cocksucker residence? Isn’t this 4251 Pussy Way?” Murderous suburbanite mother Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner) grunts through these scandalizing inquiries during a targeted prank call to a despised neighbor in Serial Mom(1994), one of writer-director John Waters’ classic crime comedies.
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May 1, 2024 | 
letterboxd.com | John Forde |Shayna Maci Warner |Loving Highsmith
Imagine the elevator pitch: an eight-hour psychological thriller set in 1960s Italy, filmed in black-and-white and starring Fleabag’s Hot Priest as an amoral killer whose crimes are witnessed by a cat?
From this unlikely premise, writer-director Steven Zaillian (The Night Of) has fashioned Ripley, an entertaining and meticulous drama starring Andrew Scott as the grifter’s grifter: Tom Ripley.
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May 1, 2024 | letterboxd.com | John Forde |Shayna Maci Warner |Loving Highsmith
Imagine the elevator pitch: an eight-hour psychological thriller set in 1960s Italy, filmed in black-and-white and starring Fleabag’s Hot Priest as an amoral killer whose crimes are witnessed by a cat?
From this unlikely premise, writer-director Steven Zaillian (The Night Of) has fashioned Ripley, an entertaining and meticulous drama starring Andrew Scott as the grifter’s grifter: Tom Ripley.
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Apr 17, 2024 | 
bookshop.org | Shayna Maci Warner
The ultimate deep dive into the revolution of queer TV With the last decade's television boom across a multitude of platforms, producing hundreds of network and streaming series, American audiences are being treated to a cascade of shows that some have trumpeted as a second Golden Age. But something completely new is stirring, too--the Rainbow Age.
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Feb 14, 2024 | 
pastemagazine.com | Shayna Maci Warner
We begin at the beginning. The very beginning. Back before Gigli. Back before Jenny was even a glimmer in the block’s eye. We begin at the origin of love itself; or at least an origin of love costing a dear thing. Using a Taíno-Puerto Rican legend, Jennifer Lopez’s voiceover introduces her audience to the devastation of love—a burden with which Lopez is well-acquainted.
