Month: September 2025

MoviesLeave a comment
A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey

A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey

msobczak1138

In When Harry Met Sally, the characters are blocked from taking the logical next step in their relationship by their neurosis.  Eventually they come to their senses and there’s a happy ending.  A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey has basically the same premise, except that this time the couple spend the movie undergoing couples therapy before winding up together.  Call it When Harry and Sally Went to Psychoanalysis.  While this alternative take on the rom-com formula is intriguing, the movie’s emotional impact is underdone by its episodic nature and awkward tonal shifts.

Continue reading “A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey”
MoviesLeave a comment
The Roses

The Roses

msobczak1138

Married couples going at each other has been a reliable source of laughs for as long as I can remember.  The Roepers on Three’s Company.  The Bundys on Married with Children.  The Barones on Everyone Loves Raymond.  When you put two actors who can deliver zingers with deadly precision together, it’s comedic gold.  Which is probably what interested Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman in The Roses, who play the eponymous warring couple in addition to being executive producers.  They knew how much fun they would have with this material, and that we’d enjoy watching them tear each other to shreds.  They were right.

Continue reading “The Roses”
BooksLeave a comment
To Kill a Mockingbird (novel)

To Kill a Mockingbird (novel)

msobczak1138

My journey with Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird didn’t begin in high school, where students typically become acquainted with it.  Instead, it began with an article published in the Washington Post on November 3, 2023, titled “Teachers tried to dump ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ The blowback was fierce.”  As someone who typically reads classic literature, I was curious why anyone would want to take Mockingbird out of the required curriculum.  The novel, first published in 1960, has been considered as one of the great works of English literature since it was published.  Why would educators want to pretend it no longer exists?

Continue reading “To Kill a Mockingbird (novel)”