The XX Factor: What women really think.

I Won't Stop Believing in "Glee"

I really, really wanted to love Glee, the new Fox comedy about show choir—that strange, unholy amalgam of drama club, choir, and dance team. After all, I have already made my love of such dorky performance activities rather public. And before the first commercial break, it seemed like Glee was really gunning for my affections in particular, showcasing all of the following... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)

Tracy Flick Never Rests

The joyful, saccharine, karaoke-inspring Glee, which premiered last night on Fox, got me wondering: What did we do before Tracy Flick? She first appeared, embodied by Reese Witherspoon, in 1999's Election, a previously unidentified personality type, the driven, ruthless, terrifyingly ambitious striver who micromanages her inevitable rise to power in relentlessly cheerful tones. In the decade since Election, Flick has been transformed from a fresh, new character into an archetype, found frequently in... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website at DoubleX.com!)

Why Buy the Film, When You Can Get the Trailer for Free?

More and more frequently, movie trailers are better than the movies they're promoting. As they've become increasingly adept at short-handing a feature-length plot, and increasingly unconcerned about revealing all the elements of said plot, they play like accelerated shorts, complete with a story arc and emotional climax, ruining plot twists and funny-the-first-time-you hear-them jokes. They're trailers for people who hate surprises.

David Edelstein, in his New York review of the new Terminator film (aka, the film where Christian Bale lost his shit), demurs from revealing... (To read the rest of this post, visit our new website DoubleX.com!)