Three's Company

In #WoodyAllen's #IrrationalMan, #JoaquinPhoenix's existentially distressed philosophy professor gets a new lease on life when he enters into a relationship with his much younger student (did we say this was a Woody Allen film) played by #EmmaStone. But ardor cools after all and that is when executing the most morally sound murder becomes his new obsession. While Allen recycles his pet themes of moral relativism and chronic dissatisfaction here, this rather underrated film is a ton of fun once the plot kicks in and it contains one masterful instance of foreshadowing you are guaranteed to miss on first watch.⁣

#AlexanderPayne's 1999 classic #Election made a star out of #ReeseWitherspoon who plays a high-school student running to be president of the student body, Tracy Flick - the ostensible villain of the film. The film received a resurgence of attention after #HilaryClinton's loss and it is easy to see why. "Tracy’s name has become a synonym for relentless drive and obnoxious self-confidence," said A. O. Scott in a passionate defence he wrote of the character in 2019. It is an astute analysis of the near-universal disdain for immodest over-achievers, especially if they're women. The perfectly cast #MatthewBroderick (recalling a more widely accepted brand of rebellion from his #FerrisBueller days) plays the teacher determined to sabotage Tracy Flick.⁣

On #TheChair, #SandraOh plays the newly appointed chair of a failing English department at a university. "It's like they handed me a time bomb. So that when it went off, a woman would be holding it," she says at one point. While the show covers many contemporary concerns like cancel culture, its most compelling throughline is that of the impossible bargains one has to make as a leader - constantly sacrificing idealism at the altar of appeasement. All six, 30-minute episodes of #TheChair are streaming on Netflix.