David: I need a haircut, Maria. I look like a duckling right now. READ MORE

Mention Lindsay Lohan to me and you’ll be treated to an excoriation of the joy with which this culture greets your average female public breakdown. As such, I've surprised myself this fall with my absorption in the personal and professional unravellings of two female television characters: Carrie Mathison of "Homeland" (Claire Danes) and Amy Jellicoe of "Enlightened" (Laura Dern). If you've also been watching those shows, you might question my yoking them together. Carrie and Amy could not occupy (heh) two more different dramatic universes. “Homeland” is a taut, quickly paced thriller about terrorism whose signature gesture is to end each episode on the edge of a cliff; while “Enlightened” is a more meditative, patient, voiced-over and incredibly intelligent dramatization of a sort of Eat, Pray, Love moment in the life of one not-particularly-remarkable woman in California. READ MORE

Ladies, do we have a problem? We kind of... do. Rebecca Traister weighs in on SlutWalk. READ MORE

"The story spends the requisite time on Elizabeth’s man-baiting and chomping ways, but it’s her relations with these women that help make Bad Teacher into something more than the latest in big-screen giggles and flatulence.... A funny woman with too many unfunny movies on her résumé, Ms. Diaz was born too late for the kind of rich Hollywood career she deserves.... It’s painful, though, watching her slum through What Happens in Vegas, playing off an unworthy foil like Ashton Kutcher, another reason it’s a relief to see her surrounded by the talent packed into Bad Teacher. READ MORE

The Decemberists' new album, The King Is Dead, takes the band in a new direction: tamer, more pastoral lyrics and a pared-down, bluegrass-tinged sensibility (with guest vocals from the always-excellent Gillian Welch). Critics have taken note, and the reviews have been mostly positive—people seem relieved by the band's turn away from the melodramatic subject matter and overwrought musical stylings that have characterized their last couple albums. But the most notable difference from the band’s older music—and one I've yet to see a critic mention—is that there's not a single rape or abduction to be found on the entire album. READ MORE

Here's a story for you. It's an old story, and it goes like this: There's a place where we're in charge. You've never seen it. You can't visit. It doesn't exist—it's in the future, or it's in the past, or it's just sideways, outside our borders, somewhere no one has been. But us, the girls, we run everything there. There aren't any men. Or: There were men, but we kicked them out. Or even: There are men, but they answer to us. This place is always threatened. This place is always on the verge of being invaded. This place is always just about to change. By the end of the story, the world of men will have reached us, and things will be different. But right now, here, at the beginning, there's just us. READ MORE