Movie Reviews and Previews Pressure and Prestige in Operation Varsity Blues When I was in high school and applying to college more than twenty years ago (damn, I’m old!), I was guaranteed a spot in any Texas public school of my choice due to the Top Ten Percent rule. When I learned my class rank, I felt as though my By Violeta • Mar 26, 2021 11:50 am
Movie Reviews and Previews My sueñito after watching the In The Heights trailer Can the trailer to a movie of a musical you haven’t seen or listened to evoke nostalgia and give you hope on the one-year anniversary of your world changing? I say yes. Over the last few weeks, the only stories that my brain could hold had to do with By Violeta • Mar 16, 2021 03:17 pm
Movie Reviews and Previews Operation Varsity Blues and the “Side Doors” to Higher Education Doesn’t the college admissions scandal seem like it happened ages ago? Just me? Many of us are reflecting on the one-year anniversary of the pandemic and its subsequent shutdowns. In a week, it will be the one-year anniversary of my school closing for Spring Break, never to return in By Violeta • Mar 05, 2021 01:01 pm
TV Updates Luis Miguel: The Sun and His Shadows I look forward to getting my first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine (whenever that is). I also look forward to summer when my kids and I will not be zooming simultaneously Monday-Friday. And now, I am looking forward to April 18th and the several Sundays after that when I finally By Violeta • Feb 26, 2021 12:00 pm
Books I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter I have been in a funk lately (EVERYBODY: Who hasn’t?!), which has meant that other than for work, I have not been able to process new content. I often eat dinner with my kids while we re-watch (and re-re-watch) Bob’s Burgers episodes, and my bedtime routine currently includes By Violeta • Feb 25, 2021 09:27 am
Equality Issues Still Hurts Like Hell but… Miss You Like Hell I can’t seem to land on the right word to describe how I feel after Joe Biden’s inauguration. I know it’s not …happiness, necessarily. To say I was not excited that he became the Democratic nominee would be an understatement. His declaration that, “This is not who By Violeta • Jan 21, 2021 10:39 am
Music Selena Gomez and her miraculous, sacred heart I remember reading articles early on in the pandemic that explained how lockdowns were affecting people psychologically. How in the uncertainty of the pandemic, for example, we were and are having a hard time looking forward to big or small things, and that this lack of anticipation for good things By Violeta • Jan 15, 2021 09:35 am
TV Updates Sex and the City: And I couldn’t help but wonder…why? I was on my couch Sunday afternoon re-watching Bob’s Burgers, when I felt my phone vibrate with a notification. Due to the dumpster fire that is the United States, I was hoping that it would be about something inconsequential. And The Hollywood Reporter delivered: I had read a couple By Violeta • Jan 11, 2021 01:01 pm
Equality Issues Mr. President-Elect and Dr. Biden Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t ever remember a U.S. president-elect “calling in” to Dick Clark’s (now Ryan Seacrest’s) New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, so it was kind of a trip to see Ryan do a mini-interview with the Bidens. The interview was awkward due By Violeta • Jan 04, 2021 12:54 pm
Music JLo’s Rockin’ Eve Is it just me or did Jennifer Lopez decide to make up for our collective NYE’s outfits by doing the absolute most with hers? Thank you, JLo, for dressing up for all of us. Her JLo Beauty commercial, I mean, her New Year’s Eve performance, began with a By Violeta • Jan 04, 2021 10:57 am
Best Of 2020 My Favourite Things of 2020: Food Edition! It was a Friday morning in the middle of March when I took my first bizarre grocery trip of 2020. Even though we were yet to wear masks, the silence among us, the lack of eye contact, the absence of background music, and the lack of rice and beans and By Violeta • Dec 22, 2020 01:17 pm
Music A Late 2020 Favorite: Netflix’s Song Exploder I first fell in love with the voice of Hrishikesh Hirway when he was a guest on the Gilmore Guys podcast. I remember I was on the treadmill of my local YMCA (you know this was a while ago, because I was in a gym...exercising!) when I heard this By Violeta • Dec 16, 2020 11:21 am
TV Updates The Best Part of Selena: The Series Happened on Our Phones It was the conversation. In getting ready to watch and review Selena: The Series, I tried to stay away from other reviews and social media posts that would affect my take on the show. I didn’t want to be influenced. Hell, I didn’t even re-watch the Selena movie By Violeta • Dec 10, 2020 04:01 pm
TV Updates Selena: The Series is The Abraham Show “YOU’RE THE TREE.” I laughed SO hard at this line. If you don’t know what I’m talking about yet because you’re still watching, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. But damn if that line, ridiculous as it is, doesn’t tell you By Violeta • Dec 07, 2020 10:09 am
TV Updates Selena-lite So now that you know about how 13-year-old me had a Selena obsession, and how it turned into my Selena Problem, here is what I am thinking about the upcoming Netflix show Selena: The Series. I am skeptical. Now you may say, wait, didn’t you beg Lainey to write By Violeta • Dec 02, 2020 02:26 pm
TV Updates My Selena Problem (Lainey: introducing LaineyGossip’s newest contributor… Violeta! She lives by the word of our Queen, Beyoncé, she’s big on 90s and 2000s classic gossip, 30 Rock and the first two seasons of Arrested Development are her “everything”, and, as you’ll read below in her first piece, she is By Violeta • Dec 01, 2020 12:52 pm
