Today at Ta-Nehisi's

Me on what Kathryn Bigelow means for women and action movies.  An excerpt:

I've really enjoyed the slight gender role reversal involved: Bigelow is nominated for directing a tough, suspenseful action movie that refuses to indulge in a romantic or conventionally happy ending, while Cameron is up for a movie that despite extended action sequences is essentially a corny (if visually astonishing) romance.  I'm not the type of feminist who thinks women ought to ape male behavior exactly and believes that if we can do that, sexism will just go away.  Nor do I think it's necessary for women in any medium to think they can only make careers for themselves by carving out spheres in which they write strictly about women's issues, or make strictly women's movies, or whatever.  But whatever my larger, still-clarifying thoughts on gender in the workplace, I do enjoy watching Bigelow repeatedly demonstrate that in art as in life, war and action are not strictly the directorial domain of Very Tough Men.

And if you care about-life-of-Alyssa stuff, an account of witnessing the aftermath of a robbery.