WGA Goes on Strike. What's at Stake? Plus: Guy Ritchie's 'The Covenant,' reviewed!

Before we get started, wanted to share a cool little thing I learned literally yesterday. Typically at a movie theater—or, at least, the movie theaters I’ve been to—the handicapped seats are just empty spots where you can fit a wheelchair. At the Crystal City Alamo Drafthouse, they’re actual chairs that can be taken out to provide a space for wheelchairs. There’s a cool little animation on the site and everything. I bring this up because there are only 11 seats left for Across the Movie Aisle’s live show on May 16th (two weeks from today!) and they’re almost all in that handicapped row. I think it’s okay for the non-wheelchaired to pick them up at this point, given that it’s basically a sell-out show?  On this week’s episode, Sonny Bunch (The Bulwark), Alyssa Rosenberg (The Washington Post), and Peter Suderman (Reason) talk about the WGA strike. Why are writers hitting the picket line? What don’t studios want to give up? What will the industry look like after this work stoppage? All that and more during this discussion. (Full disclosure: we taped this Monday afternoon, more or less assuming that the strike would happen.) Then we reviewed Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant, an almost shockingly earnest war movie from the king of Brit-gangster movies.  We’ll talk more Guy Ritchie on the bonus episode this week. And speaking of bonus episodes: last Friday’s got lost in the shuffle, so we just posted it this morning. You can listen here if you’re a paid-up member of Bulwark+. And if you aren’t, you should be!