Michael Eric Ross

We're a year and a half from the 2020 presidential election, and the campaign has already been a shape-shifting thing, with the biggest Democratic field in history, and a Republican president determined to prove that he and he alone can defy political gravity, a second time.

Don’t fall asleep on Kamala Harris.

When major summit meetings end as fast as the one just wrapped in Hanoi, it’s for one of two reasons: Either the summiteers realized they had no differences of opinion to slow things down, or they found out early that their differences of opinion would short-circuit anything else from happening.

When you first heard it, it sounded as if Liam Neeson was offering an expression of life imitating art, speaking in an outtake from any of his Taken trilogy or Gangs of New York, or from Non-Stop or The Commuter, or a scene from his latest film, Cold Pursuit: the famed Oscar-nominated Irish actor as the bludgeoning avenger, the everyman prowling the streets, seeking justice — or at least vengeance.

FLORIDA FLORIDA FLORIDA: it’s the ultimate swing state, crazy from the heat of the weather or its own legislative invention, a lawless free-fire zone with guns more abundant than in the wild wild West. And with roughly nine weeks left before the November elections, the Sunshine State’s gubernatorial race is shaping up as the one to watch, thanks to an upset no one thought possible, a racist dog-whistle everyone knew was probably inevitable, and the reliable intrinsic potential for surprise common to a region in the center of the American Venn diagram of race and ethnicity, politics, and the evolving national future.

When you fight for a seat at the table long enough, it seems that you get to run the table—for a minute, anyway. That’s one takeaway from Black Panther’s already phenomenal success—a success whose casting and narrative essence force Hollywood to make some overdue decisions on casting that the industry can’t avoid.