Center for the literary arts in New York State
FILM SCREENING
"Rebel with a Clause"
7 p.m. Friday, October 3, 2025
Screening with commentary by director Brandt Johnson and star Ellen Jovin
Page Hall - University at Albany Downtown Campus
135 Western Avenue, Albany NY 12203 See map.
Free and open to the public. No tickets nor registration required.
Books will be for sale at the “grammar table.”
(United States, 2025, 86 minutes, color)
In this new “Docu-Comedy,” grammar guru Ellen Jovin takes her pop-up grammar advice stand on a rollicking road trip across all 50 states to show that comma fights can bring us closer together in a divided time. Winner of the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the Independent Film Festival of Boston.
Ellen Jovin, grammarian, is a founder of Syntaxis, a communication skills training consultancy. She holds degrees from Harvard in German and UCLA in comparative literature, and has studied twenty-five languages just for fun. The documentary is a companion to her 2022 national bestseller, Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian. Mary Norris, famed New Yorker grammar expert, called it, “A fresh and democratic take on language by a gifted teacher.”
Brandt Johnson, Ellen Jovin’s husband, is a filmmaker and both the star and creator of the TV comedy "Brad Advice" (2016-18), about a failed investment banker who declares himself a communication skills coach, and doles out what he thinks is good advice— it's not!
about the book
When Ellen Jovin first walked outside her Manhattan apartment building and set up a folding table with a "GRAMMAR TABLE" sign, it took about thirty seconds to get her first visitor. Everyone had a question for her. Grammar Table was such a hit — attracting the attention of the New York Times, NPR, and CBS Evening News — that Jovin soon took it on the road, traveling across the US to answer questions from writers, lawyers, editors, businesspeople, students, bickering couples, and anyone else who uses words in this world.
In Rebel with a Clause, Jovin tackles what is most on people’s minds, grammatically speaking — from the Oxford comma to the places prepositions can go, the likely lifespan of whom, semicolonphobia, and more.
Punctuated with linguistic debates from tiny towns to our largest cities, this grammar romp will delight anyone wishing to polish their prose or revel in our age-old, universal fascination with language.
reviews
"Of all things a jolly grammar book! Curl up and finally take in those niceties of grammar that you always feel like you haven't paid quite enough attention to. Jovin has the gift of making grammar feel like charcuterie instead of medicine—and along the way you also get invaluable randomnesses such as that there are people in Ohio who pronounce 'vigil' as 'vid-ju-al'!" — John McWhorter
"A fresh and democratic take on language by a gifted teacher." — Mary Norris
"[Jovin] never hectors, never finger-points; she enlightens and illuminates. This is lovely work." — Benjamin Dreyer, author of Dreyer’s English
(Photo credit: Casey Baugh)
