Search Results
Below are your search results. You can also try a Basic Search.
(01/12/24 1:59am)
“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.” Leonard Bernstein’s quote given at a lecture at Harvard University in 1976 opens Bradley Cooper’s sophomore film, Maestro. And, just like his first feature A Star Is Born, Maestro lives up to this promise. Both films are messy, complicated, imperfect, occasionally transcendent but nonetheless fascinating works that reveal the artistic obsession buried within their director.
(01/26/24 4:03am)
In her second feature film, Saltburn, Emerald Fennell, Oscar–winning director of Promising Young Women, sought to create a film that evokes physical reactions from the audience.
(12/20/23 7:26pm)
The titular Eileen, played by Thomasin McKenzie in the 2023 film Eileen, captivated the audiences even before the film’s inception. Adapting from Ottessa Moshfegh’s Booker Prize shortlisted novel, the director William Oldroyd was instantly fascinated by the complexity of the character of Eileen when he read it for the first time, and immediately knew he wanted to work with Moshfegh and screenwriter Luke Goebel to bring the story to the big screen.
(01/26/24 5:00am)
What’s your favorite movie? Odds are, I haven’t seen it.
(01/12/24 1:55am)
Wingwomen (2023) has so much promise and I thoroughly enjoy many parts of it. But it is difficult to look away from its glaring issues in terms of storytelling—especially a questionable, basic, and boring ending to what is supposed to be a thrilling and heart–warming action spectacular.
(12/08/23 1:26pm)
2023 marks another year of my affectionate relationship with cinematic and televisual. I traveled around the globe chasing film festivals, producing more academic nonsense for my beloved Cinema & Media Studies classes, and inevitably falling in love with the many worlds behind the screen over and over again. I believe that film and television are all about worldmaking: They have an unparalleled capability to help us imagine strange people, unconventional lives, and alternative experiences that are by no means trivial to our existence on Earth. All film and television, for me, are realistic, because what is our perception of reality but the very boundary of our imagination?
(11/29/23 2:24am)
Everyone says they want diversity. Exactly what this means is up for interpretation. While business says it means trying to hire minorities, and universities say they want economic diversity, the decision–makers and the incentives they operate under are the same as they’ve always been, leading us to little noticeable change.
(12/04/23 6:00am)
*Author’s note: The SAG–AFTRA strike ended with a tentative deal on Thursday, November 9. Already, actors have been flocking to do press appearances on late–night shows and promoting their work on social media, demonstrating the importance of press to a movie’s success and how the strike imposed on actors’ awards chances.
(11/21/23 5:00am)
It’s easy to forget erasure. It’s easy to get blinded by the popularity of films like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Minari sweeping awards, K–dramas adorning the Netflix front page, and K–pop topping the Billboard charts. Why harp on past racism when we can move forward without turning back?
(11/27/23 8:00am)
As an avid secondhand–book buyer, I have certain rituals when I enter a bookstore. I always step into the horror section to see if I can catch a stray Stephen King; I walk through the classics looking for beautiful hardbacks and marbled pages; and, most importantly, I reminisce among the Young Adult shelves and see if I can spy the iconic black, white, and red–toned Twilight novels. If one part of my bookstore explorations is comfortingly predictable, it’s that I’ll find Stephenie Meyer’s infamous series—often, in its entirety. As of 2021, the saga had sold more than 160 million copies, and according to Publishers Weekly, Twilight was fifth on the list of top–selling books between 2004 and 2021 (just under Dr. Seuss’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go!). If you entered a teen girl’s bedroom in the 2000s or 2010s, chances were you’d find at least one copy—and maybe even a poster or life–size cardboard cutout of a character or two.
(11/29/23 2:00pm)
All great love stories seem start with fate: two people existing in the same room, two eyes meeting for a split of a second, fate dealing them lucky hands in a great cosmic card game.
(01/05/24 3:10am)
Every October, the best of world cinema visits the Bourse theater on a quiet street of old city and the Philadelphia Film Center beside Rittenhouse Square. The annual Philadelphia Film Festival celebrates cinematic splendor and brings together filmmakers and audience in conviviality. This year, our writer Aden Berger and I sat through multiple screenings at the festival like we have for the past few years, and selected what we believe to be under–the–rader gems from this year's extravagant lineup.
(02/08/24 5:00am)
It's too easy to not give full attention to a movie.
(11/10/23 2:00pm)
Editor's Note: This is (strictly speaking, no guarantee) the longest article we've ever published in the history of Street. Sadly, as much as we'd like to, we at the office can't watch the show back–to–back together in order to copy edit the piece and make sure Isaac has got every tiny detail right—that's the task we've left to all of you. I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm so ready to dive into Riverdale world immediately after this is published.
(11/07/23 10:37pm)
Twenty years ago, Roberto Aguirre–Sacasa, a former Glee writer who would go on to become the Riverdale showrunner, received a cease–and–desist order from Archie Comics the night before the world premiere of his adapted play, Archie’s Weird Fantasy. Archie Comics forced Aguirre–Sacasa to change his characters' names, distancing them from the pre–existing IP, as the company thought that portraying Archie as gay, which Aguirre–Sacasa intended to do, would “dilute and tarnish his image.” So the team bit the bullet, changed the names, and premiered Weird Comic Book Fantasy instead of Archie’s Weird Fantasy, following the grown–up lives of Tapeworm (Jughead), Monica (Veronica), Rosie (Betty), and an out–of–the–closet Buddy (Archie). Oh, and also the play included AIDS, the Leopold and Loeb case, and a meta–commentary on the head of EC comics. Is it any wonder Aguirre–Sacasa’s Riverdale would end up going in the myriad of increasingly fantastical directions?
(10/30/23 1:00pm)
“What’s your favorite scary movie?”
(10/26/23 10:00pm)
Imagine walking out of the movie theater, feeling either renewed or like you just wasted a few hours of your life, and wanting to rave, rant, or complain about it with someone. It’s a pretty common experience. Maybe you’d discuss the film with your friends over dinner; maybe you’d mention it to a classmate in passing.
(10/23/23 1:00pm)
We are living in the apex of recycled media. From dark and gritty reboots like Riverdale to unwanted sequels like the upcoming Gladiator 2, most high–profile projects these days simply get greenlit with a specific audience in mind. This is probably why when Rick Riordan visited the Disney+ offices, it didn’t take long to seal the deal: Percy Jackson and the Olympians—a veteran children’s series—is getting its well–deserved adaptation this holiday season.
(11/02/23 8:21pm)
Why are filmmakers so obsessed with food? The past few years have seen a dramatic rise in the popularity of movies and TV shows set in the kitchen: The Bear, The Menu, Burnt, Boiling Point and The Taste of Things are just some examples. Why has this niche genre exploded? In this article, I will answer that very question and present my Grand Unified Theory of Food Film, a five–part theory as to why the Food Film has become so popular.
(10/18/23 7:05pm)
On Monday, Oct. 9, after nearly five months of being on strike, 99% of the membership of the Writers Guild of America voted to ratify the contract that the WGA negotiating team had reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. With gains made for a restructuring of the residuals model in the age of streaming, protection from AI, and assurances about the minimum amount of work a writer will get for a certain project, the deal is nothing less than historic.