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It can be hard to find good shows to watch in languages that aren’t English. While the movie world has robust foreign film industries to compete with Hollywood, and even the Oscars honor foreign language films, there are less television shows that bring stories in other languages to life with the same amount of worldwide reach.
The availability of an entire season of television at arm’s length upon release has changed the way we watch television. On the one hand, binge–watching shows over the course of a few days is a satisfying way to process the whole story without waiting week to week for answers. On the other hand, it is only so long before we’re forced to hop on to the next thing once we’ve wrapped up on a series. This March, Netflix is bringing back several original series, as well as introducing some new ones. There are also a handful of streamable movies and documentaries coming to the platform throughout the month.
Remember those nights when you and your friends gathered in a circle to play party games? From Pictionary to Charades to Trivial Pursuit, these games never get old.
After the success of Glee, American Horror Story, and The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, it only seems appropriate to deem writer/producer Ryan Murphy television royalty. Glee wrapped up its sixth and final season in 2015, and American Horror Story is currently in between annual installments. Meanwhile, American Crime Story is in its second season, following its predecessor The People v. O.J. Simpson with the somewhat less known true crime story of the assassination of Gianni Versace. The season is announced to wrap up with a ninth episode planned for March 21st.
There were a lot of things to like about Boyhood. It was sweet and thoughtful, like any good coming–of–age tale should be, and, perhaps more importantly, it felt like a fully realized vision. The director, Richard Linklater, was on a mission in making this film, as he sought to do the unprecedented and use the same young actor again and again over the course of 12 years, to the effect that the audience could see a boy grow into a man right before their eyes. This unconventional approach produced a kind of raw movie magic—it was something people had never seen before. It is easy to attack the film for being nothing special, given how ubiquitous the slice–of–life coming of age film is. I dare to disagree.
Despite the absence of a single functioning cinema in Moscow until 1922, Soviet Cinema prolifically flourished within a matter of years. Only a year later in 1923, an additional 89 cinemas had begun operation within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. In its earliest stage, Soviet Cinema was composed largely of agitki—didactic propaganda films meant to agitate and induce the masses to participate in the new order of Soviet political life. Reaching countryside to countryside, such short reel films exposed countless Soviet peasants to motion pictures.
In the theatrical release of A Wrinkle In Time, before the first shot, there is a filmed message from director Ava DuVernay, who offers a warm, confident explanation for why she chose to take on the adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved 1962 science fiction novel. The decision to break the fourth wall before the movie even begins comes off as strange, but sitting down to watch it—or, just pulling up reviews—clarifies the purpose of the segment: A Wrinkle In Time is, in many ways, a movie that demands an explanation. Why is DuVernay, an acclaimed director who helmed projects such as 13th and Selma, directing a children’s movie? Why is it flopping at the box office compared to Disney’s other recent release, Black Panther, despite its diverse cast that includes stars such as Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, and Mindy Kaling?
“It was an honor just to be nominated.” Usually, we assume this is a lie intended to make actors sound grateful, but in the case of many young Best Actor and Best Actress nominees, the honor truly does lie in the nomination rather than the win. While it may come as a shock to some readers, winning an Oscar can actually be a career curse to many actors.
Last spring, I had a conversation with my father about Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. This is a rare thing for us—my dad typically only cares about television if a football game or an OJ Simpson documentary is on. He doesn’t care about most shows, but he does care about his job as a middle school principal and the students that he works with. When he became concerned about a new show that they were talking about at school, he asked me if I had seen it. I did—first, a few episodes with mild disinterest, then the rest of the show in one outrage–fueled sitting—and by the end, I came to understand why teachers and administrators, as well as TV critics, had issues with it: it’s a reductive and glorified account of what it’s like to struggle with mental illness, aimed at an impressionable audience.
Walking around Penn’s largely pre–professional campus, the chances of seeing a movie camera that doesn’t belong to a news network are minimal. But Penn does have its fair share of aspiring filmmakers who pursue this art both on and off campus. Street had the opportunity to talk to three of them about how they discovered their passion, how they used it to put their thoughts on screen, and what they plan to do with it in the future.
These days, seeing a movie can be expensive. The average price of movie theater tickets in the U.S. hit an all time high last year, and the costs of DVDs, subscription services, and on–demand movies on platforms like YouTube can add up. Even for the film lovers who avoid costs using less legal means, in today’s busy world, there’s still the time commitment of sitting down to watch.
It should come as no surprise that history is a great storyteller. Bringing historical moments to life on screen can illuminate the triumphs and pitfalls of people across space and time. Revisiting stories with contemporary significance through film ensures that the lessons of the past remain within the public psyche. Black History Month serves as a moment for the celebration of Black excellence, a reflection on the experiences of African Americans (both today and through history), and a deepening consideration for the people and events that will forever shape the political, social, and cultural landscape of the United States.
The Great British Bake Off, a BAFTA Award–winning television series, exemplifies the best of what reality television has to offer: sweets, critiques, and layers of British humor. The UK show has propelled 24 different international spin–offs, along with similarly structured series such as The Great Pottery Throw Down and The Great British Sewing Bee.
When the 2018 Oscar nominations were announced at the end of January, Greta Gerwig made history by becoming the fifth woman to ever be nominated for Best Director. She received the nomination for her 2017 coming–of–age film Ladybird, which is nominated for four other Oscars, including Best Screenplay (also written by Gerwig).
New York City is known for many things—great pizza, glittering skyscrapers, sidewalks crowded with fast–talking business people—but the warmth and friendliness of its residents rarely make the cut. To outsiders, it seems that everyone is always in a rush in New York. They are notoriously pushy, adhering to a code of necessary rudeness to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Out–of–towners tend to remark that New York may be a wonderful place to visit, but a difficult place to call home. Movies and television shows that are filmed in New York often do a good job contrasting the pace of the city with the lives of those who inhabit it. New York serves as a backdrop in HBO’s series High Maintenance, which tells the stories of its ordinary people and the way they interact with each other, as well as with the city that they share.
The 2018 Winter Olympics are almost over, and it's been a hell of a ride.
When Hattie McDaniel became the first black performer to win an Oscar in 1939, it was a historic and groundbreaking moment. In the ceremony, when McDaniel won the Supporting Actress award for her role in Gone With the Wind, presenter Fay Bainter commented that the award was “opening the doors of [the Academy] and moving back the walls."
For a vast majority of moviegoers, Hollywood blockbusters and arthouse films encompass most—if not all—of the movies they have had access to. Hollywood, the bastion of First Cinema, produces escapist, individualistic narrative films that buttress bourgeois values. On the contrary, Second Cinema subverts Hollywood conventions but concerns itself with the expression of its director. Many politically radical film theorists and critics consistently critique such movies for their failure to challenge a spectator in a meaningful way. In their 1969 film manifesto Toward a Third Cinema, filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino put forth a radical vision of the future of anti–imperialist, anti–capitalist cinema. Understanding how mainstream Hollywood Cinema came to dictate theory, practice, and markets for film, the duo delineates a cinema that actively works against a system that reduces movies to mere commodities.
The term "black comedy" gets thrown around quite a bit. It’s one of those easy–to–grab labels that anyone can stick on a film or television show that made them laugh more than they believe it should have. At the core of any black comedy is the exploration of traditionally taboo subjects through the lens of humor or satire, often of the dead–pan, misanthropic variety. Dark humor is a tool people have used for hundreds—if not thousands—of years in theatrical arts; making light of life’s inevitable darkness is, after all, a natural coping mechanism.
What is darkly interesting about diverse casts onscreen is that they very rarely get to have diverse stories. It’s true that Hollywood has made incremental steps to address racial type–casting, white–washing and underrepresentation in film, all while growing ever–cognizant of the box office strength of diversely casted movies. But industry efforts at rectifying its glaring imbalance seem paltry in the face of the record–smashing arrival of Marvel’s latest stand–alone superhero blockbuster, Black Panther.
Solutions by The State News