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(02/21/19 7:01pm)
The Oscar nominations were met with excitement. Black Panther got a Best Picture nomination, Alfonso Cuarón was nominated for Best Director, and both Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone were nominated for The Favourite. Perennial industry greats were nominated, including Glenn Close for The Wife and the Coen Brothers for The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. However, while the public celebrated these successes, there was a glaring omission in the list of Oscar nominations: Director Paul King’s artistic masterpiece, Paddington 2.
(02/12/19 12:59am)
To write about Netflix’s comedy television series, Grace and Frankie, through the lens of love appears counterintuitive. The show opens to the end of two marriages and the unlikely (and unwanted) partnership of the titular characters. It is clearly a recipe for a disaster—Grace (Jane Fonda) is a snobby, proper businesswoman and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) an eccentric, hippie artist. Their husbands, Robert and Sol (Martin Sheen and Sam Waterson), inform them over dinner that they’re gay and want get married to each other—the catalyst for the events of the sitcom. Grace and Frankie, forced to live together, are mismatched and miserable.
(02/12/19 4:52am)
To associate a genre such as the spy film with love is, in reality, a little bit ridiculous.
(02/05/19 10:25pm)
In Roland Barthes’ essay, “The Death of the Author,” he asserts that critics and audiences must separate literature from its author. To acknowledge the author is to unnecessarily add background context to the piece. The phrase, “death of the author,” has come up in recent criticism around artists like J.K. Rowling and the validity of her extensive addendums to Harry Potter. Now, with the current round of Oscars coming up, we face the slight alteration of Barthes’ concepts, a proposed idea for a newer medium: The death of the director.
(02/01/19 10:18pm)
What exactly qualifies a film as "popular?" This question came to the forefront when, this past August, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced an addition to the upcoming Oscars, an award titled “Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film.” The category would be separate from the most anticipated prize of the evening of Best Picture. Though the Academy released few details about the new award other than its title, the decision still incited passionate response.
(01/30/19 4:10am)
While the background of the Thorpe affair is mostly unknown to Americans, the consequences of Jeremy Thorpe’s quiet affair with Norman Scott, a relationship that ended shortly after it began, had effects on both of their lives and certainly Thorpe’s political career. Ben Whishaw accepted a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Limited Miniseries, marking his first American award and the only win for the show, A Very English Scandal. He thanks, in quick succession, his director, his writer, the surrounding cast, and then, in a slower tone, turns to dedicate the award to the man he portrayed: Norman Scott.
(01/22/19 2:21am)
It's no surprise that the subject of women ruling on their own has come into focus in recent film. The belief that women would be unfit to run a modern country can be countered with historical precedent—filmmakers and feminists alike insist that women, when allowed, have ruled with the same degree of competence as men. Two individual films focused on queens (Mary Queen of Scots and The Favourite) show two entirely different takes of women in power: one a success and one a flop.
(11/28/18 1:00pm)
Outlaw King has the near–impossible task of depicting an exalted figure in medieval history and his victory. This legend is Robert the Bruce, or Robert I of Scotland, the man who led his country into independence from beneath English rule in the year 1306. He is a fabled warrior, a proclaimed hero, and someone almost larger than life. He defeated England when they were outnumbered by at least 5,000 men with genius military tactics, encouraged his soldiers in a time where it seemed hopeless, and built his army from the ground up. Outlaw King then has a heavy task in presenting him, but, surprisingly, it succeeds.
(11/28/18 1:00pm)
Riverdale, in its creation, is something of an anomaly. Show creator Roberto Aguirre–Sacasa looked at the unassuming world of the Archie Comics and decided to make a murder–mystery TV show for modern adolescents complete with sex, death, and drama. Its first season fared reasonably well, and for good reason: it had a coherent plot and a somewhat–contained story, looking at the murder of a local student. On Rotten Tomatoes, it received an 88% Fresh rating, which is a solid grade. It had its charm in a supposedly self–aware look at high schools, which seemed to be comically overdone with its mean–girl tropes and its jock with a heart of gold.
(10/30/18 12:00pm)
Paramount’s Heathers has had a long journey before coming onto the small screen. The project, a modern adaptation of the famous 1989 film starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, was slated to go up months ago but was scrapped in June following controversy around its poor handling of school shootings. It is described as a “black comedy” that is a sexier, modern reboot of the original film. Watching Heathers makes it obvious as to why the project was put on the backmost burner.
(11/10/18 1:00pm)
Rupert Everett’s The Happy Prince is self–indulgent. It’s what Everett considers to be his magnum opus: he directs, writes, and stars as the legendary Oscar Wilde in a story about the final years of his life, something which Everett has been interested in for years. His foray with Wilde’s works begins in The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) and continues with his first portrayal of Wilde in David Hare’s The Judas Kiss. It’s clear that The Happy Prince is a work of love, but it seems more like Everett made the work for himself rather than for audiences.
(10/11/18 12:00pm)
I Feel Bad, on paper, looks like it should be a bad show. Perhaps I’m a pessimist, but when I see the phrase “hard–working mom juggling her work with her home life” or “modern feminist take,” I recoil with distrust. There are implications that have been ingrained in me at a young age: I imagine white women with their blonde hair pulled into a messy bun, ordering their children around without any semblance of positive parenting techniques. This woman’s power is in her meanness, which is a narrative not just pushed onto mothers, but white women in general. She is not nice, organized, or caring. She is a Powerful Woman who has Control of Her Life, or, perhaps, she does not have Control of Her Life, but she has no control in a Sexy–Depressed Way.
(10/15/18 12:00pm)
The Neighborhood’s pilot opens with Max Greenfield (of recently–ended New Girl fame), Beth Behrs (from the also cancelled 2 Broke Girls), and the young Hank Greenspan as their son. They are sitting in a car, heavy–handedly laying out the show’s exposition: they are moving because of Behrs’s new job as a school principal. They’re a simple family with liberal–minded values. The son, Grover, mentions that his grandmother disapproves of them moving to a black neighborhood. To prove it, he begins counting the number of black people on the street.
(09/29/18 12:00pm)
Star Trek fans are something of a dying breed. Compared to its somewhat sci–fi rival Star Wars, it is losing its popularity: according to a Forbes survey, 46% of people stated that they preferred Wars, while only 14% voted for Trek. Despite its similar, consistent release of films on–par with the third trilogy of Star Wars films, the latter earned almost one billion more in the box office compared to the latest Trek film. That doesn’t mean that Star Trek–related things are dying out, though. Television like The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory rely on classic “nerd” references to Star Trek just as much as Star Wars. The debates over which is better are something of a cultural staple in the discussion of sci–fi. It seems that Star Trek references are more popular than the content itself. However, not all references get the show right for fans.