Confession Time: Law does not interest me. In fact, I’d be more likely to gouge my eyeballs than watch a legal procedural show (then again, both are essentially the same thing). Murder, however, does interest me. I suppose that, with a title like How to Get Away with Murder, it’s the best of both worlds.
Continue reading Lawless Lawyers: Murder is the Best of the (Il)legal
One month ago, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came out to impressive critical acclaim—and has made a lot of money. Few were more excited than I, and in anticipation I took a look back at some of the franchise’s earlier works. I won’t review Pierre Boulle’s original 1963 novel (frankly, the films are much more interesting), I haven’t read the comic book adaptations, and I’ve yet to view the 70s TV shows. But I’ve now seen all eight films and I want to share that with you.
Continue reading Before the Dawn: A Look Back at One of Sci-Fi’s Great Franchises
It would be dishonest for me to review Blackfish, a recent documentary about an orca at Sea World, without first disclosing my history with the park.
In his Natural History, Pliny the Elder outlines a myth concerning the origin of painting. A young woman, to preserve the memory of her departing lover, traces the outline of his shadow against a wall. While they are separated, the image will stand in his place; or more precisely, it will be forever linked to the woman’s memory of their relationship. That is to say, despite the illusion of permanence the image is fluid, inconstant, elusive.
Elena is the result of director Petra Costa’s exploration of memory through image, of the pains and joys of remembering something deeply intimate and yet just out of reach: the mind of a loved one. Part elegy, part essay, part documentary, and part missive, the premise is beautiful and the film has real moments of grace. Elena is difficult to categorize; but we don’t have to.
Why aren’t we seeing movies about growing up in the twenty first century? Has film lost its ability to convey a collective experience? How does film hold up in an age of television and Internet? Rebecca, Ryohei, and Parth ponder the fate of traditional coming-of-age films and where the genre might be headed in the future.
Frozen melts away the malaise that plagued Disney animation for over a decade. The film launches itself into the highest ranks of animated classics not by repeating the classic Disney formula for success, but by breaking free and charting its own course. Honest treatment of mature themes sparks the magic of Frozen, allowing the story to engender characters with whom the audience can empathize.
Continue reading Always Fresh, Never Frozen: An Instant Disney Classic
This review comes on the heels of Schindler’s List’s 20th anniversary, but the impact of the film hasn’t diminished one bit in the interim. On the contrary, Spielberg’s most highly regarded film is more essential now than it’s ever been, as cinema becomes more technologically savvy, more commercialized, more data-driven, and film narrative becomes increasingly meta-referential, schizophrenically fast-paced, and reluctant to simply present art at face value.
Continue reading Anniversary: Schindler’s List, A Human Triumph
A new type of hyper-aware genre entertainment seems to be emerging of late. Call it “meta-genre,” or “meta-cine”: films, as well as television shows, that self-consciously invite us to reflect on the conventions of genre itself. Is it parody, or is it more? Paul Popescu and Dayton Martindale examine why it might be good to take our new meta-cine.
Part of the reason “Beyoncé” surprised everyone was that it was not only an audio album released without fanfare, but a “visual album”’ as well. While I’m still not exactly sure what that means, I know I can’t listen to “Drunk in Love” without envisioning Bey’s windmilling arms or hear “Partition” without picturing Joan Smalls’ red lips forming the word “Yoncé,” so, whatever it is, it works. But these videos aren’t only standard pop music video fare. “Beyoncé” as visual album is a smart, complicated investigation of viewer and viewed, performer and performance. An attentive watcher will see an impressive alchemic performance with Beyoncé as a powerful magician, turning her beauty into power: over her life, over her work, and over her audience.
Don’t believe me? Keep reading. Video-by-video, here’s my take.
Continue reading “Beyoncé” Killed the Radio Star: A Review of a Visual Album
Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K., Mindy Kaling: Notice any similarities? We do too. As creators and stars of television shows modeled after their own lives, today’s comedy heavyweights suggest there might be some truth to the old maxim: write what you know. Of course, television comedies that straddle the gap between fiction and autobiography have been around for a while (our favorites: The Dick Van Dyke Show, I Love Lucy, The Cosby Show). But in the past few decades and in recent years especially, an unusually high number of America’s best-loved and most syndicated shows have drawn heavily on the real life experiences of their creators. Below, we take a look at some different ways the writers of these shows have managed to turn personal foibles into comedic fodder.
Continue reading Autobiographical Comedy: The Good Kind of Reality TV
August: Osage County succeeds remarkably well in transporting us to the strange Okie world in which it takes place. The movie is filled with vistas of the sun-scorched Plains, a setting Barbara Weston (Julia Roberts) contemptuously refers to as “flat, hot, nothing.” And throughout the viewing, that’s exactly where we find ourselves. A place that lacks depth and dimension, is fraught with cacophony and argumentation, and ultimately amounts to less than the sum of its parts. Not that the film isn’t pleasant at times—don’t get me wrong—but as we scratch our heads for answers to questions like what was this movie about, anyway? we can’t seem to place August: Osage County anywhere at all.
When Christian Mungiu won the Palme d’Or for 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days in 2007, it was the first time a Romanian filmmaker had received such accolades from the International film community. Since then, the films of Mungiu and other young Romanian filmmakers have emerged as the Romanian New Wave, a collection of films that are generally set during the last years of the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s reign and characterized by austerity, realism, and the kind of dark, biting comedic wit that only thoroughly oppressed people know how to wield with dexterity.
Continue reading Tales From the Golden Age: An Introduction to Romanian Culture
