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(11/02/19 2:55am)
What is love? That's a tricky question—just look at the millions of songs and movies lamenting it. It’s one many people spend their entire lives seeking to answer. Some say it’s an unexplainable, hit–by–a–truck feeling, while others try to spell it out more scientifically, with numbers and chemicals. Modern Love, Amazon Prime’s new eight–episode anthology series, puts it much more simply: love is whatever it is to you.
(10/23/19 11:17pm)
When the first Zombieland came out ten years ago, it featured a pre–fame Emma Stone and Jesse Eisenberg, alongside Woody Harrelson and a young Abigail Breslin. The film was a critical and commercial hit, full of dark, irreverent humor and a cast with unexpected chemistry. The backdrop of a gory zombie apocalypse, of course, just added to the entertainment. On Oct. 18, the original cast returns—now all Academy Award nominees or winners—in the horror–comedy sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap. The chemistry is still there, and the gore is turned up to 11, but though the cast (now with a few new additions) still brings a lot of fun, they have very little to work with.
(10/28/19 5:50am)
Any respectable Millenial–Gen Z cusper has fond childhood memories of watching American Idol back in its heyday. In the emerging world of reality television, the celebrity judges’ state–wide search to find the next pop star dominated the prime time slot. For nearly twenty years it churned out—to the behest of the American public—a number of impressionable entertainers including Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, and Carrie Underwood. Since the noughties, the show has lost its luster and programs like The Voice and The X Factor have attempted, and mostly failed, to fill its niche. This is where Netflix’s new series, Rhythm + Flow comes in. In a contemporary pop landscape commanded by rap and hip–hop, a refreshing and enticing televised competition has finally emerged.
(10/23/19 3:05am)
The Philadelphia Film Festival opened Oct. 17 at the Philadelphia Film Center and will continue through Oct. 27, showing over 120 movies ranging from locally–produced films to bona fide Oscar contenders.
(10/16/19 12:38am)
Ryan Murphy just might be the iconoclastic arbiter of taste that television needs. With his keen sense of style, tone, and comedic timing, the showrunner has definitively changed the industry over the past couple of decades. As the creator of series like Glee, American Horror Story, Pose, American Crime Story, Feud, 9–1–1, The New Normal, Scream Queens, and Nip/Tuck, Murphy is a veteran, a veritable powerhouse of pop culture. And though each of the creator’s works are different, they all feel interconnected by Murphy’s singular vision. Looking back, Murphy’s career trajectory reads as exactly that: a career trajectory, in which every work is influenced by the one that came before and will have a part in what comes next. So, in honor of the release of Murphy’s latest series, The Politician, (the first of several projects to be released through his monumental Netflix deal), it’s time for a retrospective.
(10/23/19 4:02am)
In 2012, Laika Films released ParaNorman. I remember watching it when it came out—I was eleven years old and nearly missed the throwaway line at the very end confirming that the character Mitch, a stereotypical “dumb jock,” had a boyfriend. Even at that age I recognized how novel it was for any of the characters to be in a same sex relationship. It was the first mainstream animated film featuring a gay main character.
(10/16/19 11:20pm)
Last November, actor Bryan Cranston sent the Breaking Bad fanbase into a frenzy when he announced that the show’s creators were working on a movie to bookend the franchise. The film, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, was released on Netflix and in select theaters on Oct. 11 and takes viewers on a nostalgic journey through the past and present lives of Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul. So buckle up, because this ride is a crazy one.
(10/16/19 10:39pm)
Interstellar often gets tossed around when people talk about their favorite films or recall the canon of Christopher Nolan. And the score is arguably one of the most distinctive aspects of the movie. The music, colored by frequent organ instrumentation and high levels of intensity, crystallizes each scene in the movie as memorable and breathtaking. This is no surprise, given that it was composed by Hans Zimmer.
(10/14/19 3:33pm)
Ang Lee is a peculiar director. While he perhaps garnered the most acclaim for his 2000 classic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, he is equally renowned for the touching Brokeback Mountain. In many cases, Lee's films jolt back and forth between fast–paced action to tender drama, like in the critically adored Life of Pi. Lee’s most recent film, Gemini Man, leans in the action direction, but stops short of fully becoming a sci–fi flick, a comedic drama, or even a guns–blazing, nonsensical action, making it feel muddled and half–finished.
(10/16/19 5:52pm)
At the Heart of Gold: Inside the USA Gymnastics Scandal is a heartbreaking, moving, and empowering documentary that exposes the systematic and institutionalized abuse of hundreds of young girls.
(10/18/19 6:03pm)
Trailers are the most unpredictable form of advertising, and likely one of the most important ones. Often, trailers are created by companies that are not associated with the film and are responsible for crafting the 3–minute videos without full knowledge of the film itself. Generally, trailer–making begins before principal photography is completed. This art form is precarious, because it must straddle the line between teasing the film for those who have already been anticipating it, and advertising it to those who have never heard of it. For this balancing act, trailers often fall flat because they fail to accurately represent the source material—take Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Batman Begins, whose trailers don't accurately represent their movies.
(10/11/19 10:55pm)
Last week, Netflix hit off their “Netflix and Chills” series with a flawed, but entertaining thriller: In the Shadow of the Moon. This week, Netflix’s grasp on “chills” continues to tighten with its release of In the Tall Grass.
(10/07/19 7:08pm)
You’ve probably heard something about Joker, the 2019 origin story of Batman’s famous arch–nemesis. Before it was even released, it already saw a handful of scandals, including its lead actor, Academy Award–nominated Joaquin Phoenix, reportedly walking out on set and cussing out his cinematographer, its director Todd Phillips insisting that he couldn’t make his Hangover series today because of “woke culture”, and a few audience concerns over a repeat of the Aurora shooting in 2012, which took place at a screening of The Dark Knight Rises. However, all of these stories and the criticisms that have followed them are not based on the actual content of the film—only the media circus surrounding it. What, then, is Joker actually about? Does it warrant all this criticism?
(10/08/19 3:52am)
In the introduction of The Politician, Sufjan Stevens' “Chicago” hums over a montage of a wooden body being constructed. That’s a key word—constructed. The body is wooden and hollowed out, a Trojan horse containing the refuse of a privileged, hyper–ambitious life. There’s a purple heart curdling in a vat of steaming black sludge. There are books—biographies of presidents, “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” And eventually, after the body is sewn into a bespoke, jewel–toned suit, we see our main character.
(10/07/19 4:37am)
Twilight is undeniably a cultural touchstone. It defined the current generation of young adults by exposing them at an impressionable age to the world of softcore porn, dramatic romance, and dreamy bad–boys. It singlehandedly ushered in an era of vampire and werewolf fiction, a genre still seen in popular media today like The Vampire Diaries or Teen Wolf. Twilight not only changed the lives of the girls who ate up hundreds and hundreds of pages of theatrical romantic drama, it also revolutionized the world of YA fiction and film. Perhaps most important are the consequences it had for the careers of its two main stars: Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.
(10/04/19 9:31pm)
Reality television is in a weird place right now. The genre, predicated on the idea of reality, has been exposed as being entirely false. In the time since the original release of shows like The Hills and The Bachelor, stars and producers have come forward admitting to the falseness of what we see onscreen (Lauren Conrad even wrote a YA series detailing how little truth there is to reality TV).
(10/01/19 1:04am)
Judy Garland is undoubtedly one of the most famous American actresses of all time. From her lead role in the groundbreaking film The Wizard of Oz to her enduring status as a gay icon to her tragic death at the age of 47, she is not only a part of film iconography but also an emblem of the American entertainment industry. Unfortunately, despite her compellingly tragic life story, the biopic of her life—plainly titled Judy—falls flat when compared to the legend’s stardom and rawness.
(10/01/19 1:28am)
It may not even be October yet, but Netflix already has Halloween on its mind. Recently, Netflix teased a handful of new thriller originals that are being released every Friday throughout the next month. They’re a part of Netflix’s advertisement for a new genre titled “Netflix and Chills”: a name based on the long–dead euphemism. Netflix is now fully targeting thriller and horror audiences, hoping to lure in both younger and older watchers by offering up originals to be watched alongside beloved classics. In the Shadow of the Moon is the first of the new “Netflix and Chills” originals to be added to the genre. Next Friday, we get In the Tall Grass.
(10/04/19 6:18pm)
There’s a girl—a main character in this Netflix Original. She’s not like other girls, though. Other girls wear makeup and dress nice. This girl? She wears sweatshirts, and, even more scandalous, sweatpants. She faces constant ridicule from her classmates. Her family tries their best to make her feel normal, but instead, they make her feel even more ostracized.
(10/01/19 8:32pm)
Ring the service bells, polish the silver, and clean every surface until it “gleams and sparkles,” as Mrs. Carson would say—the Grantham family is back and the same as ever. And the same is completely fine. More than fine, in fact—it’s just right. Downton Abbey, the film, acts as the official conclusion to the identically–titled series that aired its sixth and final season on PBS in 2016. The transition from TV to the big screen is seamless, largely due to the fact that Julian Fellowes, the creator of the Emmy Award–winning series, is the film’s writer, and Michael Engler, who directed much of the series, serves as the film’s director.
