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(10/30/18 12:00pm)
Looking for ideas for a Halloween–y bad movie night? Maybe something to watch with your boo (pun intended)? No matter what you have planned this Halloween, it wouldn’t be right to end the festivities without at least one scary movie under your belt. If you aren’t interested in hitting the theater, Netflix offers a wealth of seasonally–appropriate fare to have you at the edge of your seat all through the crisp October night. From horror classics to recent favorites, here is the best and worst that Netflix has to offer.
(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.
(10/29/18 12:00pm)
So, if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past six months, you know that Election Day is coming up really soon. Like less–than–two–weeks soon. November 6, to be exact. You would also know that the youngest Americans, aged 18 to 29—A.K.A. us—historically have the lowest voter turnout, with less than half showing up to the polls in the 2016 presidential election. But don’t let this discourage you because millennials were also the only age group to report increased voter turnout compared to 2012.
(10/25/18 4:00am)
In The Sisters Brothers, starring Joaquin Phoenix and John C. Reilly, there are no good guys. Our protagonists are quite possibly the farthest we get from sympathetic leads, two hired guns who often get wrapped up in conflict and have to shoot their way out. Charlie Sisters, the younger of the two, is impulsive and violent, and uses his alcoholism as an excuse for his rash behavior to his brother. Eli, the older, struggles to clean up after his brothers' reckless attitude while also harboring a past love and the shadow of the two's murderous father.
Riz Ahmed and Jake Gyllenhaal also star, as a fugitive chemist and the detective after him, respectively, who quickly move past their adversity to join forces in their search for riches. Warren (Ahmed) has developed a formula to quickly locate gold in a river, though it comes with a cost, and the Sisters Brothers are hired to track them down and bring back the formula to their mysterious patron, The Commodore.
Stylistically, The Sisters Bros. is muddy, sleepy, and feels as though seen through a pinhole, at least for the first half, while Eli and Charlie bicker and stumble their way across the Western frontier. It's lack of a distinctive soundtrack is made up for by the steady pace of the plot, and each scene is less begun and ended and more entered and exited as soon as it reaches a peak.
Despite their buffoonery, the two brothers are surprisingly good at their jobs. By the time they locate the two enterprising outlaws, they have left a trail of bodies behind them, without much regard for who they kill. As they move along, it becomes clear that Eli holds most of the emotional core of the film, being forced to bear many burdens as his brothers’ keeper despite being less of an outlaw than his gruff exterior portrays. In a small central cast of four stellar actors, Reilly shines as Eli.
(10/26/18 4:35pm)
A couple of years ago, a friend and I fell victim to a harmless fixation on Salinger’s storytelling. We were sixteen back then and in hindsight, that obsession was a sort of collective mania that we were actually late to join. Late, I say, because it wasn’t The Catcher in the Rye that we read over and over. The culprits in our case were Salinger’s out–of–print publications, a collection of 22 short stories that traced his legacy starting from his time as a student writer at Columbia University to his later success in The New Yorker.
(10/22/18 12:00pm)
Sweaters, falling leaves, pumpkin–flavored everything—you know Halloween is just around the corner when you can smell the autumn in the air. For film lovers, the change in season means an explosion of Halloween–themed film events in every corner of the city. Here are some of Street’s picks:
(10/20/18 11:48pm)
If the increasingly chilly fall weather makes you want to curl up and watch a movie, Philadelphia’s 27th annual film fest is the perfect event for you. The festival, which kicked off on October 18 and runs through October 28, is run by the Philadelphia Film Society (PFS), a nonprofit arts organization. Throughout the year, members of the PFS team scour film festivals for the year’s most critically acclaimed and thought provoking pictures. Keep an eye out for these highly anticipated films; they’ll likely blow up on the big screen in no time.
(10/22/18 12:00pm)
Successfully translating literature for the screen rests in capturing the details of the written word without wearing out the audience. In the case of Swedish Director Björn Runge’s adaptation of the 2003 novel The Wife by Meg Wolitzer, the writer and the power of the word are at the epicenter of this simmering relationship drama. The ramifications of literary genius become the narrative thrust of the film, where the pacing is determined by the conditions of the characters’ inner lives. The result is a film that moves slowly, but deliberately, with every look, gesture, and word building to a blazing crescendo. Meticulous attention to detail is how The Wife makes a not particularly innovative but worthwhile story burn slowly into an intelligent reflection on the dynamics of image, recognition, gender, and talent in the life of a writer.
(10/17/18 12:00pm)
I’ll be honest. I had never heard of A Star is Born before two weeks ago. But one quick Google search revealed that the upcoming film would include some of my favorite stars of today—Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Dave Chapelle… the list goes on.
(10/16/18 12:00pm)
Bad Times at the El Royale is a haunted carnival ride that speeds with excitement in the beginning, slows down in the middle, yet doesn’t disappoint in the end. With its quirkiness, mystery, and thrill, it’s like Wes Anderson, Agatha Christie, and Quentin Tarantino mingled and produced a brilliant problem child.
(10/15/18 12:00pm)
I love Riverdale. I love the eeriness that looms in every episode, the mysteries that keep you on your toes, the idyllic, 50s–esque atmosphere that, like almost all the characters on the show, has a dark side to it. I also love the friendships and relationships. I even love the unrealistic plot twists.
(10/21/18 12:00pm)
Hellishly funny, yet ethically inspiring, season three of The Good Place is a perfect philosophical comedy. In a way, nothing has changed; the corny jokes and feel–good humor still prevail.
(10/16/18 12:00pm)
There were highs and there were lows in Jonah Hill’s 10–year–long transformation from pudgy and easy–to–laugh–at Seth from Superbad to a fully–matured, elegant and brilliant director. There was that time he wore a fedora to a Superbad showing in 2007, but then there was also that time Jonah dyed his hair pink and looked better than anyone expected. But nothing will out–do this time where Jonah Hill takes a step outside of the camera shot and assumes his new role behind the camera on October 19th as the director of his first film “Mid90s.”
(10/20/18 12:00pm)
“Based on a true story...” These are familiar words to any fan of horror films (or even dabblers in the occasional Halloween scare). A few recent, big–name horror flicks that make this boast are The Conjuring and The Strangers, as does the ever–prolific The Exorcist. Most of these “true stories” are unique instances of terror and oddities that happen to different people by different people. There is, however, one true story that has roots in a number of classic horror films, even propagating its own breed of horror tropes. The story is about Ed Gein.
(10/22/18 12:00pm)
After writing about Ghibli Fest, I was reminded of the genius of Hayao Miyazaki's movies and the influence they have had on my life, specifically how one movie has shaped me. Whisper of the Heart is my all–time favorite movie. As I have grown up, it has been a constant source of inspiration and support–so much so that twenty three years after its initial release, during my first semester at Penn, I find myself watching it once more in search of a warm sense of home.
(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.
(10/12/18 12:00pm)
Delivering a healthy dose of reality in unexpected ways is what good comedy does. It takes the truth, reimagines it along the lines of a joke, a situation, or a story, and, if timed just right, results in uncontrollable fits of laughter. Sometimes, it also makes us think, and in the case of Netflix’s Big Mouth, it makes us remember. In its second season, this animated and irreverent exploration of puberty employs absurdity to tackle real–world issues, the pain and perils of growing up, and all that adolescence can teach us about the world. What was already a successful piece of television for its sheer ability to walk a fine line of tolerable vulgarity and ridiculousness has become a lens for reflection on life’s messiness.
(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.
(10/02/18 12:00pm)
If the 2018 Primetime Emmy Awards were defined by one show, it would be “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” which won five awards, the most of any television show this year. It also won five out of six major category nominations, an extremely high return when compared with shows such as Game of Thrones (two out of seven) and The Assassination of Gianni Versace (three out of nine.) A so called Emmys “sweep” is great for the show that gets the prizes, but is generally bad for the television industry.
(10/15/18 12:00pm)
Studio Ghibli Fest, a celebration of one of the most acclaimed Japanese animation studios' works, is a national collaboration that began in 2017 between GKIDS and Fathom Events that brings films from Studio Ghibli onto the big screen in the States. From March to November, one film a month is shown in theaters across America for three days only. Whether you’re a diehard Studio Ghibli fan or you’ve never watched a Ghibli film before, there’s something in these beloved films—and this festival—for everyone.
