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(03/16/18 1:00pm)
Watching Call Me By Your Name, I was captivated, not by its lurid, nostalgic romance, but by that feeling of déjà vu that I could not shake off. Maybe it’s because queer cinema and literature has risen in mainstream prominence and acceptance (about time!), with Moonlight winning Best Picture in the 89th Academy Awards and CMBYN, Best Adapted Screenplay in the 90th Academy Awards. In these narratives are shared themes and connections—of sexuality, of fruit, and of foreignness, hence the déjà vu.
(03/19/18 1:00pm)
I’ve been a fan of Felly for a few years now, and for as long as I can remember, his "thing" was strawberries: he had strawberry merch, strawberries in his music videos, and even an album titled Wild Strawberries that features pictures of him picking the fruit. However, it wasn’t until recently that I realized that it wasn’t just Felly who was using this symbol seemingly arbitrarily.
(03/23/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/18/18 1:00pm)
In July 2012, Frank Ocean released his debut album Channel Orange to critical acclaim and commercial success. It was the culmination of the hype that built from his 2011 appearances on Kanye West and Jay–Z’s Watch the Throne, his membership in the hip hop collective Odd Future, his openness about his sexuality, and his popular mixtape Nostalgia, Ultra. Everyone was ready for Ocean to take over the music industry. We all know what happened after.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/15/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/16/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/04/18 2:11am)
Think: When was the last time you read a book for fun? Was there ever even a last time? In the midst of spring break, the threat of midterms and problem sets is (hopefully) gone, so what better chance to catch up (or pick up for the first time) on your reading than now by the beach in Cancun? Here are Street’s best picks for Spring Break.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
Of the many clubs on campus, few serve simply as an outlet for us, let alone a creative outlet. There are of course the typical consulting and finance clubs that seem to have insurmountable barriers of entry. On the other end of the spectrum there are the performing arts groups who spend days and nights together to work on shows. In between are the vast array of other clubs, many of which emanate preprofessional vibes regardless of whether or not they are preprofessional in nature.
(03/13/18 1:00pm)
For anyone familiar with Penn Housing, it’s easy to say that the housing facilities aren’t exactly prime. Rooms are small, buildings are infested with vermin and their offspring, and when nothing is leaking, there’s an elevator broken somewhere. Regardless, what makes up for the somewhat lackluster interior is its facade. I’m referring to, of course, the Quad.
(03/13/18 1:00pm)
To read the written word is one thing: it allows one to understand the self, to connect with others, and even to fantasize in an imagined world. But to hear the written the word—that’s a completely separate thing. That’s exactly what “LIVE at the Writers House” does. Occuring six times a year, LIVE at the Writers House airs a “one–hour broadcast of poetry, music, and other spoken–word art, along with one musical guest from the Writers House onto the airwaves at WXPN.”
(03/04/18 2:00pm)
“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.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
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.
(03/13/18 1:00pm)
Telling my friends to read more poetry is always an uphill battle. Thanks to murky metaphysical poems like Donne’s “The Flea” and convoluted comparisons of symbolism, poetry has been pushed aside as too difficult to understand. I get it. Sometimes, it does require a lot more patience and effort that goes against everything the efficiency–oriented mind of a Penn student knows. But that’s exactly what I love about it.
(03/13/18 1:00pm)
When you visit Hadeel Saab’s (C ‘20) Facebook profile, her featured photos aren’t of that one night out with a group of friends or that really good solo shot. No, it’s a close–up of a bouquet of roses. It’s an aerial view of the skyline, the blue sky pinched by a fluttering rainbow parachute. It’s a canal by a street spotted by buildings that clearly have a story behind them. The choice of these photos is telling of the kind of artist Hadeel is, a kind of artist who finds the beauty in the everyday through multiple lenses, even if that means the most banal of things.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
When you hit your 20s, being an anime fan who wants adult friends who aren’t necessarily also into ninjas, super–powered high school girls, and giant mech battles proves quite the challenge. Aside from closeting your weeaboo status, one of the textbook methods to avoid universal derision and disdain is attempting to argue for certain shows’ inherent worth and that they’re “not all like Dragonball and Naruto, dude, you should really check some out.” The go–to series for this phenomenon is Cowboy Bebop, Shinichiro Watanabe’s Space–Western, also famous for its heavy jazz–influenced soundtrack. Its genius and cult status amongst American audiences is often explained due to this mixing of styles from east and west.
(03/14/18 1:00pm)
Before sitting down to listen to this album, the only Vance Joy song I’ve ever heard was "Riptide." Based on how much I liked that song, I was excited when I saw Nation of Two show up in my Release Radar on Spotify. However, after listening to it all the way through, I have to say it was one of the most mediocre albums I’ve ever sat through.
(03/02/18 2:00pm)
Hello, friends. It's time again for your weekly roundup of this week’s wildest music industry news. It seems that whatever craziness goes down in this world, the music industry always takes the cake for the strangest, most obscure—yet relevant—completely off the wall stories. From alleged kidnappings (what!?) to appearances on Family Feud, to just genuinely exciting announcements of new projects in the works, here are Street’s top picks from the soup that was this week.
(03/13/18 1:00pm)
It’s been a minute since Logic sounded like the rapper we were first introduced to with mixtapes such as the Young Sinatra trilogy. It’s not that subsequent releases since then have been poor or completely lacking of the same rapid–fire delivery and hard–hitting braggadocio found on his early mixtapes; it’s that the tone has simply felt different. Under Pressure felt like a biographical album, The Incredible True Story served as a concept record, Bobby Tarantino sounded like a fun but vapid mixtape, and Everybody was a politically charged release.
