Blogs

WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | Manufacturing Desire in the Movies

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In the early 1900s, people spent less time at work and there was an increase in wages.  For the first time in a while, there was disposable income and more leisure time for the average American.  There was also a major shift from the ethic of production to one of consumption.  Thus, desire was being manufactured at unprecedented rates.  Shopping became an important part of American pop culture, as it was one way to spend leisure time (and money, too).

Arts & Culture

Disdaining Fortune: Macbeth at Cornell Cinema

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Last year saw the release of the latest film adaptation of William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, directed by Justin Kurzel. Gory, passion-driven and gripping, this film captures the vengeful air of Shakespeare’s Scotland well. The film was originally shown at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The audience thought it was so extraordinary that Macbeth received a ten minute-long standing ovation after its screening. Since then, it has received positive reviews across the board, and it has easily become one of my personal favorite Shakespeare adaptations.

Arts & Culture

Self-Reflection: Eye in the Sky

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If Britannia once ruled the waves, America now indisputably rules the skies, and its aerial power is growing ever more precise. First, the USAAF of 1945, then an adjunct limb of the ground forces, could drop phosphorous bombs with impunity on every exposed inch of Dresden. Two decades later, napalm could be used to raze thin stretches of settled and foxhole-littered jungle in Vietnam, sans, supposedly, excessive civilian loss of life. Now, a house in a Kenyan neighborhood can be pinpointed and destroyed from kilometers above with the latest in predator drone technology. This is as much a moral as it is a technological evolution, and it is a moral dilemma which lies at the heart of Eye in the Sky, given limited release in select theaters in the United States this past month.

america

WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | Hollywood and the Blacklist

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The 2015 biopic Trumbo depicts the struggle that many screenwriters faced during the Red Scare. Dalton Trumbo (played by Bryan Cranston), along with nine other screenwriters, was tried and charged for contempt of Congress under the accusation of writing films promoting anti-American ideals.  As a consequence, he and many other writers faced blacklisting, forbidding them from writing and getting paid, wasting an enormous amount of talent. After his jail time, he decided to use the loopholes in his court orders to his advantage. Trumbo wrote films under the identity of Robert Rich (another screenwriter who was away on military leave) and even won an Academy Award for Best Original Story for The Brave One.

Arts & Culture

Reel Talk: A Conversation with Film Editor Rachel Reichman

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After a screening of Hitchcock/Truffaut last week at Cornell Cinema, Sun Staff Writer Mark DiStefano ’16 was fortunate enough to speak with the film’s co-producer and editor, Rachel Reichman. The conversation encompassed favorite films, a liberal arts education, the process of film editing and the nature of art itself. The Sun: What do you see the essential job of an editor to be? Rachel Reichman: Well, for every film it’s different. In documentaries of course, the editor is a stronger participant in the storytelling than they are in narrative work.

Arts & Culture

Mustang: Looking For a Way Out

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With heads of dark, rich, slightly wild and uncontrollable hair, the five orphaned sisters of Turkish-French film director Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang — Lale (Güneş Şensoy), Nur (Doğa Doğuşlu), Ece (Elit İşcan), Selma (Tuğba Sunguroğlu) and Sonay (İlayda Akdoğan) — seem to fly free in their rural Turkish village, independent, bright and happy. But this sense of freedom only remains during the brief beginning prelude before their conservative relatives lock the girls away from the world and try to mold them into perfect wives when the girls are (wrongly) accused of indecent play with male classmates on the beach. A story of female empowerment and of being jolted into adulthood, Mustang’s sisterhood is both beautiful and tragic. We’re guided through the story by Lale, who is the youngest, and in some ways the most visibly rebellious, sister — she seems too young to marry, she enjoys soccer and she sneaks out of her window like she was born to do it. Seeing the world of Mustang through Lale’s eyes is essential.

Arts & Culture

DOOLITTLE | It’s Not the Years, It’s the Mileage: Ageism and Sexism in Hollywood

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I have already gone through the seven stages of grief for Indiana Jones. In the eight years since the lackluster reception and, if I may say, gratuitous backlash to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I had accepted that my favorite cinematic character was dead and buried, interred until the inevitable reboot resurrection returned the whip-cracking archaeologist to the silver screen. Shia LaBeouf pre-not-being-famous-anymore had been set up as the likely standard bearer, or perhaps Chris Pratt would pick up the fedora, but someone had to replace Harrison Ford, who had long expressed a disdain for returning to popular roles. On Tuesday, Disney and Steven Spielberg announced that they were going ahead with the long-gestating fifth Indiana Jones movie, to be released in 2019. Of course, this was to be expected: When Disney bought out Lucasfilm in 2012, they acquired the entire Star Wars saga and the ability to print money, but also the rights to any future treks for the globetrotting acquirer of rare antiquities.

Blogs

WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | So Meta: Movies about Movies

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Movies that walk you through how a movie is made give off a metatheatrical vibe.  The Academy also happens to favor these kinds of film when choosing best picture.  Here  are some films that are reflective of show business. ARGO.  The film that Ben Affleck directed and starred in hit it big at the 2013 Academy Awards, taking home the little golden man for Best Picture.

Arts & Culture

The Mind of the Serpent

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I had big plans when I first sat down to watch The Embrace of the Serpent. Armed with pen and legal pad, I resolved to record every plot point, key quote and stylistic detail. After about two minutes, my tools had fallen to the floor and I stared at the screen, mesmerized, for the next two hours. The third major picture from director Ciro Guerra, The Embrace of the Serpent is engrossing, insightful and beautifully crafted. The film chronicles the journey of two scientists, Theo (Jan Bijvoet) and Evan (Brionne Davis) as they search the Colombian Amazon for the elusive, psychedelic Yakruna plant.

Arts & Culture

Hitchcock/Truffaut at Cornell Cinema

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If you are a film buff, a film major or a filmmaker, the work of Hitchcock should be running on a 24 hour loop inside your head. If you are any of the above and haven’t seen the man’s work, a self-respecting film buff would cry, “What the MacGuffin is wrong with you?” and prescribe you a steady diet of Vertigo, Rear Window, Psycho and others. I’m afraid I am not one of said film buffs who would do such a thing. Yes, I am a PMA major and aspiring filmmaker, but I have never been overtly enamored with the classic films of the great director. Personally, I’m more partial to his earlier work — The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps — and I even wrote a paper in Global I about the perceived lapse in quality — apparently noticed only by myself and Pauline Kael — as Hitch entered Hollywood.