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.

Arts & Culture

The Coens Take Hollywood: Hail, Caesar!

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The abundance of non-sequiturs and throwaway scenes in Hail, Caesar! is not unusual as these are the trademark characteristics of the Coen brothers’ work. As A.O. Scott put it, a Coen brothers movie is “a brilliant magpie’s nest of surrealism, period detail and pop-culture scholarship.” While this is true, you must understand before going to Hail, Caesar! that you are basically paying to watch the Coens lovingly recreate all the different styles of Hollywood product from the 1950s — westerns, noirs, swimsuit musicals and melodramas. Their new film is merely a vehicle for them to outright mimic all the films they have paid homage to previously — the Busby Berkeley dance number from The Big Lebowski, the non-self conscious roving landscapes of True Grit, the musical numbers from O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Blogs

WATCH ME IF YOU CAN | Hollywood vs. Television: A Brief History

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After World War II, many things changed in American culture. There was a chain reaction, from soldiers returning home to their families, to the baby boomer generation being born. Thanks to the highway systems built in the 1950s under the Eisenhower administration, families were able to move to the suburbs in order to live more comfortably. This suburbanization became the hallmark of the post-World War II period. On weekends and workweek evenings, families with smaller children would stay home and gather around their television as the primary source of entertainment.

Arts & Culture

Mopping Up an Androcentric Hollywood

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PSA: Sexism still exists, especially in the entertainment industry! After watching Carrie Fisher, the actress who starred in the original Star Wars trilogy reprise the role in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, viewers attacked her appearance across social media and stated that she is “too old to be acting.” After watching Brad Pitt, an actor with gray hair who has clearly aged since his first hints of stardom in The Big Short, viewers hailed him as “the rising star of political cinema”. Quite the discrepancy, if I do say so myself. To be fair, I don’t think any actors should be judged for their looks, but rather for their job, their acting. However, this seems to be an idealistic and unpopular view.

Uncategorized

The Anatomy of Success

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Tony Phelan wanted to be a professional actor. Unfortunately, one of his acting professors at Yale, where he was getting his undergraduate degree in theater and medieval history, told him, “You will never be an actor. You’re just not good enough.”
It is probably safe to say that at Cornell, a majority of the study body has probably felt as though they weren’t good enough. But how many students have actually had a professor say it to their faces — maybe I’ve just had nice professors — but I’m guessing not that many. It’s gotta hurt. Thankfully, all was not lost for Phelan. His professor suggested the possibility of directing, and then he landed the job as the co-executive producer, writer and director of the hit television show Grey’s Anatomy.

Uncategorized

Branching Out To Mr. Casanova

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Hello Cornellians — the few of you who are still lingering in the corners of campus, clutching Daily Suns and awaiting the burning of the Dragon while all your friends fly for warmer climes. I hope you are doing well. And that you are being artsy. I had quite an artsy week this week. First, I got all my music back! External hard drive: working. 70 gigs: accessible once more. Then on Sunday, I spent two hours wandering the Johnson Museum, from where I headed directly to Barnes Hall for the iO String Quartet concert (the seven or eight of you who regularly read the Arts section may have seen my review on Monday — the concert was amazing!). I also saw one of the best worst movies I’ve ever seen. And I got into some awesome new music.

Uncategorized

The Neverending Story

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I’m going through a TV crisis right now and I blame it all on Scrubs. Well, not really just on Scrubs, but on the prevailing belief that the longer a television show runs, the better the show. Think about it. Friends, for instance, will be forever known as the sitcom that ran for ten seasons. But really, Friends could have ended after its eighth season. It would have been remembered just as fondly, perhaps more so.

Uncategorized

Everyone Likes A Good Suck

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When we think of vampires, a negative image usually tends to form in our minds. We imagine creatures of the night, surviving off the blood of humans and killing indiscriminately, without emotion. In the past year, with the release of Twilight, many (mostly adolescent girls and young women) saw this stereotype change. In fact, it seemed that vampires, non mortal creatures, could actually have the potential to garner characteristics that only humans are known to possess. These included empathy, compassion, and in the case of Edward Cullen from Twilight, romantic love.

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He's Just Not That Into You … or Whatever …

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“He’s just not that into you.” For desperate romantics clinging on to a relationship that’s lost all hope, it’s a painful line to hear. The movie He’s Just Not That Into You attempts to instill this very idea into your head by showing the relationship tribulations of various 30-year-olds. Based on Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo’s best-selling relationship advice book, the movie focuses on the large gender difference in perspectives regarding burgeoning relationships. Separate “chapters” of the movie focus on potential problematic issues that can arise, leaving viewers hopeful that they will acquire the goldmine of relationship advice by the end of the film.

Uncategorized

In the Mood for … Blood!

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Boy, are they remaking every horror movie classic or what? First The Hills Have Eyes and its pointless sequel, then Rob Zombie’s (re)take on Halloween, then Prom Night (ugh), and Black Christmas (blarf) and now the unholy goalie Jason Voorhees gets the treatment. What next? Elm Street again? Last House on the Left? Wait they are remaking those? Really? Why? Why?!