Author: Andrew Rostan

“Moving at a Meteor Speed:” Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp a Butterfly”

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27 year-old Kendrick Lamar’s first major-label LP, good kid, m.A.A.d. city, was one of the best albums of recent memory (in my opinion). Lamar’s poetic gifts blended perfectly with an ultra-minimalist backdrop appropriate to his complex tale of gangs, struggle, and redemption in Compton. On To Pimp a Butterfly, the lyrics are still the same superb quality, but the music has gotten larger to match a concept that demands even more attention and asks more demanding questions.

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The Education of “The Hunting Ground”

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rsz_the-hunting-ground-poster-691x1024Andrew: Annie Clark and Andrea Pino had two things in common when they met. One, they were very proud students of the University of North Carolina. Two, they had been raped on campus. Their accusers were never punished. And when they took a stand against UNC’s handling of the situation, the school’s chief legal counsel, a woman, emphatically declared they were completely wrong.

This story is that it is all too common across America, and this epidemic of sexual assault and institutional misogyny in our colleges is the subject of two-time Oscar nominee Kirby Dick’s new documentary, The Hunting Ground, which, for several reasons, is one of the most heartbreaking and important films to come out this decade.

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies: The Burgundy and the Beautiful

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on current pictures or important movies from the past.

This is a Great Chicagoan.

This is a Great Chicagoan.

In 1969, the directories of Chicago counseling services began including a group known only as “Jane.” Jane did not provide psychiatric help or twelve-step programs. Jane—organized by UChicago student Heather Booth—was a network of sympathetic doctors and trained women who provided safe abortions, operating in various apartments, ready to flee at a second’s notice. Jane performed 11,000 abortions, and potentially saved and improved as many lives, by the time of Roe v. Wade.

This was a story I’d never heard before.

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies: Tales of Heroes and Obsessions (or The DVD Roundup)

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on current pictures or important movies from the past.

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Two and a half months into the year, and some of us have a little pocket money from tax refunds or changes at the job. In what will be an ongoing feature of this column, I spotlight some brand-new DVD reissues from the past three months that you should seek out to buy or rent.

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“What Makes Life Worth Living” – The Last Man on Earth

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The Last Man on Earth’s pilot opens with a lovingly shot montage of the United States, set to the whimsical music of Mark Mothersbaugh, that reveals itself as a comic set-up with more than one hilarious payoff. The mixture of genuinely felt emotion and exuberant absurdist humor, common to the work of creator/star Will Forte and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, quickly sets the tone for the whole program, whose first night suddenly and excitedly suggested far more than the initial advertising campaign promised.

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies: Getting Through the Spring

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on either current pictures or important movies from the past.

This is what we're all dreaming of right now...

This is what we’re all dreaming of right now…

The Oscars are over and it will be at least nine months until we start prognosticating for the 2016 show. The number-one film at the box office is a horribly bad mix of Twilight fanfic, kinkiness, and misogyny. The studios are in the springtime doldrums with no LEGO Movie or Grand Budapest in sight like there were last year. Thankfully, libraries and Netflix have a tremendous selection of classic or overlooked films waiting for you to fall in love with them.

But that’s the problem: there are so many movies out there that it can be difficult to pick  one.

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies: The Short Program

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on either current pictures or important movies from the past.

The Outlier of the Oscars

The Short Films are the Academy Awards that too easily get overlooked. Casual moviegoers recognize the candidates in almost every major category and can often pick out most of the Animated Feature, Documentary, and Foreign Language Film nominees, but for the ten minutes the Shorts take over the program, 99% of the time movies people have never heard made my equally anonymous filmmakers receive the honor that has proved elusive to so many titans of history.

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The Grand Budapest Pharrell and Other Matters: The Best and Worst of the Grammys

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This happened.

This happened.

One key idea I’ve always stressed in writing about the Grammys for the Recorder is that the awards themselves are nonsensical. Just go back to my Album of the Year reviews and tell me how to compare Ed Sheeran and Beyonce. It’s impossible. We care about these awards not for what gets given (as in the Oscars) but for the performance factor, the chance to see all the biggest names in music on one stage, seeing who rises to the occasion and who…doesn’t.

With that in mind, here’s our official recap of the best and worst moments of last night’s show. And congratulations to Beck for winning Album of the Year for the difficult, but lovely, Morning Phase! And for getting all Simon and Garfunkel with Chris Martin on a lovely “Heart is a Drum!”

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Mr. Rostan at the Movies: “Red Desert” and the Formation of Self

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on either current pictures or important movies from the past.

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Right now, besides writing about movies for this site, I am working on my first screenplay since moving here from Los Angeles. It’s a script that I am immensely proud of but could never have imagined telling when I first set out on my path as a writer. Why that is, and why I write about the films I do on here, requires a small story.

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A “Mr. Rostan at the Movies” Special: Clint Eastwood’s “American Sniper”

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Andrew Rostan was a film student before he realized that making comics was his horrible destiny, but he’s never shaken his love of cinema. Every two weeks, he’ll opine on either current pictures or important movies from the past.

It is almost impossible to write this piece without SPOILERS, especially since most people know the story already. But just in case, be warned.

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