(Here there be spoilers!)
The Marvel movies keep getting it right. They’re not perfect–there are things I would love to see done in a different way, and movies I want to see that aren’t being made (Black Widow), but what they are doing, they’re doing better than anyone else.
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.
One of the questions I wrestle with as both a creative writer and Recorder critic is what makes a story work; determining what a story wants and needs to give its audience and how well it fulfills those objections. The Avengers: Age of Ultron, which for many was the most anticipated film of 2015, offers a complex answer to these questions. The movie has several flaws, ranging from glaring to subtle, that keep it from being fully successful…and I have to balance these flaws with the knowledge that I had a hell of a good time at this movie.
On Monday, May 4th, HBO unveiled a new documentary about the life and demise of tortured Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, directed by Brett Morgen. A quick trip to Wikipedia will tell you that this is the first documentary about the singer/guitarist to be made with the cooperation of the Cobain family. It’s currently streaming on HBO Go after debuting at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
So, you’re probably wondering: should I watch this documentary?
Short answer: yes.
Long answer: Here’s why.
How Does This Hold Up? is a series where Alex and a guest check out a movie they haven’t seen in ages or that they’ve always been meaning to watch. They’ll compare the experience of watching these movies now to when they first saw or heard of them and explore the differences there-in. [Read more…]
We here at The Addison Recorder read stuff. We also watch stuff. And play stuff, even. Sometimes, that stuff is interesting. Sometimes we just need to talk about whatever pop culture ephemera occupies our time. Soar on. [Read more…]
How Does This Hold Up? is a series where Alex and a guest check out a movie they haven’t seen in ages or that they’ve always been meaning to watch. They’ll compare the experience of watching these movies now to when they first saw or heard of them and explore the differences there-in. [Read more…]
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.
Next week, there’s a movie opening in which James Spader takes on eight or nine lost creatures in a duel for the fate of humanity. I kid because I know Age of Ultron will rake in more than the entire Recorder staff will make in our lives 100 times over. Thinking about this sure thing, however, led me down one of my inquisitive rabbit holes. What in a movie attracts the mass audience to go see it? What is the nature of the blockbuster?
The Mask You Live In, the new documentary from director Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the guiding force behind 2011’s Miss Representation, takes us from negative media portrayals of women to the other side of the gender spectrum to answer the question: “As a society, how are we failing our boys?” American boys, the film posits, are born into a culture that saddles them with a construct of masculinity that is both impossible to attain and destructive to pursue.
Through interviews with sociologists, activists, psychologists, neuroscientists and other experts, as well as personal stories from everyday boys and men, the filmmakers present a compelling argument that we are robbing boys and young men of the freedom to express their feelings, experience intimacy or participate in certain activities deemed not “manly” enough. The cost of this deprivation is high. The film explains how the demand for hyper-masculinity contributes to all manner of social ills including sexism, rape culture, transphobia, homophobia and violence. [Read more…]
How Does This Hold Up? is a series where Alex and a guest check out a movie they haven’t seen in ages or that they’ve always been meaning to watch. They’ll compare the experience of watching these movies now to when they first saw or heard of them and explore the differences there-in.
Andrew: 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.