Gloomy Retrospective

I. Taylor Swift doesn't improvise well. A lot of her public image is this precise, detailed, mass-marketable girl-next-door pop star whose existence is a testament to the juggling act of her and her PR team. And her success, from her days as a teenager singing wholesome truths to America's teens and too-old-to-be-teens, up to her sell-out to pop music and becoming a provocateur of the iconography of pop music in general, has been this tightly controlled ship that gave her success in spite of the music and the authenticity of the product that she was selling. And with all of this, Taylor Swift became a powerful figure, one who can wage war with companies like Spotify over petty things like money; one who could be deaf for most issues of feminism except for the ones that affected her (the case she made famous where she destroyed a DJ's career for a dollar is a satisfying, but ultimately petty, show of power that works regardless of what movement she was in); and one who...

"Colossal" is a 2016 film directed by Nacho Vigalondo and starring Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis, about a woman with some alcohol problems who learns about a strange gift she has control over. I'm not going to spoil anything, because honestly, it's much better that you know near-nothing about this movie going in. But I will say that this is one strange f***ing movie. Let me elaborate. The central conceit of the story is quite ingenious, but writer/director Nacho Vigalondo twists the story so that it turns into a strong running commentary about empowerment, societal misogyny, substance addiction, the lack of empathy in mass blockbuster death and destruction, and the fake quirkiness of indie romantic comedies. It was so fascinating to watch something so ambitious out of what I thought was going to be another quirky romantic comedy, but with a monster. Because it catches you off-guard with its intentions, the points stick much more than if it were a typical ...

I've seen a lot of coming-of-age films over the years, mostly because I had the time to. And it's a fun genre, filled with humor and insight on the teenage mindset--and sometimes devastatingly tragic conclusions that just break your heart a bit (like a supposedly stupid sex comedy "Last American Virgin" ending on such a downer). Some of cinema's most enduring images come from the genre, whether it's John Bender's raised fist, or Ferris Bueller's smug face, or apple pies being f***ed by an idiot (although, honestly, I remember the "At band camp lines better). In my head, though, the final scene of "2 Cool 2 Be 4Gotten" belongs there in that pantheon. Etched in my head forever is that ending, seeping in ambiguity, raised from the simplicity of its imagery by the film that went before it, that creates conversation on its meaning, as well as refusing to resolve the tension the movie built up in its honest bid to be eternally tattooed i...

I had a whole review written up, but honestly this movie was too unambitious and slight to care about. If it were aiming for more, or if it was more interesting, I might care more, but my take on this movie is simple: It's OK. Sam Raimi's films were better. Michael Keaton was underused. And homage does not equal interesting. It's not worth the 750 words.

[Spoiler warning: I Will Talk About What Happens in the Revival and the Seven Original Seasons of "Gilmore girls"] So, for most of the two months in between school, I've been spending a lot of it re-watching TV series that I grew up with, most likely as a bid for cheap nostalgia and/or because familiarity is comfy like the carcass of a woolly mammoth. The one I most frequently re-watched was "The Office (US)" because that series is both hilarious and well-made, but I want to talk about the Gilmore girls revival, because it's something that I re-watched after binge-watching the six seasons that came before it (Yes, six, because f*** the seventh season with its bullshit Lorelei and Christopher marriage that they didn't have the guts to follow through with and instead just po-po through it for a few episodes before breaking them up when it could've been explored more, damn it). Personally, I had no problem with "A Year in the Life": ...