Argo Review

I've never left a movie feeling like I needed to smoke a thick joint just to unwind me from the fetal position. I felt like smoking 10 of those after watching Argo.

Argo tells the story of 6 Americans who escaped from the American Embassy during the Iranian hostage crisis and hid in the Canadian Embassy. Tony Mendez, Ben Affleck, comes up with a unique plan to sneak the hostages out of Iran and past the revolutionary guards; pretend they're a film crew location scouting for a movie.

The lie is brilliant. Who else but Americans would try and location scout for a movie during one of the most tense international standoffs? Who else but Americans from Hollywood? It's so cheeky and absurd you'd think it only belonged in the movies if it hadn't really happened. Tony Mendez actually got these 6 Americans out of Iran with this exact lie.

Argo opens with a cartoon illustration of some very needed context of the history of Iran, including the not so innocent role the United States plays in all of it. Now that the viewers are up to speed and can understand the gravity of the situation, we see the American Embassy and thousands of Iranians protesting outside the gates. Tense doesn't begin to describe it. There's panic and chaos. The embassy workers race to destroy visa plates and confidential documents. Six officers go rogue and escape using a side entrance while the rest hold out a desperate hope that the Iranian government will step in. It's to to avail. Soon the protesters have breached the gates and stormed the building. Just when you think you're going to implode from the tension, the film takes a soft turn and introduces the film's American characters.

Director Affleck adds to the visceral and terrifying mood of the film by manipulating some of his modern day film to make it look like a grainy 1970's home movie. This allows for real archival footage to mesh seamlessly with the film. It looks so convincing that it's almost hard to tell what's real news footage and what isn't. The blend of unaltered film, grainy film, and archival footage makes the film a much more authentic and tense experience. While it may be a movie, Affleck is making sure you never forget that this actually happened.

I could safely assume that Argo is a strong contender for Academy recognition, especially in the best picture category. The Academy loves a true story, and what would appeal more to voters than a story about Hollywood saving six valiant Americans? The rode the positive momentum it received from Toronto straight into opening weekend and has garnered praise ever since. It seems a shoe-in for a nomination and definitely a strong contender for the Oscar.

So if you haven't seen Argo yet, you should. Be prepared for a tense, gripping, palm sweating experience. Terrifying one minute and dry and witty the next, you'll relish every moment of the film about a film.

Review: Tiny Furniture

Tiny Furniture is a not a story. A story has an exposition, a climax, and falling action. Since films tell stories, many follow this rubric of dramatic action. Tiny Furniture is a reflection of life. Like life, it is filled with small ups and downs and small personal crises. It doesn’t always follow the neat construction of a story. When Aura moves home after graduating from college, she is forced to reconcile her worthless major in film theory with her lack of motivation and direction. The result is a frustrating and stagnant portrait of a frustrating and stagnant time in a young person’s life.

            Aura, Lena Dunham, moves back into her parents’ house in New York City without much ceremony, just after graduation. Freshly broken up with her longtime college boyfriend and with no career plans to speak of, she gets a job as a hostess at a local restaurant. Since her sister Nadine, Grace Dunham, and her mother Siri, Laurie Simmons, couldn’t care less that she is home, Aura fills her time reconnecting with her crazy childhood friend Charlotte, Jemima Kirke. Through her she meets Jed, Alex Karpovsky, who soon becomes a leech-like house guest not at all interested in Aura, romantically or socially. With that relationship going nowhere, Aura tries to kindle one with the chef at work, Keith, David Call. While there seems to be a connection, Aura Keith’s girlfriend thwarts her efforts. When he reveals they are unhappy, Aura takes her chance and they share a brief sexual encounter that leads nowhere. Aura quits her job, kicks Jed out of the house as demanded by her mother, and finds her relationship with Keith at a dead end. The film ends without ceremony, the same way it began.

            Lena Dunham not only starred in but directed and wrote the film as well. 24 years old at the time of its release and a recent graduate, you might say she relates easily to her character’s sudden upheaval into the real world. You would be correct in more ways than one. Lena Dunham can relate to her character easier than most because not only did she experience the same events as Aura, but her real life mother and sister play Aura’s mother and sister. Yes, Lena Dunham made a movie about her life, starring herself and her family, which takes place in her family’s real apartment. She turned her experience into a surreal example of art imitating life.

So if parts of the film seem amateur, it’s because they are amateur. Dunham’s sister and mother are not actors. Neither is Jemima Kirke, who plays Charlotte. At times, the film comes off as a cross between a documentary and a film school final project, but it’s also strangely compelling to watch. Dunham has no problem baring it all, which is probably why she felt so comfortable making a film that hits so close to home. She often appears on screen looking like she hasn’t showered. Other times she’s even in the shower, naked. Other times she’s just naked. It makes for a squeamish viewing, but one that reflects the ordinary rawness of real life. The dialogue feels casual and spontaneous, as if unplanned or unrehearsed. So faithfully true to life, parts of it come off as life sometimes is; dull. Subtle might be an understatement.  It walks a fine line between deliberate and random, sometimes coming up short in the momentum department. Still, it captures the essence of life while managing to keep the viewer intrigued and bewitched by the ordinary.

In Tiny Furniture, it is not so much what happens as what does not happen. Aura never can muster a relationship with Jed. She never finds a job worthy of her college degree. She refuses to move out of her parents’ house. Even when things do happen, they’re not life changing events, but subtle occurrences. She quits her job because she hates it. Her hamster dies. She finds her mother’s old diaries. That’s probably why the film is so frustrating to watch. Not without purpose, the lack of action in the plot echoes the lack of action in Aura’s life. Fresh out of college, she’s caught in between post-grad and pre-career. She is searching for the life she wants to live and the person she wants to become, but she doesn’t know where to start, nor does she make any attempts at starting. Her admittance into post-grad purgatory many can relate to, especially relevant in our current economic recession. Dunham doesn’t use dramatic story lines to illustrate post-graduate depression, but rather the lack of dramatic story lines. Aura’s life is a series of small failures and even smaller triumphs. Dunham’s script deliberately lacks action to parallel the lack of action in Aura’s life.

While Tiny Furniture made waves in the Indie film scene, the film inspired something much more groundbreaking; Girls. When Judd Apatow saw Dunham’s freshman film, he hired her to create a TV show for HBO. They worked together to create Girls, a show about four recent graduates trying to make it in NYC and failing a lot of the time. Endearing and true to life, Girls plays like a more polished version of Tiny Furniture. It immediately grabs and holds your attention with biting humor and relatable characters. While the story lines are realistic and typical for a post-grad, they are also more deliberate and dramatically motivated. Relevant and courageous, Girls blazes trails doing what no show has done before. It celebrates a group of fantastically flawed girls failing fantastically, and on occasion triumphing.

In the last scene of the movie, Aura crawls into her mother’s bed to tell her about her horrific one and only date with Keith. Even when she tells her the most jarring part of the story, Aura's mother shows little concern. Instead, she asks her to move a clock so that the ticking doesn’t keep her from sleeping. Aura moves it into the bathroom, but her mother can still hear it. “Yea but only a little bit, right?” Aura replies. No matter how far Aura puts real world responsibilities from her mind, she can still hear them ticking from the bathroom. The clock reminds her that they won’t go away. Even worse, time marches on regardless. Tiny Furniture is an unapologetic, understated portrait of a time in our lives when we just want to ignore the ticking clock.

Directed by Lena Dunham; Written by Lena Dunham; Produced by Kyle Martin and Alicia Van Couvering; With Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, and Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky; Runtime 98 minutes 

The Awkward Girl Revolution

Revolutions are controversial topics. Historians have been known to debate them for centuries. They argue over when it started, who is responsible, and when it ended. Unless you are taking a 4th grade history class, there is never a straight answer to any of these questions. Therefore, I know some may not agree with me when I say that the Awkward Girl revolution is upon us, but I believe her time has come. Allow me to make my case.

Let me first clarify the Awkward Girl. She is not just a nerd, although she can have aspects of a nerd. She is not extremely weird, just on the far end of quirky. But the single most defining aspect of the Awkward Girl is that she has flaws. She makes mistakes and is self-conscious of them. Still, her life is a constant cycle of mistakes and attempts at redemption. 

The Awkward Girl has found her way into mainstream culture. With the rise of feminism, movies and television showcased many fine and groundbreaking examples of strong, beautiful, and independent women. These days, a show about a strong and independent woman isn't groundbreaking; it's normal. If there was something to prove about women being capable, they proved it. They proved that women could be just as good if not better than men. That's old news now, and with good reason. We've reached a new era now, an era that let's all the flaws hang out in the open. 

But why now? Some would argue that the revolution already happened. Some would argue it hasn't happened yet. I would like to assert that it is happening now, based on three tv shows; Awkward, New Girl, and Girls. While shows like 30 Rock, The Office, and Parks and Rec feature many awkward or gawky characters, awkwardness is not the star of the show. It's just a faithful sidekick. Awkward, New Girl, and Girls put the Awkward girl in the title role and their plots revolve around the redemption of the Awkward Girl's mistakes. And audiences are eating it up. Awkward is in its third season and going strong, one of the few scripted shows on MTV. New Girl received  multiple Emmy nominations with Awkward Girl poster girl Zooey Deschanel at the helm. Girls proved itself a critical knockout and received many Emmy nominations and one win. 

In some ways it's more liberating than watching shows about strong, independent, super-human women. These women might be inspirational, but at some point it becomes an unattainable goal. The success of shows about the Awkward Girl prove that audiences are beginning to tire of  the Kim Kardashian look-alikes having a great career, always getting the guy, and being secret agent Angelina Jolie spies. They want girls that are real. Painfully and awkwardly real.

Discuss!

Film Review: Romance and Cigarettes

When my professor assigned the movie "Romance and Cigarettes" for a homework assignment, I was excited. Score! Movies for homework! Biology majors, envy me! Then I watched it and realized the cruel joke my professor was playing on us. This movie was not going to be normal and it was not going to be easy to interpret, but it was still better than biology.

"Romance and Cigarettes" tells the story of a working class man, Nick Murder, who has just been caught cheating by his wife. Throughout the film he tries to negotiate his feelings of lust for his mistress with his feelings of resentment but love for his wife and the family they have together. Except there's a twist; it's a musical. It's a twisted, sadistic, terrifying musical. Pregnant prostitutes dance in the street, Christopher Walken murders his lover, James Gandolfini sings tied up in chains, James Gandolfini sings....it's absolutely nuts. Then there's Kate Winslet's character, or at least someone who vaguely resembles Winslet. My jaw dropped with the first scene and I couldn't reattach it to my face until the movie ended. 

The director, John Turturro, didn't just want to make a grey movie about working class America. He also didn't just want to make a flashy musical, so he made both. He combined the spontaneity and showmanship of a 50's musical with the quiet desperation of the American working class. The result is a zany and whimsical yet dark and raunchy romp. I found myself asking how all these "A List" actors could have been roped into playing these parts, but you gotta give them credit. A movie as strange as this one demands complete commitment from its players, and the actors in this film deliver nothing less. They commit whole heatedly to playing out these desperate and sometimes animalistic characters. 

Despite how shocking the film comes off, it has a message that any person can understand; we all need a little romance in our lives. Turturro suggests needing romance may even be a vice, but something we need all the same. The characters fantasized that their lives amount to something more magical than the reality they know is their own. This theme is established early on in the film, when Nick's wife finds a rhyming note written to his mistress. She thinks he is ridiculous, but he exclaims "it's poetry!" The rest of the film focuses on how ordinary people living ordinary lives try to find the "poetry" in their lives. Though the places they find it might be a little wacky (the lingerie store, the diner, a cheap motel room), Turturro sets out to prove that our lives would be empty without romance. 

The Graduate Student

I am a college student. I wear athletic clothes to class. Sometimes I forget to wear makeup. I stay up late. I procrastinate. I make poor decisions. I wear a backpack that could get me through a trek in the Himalayas. I don't always read for class. But I go to class. I go to class and I face my arch nemesis; the Graduate Student.

The Graduate Student is always on time. They are always dressed well, usually in Toms or a cardigan they grew in their garden. Their hair is done, their makeup is touched up. They don't wear backpacks; they're too good for backpacks. They ALWAYS read for class, and they never miss a day to come to class and prove that they've read and that they are the intellectual superior of any undergrad around.

The Graduate Student does not aim to blend in. Whether it is through attire, long winded answers, or their location at the front of the classroom right under the Professor's nose, they seek always to stick out. If one was to wear a blindfold, one could still pick out the Graduate Student from the class by identifying the one who goes on for the longest about nothing. If they cite any book by a Russian author, they are a PH.D. Student.

The Graduate Student always has a paper and a pen, usually a fountain pen. They always bring their books to class and display them on their desk for everyone to see how prepared they are. Next to their book will be a cup of organic, fair trade coffee. The coffee is key- you cannot be a good graduate student without coffee.

The Graduate Student might even be your teacher, God help you. Since they have no other way of making money, they must sell their souls to the university and teacher the classes no self respecting professor will touch. Ironically, they relish this position of pseudo-authority. They teach using only abstract concepts and words they learned in their GRE prep course. They only call on you on Monday and Friday mornings. Their reading assignments are the longest and the most dense. They grade your papers harder than any professor at Yale ever will. They look forward to every day they can punish the undergrads.

The Undergrad must work hard to not be influenced by the Graduate Student. They must hold on to their carefree, youthful attitude that the Graduate Student envies. But most of all, we must always care less than they Graduate Student. Undergrads must not start wearing messenger book bags. Undergrads must never wear ties to class. Most importantly, Undergrads must never acknowledge any classroom contribution from the undergrad that does not pertain directly to the current discussion topic. We will not tolerate War and Peace references in an economics class. Apathy is the only peaceful way to fight them, because it is what the Graduate Student envies most. They try to outshine us because they desperately want to be us. They want to be back in college, making poor decisions and drinking soda for breakfast.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper due tomorrow that I can't finish until I've watched an entire season of Glee.

My not so insightful post about my summer

This past summer, I felt an unusual feeling; boredom. I had just returned from Europe, only had 4 weeks until I returned to school, and had no job or tasks to accomplish. My mother suggested that I organize our armoire downstairs, a piece that had been a catch-all for family photos since I can remember. Stupendous, I thought to myself, I have a purpose! This project will maybe take three, maybe five days tops. How wrong I was. The remains of the project that I started in June are still scattered across our dinning room table as of yesterday, September 5. My mother has not asked me to help out around the house since.

What I thought would take days turned out to be a massive project, one that involved cataloging not just my life but the lives of all my immediate family members. My mother, like all young mothers, had taken countless pictures of my brother and I. We seem to age by the day as we are young, then much quicker as the years progress. We might have had a hope of finishing the project had my dad's cousin not decided to pile on another set of photos. When he returned from Louisiana, he had an entire box filled to the brim with much older pictures. It seemed my Aunt Renee was cleaning out her photos too, and giving the excess to us. We put the box aside and tried not to think about it. This past labor day, I finally retrieved the box and decided to tackle these pictures once and for all.

Turns out my great-grandparents had a photo collection that rivals the Smithsonian. This one box had everything from candid pictures to newspaper clippings, with a few elementary school diplomas in between. They had photo after photo of snow days, vacations, parties, graduations, the list was endless. We even found my Dad's birth announcement, expressed in oil rigging terms, i.e. "Well sprung Sept 9th" etc. Though I had never met Agnes and Willie, it was clear through these pictures that my great-grand parents had lived a full and happy life. Parties, Christmas gatherings, kids, relatives, trips to Europe, they truly lived. With every photo I felt as if I had gotten to know another piece of them. They took such care in archiving every aspect of their lives, in a time when it wasn't as easy to do so. I never found any scandalous pictures, someone having an affair, past loves, confidential area 54 documents. Not finding these didn't take away from the pictures. My tale of archiving didn't have to read like a Nicholas Sparks novel for it to mean something to me. It was enough just to get to see the past through the eyes of a camera.

And that was the second half of my summer. Not as cool as Europe, but close.

Hype and the nature of the "Beasts"

Recently, my Aunt has been recommending a certain movie to anyone who will listen. The lifelong resident of Louisiana was endorsing none other than the indie breakout hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild". Though she had yet to see the movie herself, she knew it was set in Louisiana and that it was getting some major awards from some major film festivals. Someone failed to mention to my dear Aunt that I was actually in France at that very moment, watching "Beasts" premiere at the Cannes Film Festival with an introduction by the director. The film culminated in a standing ovation lasting five minutes. Still, I left the theater feeling like there was a bit more to be desired. I was suffering from the same affliction my aunt had just caught and was spreading around to anyone who would listen; Hype.

Most of the festival goers in Cannes had heard of the glorious reception "Beasts" received at Sundance. It was at the top of the list of must-see movies for me and my fellow students. The film tells the story of Hushpuppy, a young  girl living in a remote and impoverished community outside the levee system in southern Louisiana. A simple story, it has a "Precious" like impact when viewers see just how poor they really are. Hushpuppy's father looks after her, though their relationship leans toward abusive at times. When a hurricane comes, the folks of the "bathtub" refuse to leave their homes. They must stick together to survive the storm and the oppressive government who tries to rescue them from themselves. "Beasts" proves to be a well made film, one that weaves a heartfelt and delicate story. I probably would have liked it a lot, had it not been for The Hype. The Hype made me question why I did not express my undying love for the film. The Hype made me question my opinions. The Hype confused me. It was a blessing and a curse.

If there was one aspect of the film holding me back from really enjoying it, it was the reaction of the town to the flood. Having grown up in Louisiana, I knew what it was like to evacuate for a flood, driving contraflow on the highway. People that don't leave or choose to stay, even in mild cases, might not survive the storm. For the film to champion a group of people who stayed put with brazen abandon was to make light of a situation that shouldn't be made light of. They didn't stay because they had no where to go or no means of getting out, but because they lacked the education to know any better. This made my aunt's recommendation all the more ridiculous. It was recommending "Jersey Shore" to Italians, "Swamp People" to Cajuns.

All this I could have swallowed, had it not been for The Hype. Of course, I probably wouldn't have seen the movie had it not been for The Hype, and my aunt wouldn't be professing its talent to her book clubs and bunko nights. Cinema catch 22? Close enough.

Reruns and the City

When me and my 5 other female roommates moved into our house late this summer, we had no cable or internet. Forced to resort to more antiquated forms of entertainment, we turned to the DVD player. I pulled out Season 2 of Sex and the City, discs that I had casually thrown into my bag. While I have long been a devout follower of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte, I didn't expect all of my roommates to feel the same way. But when one of them rejoiced at the gem I had just pulled, the rest had no choice but to sit down and watch the only moving screen in the house.
My generation, the college age girls, find ourselves in a unique perspective with regards to Sex and the City. Most of us know what it is, the more educated have watched severely edited reruns on E! or TBS. However, to be indoctrinated into the true SATC culture akin to that of the late nineties and early millennium, one has to watch them in their unedited glory. This inevitably leads to a quick and gripping addiction similar to the one my roommates find themselves in now. SATC dominates our television. It's on morning, noon, and night, not that I'm complaining. What surprised and delighted me most about their new past-time was not how quickly they fell for it, but how hard. It didn't take long for the show to become a part of our daily routine, for quotes to be thrown around, and for each girl to try and figure out which character she most resembles. Not only that, but my roommates still found the stories of SATC to be as fresh and as innovative as they were when they first aired, as many as 15 years ago.
The only technological connection Carrie and and my roommates have is a laptop. She never texted, skyped, blogged, or even instant messaged, yet themes from the show still resonate today. High praises for the writers of the show for crafting a series that remains relevant, yet it got me thinking about the role technology plays in our lives and how exactly SATC stays this relevant. Carrie and the girls never experienced their relationships through a technological medium. They've never facebook friend requested a crush or drunk texted their ex. They experienced, for the most part, their relationships the way relationships should be experienced; in person. In our modern world where there are so many new ways to communicate, maybe there only should be one. Watching SATC allowed my roommates to imagine a world in which humans were forced to communicate and confront their emotions, without any modern day technological crutches. Maybe we're just latching on to the one thing in our lives that isn't complicated by technology, a world where everything is out in the open.
Or maybe this terrifies us, so we just watch other people do it.

Grocery Shopping for hopeless ex-meal plan college students

I remember my trip to Publix with my two best friends from high school. These poor boys were used to either their mother's or the dinning hall preparing meals for them and had no idea how to shop for themselves. In a similar situation myself, I offered to go with them to the grocery store to show them how to buy groceries; what to buy, how to save money, etc. Though I never hinted this to them, I was only recently an expert in personal grocery shopping. A week ago, after moving into my first apartment, I called my mother and proclaimed I would rather starve than cook another meal for myself. It was only day three. She calmed me down and gave me some easy meals to cook and how to shop for myself. So when I opened the boys' fridge and found only beer and vitamin water, I decided they needed help as well. We started in the deli. Jason had this idea in his head that he was going to make a dish with rice, but had no idea what to put in it. He picked up a giant roll of salami. Shuddering, I directed him to the sausage. Then we moved on to the produce. Matt picks up a small package of celery. He didn't realize it was organic and also double the price of normal celery. When I directed him to the normal celery, he was overjoyed at how cheap it was. Meanwhile Jason had picked up two red onions, only realize he had no way of cutting the onions. The only knives they had in their apartment were butter knives. I stopped him from just buying the more expensive chopped onions, pointing to three other items in his basket that required a knife. We move onto the cereal aisle. Jason picks up two different types of oatmeal, unable to decide between plain and maple brown sugar. He is finally able to decide when he remembers how his mother used to put chocolate chips in his breakfast oatmeal. Though I point out he'll have to buy the chocolate chips as well, he opts for the diabetes oatmeal. But wait! Matt finds an oatmeal that already comes with chocolate chips in it! Jason is ecstatic. I suddenly realize why Americans are the world's leaders in junk food consumption; we all just want to pretend our mothers still cook for us. However, we still aren't willing to cook for ourselves. Thus, the enterprising Quakers have come up with ready to eat, pseudo-home-made oatmeal, nostalgia included. Now if it only included knives.