Category: Uncategorized

Last week, I was surprised to find there was a new trailer for the Suicide Squad movie.

It’s very hard for me to dislike a trailer that utilizes Bohemian Rhapsody. But the song wasn’t used as just some deafening overlay that didn’t add anything to the visuals. Instead, they edited the trailer perfectly to the beat and utilized comedic cuts in between the transitions the song is so well known for.

The visuals were also impressive and served as a confirmation that this film was far removed from the Batman world that Nolan had created with his trilogy. But I suppose some are still skeptical about Jared Leto as the Joker, others are skeptic of the Harley Quinn performance, but some were pleasantly surprised at what seems to be Jai Courtney producing his best performance to date. As for me, I’m not one to really speculate about a movie after seeing an advertisement for it. When it comes down to it, these trailers and teasers are all just advertisements.

No. Perhaps that is simplifying too much, for the two mediums aren’t precisely synonymous with one another. Whereas a general advertisement, for instance, for a car, produces intrigue based on whatever price is flashed before the screen or what sexy celebrity is driving it, a trailer for a movie is producing intrigue via segments so that you go see the rest of the movie. Arguably, no other advertisement that is shown via video has this relationship that movies do with trailers.

But, even though these trailers are fragments from the movie, a good trailer doesn’t necessarily mean the movie is good nor does a bad trailer mean that movie is bad. In fact, there have been many cases where expectations have been disappointed or where audiences have been overwhelmingly surprised.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of an art form the trailer truly is. It’s very difficult to create a trailer that generates both interest and hype, while also remaining true to the project it is advertising. So let me show you a couple of trailers and teasers that I find were truly exceptional. But keep in mind, that all of these examples are for fairly recent movies or at least movies that came out during my lifetime. I cannot, for example, comment on the trailer for The Shining because I never saw it prior to seeing the film. In other words, the point of the trailer becomes mute for me. Now that that is said, let’s move on.

So I’ve already talked about the Suicide Squad trailer. It was a great trailer and it is certainly generating a large amount of hype for the movie. I will not talk about the other recent hype generating advertisement machine that was the Star Wars campaign. Let’s face it, they did an amazing job advertising the movie; revealing very little while giving us just enough to get excited by the new and the nostalgic.

But there is one amazing teaser that generated so much hype without a single bit of footage – the very first teaser for The Dark Knight. I’m sure you all know that the vast majority of people were not too excited about Heath Ledger as the Joker. Which makes sense given the only movies people had seen in him were probably The Patriot, A Knight’s Tale, and Brokeback Mountain. Don’t get me wrong; he was incredible in Brokeback Mountain. But playing a cowboy stuck in a complicated relationship is one thing; playing an insane iconic comic book villain is another. Arguably, playing the homosexual cowboy is a lot harder than playing the Joker. But ironically, messing up the Joker brings more public outrage.

So all that public skepticism was in the air after the casting news came out. Then, Nolan drops this teaser and shuts everyone up.

The amount of hype this one, 55-second teaser, generated was ridiculous. It was a genius stroke of advertising, to play on the doubts of the general public. I can only imagine that Nolan was always confidently smirking as people booed at the casting choice. He’d already seen Ledger’s Joker.

Perhaps I started off with a teaser that is too brilliant. Yep, I did. But the trailer for Sin City was probably the first one where I could feel the style oozing from such a short video.

I’m a sucker for good music and well timed editing. But I think the movie did a great job at giving us a glimpse of the interesting visuals this movie would offer, mixing literal comic book art from Frank Miller’s praised series with black and white clips from the adaptation. Also, when we start seeing the names of all the cast members and the song hits that climax, the trailer is just too cool to handle.

Both of these movies met the expectations that the trailers set up. The case of The Dark Knight is bit more complicated however because the marketing generated too much hype, meaning there was bound to be small bit of disappointment, but virtually everyone all agreed the movie was amazing – specifically Ledger’s performance. However, Prometheus was an odd one.

The teaser for Prometheus mimics the music and the title formation style from the trailer for Alien. At first, it may seem clever. After all, Alien is a sci-fi classic so of course drawing similarities will attract a lot of attention. But when the movie came out, people who expected an Alien prequel were disappointed. Now I, for one, have never seen Alien, so I only found out that there were similarities between the two teasers after some minimal research. I saw Prometheus without that knowledge and had a grand old time. I won’t go in depth into why I enjoyed it, or why I think it’s a good movie. And I definitely won’t talk about why I think everyone who was disappointed by the movie because it wasn’t similar to Alien, should just stop. Why? Because to be fair, the teaser led them on. On the other hand, we did see the origin of the Xenomorph, so it is technically an Alien prequel. But it just wasn’t the claustrophobic horror show that Alien was.

Oddly enough, for someone who doesn’t get the reference to the Alien trailer, the teaser for Prometheus works wonders. For those who understood the reference, it potentially set them up for disappointment.

Of course there are many great trailers out there that I haven’t mentioned: Mad Max: Fury Road, Guardians of the Galaxy, Birdman, The Revenant, Inherent Vice, The Master, The Incredibles, and the list goes on. In fact, some of the best trailers in recent memory haven’t even been for movies, but for games. Which is an entirely different interaction between marketing and product – one that I don’t understand well enough to speak even somewhat intelligently about. For instance, the incredibly recent trailer for the Final Fantasy VII Remake or the very first trailer for Starcraft 2. Both of these are incredible pieces of marketing.

Considering trailers in the world we currently live in is odd. We no longer only see these trailers right before a movie at the theatre with other people. Instead, more often than not, we see them on YouTube by ourselves. Also, many contemporary trailers reveal too much of the story, ruining the experience of watching the movie, months before it even comes out. I think filmmakers should study the art of making good trailers because in a lot of cases, the director edits the first trailer. Learning how to blend music together with quick commercial editing all the while giving glimpses of story but not revealing too much. It is a tight balancing act in a short duration.

I think consumers of pop culture like me are naturally inclined to love rankings. Top 10 movies of the year! Top 10 summer TV shows! Rankings allow us to discover new things and retrospectively reevaluate art we may have already experienced. Reading movie rankings at the end of the year is one of the irresistible pleasures of being a regular moviegoer and criticism reader.

But they can be a real pain in the ass to create yourself, and that’s due to one problem in particular: it’s so unclear what it means to like a movie.

A year ago, I decided to maintain a list of movie rankings for each year. At the end of 2014, I’d struggled to look at the 57 movies I’d seen and simply rank all of them; it’d be much easier, I figured, to gradually add to the ranking each time I watched a new movie in 2015. And it did start off okay! The first two movies I saw in 2015, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and “The DUFF,” had an obvious quality gap; I loved the former and thought the latter was okay, so in my preliminary ranking, “Kingsman” was #1 and “The DUFF” was #2.

I found, though, that as the year went on, it became much harder. I ran into the same problem that I ran into in 2014, namely that it’s really hard to determine overall quality. It’s the same reason reducing a movie to a simple grade is so hard. It’s why I’ve come to appreciate websites whose reviews lack star or letter ratings.

What makes you “like” or “love” a movie? I’ve found almost invariably that most of the movies that are regularly considered the ‘best’ of the year are movies with which I don’t have a huge emotional connection. I was totally engaged throughout “Spotlight,” for example, and there were moments where I was horrified and moments where I felt triumphant. If it does go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars, I’ll be totally onboard, because I know intellectually that it did everything so well.

But then I watched “Spy,” “Trainwreck,” and “What We Do in the Shadows,” three great comedies that made me laugh constantly throughout. Are they all as technically accomplished as “Spotlight?” No, and of course none of them have subject matter as important as “Spotlight.” But if “Kingsman: The Secret Service” made me ache with laughter and stunned me with its ridiculously over-the-top, colorful, exhilarating action sequences, is it really that bad that I ranked that above “Spotlight,” “Carol,” “Brooklyn,” “The Hateful Eight,” and most of the other big Oscar nominees?

This especially becomes a problem when I consider movies that I didn’t really like, but which showed a clear creativity and ambition. “The Gift,” though very acclaimed, felt shapeless and confusing. In my review, I called it “admirable in its unconventionality but jarring in ways that negate its intelligent ideas,” and I stand by that. “The Gift” had an abundance of fascinating ideas that made me want to see more from writer-director Joel Edgerton, especially compared to a cliché, forgettable movie like “The DUFF” or even “Trainwreck.” And yet “Trainwreck” was my #11 movie compared to #44 “The Gift,” and even the predictable “The DUFF” managed to pass “The Gift.”

So ‘liking’ something is such an ambiguous term. If you judge quality on originality and innovation, some of your least favorite movies of the year might be some of the best, but if you judge it on the strength of emotional reaction alone, some of your favorite movies might be the worst. I tend to rely on what the movie provokes in me emotionally, so I end up with the suspense of “Sicario” and the tear-jerking “Brooklyn” high above the slightly clinical, understated “Carol,” though there was a lot I loved about that movie.

Same goes for “Clouds of Sils Maria,” which has a duo of great performances and so many thought-provoking ideas but failed to elicit more than vague interest for me. Having heard about the plot beforehand, I thought the movie would resemble Bergman’s “Persona” or Aronofsky’s “Black Swan,” two movies that had the emotional punch of psychological horror. Instead, though, it was more patient and exploratory in its themes. It felt like a movie adaptation of a classic work of literature; I’m sure somebody could write a whole book analyzing the movie, but I would’ve traded that for a bit more of an emotional connection.

I wasn’t wholly uninvolved while watching the movie—I’d still give it a solid B. Aside from the thematic exploration, it was fascinating just to watch Maria (Juliette Binoche) and Valentine (a subtle and great Kristen Stewart) converse. There were some really enjoyable scenes of the two bonding. I especially like the conversation at the bar about superheroes; the silly fantasy movie they were watching was way too on-the-nose and unrealistic, sure, but the conversation has a lot of smart things to say about big-budget fantasy blockbusters versus the high-brow psychologically based theatre that Maria dedicates her life to. I couldn’t help but cheer when Valentine defended teen actress Jo-Ann (Chloë Moretz). There’s something nuanced and interesting about the conversation—Maria is clearly a bit condescending in the way she dismisses the teen fantasy genre, and in the way she laughs off Valentine’s defending of Jo-Ann, but it never escalates into an all-out fight, only a healthy debate. You can see how comfortable the characters are with each other, and their unique dynamic kept me intrigued the whole time. Besides, Jo-Ann is an interesting character in her own right, though her subplots don’t quite fit in perfectly with everything else going on.

I guess part of my slight disengagement came from my confusion; though I knew there was so much buried commentary in the movie about identity and art’s relationship with reality, I wasn’t sure what the main conclusion to draw was. The final outcome of Valentine imitating the end of the Maloja Snake (the play she’s helping Maria rehearse for) is the logical endpoint for the character based on the theme of life imitating art, but I thought the conclusion would be a bit more tragic and disturbing instead of haunting in an understated way. Then again, maybe the movie’s ideas would be buried in melodrama if it became truly horrifying.

All of this is to say that I had no idea where to place “Clouds of Sils Maria” on my list. It currently sits at #31, which feels so wrong when you compare it to #27 “Unfriended,” #26 “Ant-Man,” and, again, “Kingsman” and “Trainwreck.” And yet each of those movies entertained me more, and elicited more immediate emotions from me. Their ideas aren’t as sophisticated, their writing isn’t as meaningful, and their characters aren’t nearly as complex. But I liked them more.

But what does ‘like’ even mean, anyway?

This episode is the required Halloween special for the series. Now I recognize that usually Halloween specials are often cop-outs as the writers can turn off their brains and write a generic script around something “spooky”, but I love Halloween specials. In fact, I love all holiday specials. I have no idea why, but they all seem to have a charm about them that just draws me in. This one is especially good as the writers of this series always came up with the most interesting ideas.

Summary:

Another cold open with a flashback. In this one, we see Ned in a line waiting for mail. He usually gets nothing, but on Halloween he gets a postcard from his father. His initial excitement wears off as he learns that its a notification that he moved. This prompts Ned to run away from the boarding school and visit his father’s new house in costume. When there, he’s heartbroken again as he finds his father with a new wife and two new sons. The cold open then flashes back to the present and we come to focus on a man in a horse stable. His night ends early as he gets trampled by a costumed, fire-breathing horse.

After the cold open, we move to the Pie Hole where we see that Chuck has decorated for Halloween. Olive explains that its a bad idea since Ned hates Halloween. Chuck dismisses this because, as a child, Ned loved Halloween and the time they spent together. The two then discuss Chuck’s secret with Olive believing that Chuck faked her death.

Ned then enters the diner and sees the Halloween decorations. Even though he is visibly distraught, and Chuck offers to take them down, Ned lets them stay up. From this scene, we move to Olive’s bedroom and see her reveling in the fact that she knows more about Ned than Chuck does.While jumping on her bed in excitement, Olive learns of the murder of Lucas Shoemaker on the news, clearly recognizing the victim.

In the meantime, Ned and Chuck talk in the kitchen about Halloween. Ned deflects the questions about his newfound hatred of the holiday, and Chuck deflects the questions about why mentioning Olive made her visibly nervous.

After this, we follow Olive to a safety deposit box, where she takes out a large trophy and a bag of money. We return to the Pie Hole and Olive hires Emerson to investigate the murder. We learn from Olive that the victim was a farrier and an old competitor of hers when she was a professional, and quite renowned, horse jockey. This causes a giggle from Emerson, but Olive is quite serious.

At the morgue, Ned and the other two find the body of Lucas Shoemaker. Ned reawakens the body and Chuck cements herself as lead interpreter of the group since she is the only one that can understand him because of his broken jaw. Shoemaker believes that he was killed by the ghost of John Joseph Jacob and warns that he will kill again. With the other jockeys in danger, they return to the Pie Hole and tell Olive. She faints at the mention of John Joseph Jacob and the gang splits up: Emerson and Olive going to a jockey bar, Chuck going to the stables, and Ned going on his own personal, secret mission.

We cut to a flashback of Olive’s days as a horse jockey. We learn that while Olive was exceptional, John Joseph Jacob was the best in the world. At the “race of the century” where the best jockey compete, John Joseph Jacob falls off his horse and is trampelled by his competitors. Olive wins the race, but the trauma forces her to quit racing. This points us to the possibility that someone might be looking for revenge.

At the bar, we come to meet Pinky, bar owner and past competitor in the race, and Gordon, a drunk who was also in the race. Gordon believes that it was actually the ghost of John Joseph Jacob and he will come for revenge against the other jockeys. This leads Olive and Emerson to the tomb of John Joseph Jacob. While Olive comments on the cracker crumbs scattered across the floor, Emerson finds that the lid of the coffin is broken, like Gordon had suggested. They open the coffin and only find the bones of a horse, curiously with its legs missing.

We then cut to Chuck at the stables at night with Digby. While initially scared, she finds courage in the fact that both herself and Digby have already been killed once. She also finds cracker crumbs on the ground before running into Emerson and heading off to investigate more.

Before the audience heads off with them, we join Ned on his quest. We find him in his childhood home, lamenting his past and the holiday. He gets distracted and sees Chuck’s aunts across the street, scaring off local kids.

Emerson, Olive, and Chuck meet at the house of John Joseph Jacob’s mother. After entering and the mother making backhanded compliments to Olive and Chuck, we find that she has made peace with the death of her son. We also find the urn of John Joseph Jacob, the mother explaining that he always wanted the horse to have a proper hero’s burial, so she cremated her son and buried the horse in secret. The mother says she forgives Olive and the trio prepares to leave. After suggesting that they should make sure Pinky is safe, we cut to his bar, where we find him being attacked by the same horse that killed Shoemaker.

While all this is happening, we find Ned in the house of love’s aunts. We come to realize Ned’s motivations as he asks the aunts about his absentee father. Lily simply insists that his father was a jackass and he was better off without him. While sharing this conversation, Ned recognizess that the pie he was going to enjoy was actually from his diner after a strawberry rots from the touch of his mouth. He realizes that Chuck has actually been having this secret connection with her aunts this entire time. As he goes to leave, Vivien stops him and comforts him.

The audience meets up with Olive, Emerson, Chuck, and eventually Ned at the bar. On the floor in Pinky’s dead body with Olive grieving over him. Chuck takes Olive out of the bar so that Ned can perform his magic. They reawaken Pinky and find that he also believes the ghost of John Joseph Jacob killed him, though he explains the motive better, Pinky actually cut the saddle of John Joseph Jacob before the race. Olive reveals that the other four jockeys kept the sabotage secret since none of them could prove that the others did. Olive initially protested the idea, but was forced into it. When the two are alone, Chuck tries to convince Olive to confront the ghost and also thanks her for keeping the secret of her death.

While at her apartment, Olive finds a golden horseshoe outside her window. Recognizing this as a gift she gave to John Joseph Jacob before the fateful race, she climbs up to the roof to confront the ghost. As Olive reaches the roof, she finds the very alive John Joseph Jacob, only now much taller. He reveals that he had actually survived the fall and his broken legs were replaced with the horse’s. We also learn that he believes the fall was an accident and that he has been in his mother’s basement ever since. After their talk, John Joseph Jacob becomes ready to leave his mother’s basement.

We move to his mother’s house with Olive and Chuck in tow. He leaves them to grab some crackers, explaining that he’s hypoglycemic and gets angry when his blood sugar gets low. This immediately tips off Chuck as she realizes that were crackers at every crime scene. They grab the urn and check to see what’s actually inside. Olive recognizes that it is the ashes of a saddle and that John Joseph Jacob’s mother knew the secret of the sabotage all along. Just as this realization comes to fruition, a horse kicks down the front door.

We cut to Emerson and Ned in a car with Gordon. Gordon tells the two that Shoemaker had actually revealed the secret to John Joseph Jacob’s mother before he had died. They connect the points and figure out that she was actually posing as the ghost and killing the other jockeys.

Back at the house, the mother reveals her plan. The two run from her and initiate a chase. Chuck falls and Olive decides to sacrifice herself, knowing that the mother is really only after her. But at the last minute, Emerson and Ned appear and save her.

In the epilogue, we find the mother in jail and Olive has donated her trophy and winnings to John Joseph Jacob. We also see Ned and Chuck in a car in front of the aunts’ house. Ned reveals that he knows about Chuck’s secret pies and he is okay with it. He lets her visit the house in costume and trick-or-treat so that she can see her aunt’s face-to-face again.

Pros:

-This mystery is really well written. It’s complex without being too hard to follow.

-The focus on Olive is very refreshing and we get to see some new combinations of characters in this show.

-It’s always great to see backstory, and while Olive being a jockey is out of the blue, it totally fits her character and this weird universe.

-Ned backstory is heartbreaking and beautifully done. It creates a nice compliment to the forced estrangement that Chuck has with her aunts.

-Everything perfectly makes sense without relying on coincidence. The twist at the end is also surprising, but not unbelievable.

Cons:

-Not very many cons at all, the only problem is the horse’s fire breathing. It’s never explained and it’s never utilized in any way.

Overall:

This is probably one of the best episodes of the series. While the mystery isn’t very quirky and charming like they can often be, it’s very engaging and well written. The twists are completely unexpected, but make sense in context. In addition, seeing Olive in a more active role is great as she is quickly becoming one of the more interesting character on the series. The parallel between Ned’s and Chuck’s family relations is handled very poignantly without having to explain the metaphors. It also leads to the possibility of more plot threads down the line.

Rating:

9/10 Daisies

Music has been my world since I was a child. My musical upbringing consisted of all the modern clichés of how an opera singer is born: “she sang before she could talk” people would say and naturally the big voice inside a small girl was discovered at church, I began piano lessons at five and was obsessed with the one CD I owned after saving up my allowance for weeks.

After that, the momentum of one opportunity brought me to next, an opportunity which I could not possibly say no to, until I ended up here. Where exactly is here? Here is my (victory lap) senior year as a Vocal Performance major at the University of Michigan. Here is having performed in over 25 productions in the past 4 years and more recitals than I kept track of. Here is having gone from uncontrollably crying in a high school counselor’s office because I was waitlisted at the one music school I applied to (a truly ill advised move looking back) to performing as a preliminary winner of SMTD’s Concerto Competition. Here is sitting on a panel this morning answering questions about my experiences as a music major to scared perspective students on the day of their audition. Here is defined. Here is expected. I’m very comfortable and very good at Here. While I may not know exactly what will come next week, I can guess with remarkable accuracy – class, practice, homework, work, recital, coaching, more homework, more practicing and an audition I may or may not go to depending on my mood. What hit me this morning is that in three months that will never again be my hectic but very predictable routine.

I can admit that I live a charmed life – part of that is my uncanny ability to always find free parking within five minutes of looking (even in Kerrytown during the middle of the day) and another part is that things just tend to work out for me. One opportunity grows into the next, somehow turning the little girl who auditioned for the church choir by singing Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid into a music major at a top university. A major benefit of this is that since I was little my life has been planned out for me, guided by the opportunities which I fell into. However, graduation is impending and my predictable musical life will soon be part of my past.

Obviously I have some semblance of a five year plan – it would be foolish to graduate from college and not – but this plan consists of large, vague brush strokes rather than neatly sketched outlines (just waiting for the details to be filled in) that I have become accustomed to. Freshman year of high school I could have guessed the majority of important details about my life in 2015, but right now I can’t even tell you where I will be living six months from now.

Sitting on the Q & A panel this morning for perspective voice majors made graduation real. It is no longer that far off, mythical event that you have heard of but cannot picture yourself being there, rather graduation is coming and it will change everything. Opportunities will be less common and more competitive. Voice lessons will cost real money and a good pianist will be hard to find. Yet the one thing that will not change with graduation is my devotion to the art form that colors my world and brightens my days.