Tag: netflix

Romcom Redemption

Jordan Brown Leave a comment

Since the late 1980’s romantic comedies (romcoms) have been a staple genre.  It was popular all the way until the late 2000’s when the genre feel out of popularity.  Now Netflix is bringing it back.

There seems to be a gigantic list of romantic comedies that came and are now classics from the 80’s.  There is “When Harry Met Sally”, “16 Candles”, “Pretty In Pink”and “Can’t buy Me Love”. These romcoms are now classics and must watches for all romcom lovers.  The 80’s also had several romcom stars. The most notable being Molly Ringwald who starred in “Pretty In Pink” and “16 Candles”. The theme of female romcom stars continued all the way to the present.

The 90’s was the arguably the golden age of the romcom.  Movies from “Notting Hill” to “10 Things I Hate About You” were somewhat popular while some of the biggest hits that every person still knows are “Sleepless In Seattle” and “Clueless”.  “Clueless” was the “Mean Girls” of the 90’s and became a quotable icon very quickly. “Sleepless In Seattle” is one of the most iconic romcoms that everyone knows and loves. It is one of the most must see romcoms and movies in general.  Some of the stars from the 90’s romcoms are Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Not only were the two popular romcom stars but they also starred opposite of each other in two of the biggest romcoms of the 90s (“Sleepless In Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail”).

The 2000’s were the downhill slope of the romcom.  The theater and tv were getting so saturated that not that many stood out to the general public.  Some of the big romcoms were “27 Dresses”, “Bridget Jones Diary”, “The Proposal”, and “13 Going On 30”.  The 2000s split romcoms into several categories because there were so many movies. Romcoms were split into teen movie romcoms, made for tv romcoms and then hit romcoms.  Some of the teen romcoms were “She’s The Man”, “What A Girl Wants” and “A Cinderalla Story”. The star of the teen romcom category was Amanda Bynes who starred in over 5 romcom movies.  There were many stars of the popular romcoms, One of the stars of the popular romcoms was Sandra Bullock who starred in “Two Weeks Notice”, and “The Proposal”. Two others were Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lopez.

After the early 2000s were over saturated with romcoms the genre died down for a little bit.  There was only made for tv romcoms, with most of them coming out of the Hallmark Channel. Over the past year Netflix has tried to redeem the genre and have been creating a large amount.  There most recent movies have gotten a lot of attention and they are bringing new romcom stars. The most popular Netflix romcoms are “The Kissing Booth”, “Set It Up”, and “To All The Boys I Loved Before”.  With these movies the biggest star that has risen is Noah Centineo who starred in “To All The Boys I Loved Before”. With all of these new Netflix romcoms the genre is coming back into the lime light and is being revived.

How to Study Like a Pro

Hannah Levine Leave a comment

Monday is the last day of classes and we all know what that means—finals time. Like any good little student, I’ve perfected my finals studying schedule. I’m a senior, so be warned. This method is not for everyone.

First, I look at everything I have to do. I write every assignment in my planner and make sure to include due dates and a realistic timeline of how long each final assignment will take me to do. Keep in mind the word “realistic” here. There’s nothing worse than pretending it’ll take you three hours to write a paper knowing full well it’ll take you more like six once you fall into that dark hole of the Internet.

Second, write down the dates and times of your final exams in your planner, on your phone calendar, on your hand, whatever works best for you to remember to be there. This is an important step as not taking your exam generally leads to a very poor grade in the class.

Third, and this is my favorite part of my finals study schedule, choose which television show to start unnecessarily binge watching until it becomes really late and semi-stressful to do your work. I usually choose a show that has been on my list for a while or is easy to finish so that once I’m done I won’t have any distractions from my schoolwork. Most of the time this even works.

This year I decided to focus on the Marvel Universe, so I took a dive into Hell’s Kitchen and followed around everyone’s favorite PI, Jessica Jones. The amount of stress it caused me to actually sit there and watch probably didn’t help relieve any of my finals anxiety, but it sure was a hell of a show, and I am in no way upset I spent 10 hours watching it. (See, 10 hours. Totally manageable.)

For those of you who don’t know, Jessica Jones is one of those Netflix original series that makes you glad Netflix started making television instead of just streaming it. It’s really that good. I loved the story. The characters, like almost all superheroes and super villains, are interesting and exciting, lovable and despicable. Krysten Ritter plays Jessica, a truly strong female lead that you can’t help but despise a little bit while you root for her. David Tennant (I know, Doctor Who fans rejoice) is an excellently evil purple-loving Kilgrave who makes you kind of sick to your stomach and at least a little sorry for the way humanity can sometimes act, even in fictional stories. Together, they make one of the best match ups I’ve ever seen in a good versus bad story, and I had the hardest time every time I had to shut my computer before it was over.

You may think, how does this help me pass my exams? Well, the TV watching really doesn’t. It just makes you take a break and relax a little bit at a particularly stressful time in the semester. So I admit it, there is some actual studying in my finals study schedule. Once I’ve finished binge watching my show, I actually get down to business and study it up until finals are over. Maybe I’m just lucky, but so far this schedule has worked well for me. I can’t actually suggest putting off all of your homework and studying until after you watch endless hours of television, but I can tell you that Jessica Jones is a great television show. If you haven’t started it yet, it just might be the perfect addition to your finals study schedule. Tell yourself you’ll use it as a break if you have to. Whatever you need to convince yourself Netflix is not the enemy, because it’s not. It’s just a method to slow down, that’s all.

To those of you who opened this to actually learn some good study methods, I’m sorry if this isn’t what you wanted to read. However, I really have done very well on my examinations and papers over the past three years, and I think taking some time for yourself is a really good thing. If you don’t want to watch Jessica Jones I understand. (Not really. It’s so good you really just should.) But please, do something to break up your studying so you don’t try to jam everything from the last semester into your brain all at once. Who knows, you might actually learn something that way, and even enjoy these last couple days of classes and exams.

The Reading Paradigm

Jeannie Marie Leave a comment

I have to admit, I’m quite disappointed in myself. This year has been going great, I’ve been on top of homework, getting enough sleep, and I see my friends regularly, and always enjoy my time with them.

But I’ve been neglecting one very important part of school. Reading outside of class.

I’ve always been a ravenous reader, ever since I was little. A lot of times when we’d have library time in elementary school, my friends would look at the I, Spy books while I was looking at the chapter books, the ones that were “harder” and “above my reading level.” I still remember begging my librarian to let me read a book because it was about rabbits and it had won a Newberry Award, so it had a fancy ribbon on the front. It was two reading levels above the grade I was currently in, but I read it, and I was able to tell my librarian what it was about afterwards, so she knew I understood it. I don’t remember it now, but that experience of being told no but doing it anyways was always my kind of style.

My reading habits carried on with me through middle school, although I will admit I went through slumps. Luckily, many of my friends enjoyed reading, so it wasn’t like elementary school where I was the only one reading while everyone else was playing Pokemon on their GameBoys. I honestly couldn’t get my hands on new books fast enough, and I’d often ask my mom to take me to the public library for more.

Each time I went, I’d check out about 20 books. Most of the time, I read them all. But now, I can’t even dream of finishing five. Mostly because the Michigan coursework challenges me enough that I don’t have much time for anything. But there’s another reason as well. Anytime I’m not doing homework, I’m being ensnared by something far worse.

O Netflix, we shall duel once again!

Now, don’t get me wrong: I love Netflix just as much as the next overworked college student. I just don’t understand why I turn to it first when I’m taking a break or done for the day.

Sure, I have to finish all the episodes in a TV show, and sometimes, there are quite a lot. But after I’m done with one show…I start another. I don’t go to my bookshelf, or my Nook containing so many unread books it’s unimaginable. I go to Netflix, or to my DVD collection, or…well, you get the idea.

And I’m truly disappointed in myself. I love reading, I really do. Last semester I had a reading-heavy course (think 100 pages per week, on top of two English courses that had a lighter but still formidable reading schedule), so I was able to excuse myself from my leisurely reading, because if I wasn’t doing homework, I was procrastinating on reading for that class – I was always behind. But this semester, that’s not the case. I don’t reach for my books, and the only time I have is when I was rereading Harry Potter, since we’re reading it later in one of my classes.

I know what’s happened. Reading is so active that I shudder just thinking about picking up a book after doing homework. Instead I’d rather watch something on my laptop, something that feeds me information and pictures rather than me having to produce it.

It’s mental fatigue, but it’s all in my head. I’m disappointed that I’m almost afraid of my books because I think it’s just another aspect of my work. Reading is fun, and it’s something I’ve forgotten in the past few months.

But today, I found for the first time in a while that I wanted that to change. Recalling earlier posts, I’ve expressed my undying love for the Academy Awards, and today I read an article online about female under-representation in the film industry (as in directing, producing, etc.). It made me think about the Awards this year, and wonder if any of the screenwriters nominated were women (note: there are 2 in the list of 10 movies nominated for Adapted and Original screenplay, both accompanied by men in the screenwriting credits).

It also made me think of the time when I thought about adapting my favorite books into screenplays, one of which I still have a 40 page script for in my bedroom back home. It’s a dream, quite far away and almost unimaginable, but how am I going to adapt anything if I never read anything that needs adapting?

My love for film and TV is almost unparalleled. My friends ask who’s in a movie and I respond with the actor’s name almost immediately. But that love is completely surpassed by my love for reading, and that will never change. I just happen to forget sometimes.