Emma Pinchak – Page 14

PREVIEW: Icons of Anime: Your Name

January 29, 2019February 11, 2019 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

The Center for Japanese Studies presents the next installment of their Icons of Anime lineup: Your Name! Come see it at 7 PM Wednesday, January 30 at the Michigan Theater (if you can stand the cold!).

The film tells a tale of two highschoolers who have the magical ability to switch bodies with each other. Complications inevitably arise, and we follow the two on a deeply emotional journey to meet eachother. Your Name is beautifully animated and deservedly critically acclaimed, earning an impressive 97% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Student tickets are $8.50, and 10.50 for adults. Please make sure to dress in lots of layers, as temperatures will be far below zero, especially in the evening. Be sure to limit exposed skin, including your face and hands.

REVIEW: Paul Rand: The Designer’s Task

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

If you’re anything like me, art is confusing. It seems to display some specific idea that should be obvious, hidden only to those too uninspired to see it. As I wandered through the UMMA looking for the Paul Rand exhibit, looking conspicuously un-artsy in my Ugg boots, I came across so many pieces that I was unable to understand. There was the marble sphere with circular concavities carved into it (representing giving birth, the sign told me), a giant monochrome canvas with a single stripe of other colors (I think this one was called “Untitled”), an enormous painted fabric sheet haphazardly hung on the wall (something to do with feminism in 1960s art). By the time I got to the exhibit I’d come to see, I was more than a little intimidated by everything around me that I couldn’t really understand.

Once I made my way over to the Rand exhibit, I began to feel less out of place. The showcase featured some of his design work from the 1930s to the 90s, including designs for various corporations like IBM and NeXT, as well as book covers and unrelated pieces. This art is accessible to anyone, appealing only to the eye’s love for simplicity and clean lines.

Rand’s work is characterized by his fondness for bold colors and shapes, not shying away from either clashing hues nor unbalanced compositions. While the restrictions of working in two dimensions tempts many artists to strive for some three-dimensional elements, Rand instead embraces his chosen mediums, not even adding any shading. His penchant for keeping his work strictly graphic is what makes his style so distinguishable; he lived without adhering to the classical rules of art.

Beyond the finished and published pieces, the exhibit also included pages of doodles and work that has remained largely unknown. These are my favorite parts to a collection; it shows the personality and creativity of an artist beyond what the public’s impression of them is. Most showcased work of late artists is distorted by a popularity contest put on by the viewers; we see only the public piece of an artist, missing out on the earlier works, or half-finished pieces, or the more experimental phases in their life. Complete artist profiles like this exhibit are necessary for better understanding their procession through artistic expression and exploration.

The only additional thing I would have liked in the exhibit is a bit more of a biography, maybe a picture of Rand drawing at his desk, even earlier doodles, something saved from his childhood. This would add to the personal feeling of the exhibit. Overall, though, it was put together well, and works as a fine addition to the UMMA.

For information on current and future UMMA exhibits, check out www.umma.umich.edu/exhibitions.

REVIEW: Pls Hire Us

December 17, 2018December 17, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Exam season is a cruelly bittersweet time. It is the blissful end to a long and arduous semester, a promise of a well-deserved break at the other end. During it all, though, the nights spent replacing sleep with study start stacking up, and the days fill with delirium. Personally, as I walked into Studio A for this show, I was rocking barely an hour of sleep in the past 36, as I’d been writing papers and preparing for an exam with such intensity that I was unable to fall asleep after I’d finished. Until my inevitable crash later that night, I would have to accept that I’d need to settle for the next best thing after sleep: laughter.

Unsurprisingly, quite a few other students were in the same boat; the place was packed. There was a list up front like the ones at exclusive clubs in the movies, but only those knew the performers were on it. I walked over to the back of the line. Luckily, I’d come early enough that I was let in before all the chairs had been filled.

As soon as the night of comedy sketches began, all of the day’s jittery exhaustion drained out of me. I was glad to find that the sketches were unrelated to each other, like in Saturday Night Live. Each scene was its own self-contained story, and despite their brevity, characters were developed, and the plot had enough detail to keep it interesting. Although the entire cast performed well, I did have a favorite; Emma Puglia really stood out to me. Her stage presence was amazing, following her even through the digital sketches, and her use of different comedic voices and tones helped her to be an invaluable part of the cast.

I don’t think a single member of the peanut gallery walked out of that room before having let out an embarrassingly ugly guffaw and/or wiped away a few tears from laughing so hard. It takes a truly talented group of people to write, perform, and produce something that can wash away the grime of exhaustion from a room full of students in the middle of their exam season. During that precious, golden time I had in Studio A, I could forget about the oceanography test I had suffered through just hours before, the paper I’d thrown together at 3:00 AM, the Wolverscreams session I’d missed while taking a nap. For that gift, I am so, so grateful.

PREVIEW: Pls Hire Us–Comedy Sketch Show

December 12, 2018December 12, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

As we all know, exam season is a rough time to be alive. The work seems endless, the career goals start looking a little blurry, and dropping out feels like a more and more attractive option with each failed practice quiz.

It’s time to take a little break. The SAC 403 class will be performing a comedy act at North Quad Studio A, with the frighteningly relatable title “Pls Hire Us.” Showtimes are Wednesday, December 12th at 5 and 8 PM, as well as Thursday, December 13th at 10 PM.

Come on out to celebrate surviving your first round of exams with an entertaining show. It’s free, but seats are first come, first served, so arrive a few minutes early.

REVIEW: 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

December 11, 2018December 11, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

For some kids, their school’s annual spelling bee is the event of the year. They spend hours practicing, working through the standard lists, reading swaths of the dictionary just in case. They pester their parents to quiz them, stand in front of the mirror, poised with shoulders back and chest out, reciting the letters clearly and precisely. All the while, the rest of their friends make fun of their earnestness, asking (as any sane person would) what’s the point?

Whether or not I was a three-year participant in my middle school’s bees, striking out on “rhythmic” in sixth grade right before I would have made regionals, is not important. And whether I Googled “rhythmic” to make sure I was spelling it right, seven years after, is similarly irrelevant.

It takes a certain kind of kid to really get jazzed about spelling bees. They need to be more than a little weird, maybe gawky and awkward, known to be a nerd. She could be the type to have an enormous collection of rocks, or wear exclusively brightly-patterned knee socks.

This musical understands the spelling bee phenomenon very clearly. The participants in the 25th Annual Putnam Country Spelling Bee are all afflicted by some circumstance that they carry in their personality. Olive’s parents are neglectful; she speaks in a small voice, cautiously wondering at her place in the world, though as the play goes on, we see her emerge as an incredibly soulful singer. Leaf has a learning disability and what seems to be multiple personality disorder, of which his family never fails to remind him. He gains confidence as he sticks around in the bee for longer than anyone thought was possible. William’s parental situation is less than ideal, and he moves through life sulkily as a result, but he learns compassion for others. Marcy, by fault of her parents, instructors, and herself, is a severe perfectionist, though an intervention from Jesus H. Christ himself allows her to see failing is okay. Logainne is under similar pressure as one father pushes her hard to succeed, while the other is softly loving, yet she remains positive and learns about fairness. And Charlito has…hormonal issues. As every middle school boy must, he grows to love his erections.

Individually, everyone in the cast performed wonderfully. Though part of the character is a product of the playwright, the actor has a lot of freedom to either enhance or detract from the audience’s experience. These actors provided the high-energy vivaciousness only children can apply to life. William was probably my favorite, acting-wise; he is expressive in both facial expressions and body movement. In terms of singing, Rona Lisa and Olive took the cake, especially in the song where they sing as mother and daughter, voices soaring high and strong.

This dramatization of a spelling bee is exactly how bee participants feel. The pressure is incredibly oppressive, the nerves run thin, it feels like the most important performance of their life. Maybe there’ll be a point when a spotlight comes down and you have to sing a jazzy rendition of your life story. Anything feels possible, especially if (when) you win.

REVIEW: The Room

December 3, 2018December 3, 2018 Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

Where do I even begin with this movie?

I’d heard it called “the worst movie ever made,” but this fails to capture everything horrible about director (and writer, and producer, and star) Tommy Wiseau’s work. Perhaps some numbers will help: Wiseau spent $6 million to create this disaster, while collecting only $1800 in ticket sales, as it played in a few select theaters in California when it was released in 2003. The man behind this blasphemy is as bizzare as his movie, keeping so quiet about his personal life that no one is sure of his birthplace beyond that it is somewhere in Europe. After he immigrated to the United States, he worked his way up from bus boy to movie star, becoming independently wealthy by unclear means. Since The Room, he has landed a few roles in television and film, not to mention receiving some sort of praise from James Franco’s 2017 movie The Disaster Artist, in which James and his brother play Wiseau and friend/colleague/costar Greg Sistero, telling the story of The Room’s disastrous making.

Basically, this movie was a meme before modern memes existed. The actors perform expressionlessly, their voices flatly reciting a poorly-written script. Scenes fail to fit together in any continuous, logical manner, creating unrelated and unfinished plotlines. The opening music is somewhere between the background to an old anime, a made-for-tv movie, and a documentary about King Arthur. Where there is dialouge, there is often no background noise at all, creating an unsettling feeling for the viewer. There is so much wrong with the layout and execution of this movie it would be possible to go on about it for several eternities; the whole thing is simply bizarre.

In my eyes, Wiseau is very earnestly aspiring to something that isn’t worth aspiring to; he strives to imitate the worst facet of American film, throwing together a love triangle, a splash of ganster violence, sex scenes, cancer drama, a near-fatal football-related accident, a suprise party, state-of-the-art recording equipment, an ending that is the exact opposite of an unexpected twist…etcetera, etcetera. All of this comes together to form what is for the most part an especially awful Lifetime movie. And yet, I and millions of others around the world somehow love this movie. Given the distorted sense of humor the Internet has cultivated in us all, had The Room been made in 2018, I could see it being quite a success. In fact, it has become more successful since its release, playing periodically in theaters everywhere. Wiseau himself has attended some of these events, given to arriving via limosine and sitting in the front row. His immortal confidence in his work is truly something every artist should aspire to.

Tommy Wiseau has a website! If you’re interested in purchasing The Room merchandise or some of his self-designed underwear, he’s put almost everything on sale for the holiday season. One of his jackets (with a free copy of The Room and a “dogeee” stuffed animal) would make a great gift for your grandmother, perhaps. And if you haven’t yet seen this work of art, I urge you to find a showing in a theater near you!