Category: Film

PREVIEW: The Shining

avameester Leave a comment

On January 21st, Michigan Theater offers a very special and spine-chilling event: a one-time late-night screening of The Shining. When it comes to psychological thrillers, no film will have your heart racing like this cult classic.

Loosely based on a real setting, the 1980 film follows a family that moves into the snowy mountains to act as caretakers for a seasonally empty hotel. Without much to keep them busy, the family encounters an array of sinister forces, falling victim to the darkness of the hotel’s history; from psychic powers to hallucinations to isolation-induced insanity, the horrors accumulate as the winter progresses.

The film has gained a large following since its release, bits and pieces of it permeating pop culture. From the quote “Here’s Johnny!” to the image of two ghostly-looking girls standing in an empty hallway, each moment of The Shining offers a memorable piece of artistry that stands the test of time. Everything is intentional; after watching this film a handful of times, I still notice delicately placed details with each watch— and the electrifying acting (or was it even acting?) of Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson will never fail to keep me on the edge of my seat.

Experiencing a cult classic and visual masterpiece on the big screen is a rare opportunity that can’t be passed up. The lavish interior of Michigan Theater slightly parallels the elegant atmosphere of the film’s infamous hotel, adding another dimension to the immersive experience. If you enjoy horror, snowy days, big hotels, and human villains who convey demonic evil, you’ll love seeing The Shining at Michigan Theater. Grab a couple of friends and spend your Friday night celebrating an old gem.

PREVIEW: Schwarze Adler (Black Eagles)

Himaja Leave a comment

Tomorrow afternoon, you could kick off the weekend as I usually do — plant yourself down at the library and glue your eyeballs to your laptop screen for two hours.

ALTERNATELY, you could plant yourself down in a comfy chair in the neat North Quad collaborative space and glue your eyeballs to a different screen to live and learn through the experiences of Black players on the German national soccer team.

UM’s German department is hosting a curated screening of the 2021 documentary film “Schwarze Adler” or “Black Eagles” tomorrow from 2-4PM in North Quad 2435. https://events.umich.edu/event/90023

“The documentary lets black players of the German national soccer team tell their personal stories for the first time. What road did they take and what obstacles did they have to overcome before they got to where we cheer for them?”

As we head into a weekend of events celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, I strongly encourage you to make time to reflect on the values that drove his and countless other lesser-mentioned civil rights leaders to fight inequities in their community, and how you are upholding those values.

I think we can all agree that working and living as an athlete is extremely challenging. There are a heap of pressures riding on these people’s backs: the internal drive to win, press and media attention, and the demands of your coach and teammates. It’s stressful at all levels, from high school to the NCAA to the pro leagues.

Those pressures are multiplied for athletes of color, who are often dehumanized. In the U.S. today, Black athletes are dogged by stereotypes that chalk their talent up to “inherent physical ability” rather than the actual years of hard training and practice they put into the game. They have to deal with antiquated competition restrictions that center the needs of their white counterparts (Exhibit A: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/14/style/olympics-soul-cap-ban-swimming.html), and then are shamed for using their platforms to protest their unjust treatment or prioritizing their mental health (ex: Colin Kaepernick, Naomi Osaka). Here’s an interesting history of Black athletes at our very own university: https://heritage.umich.edu/stories/lonely-as-hell/.

Now move the map to Germany. The personal stories of these players will likely be entirely different, and yet…similar in some fundamental ways to what we see in our country. What I think will be invaluable about this film is that the soccer players will be telling their own stories directly to the camera — no filtering or watering down included. This will be a thought-provoking way to get out of the U.S-centric perspective bubble I live in.

I hope to see some of you there!

REVIEW: Don’t Look Up

avameester Leave a comment

Filmmaker Adam Mckay ditches all subtlety in Don’t Look Up, weaponizing comedic satire to lunge straight for the throat of his target— which is, seemingly, almost everyone with media power. Don’t Look Up follows the story of two astronomers, played by Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, who discover a deadly comet speeding straight toward Earth and desperately attempt to convince the world of the event’s urgency. Facing the insurmountable obstacles of political corruption, corporate greed, and the happy-go-lucky culture of the celebrity world, the two struggle to make sense of the media’s ignorance as inevitable death approaches.

Don’t Look Up has an impressive range of talents under its belt, demanding the attention of anyone who previews it. Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, and Ariana Grande, to name just a few, bring to life an array of caricatures. Bubbly talk show hosts, self-absorbed celebrities, and money-hungry politicians take turns looking science in its fiery, unyielding eyes and denying it outright, engaging in nonstop arguments with the only two voices of reason— and somehow always coming out unscathed.

 

The film is fast-paced and blood-boiling, ensuring that you want to tear your hair out and scream at Meryl Streep’s uncharacteristically smug face for the entire 138-minute runtime. The dialogue teeters between over-the-top ludicrosity and sobering realism; it clearly points fingers at real-life media personalities and politicians that exhibit similar attitudes and refuses to water down their ignorance. Some scenes lean too much into the caricatures and come off as corny, but the premise remains intact and believable. The plausibility of the “comet” situation and media reaction mirrors the harrowing reality we live in; as an obvious allegory for the accelerating climate crisis, Don’t Look Up reminds us of exactly how and why the environment is heading towards total decay and which systemic problems are to blame.

 

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rotten and pitying 55%. To be fair, Mckay’s Don’t Look Up lacks nuance and bold ideas, instead infusing what we already know with a sense of existential dread and powerful anger. The comedic route is also a less effective form of delivery than a more serious satire that could delve even deeper into its criticisms. However, my agreement with the critics’ ratings ends there; as designed for a mass audience, rather than an audience of knowledgeable film enthusiasts, Don’t Look Up is a perfectly accessible and entertaining vessel for an urgent message. Grim comedy and familiar faces make the plotline easier to digest, easing the anxiety of the catastrophe. Overall, Don’t Look Up is not intended to be an innovative cultural masterpiece, and that’s okay. At its best, it is a sobering and well-scripted analysis of the twisted hierarchy of power that we live in, given credibility by its parallels to reality and a star-studded cast. At its worst, its comedy detracts from its effectiveness and the film leaves us feeling hopeless.

 

Don’t Look Up pleads for the world to listen to its vindication of America as we know it, and I believe it should be listened to. Packed with enough cynical cleverness and lively dialogue to keep you on your toes for the whole two and a half hours, it’s undoubtedly a worthy watch. Grab some popcorn and a few friends and check it out exclusively on Netflix.

REVIEW: Licorice Pizza

Himaja Leave a comment

In all whopping 134 minutes of this film, neither the word “Licorice” nor the word “Pizza” made an appearance. According to the movie’s Wikipedia page, the name comes from “a former chain of record shops in southern California.” I’m convinced that in reality they had no idea what to name it and chose something random, which is fine by me. “Licorice Pizza” is much more memorable than “134 minutes of vignettes strung together concerning the messy lives of two messy young people in Encino, CA in the 1970s to the tune of some BANGIN’ David Bowie tunes.”

This movie was hilarious. Pure comedy, but it wasn’t the in-your-face kind. I could not stop grinning throughout the entire thing. It was just so nostalgic.

Let’s start with the good:

Many coming of age films are bittersweet for me because they make me feel like I haven’t lived enough life. On-screen teens often go on wild romps through their towns, make messy and theatrical mistakes, and lie side by side underneath the stars talking about life. I never went on wild adventures or made many sparkling memories in high school. Those movies have me leaving the theater feeling a little bit of regret, like I’ve missed out on something in my life.

This movie, conversely, made me feel like there’s a lot of life left to live and a lot of new things to learn – and I can’t wait to live and learn. It made me feel like a main character. After the first conversation between the protagonists, I felt as though I had known the characters my entire life. I could relate to so many of the feelings and emotions and beliefs underneath their actions. The camera angles, the story, and the dialogue all create this perspective in the movie that invites the audience to experience all the messiness and stupid decisions WITH the characters with empathy, rather than looking down at them with ridicule. We bemoan messiness in our own lives but then love to see it played out on the screen, which makes sense. No one likes watching a movie about perfect people without flaws. That’s why the Mr. Rogers documentary is only 95 minutes long.

The visuals were stunning and so warm. The 35 mm film made an extremely noticeable difference and it felt like I was transported back in time. And the actors looked like REAL PEOPLE. They had blemishes on their faces! In the gorgeous closeups, you could notice their slightly crooked teeth! It was glorious!

Now for my critiques:

The ending of the movie felt rushed and left me feeling unsatisfied with where the characters’ development left off. I would say the ending is the weakest part of the screenplay.

There’s a 10-year age gap between the main characters. They discuss this in the movie but don’t outright condemn it. I don’t really understand the need for such a large gap to the movie’s plot, and it’s something that made me uncomfortable.

There’s a weird few scenes where a white man does an impression of a Japanese woman’s accent for comedic purposes. They were not that funny and could’ve been completely cut out of the film with absolutely no difference! So they should’ve been cut out! That’s my 2 cents about the matter.

Overall, I would recommend anyone go see this movie for the dreamy 70s CA filmography, well-written characters, and fantastic soundtrack. The film is not without its flaws, but I would say the enjoyable parts outweigh them.

PREVIEW: Cowboy Bebop

Nellie Shih Leave a comment

As part of the Michigan Theater’s Late Nights Series, Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is playing tomorrow at 10pm. The film, alternatively known as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, is set between two episodes of the 1998 anime series, though it was released in 2001 after the completion of the series. The film follows Spike Spiegel and his crew of bounty hunters as their spaceship, Bebop, land on Mars in 2071 chasing after an ex-military officer turned biological terrorist. 

Several staff members of the original series returned to work on the film, including director Shinichiro Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer/animation director Toshihiro Kawamoto, composer Yoko Kanno, as well as the voice actors. The film received some mixed but generally positive reviews from critics when it premiered, with the most praise for the score. It is interesting to compare the reception to the film compared to the recent Netflix live-action series, which was helmed by different creators but did bring back Yoko Kanno. As someone who has not watched the original series, it seems that there is generally more encouragement to watch the film instead of the live-action series in order to watch a continuation of the original that actually preserves its spirit and quality. 

Tickets are on sale for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie on Friday, Jan. 7 at 10pm!

PREVIEW: Licorice Pizza

Himaja Leave a comment

 

The trailer for Licorice Pizza is one of the best movie trailers I’ve ever seen.

I make this sweeping claim because even after watching it five or more times during the previews of Spiderman: No Way Home in theaters, I couldn’t tell you much about the movie other than it’s a coming-of-age film with a messy love story and Bradley Cooper involved. I think that’s what a good trailer does: it gives you just enough details to get you curious, while providing visuals that set the tone and era of the film. Give it a watch and let me know what you think!

I’m excited for a good story packed with messy, drama-filled teen angst. The last movie I watched that fit that bill was probably Lady Bird and I loved it. Watching these coming-of-age films can sometimes be painful – they have their cringey moments that remind me of similar cringey moments in my past – but that’s the reason why I love the experience. Nothing compares to that feeling when you read a book or listen to a song or watch a movie and something happens that makes you think “I’ve been there.”

You can catch Licorice Pizza at the Michigan Theater at various showings over the next few weeks! Get tickets here: https://secure.michtheater.org/websales/pages/info.aspx?epguid=83683564-3500-4e9a-8221-b074c769a042&evtinfo=717535~c76be4f4-22b5-4bed-a89c-7def863b8c53

Stay tuned for my attempts to figure out the meaning of the movie’s title after I watch it. Until then, please let me know if you’ve personally tried pizza with licorice on it and if you would recommend.