Lady Bird is an indie film about a high school girl struggling with her relationship with her mother. So basically every indie film, however, this one currently has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes (with over 100 reviews!) so if you’re going to see any indie film about teenage girls this year, make sure it’s Lady Bird. The film opens at the Michigan Theater today and student tickets are $8.
Category: Film
PREVIEW: Dont Look Back
When I first got to Ann Arbor, I was amazed how many Bob Dylan fans I seemed to run into. It’s not surprising, considering how enduring his work is and how popular he remains to this day. I even remember my History of the Sixties class talking about his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Naturally, there are a ton of movies and documentaries focusing on aspects of Dylan’s life. My favorite so far has definitely been the extensive documentary No Direction Home (after the line in his famous “Like a Rolling Stone”). But Dont Look Back, with appearances of people like Joan Baez and Donovan and a 100% Certified Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is definitely at the top of the list of necessary Dylan-related films. It covers Dylan’s 1965 concert tour in England, on the cusp of many of the creative breakthroughs that would eventually confirm his place in history as a legend.
That’s why I’m very excited to see Dont Look Back tonight at The Michigan Theatre, as part of the theatre’s 1967 Film Series. I’ve never seen it before, and I can’t wait to see what it’s like. The film will show at 9:30, and student tickets are $8 each.
PREVIEW: Shift Talent Showcase
Art is a powerful tool for community awareness and social change, which is why Redefine, a student organization that connects social justice and the arts, has coordinated Shift, an event intended to highlight the immigrant experiences of students on campus, as well as to champion diversity within the Michigan community.
Shift will feature artists from the Middle East, India, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Brazil, as well as from many more areas. There will be narratives that center around the experiences of immigrants, refugees, and international students. The event will feature multicultural performances, a two-hour art exhibition, and FREE FOOD.
I am a member of Redefine, and I know that the e-board has been working tirelessly for the past few weeks in preparation for this upcoming event, partnered with the student organizations Zeta Omega Eta, Refugees to College, Iraqi Student Association, Students Organize for Syria, and The Call for Humanity. Please check it out! This event promises to be a spectacular night.
Event details:
When: Thursday November 16, 7-9PM
Where: The Pendleton Room at the Michigan Union
Cost: FREE!!!
REVIEW: Loving Vincent
It was a dark and stormy night as I walked my way to the Michigan Theater for the Saturday premiere of Loving Vincent. However, the dreary weather did not dissuade many from showing up to experience the film, which proved to be very rewarding.
I knew, going into the theater, that the film’s existence itself is almost miraculous– over 100 expert painters worked to create more than 6,000 frames of paintings done in the style of Van Gogh, making it the first and only painted animated film in the world. However, I was unprepared for how overwhelmingly the art, plot, and characters melted together masterfully to produce such a moving take on Van Gogh’s biography.
The striking thing about this biographical take is that it begins a year after Van Gogh takes his own life. While a surprising, but not unprecedented, artistic choice, focusing on the subject’s death and tracing the steps that led up to it often sets a bleak mood from the beginning, though Loving Vincent separates that overall mood and gives it particular names: guilt, regret, sorrow, grief, all of which reverberate from Van Gogh’s suicide. The film opens up with a shot of the familiar Van Gogh piece “Starry Night”; zooming into the village below, while still retaining the characteristic, colorful swirls of Van Gogh’s artistic style, the viewer is immediately transported into the plot, which moves almost as fluidly as the brushstrokes that compose each masterfully produced frame.
Armand, the son of Vincent Van Gogh’s postman, who is tasked by his father to deliver Van Gogh’s last letter addressed to his brother, Theo. Unwillingly, Armand is whisked into a scavenger hunt for clues that will piece together the real reason Van Gogh ended his own life. His mission takes him to every corner of the town Van Gogh died in, meeting characters who knew the artist before his death; his doctor, the daughter of his landlord, a young woman with whom he shared an intimate relationship with, the boatsman who often sat with the artist as he painted on the riverside, and other locals. Without revealing too much revealing content about the outcome of the film, I will emphasize that I appreciated the way that Van Gogh’s character was still left with a certain degree of ambiguity in the end, a type of mystique that the film did not attempt to force into definite causes and effects.
I was most impressed by the scenes that contained shots of smoke, water, and fire; it was mystifying to watch and know that these seemingly fluid, effortless movements were painstakingly labored over to produce the desired degree of motion. I cannot stress enough how beautiful this film is; it is by far one of the most gorgeous ones I have ever seen.
However, although the artistic achievement of this movie is beyond praise, I found myself becoming a little bit confused as the plot thickened. The network of characters and their associations quickly becomes vast and intricate, although each piece of the puzzle fits in nicely, in the end.
I highly recommend this film for both Van Gogh fans and casual observers alike. The Michigan Theater will be showing it until November 9th. Tickets can be purchased here: https://prod3.agileticketing.net/websales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=335674~c76be4f4-22b5-4bed-a89c-7def863b8c53&
PREVIEW: Loving Vincent
Starry Night. Sunflowers. Irises. Though the subjects of some of Vincent Van Gogh’s most famous works are classically beautiful and depicted with swirls of vibrant colors that render them near-mystical, the artist himself led a tortured life. His eventual suicide at age 37 was predated preceded by a life of poverty and mental illness.
Vincent Van Gogh has his struggles documented through his own works in Loving Vincent, a biographical film that is the first and only fully painted animation film in existence. Van Gogh’s paintings are brought to life by a team of 115 classically trained painters who created 65,000 individual frames for the film, though only around 1,000 survived the process and actually made it into the production. The film won the “Most Popular International Feature” award at the Vancouver International Film Festival (2017), was nominated for “Best Original Score” in the Hollywood Music in Media Awards 2017, and received the Golden Goblet for best Animation Film at the Shanghai International Film Festival.
Loving Vincent is bound to be a spectacular visionary journey through the life of one of the most influential painters in Western art. Tickets can be purchased on the Michigan Theater website. ($8 for students with ID).
REVIEW: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Michigan Theatre.
2016, freshman year: I, fresh-faced and a virgin to the world of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, emerged from Michigan Theatre as a slightly less virginal, still very impressionable, but a bit more cultured freshman. One year ago, I had the expectation that I was going to see a film with a great story line and amazing musical numbers.
If watching a calm, visually pleasant movie in an idle theatre is your kind of night, maybe a kind of film that’s musically show-stopping and rendered so beautifully that it’ll likely make you shed a tear or two – then I hear Once is a pretty good pick.
Because going to Rocky Horror is much less about seeing a magnificent film then it is going to experience a magnificent movement – a cult classic in all its chaotic vibrancy. This was immediately evident even in the line-up outside of Michigan Theatre as show time approached, with countless people floating by in a variety of costumes: pink wigs, fishnet tights, gold spandex.
2017, I’ve matured; I’m seasoned, having taken The Rocky Oath and done The Time-Warp before.
This year, I went into Rocky Horror not to watch a movie. Instead, I went for the callbacks, the sing-alongs, the endless amount cheering through the night. Perhaps it’s unusual within the realm of theatre-going, but audience interaction with the film is a significant part of the experience. With a repertoire of callbacks timed in sync with the movie script, (someone memorably shouting “Hey, what do you like to eat for breakfast?” just as an on-screen character replied “Come,” for example), each time the experience is new, different depending on the audience itself.
There are more corporal traditions, however, such as standing up and dancing to The Time Warp, snapping rubber gloves as Frank N. Furter does in the laboratory, yelling “Asshole” and “Slut” every time Brad and Janet are uttered. The clever, sometimes absurd traditions are my absolute favourite part of Rocky Horror, bringing a local culture into the theatre.
With a shadow cast this year, another dimension was added to the film. A cast interpreted the plot playing on screen, acting out the script along with the movie. Sometimes the attention shifted off-screen entirely, the crowd cheering as the cast did something particularly funny or racy – even more so than what was happening on film. Something like this bridges the gap between film and audience even more. And unlike a lot of successful movies, Rocky Horror isn’t held in a pristine prestige; it’s steeped in and shaped by the layperson.
A generally good time, and an interesting cultural phenomenon, The Rocky Horror Picture Show at Michigan Theatre isn’t something to be missed. It only gets better year after year of attending, and I’m looking forward to the next Halloween weekend!
