Spy x Familyis one of my favorite anime, so I was super excited when I heard there’s a movie, especially since the end of the last season felt incomplete. Spy x Family is a comedy anime that follows the daily life of the Forger family. As the agency’s most talented spy, Loid Forger is tasked with Operation Strix: a high-risk mission that requires him to form a fake family to maintain world peace. He marries Yor Forger, unknowing that she’s a top-tier assassin, and adopts Anya Forger, a telepath.
In the new movie,Spy x Family Code: White, Loid is told by his superior that mission Operation Strix is to be transferred to a new agent, meaning that the Forger family is no longer needed. To stay in charge of Operation Strix, Loid must prove that he and his fake familyare the most fitting for the role. The movie isn’t written by the author of Spy x Family, Tatsuya Endo; I didn’t know this beforehand, but it became obvious halfway through. While Loid and Yor didn’t seem any different, Anya’s shift in personality is what gave it away. I think the out-of-characterness was a tool to be more humorous but at some times it was too much. To be completely honest, it lacked the same charm the anime has in terms of storytelling and plot. The creators did a good job setting it up in the beginning, but in the homestretch, it became rushed and had some unexpected (not necessarily in a good way) twists.
It’s possible to watch the movie without having seen the anime, but it would help. I’d recommend watching the anime over watching the movie, which feels more like a fun addition rather than an essential story. I still had a lot of fun watching it though!
This semester’s Michigan Pops Orchestra concert, Tales from the Realm of Pops, has been my favorite concert of the past six I’ve attended. The theme this semester was fairytale and fantasy, and the repertoire was full of my personal favorites that are both famous in the classical world and familiar with most audiences: from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet to The Legend of Zelda to Sleeping Beauty, the orchestra certainly took us on a magic carpet ride.
The first piece to capture my heart was Tchaikovsky’s notoriously hard Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, performed by this year’s High School Concerto Competition winner Minji Kim, a Junior studying at Skyline High School. The past three High School Concerto Competition winners have all been violinists, but she’s left the biggest impression on me so far. The first movement of Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto, the Allegretto, features intense lyrical runs up and down the violin, which Minji nailed each time. What impressed me the most were her double stops. Double stops mean two notes are being playedat the same; this requires the bow to be completely evenly balanced on the strings while the fingers are to be a precise distance apart. It’s very easy to be out of tune when playing double stops, especially while shifting, but Minji made it sound incredibly easy with her crystal-clear tone and perfect intonation. This was my first time listening to this concerto live, and it couldn’t have been any better.
Right after came one of the unarguably best orchestral works to ever exist: Scheherazade, Op. 35 by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Pops played the third movement, The Young Prince and the Young Princess. Just like the title suggests, it’s an incredibly romantic movement that passes the melody between the strings and winds, as if they were lovers conversing. The lyrical line evokes so many feelings, such as yearning and passion before turning into playful flirting when the tempo picks up. I highly recommend listening to all of Scheherazade. It’s truly a piece that shows music can weave a colorful story and brings out the violin’s full potential during the many concertmaster solos, which Katie Zhao did an amazing job of.
I’m so glad I got to attend this concert despite being busy with finals and the coming end of the semester. It whisked me away from my stress and worries and was the best refuge I could get. I’m now all the more excited to come back to another Michigan Pops concert next year, and I wonder if they’ll be able to top this semester’s amazing collection.
Landing itself at the tail end of the year, the KASA Culture Show presents a grand finale to the year. KASA stands for the Korean American Student Association, a cultural/social organization that seeks to bring together a Korean American community and celebrate Korean culture. The night was full of wonderful performances of music and dance, but the true highlight was the screening of a popular K-drama remake. This year, KASA showcased their remake of the film Door Lock (도어락).
Before I get into the film, I’d like to highlight how amazing the music performances were. Sinaboro started off the night with a bang (of a janggu) performing a traditional Samul Nori (사물놀이) ensemble. Samul Nori is a genre of traditional Korean percussion music that utilizes four instruments: the kkwaenggwari (꽹과리), a small gong, the jing (징), a larger gong, the janggu (장구), an hourglass-shaped drum, and the Buk (북), a barrel bass drum. The precise rhythms and clangorous quality of Sinaboro’s performance brought a part of Korean culture that was unique and very interesting to learn about/experience. Additionally, Seoul Juice gave a stellar performance, although I am not completely familiar with their set list, each song filled the theater with pleasing harmonies that the band is well associated with. Personally, I’ve seen Seoul Juice perform multiple times and they always deliver, by which I mean every single member gave their all.
Seoul Juice Mid-Performance
Now the film was no doubt the highlight of the night, as it captivated the whole audience in its masterly-made production. Door Lock is a horror movie about a woman’s victimization by the hands of a stalker. Carrying heavy themes about sexual assault, stalking, and kidnapping, the film is one that leaves the audience in horrifying suspense about the identity of Kyungmin’s stalker but also woeful concern about her safety. By all means, the most fun part of it was the audience’s reactions as everyone screamed in terror, gasped in shock, and aired their frustration that she would just let that guy in her apartment. The way the film was shown to the audience was also unique and fascinating as it was cut into parts, progressively being shown between performances. It left us in the audience with cliffhangers, red herrings, and terrible suspense.
However, I do note that there was one problem I found to be pervasive: the overrepresentation of Kpop in Korean culture. While I absolutely adored the flawless formations and power of Female Gayo, the baddie energy and captivating visuals of Humi, the stylishness and effortlessness of DB3, the uniqueness and ingenuity of UMTKD, the focus and freshness of K-Motion, it felt like the heavy presence Kpop has overshadowed other important aspects of Korean culture. I would like to emphasize that Korean culture is not just the Kpop that it is often represented with, and a culture show should be a space to celebrate diverse representations of culture, not just a popular facet of it.
Despite this criticism, I found the KASA Culture Show to be a great time. The energy from the audience gave me life, and every time the dancers were only shown through silhouette I audibly gasped by how cool it looked. In summation, I love performances and the multimedia showcase of the KASA Culture Show was exemplary in all counts quality-wise.
Welcome to the fantastical world of Yorgos Lanthimos’s PoorThings. The 2023 film is based on the 1992 book by Scotsman Alasdair Gray, a riff of the well-known Frankenstein with some rather venereal counterplots. With an abundance of Golden Globe, BAFTA, SAG, and Academy nominations, Poor Things has thoroughly charmed modern cinemas.
Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is the culmination of a creepy science experiment by a uniquely kind mad scientist, Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), giving a woman driven to suicide a second chance—with the brain of her unborn infant. Bella matures quickly, first discovering her balance, gravity, and empathy, and eventually philosophy, sex, and personal fulfillment. Her developmental journey is natural, but odd perceived from a fully developed women’s body. Godwin maintains a careful grip over Bella’s freedom, supervising her alongside his collegiate assistant, Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef).
Bella ultimately winds up following the conniving lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) across Europe on an expensive bender, fueling Wedderburn’s desire for passive companionship and Baxter’s ache for adventure. The two create quite the disruptive pair, while Bella meets a selection of romantic partners and friends, and sees true inequality for the first time.
The narrative consistently intrigues with its quasi-realism, engrossing the reader completely in a sci-fi-coated London. Each character is extremely animated, like that of a children’s book. Stone effortlessly captivates Bella’s inner yearning for adventure and search for truth. She is curious and unafraid—a portrait of young women without society’s ruminating judgment. Bella has a fearless curiosity and confronts the world as such. It left me in a state of reflection watching a young woman discover life with (mostly) her own free will without the knowledge or care of society’s judgment placed upon her.
(Ramy Youssef (left) and Willem Dafoe)
The design presents a nod to the Victorian elements of Frankenstein while exploring fantastical sci-fi embellishments that separate our reality from that of Poor Things. It brought home Academy Awards for Best Costume Design, Best Design, and Best Make-Up and Hair, (as well as Stone for Best Actress)—an unsurprising selection of accolades, in my opinion. The Academy clearly agrees that Frankenstein never went out of style.
141 minutes. Rated R for nudity, lots of sex, and disembowelment. In theaters now.
Image thanks to The New York Times and Fast Company.
The Metropolitan Opera hosts viewings of select operas in movie theaters across the country, under their series “Met Live in HD”. These performances on screen are marketed at an affordable price, to increase accessibility efforts in opera. The 2024 year premieres with Bizet’s Carmen, an iconic staple of Opera literature.
Young Russian Soprano, Aigul Akhmetshina, takes the stage as the youngest ‘Carmen’ to perform at The Met. Her demanding presence is alluring, along with her spunk and sense of unpredictability. She was a force to watch on stage, equally expressive and keen to the role. She sings alongside Met Opera greats: Piotr Beczała, Angel Blue, and Kyle Ketelsen. This quartet was truly remarkable, each buzzing with personality and vocal virtuosity. Akhmetshina is contracted to sing ‘Carmen’ at opera houses and festivals around the globe until at least August 2024.
The story of Carmen’s success is quite a tragic one for the composer, Georges Bizet. Bizet struggled to get his work on stage, though a fresh winner of the Prix de Rome. 1875 Paris was not fond of his depictions of proletarian life, lawlessness, and a tragic ending with an aggressive on-stage death. However, the historically controversial themes have been embraced by modern viewers and the score has trickled into aspects ofpop culture, making songs like “Habanera” one of the most well-known arias to date.
The Met revels in creating the most aesthetically unique productions of Carmen year after year. Director Carrie Cracknell makes her Met debut taking a stab at a modern adaptation of ‘Carmen’s’ adventures and escapades. This production is set in the 21st Century, with references to gun violence, systemic labor abuse, and female empowerment. Her directing choices were clear and concise, revitalizing a story seeping with stereotypes and sexism.
I would recommend seeing a Met HD Opera in theaters. It is an intimate way to experience some of the most distinguished operas in the United States.
235 minutes. Not Rated. Includes gendered violence, cigarettes, and sexual themes. Sung in French with English subtitles.
Return to Seoul is a film that is resonant in its essential question of “how does one consolidate the roots of one’s own identity when they are foreign to oneself?” The movie follows the 25 y/o Freddie as she navigates the country of her birth and its foreign cultures and people. Originally traveling to Korea on a whim with her friend Tena, she decides to pay a visit to the Hammond Adoption Agency that facilitated her adoption. The creation of these international adoption agencies began from the large amount of Korean orphans resulting from the aftermath of the Korean War in the 1950’s. From this, she is contacted by her birth father, who has been separated from Freddy’s birth mother, and she makes the decision to go see him with Tena. However, her trip there is mixed with reluctance, the ambivalence is painted on her face to the point that you can feel her stomach churning. Her worries are justified when she comes up feeling even more disconnected to the family that revels in her return. While her father wants Freddie to stay in Korea, she cannot as she is a French woman with a home, friends, and family back in France. He cannot accept this, however, leaving her discomfort to culminate in an encounter where he follows her to a bar, and she rejects his drunken fatherly embrace, screaming “Don’t touch me!”
Freddie markedly does not fit in with the culture in Korea, and her experiences in her first trip to Korea certainly show this aspect of her the most. She is explicit in her defiance of cultural norms and etiquette, making sure that others know that she is a French woman, not Korean. To this effect, Tena’s translations fail to express the harshness of her words, and the language barrier between her and the Koreans in the movie further complicate her disconnect from the culture. Additionally, Freddie is simply an interesting character, for she swaps between lifestyles, partners, and friends throughout the entirety of the three-part movie. She is brazen, indulging herself in music, soju, and hookups.
One final thing I was intrigued about was the use of extended scenes of music with the stages of Freddie’s life in mind. In any capacity, the music plays an integral role in representing the different phases of her life through all of the different time-skips. It helps to describe how her freedom and independence manifests throughout different genres, characterizing Freddie through her different stages of life: as a young woman moving through adulthood. It’s an intensely resonant narrative device that creates beautiful juxtaposition with her coming of age.
The film screening of Return to Seoul was shown as a part of the Korean Cinema NOW: Diaspora Edition event. These movie showings are presented by the NAM Center on Saturdays in the Michigan Theatre throughout the Winter 2024 semester. If you’re interested in Korean cinema—especially as they relate to the Korean diaspora or diasporic identities in general—then there are still many more films being put on, and they all have free admission with catering from Miss Kim herself (I have to say that the food is really nummy! (˵ •̀ ᴗ – ˵ ) ✧). So, don’t hesitate to indulge in a fun Saturday outing these movie are worth it!
Runtime: 1 hr 59 min
Rated R
Screenshot of the movie taken from the npr Article: “‘Return to Seoul’ is About Reinvention, not Resolution”
