This Friday, at 10 pm, the movie ‘Purple Rain’ is played in the Michigan Theater.
Anyone not alien to the pop culture would have encountered at some point in their life the famous cover of the iconic album with Prince dressed in purple riding the motorcycle. Inducted in the Grammy hall of fame and being sold more than 25 million copies worldwide, the album ‘Purple rain’ of Prince is mentioned as one of the most iconic albums in the pop scene of all time. My first encounter with the album was at a modern vinyl shop in Seoul. Purple rain was displayed as the test record to get the taste of music played from vinyl, and I, as a self-defined rock and funk fan went for it. I was a bit surprised-I had thought that Prince was a rock/funk style artist. What I heard was an R&B style, soul vibe. I still remember that experience as an unexpected, surprising one.
The film that will be played this Friday features the album as the soundtrack. It’s a rock musical with Prince acting as himself. It’s about Prince and his band, a taste of their music and life.
U of M Students could get in free if they submit the passport to the arts or use a passcode to get tickets online. More information on where to find and how to use the passport to the arts can be found here:
Last Friday the German Department hosted a free curated screening of the 2021 independent documentary film “Schwarze Adler” (translated from German: “Black Eagles”). The space they held it in at North Quad was great – it was huge, with floor-to-ceiling windows spanning the length of one wall, whiteboards and cushy chairs spanning the other, and a big blank wall up front to project the film onto. The physically-distanced chairs they’d set up in the room were fairly packed with people coming for the event.
Watching this documentary was a pretty emotional experience for me (which is why it took me so long to write this review!).
Steffi Jones, former defender for the national team
Seeing footage in 2021 of fans at a soccer game doing the Hitler salute will do something to your psyche. I’m privileged — some people don’t have the choice of whether to turn away from the screen, because they live through this every day. Imagine being a player on a professional sports team where the only difference between you and your teammates is that your skin is a shade darker. You’re trying to focus on the game you’ve trained for for most of your life when you suddenly hear 1000s of fans in the stands surrounding you, most of which are from your own country where you were born and raised, yelling at you to go back where you came from. That’s an experience that was recounted by every single German soccer player interviewed in this documentary.
The way fans treat athletes is something worth having a whole discussion on. Cheering for your favorite players and booing when the other team scores is all good fun. But when that morphs into jeering, chanting hateful racial slurs, and hurling insults at players, that’s when it becomes absolutely cruel. Michigan football games are not immune to this behavior. We put athletes on pedestals, but they are not made of titanium, they’re made of flesh and blood! They’re humans just like us and when fans dehumanize them, they deprive them of so much: joy from being on the field, joy from being with their teammates, and the focus they need to stay in the game.
Gerald Asamoah, former forward
Many of the players in the documentary talked about how hearing those shouts of “go back to your country” and “kick out the negro” would affect their playing, and they thought about it for the whole rest of the game. At one point one of the players, Gerald Asamoah said he had “never seen such hate anywhere else before.” One of his fellow teammates of color left Germany to play for Ghana because of the experience. Another player, after being subjected to it for half a game, picked up a small red crate on the sidelines and threw it down in a fit of anger. His teammates said nothing to him — the referee just handed him a yellow card. Another recounted how sad it made him when he saw that not only were the parents chanting slurs, but their small children were too.
Almost all of the players also made connections between the way they were treated to Germany’s dark history. “How can you show this behavior when we have seen exactly where it leads?” I think the same could be said of racism in our country. The U.S. has an equally dark history, it’s just that it’s usually glossed over in our history textbooks.
When the credits began to roll, I was feeling kind of hopeless and defeated. I know that’s not the right response to world issues, but I couldn’t help it. But then one of the professors from the German department got up to say a few words.
Here’s what she said, paraphrased:
“Don’t be disheartened. These thoughts of racism have accrued over centuries and it will take time to undo them. Martin Luther King Jr. was only assassinated 52 years ago so really we’re just at the beginning of the work to undo it. And don’t feel bad if you are not the one who goes out and marches and shows up in a big way. The small acts matter to. Every act of kindness, and every act that does something to acknowledge the humanity in others matters.”
So go out and show up in a small or in a big way this week, and know that we have a long way to go but every act matters.
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.
When I saw you were becoming a movie, I admit, I was skeptical. You’re the freshest in a growing list of musicals turned movies, a recent trend that I’m not sure how I feel about yet. A theatre kid at heart, I knew the music and storyline from Dear Evan Hansen before I walked into the screening. Wondering how the transition from stage to screen would play out, I came in skeptical but interested.
My main hesitation with movie musicals is that the mashing of these forms can often feel confusing, if done improperly. When attending a musical, the audience is expecting the music as part of the storytelling. In a movie, the ability to shoot in an authentic setting can create enhanced realism, which can’t always be done on stage. When someone starts singing out of the blue in a movie, it feels especially out of place when the rest of the film feels so real. I felt particularly jarred by it in Dear Evan Hansen, which utilized silence in its non-musical parts so well, I started to wonder what this movie would look like without the musical element everyone was expecting, and if it could stand alone that way.
Another one of these skepticisms came from the age of Ben Platt, the originator of the role of the titular Evan Hansen. We are no stranger to seeing actors well out of the age range play high schoolers (ex. Grease, Stranger Things, etc.), and Platt has spoken up against critics who said he’s too old for the role. While I agree that it’s irritating to continue to see high schoolers played by much-older actors, I have to admit Platt’s performance is exceptionally extraordinary. Platt’s ability, especially repeated times a week on stage, to portray a severely anxious high schooler and snot-cry while singing, is incredible. It comes from a place of deeply understanding and embodying the character of Evan Hansen, and it times it’s hard to watch because of its rawness.
Speaking of snot-crying… While the storyline is emotional and heavy, I couldn’t help but feel the movie was perhaps a bit too self-indulgent at times. There may have been a smidge too much screen time for tears and pensive expressions–and the removal of some of the more upbeat songs from the original musical only added to the darker tone of the film version.
While some original songs were missing, a few new ones were added. I appreciated what they did here–it seemed, in this way, that they were moving towards making the movie its own meaningful thing, rather than a copy of the musical version. The movie slightly departs by featuring certain characters more, increasing the diversity factor of the film and touching on different ways mental health shows up in different people’s lives. (Hint: Alana gets a more fleshed-out character development, and we hear more from Connor!)
Overall: Did I cry? Yes. I’m not afraid to say that the topic of mental health and suicide hits quite close to home for me, and I’m thankful for the way DEH doesn’t shy away from the tough stuff. Did I laugh? Yes, in the brief snippets of comedic relief. In the end, I would recommend it as separate from its musical original. For those of us who need to hear it, DEH reminds us: You are not alone. You will be found. If you’re feeling up for a powerful, emotional story, go check it out when it releases on September 24th!
Moxie, directed by Amy Poehler, is a Netflix film about 16-year-old Vivian and her feminist awakening when she opens her eyes to the misogynistic culture of her high school. Vivian finds her mom’s old collection of ‘90s feminist punk zines and decides to make her own, anonymously printing copies and putting them in the school bathrooms. A cult following then amasses–a small group of girls get together to start taking larger action against sexism and gender inequality at their school.
I may have came in expecting too much from the film. I’ll try my best to judge it as the lighthearted teen dramedy it was meant to be, but I have to criticize Moxie for its ambitiousness and subsequent shortcomings.
Overall, Moxie felt like it was trying too hard to be too many things, and the end result was a messy and underwhelming teen rom-com. Too often I felt the issues being touched on in the film were important, but not given enough attention or screen time. Moxie tries to cover heavy topics like sexism, racism, transgender issues, sexual assault, and immigrant issues, along with mother-daughter conflict and healthy teenage relationships, all while tossing in a bit of barely-there LGBTQ+ representation and disability representation.
Vivan (left) and Lucy (right) in Moxie (2021)
While I’m happy that this film had representation of so many different identities and experiences, it was disappointing to see so many opportunities for nuanced coverage of these diverse topics disappear in the shadow of Vivian’s coming-of-age plot. As an important but unfortunate example, new student Lucy, a Black girl, is the one who inspires Vivian’s budding feminism by standing up against a sexist teacher and the aggressive school jock. However, Lucy and the other women of color in the Moxie group are basically relegated to the role of one-dimensional inspiration and backup for Vivian, while Vivan, a white girl, gets the privilege of a plot exploring the complexity of her budding political self, family life, young love, and teenage angst–which we don’t even truly get to invest in, because there’s simply not enough time to dive into character development with everything Moxie tried to squeeze into 2 hours.
Amy Poehler’s character, Vivian’s mom, makes a brief reference to the lack of intersectionality in the feminist movement back in her day as a ‘90s riot grrrl. Moxie also fails to fully be the feminism power statement it could be. I feel there simply wasn’t enough time in a feature film to cover intersectionality and discuss why and how misogyny affects women of color, or trans women, or disabled women, differently. And that there had seemingly been no push against the terribly misogynistic culture in the school before Vivian’s spontaneous feminist push is doubtful–but that’s all I’ll say about that.
As someone who was in the high school scene just a few years ago (though it seems longer), I will say I probably would have been inspired by this film as a 16-year-old. I saw some of my own Gen-Z high school struggles portrayed in Moxie, and I think Moxie is definitely more positive than other YA media that was being released in my teenage years (ex. 13 Reasons Why). I think Moxie was made in good intent, it just didn’t live up to its potential. Perhaps as a full Netflix series, Moxie could have been a lot more.
Moxie was a cute modern-age girl-power flick, but it sure wasn’t anything groundbreaking or monumental. Worth the watch if you’re looking for something light–but don’t expect more than, as NYT’s Jeannette Catsoulis puts it, “a CliffsNotes guide to fighting the patriarchy.”
The Dig focuses on excavator Basil Brown (Ralph Fiennes) as he works on a site in Britain in 1939, owned by Edith Pretty (Carey Mulligan). The driving force of the film becomes the people who are brought to the site as they unearth an ancient artifact. We’re given glimpses into the lives of incredibly complex individuals, all who have their own internal and external struggles, and the only thing that has brought them all together is the dig site in the countryside.
Without giving too much away, I’d like to praise this movie as much as possible. From the beginning you can see how beautiful the film is, the sprawling landscapes of grass and trees, slightly obscured by morning mist or shrouded in a thick fog, the billowing clouds full of rain allowing only the most brilliant sunbeams to pass through, and quite frankly the dirt which looks so rich and velvety that you want to be there, in the film, just to dig your own hands into the gorgeous earth. I was blown away again and again by the scenery, and if nothing else, the film is worth the watch just to look at how beautiful nature can be. On top of that, the performances given by Mulligan and Fiennes are spectacular, and both are able to make the audience feel the way the characters are feeling, sometimes incredibly excited, other times extremely frustrated or full of existential sorrow.
One thing that I absolutely loved about the film was its spirituality and how it reminds us of our place in the universe. Each character has to wrestle with the idea that they are impermanent, that in a thousand years they will be forgotten, and all that will remain of them are some fragments of their possessions. We can see characters greedily cling to things that will preserve their past, which creates a dynamic between some upper class individuals and some of the workers on the site. Some of the highly educated want the glory associated with making such a momentous discovery, but those who actually did the work learn to let go. The characters that we sympathize with are those who realize that they are playing their part in an intergenerational saga. They aren’t meant to live forever as a famous name in history, they’re meant to live their lives and create a history for all of us to learn about.
I would encourage everyone to watch this movie. While it is admittedly quite Eurocentric (which I think is to be expected from a period piece based on a true story which took place in Britain), it delivers justice to hardworking people and critiques the upper class’s desire for self preservation. I think you would be hard pressed not to be sucked into the storyline within the first fifteen minutes of watching, and until you’re invested, the imagery will keep you more than satisfied. If you like to see how brilliant actors can be, watch Fiennes in the first opening scenes, listen to his accent and recognize that this is the same person who played Voldemort in the Harry Potter franchise (what a range!). Stay for Mulligan’s beautiful transformation as she struggles with letting go of her son, and the drama that develops when Lily James’ character is introduced at the halfway point of the film. The more I think of this movie, the more I realize how brilliant it really was, the direction, writing, sound design, and acting are all phenomenal. If I were to keep writing I’m sure I would give too much away, so I’ll contain myself and stop for now. If you can, please watch this movie, I’m sure you won’t regret it. 10/10
