COLUMN: In defense of Aquaman
I have a proposition, dear reader. It’s about challenging the narratives given to you.
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I have a proposition, dear reader. It’s about challenging the narratives given to you.
I’m going to do something antithetical to the purpose of an opinion column and withhold my opinion. I believe the following conversation should be held free from the moderation of a student newspaper writer. Its urgency, however, cannot ?be mitigated.
Secretary of the Treasury Jacob J. Lew announced by 2020 the $10 bill in circulation will feature a female icon of American history.
The Supreme Court decided June 26 same-sex marriage bans were ?unconstitutional.
Conservatives are aching for a good GOP primary ?candidate
Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison last Friday. The name Ross Ulbricht probably doesn’t ring a bell to any readers unless they’re familiar with his trial. But it’s more likely that they’ll be familiar with the site the 31-year-old was convicted for founding ?and operating. Silk Road was an online marketplace for illegal goods — mostly drugs — that operated on the Tor network using an anonymous online currency known as bitcoin. It allowed for illicit trading with unprecedented security and ?convenience.
A federal jury sentenced 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death Friday for the bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
Starting Strong
‘Lucy’
It has been keenly observed by movie analysts that this has been a dry summer for movies.
Starring:Corey Stoll, Mia Maestro, Sean Astin,B-Good horror is hard to come by these days, be it on television, at the movies or even in the pages of a book. In the first two media, there seems to be a dichotomy between “torture porn” stories and supernatural haunting stories. The first relies on gore, the second on jump moments.
“Dawn of the Planet of the Apes”Starring: Andy Serkis, Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, Keri RussellBSome movies have concepts so ludicrous it becomes almost impossible to suspend disbelief. “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” is almost one of these films, but manages to just barely avoid this fate thanks to a compelling performance by Andy Serkis.
Director: Steve James
“Cibola Burn”
“Snowpiercer”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The dragon race at the start of “How to Train Your Dragon 2” turns out to be a reflection of the movie on a small scale; while the dragons are awesome and comical, in the end it is all spectacle and no substance.It might make a good pastime for Vikings, but as a movie it is only disappointing. The Vikings on the island of Berk have learned to coexist with the dragons that once burned their villages. Now the dragons act more like scaly, hyper-intelligent dogs. They are shown helping out with housework and keeping the elderly citizens company. All of this harmony is thanks to the efforts of our hero, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), who coordinated a peace between dragons and islanders in the first movie. The first movie also detailed his journey from anxious, unsure teenager into the confident and capable young man he is at the present. Using this as a starting point, “How to Train Your Dragon 2” promises Hiccup’s emotional journey will be his discovery of what he wants to do with his life. At the moment he is interested in exploring the nearby islands with his friend and personal dragon, Toothless (Randy Thom), but his father Stoick (Gerard Butler) plans on retiring soon and wants Hiccup to succeed him as village chief.Up until this point the movie is engaging and lively. But as soon as this setup is offered, it is hijacked by a half-baked, underwhelming antagonist named Drago Bludvist (Djimon Honsou), who plans on using an army of mind-controlled dragons to conquer Berk.If the film had successfully combined this thread with Hiccup’s emotional journey, the movie would have been fine. It does not. Instead, it ignores Hiccup’s self-discovery and wants us to wonder if the dragons of Berk will be able to thwart their brainwashing.Of course they will. This is a children’s movie. There is no tension in this question and every minute devoted to it feels excessive. The film also has the gall to tie up the thread of what Hiccup up will do with his life in a few scenes that feel like an afterthought.Besides this poorly focused plot, it is a fine movie. The animation is detailed and is a pleasure to watch. The supporting performances, with the exception of a phenomenal Cate Blanchett in her role as a dragon tamer named Valka, are either fine or mediocre. One reason Drago is such a disappointing villain is that his voice actor, Djimon Honsou, is so talented and could have done so much with a dynamic character. But the movie seems afraid of making any scene actually poignant, or scary, and so inserts inane comic relief before the audience has a chance to feel anything.Like the dragon race mentioned before, the movie at least has the decency to be short. And, like some of the race’s competitors, it is clear the filmmakers lost control about halfway through. One can only hope, for the sake of the next movie, that the directors remember what made the story soar in the first place and end the saga with a strong finish.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Some people attribute the pop-cultural success of “Game of Thrones” to its willingness to kill any character, while others attribute it to the setting of the fantastic world of Westeros.As illustrated in Sunday’s season finale, “The Children,” the truth behind this show’s popularity is a bit of both. These are all attributes of good storytelling, which “Game of Thrones” provides in Valyrian spades. This past episode provided us with characters to relate to and to hate, plot twists that delighted and disheartened and the nagging question of what is next that keeps us on the edges of our seats.In the East, the exiled princess Daernerys (Emilia Clarke) is faced with some of the most challenging decisions of her campaign to retake her ancestral throne, decisions that threaten her dragons and her rule in the Free Cities.In the North, Jon Snow (Kit Harington, doing his finest work on the show) meets with wildling king Mance Rayder (Ciaran Hinds) to either broker a truce with him or assassinate him. At great personal cost, Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) finally reaches the seer north of the Wall who has promised to train him. Down near the capital, warrior woman Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) faces off against the Hound (Rory McCann) over who has the right to protect the fugitive Arya Stark (Maisie Williams). This leads to one of the most brutal fight scenes of the series and makes this season noteworthy for its sheer number of duels.Lastly, the most anticipated scene of the episode involved wrongly condemned Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) make good his escape, but not before coming to bloody terms with his former lover Shae (Sibel Kekilli) and father, Lord Tywin (Charles Dance).It would be more unusual at this point in the series to be disappointed with the performances or the writing.HBO continues to hire top-notch talent and give the show the budget they need to tell the story.On top of all of this, the music for the episode, composed by Ramin Djawadi, proves that the score of “Game of Thrones” should not be known for just its theme. The notes are by turns haunting, rousing and mournful. The various themes manage to ground the characters and this fictional world and somehow make it feel real. Perhaps this is the real trick that makes “Game of Thrones” so popular. The characters feel authentic even though most of them are engaged in alien pursuits like chivalry or commanding garrisons. While most of us will never be able to empathize with these pursuits, we can understand the hurt of lost love or the pain of being rejected by a person you are trying to help. It may not matter why exactly the show is striking a chord with so many people. So long as it keeps telling a story as good as the one it tells in this season finale, “Game of Thrones” will continue to make lots of money and will satisfy its growing fan base.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>By now readers have likely been warned about the inevitable torrent of tears when they view “The Fault in Our Stars,” an adaptation of the best-selling novel by John Green.The theater in which I saw the movie handed out tissue boxes after the credits.It is undoubtedly a tearjerker — a weep riot for sure. Despite the film’s heartbreaking subject matter, I was not one of the sobbing audience members. The movie follows Hazel Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) and her friendship-turned-courtship with fellow cancer fighter Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort). Gus’s cancer is firmly in the past, and it cost him a leg. But Hazel still deals with her cancer complications on a daily basis.Their relationship evolves with the help of a mutually loved book and a trip to Amsterdam to visit that book’s author, Peter Van Houten (played with antisocial relish by Willem Dafoe).While in Amsterdam, the couple receives tragic news. This leads to the terrible and enormous pain of losing a loved one. My main criticism of the movie is that while the process of mourning in the movie’s second half feels vital and informed, the love affair that begins the picture is overdone.The clever dialogue that flows so well on the page is delivered as well as it can be by the fine lead actors.Perhaps monologues, such as about sad swing sets or cigarettes serving as metaphors, are best kept in artistic media where the reader’s imagination has some say in their delivery. When translated to the screen, scenes that feel cute but earned in the book become clunky and forced. The romance feels unrealistic, which is particularly affronting when the movie’s opening lines promise us the truth as contrasted to a Peter Gabriel song.The movie should have either opted out of this guarantee or toned down the hyperbolic chemistry. This would make the final minutes of the film even more potent.It would be a disservice to deny the power of the movie’s ending, which is a credit to director Josh Boone, the entire cast and John Green’s source material. Pain, as Hazel says, demands to be felt, and cinema allows pain to be spread virus-like to all who watch it. But how much more cathartic might those final moments have been had the writers been a bit more judicious with their adaptation?How powerful would it be if writers had finessed the opening and really sold filmmaking’s illusion of reality, rather than presenting it in a clearly fictive scenario? The movie is never bad, but it never lives up to its novel, either. That might be sad, but — like the movie itself — it is nothing to shed a tear about.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Edge of Tomorrow” shows why science fiction is so well-suited for the big screen. Science fiction is the genre of strong ideas and strong visuals. Both are storytelling traits that naturally lend themselves to the camera (see “2001: A Space Odyssey” or the more recent “Avatar”).Unfortunately, “Edge of Tomorrow” also succumbs to the stereotypical weaknesses of the genre. It presents poor character development and convoluted plots that make little sense under minimal scrutiny.The movie starts out in familiar science fiction territory. Europe has fallen prey to an alien invasion, and humans use mechanical suits like the one in “Aliens” to fight them. The combined armies of the world mass their troops for a final push into enemy turf that will turn the tide of the war in their favor. Enter Major Cage (Tom Cruise), a public relations guy for the military who is unwillingly put on the front lines of battle by unsavory General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson). It is no spoiler to say he only survives for about five minutes. After he dies, he wakes up at the start of the same day.It becomes a pattern that repeats itself and shows us how a collision of the universes of “Groundhog Day” and “Gundam” might look. Essentially, Cage has to find a way to end the war that day with the help of decorated veteran Rita Vrataski (Emily Blunt), a modern Joan of Arc who goes by the monikers Angel of Verdun and Full Metal, ahem, Beach. This premise is interesting and could have been riveting. Instead, director Doug Liman shows us the least interesting aspects of this perpetual reincarnation. We get many training montages of Cage beaten up and Cage killed, but there are no continuous scenes where he shows us what he learns.Cage begins as a coward and ends as a grizzled warrior, so we know he experiences tremendous growth as a character, but we never see this transition take place. We go from point A to point B as if traveling at warp speed. Furthermore, Cage’s partner, Rita, is two-dimensional. A backstory is hinted at but never shown. The film consciously deciding not to show these scenes is similar to a chef letting you smell your favorite desert before telling you the kitchen ran out of it.The movie still gives us some impressive visuals with the invading aliens, which look like spider-dog hybrids made of rope and move as fluidly as if they are on roller skates. It also provides us with a very entertaining supporting role by Bill Paxton as the eccentric Sergeant Farrell. But beyond that, the movie’s pleasures are mundane and its run time too long. For a genre supposedly about bright ideas, you would think sci-fi moviemakers might take a leaf from Christopher Nolan’s scripts and focus on interesting characters to inhabit their far-flung worlds. Until then, it seems well-developed protagonists will remain alien.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Seth MacFarlane’s new movie, “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” blazes new territory as his first major live-action role.Whether or not you like comedy, MacFarlane’s career is undeniably impressive. The creator of three successful TV shows was also the host of the 2012 Academy Awards and director of the blockbuster comedy “ Ted.”In his new movie, MacFarlane plays down-on-his-luck sheep farmer Albert Stark, who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, Louise (Amanda Seyfried), for not fighting a man in a duel.The plot from there follows his attempts, with the help of a new gunslinger in town named Anna (Charlize Theron), to win back Louise from themoustached dandy who has captured her heart (Neil Patrick Harris). Little does Albert know that Anna is actually the wife of the most dangerous outlaw in the West, Clinch Leatherwood (Liam Neeson).A viewer who has seen more than a dozen movies can guess where the story is going. This been-there-done-that feeling is only made worse by a drug-trip sequence that robs the movie’s final third of its tension and derails the pacing.Aside from that misstep, the movie’s simplicity works in its favor by letting the viewersfocus on its jokes. On this front, the movie does very well. Seth MacFarlane is known in the comedy sphere for specializing in toilet humor, racist jokes and repetitive gagsuntil they are no longer funny.As a director, he tones down these elements just enough so the movie is both consistently funny and edgy enough to leave fans of his work satisfied. It is a happy medium he has rarely found in the past.But despite the many successful jokes, there are still duds that make you wince. Most of these are delivered by MacFarlane himself, who lacks the charisma necessary to have dynamic movie presence. While MacFarlane is a talented voice actor and stand- up comedian, he comes off as if he has just stumbled on screen in this film. Fortunately, the movie surrounds him with talented actors who give the movie the energy to distract viewers from MacFarlane and the cookie-cutter story. In particular, Theron demonstrates top-notch delivery and makes you wish she was involved in moreprojects like this.Sarah Silverman also gives fun turns in her role as a prostitute who practicesabstinence with her boyfriend (Giovanni Ribisi) who tries to convince her otherwise.One of the reasons behind MacFarlane’s success in the entertainment industry is his canny ability to surround himself with gifted people who play to his strengths.“A Million Ways to Die in the West” continues this trend and bodes well for MacFarlane’s future projects. But it might be best for all if next time he stays behind the camera.