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(01/23/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Well-written reviews should include a bit of plot summary so readers unfamiliar with the art can still follow along.I’ll try to write this review well, but I really don’t think I can give you more than a couple sentences of plot with “Lone Survivor” having a fatal flaw. There’s no plot.But we’ll get to that in a second.In “Lone Survivor,” we get to watch Mark Wahlberg, as Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, and his team of trained marksmen set out to kill a Taliban leader. The mission is botched and the team is left stranded, with no communication in the middle of a seemingly endless number of Taliban soldiers trying to kill them.Wahlberg makes it out of the fight alive and retreats to a nearby village where he is treated with hospitality until the military comes to rescue him.The story “Lone Survivor” tells is a noble one — one with guts and more than one morally nauseating decision to be made, but I can’t help but feel that this film didn’t do the tale justice.At the very foundation of my complaints, I feel as if two-thirds of the movie is spent in a firefight.It is frustrating because there is only so much artistic expression or, even at the very root, story to be gained from spending almost 90 minutes in a shootout.I couldn’t tell you how the acting in this film was because aside from Wahlberg, I didn’t really get the chance to see anyone else act. Just the panting and yelling of a firefight.“Lone Survivor” also fails to give its audience a context for the lives of these soldiers — a reason for us to care.We see some props from life back home, but we never attach a face to the reason these soldiers want to make it out alive.There seems to be a brotherhood and camaraderie theme going on. But we never see anything of the relationships between the soldiers, so we never really care all that much when one of them dies.My remaining qualms with “Lone Survivor” lie in some of its amateurish technical and directing choices. Director Peter Berg seems intent on bringing out the claustrophobia in all of us with his unrelenting stream of extreme close-up shots of, well, everything. The slideshow at the end is perhaps a bit hammed up, and some of the music choices — or lack thereof — are strange. “Lone Survivor” has a lot of merit to stand on and, despite my tirade of complaints, is really a good film. When it’s on, it’s on. The suspense is gripping much of the time, its heart is very much in the right place, its emotion and pride are real and Wahlberg’s performance is phenomenal. It’s just a letdown in the end because the full potential for this film is pretty easy to see. It just never clicked.The tears “Lone Survivor” was absolutely begging me to cry just never came.Sadly, “Lone Survivor” will not stand on the pedestal of great war films and be remembered in decades to come — and I say “sadly” because this is a story that deserves to be known.
(01/23/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Transport me to the strange utopia as presented in “Looking” where seemingly every single man is gay.No, seriously. That would make life so much easier. But alas, that makes for a strange distraction in the pilot of HBO’s new series “Looking” starring Jonathan Groff as a young professional in San Francisco. Despite the fact literally every named male character in the episode is gay, “Looking” also falls short in a few other areas. “Looking” depicts gays in a light that could almost be considered offensive. The show makes it seem gays care only about relationships — that’s all they worry about, whether they’re on a date, at a bar or seeking relationship advice. It’s like they don’t have jobs, families or friends that aren’t interested in other men. If we’re to judge by the series’ first episode, the only interesting thing about these characters is their relationship status. The entire episode is spent focusing on Jonathan Groff and his two best friends (also gay, because gays don’t even talk to straight men) as they seek relationships and sexual hookups. Now, this is a format that “Sex and the City” followed, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to piss me off as much when Carrie Bradshaw was at the helm. It’s not that Groff isn’t lovable, because he very much is, but it just doesn’t seem to click in today’s age. I just don’t see how they can follow just their relationship problems with no other plotlines for seasons on end. Technically speaking, “Looking” is wonderful. It matches HBO’s hip, avant-garde style of television with superb acting, especially on the part of Jonathan Groff. The character relationships, though some might seem a little contrived, are real and well-played out, especially for just one episode.We get to see “Looking” shine the most in the scene in which Groff’s character is on a blind date — Groff dazzles in an incredibly complex bit of acting. “Looking” was a show I really did want to love, because society is still searching for a show about gays that doesn’t feature them in some incredibly lighthearted and stereotypical way — but I don’t think it’s exactly hit the mark so far. The potential is there, but until we see these three characters get real lives amongst a real community, I don’t think “Looking” stands very much of a chance. For all of our sakes, I hope it succeeds. We’re all looking for a show about real-life gays, and it appears we may still be looking.
(01/16/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There are some films that are released, acclaimed and then quickly forgotten for the most part. “The Wolf of Wall Street” is not one of these films. No, it’s a film I’ll remember until the day I die as one of the most over-the-top, ridiculously obscene, quaaluded-out roller coasters I’ve ever ridden at the cinema. Never in my adult lifetime have I seen a movie hit theatres that’s such an overindulgent trip into the deepest bowels of hedonism. America’s sweetheart Leonardo DiCaprio, in a Golden Globe-winning role — in one of the hardest “Best Actor” camps in years, mind you — plays the part of real-world antihero Jordan Belfort, a stock-broking executive who goes from selling penny stocks outside of the city to being a Forbes feature spread with more money than God . “The Wolf of Wall Street” tracks Belfort as he progresses through his career, starting as a bright-eyed yuppie in a big pond , mentored by a coke-bumping sailor-mouthed Matthew McConaughey in rare form — some outstanding acting for the few minutes he’s onscreen.From there Belfort moves up, loses his job in the Wall Street crash, starts back up from the bottom at a small penny stock brokerage, then leaves to make his own firm with Donnie Azoff , played by an impeccable Jonah Hill in one of the best of his career and some other cronies. Belfort’s firm Stratton Oakmont grows and grows, and Belfort remarries to Naomi , a breakout Margot Robbie, while continuing to swindle millions of dollars from unwitting investors to use for his own personal extravagance. In every stroke of this masterpiece, you feel the full weight of director Martin Scorsese’s genius. Pacing this 180-minute epic at breakneck speed, the 71-year-old director is at the top of his game — brilliant directing choices as large as setting a tone that perfectly reflects Belfort’s ridiculous lifestyle of lavish and luxury to something as small as a shot of Belfort’s supercar zipping down the highway, changing colors as it zooms by to go along with Belfort’s narration. And I haven’t been this giddy watching an actor break the fourth wall since Kevin Spacey on “House of Cards.” Scorsese takes big risks and gets even bigger victories. A Christmas Day release , “The Wolf of Wall Street” has an acidity that cuts through the fluff of today’s cinema. It doesn’t pretend to bash Belfort. It glorifies him. We get to delve deeply into Belfort, played brilliantly by DiCaprio as a man with no moral compass and a love of money over literally everything, as he goes on drug binges, has sex with hookers and steals millions of dollars. He never has to answer for his sins, and we have fun with it. That’s one of the reasons, among many, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is truly one of the best films of 2013. It’s unapologetically filthy. It makes us introspect like few films do — are we jealous of Belfort? Are we really enjoying this? Quality art makes us examine our society, our wants, our conscience and ourselves. In a year of absolutely phenomenal cinema, “The Wolf of Wall Street” is definitely the most fun you’ll have at theaters this season, a legitimate cinematic achievement for the ages.
(01/16/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Why, Ben Stiller?Why, in the midst of such a remarkable film season, would you release a film as uninspired as “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty?”The film was aggressively advertised, and I, at least, was kind of excited for it — I mean, the trailer made it look pretty great — but the end product is sort of, well, a mess.“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” follows its titular character Walter, a negative editor at Life magazine with a habit of zoning out into fantastical daydreams, as the magazine prepares for its final issue. He can’t seem to find the photo negative that’s supposed to be the final issue’s cover photo, so he tracks down the photojournalist who captured the image all around the world to find that missing negative .Spoiler alert: He also finds himself. And the courage to ask out his dream girl, played by a clearly-doesn’t-want-to-be-there Kristen Wiig. The premise of the film is OK. The story is OK. But the filmmaking is so tired and bored that it’s painful to watch. And this is filmmaking from the top-down — everything from directing (also by Stiller) to acting to the technicals — absolutely nothing seems interesting. Both Stiller and Wiig phone in their performances so brashly it feels like they’re stealing money from you. It really sucks to sit through a film that’s not good enough to enjoy and not bad enough to laugh at — it’s just nothing. If it didn’t exist, nothing would change. The tone of the film changes drastically from one minute to the next with its brief and confusing flashes of weird, absurdist humor. Moments where you’ll want to turn to your friend, squint your eyes, and say, “… What?” Despite a few brief moments of excitement, it’s strangely deadpan for being a film about insane adventures to nearly-uncharted parts of the world. I will give this Ben Stiller brainchild credit where credit is due, however. It achieves a pretty solid atmosphere quite a bit of the time, which is very important in this film, and the punch line of the film is sweet and endearing. So congratulations, Ben Stiller. You did nothing for your slipping career except give yet another example of how you have no merit as a cinematic artist.
(12/09/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This week in bigoted news, a gay Catholic school teacher in Pennsylvania was fired for getting his marriage license. Michael Griffin, a 13-year veteran teacher at Holy Ghost Prepatory in Bensalem, Pa., emailed the principal of the school, telling him he’d be late because he was getting the license. After being told he would be fired if he actually got the license, Griffin defied the school, and did it.And he was fired for being gay. For being who he was.Wait, this sounds kind of familiar. Oh yeah, it’s because it happened last year ... at my high school.Last April, at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio, physical education teacher Carla Hale was fired after an anonymous parent tipped off the Diocese that Hale had written in her mother’s obituary that Hale was living with her partner.As a community, we stormed the media. We had every major outlet in Columbus pick up the story. Then it worked its way up the ranks.Jezebel. The Huffington Post. NBC Nightly News.Soon enough, we had the entire nation shaming the Diocese of Columbus for its heinous lack of compassion and tolerance, an interesting twist of irony considering the very institution we were shaming was a church.But nothing changed. Hale never got her job back.If that doesn’t cause a twisted knot to grow in your heart, then you need to reconsider your moral values.This is my last opinion column for the semester, and I wanted to give one last opinion, one that would resonate.So it’s this: embrace one another. Be good to one other. But above all, be tolerant of one another. I don’t care if you’re gay. I don’t care if you’re straight. But I do care if you think differently of someone simply because they were born to be sexually attracted to a different gender than you. Or if they are a different color. Or of a different culture. Or of a different religion. Fire teachers because they’re bad teachers. Fire teachers because they committed a crime.Don’t fire teachers because they’re gay. I don’t care if Holy Ghost is a Catholic institution, and because of that, being gay goes against its moral code. This is 2013, where we can hopefully rise above silly archaic rules and rituals of bigots bygone. Sharing the one love we have as a human race to each and every person, regardless of how they were born, is a necessity. Nelson Mandela said, “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” No matter what newsroom I’m in, I’m never going to stop writing to fight for every man, woman and child to be treated as an equal citizen of the world.With that, I bid you all farewell, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my work this past semester. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(11/22/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I live for the applause.I live for that moment when I walk onto the stage, look into the blinding lights and then 500, 1,000, 2,000 people rise to their feet, screaming and cheering for me. That’s why I perform.That’s why I post selfies.Oxford Dictionaries, one of the undisputed institutions of the English language, named “selfie” their 2013 word of the year.A few weeks ago, I published a column entitled, “Anti-social media.” In the column, I described how social media serves two basic human needs: communication and validation.On the communication-validation spectrum, selfies are literally entirely for validation. Selfies are just the user walking up to the Instagram stage, and letting an audience of a few hundred followers applaud for them. It’s not a bad thing, necessarily. Selfies are innocent, and their intentions are pure. Most of us performers know the true intentions behind our performing — we love and crave the attention we get. That’s sort of fundamentally what performing is.Selfies are the same way. As long as the selfie-taker knows that what they’re doing is self-centered and validation seeking, it’s not that big of a deal.“Here’s a picture of my face. I spent a really long time making it perfect. Double-tap the image. Like it. Like me. Love me.” Some will try to mask the fact that it’s just a picture of his or her face by adding some song lyrics as the caption that have absolutely nothing to do with their face or their lives. It’s OK, though, because it’s all good fun.For most people.Some people take it too far. They don’t just enjoy the occasional validation from posting a selfie on Instagram and getting 50 likes on it.They post one every other day. Every day. Multiple times a day. They seemingly can’t live without everyone liking their face all the time. These are our times.What does Oxford Dictionaries’ selection say about how we’ve progressed as a society?“Selfie,” a cute-sounding, diminutive word representing egotism and narcissism in its purest form, is our word of the year. Look, I’m almost always for the hedonistic, practical, modern route. But I think declaring “selfie” word of the year may be going too far. The English language is something I hold so very dear. I study journalism and theatre, two fields fundamentally based on fine-combing the English language and pulling the sweet nectar of its verbose goodness from the dregs of its barrels. Selfies are fine. Selfies are great. But “selfie” is not the word of the year. Maybe I’m just being naïve, but I refuse to believe that this silly, six-letter word that represents the online validation-seeking we’ve come to hold so dear is the word that defines this year. Fire up Instagram. Take a selfie. Take a hundred selfies. I really don’t care.But please keep your hands off my language. Don’t diminish it by naming “selfie” word of the year.Oxford Dictionary, don’t define 2013 with the word “selfie.”The most important moment of the show shouldn’t be the curtain call. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(11/11/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>My family is still getting used to the full-blown American Thanksgiving.I’m Armenian-Lebanese. I’m pretty sure no one’s ever even seen a turkey in either Armenia or Lebanon. Most Thanksgivings we would cover the standards: having family over or traveling to see relatives, and though I didn’t get to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade or play touch football with the neighborhood or family, I’d still have a good time. As the years progressed, the meal on the table became progressively more and more American. I would see mashed potatoes and green bean casserole next to the leg of lamb and kofta.I mean, I’m not complaining. The more food, the better, and chubby little Ike has always had a penchant for American food. Something else started to change over the years, though.Black Friday, the day of copious sales in almost every major retailer across the country, became a bigger and bigger deal. Black Friday became such a big deal that it literally began to start at midnight, the minute after Thanksgiving was over.But wait. This is America, so we have to do it even bigger. We’re at the point now where Black Friday is a two-day celebration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Gray Thursday.Last year, stores such as Walmart and Target opened to the public for their massive sales not on the Friday after Thanksgiving, but on the evening of Thanksgiving itself, and it was dubbed “Gray Thursday.” How could they? What a sin. The sacredness of Thanksgiving is tainted. I don’t care. I love it.Here’s the deal. What all these purists don’t realize is consumerism is not only a good thing but the best thing.I didn’t learn too much in Advanced Placement Macroeconomics, but I’m pretty sure that for a capitalistic country to do well the people have to spend, spend, spend. That’s what Black Friday and Gray Thursday are. All those stupid toys and pressure cookers and video games and bicycles and cute skirts are all pumping money back into companies and stores. That means jobs. That means taxes for the government. That’s one of the big reasons the Christmas season is so magical. On top of being the season of giving (insert other corny cliché here), it’s also the season in which our economy gets the biggest boost.There’s no way to argue that our economy doing well is a bad thing.So this year after the Thanksgiving feast, instead of succumbing to my mashed potatoes and leg of lamb-induced coma, I’m going to rally my brother and my best friend, and we’re going to hit up the nearest Wal-Mart. And we’re going to spend our hearts out, because, dammit, we just really love the United States of America. Plus a 50-inch television for the price of a week’s worth of meals isn’t so bad, either.— ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(11/05/13 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I remember the first time I smoked a cigarette.I was 15 or 16, on the back deck of my friend’s house with our group of friends. They were all a couple of years older than me, and most of them smoked. I asked for a cigarette.Then another.Then another.From then on it became one or two a week, then half a pack a week, and slowly but surely, I was smoking half a pack a day.Coughing up red lugis in the shower, feeling my breaths hurt, feeling cravings so strong I could literally punch someone in the face — it was a downward spiral.My experience isn’t unique, though. Every day about 4,000 children smoke their first cigarette.A thousand become daily cigarette smokers.Some might see New York City’s recent move to raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco up to 21, among other harsh restrictions, as infringing on the free will of adults.I don’t.I see it as a step to help prevent Ike Hajinazarians all over New York City from getting that first cigarette.How many 16-year-olds hang out with 18-year-olds? Plenty.How many hang out with 21-year-olds? Not that many.By pushing up the minimum age, New York City is replacing the group of “underagers” from 16-17 to 18-20. Adults.Adults who are less susceptible to peer pressure. The job of a government is to protect its citizens. It took me three cigarettes to get addicted, to start the slide down this slippery slope that only ends in cancer and death.Maybe if 18-year-old Ike had been in the same situation, he would have been smart enough to not take that first cigarette. And maybe 19-year-old Ike would be able to go more than four hours without nicotine.— ikehaji@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(10/29/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I was on my drive back to school after Fall Break, and I was really itching to Instagram a picture of the sunset. That sounds innocent enough, except for the fact that it wasn’t even dusk yet. I was planning on taking an Instagram of the sunset when it happened so I could get a bunch of likes, because we all know how the Instagram community just loves a good sunset picture. Wait. I’m Ike Hajinazarian. I don’t do nature. I don’t do sunsets. And I sure as hell hope I’m not basic enough to Instagram a picture of the sunset simply because I knew it would get a solid amount of likes. I had stopped caring about what content I was posting on social media. I had stopped caring if it actually reflected my life. All I cared about was likes. And that, my friends, was my cue to leave.So I took a week off. A week off all social media — a week with absolutely no Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, or even Vine, just so I could pause and think about what it was actually doing to my life. I thought I would feel liberated.I didn’t ... at all. I felt anxious the entire week. I felt intense FOMO (fear of missing out). I had nothing to do in those hundreds of small two-minute gaps of time normally filled with a quick refresh of the 500-some people I follow on Twitter. I felt like I had lost my voice. I realized Twitter is a box we choose to lock ourselves in with 500 of our friends, where we all scream the thoughts going through our heads. Nobody really listens to us, and we don’t really listen to anybody, but it comforts us to scream. Taking a week off helped me learn the most fundamental functions of social media in my life. Social media serves two purposes: communication and validation.Communication is why social media was created, and communication — a feeling of complete connection with the outside world — is what I missed most this past week.It’s truly wonderful how we can all share our lives with each other without direct contact. If I ever, say, got engaged, my close friends and family would get a call or text, but my other two thousand acquaintances would just have to learn from Twitter or Facebook. And both parties involved are mutually fine with that. Validation is what we’ve gleaned from overusing and abusing social media. Whenever I post on Instagram, the social media I believe to be most validation-seeking, or even on Facebook, I check my phone like a maniac, a dozen, 30, 100 times to see who all had liked it.And therein lies the problem. I’d stopped caring about the content of my posts, because I’d take each “like” not to be a “like” for the picture itself, but rather, a “like” for me. And that makes me feel good about myself. That, folks, is why we post selfies. And basic sunset pictures.Social media is one of the most amazing methods of communication ever created, but we’ve taken it too far.Take a step back, and understand why you use social media the way you do.As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”I’m assuming he was talking about Instagram. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduValidate columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(10/11/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I’ve always really liked metal. It isn’t pretentious. It has more musicianship than most genres these days. But above all, it’s loud and aggressive, just like me.The band Pearl Jam is a great example of all the reasons I just listed. Ever since I started listening to Pearl Jam, I’ve basked in vocalist Eddie Vedder’s talent. No other singer sounds anything like him. This week, I have another reason to love Vedder, and this time, it has nothing to do with his singing. In a interview with the Huffington Post, Vedder spoke out against gun enthusiasts.“The fact that we’re living in a country where 90 percent of the people want further gun laws — to maybe somehow put a dent in some of this insanity that’s happening — and yet there’s no further legislation taking place, it’s very frustrating and upsetting,” Vedder said. His rant continued.“It seems like every week I’m reading about a 4-year-old either shooting their sister, their dad, their dog, their brother or themselves, because there’s fucking guns laying around. But I guess it’s ‘fun,’” said the Pearl Jam frontman. Bravo, Vedder. Bravo. I shy away from making my weekly column about gun control, because, frankly, everyone’s sick of it. But as someone with a platform that reaches thousands of people, I have a duty and an obligation to use my voice for positive social change, however small it may be.I’ve become so desensitized to gun violence, that now, after not looking at my phone for an hour, then checking it only to see an alert telling me of a shooting, I’m not phased. That’s disgusting.Every week there’s a new mass shooting, and we don’t even care. Shortly after a mass shooting, gun fanatics yell for all to hear about how they’re keeping their guns, because this is America, dammit! Our nation’s fetish with guns convolutes our demands for children’s safety.Owning a fully automatic weapon in the United Kingdom is illegal. In the United States, it’s glorified. The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicide globally. The United States has the highest among developed countries. Mental health is an issue, but so is gun ownership. I understand that people kill people, but they use guns to do it. To me, people who take the Second Amendment at face value are as bullheaded and ignorant as those who take the Book of Genesis and Earth’s six-day creation literally. The Constitution was written hundreds of years ago, when people actually needed guns to hunt and protect themselves. This is 2013. We do not, in fact, need a gun in almost all circumstances. We have Kroger for our meat and police for our defense. Every time you defend the right to own a gun, you’re justifying the hundreds of millions of guns our country senselessly owns, and therefore, you’re contributing in a small way to the next mass shooting. Let’s start the end of this madness. Put logic over obsession. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(10/04/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The United States government constantly finds new ways to astound me. The level of our elected leaders’ incompetence, selfishness and outlandish aversion to change has reached new heights this week.Now, I’m no Capitol Hill correspondent, but I’m pretty sure of this story’s Sparknotes version: Republican representatives refused to pass the latest budget bill that included funding for Obamacare, so Congress couldn’t pass a budget at all. So funding for all non-essential bureaucracy has been temporarily stopped. But come on. If you really expected any better than this fiasco from the Tea Party clowns in Congress, then you’re just as stupid as they are. What this column is about, though, isn’t necessarily the shutdown. This column is about how AMC Theatres responded to it. Earlier this week, AMC began a new promotion: free small popcorn to anybody who presents a valid government or military ID. Free popcorn to all of the hundreds of thousands of casualties of this shutdown, who are currently sitting at home and sitting on their hands, waiting for the situation to blow over. The advertisement reads, “Offer Valid: Until common sense returns, or we run out of popcorn, whichever happens first.” The fine print tells us that the promotion actually ends Oct. 10, but it’s still a wonderfully sassy reply to the government’s idiocy. It’s great as a head-turning and humorous retort from a major company, but it’s even better as an advertisement. Lately, many companies used similar PR and advertisements that are socially and politically conscious. When the Supreme Court was hearing cases about gay marriage this past spring, hoards of people were taking to social media, changing their profile pictures to a pink equal sign on a red background and posting statuses and tweets about their support for gay marriage. Big business was in on the action, too. Companies of all sizes — even those as large as Apple, Google and Starbucks — released statements in support of gay marriage and made advertisements that blatantly showed gay marriage in a positive light after the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of it. And though in the back of my mind I knew these statements and ads were really just a wonderful business tactic and not just the companies being morally outstanding, they still worked for me. They made me want to buy their goods and services. So, although AMC is just doing this promotion because they know it’ll bring in moviegoers, its charm and effectiveness was not lost on me.As long as these companies are clear about their agenda, the opinions they release publicly are progressive and based in common logic. And they’re not offensive and brash with their stylizing, like AT&T was with their Sept. 11 advertisement of a smartphone capturing a picture of the Twin Tower light beams earlier this year. I’m more than just OK with it.I love anything that pushes for positive social and political change. And so this week, I have a reason to love AMC other than the fact that they’re currently screening “Don Jon.” — ikehajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(10/03/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We are Generation Y, and we’re totally OK.Allow me to preface this by saying, as a whole, studying generational characteristics and classifying them as such is pretty useless. I’m a product of my society, but not necessarily my generation. There are fundamental differences between me and people born five years before or after me. Yet, I can relate closely to some people who were born 100 years ago. But if we’re insisting on making the comparison, Generation Y looks significantly better than the generations that came before us. We’ve revolutionized mass communication. That’s a four-word sentence that carries a lot of weight. We’re more educated than any group of people to come before us. And we’ve done this with a handicap — college is astronomically more expensive than it’s ever been, we’re buried in debt and we have little to no job prospects because we’re in a recession that’s really not our generation’s fault.We have more access to more information than any generation has ever had. That’s partly because we’re the vehicles for the most advanced technology humanity’s ever used. We’re more accepting of other cultures, races, religions, sexual orientations, genders and other defining human characteristics. We haven’t started any wars. We haven’t dropped any atomic bombs. We haven’t made concentration camps. We haven’t committed mass genocide, and we sure as hell haven’t called any rapes “legitimate” as elected officials. We all mess up. We all succeed. Failures and successes are benchmarks for studying generations. But basing these successes and failures off our generational differences only divides us further and creates more resentment. We didn’t start the fire, and we definitely aren’t adding more fuel to it.— ikehajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(10/03/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lest I be called a heretic, I’m pretty sure that Lorde is exactly the singer Lana Del Rey is pretending to be. On Monday, the 16-year-old wonder girl from New Zealand released her debut album, “Pure Heroine.”We’ve been teased for a while now with smash singles off the album such as “Tennis Court” and “Royals” by way of the EP she released in March of this year, “The Love Club.”These two songs exemplify all that the album stands for: a brilliant, slow, hypersexual pop trip of ecstasy backed with a bottom-heavy synth track and a slow, pulsing beat. Lorde herself has a mellow, seductive alto that lures listeners in with every breathy, heavily-echoed word. Paired with the simple, heavy backing music, it creates an incredibly and universally enjoyable experience. These songs that are sure to play on repeat on iPods all over and get a healthy dose of radio airplay. Her music exemplifies the direction our generation is taking pop music and takes it up a notch in the same breath as Adele, then Florence, then Lana. It strips it back down to the basics, and lets the deep and slow vocals shine.As an album, “Pure Heroine” works well. It has its magnificent shining moments, like the two major singles, along with “Team” and “A World Alone.” The songwriting and lyrics aren’t quite masterful, but the production quality is outstanding.Where “Pure Heroine” falls is the same pitfall that inspirational albums have all fallen into before. The nature of the beast makes it incredibly easy to lull into monotony, which this album sadly does.It’s not so much that it’s a turn-off, but it’s noticeable.It has its slightly more upbeat tracks, but overall, it plays like the musical companion to “The Bling Ring.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it does harrow the album’s ability to really excite.All in all, “Pure Heroine” makes me incredibly excited to see more of Lorde.It’s really easy to imagine these songs performed in front of 50,000 people in Grant Park at Lollapalooza, and it’s a surefire bet that you’re going to be hearing a lot more about Lorde in the years to come.
(09/27/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s hard to believe that “Breaking Bad” is actually ending Sunday. I don’t want to believe it.This entire semester, a bunch of my show choir friends and I gathered at one of our houses, giddy and nervous, hit the lights, cranked the volume and basked in the glory of the past few episodes. During commercial breaks, we would give a full literary breakdown of what every breath in the segment we just watched meant, and on the off days, we would give each other our respective analyses of the show — where we thought it was going to go, what significance every scene had, links to Buzzfeed articles with hidden messages and just general “Breaking Bad” fandom. Here’s why.“Breaking Bad” is unlike any other show ever on TV. We all love “Sex and the City.” We watched the episodes, loved them for what they were, but that was that. We knew Carrie would end up with Mr. Big pretty much as soon as he entered the show.But here we are, 61 episodes into “Breaking Bad,” with only one left, and we haven’t the slightest idea of what’s going to happen. Who’s going to live, who’s going to die, what’s going to happen with Walt’s money — we have no clue. “Breaking Bad” did what no other television show has really been able to do. It has the literary elements, such as symbolism and subtext, on par with some of the greatest literature ever written. It revolved around a main character that completely transformed over the course of five seasons.The show tested our morals. It took us into some really dark places within ourselves, questioning how far we would go for money and glory. Would we feel OK with our partner shooting and killing a child if it meant protecting our business and keeping us out of trouble?There wasn’t one main character with completely sound morals. Everything was gray. In terms of production value and aesthetic quality, it was unparalleled. Set in the beautiful desert of Albuquerque, N.M., “Breaking Bad” was as visually intriguing as it was in terms of its essence. In fact, the two melded. The cinematography was not shot willy-nilly as so much of television is. It truly enhanced the message of the moment. Every pan, every angle and every symmetrical frame — it all meant something. The impeccable acting, the music, the design and every writing choice Vince Gilligan, the puppet master pulling all the strings, have all deserved the praise they’ve gotten. It takes a mastermind to create this masterpiece. If, as a writer, I could have a fraction of Vince Gilligan’s talent and skill, I’d be thoroughly happy with myself. All of this television magic ends in a few days. The pop culture phenomenon is over. As such an avid fan, this week is bittersweet, because as I’m sad to see the show end, I’m happy that the bar for an entire medium has been raised so high. So farewell, “Breaking Bad.” For all that you’ve done for me as a fan, and for the entire television industry, I thank you. You’ll be remembered, you’ll be studied, but above all, you’ll be missed. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(09/20/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>You stepped out of your parents’ car on move-in day. You caught that hot southern Indiana sun on your face. You saw the beautiful campus you’d get to call home for the next four years, and you finally felt it.Freedom.Freedom from your parents’ nonsensical rules, freedom from your small town and freedom from the clenching boredom of the summer you just spent at home, watching Netflix and eating all day. Then you get in the groove of things and start to get a lay of the land. You can get to each class without getting hopeless and miserably lost. You’ve made at least a few friends and been to at least a couple of awkward house parties where you knew a grand total of six people. Then you get even more comfortable. You’ve found your social groove. You’ve truly begun to settle in. You have a legitimate routine day-to-day and week-to-week. But something’s missing — home. You told yourself it was uncool to want to go home. I mean, come on, you’re in college, man! Sex, drugs and rock and roll. And that’s all just in your dorm building.But then you sat down at your computer and Facebook crept on yourself. You saw all the pictures of everything you missed about your hometown — your best friends, your favorite greasy chicken finger place and hell, even the halls of the high school you dreaded with such a burning passion. It all felt so familiar. So warm. You gave in. You went home for that 3-day heresy of a “vacation” our University has dubbed Fall Break.And it was magical. It was everything you’d expected and more. It was seeing your best friends, eating your favorite greasy chicken fingers and driving around on those roads you missed so much. Then you got back to campus — slightly to your chagrin — and realized that somehow, defying all logic, you were still cool. And your friends hadn’t completely abandoned you. You realized that you could go home and still be cool. In college, we’re taught by the example of those around us, notably the upperclassmen, that going home is for losers, for people who have nothing else to do on the weekends. That we’re undergrads in college now, which means we’re fully independent and should only make contact with our parents when absolutely necessary. I beg to differ.The coolest kids are the ones who are social on campus, but still go home every once in a while, just to clear their heads and give themselves the break they deserve. Bloomington’s great. But no city on Earth will ever hold a candle to Columbus, Ohio.Because Columbus, Ohio, is my home.And even though I’ve got a lot of really exciting things happening for me in the next month, nothing seems quite as exciting as getting in my car on that third weekend of October and hitting the road eastbound on I-70, pulling up into my driveway and being greeted at the door by my parents’ and dogs’ hugs and kisses. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(09/13/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>We will all celebrate global cooperation and humanity in its purest form this winter in a country that fines and even puts people in jail for spreading gay “propaganda.” It’s the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.Oh yeah, and the law that enforces the banning of gay “propaganda” wasn’t passed a hundred years ago. It was passed this summer. Violence at pride festivals and even more abhorrent acts, including forcing gay youth to drink urine, are becoming commonplace in a country that’s made its stance clearly against equal rights for all. But then again, Russian President Vladimir Putin has a different definition of “equal” than I.At least that’s what I got from the closer of his recent op-ed in the New York Times. “We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal,” Putin wrote. I thought the big news these days was which state was going to enact gay marriage next, not which country is making it illegal to simply be born the way you are.Last week, ThePostGame released an interview with Michelle Kwan, highly decorated Olympic veteran figure skater, who, this year, is going to Russia as an analyst for Fox Sports. When asked about how she dealt with political controversies in previous Olympics, Kwan said, “You leave it up to the people who are policy people.” A frustratingly naïve and self-centered response. So it turns out Kwan doesn’t really care about what’s going on. She doesn’t care that she has a voice that can truly influence positive change, because she’ll seemingly sacrifice that privilege on a dime because it’s what’s most likely politically correct. But it’s unfair of me to pin this all on Kwan. She’s not even competing this year. Allow me to be an illogical romantic for a moment.Imagine if all our nation’s athletes refused to compete in a country that supports legally punishing people for their sexuality. A country that ignores violence against gays, heinous and public as it may be.That would tell the public what Russia is doing is truly evil. That this is the 21st century, and we simply won’t stand for that. That Americans have morals, and we’ll uphold them, regardless of the sacrifice. Imagine the positive message that would send to all our young athletes. Imagine if all the major media corporations refused to support this circus of hatred. What if they blacked out all coverage of the Olympics because, well, why glorify a nation that so heinously turns a blind eye to basic human rights?Back to Earth. Back to the general silence and apathy of both the media and the athletes.Back to the here and now, where the prize of medals and fame and advertising revenue is too high to bear the cost of standing up for human dignity.— ihajinaz@umail.iu.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(09/06/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Another year, another iPhone.If all the speculation proves to be true, Apple will unveil the next generation of the iPhone, tentatively dubbed the “iPhone 5S” and the “iPhone 5C,” at a press conference-esque event next Tuesday, Sept. 10. Widely accepted rumors suggest the “5S” could include a better flash, updated camera, more power under the hood, a fingerprint sensor under the home button, and it could come in black, white, gold and possibly even a new graphite. The new kid on the block this year is the iPhone “5C.” It’s a slightly dumbed down version of the “5S” with a plastic back and a price slash. It’s coming in a litany of colors, hence the “C.” It’s all going to be great, classic Apple fare. But so many people don’t even know. They haven’t been following the rumor mill or the competitors’ technology updates.Many iPhone owners don’t even know that a pretty huge software update is coming their way this week. iOS7 was announced this summer. It’s pretty. Go check it out. We’ve become apathetic to the technology we use because we take it so heavily for granted. When Steve Jobs first unveiled the iPhone in 2007, it was hailed as the “Jesus phone.” The iPhone had it all. It had the first truly user-friendly majority touchscreen interface, it had the best-looking music player we’d ever seen, it had as elegant a design as a cell phone can have, and above all, it put the entire world of information in our hand in a way no other device had been able to do before. But at this point, all that’s old news. We’re jaded. It’s understandable. We don’t marvel at how incredible the motorized engine is every time we get in a car. My iPhone has become an extension of my hand. Every Tweet, every Instagram and every text has become not just second nature, but part of my first nature. Used responsibly, the smartphone truly is one of the most invaluable technologies of all of human history. And we can all thank the iPhone for bringing the smartphone to our collective mind’s forefront. The iPhone was the first one that really mattered.So, next week, don’t be the person who just happens to see a little red “1” pop up on their “Settings” icon— you know, the same person who finds out about the new “gold” iPhone when they see someone using one. Be the person who sits down and watches the livestream of the Apple press conference. Enjoy all the bravado and enigma of an Apple launch event. Revel in the elegance of the iPhone. But above all, appreciate the technology you’ve got in your very own pocket. It’s pretty cool. — ihajinaz@indiana.eduFollow columnist Ike Hajinazarian on Twitter @_IkeHaji.
(07/25/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the United States, there are 4,495 universities. And, according to the Princeton Review, IU was ranked the No. 16 party school in 2012. Sixteenth place out of 4,495 schools is a big deal. That’s a lot of partying. The party scene at IU ranges drastically, from large fraternity and sorority parties to small apartment gatherings to large-scale tailgating and medium-sized house parties. However, the one common thread throughout them all is the Pizza X cup. The Pizza X cup is all over the party scene at IU — fitting, considering its practicality for party usage. It’s reusable, it’s free with the purchase of any drink from Pizza X, it holds a substantial amount of liquid and it comes in a wide range of colors, making it easy to identify your specific cup at a party, as opposed to finding your red Solo cup out of a sea of red Solo cups.The cup has become one of Pizza X’s most widespread and effective methods of advertisement at all their locations, but especially on and around campus. “They kind of toss [the cups] at you. So you kind of don’t know what to do with them, you have so many,” Christian Wagner, a junior majoring in biology and a member of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity, said. “Like everyone’s house or apartment that I’ve gone to — they just have stacks of them in their drawers.” Wagner believes the advertising is effective in its approach.“You know how many kids call Pizza X when they’re drunk?” Wagner asked. “All they have to do is look at the back of a cup and they’re like ‘Oh my god! I should get Pizza X.’”However, with Pizza X now selling ready-to-go beer pong sets (that is, a set of the reusable cups packed with two ping pong balls) in-store, one questions whether or not the advertising is going so far as to support alcohol abuse and underage drinking. Haley Lips, a 19-year-old sophomore at IU, and an athlete on the swim team, said she believes there isn’t a problem with underage drinking at the school.“I haven’t heard of anything crazy going on. Like dealing with underage drinking, I guess [the university] keep[s] it under control, which is good,” said Lips.Her teammate, Rachel Thompson, also a 19-year-old sophomore, agrees. “It’s not wrong to put your brand on the cup. That’s not encouraging underage drinking,” Thompson said. Jesse Bloom, a manager at Pizza X’s campus location, describes the reasoning behind the beer pong sets. It was by customer demand, Bloom said, that Pizza X decided to begin selling the beer pong sets. Customers would come into the store and ask for the product, and so the company began producing the sets — both as a form of revenue, and as another advertising technique. Marketing, Bloom believes, is one main reason behind the cups. “I know that people get excited about the cups when we have different colors and stuff like that — but to me it’s more of just like a marketing thing,” Bloom said. “You know, we’ve got our phone number on every cup, so it’s just one more thing in everybody’s house that reminds them to order Pizza X.”Jeff Mease, the founder, co-owner and CEO of One World Enterprises located in Bloomington, the company that owns Pizza X, Lennie’s Restaurant and Brewpub, Bloomington Brewing Company, One World Catering & Events and Loesch Farm, started the pizza company in 1982 when he was 19 years old.Pizza X’s angle has always been to be a part of the student culture, Mease said. The cup was introduced a few years into the company’s history. Mease claims it’s a “phenomenal marketing strategy, and one that’s worth it for the name recognition and the reusable aspect of the cup.”Mease said he disliked the red Solo cup because it’s something that’s used once and thrown away, even though it’s made of a finite resource.“If our cup replaces, you know, 100 red Solo cups, through the course of somebody’s college career, or acts as a pet food scoop, or a plant starting container, or any number of different things, I feel like that’s a good thing,” said Mease.As for the beer pong sets, Mease explains that the product launched with Pizza X printing ping pong balls, as Pizza X always tried to be “in front of people” with their name and part of the IU culture.Despite a seemingly hard sell to students only, Mease believes that demographics are a non-factor in the food industry — especially the pizza industry, because everybody eats, and, according to Mease, everyone eats pizza.Mease claims the Pizza X cups do not promote underage drinking, and are only a solid advertising technique.“Do people use them for keg parties? Absolutely,” said Mease. “Do we want them to use them for keg parties? Sure. You know, they’re gonna drink out of something.”Mease understands alcohol abuse is present, however. He further explained, though, that underage drinking is not something new, and it’s been around for generations. The cup itself does not condone or condemn anything.The cup is just a cup that happens to have his company’s name and phone number on it. “If someone chooses to drink, they’re, you know, making their own decision about the risk involved, and want to use our cup instead of the red Solo cup, I’d say, you know, go for it,” said Mease. Senior Derek Rice of the former Acacia fraternity sees Pizza X as a welcome change of pace from the average restaurant.“They’re promoting a more entertaining atmosphere around campus versus a boring pizza shop that just comes and delivers,” Rice said. “They want the drunken idiots at the end of the night to buy their pizza, knowing that it’s gonna be fast — and when you’re walking from party to party, you’re gonna see this car driving around blaring music, and right away, you’re gonna say, ‘Who the hell is that?’ And you’re just gonna think: that’s Pizza X. I’m calling that tonight. It’s cheap, comes with two free drinks, and a condom. What’s better?”
(07/25/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Welcome (back) to the 1990s.As if we couldn’t get enough teen-virginity tales from that glorious
decade, writer and director Maggie Carey decided to throw us another
bone with “The To Do List,” the newest installment of the ’90s that we
never knew we needed (because we didn’t) and one that has come two
decades too late.
Don’t get me wrong. This movie had a ton of potential. Actually, it
had just about everything going for it on paper. But Carey and the cast
royally screwed the pooch on this one. “The To Do List” feels like a
really awful cover of a ’90s hit song, trying to be edgy but falling
flat on its face.
At the helm of this shipwreck is Aubrey Plaza, playing Brandy Clark,
a soon-to-be-freshman trying to lose her virginity and become more
sexually versed before going to college. Plaza is terrible. She is not
charismatic, ironically charismatic, likable, pretty, warm, fun, funny
or in any way a pleasure to watch onscreen. She’s this cold, uninviting
wreck of an actress that never deserves another role, at least in a
comedy, for as long as she lives. It frustrates me because it’s so clear
how much better this movie could have been had they not cast this
C-lister.
The others in this film, from Brandy’s mother, played by Connie
Britton, to her best friends, played by Alia Shawkat and Sarah Steele,
to the deadbeat boss at her pool, played by Bill Hader, do just OK.
They’re not really all that funny, but that can be partially blamed on
Carey’s thin writing. Eating poop is not quality comedy. Using movie
theater popcorn butter as personal lubricant for your date is not
quality comedy. Getting semen on your hands is not quality comedy. The
only real kicks in this movie come from all the ’90s throwbacks, but
even those feel cheap and kind of unnecessary. It’s actually kind of
strange — the movie’s target audience would have been born in the late
’90s, past the time of this movie, and that would mean it’s not really
funny to them.
“The To Do List” has no clear message, point or objective. Does sex
mean a lot? Does it not? Should we be tentative about relationships, or
dive in headfirst? Its lack of focus feels messy and unrefined. “The
To Do List” just adds insult to injury because its errors are so
blatantly obvious — I feel like I could fix them. For example, the type
of girl that would make sense to play Brandy flashes so clearly in my
mind, and it’s nothing like the travesty Aubrey Plaza presented us with.
The blunders are large and sweeping, but easily fixable. As it stands,
though, this movie is just an irrelevant, not-very-funny waste of time.
(07/25/13 4:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>If you’re Kirsten Wiig, and you’ve made millions of people die laughing
on a regular basis in classic “Saturday Night Live” sketches and movies
like “Bridesmaids,” the pressure is on whenever you’re the lead of any
movie. The benchmark has been set unbelievably high.
Unfortunately, “Girl Most Likely” doesn’t necessarily live up to
that benchmark. It’s not awful, but it’s certainly not Wiig at her
finest.In “Girl Most Likely,” Wiig plays Imogene, a slightly
neurotic playwright, who, having failed at writing her own work, is now
writing blurbs about plays in New York City. When her wealthy boyfriend
breaks up with her, Imogene pretends to have committed suicide to get
her boyfriend’s attention. It is her even more neurotic mother, however,
who takes custody, and takes her back into her childhood home. Imogene
falls for Lee, a tenant in her home, played by Darren Criss of “Glee”
fame. Together, with Imogene’s emotionally-challenged brother in tow,
they try to get her past life back in order but find that it was never
in order to begin with.
The problem with “Girl Most Likely” isn’t that it lacks soul or
character — that’s all definitely there. It’s that the film is so honest
that it’s not fun to watch. It doesn’t really do all too well with the
black comedy a la Robin Williams’s “World’s Greatest Dad,” but it does
occasionally work, like in the scene where Wiig pretends to have killed
herself. All too often, however, we find ourselves working with a script
that feels a bit too deadpan, a little chuggy, and not really funny.
It’s a film that I wanted to love, but couldn’t find myself coming to
terms with.
While touching and sweet sometimes, the relationship between Lee and
Imogene feels forced and contrived in other scenes. The whole element
of Zelda, Imogene’s mother, and her boyfriend’s relationship really
messes up the tone directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini
were going for.
“Girl Most Likely” isn’t bad. It’s endearing and heartwarming, and
Wiig does really shine through at some moments. But for what I’ve seen
of Wiig, I was expecting a lot more. A comedy that’s not funny isn’t
worth much.
I can expect this movie to be forgotten in the same low-key fashion with which it arrived.