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(11/12/19 7:10am)
I haven’t seen nearly as many films throughout 2019 as I might have liked, but what I have seen has left me largely uninspired — nothing awful, but also nothing to get me all that excited. The sole exception so far has been Lulu Wang’s phenomenal “The Farewell.” So color me both astonished and elated that “Doctor Sleep” has become only the second film this year that I really, truly love.
(11/07/19 7:05am)
When I was 11 years old and first cracked open John Green’s novel “Looking for Alaska,” I immediately fell in love with the air of mystery that surrounded Alaska Young, the elusive girl of male protagonist Miles Halter’s dreams. Every emo tween wanted to be Alaska: free-spirited and enigmatic, as shown through the eyes of a helplessly enamored boy.
(11/05/19 7:00am)
Wealth can create vicious cycles. The more money a person earns, the more scared they become of losing it, and, as such, they resort to extreme measures to protect their money. The scandal of the Panama Papers — the leaked documents exposing the offshore businesses of many wealthy individuals, of which some were shell companies used for the illegal purposes of fraud and tax evasion — details such extreme measures, making for an unbelievable chronicle that is the premise for “The Laundromat.”
(11/01/19 6:09am)
“Watchmen” seems like HBO’s first attempt at a replacement TV show for “Game of Thrones.” Even before the disappointing finale of “Game of Thrones” which aired this May, it seems HBO has been clamoring to produce a new hit show to keep their subscribers. My verdict on whether or not “Watchmen” has the ability to do just that is — being only two episodes into the season — hard to say, but it’s at least off to a good start.
(10/29/19 6:10am)
For fans of Kanye West, there is nothing in the world more stressful than when he announces a new album. Kanye’s album rollouts are never anything less than a full-blown spectacle, often containing controversial statements, ill-conceived actions, pushed-back release dates and even major changes made to both the album’s title and content. After scandals like the “Imma let you finish” fiasco with Taylor Swift leading up to 2010’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” the numerous name changes to 2016’s “The Life of Pablo” and Kanye’s public embrace of Donald Trump before 2018’s “Ye,” veteran Kanye fans thought that nothing else he could do would surprise them.
(10/25/19 6:00am)
Set after World War I, “Peaky Blinders,” the fifth season of which came out this month, is centered around the Shelbys, a Romani family who have made their name as gangsters in the streets of Birmingham, England. At the head of the family is Thomas (Tommy) Shelby, played by Cillian Murphy, a ruthless and overly logical patriarch who, at the end of season four, becomes a newly minted member of Parliament to fulfill his longtime goal of becoming a legitimate business owner and politician who speaks for the people. While the show maintains its focus on the Shelbys’ endeavors to cultivate power and protect their own, the fifth season adds depth to the show in its discussion of mental health and morality.
(10/18/19 6:05am)
Everyone can enjoy watching a teenager who’s struggling with an identity crisis on TV. What’s not so fun to watch is a show that itself is struggling with an identity crisis. “The Politician” is striving for the former, but has ended up with the latter. The result is a show having an identity crisis about a gaggle of teens who are similarly confused.
(10/17/19 6:00am)
Fall is the season of change. Musically, Post Malone has changed from a hardcore rap/pop mogul to a gentle sad boy with his new album “Hollywood’s Bleeding,” released earlier this fall. His third album reflects complex emotions of melancholia and regret, differing profoundly from the aggressive, angry lyrics of his past two albums.
(10/15/19 6:05am)
“Norman F—ing Rockwell!” is easily Lana Del Rey’s best work to date. Upon its reveal, the cover art of “NFR!” created a considerable amount of controversy within Lana Del Rey’s fanbase. While her previous covers all use similar bold fonts for the title of the album and feature cinematic images of Del Rey alone with a car and wearing white, conservative outfits, “NFR!” goes in a different direction.
(10/15/19 6:00am)
I’ve followed Netflix’s animated series “Big Mouth” since it debuted in 2017. I’ve loved every minute of it since, including its third season, which was released on Oct. 4. But I know that it rubs some people the wrong way, and I can see why it does. The sexual jokes are blatant and graphic — which can feel especially inappropriate considering that the characters are middle schoolers — and visually, the show is a tad more grotesque than your typical animation.
(10/10/19 6:00am)
It’s strange to say, but I did not notice the narrator had no name the entire time I was reading Nico Walker’s novel “Cherry.” It was only when I sat down to write this review that I realized the person whose deepest thoughts I had been reading was unnamed to me, however fictional or autobiographical he may be.
(10/08/19 6:05am)
“Joker” is not the most boring film I’ve seen all year. Nor is it the most poorly made. Nevertheless, “Joker” is probably the worst film I’ve seen in 2019, or at least the one I despised the most.
(10/04/19 6:00am)
Welcome to 1969 Hollywood. Retro buildings, vintage cars and neon signs line Hollywood Boulevard. Men dress in bell bottoms, patterned shirts and turtlenecks with blazers. Women wear miniskirts and vinyl, knee-high boots. Flower children don bohemian outfits of the counterculture movement. The Quentin Tarantino-directed movie “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood” pictures these vintage scenes through rose-colored glasses.
(10/01/19 6:05am)
“Doesn’t money make you horny?” Ramona (portrayed by Jennifer Lopez) whispers this to newcomer Destiny (portrayed by Constance Wu), as she leaves center stage, bathed in dollar bills. In the film “Hustlers,” Ramona immediately establishes the primary foundation of the film: the intertwined web of money and sex.
(09/27/19 6:00am)
As a Dartmouth student, the end of summer can be a pretty lonely time. With almost all other colleges starting the last week of August, the stretch between when home friends leave to the journey back to Hanover can be a slow and painful one. I am on campus now, of course — and it would be an understatement to say that my schedule is just a bit chaotic — but when I lived in a ghost town for those couple weeks, I had nothing but free time.
(09/26/19 6:05am)
It’s hard not to enjoy certain moments of pure thrill — the rapid descent of a rollercoaster, maybe, or a hard-won victory on the athletic field. Director James Mangold’s new film, “Ford v Ferrari,” draws upon one of such thrills: the roar and rush of high-speed driving. Shown at Dartmouth’s Hopkins Center for the Arts as part of the annual Telluride Film Festival screenings, “Ford v Ferrari” is a riveting piece of car-focused filmmaking wrapped up in an underwhelming but ultimately solid narrative envelope.
(09/24/19 6:06am)
Netflix’s “Tall Girl” is a film that I will carry in my heart forever. I have never in my life felt such burning hatred for a movie before, and for setting that record — for teaching me that I am capable of hating a medium of art that I love so dearly — “Tall Girl” is special to me.
(09/20/19 6:00am)
Taylor Swift. The name of one of America’s most successful musicians conjures up images of cowgirl boots, sparkly dresses, Twitter feuds and boyfriends. Often the mere mention of Swift induces a chorus of eyerolls or sighs of disgust. Very rarely do conversations about Swift mention her enormous success as a musician, including the fact that her most recent album “Lover” became 2019’s best-selling record in just a week. A common critique I hear of Swift’s work is that her music is too sophomoric, too girly and hyper-focused on relationships — according to Swift in a recent Rolling Stone article, the media has long since decided she was a “a boy-crazy man-eater.” And it’s true to a certain extent; the success of “Lover” demonstrates that Swift’s strength is highly rooted in her ability to write and compose songs based on love.
(09/17/19 6:00am)
When word broke that Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “The Goldfinch” would be adapted into a movie last year, I sighed and dreaded the worst. There is something sacred that is destroyed when a much-beloved novel makes its on-screen debut. Movie adaptations of novels rarely do their written counterparts justice. Instead, they bury them in piles of scathing reviews and Rotten Tomato ratings that sully not only the film’s reputation but also that of the novel (for example, “The Hunger Games”). Similarly, while “The Goldfinch” as a film failed miserably in recreating the vivid characters and atmosphere of Tartt’s imagination, it partly redeemed itself by creating a standalone experience that did not feel derivative of the novel and managed to preserve the novel’s enduring beauty.
(08/09/19 6:01am)
In the Drake-produced HBO series “Euphoria,” Generation Z is diagnosed and deified. Drawing attention to teen sex lives, drug abuse, family troubles and identity crises, “Euphoria” defines a generation by its most dramatic manifestations. The show’s narrator, lead and Gen Z translator Rue Bennett, played by former Disney Channel star Zendaya, is a biracial teenager struggling with drug addiction and the loss of her father. Self-aware yet unstable, Rue is the ultimate unreliable narrator. Rather than offering her audience righteous honesty or a critic’s presumed purity, Rue makes a show of the archival and analytical process. Just as drugs allow her to edit and enhance her own experience and perception, Rue, as narrator, takes liberties in her storytelling and invites us to trip alongside her. Through her constant battles with relapse, she teaches us what it means to actively recover and revise oneself. In doing so, she suggests that she is, in fact, a representative of her generation — those young adults born in the late ’90s and early 2000s who’ve been shaped by a constant surveillance and demand for self-narration. Where this generation is concerned, “Euphoria” argues that the revision of society and self is, perhaps, Gen Z’s birthright.
