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(01/17/14 3:27am)
It almost goes without saying that the Oscars tend to disappoint, year in and year out. In my humble opinion, the Academy gets it wrong far more often than right, and the lengthy award ceremony itself has been upstaged as of late by the much leaner and meaner Golden Globes boozefest. That being said, as a glutton for punishment, or a “movie masochist,” so to speak, I find it impossible to resist scrutinizing the Oscar nomination list, predicting the likely winners, fantasizing about the possibilities of upsets and snubs, and preparing myself for the evening of garish devastation that awaits on March 2, when sappy speeches and cheesy montages will assault my laptop screen.
(01/16/14 4:19am)
“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them,” the great French poet Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote in his 1939 memoir “Wind, Sand and Stars.” This issue lies at the heart of “Her,” the latest cinematic effort from writer-director Spike Jonze.
(12/03/13 4:22am)
In an ideal world, there would be no such thing as a “guilty pleasure.” We should be able to pop in a Demi Lovato album, DVR the latest episode of “Pretty Little Liars” and marvel at Sandra Bullock’s performance in “All About Steve” without so much as an ounce of shame. After all, who cares what the critics and culture snobs say? I’ll take “She’s the Man” instead of “An Inconvenient Truth” anyday.
(09/25/13 8:57pm)
A new administrative policy on academic space reservations has performing arts CIOs up in arms, as scores of theatre directors and a cappella group leaders scramble to find available spots for rehearsals.
(09/03/13 3:11pm)
The Lawn will come alive Wednesday as students congregate to take part in one of the University’s most treasured traditions: Rotunda Sing. For a solid two hours, the nine groups of the A Cappella Presidents Council will ascend the southern steps of the beloved structure to sing their hearts out and to vie for the love and affection of the student body.
(09/03/13 12:28am)
The Lawn will come alive Wednesday as students congregate to take part in one of the University’s most treasured traditions: Rotunda Sing. For a solid two hours, the nine groups of the A Cappella Presidents Council will ascend the southern steps of the beloved structure to sing their hearts out and to vie for the love and affection of the student body.
(08/27/13 2:38pm)
The words “pompous” and “pretentious” are bound to come up in any discussion of Aaron Sorkin, given the award-winning writer’s propensity for stuffing his characters’ mouths with the sort of pseudo-intellectual babble you might expect to hear in a high school politics classroom. That said, virtually every project to bear the Sorkin brand name has met with some level of success, whether through a cult following, as was the case with the short-lived “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” or a full-blown mega-fanbase, as we have seen with films like “Moneyball” and “The Social Network.” One exception to this rule, however, arrived last year in the form of HBO’s highly anticipated “The Newsroom,” which seemed predestined to serve as this generation’s “West Wing,” a critical smash that would breed more popular quotes than “The Godfather.”
(03/27/13 3:49pm)
In the past decade, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender groups have made massive strides with regard to the portrayal of so-called “queer” characters on television. Whereas the sitcoms and courtroom dramas of the ‘80s and ‘90s tended to feature gays and lesbians in small subplots and brief stints, if at all, virtually every program on TV today seems to include recurring LGBTQ characters. That said, notably absent from the scores of LGBTQ roles currently offered are politically conservative characters, despite the fact that these sorts of figures could stand to advance current political discourse and ease the coming out process for viewers with much more resonance than the motley crew now on display.
(03/20/13 4:58pm)
“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone?” Joni Mitchell asked in her 1970 single “Big Yellow Taxi.” Mitchell may have been singing about paving paradise to put up a parking lot, but her message applies just as well to the way in which we, as a society, tend to approach pop culture.
(02/21/13 2:34am)
As a general rule, it’s safe to say acoustic albums are a bad idea. Whether you’re a mainstream chart-topper or a soulful indie crooner, you’re bound to have something to gain from an instrumental or electronic arrangement that consists of more than the endless strumming of guitar strings. That said, for power-belters like Adele or lyrical masterminds like Jackson Browne, stripped-down performances offer up a rare opportunity to showcase raw, brute-force talent, unburdened by auto-tune or overpowering backbeats. Unfortunately for Canadian superstar Justin Bieber and his newly released Believe Acoustic, the ‘unplugged’ treatment can also have the unexpected consequence of exposing feeble vocals and crummy lyrics for what they really are.
(02/07/13 5:08am)
Once upon a time, musicals were the bread and butter of Hollywood filmmaking. With massive box-office figures and sturdy critical appeal, song-and-dance spectacles such as Anchors Aweigh and Kiss Me Kate lit up the big screen throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s.
(02/07/13 3:24am)
Every once in a while, a foreign art house film comes along and manages to break into the mainstream movie market. When this happens, it’s usually thanks to the film’s socially relevant themes or intellectually demanding — but rewarding — storyline . More often than not, these non-traditional plot sequences offer unsatisfying endings and scenes of intense suffering to drive home a message. For better or for worse, Michael Haneke’s Amour falls short in these respects, failing to achieve those traits for which art cinema is best known.
(01/31/13 1:20am)
It’s not everyday that you see a grown woman urinate on the face and chest of a young man, but this sight is just one of the many outrageous spectacles that make Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy one of the wackiest films in recent memory. For his follow-up to the critically lauded Precious, Daniels has adapted Peter Dexter’s sordid novel of crime and passion in the 1960s South into a modern camp classic, brimming with bright colors, gaudy shots and one of the hottest — and hammiest — casts you’re likely to see this year.
(01/17/13 4:02am)
Much to the delight of cinephiles and fashion freaks across the country, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released its official list of nominees for the 85th Annual Academy Awards, a ceremony that’s sure to stir up enough gossip about backroom deals and bad dresses to get us through the rest of the bleak winter season. For movie lovers who have any sort of emotional stake in who comes out on top on awards night, the most exciting part of the Oscar process is the admittedly useless back-and-forth of speculation and conjecture that makes us feel like experts and hotshots for a little more than a month, only to be crushed and confused by the announcement of the actual winners and losers.
(01/17/13 3:53am)
From Michael Moore documentaries to Dan Brown adaptations, controversial movies are a dime a dozen these days. But it’s rare to find one that raises a fuss largely on account of its refusal to take a stand. Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty is one such anomaly, a film that takes the country’s most talked-about manhunt not as fuel for a grand political statement, but rather as a gripping human story of obsession, risk and moral ambivalence.
(01/14/13 6:39am)
From a capella concerts to sculpture showcases, the University’s artistic offerings seem to know no bounds. That said, if you’re looking to have a good laugh, your options are limited; the Wahoos do not, as of yet, play host to the heaping handful of comedy troupes you might expect from a university that seems to sprout a new singing group — or five — every fall. But although our few stalwart comedians may be lacking in quantity, they more than make up for it with their grade-A quality.
(11/29/12 3:55am)
You know the most wonderful time of the year has arrived when “All I Want for Christmas Is You” dominates the airwaves, the temperature seems to drop by 10 degrees a day and Fox News gears up to combat the so-called “war on Christmas” that apparently plagues toy stores and cinemas across the country. As bank account balances plummet and heating bills skyrocket, we can at least find solace in what the PC police have dubbed “holiday movies,” which either serve as a rare reminder of the “reason for the season” or as a dose of outrageousness and hilarity.
(11/15/12 5:06am)
Fifty years ago, when Sean Connery’s Agent 007 first graced the screen in Dr. No, few viewers sensed that this campy little spy movie would change the landscape of film for decades to come.
(11/08/12 4:13am)
It takes a pretty terrible movie to make a magnificent theater like the Paramount feel like a prison, and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook accomplished just that when it played at the Virginia Film Festival Saturday. Surrounded by hordes of cackling viewers, I knew from the film’s first frame that there would be no escape from the dull, lumbering story that writer-director Russell had cooked up in an obvious attempt to strike Oscar gold after failing two years ago with the similarly mediocre The Fighter.
(11/01/12 4:44am)
As Halloween season comes to dominate our lives this week, one thing is bound to be on everybody’s mind: the arrival of a new Disney Channel Original Movie. Two weeks ago, the not-too-creatively-titled Girl vs. Monster invaded living rooms across the U.S. with its brand’s trademark combination of awful acting, moronic music and balls-to-the-wall cheesiness. Like every other Disney Channel film to assault the small screen since 1997, the movie ultimately won me over with its silly sentimentality and its unintentional humor. In honor of this recent ghastly guilty pleasure, A & E has decided to count down the five greatest contributions to the Disney Channel Original Movie world.