Arts
The 2023 drama biopic “Blackberry” is centered around the meteoric rise and fall of the world’s first smartphone, the Blackberry. Focusing especially on the character dynamics between co-founders Mike Lazardis and Doug Fregin with the involvement of corporate centric Jim Balsillie.
Glenn Howerton, revered for his role as the loveably psychotic Dennis Reynolds in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” portrays Jim Balsillie. Balsillie, whose drive for professional success leads him to interact with his colleagues in an abrasive, nearly pathetic manner, is a role that plays perfectly into Howerton’s strengths.
Based on the polarizing New Yorker short story of the same name, “Cat Person” is a 2023 thriller starring Emilia Jones and Nicholas Braun, currently streaming on Hulu. Both the original short story, written by Harvard graduate Kristen Roupenian, and the feature film have generated a fair share of conflict online.
The short story, and the movie by association, have been the center of a slew of online conversations. Ranging from criticisms of the unspoken representation of privilege, the supposed demonization of a vulnerable man, and the nuances of a bad experience in the bedroom.
“Lighting and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.”
This is a quote from the philosopher Friedrich Nietzshe that is included in the director’s notes for the show “Rope” which is currently playing at Renton Civic Theatre. The show is a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock and Patrick Hamilton, which follows two young men over the course of an evening as they attempt to get away with the “perfect murder”.
Music has always been a strong platform for people to express their emotions and their beliefs about a particular situation or simply about whatever’s on their mind. A lot of thought is put into how a song is made, and as a result, everyone has a different interpretation of its message.
For example, Creep by Radiohead, to some listeners, is about a young man who has low self-esteem and has fallen in love with someone whom he considers way out of his league. For others however, the song is about said young man struggling against his own self-loathing and depression as he feels outshined by a peer.
“First Date, The Musical” opened at Centerstage Theatre recently, and it’s a rollercoaster of a romantic comedy.
Somewhat reminiscent of the 1995 film “Before Sunrise,” the entire show takes place over the course of a single evening, following the two lead characters, Casey and Aaron, as their relationship evolves over the course of a single blind date.
Casey is played by Jessie Sellek, who has been in a variety of other productions at Centerstage, most recently, Fairy Sweetheart in “Sleeping Beauty”.
The 2024 release, “Immaculate” centers around devout nun Cecilia, portrayed by Sydney Sweeney and her immaculate conception during her time at an Italian convent. Sweeney served as a main producer, script editor, and lead actress in one of the best performances of her career.
Sweeney’s career took off during her time on HBO’s mega-hit “Euphoria” as Cassie Howard, a role that allowed her to consistently show off her skills as a on-cue crier. She continued her partnership with HBO with a role on season one of the streaming exclusive “The White Lotus”.
After finding a mysterious red envelope and being compelled by a group of old women into marrying their dead grandson, police detective Wu Ming-Han has to solve a drug case while simultaneously coming to terms with the ghost husband to whom he is now wedded. Maybe the hardest thing to believe about this movie is that it gradually gets weirder from there.
Wu (played by Greg Han Hsu) starts off the film as an arrogant and homophobic cop, chiefly concerned with his own career’s trajectory, and as he is faced with the unbelievable task of marrying a dead man, lest he continue to receive bad luck.
The comedy trio of Please Don’t Destroy are responsible for most of the viral content coming out of Saturday Night Live’s current seasons. Composed of Ben Marshall, John Higgins and Martin Herlihy all of whom met as students at New York University.
Gaining traction on social media platform TikTok, the group consistently went viral with their surrealist comedy sketches. Particularly during the COVID-19 quarantine period of 2020, the group frequently collaborated on each of their three individual accounts.
The latest iteration of “Mean Girls”, released in January of this year, is a movie adaptation of the 2018 musical, which is an adaptation of the 2004 movie, which is based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. It’s a simple story, but sometimes, the best ones are.
It follows Cady Heron, who moves from Africa and starts attending public high school for the first time in her life at age 16, throwing her headfirst into a world of cliques and romance and friendships and drama that she’s never dealt with before. Just like any teenager, she doesn’t deal with all of it well, and really, none of the young characters in the story are perfect to each other, either.
“X-Men ‘97” is more than another superhero property; it is a revitalization of the famous 1992 X-Men cartoon that – despite its low production value – enraptured 90’s kids back before the Marvel Comic Universe (MCU) took over the comic landscape. “X-Men ‘97” is everything that a nostalgia property should be.
Though only four episodes have been released so far, the new iteration has created waves online, widely consisting of praise for the series’s animation, faithfulness to the comics, and impressively crafted dialogue.
Popularized in the late 1990s with the release of “The Blair Witch Project”, the found footage technique in horror movies has flourished in the 21st century. With social media and live-streaming media rapidly developing, found footage movies continue to stay relevant and evolve alongside the technology of the time.
While not the first use of the found footage technique, “The Blair Witch Project” is often heralded as the creator of the genre. Premiering in 1999 and claiming to be the discovered footage of three missing college students, “The Blair Witch Project” thrived on the use of a fledgling internet.
The seas and the stars have been sources of human curiosity for millenia, driving humans to develop technology and explore the world. Rocket engineering brought Sputnik 1 to space in the 1950s and sailing revolutionized exploration as far back as 4000 BC.
But the technological development of all technological developments was the combination of fire and tools 3.3 million years ago that gave us the gift of modern day cooking. I underestimated the universality of food and cooking last week but that’s okay because it will be the theme of this week’s One-Shot Manga Roulette!
Curiosity! Wonder! Exploration! These have all been considered as part of the human condition. Last week we even dove deep into oceans and wound up onto a mysterious land. Yet no concept has been so interwoven with humanity’s own history than the stars! Welcome back to One-Shot Manga Roulette, this week we will be shining that light back onto one-shots centered around stars and the fascination people have for them!
When thinking about the interconnectedness of humanity we may think about the internet, advancements in travel technology, or the general globalization and spread of cultures. However, before this it would be more accurate to say that it is the stars that manage to connect all of humanity together.
Denis Villanueve’s cinematic vision of the sci-fi epic “Dune” has graced us with the second part of the acclaimed novel. Timothy Chalamet, Zendaya, and Rebecca Ferguson are three most prominent actors in an already stacked cast that completely electrifies what would have already been a pillar of sci-fi moviedom.
The first “Dune” released in 2021 ended with Paul and his mother escaping into the desert after the Harkonnens failed to keep the mother/son witch combo restrained. The competing houses and societies assumed Paul’s family was completely wiped out with the news of his father’s demise.
The seaweed is in-fact not always greener in somebody else’s lake. The last thing you remember was going out for a quick swim, next thing you know you’re waking up in a watery grave. Returning from the trenches, the seas brighten with colors as you leave behind the abyss you wonder how long you’ve been gone for (or how it is you’re even alive).
After bursting through the water you find yourself in Gensokyo, a land of fantasy, illusion, and of that which is forgotten…
Over 30 years after his gruesome serial murders, controversial media portrayals of Jeffrey Dahmer continue to intrigue and disturb viewers.
This review will compare the factual fidelity and ethical problems found between two biopics, “My Friend Dahmer”and “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”, versus the documentary series “Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes”.
Vivian Maier, unfortunately, remains relatively unknown to those outside the photography community, yet her impact on the art world is profound.
Vivian Maier’s journey through life was marked by a quiet resilience. As a nanny by trade, her true vocation lay in capturing the essence of humanity, one frame at a time – in recording the essence of everyday life through her lens.
In the mid-20th century, she wandered the streets, observing and documenting moments that would otherwise go unnoticed, her footsteps echoing through the streets she traversed with her camera in hand.
Flowers, cards, candy, and chocolate – the discounted stocks are slowly depleting only to be hastily replaced with Easter festivities, but there’s still plenty of love here with this week’s theme at One-Shot Manga Roulette. Although with this specific topic it’s a toss up on whether that’s good or bad as this week will be about mermaids!
The concept of human-fish hybrids have existed long within multiple different cultures throughout history with the most popular in contemporary culture being the Greek depiction of the beautiful sirens who would lure men to their watery deaths.
“Lisa Frankenstein” is the joint product of writer Diablo Cody and director Zelda Williams. The title references both the classic Frankenstein story as well as Lisa Frank’s signature colorful art style.
The movie is centered around Kathryn Newton’s character of Lisa Swallows as she navigates high school in 1989 alongside her preppy step sister Taffy. When a creature emerges from the graveyard Lisa frequents, she takes on the task of hiding and ultimately working to piece his body back together.
On Friday the 13th of October 1972, a Uruguayan charter flight crashed in the Andes mountains, carrying the Old Christians rugby team and their companions. Seventy-one days later, two of the survivors walked out of the mountain range into a small farming village.
This incredible true story spawned a novel, “Alive” by Piers Paul Read which compiled each survivor’s account of their life on the mountain into a comprehensive story. From this novel came the movie of the same name and nearly thirty years later “Society of the Snow” took another turn telling the story of both the survivors and the dead.
Fans of fantasy are currently coping with their PFA with “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End”, but even this is at risk to leave them as the anime draws to an end. Nonetheless, things are still rolling here with the One-Shot Manga Roulette! Love was in the air, and chocolate is now discounted. Valentine’s day may have passed; however, it is still being celebrated here with the theme of this week.
Romance as a genre is as broad and expansive as the ways love can be explored as a theme. As complicated as love it can be made easy to understand through the many different tropes in the genre. There are classic story tropes such as the first kiss, the love triangles, and opposite attractions. Then there are personalities like the hot tsundere, cold kuudere, and the always questionable yandere.
Amidst a fighting game renaissance, an iron fist strikes: “Tekken 8”. Released mere months before the series’ 30th anniversary, “Tekken 8” further advances the story from 2014’s “Tekken 7”, while offering a ton more content in comparison. After 10 years from its previous entry though, how well does it hold up?
“Tekken 8” was first teased at EVO 2022 in August. It starts by recalling the first game’s ending, where main character Kazuya Mishima throws his father Heihachi off a cliff in an act of revenge. Kazuya smiles at the camera when it suddenly cuts to a new render with two words: “Get ready.”
Skyrocketing supergroup boygenius is made up of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus. While the three members each have their own following and solo albums, magic happens when they unite.
The first project they worked on together was their EP which contained eight songs, written specifically for a tour for another artist. It was on this tour that they all met and immediately hit it off. With Lucy and Julien meeting first, it was platonic love at first sight; then later with the introduction of Phoebe, who was already making a huge name for herself.
“Poor Things” (2023) from Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is based upon the book of the same name and borrows the gothic morbidity and feminist undertones of Mary Shelley’s iconic Frankenstein story.
“Poor Things” is a major Oscar contender with nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress for Emma Stone, and a Supporting Actor nomination for Mark Ruffalo. “Poor Things” holds eleven nominations, second only to “Oppenheimer” which has received thirteen nods and will be competing against “Poor Things” for Best Picture.
Welcome to this week’s One-Shot Roulette! Last week’s edition was on our love for our pets, (and although “Ieva” was featured, my favorite was “The Smell of Happiness,” it was certainly something every panel…). When it comes to writing, one genre in particular is universally difficult to create: hard fantasy. And it will be the theme for this week’s column!
The week is more straightforward compared to last week with an emotional stress level of: 3/10 – although it’s long, with a grand total of 199 pages, making it comparable to a single volume of manga.
The emotional stress level is more of an indicator of how emotionally exhausting I consider the stories to be. Stories are given a number (0, 1, 2) and are then totaled for the week.