Zbigniew Rybczyński's Orchestra
Today everyone lives in a high-definition world of 4k streaming, 1080p resolution graphics, and the seemingly endless technological horizon of greater and greater picture clarity. Zbigniew Rybczyński’s 1990 hour-long art film, The Orchestra is not this.
Halftime (The J.Lo Documentary): Why Netflix Could’ve Left More “On The Floor”
Jennifer Lopez was one of those people who always popped up in the most random of scenarios, whether as a reality show judge, an awards show performer, or, most often, as the face of the latest tabloid publication. Yet despite how often I encountered her, she was still never someone I paid much attention to – except when rewatching old dance recital videos where we danced to her hit, “Let’s Get Loud.” (Seriously, I don’t know what my studio’s obsession with the song was, but we danced to it a lot.)
Marry Me: When Even Being a World-Famous Popstar Isn’t Enough
Glitzy and glamorous romantic comedies are nothing new; we have repeatedly discussed in lecture how urban settings and upper class characters are a mainstay of the genre. Romantic comedies that feature working women have also become increasingly common since the shift of labor that occurred in the postwar era. But how often have we seen a rom com about a female international music sensation?
A Glance Behind the Curtain of the Underworld: A Conversation with the Cast of Hadestown
It’s Sweeny Todd meets Romeo and Juliet. It’s a fairy-tale, but how the Grimm Brothers originally imagined: a dark and gritty reimagination of an otherwise beautiful love story. A post-apocalyptic reinterpretation of a classic Greek tragedy is what comes to mind when I think about Hadestown. This grand musical tells the tale of not just one Greek myth, but two in a modern setting. It interweaves the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, two lovers destined to be drawn apart, and the story of Hades and Persephone, another pair of lovers with a complicated relationship.
Tick, Tick... Boom! A Love Letter to Art and the Artist
I don’t need to convince you to watch tick tick… Boom!, the film adaptation of the creator of the revolutionary rock musical Rent Jonathan Larson’s autobiographical musical about living in the pressure cooker of eighties New York and trying to make his big break before the age of 30. “Older than Stephen Sondheim and Paul McCartney” when they achieved fame. Gasp!
In A Musical Nothing Dreadful Ever Happens: Lars von Trier's Dancer In The Dark
Like his British counterpart Mike Leigh, Danish director Lars von Trier’s movies can be a tough watch. Often concluding unexpectedly and without resolution, they consistently leave you thinking about what you just saw for a long time afterwards. You leave the experience piecing your heart back together after having it ripped out of your chest for two hours. His 2000 Dancer In The Dark, along with his 1996 film Breaking The Waves, solidified von Trier as one of the unique emergent directorial voices to come out of Europe in recent times.
Day In, Day Out: Anton Corbijn's Control
As the Factory Records legacy ossifies over time, its main protagonists have begun to pass. The stories themselves are also passing into recorded memory. The telling, and retelling of the all-too-brief four years that Joy Division existed, ending with the suicide of their lead singer Ian Curtis, has been visualized in two fascinatingly different, wonderful films.
