A Sea of Ink

I don't know what it is about Demy and Legrand, but their opening scenes always have me grinning like crazy (I always find myself saying, "wow, this is fun"). They know how to start off with a bang. The opening number of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort  (in English, The Young Girls of Rochefort) , bursts with sunny jazz happiness and choreography that made me want to dance along. So the performers (specifically the ensemble) might not be the best dancers, or the most synchronized--so what? To me, the choreography was more of an unbridled celebration of movement, of what dance should feel like, of freedom. It made me happy, and that's what musicals should do. I had more problems with the plot of this movie than I did with Demy's previous Les Parapluies de Cherbourg. I'm not sure if this was done on purpose, but the storyline was sloppily cliche and predictable to the point of being ridiculous. In the end, everything was suddenly and miraculously, all at o...

"I want to make people cry," said French New Wave director Jacques Demy, and so he made the film Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964). Titled The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in English, this is the movie which inspired and heavily influenced Damien Chazelle's 2016 film La La Land. It is the story, told entirely in song, of teenage Geneviève who works in her mother's struggling umbrella boutique, and her garage mechanic boyfriend Guy, who is drafted into the French military to fight in the Algerian War. Teenage pregnancy, love triangles, betrayal, angst--seems like a typical, possibly meh plot line. Wrong. Right away, as the opening credits begin to roll across a scene, filmed from above, of walkers with brightly colored umbrellas, I know this is something special. Immediately, the viewer can tell he or she is in for a treat, that they are about to watch something beautiful--artistic--extraordinary. The first number begins to play--an instantly engaging jazz introductio...

The Greatest Showman was entertaining, but an excess of characters and events cost the film almost all depth in plot and characterization. Although the first few songs hinted at promise, most of the soundtrack (barring standouts “A Million Dreams” and “Never Enough”) is generally unimpressive and commonplace. Both the choreography (the highlight of the movie being the “A Million Dream” dance number between Hugh Jackman and Michelle Williams) and the visual design are worthy of high praise, but the lackluster army of characters and lack of clarity in the passage of time turned what might have been a cinematic masterpiece into an unrealistic and often confusing storm of scenes. The writers would have been better served by isolating a smaller slice of Barnum’s history for recreation and making allowance for greater care and detail. The movie was dazzling but hollow, without real insight into the history it portrayed.

Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst in the title role, has been around for more than a decade; however, the movie hit Netflix only recently.  This film received mixed reviews due to the unconventional way in which it told the French queen's history. As Dunst said, "It's kind of like a history of feelings, rather than a history of facts." Though the American faux-French accents are admittedly cringe-y at times (that of Rose Byrne, as the Duchesse de Polignac, especially), all cons are outweighed. Sacrificing historically accurate language and music, Coppola focused instead on the essence of who Marie Antoinette really was-- a teenager. The rock soundtrack, featuring tunes such as a remixed version of "I Want Candy," contributes to this point of view and gives the movie a youthful tone relatable to the teenaged target audience. A scene set at a masquerade ball includes the blasting electric guitar and drums of "Hong Kong G...

*SPOILER-FREE!* I definitely binge-watched this series way back in January or February, but haven't been ready to really review until now. THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD!!! From a book-to-screen standpoint, a remake-of-a-movie standpoint, and even just looking at it as a stand-alone series, THIS SHOW IS GREAT. One of the greatest flaws in the production of the 2004 film based on the Lemony Snicket books was the attempt to make the story realistic. The plot is not meant to be taken seriously. Although the point of the series is that it is "unfortunate," in the books it is done in such a way that it is still entertaining. Snicket is a quirky, fourth-wall-breaking author, and the problem with the movie was that it was dark, and serious, and tried to be Gothic and sad. The TV series adaptation, however, captured perfectly the feeling of the books. Where the movie neglected the character of the narrator, omitting the numerous vocabulary lessons and quirky foreshadowing which i...

Today marks the 88th anniversary of the birth of Audrey Hepburn, on May 4, 1929 in Brussels, Belgium. She passed away on January 20, 1993. Audrey Hepburn to me is a beacon of inspirational light. She was not just a movie star: she lived through World War II, fighting the Nazis with the Dutch Resistance by carrying messages and putting on secret dance concerts in order to raise funds, and came close to starvation prior to liberation by the Allies. She gave up stardom in order to be the best mother she could; she put her family and other first, before her own agenda. She dedicated her final years to UNICEF, traveling to struggling countries such as Somalia to raise awareness of starving children's plight. She used the fame she was blessed with to do good and change her world. She was not traditionally beautiful, never thought she was attractive, and created a whole new genre of fashion for unconventional beauties. She remained humble while in the public eye, maintained a polite att...

Creating a Holiday Classic The Moscow Ballet Nutcracker Behind the Scenes “I remember when I was little, really little, I would watch the NYC ballet every Christmas. I thought that was the coolest thing ever,” said 15-year-old Sophie Pickett, a dancer at Rising Star Tumbling and Dance Studio. “My mom had these pointe shoes for decoration in our house and they totally fit me at the time so I partied around in those during the Nutcracker, and that’s when I was like ‘I want to do this. This is cool!’” 29 Casper ballet students joined 40 professional dancers onstage December 7 th for a performance of the Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker. Following auditions with Moscow Ballet dancer Olena Nalyvaiko on October 17 th at host dance studio Beautiful Feet, the selected dancers were taught their choreography by Nalyvaiko herself, and then given seven weeks to rehearse. “It’s not just like one practice and its perfect, it takes so much work and time and dedication to this for...

Disney Presenting Pro-Feminist Females: What Do People Think of This Shift in Pop Culture? Disney’s princesses are not usually known for their strength of character. In the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty , title character Princess Aurora has only 18 lines of dialogue, and other early princesses spent the majority of their films doing housework, singing for the entertainment of passing suitors, and marrying whatever man had the inclination to rescue them from ill-meaning older women. Over the past few years, however, Disney has begun a new trend: the company has been incorporating more and more contemporary values into their so-called “princess movies.” “I think that it's admirable of the Disney company to be revisiting their former ideas of how women should act and how women should think,” said long-time Disney fan Abigail Chamb ers. Since the first Disney princess movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarves premiered in 1939, the princesses have slowly evolved from secondary c...