TV

Why Women In Sports Need #WomenInSports

This is what it is to be one of the #WomenInSports: It is a duality of being pushed down and lifted up solely because of our gender.

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On December 2nd, the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers played against one another in a rugged divisional matchup. Millions of Americans tuned in as announcer Cris Collinsworth intended to pay a compliment to an impressive group of Steelers fans he met. They just so happened to be women.

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FILM

Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend of April 19

Are people singing on the subway ever not insane? Find out this weekend.

Photo by Hoach Le Dinh on Unsplash

Welcome back to "Now in Theaters: 5 New Movies for the Weekend."

This week we have more generic horror and the dumbest musical concept in human history.

WIDE RELEASE:

The Curse of La Llorona

The Curse of La Llorona - Official Trailer [HD]www.youtube.com

Based on an old Mexican folktale about the wailing ghost of a woman who drowned her children, The Curse of La Llorona follows a family...cursed by La Llorona. It's produced by horror icon James Wan, and while marketed as a standalone film, it takes place within the same universe as The Conjuring. Honestly, the trailer doesn't really set it apart from any of the other "spooky ghosts jumping out" horror fare of the last decade. Moreover, The Conjuring was fantastic, but the follow-up movies not actually directed by James Wan have been middling. Go in with low expectations and maybe it'll be fun.

LIMITED RELEASE:

Under the Silver Lake

Under the Silver Lake | Official Trailer HD | A24www.youtube.com

Writer/director David Robert Mitchell's previous film, It Follows, was genuinely one of my favorite movies of the past couple years. As such, Under the Silver Lake is a personal must-see, even if it hasn't been getting the same across-the-board praise as its predecessor. Andrew Garfield plays a lovestruck young man trying to solve the mystery of his missing neighbor, convinced that a vast conspiracy of strange codes and hidden messages across LA will lead to answers. It looks weird and unlike anything I've seen before, so even if it falls short of expectations it should be an interesting ride.

Stuck

STUCK Official Trailer #1 (2017) | Ashanti, Amy Madigan | Musical Film HD Trailerwww.youtube.com

Imagine being stuck on the subway in NYC and then a bunch of assholes start singing about their most intimate problems. That's the premise of this mind-blowingly stupid concept for a musical starring Ashanti, Arden Cho (Teen Wolf), and Giancarlo Esposito (Gus from Breaking Bad) for some reason. Maybe the music is good, I don't know. But as a New Yorker who encounters singing subway lunatics on my daily commute, I can think of better ways to waste my weekend.

Grass

GRASS (official trailer)www.youtube.com

An artsy South Korean drama from director Hong Sang-soo (Right Now, Wrong Then), Grass is an unconventional narrative in which a writer eavesdrops on three different couples in a cafe. Their simultaneously unfolding stories influence the writer's work. The trailer itself is very interesting, playing an intimate, wordless moment out during a single shot. Your reaction to the trailer should be a good barometer for whether or not you'll appreciate Hong Sang-soo's directorial style.

Hail Satan?

Hail Satan? - Official Trailerwww.youtube.com

What if people's notions about "Satanism" are entirely wrong? Those misconceptions are exactly what the comedic documentary Hail Satan? sets out to rectify. Featuring exploits and interviews with actual, self-proclaimed Satanists, director Penny Lane highlights what amounts to an activist movement ironically posing as a religion. For anyone even mildly interested in the intersection between theology and politics, this documentary should be high on your list.


Dan Kahan is a writer & screenwriter from Brooklyn, usually rocking a man bun. Find more at dankahanwriter.com


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FILM & TV

MOVIE REVIEW | “Rebel in the Rye” explores life and loves of J.D. Salinger

FILM | If you liked Holden Caulfield, you'll love his origin story

J.D. Salinger is attributed with the quote, "People never notice anything," but J.D. Salinger wasn't your average person.

Known for writing what is considered one of the best coming-of-age novels during the past century, gaining fame only to become a notoriously private recluse, J.D. Salinger was likely on your high school required reading (and if you have literary nerd friends, they probably have a lot of feelings regarding The Catcher in the Rye). But how much do you know about the man behind one of literature's most curious characters?

Written by and also acting as the directorial debut for Danny Strong (Gilmore Girls and Mad Men, among others), Rebel in the Rye tells the coming-of-age story of J.D. Salinger (Nicholas Hoult) as he finds his voice in a mid-century New York City and the inspiration within himself for the legendary Holden Caulfield character. We see him go from a sarcastic youth smoking and dancing in jazz clubs, to an ambitious published author, to shaken combat soldier at the height of World War II – the last of which would be the event that would help crystalize his final creation of Caulfield and send him directly into stardom.

Along the way we're introduced to the strongest influences in Salinger's life, including his Columbia professor turned mentor Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey) and first love Oona O'Neill (Zoey Deutch), and how his experiences shaped the lines in stories that generations of readers have read and fallen in love with. Traveling around New York, we follow Salinger as he goes from frustrated youth to success story, only to discover that the side effects of fame are not all he had originally dreamed out.

If you're a lover of period pieces, you'll fall for the big band music and the quirky dialogue of the characters (a young Salinger certainly calls a fair few people a "phony"). However, if you believe anything from Sundance Film Festival reviews, this film will fall short. This is no fault of the actors for each does an impeccable job on the screen. Deutch allows us to fall for Oona just as young "Jerry" Salinger does, and Hoult, despite being far more attractive than the actual author, portrays the many moods of the author powerfully.

The issue many instead have is with Strong's efforts to depict the intensity of the creative process, and no one caring about it.

As sexy as it looks to see Hoult as a never-aging Salinger furiously smoking cigarettes and writing about his woes over a typewriter or demanding that The New Yorker not make edits to his story because of his deep emotional attachment to the characters, it's not very sympathetic. Once Salinger does go through the life-changing experiences of war and finds success his quirks might become tiresome. Additionally, because it's a biopic, there's no way to brighten up the dullness that was Salinger's later years in life: he escaped to a farm in New Hampshire with the large sums from Catcher, eventually put up a large wooden fence, and wrote in his office for himself until his passing in 2010. It's far from the glamour one might picture from people living at the height of short story craze, but in all of its disorganized narrative it still remains feeling true to the disorganized truth of reality.

Throughout the film, Burnett reminds young Salinger that no person is truly a writer until they know that they will write regardless if anyone else is reading their work or if they're getting paid. If you don't consider yourself a "true writer" or a huge Salinger fan, the chances of you fawning over this film are likely bleak. You'll probably find yourself bored by the visual depiction of the creative process. However, if your weapon is the pen, it's certainly worth 100 minutes of your time, if only to learn about what it means to be a tortured artist.

Rebel in the Rye will be distributed by IFC Films and released in theatres September 15.

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