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I am currently taking the class Writers in Print/Person (Lit 215) with Professor Young. If you love literature, I highly recommend taking this class. We study poetry, fiction, memoirs, short stories, and more. The best part of it all is that we get to meet the authors of these works after we’ve read them! It is honestly one of the best classes I have ever taken, and we’re only halfway through the semester. The author I am reviewing today is Tyrese Coleman. We read her short story compilation titled, How To Sit, for the class a couple of weeks ago. The book includes a mixture of nonfiction short stories from her own life and a few fictional ones that mimic her life. When she came to class she spoke about how she decided to mix fiction and nonfiction in her book because she prefers not to draw lines between genres. How To Sit encapsulates what it is like to grow up as a young black woman in poverty living in rural Virginia. The stories are graphic and include a variety of difficult topics. I highly recommend that you read the book for yourself because a brief summary like this just doesn’t do it justice. It was truly an inspiring read and I enjoyed every minute of it. The most exciting part of this process was meeting Tyrese Coleman and hearing her talk about her book. Some of her advice to readers enjoying How To Sit is to understand that although not all of the stories are true, some of them do contain very specific moments from her life. Even the fiction pieces are still based on her life, they are just altered. For example, Tyrese explained that one of the stories titled “V-Day” in her book is entirely nonfiction and all of the hardship and guilt that comes with that story is real and should be regarded as such. That being said, another story called “Sacrifice” is almost entirely fiction. Another thing Tyrese brought up in her talk that I thought was interesting was her view on audience. One of the points she stressed the most was that she does not write to please or appeal to any specific audience. She is simply writing her story. After reading How To Sit and listening to Tyrese talk about her book and her life, I can safely recommend that you invest in reading the book and any other works Tyrese has written so far (she has written many short stories that have been published in literary journals such as The Offing, Catapult, Lit Hub, and more). While you read, think about the things I mentioned she talked about for a greater understanding of her work. I can guarantee that, even if you don’t like the work itself, you will gain a greater appreciation for Tyrese and anyone who has faced similar struggles in their lives.

We at AmLit are dedicated to supporting the budding talents and creations of intelligent, creative, and gifted young artists. Last month, middle and high school students visited campus to showcase their films and projects at the Discover the World of Communication High School Film Fest. The festival winners addressed serious and modern issues, such as activism, gun violence, and sustainability. The student films are poignant, inspiring, and artistic. It’s heartening to see AU supporting young filmmakers and artists, and we’re grateful to be able to highlight their talents. THE WINNERS: Best Fiction Short: “In the Wings” A young ballerina with an upcoming performance finds herself stuck between dating a boy in her class and spending time with her best friend. Tensions increase as she has to choose between them both. At her performance, she realizes the choice she must make to make herself happy. Best Documentary Short: “We Are Now” Produced by eight high school students, "We Are Now" showcases the wave of youth-led activism sweeping the country and highlights several young activists who are fighting for what they believe in. Young people feel the government is unresponsive to their needs and, because they are not yet voting age, they are organizing, protesting and standing up for their rights. "We Are Now" is a rallying cry to young people everywhere, urging them to be the change they wish to see in the world. Best Environmental Short: “I Am Forever: Watch Your Waste Project” What would you say if you find a pile of garbage of plastic bottles in a place that you generally go to eat? Watch the reaction of students during a lunch break of a very smelly art piece and a parade against the use of plastic bottles at the school. Maybe this could help the students and staff of school to re-think of each decision of buying a new water plastic bottle as it takes at least 450 years to decompose, and their mind patter and further actions. A film made by the Visual Art High Schooler students, from Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok, in order to create awareness about plastic consumption. This film is part of the Film Workshop by the Brazilian artists Lara Jacoski and Patrick Belem, which the students are taught how to make a film from the subject plastic. After classes of sustainability of the city the students live in and classes on how to make a film from beginning to end, the students make their own video at their school creating awareness in a substantial scale. 
This project has an ideal to teach art and sustainability altogether by reaching some aspects of rubbish, decomposition and recycling, being able to think about our environment and how to keep it as clean as possible. Hopping also to plant a seed with our beliefs of having a better world to live in and being able to help the next generation. Best Social Justice Short: “Too Young” A short documentary shedding light on the prevalence of gun violence in schools across America. Best Overall Film: “Sketchy” (an animated short film) An introverted schoolboy finds himself the king of his own imaginary world.

With the holy month of Ramadan around the corner, I thought this would be the perfect time to give an overview of what these traditions of fasting and becoming closer to God are like. Muslims fast from sun up to sun down to remind themselves that people out there of various social classes can be suffering more than they are which means that it is important to appreciate what they have and give back to those that are less fortunate. Muslims fast to remain humble about every meal that gets put in front of them, and to constantly be aware that not everyone has the privilege of a warm meal. “I have a friend who fasts to understand what it feels like for poor people… I think [Ramadan] has a few problems for people who are too thin since they can become malnourished.” This is a comment from a student about what they believe Ramadan to be like. When Allah asked Muslims to fast throughout the whole month, he did not intend for their health to deteriorate along the way which is why he permits people that have an illness and continue to take medication to not fast. People that are taking a long trip are also allowed to break their fast due to the time difference. I myself have stopped fasting at the age of 10 because I started to get seizures and when you take medications, you automatically break your fast. Of course, I feel guilty, but I am constantly reminded by people around me that Allah did not intend for fasting to be an act of suffering rather an act of love and empathy. While fasting is a huge part of Ramadan, it is definitely not the only aspect. This part of the year is meant for Muslims to have their ‘soul cleansed’ and that is where I aim to overcompensate for not fasting. This cleansing of the soul means not to gossip and to be more kind. Helping the less fortunate is something that Muslims often try to do throughout the whole year, but the need to help others usually increases around the time of Ramadan. This time of the year is usually just a happy time because everyone is trying to be the best version of themselves. And one of my favorite Ramadan traditions is the fanoos (lantern), which parents get for their children and then couples start to gift to each other. It comes in all shapes and sizes and to me, it symbolizes the magic and beauty that Allah envisioned for Ramadan to be, in this simple lamp made in China. To this day, I still ask for it when I visit Egypt around Ramadan because it reminds me of the essence of the Holy month. Just like Thanksgiving is a time to be grateful and gather with family over conversations, Ramadan is pretty much the same however Muslims are not always in the mood to chat due to the low energy from fasting. This, in turn, leads them to focus more on their faith, Muslims around Ramadan make it a goal of theirs to read the Quran to its entirety at least once. While this devotion to Allah is supposed to be a daily ritual, it is much easier for Muslims to become closer to him around this time of the year. Especially since this is when the devils are believed to be locked up so if they make bad decisions, it is really just them that are responsible. The praying and the reading of the Quran are the ways in which people become closer to God as they are fasting. Although the month of Ramadan is about bettering oneself and at the core of that is being closer to God, it is also one of the most entertainment heavy time. Every Ramadan, all the well-known actors have their own television show which has 30 episodes, and an episode airs every day during the time when people are fasting so it can help them pass time. This Ramadan, 31 shows are scheduled to air. The month of Ramadan is not only a powerful time for actors but also for companies in terms of commercials like Pepsi. Though this content may make Ramadan seem like the Arab version of the Super Bowl, it is in fact not since my family along with other families garner all the episodes from several shows to watch before Sehour (dinner Muslims have before they start fasting again). This way it does not conflict with the spiritual journey that is meant to be focused on. I hope that just like Muslims aim to better themselves throughout the year not just around the time of Ramadan, that more people would become interested in learning more about this religion and the holidays that Muslims partake in. Try going to one of the Iftars (breakfast) on the 6th and 7th hosted by the American University Muslim Students Association. Maybe even a Jummah (Friday) prayer? By having these dialogues, people will no longer be afraid of being stereotypical or Islamophobic. Please ask questions so you can be more mindful of other’s beliefs. Finally, I just want to thank my lovely family in advance for their support and patience as they will be fasting on the day of my graduation.

Vera Hanson November 27, 2013 | 9:52pm EST Last weekend I had the chance to escape from my essays and find a bit of peace at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Currently on view is an exhibition called Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950. If I’m being honest, I am not normally drawn to exhibits that are largely centered on film, television and sculpture, but I was left completely captivated by many of the chilling pieces at this exhibition. On view through late May, Damage Control works to explore the themes of destruction in art and the context in which these pieces were created. Stemming from the “escalation of the arms race and the prospect of nuclear annihilation” in the early 1950s, the exhibition uses different art mediums to convey the significance of media coverage of these disasters, both large and small. For me, one of the most mesmerizing and unsettling moments at the exhibit came from the work of the artist Ori Gersht. An Israeli photographer, Gersht’s “Big Bang 1” is a video showing a still, non-moving vase of flowers. After tense and distressing music in the background plays for over a minute, the vase finally explodes. As a group of us crowded around the video screen, Gersht’s work left all us viewers visibly shaken. It was in the contrast of simplicity and ‘destruction’ that the artist’s execution of his work was so successful. Gersht’s piece conveys one element in a much larger motif of demolition and chaos represented at the exhibit. In addition to Damage Control, the Hirshhorn Museum was a great location for a relaxing Saturday morning. I highly recommend going up to the third floor and taking advantage of the ‘observation’ room fully equipped with desks and couches overlooking D.C. Other exhibitions that are currently on view include Black Box: Gerco de Ruijter and Barbara Kruger: Belief Doubt. While both are incredibly different from one another, together they are very worthwhile. The Hirshhorn is located on the National Mall at the corner of 7th Street and Independence Avenue SW. The museum is open from 10am – 5:30pm daily and admission is always free. Also, Jake Chapman, an artist with work featured in Damage Control, will be giving an Artist Talk on Wednesday, December 11 at 7pm. So, be sure to check that out if you’re interested in gaining more insight into the mind of one of the artists central to the exhibition.

Brandon Latham November 20, 2014 | 12:40pm EST Nightcrawler is a modern take on a cautionary tale as old as television itself, one that cinema most famously already told in Network (1976). In that oscar-winning film, an ensemble of cable newsmakers destroy their own and one another’s lives — through suicide attempts, assassinations, infidelity and prostitution — in order to boost ratings at the expense of their friendships. Nightcrawler takes television news back to that dark place, the place where life and limb are necessary casualties in the mission to get the right shot. Without actually knowing the backstory, I wouldn’t be surprised if screenwriter Dan Gilroy (who makes his directorial debut) hatched the idea for Nightcrawler after hearing the phrase “If it bleeds, it leads.” The common newsroom cliche is used in the film, in the very scene in which protagonist Lou Bloom decides to take up freelance videography, and Gilroy seems to have accepted it as a challenge, as if to say, let’s see just how far we can stretch that before people stop accepting it. He stretches it pretty far, and smartly in steps. Bloom finds he can get away with moving around some photos in a crime scene to make a better story, then a body — stop me when you think he has crossed an ethical line — then he let’s a man die. With what else can he get away? Lou Bloom, on paper not much more than an overwrought, ghoulish Holden Caulfield with a camera, is played by Jake Gyllenhaal. A long, LONG way from Donnie Darko and October Sky, Gyllenhaal brings this otherwise sanctimonious movie to heights it could not reach without him. His performance as Lou Bloom is sublime. It is obvious from the first frames that he prepared exhaustively for the role. He reportedly lost more than 20 pounds to play Lou as a literalized nightcrawler, the term that locals in Southern California use to refer to the coyotes and other predators that lurk by night. It worked. His hunger and ferocity come off the screen so well that he is singularly what makes the movie a little terrifying. The acting here is in the little things about his expression. Hardly ever blinking, his eyes are penetrating yet wandering, like those of a hunting animal, then lock in when they need. His lips, at some of the most important scenes, are handling perfectly in that you, the viewer, notice the quick, crooked smile but just enough so it doesn’t seem overt. His voice is, in a word, piercing, and it becomes even more shrill when matched with the annoying superficiality of what he is saying. Nightcrawler opens with a handful of shots of Los Angeles by night, descending on a lone station wagon and a thief stealing copper fence to sell for scrap. This film is as much about it’s city as anything else, shot at no fewer than 75 locations in LA and the suburbs. This thief in the LA night is, or course, Lou. His first words in the movie when questioned by a security guard are “I’m lost.” Over the next two hours and change, his deviant ambitions grow more devious, and his lies grow better. It’s on a night just like this when he is driving home and passes by a brutal car wreck and meets Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), a freelance camera guy who keeps up with a police scanner every night to get footage for the morning news. He’s a stringer, a nightcrawler. Lou is immediately interested. This moment came too soon in the film, I think. The swift ebb and flow of the camera and the sharp edits create a shockingly realistic aesthetic, one that I think would have been more thrilling and emotional if the audience knew more about Lou the character before diving into the story. What we do know at this time is what Lou tells a construction foreman while he is looking for a job. “If you want to win the lottery,” he says is his motto, “you have to make the money to buy the ticket.” Lou is a self-starter, the sort of young man who thinks a formal education is overrated because you can learn just about anything with a proper web search and you can climb in any business with hard work. He also says he regrets being part of the “self-esteem movement” of the 1990s when every kid was told they did a good job and that they were entitled to what they work for. He might resent this in theory, but he is the ultimate, violent embodiment of it in practice. His blind, almost thoughtless ambition can only be described as entitlement. When he gets some footage of a fatal shooting, he doesn’t bother seeking contacts or sending emails. No, he walks right into the cutting room at a local news station and fights for the attention of the producer. When he wants to break into his new freelancing gig, he doesn’t try to ease into the business. No, he buys a camera from a pawn shop, hires an “intern” to help him navigate starts introducing himself as the CEO of a company called Video News Production. He thinks he is qualified in every field because he can recite superficial knowledge from an online business class, most of which actually sounds straight from a self-help book. The crazy thing about it is that this all works. He is, against all odds, a commodity as a videographer, and his so-called business grows quickly. He’s an outsider who has no idea what lines not to cross, but he’s, as we hear Gyllenhaal rattle off several times, “a quick learner.” Technically, Nightcrawler is an achievement of filmmaking. The score is very effective in spite of — and, actually, because of — it inescapable cheesiness. At it’s core a thriller, Nightcrawler grows into a satire, and the been-there-done-that thriller score, marching along at the same rapid pace of the cuts and the same sense of reach as Gyllenhaal’s brilliantly obnoxious delivery, works very well. It is also a pretty film, or at least as pretty as a film shot on location in dark LA suburbs can be. The slanted streets, battered cars and eyesore homes (like once white sneakers, the underclass housing complex Lou lives alone in looks like it spent too much time running through the mud) don’t do the visuals any favor, but the joint film and digital photography still sharply adds to the realism. Lou, a moving picture photographer himself, would probably think very highly of the work done on Nightcrawler. After all, he says, proper framing is everything. (When he says this, he and producer Nina are facing one another taking up the majority of the shot, with a bright center illuminating their faces but their backs lost in shadow, making this an excellent moment of metafiction, whether intended or not.) As a thriller and nothing else, Nightcrawler is fine entertainment, a well made caper with the scariest of anti-heroes: one that could very easily be out there. But as a social satire, a warning about the ills of the digital age and the 24-hour news cycle, it is derivative (of Network, for example). There is selling sex (or maybe not, this is the film’s lone mystery) in the name of favorable ratings. There is the specter of the Internet: “Everything about you is online, well probably not everything but a whole lot of stuff.” It’s wonderfully uncomfortable in the context it is presented, but I can’t get over hearing that and thinking, Yes, we know. I think what all of this has been building to is this: Jake Gyllenhaal just gave one of the best, most intense, most unique and physical performances of his career. The film fails without his talents and the genuinely interesting character of Lou Bloom. He’s crazy. Even when he is playing the role of an average joe, of the modern entrepreneur, he is clearly crazy. Everything about his performance — that is to say both Gyllenhaal’s as Lou, and Lou when he tries to sell himself — is very calculated and precise. It’s spooky. But no matter how much he can pretend he is going to push forward like everything is according to precedent, Lou becomes clearly emotionally exhausted, and that leads to some of the few patently shocking moments in the final act. The only way to describe the tension of those late sequences is to quote another filmmaker, Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo), who said that great stories are “inevitable, without being predictable.” There seems like only one trajectory for Lou, but it still managed to be enticing and sharp.

Nolan Miller October 24, 2014 | 9:36am EST Superman was the first superhero ever created and possesses enormous cultural value for the genre. He is also the most boring superhero of all time, a result of his uninspired powers and a near perfect character. The unshakable resolve and moral system of this god-like alien is perceived by those around him in the world he inhabits as inspiring. The “S” on his chest means hope in his home world’s language and he absorbs the power of the sun, literally the biggest beacon of light known to man. Symbolism is perhaps the most overdone motif in the superhero genera, hope specifically being the most overdone of all. Furthermore, hope is always codified from the helpless civilian’s point of view, as in “I hope [superhero] will save me.” This is what superheroes do, they save and protect the vulnerable humans. Some books, like Marvels, have deconstructed the notion of the helpless citizen constantly relying on the superhero to save them. Other graphic novels have even gone so far as depicting the depressed superhero hoping for forgiveness for a mistake in his or her past (Kingdom Come shows white-bearded Superman in such a state: retired in self-imposed exile). Yet, no graphic novel has gone to the lengths Penance: Relentless does to defile the superhero genre hope motif, one that Superman is the prime example of. In coming up with the character Penance, Paul Jenkins and Paul Gulacy created the perfect anti-hero to Superman. Penance is a character who is damaged goods in every sense of the world. A brief version of his backstory follows, you can skip the rest of this paragraph if you are familiar with Speedball’s role in the Civil War timeline: Robbie Baldwin became Speedball after a botched experiment granted him cosmic powers in the form of the manipulation of kinetic energy. If he was touched at all he could use that energy, however small, to propel himself in a certain direction or create a force field around himself. Robbie joined a C-list superhero team called the New Warriors and they eventually created a reality TV show about their crime fighting escapades. During the shooting of an episode in which they were battling a supervillain called Nitro, Nitro used his power to its fullest degree and created an atomic bomb-level explosion that decimated an entire town and killed the New Warriors. Only Robbie survived and as a result was publicly humiliated for his part in the tragedy, scapegoated by the entire country, and eventually shot in the back by a father of a girl who was killed in the explosion. The Stamford tragedy, named for the town which was destroyed, triggered the Civil War timeline. The US government passes a highly contested law within the superhero community that requires superheroes to publicly register their identities, causing the whole Marvel lineup to pick sides in the debate. Robbie is imprisoned without trial shortly after and blackmailed into hunting down unregistered superheroes for the government. After the incident, Robbie’s powers changed slightly, instead of being able to absorb kinetic energy through simple contact, his powers following the tragedy are only activated by physical pain he experiences. As a way to trigger his powers and express his regret for his role in the Stamford tragedy, Robbie creates a sadistic metal and leather bondage suit that causes him constant pain. One of the most intense scenes in the book, thanks to Gulacy’s relentlessly graphic artwork, shows Robbie screaming in pain as he puts on the new suit. The suit is covered in metal spikes and it is not until this scene that we realize the spikes are all double sided, designed to cause him as much pain as they inflict on the enemy. And so Penance is born. His form of penance is not an expression of a hope for forgiveness, but simply a manifestation of his desire to cause himself as much pain as possible as a constant reminder of his role in the Stamford tragedy. Penance: Relentless opens with Robbie going to a coffee shop where he writes down a list of seemingly random numbers for a couple hours, unknowingly under multiple-man surveillance. He returns to the prison-like underground base of the Thunderbolts, the team with whom he hunts down unregistered superheroes. The team and everyone at the base thinks he is insane as a result of extreme post-traumatic stress disorder, and for good reason; Robbie has scars all over his body from the suit, tons of piercings, recites numbers to himself all day, and has macabre books all over his little cell. Jenkins and Gulacy paint a picture for the reader that slightly contradicts the team’s view of him: a young man tortured but not lost, not completely mentally stable but not insane, and, most importantly, in his own world but not directionless. Viewed as probably insane but definitely one of the most dangerous and powerful people on the planet by the people responsible for him, Penance causes quite a stir when he escapes from imprisonment at the Thunderbolts’ HQ with nuclear launch codes. The majority of the plot then centers on the Thunderbolts’ massive manhunt for Robbie, chasing him around the country and eventually the globe. Penance is anything but predictable and so is Jenkins. He brings in a host of guest appearances including Wolverine and Iron Man, providing massively entertaining and visceral slugfests that show just how unstoppable a superhero powered by pain really is. As the story progresses, Penance’s exact whereabouts become a secondary concern compared to what his motivation is for stealing the launch codes and breaking everyone he can who has information about where Nitro (the supervillain who he was fighting when Nitro caused the atomic explosion) is being held. His perceived motivation for all this is Penance is going to detonate a nuclear bomb on the prison where Nitro is being held, probably causing WWIII in the process for the hell of it. The reality is much, much worse and ties the numbers, the nuclear codes, and his whole backstory all together in a jaw dropping finale of penance, lost hope, and lots of emotional and physical pain all around. If I haven’t convinced you yet to forget about Superman right now and go read Penance: Relentless, here’s one last reason: Superman doesn’t curb stomp supervillains then strap them into an excruciatingly painful bondage suit, Penance does.

Maddie Weyand-Geise October 23, 2014 | 11:02pm EST To quote a well-loved movie about a clownfish searching for his son, Portraits of Planet Ocean at the Natural History Museum was both “big and blue.” But despite the small children screaming “Nemo!” every few minutes, Brian Skerry’s photography was far more profound than an animated film. Skerry is an established photographer for National Geographic who has used the digital medium to forward issues regarding wildlife protection. Portraits of Planet Ocean followed this agenda. Scattered beneath the undulating blue lights and cerulean background were statements concerning the degradation of marine communities. I may have only glimpsed over the descriptions, but I was innately drawn to the vibrant sea-life spread across the hall. These works typically featured single subjects in the midst of aquatic life – a Harper seal staring pitifully into the camera, a whale lounging in bright blue water with a diver nearby, a sea turtle lying exhausted on a sunset-lit beach. The stunning isolation Skerry captures only serves to emphasize the growing vulnerability of the sea. While his photography shows a fraction of marine wildlife, Skerry makes human negligence a major part of the exhibit. Perhaps that is why anthropogenic life is missing from these photos. By eliminating humanity’s ugliness, Skerry elevates the beauty and mystery of his subjects. On one occasion Skerry depicts a shark entangled within a fishing net, a prime example of how human interference within nature is often negative. Stunning, innocent creatures often suffer as a result of human activity. Pollution and other anthropogenic additives have taken a toll on the oceans, slowly destroying the irreplaceable ecosystem. The exhibit subtly condemns humans’ disrespect for the environment by focusing on a range of magnificent creatures, and by exposing oceanic world, Skerry shocks audiences with both splendor and horror. Another exceptionally poignant photograph shows a lone yellow fish hiding in a soda can being slowly overcome by the ocean – a brilliant juxtaposition of human wastefulness and aquatic innocence. As the exhibit points out, humans stubbornly refuse to alter their lifestyles to accommodate the rapidly degrading environment; we ignore the signs of global warming and continue to exploit the Earth for our short-term benefit. But as Brian Skerry reminds us, we are a part of a larger community. We are responsible for protecting creatures subjected to our outrageous behavior, and we cannot hope to have a future without establishing environmental security. While the back room in which the exhibit was held occupied but a small section of the Natural History Museum, Portraits of Planet Ocean overpowered even the giant whale hanging nearby. Its wealth of visual stimulation and didactic text educate hordes of curious individuals, promoting a more environmentally conscious community. The lessons may appear overwhelming, but as Skerry notes, it is essential for audiences to witness the tragedy of our wastefulness. Despite that solemn note, the exhibit is an absolute treat to behold (if the children screaming “Nemo!” are any indication).

Mia Saidel October 16, 2014 | 10:08pm EST A boxy glass case containing a colossal, caricatured paper mache sculpture of the Beatles is a startling and intriguing greeting to the display of original cover art that graced TimeCovers the 1960s at the National Portrait Gallery. A photograph of the sculpture was published on the September 22, 1967 Time cover and was the genius of English cartoonist Gerald Scarfe (ironically his wife, Jane Asher, was former fiancé of Paul McCartney). Yet irony worked as one of the core themes of this unique exhibit. The display did graceful justice to the interplay between culture and politics characteristic of the time. The exhibit, which debuted on the second floor of the Portrait Gallery on September 26, is a tribute to the historic developments of the 1960s through a chronological, linear display of the original cover art from Time Magazine and features work from some of America’s most seminal artists of the day. The nature of the historic events of the era correlate directly to the Beatles figurines in the glass: eclectic, dynamic, and enormous. The display, spanning two opposite walls with banners of Time’s signature red hue, begins on the left side with a handsome oil painting by Rene Bouche of John F. Kennedy that was featured in Time’s June 9, 1961 edition that marked his inauguration into office, as if to signal the start of a new era. Following the inaugural portrait by Bouche is a series of portraits featuring significant leaders of key political affairs, including the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King, Jr. is depicted alone and angled toward the right in a tempera portrait from January 3, 1963. Three paintings ahead is an oil painting of Roy Wilkins from August 30, 1963 with passionate African Americans rallying behind him. The placement of the portraits is not only chronological in time, but also suggests that King is looking forward toward Wilkins leading the NAACP as black activism begins to spread across the nation. The “face of defeat” of Lyndon Johnson portrayed by Pietro Annigoni in 1968 is shown close to, and in stark contrast with the calm disposition of then Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, both highly contested figures involved in the Vietnam War. Robert Vickrey and Bernard Safran, who were regularly commissioned to Time, chiefly painted these notable individuals. What is particularly striking is that though the 1960s was an incendiary decade, to say the least, none of the covers portrayed violence. Instead, expressions transitioned from jubilant to graying, colors evolved from bright to shadowy. These subtle touches spoke volumes by themselves and were driven by the ingenious artistic impressions of Time’s artists. While the left side of the exhibit is dedicated solely to politics, the right is an appropriate tribute to the vibrant cultural phenomena of the generation. Roy Lichtenstein’s playful color block cartoons rose to prominence, and Charles Schultz introduced The World According to Peanuts. The bright, psychedelic colors reminiscent of Woodstock gave the collection an appropriate boost of energy and vivacity amongst the grim backdrop of the Cold War and political assassinations. Though the display offered a comprehensive look at the relevant issues pertaining to the 1960s, the selection of several distinct covers for the exhibit seemed to be a subtle dig at the issues still at work in the US. The gun violence cover of June 21, 1968 that coincided with the assassination of Robert Kennedy speaks to the continual abuse of firearms today. The “Drugs and the Young” cover from September 26, 1969 that explored the youth’s newfound fascination with marijuana speaks to the recent legislative measures being made to legalize the drug. The cover that conveyed the start of the sexual revolution of the decade speaks to today’s societal movement towards gay marriage. In other words, the exhibit suggests that the 1960s are relevant now more than ever. A look at the portrait of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon with the American flag in hand on the cover of the July 25, 1969 issue brings to mind his quote, “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” In the context of the 1960s, many steps, variant in size, were made to cement the freedoms Americans enjoy today. The collection does a masterful job of intertwining the serious and jaunty and serves as a reminder that the past must be memorialized in order to fully enjoy the prosperities of the present. The exhibit is available for viewing until August 9, 2015.

Brandon Latham October 14, 2014 | 6:05pm EST There’s a scene in The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her in which Connor (James McAvoy) sits in a classroom and sees the woman he loves. He asks if he can bother the man in front of him for a piece of paper and to borrow a pen. Unsure exactly what to say, he writes, “Hi.,” hands the folded note forward and asks, “Can you pass this to the girl with the red hair?” It’s adorable, childish fun, a return to high school and nervous idealisation of romance. He’s perplexed, and perhaps a little crushed when she then storms out of the room. But this scene plays again. This time, the camera is fixed on Eleanor (Jessica Chastain), the girl with the red hair. When she reads the note she looks back to see the man she is running away from, the past from which taking classes was supposed to be a new start, and frightened she grabs her things and runs out. This is the result of the one-of-a-kind structure of The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Him/Her. First plays one film that tells a complete story and is capable of standing alone, called Him. Him is the tale of a man whose describes himself this way: “I’m 33-years old and my life is a fuckin’ boatwreck.” He struggles to keep his East Village restaurant open while coping with the fact that his wife has just tried to commit suicide and left him with hardly a word of goodbye. By itself, Him is touching and tragic and it makes viewers fall in love with, or at the very least sympathize with, Connor. Then Him ends, and another movie capable of standing alone begins. This one is, you guessed it, Her. It tells the story of a young wife who throws herself off the Manhattan Bridge and is pulled from the East River only to wake up in the hospital to her possessive, childish husband and becomes about her recovery process moving back in with her family. Independently, Him and Her are moving and complex character portraits of the difficulties of marriage. But as Conner says in a flashback to their days young and in love, “There’s only one heart in this body,” and despite the two titles there is only one grand movie. Together, they are an exquisitely devastating presentation of grief. Connor and Eleanor recently lost their two-month old son, which is revealed in bits as Him presses forward. Presumably (rather obviously, but writer/director Ned Benson makes the mistake of assuming we all understand, whereas more development would have made for rich plot), this event — which is a tragedy beyond comprehension — marks the beginning of the end for the once madly in love couple. In Him we gain devastating insight to the way Connor feels, his helplessness and inability to say or do the right thing to help his wife through this. In Her, we learn that the first thing he did was store all their baby stuff in the closet and order Chinese food. Perception and memory affect everything. This is the thesis of sorts for Benson’s project, and the first-time feature filmmaker executes this carefully but without subtlety. In a scene that is repeated in both halves, Connor says “We” in Him and “I” in Her, for example. These scenes are re-shot rather than simply repurposed, partly to correspond to the different color pallets they engage. The dialogue and other details change reflecting the way people remember things differently. This is most potent in attributing blame, and Benson’s greatest accomplishment in the writing is how well he captures the natural human tendency to blame oneself. In an early scene, Eleanor suggests, way too seriously, that Connor have an affair just to spice things up. After she leaves him, he does. When he tells her, full of regret, he doesn’t make excuses, he calls himself stupid and selfish. That’s in Him. The corresponding scene in Her plays differently, and he says, “You told me to, you left.” Which way it actually happened is not shown and completely not relevant. The way he remembers the moment he was genuine and regretful. The way she remembers it, he made it seem like she was asking for it. This complex creation of a film is bound together by its stars, the eponymous him and her. James McAvoy is tremendous, perhaps the best he has ever been, in Him. He is a scared little kid, unsure of what to do about his marriage and how to balance the other pressures in his life. In the latter half, he goes too far in the other direction, risking becoming self-parody as the villain of Her. Chastain, on the other hand, is among the most talented stars working in the industry today. She is flawless in her relationships with her family and her husband, and presents a palpable sense of grief better than her counterpart. The supporting cast of characters are important in ways that are not necessarily applicable to traditional narrative. Connor’s father and best friends, Eleanor’s family are the eyes through which we see who these two people truly are apart from their biased perceptions of one another. More importantly, it is through these relationships that the protagonists shape who they are. It is painfully convenient that the class Eleanor is taking is on the psychology of identity. Connor pulls things his says from things he has heard, mostly from his father. He tells Eleanor at their most emotionally transparent moment that before meeting her, he had no idea who he was, and is back into that anarchic struggle after she left. The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby exists in three forms. I watched Him/Her, but at the discretion of the cinema, they may instead play Her/Him, both of which clock in at over three-hours. The time benefits the movie, as it never feels long and the prolonged submersion in the story boosts emotional connection. Her/Him is an equally complete portrait of their lives, but the scenes and characters play differently given the new order. While the first is a film about a man who is left by his wife and slowly puts together the explanation. The latter is a story of a depressed woman on the verge of suicide and a careful unraveling of the people affected by her grief. The third version, which was released first, is what Benson calls Them. Conceived by Harvey Weinstein for marketing reasons, this is a two-hour abridged version that composites the two into one movie about the end of a marriage that seems plain and unimaginitive by comparison. One of the great mysteries going into the film revolved around the title, The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby. As you’ve probably deduced, that is “her” name, a tribute to the cute story that her parents met at a Beatles event and have the fortunate surname Rigby. “You must hate the Beatles,” says her professor. No, she just knows it is her name, and nothing else matters. “I look at all the lonely people where do they all come from,” the professor says, and Ele looks up at her confused. “It’s the Beatles song you’re named after.”

Brandon Latham October 12, 2014 | 10:37am EST In the opening montage of Gone Girl there is a series of ordinary homes, an ordinary Main Street with an ordinary bar and even an ordinary lamp post clock at the heart of what these Midwestern folks must consider a pretty ordinary downtown. It is simple and run-down and altogether safe, if unexciting. Nick Dunne fits in just fine. He wears loose fitting clothes and goes down to the local watering hole — named The Bar and owned by Nick and his sister Margot — to play board games and complain about his wife, Amy. While Nick is from this suburban part of Missouri, Amy is a New Yorker. With her beautiful blonde hair and taste for form-fitting, high fashion, she does not fit in. To her, Nick’s hometown serves as little more than an open air prison, and their marriage is falling apart. He is bored of her and tired of catering to her. She is suspicious of him and feels expendable. She writes in her diary that she fears for her life, as if Nick might kill her, but says that it feels as if he has killed her already. When the action kicks into gear, on the morning of their fifth anniversary, Amy is missing and there are signs of foul play inside the house. So, maybe he did. Gone Girl is the latest in a line of ambitious and brilliant literary adaptations by master filmmaker David Fincher that includes The Social Network (from The Accidental Billionaires), Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Adapted for the screen by the original novelist Gillian Flynn, it is almost a perfect marriage of material and auteur. Fincher, a director of notorious commitment to his vision, deals in the sort of tropes the applied perfectly to the cavernous mystery of Gone Girl. He creates the mood of his interiors by painting with a dark, glossy palette and has an impeccable sense of pace, as evidenced in his masterful period piece Zodiac, perhaps the most similar film in his catalogue to Gone Girl. These two films establish Fincher as a direct descendant of the noir tradition, in which the action is set in the rain and in the shadows and lonely men isolate themselves from the imprisonment of domesticity. Both thrillers seek to solve crimes. The former is the historic tale of the enigmatic Zodiac Killer, who terrorized the Bay Area for years while taunting the press and police with anonymous messages. Gone Girl also becomes a parallel police procedural and independent investigation. But story is not what makes a great movie, it is how the story is told, and both take on a soft visual style that detracts from realism but thrives due to its expressionism. Fincher’s attention to detail makes watching Gone Girl a unique experience, and one that is hard to imagine with anyone else at the helm. Not only is the progression of the story fascinating, if imperfect, but the way the screen presses forward like a living canvas — voyeuristically seeking out clues alongside the detectives and creating a dark world that is a clear descendant of the great European expressionist works — separates it from the weaker pulp in its dense genre. The movie opens with its titles, like any other movie.. Except the opening credits fade in quickly, and then without hesitating for a moment, immediately fade back out. From the initial credits even, everything in Gone Girl is fleeting; from that first seen at The Bar, everything is a game. What the mysteries of Gone Girl serve as is a skeleton on which to build commentary, humor and honesty. Narrated by Amy through her diary, Gone Girl bends its chronology just as much as Flynn’s temptuous screenplay makes you bend your brain. Nick’s search for his missing wife may be going terribly, but he did not always have such bad luck. Before the recession took the jobs of countless writers and entertainers, Nick and Amy were happily dating in New York City, kissing under a shower of raining sugar and casually making sex jokes in front of perfect strangers. It was all too good to be true until they got married. Instead of their lives together becoming exactly what they had dreamed of, it became exactly what they deserved. Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike play the happy couple to perfection, but truly impressive thing about their landmark turns is that they also play the present-day unhappy couple to perfection. Affleck as Nick, whether delivering the over-confident, boastful lines of Nick’s youthful bliss; or the egotistical, contemptuous lines of his present predicament, is spot on. He emphasizes the two sides of Nick by bringing attention to the fact that they are not very far apart. Pike’s performance as Amy is the showier of the two, and is sure to attract awards season attention. Most often relegated to supporting turns — mostly to stand there and be eye candy — the Bond Girl used Gone Girl as her first opportunity to show us what she can do. Whereas Affleck was effective for his subtle transitions, Pike was triumphant for her instantaneous pivots between light and dark. It is hard to blame Nick for having such a hard time understanding his wife — though there is no excuse for his behavior — as she is like a chameleon, manipulating herself to best seize the opportunities of her environment. The impeccably clever twists and turns that Gone Girl leads us on from Amy’s disappearance turn it into a movie that can best be described as enchanting. Viewers are invited into Fincher’s and Flynn’s world and willfully oblige. At 149-minutes, Gone Girl is a commitment, but once the pacing and completeness of the arc is realized, you realize it couldn’t spare to be a minute shorter. Its comments on marriage will be welcome by some and dismissed by others, for they are cynical, but its comments on the state of sensationalist media and pseudo-events is on the ball in today’s 24-hour news obsession. Amy is soon presumed dead after vanishing from her home, and even though the police are slow to act, the only thing on everyone’s mind is that Nick must be guilty. He is bad at publicity — nothing says “I killed my wife” like smiling for pictures in front of her missing-persons sign and actually saying “I have nothing to hide” — but that is not the crime that the media plays it up to be. At one point, two detectives are debating what to do about Nick, and have this exchange: “Have you ever heard the phrase that the most obvious answer is most often the correct one?” / “Actually, I’ve found the opposite to be true.” At this point in the story, the audience is already privy to who is responsible for the disappearance, and of Nick’s role in it. The unspooling of dramatic irony is what turns Gone Girl from a mystery to a full-fledged thriller as Nick is literally fighting for his life. This rural noir has him figuratively chased around the country by angry townspeople, Amy’s family and the police. Even the based laid plans, which make up the mystery of the bulk of the film, fall apart, and with the characters now making things up as they go, we are simply along for the ride. The irony becomes painful to sit through, in the good way, as if you just want to shout to the screen but you know the characters won’t hear you. Supporting characters are played by big names such as Neil Patrick Harris and Carrie Coon (and yes, Tyler Perry). Coon is fresh off a breakout turn in HBO’s The Leftovers and Tony-winner and Emmy-nominee Harris is slowly building a big screen career. Both are supremely talented, but beyond that Harris is impeccably cast as Amy’s ex-boyfriend and stalker. With a loose-polo shirt and cheesy sunglasses, he is far removed from Barney Stinson. At first glimpse, anyone familiar with his How I Met Your Mother stud immediately knows, without a word about it in the script, that something about this character is not quite right. The details of the plot are only loosely bound — why no return to Nick’s dad, for example — but increased directedness throughout the movie fuels the final act. The audience’s empathy will be palpable but unpredictable. Nick is on a sure march to Death Row, Amy’s domestic prison has effectively killed her already. But in marriage these two are sparring partners, the roots of one another’s woes. On screen, their quarrel is the source of our entertainment.

Brandon Latham October 7, 2014 | 11:19pm EST Jason Reitman’s Men, Women & Children is an art film disguising itself as a star-driven dark comedy. It is meticulously paced but episodic, built on its characters but highly impersonal. And while it fails to reach the heights of the filmmaker’s prior works, it is unapologetically a Jason Reitman picture. The film opens with a peculiar sequence of shots of the Voyager 1 spacecrafts buzzing past planets on its way out of our solar system. The rings of Saturn, Jupiter’s Giant Red Spot feature in the series, with narration providing information about Voyager’s voyage. The space probe is equipped with a record player designed to give potential extraterrestrial life its first glimpse at human kind. The sound of waves, jazz and even the human heartbeat echo through empty space. These are the markers of life on Earth? The details we find most important to define our existence? Afterall the probe was launched before home computers became commonplace so people did live empty lives during which time their only entertainment was jazz, their only feeling of security a steady heartbeat. Men, Women & Children seems to believe that this is how people today have come to think, and awards itself the task of correcting this. Reitman, who wrote and directs, does not shy away from topical subject matter — as in Juno, his landmark comedy about teen pregnancy and the abortion issue; or Up in the Air, commentary about the loneliness of economic hardship released in 2009, the heart of the recession — and Men, Women & Children is no exception. Just before concluding the Voyager 1 episode, the audience is shown the famous Pale Blue Dot photograph, taken of Earth by Voyager 1 from the furthest reaches of our solar system in 1990. It shows Earth as an infinitesimally small spec in the vast ocean of space, a sobering thought for the egotistic human race. What the film does, by juxtaposing this humble dot with commentary on the pervasiveness of social media is quite clever. Social media is all about the individual, about self-promotion. It requires a degree of healthy self-admiration, the sense that what you are doing or what you have to say is worthy reading for others. While everything that makes up everyone alive now, or has ever lived, or will ever lived is that lonely Pale Blue Dot, a Tumblr page can be all about you. That’s what the Internet offers in Reitman’s hyperbolized world view. Re-enforcement of one’s importance, of one’s beliefs. If a high school girl feels like she needs to maintain a toxically low weight, there’s a chatroom for that. If another needs to feel like her beauty is appreciated, there’s a photo-sharing site for that. If a woman needs to feel wanted again, there’s anonymous dating. What all of this invisible support offers is the chance to forget about what is actually going on around you. The aforementioned ordinary people no longer need to listen to parents, or do auditions, or fall back in love because the Internet gives them options. The omniscient narration carries throughout the picture and underscores the public nature of the world of Men, Women & Children in which there is nothing truly secret and no being truly alone. The film’s ensemble exists in a way that emphasizes the accuracy of the term “World Wide Web,” because every one of the many characters is connected by the climax. They exist in ordinary places, ripe for social interaction: the mall, the cafeteria, a football game. They just choose to keep their eyes buried in their smart phones instead of striking conversation. Is this what Reitman really thinks about high schoolers? TimeOut New York’s Josh Rothkopf took a common complaint about the film and I think said it best: Men, Women & Children is “the first Reitman film to make the 36-year-old director seem about 400 years old.” Indeed, it seems out of touch, but the script exaggerates to make a point, the part of this issue that I will not forgive is the innocence of the adults. Innocence is not a perfect word there, but it might be the best. Yes, the “Men and Women” of Men, Women & Children are just as devious as their younger counterparts — especially the catastrophically miscasts Jennifer Gardner’s Patricia, an overbearing mother who reads a transcription of every digital interaction her daughter has — but they are shown to have skills their children lack. When Tim, played by The Fault in Our Stars revelation Ansel Elgort, approaches a girl he stumbles over his sentences and chooses not to say much, saving the meat of the conversation for a later Facebook message. His father, on the other hand, played by Dean Norris, asks a woman out by being to-the-point, actually using words like, oh you know, “date.” Why is high school football stud Tim so far behind his own father, who is going through a divorce? “I guess I was just scared.” The omnipresence of social technology — Words With Friends with your spouse who is in the bed next to you — is alarming and, if accurate, makes Reitman’s cautious commentary worth-while. Teens, in the height of their years of social dependence get together to watch Netflix, for example, which Reitman shows without saying anything about it. Undoubtedly, 15-year-olds in the audience won’t even notice the irony, but adults will engage in a collective eye-roll. But what can these parents do? Men, Women & Children has parents doing things on every extreme from managing a promotional site for sexy photos to tracking cell phone location at all times. Both modes are harmful, and conflicted parents somewhere in between don’t fare much better. Where Reitman’s smart commentary derails is when it seeks to deliver the finishing blow, highlighting the consequences of social pressures in the digital age. No fewer than two characters wind up having near-death experiences, and a marriage threatens to dissolve. Men, Women & Children is an imperfect movie in many ways, mostly stemming from the writer’s arrogance and Hollywood’s misguided need to cast stars (with the exception of Judy Greer, who is tremendously tragic, the film would have benefitted from new faces with which the audience can identify). It’s It’s a Wonderful Life-esque moral — that no matter how meaningless you feel, it is not worth dying over — is done-to-death, as have its archetypal characters. So it’s not a great piece of movie-making, so what? Men, Women & Children is an important commentary that may ignite a passionate if small following, and its ultimate question will spread and seek answers. At one point, a character says, “Just let her be a teenager,” so, what exactly does that entail when teenagers are as much themselves in role-playing games as they are on the bus?

Tiffany Wong May 2, 2014 | 1:22pm EST Last semester, AmLit turned your heads toward the treasure trove of Issuu.com. We loved one of the magazines so much, we reached out to the lovely duo behind the Vancouver-based magazine Freckled, Ting Shuen and Shanene Lau. Their dreamy magazine features up-and-coming photographers, artists, and writers – a lot like a magazine we know and love… What drove you to create Freckled Magazine? Summer 2011 was a big year for independent online art zines starting up within the Flickr and Tumblr community that we used to be a part of. The two of us admired everyone’s projects from afar, but they were mostly all fashion based and we started talking about how we’d do things if we started up our own project. We turned out having very similar curatorial goals and decided to start one up for fun, so we could have a way to bookmark our favorite artists and share them with our friends, family and our followers on social media networks, but in a more cohesive way. We definitely didn’t expect to reach out to so many people from all over the world. I remember messaging Ting on Facebook months ago, telling her that we had a reader from Macedonia! Who would have thought? Have you ever had any experience in publications before? Freckled is the first and only publication thus far that either of us has worked on. We’re constantly learning new things on the job. How did the two of you meet? We’ve been best friends for ten years and counting. We attended the same elementary school and quickly became friends in our community band, where we both played clarinet. Where did the publication name come from? There’s a particular photo by Lauren Treece that both of us adore and that really resonated with us when we were thinking about the specific types of images we wanted to feature in Freckled. This one stuck with us the most, I think. It was a really warm, starry summer and seemed to fit with that specific moment in time when we were really struggling to find the right name. Our other intention with calling our magazine ‘Freckled,’ was to express diversity in image and lifestyle. Freckled – spread out like stars in the sky. We get a lot of people who immediately think of freckled faces and redheaded girls, though (also Ting has freckles). Where do you find your photographers, writers, artists, and “sartorialists”? Through various social media platforms and everywhere else…Flickr, Tumblr, Instagram, word of mouth etc. We even look for illustrators’ names on the backs of cards in cool stationary stores. Why did you choose to stick with online publication? Will you ever move to print? It was the most convenient and viable platform to host online. We’ve been talking about going to print for quite awhile now, so you’ll just have to wait and see what happens! Describe your work method – what steps do you take to create each issue? Up until this point (issue #9), we’ve released issues seasonally, so four issues per year. We curate the content based on the seasons and the colors and feelings that seem to accompany them. Usually both of us will have a few artists in mind and then we spend hours upon end searching for artists who we think will fit the aesthetic of said upcoming issue. Ting does most of the emailing, runs the style and writing sections, and I work on the layout. Because you’re based in Vancouver, how do you interview and photograph your subjects? We interview through email since most of our contributors are international and we have a very small Vancouver-based team. We’ve all been friends for 5 years and we’ve definitely dreamt about having an international team, so hopefully that will happen sometime in the future. The style bloggers have friends take their photos or either takes the photos themselves (it’s convenient since that’s their usual method, so we can count on the quality and style from existing photos). However, most of the musicians and bands that we’ve featured so far are local, which is great. Ting got to meet up with all the bands/musicians and has had so much fun photographing them and getting to know them. What are your future plans for Freckled Magazine? After the next two issues are released, we’re planning on taking an indefinite hiatus. During our break from publication, we’ll be working on an official website, and some exciting new counterparts. Freckled is going to expand into a blog and become much more of a multi-media concept. Going to print will still be in our sights, although that goal might be a little further away. What advice would you give for creators of start-up publications? Plan and keep organized. Stay true to yourself and have a clear vision at all times. Also, make sure you’re doing something different to make yourself stand out from other publications. Oh, and names are important too. You’ve got to pick something that people will remember and fits with the style of your publication.