Why People Hate Slumdog Millionaire

This past week, Slumdog Millionaire opened up in Mumbai. It has had modest success in Indian theaters (though this success may be financially compromised by its large marketing campaign). But the film has been causing controversy...or is it spurring discussion...or is it alighting activism. The national activists have many a point to make, but some of them are more vital or reasonable than others. Let's take a look at the issues:

Slumdog? How about Slumguy:
The slang/neologism of slumdog has raised the concern of many proud slumdwellers (is that any better?) who resent being compared to dogs. Considering the particular socioeconomic subaltern status of these activists, the protest against "slumdog" makes sense to them. A particular privilege is signaled in the ability for a group to allow a derogatory name to be reclaimed by them. That is, "queer" and the n-word are only able to be claimed after queers and blacks in the West have gained enough cultural capital. Here, there's an awkward incongruence between the postmodern West and the postcolonial East.

Poverty Porn?
A strange thing happens when Westerners make movies about poor people in developing countries. They're accused of making poverty chic, of pandering to an elite art house crowd. And yes, there are some that dehumanize or fetishize the poor (People who volunteer abroad often say that they do so to see "how the other half lives" or to see "how good they have it"). But to discount the work of Oscar-nominated Deepa Mehta, critic favorite Mira Nair, Booker Prize-winning Aravind Adiga, just because it talks about poor people in India and just because their work is read and admired, doesn't mean that their work should be called "poverty porn." Amitabh Bachchan went to his blog to complain about the fact that it took a white director to put India on the US critics' map. However, I'd be interested to hear what Bachchan has to say about Mehta, Nair, or Adiga. There is a reluctance, often spurred on by an imposed powerlessness, that creates a need for escapist forms of media for the lower classes and makes activism uncool.

You paid the kids hoooow much?
In a development that brings up thoughts of Pixote and The Kite Runner, parents of the film's young stars have accused the producers of the film of paying their children too little. There seems to be no clean solution for this problem. Trust funds for college (for children who just started going to school as a condition of being in the film) are a bit hard for these parents to grasp, I'm sure. I'd find it very difficult to believe the difficulty of such an abrupt change of status and wealth after being drafted into a Hollywood film from the streets of the developing world. The worlds of Mumbai slums and Hollywood offices do not clash cleanly, and there is no perfect way to remedy this casting conundrum, unless one could find a Western bilingual child.

Where's the awards love for the Indians?
Most award-granting institutions have been very kind to Slumdog, but Loveleen Tandon, casting director and co-director, gets none of the awards for the film's direction, after all, she is contractually just a co-director. Nevermind the brilliant performances taken from the film's young characters, apparently...one surely can't assume it was Boyle's work only. Also, the film's sweep of music awards for A.R. Rahman begs the question: Why is one of the most prolific music composers in film history only now getting his just desserts? Why does it take a Danny Boyle film to get Rahman's music on the map? Does this mean that Indian film music will now be recognized in the West? Almost surely not, but if this film is worthy why aren't they all?

--bryce

Web-Blahging: Kids Who Are More Talented Than Me

Didn't someone once say that the children are our future? Well, thanks to the internet they seem to be our present now too. A way more tech savvy, big word-using, talent-oozing present. Think that magazine collage you made for your mom when you were 10 was super neat? Well, get ready for a reality check my friend. I now offer up to you some of my favorite underage bloggers/creators/all around art gods.


Style Rookie
I can't remember exactly how I stumbled upon this blog, but the second I did I was hooked. Written by a 12 year old self-described "garden gnome" with a much better vocabulary than I could ever hope for, this blog is basically an internet journal for creator Tavi's fashion obsession. The posts range from photos of her amazing homemade outfits (why couldn't I have the balls to dress like this at her age?) to rants on her fashion inspirations. And not only is the girl stylish, she's also extremely intelligent and witty. She even has a series of posts where she dresses as her favorite characters in literature (must see: Blanche DuBois). Basically, I would totally be her friend.



Eleanor Hardwick
I only just discovered this gem of a site (and subsequent flickr account) today thanks to an interview posted on Style Rookie between the fashionista and 15 year old photographer Eleanor Hardwick, who also, coincidentally, started down her own career path at age 12. Geez, why was I wasting my time reading R.L. Stine books when I could have been creating something like this or this. What started as a fascination for Blythe dolls has transformed into a full blown photography career. She's already been featured in a few major publications and from what I've seen of her work I'm sure we can expect much more from her in the future.



Fataculture
Nick Plowman is a 17 year old boy living in South Africa who only discovered his love for film two years ago, but has already managed to compile a wealth of knowledge and passion that far surpasses my own. His blogging skills have definitely improved over the years - just compare his first post in June of 07 to his most recent, a review of Doubt which made me reconsider my initial thoughts of the film. His writing is unbelievably eloquent, persuasive, and most importantly his arguments are extremely sound for such a young writer living in a remote location. And coming from someone that usually hates reading reviews, I'd say that Nick is on his way to converting me (even though he liked Slumdog).

-Arielle

Humpday at Sundance Review

There’s something to be said about a film that spends most of its time in close-ups of its three characters and still manages to keep your attention. I went to Humpday after I had heard it being heralded as an indie smash, a better Zac and Miri. While I’ve never seen the latter, I can tell you that there’s something special about Humpday. And I’ll name that something special right now – the script. The film is really a series of a handful of conversations between three characters. Think You, Me, & Dupree. Here, Dupree – Andrew (Mark Duplass), a vagabond artist – comes into the life of former best friend, settled-down Ben (Joshua Leonard) and his new wife Anna (Alycia Delmore). After a night out at Dionysus, a lesbian-couple-owned abode that hosts polyamorous parties for a faction of Seattle’s art community, the two men decide that they will make a porno for a local once-and-done artistic porn film fest. After all, they think, what would be more artistic than two straight guys doing it?

The script then, is really an exploration of many a thing: heterosexual male machismo, the trouble with settling down, the importance of honesty within friendships and romantic relationships, one’s true “calling” in life. And here, writer-director-actress (she plays one half of the lesbian couple) Lynn Sheldon is a maverick. It’s incredible that Sheldon made me feel like I had never seen an uptight vs. free spirit comedy. And it’s really not because of the subject matter. The script is not full of unwavering brilliance (I was scared after the first few minutes of relentless, artificial, and boring lovey-dovey-ness between the couple). But there are conversations in the film that acknowledge that people actually think about a lot of things when they are becoming adults in the “real world.” Here are the highlights:

1. Andrew and Ben, high on drugs and alcohol, coming up with their plan to do it on camera includes concessions on both men’s parts to the other’s way of life.

2. Ben and Anna talking about the emotional stupidity of having sex while mad at each other, despite the fact that she is ovulating and they are planning a pregnancy.

3. Andrew and Anna, drinking the scotch given to the couple for their housewarming, become friends and happen upon the porno plans, though at this point Ben has kept them secret from her.

4. Andrew and Ben come to a few realizations while filming their porno, in a denouement that leaves the viewer oddly satisfied though the protagonists seem all the more confused with the state and meaning of their friendship.

It’s hard to do justice to the script without giving too much away. Though I will say that as a film that clearly wants a distributor and strives for an audience beyond Sundance, Sheldon cares little about the production values of her film. There is little sense of place, and when Andrew comes into the hotel room ready to do the penultimate deed his observation of “Beige!” seemed to me to be a criticism of the entire film’s aesthetics, utterly beige. It looked like undergrad film school fare. I would love to see this story reshot with a slightly larger budget and an eye for the doldrums of corporatized America that is supposed to be the film’s backdrop.

--bryce

Amreeka at Sundance Review

A debut feature from Columbia MFA Cherien Dabis, Amreeka runs a fine line between adorable indie family portrait and predictable indie immigrant story. The film follows a mother and son as they gain the right to move from the Palestinian territories of the West Bank to her sister’s home in Chicago (the title is a representation of the mother-protagonist’s pronunciation of her new home country). The request to move to America was made by the mother Muna Farah (Nisreen Faour) while she was still with her husband. Now that he has a new bimbo wife, the decision to move is ultimately made by the son, Fadi (Melkar Muallem). He sees America as a place to fulfill his dreams; he wants to go to college. Though Muna is initially reluctant to move, one suspects that the devastating but real prospect of running into her ex-husband with his new wife and the annoyance and danger associated with West Bank checkpoints ultimately persuade her onto her son’s side.

Once in Chicago, we see some formulaic tropes from stories about Muslim immigrants in America. Fadi’s name is laughed at. Students at school write “AL KADA” on the family’s car. Nervous patients leave the brother-in-law’s medical practice after the Iraqi occupation. “Terrorist” name-calling and Fadi-bashing abounds. And a few white characters are allies, peacefully defending the Farah family against these unfair attacks. While it would be silly for me to say that these things do not happen, the fact of the matter is that most racism is done in cowardly ways. Sometimes racism is exposed accidentally, too. The truth is that Dabis’s vision of racism in Amreeka is hardly nuanced.

That doesn’t mean that the film is simplistic in it’s view of the immigrant story. Faour as Muna is absolutely stunning in her portrayal of Muna’s simple, naïve character. Wanting to support the dual-nuclear family that she now finds herself living in, Muna does the rounds of local banks, looking for a job in banking, a field she’s had a decade of experience with in Palestine. Unable to navigate the savvy worlds of the American finance infrastructure, Muna cannot find a job in that industry and must take a job at White Castle. There, she makes friends with a blue-haired co-worker, Matt. The interchange between the two is utterly heartwarming. She tells him his name means “dead” in Arabic. He compliments her on her falafel and tahini sandwich on White Castle bun. They hold differing views on the value of being “different,” but the two develop an oddly comforting relationship that was absolutely genuine.

The ease with which the two got along felt much closer to reality than the gloss of Hollywood makes such relationships seem to be. While other parts of the culture clash were a bit heavy-handed, the bright spots in the film were this interchange and the inner negotiations of culture that happened within Fadi. Amreeka, in the end, pulls its own weight, and serves as an empowering story, especially of its heroine. More than just a story that highlights the struggle for those looking for a flawless American dream, Amreeka has a heart that argues for freedom of hapiness and realizes that it has its obstacles throughout the world.

--bryce

Dare at Sundance Review

Based on a short film of the same name, Adam Salky’s Dare enriches the story of the simple nerdboy-seduces-straight-jockboy short. The story is enriched so much, in fact, that I am going to say that I absolutely loved this film. The film is structured into three acts, each of which exposes the struggle for a sexual identity in each of its characters. Though it is not apparent at first, the film ends by showing how difficult it is to talk about one’s sexual identity from an outsider’s perspective, for each of its three main high-school-aged subjects are struggling with their own insecurities.

Emmy Rossum plays awkwardly straightlaced virgin Lacy. Ashley Springer plays the nerdboy Ben who is coming to terms with his (homo)sexuality. Sexy Zach Gilford plays the jock Johnny, who just wants to be loved. Through each act, each of our heroes becomes vulnerable and their projected sexual identity is unpeeled by outside forces. A star actor, played by Alan Cumming, tells Lacy she must “experience” lust in order to become impassioned as an actress. Ben lives with his parents, psychiatrists and struggles with being psychonanalyzed as he deals with the prospect of being gay. Johnny, the rich boy, is considered by the world to be equal to his image and must work to be recognized as more than that.

As the film unfolds, with a sometimes sexy sometimes sweet score co-composed by Duncan Sheik and David Poe, identities become confused and obscured. Relationships form but motives are questioned. And despite the Hollywood vibrance of the production, the film is a complicated look at high school life with a tone somewhere between Mean Girls and thirteen. I walked out of the screening and an old queen looked to his friend and said “That just reaffirmed heterosexuality.” Too often, this is the case leveled against films that question sexuality. To me, this smacks of the debate over the relative relevance of the terms “gay” and “queer.” If a film includes both gay and straight relations, why does it have to be a heterosexual affirmation? And why in God’s name does a film with these same subjects have to be called a gay film and criticized as such? The beauty of this film is the deftness with which it explores what is thought of as the “formative” period of sexuality – the teenage years.

--bryce

Black Dynamite at Sundance Review

With last year’s Mike Myers embarrassment The Love Guru, virtually everyone responded with a big old “Who would want to see that?” “Silly character spoof movies are dead!” went the battle cry. Still, though, the *Insert Genre Here* Movies continue to be profitable, even with Scary Movie on its fourth incarnation. Still, though, we would never expect the Wayans brothers or any of their counterparts to join the mass of indie darlings in Park City. It is a surprise, then, that Black Dynamite, a blaxploitation spoof, served as a Sundance darling and was picked up quickly for a nice sum of $2 million from Sony Pictures Classics. After all, don’t we already have The Ladies' Man?

Black Dynamite follows our eponymous hero (Michael Jai White), looking quite jacked, try to find “the man.” The man, you see, has killed Black Dynamite’s brother and has infiltrated the black community with Tuskegee-syphilis-like human rights violations – orphanages are riddled with heroine and Anaconda Malt Liquor is wreaking horrendous effects across the community. Black Dynamite (cue guitar riff and soul singers) is delightfully sexy and soulfully smart, of course saving the day when he realizes who “the man” really is and what he has done. The saving-the-day moment is spectacularly fitting to the course set out by the film, but the journey from our understanding of the problem to the resolution of it is a bit rough, plagued with a few too many kung fu sequences and a few other unnecessary action scenes.

The Ladies’ Man this is not. It’s not silly in the same way as an SNL sketch. That is, there is an attention to detail in the production design that one doesn’t see in the other spoof films. The film also, somewhat inexplicably, breaks the fourth wall several times, including one exposed boom mic scene, in which White shows immense comic intelligence. All in all, Black Dynamite was a fun ride, but ultimately too unfocused to feel complete and recommendable. I will be interested to see if this gains the popularity of its Sudance cousin Napoleon Dynamite, with its irreverence and catchphrase-ability, though I don’t think it’s narrative ultimately holds up to its hype and its own promises.

--bryce

The Messenger at Sundance review

A strange thing happened to me when I was watching Oren Moverman’s The Messenger. It’s the same feeling I got from watching the Sam Mendes-helmed beefcake ensemble Gulf War film Jarhead. I get nervous around war films. I’m often turned off by the nationalist sentimentality that often motivates and sustains them. Whether it’s accurate or not, I think of fans of war films most often as wannabe warmongers themselves. But as I loved Jarhead, I also loved The Messenger. Neither film focuses on battle scenes. Jarhead focuses on life near the war in the station. The Messenger follows two men as they fulfill their military duty of informing next-of-kin that their beloved sons, daughters, husbands, or wives have died. Oddly enough, both directors claim to have made apolitical films. It’s strange to me, because I find them both to be vehemently antiwar. But perhaps that’s because both directors are working off of a very strict definition of what is “political.” I would hazard a guess that what is meant by political is that neither film develops a clear sense of whether or not we NEED war. What both films do tell in their stories is that war, as we know it, ruins lives. But these military lives, for whatever reason, cannot give up on their devotion to their nation. These stories epitomize the need for a human face on war, and while there are surely others that do this, these two are striking in their use of American guys full to the brim with machismo coming to terms with greater life questions, all the while not showing battle.

After sustaining an injury in battle, Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) is assigned to casualty notification. His commanding officer is one Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson). The two develop a relationship formed on a mutual loneliness borne out of the desolation of army life. Both men go in and out of problems with alcohol and women, and most often the two are related to each other. Out of consideration for her feelings, Montgomery has left behind his sweetheart Kelly (Jena Malone), for whom he always pines. Taken from the battle scene, now regretting his choice to remain lonesome, he must confront grief and the loneliness he did not impose on Kelly everyday in his new assignment. The trouble for Montgomery is, then, keeping it together.

For me, the scenes of notification are absolutely effective in providing a myriad of experiences of those affected with the death of a family member by the war. One of these notifications in particular is the focus of much of Montgomery’s expressions against loneliness. After notifying Olivia Pitterson (a dilapidated Samantha Morton) that her husband had died, she responds by thanking Montgomery and Stone. Montgomery returns to visit Olivia a few times until she decides to move away with her son from her home formerly occupied by a happy family of three. The film’s handling of this relationship is a fine example of its obsession with creating a vibrant picture of Montgomery’s isolation, which culminates in the end with a pathetic party-crashing by he and Stone. All performances are fiercely played, with great attention paid by Moverman to make the tortuous thoughts seep out from the expressions on his actors’ faces.

--bryce

Don't Let Me Drown at Sundance review

A first time director directs first-time actors in a 9-11 drama. Sound like a recipe for disaster? Don’t think so fast. Angel Cruz’s Don’t Let Me Drown (still not sure where the title comes from) is a fulfilling if simple and straightforward exploration of Latino families in post-9/11 Brooklyn. The film follows Lalo (E.J. Bonilla) and Stefanie (Gleendilys Inoa) as they court each other, with the ominous shadow of the fallen twin towers, disrupting their familial stability, lurking over their teenage years. And it's a film that knows it's subjects -- lower middle class urban Latinos, New York City, and teenagers.

The two meet at Stefanie’s cousin’s birthday party at a park. Sitting on the swingsets, things seem to be going well. Then, Lalo complains that there is too much media coverage and obsessive devotion to the 9/11 clean-up coverage. Stefanie is miffed. She runs away. Lalo runs after her, confused, and finds out that her sister died in the terrorist attack. The attack hits home to Lalo’s family also; his father was a janitor in the building and is now on the asbestos-exposed cleanup crew.

In part in reaction to their intimate common connection to the tragic experience, the two develop a relationship, that takes a while to get to a point of common respect. The two do eventually humiliate themselves with their natural bodily functions – menstruation and urination – and end up bonding over their humiliation. But once the two get to a good place, Stefanie’s father, distraught from the death of his daughter, is overprotective and unappreciative of the relationship. The film is a testament to the difficulties in making love and making love work. Director and co-writer Cruz Angeles has created a world that is greatly authentic. With a strong urban Latino voice, he tells this story with intimate attention to the worries of these young people in love, with each other and with their families.

--bryce

Black Like Robert Downey Jr.

So the Oscar nominations are going to be announced tomorrow morning and so far most of the predictions are completely....well, predictable. Slumdog, The Wrestler, Doubt, The Dark Knight, and Milk all seem to be front runners in most of the categories. Oh and Kate Winslet is just about everywhere. But the one shocker that has been showing up on more than one prediction list is none other than Robert Downey Jr for his role in Tropic Thunder. Personally, I loved the movie and thought that Downey was the highlight of the film, but it doesn't seem like everyone agrees with me on that. (Though interestingly enough, Stiller added in the character of the black actor played by Brandon T. Jackson only to relieve some of the anxiety over Downey's.)

Not that I'm completely defending his possible Oscar nom. In fact, I find most award shows to be the exact opposite of what I would consider a celebration of good cinema. It's usually just the same people, getting nominated for the same roles only because some critic thought he was brilliant. I, for the most part, disagree with most nominations and winners so the fact that Robert Downey Jr (who is the entertainer of my lifetime not just of the year) might get nominated for an Oscar just seems to me like another laughable attempt by the Academy to prove that they're still hip. But I'm still completely baffled how is it that such a controversial role in such a ridiculous film could possibly garner any Oscar attention at all?

Now I'm not easily offended, in fact I usually find the entire idea of being offended kind of comical, but I'm not completely ignorant either. I can see why the idea of an actor in black face would be seen as offensive, and my fellow blahgger made an interesting point in his review of the film when he pointed out that point behind Downey's character was essentially lost. In case you're not sure what that point was - apparently it was to mock the revisionist Hollywood scriptwriters who feel it's alright to rewrite history in order to fit white actors into non-white roles.

Well that, I completely missed. Since when is a Ben Stiller movie that deep? In my mind it was just a general comment on the ridiculous lengths actors will go to get a movie role and how accepting we've all become of these insane actions (Christian Bale in The Machinist I'm talking to you). I mean isn't the joke now that if you play someone mentally handicapped you're pretty much guaranteed at least an Oscar nomination? Well, why isn't that idea considered offensive? And hello, White Chicks? I mean someone must have thought that movie was funny because it did pretty decently at the box office. And the only thing that offended me about that movie was that it made any money at all.

So in the end I guess I'm stuck in this kind of gray area that John Patterson of The Guardian sums up pretty well. I'm not offended by the movie while in some way I understand why I should be. But part of me also thinks that by taking such frivolous things as a Ben Stiller movie seriously is creating conflict where there really doesn't need to be. Again we're back to that gray area, which leaves me a little at a loss as to how to end this post. So I guess I'll just let Eddie Murphy have the last word:

-Arielle

Cold Souls at Sundance review

Everyone keeps saying the same thing about Cold Souls. It’s Charley Kaufman-esque. And it’s true. The film has the narrative conceits of Being John Malkovich, the tone of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and the heart of Synecdoche, New York (though it would be anachronistic to say that Sophie Barthes was in any way influenced by the latter, which was released last year). Some festival buzz for the film is saying it’s too slow, too intellectual, or too Kaufman-esque. But it’s a film on its own agenda, one quite different from any of Kaufman’s scripts.

The film follows Paul Giamatti as he looks to gain inspiration for his performance in a stage version of Uncle Vanya. To do this, he goes to a soul-sucking repository his agent recommends after reading an article about it in the New Yorker. While we say Giamatti interacting with the slick façade of the soul repository, we simultaneously see the underground soul exchange between Russia and the United States. The scenes introducing our two protagonists, Giamatti (playing himself) and Dina Korzun (playing a Russian soul mule) are contemplative and intimate. It’s here that the accusations about a slow pace congeal. As Giamatti tries to find the right soul (he gets rid of his soul and lives soulless for a bit of time and then decides to fill up on the soul of a Russian poet) to inspire his performance in the Russian drama, he finally decides that he wants to go back to his natural state. It’s here that he finds out that his own soul has been taken.

From there Korzun’s mule character and he travel through Russia trying to get their souls back, both figuratively and physically. These scenes in Russia (along with most of Korzun’s scenes) are the film’s most effective and engaging scenes. She’s absolutely charming and plays the role with such depth as to convey clearly the abstract struggles of gaining and losing souls. Together, Giamatti and Korzun are funny, charming, and oddly chummy. They, in fact, take away from the diegetic importance of Giamatti’s diegetic wife (Emily Watson), as his indifference to her (or forgetting of her) in the film’s last act leaves one wondering where Giamatti’s true soul lies. True actors like Lauren Ambrose, Emily Watson, and David Strathairn are stuck with very limited roles in the film – it’s like using Godiva chocolate for those stupid novelty chocolate covered ants. Barthes’ vision is strong, though. Throughout, she takes on a picturesque, if sometimes psychadelic, ride through the mystery of the human soul.

--bryce

Blah Blah Blahgging About Fashion with Jenny Sennott

I'm really liking where this whole interview thing is going. So many smart people out there...not just the two of us. This time I talked to fashionista Jennifer (Jenny) Sennott about her blog The Sidewalk is a Runway.

Bryce J Renninger: What made you start blogging about fashion?
Jennifer Sennott: i went from fashion avenue to I35 south, and I needed a creative outlet, and a way to stay true to myself through this transition to texas.

Bjr: Your approach is very amateur fashionista for the everyman/woman. Do you think this is a big gaping hole in the fashion world?
JS: Yeah absolutely - I still don't buy much over $50. I'm always broke, and my mom raised me very frugally. I found ways around it like TJ Maxx and Goodwill, you know Ii've found Dior at the goodwill near walmart? What my friends have told me is that they like to see how they can pull off what is shouted to them from fashion mags, and i've always gotten excited about finding great knock offs or deals online that nobody knows about, so i like to share the love!

Bjr: You went from rural Pennsylvania to Long Island to New York City to Austin, do you think there's a certain story to be told about your relationship to fashion through where you've been?
JS: Yeah - Pennsylvania was all about thinking outside of the box. I sat in one class at Hofstra and decided I'd rather die than study liberal arts for four more years, so New York was the huge transition - everywhere I worked I had a different style, in queens I was into reggaeton, ghetto gold. Simultaneously i was at Vogue and loved wearing black & navy together, and now i feel like it's ok to leave the house in flats. Oh and rome! Rome was huge. I could talk for hours about Rome!

Bjr: So what's your fashion inspiration in Austin?
JS: I'm not really sure what to call it, but like the design of buildings, not the architecture but the colors, there's a lot of neon signs here. People just kind of throw up any business they want and make it exactly like they want and that's kind of refreshing. I also have a deep love of tattoos, and a lot of people here are tatted up, and it's normal. I like that too - I guess it's just a big hippie commune at the end of the day and it couldn't be any more different from NYC, so i think the change is inspiring. Austin is a wonderful city, but you do get the occasional bitch from waco who fips out at you for voting Obama.

Bjr: Why is it that certain cities inspire fashion -- does it go beyond the fact that the industry is centred in a few cities?
JS: i think it depends what you like. I hated paris, I thought it was stuffy & bland. The only thing I liked were the Galliano window displays. On the flip side, i love gritty cities like Rome, Libson, Prague. I guess it's the culture mostly, the people. What you think you can get away with wearing, you can wear different personality and be outside of yourself and take it in. But i do love New York, and London was ok, but Milano was also kind of like Paris. Half the shit I own is thrift so I don't think I fit in with the impecable crowd of those cities!

Bjr: So in your lifetime, if we're speaking generally...what does America do well? Where do Americans go wrong consistently? Are we learning?
JS: Coming out of Ralph, I can say Americans do simplicity very well. I think Americans go wrong when it comes to things like juicy couture, though that movement was due in large part to 9/11 believe it or not. The home products market soared and that's kind of where juicy came in, wanting to be at home and snuggle with the ones you love. Dressing up is good for the soul, and i think more people should do it and abandon the insecurity I think that leads a lot of people to not want to stick out

Bjr: I'm still working on learning how to tie a tie.
JS: I don't know either, but i probably should. My boyfriend went to finishing school for that stuff.

Bjr: Your thoughts on Michelle Obama? What do you predict michelle will be wearing for inauguration?
JS: Hottie. All the first ladies wear Oscar de la Renta. She won't. She wore Narciso Rodriguez for the actual election, and has worn a lot of Thakoon. I would say perhaps Philip Lim, Giles Deacon, Bottega Venetta.

Bjr: ____ is the new black.
JS: Technical terms, color, on a bigger level - Change!

Bjr: Did you see Dame Edna is the new face of MAC cosmetics?
JS: Nope but i just google imaged her and she is quite a character! Man MAC loves hussies and grammys.

Bjr: Fashion idols? Or Jenny's fashion mantra whichever you prefer?
JS: I don't have a mantra but i live vicariously through Gwen Stefani and Marie Antoinette. Marie was not a bitch. I love the book Queen of Fashion. What Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution. She knew exactly what she was doing and it was bad ass!

TV Top 9: Unanswered LOST Questions

Lost returns this week for its fifth season and while we're one step closer to the end of the show, many of us faithful fans are left with a load of questions still unanswered. Here we count down the top 9 that have frustrated us the most.

9. The Disembodied Leg…With Four Toes
Season Two finale. Sun, Jin, and Sayid sailed around the island and along the way, they encountered a mystery that two seasons and thirty-five episodes later has never been mentioned. A leg of what appears to be a biped humanoid in sandals. The catch? There are only four toes! The questions: Where's the rest of the statue? Where's the fifth toe? And even more so, why has this gigantic statue on the coast of the island never been mentioned since? The full statue may be seen ever-so-briefly in one of the DHARMA videos, but is that all we get? It certainly predates the DHARMA Initiative, and the creators originally wanted it to have six toes. Does this unravel anything? Of course not.

8. Kate's Black Horse
It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's a black horse. And it's Kate's guardian angel. It first appeared in the path of the marshal's car, making him swerve and flip it. From there, Kate was able to make her first escape from the infamous (now dead) marshal's hands. Since then, she's seen it twice around the island, once while picking fruit, the other time while leaving the hatch with Sawyer (he saw it too). But what the hell is this phantom black horse? Why does it come around to save her or watch her?

7. That Whole Pregnancy Issue
So if you conceive off the island you’re cool but if you conceive on it you’re pretty much screwed. This is the basic plan that Juliet lays out for Jin as she’s showing her the first image of her baby. Talk about bedside manner. But frustratingly enough this is about all we ever find out. During the third trimester the mother’s body turns on the baby and they both die. But no specific cause has been determined. And why should the location of conception matter? Does it have something to do with the magnets under the island? Or the weird time shift? Or maybe it’s just those darn polar bears.

6. Jacob
Known affectionately as “him” around the Others’ camp, Jacob is the leader of the pack and the only one that gives orders to Ben. The only catch is that Jacob seems to be invisible. Or is he flickering? Stuck in a time warp (like that Alpert guy that doesn’t age)? And why is his cabin always so hard to find? And what the hell was Jack’s dead father doing there acting as an intermediary? Why can only some people hear him speak? Is he really in power if the only words we hear him utter are “help me”? And help him from what? We can only assume Ben. But then again kids, you know what happens when we assume.

5. Jeremy Bentham
Locke is not one of the famed survivors of the island, but after last season's surprise finale, we learned that he survived...but not for long. Why did he take for his pseudonym that of the designer of the panopticon, the prison design Michel Foucault castigated for its embodiment of state surveillance? And why has his return to "civilization" been incognito? Oh, that crazy Locke! Maybe it has something to do with his involvement with a pot-producing utopian community...

4. The Villiany of Charles Widmore
Numerous questions around the island circle back to the father of Desmond's love Penny, Charles Widmore. His company has its name on everything from pregnancy tests to Ben's hot air balloon. His relationship with Ben is clouded in mystery, he claims the island is his, and he happens to have a passion for "The Black Rock," a.k.a. the slave ship mysteriously stuck in the middle of the island. Not to mention that he not only found out about the flight's crash on the island, but paid to cover it up with a faux-wreck. What does he know about the island and Ben to make him so invested in the island and its secrets? Why did he pay people to kill everyone on the island? What similar interests does he have with Sun's company? And did he know the beloved Desmond would get shipwrecked and …lost?

3. The Supernatural Walt, sometimes known as the Ghost of Walt
Walt has crazy powers. Many characters have attested to this. He's even come, in apparition form, to motivate Locke to get up and live. He's made some really ambiguous visits to his former island mates since leaving the island. And despite the strong suggestion that Michael, his father, is dead, he seems to know something we all don't know on that front. Who is this boy with the power of the superfreaky?

2. The Smoke Monster
First only heard on the island (and assumed by almost everyone to be some kind of dinosaur), the smoke monster soon became the epitome of the island’s mystery. All we know is that it has the ability to show you your past and then smash you to bits. But why? And most importantly how? What is it made of? Is the monster sentient? Or is it just a really complicated piece of machinery? Why can’t it get through the sonar fence? How was it able to grab hold of Locke and pull him? Does it have opposable thumbs!?

1. The Numbers
The lottery numbers that curse Hurley; the sequence that enticed Rousseau to the island; the code in the hatch of the DHARMA Initiative; Desmond and Claire's medicines; Eko's stick etchings; Kate's trial number; and the list goes on. These numbers are at the heart of the show, appearing in any place and time. As the core numbers of the Valenzetti Equation which predicts the exact time left until humanity destroys itself, DHARMA was trying to extend this time, but how are the numbers appearing everywhere? Coincidence? I think not. Someone or something is drawing specific people to the numbers for a reason. Are the survivors going to save the planet? Let's hope the writers can be a bit more creative than that.

-arielle, bryce, and molly hubbs
Molly's blog can be found at http://conscioushallucination.blogspot.com

Check Me Out On TechSpank!

I stopped by my friend James' podcast TechSpank this week for a very special (and sometimes violent) cameo. Check out past episodes here or click here to subscribe on iTunes.

-Arielle

Why I Might Actually Watch This Season of Real World...Even Though It's In Brooklyn

So Real World is back in New York for a third time and this season they've decided to invade Red Hook, Brooklyn - once named the crack capital of America! Gentrification is amazing, isn't it?

Normally I ignore this show entirely. I haven't watched a full season of Real World in almost ten years, which means I grew out of the show about the time I became its target demographic. But enough about my amazingly mature and cultured mind...well ok maybe just a little bit more. I stopped watching the show because after three or four seasons it became too predictable. You always knew who would fight with who (small town white kid vs inner city black kid/gay or artsy kid vs religious/republican kid) who would hook up with who (everyone) and who would drink too much and get arrested (again, everyone). I can even remember the cast members pointing out the obvious typecasting during the show's first anniversary special. And once these necessary roles were established it was clear that people auditioning were playing to stereotypes. How can I watch a show with the same characters and still expect different results? So I just tuned it out.

But here we are 17 years and 21 seasons later and the producers seem to have finally given us something (mostly) new - a cast with some real issues that might be worth putting on TV. And of course there's no way to get around the fact that it is the gayest season yet, and that can only help. So who are these young few helping to savage an almost double decade old show?

Well, first off there's Katelynne - the transgendered one, who might prove to be the next Pedro. With the "pregnant man" being probably the most well known transgender, the community could do with a new spokesperson, especially one as young, intelligent, and surprisingly well balanced as Katelynn. As of the first episode she's only come out to fellow LGBT cast member JD but I'm looking forward to the future conversations she has with the other roommates.

Speaking of JD, who is so damn hot it hurts, I'm not quite sure how interesting he'll prove being as soft spoken as he is, but his insistence on having two of the roommates refer to Katelynn as a girl and not an "it" was refreshing. And the scene in the cab where he and Katelynn came out to each other practically had me in tears. Also, did I mention he's rumored to be Anderson Cooper's ex? HOT!

Moving on with the gay theme, there's Chet the "cool" Mormon. He likes to make his own clothes and his dream job is to host TRL, but get it straight kids he's not gay. He may be metrosexual "but that's not a sin." The look in his eyes after defending his sexuality was enough to make me feel bad for the ignorant, rude bastard.

And last but not least, there's Ryan who was an infantryman in the Armed Forces for three years. He insists he's alright but in the scene where he admits to have used his gun you can see him barely hold back his tears. He also opens up about a friend he served with who recently killed himself. With a new generation of veterans emerging, the reality of PTSD is something that needs to be discussed. And I hope that MTV doesn't just sweep it under the rug in further episodes.

Sure there are a couple more cast members - the really happy bisexual from San Fran, Mr. Best Abs on the East Coast, black chick with giant boobs who wants Mr. Abs, and the white chick that wants to be a hip hop dancer - but as far as I can tell they're all throw away characters at this point. So maybe MTV still has some kinks to work out, but it's nice to see them try something new.

-Arielle

Vegetarian No More, or When Real Life Mirrors Ellen (the sitcom)

It's late at night on a Saturday. I've just come home from work. Right before I'm about to fall asleep, I accidentally type cnn.com instead of nytimes.com. It's late! Give me a break! The head story is that a giant lobster, estimated to be 120 years old has been released from a NYC seafood restaurant. The article (of course!) makes me think of "Lobster Diary," an Ellen episode where she steals a 65 year old lobster from her local crab shack so that it is not eaten. When she finds out that it is being sought by the media, she decides to have a star (Mary Tyler Moore)-studded press conference where she and the publicity-hungry crab shack owners releases the lobster. In the episode, Mary Tyler Moore is representing the animal rights camp. On the show, Ellen is a vegetarian, and in real life, Ellen is too. In the episode, the lobster dies while stationed in Ellen's bookstore. The moral of the episode is that good deeds should be done for the good of the deed and not for monetary gain, fame, or notoreity. All the funnier, then, to see PETA's Ingrid Newkirk extolling the good virtue of City Crab and Seafood, who will undoubtedly see a sales spike this month. Erm, Ingrid...I know you love seeing PETA in print...but why are you congratulating someone for saving one (almost gone) life?

Well, all of this is especially interesting because this week is the first week I have knowingly ate meat in the past three years. And before I made the decision to chomp down on a chicken wing while watching last week's Chargers game, I searched google to try and find someone who could convince me why I shouldn't be vegetarian. No one could do this. Though there was someone who was trying to convince people that plants are every bit as worth saving as animals...so their asshole-sarcastic argument went. They say: Why make special treatment for living things simply because they have evolutionarily developed a nervous system? Well, in case someone else googles such a search string, I'd like to say a bit about the newfound freedom of a former vegetarian.

I had heard from others that when people stop being vegetarian, they often get sick when they starte eating meat again. While I haven't gotten sick from eating any meat, there is one spectacular, unexpected result of all of this. I am not particularly interested in meat. In the past week, I've realized that most meat sold across the board is not particularly tasty. My best meals over the past week were in fact tofu and eggs. That is to say, I think omnivores often emphasize too much the taste and importance of meat (we don't need as much protein as most omnivores tend to worryingly tell vegetarians). But I'm still holding out for a few choice meats. And I'm curious to find ones that are killed more ethically. I'm also eager to see if I really care. My reasoning for becoming vegetarian was based on the inhumane and just downright cruel system of farming encouraged by factory farms. It's a wonder books like Fast Food Nation do not cause the kind of outrage and change that books like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle caused 100 years ago. While selling millions, it seems as if there is a huge reticence for people to spread this information beyond the book. Mainstream media seems far from concerned with talking about factory farms. So then? Isn't vegetarianism an activist statement against the factory farms? To which I say yes and no. Because while the worst of factory farming is certainly the terrible situations animals are put in, I was still drinking milk and eating eggs, two products that also entail much animal brutality within the same structures as those animals raised to slaughter. There is also the other issue -- that of small time farmers being pushed off by factory farmers, both of animals and plants. Also discussed in FFN, and also incredibly important. My challenge to myself (is it an experiment?), then, is to see how one can eat more consciously. The question, I suppose, is what is important to take into consideration when eating? It's a soul-searching question, one that I think is made a bit more honest when all my options are out there. And who knows? I may be vegetarian, or functionally vegetarian, or fully omnivorous, or vegan next month. All I know is that I wish I got all my food from a farm down the street. Is there room in Prospect Park? Oh, and sadly, George the 102-year old lobster died while I wrote this post. RIP big claw.

Finally, a counterpoint (I used to agree...or do I still?) and a factory farm expose-cum-music video from electronica duo Madison Park:

--bryce

Web-Blahging: Making Money on the Interwebs

When people want to be wise, they often say "Write about what you know." Tonight, I want to be wise. So I'll write about something that I know a bit about. Seeing as how I'm an intermittent freelancer and part- to full-time waiter, I often go through periods when I have a lot of free time in front of computers and not a lot of money in my bank account. How does one make money on the Internet? I've put together these tried and true ways of making a teeny bit of extra cash to help out the starving artist in us all. These are especially great for office jobs that allow a lot of spare time. I've placed them in the order of how much money I've made doing them all.

Sell your books back on Amazon.com



I saved so much money in college...okay, sometimes I actually made a profit buying and selling books on Amazon. And teachers never care if you don't have the books the first few weeks, so long as you tell them that you're waiting for them to come in. University bookstores make a killing on books and buy them back for pennies. Let's be smart about it.

Spotwinner




This site allows you to gain the equivalent of 1 cent for watching each TV commercial. 10 ads are available everyday, and each ad and other game completions give you an entry into the daily and weekly contests. I've gotten amazon.com gift certificates, Starbucks gift cards, and a portable DVD player (which I sold for $100). And now it's time for me to make myself feel like I got the upper hand by claiming that I'm immune to such advertising.

Mturk

An Amazon company, MTurk allows you to do mundane to bloggerific tasks that allow you to make an agreed upon amount per task. This has proven popular with developing world computer users. Five cents to outline stop signs on time lapse images of roads??? Count me in! Even the New York Times wonders about Mturk! This one's available for anyone with an Amazon account.

MySurvey

Like the census-length paper surveys housewives filled out in the late 20th Century, this site is based on taking your opinion on all kinds of consumer choices. The surveys pay okay, and it's all in cash. Get emails when you have new surveys.



MyCokeRewards

While this blog post could quite possibly be the loss of any credibility I have ever had (which was never very much), this one takes the cake. Step 1: Drink Coke OR pick up Coke caps as your walking the streets of NYC (either works...though the latter must be done discreetly so as not to garner WTF looks). Step 2: Enter 10 codes per day. Step 3: Get prizes like gift certificates and magazine subscriptions.

Blog

We mostly do this for our health. But by using adsense on our blogs (the ads that show up between posts and to the right), we get money anytime anyone clicks on our ads and for every so many page views, as long as we don't ask our readers to click on our ads. And we would never ask our readers to do that. That would be dishonest.

Porn

If you've got the balls (hehe) to do this, then it's clearly the most money to be made on the Internet. It ranks last on my list because, well, I haven't done any (YET!). Just email your favorite site! But I kid.

Now make your millions children. I know I've made about $315.83. More or less. Or you could follow these women's advice:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

--bryce