Everybody's Linking for the Weekend

Hey friends!  You're probably still a bit sleepy from hopefully a fantastic Friday night and a wonderful work week (less optimistic on that last one, admittedly), and could use a roundup of some of the stories that you may have missed this past seven days.  If so, I've got the remedy for you!:

In Entertainment...

-The New York Times runs through a list of celebrity profiles that, similar to Miles Teller recent one for Esquire, make the artists look like jackasses.  It's a fascinating run of the gamut from Courtney Love's heroin use while pregnant to Cara Delevingne's penchant for high-level diva behavior (which was proven recently again by the Paper Towns tour).  As a general rule these sorts of stories don't bother me (if the artist is good, I don't care if they're a good person provided they aren't behaving in criminal ways like Love was), but this is a good place to remember that celebrity is not eternal and you should watch what you say.  Just ask Mira Sorvino.

-Not sure yet whether this should count as entertainment or politics (I guess it depends on how well she does), but former Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert will be running for Congress in Michigan.  Gilbert doesn't go into this entirely without experience, it should be noted-she was the President of the Screen Actors Guild, a position once held by former President Ronald Reagan.  Speaking of which, the race for the SAG president, which should be decided August 20th has turned nasty as incumbent Ken Howard is getting a very spirited challenge from Emmy nominee Patricia Richardson, who is running under the more progressive banner for the position.  Finishing off our political/entertainment segment, Cheryl Boone Isaacs has won a third-term as the President of AMPAS, which I am excited about (I generally think Boone Isaacs has done a very strong job in the position, and am particularly excited for the Academy Museum to launch in a few years).

-The Oscars won a major fight over sales of the Academy Award, as a bid to sell the Best Art Direction Oscar won for My Gal Sal was halted by a judge.  For those unfamiliar, winners are not allowed to sell their Oscars-if they want to discard their trophies, they have to give the Academy the option of buying them back for $10.  This is a practice that started in 1951, so Oscars won before this time period (such as Bette Davis's, Vivien Leigh's, and Orson Welles'), have frequently gone up for auction, but this is a step in the right direction in my opinion-I am opposed to the idea of cheapening this high honor by watching the Oscars go up at auction, and am hopeful this will put an end to such sales.

In Politics...

-Heather Digby Parton has a scathing article about Carly Fiorina on Salon.  In it she gets to the heart of why Fiorina infuriates so many who try to look at politics objectively; principally, it's that she seems to just be in the race to be a woman attacking Hillary Clinton.  As has been pointed out repeatedly, Fiorina, while initially impressive in her career (working her way up through the rungs to become the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company), has been an abject failure since achieving that feat.  Her tenure at Hewlett-Packard is the equivalent of Ryan Leaf's with the NFL and her Senate campaign in 2010 was nasty and extremely tacky (remember the hot mic moment where she slammed Barbara Boxer's appearance-click that link immediately if you don't).  She apparently didn't even pay her employees from her campaign despite having $120 million in the bank.  All-in-all, it has to be said that if Fiorina weren't a woman we wouldn't be talking about her; even Donald Trump and Ben Carson have had successful careers in their chosen profession.  I'm already internally vomiting over the fact that she's going to be considered a VP choice despite women like Kelly Ayotte, Susana Martinez, and Nicki Haley all seeming like better options for the GOP.

-Politico has a fascinating look at what would happen if Congress overrides President Obama's veto on the Iran deal.  While this seems increasingly unlikely to happen (I suspect that Obama will be able to form a veto-proof minority in either the House or the Senate, if not both), it's a little terrifying to think that this could unfold.  I'm a strong Obama supporter, but circumventing Congress like this would be an abuse of power, plain-and-simple.  It's worth noting, of course, that the president has not publicly speculated that he would do the things listed in the article (basically ignoring Congress and using executive branch authority to lift certain sanctions), but I think that if he did the backlash would be hugely overwhelming-Republicans would talk impeachment and it's likely he would be giving up the White House in 2016 for his party.  Still, it's an interesting look at what could be the fallout of overriding his veto.

-On Thursday we looked at the odds of Joe Biden getting into the race, but the big news late this week was surrounding Vice President Al Gore potentially getting into the race.  While pundits are doubtful that this could happen (the phrase "pour lukewarm water on the rumors" was used), it does make sense to me, as I pointed out in my article that Gore has a constituency that Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders don't have (and quite frankly might be considered a blessing to Clinton who needs someone to take the liberal heat away from Sanders).  I personally believe vice presidents never quite get over the fact that they were a heartbeat away from the Oval Office, and I'm sure Al Gore (much like Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, and Dick Cheney) doesn't have a day go by where he doesn't think about what he would have done as president, so I'm positive the fire is still there even if it still seems unlikely he'll make a go at the election.

Shameless Self-Promotion of the Week...

-I could not agree more with Benedict Cumberbatch-stop the cell phones and video-taping in movies and theaters!

YouTube Video of the Week...

-My favoritest of YouTubers Mamrie Hart finally hit 1 million subscribers this week, and while Mamrie didn't make a video quite yet (though I'm a little bit excited that she may have filmed with Sprinkle of Glitter for a YDAD based on Louise's vlog channel), she did do one of her classically hilarious videos with Tyler Oakley this week (I am admittedly not a fan of the Insane Clown Posse and could not tell you anything about them other than they were featured in an Always Sunny episode, but these two make anything better):

Just One More...

-Did anyone else hear about this really cool story?  Meagan Abell, a photographer, found copies of photos that appear to be from the 1950's and 1960's that look like they are from a magazine spread or professional art photo shoot (they're just gorgeous-take a look), but the women in the photo and the photographer are completely unknown, so Abell has launched a quest on Twitter to identify one of them.  Twitter has pinpointed the exact beach where the photos likely took place, but are still on the hunt for one of the women and the photographer-check it out to see if you might know!

OVP: Whiplash (2014)

Film: Whiplash (2014)
Stars: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser
Director: Damien Chazelle
Oscar History: 5 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture, Supporting Actor-J.K. Simmons*, Film Editing*, Sound Mixing*, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars


I hated band class growing up.  I wasn't particularly fond of a few classes in high school (or, let's face it, high school in general-it's rough being the gay kid in a small town), but band was the worst, and it was because my teacher wasn't particularly nice to me I used to dread going to my band lessons, as the teacher was constantly berating and/or yelling at me, and by senior year, I had decided to stop going, principally because I knew after I ventured to college I wasn't going to be picking up a mallet or drumstick again (take note teachers-your cruelty can deter future love of your subject).  To this day, though, I cannot stand my band teacher, despite that being...a certain numbers of years ago, and still think of him as the worst teacher I ever had.  Therefore, part of me when this film first started thought, "huh, I can kind of relate to this situation."  Of course, once the outlandish started to enter, I realized that Whiplash, despite its high intentions and solid cast, never really could come close to reality.

(Spoilers Ahead) I will admit, of course, that my band teacher never threw a chair or a cymbal at me or made me bleed on my trap set, which is part of the premise of Whiplash, the latest film from Damien Chazelle, who is definitely having a "breakthrough" moment with the movie.  The film is about an abhorrent educator Terence Fletcher (Simmons) who randomly selects a promising young student named Andrew Neyman (Teller) to be in his highly-selective jazz ensemble.  The film follows Andrew as he at first struggles with Fletcher, finding him to be a tyrant, and then slowly watches as he becomes obsessed with gaining his approval, in an odd sort of Stockholm Syndrome.  Andrew abandons everything that he holds dear, including his girlfriend (Glee's Melissa Benoist) and his strong relationship with his father (Reiser) and eventually even his education to try and gain Fletcher's respect, only to watch as his life falls to shambles in the process.

The film, admittedly, is a nice reprieve from the tired cliche about the musical prodigy who defies all the naysayers to be a brilliant artist.  Nearly every film of this ilk would have had Andrew struggle from humble beginnings, move his way through a tough-but-fair mentorship, and eventually have the triumphant performance at Lincoln Center (wait-that kind of happens at the end here).  I remember seeing at least one trailer, in fact, for a film that looks just like that in the trailers to this particular film.  Instead, Whiplash already has what is clearly a very accomplished, though not yet "great" musician in Andrew, and this becomes something of a psychological snuff film.  As the film continues, the movie becomes occasionally unbearable to watch-the scene where Fletcher alternates between three different drummers, torturing them with horrible slurs and making them bleed until one of them finally plays the part correctly is abhorrent.  I actually heard gasps of "stop" from the audience, and I saw several people hiding their faces with their coats.  This is the sort of reaction you usually get from a slasher film, not from a prestige drama.  I don't know whether or not to thank Chazelle for defying convention or to give him a hug and say "who hurt you?"

Unfortunately, this level of intrigue and playing with the genre isn't enough to make the film particularly strong.  While it's always best to leave villains without a backstory (the Joker, Hannibal Lecter, and the Wicked Witch were all far more interesting when they were just evil for the sake of being evil), here I feel like we may have gained a teensy bit from the sociopath in front of us.  Simmons is too strong of an actor to not make this particular character fascinating (you can see the clear allusions to someone like Bobby Knight in his work), and I definitely see where the plaudits for the performance are coming from, but there's not enough finesse in the scenes, and he's hampered by a bad script.  It's hard to see, for example, why Teller's Andrew remotely trusts him or thinks he's special in the first half of the film-it doesn't jive with anything about the character.  Simmons also plays certain scenes too comically big, and is way too obsessed with a student that he doesn't think has "it" as it's very clear is a surprise in the movie's final scene.

Miles Teller is also giving a strong performance with a weak character arch.  His character slowly slips into a shocking disregard for his own humanity, frequently sacrificing everything about himself in the process.  This works in the script, and if this was all that was happening it wouldn't bother me, but is he also supposed to be a moron?  Because only a fool would continue to trust Fletcher and make so many outlandish mistakes, which he does right up until the end.  The car accidents, the forgotten alarms, the misplaced sticks-these are cheap plot points that don't remotely jive with Andrew's perfectionist ways.

The film is saved a bit by the ruthless ending, with Andrew demanding Fletcher's attention in front of an audience, slowly proving that he was worthy of his praise all along, and in the process we watch as his humanity is wrenched from him in the pursuit of a dream turned unhealthy obsession.  The final moments in any other film would be worth celebrating, with Andrew finally earning the respect of his hard-edged teacher, but so much of his soul has been lost along the way that the audience is left crushed that this boy has lost his humanity in the pursuit of perfection.  It's a great ending to a pretty lousy script, and almost makes you think the movie is better than it is.

Those are my thoughts on this film-what about yours?  Do you think J.K. Simmons is about to stampede through every precursor award known to man before taking an Oscar?  How excited are you by the career that Miles Teller has had since his splendid debut in Rabbit Hole?  Was I the only person with very complicated feelings toward Whiplash?  And does anyone have fond memories of their band teacher?  Share in the comments!

Where Has John Been?!?

Sorry for the couple of day delay-I have been traveling all across the Badger State for a wedding (hence our Wedding Week!), and while the wedding was marvelous, it did put a bit of a cramp on my blogging, and last night I'm in a new apartment so I was worried about the heat, as the heater was making odd noises so I braved the cold Minnesota night in a sweatshirt and five (yes, five) quilts, so I will need to test the heater when I'm awake and can learn to trust it.

In the meantime, though, we'll have a plethora of posts this week, I assure you.  I'm hoping to do a double-dose of link roundups (how about that Attorney General's race), a bunch of reviews (including my thoughts on Blue is the Warmest Color and 12 Years a Slave), recaps of both Glee and AHS, and the big enchilada, the kickoff of our fourth OVP-get ready for Meryl vs. Sandy, Cameron vs. Bigelow, and finding out who was gonna love Mo'Nique-it's 2009 again this weekend, y'all!

However, I'm too cold to write a review right now, so I'm going to leave you with this blue moon of an event.  Thanks to Just Jared, who took the below photos, we now have proof that my two imaginary husbands (apparently I'm an imaginary bigamist), Michael B. Jordan and Darren Criss, have been in the same room together.  Take a look (and I've included photos of my imaginary lover Chord Overstreet, because what is a movie-star marriage a blond adonis on the side?)

My two loves, plus Miles Teller, who I'm somewhat fond of.

Am I the only one who is mildly obsessed
with his hair?

So preppy...

And because I can't have a post without an actress,
here is Becca Tobin aka the Luckiest Woman Alive

I promise we'll have some substantive posts later today, but in the meantime-do, dump, or marry: Darren Criss, Chord Overstreet, and Michael B. Jordan.  The Sophie's Choice of this game.  If someone answers in the comments, I'll give my response as well (ha-bribery!)

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Film: The Spectacular Now (2013)
Stars: Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Mary Elizabeth Winstead
Director: Rob Simonsen
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Last year's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, my favorite film of 2012, was a masterpiece in part because films about adolescence are as a whole a cliched, tired bunch of movies.  They are not what you think of as great cinema.  They are oft-parodied (The Breakfast Club has been hero-worshipped and ripped off for so long, we've long forgotten that it wasn't that great of a film to begin with).  They have the same stock characters ("beautiful girl that for some reason everyone doesn't recognize is beautiful," "original attractive girlfriend who is super mean, but everyone loves because she's blonde," "jock who originally dates the second girl but eventually dates the first girl").  Like slasher films and Westerns in the 1950's, it's a genre so stock you could walk in at any moment during the movie and catch up with ease.

The Spectacular Now, oddly enough, decides to take a page out of Perks book rather than the cliche book.  They have several of those characters: Shailene Woodley, for some reason, doesn't think she's beautiful (do people in teenage films not have eyes?), Brie Larson is the stock beautiful cheerleader-type, and Miles Teller the character between them.

 (Spoilers ahead) Except, as the film progresses, we learn a lot more about these characters, and the love triangle suddenly doesn't become the point.  Larson's Cassidy, we can tell, is far better off without Teller's Sutter, a boy who has no father and has developed a heavy drinking problem.  Woodley's Aimee, on the other hand, has no father, but is relatively well-adjusted (isn't it interesting how much we've been conditioned to expect cliches that Woodley's odd loner girl is only odd because she draws characters from graphic novels-I always wonder how I would have been treated in a high school movie, and I definitely would have been considered bizarre and in the corner because I had an after-school job and watched classic movies in my parents' library).  When the two meet by happenstance, their romance becomes a lovely and easy thing-first loves are typically complicated, but the beginnings of them are so easy, as if you've found this feeling with this other person before anyone else has, and everything that springs from it is just wonderful.

The movie has balancing problems in the second half of the movie, with the director wanting to sort of disregard Aimee to further explore Sutter.  The problem is that Simonsen hasn't given us enough due in the first half with Sutter's family to get complete payoff here.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who is brilliant in her trio of scenes) does a lovely job playing Sutter's older, trophy-wife sister who is trying to shield her brother from their ne'er-do-well father (who is suspiciously like Sutter, despite what everyone points out afterward), but Sutter's father's scenes seem too easy-I bought that Chandler's father was a louse, but not one that completely wanted nothing to do with his son (his eagerness at inviting his son up didn't meld).  Jennifer Jason Leigh, however, as his mother, was just bad.  I honestly couldn't believe that it was Leigh playing the character (she was so poorly lit, I had trouble picking her out in the initial scenes).  Later, though, I realized it while thinking in my head, "why is she having such trouble connecting with the character?"  This entire plot thread was ruined by Leigh's performance for me, a real pickle considering I know she has been and will be much better.

Overall, though, if you only take into account the first half of the movie, before the drunken father/forgiven mother plotline and the go-nowhere car accident, you have a lovely film.  Woodley is an actress that is growing on me slowly (I wasn't a huge fan of hers in The Descendants), as she understands her calm, introverted appeal.  Teller is great, fully connecting with his alcoholism in a way few actors can (he rarely sees the downside, and as he waits until the very end of the film to realize he has a problem, this is consistent character behavior, a wonderful thing in my book).  His character is charming while somehow not realizing he has become a joke to his friends.  Teller turned in a breathtaking performance in Rabbit Hole (I would have given him an Oscar nomination for the work), and with this, I'm really hoping that he spends less time in the 21 & Over's and continues to find Indies that will work his talents.

Those are my thoughts-what are yours?  Did you run hot-and-cold on The Spectacular Now like I did, or were you decidedly one temperature?  What do you think should come next for Woodley, Teller, and Winstead?  And what did you think Jennifer Jason Leigh was up to in this film?