You know how most rock musicians’ careers have an arc that generally travels from frenetic, aggressive youthfulness to a reflective, subdued adulthood? Like how Paul Westerburg went from shouting “I Need a Goddamn Job” in 1981, to crooning “Here Comes a Regular” by ’85, to looking utterly despondent and confused while twanging out “It’s a Wonderful Lie” (as if he was country all along)—in ’08?
Coco Fusco is a New York-born Cuban American, multimedia and interdisciplinary artist perhaps best known for her performance and video pieces. Her work falls squarely into the category of what is referred to as “social practice”—art whose primary focus is a social, political or economic critique/exploration.
Some subjects are more constructively talked “around” than “about” because they can’t be approached directly. Some subjects are talked around because they are impenetrably enigmatic. Fashion photographer Bill Cunningham is one of these subjects.
To write about Funny Games is to give it away, but write I must. The name Michael Haneke may clue you in to the fact that what you are about to watch is neither straightforward nor simple.
On Monday, May 11, 1970, Portland State students had been on strike for nearly a week. The campus had been closed since the previous Thursday, and the mayor, the commissioner of parks, Gov. Tom McCall and the citizenry were running out of patience.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon ordered the clandestine bombing of suspected Viet Cong supply routes in Cambodia. That campaign of U.S. aggression continued until 1973, killing an estimated 100,000 Cambodians, and fostered the overthrow of Lon Nol’s pro-American government by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
Being an intelligent college student, I’m sure you know that Genghis Khan conquered China’s Xin and Jin Dynasties in the 13th century. I’m sure you’re also criticizing me for oversimplifying the Mongol invasion of the landmasses currently known as China and Russia.
Lai Yiu Fai and Ho Po Wing are like any other quarrelsome gay couple from Hong Kong. They have sex, and they fight. And when the petulant and precocious Ho has decided he’s had enough of slumming with the sincere, hardworking Lai, he leaves him. After all, he can always say, “Can we start over?” and he knows that Lai will take him back.
Lucas Threefoot started training at the Oregon Ballet Theater when he was four or five. He’s now a 23-year-old soloist with the company.
Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, an ordinary, mid-century, New York City adman in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic North by Northwest. Thornhill has little on his mind but his career, his girlfriends and his bar tab: the perfect 1950s bachelor’s (well, divorcée’s) existence.
Lars Von Trier’s controversial 2009 film Antichrist was written while the director was under the influence of what he called a “deep depression,” and it shows.
The film has been called misogynistic by various reviewers, “a load of balls” (Willamette Week) and “dumb” (The New York Times). It has also been hailed as a challenging, philosophically insightful piece of cinema, among the best of the Danish provocateur’s offerings.