Mid Week Pop Culture Review

Movies

Justin Favaro is a former film student who loves movies and aspires to be a director one day.

“Favorite movie” I asked him.

“Hit me with a hard one, huh. It always seems to change. Obviously there’s the classics like Star Wars, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones: I love all those movies. Favorite movie of the past five years or so I wanna say was Jojo Rabbit. Jojo Rabbit was a satire directed by a New Zealand director, Taika Waititi. It takes place in Nazi Germany 1944-45 so it was towards the end of the Third Reich. And it’s the story of a Hitler youth who has an imaginary friend who is Adolf Hitler, discovers that his mother is harboring a young Jewish girl who was friends with the boy’s deceased sister. And it’s about the boy overcoming his hatred and realizing this person is a living, feeling person with dreams and aspirations that is being desotryed by tis movement, this horrible Fascist regime and it’s hilarious, it’s heartbreaking, it’s one of my favorites”

When asked what recent movies he would recommend, Justin said “I would recommend Oppenheimer. It’s an absolute triumph in filmmaking visually. Some of the best performances of the entire cast’s careers. And it asks some very thought provoking questions that follow me to this day”

As for movies that have not come out yet, “There’s a movie called Argylle coming out starring Bryce Dallas Howard directed by Mathew Vaughn. Mathew Vaughn is a stylistic director behind movies such as Kickass and The Kingsmen. And it looks like one of those stories such as The Lost City of Z where there’s a writer who has no idea what she has stumbled into with her writing and turns out everything she writes becomes true and now she’s like this hot commodity in the espionage world. Mathew Vaughn’s one of those directors that I will see everything that comes out. Are all his movies winners? No. But the movies that stuck with me really stuck with me. Kingsmen: Secret Service was one of my favorite movies of 2015. Even if all his movies aren’t winners, I will at least give him my attention”

Books

Julia Rowley is a middle school teacher and an avid reader.

When I asked her what she had finished reading that she would recommend, she answered “I just finished Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann, in preparation for the upcoming Martin Scorcese movie later this month, and it was really great! I'm not always the biggest fan of historical non-fiction - I tend to prefer more contemporary narratives - but David Grann is such a talented writer, and the use of photos throughout the book made me all the more engrossed.”

I asked her what books she didn’t enjoy/ didn’t live up to expectations. She said “It's been a while since I've read something that didn't live up to my expectations, which has been great for me! But earlier this year, I read a young adult speculative fiction book called The Grace Year by Kim Liggett. The plot wasn't bad, but the book itself wasn't very well-written, which is unfortunately not uncommon with books geared towards young adults. Ultimately, it sounded more interesting than it ended up being, and I read much better books this year.

Finally, I wanted to know a book she was looking forward to. She responded “It comes out tomorrow, but I'm interested in Michael Lewis' new book, Going Infinite. I've really enjoyed his previous books, particularly Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Blind Side. I think he does a great job of breaking down specific moments in contemporary history that are part of a world not everyone is familiar with (high school football, baseball drafts, the 2008 housing market crash) and finds a way to make them thrilling and compelling. While I'm not all that interested in cryptocurrency, I don't doubt that Michael Lewis will find a way to make me invested!”

Fine Arts News

TBD.