Academy Award

Director Noah Baumbach has had some sort of fascination with Greta Gerwig lately. While his previous film of 2015 didn't feature the actor, three of his last four directorial outings - including this one, Mistress America - have featured her in prominent roles. If you're one of the people who believe that Baumbach is trying desperately to copy Woody Allen, this certainly helps fit that narrative. Allen wasn't - and to some extent still isn't - exactly shy about focusing on one actress over the…

And here’s a shocking fact: An audience member had to be carted away via ambulance due to a hernia induced by laughing too hard at Robin during his performance! I think this is why everybody admires him so much, because there is nobody who could do this. Robin Williams toured a lot and really expensive with his stand-up routine. He was also the first artist who ever performed a solo comedy concert at The Metropolitan Opera House. Beyond delivering side-splitting stand-up, Williams brought many…

culture, politics, and various other categories. Many of these individuals have many unique qualities that define them as icons. Those qualities make them loved because of who they are. Angelina Jolie, for one, can be seen as a motherly nurturer, an award-winning actress, or a devoted humanitarian. She is seen by many as not only an icon, but a role model to look up to. Angelina Jolie is one of the most fascinating women in Hollywood, on and off of the screen. Jolie was born Angelina Jolie…

In the best essays, speeches, stories, and general writings, the author always strikes their reader. I do not mean this in the literal sense of striking someone, though in Berry’s essay Compromising, Hell it may feel that way at times. That being said, this an element of good writing, and Berry uses this strategy as a way to speak to his sympathetic audience. So do not become disheartened or even threatened by Berry while reading this essay, as he is simply just doing his job. Berry’s essay…

Throughout history, the human species have not always been able to read or write. One thing humans have always understood are pictures. The cavemen painted on walls in order to document and tell the stories of their lives. In the more modern era, books, especially for children, are filled with pictures in order to help convey the ideas of the writer to all who read his books. This idea of pictures to help support book is shown very well in Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco’s book Days of Destruction…

“Ask Me” by William Stafford is a contemporary poem that compares the author’s life to a river. The reader is instilled with a strong sense of nostalgia, placidity, and introspection as Stafford reflects on his past and the meaning of his actions and life. The theme of this piece is life and its relative pace, similar to a river which is used as an ongoing metaphor Stafford introduces himself early on because this work is a conversation between the author and the reader. In the first stanza,…

Conflicts of Stress “A Brief Encounter with The Enemy,” by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is a short story about a young man named Luke and his experience in the United States Army. The story begins with Luke describing how he felt getting to “the hill,” through a path that terrified him. While traveling through the path, Luke starts to think about his crush Becky, who takes an interest in him right before deploying. She gives him her email to keep her up to date on his adventures during deployment.…

As one of the best American films in the western genre, Unforgiven uniquely portrays a real culture through it’s setting; a pastiche of nineteenth-century Western style, which emphasizes the nature of law and order as the only thing that stands between civilization and chaos. Being both the director and the producer, Clint Eastwood constructs Unforgiven as a self-reflexive medium; which means the film’s aesthetic would consciously make the audience aware of the devices of the film’s construction…

In one of Shakespeare's tragedies-Othello, the most important character is not Othello but Iago. He is the one who builds us the story and bring the story to a climax. As an effective rhetorician, Iago uses various persuasive and rhetorical devices to manipulate characters in the story especially Othello. To achieve his revenge, Iago shows his honesty and loyalty in front of people, feigns to not share information or misinformation he wants to share along with a large amount of evidence,…

Women have always struggled to break through an invisible glass ceiling that separates them from their goals. Women are kept from attaining higher positions in business, they are kept from studying math and science, and are deterred from playing certain sports. However, once upon a time women were kept from being themselves. Many women were discouraged from trying to learn at all, instead kept in the confines of the home. Virginia Woolf’s “What if Shakespeare Had Had a Sister?” brings to light…