In the past few months, men and women across the U.S. have been debating guns. President Obama and his administration have called for tighter controls on the sale of certain types of firearms, while activist groups like the NRA have invoked the Second Amendment and shifted the blame from the widespread accessibility of guns to widespread violence in the media — specifically, in video games. Rather than butt heads with the NRA, the Obama administration has conceded the point.
In what is probably not a good start to 2013, I am breaking two of my own rules for film reviews in writing about “Amour.” First, I read other film critics’ reviews halfway through drafting. Still baffled and frustrated, I then decided to frankly tell you that I don’t know what to think of it.
Survival films allure us with a scenario that is thankfully distant yet palpably visceral. Civilization absent, society invisible, norms abandoned, life threatened and despair the fabric of everyday existence, the dire circumstances that a survivor faces grip the audience with suspense. Yet the true charm of survival films lies not in our imagination of these harsh circumstances, where we, too, hold our breath when the protagonist dives underwater to escape from a sinking ship or clasp our armrests when he clings on to the only mast that will keep him from being devoured by iron waves.
It was tempting for me to skip Voices for the Voiceless: it was on a busy weekend, and the thought of sitting through poetry sounded a little too much like schoolwork. By the grace of whatever Deity granted us poetry, however, I’m glad I did. To anyone who didn’t go: boo to you.
During my high school years, I remained in the closet, safely postponing coming to terms with my identity for a later date. Partly because, I assure you, I was still trying to understand my sexuality, but also because I held so many imagined fears about being seen as anything other than straight at my all-boys private school. There was only one openly gay person in my high school class. I did not want to have a spotlight placed on me to make me feel different from the other guys.
What determines our identity? Are we stuck with that with which we are born, a result of our environments and families, or do we have the ability to construct them anew? For Lana Del Rey, the answer is clearly the latter. Born Elizabeth Grant in New York City, the 26-year old singer grew up in Lake Placid until she was shipped off to boarding school at the age of 14 to deal with her alcohol addiction. Although born into a family of means, Del Rey continuously presents herself as struggling and eternally isolated.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
