Two of the head senior editors and active contributors for Pitchfork, Puja Patel and Amy Philips, have been laid off from the company. Subsequent to this, just about half of the publication’s staff was laid off. This signaled that changes were about to come Pitchfork’s way, making many wonder what will become of it. It also brings up questions about the entirety of music journalism in general, as Pitchfork begins to meld with an editorial scene that brings lesser value toward creative and artistically spawned features. 

Pitchfork was initially established in Minneapolis in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber, who began the publication out of his parents’ basement. It came from his desire to write authentic, genuine, and sincere reviews of independent and alternative music. Prior to Pitchfork, Schreiber barely had any experience with writing for print, but was inspired by the rise of the internet age in tune with the music community. Some of Schreiber’s earlier reviews include staple underground bands such as Radiohead, Broken Social Scene, and Modest Mouse. Many of these bands gained traction from these hipster-esque reviews geared toward a readership that preferred passionately written accounts on music.

Pitchfork became acknowledged for how it covered music in a way that felt like it derived directly from music lovers and enthusiasts. These were people who simply wanted to write about music that they enjoyed and had fun listening to. Up until the year of 2006, Pitchfork authors weren’t even getting paid. The publication functioned with only 6 employees and a couple of freelance writers here and there, posting several music reviews each day.

Image via Rolling Stone

Eventually, Pitchfork relocated to Chicago, and soon expanded its reach to other forms of media such as Pitchfork.tv on YouTube, the Pitchfork Review podcast, and later the Pitchfork Music Festival, which occurs on a yearly basis. Later on, Pitchfork extended its range to mainstream pop adjacent music. Here, it also began opening its coverage to other movements across popular culture. In 2015, Condé Nast officially took charge of Pitchfork, relocating its headquarters to the One World Trade Center in New York City.

This signified the start of Pitchfork’s descent into more commercialist approaches and methods. This was around the time Pitchfork had established a paywall on their site, which made it much less accessible and attainable to its readers. With Pitchfork’s previous inclination toward raw, unfiltered writing on music, we begin to see this as a threat to the honest, critical journalism we used to receive, courtesy of this beloved publication. 

I can personally express my own disappointment and devastation over this. I’ve looked up to a good amount of publications like Pitchfork growing up, consistently viewing them as inspirations. I think that every music writer admires the original goals of Pitchfork. It was to develop a platform to have spirited discussions and dialogues surrounding music. It can only be hoped that music journalism still has a bright future ahead of it, one that doesn’t fade into the trenches of capitalism. 

The post Condé Nast Merges Pitchfork with GQ and Lays Off Multiple Staffers appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Summer movie season: that time of year when big budget studios throw all of their money behind the next generic, bland, product-pushing mega tentpole movie. Even with all the cynicism I treat blockbuster season, I must admit I love it.

Or maybe it is more of a love-hate relationship. Past Summers have given us Oscar winners such as Gladiator, pitch-perfect comic book adaptations including Spider-Man 1 and 2 and X2, as well as many Pixar favorites that if you don’t love, you obviously have no soul. With the good however, comes the bad. For each Dark Knight, there is a Battlefield Earth. All the Toy Story movies in the world can’t make up for any amount of Superbabies movies. So let’s see how 2016 stacks up.

Unsurprisingly, there is no shortage of action-driven “family friendly” movies that have hit theaters this Summer. While I love a solid popcorn movie more than most, it pains me to say there are not many diamonds to find this year in a sea of turds. Still, Captain America: Civil War was a perfectly crafted and solid piece of entertainment, and not without a certain level of emotional heft. Marvel finally realized that they can’t craft villains that are worth the shiny CGI they are made out of so they pitted our two favorite action heroes against each other. The result was a fast and fun film with kinetic action sequences with a physical sensibility reminiscent of a Paul Greengrass film. It succeeds where Avengers 2 failed in terms of giving its characters actual stakes. The whole world isn’t going to be destroyed, but the relationship between Cap and Iron Man takes a rather dark turn that gets viewers’ attention and actually makes us care.

X-men Apocalypse, alternately, is a hollow shell of a movie that makes me sad that I was ever so pumped for its release in the first place. Cards on the table, I love the X-men movies. It is easily my favorite comic book franchise and if anyone was going to enjoy Apocalypse it was going to be me. On a surface level, sure, it hit some of the right beats. Fassbender and McAvoy make a great leading pair and the Quicksilver showcase, much like the segment in Days of Future Past, never ceases to amaze.

However, there are too many boring characters, the plot meanders way too slowly, and the film has a huge villain problem. I’m not even sure what Apocalypse’s powers are supposed to be. I know it’s definitely not picking good henchmen. If you think an alcoholic teenager with bird wings is one of the strongest mutants in the world, you are going to have some crappy horsemen helping you usher in the end of days.

And speaking of Horsemen! The film no one was waiting for (and no one really asked for), Now You See Me 2.

If I ever meet someone who was rabidly anticipating this sequel, I will let Chris Angel levitate me in front of a bus. I see myself as a just-go-with-it kind of movie goer. When everyone is asking “Did the top keep spinning?”, or “Was Deckard actually a repilicant?”, I find myself saying “Who cares that movie was awesome!” That being said, there is only so much I’m willing to forgive.

Now You See Me 2 maybe works on a surface level of pure visual entertainment if you like crappy sight gags. Not much else is worthy of your attention. The movie is like a big ugly Christmas sweater: fun to laugh at for a bit, but once you pull at one thread, the whole thing falls apart. The slickest sequence in the film, where the Horsemen throw around a playing card with a valuable computer chip attached to it, loses its audience once you realize the entire sequence had no purpose in the plot of the film. Director Jon Chu hopes to literally distract his audience with slight of hand and tired card tricks. Sorry Jon, no one thinks magicians are cool.

2016’s blockbusters are mainly just busts, it seems. While it may be difficult to single out many bright spots in the lackluster tentpole films, there is some smaller budget fare that makes the season much more bearable. Even though it had a very brief run in theaters, Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping was easily one of the most entertaining, if under-watched films of the summer. Popstar functions as a Spinal Tap for today’s generation of pop mega-star obsessed fans. Or it works for people like me who love making fun of such folks. Being mean-spirited is fun!

Popstar is not for everyone. Its delightfully foul-mouthed and gleefully inappropriate approach to comedy may find some viewers out of their comfort zone . Andy Samberg is locked in as the Bieberesque protagonist who just wrote and produced his second album with tracks that range from how humble he his to a song made up entirely of catch phrases. The music alone is worth the watch.

Finally, Summer was good for my favorite movie of the year so far, The Nice Guys. Shane Black shows off his expertise as a buddy cop filmmaker who excels at showing off different sides of Los Angeles. I love when movies are able to show unique sides of settings we have seen many times before, and The Nice Guys runs from Beverly Hills-style L.A. to grimy urban alleyways to classy Hollywood parties. The film is anchored by Russell Crow doing his best tough guy with a heart, but the star is Ryan Gosling.

Most people have come to expect a lot of good looks and charm with some sly talk from Gosling, but the man has serious comic acting chops. His delivery, timing, and especially physical acting went well above what many comic actors are capable of. Some might say the movie suffers from plot issues, mainly in that its plot really doesn’t matter. Sure, but when it’s so damn enjoyable to watch the two leads play off each other in a delightfully dark setting, who cares?

So, would Commodus give this Summer a thumbs up or down? Probably more like a “Meh…”. While there are certainly films to enjoy I’m finding a lot more movies that really shouldn’t have seen the light of day. Maybe I’m just spoiled from last years smorgasbord of Mad Max: Fury Road, Inside Out, Trainwreck, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and way too many other fantastic films. Or maybe I just expect too much from summer movies. All I want to do is be excited and eat popcorn. “Are you not entertained?” No Marcus Aurelius, not so much this year.

Watch and Talk is an alternative look at film. It is a column that discusses movies from all different genres. Movies are not necessarily reviewed, they are simply talked about. Watch and Talk looks at not only the entertainment value of various films, but also the cultural impacts and aspects that films can have.

The post Watch and Talk: Block Bustin’ appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Heaven?

Hell?

Or somewhere else?

Written by grad student Alysha Oravetz and directed by Felipe Carrasco, Boom Boom Town provides a darkly comedic insight to life, death, and everything in between. Filled with unique characters and countless twists and turns, Boom Boom Town was definitely an unexpected treat.

The play takes place in a strip club owned by Marjorie (Haley Courter) and Travis (Andrew Berger). The two – joined by bar patrons Declane (Marc Saladino) and Lynn (Danny Peterson), Officer Judith (Lexi Morsch), and stripper Caroline (Sheradin Jansen) – embark on personal journeys for truth and redemption. They are guided by Ukrainian stripper/prostitute/”wise woman” Yelena (Christina Sullivan), known first to the audience as the Greek goddess Persephone. Persephone and Underworld guardian Cer (Boston Dunning) watch as each character makes realization after realization about themselves and at the end, sends each spirit to its corresponding section of the Underworld.

I was immediately intrigued after I sat down and was given a play bill with the title of the play, the cast and crew, and a description of the Fields of Asphodel. A long-time fan of Greek mythology, I was excited to see the part the Underworld would play in the show; I was not disappointed.

At the end of play, each character sits in front of one of the three sections of the audience and takes their turn making a final monologue before succumbing to the Underworld. In front of me sat Marjorie, Travis, and Caroline; to my left in the Elysian Fields sat Judith and Declane; to my right sat Lynn in the Fields of Punishment.

While all gave rousing and thought-provoking monologues, Marjorie’s was the one that resonated with me as an audience member. She talked about all of the everyday things she would miss, and how she wanted all the simple, little things back. She knew she was on the brink of nonexistence and she was terrified. Courter’s performance in that moment was one of the most emotionally hard-hitting of the whole show.

Just as hard-hitting was Jansen’s performance, particularly during one scene where her character Caroline has been pushed to her breaking point. Emotionally unstable and isolated, Caroline turns to cocaine. In her rush to snort the line and temporarily suppress her pain, Caroline becomes frantic and loses patience with both the situation and herself. She swipes the powder off the table and breaks down in tears. It was a moment of weakness for Caroline but a moment of brilliance for Jansen.

As much as I enjoyed the play, I was constantly struggling to follow the plot. The dialogue was – at times – sporadic and seemed unrelated. Perhaps the confusion was intentional, but as I felt the exposition was already underdeveloped, the effect was debilitating.

Thirty minutes and one in-depth conversation with my boyfriend (who, having no background in Greek mythology, struggled to understand the play in its entirety) later, I was finally able to piece together most of the plot. Persephone and Cer are guardians of the Underworld, watching for souls on the brink of death and guiding them to their rightful places in the afterlife. The characters in the bar died (I’m still not clear on when) and spend the whole play trying to come to terms with their lives and the choices they did or didn’t make. In hindsight, the plot wasn’t difficult to figure out; the dialogue just became too distracting.

I was impressed by the scene changes as well as the lighting throughout. The cast acted as a stage crew, moving set pieces in the dark while club music blared over the speakers. Occasionally, a silhouette of Caroline dancing could be seen behind a sheet on a walkway above the stage. These were very cool elements that entertained as well as engaged me as an audience member.

Finally, I was very bothered by the chemistry between Persephone and Cer. Their relationship is a classic example of love-hate, but I was missing the connection. There was something so forced about a lot of their interactions that left me wanting more, and not in a good way. While Sullivan and Dunning both gave impressive and energetic performances, so much potential was missed when their characters interacted. Interestingly, the chemistry seemed to be at its best when the two were physically further apart and suffered more and more the closer they became.

Overall, Boom Boom Town served as an impressive response the frequently asked, “Where do we go when we die?” Excessive swearing and questionable delivery aside, the themes concerning what’s really important in this life each of us has been given were powerful.

Although Boom Boom Town is no longer showing, the university’s Theatre department has many more production lined up for the semester. Make sure to visit the website for times, tickets, and synopses.

The post UI Theater Show Preview: Boom Boom Town appeared first on KRUI Radio.