There’s been a bevy of female-forward television programs as of late ( Betty , Mare of Easttown , The Handmaid’s Tale , Derry Girls , The Morning Show , etc.) and the majority of these shows’ intentions are, to varying degrees of subtlety, to prove that storytelling is changing. Some of these programs are exclusively combatting the patriarchy, but in the case of Derry Girls , there’s a subliminal messaging system rewiring the brains of the viewers to accept the comedy because it’s funny, and not because it matters who’s delivering it (even though the word “girls” is in the frickin’ title - how cool is that?). So, when HBO Max announced its 2021 series, Hacks , starring TV’s It Girl Jean Smart and up-and-comer Hannah Einbinder, they had me at Ha . In Hacks , as opposed to Derry Girls , it’s extremely important to acknowledge who’s delivering the comedy: in fact, it’s the entire point of the program. Jean Smart stars as Deborah Vance, an aging, yet successful, comic who is being forced out of her Vegas residency due to her waning relevance in the world of Vegas tourism. Her manager, Jimmy (Paul W. Downs from Broad City fame, and also co-creator of Hacks ), instructs her to take on a younger comedian as a co-writer to pep up her sets and to help bring her into the millennial stratosphere. That’s where Ava (Hannah Einbinder, daughter of SNL ’s Laraine Newman and actor Chad Einbinder) comes in. Ava has just lost her staff writing gig after posting a politically-charged joke on Twitter and was subsequently “canceled.” Deborah doesn’t want a writing partner, Ava doesn’t want to write for an aging “hack”: how’s that for a meet-cute? There are several tactical moves made by Hacks ’ writing team, with the number one being that they don’t focus too much on the actual stand-up. There’s almost nothing worse in television comedies than watching a show about stand-up comedy when the stand-up isn’t funny. Seinfeld knew it, Crashing knew it, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel doesn’t seem to know it yet...but maybe it’ll get there. These shows tend to isolate the stand-up scenarios to a minimal degree and instead focus on the dynamics “behind the scenes.” Not to say that Deborah and Ava aren’t funny, they certainly are, but the Hacks team knows it’s not meant to be a comedy special. Their comedy lies in the special place between reality and absurdity. Jean Smart’s star has been rising (again) over the past six years, ever since being cast in FX’s Fargo season 2. She’s graced the screen in some of television’s finest series in recent history, starring in Legion , Watchmen , Mare of Easttown , and now, Hacks. USA Today has even gone so far as to name Smart the “Queen of HBO.” And they wouldn’t be wrong. ( To hear Smart discuss her recent work in tandem with Bowen Yang’s SNL tenure, check out Variety ’s ‘Actors on Actors’ interview. ) She’s successfully managed to carve out a new path for her career in her late 60’s which has made her the perfect candidate to portray Deborah Vance, a woman who is just beginning to embrace a rebirth herself. Sadly, that isn’t the only similarity between Smart and Vance, as both actor and character have just recently lost their husbands (Smart losing her husband, Richard Gilliland, and Vance losing her original comedy partner and ex-husband, Frank). Vance, modeled in part after the late Joan Rivers, is a compelling character study of aging in today’s comedy climate, and with the help of the talented writing staff, Smart carries the character with grace and panache. Hannah Einbinder is also a joy to watch. It’s rare that such a seasoned actor is paired with an unknown like Einbinder (at least, unknown to me), and the series manages to capture their unease with each other as if they were filming a documentary. When thinking back on my favorite moments from the first season (before the last episode aired on June 10, HBO renewed the series for a second season), I’m always drawn to the subtle brilliance of Smart, but when I think of the moments that truly made me laugh, I’m reminded of Einbinder’s sly delivery and sardonic cadence. ( Einbinder made her Late Show debut right before the lockdown in early 2020, and it is a breath of fresh comedic air. ) There’s an honesty to Ava in that she says what she means, even knowing that this is exactly what got her into this current pickle to begin with, which encourages the viewer to root for her. Watching the series, you’re compelled to root for both women even though they have diametrically different goals in mind. And when you can’t imagine one without the other, well, that’s the sign of a great comedic partnership. I’d be remiss to not acknowledge the remaining key players in Hacks , as without them we would be left with just a “couple of divas.” As mentioned before, it’s always a treat to watch Paul W. Downs as Jimmy, and he’s paired with another fresh face in his assistant, Kayla, manically portrayed by Megan Stalter. We have Christopher McDonald acting as Marty Ghilain, the Vegas casino owner, and sexual foil, who is attempting to discontinue Vance’s residency. Carl Clemons-Hopkins plays Marcus, Vance’s studious COO and Poppy Liu plays Kiki, Vance’s personal blackjack dealer and gal-pal who receives Vance’s hand-me-down vehicles and wardrobe. But, best of all, Kaitlin Olsen plays Vance’s daughter, Deborah “DJ” Vance Jr., who brings light to every single scene she’s in. Hacks is a show you don’t want to miss. Not only is it quietly hilarious and dramatically poetic, but it’s a window into the radical change the comedy world is currently experiencing. In Apple TV’s The Morning Show , Jennifer Aniston’s Alex Levy faces a personal reckoning to atone for her sins of omission and in Hacks , Deborah Vance is facing a similar reckoning; she’s both questioned by Ava for her complacency in the comedy biosphere and she questions her own place in this changing comedic landscape. The entire entertainment community is undergoing this same reckoning, and this is best represented in episode 8, my personal favorite, “1.69 Million.” Similar to Crashing ’s season 3, fourth episode (“MC, Middle, Headliner”), Hacks laser-focused on the slow and steady uphill battle to eradicate the toxic masculinity within the comedy world. And it’s not about female comics adapting to be just “one of the boys,” it’s all about embracing the unique perspective women can offer the world; so, if you already have it and love it, you just need more in your life, or if you're ready to be educated, tune into HBO’s Hacks . It’s the smart choice. Bernadette Gorman-White Managing Editor Bernadette graduated from DePauw University in 2011 with a Film Studies degree she’s not currently using. She constantly consumes television, film, and all things pop culture and will never be full. She doesn’t tweet much, but give her a follow @BeaGorman and see if that changes.

Nana Mensah wrote, directed, and stars in the 2021 film, Queen of Glory. The film had its world premiere as part of the Tribeca Film Festival’s “US Narrative Competition.” Mensah plays Sarah Obeng, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants who is a doctoral student at Columbia University. From the film’s start, Sarah displays both her continued connection to her Ghanaian heritage and her American-ness. She drops off supplies to be sent to her estranged father back in Ghana, visits her opinionated aunties, and later, meets up with her married boyfriend, who heads her department at Columbia. Sarah plans to leave New York for Ohio, and move in with her boyfriend where he will begin a new job and they can (presumably) start fresh after he separates from his family. She is scheduled to leave in a week. Things take a detour when she receives sudden news that her mother has died from an aneurysm. Sarah heads home to the Bronx to take care of her mother’s funeral arrangements, first, the “white person funeral” that is more like a wake, followed by the more traditional Ghanaian funeral expected by the elders who loved her mother. Her father arrives from Ghana and is a reminder of the more traditional expectations and gender roles of her upbringing. Sarah, however, is not immediately ready to comply. Sarah is in shock upon learning that she has inherited both her mother’s home and the Christian bookstore she owned, run by a former convict (played by the excellent Meeko Gattuso). Before Sarah can move on with her life, she first has to help wrap up her mother’s. Her plan is to sell both. While the film is indeed very funny at times, I would characterize it more as a dramedy. The death of Sarah’s mother becomes the catalyst for her to reexamine her Ghanaian roots and the struggle of being Ghanaian-American. She is often caught between two worlds. Sarah is a scientist and an academic; her relatives are often asking when she will be married and start having children. Sarah continues to bristle at the cultural expectations of her role as a young woman while struggling to honor and stay connected to the mother she loved. In interviews, Mensah was quoted as: I wanted to tell this story because so many depictions I’ve come across of the African immigrant or first-generation American experience are rife with trauma. That was not my experience nor the experience of my family— there was struggle, sure, but also a lot of love, community, and laughter. So I decided to showcase this in a dark comedy about a middle-class, high-achieving Bronx native (by way of Ghana, West Africa), who is grappling with her origins and figuring out what she wants from life, as we all are. ( Deadline ) Other breakout performances in the film include her mother’s Russian next-door neighbors: a very pregnant mother (played by Anya Migdal) and her family, who is the first to ask Sarah directly: “But, what are you going to do out in Ohio?” Then there’s Pitt (Meeko Gattuso) who presents initially as a tough tattoo-covered ex-con, but secretly has a passion for baking. He reaffirms that Sarah does not have to be like her beloved mom, she only has to be herself. I won’t give away more from the plot of this indie because I want you to see it. Nana Mensah is wonderful as Sarah, but also in her writing and directorial debut. She really is a triple threat. Magnolia Pictures International has acquired sales rights to the film, so I hope it will be released in 2021 for more to see. Check it out when you can. Diana DiMuro Associate Editor Besides watching TV and movies, Diana likes plants, the great outdoors, drawing and reading comics, and just generally rocking out. She has a BA in English Literature and is an art school dropout. You can follow her on Instagram @dldimuro and Twitter @DianaDiMuro

Mike Burdge sits down with legendarily chill mf, Yarko Dobriansky, to discuss the truly special 1987 cinematic feature, Masters of the Universe , a movie so exquisitely exhilarating in its back-and-forth balance of awesome ideas and cheeseball aesthetic, they just couldn't help themselves. Cocktail Recipe By the Power of Grayskull (Collins glass, on ice, fill to serve) 1 3/4 oz bourbon 3/4 oz St Germain 1/2 oz lemon juice Top with ginger beer 5 dashes Angostura bitters Garnish with orange slice Listen on....

A Review of French Exit Existential contemplation, by way of dry humor and wry wit, is not as easy a path to walk as some might think. Or maybe nobody thinks it’s easy. Either way, it ain’t. This possibly well-known fact is put to the test again and again in Azazel Jacobs’ French Exit , a film with so many fantastic actors doing their best to inject life into a (pointedly intentionally) lifeless story that it gets by on charm alone, thematic convolutions be damned. Our story follows Frances Price (Michelle Pfeiffer), an aging socialite of the upper-class New York scene, and her son, Malcolm Price (Lucas Hedges), as they travel to Paris to escape their newly found money woes. Frances’ irresponsible spending and general bad attitude have left her, for the most part, friendless. While on their trip, the duo meets a variety of characters that latch onto the story in one way or another, while simultaneously being visited by the few folks from back home who are worried about them. This leaves us with a single apartment chock-full of lively characters and unique interactions to be had, but the film never really lets these personalities shine, leaving the viewer wishing for just a bit more. Based on his novel, Patrick DeWitt returns as screenwriter, seemingly to bring a more stylish and inadvertently more banal take on his original story. Woody Allen (*thunderclap*) has a tone and a wry sense of humor that is very hard to replicate, and many directors, (and even actors,) have been trying to do so for over forty years. Comedy, based in sardonic play and sneering caricature, is a very fine line to walk, especially when mainly dealing with upper-class white people. In particular, when those same people all of a sudden don’t have enough money to live out their usual lavish lifestyle, and therefore are forced (gasp!) to move into a family friend’s empty apartment in Paris. Now, I believe everyone involved in this project, from the writer to the actors, to the editor, does not necessarily want you to like these characters (most of them anyway). They’d rather you were interested in what’s going to happen to them based on their interesting dialogue, and there’s no getting around it: this movie thinks it is full of interesting ideas. It is not For me, someone unfamiliar with the original novel, and honestly, quite over the whole “Spoiled White American Character Travels to Other Country and Walks Around While Talking About the Future” model of storytelling, I gotta say, I was extremely impressed with Pfeiffer, Hedges and the rest of the cast. While most of the humor doesn’t really land, which again, I think is part of the point, there’s a big difference between dry and dreadful. Despite all that, the actors do bring these characters to life, creating an extravaganza of hit-or-miss moments that are a delight to watch for those brief flashes of ingenuity. Valerie Mahaffey, who plays a starry-eyed fan of Pfeiffer’s Frances (from the old NY days) is particularly on fire throughout the piece as one of the only purely good people occupying this apartment. The stellar cast includes the likes of Imogen Poots as Hedge’s ex-fiance, Danielle MacDonald as a medium with a bad attitude, and Tracy Letts, as a disembodied voice of a family member from the past; it is truly and obviously Pfeiffer who steals the show. Pfeiffer has been putting out amazing work over the past few years, obviously reinventing her image and persona in real-time as we watch her tackle demented thematic horror, chew-up-and spit-out Agatha Christie word soup, and star as a superhero in one of the most popular and successful franchises in movie history. In French Exit, she does phenomenal work communicating both the loneliness of her character, as well as the absurdity of some of her hangups. Her quieter moments, with old friends and homeless benchwarmers, are spectacular. Pfeiffer’s own experiences as a woman in Hollywood during an age where it was pretty much “be taken advantage of or rot,” really adds layers to the scenes about motherhood and female self-expectancy in a world with all eyes on them. Hedges is also an amazing counterpart for her to play these illusions off of, creating a very simple yet effective relationship between one character who knows their time is over, and one who isn’t certain what’s going to happen next. French Exit is a film filled with cliché, so much so that they even have a moment where a character poetizes about being a cliché and defends the term as a positive. This version of cliché is romanticized as everlasting and aphoristic, but the flip side is that it can also be seen as commonplace and unoriginal, and the film shares a bit of both of these traits. It’s entertaining with a great ensemble cast, and splendid look and feel, but ultimately, it leads to nowhere all that interesting. It wasn’t even very clever about getting there in the first place, but I don’t hold it against the movie all that much, maybe because or in spite of it, actively pushing for and fighting against these very things from start to finish. Mike Burdge Editor-in-Chief Founder of and programmer for Story Screen. Lover of stories and pizza in the dark. When he isn't watching movies, you can find him reading things about people watching movies. He currently resides in Poughkeepsie, NY, and most assuredly is going through a French Connection phase.

Robby Anderson discusses Bo Burnham's latest "comedy" episode, Inside , with fellow lovers of yuck-yucks, Diana DiMuro and Bernadette Gorman-White. Listen on....

Robby is joined by guests, Diana DiMuro and Sophia Acquisto, to talk about A Quiet Place Part II , the anticipated sequel to the righteously awesome 2018 high concept horror film. In the spirit of more action oriented takes on horror originals, the film revisits the themes and rules of the first chapter while aggressively enhancing the world and its tensions. So, how's the whole thing all together?? Listen on....

In our latest video, Robby Anderson reviews the Kevin Lewis/Nic Cage spooky joint, Willy's Wonderland. Watch on....

Mike Burdge is joined by living legend, and noted tiki shirt thespian, Tim Guy, to discuss the 1988 runaway hit that forever seeped into the bar culture consciousness of America: Cocktail . Is the movie good? Does it suck? Who the hell are these people? Who made this? Is that how it works? Egg?? Get the real answers from two bartenders/cocktail enthusiasts. Listen on....

Spoilers for Gia Coppola’s Mainstream Ahead In a world where opinions are getting cheaper by the day, it’s difficult to say, or create, anything that hasn’t been said before. Consequently, it goes without saying that in the era of social media, if you’re thinking it, it’s already been thought of. But while this sentiment is echoed across all media of creative art, film is usually the most celebrated when it acknowledges the communal experiences of the human condition. It doesn’t matter that these ideas and journeys have been shared countless times: the act of doing so is the source of its value. So when a movie like Gia Coppola’s Mainstream comes along and attempts to wax poetic on the current state of social media addiction we’re facing as a species, the success of the film doesn’t necessarily hinge on the why of it all but more on the how. The most important aspect of telling a story is creating a realistic space for the story to unfold and then filling that space with characters who have something to say. But when nobody’s saying anything, the value of the journey diminishes. Mainstream fancies itself a soapbox for the plight of today’s cell-phone obsessed youth, but it might as well be shouting into the void. The film opens with what you’re led to believe is one of our protagonist’s short films: an old-fashioned sepia-toned series of intertitles questioning whether Frankie (a mis-used Maya Hawke) will find what she’s searching for artistically, if she’ll ever get over the guilt she harbors for her father’s death, and if she can trust the enigmatic Link (the film’s synthetic heart, Andrew Garfield). The first few minutes of Mainstream are stylistically juxtaposed to the remainder of the film, but I don’t believe that choice was artistically made. This sloppy beginning begs a deeper conversation between Coppola and the art she personally makes (especially with her own history of her father - Gian-Carlo Coppola - tragically dying in a boating accident before she was even born), but the film never dives into anything nearly as interesting as the relationship between women and art, and if anything, the film paints women-who-create as a blight on the artistic world...but more on that later. After this false-start of a beginning, we learn (through a series of exposition dumps) that Frankie has been out in Hollywood for a seemingly long time, much to her mother’s dismay. She’s out there just trying to make her “art” happen, and her attempts just happen to be a handful of YouTube videos that aren’t garnering much attention. She works at a hole-in-the-wall magic-themed bar, The Magic Alley, with her (apparently) only friend, Jake, and is clearly stuck in a cycle of ennui. Nothing much is happening for good ole Frankie, until she is just hanging out at some random ole mall for no good reason except to meet Link, who she has chosen to film interacting with mall-shoppers while dressed as a mouse (or maybe a rat?) trying to sell cheese. He notices her filming him and then decides to, essentially, perform for her, giving her the material for her most successful YouTube upload to date. And when she sees him, randomly, on the LA streets a short while later, she’s desperate to collaborate with him again. So, what is it you’re into, Frankie? Is it making art or getting clicks, likes, and comments? And can they not be mutually exclusive? Mainstream can’t seem to figure it out. After Frankie and Link decide to become content creating partners (with the inclusion of barman Jake as their trusty writer) they home in on their message to the world: phones bad, screen addiction bad, society is full of idiots - and they’re the ones to bring this revolutionary thinking to the masses. They craft a “character,” a YouTube personality if you will, for Link to play called “No One Special” who “teaches” internet users to not listen to him on his philosophies, because he’s just like them: No One Special. But all the while, they’re copying YouTube’s most prolific and successful cash cows. Of course, this blows up online, and the team’s success becomes an ouroboros of philosophical and moral debate: how can you judge what you hate if you’re prospering off the success from exploiting those you claim to be brainwashed? See, I get the movie (if I may be so bold to assume), but I find the film, for lack of a better descriptor, tragically sloppy. Let’s get into what I loved about the film first: Andrew Garfield as Link as No One Special. This movie belongs to him. The costume, makeup, and hair departments dressed him to the nines, and he’s never looked better on screen (at least that I can remember, which is saying something). His commitment to the character in all its manic glory is superb. See, Link isn’t even who he is. Poor ole Link (who is living off the streets and doesn’t even own a cellphone) is really some wealthy kid who’s reinvented himself after facing charges from his pyro past...but SHHHHH! Don’t tell Frankie! Apparently, his hidden past is very upsetting to her when she finds out...even though she never asks him about his past, and she’s seemingly totally fine hitching her post to a handsome stranger...but, this movie wants you to ignore that and Frankie’s intentions for her anger towards Link, because, well, none of it really matters. Regardless, No One Special is, in fact, very special. The manner in which Garfield moves and commands the screen is captivating, and Mainstream is at its best when he’s on screen, especially so when his presence is amplified by emojis and classic social media filters. Despite Mainstream ’s Charlie Chaplin-esque opening (sure, film good - and, again, internet bad), the film is really trying to lambast current social media content and creation by using footage manipulation to highlight how stupid it is. Buuuuuuuuuut...this is when the film is the most fun and engaging to watch. In fact, it’s why I was so excited to watch Mainstream in the first place. But that brings me to another disappointment: the trailer for Mainstream truly is a best-of reel of its best content. Its manic, hyper-filtered premise is what drew me to the film, and it's the majority of what I enjoyed while watching it. Is the film, or Coppola herself, telling me I’m dumb for liking those aspects best? If so, why make the rest of the film such a hot mess? After No One Special and his team fall from their peak (hosting a YouTube game show where they challenge their contestants to choose between either a reward for abandoning their cellphones or performing a ridiculous challenge to win their phone back), they decide to change their show’s format by challenging their audience members to buck social media’s hold on them. Obviously, forcing random people to alter their interactions with the outside world through social media doesn’t seem like a great idea (free will, anyone?), but No One Special forces one woman to rail against Big Makeup by posting an unedited photo of herself - one that shows her natural, birthmarked, face with the world as opposed to the make-up covered selfie she originally posted. (The film doesn’t want you to think too hard about how they obtained the original selfie, because, it truly doesn’t make sense that she would have had the same picture on her phone sans makeup, considering she said it was make-up and not a filter...but, whatever.) This forceful betrayal of trust lands No One Special, and team, in the hot seat for subjugating this young woman, Isabelle, to abuse and public humiliation, and a spot on a round table of YouTuber influencers who question his behavior. This is, perhaps, the strangest and most complicated scene of the film. No One Special has been invited to a morning-talk-show-style roundtable interview by some-such character played by Johnny Knoxville and propagated with other real-life YouTube personalities, including, but not limited to: Patrick Starr, Desmond Is Amazing, and Jake Paul. They immediately chastise NOS for causing Isabelle pain, to which he rebuts that it is the rest of society (especially the female, and sometimes female-presenting, content creators who use makeup as a means for content creation) who led Isabelle to believe she wasn’t good enough to begin with. This is a sentiment that I can get behind when it comes to self-worth, but the implication that the majority of female content-creators are only good for make-up tutorials, and that they don’t do a good job of imparting to their bases that they use make-up as a means of self-expression and art rather than a means of gender-imprisonment (or the argument that the viewers are too stupid to tell the difference) is extremely strange to watch...especially coming from a female director/writer such as Coppola. If Frankie is supposed to be a foil for Coppola (which is hard to ignore considering they’re both women who consider themselves to be artists who have both tragically lost their fathers), it’s telling that Frankie doesn’t wear make-up (even to cover up the scar she obtained from her father’s fatal car-crash) and seems to dress androgynously. Is Coppola trying to say that women who conform to societal female beauty stereotypes are damaging to the female population, or is she trying to say that men who attempt to teach women how to feel about themselves and how they should react to the world-at-large the problem? Honestly, I don’t think the film knows either...or even necessarily put much thought into it at all. It’s even stranger that the only female-driven performance at The Magic Alley revolves around an older female performer/comedian using Frankie as a stand-in for a baby...so, female content-creators are only good for make-up or babies...gotcha. Oh, except for you, Coppola, who apparently is lifting the scales from our eyes by showing us the way….cool. During the roundtable interview, No One Special claims that Isabelle couldn't have been too broken up about her tribulation on the game-show, because she later tried to hook-up with him after the taping, boldly stating that if she still felt she had something to prove to herself by sleeping with him, then that was no life to be living. She should find the validation for her own life’s worth from within. At this point, barman/writer Jake has already left the team, appalled that they humiliated a woman and then chose to edit the footage to make it seem like she made the decision to post the selfie herself. And after Link’s performance during the interview, even Frankie’s patience with No One Special’s prophetic teachings is beginning to wane. So when No One Special gets picked up for a special live YouTube event for the last scene of the film, Frankie is already checked out. And when it’s revealed that Isabelle has taken her own life after No One Special’s comments (her life wasn’t worth living, remember?), Frankie disconnects entirely. This happens simultaneously to Frankie finding out that Link has been lying about his past, and shortly after Jake confesses that he’s in love with her. (Yes, that was exceedingly and stupidly obvious the entire time and we’re meant to believe that these characters are too stunted to express, and also understand, said feelings.) Frankie has just been too blinded by Andrew Garfield’s good looks to realize the better option had been under her nose the entire time. Isabelle’s death is meant to be THE climax of the film, changing Frankie’s opinion of Link and the outcome of how the audience is meant to view him as well. But it’s confusing that we’re also shown Frankie’s distrust of Link’s character through her reaction to discovering his true life’s story. Why is Link’s past important, if he’s just a shit person at the core anyway? And why do we need to see the resolution of Frankie joining up with Jake at the impromptu memorial for Isabelle if women are supposed to be bucking the societal pressures of women having to please any man? Just, why, Why, WHY? And that’s my main dissatisfaction with the film as a whole: it can’t quite seem to keep straight which messages it would like to impart. And it doesn’t help that Frankie is one of the most boring lead characters I’ve ever had the displeasure of watching. She’s a woman who barely has any core drive outside of servicing the story, and because she was so unbelievable and shallow, the story crumbles around her. There’s a great line from a classic film that I think everyone has heard at one point or another: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” (Thanks, Ferris.) Well, life moves super fast now, and perhaps this film could have been a rallying cry a few years ago, but at this point, I think we’re the most discerning between what constitutes good and bad content that we’ve ever been, and plenty of people (both old and young) are striving to create good content that’s empowering to all involved. Sure, we’ll always be subject to stupid, unnecessary, and even harmful content, but as a society we’ve become more (I say more, not adequately) adept at treating each other with kindness and have begun to cleanse the internet of those whose main intent is to harm. I think we’re on an upward trend of support, and perhaps I’m just a bit naive, but I think we’re taking the filter back. We’ve learned, especially in this last year, to cut each other a little slack and enjoy one another’s existence in its natural state. It’s a shame that Mainstream came out after a period of intense worldwide self-reflection and isolation. Social Media moves pretty fast these days. If you don’t post while your message is relevant, you could miss your opportunity. Last week’s trending video is this week’s forgotten folly. I’ll tell you what is worth watching though: that Mainstream trailer. I think you can find it on YouTube . Bernadette Gorman-White Managing Editor Bernadette graduated from DePauw University in 2011 with a Film Studies degree she’s not currently using. She constantly consumes television, film, and all things pop culture and will never be full. She doesn’t tweet much, but give her a follow @BeaGorman and see if that changes.

He's gonna tear this city apart, even though he can't get anything done if there's no one on the force he can trust, but that was just a diversion and he needs everybody on this case. His name is Chris "Master of Twisted Horror" Rock, and he is here to unleash the next chapter in the Saw Franchise, which is a book apparently. Robby Anderson and Mike Burdge discuss. Listen on....

I have grown a bit bored of the crime genre. The media landscape is flooded with podcasts, documentaries, films, and books all dedicated to murder, serial killers, and true crime. The last straw was the film, The Little Things, released earlier this year starring Denzel Washington, Jared Leto, and Rami Malek’s crazy eyes. It tried so hard to recreate the vibe of great shows like Mindhunters and True Detective , which showed that those who investigate the crazy can end up going crazy themselves, and instead, was a stylish-looking snooze fest. Shows like Hannibal and Dexter romanticize serial killers in interesting ways but I can't help but ask myself, "Should I be rooting for this person?" Even True Detective tried to ask big philosophical questions but it mostly got lost in its ideas rather than answer any of them. I was ready to give up on all things crime until recently, when I sat down to watch the 1931 German film, M. This 90-year-old thriller reminded me that the crime genre can be entertaining and thought-provoking. Its ending deals with issues like the culpability of the insane and society’s trust in government, better than anything I’ve seen in the modern crime genre. Its comments on these issues in 1931 are haunting, given Germany’s history at that time. The film takes place in Berlin, Germany. The city is on edge after a string of children go missing. The film opens with children playing in the streets, singing a sick song about a “nasty man in black,” coming to get them. Parents wait anxiously for their children to return home from school. We see children exiting a school, some leave with their parents, while others walk home alone. A young girl walks alone, bouncing a ball on a wall with a poster of the names of two children still missing. A shadowy figure begins to talk to her. We then see a mother preparing a table for dinner, looking at a clock, waiting for her child to come home. She sees other children coming home and asks them if they have seen her daughter; they say no. As she waits, we see the young girl with this mysterious man buying her a balloon and walking her around the city. These two scenes: the mysterious man with the young girl and the waiting mother, are edited in such a way that shows them happening at the same time. The viewer at this point knows that something bad will happen. This is confirmed seconds later when we see the balloon floating off into the sky and the ball bouncing away with no one going after it. We see nothing and yet we know this man is our killer. The director, Fritz Lang, leaves it up to the audience to imagine the grim details. He is more interested in showing us the aftermath of these events. We watch the killer writing an anonymous letter to the newspapers taking credit for the murders and promising to do it again. The police try to gather clues from the letter like fingerprints and handwriting analysis, all standard procedural crime narratives. As the investigation continues, the people of Berlin are restless, they begin to blame one another. Any man caught conversing with a small child is labeled a suspect and publicly attacked. The film builds this tense atmosphere between the public who are frightened and the local police and commissioners desperate to find answers. In another scene where we see two different events take place at the same time, the local authorities are trying to figure out how to move their investigation forward, while local crime bosses try to figure out how to keep the authorities out of their business. With the police leaving no stone unturned, a local brother is raided and the crime bosses are also trying to figure out their next move. In these scenes, we go back and forth between the authorities and the crime bosses, both stumped on how to handle the situation. The authorities decide to investigate recently released asylum patients, while the crime bosses decide to create a manhunt using the local homeless population. The police come close after they check the records of a man named Hans Beckert and search his house while he is not home. They discover evidence that he wrote the anonymous letter and wait for his return. This race between the authorities and gangsters to find the killer is thrilling to watch and you don’t know who you should root for. Hans Beckert’s fate seems almost certain as he walks the streets of Berlin. We see him notice a young girl looking at toys in a window and his face changes. He begins to look worried and troubled. It is almost like the monster within is creeping out and he is trying to keep it in. A groundbreaking technique this movie uses with Han’s Beckert’s character is a Leitmotif . This is a short musical sound or song that is associated with a person, place, or idea. In the film, Beckert’s character whistles: “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Greig. This recognizable tune is whistled by the mysterious man at the beginning of the film, confirming Beckert is our child killer. The use of the Leitmotif builds the horror and dread of the film, knowing that when Beckert begins to whistle it, he is going to do something horrible. It also leads to his demise as he befriends another young girl and begins to whistle this tune. It is recognized by the blind homeless man who sold him the balloon earlier in the film. He tells his counterparts and they begin to track the man. They follow him from afar and in an attempt to not lose him, one of the men writes an M on his hand with chalk and brushes up against the back of his coat. M for Murderer. What happens next is an interesting chase sequence in which Beckert runs into an office building to hide from his pursuers. The beggars call the crime bosses for help and they rush to the scene. They tie up the doormen and torture them for information. This leads them to find Beckert, but one of the doormen trips the alarm system and they must rush to escape before the police arrive. They take Beckert to an undisclosed location. The police arrive just as the criminals are leaving and in the frenzy, the police capture one of the gangsters. The police think the gangsters came to rob the place. They use questionable interrogation techniques to get the gangster to admit that they were searching for the child killer and he reveals where they take him. It is interesting how the film shows that even though the gangsters find the child killer they torture the doormen to do so. They are criminals so this can be expected. The police, however, are shown to be just as bad with their interrogation. This highlights a real breakdown in society as a whole. Those in authority are bad and the citizens are bad. The criminals don’t trust authority and the authorities don’t trust the public. They say so earlier in the film when trying to figure out how to hunt for the child killer. They call the citizens stupid and unwilling to help in any tangible way. The most fascinating part of this film is its ending. Hans Beckert is taken to an abandoned factory by the gangsters, who have set up what is essentially a Kangaroo court. The judges are the gangsters, behind them are other criminals and citizens. They even give him his one defense attorney. The gangsters and citizens of Berlin have so little faith in their government that they instead take the law into their own hands. Beckert demands to be taken to the authorities, but everyone just laughs at him. They demand answers from him. He admits to the killings and defends his actions by saying that he can’t help himself. In an impassioned monologue, he talks about trying to quiet the voices in his head that urge him to kill and the only way to stop them is to, in fact, kill. In his monologue, he berates the criminals before reminding them that they choose to break the law while he, “has no control over this evil thing that is inside me.” His defense counsel agrees and recommends his client be handed over to the authorities. He tells the “court” that he belongs in an asylum. The court of criminals and citizens will have none of it, they laugh at Beckert and tell him that being handed over to the authorities would be pointless. He will be fed three meals a day and eventually let out on good behavior. Mothers in the crowd remind Beckert that he is a monster. The crowd demands death right here and now. They yell and scream at him, the looks on their faces are that of a mindless mob. Just as it seems Beckert is done for, we see a hand rest on his shoulder. We see the people in the crowd begin to raise their hands silently. The police have come to serve their justice. The film ends with real judges in a courtroom about to render their verdict. We see three mothers of the missing children sitting in the court crying and admitting none of this will bring their children back. M is already considered a classic film for its use of tracking shots and Leitmotif. It is the gold standard for what a crime thriller could and should be. What’s most interesting about M to me is that this German film deals with the idea of distrust in authority in 1931, when just two years later Hitler would come to power. When people lose faith in the powers that be, they will accept radical ideas that on the surface seem like the right choice. The history of the rise of Nazisim in Germany is much more complicated, but this film left me with chills just thinking about that aspect. The lack of faith in authority, especially in the police, is prevalent today more than ever with the Black Lives Movement and the recent collective sigh of relief Americans took after the verdict of the Derrick Chauvin trial. The amount of Americans who still believed the last presidential election was rigged is concerning. Conspiracy theories have become as American as baseball. M transcends the crime genre to hold a mirror to societies from yesterday and today and asks the question, "What is justice?" Sahil Sharma Sahil is a full-time student at Dutchess Community College and a part-time cinephile. He has been known to quote the film Step Brothers word for word, and he likes water to be at room temperature.

In this latest entry into the Edgar Wright-filmography-retrospective-mini-series (whew!), The Wright Stuff , Bernadette and Mike take a scholarly gander at one of the greatest pieces of art to ever be committed to celluloid: Scott Pilgrim vs The World . Listen on....