Go Then, There Are Quieter Places Than These

Pop quiz, hot shot. What's the first film that comes to mind based on the following description:

A group of isolated survivors try to escape from a group of strange, alien creatures that hunt their prey by sound alone. These seemingly unstoppable creatures stalk their prey relentlessly, as the survivors try to make as little noise as possible to avoid detection. Eventually, the survivors are able to fight back and defeat the creatures by exploiting their reliance on sound, the very thing that made them such effective predators to begin with.

If you said Tremors, you'd be right.

If you said A Quiet Place, you'd also be right.

I make the comparison not to try and point out that A Quiet Place is simply copying Tremors, because that's not the case. I just thought it would be clever to point out the similar concept unifying these two films (an eerily similar concept, if one were to be honest), though for most audience members (especially those of a certain age), I'm sure this comparison was (almost) immediately obvious.

I thought it was appropriate, because A Quiet Place is a movie that revels in its own cleverness. It wants us to know how clever Lee Abbott (John Krasinski) and his family are for using trails of sand and walking barefoot to cut down on sound when making supply runs in the town near the farm they call home. It wants us to know how clever Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) is for making a soundproof nursery and crib for when the baby she is expecting is born. It wants us to know how clever the Abbott family is for reducing the risk of causing sounds that might attract the creatures by removing all of the doors from their home and clearly marking with paint the creaky floorboards to be avoided.

Supernova: Of Combustion and Cosmic Matter on the Big Stage

A Star Is Born is a story that seems destined to be retold as long as a single Hollywood producer has even a single dollar left to their name. It makes a certain kind of sense; like most people, people in Hollywood like to talk about themselves. There's a reason movies like The Artist and Birdman tend to get a lot of recognition come awards season, and it's the same reason the dicks of every man you know get a lot of extra attention on lonely Friday nights at home alone. The masturbatory urge isn't self-destructive or antisocial, rather it is as comforting in its familiarity as it is reassuring in its final, inevitable result.

Each iteration of A Star is Born is built on a foundation of anxieties unique to Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. The 2018 version follows the same mould as its previous versions as far as basic plot points go: a male music superstar, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), mumbling his way through life one sold out show after another has a chance encounter with an struggling, female singer, Ally (Lady Gaga), they fall in love, he helps catapult her to success, their relationship goes through a rough patch, his own star begins to fade, he dies tragically,  and she moves forward through the grief while honouring his legacy.

At a surface level, A Star is Born is a romantic drama, but at its heart, it's a retelling and reinforcement of a core part of Hollywood mythology. In an industry and a profession where success is as fleeting and as fickle as it is difficult to attain in the first place, it makes a certain kind of sense that fame would be integral to its lore.

I Feel Like a Million Dollars, But Nobody's Picked up the Tab Yet... Amy Schumer is Better than Hitler, and So Can You

The Internet has proven to be a revolutionary force, not just in terms of communication on a global scale, but in terms of how it has impacted society as a whole. And while it has also made clear that very rarely can any significant cross-section of people agree on anything, even pizza toppings (I will never understand the hate for pineapple), there are a few general, truths (nearly) universally agreed upon that the Internet has illuminated:

1) We like watching people have sex. A lot.
2) Everybody is literally worse than Hitler.
3) People really seem to hate Amy Schumer.

Honestly, that last one never made a lot of sense to me. It always seemed that Amy Schumer, for whatever reason, has attracted a disproportionate amount of vitriol from the usual gang of (online) idiots. The only verifiable controversy that ever seemed to justify any level of ire was accusations of ripping off some jokes from other comedians, which seemed to fizzle out fairly quickly. The only thing that came to mind was that some of the misogyny that has somehow found a fertile environment in which to fester in the nether regions of the Internet had reared its ugly head, and Schumer was a woman working to be successful in a field traditionally dominated by men and was famous enough to draw the attention of adoring fans and unprincipled assholes alike. Upon further consideration of all of the plethora of evidence available from that self-same Internet, it then occurred to me that all of the vitriol directed at Amy Schumer wasn't because she was a woman and famous or a woman and a trailblazer.

It was simply because she was a woman.