Meryl Streep Archives | Otaku No Culture

Ricki By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

This year is seeing an interesting pairing of two aging musicians trying to come to terms with the families they left behind. Early in the year saw Danny Collins trying to shed his playboy image while attempting to get to reconnect with his son. In early August, audiences got to see Ricki and The Flash, where the lead singer of this band, Rendazzo (Meryl Streep), finds love with patrons at a juke joint in Tarzana, California but in the real world is attempting to make ends meet. Trying to make it in the entertainment business is tough, and she left a whole family behind in order for her to achieve her dreams. When her daughter Julie (Mamie Gummer) completely loses it over a cheating spouse and is informed by her ex-husband, she rushes to Indianapolis to offer some moral guidance. But no one wants her back in their lives. For a good decade and a half, at least, she was never there for them.

Continue reading “The Passion is Misplaced in Ricki and the Flash, A Review”

By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

* Spoiler Alert

Some audiences may well wonder if they are flipping through a century’s worth of National Geographic magazines when they are halfway through watching the movie, The Giver. The diverse collection of videos and images being used in this film gives this product a uniqueness not usually found for a science fiction film. That’s typically reserved for a documentary about sociology about the evolution of the human condition.

In this future, a utopian society has developed to take away all pain, emotions and memories of the past. Everything that defines a human culture, from its Hunter-Gatherer days to Industrialization (including war mongering and revolution) is lost as it becomes Aquarian. The new world order is strict, controlled and flat. Each person has a defined purpose in this new society and they are not allowed to deviate from it. That is, until Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) finds he’s alone in the Ceremony of Twelve (a rite of passage to help teens transition to adulthood) and is last to be assigned a role. He is identified as someone unique so he has a particular task to fulfill.

Continue reading “Discovering the Arts in The Giver, A Movie Review”