by Shayna Davis, Staff Writer
The silent film era techniques Coppola pulled into Dracula gives a nearly timeless look to the film. If it weren’t for the casting, I can’t say I’d necessarily be able to pinpoint what year the film was made.
by Rosalie Kicks, Old Sport and Editor in Chief
There may have been a good story somewhere within the hour and forty-five minute runtime of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice unfortunately, the lack of focus made it hard to pinpoint.
by Sandy DeVito
Episode Eight, The Upside Down, is the final episode of the first season, and in some ways it could have been the end of the series - they took their time officially announcing Season 2 and many of us felt unsure if the narrative demanded more. It certainly ends neatly enough that if they hadn't chosen to continue the story, its ambiguity would not be a disservice per se. Season 2 was greenlit (with episode titles!) as of last month (August 2016), however, so this episode is just a bookend to the wider narrative.
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I'll be honest, I don't love the beginning of this episode. Mike is cleaning El's dirty face with a wet cloth. She looks in the mirror, touching her shaved head as if to touch the phantom wig that's no longer there. That fucking wig. I hate that wig! To me, the wig is a reminder to El that she's different from other people (heteronormative people that is), and why the fuck do we have to do that? Hasn't she been through enough, being raised in a lab and prodded and given no autonomy up until now? Why does this have to be such a forward part of the narrative? Mike says "you don't need it;" of course she doesn't need it. He reassures her that she's "still pretty" - okay, here's my issue with this. Can you imagine this scene being reversed, and Mike somehow being the outsider? Can you imagine El trying to reassure him he's still physically attractive? No!
Read Moreby Sandy DeVito
Episode five, The Flea and the Acrobat (more on that later), starts right where we left off: with Hop being a total badass, and that's what I like to see. This is one of the scenes that really solidifies how cool he is, whilst tossing in a little Reagan-era paranoia for the adults who remember that stuff (or the millennials who've been told about it). We're back at Hawkins Laboratory, and he slips in just as some lab coats are leaving. He finds his way blocked by a hazmat warning zone, does the facial equivalent of a shrug, and busts right through. HOPPPPP. This is, unfortunately, right about the time some security guards who noticed him on the surveillance feed catch up to him. He bluffs for a moment, insisting Brenner is expecting him, and when one of the guards goes to phone it in, Hop lets fly his stony fist once more, managing to also nab his gun and corner the other guy, stealing his security clearance card (did they have pin-pad/card door locks in '83, though?) and getting through a nearby restricted door. Hop is the coolest, hottest 40-something, slightly washed-up cop to ever exist, basically.
Read Moreby Sandy DeVito
Episode Four, aptly named The Body, opens right after Hopper's told Joyce and Jonathan about the body they found in the quarry. Joyce refuses to believe it's him, and tries to tell Hopper about the lights and the monster coming through the walls. Hopper, like Jonathan, thinks Joyce is losing her mind, and tries to empathize with her, mentioning how he had to "lock all that away" when his daughter died. "You're talking about grief," Joyce tells him. "This is different." Joyce knows deep in her soul that Will is not dead - she just can't prove it yet.
by Sandy DeVito
This episode doesn't waste any time and starts off with a jolt: Barb wakes up with her face dirty and bloody, in darkness, coughing up water. This is where things in the series really start to go bonkers: as far as where Barb is, we aren't sure exactly, but it looks a little bit like the basin of Steve's pool - if Steve's pool were empty, full of weird dirty stuff, and in a world with no moon. The air is full of wilty wisps of matter - snow? Dust? Alien boogers? Who knows what it is, but it gives you the willies.
Read Moreby Sandy DeVito
Episode two, THE WEIRDO ON MAPLE STREET, picks up right where Episode one left off: Mike and Co. are back in his parents' basement, having brought the strange girl they found in the woods with them, and she sits under a giant coat as they bicker over what to do with her, the storm still raging outside. Dustin asks if she has cancer due to her shaved head. When Mike tries to give her dry clothes, she starts trying to change right in front of them--clearly she doesn't understand social norms. Mike shows her the bathroom, but she doesn't want the door shut all the way. Eleven is clearly terrified to be alone, though it's not yet clear to us why. Lucas suggests she may have escaped from "Pennhurst, the asylum over in Kerley County" - this seems to be a nod to the infamous Pennhurst Asylum in my home state of Pennsylvania that closed in the late 1980's on allegations of abuse and neglect. "Like Michael Myers," Dustin says, and there's our nod to Halloween. Lucas and Dustin agree they should tell Mrs. Wheeler about the girl, but Mike makes a good point: if they tell her, she'll know they went out when they weren't allowed, and she'll tell the other parents, and "our homes become Alcatraz." They agree Eleven should stay hidden in the basement for at least one night.
Read Moreby Sandy DeVito
I love everything about 80's pop culture. Synthy electronic and power ballads, giant hair, neon lights, hunky dudes with mullets. I've often been caught proclaiming to friends that I wish I'd been a teen in the 80's. That would have been my time to shine, you know? I was born in 1987, so by the time I could walk, talk, read or ride a bike, I was well entrenched in the 90's, the age of Britney Spears, chokers, smiley faces and clogs. But like many of my generation (I guess I'm "first-wave millennial"?), something about the 80's really gets to me.
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