You’ve probably seen the abusive parent film before. You’ve also probably seen the inner city inspirational teacher film before too. There are certain conventions of postmodern dramas that keep cycling back, the previous two among them. In fact, you’ve likely seen both of these tropes in the same film. But you haven’t seen Precious (2009). Precious is something else.

Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire is a difficult film to sit through. Probably the most difficult I’ve seen since Million Dollar Baby (2004). It follows Clareece “Precious” Jones, an illiterate Harlem teen pregnant with her second child. At the suggestion of her principal, she enrolls in an alternative school that helps students get their GEDs, but this alone is not the solution to all her problems as she hoped it might be.

Unlike what the film’s trailer may suggest, Precious is not all heavy. There are a decent amount of laughs peppered throughout the film, starting as early as the opening sequence. Like any well executed drama, these moments of comedy are used to pace the film and offset some of the feature’s heavier themes. However, in this film unlike in others, the comedic sequences are handled in a way that is, itself, rather saddening: Precious uses her imagination to get her mind off of her troubles. While her father rapes her, for example, she pictures herself on a red carpet in a flowing dress, gossiping with paparazzi. There is humor in Precious, but the humor is also an interrogation: it forces the audience to ask itself “Why am I laughing?” “Is this really funny?” and “What’s really going on here?” They’re tough questions.

There are numerous performances I’d like to highlight from the film, but in the interest of space, there’s one I will focus on in particular. Gabourey Sidibe is the perfect Precious (hard to imagine it’s her first film!), Paula Patton as her inspirational teacher is touching, and Mariah Carey as the hard-hearted social worker is pitch perfect; but none of these ladies stands out quite like Mo’Nique as Mary, Precious’s abusive mother. The role requires her to walk a fine line between love and hate, which she does with expertise. Mary is a loose cannon, sedate one minute and volatile the next, her words and actions barbed with the same maternal menace. Every scene in which she’s in the room, Precious--and the audience, for that matter--may as well be in a cage with a tiger.

I had the excellent fortune of seeing Mo’Nique speak at USC last fall and, let me tell you, this is one woman who has been beaten around by the Hollywood machine. She built her career from nothing, and has, until now, only had crappy jobs to show for it. Her work almost discredits her name. But as anyone who’s ever heard her speak can attest, Mo’Nique is a very inspiring individual. She has a wonderful grace and love that one wouldn’t expect from a half-rate comedienne. But in Precious, she finally has a role fit for her ability. Mo’Nique didn’t leave a dry eye in the whole audience at the screening I attended. There is no doubt in my mind she will be nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Oscars this spring. And in fact, I’ll be damned if she doesn’t win it too.

Seriously stop whatever you’re doing and go see this movie! You won’t want to be sitting on your couch dumbfounded come March 7, 2010 when this picture steals the Academy Awards and you missed it.

Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire opens in select theaters this Friday, Nov. 6.

Paranormal Activity (2009) has been slaughtering--pardon the verb--the box office lately! Granted, This Is It (2009) won last weekend, but that’s not being reviewed because that’s not a real film. According to Box Office Mojo, Paranormal Activity, which only cost $15,000 to make, has raked in upwards of $80M domestically--a big win for Paramount. I’ve already made my opinion of the film clear, but regardless, that’s the horror film Halloweeners chose to see this weekend...which is unfortunate, but this is the film they should have seen.

The House of the Devil (2009) is the latest entry in a recent 70s/80s throwback trend: Black Dynamite (2009), Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Drag Me to Hell (2009) with it to name a few. This one in particular is a babysitter slasher about Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), a college student who answers an ad to babysit for a very curious family to make the money to pay her rent. When she arrives, she learns she’s actually watching an elderly lady and not a child as expected. This is the first signal of odd things to come--oddities that escalate to the fever pitch horror fans have come to expect by a film’s climax.

What’s probably most remarkable about this film is its unified vision. It is very clear, immediately, that writer/director/editor Ti West managed the film very closely to ensure every aspect was aesthetically uniform. The film is an homage to tropes of horror films from the 70s and 80s, but it updates the stakes so the images are more shocking or intense than they would have been during that time. Likewise, every aspect of the film feels lifted from decades past: similar framing, similar acting, very similar writing, and similar set dressing. It’s startlingly easy to forget this film was made in 2009, which is very cool.

Still though, like I said, the stakes are very much raised. The film may borrow from an earlier age, but it’s scary today. As a satanic horror of the occult, a sub-genre made rich by works like William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973) and John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness (1987), The House of the Devil fits right in (Casper). It gets under your skin.

See it, if you get the chance. Horror films like this one, with this much love and attention to detail, don’t come around that often. The House of the Devil is only playing in three theaters in the nation (the Sunset 5, for fellow Angelenos). But despite its limited release, it is a stellar, stellar film. If you care about the horror genre, particularly the future of the horror genre, at all, please go out and see this film.

Paranormal Activity (2009) is like a 1 1/2 hour YouTube video. Not to say there will be sneezing pandas or overtly intrigued chipmunks, but rather that you can’t expect high production values. The exposure sucks, the acting is nonexistent (to the film’s credit), and there seems to be little, if any, editorial hand at work here. But instead of being to the film’s detriment, these YouTube-esque qualities create quite a set up. The audience’s guard is down. They’re completely open to the utter worst of scares. If director Oren Peli had just pushed a little harder, this could have been the most frightening film of all time.

Paranormal Activity is about a young couple—“engaged to be engaged” as Micah (Micah Sloat) puts it—that moves in together only to find that their house has a third resident: a demon that pines after Katie (Katie Featherston). According to her, this demon has been following her for years. Periodically, over the course of her life, this monster has manifested in spectral shadows, or whispers in the wind. But only now has she had a boyfriend stupid enough to want to catch the hauntings on camera.
Every night, Micah sets his camera on a tripod in their bedroom, and we the audience watch minor disturbances—a door creaks slightly, a shadow passes, the sheets move. As one can imagine, these events build like a crescendo over the course of the film until the presence of a demon is almost irrefutable. There is also this very evident commitment to realism. You may have noticed that Katie and Micah use their real names. The visual effects are so well executed, if you didn’t know this was staged going in, you might actually think Paranormal Activity is a documentary. Well, to a point.

This is also a problem for the film. It becomes so committed to realism, that it never gets truly scary. It uses its low production values to lure an audience into letting their guard down, and ultimately doesn’t rattle them as much as it has the potential to. I’ll admit, certain moments got under my skin. But when the film ended, and the lights went up, a man in the row in front of me said, “That’s it? I want my money back.” My sentiments exactly. You feel cheated.

I mean, really, Paranormal Activity isn’t a bad movie. It’s risky, and daring, and very cool for accomplishing what it has. But I simply can’t recommend you go out of your way to see a film that will make you feel that cheated by the end. Not only is it not scary, but this cheesy bass sound cues in every time the demon is nearby, thus bracing you for its various attacks. And for a film that is as dedicated to realism as this, it certainly had a cop-out ending. Simply put, Paranormal Activity is one of those films you’ll either love or hate.

However, it is worth noting that the film, which cost $15,000 to make and only $300,000 for Paramount to buy according to the Los Angeles Times, has grossed $61M domestically, Box Office Mojo reports. In fact, despite having been in theaters since September, the film still beat out Saw VI (2009) which just opened, thus winning the weekend by a $7M margin. Hell, the brass at Paramount are already talking sequel. So if what I said is true, and this is a love-it-or-hate-it film, the nation seems to be loving it.

Step aside, sex slave trafficking. There’s a new breed of for-profit youth exploitation to hit the scene and it’s perfectly legal!

That’s right: child-driven publicity stunts! Traditionally, when people think of publicity stunts, they think of celebrities—Britney Spears’ infamous one-day marriage or Paris Hilton’s sex tape, for example.

Only today, however, are non-celebrities rocketing their way to stardom via the technique. You need only watch one episode of Toddlers in Tiaras to know what I mean. Enter the Exploitation of Offspring and their Parental Pimps.

The Horrible Heenes

Because it wasn’t dangerous enough to strap their three kids into the back seat while mom and dad went storm chasing, Richard and Mayumi Heene recently put one son directly in the line of fire to help them attain the American dream: having a reality show!

For the few, if any, who don’t know, on Thursday, Oct. 15, the Heenes contacted a local news affiliate (note: not the police) to say that they had strong reason to believe their 6-year-old son Falcon was aboard a homemade balloon drifting along the Colorado skyline. The balloon soon landed, empty, and a few hours later, Falcon was “found” hiding in the garage attic safe and sound.

Richard and Mayumi weren’t exposed for being the liars they are until that night, on Larry King Live, when Falcon confessed he thought his actions were “for a show.” And they were—the world quickly learned that the Heenes had crafted a publicity stunt to groom themselves for a reality TV show, and may have received some outside monetary help.

“Falcon seemed to struggle under the media glare,” the Los Angeles Times said in a recent article—“vomiting during live interviews Friday morning with Diane Sawyer and Meredith Vieira.”

For growing children, particularly those at the ripe young age of six, parents are supposed to be a moral compass, instructing their offspring the differences between right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable.

Instead of following through on this obligation, however, Richard and Mayumi taught their children how to lie to a nation (which Falcon didn’t seem to stomach very well), and taught the nation that, with enough money and a good enough scheme, even you can grab international media attention and waste time, energy, tax dollars…on non-news.

The Krazy Katey Eights

When asked about his opinion of Richard Heene, Jon Gosselin of TLC hit "Jon & Kate Plus 8" (since turned "Kate Plus 8") told Entertainment Tonight, “People shouldn’t be able to get away with stuff like that.” True. Also, people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.

On June 22, Jon and Kate Gosselin announced to the world—on their show, of course—that legal procedures had been set in motion for their divorce. Their reasons were unclear at the time, but the gossip machine quickly began to speculate that Jon was cheating on his wife, making their marriage “irretrievably broken” as Kate put it in their divorce papers.

But what about the kids? That is, the Gosselins’ 9-year-old twin daughters and 5-year-old sextuplets. Well, apparently, they haven’t been taking it well. Kate told Vanity Fair that her children have been acting out, and that they miss their father, but she’s “trying to give them the grace to see…[that] it’s all interconnected,” whatever the hell that means.

Ultimately, here’s the thing: when Sally and Harry Smith from down the street get divorced, they’re toddler James goes through a peculiar psychological trajectory; he wants to know, “What did I do to make my parents split?” Now imagine that same scenario on television and multiplied by eight.

What’s worse (and I don’t purport to be the biggest fan—I’ve only been able to stomach one episode, an entire hour devoted to a single plane ride that was borderline unwatchable) is every fight Jon and Kate have on their show stems from their children. The kids don’t need to speculate whether or not they drove their parents apart, they have televised evidence.

As former US Weekly editor Janice Min put it, we can all look forward to their psychological unraveling in “10, 15 years down the road [during] the E! True Hollywood Story: The Gosselin Kids.”

The Octomom
(nothing clever - her given name is scary enough)

In somewhat related news, Nadya “Octomom” Suleman told RadarOnline.com, “I kind of have a crush on Jon Gosselin.” Within seconds, TV executives began foaming at the mouth at the thought of some sick, reality show Brady Bunch variant.

On Jan. 26, 2009 Suleman, a former Los Angeles psychiatric (haha) technician, gave birth to eight children, two girls and six boys, in Bellflower, Calif. This little medical miracle was made possible by in-vitro fertilization. As the story goes, Suleman had six embryos left over from prior in-vitro treatments (which resulted in her six older children) and figured, “What the hell?, why not throw the rest of ‘em in? Lest they go to waste, of course.”

And the rest is history. Albeit, recent history.

So for those of you keeping count, that’s one mom (Suleman’s a divorcee), 14 kids, and zero jobs. With no source of income, the public became concerned that Suleman would become a burden on taxpayers. So what was the public response? Death threats!

That’s right, in the months between the Suleman octuplets’ births and now, three different public relations advisors have dropped Suleman as a client because of threats against agents’ lives. Great environment to raise a family in, eh?

But there is a happy ending to this story after all. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Suleman has landed a reality show in the UK. Which invites an important question: Did she get the TV show because of the kids, or did she have the kids to get the TV show? ‘Kind of like the chicken or the egg. Except twisted. Very twisted.

In Conclusion…

There’s a lesson to be learned here, fellow USC student. Aspiring to be the next John Carpenter or William Friedkin? Look no further than the news for inspiration! The most horrific things men and women do are done in the real world, not in fiction—to one another and to their own young alike. The plot for the next big slasher spec is sitting in the pages of today’s paper. It’s just on you to find it.

Before you read this review, I want you to watch this trailer. I've been pretty hard on a lot of film ad campaigns this year, because a lot of them have misrepresented their films so poorly, it's been impossible to ignore. So, for the first time, I'd like to applaud one for getting it right. This trailer is a symphony of sounds and feelings, frustrations and cacophonies that echo the frustrations and cacophonies of the film. A Serious Man (2009) is an utter symphony of tragedy, and this ad got it just right.

The film follows serious man Larry Gopnick (Michael Stuhlbarg) as his once peaceful suburban life accumulates a collection of minor inconveniences that compound one another to suffocate this modern-day Job. At work, as a physics professor, Larry's bid for tenure is threatened by a disgruntled Korean student who tries to bribe him for an "A." At home, Larry's wife asks for a divorce so she can be with the widower Sy Ableman (an absolutely outstanding performance by Fred Melamed). His son's quickly approaching bar mitzvah has him strapped for cash, and car repairs and his brother's legal troubles aren't exactly helping. All the while, Larry makes periodic visits to local rabbis, hoping to glean pearls of wisdom from their experience and religious learning.

As my opening paragraph likely suggests, this film has excellent sound design. And I'm not even saying it had any spectacularly great effects or a particularly stunning soundtrack (though the Jefferson Airplane motif was very much appreciated). I mean the way sight and sound engage in this dance-like, complementary give and take is stunning. The Coen brothers have often been applauded for their meticulous sound mixing, but I have never seen it more evident and superb than in this film.

Literarily, A Serious Man is what we've come to expect from Coen comedies. It hinges on subtleties and repetitions--repeated phrases, repeated shots, repeated situations. They've been making films for 25 years now, and they've gotten their techniques down to a fine art. A Serious Man runs like a well oiled machine, or at least as much as a stunning, original piece of art can run like a well oiled machine. Be aware that, while the Coen brothers are very highly respected by myself and other critics alike, they are an acquired taste. If you think their films are slow, and are often frustrated by their signature anti-climaxes (it happens three times in this one), you'll find this film slow and anticlimactic. But if you've liked even a single one of their previous films, I'm confident you'll love this one.

Stop whatever you're doing and go see this movie now! It's a sharp film. Certainly among their best. There is no better excuse to leave your house than this.

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell (2009) is very loosely based off of a Tucker Max book of the same name. The book is a compilation of short, unapologetic "autobiographical" stories about the author's insane sexual exploits in graphic detail. They're crude. They're misogynistic. And they're hilarious. The film is not. Well actually, the film is the first two. It's just one of those concepts that works in literature and absolutely doesn't in cinema. Allow me to explain:

The film I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell makes its first mistake by even attempting to tell a story. Were it a string of short vignette's about Tucker Max (Matt Czuchry), it might might work. But it's not. Instead, it's about Max as he takes his buddies Dan (Geoff Stults) and Drew (Jesse Bradford) up to Salem for Dan's bachelor party, as--of course--Max needs to find a strip club without a "no touch" policy. And they do.

This arc is accomplished in about 30 minutes, though really most of it is fluff and could've taken another film 10. Herein lies the second fault: there's no story to tell. Once whatever "plot" that arc constitutes is accomplished, the film diverges into a series of digressions, not knowing exactly what to care about. Do we follow Drew and his reluctant love for a quick-witted stripper? Or do we follow Dan as he's beaten in jail after being arrested for public indecency? Actually, maybe we're supposed to follow the protagonist Tucker. But, wait a minute, where is Tucker? Oh, that's right, the film actually forgets where the protagonist is for its entire second act. Only in a flashback in the third act do we learn that he was busy pursuing a promiscuous little person to scratch another notch into his proverbial bedpost--and of course he chases this act with a string of gratuitous, repulsive, politically incorrect "midget jokes."

The film's third problem is its writing, for numerous reasons. 1.) Audiences can't connect with a film in which the protagonist isn't likable. Tucker Max is utterly revolting, but somehow he always gets the girl and he's smart to boot! Seriously?! 2.) Things often don't make a lot of sense. For example, why would a bride-to-be and her overly conservative mother go shopping for a moonbounce (yes, a moonbounce) at 11 o'clock at night? Or if Tucker and his friends are college students--a stretch given that not a single one looks under 30--how the hell do they have so much money? And 3.) the writers of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, among whom the real Max himself is one, are of the mistaken belief that funny dialogue comes from just a bunch of naughty words and crass images strung end-to-end. The film does not contain a single laugh line in it. There is a pronounced line between shock and humor and this script stands safely on the former side.

Avoid touching this one with a ten foot pole. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is a strong candidate for the worst film I've ever seen. In my life. Oh, and if all the things I cited above weren't bad enough, it's also worth mentioning that the third act contains a 10 minute sequence in which Max actually defecates himself. Yeah. Explicitly. The only reason I didn't leave the theater is because I knew I'd be writing a review of the film. I suffered for you to know not to enter in the first place.

Unless you detest everything on TV or are an angry Republican who refuses to watch The Daily Show, you know who Aasif Mandvi is. He’s the token correspondent that generally covers stories dealing with India (where he was born) or the Middle East. In a recent episode, he yelled at Jon Stewart for not referring to him on the story dealing with the famous Indian actor Shah Rukh Khan: “I’m your Indian guy!... How could you not have called me on this?!” He’s been referred to as the “Senior Foreign Looking Correspondent” when reporting a story, although his official title changes often. While most of us know him in this role, he has actually done a lot outside of that comedic sphere. In fact, he got The Daily Show gig in 2006, which is fairly far into his career. What he considers his “big breakthrough” is his one-man show from 1998, Sakina’s Restaurant, which is based on his family’s experience as immigrants. He originally hales from Mumbai, India, but as a baby his family moved to England only to move again when he was a teenager to Tampa, Florida. He draws on the experiences he has had as an Indian that spent his formative years in England and ended up in the United States. At the time when he was performing Sakina’s Restaurant, he was interviewed by New York Daily News and addressed his issue with national identity: “When I go to India I am a foreigner, and when I am over here I am an immigrant. The fact that I grew up in England and I have been here for 17 years [makes it] a case of not really having your own place.” However, he seems to have found a home within acting and has been quoted saying that “being an artist is not a profession you choose, it chooses you.”

He has been a part of many productions on the stage and the screen. I was surprised to see that he played Ali Hakim in Oklahoma! on Broadway. I would never have pegged him as a singer, but you learn something new everyday… Aside from having a funny name and a funny shtick on The Daily Show, it seems that Aasif Mandvi has many insights to offer. Tonight, he will be engaging in a Q&A session with theater professor Luis Alfaro in Bovard Auditorium at 8 PM. Do not fret fellow poor college students, this event is FREE. I will be the first to admit that I only know him from his work on The Daily Show, which was enough to get me to go to this event, but since learning about his complex background there is an added dimension to what we can learn from him.

If you are interested in Spanish culture and music or want to learn more about it while helping a good cause come to “Spanish Music and Culture Fighting against Cancer” at Bovard Auditorium on Saturday, May 3rd at 6:30pm for the free concert.

The Honorable Inocencio Arias, consul general of Spain to Los Angeles, is hosting the concert that will feature music from composers like Javier Navarrete, (Academy Award Nominee for "Pan’s Labyrinth") Roger Julia, “The Garden of Eden,” and Grammy Award winner Juan Jose Colomer. Benefits will go to The Wellness Community, an organization focused on education and support for individuals who have had cancer.

“People put emphasis on treatment and prevention, but what happens after someone has had cancer?” asks Pablo Ortiz Urbina, co-organizer of the concert, when explaining the choice of the beneficiary organization. With composer and USC alum Oscar Navarro, Urbina has been putting all the pieces together over the last few months.

The connection to after-care for cancer patients stems from Urbina’s own experience with the matter. His mother twice had breast cancer. This tragic event created Urbina’s emotional connection to the care for cancer survivors and has motivated him to help others faced with the same challenges. Urbina has composed a piece for the event, “MIA TErra”, which is dedicated to his mother.

Another motivation for Urbina has been the inherent urgency to “always be active.” A junior majoring in french horn performance at USC, Urbina injured his lip at the beginning of the academic year, which has forced him to stop performing temporarily. Instead of being depressed, he used these eight hours of free-time a day to organize the concert at USC.

What started as a small on-campus recital has turned into a major happening that might feature Los Angeles Lakers star Pau Gasol and Hollywood actor Antonio Banderas.

Urbina has taken an optimistic and proactive approach throughout the planning phases of this event. What started out as a small recital bringing together Spanish musicians and prominent Spanish personalities in Los Angeles quickly grew when Urbina saw the opportunity to organize something grand once he got the additional financial support from organizations like the USC Residential Education Office, Office of Tourism of Spain, and the Thornton School of Music among others.

The increase in size of the event plays into Urbina’s view of learning: “There is nothing more powerful than big events on campus that are genuinely good.”

He says that it is an invaluable lesson for students to learn outside the classroom but more importantly, about how individuals can make a difference if they put their minds to it. “The university wants students to be leaders. Engaging with the community, with organizations and influential people is a big step towards that.”

Urbina found the campus environment to be very beneficial for organizing these kinds of events. “Can you do great things in college? Yes! Although there are land mines along the way, if you push the negative parts out of the way you can always find a path to your goal, especially if the idea is worth the support and your time.” Urbina emphasizes the importance of reaching out to people, building a network and talking to everyone in achieving great things for the community.

The obstacles of organizing such an event are mostly related to lack of support and respect by some of the people or organizations approached.

When asked why some people want to help and others don’t, Urbina answered: “Some people seem to ignore the help they have gotten along the way or are just blind. I don’t believe in people saying ‘I earned it.’ Whatever your convictions, call it god, luck, fate, friends, etc., there must be some support that got you where you are. I want to say in the end that ‘I worked for this.’” Authentic to his statement, Urbina mentions his co-organizer Oscar Navarro every time he talks about the organization of the event.

“If you help others, they will help you. That is my motto.” Urbina repeats the importance of other people and brings across his message of respect towards others. “In today’s world,” he says, “Many people might have the same idea to do an event like this; the level of respect a person brings forth in persuading people of the goodness and purpose of his event is what will eventually make the difference.” He adds, “Always keep a sense of dignity, respect and professional approach in the things you do.”

Despite production largely being restricted by oppressive governments and unstable filming conditions, a new movement appears to be gaining momentum in the Middle East. “There are plenty of up-and-coming filmmakers [in Palestine], but it feels as if they are noteworthy because they are Palestinian, [which] is controversial,” explains Amanda Georges, a junior double majoring in critical studies and print journalism. Films like Persepolis and Paradise Now—both recently screened at USC—are Iran and Palestine’s answer to Hollywoodian stereotypes of the region. In the midst of violence, Lebanon and Iran have a blossoming art scene: the underground art movement appears to be keeping Middle Eastern films alive.

Alex Shams, a junior majoring in international relations and co-president of Students for Justice in Palestine, compared the flourishing art culture to the art scene in Prague during Soviet rule. “Oppression breeds creativity. The art scene in Prague is still wonderful, but it was still more vibrant under the Soviets,” noted Shams.

Courtesy of Kristan Culbert

The idea seems counterintuitive. Typically, artists are constantly challenging the constraints of whatever system they’ve been subject to, pushing the boundaries of their freedoms to expression and unregulated speech. Enthusiastically embracing pro-federalist ideals under the watchful eyes of especially oppressive leaders like Kim Jong-Il is pretty atypical art fare. Historically speaking, it has been especially trendy for rulers to use art to accomplish certain goals. Pharaohs asserted their assumed immortality by insisting on building gigantic tombs instead of requesting that their ashes be spread along the Nile. Many a Roman senator requested that their sculptors gave their marble were gratuitous with the facial hair and wrinkles to make themselves appear particularly wizened while their wives looked as wrinkle-free as possible. In every painting that he is in, Napoleon is about six feet tall. If a ruler screwed up during their reign, their art—their stronghold on immortality—was essentially erased from history. Amenhotep IV, who ruled Egypt between 1350 and 1330 BCE, made the mistake of trying to sell monotheism to the Egyptians and earned himself the honorary title of “The Enemy”. Unfortunately, Nefertiti was not able to talk any sense into him, and his predecessors decided to recycle his incredible monuments as building materials for their own temples.

The rise of contemporary art in the Middle East is best compared to the celebrated Shakespearean sonnet. At first glance, sonnets appear to be pretty cliché, and usually invoke images of scenes pulled from sappy romance novels. But, with further examination, the sonnet clearly distinguishes itself as an art form. The restrictions on its meter and a simple rhyme scheme give sonnets a musical quality that has been immortalized many times over. In the same way, each successful body of artwork being produced in the Middle East is merely part of a poem tightly bound to the laws (or lack of) of society. Instead of completely choking off the flow of new ideas, censorship gives way to ingenuity. The rules of oppressive regimes are as strict as iambic pentameter, and the results are just as poetic. Inevitably, art is a bridge over troubled water.

Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is hosting the university’s first Middle Eastern film festival. The festival, which started on April 1, will continue screening award-winning films in Leavey Auditorium at 6 p.m. every Wednesday until April 29. Admission is free and open to all. USC’s Levan Institute hosted a March 24 screening of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, which was followed by a book signing and discussion with Firoozeh Dumas about her best-selling memoir Laughing With an Accent.

Fast & Furious (2009)
Dir. Justin Lin
Starring Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, and Michelle Rodriguez
MPAA: PG-13

The year 2009 has seen a pattern of action movies producing returns that fall far short of their oversized production budgets. At least, it appeared that way until Monday, April 6^th changed everything. Fast & Furious (2009) the fourth film in the “The Fast and the Furious” series, rounded out its opening weekend with a gross of $72.5M—the biggest opening of 2009 thus far, the biggest April opening of all time, the biggest in the franchise thus far, and the biggest opening for Universal of all time, says Entertainment Weekly. According to the $800M production budget reported by USA Today it looks like it will actually turn a profit!

So why did this happen? What is it about this film that made it so successful?

That’s the exact question film blog Cinematical asked its readers in the article “Why Did YOU Go See ‘Fast & Furious?’” Answers range from “My friend made me go…” to “I had nothing else to do…” to (gasp!) “I enjoy these films.” The general consensus, however, seems to be that viewers see these films as guilty pleasures: Films they know are bad, but which they are willing to pay for simply because of the attractive women and intense chase sequences.

Freshman Christie Lee, a Global Marketing major in the Marshall School of Business, says she decided to see the film because she “loved all the other ones.”

“I just like movies like that,” she continued, citing Fast & Furious with films “like The Italian Job (2003)” as a genre she enjoys. Though she concluded by saying this latest entry was good, she “still [thinks] the third one was better.”

But setting all the he-said/she-said aside, what definitively makes this installment more attractive to viewers than any of its predecessors? The general consensus seems to point to the film’s tagline for answers: “New Model. Original Parts.” The foundation of the franchise’s fan base jumped on board for the original The Fast and the Furious (2001), which netted a staggering $107M profit according to USA Today. This fan base appreciates a film that not only marks Vin Diesel’s return to the series, but promises 107 minutes of action, excitement, and (another gasp!) character development.

That’s right, if you actually care about the saga between Dominic “Dom” Toretto (Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker), know that the film makes some valiant attempt to resolve their drama. This aspect doesn’t make it a good movie—in fact, the plot-heavy sequences are arguably the worst parts—but if the character work actually captivated you in the first film, and if you like car-related action movies and the series’ predecessors, you will probably enjoy Fast & Furious. Hey, 7,520,000 people can’t be wrong, can they?