Pop Culture & Class

James McAvoy's anxiety "about a society that doesn't give opportunities to everybody from every walk of life" reminded me of a few other recent comments about art and class: Julie Walter's and Judi Dench's in particular. This was only further compounded by a thinktank's analysis of Grammy wins over the last few decades: the study concluded that music was the whitest it had been in over thirty years (while not all white people are privileged, they are more likely to be a higher class than minorities).

This week in T-POP! News: 9/02/2015

I went to a concert. Pretty cool. I also started three essays. Also pretty cool. Didn't finish them. Not cool at all.

This week in T-POP! News:

[T-POP! News is a new semi-weekly feature I will be running from here on out. T-POP!, of course, stands for The-Person of Porlock, which is semi-similar to the name of this blog, that I run.]

The Tale of the Princess Kaguya - Isao Takahata

The whole film is in this style, as an example. I think this is just a screengrab they decided would make a good poster. They were right.

From the moment it bursts onto screen, Princess Kaguya has a fairy tale sensibility. The visuals look like they jumped straight out of a story book, and the narration only compounds this. And despite it being visible to these Western eyes, it still felt very Japanese. The art is similar to that of the classic Japanese paintings (does anyone know what that's called?), and it was based on the first written Japanese story (extant, anyway).

Selma (On Historical Inaccuracies and Race)

I haven't yet seen Selma, but I know of the fuss raised by two aides to President Johnson (also the custodians to his library?? Why is that a thing). So obviously, they have no potential bias about this. In basic form, the two aides believe that Selma portrayed President Johnson unfairly (I guess saying that the FBI bugged King, Johnson was more interested in Vietnam than civil rights and the Selma-Montgomery march was King's, not Johnson's, idea-all true, by the by-is unfair now).

Boyhood - Richard Linklater

According to Salon, Boyhood "isn’t quite like anything else in the history of cinema". I disagree. Like, a lot. There was one part of Boyhood that I felt I hadn't seen before (sure, a lot of it in Skins&nbspand teen movies, but what makes them any lesser than Boyhood?), and I'll get onto that in a while.

Oscars Challenge 2K15

I'm trying to watch every Best Picture nominee (and a few others) this year before the Oscars happen on... the 22nd of February. Wish me luck!