Molly Speacht

2011 is winding down, exams are picking up, and here at The Eye we're feeling all sorts of bittersweet about our last issue of the semester. To commemorate a year well done (or just plain done), this week's lead story features nine editor's opinions on the Best of 2011. Over the next couple of days we'll be featuring additional stories on Spectrum—today, check out Molly Speacht's Best of 2011, with the "Best Netflix Binge." Every Friday, I make a vow to myself: I WILL work all day on Saturday. I WON'T leave all my work until Saturday night and have a panic-induced breakdown in Butler 209 at three in the morning. Do I often keep this promise to myself? What do you think? Of course not. Though it's not like I don't try. I set my alarm for 10AM, which should be a reasonable time for a normal human being to wake up on a Saturday morning. After hitting the snooze button until one, I try to convince myself to take a shower, put on real clothes, and responsibly head to the library.more But then I think to myself, "I have such a warm, big comfortable single in a suite that is relatively quiet during the day—perfect conditions for optimum concentration. And, in the time it takes me to get ready to go to Butler, I could memorize Czech numbers 1 to 90. But, then again, I have all day to study so watching one hour of something wouldn't be bad. It's Saturday after all. I deserve to relax. And oh damn, Netflix streaming is getting better and better these days..." And there goes my productive Saturday. But there was one specific Netflix binge that I thought particularly worth staying up until 4AM on Sunday night—The Walking Dead. I watched the entire first season in one day. This feat I accomplished could be considered either extremely impressive or pathetic depending on your perspective, but—to ensure that I don't seem like a complete shut-in—the first season is only six riveting hours long. And this show is hard to stop watching. Every episode ends with a WTF invoking cliffhanger, making it all too easy to click the Next Episode button. Not only does the series provide a decent amount of zombie blood and gore, but it also takes an interesting and deeply emotional look at human relationships in a post apocalyptic world. When modern society as we know it completely breaks down, how are race, class and gender relations affected? When do people stop working together and start just looking out for themselves in this cruel world? Although I do check Sidereel for the new episode every Sunday night, the second season hasn't been nearly as fast-paced and addictive. It's slowed down a bit, and maybe that's not a bad thing. But, for me, watching the first season that Saturday was like eating a bag of fun-sized candy bars—you can't stop eating them until you're surprised to reach the end and you're left wanting more. Oh great, now I'm making myself sound like a fat ass too. Oh well, you get the point.

Oscar buzz is growing—nominations for the February 27th ceremony are revealed tomorrow night. The event, hosted by the uncontroversial Anne Hathaway and former Columbian James Franco, promises to be, well, as tepid as every other Academy Awards. And while the ceremony may rely on the same bad jokes and the same emotional speeches, the movies involved have not gone without their share of controversy. Take Derek Cianfrance's Blue Valentine and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan—two films garnering attention for something a little different.

Scream if you love all things meta! Last Sunday I saw Scream 4, the new installment in Wes Craven's slasher series. The film is no doubt a lot of fun—I even jumped a few times. But is that enough? Or is Scream 4 so interested in being hip and self-reflexive that it forgot to actually make its audience shriek? more The first Scream proved a master combination of satire and truly terrifying horror. Craven simultaneously winked at us and disturbed us with how his characters applied the rules they had learned from Freddy and Jason to the very horror film they were living. In the opening scene of the first film, Drew Barrymore heats up popcorn and gets ready to watch a scary movie. Suddenly she gets a phone call from a mysterious caller. "What's your favorite scary movie?" asks the caller. With this, and with what follows, the audience is asked its own set of questions. How much can someone really learn from scary movies? And what if that someone suddenly snaps? This new installment plays with a similar theme, but in a pretty obvious effort to be cool with the new Facebook generation. The characters are texting and live webblogging. Hell, even Ghostface is filming and webcasting his own murders. The problem is that much of the dialogue sounds like someone older is trying to make hackneyed commentary about today's youth (indeed veteran Scream screenwriter Kevin Williamson, although still very clever, is 46). Sure, we love twittering, posting statuses about everything from how we feel to what we ate for breakfast, but I'm sure Williamson could think of something a little bit more original than that. We're a little bit more complex than just fame-hungry kids attached to our iPhones, right? This isn't to say that Scream 4 was totally unoriginal. The opening sequence both ridicules the state of horror today ("torture porn") and jokes at its own involvement with horror movie clichés. Since the first Scream's first scene, with the infamous killing of the film's biggest star, Barrymore, the franchise has been offing young starlets before the opening credits. Scream 4 rips this convention apart in the scariest and funniest sequence of the movie, using not just one, but several young Hollywood ingénues as initial victims. The end nods to the original, and features a surprising and ballsy twist. So you probably won't have nightmares for weeks, but Scream 4 is definitely a bloody good time at the movies.

One night when my parents weren't home, a middle-school-me had HBO all to herself. While flipping through the channels, I came across something entirely new, strange, and at that time, profound—Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko. I caught it midway through, but was hooked from the beginning right through the end, an end that truly blew my 13-year-old mind. "Best. Movie. Ever," I declared. I told all my friends about it and persuaded my mom to buy it for me within a week. I spent days watching it over and over again trying to unravel the ending. I have to admit—I still don't really understand it. more So why was Donnie Darko such an important film for me and other cult film fanatics? When the film was released in theaters it was a total bomb, grossing only $4.1 million worldwide. Indeed, one of the main characters is a man in a giant bunny suit delivering apocalyptic prophecies. That may be the recipe for a perfect cult film—but maybe not a blockbuster. Still, I'm not sure how anyone could resist Darko—after all, Jake Gyllenhaal was at his emo-dream-boat best, and the use of Tears for Fears in one scene is killer. The movie was high school angst with a Lynchian flair. That's why 10 years after its release, Donnie Darko is still a cult classic. Just as Kelly did with Donnie Darko, cult director Gregg Araki tries to capture this mix of surrealism and adolescence in his new film Kaboom. This time, though, it's in college and has a lot more sex. In super-saturated color, the bisexual main character Smith and his friend Stella frolic and bone around campus. Things start to get weird, however, when people in animal masks (sound familiar?) start committing brutal crimes. Is this sense of strange enough to give it cult status? I'm not sure—but I'm not a huge fan of Araki's work. His 2004 drama Mysterious Skin left me cold, and the only saving grace of the film was a brilliant performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. And while I found Kaboom much more enjoyable than Mysterious Skin (it didn't take itself so seriously), I didn't find the soapy trash fun enough to call it a new cult hit. Araki can try all he wants to create his own Donnie Darko for the hookup generation, but to me he can't top Kelly's warped masterpiece. I'm not in middle school anymore, and Donnie Darko is certainly no longer my favorite movie. But for some reason I find that end-of-the-world thriller strangely comforting—in a way that Araki's Kaboom just isn't. To me and other fans, the words "cellar door" will always be beautiful.

Don't have a Valentine today? Is your sweetheart too far away to bring you a box of chocolate? Felt awkward going to Hewitt's Valentine-themed dinner? If you answered "yes" to any of these, cuddle up with a pint of Ben and Jerry's, turn on these tunes, and feel comforted by the fact that love really does suck. more How Can You Mend a Broken Heart---Al Green This tune from the king of sexy R&B allows any lonely heart to shamelessly sob out the sadness. Okay, okay, if Al Green doesn't know how to mend a broken heart, I'm not sure who does---but who needs love anyways? Fistful of Love---Antony and the Johnsons I know you don't have a boyfriend/girlfriend tonight, but console yourself by really paying attention to the lyrics in this one---at least you're not singing about how your partner's "fist" is out of love. All I Could Do is Cry---Etta James Have you ever seen the love of your life walk down the aisle with someone else? Didn't think so. Love is a Losing Game---Amy Winehouse Love should be classified as its own sport with all the game-themed clichés it commands. Somehow, most of these end up being positive (Love is a game that two can play and both win, for instance.) Instead, listen to Amy as she tells it like it really is. Somebody to Love---Queen Why wallow in quiet desperation when you can sing along to this arena-rock anthem? Tease your hair into an acceptable 80s mullet, "get down on your knees," and "start to pray"---just don't be embarrassed that the rest of your floor knows you're suffering. Independent Woman---Destiny's Child End the night on a positive note with this DC classic. Beyoncé belted this song out even before Jay-Z. So pride yourself on being an independent woman (man) or single lady (gent) for now, and have hope that one day, maybe, you'll be able to hook yourself an international rap-star boyfriend.

Columbia alums are conquering the blogosphere. In a recent New York Times article, 2004 SEAS graduate Jared Eng's website, justjared.com, was praised for its "nice-guy" approach to celebrity blogging. Juli Weiner, BC '10, a past Bwog editor, now works as a full-time blogger for Vanity Fair, reporting on topics from Sarah Palin's "blood libel" speech to MTV's Skins. In an era where everything must be quick and easy to understand, blogs and bloggers dominate the news media. As a result, aspiring student journalists find that putting their work online gives them an opportunity to seek national attention and develop their craft without anything more than a computer and an opinion. Noel Duan, CC '13, co-founder of Columbia's fashion magazine Hoot, started her fashion blog, Miss Couturable, the summer before her junior year of high school, in an attempt to connect with other "fashion geeks." Duan's writing style and knowledge of couture gained her a relatively large following while she was still in high school, especially after several prominent fashion bloggers began linking to her site. Duan recalls that although creating a blog is a breeze, maintaining it is another story. "Unless you're Kanye West, you won't get thousands of readers overnight, and you really have to build your niche in the blog world to separate yourself from everyone else." Once Duan built her niche, she started enjoying the many perks of creating a popular fashion site. After reading her blog, shopping site ideeli.com asked her to be a Fashion Week correspondent. TeenVogue.com and IHeartDaily.com have both featured her. She represented her blog at Fashion Week and has had the opportunity to meet numerous editors and bloggers in the industry. Although writing Miss Couturable has taught her many skills that will help her become a fashion editor, Duan insists that she did not start the blog to build up her résumé. "I didn't start Hoot or Miss Couturable as 'stepping stones' for working in fashion. Instead, they were creative outlets that I thought would be fun projects to pursue." Another example of a highly successful student-run blog is IvyGate­—one of the most-read blogs for Ivy League gossip, sports, and news. Frequent Spectator contributor Constance Boozer, CC '13, learned about IvyGate through a link on Bwog's homepage. "I periodically read it throughout my freshman year. This past summer, I was bored so I applied to be a summer guest editor for IvyGate. I thought it would help pass the time, give me some writing experience, and it could be something to put on my résumé." She soon became one of the editors in chief, without any blogging, journalism, or extracurricular writing experience. Founded by Chris Beam, CC '06, and Nick Summers, CC '05, in 2006 (now reporters for Slate and Newsweek, respectively), IvyGate gained national attention through its irreverent coverage of life at the Ivies. "It is a comprehensive forum for news in the Ivy League," Boozer says. "Although campus-based blogs offer the same news and at times even better coverage, IvyGate helps streamline news from each campus in one location. "One of my other editors picked up the 'Social Experiment' promptly after Bwog, which New York Magazine picked up from us, and we all know the end of that story in regard to the national media," says Boozer. Even the most successful blogs must deal with cruel critics who have the freedom to tear apart a post anonymously. "Once a comment thread was over 80 comments long because some people were bashing me and some people were defending me—all anonymously," Duan said. "If you write a blog, you have to develop tough skin and learn to take criticism well, in addition to knowing when to ignore the comments." Student bloggers also have to juggle a hectic online life with a heavy course load. Eliza Shapiro, CC '12, Bwog's editor in chief, says "Bwog always came first to me during my year of Bwog editing, and it has come first for every other Bwog editor, because that's what it takes to be a good Bwog editor. I'm lucky enough to actually enjoy school and I was able to strike a balance between academics and Bwog, but Bwog was always more important." There is no doubt that creating or working at a successful blog gave these Columbia students skills and opportunities that will help them once they graduate. But is being a blogger essential to working in journalism in the future? Shapiro doesn't think so. "Working hard and producing constantly—you're only as good as your last story—are the only résumé musts for aspiring journalists. And those points don't go on a résumé."

In the 2009 cinematic adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, hacker heroine Lisbeth Salander is handcuffed to a bed, gagged, and savagely raped by her legal guardian. The scene is hard to watch, and it is not the only sexually violent scene in the movie. I enjoyed this film, yet walking out of theater, I couldn't help but feel guilty for finding pleasure in a movie that featured such horrible violence. By paying for my ticket, was I encouraging sexual brutality? Graphic rape, sexual humiliation, and mutilation are not just fodder for NC-17- rated art films and pornography anymore. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (the original Swedish title translates to Men Who Hate Women) grossed more than $10 million in only 202 theaters in the U.S. and has already been remade into an English-language film by David Fincher, set to release Dec. 2011. Big Hollywood names (Dakota Fanning in Hounddog, Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgård in the recent remake of Straw Dogs) are starring in films portraying sexual violence, and even more notably, graphic films are featured at renowned film festivals (like Lars von Trier's Antichrist at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival). Sexual violence has become mainstream in the last few years—it has also pervaded TV programming. With a weekly viewership of 15.2 million, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is one of the most popular shows on television. Columbia professor and media expert David Eisenbach believes that there is a perverse attraction in watching violence, particularly sexual violence, on screen. "Especially with shows like SVU, [watching sexual violence] gives us the vicarious experience of the victim and the bad guy, but it ties it up at the end as the case is solved, " Eisenbach, an expert on media and sexual politics, says. "The bad guy gets punished and it gets us off the hook. There is an attraction for a lot of people. It pushes the boundaries of acceptability." An interesting subset of the sexually violent film is called "the rape revenge film"—films where the victimized get brutal vengeance on their victimizers. In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth returns to her victimizer's house, strips him naked, and sodomizes him. This is a horrific scene, but perhaps also a justifiable and almost therapeutic one. In fact, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network responded positively to the film and encouraged screenings. This is certainly not the first film where the victim inflicts brutal revenge on her rapist, but it is notable for Lisbeth's own use of sexual violence. Is this contradiction a sign of something dangerous, perhaps sending out a message that sexual violence should be avenged with more sexual violence? According to Columbia film professor Richard Peña, viewers don't all react the same way to these images, and it's therefore dangerous to make these types of generalizations. "I think the contradiction is precisely the point, which is why I think it is so hard to generalize—or worse—legislate against scenes of violence or rape," Peña explains. "Do some people enjoy these scenes? Probably. Are some people turned off by violence because of the brutality of those scenes? Probably. There is no rule nor any real way of determining what it should be." On the other hand, other sexually violent films seem to have a much less feminist slant. The practice of eroticizing rape can be seen in films from David Lynch's Blue Velvet to Ang Lee's Lust, Caution. The 1971 film Straw Dogs, which inspired a recent remake, takes that idea one step further—Susan George's character is taken forcibly, but then seems to enjoy the rape. Intermingling rape with arousal seems like a dangerous representation. Eisenbach questions if filmic representations really influence emulation."There are plenty of studies that go either way on whether violent films—or in this case, sexually violent films—actually impact behavior," says Eisenbach. "I've seen studies that say it does and studies that say it doesn't." What interests Eisenbach more, however, is what the replacement of sex with rape says about the pulse of the culture. "I think there is a great deal of anger out there, and I think that plays into sadomasochism in our culture right now," Eisenbach states. "I think the economy has something to do with that." With sexual brutality pervading film and television, the real question is whether filmmakers and distributors are filling or creating this disturbing demand. A desire to watch graphic scenes is perhaps something that has always been part of the public consciousness, as there is no concrete proof that watching violence, sexual or non-sexual, breeds violence. "Japan has some of the most horrifically violent popular culture imaginable—some Hollywood films, such as Basic Instinct, actually prepare a "Japanese cut" considered too violent for American audiences. Yet Japan is one of the most peaceful countries in the world," Peña says. "So perhaps all the violent imagery and stories serve as some kind of pressure valve—seeing so much in the media lessens the desire to see —(and do) it— for real." Perhaps, film reflects, rather than creates, the deepest and darkest desires of humankind. "The human psyche is a dark space," explains Eisenbach. "Directors and writers satisfy these desires, and now can do it in ways that were unimaginable 20 years ago."

Breaking with recent tradition, Columbia's special events club Bacchanal has decided to host a fall concert this year in addition to its annual spring one. The revived installment will feature notorious rapper Mickey Avalon, along with Columbia's own band Night Eyes, and will take place tonight at 9:30 p.m. in Lerner's Roone Arledge Auditorium. Bacchanal Co-President Jody Zellman, GS, hopes the concert will offer students a way to reduce stress. "Seeing as the time in between Thanksgiving and finals is the most stressful, we are putting on a show that will be a stress-diffusing great time as well as an entertaining spectacle," Zellman said. Co-President Alex Kirk, CC '11, added that the club thought that one big event in anticipation of the annual spring concert would put Bacchanal's budget to better use than a few, low-attended, smaller events. "We aren't trying to replicate the spring concert," she said, "but rather create a new event in the fall that will concentrate our programming on a larger and more successful event like when we had Bob Saget come last year." Kirk, for one, expects the rapper to be a real crowd-pleaser. "He's a lot of fun and puts on high energy shows that I think a lot of students will enjoy," she said. The opening act Night Eyes, formerly known as SSSEN, consists of Alex Klein, CC '12, and Anthony Natoli from NYU. The student band has experienced a recent string of successes—their new EP "Exhale" was recently released on iTunes, and another song is featured in a promotional clip for MTV's new series "Skins." Kirk said that the club chose Night Eyes because Klein is a well-known campus figure and that the club wanted a change from the kind of bands recently chosen for their spring concert. "We haven't had an electronic group perform in the last few years so we thought we'd mix things up a bit this year," Kirk said. Klein said that the Bacchanal organizers originally wanted to hire him alone as a DJ for the event, but he convinced them to hire the band. Klein said that Bacchanal "was looking for a DJ because they didn't want to start with a rock band, but when I convinced them that we are definitely not a rock band and play dance music, they decided to have us open." By having Night Eyes open for Mickey Avalon, the Bacchanal club hopes to help the band gain further notoriety around campus. "We know that by incorporating student performers into Bacchanal events has the potential to open bigger doors for them as performers," Zellman said. Night Eyes wants to give a performance worthy of their famous headliner. "We're really psyched for the show," Klein said. "We just recently started syncing up lights that flash to the beat when we perform so it should be a crazy visual experience as well." Natoli of Night Eyes also added that he is excited to be a part of a concert at Columbia. "Playing for Columbia students is great because they're open to new and experimental sounds and because they need to thrash their pain away," he said. In tune with its spring counterpart, Zellman hopes the fall concert could also become a Columbia tradition in the future. "The fall concert is our latest effort to provide students with a means of enjoyment outside of Netflix," Zellman said. "If we can get the tradition rolling, the fall concert will turn into an annual pre-game to the wonder that is the spring concert."