Summer 2016 and 1980’s Nostalgia /  by Roxanne Teti

Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016)

Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016)

The Netflix TV Show, Stranger Things set the precedent for the summer of all things nostalgia—reminding us that “throwback” and reminiscing of a pastime is an integral part of the human experience. Stranger Things excited older and newer generations of viewers by explicitly drawing from our favorite Sci-Fi movies, TV shows, and 80’s ephemera. 

On the same topic of nostalgia and it’s universal potential to reach both the old and new generations, Kanye West released his music video for Fade tonight at the 2016 VMA’s and “throwback” was written all over it. For those who have not watched Fade yet, the video features Teyana Taylor, nearly naked, dancing in a gym, sweaty and wet, to a strikingly familiar dance sequence from the 1983 film Flashdance.

Fade (Kanye West, 2016)

Fade (Kanye West, 2016)

While still performing within a more modern context, Taylor channels Jennifer Beals in a deliberately candid fashion. All over the Internet, people and publications are talking about Fade, as a video paying homage to Flashdance but I wonder if West will recognize his blatant "rip off" as “high art” or nostalgia driven imagery inspired by an iconic film? West is not known for his humble nature.

Women In Film Spotlight: Thelma Schoonmaker /  by Roxanne Teti

Thelma Schoonmaker (Academy Awards, 2004)

Thelma Schoonmaker is one of the best film editors of our time. For over forty years, she has worked closely with director Martin Scorsese and has earned seven Academy Award nominations, winning three Oscars for Best Film Editing for Raging Bull (1980), The Aviator (2004), and The Departed (2006). 

Schoonmaker is from an American family but was born in Algiers, French Algeria and lived there until she was a teenager. In 1955, she immigrated to the United States and attended Cornell University in 1957. After college, Schoonmaker continued graduate school education at Columbia University and while studying at Columbia she enrolled in a six-week filmmaking class at New York University. At NYU a professor suggested that she help a young Martin Scorsese with editing his short film, What's a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This (1963). Shortly after Schoonmaker went on to edit Scorsese’s first feature film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, (1967). 

Even though she clearly possessed a great amount of talent, Schoonmaker like many other aspiring filmmakers, especially those who were female, experienced significant resistance for twelve years while trying to gain membership to the Motion Picture Editors Guild. She had to serve five years as an apprentice and three additional years as an assistant as well as overcome the implicit barriers due to gender bias in the film industry. When Scorsese started working on Raging Bull he wanted no one but Schoonmaker to edit the film. In turn, the director had his lawyers accelerate her membership into the union. Thus Schoonmaker was finally accepted into the guild and showcased her genius after Raging Bull won the Oscar for Best Film Editing. Schoonmaker's style and creative approach is especially evident in the way she constructs the final fight scene montage between Jake Lamotta and Sugar Ray Robinson, a scene in film history we now deem masterful and iconic. From that point moving forward, Schoonmaker worked on every single one of Scorsese’s films. 

Editing is one of the most difficult tasks of filmmaking, as you must not only exhibit a strong creative intuition but also a deep confidence to make firm decisions and “cuts” for the better good of the story. In addition to breaking through the celluloid glass ceiling, Schoonmaker is one of cinema’s best talents and continues to contribute her expertise and vision to the ever evolving art form. Schoonmaker recently finished editing Scorcese's passion project, Silence (2016), a story based on a book about two Jesuit priests who are subjected to persecution when trying to bring Christianity to Japan. Look out for Schoonmaker's work as Silence comes to theaters in November. 

“I’m not a person who believes in the great difference between women and men as editors. But I do think that quality is key. We’re very good at organizing and discipline and patience, and patience is 50 per cent of editing. You have to keep banging away at something until you get it to work. I think women are maybe better at that.”
— Thelma Schoonmaker

Twitter, When Will You Step Up? /  by Roxanne Teti

Ghostbusters (Village Roadshow Pictures, 2016)

Since the new Ghostbusters' trailer was released, the remake has experienced a great deal of criticism for its “all-female” cast. However Ghostbusters’ star, Leslie Jones, has not only experienced disapproval from the typical Internet "fanboys" but has also been attacked by abusive Twitter users. For the past month or so, Jones has been harassed by a group of accounts that have been sending her racist messages fueled with hatred as well as offensive images of pornography. In response, Paul Feig, director of Ghostbusters (2016), along with celebrities William Shatner and Margaret Cho have been using the hashtag #LoveforLeslieJ to express their support for the actress. Despite efforts to rally positive solidarity around Jones, the star recently announced that she would be leaving Twitter. 

For some time now, Twitter has been scrutinized for its lack of “control” over users posting hateful content. With regards to Jones’ recent departure from the Twitter platform, the social media company issued a response saying, “we rely on people to report this type of behavior to us, but we are continuing to invest heavily in improving our tools and enforcement systems to prevent this kind of abuse.” 

Back in May, Facebook announced they would be investing in and researching the potential use of artificial intelligence systems to help censor the uploading of pornographic or hateful images before they reach the user interface—thereby inhibiting people from being exposed to this content from the start. Using AI, Facebook would be deploying a more proactive approach to blocking abusive users from expressing hurtful content on their social network. It's quite clear and now especially relevant with the recent attack on Jones that Twitter needs to only develop stricter guidelines to their platform but also utilize a more sophisticated technology that can help ameliorate the moral quality of the social network and prohibit obscenity and words of hate before further abuse destroys the platform's normative boundaries of safety and comfortability. 

In the past, Twitter has repeatedly tackled issues of censorship with regards to freedom of speech but now's the time for CEO, Jack Dorsey, to step up and save the platform from eroding into a medium undermined by cyber bullies and/or "creepy" accounts created specifically with the intention of spamming users with obscene sexual content. 

Put Your Best Foot Forward: The Importance of Business Ethics /  by Roxanne Teti

Fortune Magazine

Around a year ago Theranos, a blood testing biotech startup, was worth about $9 billion but now is quickly moving towards complete destruction. This week, federal regulators have officially revoked Theranos’ practicing license and has banned founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes from operating a blood test laboratory for two years. The company once “claimed it could process up to 70 lab tests on just a few drops of blood” and that its technology and testing methods were not only groundbreaking but were also offered at a low, affordable cost. Since March 2016, the firm has been under serious investigation after the CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) discovered that Theranos was essentially defrauding the government by selling tests that did not work as advertised. 

In the Silicon Valley, it’s easy for young CEOs and rapidly scaling startups to get lost in the exciting whirlwind of exponential growth, investor funding, and booming valuations, that they often forget about the integral importance of the "boring stuff" like compliance. However, in spite of a young CEO’s lack of experience, ethical business practices should be their number one focus, especially at the beginning, because no matter how high the company's valuation becomes or how much funding it continues to receive, if you are fudging data, etc., you will eventually get caught. And cheating is ultimately the worst form of failure. 

I write this article to remind any young professional that honesty really is the best policy if you truly believe in your idea. It's important to look at companies like Theranos and even Zenefits (whose former CEO Conrad Parker resigned after failing to meet compliance with regards to selling health insurance), as cautionary tales to always do the right thing. While passion and determination are great qualities entrepreneurs possess, running a business with moral business practices will always be more important than any bottom line.

Women in Film Spotlight: Kathryn Bigelow /  by Roxanne Teti

Kathryn Bigelow (Academy Awards, 2010)

Kathryn Bigelow is the first and only female director to win an Academy Award for Best Director in 2010 for The Hurt Locker. The film is an action-thriller about the Iraq War and the grueling psychological impact war has on individuals and the collective conscience of a country. Bigelow was able to intensify the visceral setting of war by collaborating with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd and utilizing multiple perspectives and camera angles to construct sophisticated battle sequences and rich montages. The Hurt Locker is considered one of the best American films about the war in Iraq and primarily draws from the real life experiences of journalist and screenwriter, Mark Boal. 

The Hurt Locker earned six Academy Awards and is also the only film by a female director to win both Best Picture and Best Director in the history of cinema. The reality of that statistic is depressing but unfortunately true. While Bigelow is an incredible filmmaker, it’s also critical to recognize the importance of having a strong sense of courage and conviction when defying gender stereotypes while also addressing controversial political topics such as the Iraq War or the arduous journey of capturing al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty. By the way, Zero Dark Thirty (2012) was also nominated for five Academy Awards but received a great deal criticism from both republicans and democrats alike concerning the movie’s portrayal of torture and the Obama administration. I believe this partisan reaction robbed Bigelow from winning another Oscar but that's the reality of politics both inside and outside the Academy.  

Aside from the art of cinema and directing, a crucial lesson one should learn from Bigelow's career is that in order to create change you need to be 100% committed to your passion, no apologies. Bigelow’s films would have never captured a large audience or have been recognized by the Academy if she didn’t have the confidence to execute her vision to the fullest extent. Not only is she the first and only female director to win an Academy Award, she also earned this accolade by directing a film that's typically a “man’s genre”—the action/thriller war drama. 

A little background on Bigelow… she was born in San Carlos, California in 1951. Before pursuing filmmaking, she began her artistic career studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute after graduating from high school. Today, Bigelow has changed history and is known for her captivating action sequences, always believing “the action cinema is pure cinema”. 

What "The Bachelorette" and Dating Apps Have in Common /  by Roxanne Teti

The Bachelorette (ABC, 2016)

Over the past two years, major film studios, media conglomerates, and tech giants have been investing big money in the lucrative potential of “mobile” as the new wave of digital advertising takes full force. Everything from shopping to the supposed fate of your love life has gone “mobile”. Regarding today’s “dating scene”, you can choose from a diverse group of platforms like Tinder, The League, Hinge, Tastebuds, Grindr, etc. to find your future soul mate or just a “one night stand”. In addition to our many dating app profiles, we can also reference our carefully curated social media pages to efficiently play the “game” by researching a potential match. With technology readily available, it often feels as though our human experiences are a bit premeditated or calculated. 

Many participate in the mobile dating scene to stay relevant, some desire an easy hookup, and others believe their probability of falling of love will increase some arbitrary percentage if they at least “put themselves out there”, but regardless of the intention, the act of “online” dating has been reduced to an interactive game of constant swiping while quickly forming a superficial opinion based on the flat representation of a digital profile. 

When this season of The Bachelorette aired, my girlfriends and I had a viewing party. As all 26 of JoJo's suitors introduced themselves, I found myself poking fun at the show’s vapid nature, constantly criticizing JoJo and the contestants for their lack of authenticity. It seemed ridiculous that an individual could find true love while dating more than five men at the same exact time on the contrived stage of reality television. While my righteous rant possessed some validity, my reactions to The Bachelorette also felt grossly hypocritical as I began to realize a core similarity between this particular experience and today's dating culture—judgment.  

As viewers, we are fast to critique the contestants similar to the way we judge a potential date with a manicured list of criteria like physical appearance, education, occupation etc. However it's quite evident in both real life and in TV land that this initial judgment will evolve overtime as human interaction transforms one's innocuous profile into a living breathing person. With that being said, I believe it’s important to look beyond mobile and it's rules of engagement we play by while living in the era of everything digital. Instead, I encourage you to also focus on the integrity of interaction because you never know when you could be swiping left on your soul mate or passing up the best sex of your life. 

Social Media And The Entertaining Allure of Voyeurism /  by Roxanne Teti

You are in the midst of your mundane morning commute and suddenly you find yourself engulfed in the bright lit screen of your smart phone. No, you’re not reading the news, or even checking work emails, but instead you find yourself “lurking” on Facebook, perhaps glazing over the “Timeline” of some random girl you “used to know” from high school. You’re not truly friends with this person nor have you engaged in direct communication with her in six years but yet you’re intrigued to “stalk” her for a moment or two. Perhaps it’s her recent engagement photos that piqued your interest or maybe you're curious if her fiancé is hot or just an "average Joe”. Regardless, we often gravitate towards this voyeuristic activity because it’s easily accessible entertainment.

In the 1970’s a wave of feminist film theorists like Laura Mulvey drew from Freud and Lacan’s psychoanalytic concepts concerning the erotic pleasure experienced by the act of “looking” and related this "visual pleasure" to the dominance of the “male gaze” in the cinematic art form. Personally, I believe regardless of whether the act of “looking” achieves sexual excitement, the voyeuristic intrigue of “watching” is a crucial cornerstone in which the various mediums of art, entertainment, and media have been built upon from the beginning of civilization. 

From the roar of audiences cheering on gladiators as they fight to their death at the Roman colosseum to Hollywood's “Golden Age”, human beings are inherently drawn to spectatorship. Today with various social media channels and digital content readily available within seconds, we're constantly participating in an active state of spectatorship as well as exhibitionism, as we provide a window into our personal lives through various social media platforms. In a way individuals can achieve a particular status distinction within the social stratification of their own network depending on the popularity of one's account. 

When reality television gained momentum in the late-90’s/early 2000’s, the line between reality and performance became irreversibly blurred. As platforms such as Facebook gained as many users and thus viewers as traditional mass media, a similar ambiguity between reality and the façade of reality began to permeate into the seemingly more “personal” channels of social media. 

And yes, perhaps we enjoy being spectators but I encourage you to truly ask yourself—do you also enjoy being the “performer”, the subject of one’s private gaze, an exhibitionist merely used for cheap reality TV entertainment by Facebook “friends” or even strangers?  

Where Did Apple's Edge Go? /  by Roxanne Teti

The results reported during Apple’s Q2 2016 earnings call has sparked an ongoing dialogue questioning Tim Cook’s lack of creative vision as Apple’s CEO. Most recently, American music industry analyst and critic, Bob Lefsetz drew a parallel between Bob Dylan and Steve Jobs, describing the influential icons as innovators that possessed an unstoppable force of dynamic intuition. However, while addressing Cook’s performance and role as Apple’s CEO, the music analyst said, “Apple without Jobs is like The Doors without Jim Morrison”. Lefsetz goes on to declare that Apple’s “creative genius is gone”. Whether Lefsetz’s prediction regarding Apple’s dim future is right or wrong, I do believe since 2007 (i.e. the release of the first generation iPhone), the company stopped establishing itself as a future thought leader in the landscape of technology, music, and film. 

As an independent filmmaker and Apple “fangirl”, I must admit, it’s been difficult to watch one of history’s most innovative technology companies reach a point of stagnant ideation and saturation of product development. With regards to the film and television industry, since the early 2000’s, Apple’s Final Cut Pro was the leading professional editing software —containing over 50% of the creative market share, giving Apple a substantial lead over any other software, including Avid, Media Composer and Adobe’s Premiere. Final Cut was not only a popular editing suite amongst major film studio productions but was also widely used by independent and student filmmakers alike. 

In 2011, during my first semester at film school, I will never forget the intense feeling of disappointment that was collectively shared amongst the student and faculty body when Apple announced it would be retiring Final Cut Pro 7 and replacing the software with Final Cut Pro X, a weaker product with stripped down features and numerous bugs. 

Long story short, Final Cut Pro X was not received with open arms and over the past five years, Apple’s Final Cut lost its dominating stature in the film industry. In fact, many consider the once revered program to be “dead”. Alternatively Avid, Media Composer has taken over the professional market and is now considered the industry standard while Adobe’s Premiere Pro is frequently used for indie and student film productions.  Since the release of Final Cut Pro X, it feels as though Apple has forgotten the creative role it once played in the production of great cinema. For example, Final Cut Pro was once used to edit movies like The Social Network (2010) and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011); both films won the Academy Award for “Best Editing”. 

I don’t want to even begin to address Apple Music and it’s awkward, lackluster presence in the world of streaming music. However, I do want to posit the question: “when will Apple play a role again as a tool for the creative mind and inspire us to follow in the footsteps of Steve Jobs' innovative legacy?