Author / Janes

by Janes

The 100 Recap: 3×07 “Thirteen”

The 100 has shown us a ten-year-old girl committing cold-blooded murder, the romantic lead gunning down an entire village of innocents, and the protagonist wiping out an entire race of human beings, but this was still arguably the most controversial episode yet. It was also one of its best: “Thirteen” was a stunningly crafted hour of television, one that elegantly weaved all of the disparate plotlines of the season together and organically changed the entire mythology of the show without feeling like a retcon. It also happened to be a heartbreaking, elegiac origin story/farewell episode in the vein of season two’s “Spacewalker” (but for a much more popular and beloved character), and while a few elements of the execution may have been problematic, “Thirteen” will go down as one of the boldest moves in The 100‘s history.

All right, let’s get on with the recap. This is going to be a tough one. Continue reading →

by Janes

Dakota Johnson Should Have Been an Oscar Contender for Fifty Shades of Grey

The Razzies have come under fire in recent years for being an opportunistic, publicity-hounding sham that doesn’t add anything new to the conversation, or even manage to be funny. Rather than effectively satirizing “legitimate” award shows like the Oscars, they’ve become known for taking in-poor-taste potshots at easy targets, beating each year’s dead horse until it’s really, really, really dead.

And what’s an easier mark than Fifty Shades of Grey? Both the book series and the 2015 film are embarrassing blemishes on our culture, appallingly sexist and mind-numbingly inane pornos that reinforce damaging stereotypes and actively encourage young women to seek–and try to “save”–abusive partners. So naturally, it received no less than six Razzie nominations, pretty much every single one for which it was eligible. Continue reading →

by Janes

The 100 Recap: 3×04 “Watch the Thrones”

Previously on The 100: Ice Nation blew up Mount Weather, killing Gina and most of the Farm Station Arkers who didn’t have names. We finally met the Ice Queen, and she looked like Elsa from hell. Kane and Abby decided to give their people more power of representation by holding an election, and then decided to join the Grounders as the 13th clan without so much as checking with their people, because that makes sense. Continue reading →

by Janes

88 Thoughts I Had While Watching The Revenant

The Revenant is one of the most visually resplendent films I’ve ever seen, capturing the wilderness of the early 19th century Louisiana Purchase with an almost painful loveliness and staging its unrelenting violence with confidence and restraint. Unfortunately, beneath the flashy visuals and exemplary performances lies a boilerplate revenge story that is empty of heart, soul, and psychological insight. Cinematography aside, it plays like a particularly sophomoric superhero movie, explicitly stating its (exceedingly trite) themes left and right and eschewing any meaningful character development for the sake of a gratuitously satisfying kill shot.

(It also doesn’t help that there were no female characters of consequence. What can I say? I get bored in movies where women get raped and killed but don’t get to speak.)

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by Janes

The 100 Recap: 3×03 “Ye Who Enter Here”

SPOILERS FOLLOW!

It’s the third episode of the season, and already the status quo has been upended in more ways than one. In an action-packed yet thoughtful episode, Clarke tries to kill Lexa, which somehow leads to the Sky People becoming Grounders, we finally meet the Ice Queen, and everyone sort of gets blown up, as tends to happen on this show.

And then they had to ruin it all by egregiously fridging a certain one-dimensional female character, but believe me, we’ll get to that. Continue reading →

by Janes

The 100 Recap: 3×02 “Wanheda pt 2”

Previously on The 100: Bellamy began narrating, and I guess we’re sticking with that. Jaha became an unhinged evangelical, Clarke broke Bellamy’s (and Bellarke shippers’) heart(s) by leaving Camp Jaha, Jasper did his best pre-massacre season two Finn impression, and the Ice Nation queen wants to steal Clarke’s powers by killing her. Also, Clarke hooked up with a pretty Grounder and was kidnapped by an equally pretty bounty hunter, but only so much can fit into one montage. Continue reading →

by Janes

The 100 Recap: 3×01 “Wanheda pt 1”

When it began, The 100 had all the ingredients for an aggressively mediocre CW show. Ludicrously attractive actors, down to the lowly extras? Check! Contrived post-apocalyptic scenario in which all of the main characters are necessarily (and conveniently) under 18 years old? Check! Dead-eyed, mind-numbingly generic male lead whom all the coolest women on the show love for no reason? Check! (For a time at least, RIP Finn and everything.)

Sidebar: How much was Finn the Nate? He was totally the Nate. Continue reading →

by Janes

Virginia Woolf’s The Waves as Both a Loss and Assertion of Individual Identity

The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another, beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually.

[jd: Shit, that’s good.]

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by Janes

William Blake’s Visual Poetry: The Little Boy Lost

The poems of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience appear so simplistic at first blush, they were once interpreted as nursery rhymes; but the juxtaposition of thematically connected poems in Innocence and Experience, respectively, as well as the accompanying visual art, elucidate the complexity of even the most innocent poems. “The Little Boy Lost/The Little Boy Found,” for example, appears to be a straightforward, comforting reassurance of God’s infinite love. But the combination of these poems with “A Little Boy Lost” serves as a bitter, blistering indictment of the Church as a hypocritical appropriation, one that uses God’s words of forgiveness as a tool for placing the masses under a merciless doctrine.

William_Blake_The_Little_Boy_Lost_Songs_of_Innocence_-_Copy_Y_1825_Metropolitan Continue reading →

by Janes

Noah Solloway’s Great American Thriller Come to Life

The Affair is at its very best when it’s skewering privileged white male literary darlings through the ever-insufferable Noah Solloway, our resident aspiring Great American Novelist. In between name-dropping Jonathan Franzen, Philip Roth, and, of course, the sagacious Ernest Hemingway, Noah says things like “As a straight white man, I am automatically disqualified from winning the PEN/Faulkner… it’s impossible to be a man in 2015!” and uses Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss’s divorce attorney because “now they live in adjacent brownstones in Brooklyn!”
Continue reading →