Alissa Lopes – Arts Editor
Gosh, how I love this song. Not only is “Mother Beautiful” a fantastic recommendation to kick off Women’s History Month, but I thought it only right to recommend a song about great moms when my own mother has just completed her decade-long goal of running the six Abbott World Marathon Majors. Mama, I’m proud of you down to my toes, and I hope every Phoenix reader knows it. “Mother Beautiful” is far from Sly & The Family Stone’s best song — it probably doesn’t even make it onto most people’s top-ten lists — but that doesn’t change how great it is. Sly Stone sings about the pure and unwavering wonderfulness of mothers over a beat that begs you to sway to it in the dim light of a kitchen, held by your loved ones. Despite only being one minute and 59 seconds long, “Mother Beautiful” is the soundtrack to the best hug of your life. Life is already so bewildering, and my eighteen-year-old self is still far too immature to imagine how petrifying it must be to have your child look to you with questions that you couldn’t ever possibly have all the answers to. So to all the mothers who “[suffer] even when it’s [your children] to blame,” Sly sees you, and so do I. You’re killing it. But, whether you’re a mother or not, this song is touching, relatable, and wholly groovy.
Jessica Qin – Arts Editor
“A lawyer’s job is not to know. It’s to not know.”
That line from “Prima Facie,” the one-woman play by Suzie Miller, captures the chilling logic of the legal system it explores. Told through the perspective of barrister Tessa Ensler (played by Jodie Comer), the story follows a defense lawyer who has built her career defending men accused of sexual assault — until she herself becomes a survivor after being assaulted by a colleague she trusted.
Everyone knows I’m a theatre person, but the reason this play struck me so deeply goes far beyond it being theatre: rather, it’s because of the questions it raises about justice and truth.
For 90 minutes, Jodie Comer performs alone, shifting seamlessly between more than eight different characters, including Ensler. With a simple set: a wooden table, an office chair, and towering shelves filled with legal files, her performance is both explosive and sensitive. Her emotions shift from sharp confidence to quiet vulnerability, revealing how the legal system that once empowered Tessa ultimately fails her. In the close-up shots, you see tears pool along her eyelids, lingering there as if refusing to fall. “It’s not emotional for me. It’s the game of the law,” Tessa says. It’s no surprise that Comer (one of the best actors of her generation, at least by my rankings) swept the 2023 theatre awards season, winning both a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award for the role.
All in all, Prima Facie is the kind of story that stays with you. You might shed a tear, or you might not. But the sound of it will settle somewhere in your heart, echoing long after. How could you possibly sit still? If you’re curious, the production is available through National Theatre Live at Home.
Zephyr Weinreich – News Editor
Today’s overcrowded, hyper-factionalized media landscape makes it difficult for any new work to acquire the same cultural gravity as the blockbuster films and albums that defined elder generations. With no mainstream mega-hit promising to repair our fractured content ecosystem any time soon, Gen Z’s best hopes lie with the new crop of cult classics emerging from indie production houses across the globe. If “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie” (“NtBtStM”) is any indication, the kids may be alright after all.
Filmmakers Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol adapted the new feature from their microbudget web series and subsequent TV show, which consisted of elaborate, largely improvised sketch-stunts shot on the streets of Toronto; think benign, Canadian Borat. Johnson and McCarrol share sensibilities with indie comic-creatives like Bo Burnham and Nathan Fielder, but their work stands apart for its capacity (and eagerness) to engage fully with the crassness and splendor of pop culture while avoiding both cynicism and naivety. An obsession with media animates the film’s plot (a spoof of “Back to the Future” [1985]) as well as its protagonists, who reflexively impose tropes from popular music and movies onto their own lives.
Literally starring as fictionalized versions of themselves, Johnson and McCarrol embody a version of subjectivity all too resonant with contemporary viewers: they are copies of copies, manufactured and imprisoned by mass culture. Though uncompromising in its portrayal of this suffocating reality, “NtBtStM” remains profoundly joyful. The film delights in the absurdity of the content it parodizes and the setting in which it exists, mediating irony and sincerity through the abidingly authentic pleasure its protagonists derive from one another’s company. Amidst an uncertain world of mirage and decay, Johnson and McCarrol are able to find something irreducibly real in the friendship they share.
Xinto Xu – News Editor
A few days ago, a YouTube interview sent me back to this classic on a late weekend night, and revisiting all its iconic scenes and punchy lines (and there are a lot!) was an absolutely rewarding experience.
The movie tells the story of two brothers who fight side by side during the Irish War of Independence, only to find themselves on opposing sides in the Civil War that follows, divided by irreconcilable disagreements about the future of Ireland. In the end, this conflict tears the society apart and leads the brothers toward inevitable tragedy.
If you’ve watched any other Ken Loach films before, you’d know you are in for a treat, even before opening your streaming site (or walking into the cinema — lucky you!). Typical of his realist style, “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” is emotionally restrained, with rich, grounded substance and a steady flow. But most importantly, he knows what he is talking about. Underneath the fraternal melodrama, Loach poses a series of critical questions that many left-wing filmmakers shy away from: What should a people’s revolution seek to change? Where is the line between compromise and betrayal? Beyond knowing what we are against, what kind of world are we trying to build?
As you can see, this is probably not the perfect film for a feel-good, carefree evening. It’ll likely leave you with a sour feeling in your chest and lingering questions that keep you awake at night. However, if that doesn’t put you off, I’m sure you will be drawn to the sincerity and quiet power of this Palme d’Or-winning story.
