Shoot Promos on Race, Class, Gender, Etc

"You've always been what you are. That's not new. What you'll get used to is knowing it." - Cassandra Clare One of my favorite movies as a child was Rocky IV , the epitome of 1980's excess, cliches, and cheesiness. It certainly isn't the best Rocky but it's in my estimation the most entertaining Rocky film. Written and Directed by Sylvester Stallone himself, during the height of his star power and influence, when he could get any project green lit. Never to be confused by the sharp, witty dialogue of Aaron Sorkin or a Martin Scorsese level auteur, though you can argue that Sly certainly had a specific vision for this sequel. Nearly a third of the movie is composed of montages, including a montage in the middle of the film set to "No Easy Way Out" by Robert Tepper, which recapped the previous 3 Rocky films in a tidy 4:25. Would I have preferred a scene where Stallone performed a dramatic monologue to serve as the film's exposition? I don...

"A lily or a rose never pretends, and its beauty is that it is what it is." - Jiddu Krishnamurti Music is such a time capsule so we will romanticize the music from our formative years as the "golden age". I will resist the urge to be old man yelling at cloud and say that the music of the 80's and 90's is far superior to the music of Gen-Z, signaling that I'm officially washed. One of the formative songs of my adolescence was 1995's "I Wish" by Skee-Lo, the very definition of a one-hit wonder. While rap music can often characterized by braggadocios hyper-masculinity, this track was a humorous, self-deprecating lament on personal shortcomings. "I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller. I wish I had a girl who looked good, I would call her...". Even though Skee-Lo was a black man from Los Angeles via Chicago, "I Wish" was for me the quintessential Korean American male anthem, as a 5'9" Korean male...