Culture Archives - Page 7 of 16

90th Annual Oscar Predictions

Julianne HarveyMarch 1, 2018

Around Oscar season I really miss my job as a newspaper film critic. Predictions and end-of-the-year best lists were my favourite columns to write. I’m currently not contracted to a paper but *hooray!* I have a blog so I’ll put my predictions here for the 90th Annual Academy Awards that will be airing on ABC this Sunday, March 4th at 5 pm PST.

Best Picture: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

This is a close race, between Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Shape of Water. Personally, I adored Three Billboards and would like to see it win everything, but many critics are now calling for The Shape of Water to win. It’s too bad The Post fell so far out of awards consideration so early, but it couldn’t seem to generate the same excitement as the two frontrunners. I think Three Billboards deserves to win and I’ll be pulling for it all night.

Best Director: Guillermo del Toro

If I were handing out the trophies, I’d pick Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk, for the following reasons: he’s never been nominated before, Dunkirk was a marvel of unique and risky storytelling, and The Dark Knight/The Dark Knight Rises. Enough said. Jordan Peele also has a real shot for his impressive and much-loved directorial debut Get Out, but I think the prize will go to Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water.

Actress in a Leading Role: Frances McDormand

Ahhh, Frances. I’ve always loved her work, but this role was literally written for her and she crushes it in every moment of every scene. As the grieving, furious mother who will stop at nothing to see justice for her dead daughter in Three Billboards, McDormand commands respect while demonstrating subtle compassion all the way through the film. This win comes at exactly the right time for the Me Too/Time’s Up movement and Frances McDormand is the brave, authentic and feminist hero I’ve been waiting for.

Actor in a Leading Role: Gary Oldman

He’s been the frontrunner the whole season. His physical transformation to play Winston Churchill is the kind of thing Oscar voters adore. Plus, Oldman has only been nominated for one other Academy Award in his distinguished career, which is bonkers. This is his year for The Darkest Hour. No one else is even close.

Actress in a Supporting Role: Allison Janney

I haven’t seen I, Tonya yet and hope to rectify that as soon as possible, but Laurie Metcalf’s awards momentum as the frustrated mom in Lady Bird seems to have been eclipsed by Janney’s outlandish portrayal of Tonya Harding’s nut job parent. Everyone I know who has seen the movie loved Janney most of all. Between the bowl cut, the glasses, the fur coat and the bird, she’s set for Oscar gold.

Actor in a Supporting Role: Sam Rockwell

Like Frances, Sam Rockwell is a favourite performer for me (and for many of his peers in Hollywood). He’s a character actor who is finally getting his due by playing a mean, dim, racist cop in Three Billboards who would be hard to like in a lesser-actor’s hands, but Rockwell plays him with a certain relatable charm. His character’s journey through rock bottom is moving and he comes out the other side a better version of himself. And that story is something worth rooting for.

Bonus Predictions:

Best Original Screenplay: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (can you tell that I loved this movie??!)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me by Your Name

Enjoy the show! (Even if Jimmy Kimmel is hosting. Sigh. Why not Seth Meyers or Trevor Noah or Amy Schumer?).

Do you agree or disagree with my picks? Let me know before Sunday night!

In Culture, Identity, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Feminism Means Equality

Julianne HarveyFebruary 20, 2018

I had this exchange in one of my university classes this week:

Young Man: I am NOT a feminist.

Me: Do you believe in equality for men and women?

Young Man: Yes, of course, but I’m NOT a feminist.

The definition of feminism is as follows:

The doctrine advocating social, political and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

It’s not burning bras, hating on men, trying to raise women above men, or shaving your head and ranting in the town square. Feminism is equality. That’s it. Full stop. And when eighteen-year-old men become angry at the idea of calling themselves feminists, in an era where equality is being discussed everywhere you go, I become dejected and overwhelmed.

These conversations matter. Clearly, the word “feminism” carries a charge and men are afraid to be associated with it. I can’t fix this and I’m not interested in fixing it. But the word itself means equal rights for both genders and I will continue to bring this up until it becomes more widely understood.

My lovely professor approached me after class to talk about the exchange and to thank me for not escalating it. She said, “I’m really glad you spoke up to define the word ‘feminism’, even if he did appear to be upset over it.” She wanted to be sure I felt supported. I did. Support was not the issue. Having a discussion about a word where the person agrees with the concept but not the word we use for it makes me want to bang my head on a table until it bleeds.

Do we need a new word for feminism? I asked some young women in my next class this question and they said, “No. If women come up with a new word so men won’t be uncomfortable with it, the men will find a problem with the new word, too.” Fair point.

At the dinner table after my classes, I asked my eleven-year-old son William if he considers himself a feminist. He said, “Yes.” (To which Ava replied, “Of course he is. Growing up in this house, what else could he be?”). Then I asked Jason the same question and he also answered, “Yes.” When pressed on what this means, both of them said some version of equality.

Let’s have more of these discussions, equating the word “feminism” to the word “equality” as they are one and the same. You can’t say you believe in equality but you don’t believe in feminism. I know that the term can be loaded for people, I do understand that, but then let’s bring it back to the definition. If you are a man who doesn’t call himself a feminist, please consider how hard a woman has to work to even get you to understand the importance of equality, let alone fighting over the words we are using.

The road to equal rights is long and arduous. If every person helps, even just a little, we’ll move closer to the goal of a fairer and more generous world for every person. A rising tide lifts all boats and language matters. I thought this was easier for young people, but after my experience this week, I’m not so sure. As a culture, we still have a ton of work to do to close this gender gap.

In Culture, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

Content

Julianne HarveyFebruary 14, 2018

It’s no small thing to be content. To stop pursuing happiness in order to recognize, just for a moment, that you are already happy.

Everyone’s life is made up of seasons. Some are sweet, and others are agony. One month can feel like a year, slogging through shoulder-high mud, and the next can fly by in a blur of ordinary days. And yet some seasons are special in undefined ways, where we are lucky enough to see that it’s all going to plan and we laugh quite a bit and our days and nights are mostly smooth sailing.

I feel like we’re in one of those sweet seasons right now. We are out of the demanding little-kid stage and the teenaged years have not brought the promised wreckage others predicted in doomsday tones. We enjoy spending time with our kids and I love seeing the daily fruit of our number one parenting motto: Don’t Be An Asshole.

To me, contentment means not longing for something other than what you have. It’s taken me a long time to get to this point, with practices like daily meditation to help me stay anchored in the present moment along with careful boundaries in my relationships making a big difference to my calm state of being.

Some of this is just a decision. My pursuit of happiness was never-ending and exhausting, so I decided to simply be happy instead. To want less instead of having more. To go simpler when the rest of the world is complex. To create beauty inside of myself and cultivate it so that it blooms. To need less from other people and ask for more from myself.

It’s really damn good. We are capable of so much more than we think. When we push past fear, a whole new existence is on the other side. For a lifelong people-pleaser, to truly not care what others think of me or my parenting or my friendship choices or my work or my weight or my fashion is unbelievably liberating. It’s a kind of freedom I couldn’t have conceived of a decade ago. And now I’m living it and not interested in asking for anyone’s permission or approval.

When we can live as ourselves in a world that works hard to get us to be something inauthentic, we have traveled a great distance toward contentment. Anything that takes you further from your intuitive self and invites negative energy into your safe space can be abandoned. I’m learning not to put myself in so many uncomfortable situations. Life is precious and important and sacred. I make my decisions with that in mind now.

Trying to make other people happy is a dead-end road. It’s not a good goal. Figure out what you need, first and foremost, and design your life around that. The people you love most will benefit indirectly from your contentment and healthy choices. Simplify wherever possible. Your time and energy is valuable. Don’t spend it on people who give nothing back to you but stress and frustration. You simply do not have to live that way. All you need is the word “no” and you’ll be free.

Contentment is a worthy goal. Invest in whatever gets you closer. If you are moving further away, look at your decisions and see where you went wrong. And it’s okay if not everyone is happy with you, as long as you are happy yourself.

In Culture, Identity, Minimalism, Nurture, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships, Uncategorized

Enough Time

Julianne HarveyJanuary 17, 2018

Over the holiday season, a number of things occurred to teach me this one overall lesson: I HAVE ENOUGH TIME.

Are you weary of feeling like a rat on a wheel, running to catch up with some goals you’ve set that you haven’t achieved yet?

Me too.

Or have you been putting pressure on yourself to master certain accomplishments and when you don’t, the sense of failure comes rushing in to knock the breath out of you?

Me too.

But here’s the thing: we have enough time. If balance is an important state for all of us (and it is), then placing equal weight on our key relationships and the many steps it takes us to reach our biggest dreams has to factor higher in our informal life satisfaction surveys.

So here’s a radical thought for 2018. What if we are not behind at all? How about making peace with the idea that we are right on time, for everything we have going on currently and all of the areas we are striving towards for the future?

Enough time. What a glorious concept. This morning, I happened across this delightful post by the superb human being that is Liza Palmer (whom I had the pleasure of meeting last fall at the Surrey International Writers’ Conference) about how we have to change our definitions of success and meaning so we see that they are everywhere. It’s exactly what I needed to read to strengthen my resolve.

My hard drive crashed in my MacBook over New Years and after a brief panic attack and then an offer of tech support from my friend Ben in Alberta, I realized that life without a laptop is completely do-able. Now I have it back in working order (thank you, Ben!) and I’m actually grateful for that stretch without it, for I feel like I woke up from a strange co-dependent technology relationship and could properly see my life and the people in it again.

Rushing around and feeling stressed is not our optimum setting as human beings. We are meant for so much more than that. Getting enough sleep, prioritizing our calendars and to-do lists, eating well, meditating, reading and resting, playing board games with our kids, saying no to what we don’t want to do, going for an impromptu Menchie’s frozen yogurt for absolutely no reason…these are the moments we remember. They make us feel fully alive.

Life is not a race to some finish line we’ve set. It’s a meandering hike where we have time to pick flowers, marvel at the sunset and share a laugh with someone we adore. Let’s make 2018 the year where we have enough time for what really matters.

How are you going to structure your life so you feel like you have enough time?

In Culture, Identity, Movies/TV, Nurture, Relationships

The Last Jedi

Julianne HarveyDecember 22, 2017

I’ve taken 2017 off from writing movie reviews, but The Last Jedi was such an emotional experience that I find myself longing to write about it.

Don’t worry if you haven’t seen it (although you really should go now!) as I don’t do plot spoilers. Don’t listen to the crabby haters online who are moaning about how Episode VIII should be wiped from the Star Wars canon (thank you, internet criticism, for creating a group of angry “fans” who demand a creative product meet their specific demands like it’s SO simple and easy to make a successful blockbuster franchise movie). Go see it for yourself and decide.

The Last Jedi is truly a stunning achievement. It’s packed with all of the action true fans long for, plus a host of witty, silly quips and special moments that linger in your mind long after the final credits roll. But more than that, this instalment gives us even more women as leaders worthy of respect (hooray!) and some deep explorations of complicated and important subjects.

This movie does not shy away from topics like the devastating effects of our rabid fame culture, honest questions about identity and belonging, the punishing personal cost of war, corporate greed ravishing the environment and the ever-widening soul-crushing gap between the wealthy and the poor. I love it when I can sink my teeth into these relevant issues and engage my kids in a lengthy morality debate on the way home from the cinema.

Our world is a broken place. The Last Jedi mirrors much of this sorrow in a relatable yet still entertaining fashion. Luke Skywalker, always my favourite from the original trilogy, is back here but damaged, older and considerably more fearful than we’ve seen him before.

Rey, a hero I adored in The Force Awakens, found Skywalker at the end of Episode VII and is desperate to learn what she can from him. But Master Luke is an unwilling teacher, pushing Rey toward Ben Solo, the tortured son of Han and Leia who has turned to the dark side. This connection between “good” and “evil” moved me deeply, particularly the image of Rey trying to answer the nagging question of who she really is and where she comes from.

Each one of us has the power to write our own story. If we don’t like our past, we possess the ability to change our present so that our future becomes something different. Nothing special is required for this. Only bravery. That’s the central message of The Last Jedi, and it’s one we need desperately at this precarious moment of human history.

Go see this movie. Return to a time when you went to see a cinematic story unfold without a thousand other voices in your head telling you what’s wrong with it. Simply go and be entertained. For me, The Last Jedi is powerful, hopeful, beautiful, stirring, emotional, satisfying. We need peace, purpose and courage to light our path, now more than ever.

May the force be with us, always.