Overstimulation Movie Reviews

TOP FIVE FILMS OF THE YEAR

Article by Jack Ververis All movie posters courtsey of IMDB

5. e Banshees of Inisherin

e Banshees of Inisherin’s theatrical origin is inescapable. Two characters- played by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, equally excellent - and one simple question: what happens when someone simply doesn’t want to be friends anymore? e answer is as funny as it is bleak, and interpretations of it may reveal as much about the audience as they do about the movie. Basically, go see it with your friends.

4. Tár

Like the title conductor herself, Tár will not be for everyone. is is a di cult, thorny lm, as cold and sparse as the main character’s apartment. It is also, if the opening 10-minute interview scene doesn’t clue you in, slow; Tár demands you t its rhythm, and punishes those who don’t. But what a wonderful rhythm it is. Led by an astonishing Cate Blanchett, Tár knows exactly what it wants to do and moves with a musician’s precision. observations about the world and his relationship with his grandma Nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini). You might catch moments of loneliness- a lantern oating into the night, or a quiet comment about a divorced partner- but Marcel’s cheerfulness and humor quickly moves the moment past, like the ticking hands of 60 Minutes. Marcel is a movie about community, and while it deals with profoundly heavy subjects, it never loses that buoyancy.

3. Marcel the Shell with Shoes on

You don’t go into Marcel the Shell with Shoes On expecting to cry. For the rst hour, you might not even consider it, laughing along to Marcel’s (Jenny Slate) charmingly animated

2. RRR

RRR is more. More action, more dance scenes, more friendships, more violence. It is impossible to describe and impossible to hate. ose describing RRR for the rst time often struggle to capture this 3-hour Telugu epic, resorting to sound-e ects and child-like wonder. It is a sharp rebuke to IP-driven blockbusters, and spectacular.

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Everything Everywhere All At Once shouldn’t have worked. is low-budget sci- action-comedy, with a multiverse concept somehow even crazier than Daniel Kwan and

Daniel Schneidt’s previous farting corpse movie, should have been a disaster. Somehow, they pulled it o . EEAAO is, well, everything: much like our #2, it embraces maximalism, providing laughs, heart, and cosmic horror in equal measure. Most media about the multiverse shy away from its true possibilities. By embracing it, EEAAO transforms from creative to mind breaking. It is supremely con dent, overwhelmingly stylish and unquestionably the best movie of the year.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

THE CURSE OF COMPETITION

On Nov. 1 every year, hundreds of thousands of students open the Common Application ready to apply to college. eir applications re ect four years of classes, essays, clubs, SAT scores and everything else they have done throughout high school. However, when they press submit, all of their hard work is compared and labeled “accepted” or “rejected.”

While college applications are advertised as holistic, most factors are reduced to a single number such as GPA, SAT scores or class rank. Academic performance and intelligence are often con ated, and when that is turned into a number that is easy to compare with everyone else’s, a toxic environment can ensue. At a college preparatory school, the competitive atmosphere is magni ed; every grade received feels like an indicator of what college you will get into or how successful you will be.

Competition in our classrooms can be seen as a driving factor to perform better. However, as it is pushed into the extreme, it turns into an extra weight students have to carry. When every student is competing for the top, there is a mentality that even one small mistake is unacceptable. Students fear failure, but to them failure could be simply getting an A instead of an A plus. When success is de ned as being the top of the class, there is little room for everyone to feel successful.

A survey done by the Pew Research Center found that 70 percent of teens believe anxiety and depression is a major problem among their peers. e competitiveness creates a stress to always be performing to the same level your peers are. A student’s mental health should not be sacri ced in order to get a college acceptance, however, to many students that is a sacri ce they are willing to make. is stress stems from the belief that only the top will make it into a college of their choice. Top colleges will only take a select few students from each high school, so if you want to go to one, then you must perform better than everyone else. is belief, combined with pressure from parents and the fear of being viewed as less intelligent, pushes students to overwork themselves.

“Sometimes [competition] just stresses me out and gives me anxiety,” senior Katie Corddry said. “ en, I will perform worse because it gives me test anxiety. Also, it can hurt your feelings to hear people talking about I got this and you’re like well I didn’t get that. You assume because Trinity is so good academically that you’re average, and really we’re all way above average.”

To stop competition from consuming our classrooms, changes must be made by the students and the school. e students do not have to stop caring about their own grades— rather, they have to stop caring about one another’s grades. Compete with yourself to earn a higher grade on the next test, not a higher grade than your peers.

By making comments on what grades or SAT scores are considered acceptable, students are creating a bar for intelligence that does not exist. In an environment where everyone openly shares their grades, students’ work becomes reduced to a number and used as comparison.

Students must recognize the toxic competition and actively try to avoid it. By keeping grades private or not making comments on the di culty of assignments, other students are not given the opportunity to feed into the competition. Once someone shares a grade, it becomes a battle of who is the smartest.

“I think you should just keep all your information to yourself, and you do not have to share with anyone,” Corddry said. “Also, I don’t think everyone needs to know each other’s grades or ask other people what they got. I think it’s our culture as a school to be like what did you get on this test. But you can exclude yourself from that.” e school must try to minimize the competitive environment and actively make strides to foster group work. A valedictorian title could be viewed as a reward for four years of a dedication to academics. However, when students only focus on the recognition and opt to not take classes knowing it could hurt their GPA, they are actively hurting their education. One way to help reduce competition is by getting rid of valedictorian and other class ranks. Learning should never be a ght to the top, and when a coveted title is dangled above students’ heads, they lose sight of the actual goals of education.

Another way schools can help toxic competition is by making group work a priority. Trinity is not just a college preparatory school, but rather a school that prepares students for the rest of their lives. Being able to work in a team e ciently is a valuable skill, but being highly competitive contradicts teamwork. By adding in more collaboration in the classroom and throughout the rest of the school, students are put in multiple situations where they must learn to put collaboration over competition.

As a school, we must make e orts to reduce competition in order to keep students less stressed on what the person next to them got on a test, and rather concerned on how they can improve their own grade. e less competition there is then the more students will be able to comfortably come to school and learn e ectively. e number in red on the top of a paper does not de ne a student— it is the e ort that went into achieving that number that matters.

e lead editorial expresses the opinion of the Trinity Voice editorial sta . Please send comments to voice@trinityprep.org.