Media Chick

Hello everybody! It is I, AzS's new partner in legality, Media Chick aka Smeliana. I have been one of AzS's foils in celluloid ever since our high school days in good ol' Waltham, MA. He and I used to sit on a bus traveling around Israel, talking all about movies we loved and recommending whole lists to each other. Maybe, just maybe, next time I go home to Beantown I'll bring that journal back and document those lists. How have our lists changed, five years later?

Anyway, AzS and I have always been a great tag team because our interests are along different angles of the vast cinematic universe. AzS, as far as I can tell, is a lover of film as an art form and a communicative medium for filmmakers to speak to audiences. I, on the other hand, am a bit of a media slut. I love the blunt instrument of the widescreen, the sledgehammer of popular opinion that is generated through ad campaigns, and the capitalist wars that are waged through studio competition. It's all so crude and animalistic. And yet, every so often, some people know how to wield these impossible tools to create multi-fronted attacks on the populace that grab their attentions such that forking down $10.75 seems a natural instinct.

Okay, that's ideology, albeit in a caricaturized nutshell.

Biography? I went to high school with AzS. I then fled Boston with the speed of an overhyped, newly shorn centerfielder and came to The City (New York, that is) to go to college at Columbia. I majored in American Studies, focusing in sociology and movies. I wrote my thesis on the evolution of the portrayal of gay men with AIDS in film. (Yes. I saw "Philadelphia".) And now I'm living in this big City, with all its bright lights, and trying to break into journalism. Turns out "freelancer" applies mostly to the amount of money I'll be working for and the pain that the search inflicts. It's not an easy business. But I've tried other things and this writing thing is what I love. I guess that's when you go into it. So this blog, as well as my personal blog get me writing and even get other people reading me. What could be better?

So check back, often, to see my thoughts on the films I see. I'm going to be the one to address the celebrity-driven backstories, media campaigns, implications and expectations of the films in addition to their actual stories/artistry. It's all very meta. But don't worry. You'll be able to keep up.

And I'm the one who uses the dirty words. You'll want to keep reading.

Feel free to comment. I'd love to hear what you think!