Most disaster movies divide into four stages: normalcy, warning signs, crisis, and return to normalcy. Margin Call is a film about warning signs. In the summer of 2008, a young risk-management analyst at a fictionalized Wall Street investment bank sees a warning sign in the models predicting the worth of the firm’s assets. Late at … Read more
“I’m so glad you’re askin’ me these questions,” Sarah Palin says to Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, Senator John McCain’s campaign manager and speechwriter, during their initial meeting to discuss making her the Republican vice presidential nominee. “It’s important that you know exactly what you’re getting.” This comment, made ironic by the complete lack of knowledge … Read more
Oprah Winfrey has an impressive resume by anyone’s standards. She was the supervising producer and host for The Oprah Winfrey Show, which ran for 25 years and was the highest-rated TV talk show in television history, and is now the owner and producer of OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network. She has won an Academy Award, a … Read more
Some Harvard students spend their weekends on problem sets and too-hastily-composed response papers. Ben Zauzmer, a freshman, recently attracted the attention of several major newspapers by putting his mathematical mettle to the test in predicting the 2012 Academy Awards winners. His formula that draws from Rotten Tomatoes/Metacritic ratings, previous BAFTA and Golden Globe wins since 2001, … Read more
Increasing polarization between ideologies, out-of-control campaign spending, leaders who are completely out of touch with the American public. I’m referring, of course, to the current state of the Oscars. The Academy Awards were the most politicized event in Hollywood long before Marlon Brando sent a young Apache woman onstage to accept his Oscar for The … Read more
The crowd in 1660 London was having a great time, according to the diary of refined Parliament member Samuel Pepys. At the festivity’s center was Major-General Thomas Harrison, who was “looking as cheerful as any man could do in that condition.” Harrison’s condition, much to the crowd’s glee, consisted of being “partly strangled, disemboweled, castrated, … Read more
Proposed route of the Keystone XL pipeline On Wednesday, January 18, in a move fomenting consternation within Republican circles and celebration within environmentalist ones, President Barack Obama announced the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline. Though there is debate over how many jobs the pipeline’s construction and maintenance would actually create—Keystone builder TransCanada posits that 20,000 jobs … Read more
Pushing the Envelope in “Spring Awakening” Harvard FML, the addicting symposium of academic and sexual frustration, shows that not much has changed in the 120 years since Frank Wedekind’s “Spring Awakening” was written. There are posts about pregnancy scares and abuse. There are frustrating questions submitted to the void about not knowing if Harvard is … Read more
Each night at the White House, Barack Obama gets handed what he calls his “homework packet”: a three-ring binder filled with policy memos, intelligence briefings. Yet it is a slim purple folder that he often reaches for first. Inside the folder are ten letters carefully selected by Mike Kelleher, the director of the White House … Read more
Mylo Xyloto? Yes, that’s Mylo Xyloto. As far as album titles go, this one definitely raises some questions, particularly how in the world is it pronounced and, more importantly, what can it possibly mean? For starters, the correct pronunciation is “My-lo Zyle-toe,” but if the pronunciation itself proves confusing, then the meaning of the title is … Read more