8A - Monday, February 17, 2414 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com - Monday, February 17, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom WARNER BROS. COURTESY OF SHOSHIGAMES.TUMBLR.COM Shoshi 2014. Something's amiss. Sochi's influence on social media Cold and unfulfilling 'Winter's' adaptation Olympics provide platform for online conversation ByEMILYBODDEN Daily Arts Writer The permeation of the Olympics into all facets of social media should surprise no one. Consideringthat my friends and I have all live-tweeted, most likely to the chagrin of our followers, every award show this season, this level of cultural obsession makes perfect sense. So much so that my mother keeps sending me links (Mom, I love them. Please continue doing so.)'to every cool/ funny/thoughtful article/Tumblr/ tweet/video she sees relating to Sochi 2014. Think about that: my 50-something-year-old mother, who sometimes needs to call me about working our cable box, actively consuming and dispersing social media surrounding the Winter Olympics. What does. that say about Generation Y? We are the Kings and Queens of the Interweb. We create, process and respond to posts all day long. And that mentality has resulted in huge amounts of content surrounding the Olympics. There has been some contro- versy about the use of Twitter - by journalists and athletes alike - with the hashtag #SochiProb- lems. While some of the posts are more lighthearted, obviously pok- ing fun atthe host country's minor setbacks, others are much more scathing. The question is what the Russian government is going to make of these international criticisms. They draw attention to every imperfection and broadcast it with avail. While Twitter and similar sites allow for wide dispersal of information, other websites have gone another route. The day after the opening ceremony, an article started popping up on my Face- book timeline. Friends were shar- ing it with captions of outrage. My curiosity was piqued and I finally read the article. The website pub- lishing the article was one I was unfamiliar with, The Daily Cur- rant . The article, "Man Respon- sible For Olympic Ring Mishap Found Dead In Sochi," suggests that one of the technicians dur- ing the ceremony was killed with encouragement from the gov- ernment for a lighting blunder. Thankfully, the article was a farce - much like The Onion, The Daily Currant is a satirical publication. That being said, how many people believed this article without fact or source checking? These pieces demonstrate the potential backlash of increasing globalization. But not everything that has come out during the past two weeks has been negative. Some of the material created surrounding the Olympics has been hilarious, thought-provoking or generally silly. One of the best mash-ups of popular culture and an Olympic sport came from the redubbing of an ice dancing routine. Twitter users started pointing out the obvious: pairs ice dancing could be made even better with one simple addition - Beyonc6. Luckily, BuzzFeed followed through and altered a winningperformance by the University's own Meryl Davis and Charlie White, taking out of Beyonc6's most recentself-titled album. The results are pure magic. I am sure others would agree that there should be a new category in ice skating that only allows the use of Queen Bey's music. Another great combination of pop culture and Olympians comes in the form of a Tumblr. Shoshi Games 2014 is dedicated to pho- toshopping the face of Shoshanna Shapiro (of HBO's popular show "Girls") onto Olympians' bodies. it may sound dumb, but for "Girls" and Olympics enthusiasts alike, the results are hilarious. Shoshi Games 2014 fulfills all of the long- ings I didn't know existed until I saw the Tumblr. In all honesty, one of my favor- ite uses of social media is the use of the mobile-app Tinder, and the Olympic athletes have admit- ted to it being used in the village. Take that in. Olympians are find- ing other Olympians through the same "dating" app that college kids use to find hook-ups on cam- pus. In combination with the dis- tribution of condoms in Olympic Village, I can only imagine what the direct messages are like. Sup posedly the number of Tinder- users has skyrocketed in Sochi since the beginning of the games. Can you really blame people though? Tinder seems way more exciting when you could become' a match with the likes of Shaun White or Matteo Guarise instead of simply the kid that lived down the hall from you freshman year. The Olympics don't end until the Feb. 23rd and surely more gems will come to fruition thanks to the Internet. Sochi 204 definitely sets a precedent for the Olympic Games to come by way of By BRIAN BURLAGE DailyArts Writer, It took 31 years for Mark Helprin's novel "Winter's Tale" to reach the big screen. The novel - originally published in 1983 - is a masterfully Winter's articulate commentary on Tale life in New York Qualityl6and City, spanning Rave20 nearly 100 years and exploring Warer Btss. the cultures of two distinct time periods. It succeeds as a bold love story, an urban tragedy - innovative for both its scope and colloquial charm. The aesthetics of Helprin's writing are consistent and augment the story's rich devices. The novel's function as a poetic, romantic drama, however, is completely ignored in, director Akiva Goldsman's recent cinettsatic rendition. The film misrepresents or misinterprets nearly every symbolic pillar and instead, strives to depict a fantasficlA'callOus love tale. The character relationships- consistently fail to invigorate the defunct and exaggerated plot. Peter Lake (Colin Farrell, "Saving Mr. Banks") is a thief in 19th century New York City under the dictation of Irish gangster Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe, "Man of Steel"). After failing to please the boss, Lake decides to flee from New York. The last burglary he commits is of a Central Park West mansion, in which dying heiress Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay, "Downtown Abbey") awaits her impending demise at the hands of tuberculosis. The two fall in love and Lake resolves to help cure herillness. Weak performances by accomplished actors merely add to the film's contemptible conjecture. Russell Crowe is a droog- controlling tyrant that oversees most of the city's underworking. He is evil, and everyone but Crowe seems to know this. Granted, the role is tricky, he reports to ajudge/ devil-type.character called Lucifer (played by Will Smith, "After Earth"), who teeters on the verge of clinical insanity and, for some unexplained reason, is unable to leave New York City when Peter Lake flees with Beverly. A mix of unabashed plot holes and character flaws prevent Crowe from delivering a truly powerful menace. What we get instead is a flaky, frustrated mob boss - forever stuck chucking his droogsafter a low-leveloiminalt andhis doomed love interest. The rampant time shifting is another major component of the film's gradual collapse. The film employs deus ex machina often, so as to coax the audience into believing that the story is set in another reality, but it can't explain Peter Lake's quantum leaps from New York in the 1890s to New York in 2014. The script offers minimal justification for this phenomenon. It becomes a part of the story that is to be accepted and committed to heart. Many aspects of the film commandeer this same method of demand. Ultimately, many fans of the book will be disappointed with Goldsman's adaptation. A great part of the novel's attention to poetic detail was simply lost in the translation. What should be a marvelous story, one complemented by crime, culture, patriotism, history and love, ends up as a shallow spin on unrebutted time travel. Helprin's New York City is filled with a diversity of characters and experiences - a winter's tale that rouses compassion. Goldsman's New York Cityachieves no such culture. Winter's stolid frost is often associated with beauty. A scene consisting of a frozen lake,, a frosted bridge and a cozy cottage should present some degree of visual splendor. A love story en-veldped'-by hi . gs t14 -especiallyinvokewarm etiment among viewers, but much of the film's chill somehow blows off- screen. Whether by direction, storytelling or cohfused acting - or a combination of all three - the same unwelcoming cold from "Winter's Tale" finds its way to the hearts of viewers. 'Great Beauty' lives up to name their music track and replacing it 4 online interaction across national with "Drunk In Love," a track off boundaries. WE THE FLYEST IN THE GAME. @MICHIGAN DAILY By KARSTEN SMOLINSKI Daily Arts Writer Visually and aurally charged with a diverse collage of mod- ern Rome's splendor from the ancient ruins to the night- B+ clubs, "The Great Beauty" The Great relates the com- mon story of BeutY man's search Michigan for meaning Theater with an uncom- mon approach. Janus Films Though the plot meanders and drags at points, the sights and sounds of writer/director Paolo Sorrentino's ("This Must Be the Place") vision of Rome never grow stale. Jep Gambardella, an aging writ- er and connoisseur of Rome's high society nightlife, loves to party. He drinks and dances all night, finally going to bed as the rest of the city awakens. Leaning on the popu- larity of his only novel, written in his youth, Jeb has spent nearly 40 years this way. However, follow- ing shortly after his 65th birthday, news of the death of his first love triggers potent memories of his past and a lack of fulfillment with his hedonistic lifestyle. "The Great Beauty" tells the story of an artist floundering in apathy, unable to create anything he finds meaningful. Surrounded by pseudo-intellectuals, art snobs and has-beens, Jeb feels adrift in a seaofesotericdrivel and absurdity. Toni Servillo ("Il Divo: La Spetta- colare Vita di Giulio Andreotti") plays the jaded writer, perfectly portraying Jeb's inner turmoil through his long, contemplative gazes and those rare moments when, unable to contain what's "Anyway, here's 'Wonderwall.'" below the surface,his face contorts in agony. The narrative follows him as he attempts to navigate the multitudinous arts and rela- tionships of Rome, searching for meaning to inspire him. The film's cinematography embodies this search, mimicking the artist's eye as it picks over the world surrounding Jeb. Often- times, it discovers one of the sub- plots woven throughout the film, such as a friend's suicidal child or a washed-up, coked-out ex-televi- sion star. These details round out Sorrentino's portrait of absurdity. The camera moves ceaselessly, sometimes sweeping over pan- oramas of Rome or a gorgeous, turquoise sea, drifting over fine architectural details or shaking with the beat of another glitzy party. The viewer gets the sense that Sorrentino has framed every scene with purpose and meticu- lously planned every tracking shot. Together, Jeb and the audi- ence scrutinize these displays, digging for purpose. The bril- liant soundtrack compliments this examination of art through classical songs that infuse the picture with their tone of wonder and awe. As Jeb surveys Renaissance paintings and sculptures, incred- ible landscapes and the bod- ies of nude women, art and the everyday begin to bleed into one another. In one scene, Jeb rehearses the words and actions he will give to a mourning friend as condolence. Even his social interactions have become a per- formance, showing how a life awash in excessive art gradually sinks into meaninglessness. The messages soon contradict one another and form an irreconcil- able sense of absurdity. Lacking in any completely revolutionary ideas, "The Great Beauty" inevitably draws com- parisons to the films of'Fellini, such as the decadent "La Dolce Vita" or the contemplative "81." However, these comparisons come off favorably in the end, evoking the masterful skill of these Italian auteurs. With this film, Paolo Sorrentino deftlyuses cinematography and sound to explore every possible facet of art and meaning. By the time the credits role, most viewers will possess very few new answers regarding the purpose of art and life. However, Sorrentino's focus on capturing the immense power and beauty of this question will restore any audience member's sense of awe.