2B - Thursday, November 6, 2014

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

2B - Thursday, November 6, 2014 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom

The importance
of being
Kendall Jenner

NETFLIX PIX
Daily Arts Writers dig through recent Netflix releases to
find the movies worth revisiting or discovering.

I*a

This past Monday,
Kendall Jenner,
heir to the Kar-
dashian celebrity throne and
Bruce Jenner's middle part,
turned 19.
Media out-
lets from
Vogue to
Cars Delev-
ingne's
Instagram
joined in.
wishing ERIKA
her a happy HARWOOD
birthday -
something
that, years
ago, would have raised many
a bold, well-groomed eye-
brow.
I've avoided the topic of
Kendall's quick rise to her
spot in today's fashion oligar-
chy mostly because I've been
the sole cause of the Daily's
saturation in all things
Kardashian. I even delayed
writing this column because
"Kourtney & Khloe Take the
Hamptons" was on and I des-
perately needed to understand
why Khloe was dating French
Montana (I still don't - name
one redeeming quality, Khloe).
And for a while - a long while
- I didn't think Kendall was
going to be that big of a deal.
Obviously, I was wrong.
It's not that Kendall's "It
Girl" status comes as a total
surprise. There's a solid per-
centage of people in the enter-
tainment industry who got
their shot at fame just because
they're the spawn of other
celebrities. Celebrities have
bred talents in their own right,
people like Stella McCartney,
Angelina Jolie, Rashida Jones
and Sofia Coppola. Stars who
have developed their careers
and personas to the extent that
you no longer associate them
with the reason they're on this
earth - even if you share a last
name with that reason and that
last name is "McCartney."
But seven years ago - when
"Keeping Up with the Kar-
dashians" first premiered, and
Kim could barely land her own
gigs outside of QuickTrim ads
and Kendall was a mute, awk-
ward 12-year-old - the idea of

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e from the Kardashian- sica Lange serving as orator
r dynasty going on to and, of course, Marc Jacobs
e great success seemed coming out after the finale
able. It probably still in Adidas track pants. It was
o some people, but hey, I definitely memorable. The
shamelessly playing your unforgettable production value
e game every day on my made me somewhat oblivious to
ides to work this sum- the individual models walking
vas I? down the runway - to be fair,
uld go into uncomfort- they had bleached eyebrows
etail about Kendall's and wigs on. It wasn't until I
ing aspirations, which went on Twitter afterward that
beginning, were played I realized one of the blonde-
th some frequency on browed, nipple-bearing models
ow - and if there's one was indeed "aspiring" model
I do understand, it's the Kendall, signaling a firm and
work. Despite the show's final farewell to the days of
sing success and Kendall Forever 21 campaigns.
g more and more like a Since then, fashion has
each season (she's 5'10" heeded to a full-on Kendall
obably 75 percent leg), I takeover. Reflecting on fall
asn't sold on the idea that fashion week, it's hard to name
ould be able to break into a show she didn't walk in. We're
ashion. She landed a few talking Chanel, Givenchy (she's
ercial spreads and covers basically best friends with
gazines like Seventeen Riccardo Tisci), Marc Jacobs,
een Vogue, but she shared Emilio Pucci, etc., etc., etc.
gigs with sister Kylie and It would be easy to credit
ikely got them thanks to a famous family for her suc-
rgeoning popularity of cess, and in part, we can.
ing Up" - definitely not Kim's ties to fashion tightens
se she was "Kendall Jen- each day, and with a brood
odel." as famous and vast as the
Kardashians, it's not a novel
idea to say they know people
from in high places. But making it
 gone from the oft-criticized world
Kardashian of reality television, to com-
mercial modeling, to high
,to Jenner, fashion takes a little more
than being able to cite Kris
just Kendall. Jenner as your mom ... OK, a
With such a large family,
it's possible that there will
n there was the Marc always be a slight Kardashi-
s show. Not just any Marc an-Jenner stigma Kendall
s show (not that anything has!to face - but based on
s can be-so casually clas- her long strides inthe past +
, but the Jessica Lange- few years, it may not neces-
ed, eyebrow-bleached, sarily be a bad thing. In that
bobbed, nip-tastic Fall small span of time, she has
Zeady-to-Wear show. I gone from Kardashian sister,
nber exactly where I was to a Jenner, to just Kendall -
bably because it's where high fashion model, Givenchy
or most things - sitting muse, Cara comrade - all by
my electric blanket in 19 years old. If that doesn't
d. Fully swept over by the erase any doubts you have on
f fashion week, I made the power that is being Kend-
t of watching the show's all Jenner, just give her a year
ream. or two.

"The Birdcage"
One of the greatest films to remember Robin Wil-
liams by, "The Birdcage" is a testament to the pain
and hilarity of family dynamics. Armand Goldman
(Robin Williams, "The Face of Love"), a gay drag
club owner, and his partner Albert (Nathan Lane,
"The English Teacher") receive bignews when their
son Val (Dan Futterman, "A Mighty Heart"), comes
home from college, engaged to be married. A prob-
lem quickly materializes when Val elucidates the
identities of their in-laws - an ultra-conservative
Senator and his uptight wife. To appease his fian-
cee's parents, Val asks his parents to lie, playing it
straight for a night. Williams's performance illus-
trates his deadpan abilities to perfection in between
delivering gag lines and prat falls. This film will
make you laugh and think, as it draws upon serious
issues of conformity and gay rights, conveyed by a
fabulous Nathan Lane in tights and pearls.

"The FP"
"The FP" is a highly original indie film that's
as low-budget as it is entirely bizarre. In the near-
future, gang warfare is perpetrated through Dance
Dance Revolution multiplayer battles (well, they
didn't get the rights to DDR - in this, it's Beat Beat
Revelation. Yeah.) after which the loser collapses
and dies for an unexplained reason. It's a smirking
comedy, one that knows exactly how ridiculous its
premise is and milks that fact. Perhaps the most
interesting part of this filmis its visionof the future
of American English. Words are slurred together
and abbreviated. Gangster slang and racial epi-
thets have become staples of speech, but have
taken on strangely positive connotations ("nigga"
now stands for Never Ignorant of Getting Goals
Achieved). The film is horribly paced and, well,
kind of a mess in general, but it's worth checking
out for its ludicrous subject matter alone.
All the heart, all the excitement
of a great frontier adventure

me, it's still the standout
of that season. The bold
ted colors, the clone-like
gyny of the models, Jes-

Harwood has just coined the
phrase 'nip-tastic.' To congratulate
her, e-mail erikacat@umich.edu.


WE KEEP UP
WITH THE
KARDASH IANS
SO YOU DON'T
HAVE TO.
@AICHIGANDAILY

"Happy Gilmore"
Ah, it was 1996. Which meant, among other things,
I was still wearing (and peeing in) Pull-Ups. Good
thing, because another Adam Sandler farcical dun-
garee-wetter graced the moron in all of us. Sandler's
1995 "Billy Madison" was the one about school. His
sophomore film, "Happy Gilmore," covered untrod-
den fringe:It introduced idiot to selflessness. It taught
us over-educated Millennials a few things. Sometimes
being a jackass should take precedence over polite-
ness. Yes, I'm talking about Happy trying to stab
another hockey player with his ice skate. Possessing
insta-recall of ageless quipswilltake you far in life. Ifa
mutton-chopped nursing home orderly (played by Ben
Stiller)snapping, "You can trouble me for a warm glass
ofshut-the-hell-up!"at Happy'sgrandmadoesn'tmake
you feel reborn, then good luck with friends.

WALT DISNEY
DOROTHY McGUIRE a FESS PARKER
--LL
TECHNICOLOR"
DISNEY
"Old Yeller"
"Old Yeller was a mongrel, a ugly lop-eared mon-
grel!"
The song harkens back to younger days, when we
read allthe old dogstories in Mrs. Brooks's fifth grade
class - Where the "Red Fern Grows," "Shiloh" and,
of course, "Old Yeller."
The movie yearns for the idyllic life of the Old
Texan West, a life where a young man can grow up
not knowing what money is, save maybe the Con-
federate dollar that Papa used to have. Even more
charming is the antiquated acting, the old Southern
accent and country speech - "He ain't an ugly yeller
dog, he's a pretty yeller dog!"
Thisclassic is always worth revisiting. A testament
to childhood and love, it is a story that has moved
America's heart for generations

'0

0

On Friday, Theophilus
London dropped the track
"Can't Stop" off his new
album Vibes,
which was
released on
Tuesday.
He teased Can't Stop
the track,' Theophilus
which fea aondon&
tures Kanye Kanye West
West, back
in September Waroer Bros,
before quick-
ly taking it off the Internet.
But now that it's out for good,
we can't stop listening to it,
just like the title suggests.
Though different from Lon-
don's norm and reminiscent
of West's earlier days, the
track sounds effortlessly put
together. The artists' styles
cohesively blend - Kanye con-
tributes a less-aggressive, more
introverted verse than any-
thing we've heard from him on
Yeezus, while London provides

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