The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: Guillermo del Toro

  • Fast facts about the Oscars 2018

    Fast facts about the Oscars 2018

    The 90th Annual Academy Awards airs on March 4. It’s time to catch up on movies you haven’t seen yet and place bets on the nominees. Even for a casual moviegoer, it’s exciting to see famous people get dressed up and eagerly wait to hear who wins.

    Fast facts:

    • Firsts: Kobe Bryant is the first NBA player nominated for his short “Dear Basketball.” Dee Rees is the first gay African American woman to be nominated for her adapted screenplay “Mudbound.” Yance Ford is the first transgender director to be nominated for the documentary “Strong Island.”
    • Directors in Fives: There are five nominated directors. Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) is the fifth woman, Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) is the fifth Latin American and Jordan Peele (Get Out) is the fifth African American to be nominated for Best Director.
    • Hilarious Irony: Christopher Plummer is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in “All the Money in the World,” which was originally Kevin Spacey’s role before he was fired in light of his recent sexual assault allegations. If it wasn’t for the allegations, that could have been his third Oscar nomination.
    Infographic illustration by Stella Stokes.
  • ‘The Shape of Water’ is charming

    ‘The Shape of Water’ is charming

    The Shape of Water is written and directed by Guillermo del Toro. There was a lot of hype leading to the film and it received glowing reviews. It was recently nominated for 13 Oscar awards, making it the most nominated film this year. The film arrived in local theaters a month after national release, and it was worth the wait.

    The lead of the story is Elisa, played by Sally Hawkins, a mute woman who cleans during late hours at Occam Aerospace Research Center with her friend Zelda, played by Octavia Spencer. The center receives a top secret project the scientists must research, a near-human creature no one has ever seen before. By research, they mean torture to see what happens.

    Elisa connects with this amphibian-like animal, and they intimately understand each other without verbal communication. Elisa attempts to rescue the creature with the help of Zelda and her neighbor Giles before the boss of the project catches up to kill the creature.

    It was an exciting and charming story. There are fairy tale elements, like Elisa’s origins. In the beginning, Zelda explains to their superior that she was found by the river as a baby with gill-like scars on her neck and brought to an orphanage.

    With her connection to water and the creature, it was obvious that they were meant to be. This shuts down any beastiality claim, because both of them weren’t humans to begin with. Without the ability to talk, Elisa is still expressive and has a great sexuality to her. She desires love and sex, but doesn’t display her sexuality to the world. If writers are to write a sexy character, it should be for the character and not for the audience, like Elisa.

    Like all fairy tales, there should be a villain, and her boss, Colonel Richard Strickland, played by Michael Shannon, is a decent villain. Strickland is not necessarily maniacal, but he tortures the creature without regret and talks down to everyone around him.

    Strickland goes home in his new car to adoring kids and a loving wife that asks for sex, but he acts like it’s a chore. He clearly has a good life, but has no appreciation for it, making his defeat all the more satisfying.

    If you like fairy tales with more bite than the average Grimms tale, or nostalgia for black and white musicals, this is worth catching before it leaves theaters.