The Monthly – February 2019

February 2019

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Former Disney animation director John Musker finds his happily ever after p.5

Yes, and...

The ins and outs of making it in NU’s comedy scene p.8

A Rom-Com Comeback

The romantic comedy genre is witnessing a revitalization p.12

Open Tab

Union Squared serves up better-than-deep-dish pizza p.14

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THE MONTHLY Contents

How Far He’s Gone

Former Disney animation director John Musker finds his happily ever after

Yes, and...

The ins and outs of making it — or breaking it — in Northwestern’s comedy scene

A Rom-Com Comeback

The teenage romantic comedy genre is witnessing a wave of revitalization on film after years in hiding

Open Tab

Move over, deep dish. Union Squared is serving up a better Midwestern-style pizza in town

05 08 12 14

Staff of The Monthly Issue 17

Stavros Agorakis Madeleine Fernando The Monthly Editors Ally Mauch Andrea Michelson Writers

Caty Buchaniec Ruiqi Chen Roxanne Panas Designers

Cover and third page photos: Source: John Musker

3

I’ll admit it: I was one of those people crying in the theater during opening week of “Crazy Rich Asians” last August. And, no, it wasn’t out of longing for authentic Asian cuisine, or defending Rachel Chu when her beau’s overprotective mother delivers the callous line, “You will never be enough,” or falling for heartthrob Nick Young as he races onto a plane to propose to Rachel after finally securing his mother’s blessing (OK, I may have shed some tears there, too.)

I cried because, finally, there was a majority Asian-American cast backed by a major Hollywood studio, telling a story embedded with struggles and traditions that I knew all too well — and had never before seen on the big screen. It may not sound like a big deal to most, but I’d grown up imagining myself in the shoes of characters raised on ideas of independence that were foreign to me; these were people who didn’t look like me, and could never vaguely relate to my sense of family obligation (or even my ideas on food delicacies).

There’s no denying this year has been a game-changer for an often stagnant, formulaic industry. Along with “Crazy Rich Asians,” movies like “Black Panther,” “A Wrinkle in Time” and “Love, Simon” were heralded as 2018’s major wins for diversity as well. And not only that, most of these films were also huge hits at the box office; “Black Panther” alone raked in an astounding $700 million in the domestic box office, becoming the third-highest grossing film of all time in the U.S. It’s worth noting many such films were far from perfect. “Bohemian Rhapsody” was criticized for its lackluster approach to telling a queer narrative, and “Crazy Rich Asians” came under fire for not including ethnic minorities like Malays and Indians, who make up about a quarter of Singapore’s population. I wholeheartedly agree with these concerns, and I’m glad they were vocalized alongside the widespread acclaim these films garnered.

In fact, the controversy and conversations that arose from these films may have the greatest impact on the future of Hollywood as we know it. And while many of these films promoted on the backbone of “diversity” fell short in many ways, that doesn’t mean we can’t praise their leaps toward the right direction.

“Black Panther,” “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Love, Simon” have proven these stories can sell; now it’s a matter of finding and empowering the next generation of creative storytellers, and letting their voices be heard. These movies will likely open doors for these future filmmakers, who can point to them as proof that audiences want new perspectives that transcend traditional Hollywood.

So as we all tune in to this year’s 91st Academy Awards, let’s celebrate the milestones: “Black Panther” being the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture, “Roma,” a foreign language film, tying for most nominations, Spike Lee getting his first Oscar nomination for Best Director after snubs upon snubs.

There’s much to celebrate about film and diversity in 2018, but we shouldn’t lose perspective: We still have a long ways to go.

4

How Far He’s Gone – By Madeleine Fernando

Former Disney animation director John Musker finds his happily ever after

F

ar before John Musker became a legendary director at Walt Disney Animation Studios, he was an English major at Northwestern, unsure what his future held.

A commuter student from Norridge, Illinois, Musker spent his limited hours on campus playing pool in Scott Hall, serving as the resident cartoonist for The Daily Northwestern and creating Super 8 films with his friends.

Musker (Weinberg ’75) grew up an avid lover of cartoons and comics but had never received formalized training. And while he’d always dreamed of turning drawing into his full-time career, his Jesuit high school instilled in him the value of a broad, humanities-based college education rather than a vocational one.

At NU, Musker’s training grounds as an artist were largely limited to the confined newsroom of The Daily, and over at Deering Library where he studied cartoonist profiles and dissected animation books.

It was in Christopher Finch’s book, “The Art of Walt Disney,” that Musker learned of the studio’s newly launched in-house training academy for aspiring animators. To be accepted into the program, Disney asked for a portfolio of figure drawings and animal drawings — the

latter Musker said he had none of, coming from “an Irish Catholic family that was allergic to every known mammal.”

So, in late February, Musker braved the fierce Chicago winter and ventured down to the Lincoln Park Zoo, armed with pen and paper, baring treacherous temperatures and locking eyes with several monkeys in an outdoor cage.

Photo Source: Jo

hn Musker

“It was me and the monkeys and no one else, and I was just freezing,” Musker said.

“The drawings were turning out horribly, and I just thought, ‘I can’t do this.’”

At that moment, an idea sprang on him: a trip to the Field Museum. Musker quickly packed up his materials, tied up his winter boots and headed downtown, where he drew from the exhibits’ dioramas and proudly sent his portfolio off to Disney.

Three weeks after, a letter from Disney arrived at his door, only to announce that Musker didn’t make the cut. Not only was he not deemed a deft artist, but his animal drawings were criticized as being too “stiff.”

“I said, ‘Stiff? What do you mean stiff? I drew them the way I saw them — they didn’t move while I was drawing them!”

Musker said. “So all of my plans were going down in flames one after another.”

Soon after, though, Disney invited Musker to apply to CalArts, a newly-created arts school founded

by Walt Disney himself. One application later, Musker suddenly found himself in a classroom alongside fellow aspiring animators, some of whom would later become the industry’s leading figures, like Brad Bird, Chris Buck and John Lasseter, who directed “Ratatouille,” “Frozen” and the “Toy Story” franchise, respectively.

CalArts opened the door to new friendships,

collaborations and Musker’s eventual job offer at Disney just one year after he was originally rejected, he said.

Musker began working at Disney Animation Studios full-time in May 1977, the start of a 40-year-long career trajectory. He made his co-directorial debut in 1986 with “The Great Mouse Detective,” which marked a major collaboration with Musker’s future lifelong career partner, Ron Clements.

After Clements pitched the idea for “The Little Mermaid” and asked Musker to co-write the script, the two men played off each others strengths and became the dynamic duo that helped propel Disney into its Renaissance era: a period of back-to-back critically acclaimed films that young audiences today still religiously watch.

Clements’ expertise in structure, combined with Musker’s deftness at writing dialogue and action, complemented each other and resulted in beloved classics like “Aladdin,” “Hercules,” “Princess and the Frog” and — most recently — “Moana.”

“Moana” was a film originally pitched by Musker. Inspired by Joseph Conrad novels set in the Pacific Islands and paintings by Paul Gauguin — both of whom he was first exposed to at NU — Musker delved into Polynesian mythology where he read about the the islands’ history and the character Maui, which he described as “made for animation.”

Musker and Clements pitched the idea to the studio and were sent on a research trip to Fiji, Tahiti and other islands in the Pacific. There, the duo shared stories with islanders and studied the

islands’ rich culture and history to collect research for their upcoming feature.

“We came back sort of transformed from our experience in the islands and we threw out our story that we had before,” Musker said. “We kept Maui, but we really reinvented (the story) and built it around navigation, because we learned about (the islanders’) pride being the world’s greatest and first navigators.”

The new draft brought in the title heroine Moana, who embarks on a dangerous voyage at sea to save her tribe’s people. Released in 2016, the film — Clements and Musker’s first foray into computer-generated animation — was praised for its gorgeous visuals, creative storytelling and iconic soundtrack.

Bill Kroyer (Medill ‘72), a friend of Musker’s

os

Photo Source: The Walt Disney Studi

Photo Source: Th

e Walt Disney Stu

dios

and former animator at Disney,noted how Musker and Clements were two of the few visionaries to “survive”at Disney through the studio’s decades of turmoil and management changes.

Kroyer praised the duo’s teamwork and said being a successful animation director requires both talent and vision.

“That’s what John and Ron had as a team,” he said. “They had this ability to envision a great story, have a sensitivity for what the art was supposed to be and manage and guide this massive machine toward reaching that goal.”

And while Musker officially retired from Disney last March, that doesn’t mean he’s putting away his drawing board quite yet.

Musker is currently working on his own handdrawn short film and has “10 to 12 more ideas” for future shorts in his head.

Musker said retirement has been good for him, allowing him to spend more time with his grandchildren and control all aspects of his creative endeavors, “for better or worse.”

In terms of his philosophy on filmmaking, Musker said he’s gone his entire career creating films he would enjoy and hoping others would feel the same. However, he said it’s always gratifying to hear people mention the films’ impact and watch fans make the movies their own.

“That’s probably the most rewarding aspect of all of this, to know that the movies — regardless of everything else — they’re going to live on beyond me and my children,” Musker said. “It’s kind of cool to know that stones were dropped in a pond and the ripples are still emanating.” ◊

7

YES, AND...

By Andrea Michelson

The ins and outs of making it — or breaking it — in Northwestern’s comedy scene

A

t Northwestern, there are two paths for aspiring comedians: either you make The Titanic Players improv team freshman year, or you don’t. First-years can forget about trying for the Mee-Ow Show — rumor has it the last freshman to get a spot in the improv and sketch comedy group was Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Communication ’83), Communication senior Max Kliman said.

Kliman was not one of the lucky nine to make the Titanic team his freshman year.

Without that early boost, he said, it would have been easy to give up on comedy altogether. But instead of calling it quits, Kliman shifted his mindset to consider creative roles other than performing.

“It’s just so hyper-competitive, so you kind of need to restructure how you’re thinking about it,” Kliman said. “The thing that was really difficult for me was going from ‘I need to be on an improv team and improv is everything’ to ‘How can I explore other ways of doing comedy?’”

Communication senior Maya Armstrong, a member of Titanic and co-director of Mee-Ow, has been on both sides of the NU improv auditions. During the audition process, both of her improv groups look to create a cohesive team, she said.

8

Because “making the room” — creating a team of people who vibe in humor and personality — is the primary objective of auditions, Armstrong said plenty of funny, talented people don’t make Titanic or Mee-Ow the first time around. She said some people continue to audition and make one of the groups by senior year, and others pursue alternative comedic outlets on campus or create their own groups.

Such outlets for aspiring comedians are limited, though. For Kliman, some other ways of pursuing his passion included writing for the Northwestern Flipside, one of NU’s satirical news sources, and becoming an associate producer of The Blackout, a campus late night show that was in its early stages when he joined.

The writer and producer had his own lucky break sophomore year, when the founders of The Blackout asked him and two other students to take over. The opportunity was both exciting and terrifying for Kliman, who said he had never held a camera before that point in his career.

“They were literally saying, ‘Here’s an organization, in your hands it will either fall apart or grow,’” Kliman said. “So we just had to decide we wanted to grow and continue building.”

And the organization has certainly grown since Kliman and his co-producers were filling their Amazon shopping carts with $10 plastic tripods and $14 lavalier mics.

Even though The Blackout has gained structure over the past few years, Kliman said he is committed to keeping the group open to all students. Prospective hosts and writers must audition or apply, but the majority of the 150 students on the listserv who have contributed to filming, editing and acting in The Blackout’s videos “just showed up,” he said.

“That’s one way we’ve fostered an inclusive environment — there really are no barriers to entry,” Kliman said. “I know when I was a freshman, if there had been more groups who were like, ‘Come on and join, let’s make stuff together,’ I would have been really excited about that.”

Communication senior Jake Daniels, a head writer for The Blackout, as well as a member of Titanic and a co-director of Mee-Ow, described The Blackout as “way more bottom-up” than most organizations.

The group brings in people from all areas of campus to get as many creative voices as possible, with the writer’s room pulling the ideas together into a cohesive show.

Daniels, who transferred from University Photo credits: Sources: Max Kliman, Justin Barbin

of Chicago his sophomore year, said there is something unique about the comedy scene at NU. He said the biggest difference between the two schools is that “people didn’t dance at UChicago.”

At Mee-Ow shows, dancing is mandatory.

In fact, Daniels said he was shocked to see the audience get onstage mid-show when he visited NU freshman year. After he left Shanley Pavilion that night, he was already mentally filling out his transfer application.

He attributes the popularity of the NU comedy scene in part to the student population, which he said is much more positive than the Northwestern Memes for Networking Teens Facebook page might make it out to be.

“People are always looking to form connections between different ideas and exist in different social groups at once, and I think comedy looks at the world in a similar way,” Daniels said. “A lot of people, even if they aren’t in comedy groups here, are just really f---ing funny. It wasn’t like that at my old school.”

But doing comedy inside the “Northwestern bubble” has its limitations. Communication senior Liz Coin said she chose to pursue improv in Chicago because it’s “the place to be” for aspiring comedians and actors.

Coin, who will graduate The Second City conservatory this March, said doing improv with a group of non-college students has

taught her to appeal to a wider audience.

“The NU scene has a lot of inside jokes specific to college humor,” Coin said. “I’m the only college kid in my group at The Second City … It’s a different audience, and I think audience tells a lot about what kind of content that the cast will improvise or put forward in their sketches.”

The Second City conservatory charges around $300 per eight-week term, Kliman said.

That’s a total of $1,800 for students who intend to graduate the conservatory, not including the cost of The Second City’s training program that is required for comedy newbies.

Armstrong said she took a $400 class at The iO Theater, another improv theater and training center downtown, during her sophomore year. The class mainly went over the basics of improv and wasn’t worth the price or the commute, she said, especially when there’s a huge comedy community on campus, which is just as able to train aspiring comedians.

“We’re getting this very intensive comedy education for free on campus with people we like and love and will be friends with forever,” Armstrong said.

Outside of audition-based troupes and classes at conservatories, though, lies a space for NU students who are just looking to get together and have a fun time. Weinberg senior

Laila Francis said the non-audition-based improv group No Fun Mud Piranhas is trying to fill that niche.

Francis, a member of Titanic and co-director of historically black improv group Out Da Box, said the No Fun Mud Piranhas once included Stephen Colbert (Communication ’86) and David Schwimmer (Communication ’88), who were rejected by Mee-Ow their freshman years. The group has since come and gone several times, most recently reappearing on campus last winter when Francis and two friends wanted to create a more inclusive improv team on campus.

The non-audition-based improv group received over 60 signups last quarter, Francis said. The organization is split into smaller teams coached by older students with improv experience. Kliman, Daniels and Coin are among those coaches this year.

Ultimately, Francis said she hopes the No Fun Mud Piranhas can be an accessible and inclusive space within the NU comedy scene. She said the community established around improv and comedy is especially strong because “you get to hang out with people who make you laugh.”

After all, laughter is considered the best medicine there is.

“If it comes down to ‘laughter makes you live longer,’ then I’m going to be immortal,” Daniels said. ◊

9

And the Oscar goes to. . .

1

"Awkwardly beautiful"

2

3

"An epic, sweeping love story"

"Wild, ... engaging, and ambitious" 4

"You're witnessing history in the making" 10

Photo credit: 1. Source: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation 2. Source: Annapurna Pictures 3. Source: Neal Preston/Warner Bros/TNS 4. Source: Alfonso Cuarรณn

The Monthly staff is making a case for each Best Picture nominee to go home with the night's biggest prize. Scan this code with Snapchat or your smartphone to read more!

6

5

"A cultural phenomenon"

"It will move you to tears" 7

"Lee's rebuttal to the Great White Epic" 8

"Vote for beauty, vote for art, vote for love" 5. Source: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation 6. Source: Marvel Studios 7. Source: David Lee/Focus Features 8. Source: Patti Perret/Universal Pictures, Participant, and DreamWorks

The teenage romantic comedy genre is witnessing a wave of revitalization on film after years in hiding

— by Stavros Agorakis

J

ohn Hughes defined love for an entire generation.

Imagine being a teenager in the ’80s.

Unapologetic neon jackets and Aussie hairsprayinduced dos aside, growing up felt more like a thrilling challenge than an awkward theme park ride. Life lacked Tinder, but had Patrick Swayze in it. It lacked Spotify, but had Peter Gabriel singing its soundtrack. Most importantly, it had its downs, but was never swayed by the fear of you never finding your one true love — at least not in the movies.

No director may ever capture the climax of a romantic comedy film better than Hughes, or Cameron Crowe for that matter. There may not be another Lloyd Dobler holding a boombox outside your window to proclaim his love. Or a John Bender-type thrusting his fist into the air as Simple Minds starts to play. Jake Ryan won’t wait outside the church in front of his iconic red Porsche to declaratively say, “Yeah, you.”

These characters are deeply imprinted in our minds and hearts. But as the teenage rom-com genre resurfaces in Netflix’s golden era, there might just be a whole bunch of new romantic leads waiting in line to take their place.

Last year saw a great number of films balancing the line between an empowering coming-of-age story and a heartfelt, budding romance developing between its leads. “Love, Simon,” released in March 2018, started the trend with a bang: not only did it fuel the teen rom-com wagon with $66.3 million in the global box office — more than three times its budget — but it also introduced a gay love story backed by a major Hollywood studio, 20th Century Fox. Netflix was quick to pick up on the commercial and critical success of the film.

Just a few months after, it released a line of pictures that played on the same tropes as those of the ’80s, but modernized them to attract the audiences now purchasing movie theater tickets (or, well, streaming service subscriptions).

Flicks like “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before” did not reinvent the rom-com genre; they merely revitalized it. Lara Jean and Peter Kavinsky’s romance is no different than that of Allison Reynolds and Andrew Clark in “The Breakfast Club” — a female high school outcast and a preppy athlete breaking through their respective cliques’ barriers to end up together — but a non-white lead and a rich backstory that enriches the plot as much as furthers it help Photo: Source: MovieStillsDB

universalize the messages the movie gets across.

Same with “Sierra Burgess is a Loser;” despite the film’s many flaws, no picture in the ’80s ever featured a lead romantic actress who came close to being called anything other than skinny.

Teenagers worldwide are finally seeing themselves on screen, and as trite as this statement may read among studios’ ambitious yet narrow efforts toward diversification, people are more than willing to believe and buy into a non-white teen love story.

Kerensa Cadenas, a movies staff editor at Entertainment Weekly, said that modernizing the rom-com is precisely what creators have to do to keep the genre alive.

Characters who previously had a singular defining trait — the athlete, the princess, the basket case — can exist outside of their posse’s rep to outgrow social norms (after all, that’s what made Noah Centineo’s Kavinsky the Generation Z’s male heartthrob). Casts do not all have to look alike, whether that’s in regard to their size, race or sexuality. Most of all, rom-com leads don’t have to represent the entire minority group or community they belong in because their love tales and tribulations are shared among most, if not all, teenagers.

“Seeing positive representations ... of diverse casts has really helped to get the people behind studios and streaming services ready to do more of these films,” Cadenas told The Daily. “It’s also something that audiences miss. There’s something really comforting about a rom-com, no matter its problematics, and if there’s the ability to make these movies and have them more accurately reflect the world around us, I see this being a lasting revisiting of the genre.”

Why was the genre gone in the first place, though? After all, these films propelled actors like Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall to stardom, and left audiences craving their return to the big screen. But in the next 30 years post-“Say Anything,” teen rom-coms were spread far and wide. Rarely would a flick attract that much attention, and when it did — like “10 Things I Hate About You” in 1999, and “Easy A” in 2010 — it wouldn’t spark a wave to

follow up its success.

Collider.com senior editor Matt Goldberg explained this gap using the concept of a “donut hole” — studios will typically finance indies of the $5 to $10 million sort or massive 9-figure blockbusters, leaving romantic comedies — which fall in between those two — forever on the drawing board.

Now, though, the rise of streaming services is allowing creators to no longer pursue their films solely on the chances of ticket-sale profit return, but also on their “rewatchability” factor (or how often audiences may want to return to the movies, say, on a wintry Sunday night with a tub of Ben & Jerry’s). Since Netflix, Hulu and the likes are looking for loyal subscribers, rather than one-time moviegoers, the “nice experience” that rom-coms offer may be more lucrative in the long run.

“The romantic comedy has always been kind of comfort food,” Goldberg told the Daily. “It has these beats that are very safe and low stakes.

At the end of the day, in rom-coms, the worst that’s going to happen is two people don’t get together.”

As for the future of the genre, Cadenas, Goldberg and a good slice of the film expert community agree that we haven’t seen the last of teen romantic comedies — or their stars. Already, projects like a “To All The Boys” sequel have been greenlit and are in production, while all the more LGBTQ- and non-white-led stories are joining their ranks. Centineo and Nick Robinson, who starred in “Love, Simon,” are actively promoting more sympathetic male leads that nuances of teen love in the modern era.

And if studios and filmmakers continue to give new life to the genre, there might be a whole new generation ready to believe in love. ◊

13

Move over, deep dish. Union Squared is serving up a better Midwestern-style pizza in town.

T

here’s a different kind of pizza in town that’s been flying under the radar, and it just might be better than the Chicago-style deep dish all Midwesterners are bred to love.

Union Squared, located at 1307 Chicago Ave., serves authentic Detroit-style pizza in a small but cozy space that is worth the walk from campus to the Main-Dempster Mile. The restaurant has thrived in Evanston since opening in 2016, and has gained some buzz in the Chicago food scene after opening up a stall in Revival Food Hall that same year and then a new restaurant in Wrigleyville in 2018.

I’ll admit that I, a New York-native, never fully got on board with deep dish. I am required to defend the New York slice I grew up eating, and deep dish always feels more like a demanding project than a meal. I will enjoy it from time to time, but not without putting on stretchy pants and taking a food coma-induced nap afterwards (and, of course, insisting to everyone around me that deep dish is not real pizza).

Union Squared’s pies, while certainly decadent, felt more like real pizza and I didn’t need to unbutton my jeans after eating. The square slices remind me of the thick, fluffy Sicilian-style pizzas found in most New York pizzerias and, similar to deep dish, they have a crispy and caramelized crust. It is a happy and delicious medium between thin crust and deep dish.

Some friends and I sat down at one of the large wooden tables in the compact space, eagerly perusing the menu while an eclectic playlist (think everything from Elton John to Kansas) played in the background at just the right volume.

To help first-timers like me, Union Squared advertises the anatomy of a Detroit slice on one wall: the thick crust (baked in square pans made in Michigan) is topped with melted brick cheese — a cheese from Wisconsin similar to cheddar but softer and typically shaped like a brick. The pie is then layered with toppings before and after Photos: Syd Stone /Daily Senior Staffer

a “Detroit-sized helping” of red sauce.

The menu is small, featuring a few salads and about a dozen pies. The drink menu has a strong selection of canned beers, wines and cocktails, but we quickly bypassed the drinks and salads to get straight to the pizza.

The pies range from classic — burrata margherita and four cheese and pepperoni — to some more unconventional flavor combinations.

We went with a mix of both, ordering the burrata, pepperoni, the Godfather (sausage, pancetta and pepperoni) and the Detroit Michoacan (chorizo, pineapple, red onion and roasted jalapeno cream), all at the recommendation of our waiter.

While the burrata was indistinguishable from the brick cheese used on the rest of the pies, it is a solid option for those who prefer just cheese and tomato. The pepperoni was similarly simple and satisfying, but the real star and big surprise was the Detroit Michoacan.

I was hesitant to order a pizza that had pineapple on it, but the server pointed it out as a staff favorite and the promise of a spicy kick from the jalapeno and chorizo drew me in. The pie gets its name from a play on words: Michoacàn is a state in Mexico that also recalls the pizza’s origin’s in Michigan.

Everyone at the table was pleasantly surprised by the pineapple-topped pizza — one of my friends insisted she would only have a bite but then went back to finish a whole slice.

The pizza will admittedly cost you more

— by Ally Mauch

than Dominos (around $25 each), but each pie can be made half-andhalf so you can try a variety of options and some are also available as “quarterpies” for less than $10.

Perhaps the only real downfall to Union Squared is the tiny space, which is particularly cramped in the winter months when the outdoor beer garden is closed. However, I am willing to forgo some of my personal space to indulge in the crispy, layered, betterthan-deep dish square pies, and I bet you might, too. ◊

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