Laura Mooney Arts Editor hile award show madness is in full Wionine with the recently passed Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards being handed out, everyone’s eyes are now on the upcoming Academy Awards. With the ever growing list of best picture nominees, now bursting to the brim with a grand total of nine films, the coveted category for once has no clear front-runners and will remain a complete guessing game up until the pivotal moment when they announce the winner. While the majority of the films up for best picture are usually widely released, popular films, every year there is that one indie film that sneaks in under the radar, is only released in a handful of theatres, and winds up being a fantastic achievement in cinema. This year, that specific little gem is perhaps the most romantic film this reviewer has seen in a decade, about a man’s love affair with his operating system. When first hearing that a romance between Joaquin Phoenix and a computer voiced by Scarlett Johansson is the plot to this independent film, it does not seem all that unusual that Her took a little while to pick up some steam popularity-wise. What sounds merely like the tale of a man who does not know when to power down his computer, actually turns out to be one of the most sensitive, passionate, and loving films of the year. Phoenix plays Theodore, a recently divorced, understandably depressed writer who manoeuvers through life in a futuristic society that is only slightly more obsessed with technology than our current generation. With the inherent desire to consistently better what they already have, computer companies develop an operating system that is programmed to interact with its user with personally assigned human voices, and consistently learn from its experiences while bettering itself continuously, and of course, Theodore invests in one. What follows is the tale of Theodore and the OS Samantha’s precarious relationship as they learn to be with each other, without one half of the partnership having a physical body, and eventually come to realize the pivotal role they play in each other’s existences. while the surface of Her is the strangest JOAQUIN PHOENIX — AMY ADAMS OLIVIA WILDE ~~» SCARLETT JOHANSSON A SPIKE JONZE | OVE STORY story of love ever to grace the big screen, director and writer Spike Jonze makes a few poignant comments about our own generation’s love affair with technology. Jonze presents his futuristic society as one of minimal interaction with other people, with Theodore often shown walking through a sea of people all focused on their own personal virtual universe, without even stopping to take a second glance at the real world that is around them. While we may scoff at this, as even I found myself doing while watching Her, when one takes a step back it is not too far off from what our own society has become. While we may not have our virtual glasses and earpieces that read us our daily emails yet, when was the last time anyone went a day without checking their phone or computer? Jonze paints this picture almost as a warning, that this love of technology will literally become a “love” of technology if we continue down the path we are on. I mean, do we really want to live in a society where your girlfriend is a computer and no one questions your sanity? Rich with hidden meaning, themes of inner beauty, and not to mention stunning cinematography, Her may not end up winning the Oscar for Best Picture against some of the more popular contenders, but it is by far one of the best films of 2013, and well worth the watch. AMAL nydailynews Laura Mooney Arts Editor amous NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live is notorious for a number of things, including making stars out of its cast members, controversial skits, and even some internet meme worthy mess-ups. The long running comedy show has made headlines for a mold breaking, and rather surprising, reason; hiring their first African American female cast member. While at first this sounds surprising, since some of the more famous actors to come from SNL, such as Eddie Murphy, have been African American, this is in fact the first time in the show’s thirty nine seasons that an African American woman has graced the famous stage at Rockefeller Plaza as a full time cast member. Sasheer Zamata’s sudden hiring was the result of a public outcry last year that called SNL out for their lack of diversity with their current cast members, with the last interracial SNL Welcomes Sasheer Zamata member, Maya Rudolph, having left the show back in 2007. In true SNL fashion, they turned the situation in their favour by poking fun at the obvious problem in a very funny episode that featured actress Kerry Washington running on and off stage switching between an Oprah and Michelle Obama costume, shining light on the point that there were in fact no African American female comedians on the show. Thus, the search for the first female African American cast member went under way. Zamata, a 27-year-old comedian and improv actress from Indianapolis, was welcomed to the show on 18 January 2014 to great reception in terms of her performance and presence, but yet something was still not sitting quite right with a number of the critics. The show, hosted by rapper Drake, featured Zamata in nearly all of the skits, but yet some critics claimed that something still did not seem cohesive with the show. Talk show host Sherri Shepherd made the statement that it seemed as though the writers at SNL were trying too hard to make Zamata’s presence known to the audience, as though they were pushing the fact that they had listened to the world and had hired a woman of colour. One skit in particular featured Zamata dressed as singer Rihanna, and Shepherd even went as far as to say the skit was “too black” for a mainstream audience. While this statement by Shepherd is only one opinion, is does bring up a very important issue. Does the fact that it took so long for SNL to hire an African American woman hinder the writers’ ability to seamlessly incorporate her into the show now that she is there? Or will she always be type-casted into stereotypical roles, and be known as the female comedian they were forced to hire? Only time will tell ifthe connotations and assumptions that go along with Zamata’s hiring will eventually fade as she becomes just another cast member, but either way she is clearly a welcome presence on the classic show, and will be forever known as the woman who made Saturday Night Live history.