Leandra Medine's Blog, page 572

History Lesson: 8 Martin Luther King Jr. Facts

Remember how exciting Martin Luther King Jr. Day felt as a little kid? It was one of the few times you came to class expecting the same old routine but got something far more riveting than phonics or times tables: Real life stories of a high stakes struggle for what’s right, centered around a character more noble and brave than your favorite superhero.

But now that we’re older, no school doesn’t have to mean no more learning — in fact, it’s exactly here that we’re reminded the Internet has purpose beyond viral videos. Below are eight (and a half) fascinating things about the civil rights leader:

1. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth certificate does not say “Martin Luther.”

Although he and his father were both born with the name first name Michael, King Sr. changed their names to honor Martin Luther, the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation leader, after visiting Luther’s home country of Germany. The year was 1934, and his son was five. [Alternet]

1a. Even after the big switch, his closest family members still called him Mike. [Alternet]

2. He was in college before kids his age could drive.

Finishing high school in just two years, King Jr. was 15 when he enrolled at his dad’s alma mater, Morehouse College. It was there that he ultimately decided to become an ordained Baptist minister — the same career path that not only his father, but grandfather and great-grandfather, followed. [History]

3. He got a C in his public speaking class [Huffington Post]

Then went on to be one of the great public speakers of all time.

Below is Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”

King delivered this speech on April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. The following day, King was assassinated. [Wikipedia]

4. Years earlier, he survived a brutal assassination attempt in 1958.

When a mentally ill women named Izola Ware Curry plunged a seven inch letter opener into his chest during a book signing, the tip just barely missed his aorta. Following several tense hours of precise surgery, the doctors said even one tiny sneeze post-attack could have killed him. [History]

5. Throughout his time fighting for civil rights, he was arrested on 29 different occasions.

Although he anticipated many of these instances when entering nonviolent protest, there were a lot of surprise trumped up charges, too — like driving just five miles per hour under the speed limit. [History]

6. He was — and remains — the youngest male to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

When he received the honor at age 35 in 1964, he was the youngest overall. That position has since been filled by Malala Yousafzai (who, at age 17, won in 2014). [Today I Found Out]

7. Though “I Have a Dream” is his most famous speech, “A Time to Break the Silence” is his most controversial.

He spoke out against the Vietnam War during a time when many Americans were still in favor of it. According to CNN, some members of his own staff warned him not to give it and President Lyndon B. Johnson stopped talking to him afterward. He was assassinated one year later to the day he gave this speech. [CNN]

“A Time to Break the Silence, ” April 4, 1967

8. He went off-script during his “I Have A Dream” address.

According to Clarence B. Jones, who co-wrote the famous speech, Martin spontaneously ab libbed his famous monologue when gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, called from near the stage and told him to, “Tell ’em about the dream, Martin, tell ’em about the dream!” [Washington Post]

“I Have a Dream,” August 28, 1963

Have a thoughtful MLK day, everyone. See you Tuesday.

Photograph via Corbis/Hulton-Deutsch Collection

 

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What to Wear This Week: Venessa Arizaga

What do you ask yourself when getting dressed in the morning? Whether or not you’re inclined to admit the impetus of why you say what you do with the clothes that you wear, they make a statement. You make a choice about how you will present yourself, to wear a thing that will pick up slack where words might fail you, or conversely, surprise the onlookers who become your audience. It’s an intellectual choice whether or not you’re willing to see it and everyone participates in its power.

In today’s edition of What to Wear This Week, jewelry designer Venessa Arizaga breaks down the mechanics of what she wears and why.

What are you thinking when you get dressed in the morning? Do you ask yourself any questions?

I’m the Queen of Comfort; my work days are filled with a lot of running around and calisthenics, not necessarily by choice. I have a small in-house team and I wear a lot of hats throughout the day, so I often ask myself, “Do I want my favorite silk/wool tailored pant to split in half from bum to center while on a ladder in heels reaching for a roll of bubble wrap?”

I stick with a uniform that I perfected over the years. I love a sexy fitted jean, a coveted band t-shirt (at the moment it’s Sleater-Kinney — gifted to me by my design director Patricia Hermogenes) with a boy fit Brooks Brother button down and my comfy white Saint Laurent sneakers. I’ll top it off with a matching denim apron that I had custom-made at Loren denim in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Do you start from the shoes and work your way up, or clothes and then down? Do the pieces you choose to wear aim to say anything specific?

I’m a creature of habit so it’s been a routine of getting the hard decisions out of the way first: THE PANTS! It’s the voice of reasoning for me.

1. Pants

2. Top

3. Shoes

And if it’s a super hard morning and I’ve maxed out every outfit decision, I’ll move on to hair and makeup and circle back to the closet.

Foolproof styling trick?

It’s an oldie but goodie. I’m a sucker for an adorable pair of socks with a heel or platform. I’m convinced it can transform any outfit. I’m a collector of hosiery. I would compare it to my Hello Kitty sticker addiction days of middle school.

The one garment that never lets you down?

My loyal friend Mr. Blue Jeans will never fail me. It’s really my staple piece that can make and never break an outfit. I am currently obsessed with these straight leg vintage jeans from Brock Collection. They remind me of a perfect pair of Levi’s 501 from the 70s.

The one that always lets you down?

Crop tops! I really should have utilized them a bit more in my 20s. Now that I’m in my 30-somethings, I feel like the crop top just mocks me and points out all my flaws and indulgences.

Your best shopping tip?

Advice from my best friend’s mother: “You only live once and spend your days working so hard — enjoy what makes you happy. ” If that means an expensive bag, go for it.

When and why did you launch your brand?

I launched Venessa Arizaga in 2010 after a long love affair with the fashion industry. I spent many years crafting my design skills and learning from designers in the fashion industry like Bryan Bradley (founder of Tuleh), Carolina Herrera and Zac Posen. These individuals made a huge mark on me in so many of the ways that I design and run my company today. After those years in fashion, I had a burning desire to develop my creative voice and venture on my own. Leaving the fashion industry was one of the hardest decisions I’ve made but truly the most rewarding. I wouldn’t have changed a thing.

Your favorite piece?

My favorite piece over the years is the “Get Well Necklace.” All of the pieces I’ve created are memories and notches in my life. It’s sounds super hippie-dippie but this one really stood out and helped me cope with the passing of my father. If you look closely there are different charms that reminded me of him.

1. Monkey: his Chinese astrological sign

2. Eye: he always took great care and watched out for others

3. Cookie and tooth: notorious for having the biggest sweet tooth

4. Smiley face: he was the biggest clown and could always make you smile

What does the perfect outfit look like to you?

That’s a hard one. For a while I’ve been a big fan of Delpozo. Everything from each collection is breathtaking. The pre-fall 2016 collection is a masterpiece. I’m in love with the ginormous-ly wide trouser and fringe knit. It looks like it should be hung on a wall and in a frame. Spectacular.

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Shop all things in the land of Venessa Arizaga!  Follow the brand on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest; Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis.

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MR’s Guide to the Best Cup of Coffee

If there’s one thing we talk about at Man Repeller more than clothes, shoes, rabid buffalos, what to order for lunch and various Instagram theories, it’s coffee: what shop has the best latte, what cafe has the best muffins, who has almond milk — the good kind, not the sketchy stuff. Can you blame us, though? Step into our morning work lair and you’ll find almost all of us smiling into the dark abyss of our paper cups, because happiness knows no joy like the first sip of hot coffee on a cold ass day.

Below are our favorite neighborhood spots. Sugar’s to your left, napkins are on your right, tip jar is at the bottom — but instead of cash, leave a comment (tell us your favorite spot!) and possibly a picture of your morning coffee cup.

Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis

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Wow, Already?! The 2016 Year in Review

Call me a cynic, but I think of the New Year like a wash cycle that fails to remove yellow pit stains in my favorite white shirt. For a while, I can trick my eyes into seeing the crisp, clean oxford I put on the morning of that important meeting a few months ago; deep down I know there’s no way to start fresh, to undo what has been done. But I’d rather resign the shirt to a lifetime of being worn under sweaters than admit that my body could sweat so profusely as to destroy a garment beyond repair and require the purchase of a new one.

What I’m trying to say is: you can never be truly free of the past. As much as we’d like to forget certain moments of 2016, here are the ones that left stains we won’t be able to ignore come 2017:

POLITICS

The landscape of North American politics was seismically shaken when American voters, too exhausted by the endless campaign cycle to muster enthusiasm for any of their own presidential candidates, elected Justin Trudeau, Canadian Prime Minister and regulation hottie, to lead the newly formed United States of AmeriCanada.

TECHNOLOGY

Bringing “Netflix & chill” to a new level, the ever-so-subtly-named Bang app synced users’ Tinder, Uber and Netflix accounts and made finding casual sex easier than placing a Seamless order. Swipe right on a user who’s also liked your profile and an Uber is immediately sent to your location to bring you to your match’s apartment. There, you can browse an automatically-generated Netflix category of your mutual entertainment interests. Pick a show or movie, and, um, you know the rest.

FOOD

RIP clean eating. The dietary trend wilted faster than an unrefrigerated bag of kale after 659 hospitalizations were reported as a result of the “Windex 5-Day Detox.” The nutrition plan, widely shared on Pinterest, promised to rid one’s internal organs of harmful toxins and restore them to their natural shine.

FASHION

Rihanna’s 2015 Met Gala cape forewarned the trend that we all should have seen coming after the popularity of maxi skirts, wide leg pants and blanket scarves. Our insatiable desire for extra fabric was channeled into parachute-sized jackets that billowed around us like waves at high tide. Street style photographers resorted to aerial photography in order to fit the expansive masses of material surrounding each woman into a single shot.

ENTERTAINMENT

The most talked about movie of the year was undoubtedly Martin Scorsese’s Oscar Bait, a four-hour drama released in late December that starred Jennifer Lawrence, Christian Bale, Meryl Streep and Leonardo DiCaprio. Charming critics and confusing audiences everywhere, the film portrayed dysfunctional families, mental illness, transgender issues, race relations, coming-of-age stories, gay sex, lesbian sex, teenage sex, drug addiction, underdogs, broken homes, unexpected friendships and a gifted accordion player whose talent lifted him out of poverty despite his having no arms, eyes, ears or father figure.

Here’s looking at you, 2017.

Collage by Emily Zirimis

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Monocycle: Episode 8

Welcome back to Monocycle after a week-long break, inaugurating this episode as the first of the new year. This week, we’re talking about confidence — that elusive quality that we are all taught from a young age is vital to survive and succeed, which we all grapple with at some point. How does one teach confidence anyway? Can it be learned? Do you really need it in order to survive? Can a lack of it ever actually be considered beneficial — might it push you forward?

I don’t know.

It seems to me that somewhere along the way, the definition of confidence was conflated with many other, more pointed words — like arrogance on the one hand or weakness on the other. So let’s get to the root of it, yeah?

Intro song: “The Show Must Be Go” by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under Creative Commons by Attribution 3.0 License.  Logo illustration by Kelly Shami; background image photographed by Mark Pillai for Elle Italia 2013.

Monocycle is produced by Kate Barnett and edited by Nicholas Quazzy Alexander.

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Is Gigi Hadid’s Style Actually “Good”?

On a slow news day, Gigi Hadid “got away” with this look:

It’s not bad. She paired jersey sweats with over-the-knee boots. Far worse fashion offenses have occurred. I don’t know her life, so it’s possible that she spilled coffee all over the white jeans she had on earlier, then in a Mentos-moment of quick thinking, she put on the pants she wore to Zumba and thanked her lucky stars that the overall ensemble was of a complementary color palette.

Or she meant to do this, in which case, I’m not here to judge. We all make vaguely questionable decisions. Sometimes we don’t even think they’re questionable until the media calls it out or your friend asks you, “Why are you wearing that?”

But what I’m curious about is how the blogosphere’s reaction has been, “Only she could pull this off.”

And I’m curious as to why I’m inclined to agree.

Gigi Hadid’s overall style (across the board, not this outfit specifically) is not my kind of inspirational. (Aspirational, perhaps, if you consider brands she wears.) You could argue that what she does is get dressed in clothes. Period. That she doesn’t have her own sense of style but rather an aesthetic that’s appealing. She’s found a formula that works and perhaps a stylist for events. She certainly looks great in everything.

When I think about people who can truly “pull things off” I think about those who’ve established themselves as creative and innovative dressers: those who’ve not only mastered the basics (which means they can do whatever the hell they want), but those women with such inherent taste that their style is not only deemed “good” by all, but effortless — so of course they know what they’re doing.

Taylor Tomasi Hill keeps coming to mind. If she wore this outfit back in her days of street style stardom, I wouldn’t for a single moment question if it was cool. Of course it was! And I wouldn’t assume that something had gone wrong — coffee on white jeans — in order to explain the outfit. It would just be what she wore.

And if no one else would wear it? Simple: that’s because only she could pull it off.

But Gigi is a model, not a fashion editor. She’s a celebrity, not a street style star. Her mother is famous — she didn’t spring from the depths of nowhere. She’s certainly beautiful. And she’s real. Which is so important. But are these things enough to “get away with” a questionable outfit in the way a fashion icon might, or to be considered fashionable without one questioning the actual clothes? Without a strong history of prior personal style to back it up?

Maybe she maintains an I don’t-care-what-you-think attitude that I’m still wrapping my head around. That would mean she also maintains the enigmatic je ne sais quoi that allows her to duck under the fashion police’s elbow of insult and look good in anything, thus making anything good. Which invariably could signify what once made someone a style icon no longer does.

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Gym Etiquette 101

This is the day.

This is the day that you are finally going to go to the gym. Sure, you renewed your membership mid-December to get a head start on your fitness goals, but no one does anything productive before New Year’s, right? Right. The day after is for being hungover, the week after is reserved for adjusting back into the real world and now — well, now you’re out of excuses, so you’re going.

Every class will be packed because this thought is not unique to you. Every locker will be taken, every shower in use, every bike under bottom.

But if you’re really serious about committing to getting in shape — or screw the shape: if you’re really serious about going to the gym so that your membership is finally more than an expensive key chain, you’ve gotta know the etiquette.

Ignore the Gym Regulars

Contention between gym regulars and resolutionists is as old as beef between house cats and newborn babies: the regs find you annoying, you find them intimidating. Just as the house cat has to warm up to the idea that a bald kitten-thing is taking all of its humans’ attention, the regulars have to warm up to you — and they will. They’ll start to see you around enough that they’ll stop hissing each time you pass by. In the meantime, it’s your job to ignore them. Stay out of their way, be courteous with shared equipment and remember that just because they’re stretching peacefully in a sunny spot does not mean you’re welcome to pet their bellies. These things take time, you know. Just like abs.

This is Not a Gatorade Ad

Just a friendly reminder that drinking doesn’t mean dousing your head in juice!

Stay in Your Lane

Mind your business and keep your eyes forward, whether you’re in the locker room, a group class or in a row of machines that display your progress. I know how tempting it is to see how many calories that sweaty dude is burning on his dramatic incline. I know how badly you want to investigate whether or not the woman next to you is wearing a prosthetic nose. But no one likes a peripheral creep. Save that for the subway.

Don’t Hog the Elliptical

For some reason, every gym on the entire planet has only one elliptical. And as we all know, everyone loves the elliptical. (Swinging your arms and legs is fun no matter where you are or what episode of Maury Povich is on TV.) This means that should you be lucky enough to get on the adult swing set of gymnastic joy, you have exactly half an hour to do your thang. After that, switch up your activity. It’s polite, courteous, and to be honest: I’m not sure that machine does anything besides make you look like you’re doing an emergency-walk to the bathroom.

Be Mindful of Your Sweat

Seems intuitive and yet many find it complicated: if you drip, clean it up.

Don’t be a Gym Deejay

Besides the damage you are likely doing to your own ears, no one wants to hear your Inspirational Playlist 2016, especially because you’ve put Katy Perry’s “Eye of the Tiger” on there eleven different times. Turn the volume down so that your neighbor can enjoy their “Get Me Bodied 2016” playlist featuring Lou Bega’s “Mambo Number 5” in peace.

Speed Shower

In and out. The whole world needs to rinse off. You probably don’t want to stand barefoot in that communal shower for too long, anyway.

Use Your Indoor Voice as Best You Can

Just cool it with the HAGRHGHZ and the UHGGHNNHHHH and all other sound effects you may find yourself shouting at the top of your lungs each time you raise a weight above your head. If “walrus sex” doesn’t immediately come to mind, the fact that you haven’t worked out in a while might: sounds like you’re overexerting yourself, but check with a professional.

Photographed by Lachlan Bailey for Industrie Magazine.

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MR Writers Club: Write Your Own Episode of ‘Making a Murderer’

POTENTIAL MAKING A MURDERER SPOILERS AHEAD. I TRIED TO WRITE THIS AS THOUGH YOU HAVEN’T SEEN IT YET (I MYSELF AM ONLY 4 EPISODES IN) BUT STOP NOW IF YOU’RE IN THE LEAST BIT CONCERNED BEFORE YOU GET MAD AND THROW WET RICE AT ME.

Ok. Here we go.

I think @technicallyron said it best when describing his experience with the Netflix show that everyone consumed over winter break and can’t stop talking about:

Me watching #MakingAMurderer pic.twitter.com/Np2VhEDkMJ

— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) January 4, 2016

Fucking Carol, man. There’s no one named Carol in Making a Murderer, but peripherally, I feel like there could be. That show is complicated. There are a million parts and pieces of evidence and confusion if you sometimes fall asleep during the slow parts (I blame the score: it’s lovely) and so many feelings (raise your hands in the comments below if you’re of the growing group of people who have crushes on Steven Avery’s lawyers) —

What Twitter looks like right now. #MakingAMurderer pic.twitter.com/cpJ9eXJwck — Kate Briquelet (@kbriquelet) December 29, 2015

— that it feels like anything could or can happen, even with the final verdict already locked into place.

What’s not fun is that this was a real life crime. As with the first season of Serial, there’s something very unsettling about being “entertained” by an actual murder. But it’s not the murder that we’re entertained by. What I think we’re all enraptured with are the unique perspectives both shows offer into the justice system — that in this case, whether Avery “did it” or not, there’s still something very off or corrupt or sketchy going on when it comes to his trial. And that somehow, we’re going to be the ones who get to the bottom of it.

So, get to the bottom of it, young detectives. In less than 500 words, write your own episode of Making a Murderer, whether it be Dean Strang fan fiction or the court ruling you wish you heard or your own conspiracy theory that may or may not involve a woman named Carol.

Submit it to write@manrepeller.com by Thursday, January 21 at 12 noon EST. That’s plenty of time to binge watch the show now if you have spent this whole time asking yourself, “What the heck did I just read?”

Image via Netflix

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I Tried the No Email Diet

It is currently 7:39 p.m. on Tuesday, January 12th and I have not checked email since Sunday at 5 p.m.

These have been the best 51 hours of my life.

It’s not like I’ve been cut off from communication at large — I’m still interacting with my teammates via Slack. I’m still answering text messages and hastily calling relatives but the absence of email — that is, the illusion of “work” that can’t wait even though it always can — has felt more liberating than a hot, naked bath.

I’ve spent the past year building a thesis around my relationship with email. It started with a rant on whether or not it’s acceptable to refuse to reply to emails. It escalated to claim status over the summer when Gmail publicized its undo send function and as recently as last quarter, I called it the next big danger to efficiency. I don’t think I was that far off. Let me explain why.

In the past 51 hours I have filed exactly 3,371 words. To put this in perspective, I am lucky to file 500 in a single day. At the time of this writing, I am two days ahead of my deadline. When I took the subway way uptown on Monday for a doctor appointment smack in the middle of my day at 3:15, I not only realized that I felt calm, but also strongly believed there was nothing in the world left for me to do between that appointment and the end of the day. I had filed my content, answered questions from teammates, offered approvals where necessary, began an Instagram overhaul and organized a brand spanking new organizational system for the edit team. I also picked a huge fight with my husband and resolved the altercation. Did I tell you I made banana pancakes?

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and carbohydrates.

…

…

…

Woah, sorry, I just blacked out because it occurred to me that this actually has been all fun and carbohydrates. Amelia wants to kill herself because I keep asking her to email people for me, which might be cheating, but I never said I was honest. On my to-do list for tomorrow morning is literally a list of 23 emails to send before the end of the morning and I am sure that once I do open my inbox and this honeymoon is over, the tune of this song will change profoundly. You know what? Let’s inaugurate my inbox’s grand re-opening now. Fyi, it’s 8 p.m.

And now it’s 9:36. The facts now indicate that it took 21 minutes to put the first part of this story together. In the one hour and 36 minutes that just passed, no new words were put on paper. To put the time stamps into perspective, it took me 12 minutes to write the first half of this story but following my inbox’s grand re-opening, my productivity level has been shot.

Here are the most important takeaways.

+Of the 486 emails that came in:

201 were spam

29 were events — be they work-related dinners, press previews or otherwise personal invitations

3 were Uber receipts

4 were lunch order confirmations (Yes, I eat two lunches per day.)

16 were newsletters that I subscribe to (Man Repeller’s batch was particularly fleek-able.)

31 were emails from @manrepeller.com addresses

And the rest were miscellaneous questions — the bulk of which could have, quite frankly, gone unanswered in perpetuity without anyone even noticing.

+I missed an opportunity to exclusively announce the launch of a collaboration with two brands I have never heard of.

+My 1 p.m. lunch today was moved to three different locations before being set back to the original location, which is where I went, without even knowing there had been previous back and forth.

+The world did not stop. Not even close.

And so my takeaway is this: moderation. I have become obsessed with the concept of self-improvement, and I’ll only become the cardboard cut out version of myself once I learn to practice moderation. My mom says that the biggest American handicap is that as a country, we don’t “get” moderation, which I have often agreed with because it sounds good but I think now is the first time I’ve ever properly understood that we need it to survive.

Also, though, we’re not robots. Where we live, they are quietly among us, and sometimes we don’t realize it – they masquerade themselves as humans, but they’re not. And we can’t compete. The inbox will never “burn out.” It will not get tired of serving messages at you. It will do what it is wired to do for as long as it is expected to, so we must take charge. Control when we choose to interact and when we don’t.

I propose to cut down the frequency with which I check email. Henceforth, I shall spend an hour in the morning, an hour before lunch and an hour at the end of the work day in my inbox. Less if it doesn’t require as much of my attention, but never more. In doing so, I will aim to file 750 words per day at first, and have that climb up to 1250. By March I expect to have learned I’m human again.

Photographed by Krista Anna Lewis; Rings by Eddie Borgo and Sabine G.

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How to Fake an Informed Conversation on the Oscars

This morning the nominees for the 88th annual Oscar Awards were announced, which means every dinner conversation for the next six weeks will involve some variation of this:

Oh my god, have you seen Carol?

Yes, but I like Joy much better.

Personally, I prefer Mad Max.

If you’re feeling bad for poor Carol right now and are intrigued by this angry Max fellow, you’re not alone: I, too, haven’t set foot in a movie theater since Inside Out was showing. (Don’t regret one second of it.) But there’s no reason the Cinema Cynthias in our lives need to know that. Below: a handy cheatsheet to cover some of this year’s biggest contenders and how to seamlessly incorporate each one into six weeks worth small talk. (And a backup plan if you start to falter: This. Guaranteed to change the subject every time!)

First up, the best picture nods:

The Big Short

One Sentence Recap: Remember that miserable housing crisis in 2007? So that.

Talking Points: Perhaps the only time, like ever, you’ll witness Ryan Gosling looking unattractive. (Except for this slideshow.) Also, Steve Carell’s hair!

Bridge of Spies

Two Sentence Recap: We have a Soviet spy, and they have an American one. Trades ensue.

Talking Points: Did Tom Hanks peak at Big?

Brooklyn

Two Sentence Recap: An Irish immigrant moves to America and falls in love with an Italian boy. Also learns how to properly eat spaghetti.

Talking Points: All the adorable accents and lead actress Saoirse Ronan. Everyone’s in love with her. (See below.)

Mad Max: Fury Road

Two Sentence Recap: A scary cult leader goes on a rampage looking for his escaped wives in a dessert apocalypse world. So really relatable.

Talking Points: The creepiest face mask to grace the big screen since Silence Of The Lambs.

The Martian

Two Sentence Recap: Sort of like Home Alone, only the home part is Mars. And there’s no TV to play Angels With Filthy Souls.

Talking Points: Who handles space abandonment better: Matt Damon or Sandra Bullock?

The Revenant

Two Sentence Recap: When nineteenth century frontiersman Hugh Glass is attacked by a bear and left for dead by his hunting party, he’s rather displeased. Fear his wrath!

Talking Points: Is Leonardo’s beard better than Santa’s?

Room

Two Sentence Recap: It’s a heavy one — a kidnapped woman and her small son devise a way to escape captivity. Your heart will sit in your throat the whole time.

Talking Points: The plot line is loosely based on a true story.

Spotlight

Two Sentence Recap: Scrappy reporters fight to shed light on scandal in the Catholic church. On a lighter note, Matt Flamhaff is in it!

Talking Points: It’s another one inspired by real life. Perhaps another round of drinks?

Now let’s get into the players. The women:

Brie Larson

Nominated For: Room

Fun Fact: Her very first gig was a Barbie commercial spoof on Jay Leno: She poured mud all over the dolls, and watched their little head pops off. [Indie Wire]

Cate Blanchett

Nominated For: Carol

Fun Fact: For her first ever role in a film, she was paid in falafel and two Egyptian pounds. [YouTube]

Saoirse Ronan

Nominated For: Brooklyn

Fun Fact: She’s fully trained in martial arts and tells every talk show host that her name is pronounced “Seer-sha, like inertia.” [MTV]

Jennifer Lawrence

Nominated For: Joy

Fun Fact: Back in the day, she modeled for Abercrombie & Fitch. [E! Online]

Charlotte Rampling

Nominated For: 45 Years

Fun Fact: The Ring, a popular video game from the ‘90s, features her voiceover as the character Erda. []

The guys:

Leonardo DiCaprio

Nominated For: The Revenant

Fun Fact: He bought an island off the coast of Belize last year with intent to build an eco-friendly resort. Leo — friend to the camera and the earth! [The Huffington Post]

Bryan Cranston

Nominated For: Trumbo

Fun Fact: Before acting, he worked as a carny. [Life Daily]

Michael Fassbender

Nominated For: Steve Jobs

Fun Fact: His last name is the German word for “cooper,” or someone who repairs barrels. [IMBD]

Eddie Redmayne

Nominated For: The Danish Girl

Fun Fact: Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” is his go-to karaoke song. (Um, why has video proof not surfaced on YouTube yet?) [People]

Matt Damon

Nominated For: The Martian

Fun Fact: Not only can he break dance, but did it for money in Harvard Square as a teenager. [People]

Okay now you’ve got all the knowledge — go drop it!

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