Yesterday there came some unsettling news for those of us who primarily watch our television online: Hulu has announced that soon, it’s going to offer less free content. To access the rest, you’ll have to “authenticate” your account by proving you already have a cable package.

I know, I know. This sounds like the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard in your life. That’s because it is. It’s like they’re taking their PR tips from Netflix.

I get what Hulu’s trying to do, really. To keep getting the license to stream episodes from network and cable shows, Hulu has to assure the networks that it isn’t stealing their audiences. And because the entertainment industry is desperately behind the times and doesn’t value online ads as much as broadcast ads, they think their viewers are hopping over to something that doesn’t make them any money–which, well, should change, but since it won’t, here we are.

But it’s still a stupid move. For one thing, the way people watch television has changed. Viewers have gotten used to the convenience of not paying for television, and of watching whenever and however you want to. Hulu’s new policy is a step backward, not forward.

Who on earth do you think uses Hulu the most, executives? Because your service is pretty pointless for people who have a cable subscription and a DVR. One of your prime demographics, Hulu, is college kids who probably don’t own a television. Meaning they don’t have cable. Meaning you lose a huge portion of your loyal audience, and you lose your advertising dollars.

Now, I’m not going to get into the ridiculous all-or-nothing business model of cable subscriptions, but I will say that it’s not going to do the cable companies any favors if they’re hoping to increase subscriptions by blocking all free, legal access to their favorite shows. The kids will just go to the free, illegal providers, of which there are many. Most of them are ten times more convenient to use.

If they think this move is going to stop the increase in piracy, they’re dead wrong. The industry keeps wondering why on earth good people watch things illegally. Let me lay some truth on you: It’s inconvenient to pay, and not just for my wallet. I just don’t want a cable subscription. I want to watch my stuff online, and I’ll watch some ads to do so legally, if that’s an option. Or I’ll pay to watch everything online, no advertising. But I’m not going to pay for a huge cable plan just to watch a few of my favorite shows online. That’s ridiculous.

Seriously–bad move, Hulu. Bad move.

-Nina Guidice, Assistant Blog Editor

There’s a common misconception among Fordham students that Chipotle is the best cheap Mexican food available near the Lincoln Center campus. Chipotle is fine if you enjoy spending $3 for extra salsa, but there are many other local establishments that sell affordable Mexican food. And while Empanada Mama’s and Lime Jungle are enjoyable enough, the crowning jewel is most definitely Burrito Box. It surpasses all of the other restaurants in value, quality, and convenience.

Sure, you live in Manhattan; you expect to pay an exorbitant amount of money per entree. That really won’t change when you walk into Burrito Box. But, many are unaware that you’re not just getting a burrito. Sure, the average burrito costs $7.50, which is at least comparable to Chipotle, if not a little bit cheaper. But you also get free chips and unlimited salsa and water, all included. There’s also a bevy of imported Mexican beverages in the refrigerator near the front of the (slightly crammed) restaurant.

It’s the sodas that give Burrito Box an extra edge in authenticity. I’m not saying Burrito Box is the most genuine Mexican food I’ve ever eaten, but it is comforting to see common brands like Jarritos and Coke with actual sugar cane. While I admittedly only eat the burritos (I mean, come on, it’s not called “Quesadilla Box”), I’ve heard excellent things about the salads, soups, and tacos as well. What clinches it, though, is the chips and salsa. It’s like they hired engineers to design the perfect corn-based receptacle for a salsa recipe they’ve been perfecting since before I could even conceive of tomatoes.

Just remember, Burrito Box is right down the road, on Columbus Avenue between 58^th and 57^th streets. The space may be small, but the taste is enormous. Honestly, every time I see their yellow awning on the horizon, my heart smiles.

-Thomas Welch, Blog Writer

Not every Spring Weekend can be as monumental as the last; it’s understandable if you’re unacquainted with the performers on the bill. (U2 was, what, three years ago?) But have no fear! Nick is here to bring you up to speed with his signature blend of over-analysis and pretension!

Friday: 3LAU

That’s, um, Blau. Like Summer Glau, but with a B–not like a 3D luau.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hij72orkKEs

As is tradition, Friday is the DJ/mashup artist. I’m going to admit that I’m not the most qualified person to expound on this kind of thing–I had my fill of mashups when Girl Talk exploded. But I have to give 3LAU credit: Anyone who can combine my two most personally reviled hit singles of the past two years–namely, “Moves Like Jagger” and “Tonight”–and somehow, against all odds, get me to tolerate the finished product…well, he deserves a medal. A medal made of the finest Belgian chocolate, wrapped in shiny, shiny tin foil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuuQny2-ynU

I appreciate that 3BLAU makes a point of subverting the increasingly tired syncopated rhythm that’s become the standard for dance music in the past couple of years. Seems everyone’s trying to be Avicii now. 3BLAU does his own thing…except when he samples Avicii.

But that’s just one song. The others have a respectable degree of musicality to them; there’s an understanding of rhythm and chord progression that allows 3BLAU to do a bit more with these songs than simply slip a new beat under them.

Should you go? Certainly!

Saturday: Jay Sean

Uh…hm.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUbpGmR1-QM

Well, here we have Jay Sean, and he…uh…well, I guess he really wants to be Pit Bull. He and Li’l Wayne seem to get along pretty well. When they’re not making horrifically insensitive lyrical turns (“down like the economy?”), they’re…well, they’re mackin’. Often, it’d seem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a81eP2E8MEQ

Jay Sean, I’m confused, what exactly are we bringing back? Leather North Face vests? I don’t think those were ever…well, they were never gone, but they certainly weren’t here, either.

Anyway, Jay Sean, I really need to get home, and your street party’s blocking traffic, I don’t suppose you could just move it along? Preferably somewhere indoors?

I–Jay Sean, did you break open a fire hydrant?! Dammit Jay Sean, that’s a felony!!

Should you go? Hoo boy. I guess. Sure. If you’re drunk (again assuming you’re legal) and you’re looking for a laugh, then by all means, consult Jay Sean.

-Nick Milanes, Blog Editor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UGIkWvfBEQ

The film focuses on four female undergraduate students. Violet (Greta Gerwig) leads a pack of lady do-gooders greatly concerned with social service (consisting mostly of offering coffee, donuts, and dance routines to the suicidal as well as dating moronic frat boys in order to help them fulfill their potential) who keep self-awareness at arms length. When seemingly level-headed Lily (Analeigh Tipton) transfers to their campus, the girls single her out to join their ranks, entangling her in their questionable attempts at charity as well as their equally dubious efforts at navigating their own lives.

I use the qualifier “seemingly” to describe Lily because her sensibilities begin quickly to fall away, or rather to wax and wan in accordance with who knows what. The moon cycle, maybe? Other characters undergo similar inexplicable shifts in temperament and behavior. Unfortunately, these character changes don’t seem to follow any logical scheme, but rather appear to exist as a side effect of insufficient character development and sense of purpose.

The secondary cast is composed of inflated caricatures of college archetypes—The Dumb Frat Guy, The Pompous Newspaper Editor, The Angsty Girl in Turmoil—who pop in and out seemingly without discretion, furthering an already fragmented sense of plot. Not only are their appearances inconsistent, but their story lines as well, which all seem to just sort of trail off, unresolved. These characters are entirely over exaggerated to the point of complete unrelatability; typical college students parodied past satire and into irrelevance.

The film’s dialogue is full of pretty little turns of phrase that might make wonderful advice and warnings for our children, but feel abrasively mystical in the context of a college campus. However, Violet herself mentions early on that she fully believes in the merit of all kinds of “clichés and hackneyed expressions.” So are all of these “bons mots” by design, or a simply a product of pretentious and over-ambitious writing? Stillman may be saying something about the difference between our acknowledged and our latent weaknesses.  It’s hard to know Stillman’s purpose, however, as the film comes off as more of a patchwork of disjointed episodes through which it is difficult to thread a single purpose rather than a cohesive, committed story.

I did promise some charming moments. Stillman’s dialogue—not too infrequently—offers occasions of comic brilliance, typically delivered by Gerwig in deadpan that still manages an air of pompous virtue.  There are also a few running jokes (such as the inability to distinguish whether high rates of suicide are due to infectious depression or the inability of the idiotic masses to understand the gravitational implications associated with jumping off balconies) that recur and evolve without going stagnant.

Consistent only in its blatant refusal to be consistent, Damsels in Distress manages too few moments of clarity and authenticity to warrant a very real twelve-dollar ticket. However, brief moments of dialogical genius and a handful of charming performances make the film at least worthy of a Redbox run, and definitely worthy of a Netflix viewing.

-Mark Lee, Blog Writer

The New York of Mad Men is sterile and detached. Slick. Beautiful, but dusted with irony. Full of ambitious, smirking people who wouldn’t know contentment if it hit them in the face. Cold and unfeeling. Bert Cooper’s apt description: “New York is a marvelous machine, filled with a mash of levers and gears and springs, like a fine watch, wound tight, always ticking.” This is true for the New York of Mad Men. Which is not to say that the New York of Mad Men didn’t, and doesn’t exist–it certainly does, but it’s not a complete picture. It doesn’t have to be. Mad Men’s view of New York is fine for what the show needs to pull from its setting.

Mad Men is white. Very white. 1960s advertising offices didn’t have many people of color, and our favorite mad men usually wouldn’t interact with minorities other than busboys. Season five has brought Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price a new black secretary who can’t get a cab to take her uptown, which is a nice touch: that racial issues are mentioned only tangentially–even when such issues are coming to a steady boil, as shown in the season’s Civil Rights-centric opening scene–is realistic for the type of people at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

Mad Men’s New Yorkitude definitely suffers for its filming location, Los Angeles. When the most you get of New York is computer generated cityscapes and soundstage streets, you miss out. Mad Men’s street scenes feel like what they are: manufactured representations of something that can’t be duplicated.

I will say that Mad Men has a tight grip on what it means to be B&T. Don Draper’s on the 5:31 out of Grand Central, Roger, so no, he can’t have a drink with you. Pete Campbell’s fellow commuters from Greenwich, Connecticut play cards, hate their lives, and hope to be dead by Christmas. These men spend most of their lives in a city where they are ultimately only visitors. Like all classic B&T folk, Don and company slave away in a city they help build, and after all their blood, sweat and tears, they go home at the end of the night.

Peggy Olsen’s a Brooklyn girl. She’s got the snark, she’s got the overbearing parents, she complains about her commute on the train and she gets her own place with a strange roommate. She’s a slob. Her friends are radical leftists. Her boyfriend is a hipster journalist bent on changing the world. You want to be friends with her, but her ambitions tend to consume all of who she is.

Pete Campbell’s family owned most of uptown Manhattan before the stock market crash in ’29. He expects the world because he believes he’s entitled to it while rejecting the life of his parents at every turn. No, he’s not like them. He’s better than them, and because he’s better than them, he deserves everything he wants. Pete Campbell is a smarmy, prototypical 1%-er. Everyone knows that guy.

Mad Men doesn’t represent all of New York City, but it smartly realizes that it doesn’t need to. New York as a machine, constantly ticking, is what works for the show. It’s what works for the characters, who themselves are the groaning gears and springs in Mad Men’s fine, dysfunctional watch. Mad Men, like the city, is greater than the sum of its parts. Yet it’s in the parts that you’ll find the most interesting, relevant story. The New York of Mad Men may not be the New York that we lowly college kids see every day, but that New York is still very much alive.

Final score: 8 out of 10 midmorning cocktails.

I am getting ahead of myself. The point is: one wouldn’t walk around Manhattan barefoot. It is dirty, hot, sticky, and even on the sunniest of days there are mysterious pools of unidentifiable liquid on the sidewalk. For the ladies, we ignore this logic and allow them to don the coolest (in the literal, temperature sense of the word) of foot apparel because, in general, women have slenderer, cute feet; they’re not afraid of the pedicure. Guys generally cannot claim this. I could try to, but I’ll spare you the atrocities I’ve seen peeking through my leather sandal straps. Mr. Porter, a website I personally love, put men’s feet post-winter in a very truthful light:

“By summertime…months of negligence and incessant pavement pounding will likely have turned your feet into a pair of hooves, something even you can’t bear to get to grips with, let alone present to the world. Without the necessary preparatory measures, the simple act of donning a pair of sandals can therefore become a public offence.”

Sadly enough, bringing one’s feet out after winter–or for some, after a lifetime of negligence–is pretty unavoidable. As guys we have two options: to let the sandals rest a bit longer, and only release the demons on truly appropriate occasions; or to just man-up and say “what the hell, I like pedicures”. If you favor the former, I have a couple options that might help ease the pain of turning away your favorite pair of worn in Rainbow flip flops.

Converse Jack Purcell

For summer, in white of course, these are classic shoes with a bit of a twist. The Purcell model was introduced to the world as a badminton shoe, designed by Jack himself in 1935. Although initially introduced as an athletic shoe, durable for the aggressive and grueling hardships of the gym floor, they are a nod to the vintage prep style of the ‘70s. Cotton, breathable, and a nice variation on classic converse, they only get better the more you wear them in. But please, when you roll your chinos or denim up and expose those ankles, lose the socks.

Espadrilles

A traditional spanish summer shoe originally adapted from the Pyrenees mountain peeps, I cannot endorse these enough. My Espadrilles–simple navy blue herringbone cotton canvas, tan leather accents, and a rope sole with rubber support–are one of my favorite pairs of shoes. The rope insole completely molded to the exact shape of my foot. With nothing but that thick lace roping between your foot and the ground, you can feel every step, though not uncomfortably. The cotton is light, breathes amazingly, and keeps my feet hidden out of sight with a bit of panache.

Docksiders

Do I really have to explain this one? We all know they’re classic. Just be sure to spend a little extra cash and splurge for a pair that will last and keep their shape. I spent $80 on my rubber soled Sperry’s and I have had that pair for about 5 years. They are worn down, but beautifully, and with a quick insole replacement, they are, to this day, my home base.

Free Run 2

Ask me how I felt about running shoes worn casually two years ago and I would’ve asked why that was even a question; I hated the look. But with the advent of progressive design and color, we saw a lot of gents at Pitti Uomo donning sleek monochromatic Free Runs with everything from suits to denim. They’re out-of-this-world comfortable and breath like the Gods’ athletic shoe. Cuff them chinos and act like you just ran a 5K.

Lastly, for a little extra help on making those “hooves” a bit less vile, take a quick peek at this write up on prepping one’s feet for summer.

-Harry Kohut, Blog Writer

Many people are surprised to learn that one of my favorite music genres is Korean Pop. No, before you ask, my love isn’t meant to be ironic. I genuinely enjoy listening to catchy, manufactured, almost certainly autotuned K-Pop. And there’s a really simple reason for this: it’s fun.

It’s true major Korean pop groups are trained for years in shady facilities sponsored by large, corporate production companies. Their music is engineered to please the widest possible audience, and to make millions for their respective entertainment companies. And yet despite all this, I just can’t get enough of it.

A lot of my enthusiasm has to do not with the music itself–which is captivating if not exceedingly shallow–but with the culture. K-Pop integrates all of media–music, videos, live programs, television shows, etc.–in a fascinatingly comprehensive way, merging every form into a cohesive, satisfying whole. When a group has a comeback–a term given to every new single regardless of how long it’s been since the last–they’re everywhere in the media. And the production value on the music videos is outstanding; it’s obvious that massive crews collaborated to create, choreograph, and execute these dynamic spectacles.

Moreover, the stars are talented. K-Pop is an intrinsically competitive system: recruits are picked relatively often, but only the best make it into the groups. K-Pop group members can sing and dance in perfect unison, and many can even act. Most speak at least 3 languages (almost always Korean and English, and then a peripheral language like Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, or French) and many speak more. Combined with a requirement to be exceptionally good-looking to Korean audiences, you have yourself a tour-de-force.

K-Pop is exciting. It’s flashy. It’s unapologetic about being artificial, but can sometimes show real depth. And, when it works, all you want to do is sing along…at least, to the parts you can understand.

Here are some groups you should definitely check out:

2NE1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7_lSP8Vc3o

This is my favorite group by far. They are one of the least “conventional” K-Pop groups, synthesizing Rap, R&B, Rock and other genres with pop. As 2NE1 is the only K-Pop group I’ve seen live, I can safely say they live up to the hype professed by MTV and Will.i.am, their American producer. Check out the video for Lonely.

Super Junior

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6QA3m58DQw

With 13 members, this is one of the biggest K-Pop groups out there. Their choreography is outstanding, and all the more dynamic because of the number of bodies onstage. Their debut was an instant hit in Korea, and they’ve shot off from there. Check out Mr. Simple.

Brown Eyed Girls

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSKRffDyWog

Brown Eyed Girls are easily one of the most controversial groups in mainstream Korean music. Though their videos are beautiful and deep, they have been banned in the past due to controversial themes. The Abracadabra video contains lesbian groping and kissing, as well as some BDSM. Still, they aren’t a group to be missed, and I highly recommend them. Check out Abracadabra.

Also check out:  Big Bang, Girls Generation, Miss A, 4Minute, and Shinee, just to get you started.

-Thomas Welch, Blog Writer

And yet, television is still neatly segmented. Why? Is that necessary? Are there sad stories and happy stories, and never the two shall meet? I say no, and so do many  television writers. Nowadays, often the comedy comes from the tragedy, and often the tragedy is stuffed away under the laughter.

More than mere creative ambition, or genre bending, or finagling new twists from stale forms, this is an evolution in what it means to tell a story. It’s the evolution of how we approach dramatic catharsis.

Viewers have certain expectations when they watch a story. They want to be satisfied (let them decide what that satisfaction entails, because of course everyone wants something different). For most of the tale, storytellers build the tension until something breaks the dam. But whether that dam breaks with laughter or with weeping no longer matters.

Emotional beats makes story worthwhile, and no, I don’t mean like in Full House. Empty jokes inspire hollow laughs, but character-based comedy is much more fulfilling. Yeah, during Louie we chuckle at his hapless antics because sometimes it’s silly and dumb. But when he’s recounting to a date how he’s just seen a homeless man beheaded and ends up having the woman run away from him as fast as she can, we can laugh at another layer of what we’re seeing: Oh, Louis, we sigh, this is just like you–and we’re all the more fond of him for it. We care about the characters, even though most comedies posit we needn’t–that it’s better if we don’t.

Viewers have yet to really pick up what the television writers are putting down, but they’re slowly catching on. The Greek tradition of smiley-mask-versus-frowny-mask no longer applies; it’s more like one mask that smiles as it cries.

-Nina Guidice, Assistant Editor

That’s why I was extremely pleased upon my discovery of the YouTube horror series “Marble Hornets.” Not only does the series embrace conventional horror tropes in a satisfying way, it also utilizes the medium in such a cohesive and novel manner that I’m constantly impressed with the production as a whole.

The story, shot via hand-camera à la The Blair Witch Project, follows a film student named Jay who receives unfinished production videos from his friend Alex, another student. Alex abandons a movie mid-production due to “unfavorable working conditions” and moves away. The series progresses as Jay analyzes the tapes and finds increasingly strange and terrifying explanations for Alex’s departure. Soon, our protagonist finds himself trapped in a complex world of alien interference and masked lunatics as he attempts to unravel the mystery surrounding the tapes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wmhfn3mgWUI

If the fascinating premise and a genuinely creepy (and unnamed) antagonist aren’t enough to attract you, one main draw to the series is the subversion of standard horror stupidity. Sure, Jay walks straight into an abandoned house, but that’s because he believes it necessary to finding his friend, and he’s smart enough to do it during the daytime. He goes into the woods because he knows things happen there. And he’s not a raving idiot, which certainly helps him survive. So it’s really not his fault when everything goes to shit, which means I’m not left yelling “REALLY!?” at my computer screen. Avoiding stereotypical horror-hero behavior is how the creators make the series compelling. Or at least one way they do.

The best part about the story, by far, is how YouTube itself is used to further the plot. Each episode is uploaded to YouTube, but the engineers of the show also introduce response videos, “hacking,” and coded episode descriptions which create cohesion in the series. Because the episodes are supposed to be uploaded by Jay directly, as an investigation, it makes it easier to believe. Rather than a big studio releasing the film at the theater, episodic uploads on the YouTube channel feel organic and entangle you with the story as Jay gets more involved.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn59FJ4HrmU

“Marble Hornets” is well into its third and final season. I will be eagerly watching every episode as it is uploaded, viewing every response video, and trying to piece together the complicated storyline, and I urge you to do the same.

-Thomas Welch, Blog Writer

Consequently, I’ve become a bit of a chick flick expert over the years. I can spot chemistry within the opening titles, and I can identify every character archetype by scene two.

My love for film might seem to stand at odds to my fondness for chick flicks. They’re generally not considered the most respectable of film genres. I can tell you, however, that over the years I have found at least a few gems while splitting a bowl of popcorn and a good cry with my mom. (If it’s a real doozy, we take turns with the tears so we don’t get dehydrated–you learn control them, with experience.)

So I figured I would save you a few minutes of scrolling absently through the Netflix “romance” queue for your next girls’/date/emotional bro night. Here are a few of my favorites, as well as some to avoid–no matter how attracted you are to the lead actors.

SEE IT:

1. Sabrina (both the original with Audrey Hepburn and the remake with Julia Ormond) (1954, 1995)

If you have the gift of sight, then you know that Audrey Hepburn happened because God accidentally gave his workers (that’s how it works, right? Jesuits, help me out) the template for charm, like when a teacher accidentally hands out the answers to a test. Sure, she tries to commit suicide near the beginning of the movie and then they just brush it off like it wasn’t a big deal, but honestly, even that part was kind of charming. Also, in the reboot when Julia Ormond returns from Paris wearing that suit and that hat? Men’s expectations will forever remain in the clouds.

2. Stepmom (1998)

A good rule of thumb for chick flicks: if Julia Roberts is in it and it was released prior to 2000, it’s worth your time. WARNING: Divorce. Cancer. Misjudged Intentions. This one will make you cry–no exceptions.

3. You’ve Got Mail (1998)

My favorite chick flick of all time. Screenwriter Nora Ephron’s dialogue is sharp and quick, and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are even cuter than that couple from Sleepless in Seattle.

AVOID IT:

1. Leap Year (2010)

When you saw previews for this one, you were probably like, “Oh I love Amy Adams! And that guy has an accent!” These things may be true, but I can tell you it’s not enough. Adams’s character may travel across the ocean to get to Ireland, but this film goes absolutely nowhere. I make it a rule to never walk out of a movie I paid to see. I’ve never been closer to breaking that rule than when I saw Leap Year.

2. Kate & Leopold (2001)

Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman, and time travel. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Though Meg Ryan was cute in the 90s, the 00’s were the decade of Meg Ryan’s increasingly horrifying plastic surgery. Is this movie a romance? Is it science fiction? I don’t know, I’m too horrified by those Joker lips to pay attention.

3. Just Like Heaven (2005)

Remember when Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for Walk the Line? You sure won’t after you sit through an hour and a half of her wistfully gliding through hospital corridors as an “annoying-yet-lovable” specter. Even the presence of Napoleon Dynamite didn’t help this one’s stock. Like Reese’s perky poltergeist, you’ll wish this one would just vanish.

-Mark Lee, Blog Writer