Enter Stage Right, The Video Essayist

Honestly… Learning bits and pieces of information traditionally can cause a headache. Whether reading a dense, jargon-filled article or sitting through a slide show lecture taught by a professor, learning about new topics become boring, making us disinterested in whatever is being taught. Nowadays, most students just go to Google and YouTube to fully grasp the concept they are learning.

“I am Iron Man” By Abby Gross (’26)

“The truth is… I am Iron Man.”

This is the iconic phrase that almost any film watcher recognizes as both the start and the end of an era. Many can recognize this phrase as the one spoken by Tony Stark at the end of ‘Iron Man’. This 2008 film kickstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe and shows Tony Stark taking on the role of the weapons creator for the Avengers and moving on to his journey to becoming a true hero:

This phrase has had a significant impact on the film industry as it marked the true beginning of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

The Found Family in A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” by Syd McMillin (’25)

Children’s literature is a genre that focuses on simple storytelling for the sake of its audience’s understanding, but also often incorporates life lessons that help young people navigate challenges such as friendship and family. One common way that children’s literature does this is through the trope of the “found family”–a group of non-biologically related characters that form bonds that enable them to act as an interdependent unit, similar to a biological family.…

The Brilliance of “Taxi Driver” (1976) | Peter Lujan (’23)

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver is a film that changed my life. When people talk about the magic of cinema it is almost impossible to define. I think that you know it when you see it though. That could not be more the case than with Taxi Driver. This film has tremendously guided my personal work, as I plan on writing and directing feature films for the rest of my life.

Battling Burnout | Katie Davis (’26)

The digital sphere has recently erupted with stories detailing young adults’ experiences with burnout. From blog posts to Instagram stories, many people have begun coming forward with stories of how they slid into burnout, all of which tend to follow a similar pattern. 

Many testimonies begin with a high-achieving person, more often than not a woman, who begins by talking about her seemingly perfect life before developing burnout.