EL SEGUNDO HERALD September 30, 2021 Page 5
Entertainment she uses a series of tools that allow her to
Film Review
Run This Town is a Biting Political
Thriller for the Millennial Generation
By Peter Mitchell.
Writer-director Ricky Tollman’s feature
debut Run This Town is a political thriller
mixed with biting commentary on the state
of the millennial generation. Set in 2013
Toronto, the story centers on the lead up to
the explosive substance abuse scandal that
ensnared the controversial Mayor, Rob Ford.
Tollman’s film explores how the millennial
generation navigates the halls of power in
politics and media. Rob Ford (Damian Lewis,
unrecognizable under prosthetic makeup),
as a sort of dumb-politics John the Baptist
presaging Donald Trump, makes for the
perfect fulcrum for a millennial-focused
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political-scandal movie. The film’s performances
illustrate how familiar millennial
archetypes make compromises with, and are
compromised by, the structures that allow a
Rob Ford to come to power in the first place.
The plot focuses primarily on Bram (Ben
Platt), an eager but slightly incompetent young
journalist interning at a Toronto newspaper.
With his eyes on something bigger than the
best-brunch-spot listicles he’s being assigned,
Bram, by sheer dumb-luck, ends up getting
a tip that there might be something strange
going on in the Mayor’s office. Kamal (Mena
Massoud), an immigrant working for the
virulently anti-immigrant Ford, is the Mayor’s
Special Assistant and the ringleader of the
young political staffers, including the hypercompetent
Ashley (Nina Dobrev). The staffers
are shown to be doing the actual work of
governing the city—all while putting out the
fires started by PR nightmare Mayor Ford.
The stories of Bram, Kamal, and Ashley
represent the ways that the ambitions of
their generation are undercut by their elders
and institutional forces beyond their control.
Whether it’s the pernicious incompetence and
vitriolic political leadership of Rob Ford, or
the explosive growth of clickbait “journalism”—
unstoppable despite the best efforts
of Bram’s editor Judith (Jennifer Ehle)— the
deck is in so many ways stacked against the
young people in Tollman’s film.
1h 39 min. ‘Run This Town’ is rated R for
language and sexual references. Available to
rent digitally on Amazon Prime. •
Run This Town, courtesy Oscilloscope.
“I look at the camera as sort of
a missing link between motion picture
photography and still photography.”
– Jeff Bridges
Dr. Allison Shultz from front page
see plumage through the eyes of a bird. Are
tropical birds more colorful? Are males and
females colored differently, and why? What is
actually producing these pigments? These are
questions her research will be able to answer.
As for urban evolution, Shultz studies how
birds evolve to survive in rapidly growing
urban areas. That is, how is human development
affecting local bird populations?
She says the museum specimens are a time
capsule of sorts. She’s able to learn what
birds looked like when they lived fifty or a
hundred years ago and compare and contrast
that same species to today.
For example, one of her recent publications
revolved around the question of what traits
best allow a bird to better survive in an urban
environment “We asked: is it diet?” she says.
The theory was that birds with a more
general diet would be more successful than
birds with a specialist diet. Crows, for example,
Allison Shultz curates the Natural History Museum’s department of ornithology.
might do well in a city because they can eat
a wide variety of foods.
“The trace that we actually found that was
the best predictor of if a bird does well in
an urban area or not was where they nest,”
she explains. Birds that can nest in buildings
and structures can reproduce better than those
that nest in tree cavities.
In the South Bay, you may have seen (or
more likely heard) the brightly colored parrots
that flock in the trees. According to Shultz,
there are ten to twelve species of parrot in
Los Angeles, and none of them are native.
As new species are introduced through
things like stowaways on shipping containers
in the port of Los Angeles and runaway pets,
Shultz studies how the new birds interact
with the native population and adapt to their
new environment.
Shultz emphasizes that anyone can be a
community scientist, and anyone can participate
in the ornithology community. Through sites
like iNaturalist, anyone can take a picture and
report the birds they see on their afternoon
walk. The more bird watchers El Segundo has,
the more information Shultz has to research.
How can you help your local feathered
friends? Shultz says you can start by planting
a native garden. By providing a habitat for
native species to visit and live in, you can
help ensure the survival of urban populations.
In addition to a native garden, cut down on
insecticides and rodenticides. More and more,
Shultz says she sees liver problems in rescued
birds, mostly stemming from poisoning left
out in yards.
Shultz has always loved animals and knew
from a young age that she’d grow up to work
with them. She thought of being a zookeeper
or a veterinarian. It wasn’t until she took a
“Natural History of the Vertebrates” class
that she fell in love with birds and being
outside. After a lifetime of interest and nine
years of grad school, she now has the job
of her dreams.
“I feel like I won the lottery of jobs…I
can ask interesting and important questions
about the world around me,” she says. You can
meet Shultz and learn more about ornithology,
and local bird populations at museum
festivals and bird walks held periodically
around the city.
For aspiring ornithologists, Shultz encourages
young scientists to be curious about the
world around them. Ask questions, she says,
and try to find the answers. Take a break from
screens and look at the world around you. “I
hope that people care about the life around
them,” she says, “and specifically about the
environment. People can make individual
choices that can help counter some of the
bigger impacts that humans have had.”•