After a winding road of pandemic awards shows, the end of the 2021 film awards season is at last upon us. On April 25, the highly anticipated 93rd Academy Awards — also known as the Oscars — took place live and in-person at Union Station in Los Angeles.
A month ago, I wrote a review of the first episode of Disney+’s new premier Marvel Cinematic Universe intellectual property, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In it, I expressed disappointment with the way that the series opened. I believed that the show might improve as it went along, but I argued that, in the first episode, the show just wasn’t all that good.
With an introduction of the band Hunny by the Hopkins Student Organization for Programming, the awaited Spring Fair Concert began. Hunny was staged in front of a fish-eye camera, which gave a circular perception that could have been achieved in an in-person concert.
The Color of My Voice is an animated project meant to elevate the voices of those who have experienced racism and discrimination. Originally created by junior Keidai Lee, The Color of My Voice is now a collaborative project between Hopkins students and those at surrounding universities. With the goal of “illustrating stories about people facing and overcoming racial discrimination,” Lee and his team have been working on the project for almost a year.
The Barnstormers are back with their first ever fully-filmed musical, The Drowsy Chaperone. The show premiered last Friday and played over the weekend, and it is set to return with more showings this weekend due to popular demand.
Violinist Jennifer Koh gave a powerful performance for the Shriver Hall Concert Series on April 11. Koh performed selections from Alone Together, a project she started when the pandemic began. Her rendition of Ellen Reid’s “Brick Red Mood” was unusual because of its resemblance to an assembly of discordant notes that sounded like someone screaming. This piece opened my eyes to a form of classical music I had never encountered prior.
One of the parts of those glorious pre-pandemic days that I miss the most is going to the movies. There’s nothing like grabbing a bucket of popcorn, sitting down in a dark hall and watching some great art (or, you know, some pretty cool superheroes). And while there isn’t anything like the big screen, the Studio North screening on April 13 of short films made by Hopkins students was a truly lovely night, powered by students’ passion and creativity.
Yet another workplace sitcom has come and gone: After a sixth season that insinuated candid conversation about the past year, NBC’s Superstore closed up shop on March 25 with an hour-long, two-part finale. The episode brought back its dynamic star, America Ferrera, as the hardworking pragmatist Amy, who departed from the show after season five.
If you like massive CGI fights, a touch of sci-fi and almost non-stop action, then you’ve come to the right place. And you might not be alone, either. In the first five days of the theatrical release of the hugely-anticipated blockbuster Godzilla vs. Kong, its box office hit a record-setting $48.5 million, making it the biggest opening for a film since the start of the pandemic.
The Benito Gonzalez Trio gave a live-streamed jazz performance at Keystone Korner Baltimore on April 3 to celebrate McCoy Tyner. The trio included pianist Benito Gonzalez, bassist Essiet Okon Essiet and drummer Billy Hart.
The High Zero Foundation, a Baltimore-based organization dedicated to promoting improvised and experimental music, held an online concert on March 25. The foundation hosted the event over the livestreaming service Twitch as part of its ongoing The Red Room in Your Room series. Despite the collapsing of geographic constraints afforded by online events, the series has continued to foreground the work of Baltimore-based artists, and the March 25 concert was no exception.
I never had particularly high hopes for Marvel’s The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the new series which debuted its first episode on Disney+ just this week. Every trailer, as far as I could tell, looked so... standard. I have seen a lifetime’s worth of jump-cut-filled action sequences and computer-generated explosions. For a long time, I loved them. Now, to be honest, I find them kind of boring. They just don’t inspire awe and fear in me the way that they once did.
Cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan and pianist Armine Grigoryan performed a colorful program in the Shriver Hall Concert Series on March 14. Their performances were prerecorded at Aram Khachatryan Concert Hall in Yerevan, Armenia. The recording was available on demand through Sunday, March 21.
On March 13, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe hosted an Art Slam event over Zoom that combined visual art and poetry. I was delighted to attend this unique experience, which offered insight into how poetry could be interpreted.
The Stand-Up Comedy Club hosted its “Lockdown Anniversary Show” over YouTube Live on Saturday. The show featured colorful sets from veteran student comedians on topics ranging from the stock market to the finale of The Bachelor.
One of the first science fiction movies of the year, Chaos Walking (in theaters now) appears to show great promise. With its slick premise, enrapturing action and striking title, it has every look of a sci-fi fan’s dream come true. To top it off, its star-studded cast includes the likes of Tom Holland, Daisy Ridley and Mads Mikkelsen, and behind the camera is director Doug Liman, responsible for the critically acclaimed Edge of Tomorrow.
A little less than halfway through Netflix’s new movie Moxie, I texted my girlfriend, “This movie is making me feel conflicted. I can’t tell if it’s good or not.” And I couldn’t: The first half of this film oscillates greatly in quality. It takes a while to get going, and even once the main plot really starts to take centerstage, the stakes of the movie are still tremendously unclear. There are moments of brilliance sprinkled throughout the first half of the movie — it certainly wasn’t bad — but I was far from convinced.
Following the incredible commercial success of Avengers: Endgame, I, like many others, wondered how Marvel would ever surpass the film’s and its predecessors’ sheer scope and magnitude. Was it something that they would even be able to pull off? Was it even worth attempting to do so? WandaVision is a curious answer to these questions.
After a series of trailers, Raya and the Last Dragon finally premiered on March 5. The movie begins with an elaborate two-dimensional animation of Kumandra, a once-united land that now appears unrecognizable to the current inhabitants, who are divided into different territories.
Last week, Madison Beer released her debut album Life Support. This album was Beer’s response to years of turmoil: being dropped by her label and diagnosed with borderline personality disorder as many of her personal relationships suffered, all while facing constant scrutiny as a teenage star on social media.
