Over the last 11 months, I’ve found it increasingly hard to sit through a movie in one sitting or even to coax myself into viewing a film at all, really. Since I’m on my computer all the time, seated in one place for classes and work, sitting down to watch something online for a couple of hours has become incredibly unappealing.
For two years, the soundtrack to all the times I looked out the window in a car, hung out in my dorm with the string lights on or enjoyed a quiet sunset with my friends was the same: brent.
Set to officially premiere in 2021, Hopkins senior Rebecca Penner and ‘20 alum Carver Bain won Best College Long Narrative at the 2020 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival (FLiFF) with their film “How To Care For Strangers.” With Penner’s skills as a Film & Media Studies major and Bain’s insight as both a Film & Media Studies and Theatre Arts & Studies minor, the pair was able to combine forces to co-write this energetic film.
The Hopkins Writing Seminars Department hosted a Turnbull Poetry Lecture by Natasha Trethewey, the 19th poet laureate of the U.S. and winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, on Feb. 4. So far, she has written five books of poetry, including Domestic Work, her astounding debut which was selected for the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. The lecture was open to the public and accessible through Zoom.
With awards season postponed and few major film releases, it’s been an unusually dull time for us film geeks. Thankfully, film festivals are still a go, albeit online and with limited in-person capacities. One of them is the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, which kicked off on Jan. 28 and took place over seven days. Leaving behind its Park City venue of four decades, Sundance turned to a mostly virtual modality to deliver its screenings, talks and events.
Hopkins hosted its annual Lighting of the Quads (LOTQ) celebration on YouTube Live this past Saturday. LOTQ usually takes place each December shortly before finals; however, this year’s celebration marked many firsts — the first time the event went virtual, the first time it took place during the spring semester and the first time there was no live audience in the ordinary sense.
The White Tiger movie debuted this January after long-delayed plans for movie production, and is one of the largest international releases of an Indian movie in recent years. It’s not hard to guess why: Despite its source material being over a decade old, it presents a story of class warfare, global inequality and crises of democracy that have become even more relevant today.
Similarly, we cannot simply escape 2020 and everything that went wrong. Escapism is not staying put or avoiding conflicts mindlessly but instead finding a moment of tranquility and then moving on, inspired to fight for a better future.
In the epilogue of a new translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov’s hysterical condition worsens upon beginning his prison sentence, causing him to have a feverish dream about the spread of nihilism in the form of a virus. The events chronicled in this dream are extremely telling of dual pandemics — the global COVID-19 outbreak and the dissemination of disinformation through social media — that plagued 2020 and now plague 2021.
Netflix, Disney+ and HBO Max. The international film festival circuit moving online. The looming extinction of movie theaters. Whether we like it or not, 2021 marks the beginning of a series of radical, possibly lasting, changes the film industry will experience.
Marvel’s long-awaited television series debut — the first of many that will be released and watchable exclusively on the streaming platform Disney+ — has finally arrived. The first three episodes (there will eventually be nine) of WandaVision are now available to stream if you have a subscription.
The social media accounts of the Hopkins School of Public Health (SPH) posted a parody of Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s hit song and video “WAP” on Dec. 15, featuring members of the Mental Notes, a comedy a capella group from the Homewood Campus.
Citizen Kane is hailed as the greatest film of all time. Mank, in one of the most unexpected and idiosyncratic ways possible, tells an equally remarkable story of the process behind the film. Helmed by director David Fincher and written by his late father Jack Fincher, Mank had been in the works for thirty years prior to its December release on Netflix.
Almost a year after Greta Gerwig released her take on Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 classic novel, Little Women has returned to our screens once again. This time, it’s in the form of an audio-play, courtesy of the Barnstormers.
Writing a content warning for Big Mouth feels almost impossible, but please be warned that this article will discuss a lot of things that are very disgusting and exceedingly sexual, the vast majority of which involve cartoon characters between the ages of 12 and 14.
Life is tough right now for Americans, and social media and politics are no small part of that difficulty. The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 presidential election would have been frustrating even without the avalanche of misinformation surrounding both of them. If you’re as exhausted by fake news and misleading social media posts as I am, read on.
I was a sophomore in high school when Hamilton hit Broadway and suddenly made my love of American history and musical theater “cool.” I won’t bore you with the details of my fandom, but I follow the unbelievably talented original cast and their post-Hamilton careers with interest.
I recently watched the latest depiction of factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA) — also known as Munchausen syndrome by proxy — in film and television: Hulu’s original thriller Run, directed by Aneesh Chaganty and written by him and Sev Ohanian.
Among the slew of Christmas movies Netflix has recently churned out comes a messy, simply bad holiday romance. It blends in well enough, masquerading as a fun, funny, festive flick. But Holidate is none of these things — though, boy, does it try really, really hard to be. Its formulaic premise is essentially all the plot that the movie has: Two strangers decide to be each other’s “holidates” and end up falling in love.
With an official hybrid plan for the spring semester released, most of us can’t wait to return to campus. While there are many exciting opportunities to look forward to, why wait? What if you can’t return come spring 2021? There are many opportunities available now for you to enjoy in Baltimore, both in person and remotely.
