Welcome to another list of upcoming media recommendations! This week’s picks include a movie about a man who can’t feel pain, a historical fiction about an apartment building, a pop album by Stela Cole and a performance of Mozart at the Peabody Institute.
If you are at all familiar with 2000s indie rock or early internet music culture, you’ve likely come across — or at least felt the influence of — Baltimore experimental pop band Animal Collective. Terms like “surreal,” “trippy” and “kaleidoscopic” now feel kind of overused and cliche when describing their music, but albums like Merriweather Post Pavilion or Strawberry Jam undeniably contain a delirious, effortless glee that make them an unmatched benchmark of the modern psychedelic genre.
If your midterms only let you loose for a limited amount of time, then where better to start than with these personal arts and entertainment recommendations, curated for Hopkins students like you?
Every so often, a story comes along reminding us that while Hollywood thrives on romance and fantasy, it’s also a deeply flawed industry filled with power struggles, questionable decisions and enough scandal to fuel the tabloids for years. Enter Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni and a film adaptation that was supposed to be about breaking cycles of abuse — but might have just exposed another one in the process.
On February 7th, the second floor of the LaB was set up with rows of chairs, ready for students to take their seats in preparation for the Open Mic that was about to commence. The MC for the night? Kiera “Ashlee Haze” Nelson, a poet and spoken word artist from Atlanta by way of Chicago.
To borrow from Companion, let me be premature in this review: Companion is a brilliant movie challenging what the horror genre is while still providing a self-contained, enjoyable viewing experience.
With the lion of March creeping around the corner, our hearts still beating from our Valentine fever, there is no time more in need of distraction. Spring will come, and our hearts will slow, but, right now, the wind is pouring through the tunnels and over the quads, romances and friendships are tested in the bitter cold and, most importantly, our free time is nearly nonexistent.
I have only seen one production from the Barnstormers, but I might be scared to see another. That is, because I worry it can’t possibly meet or exceed my experience witnessing their performance of The Importance of Being Earnest, an 1895 play by Oscar Wilde.
On Feb. 10, Mdou Moctar performed at the Arden Club in Wilmington, Del. Moctar, the stage name of Tuareg guitarist Mahamadou Souleymane, was accompanied by rhythm guitarist Ahmoudou Madassane, drummer Souleymane Ibrahim and bassist Mikey Coltun.
Welcome to another list of upcoming media recommendations! This week’s picks include a show about a political conspiracy, a romance novel set in the American West, an indie album by musician Saya Gray and a performance of presidential love poems at Creative Alliance.
Grand, cinematic and freshly futuristic, Eusexua is FKA twigs at her most experimental and intimate. It’s an album that refuses to be boxed in, challenging listeners to embrace both its intimacy and its unpredictability. And whether every experiment lands or not, FKA twigs’s ability to push boundaries remains undeniable.
At this point, just over a day has passed since I watched the 2024 film Nosferatu. I’ve let it sit. I’ve slept on it. And while I admit that I was initially dissatisfied, over the span of those 24 hours, I’ve found myself harboring a newfound appreciation for the movie.
The Duo Ingolfsson-Stoupel took on the Leith Symington Griswold Hall at the Peabody Institute on Sunday, Feb. 2. They gave an incredible concert featuring works by Simon Laks, Olivier Messiaen, Ludwig van Beethoven and Maurice Ravel.
When Miller’s newest posthumous album, Balloonerism, was released, it felt like welcoming back a close friend. Once again, Miller was whispering, talking and laughing along with all of us. But, beyond that, the nature of the album has made me reflect on my very own nature and the changes I’ve been through since the first time I listened to his music.
This year’s GRAMMYs ceremony, held on Feb. 2, was a surprising return to form. It benefited from a year of music so strong that there were not many wrong choices to be made.
I hope you can see that there is more than enough content to sink your teeth into, whether it be in person or online. And don’t be upset if you don’t have a valentine; after all, who needs a valentine when there’s so much to watch, read and listen to!
“Monumental,” “tremendous,” and “striking” have all been used to describe how much of an achievement The Brutalist is, but there isn’t enough verbiage to replace the grandeur of the experience itself. But, even after a second viewing, it’s clear Corbet as a director far outpaces himself as a writer considering how the film’s technical accomplishes vastly overshadow its rhetorical pieces.
This past Friday, I had the chance to attend Witness Theater’s premier of their 2025 I-show — a performed collection of student-written plays — which were then acted and directed by the talented students of Hopkins. I have attended many of Witness Theater’s performances in the past; some have been better, others slightly lacking in certain areas, but the group has always maintained a level of professionalism that ensures this beacon of opportunity remains a mainstay of the arts community at Hopkins.
If you watched the first season of XO, Kitty and enjoyed it, I would definitely recommend you watch the second season. No, it’s not as good as the first season, but it delivers what you would expect of a light-hearted teenage comedy-drama: messiness, cuteness and more messiness.
Bob Dylan is an enigma. Despite being a towering force of American culture, he has always defied easy interpretation, too slippery to fit into categories or expectations. So, do we really need a Bob Dylan musical biopic? The genre is synonymous with clichés and unoriginality — notoriously squeezing complex lives into generic, done-to-death narratives.
