Light City Baltimore bathed the city in lights last week with its inaugural combination of music, lights and innovation that brought together many of the city’s neighborhoods. Perhaps the most interesting thing about it was that the event spread throughout the city, with many attractions in different neighborhoods.
Conversations With the Carrolls, a living history performance held this weekend at Homewood Museum, brought to life the people who both enjoyed and supported life in the Homewood house during the early 19th century. Conversations was produced by Helena Arose and Sarah Braver, directed by Saraniya Tharmarajah and featured a screenplay by Julia Phoon. Utkarsh Rajawat, Tatiana Ford, John Del Toro, Garlyn Colas and Saraniya Tharmarajah all acted in the show.
After premiering on IFC last year, Documentary Now!, a seven-episode parody of documentary filmmaking, has come to Netflix. The series, created by Seth Meyers, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader and Rhys Thomas — all past or current cast members of Saturday Night Live — presents six different “documentaries,” each approximately 20 minutes long, which are introduced by a refined Helen Mirren. Each episode portrays a different style of documentary, and each is unnerving and comical in its own way.
On Saturday, the Johns Hopkins Film Society screened a selection of student-made short films as part of the annual Johns Hopkins Film Festival. Its Baltimore Student Filmmaker Program featured a collection of films directed by local aspiring filmmakers. The contributors were largely college students with the notable exception of high school student Ruby Miller, who attends the Park School of Baltimore. This section is a new addition to the festival, now in its 22nd year.
Marilynne Robinson, an award-winning American author, held a reading as a part of the President’s Reading Series: Literature of Social Import this past Thursday. This event was held in the large lecture hall of Hodson and included a reception and book signing after.
Temps d’Afrique (TDA), an African dance team at Hopkins, presented Year of the Beat at Shriver Hall on Saturday night. Year of the Beat, the group’s first solo showcase, was a joyful celebration of five years of performing as an independent student group. The group began as a part of the African Students Association as ASA Dance and was officially recognized as an independent student group in 2011.
The University recently announced that Spike Lee will be the commencement speaker this May. While many members of the Hopkins community may have heard of the Academy Award nominated director or even seen one of his films, there are many who are not familiar with his life, his work and the impact he has had on the film industry and issues of social justice.
Last Friday, eccentric rapper Father released his latest album, I’m A Piece of Sh*t. Father releases music via his collective label Awful Records that features artists similar to himself.
On Sunday, March 27, Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse hosted the annual Baltimore Citywide Youth Poetry Team Grand Slam along with Dew More Baltimore, an organization that strives to increase community engagement in the Baltimore area through youth programming, art and community organizing. The organization currently has programs in 46 schools in the Baltimore area.
On Thursday, March 23, the Program for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality at Hopkins hosted director Malaika Aminata for a screening and discussion of her 2015 documentary Not About a Riot. The film follows the events of the Baltimore Uprising, specifically between April 23 and May 1. The movie was shot by Aminata, a Morgan State University graduate and Baltimore resident, and was developed and produced independently by the director and others. As the title implies, the documentary avoids any depictions of the violence that occurred during this time period. Instead, Aminata’s film directs its attention to peaceful demonstrations, non-violent protests, impromptu concerts and artistic gatherings. Music features prominently in the film, especially in an extended scene dedicated to a small rap show set in front of a row house.
Making his first visit to Hopkins since 1999, cartoonist Ben Katchor will give an illustrated lecture entitled “Hand-Drying in America and Other Stories: Picture-recitations from 18 years of comic-strips about architecture and urban design from Metropolis Magazine” on April 4.
10 Cloverfield Lane is the second film in the Cloverfield anthology franchise helmed by J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Lost). This is the feature film debut of director Dan Trachtenberg who previously directed a short film for the popular PC game Portal. The film stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead (The Thing, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World), John Goodman (Inside Llewyn Davis, The Big Lebowski) and John Gallagher, Jr. (The Newsroom, Short Term 12).
As students pass through Q-level of MSE Library they may have noticed the array of sounds emanating from a small silver speaker attached to the wall. These sounds, which range from energetic music to the buzzing of the natural world, are part of an exhibit titled You Are Hear, which will continue until March 31.
“Netflix and chill,” “Amazon Prime and commitment” and “Hulu and hang” are some of the most common pick-up lines of the modern college community, epitomizing the shift from network television series to online streaming services.
March 31 will mark the beginning of the 20th annual Johns Hopkins Film Festival. The festival is curated by the Hopkins Film Society (HFS) and will feature three screenings of feature films and a collection of independent exhibitions.
WILL SCERBO, musician and music director of WJHU
Downton Abbey, the critically acclaimed and internationally popular British drama series, came to an end this past Sunday after six seasons in an uplifting two-hour series finale. In a show marked by tragedy, the finale gave viewers a chance to see every character get the happy ending he or she had long been striving for.
