Midsommar, a newly released folk-horror film from director Ari Aster, follows his highly acclaimed debut film Hereditary, which was released only a year ago. After relishing in the delightfully gruesome premise and fantastic acting of Hereditary, my expectations for Midsommar were high.
My mouth watered the entire time as I watched the new Netflix series, Street Food, produced by David Gelb and Brian McGinn, the same two directors behind the widely acclaimed Chef’s Table.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been constantly listening to music from two completely unique and distinct producers. Both are fantastic and should be far more popular than they are, though they make completely different music.
Liberty in North Korea JHU (LiNK), a student group under the umbrella organization of the same name, held its rescheduled screening of the 2004 South Korean film, Taegukgi: The Brotherhood of War, on Wednesday, May 1. Although I could not attend in person, I was able to watch the film on my own time.
When Lizzo brazenly opened “Tempo” with the words, “I’ve been waiting for this one,” teasing her collaboration with Missy Elliott, I knew I wasn’t ready. It’s been a month since “Tempo” dropped, with Lizzo’s full album, Cuz I Love You, released on Friday, April 19, but I still don’t think I’m quite ready to tackle analyzing the absolute bops featured.
Claire Denis’ film High Life, which was released on Friday, April 12, is definitely unique. And it is also certainly a showcase of the most bodily fluids I’ve seen in a science fiction film, so much to the point where I pledged to walk out at five different points. But the film has an impressive and elusive gravity to it that kept me in my seat, despite being grossed out right up to my limits.
An undeniable electricity filled The Anthem as Jorja Smith and Kali Uchis kicked off their North American “Kali & Jorja Tour” this Sunday.
I can still remember the sense of excitement I felt when I first watched the original Avengers movie, and Avengers: Endgame, released on April 24, managed to capture that same sense of excitement and potential.
“Poets are the oracles — they just know things, and though we may not always be able to decode what they said, the oracle, they absolutely know things,” said Associate Director of the Archaelogical Museum Sanchita Balachandran when she introduced poet Rickey Laurentiis to the stage on Tuesday, April 16 in Mudd 26. Laurentiis, tall with long braids down their back, took the microphone and started with a poem.
If, like me, you go into Netflix’s The Music Teacher without any prior knowledge of the film, its narrative and tone will likely surprise you. Although the preview images and narrative summary paint the film as a romantic comedy, the narrative is actually much more dramatic and contemplative in its exploration of isolation and regret. Unfortunately, although the film’s thematic structure is interesting, the overall execution is lacking, and its flaws make it difficult to find the strengths.
Unexpectedly, at 12:01 a.m. PST (3:01 a.m. for us poor souls on the East Coast) on Saturday, April 13, Childish Gambino released Guava Island immediately after it’s premiere at Coachella the night prior. The 55-minute movie (arguably, musical) was released on Amazon Prime and made available to everyone for free for the first 18 hours, though it is now only available to Prime subscribers.
Mitski performed a sold-out show at Ram’s Head Live! on Friday, April 19 to a wildly receptive crowd. At the venue, listeners filled every inch of the floor and the balconies, soaking up every moment of the performance. The crowd was pulsing with energy; There was rarely a moment when people weren’t screaming or singing along to the music. Mitski herself, on the other hand, was strikingly reticent, performing alongside her band members and, among other items, a simple white desk and a chair. As the night went on, however, I found these to be among the least surprising elements of one of the most breathtaking, unique shows I’d ever seen.
The Barnstormers performed a staged reading of George Bernard Shaw’s You Never Can Tell on Saturday, April 20. You Never Can Tell is the first play the Barnstormers ever performed; This brought a certain nostalgia to the show, as it is also the 100th anniversary of the formation of the theatre group in January 1919.
Cage The Elephant released their fifth studio album, Social Cues, on Friday, April 18. Cage The Elephant consistently impresses me with the range of music they put out. There are songs I absolutely love, songs I cannot stand listening to and songs that I simply forget. I’ve found that it’s difficult to take in an entire Cage The Elephant album at one time because their music is so high-energy and intense that it’s hard to figure out which tracks I actually enjoy. Social Cues is no exception in that many of the songs blend together on first listen. However, the album definitely has some standouts, and Cage The Elephant never fails to prove their musical prowess.
As April Awareness winds to a close, the University’s chapter of Out in Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics (oSTEM) broke new ground with their inaugural annual drag show, “Drag Them,” on Sunday, April 21. The thrilling evening was hosted by the two event organizers, Miss Anne Thropy and Suey Sigh Delle — juniors Coleman Haley and Jane Brusilovsky respectively — in full drag and bio drag (when a female dresses in the style of male drag queens).
Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals joined Childish Gambino, Jaden Smith and BLACKPINK as one of the opening performers for Coachella on Friday, April 12. But before taking to the highly-coveted stage in Indio, Calif., he took us back to Ventura County in his 11 track LP, Ventura, which comes just six months after the 2018 release of Oxnard. If Oxnard’s hit song “Tints,” featuring Kendrick Lamar, was the song that helped me deal with my homesickness and longing for sunny Southern California last semester, Ventura’s “Make It Better,” featuring Smokey Robinson, is the next perfect song that will get me through this particularly gloomy spring season.
The John Astin Theatre presented their second weekend of Mauritius at the Merrick Barn. Directed by James Glossman, a lecturer in the Theatre Arts & Studies program, the show centered around two denominations of postage stamps issued in 1847 by British Mauritius, then a colony off the southeast coast of Africa.
Renowned Shakespeare critic James Shapiro came to Hopkins on Thursday, April 11 to deliver an outstanding Turnbull lecture he called “Lincoln, Booth, Shakespeare.” He read for the first time an extract from his latest, yet to be released novel, Shakespeare in a Divided America.
The city of Baltimore is no stranger to stories of violence and corruption. In the spring of 2015, Baltimore made national news headlines when Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old black man, died from injuries sustained in policy custody.
LSD’s inaugural and eponymous album finally dropped on Friday, April 12 after the group pushed it back from the original release date of Nov. 8. Because of this I was expecting awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping new beats and a bountiful well of new music to listen to until the summer’s inevitable slew of bouncy pop starts coming at us. While the new stuff we got off the album was great, five out of the album’s nine songs were previously released as singles, and the final track is a remix; I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed.
