By now you have probably seen the viral Planet Earth clip of a courtship dance where a bird of paradise distorts itself into a dabbing, blue, smiley face as a way of asking for its mate’s consent.
The latest iteration of Pet Sematary opened last Friday, April 5 based on Stephen King’s original novel of the same name released in 1983.
A large part of The Twilight Zone’s cult appeal stems from its inherently strange qualities, not only in its plot, but also in its status as an emblem of a different time and a different intellectual atmosphere in American history. The show itself, with its stilted acting, filtered sound and dramatic score, often does feel like it came from another dimension, an aspect that only increases its lurid appeal.
Humanities students at Hopkins are used to not getting the same opportunities as their STEM counterparts. Friendly fire proved just as fatal, however, when faculty members in the Writing Seminars started closing the door on students attempting to enter the overstuffed Tudor and Stuart Room in Gilman Hall on Tuesday, April 2. The Writing Sems department selected Gilman 388 (as opposed to the usual Mudd 26) for its intimacy, but it’s truly a shame that more students weren’t able to attend the reading of Margolies Visiting Writer Ilya Kaminsky.
The Barnstormers finished their opening weekend of their 100th anniversary spring musical, Cabaret, in Swirnow Theater. Directed by Max Hunter, the artistic director of The Bridge Production Group, and produced by senior Julia Zimmerman, the show centers around a Berlin cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub and the lives of those involved in it.
Red Emma’s hosted a multimedia presentation of the latest issue of World War 3 Illustrated, a left-wing political comic magazine, on Friday, March 29. This issue, “Now is the Time of Monsters,” focuses on the rise of capitalism and fascism. And though the theme may be broad, each featured artist hones in on one specific evil in the world, from Mark Zuckerberg to forced evictions in Detroit.
Ask Baltimore musician Cris Jacobs if he has a favorite song from his most recent album, Color Where You Are, and he’s unable to give a direct answer. “I can’t really say that I do,” he said. “Different songs have different emotional levels and different purposes.”
Throat Culture, the only sketch comedy troupe on campus, performed their 24-hour glow show in Arellano Theater on Saturday night, offering audience members not only humor and talent, but also free candy and glow sticks.
It’s sometimes hard to feel successful at Hopkins, or for that matter, to feel that you will ever be successful. Assignments come and go, and you complete them with varying degrees of competency and effort invested in each. You’re supposed to be learning, but often you feel like you’re treading water. Even if you do learn something, and can recognize and feel fulfilled by that fact, where does that leave you?
Compared to ensembles like the full symphony orchestra and string quartet, the wind ensemble seems to be a less written-for group. Exceptions may include instances in which programs present notable pieces like Holst’s “First Suite” and “Second Suite” or Samuel Barber’s much-loved “Commando March,” but for all their merits, performances of these works remain infrequent.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why Disney decided to add Dumbo to its list of live-action adaptations. It’s easy to understand why they remade Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast; the films are so deeply ingrained in our cultural childhood that it is difficult to imagine a world in which the remakes weren’t successful. Dumbo, on the other hand, is nowhere near as popular a character, and his story seems like it wouldn’t translate very well to a more realistic film.
Concerts where the artist has to ask the audience to calm down are rare, to say the least. For me, Earl Sweatshirt’s concert on his tour Thebe Kgositsile presents: Fire it Up! A Tour Starring Earl Sweatshirt & Friends at Baltimore Soundstage on Thursday, March 28 was the first of its kind. Even though the mosh trampled me in one of its earliest waves and probably scarred me for life (no, I’m definitely not mad at all), the rhythmic energy that night was nothing short of primal — a wonder to witness.
The Metropolitan Opera is New York elites’ best kept secret. With its still lingering 19th century grandeur and 60-foot high ceilings, it can almost feel like a farce. But within the performance itself, there are quiet moments of intimacy too.
For all the Black Mirror fans out there, Netflix has finally released its animated equivalent: Love, Death + Robots. This not-safe-for-work (NSFW) series of 18 short films is the stunning collaborative effort of filmmaking teams from across the world. These five to 15 minute long short films are shocking but beautifully animated commentaries on, you guessed it, love, death and occasionally robots.
Sometimes you watch a movie that makes you feel like you’ve entered a different dimension. Not in the sense that you’ve been transported to a fantastical location, but rather everything in the movie operates differently from how you would expect events to normally operate. I often feel that way when watching romance movies. Whenever I watch them, I feel caught between feeling everything in the movie is ridiculous and that, if someone were to truly attempt to portray love, then it would look somewhat ridiculous. After all, one person’s love will never be the same as another’s.
If my Instagram feed is any indication, most of you spent spring break soaking up the carcinogenic sun in Cancún, Mexico or Miami. Well I didn’t. An albeit metaphorical ray of sunshine of my vacation, however, was visiting the American Kennel Club (AKC) Museum of the Dog in Manhattan.
Shrill, Hulu’s latest original comedy, is as liberating as it is entertaining. The show, which aired on March 15, 2019 stars Saturday Night Live (SNL) actor Aidy Bryant as Annie and is based on Lindy West’s memoir Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, in which West tackles taboos surrounding periods, abortions and the fat-shaming she faces as a plus-size woman.
It seems that we have now reached the peak of creative drought in movie names: All we need is one pronoun and voila, problem solved! First there was Him, Them, Her, It and now, Us.
I’d never heard of the film Wild Strawberries before The Charles Theatre put it as the most recent choice for their weekly Revival Series — a Swedish film from 1957 about a grumbling old man isn’t something I’d bet money on enjoying. But as with most Revival Series selections, I left the theater with a feeling of gratitude, an opinionated argument for going to random screenings and texting everyone in my contact list to “immediately go watch the most underrated movie of all time.”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: T-Pain is back and in a big way. After his victory on The Masked Singer and the release of 1UP, his latest project, T-Pain has ventured on a national tour. The very first show of the tour was held last Wednesday at Rams Head Live!, and I, an intrepid News-Letter reporter, was lucky enough to go.
