The Pearl Button would be better off as two separate documentaries
The Pearl Button promised to be a poetic and thought-provoking documentary about Chile’s 2,670 miles of coastline and the significance of water for indigenous tribes in Patagonia (a region that includes Chile and Argentina as well as several South American islands). I didn’t know much about the history of Chile or its native peoples, but I was eager to learn. The documentary, however, did not live up to my expectations, and I was rather surprised by how uninspiring I found much of the film. Its slow pace and low information density makes each scene drag on — I often expected a scene to cut minutes before it actually did. Guzmán incorporates voice-overs, photographs, interviews with tribal elders, grainy black-and-white clips, outer-space CGI (which felt supremely out of place), and long takes of coastal scenery (which were beautiful, and perhaps the best part of the experience). However, the documentary’s biggest weakness is that it is abruptly split into two seemingly disjoint parts.
Brooklyn holds a mirror up to every college student
Anyone on this campus knows what it feels like to leave home for a new place. The sights and sounds are different, the culture unfamiliar, the knowledge eye-opening. Everything around you is new — but surprisingly, after some time, you discover that you are new as well. Every experience starts to impact what you believe, how you act, and eventually, the very core of who you are. And never has this evolution been so perfectly captured as in the film Brooklyn.
Double, double toil and trouble
Along the spectrum of villains and traitors, Macbeth falls somewhere between Brutus and Joffrey Baratheon. Spurred on by his wife’s ambitions, he murders his king, his best friend, and a whole family in order to gain and keep the throne. With all the aspirations of a would-be ruler, but none of the guts, Macbeth is truly an unsympathetic character. But what if someone other than Lady Macbeth were pulling his strings? What if the events of Shakespeare’s classic play were actually orchestrated by a cabal of witches?
Cold War Kids at the House of Blues
Given that this was my first time at the Boston House of Blues, I was underwhelmed by the grimy building and the barely filled general admission section. Was this really the iconic Boston venue that had been graced by artists like Miley Cyrus, Chance the Rapper, and this time, the Cold War Kids?
An evening of strings with Pinchas Zukerman
The Boston Symphony Orchestra continued its wide-ranging selection of fall programs with a collection of works by Tchaikovsky, Elgar, and Schubert, featuring guest conductor-violinist Pinchas Zukerman last weekend.
Pairing young musicians with young listeners
The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra is a vibrant group of 12- to 21-year-olds who devote their Saturday afternoons to practicing together and putting up roughly three performances a year. Many are currently in college as well, including MIT freshman Jueun Lee on the cello. Formed in 2012 as an offshoot of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, BPYO aims to provide opportunities for young musicians to grow.
Fired up, dumbed down? William F. Buckley and the decline of political discourse
Lamenting the state of American political discourse is a popular refrain at present, and it’s not hard to see why. At a time when offensive statements from the likes of Donald Trump and Ben Carson serve not as campaign-ending gaffes but as anabolic steroids for the presidential horse-race; when blowhard cable news anchors generate much heat but little light on the issues de l’heure; and when social media has opened up a whole new realm for shocking anger and abuse, the desire to tune out of political speech altogether and only pay attention biennially and briefly has never been stronger. MIT Professor Heather Hendershot’s forthcoming book, Open to Debate: How William F. Buckley Put Liberal America on the Firing Line — which she introduced at an Oct. 22 colloquium — could not be more timely, with its simple central question: how, exactly, did it come to this?
A visual feast at the ballet
Men balancing on each other like surfboards, women perching precariously on their partners’ napes, a human truss forming from a lattice of dancers – these were some of the radical visual treats greeting the audience in this season’s opener at the Boston Ballet. A surprising 40 years since its inception, this production marks the first performance by a North American company of John Neumeier’s Third Symphony of Gustav Mahler.
Author Emma Donoghue talks to The Tech
Told from the perspective of 5-year-old Jack (Jacob Tremblay), Room, a 2010 novel by Emma Donoghue, is a captivating tale about Jack and his mother, Ma, who are confined to a small room with no exposure to the outside world. Except for the occasional nighttime visit from their captor, Old Nick (Sean Bridgers), Jack and Ma (Brie Larson) spend all of their time with each other, playing games, watching TV, and reading books. Ma knows what lies beyond the walls, but as far as Jack knows, the room is his entire world.
A visionary icon, closed end-to-end
It is undeniable that Steve Jobs, through the technical innovations he spearheaded as the head of Apple Inc., profoundly impacted the way we relate to our machines and, through them, to each other.
Framed in conversation: Bridge of Spies
The Glienicke Bridge, today a mundane cantilever thoroughfare, was once a gateway between East and West Berlin, between two ideologies opposed for decades on the brink of war. Yet, instead of the Glienicke’s becoming a Cold War battleground, it was a symbol of freedom and diplomacy. At its midpoint, high above the Havel River, dozens of captured agents crossed over to their countrymen on the other side between 1962 and 1986. Its four prisoner exchanges between the Soviets and the West across two decades, seminal moments in Cold War history, gave rise to the Glienicke’s enduring alias — the Bridge of Spies.
If you ever need help procrastinating
If you are a frequent reader of the comics section of The Tech, you’ll be familiar with Piled Higher and Deeper, the home of the chocolate-loving Cecilia, the consistently unproductive Mike Slackenerny, and our lovable, flawed, and forever lost-in-purpose Nameless Hero. These slice-of-life comics portray the unfortunate (for them) but hilarious (for us) day-to-day struggles of graduate students. A live-action film adapted from Jorge Cham’s PhD Comics, The PhD Movie 2 follows the paths of Winston, the Nameless Hero who is finally graced with a name, and Cecilia.
The Tech talks to Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg is a man with great respect for history. Early in his four-decade career, his films were archetypes of Hollywood blockbusters — the modern adventure and sci-fi genres were built upon Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, among his other works. He then sojourned into new territory, broaching humanistic themes in critically acclaimed historical dramas. His WWII-era portrayals of the struggles of two remarkable men in Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan showed that he had the skill and tenacity to recreate pivotal events in history through cinema.
A rousing mixture of old and new at the BSO
The Boston Symphony Orchestra moves from strength to strength, following its successful season opener with another exceptional program — putting together a new composition by Sebastian Currier, Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, and a particularly spellbinding rendition of Brahms’ Symphony No. 2.
An eye-catching trip to Neverland
The story of Peter Pan is as ageless as Peter himself — what began as a 1904 play by J.M. Barrie is still culturally relevant a century later. There are musicals, movies, video games, and an entire Disney franchise based on the boy who wouldn’t grow up. Maybe it’s because we’ll always cherish the idea of eternal youth, or maybe we just really like pirates.
Teenager shot by an ideology reveals some personality
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala. This 18-year-old girl is known as an activist who speaks up for female education and equality. After learning the importance of education through her parents, who ran several schools in Pakistan, she blogged for the BBC and stressed educational equality to the public. She survived a shooting by the Taliban at the age of 15.
Artist and theoretical physicist present kinetic sculpture
This past Monday, Kim Bernard, artist in residence at Harvard, visited the MIT List Visual Arts Center to speak on her sculpture, which had been inspired by the “predictable patterns in matter and motion.” Jacob Barandes, a physics lecturer from Harvard, accompanied Bernard to provide a physicist’s perspective on her artwork. Bernard and Barandes presented as part of the Catalyst Conversations lecture series, which hosts speakers who explore the intersection of visual art with science and technology.
Heroes Reborn offers a compelling second chance for disillusioned viewers
I was about 50 percent excited and 50 percent nervous about Heroes Reborn. I had watched the show here and there when it was in its first season back in 2006, but it wasn’t until sophomore year of college (when I bought my very own Netflix account) that I got hooked on the series. I spent a week binge-watching the first and second season, but I gave up on the third and fourth, understanding what people meant when they said the show was going downhill. I liked the comic-book feel to the show: overused tropes aside, who doesn’t like a story packed with superpowers?
BSO opens 135th season with an all-Russian program
The Boston Symphony Orchestra opened its first concert of the season in a fashion that reflected the all-Russian program: quick and to the point. Upon entering, conductor Andris Nelsons was greeted with a standing ovation; however, the audience barely had time to sit down before the BSO began Shostakovich’s playful Ninth Symphony. It was easy to appreciate the lightness of the strings and winds juxtaposed with the fanfare of the brass. I found myself captivated by Nelsons’ conducting, which conveyed excitement and scrutiny to detail, and the way the orchestra responded in kind. Navigating through Shostakovich’s bright Allegro, his eerie Moderato, and his loud Presto, the musicians demonstrated their versatility in both technical and emotional depth.
Electronic lyricism
I jump late onto most bandwagons — many of my favorite artists are inactive, and for a year or two, Metric belonged to that unfortunate club. Their unique blend of electronic and traditional rock instruments, as well as their profound and relatable lyrics, captivated me. Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? (2003) was one of the first albums I listened to in its entirety, and I was surprised to find that I loved every single track. Since the group seemed to have disappeared, I was stuck cycling between the same few albums. My musical limbo ended Sept. 18, 2015, with the release of Pagans in Vegas.