Bloated fan service and CGI in Peter Jackson’s final Hobbit film
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, has sucked up over $700 million in global box offices, if only because the film is director Peter Jackson’s final trip to Middle-earth. But the movie, despite its expectedly breathtaking cinematography, is a mediocre lobster roll — there’s not much meat and quite a lot of filler.
The best show of the year is here — and it’s not on TV
In recent years, video-on-demand services such as Netflix and Hulu have begun to offer original programming, with mixed results. One of these new shows is Amazon’s Transparent, the story of the Pfeffermans, a dysfunctional Jewish family from Los Angeles. Mort (Jeffrey Tambor), the patriarch, is a retired political science professor who decides to come out to his children as a transgender woman, Maura.
Interstellar
Once upon a time there was a shuttle humanity sent out in the space-time loom. Imagination and curiosity have always been the longitudinal threads that allow for the shuttle’s expedition. The crew was full of storytellers, including many grandmothers, Stanley Kubrick, and a 44-year-old screenwriter, film director Christopher Nolan.
Ambition and money make for a dangerous mix in new Bennett Miller film
Based on a true story, Foxcatcher tells the story of schizophrenic millionaire John E. du Pont (Steve Carell) and his involvement with Olympic Gold medalists David (Mark Ruffalo) and Mark Schulz (Channing Tatum). Du Pont, heir to the du Pont chemical company, invites Mark, who has been living under his older brother’s shadow, to train for the 1988 Olympics at his private horse breeding farm, Foxcatcher. Powered by family feuds, personal ambitions and strong performances, Foxcatcher is a thrilling recount of an American tragedy.
First look at Harvard Art Museums
After a six-year wait, the red brick college down the road finally opened its Harvard Art Museums, a merger of three museums encompassing a history of world art, uniting them under a single glass roof.
Elena Ruehr’s “Cassandra in the Temples”
Elena Ruehr, who has been a lecturer at MIT in the Department of Music and Theater Arts since 1992, is premiering three new works this fall. Two of those, “Eve” and “It’s About Time,” had their openings in Boston and San Francisco this month, while the third one, an opera titled “Cassandra in the Temples,” will have its opening night in Kresge Auditorium at MIT this Friday.
Infinite record: archive, memory, performance
On November 14 and 15, MIT will host Infinite Record: Archive, Memory, Performance, an international artistic research project led by Østfold University College/Norwegian Theatre Academy. The project is done in collaboration with York St. John University in U.K, Muthesius Kunsthochschule in Germany, and MIT, which was chosen to host the final installment of the series. This will be one of the most significant events for MIT’s arts community, as it will bring some of the most prominent international artists on campus and expose research in performance arts to the student population.
MFA after dark
Last week, the MFA hosted College Night: MFA After Dark, a chance for college students to visit the MFA after dark and take in the spooky sights before Halloween. Appropriately, the keynote exhibit of the night was Francisco Goya’s “Order and Disorder,” a collection of over 170 works from the Spanish artist famous for his boundless imagination and extreme variety.
Inside Othello
Since its premiere over 400 years ago, the timeless story of Othello has seen many interpretations. MIT’s Shakespeare Ensemble presents the title character as a female boxer, an exciting twist on the tale of intrigue and betrayal. The Tech interviewed director Susanna Noon and lead actress Samantha Harper ’16 to learn about their vision for the play and the challenges they faced behind the scenes.
The ultimate feel-good movie
With plenty of dark humor strung throughout the film, St. Vincent narrates the touching relationship between a grumpy, old alcoholic named Vincent (Bill Murray) and his young neighbor Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). As Oliver tags along with Vincent during his daily routine, Vincent quickly takes Oliver under his wing, showing him the local race track, protecting him from a gang of bullies, and teaching him how to fight. As their relationship develops, Oliver realizes that despite Vincent’s miserable outward appearance, the old man’s heart is still in the right place.
Definitely not plain sailing
Southern Air, the last album from pop-punkers Yellowcard, featured the prominent lyric “I’ve been here a while/ staring at the screen wondering what I’ll write.” It’s a sentiment I can empathise with. The ninth studio album from the Jacksonville quartet, made famous by their unique guitar-meets-violin rock sound, is the product of many factors, and to address any one without context of the others seems unjust. Music does not exist in a vacuum (technically because there’s no air to propagate sound waves, but allow me the metaphor), and this album has a great deal going on behind the scenes.
Traces at ArtsEmerson
In my dreams sometimes I fly. I just take a really long step and then the next without my feet ever touching the ground. It is a peculiar yet precious feeling. The Quebecois troupe Les 7 Doigts de la Main (literally, the seven fingers of a hand), makes the dream a reality in their theater, dance, and circus crossover Traces, running in the Cutler Majestic Theatre in Boston’s Theatre District until October 12.
Lehninger leads impeccable BSO
Marcelo Lehninger, the young Brazilian-born Associate Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra proved himself worthy of widespread praise Saturday night. Leading the BSO through program centered around Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C Minor Op. 67, Lehninger captivated the audience’s imagination and left them awestruck.
Off to the symphony
Last Saturday evening I had the pleasure of watching the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2014 Fall Season premiere. But before I got there, I had to actually get there, a process that no one had really explained to me before. So, for all the other hapless fools like me out there, here is how to get a ticket to watch a BSO performance.
A good old-fashioned action movie
With a gang of Russians, a fair amount of blood, and shot after shot of Denzel Washington in slow motion, The Equalizer checks off every stereotype for the action movie genre. Washington stars as McCall, a man with a mysterious past trying to return to a quiet life. When he finds out that a young girl, Teri (Chloë Grace Moretz), is brutally controlled by a Russian gang, McCall seeks justice in the form of violence. He must once again take up his role as “The Equalizer,” punishing those who do harm.
Boston Calling returns for round four
The fourth installment of Boston Calling this past weekend had its ups and downs but was overall an exciting, enjoyable festival that catered to Boston’s immensely diverse music scene.
The good kid is going back to school
This past week, news circulated that Georgia Regents University Professor Adam Diehl had chosen rapper Kendrick Lamar’s album good kid mAAd city (2012) as the subject of his English class Good Kids, Mad Cities.
J Dilla: A lasting presence
The Smithsonian Institution announced in July that equipment belonging to celebrated producer J Dilla (born James Dewitt Yancey) — a MIDI Production Center beat machine and a synthesizer custom-built for Dilla by Robert Moog himself — would be housed in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture, slated to open in 2016. The announcement came at the D.C. Loves Dilla Tribute Concert, courtesy of Ma Duke, who was there to see the crowd’s reaction to the memorialization of her late son’s legacy.