The year in film
With its atypical plot and talented cast, Win Win will win you over with a heartfelt story about being a loser. The movie revolves around an ever-so-average father, Mike (Paul Giamatti), who is struggling to make ends meet for his family, and Kyle, a troubled teenager (Alex Shaffer) whose unexpected agility and strength help rescue Mike’s high school wrestling team. If life’s got you down, this movie is a perfect remedy. As its tagline says, “in the game of life, you can’t lose ‘em all.”
Hackers on stage
Anyone who has been on an MIT campus tour has seen the pictures of great hacks of the past. Study here for a year, and you’re sure to see a hack with your own eyes. Yet despite the knowledge that hackers are fellow students, the people that crawl between the walls and pull high-tech pranks remain a mystery to most. In Hack, Punt, Tool, hackers take center stage in a story steeped in MIT mythology. This new musical is written, scored, and orchestrated by MIT students. For those who have ever wondered who was behind the abduction of the Caltech cannon or the many creative alterations to the dome, this is the show for you.
Copland conductorless, and Stravinsky interrupted
With all of the drama and lack of a permanent conductor at the BSO, the orchestra found an opportunity to do something completely out of the ordinary for their concert series from January 21–24. The entire first half of the program consisted of different sections of the orchestra performing pieces for chamber-size groups — without a conductor. A conductor was eventually contracted for the second half of the concert and worked with the orchestra for the week leading up to the first performance. The second half of the concert featured Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, one of the most controversial yet brilliant pieces of repertoire in classical music.
Looking for a story? Bastion delivers.
To me, the hallmark of a good work of fiction is the feeling of emptiness I feel when I complete it. Being severed from a well-constructed fantasy should induce a moment of existential panic in even the most stoic of men. By that metric, Bastion, a video game from Supergiant Games currently on offer for a mere $15, has one of the best stories I’ve encountered in at least a year.
Battle, minus the blood
As married couples grow older, they gradually adopt a mindset that pits them against the world and makes them believe that everyone is out to get them. Families grow into units that each have their own ideals and ways of dealing with different situations, and this makes conflict amongst families inevitable. In Roman Polanski’s new film Carnage, this truth is put on display for viewers to evaluate and ridicule.
Happy New Year, Maggie Thatcher?
While many movies focus on the private life behind a public figure, The Iron Lady focuses on the private life of a woman already retired from the spotlight. In keeping with the recent trend of making films about contemporary (British) politicians and royalty, this Margaret Thatcher biopic skillfully weaves fact and a great deal of artistic liberties to create a portrait of the first female prime minister of the UK.
VIDEO GAME REVIEW Adventurers, look out
As a conservative, I’m always a little bit wary when it comes to video game storytelling. Game development studios, if you ask me, have a decidedly liberal bias. Whether the game is BioShock, with its aggressive assault on the ideology of Ayn Rand, or Grand Theft Auto IV, with its skeptical look at the American dream, I worry that somewhere out there, sneaky left-wingers are using my recreational time to brainwash me in their ways.
CONCERT REVIEW BSO unveils Harbison’s newest symphony, his sixth
Two years ago, the Boston community eagerly welcomed James Levine’s vision to survey the symphonic music of the world-renowned local composer and MIT faculty John H. Harbison. Indeed, over the last season and a half, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, directed by Levine, performed in chronological order all of Harbison’s five symphonies to date. Last week, this symphonic cycle reached its zenith, as BSO premiered Harbison’s newest Symphony, his Sixth, specifically commissioned by (and dedicated to) Levine. While precarious health kept Levine away from the podium for the premiere, David Zinman, a long time friend and champion of Harbison’s music filled in. He enthusiastically conducted the concert series, which in addition to the new symphony, featured music by Weber, Beethoven and R. Strauss. Given the eclectic blend of music featured, this program was sure to be a crowd-pleaser; indeed, the Saturday performance that I attended was top-notch throughout and enthusiastically received.
Cambridge’s meat Mecca
I’m not bigoted against vegetarians. On the contrary, I have many vegetarian friends. I talk and joke and laugh with them as if they were real people. I am a big enough person to tolerate them, even if they have not been enlightened by that most divine truth: the Maillard reaction is proof that God loves us and wants us to eat meat.
ENTERTAINMENT FEATURE How to waste your time this IAP
TV networks have picked up on the altogether too-close-to-home fears and problems of the recession period. While the idyllic life of Carrie Bradshaw may be glamorous during normal economic times, in times of layoffs and high unemployment, it’s a grand joke. 2 Broke Girls centers around the eponymous characters who work at a Brooklyn diner and aspire towards a shared dream of opening a bakery. The contrast of Max (Kat Dennings), a sharp-tongued scrappy Brooklynite, against Caroline (Beth Behrs), an ex-socialite who’s reduced to rags because of a Bernie Madoff-like father, provides for much whiplash humor and one-liners. Imagine Gilmore Girls meeting college-girl raunchiness and a laugh track.
MOVIE REVIEW Grace versus nature
“Mother, Father, always you wrestle inside me, always you will.”
MOVIE REVIEW Tricked by the trailer?
Tarsem Singh’s (The Cell) third film Immortals (previously named War of the Gods) is an incondite action movie loosely based on Greek mythology. It falls far below the expectations raised by the trailer but does at least provide some aesthetically pleasing action sequences which demonstrate Singh’s skills as a music video (REM, “Losing My Religion”) and commercial (Pepsi) director.
MOVIE REVIEW Smiley, Smiley, where’s your smile?
A clandestine meeting at an outdoor cafe in Budapest ends with panicked shooting. Some cobblestones away, a baby still strains to suck on his mother’s breast, even as the blood begins to trickle from the hole in her head.
CONCERT REVIEW Sad songs about girls and life
The Airborne Toxic Event (TATE) has seen the spotlight this past year. They performed on the The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, were selected for the soundtrack of summer romantic comedy hit Crazy Stupid Love, and even made a cameo appearance on the season finale of Gossip Girl — and a cameo on Gossip Girl can mark the beginning of an indie band’s journey to mainstream fame.
VIDEO GAME REVIEW Zelda fans, rejoice
Skyward Sword might just be the best Zelda game ever made.
A night at the Brit-rock sock hop
Reading too many I Saw You MIT posts making you feel angsty? If you feel like you’re still going through the same tensions of high school over and over again, you’ll probably fit right in with The Postelles and The Kooks, two bands whom, although grown-up now, are still rehashing the trials and tribulations of their young romances. They certainly don’t take those pains too heavily though, both bands pairing their cheekily tortured lyrics with upbeat rock and roll.
Well, I guess this is it
Let me start out by saying that the trailer for The Descendants essentially reveals the entire plot, so either don’t watch the trailer or don’t expect much at the theatre. The premise of The Descendants is refreshingly creative: a mother, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), who has fallen into a coma because of an accident leaves behind a husband, Matthew (George Clooney), who is in charge of a large amount of land; a daughter, Alex (Shailene Woodley), who knows about the mother’s affair with another man; and another daughter, Scottie (Amara Miller), who imitates every rebellious act of her older sister starting with very obscene language. Despite the original plotline, however, I ended up leaving the theater rather peeved.
INTERVIEW The art of the documentary
Anne Makepeace, from Lakeville, Connecticut, has been making films for almost 30 years. Her most recent film, We Still Live Here, had its broadcast premiere on the Independent Lens series of PBS and also screened at MIT on Nov. 17. The film is about a movement to revive the Native American language of Wampanoag. It centers on Jessie Little Doe Baird, who spearheaded the movement and whose daughter is the first native speaker in over a century.
EXHIBIT REVIEW Tradition and modernity
Seven students sit typing on their laptops outside the Teachers and Students Center at Dhaka University. As with their Western counterparts, too much of their time is spent in idle Facebook gossip. But the context of the picture, “Global Gossip,” by photographer Md. Huzzatul Mursalin, differs strikingly from Western expectations. The background setting is worn and depressing, conflicting with the display of modernity in the foreground. And, despite the dirt, the typists have taken their shoes off, Bangladesh-style.
MOVIE REVIEW Tensions brew on Earth
Melancholia opens with a series of breathtaking shots resembling four-dimensional-surrealist-painting scenes. The powerful prelude from the opera Tristan und Isolde directs the visual phenomena. Nothing comprehensible about the plot is given; we only know the movie is going to be intense.