MOVIE REVIEW The last eight minutes
Don’t let the title fool you into thinking that Source Code is a hacker movie, or even about anything remotely related to Course VI. “Source Code” refers to a fictional technology that lets people revisit the last eight minutes of a dead person’s life. In the wake of a bombing attack on a Chicago-bound train, the government sends Army Capt. Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) into the Source Code again and again to learn the identity of the bomber. Through repeated visits, Stevens falls for his fellow passenger Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan) and tries to find a way to save her, even after repeatedly being told by his commanding officers (Vera Farmiga and Jeffrey Wright) that it would be pointless. Source Code, they explain, is “not time travel, but time reassignment.” If that didn’t make sense, don’t worry, because it’s all quantum mechanics and “parabolic calculus.” Tricky stuff indeed.
BALLET REVIEW Pure movement, pure beauty
Tearing myself away from campus during the MIT150 open house to watch Bella Figura was a difficult feat. But as I watched the ballet, I knew it was a worthy sacrifice. I glued my eyes to the stage, completely blown away by the beauty of movement and the emotions that the dancers imparted to the audience.
BOOK REVIEW Giving back the funk?
Perhaps I can explain the draw of Tony Rauch’s new book, eyeballs growing all over me … again, rather quickly through one analogy: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (1984, Chris Van Allsburg). Harris Burdick was a collection of illustrations by Van Allsburg, each accompanied by a title and a single line of text. The goal, according to elementary school teachers, was to make children think creatively and come up with stories incorporating the text and the picture. “Mr. Linden’s Library,” a picture of a sleeping girl and vines sprouting from the binding of an open book in front of her, sparked a sea of creative juices from excited fifth graders; eyeballs does the same thing for the more mature reader.
INTERVIEW Storyteller of the ordinary and the fantastical
At age 37, independent film director, actress, artist, writer, and musician Miranda July already has various forms of creative work under her belt, ranging from web-based experimental projects to novels and multimedia performance. July’s stories, inspired by magical realism and the avant-garde, often involves ordinary settings and situations examined in great depths. Her most eminent work, Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005), won several awards, including Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. July visited Boston last week to present her latest movie, The Future, at The Independent Film Festival Boston (IFFBoston), which took place from April 27 to May 4 and had more than 100 film screenings in theaters across Cambridge and Boston. At a roundtable, The Tech had the opportunity to speak with July about independent films, the artistic process, and, yes, school.
MOVIE REVIEW Forget Jason Bourne — it’s time to meet Hanna!
Hanna opens with some beautiful panoramas of the beautiful, snow-covered remote wilderness of Finland. In this silent, almost enchanted landscape, a girl — later introduced as Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) — hunts and eventually kills a stag, demonstrating some unusual skills for a 16-year-old. Soon it becomes clear that Hanna has mostly been living alone with her father Erik (Eric Bana). Erik, a former CIA agent, has been training his daughter her entire life to become an assassin. The two have been hiding from civilization since the day she was born, and Hanna’s only knowledge of the outside world comes from the languages and information that her father teaches her from books. This knowledge remains very abstract to the girl, though. In one scene Hanna asks her father about the sound of music — she knows the definition of “music” from an encyclopedia but has never heard any. Ronan lists this curiosity as one of her favorite aspects of her character: “We meet her as she goes out on her own, and when she does she is fascinated by everyone and everything she comes across. My favorite quality of hers is that she is non-judgmental; she shows an open mind to, and a fascination with, everything.”
THEATER REVIEW The prosecution of genius
The lights rise in the black box at the Central Square Theater. Alan Turing (Allyn Burrows) speaks nervously with the constable (Dafydd Rees). He is reporting a personal theft — committed, we’ll discover, by a lover many years his junior. The losses themselves are trivial — clothes, half a bottle of sherry — but are reported out of principle. It is principle, and idiosyncrasy, that defines Turing. He is a man unable to be untrue about his ideals — whether they pertain to science, mathematics, or love.
EXHIBIT REVIEW And then there was glass
Dale Chihuly has been working with glass for over 40 years, and his newest collection of glass sculptures is now on display at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Chihuly: Through the Looking Glass is not your typical art exhibition, it’s a celebration of installation art and fragility at its very finest. Of course, before we give Chihuly all the credit, you should know that he does not work alone. A dislocated shoulder from a 1979 bodysurfing accident left him unable to hold a glassblowing pipe; since then, he has relied on a team of glassblowers to carry out his artistic plans. Chihuly classifies his role as “more choreographer than dancer, more supervisor than participant, more director than actor.” The result of these artistic collaborations is an oeuvre focused just as much on presentation as craftsmanship.
ALBUM REVIEW Arresting, thoughtful, accessible
I am sitting on an American Airlines flight when they have just served the same vile plastic egg-y mess they have always dished up for so-called breakfast. Untouchable — I simply fail to understand why they persist in throwing such muck at their passengers. The 777 is surprisingly noisy, at least where I am sitting. But I have a pair of noise-canceling headphones, and I have The Great Deep — a new album from Duo LiveOak — within reach.
CONCERT REVIEW Mellow, folksy, hypnotic
The Low Anthem. Iron and Wine. This was quite the contrast to the other concerts I attended over this long weekend. Think Random Hall versus Baker — that’s how radically different Iron and Wine is from both the metal/hardcore festival I attended on Saturday and the electro-reggae Major Lazer concert I attended on Sunday at Wellesley. Tuesday night was a prelude to getting focused again, musically pre-gaming for the days ahead, prepping for the return from the four-day weekend. The concert whispered to me, telling me that this was the final moment of relaxation before I had to head back to the slave camp that had already consumed some of my friends for the whole long weekend.
THEATER REVIEW A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
The MIT Musical Theater Guild is performing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee as their spring show, and this production is nothing short of phenomenal. Wisecracks about the unwieldy name aside, the Guild has put their best foot forward with Spelling Bee, and the result is a must-see.
CONCERT REVIEW West Campus goes hardcore
New England Metal and Hardcore Festival: A three-day event designed for only the most HxC (“hardcore”) individuals. The NEMHF has occurred annually in Worcester, Mass., at the Palladium ever since the festival’s inception in 1999.
CONCERT REVIEW Fresh sound, stale performance
This is TV on the Radio, one of a kind: wind chimes attached to the guitar. Whistling and clapping. And a rotating siren light.
ARTS ON CAMPUS Not your typical East Asian festival
Last Saturday, the MIT Asian Dance Team (ADT) hosted Inspirasian, the inaugural Boston Asian Performing Arts Festival. The festival, held at Kresge Auditorium, featured performing groups from throughout the Greater Boston Area and included performances that represented both East and South Asia.
THEATER REVIEW Dramashop gets it on
During the past two weeks, MIT Theater Arts and Dramashop presented La Ronde (Let’s Get it On), an adaptation of the original play by Austrian author and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler. It was translated and directed for the MIT community by Anna C. Kohler, MIT Senior Lecturer in Theater Arts.
The man behind the lens
This is a story of a man and his city. The man — legendary fashion photographer Bill Cunningham — has faithfully documented street style for The New York Times for decades. The city, as seen through his lens, hosts a menagerie of creative getups ranging from the elegantly subtle to the outrageously flashy. Cunningham’s extensive portfolio serves as a comprehensive anthology of the last half-century of New York fashion. Even now, still energetic at age 80, he bikes through the heart of New York City every day, chronicling noteworthy outfits with his analog film camera.
MOVIE REVIEW The man who lived for clothes
The fashion world has seen its fair share of strong personalities and peculiar characters. Ruthlessly honest and demanding Vogue editors, diva supermodels, and celebrity-obsessed designers seem to run rampant. The documentary on Bill Cunningham is not really about a renowned fashion photographer, but rather an artist and visual historian who happens to love his subjects very, very much.
MOVIE REVIEW LIMITLESS? NOT REALLY.
Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper) is a loser whose life is falling apart. He is failing in his job as a writer, and his girlfriend (Abbie Cornish) dumped him. Soon after, Eddie accidentally meets his ex-wife’s brother, Vernon Gant (Johnny Whitworth), a drug dealer who sees directly through Eddie’s miserable existence. Vernon offers Eddie a new drug, promising that it will change his life for better by temporarily increasing his intelligence. Vernon claims that humans only use 20 percent of their brain and that the drug, called NZT, would enable Eddie to reach his full potential. Eddie hesitates, but due to his desperate situation, he eventually tries NZT and is surprised to find that it, indeed, focuses his attention and increases his intelligence. He immediately cleans up his messy apartment, writes a first draft of his book, and delivers the draft to his editor, who is stunned by the work. But soon, the effect of NZT drops, and Eddie senses a return to his lowlier existence.
THEATER REVIEW Sharp acting, humor cuts to the point
Next House presented its annual Next Act during CPW last weekend. This year’s production was The Scarlet Pimpernel, a musical based on the early 20th-century play and novel of the same name by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. The musical adaptation ran on Broadway from 1997 to 2000 and has since been performed in numerous venues across the country.
OPERA REVIEW The dawn of the future dramatic art
Ever felt that going to the opera is old-fashioned? Fear not. With his latest dramatic work Death and the Powers: The Robots’ Opera, MIT composer Tod Machover attempts to bring the operatic art solidly into the 21st century and a little beyond. Machovers’ opera is the most recent and most compelling display of technology-enabled art and technology as an art form. The show, which had its American premiere on March 18 in Boston’s Cutler Majestic Theatre, is a remarkable artistic achievement, enabled by cutting-edge MIT Media Lab technology that permeates all aspects of the production. The audience is exposed not only to stunning visuals and lighting effects, but also to innovative soundscapes generated by a mix of traditional instruments and electronic hyperinstruments — one of Machover’s pioneering inventions. The opera features human singers and, as the title suggests, robots (which are indeed real, sophisticated robotic machines, not just stand-in props). All performers, human and machine, interact seamlessly and compellingly. However, Death and the Powers also remains true to the operatic tradition and features a challenging, thought-provoking story, which persists in our minds long after the music has stopped and the technological flash has faded away. The opera was enthusiastically received at the sold-out premiere, with the audience engaged in a frantic, standing ovation at the end.
ALBUM REVIEW The Strokes slip back out of whack
For those of you who are hosed with psets, are busy promenading awesome prefrosh around, or have particularly short attention spans, I can summarize the long-awaited Strokes album Angles with a quick Facebook-centric anecdote, generated in the weeks leading to the album’s official release this past March: