Bringing sugar and spice to the ice
I have always been drawn to figure skating for its combination of ballet, dance, and gymnastics — when executed well, a skater delivers a performance worthy of lush red curtains and a Broadway stage. Sadly, the beauty in figure skating is often lost in the number-crunching and the tallying up of how many points combination XYZ will produce. Though skaters must fulfill strict technical requirements, what really sets an amazing performance apart is the artistry.
DOUBLE SOY LATTE, PLEASE! Home is where the tea is
A common fantasy among my girlfriends is to quit MIT and open up a neighborhood café. Should that life-altering day come for me, I imagine my store will be a lot like Andala Café: cozy, charming, and a touch eclectic.
EXHIBIT REVIEW A little bit of Paris, in all its glamour and decadence Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts depicts turn-of-the-century Paris society
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec produced intimate perspectives into the decadent lifestyle of early 20th-century Paris. While we look back upon his work as modern and fashionable, his images had been considered provocative amongst his peers.
CONCERT REVIEW Two minds in one work
I anticipated bloodshed, broken bones, or at least tears. On Feb. 7, Jonathan Biss and Richard Goode, two of the greatest pianists alive, played a program of duets. Would these two prima donnas play nice?
CONCERT REVIEW Are they copycats, or merely derivative?
Music grows like old roadways: When the path cut by the avant-garde is narrow and new, only a few people can follow. As the road is widened subsequent artists, larger numbers of fans can travel. Some artists live their entire careers blazing trails for others to follow, and some spend their time retracing the same well-worn path over and over again. Following a fairly established Brit-rock tradition, We Were Promised Jetpacks gallivants along the roads laid out by their predecessors in style, producing ebullient, accessible music for a wide-audience.
MOVIE REVIEW Love Actually for Feb.14th? Think again.
When I saw the trailer for <i>Valentine’s Day</i>, I had an inkling that it would be an American version of <i>Love Actually</i>, featuring the February holiday.
MOVIE REVIEW All the old tropes, none of the horror
There has been a lot of hype leading up to the Universal Studios’ remake of the classic motion picture <i>The Wolf Man</i>. Though there have been a smattering of werewolf movies throughout the decades, the only one that’s really embedded itself in American culture was the original <i>Wolf Man</i> (1941) featuring horror legends Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi. The new <i>WolfMan</i> trailer promised an exciting new take on the old-school thriller, complete with a graphic transformation scene, an overly spooky setting reminiscent of the old film, and the acting talents of Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Anthony Hopkins.
A distinctly american tradition
I think we can all agree that the Super Bowl is much more than a football game. Over the years, Super Bowl Sunday has morphed into an extravagant American holiday deeply rooted in the modern media culture. Aside from the loud parties, copious amounts of beer and hot wings, star-studded half-time time shows, and (of course) football, this national day of celebration has also become an advertising gold mine.
CONCERT REVIEW Mehldau tells the story of pop
Acclaimed jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, on his penultimate U.S. tour date before heading to Europe, treated Sanders Theater to a solo performance last Friday. The venue’s Steinway filled the space, highlighting notes in the upper registers and allowing lower notes to reverberate appropriately. Mehldau entered minutes after 8 p.m. wearing a brown suit, and promptly began after switching the piano bench onstage with one he’d found backstage. “There was another gig before me,” he informed the audience, eliciting laughs and foreshadowing what would be an intimate night.
ALBUM REVIEW The Columbia crew goes to Cali
<i>Vampire Weekend</i>’s debut album in 2008 surfed the crest of the collegiate retro-pop wave (with the likes of <i>Chester French</i>, <i>This is Ivy League</i>). As everyone in the industry knows, a band’s image is as important as music. Although there have been many great musicians, those lacking a visual concept often find themselves eclipsed in popularity by bands with less talent but better taste in sneakers.
DOUBLE SOY LATTE, PLEASE! I’d rather be studying on Newbury Street
<i>If the Student Center has become your all-in-one dining hall, study room, and bedroom, allow me to suggest a simple lifestyle change. Coffee shops and cafés are no longer havens for artsy Mac users with thick-rimmed glasses who work from home. Toting my clunky Dell, visually aided by my contact lenses and armed with full-time student status, I’ll be writing about Boston-area cafés near MIT so that you’ll finally be able to get that Reading Room stench out of your clothes. </i>
ALBUM REVIEW An impressive step backwards
I was a little apprehensive when I first listened to Spoon<i> </i>s new album, <i>Transference</i> — there was just something unexpected about it. I’d identified the indie rock band’s sound to be defined by the cadenced drum beats, crisp piano/guitar pulses, and overall pathological catchiness à la “You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb” and “Don’t You Evah” from Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (2007). Where was the hook that first drew me into the band?
MUSICAL REVIEW Little Shop, big laughs, bigger plants
The MIT Musical Theatre Guild premiered their IAP show, Little Shop of Horrors, last weekend. Little Shop is a comedy that is unafraid to be over-the-top, with such characters as the tragically low-aiming Audrey (Rachel Williams ’12) and Orin Scrivello (Matthew Cohen ’10), a sadistic biker-dentist who, if you asked him, might very well give “D.D.S.” as his last name.
ALBUM REVIEW Smooth grooves from across the ocean Atakoglu’s new jazz fusion album takes you across continents
Of all the albums I’ve heard this year, Fahir Atakoglu’s Faces and Places certainly ranks as one of the most exciting. Not only is it special for carrying several international styles into the mainstream jazz market (Atakoglu was born in Istanbul, Turkey, and uses artists from Cuba, Brazil and New York in his ensemble), but as a standalone work it is a powerful addition to the jazz fusion library. Rather than passively creating an album that fuses several cultural voices together, Faces is a very blunt, intentional attempt at multiculturalism — its title and piece choices take geography as inspiration. Despite the diverse nature of the compositions, the album seamlessly weaves styles and moods, lending a greater sense of continuity; this is a cross-continental road trip, not your neighbor’s vacation slide show.
Robert Downey Jr. blows everyone else away, still can’t save this film ★★★✩✩
Watching Sherlock Holmes is a bit like going to the circus: loud noises, moving objects and bright colors — but no substance. Although fairly entertaining, Holmes relies too heavily on Robert Downey Jr., who singlehandedly elevates the film above mediocrity as if he were LeBron and Holmes the 2009 Cleveland Cavaliers. Holmes follows the hero (Robert Downey Jr.) and his sarcastic sidekick Dr. Watson (Jude Law) as they tackle a conspiracy to bring down the British government.
A fresh sound made for all people
“A stick, a stone/it’s the end of the road/ it’s the rest of a stump/it’s a little alone” Luciana Souza sings, choosing English over her native Portuguese. It’s also the birth language of Antonio Carlos Jobim, the quintessential Brazilian composer and the artist behind the song itself.
Sherlock Holmes reinvented: shorter, darker and a lot feistier ★★★★✩
This is Holmes as you have never seen him. Director Guy Ritchie took Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s celebated detective (Robert Downey Jr.) and warped him so much he very well could have been a brand new character. Nevertheless, Sherlock Holmes the movie is a brilliant production that will take you on a dark captivating adventure, with lots of relentless action, veiled mysteries and satisfying surprises.
2009 in Music
<b>Animal Collective</b> <i>Merriweather Post Pavilion</i> — Dropped in January, fans everywhere were calling <i>MPP</i> the “album of the year” as early as March. Despite the band losing its lead guitarist in 2008, <i>MPP</i> is structured similarly to previous Animal Collective albums only more so, displaying beautiful, elaborate-yet-repetitive melodies that enable listeners to either sit quietly and listen, or crank the volume and dance. This album provided two of my “most played” songs of 2009, including “Summertime Clothes” and “Brothersport.” <i>—MLF</i>
The Year in Arts: Taking Our Minds Off the Recession
The year 2009 was one of recuperation and recovery. The country was climbing its way out of economic recession but the crawl was slow and unsteady. The year was marked by several momentous events that showed promise of a brighter 2010 — the inaugaration of Barack Obama, the Dow closing above 10,000 points in October, and finally the markets closing on a good note in December. The S&P500 was up by 24.71 percent for the year and a 2.2 percent GDP growth in the third quarter. Despite all these signs of recovery, 2009’s entertainment scene was split between escaping reality and making the best of it.