I’m happily convinced that, as we move toward the close of the aughts, Hollywood is beginning to experience a second Wesleyan surge. The first happened in the 1990s with a rush of Wesleyan graduates from the 80’s taking a firm grip of commercial cinema’s delicate parts. Graduates Michael Bay, Paul Schiff, and Joss Whedon, among many others, found great success and paved the way for a new batch of Wesleyan grads from the 90’s.
Computers are taking over the world. We all know it, and truth be told, we all kind of like it. “Beowulf” is perhaps humankind’s newest reminder that we are quickly being overtaken by something that can make 40 trillion calculations in a nanosecond. First off, if you are going to see this movie, see it in 3D. The extra three dollars isn’t going to break the bank, but it might just blow your mind. Trust me on this one.
Domestic comforts and naturalistic poetry came together in the winding, brilliantly constructed Second Stage production “Kitchen Poems,” written and performed Nov. 8, 9, and 10 by Kailie Larkin ’09 and Susanna Myrseth ’10. Stories, built into definition through movement, poetry, and activity, ran the gamut of shapes and spaces, settling into “power lines carrying high voltage current between continents and kitchen tables.”
There are a lot of honors and awards one can pursue as a college student, but a Grammy typically isn’t one of them"unless you’re Skye LoGuidice ’09. The singer-songwriter, who goes by the stage name Skye Claire, received the phone call of a lifetime from her promoter in late October, informing her that she had received preliminary Grammy ballot nominations in three categories.
Philip Roth has won a lot of prizes. He is the only author in recent history to accumulate all of the United States’ four major literary awards in a single decade, culminating with the Pulitzer Prize for “American Pastoral” in 1997. He has won the PEN/Faulkner award twice, and in 2001 the American Academy of Arts and Letters granted him the Gold Medal in Fiction, given every six years for an author’s entire body of work.
A week before the Fall 2007 Theater Department Production of “Oedipus Rex,” Director and Assistant Professor of Theater Yuriy Kordonskiy and company were hard at work. The actors were practicing with their intricate and beautiful masks, the costume workers were putting finishing touches on the Grecian gowns, and the crew was finishing up the set.
You may have noticed that I took a break from keeping you informed these past few weeks. It wasn’t a respite, but part of the Writers Guild of America’s (WGA) strike. Although I’m not one of the 12,000 who are members or annual due-payers, I do spend a considerable amount of time trapped in my room writing teleplays, reading “Variety,” and making gay jokes.
As the lights dimmed and the crowd grew silent, the orchestra stood ready and a single note was played, that ominous shriek that we all know, enough to scare many of us out of the ocean. The conductor looked back at the crowd and grinned. “Jaws the Musical” had begun, and the audience settled in for a night of great music and acting, as well as campy jokes and show tunes.
Gina Ulysse, assistant professor of African American Studies and anthropology, introduced writer director Julian Schnabel’s biopic “Basquiat” Wednesday night, with more of an assault on the film’s portrayal of the young artist than an appraisal of the man himself or his work.
Numerous indicators have confirmed my suspicions that the Netherlands is, in fact, a strange parallel — or “bizarro” — universe. Bikes have the right of way. Prisoners are kept one to a cell with a T.V., a coffee-maker and opportunity. The Party for the Animals has two seats in Parliament. But nothing about this bizarro world is quite so confounding as the present holiday season.