The head and the heart
World-famous pianist and American music specialist Alan Feinberg was an artist-in-residence at MIT the week of the Boston lockdown last April. His recital, originally scheduled for that fateful Friday evening, will now take place tonight, Friday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m. in Killian Hall.
Thor returns, again
The key to enjoying Thor: The Dark World is low expectations. If you’re looking for a dim-witted but exciting movie (or hero), this one is another fun addition to the Marvel universe.
Sushi for everyone
There are two kinds of sushi places: restaurants for sushi fanatics, and places that can win over the reluctant souls who are still skeptical about raw fish. Thelonious Monkfish is the latter.
The sounds of indie rock from Scotland
Rumor has it they sold out within the hour. As soon as they started their first song, it’s easy to see why. The Fratellis, an indie rock band hailing from Scotland, played this past Sunday at the iconic Paradise Rock Club as part of their We Need Medicine Tour, promoting their new album which came out in October of this year.
Last Seen by Sophie Calle
Red, the color of passion and emotional charge. That is what you see upon entrance into Sophie Calle’s Last Seen exhibit. Perhaps you may walk in expecting to see sumptuous pieces of art, rich in detail, with figures draped in the finest garments indulging in foods or acts that stimulate to the highest senses. Instead you see … nothing.
The Power of Duff
An ordinary anchorman leads a relatively ordinary life until one day when his father suddenly dies. Instead of closing one of his broadcast reports by traditionally thanking the audience for watching the news, he decides to break the norms and pray. The erratic decision receives glowing praise from the local community, and the story gets a special twist when the anchorman’s subsequent broadcast prayers come to life. With these new acquired powers, he decides that it is his duty to pray for other people’s sufferings and save the world.
Alien invasion movie
My mother bought me a copy of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game when I was in the third grade — I have been waiting for this movie ever since. The story is set on Earth, many years in the future. The planet is recovering from a devastating attack from the Formics, an alien race that appeared to try to invade Earth. In order to protect humanity, the world government trains brilliant children at The Battle School, hoping they will become new leaders of the International Fleet and save the world from another attack. The Fleet is looking for their next legendary commander, and they think that this is to be Ender Wiggin.
Arts Events Nov. 05 — Nov. 11
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: This arts calendar incorrectly lists the date of the Danish String Quartet concert as Sunday, Nov. 10. The concert happened on Wednesday, Nov. 13.
Pho real, you’ve gotta go to Le’s
You’ll find Le’s Vietnamese Restaurant inside The Garage in Harvard Square, and if you haven’t been, it’s definitely worth checking out. The atmosphere is very peaceful; the walls are warm colors, and paper lantern-like lighting hangs overhead. There is an extensive menu of Vietnamese dishes, but I have to say, if you go, you should try the pho.
Arts Events NOV. 1 – NOV. 7
CORRECTION TO THIS ARTICLE: An earlier version of this calendar listed the incorrect date for the Folk Dancing with Live Electric Balkan Music event. It is on Sunday, Nov. 3, not Saturday.
Save your high expectations for something else
I had high hopes for this movie. Ridley Scott, Cormac McCarthy, Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz? A-List all the way, right? I was so, so very disappointed. From just viewing the trailer, you pretty much get the entire movie minus the endless and mostly dull dialogue.
Halved Hamlet, twice the fun
Last Tuesday, I sat down with the director and two leads of the MIT Shakespeare Ensemble’s production of Hamlet. The director, J. Paul Nicholas, previously worked with the Ensemble on the spring 2012 production of The Tempest. Keenan A. Sunderwirth ’14 and Mark L. Velednitsky ’14, the actors I spoke with, are no strangers to either the Ensemble or the stage — both MIT seniors have worked on eight shows in their time here, and began acting at ages 6 and 7 respectively.
Love, jealousy, and a thousand arabesques
Last week the Boston Ballet began their 2013–14 season with La Bayadère, a classical ballet set in a fantastical-version of ancient India, that artistic director Mikko Nissinen describes as “one of the most iconic and quintessential pieces in the classical ballet collection.”
Sex, angst, and lesbian love
Blue is the Warmest Color, or La Vie d’Adèle, chapters 1 et 2 in its original French title, is a tender, wrenching, heart-gripping love story about a teenage girl Adèle, her coming of age, falling in lesbian love for the first time, and subsequent devastating heartbreak. A loose adaptation of the graphic novel by Julie Maroh, it is melancholic, raw, emotional, powerful, and yes, it is sexy, but it is the loving that makes it so, the traumatic loving.
Frankie Rose and Franz Ferdinand rock the Orpheum
The Orpheum Theater in Boston is a beautiful old opera house in Boston that seems a little past its glory days, but it was perfect for the indie rock and dance mashups of Casual Sex, Frankie Rose, and Franz Ferdinand.
Playing with the past
The Digital Den, which has had public viewing hours in the Metropolitan Storage Warehouse in recent months, held a launch party on Sunday, Oct. 20 at the Middlesex Lounge in Central Square, with guided tours of the computing equipment on exhibit, and playtime with machines ranging from early Macs to an Oculus Rift.
A harrowing look at the life of a slave
American history is extremely messy. It is often hard to believe that a country founded on the idea of freedom and equality for all denied these freedoms to women and minorities for so long. But the movie 12 Years a Slave forces us to confront one of the greatest evils in the history: slavery.
Princess of hearts
I admired Princess Diana when I was a kid because she was nice when she didn’t have to be. She could have just attended the requisite state functions, but instead she made an effort to reach out to less fortunate people, and she set the bar for later celebrity activists. In the 1980s, she famously shook the hand of a man with AIDS, despite the widespread fear and misunderstanding of people who were HIV positive at the time. Her complicated personal life became tabloid fodder, but to her fans her flaws only made her more relatable. But the afternoon before her fatal car accident, I remember wondering aloud to my friends as we wandered between the rides at a local amusement park whether Princess Di was really a nice person, in real life, not just on the news.
What would change if you could time travel?
Richard Curtis has written several charming romantic comedies, including Love Actually, Notting Hill, and Bridget Jones’ Diary. With About Time, it’s clear that Curtis hasn’t lost his magic touch; it’s yet another beautiful, funny, sentimental tale about love and life.
Free vegetarian food and a community brought together
You know those old Star Trek episodes where Kirk, Bones, and Spock beam down onto an alien planet, and find themselves in the middle of some big marketplace, where people are selling strange foods, and wearing bright colored clothes? Well, walking into the 18th annual Boston Vegetarian Food Festival, held at the Roxbury Community College Athletic Center last Sunday, was quite a bit like that.