A little black girl with pigtails holds her mother’s hands. She sways back and forth, pleading for God’s anointing. Her words, familiar to children of black evangelicals everywhere, invoke the Spirit of the Lord.
In a partnership with the Office of Student Life and the Multicultural Resource Center, photographer Steven Rosenfield visited the college between Feb. 2 and Feb. 5 to work with students on Amherst Community Photo Project.
“Anomalisa,” this year’s animated darling for many top-notch film critics, has been touted as the “most human film of the year,” sans any humans on the screen. From the creative mind of screenwriter and director Charlie Kaufman, “Anomalisa” emerges as a stark contrast from its competitors in the Academy Awards’ Best Animated Feature Film category, which includes Pixar’s crowd favorite, “Inside Out.” Once watching the film, I realized the critics’ frequented line of praise foreshadows a much deeper truth that emerges within the context of the film’s narrative.
There’s something quite comforting to be found in the caffeinated, jittery sound that is Toronto-based Indie Rock band, Born Ruffians. The band, inspired by groups like Talking Heads and Pixies, has stayed loyal to the under-produced sound that is quintessentially indie. This remains true for their recent 2015 release, “RUFF.” The album sounds charmingly defiant, yet neat when it needs to be.
Far before I settled on coming to Amherst, I have been a loyal aficionado of David O. Russell films. Certainly his early niche works are worth watching, but I, like most of the mainstream world, am partial to his more recent Academy-recognized films. “The Fighter” left me feeling raw, and I stayed up all night with the image of an underweight, crack cocaine-addicted Christian Bale emblazoned in my mind. “Silver Linings Playbook” nailed the concept of endearing family dysfunction. Also, I think what he does with mental illness is brilliant.
To find an Iñárritu film during the cinematic famine that comes around every January is to find an oasis in an oft-traversed desert. The Mexican director has efficiently carved a hobbit hole in the mainstream moviegoer’s consciousness, and “The Revenant” is an unabashedly loud stroke of the chisel that reminds everyone that he is here to stay.
Evan Paul ’18
Staff Writer
About three songs into Cage the Elephant’s newest release “Tell Me I’m Pretty,” I had to double check that I was playing the album on Spotify and not the artist’s radio station. That’s how closely lead singer Matthew Shultz’s drawl resembles Alex Turner’s (the lead singer of Arctic Monkeys) signature voice. I don’t like to call copycat (which has already been done by fans of The Black Keys), but the comparison between Shultz and Turner is uncanny.
