So here it is, huh? Almost four long years ago I donned my writer’s cap for The Student for the first time. Now that I’m graduating, I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately. I decided to look back on some of my first reviews for The Student. I was prepared to be embarrassed by the poor quality of the writing, the less verbose vocabulary and the messily structured sentences. But, essentially, I kind of assumed they’d read like worse versions of my reviews today. I was quite wrong.
As the year comes to an end and we start to finally slow down, it is bittersweet to be writing our last Queeriosity article for the year. This year has been one to remember for the Queer Resource Center and Pride Alliance. For those of you who might not know — the Queer Resource Center (QRC) is a brave and intentional space for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, gender queer, pansexual, everyone in between and ally student at Amherst College.
We all represent Amherst in our own way. Some of us compete in debates or crew regattas, and others in NESCAC matches or writing competitions. As we apply to graduate schools, fellowships and jobs, we do so proudly bearing the Amherst name. These achievements not only reflect our personal abilities but also those of our community. They reveal the Amherst community’s dedication to constant improvement through competition and seem to appear everywhere, even within the food world.
As the internet will tell you, “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” has been subject to some pretty polarized reviews. Many critics have praised the film for a great cast, amazing effects and exciting fight scenes, but others have pointed out some detrimental flaws. From a convoluted ensemble of villains to questionable narrative choices, it seems that the general consensus of this year’s take on everyone’s favorite web-slinger is that it’s below average at best.
Wes Anderson is back at it again, this time with the shockingly successful money-maker that is “Grand Budapest Hotel.” Three years after the endearing and quietly affecting “Moonrise Kingdom,” a film which highlighted the best aspects of Anderson’s work (visual composition, off-beat dialogue, whimsiness) while moving away from his sometimes stuffy pretentiousness in favor of a story which favored thoughtful emotion over dry intellect. Nonetheless, these were tweeks, not overhauls; it was still quintessentially a Wes Anderson film.
The 12th annual Tribeca Film Festival has come and gone. New York’s most famous celebration of movies began on April 17 and ended this past Sunday after showing hundreds of feature films, documentaries, and shorts in various cinemas throughout the city. The festival was founded in 2002 by actor Robert De Niro, film producer Jane Rosenthal and real estate investor and philanthropist Craig Hatkoff in an attempt to revitalize Lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
I’m being completely honest when I say that I believed I wouldn’t have the time or the will to read the latest issue (Issue 07) of The Common in time for this review. The Common, a print and online literary magazine based at Amherst College, publishes fiction, essays, poetry and images that focus on a modern sense of place. Issue 07, which was released this Monday, April 29, promised to be an enriching read, but I doubted how much time I’d have to devote to reading it. Drowning in my research, papers, presentations and labs, I worried constantly about budgeting what little time I had.
