I love horror movies. Unfortunately, it seems like I’m increasingly alone in this statement — not that I can blame people for a lack of interest in a genre that self-cannibalizes and generally trades character identification and suspense for cardboard cut-outs and shock value. That being said, the number of horror films, including “Psycho,” “Jaws” and of course, “Halloween,” that are affectionately deemed cinema classics is larger than you may think. Are these, however, really the only films worthy of coming back to when looking for a scare?
The first step to keeping warm is keeping dry. Peacoats are a fall/winter staple for good reason. Find a good one and you’ll be wearing it throughout all walks of life. Cheap ones will fall apart eventually — pointless for an item you can expect to wear for decades. Just make sure the fit is flattering.
A drama about vampires, werewolves, vampire/werewolf hybrids, witches and ghosts, “The Vampire Diaries” is currently in its fourth season, airing on The CW on Thursdays at 8 p.m. The show revolves around the unfortunate life of high school student Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and the horror and havoc that are wreaked on her hometown of Mystic Falls as a result of the constant presence of the supernatural.
I scoured the Internet for fresh games in preparation to write a game review for this week’s issue of The Student. Even with my computer’s dated hardware I figured I would find a new(ish) title that would pique my interest and be worth sharing with the Amherst community. Several titles caught my eye, yet before I reached for my wallet, I took a look at games I had played and reviewed so far. Few of them place significant emphasis on narrative in a fulfilling way. Instead, the story often serves as an exposition to justify gameplay.
Like Mitt Romney, I like Big Bird.
That’s not to say that I like watching “Sesame Street.” Actually, I find watching “Sesame Street” to be an infernal activity; time is a scarce resource, and time spent in my adult life without investment or pleasure is time poorly spent. Nevertheless, “Sesame Street” educates, engrosses and pacifies young children, as it once did for me, and if I could choose between a world with and a world without “Sesame Street,” I’d choose “with.”
“Argo” is the second of the handful of year-end films carrying with them heavy loads of Oscar buzz and attempting to bring home the hearts of film-goers and, more specifically, the Academy Awards come February. Following “The Master,” the result of a five-year toil of the director whose previous film was perhaps the most critically acclaimed of the last decade, hype for “Argo” was comparatively restrained.
I’m very excited for the Amherst College Orchestra’s upcoming season, because they’re playing two of the greatest pieces of music ever written: Beethoven’s 5th Symphony and Mahler’s 5th Symphony. Of these two, you’ve probably only heard the former. While the latter is one of Mahler’s better-known works, it is still quite obscure in comparison to Beethoven’s 5th. I want to convince you to not only go to the concert featuring Mahler’s 5th, but also to go prepared.
