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Robert Redford's Sundance Cinema will open in Bayou Place on Nov. 1, taking over the space vacated by the Angelika Film Center last Sept., according to a press release issued last Thursday by the City of Houston.
Rice Theater's production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is unconventional and unusual in almost every aspect. It's a musical squeezed into a single act that runs a mere hour and a half without a single scene change; yet even with this breakneck pace, the viewer becomes acquainted with a disparate gang of middle schoolers all competing for spelling bee glory and the chance to continue to the national competition in Washington D.C.
It's almost changeover season on campus - clubs, organizations and college governments are all getting ready to hold elections or tryouts before handing over the reins to a new group of students. Among these new electees, a fresh batch of treasurers across campus will be inheriting the ledgers and piles of receipts that come with the position. More than likely the majority of the new treasurers will also require training from the Controller's Office to be authorized for form signatures and the use of purchasing cards and the electronic BANNER and TouchNet systems.
Don't listen to the naysayers: Tron: Legacy is actually a really good movie. With jaw-dropping visuals, a thundering soundtrack composed entirely by Daft Punk and the revival and continuation of the story of the original 1982 Tron, it's just plain fun to watch. The movie comes up lacking in plot - Legacy essentially recycles the original Tron's story structure, with only a couple of nuances - but name the last time an effects-driven feature had a deep, philosophical storyline. Legacy picks up some 20 years after the events in Tron. Software engineer, ENCOM CEO and arcade owner Kevin Flynn (True Grit's Jeff Bridges) went missing shortly after the events of the first film and his son Sam (Country Strong's Garrett Hedlund) has grown up to be a motorcycle-riding rebel who wants nothing to do with his ownership stake in ENCOM, Flynn's software corporation. Following a mysterious page received by an old friend of his father's, Sam ends up getting sucked into and trapped inside the computer world of The Grid, where his father has been searching for a way out since he first disappeared 20 years ago.
Last week, the Thresher snuck backstage following The Smoking Section's crowd-slaying show at Willy's Pub to hang out with the band and bask in the glow of their fame while asking them deep and soul-searching questions. The conversation covered everything from jorts to, of course, spirit animals.Rice Thresher: So how long have you guys been playing together?
One afternoon last week I sat down with recent Rice grad Nico Gardner (Lovett '10) at the Brochstein Pavilion to talk about what he'd been up to lately. The last time Nico was in the Thresher was back in February for his installation at the student-run Matchbox Gallery ("Intersections: Houston draws lines at Matchbox Gallery," Feb. 5), and now he was just coming off a summer residency at Project Row Houses in Houston, where he had another installation on public display.While we waited on Salento to make Nico's sandwich, I asked him a bit about how he ended up at PRH for the summer and how he came up with the concept for his installation. Initially nominated by Visual and Dramatic Arts Professor John Sparagana, Nico then had to apply to PRH and was accepted to the residency program soon afterward. Best described as a giant marionette, Nico's installation looks like a sort of shaggy creature that can be controlled and manipulated by the viewer via a simple rope and pulley system that runs across the installation space.
Thank God for Last.fm. When the Internet radio station alerted me that Smashing Pumpkins would be playing in Houston in a matter of weeks, I was beyond excited. Understand that I've been waiting to see Billy Corgan and the Pumpkins live ever since my cousin burned me copies of all their albums back when I was in seventh grade. For a good while they were the only CDs that I owned (besides the Harry Potter and Spider-Man soundtracks, but that's a different story), and needless to say, I listened to them nonstop.Unfortunately at that point the Pumpkins had been disbanded for close to two years, so there wasn't the normal process of discovering a new band, listening to all their music and then eagerly anticipating their next show or album - hell, at that age my parents didn't even let me go to live shows. Still kicking myself for missing the newly re-formed Pumpkins when they came to town in 2007 for Buzzfest XX, I scratched together the cash to buy a ticket to their show at Warehouse Live this past Tuesday and enjoyed every deafening second of it.
Last Sunday, to the surprise of many Houstonians, the Angelika Film Center downtown simply didn't open for business. Would-be moviegoers were greeted by an empty box office, brown paper covering the glass front doors and a short note that began with, "We regret to inform you that the Angelika Film Center closed today," taped to the inside of the ticket booth window.I first saw the news on Twitter that morning, then disbelievingly did a quick Google search and found a CultureMap Houston article that confirmed the worst. Suddenly remembering that I work for the Thresher, I grabbed my camera and took the METRORail downtown to see what I could find out. I also needed to snap some photos for my Digital Photography class, so I was killing two birds with one stone.
Even native Houstonians sometimes have trouble navigating the METROrail - my own freshmen can attest to this - but the rail is a Rice student's best friend. It can connect you to all kinds of food and activities outside the hedges; you just have to know where to look. No car? No problem. The METRO can get you where you want to go. First off, if you haven't already picked up your Q-Card from the Cashier's Office, do it. It's free, and the Cashier's Office will refill the card with $50 every time you get low: All you need to do is present your Rice ID with the Q-Card.
New students, you are holding in your hands the very first issue of the Rice Thresher to be published this year. And, if you're reading this, that means you've turned to the best section in the entire paper: the Arts & Entertainment section, edited by yours truly.Every week, you'll find A&E packed with the latest movie reviews, college theater and show reviews, articles about awesome restaurant and dessert joints, the occasional map of where to find good food close to campus - like this week's late-night food map - and a weekly list of nifty events that are happening outside the hedges (The Weekly Scene). Occasionally we also run semi-regular columns on music or movies or topics that wouldn't normally fit in other sections.
"These secretly-tabulated results were presented to the Thresher in a sealed envelope by Price Waterhouse representative John R. Heaner" reads the April 24, 1980 issue of The Rice Thresher, which holds the distinction of handing out the first-ever Sammy awards.Thirty years later, the voting format and awards categories have evolved somewhat (not to mention PricewaterhouseCoopers no longer handles the voting results), but the original spirit and purpose of the Sammys has remained unchanged: "To honor those members of the Rice Community who have excelled in the theatrical arts ... None of the winners will be blessed with either gold statuettes or national television exposure, but the sense of achievement and reward should still be there, nonetheless."
It's hard to believe that it's almost been two years since the Rice Philharmonics released Phils So Good, but rest assured, the Phils haven't been twiddling their thumbs since. In addition to hitting the road twice last year to compete at the University of Georgia and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, the Phils also spent the last two years in the studio recording Epoch, their next album. Brace yourself: it's better than good: It's Phantastic.Featuring ten tracks and clocking in at a hair longer than 40 minutes, Epoch covers a range of songs from different genres - oldies like The Zombies' "Time of the Season" and Don Henley's "Boys of Summer," R&B hits like Jordin Sparks' "No Air" and alternative rock hits such as Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" find spots in the track listing, as well as the classic "Africa" by Toto and the infamous "Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley.
Four years after his last release, Beowulf: Epic of the Grendelslayer, computational and applied mathematics graduate student Anthony Kellems (Hanszen '05) has released his newest album, Out of the Depths. Combining heavy-rocking guitar tracks with more laid-back rap jams, most of the nine-track album's lyrics are tinged with a decidedly Christian flavor; however, Kellems stated that his "goal is not to be preachy, but rather to deal with certain issues and topics in a positive way ... I also want the stuff to rock."And rock it does. The album starts off strong with "Afterburner," an instrumental track featuring high-flying sonic guitar riffs laid over a driving drum beat and steady rhythm guitar. If there is one thing Out of the Depths does well, it's the diverse instrumentation on each track. From hard-hitting guitar work that really jams to softer, more introspective guitar tracks to custom-made beats, Kellems demonstrates his sheer musical talent with this record. In fact, he plays all the piano and keyboards on the album, in addition to the rhythm and lead guitars, and handles drum arrangement as well.
Fresh off their victory at KTRU's Battle of the Bands last month and in the midst of preparations for their slot in the 2010 KTRU Outdoor Show on April 10, Jones sophomores Shawdon Molavi, Ryan Oringer and Jesus Cortez, and freshman Daniel Sprinkle took a moment from their busy schedules to sit with the Thresher and talk about important topics ranging from eagles to dinosaurs to chinchillas while still leaving time to ponder the band's future.Rice Thresher: So how did you guys form up?
Let me preface this review by saying that the original BioShock, released in 2007, is one of my favorite games. Of all time. I was completely caught up in the game's creepy art-deco atmosphere, the hostile beauty of the underwater city of Rapture and the engaging, thought-provoking and moralistic plot.So when BioShock 2 was announced less than a year later, I had every right to be skeptical. The original BioShock garnered Game of the Year awards from dozens of media outlets - how could the sequel improve upon perfection? The fact that the sequel's production was being handled by a different developer and the addition of a seemingly superfluous multiplayer mode did little to convince me that BioShock 2 wasn't just riding the coattails of its predecessor in an attempt to make some quick cash.
Last year was all about sequels: Games like Left 4 Dead 2, Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed 2 and Modern Warfare 2 exploded sales figures and garnered loads of critical acclaim. But that's all old hat now, right? A new year means new games to look forward to, so I've picked out the top games of 2010 that will have you rushing to Gamestop to trade in all your old crap for the latest and greatest. Mass Effect 2
Combining Mormon imagery with vibrantly colored stencils from and inspired by Chilean stencilistas, anthropology doctoral candidate Michael Adair-Kriz has brought together two disparate subjects to create his new installation, Stenciling Power. More than just a slapdash collection of eclectic art pieces, Stenciling Power is the result of the two years Kriz spent in Santiago, Chile, doing field research and working with different groups of stencilistas.There are several different media at work in this installation, on display in the Rice Media Center Gallery through Tuesday, Dec. 15. The majority of Stenciling Power consists of rollered and spray-painted stencil images that confront issues including sexuality, religion, leftist politics and significant figures in the field of cultural anthropology. In addition to his original works, Adair-Kriz has reproduced or photographed dozens of authentic stencils from his time in Santiago, in doing so creating the best part of the installation.
As with the majority of the music in my iTunes library, I first discovered electro house artist Deadmau5 (pronounced "dead mouse," born Joel Zimmerman) while playing video games. His remix of One + One's "No Pressure," featured on Grand Theft Auto IV's ElectroChoc FM radio station, originally got me hooked on his driving bass beats and smooth electronic melodies. And when I found out a few months back that he was going on tour for his new album, aptly titled For Lack of a Better Name, I was pumped. Swinging through Houston's House of Blues Sunday as part of the North American leg of his For Lack of a Better Tour world tour, Deadmau5 played to a house brimming with electricity. Some folks even went so far as to build their own mau5 heads, some with glowing lights for eyes, and one father had dressed his young child in the bedsheet ghost outfit from the latest Deadmau5 music video, "Ghosts N Stuff."
After a two-year hiatus, the phoenix that is Will Rice College's theater program has risen from the ashes in the form of Unnecessary Farce, a hilarious comedy of errors directed by Will Rice junior Amara DiFrancesco, which involves nothing more than seven people, two motel rooms and eight doors. The plot, originally penned by Paul Slade Smith, starts out simply enough, with police officers Eric Sheridan and Billie Dwyer (played by Sid Richardson College senior Anish Patel and Will Rice freshman Mary Nelson, respectively) staked out in a motel room. The two monitor the video camera set up in the adjacent room that is set to record a meeting between Mayor Meekly (Will Rice sophomore Geoffrey Holmes) and accountant Karen Brown (Lovett College junior Sarah Lyons), who has found some interesting discrepancies with the town's books.
Gamers, grab your baseball bats. It's time to beat some more hookers.It's been a little over a year and a half since Rockstar Games blew the lid off the gaming world with its highly-anticipated installment in the venerable Grand Theft Auto franchise, Grand Theft Auto IV. Mothers covered their children's eyes, politicians worked themselves into yet another completely unfounded hissy fit and gamers the world over took to the streets of Liberty City, the living, breathing, tongue-in-cheek parody of the modern-day Big Apple.
