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May 1st, 2009Director Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland) knows the dangers of the sudden turn, and yet has decided to embark on a convoluted thrill ride of a film with State of Play. The film boasts a typical government-thriller title, but what unfolds is far better than a typical espionage-subterfuge chase through the underworld of D.C., where journalism and politics clash silently yet violently in the dark of the public. Read More
Other Daze
Learning Something From the French
May 1st, 2009The Class is indeed a great film, but its particular greatness is obscured by its particular subgenre. Movies about young teachers trying to unite a class of underprivileged, ethnically diverse students are a bit like Slope Day acts — a new batch comes out every once in a while, and the audience reaches for the usual epithets. Read More
Music and the Mind: Why Listening is the Greatest
May 1st, 2009Happy Slope Day Cornellians! I hope at least a few of you are still sober enough to read the Sun. And I hope that the actual sun is shining. Today is a more than usually auspicious day for my usually oh-so-humble column. Why, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Read More
Get Your Dancing Shoes On
April 30th, 2009Long before the Pussycat Dolls showcase their ample assets and Asher Roth confesses his inclination towards America’s university system, the Apples in Stereo, ripe with tight, riveting, relevant tunes, will rock the Slope’s punctual arrivals with a premium blend of neo-classic rock and power pop. Read More
Archived Stories
The Next Best Thing to Slope Day: Beyoncé in Paris
April 30th, 2009As a stand-in for Slope Day, and as a pre-celebration to the most important holiday of my year (my birthday), I’m seeing Beyoncé do her thing at Bercy Stadium on Cinco de Mayo (May 5th for all of you gringos). RING THE ALARM! It will be a veritable fiesta. I’ve been thinking about this show for a long time — nearly my whole semester — because I’ve had the tickets since December, and five months is a lot of delayed gratification. Read More
Test Spin: Art Brut
April 30th, 2009On “Demons Out” the non-title-yet-should-have-been-the-title-track of Art Brut’s third LP, Art Brut vs. Satan, Eddie Argos sings, “How am I supposed to sleep at night when no one likes the music we write?” Eddie, it’s time to rest up because this album is going to be very well liked. Art Brut’s usual catchy hooks, shouting lead and background vocals and clever lyrics all make their mark on this album, and they are better aligned than ever before. Read More
Test Spin: The Decemberists
April 30th, 2009The Decemberists’ recent work, Hazards of Love, somehow does not get tiresome. This normally wouldn’t be such a feat, but most albums are not 17 tracks long. It’s not that The Decemberists failed to do some editing, however. They just included everything — ballads, angry rants, even an opening track, “Prelude,” of only instrumentals. Read More
Test Spin: Keith Urban
April 30th, 2009Keith Urban is addicted to defiance. He’s defied expectations (he’s an Australian singing American heartland country-pop with a perfect twang), defied a downward slump (2006’s Love, Pain, and the Whole Crazy Thing was a downbeat disappointment that no one thought he’d recover from), and defied critics of his popularity (he employs enough banjos, steel guitars and virtuoso soloing chops to justify himself as a “real musician”). Read More
Pop Music's Provocateurs
April 29th, 2009Click off the dial and get out of your musical comfort zone. Live music is one of life’s sublime pleasures, and its prevalence is easily ignored, especially on Cornell’s campus. Even if performances like Bernstein’s Mass or the Cornell Folk Song Society might not be your thing, musical innovation is a fairly frequent friend, often bubbling inside Lincoln Hall before bursting out towards the campus. Read More
Quick Moving, Slow Seeing
April 29th, 2009Barbara Maria Stafford, a professor of Art History at the University of Chicago, has been instrumental in bridging ideas from the sciences and social thought into the humanities: Her work focuses on how neuroscience and other recent developments in cognitive theory can help explain the unique visual knowledge we gain through artworks. Read More