Arts & Culture

Movies to Get Through a Breakup

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Alright. You’ve read the headline. You get what’s happening here: I went through a breakup; I watch a lot of movies; now, I’m looking back and attempting to confer upon them some sort of rhyme and reason to distinguish the ones that helped from the ones that hurt and all that jazz. Movies are a super cool window into universal experience, and there’s a lot that they can do in helping you take steps towards feeling better. But even the most hardcore cinephile will tell you that there are limits to the healing powers of movies.

Arts & Culture

Fantasy Favorites: A Review of Crescent City Books 1 and 2

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As a fantasy connoisseur and Sarah J. Maas fan, I am super excited to review the first two books in her Crescent City series, House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath. These two books are big, both over 800 pages. However, they were well worth the time. The first book, House of Earth and Blood, follows the half-human and half-fae main character Bryce Quinlan. I love Bryce, as she feels like a real person with real issues.

Arts & Culture

Substance in the Small Details of ‘Saltburn’

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Many dismissed Emerald Fennell’s second film Saltburn as being “boring” and “empty.” My response to these comments: If this was your take on Saltburn, I don’t think you were paying close enough attention. Saltburn is filled with precise details, many of which I didn’t even appreciate until I had watched the movie a second time. Fennell first takes us to Oxford University in the early 2000s. Oliver Quick (played by Barry Keoghan) is a new student at Oxford at the time, struggling to fit in with his peers. Felix Catton (played by Jacob Elordi) becomes the object of Oliver’s attention, and the object of the film’s eye.

Arts & Culture

The Blood-Curdling Sadness of All of Us Strangers

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I took my mom to see All of Us Strangers over the break, after American Fiction had sold out and Poor Things had seemed a bit explicit for a family viewing. She liked the movie but noted that the conclusion had confused her: Why wasn’t Adam sadder in the end? After all, the final “twist” of the film is unambiguously devastating, and he does seem to take it fairly well. I found it less frustrating from a narrative perspective, but nonetheless troubling for the film’s conclusion. Sold as this year’s  “most likely to make you cry” film, All of Us Strangers does not simply tug at the heartstrings or offer a moment of cathartic melancholy, but rather renders in its viewer a sense of unshakeable loneliness, as necessary to the human condition as is its denial to a peaceful existence.

Arts & Culture

Kelsea Ballerini Has Rolled Up the Welcome Mat for the Second Time, and It’s Even Better Now

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In 2023, country-pop standout Kelsea Ballerini surprise-released a six-song EP entitled Rolling Up the Welcome Mat centered around her very public divorce from Morgan Evans (ironic, since the EP was released on Valentine’s Day). This release was accompanied by a twenty-minute short film that depicted her experience song by song. On Aug. 1, 2023 she revealed to fans that she would be releasing an extended version of the EP, and on Aug. 11 Rolling Up the Welcome Mat (For Good) hit all platforms. I don’t ordinarily consider myself a country music fan, but I was absolutely blown away by the nuance, lyricism and just plain talent Ballerini exhibited in the original EP and short film as well as the extended version.

Arts & Culture

Joe Gatto: That Funny Guy from Staten Island

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On Friday, Dec. 1, comedian Joe Gatto graced the stage of the State Theatre of Ithaca. That’s right, Joe Gatto formerly of the show Impractical Jokers, which famously advertises to contain “scenes of graphic stupidity among four lifelong friends who compete to embarrass each other,” has visited Ithaca on his Night of Comedy tour. Although Gatto left Impractical Jokers in 2021, the show is still his most well-known work. I have been an Impractical Jokers fan for many years, so it was hard for me to imagine how Gatto would perform on his own, without the other members of the Tenderloins comedy troupe: Sal Vulcano, James “Murr” Murray and Brian “Q” Quinn.

Arts & Culture

Cat Person and the Horrors of Dating Over Text

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Warning: this article contains spoilers as well as discussion of sexual assault 

Cat Person, a movie which recently showed at Cornell Cinema, is based off of a short story written in The New Yorker by Kristen Roupinian. This thriller perfectly represents what it feels like to be a college girl dating in the smartphone era. The movie opens with a quote from Margaret Atwood across the screen: “Men are scared that women will laugh at them. Women are scared that men will kill them.” This sentiment bleeds through the whole film as the main character, 20-year old Margot, questions the intentions of an older man she meets while working at a movie theater. They see each other in person a few times, but their relationship exists mainly over text.

Arts & Culture

A Review of Local Bookstores in Ithaca

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As the weather has gotten chillier, I have been spending more time inside, finishing most of the novels I brought with me to college. This meant I was in need of some new books, so I went on a mission to explore the local bookstores of Ithaca. While researching options near campus, I found three interesting shops down by Ithaca Commons that piqued my interest. 

First, I visited the Odyssey Bookstore, situated in the basement of a quaint stone building. As my friends and I entered the small space, we immediately fell in love with the cozy atmosphere. The store is packed with books from floor to ceiling, providing plenty of selections for readers of all genres.

Arts & Culture

Is ‘The Golden Bachelor’ Something Old or Something New

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As a former Bachelor franchise addict, I was very intrigued by the concept of The Golden Bachelor. The Bachelor is one of the original, most popular dating shows which is premised around one seemingly perfect man who has 20 seemingly perfect women competing for his love. This year, ABC created The Golden Bachelor, which is this exact premise, except all the contestants are elderly. I started watching out of curiosity, but was pleasantly surprised at how invested I became. 

From a perspective that judges purely based upon entertainment value, I think the show is very good. Every week, I get excited to watch the new episode, though the elderly kissing is a bit uncomfortable.

Arts & Culture

The Newest Percy Jackson Book is An Ode to College-Age Fans

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On Tuesday, Sept. 26, an event occurred which many had long deemed impossible: Bestselling  author Rick Riordan released a brand new book featuring his beloved protagonist Percy Jackson.  Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods marks the first book with Percy as a main character, along with his two best friends Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood, since the release of The Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus in 2014. It is clear from the mass excitement about Percy’s return after almost ten years that loyal Percy Jackson fans never have, and never will, forget their childhood hero.