Rick Alverson’smovie with Tim Heidecker is lame
By Kevin Kaber
Fringe Editor
I finally got around to watching The Comedy, a film dedicated to the boring realism of hipsterdom. It’s difficult to watch cultish humorists (in this case, Tim Heidecker of Tim and Eric fame) step out of their comfort zone and into challenging roles (think Punch Drunk Love); however, it’s even more difficult when there’s nothing coherent about the film’s plot. I’ll keep the reasoning short.
Turner Hall Ballroom was charmed with Watson’s indie pop and electric folk mash-up this past Friday.
By Emily Topczewski
With what appeared to be a mash-up of electric folk and indie pop, Patrick Watson charmed the Turner Hall Ballroom last night with piano melodies, experimental lighting and projections, a strong drum beat and a xylophone – a must have for indie bands across the nation and throughout the decades (it must be a requirement in a mysterious indie band rulebook somewhere).
By Colton Dunham
In the midst of a difficult situation, those who are most optimistic will try to look for a silver lining in the clouds that hang above them. The attempt to find the silver lining makes one hopeful that everything will eventually be ok even though in that particular moment, everything is not. As the comedy/drama Silver Linings Playbook opens, we are introduced to Pat Solitano (Bradley Cooper) as he’s pacing around his room having a conversation with himself. We quickly discover that Pat is just about to be released after serving a brief stint in a mental institution because of a violent outburst that significantly altered his personal life. From this point forward, Pat declares that he’s going to find the silver lining in every dark cloud that hangs above him. Based on the novel by Matthew Quick, Silver Linings Playbook has more to offer than a quirky portrait of Pat’s mental illness. The film marks a comedic return for Oscar nominated writer/director David O. Russell who balances elements of a mental illness drama and a romantic comedy without failure. The film uniquely blends mental illness, football, romance, and dancing together into a cohesive narrative that doesn’t trail off into complete absurdity.
Ang Lee’s adaptation is a visual master stroke
By Colton Dunham
At one point, critics and fans alike weren’t so sure that Yann Martel’s best-selling novel Life of Pi would ever make it on the silver screen. The fantasy novel was actually once deemed as “unfilmable” due to the substantial technical work that would have to go in making the film be a mere possibility. Oscar winning director Ang Lee, known for being an ambitious visionary, used state of the art digital technology to bring the majestic tale to life. The story of Life of Pi centers on the survival of a young man as he tries to endure a journey of hunger and faith on board of a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Life of Pi showcases not only Ang Lee’s progressive visual artistry but also an artistic use of 3D technology that, for the first time since it’s implementation in mainstream cinema, serves a purpose to the overall scope of the film by adding depth to the vivid imagery.
We are first introduced to Pi Patel (Suraj Sharma) when he’s a middle-aged man living in Canada (played by Irrfan Khan). He serves as the narrator of the film as he tells the story of his youth up to the point of his time on the lifeboat to a journalist (Rafe Spall) who’s interested in writing about Pi’s life. The narrative then takes us back to Pi’s youth in Pondicherry, India when his peers tormented him and he becomes interested in multiple religions. His father is a zookeeper and because of his father’s occupation, Pi has grown up to love and understand animals. As Pi grows older and becomes infatuated with girls, he and his family are forced to move out of India due to the tough economic times. Although they own the animals that inhabit the zoo, they don’t own the land so they board up all of the animals including themselves on a Japanese cargo ship to a Canadian destination.
Safari Al at Art Bar
