"Nomadland" is the current top contender for best picture, as projected by many media outlets, but I still think "Minari" has a chance. Although "Nomadland" is well-acted, has a distinctive cast and tells a beautiful story, the easily comprehensible and well-acted "Minari" has greater complexities that drive its narrative.
What I like about vinyl stores is that I need to be prepared to handle the disappointment of failing to find the record I want, but at the same time, I never know what I will discover by sheer chance. The burst of joy after flipping through arrays of vinyl and all of a sudden spotting a favorite album or a non-mainstream artist can light up my day.
Serena Williams is both a fashion trailblazer and one of the greatest athletes of all time. She has a history of using fashion to support her activism, with her most recent statement coming in the semifinals of the 2021 Australian Open in February. While she has always pushed boundaries and broken glass ceilings with her supreme athletic ability and talent, Williams has used her platform to support women in a variety of ways.
Thanks to the award-winning talents of composer Ramin Djawadi, the show’s original score is as much a part of the series as its main characters are. Characterized by twisting string melodies and pounding drums, very often in a minor key, the show’s soundtrack has become iconic.
“Batman Beyond” (1999–2001) is a futuristic take on the Dark Knight and another installment in the DC Animated Universe. It’s mainly set in 2039, with Bruce Wayne now an old man, retired from crime-fighting. His rogues' gallery is all but finished, with most villains retired or deceased. This makes way for a new Batman in Neo-Gotham: Terry McGinnis, a teenager. Mentored by Bruce and wearing a fancy Batsuit, Terry is just what the futuristic megalopolis needs.
With two years of operation under its belt, All She Wrote Books — an intersectional, feminist and queer bookstore in Somerville — continues to strive to be a space for all people and voices to feel welcomed and heard. Christina Pascucci-Ciampa opened All She Wrote Books first as a pop-up store in 2019 to address a gap she saw in the world of independent bookstores, and she is celebrating the store's two-year anniversary today.
Eight years ago, Hajime Isayama’s “Attack on Titan” (2009–21) finally received an anime adaptation and reached global stardom. Now, after three full seasons, multiple delays and a four-year hiatus between the first and second seasons, "Attack on Titan" has finally reached the first half of its conclusion. Though its plot may be familiar to those who read the original manga, the show masterfully captures Isayama's ability to write a compelling, multifaceted story within an even more captivating world.
We have now arrived at the reason I began this column. "Three” (2011) is, for my money, the best-executed arc in Jonathan Hickman’s "Fantastic Four" epic, as it makes each of its three plot threads into tremendous personal dramas with huge stakes.
Gorman’s poem is now published in a book with a forward written by Oprah Winfrey. It was released on Mar. 30. The book is blanketed in a yellow cover, harkening back to Gorman’s emphatic, yellow coat worn at the inauguration. Between the covers, her poem reads with enormous power. The poem identifies the historical problems of America and hopes for a better future.
“Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” (2021) is an appropriate starting point for Swift’s journey to re-record her first six albums. She’s jumping “head first, fearless” into a creative project that she’s been hinting at for years, since she failed to secure ownership of her master recordings in 2018. There’s an unmistakable parallel between the breakups Swift mourned in 2008 and her breakup with her first record label, Big Machine Records.
When Jess asked me to write for this column this week, I realized something that I hadn’t before; a large number of my friends, even those I’ve been tight with for a lot of my college life, don’t know what my music taste is. The truth is, I usually keep my favorite songs private because I think they’re best appreciated in moments alone. I like to reserve my music for late-night walks back home from the Daily office, or long nighttime drives in California.
Many Chinese citizens boycotted retailers that accused China of sourcing cotton through forced Uyghur labor, and called on others to do the same through blogging and social media sites like Weibo. For products of brands like Nike or H&M that they owned, Chinese consumers covered their logos with masking tape or even threw them away entirely. Chinese influencers, who had previously partnered with Western brands and who are integral to their appeal to Chinese consumers, similarly denounced the brands.
The story opens with Reed Richards speaking at a “TED Talk” analog at “Singularity 2010,” which seems to be going well until Reed seems to go off-script. He begins to berate his fellow scientists, proclaiming, “You fear tomorrow.” As such, Reed decides to form the eponymous “Future Foundation”: a collection of young and brilliant minds from around the Marvel universe to solve the problems of the "tomorrow" that his colleagues supposedly fear.
The film works as an experiment to discover just how anxious a filmmaker can make their audience; there’s good reason for why the film has earned the comparison to another recent anxiety-inducing film with Jewish characters, the Safdie brothers' "Uncut Gems" (2019). One Twitter user’s comparison has been used as a trailer epigraph, describing the film as “'Uncut Gems' for hot jewish sluts.”
Miller’s run on the titular character was nothing short of revolutionary, so much so that in his first issue as the book’s auteur, he created Daredevil’s recurring love interest (and now a hugely popular character in her own right), the deadly assassin, Elektra. One issue that sticks out is #191, “Roulette."
The detailed storytelling and funny characters of “Gravity Falls” are perfect for audience investment, and the show’s been graced with a dedicated fan base whose members have studied the episodes’ countless clues and teasers. My earliest experience as a fan of “Gravity Falls” came when watching the episode “Summerween.”
In an event organized by Tufts University Social Collective, Rea chatted with Tufts graduate Noah Brown (LA'20) while simultaneously grating, chopping, boiling, stirring and (finally) eating his one-pot mac and cheese. Since 2016, Rea has amassed more than 8.7 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he posts regular episodes of "Binging with Babish" (a cooking show), "Basics with Babish" (another cooking show) and "Being with Babish" (a lifestyle show that also includes some cooking).
After being pressured to watch it for years, I finally caved in and started “Community” (2009–15). I must say: I now get why people like it so much. I mean, how could you not? You have these seven characters who couldn’t be more different from one another, trying to push their way through community college as a group. It’s basically an invitation for mayhem.
Less than three years after her hospitalization for a drug overdose in 2018, Demi Lovato has returned to the studio stronger than ever with her April 2 release, "Dancing with the Devil … The Art of Starting Over" (2021). An album filled with empowering highs and heartbreaking lows, Lovato paints the trauma and recovery she’s endured since her hospitalization as a reawakening. She stakes a claim in her story, negating the tabloids and lies circulating in the media as a result of her hospitalization.
There’s something euphoric about dance music’s pounding beats and explosive drops. It’s a sort of catharsis, an exchange of energy — I think that’s especially true when we dance with others. Dancing alone this past year hasn’t felt the same. But post-pandemic, I’m excited for the empathy, love, excitement and power that comes from anyone and everyone’s enjoying dance music. With each song, we’ll be celebrating.
