40-year-old Australian singer-songwriter Sia released her seventh album, This Is Acting, on Jan. 29. Sia is known for her compelling voice and her outstanding abilities as a songwriter, and is most recognized for her hits “Chandelier” and “Elastic Heart” from her sixth album, 1000 Forms of Fear.
With the Oscars coming up very soon, I couldn’t help but notice that one of my favorite movies of the year went completely under the radar—and not only to the Academy, but also to the entire public. Grabbing only a mere three Oscar nominations, Quentin Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, contained everything one can hope for in a Tarantino film: malicious characters, excessive blood and gore, an intense climax, and dialogue so funny and natural sounding that any actor can have a ball with it. This new “who-done-it” murder mystery takes place in a snowed in haberdashery in Wyoming during post-Civil War America, where eight unlikely visitors are forced to spend a whole night with each other. Questions about race, capital punishment, war, and loyalty to one’s family brings these characters to violent ends, and the story culminates in a third act that kept me on the edge of my seat and guessing the whole way.
The University’s men’s basketball team has captured the attention of mainstream media, and now the squad has its own theme song written by Monmouth students. Andrew Boxman and Guy Battaglia, who both recently graduated from the music industry program at the University, were approached by Chair of the Music Department, Joseph Rapolla, to write a song for the team. The two took on the challenge and had the rap-rock anthem called “Heart in the Game” written and produced within two weeks. At the home game against the Marist Red Foxes on Jan. 24, Boxman and Battaglia, along with other Blue Hawk Records representatives, handed out free downloads of the song to every fan in the stadium.
The dinner scene is the bane of all screenwriters and filmmakers, and if it is not, it should be. Yet, there is such a scene near the beginning of Carol, the new film by the extraordinarily talented Todd Haynes, and it is wonderful. Elegant and refined housewife Carol (Cate Blanchett) is sharing a meal late at night in a secluded restaurant with department store worker and aspiring photographer Therese (Rooney Mara). In this scene, Carol asks Therese if she lives alone. Therese smiles for a second and says “No.” Then her smile fades a little, and she looks away as she begins her sentence: “Well, there’s Richard…”
If you have ever heard of the app Beme or the HBO series The Neistat Brothers, you might know someone by the name of Casey Neistat. He is a 34-year-old YouTuber and filmmaker who pretty much broke the internet last week with just one YouTube video. Neistat resides in New York City, and his location is a key factor in what makes his content on YouTube highly interesting and different than anything else on the site.
Room is a film of about captivity in many more ways than one. Based on Emma Donohue’s 2010 novel, the story follows Joy, a kidnapped young woman, and her five-year-old son Jack before and after they escape from the 11-by-11 room in which Jack has spent his entire life. The isolation of Joy, known more prominently by Jack and the audience as “Ma,” is both physical and mental: kept in a miniscule garden shed for seven years and having mothered the child of her kidnapper, Ma is left to find solace within her own mind, even after she returns home. The most impressive and rewarding case of escaping captivity, however, is that of Brie Larson and the industry attention she’s now owed.
The Force Awakens, the long-awaited seventh chapter in the Star Wars saga, entered our galaxy on Dec. 18, 2015. With it came a new generation of scavengers, soldiers, and pilots alongside the passionate royalty, fur-covered warriors, and scruffy looking nerf-herders of the past. This combination of old and new inhabits a galaxy both vastly different and strikingly similar to the hopeful universe we left 30 years prior.
December’s R-rated comedy Sisters was essentially an extended Saturday Night Live skit, the kind that tries a little too hard but is charming enough to merit a re-watch. The film stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as the titular Ellis sisters who reunite for one last house party when their parents put their childhood home on the market. During a holiday movie season that was packed with heavy dramas and fantasy franchises, Sisters’ raunchy antics were a welcome change.
It’s a new semester here at Monmouth and Blue Hawk Records, the University’s student-run record label, has some rocking stuff in store for us this spring. We closed out our fall semester in December with an EP release show in the Rebecca Stafford Student Center (RSSC) for the record label’s seventh compilation album, Shades of Blue. Dan Amato opened the show with his retro style showcased in a cover of “Houndog” by Elvis Presley as well as his single “Beautiful to Me” on the EP. Dan and Jackson performed their single off the EP, “I Told You,” along with some other cool tunes. They were then followed by a set from jazz artist Kellan Brennan, who covered “I Get a Kick Out of You” by Cole Porter as well as his original “Old Soul” on the compilation album. Thanks Genie closed out the show with a set including their song from the album, “Run.”
“You save those tears for your pillow,” is one of the many famous quotes of dance instructor and choreographer Abby Lee Miller, who has run the Abby Lee Dance Company, or ALDC, since she was fourteen-years-old. Her dance studio in Pittsburgh, PA, has been featured on the Lifetime series Dance Moms since July 13, 2011, when the first episode premiered. The show, which has a rating of 4.6/10 on IMDB and 6.8/10 on TV.com, is currently on its sixth season. The show is full of drama between Abby’s harsh and demanding teaching skills and the over-the-top, preposterous dance moms.