BY MARIANA JARAMILLO ’20 AND SONYA ROBINSON ’20
“Moonlight,” a beautiful and heartbreaking story of a gay man growing up in 1980s Miami projects, will solidify Barry Jenkins’s name in cinematic history. Formerly known for his 2008 indie film “Medicine for Melancholy,” Jenkins has skillfully delivered the year’s most important coming of age movie. Split into three parts — Little, Chiron and Black — “Moonlight” grapples with the intersection of race, sexuality and class.
BY SONYA ROBINSON '20
If asked what my favorite comic book movie is, I would undoubtedly say 1989’s “Batman.” Featuring Michael Keaton in his first turn as the charming billionaire Bruce Wayne as well as Jack Nicholson’s iconic Joker, the movie is pure fun, a refreshing film compared to this age where superhero movies are often dark and gritty. I felt similarly refreshed after leaving the most recent Marvel vehicle “Doctor Strange.”
BY DEMETRIA OSEI-TUTU '17
As far as late night talk-show hosts go, Jimmy Fallon is something else. At first, he appears like a breath of fresh air. Games like the whisper challenge, wheel of freestyle and lip-sync battle (before it got big and became its own show on Spike) are fun and new — it’s safe to say that we hadn’t seen a late night host engage celebrities in that way before. And for a while that blinds you into thinking Jimmy Fallon is a great late night host when in actuality he is not.
BY NAIEKA RAJ '19
The department of theater arts opened its fall season with Lynn Nottage’s “Intimate Apparel,” directed by Hampshire College professor Natalie Sowell. Set in 1905, the play explores themes of race, class and gender through the eyes of a New York City seamstress named Esther, played by Robyn Sutton-Fernandez ’17.
BY NAIEKA RAJ '19
Project:Theatre’s production of Alice Threw the Looking Glass, written by John Walch, merges Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland with the famous grammar manual The Elements of Style. The central themes of this story, as described by the character EB White, are “learning to find [one’s] voice” and developing ways to deal with one’s “inner critic.” After failing her English paper, Alice travels to a magical land called Effingham, and acquires the unique skills necessary for academic writing.
BY ANISHA PAI '19
With access to professional makeup artists and costume designers, celebrities have always won the Halloween game. According to Elle Magazine, Halloween 2016 officially began on Oct. 14 when Kylie Jenner debuted the first costume of the year. The 19-year-old celebrity snapchatted a picture of herself in a skeleton onesie.
BY DEMETRIA OSEI-TUTU ’17
With the drop of her new album “A Seat at the Table,” her carefree artsy aesthetic (just look at her 2014 wedding photos) and the infamous elevator situation with Jay-Z, Solange has been on the rise for a while now. While she often is overshadowed by her larger-than-life sister Beyoncé, it’s clear that Solange has crafted a style and a sound that is all her own.
BY NAIEKA RAJ ’19
Eva Snyder ’17, a computer science and music double major and founder of HackHolyoke, is creating a small album and recording the entire process as part of her senior thesis. By using the program ‘Logic’ to create music electronically, this thesis project blends her love of music with her love of technology, while reflecting Snyder’s entrepreneurial spirit.
BY SARAH OLSEN ’18
Lady Gaga reveals a new side of herself in her fifth studio album, “Joanne,” released Oct. 21, 2016. “Joanne” diverges from Gaga’s previous pop sound and embraces a raw, stripped-down version of Lady Gaga. The result is an honest album in which Gaga boldly expresses her natural self.
BY LINDSEY MCGINNIS '18
Filled with adventure and nostalgia, “Girl Asleep” captures the complicated adolescence of a young girl in the 1970s. Greta Drescoll (Bethany Whitmore) has just moved into a new suburb and her awkwardness has followed suit. When the most popular girls in school shockingly insist on befriending her, she is overcome by anxiety. Her emotions crescendo when her mother invites her entire grade over to her house for Greta’s 15th birthday party.
BY NAIEKA RAJ '19
Self-proclaimed “Andersonians” filed into The Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton on Saturday for the second installment of ‘A Weekend With Wes Anderson,’ a film festival that stretched over Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The audience laughed, sighed and shared their emotions with one another throughout the screenings of "Moonrise Kingdom," "The Royal Tenenbaums" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." If they weren’t predicting the upcoming lines, you’d think the guests were seeing these films for the first time.
BY ANISHA PAI '19
In her weekly radio show, “On This Day,” WMHC DJ Kate Hall ’19 takes listeners back in time, recounting major events (musical and otherwise) that happened on that date. Hall also serves as WMHC’s Specialty Program Director and hosts ‘Live @ 5!’ in the hour before her own show, which airs Saturdays from 6-8 p.m.
BY LINDSEY MCGINNIS '18 & SARAH OLSEN '18
After performing at Nightfest earlier this month, folk-rock duo The New Rockwells officially released their debut studio album, Live from Carnegie Hall. Frontman Marty Boyle and Ben Muller, who plays piano and saxophone, worked with other local artists to record new material and old favorites, like their 2015 single “Never Let You Go,” which appears as track six.
BY LINDSEY MCGINNIS '18
LaCroix (pronounced “La Croy”), a Wisconsin-based brand of flavored sparkling water, has recently achieved a cult-like popularity. The national obsession is most visible on Instagram, where loyal drinkers pose in “La Croixs Over Boys” t-shirts and sit atop thrones of LaCroix boxes. According to the Wall Street Journal, LaCroix water sales more than doubled over the past two years to $225.5 million, making it the fastest growing brand of unsweetened sparkling water in the country.
