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Finding a New America on The Hellp’s Newest Release

We’re halfway into the 2020s, and so far it has been a decade defined by throwbacks — Y2K fashion is coming out of exile, the 90s are making a reappearance, and — for this review — most importantly, 2010s indie sleaze is back with a vengeance. We saw The Dare suddenly emerge as a new artist to follow in 2024, followed by an onslaught of similar — yet not derivative — bands in his wake: Bassvictim, MGNA Crrrta, The Truth, 2hollis — and, most importantly, The Hellp. The Hellp have been around since 2021, making music drenched in muddy synths, angular drumming and glitchy production that creates a musical experience that, yes, harkens back to the indie sleaze artists of the 2010s (LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes and MGMT, to name a few) but is all the same fresh and intriguing. “Riviera” will be the third album the band has released, and it has a lot to live up to: at their best, the musical chaos that so defines The Hellp’s discography is elevated into something beautifully transcendent — but at their worst, the chaotic nature of The Hellp leads to something undefined and messy. “Riviera” is proving to be an album that might not be that simple to define — for better or for worse. 

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Broadway Playwright, Larissa Fasthorse receives Brandeis' Creative Art Award

Her authorship of “The Thanksgiving Play,” alongside a myriad of feats of great theatrical grandeur, such as an adaptation of Peter Pan on Broadway, makes Larissa Fasthorse more than worthy of our praise and recognition through the Brandeis Creative Arts Award. The Award has been previously granted to notable figures including Leonard Bernstein, Charles Chaplin and Stephen J. Sondheim, with our newest recipient showing her might on equal footing. Fasthorse’s ceremony was held in the afternoon of November 21, 2025 and soon thereafter, she would attend the opening night for the Brandeis Theater Arts Department’s production of “The Thanksgiving Play.”

The UTC’s “Ride the Cyclone”: You Just Had to be There

There is no easy way to encapsulate the thought-provoking, fully and incredibly moving experience that was the Undergraduate Theater Collective’s fall musical, “Ride the Cyclone.” Directed and choreographed by Greg Roitbourd ’26 and assistant directed and choreographed by Kennedy Robertson ’28, the show was flashy, with monumental set pieces designed by Triona Suiter ’27, projections by Milo Giordano ’29, energetic choreography, fun music that occasionally overpowered the singers, and a massive array of costumes designed by Sam Taxman ’27, Jae Fioribello ’28 and Madelyn Zimbalist ’28. The show was laugh-out-loud funny, with characters belittling each other and songs that ranged from a rap about how “awesome” a character’s life was to a glittery song about humanoid-cat aliens — more on that later. It was also incredibly dark, diving headfirst into its central theme: What makes life worth living?

Thoughts on Trump’s Aesthetic Policies

As we enter into the final months of the first year in Donald Trump’s second presidency, America has witnessed many renovations of historical monuments and the generation of new architectural plans for Washington D.C.. With the Aug. 28, 2025 Executive Order “Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” the second Trump Administration has stated, 

"Only Murders in the Building” Season Five Took a Gamble and Walked Home Empty-Handed

“Only Murders in the Building,” Hulu’s murder-mystery comedy starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez, has been a favorite of mine since it was first released in 2021. It has tight, consistent humor, a quirky ensemble, unexpected celebrity cameos and most of all, outstanding mysteries. Each episode, new details are revealed: a shocking twist or a new piece of evidence that makes the viewer wonder how they hadn’t seen a critical clue and constantly shifted suspicions between a host of equally likely suspects. For four seasons, I was excited to turn on the television every week to get a step closer to figuring it out, and to see if I could piece together the puzzle before the characters in the show did — and even if I didn’t, the “whodunit” answer still felt like a satisfying conclusion each season.

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Frankenstein: The Differences Between Mary Shelley's page and Guillermo del Toro's screen

It is common knowledge that producing an adaptation from novel to screen perfectly is nearly impossible. This is no exception with Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein,” (2025) starring Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth and Oscar Isaac. While each actor put on an amazing performance and encompassed the souls of each of their characters successfully, there was so much lost when del Toro adapted Mary Shelley’s novel of the same name into a movie. First published in 1818, Shelley’s novel is an enduring classic which has fascinated us for centuries. Shelley’s writing, while it may seem confusing at first, is a beautiful representation of what it is to grapple with narcissism and man’s constant reach for greatness. She created a character, Victor Frankenstein, that houses so much nuance within him and leaves us — the readers — grasping for more. We are urged on with every page and wonder who is the true villain of this story, all the while unknowingly falling in love with the creature Frankenstein creates. This is where my greatest critique of this new movie lies — there is no room for us to consider how much or how little we want to believe in these characters. The movie hits the nail on the head, too obviously showing us that we need to believe Frankenstein is the real monster. While the choice to make every death directly at the hands of Frankenstein instead of at the hands of the creature is gripping at first glance, it takes away the joy of realizing that the Creature isn’t really at fault for these murders. The real culprit is Frankenstein, whose desire for power fuels the creation of the creature, but Frankenstein’s choice to push his creation away forces the creature to choose a life of violence. What I am trying to get at is the obvious lack of nuance within these characters and the lack of subtlety with their actions. The nuance and creativity is one of the most  important parts of Shelley’s novel, and without, it the movie feels lackluster. 

The Beautiful Sound of Daniel Caesar's "Son of Spergy"

Released on Oct. 24, Daniel Caesar’s fourth studio album, “Son of Spergy,” has reintegrated the grassroots nature of R&B back into the community. The album was highly anticipated after Caesar teased its upcoming release with a string of free pop-up shows. Across 12 tracks, Caesar experiments with new genres including folk and gospel and explores the struggle with his father and religion through intricate storytelling. “Son of Spergy” is Caesar’s most unique album yet.

"The Merchant of Venice: A Reimagining" — Shakespeare's Most Infamous Play Turned Crowd-Pleasing Spectacle

A man and a woman, the man holding his chest while on his knees. A large, white, Venetian-style bridge. Three stained glass panels depict a heart, scales and coins. These are the three images that greeted the audience of Hold Thy Peace’s fall production of “The Merchant of Venice: A Reimagining” over the past weekend. Directed by Laurel Kane ’26, this production took one of Shakespeare’s most infamous comedies and transformed it into a powerful piece of dramatic theater that left audiences in awe. 

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The Ladies: Tell Me More

Since August 2025, artist Danielle Joy Mckinney has been the Rose Art Museum’s artist in residence. Her exhibit “Tell Me More” will be touring until January 2026, and the Rose is Mckinney’s first ever solo museum exhibit, featuring 13 of her pieces with two being exclusive to just the Rose Art Museum. 

Watercolors of Winslow: new Glance into the Waters of the Past

Opening this past Sunday at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, “Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor” is the largest exhibition of this gentle American giant’s unique watercolor compositions in almost half a century.  Due to conservation concerns, these works must be rarely viewed, preserving sensitive pigments and details that would otherwise be lost to time. This is a true once in a lifetime experience, one I highly encourage all readers to take.

Streaming the Verdict: When legal battles become entertainment

Justice has always relied on deliberations, the careful weighing of evidence within the quiet solemnity of the courtroom. However, in the digital age, that silence has been replaced by the roar of timelines and comment sections. Every high-profile case now unfolds in two arenas: one governed by procedure and precedent and the other by pixels, edits and algorithms. The courtroom has become content and the law has become a spectacle. The Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial in 2022 marked a turning point in this new age of “viral justice.” For weeks, millions tuned in to view livestreams of testimonies, watching cross-examinations like they were episodes of reality television. On TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, fans spliced moments into reaction videos, memes and emotional montages. Depp’s courtroom smirk became a trending sound, Heard’s tears were dissected frame by frame. Complex questions of defamation, abuse and credibility were recast into a binary drama of hero versus villain. By the time the jury returned its verdict, the internet had already declared its own — louder, faster and far more permanent. 

Getting Killed by a Good Life on Geese's latest album

Geese’s new release “Getting Killed” has been met with essentially unanimous praise, and for good reason. The band has been around since their 2021 debut album, and, relatively speaking, have stayed close to their roots: funky rock with a chamber orchestra thrown in when deemed necessary. That’s not to say that their albums — “Projector,” released in 2021, and “3D Country,” released in 2023 — thus far have been monotonous, quite the contrary. Their fundamental sound stays the same, to be sure, but with each new release the band reaches through time and space for inspiration — whether from ’90s math rock, ’80s post-punk or — on their most recent album, a delightful mixture of bluesy krautrock and psychedelia hailing from the ’70s. On “Getting Killed,” we see Geese collaborate on production with Kenny Beats, which seems to have given us a sound familiar and foreign alike: The chaotic rock of their previous album, “3D Country”  is there, but a tinge of melancholy seems to lightly cover the album, softening wailing guitars and angular drumming into something more powerful and more human than we’ve seen from Geese before. 

Sudoku Key 11/04

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Beyond The Screen

This past weekend, Oct. 23-25, was the annual Boston Bookfest. From October 2009 to present day, Boston has put on this weekend-long fest filled with free books, keynote speakers and anything else book-related you can think of. This year was no different with keynote speakers from across the country, authors and more. The headliner of this year’s 2025 Boston Bookfest was none other than Shonda Rhimes, television producer and author alike. Rhimes has a resume many Hollywood stars dream of, producing shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” “Bridgerton” and “How To Get Away With Murder,” to name just a few. A Hollywood name and now a New England resident herself, Rhimes spoke on the tenth anniversary of her memoir, “The Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person.”