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Lost in space and loving it: “The Martian” review

By: Declan Hertel 
Entertainment Editor

With the recent discovery of liquid water on Mars, the Red Planet seems closer than ever.
This seemingly simple but massively important discovery got me all fired up to see “The Martian,” the latest film from Ridley Scott whose other works include “Alien,” and “Blade Runner.”

A new movie about Mars comes out just as we make a huge breakthrough in its exploration? It’s hard to believe it wasn’t planned.

“The Martian” finds Matt Damon (“The Bourne Identity”) playing Mark Watney, an astronaut accidentally left for dead on the surface of Mars after a storm prematurely ends the crew’s mission. As he begins to create a one-man colony on the surface, NASA realizes he’s alive and sets about bringing him home.

I went into this movie expecting something like Alfonso Cuarón’s “Gravity” (2013), where a single astronaut is stranded in space and everything’s falling apart around the crew and “oh god, oh god” the empty vastness is so near “oh god.”

While there are moments of great tension (and what else could we expect from the man who made freaking “Alien”), they don’t overwhelm. Instead, the brilliance of “The Martian” lies in its bright tone: while it’s always clear that the situation is dire and time is limited, the film just asks you to accept that and instead chooses to focus on just how supremely cool this whole thing is.

Watney is always cracking jokes to his video journal and talking about how awesome it is that he’s triumphing over a barren wasteland where it would only take one big mistake to kill him. He talks about technical definitions of colonization and what international laws space falls under, always to bring it back to “Everything I do has never been done before. That is ‘NUTS’.”

Watching Watney’s new home come together is a joy; we celebrate with every success and lament every failure with him. For a movie about a fairly hopeless situation, the film is very funny and lighthearted.

“The Martian” also features a spectacular ensemble cast to complement Damon, with the likes of Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”), Chiwetel Ejiofor (“12 Years a Slave”), and Sean Bean (“Game of Thrones”) making appearances. There is not a weak performance among the cast, each approaching the tasks ahead of them with the gravity they’re due, but also with that sense of “this is so cool.”

Movies that center around the “triumph of the human spirit” can very easily fall into superficial sentimentality that ends up dehumanizing the characters and cheapening the message, but not so with “The Martian.”

The dedication, enthusiasm, and sense of humor displayed by every character doesn’t feel forced. It feels like the natural reaction to a situation that’s totally unprecedented in terms of both danger and awesomeness.

In fact, that’s my takeaway from the movie: awesome. Humans are awesome, space is awesome, and the former can do awesome things in the latter despite great obstacles. Because we’re humans. We can tame space. And that’s awesome.

A spooky movie a day keeps the boogeyman away

By: Darien Campo 
Freelancer

And so began October – the spookiest month of the year.

There’s no other time that so openly celebrates the most macabre parts of our culture. Houses are adorned with goofy skeletons and ghosts. When else can you proudly display such symbols of our own mortality?

October is a month to be proud of our deepest fears, and for me that means celebrating in the only fashion I find appropriate: watching a different horror movie every single day for 31 days straight. Nothing gets me in the October mood better than spooky cinema – and you should try it too.

For me, October is a time for all the things that scare me senseless. I love being scared; watching a movie in uncontrollable fear has the same excitement for me as cackling at a hilarious comedy.

Scary movies tap into a deeper, more primal version of ourselves. As we mature into adults, we lose the ability to fear irrationally for the most part. What shadows in the closet were once malicious beasts are now hanging jackets, and what moans in the night were once a terrifying ghoul are now the normal sounds of a settling house.

But with a good horror film, all the years of learned skepticism and rationality are thrown out the window. There’s no time for careful thought when Michael Meyers appears out of nowhere in “Halloween” (1978). It’s impossible to examine a situation rationally over the croaking groans of “The Babadook” (2014).

Horror movies are fun, and all of the best ones know that. That’s why films like “Evil Dead II” (1987) can make you scream one minute and laugh uncontrollably the next. That’s why even children can have fun watching a movie about death, like in “The Corpse Bride” (2005).

These movies force us to face things we’d rather sweep under the rug. From the irrational ghosts, monsters, and darkness, to the more realistic killers, insanity, and our own unavoidable demise.

It’s easy to forget just how much fun it is to be scared, and October is the perfect time to start remembering. A horror movie a day is a fantastic way to honor the things that we fear most, and there are so many films to choose from. Don’t worry that you’re a little late in starting – just grab some friends and some popcorn, turn out the lights, and scare yourselves silly!

3 Leg Torso to perform on campus

By: Declan Hertel
Entertainment Editor

Friday, Oct. 7, 2015 in Rice Auditorium, Smith Fine Arts will welcome award-winning quintet 3 Leg Torso to Western.

The Smith Fine Arts Series is all about bringing the best in performing arts to the Western’s campus, and 3 Leg Torso looks like they will uphold that mission admirably.

Originally formed in 1996 as a violin, accordion, and cello three-piece, 3 Leg Torso has since expanded to five members, and their unique brand of modern chamber music is sure to delight anybody who enjoys music from supremely talented performers.

I have listened to the band’s 2010 release “Animals and Cannibals” (Meester Records) several times since learning of the group, and I absolutely love the cinematic, gypsy aesthetic.

The opening track, “Akiko Yano”, feels like setting off on an adventure through the European countryside. Several songs on the record have a tango influence to them, and you can’t help but imagine the band off in the corner of some small pub, playing their hearts out as the patrons dance around.

Despite being an instrumental act, each song tells a little story, along with the music. And really, who doesn’t want to know the tale implied by “The Life and Times and Good Deeds of St. Penguin”?

3 Leg Torso plays Friday, Oct. 7, 2015 at 7:30 p.m. in Rice Auditorium, and tickets are free for students. It certainly looks like it’s going to be a great time, and for the low, low price of free? Check out 3 Leg Torso. You’ll be happy you did.

For more information on tickets or the performance, please contact 503-838-8333 or visit The Cottage at 342 Monmouth Ave. North.

Nightmare Factory brings terror to Salem

By:Ashton Newton
Freelancer

With Halloween just around the corner, children everywhere are preparing their costumes to go out and trick-or-treat all over the country.

For those of us who are too old to take candy from strangers, we’re still searching for ways to get absolutely terrified. Luckily, the Oregon School for the Deaf (OSD) has you covered with their annual haunted house, The Nightmare Factory, which started back up on Oct. 2, 2015 and runs to Nov. 7, 2015.

With the help of student and outside volunteers, the OSD puts on a truly scary and memorable haunted house.

This Salem-based haunted house, put on as a fundraiser for the OSD, has a new terrifying theme each year that promises to keep you up at night in fear. This year is special though, with two haunted houses in one.

The two themes are a zombie infested “Warehouse 27,” and “Mr. Boogers Fun House.” If you’re feeling extra brave though, the last two nights of the haunted house, Nov. 6 and 7, will be completely pitch dark, with only a single glow-stick provided for light. And if even that isn’t enough for you, you can have yourself strapped into a wheelchair and taken through the haunted house with “Mr. Booger’s Wild Ride.”

Kristin Galvin, sister of co-director Kivo LeFevre, helps run the Nightmare Factory alongside her son Riky and other co-director Ed Roberts.

“Nightmare Factory started 28 years ago with boy’s dorm school counselor Ed Roberts and 13 year old student Kivo LeFevre,” says Galvin. “Ed, aka Candy in this year’s haunted house, directs the zombies and Kivo, aka Mr. Booger, directs the clown area,” Galvin said.

In 2010, the Nightmare Factory received national recognition when the OSD was on Extreme Makeover Home Edition.

Each year, the Nightmare Factory changes themes and floor plans. The themes are decided on by directors Roberts and LeFevre. After the theme is decided on, the walls are moved and painted and preparation for the haunted house begins.

When asked what her favorite part of doing the Nightmare Factory was, Galvin said, “For me personally, being involved with the haunt gives me a chance to spend some great time with my brother Kivo and my son Riky. I’ve also discovered an acting side of myself that I’ve never explored and love the evolution of Dr. Howlina.”

She jokes that a family that haunts together, stays together.

Taking Stage: Why Theatre Needs Punk

By: Declan Hertel
Entertainment Editor

Back in the seventies, disco was king: meaning it was grandiose, self-important, and by the late seventies had metastasized into an elitist ball of sonic suckitude that engulfed popular music.

But then punk happened. Punk was raw, messy, and caused a massive shift in the world of music, taking everything that disco represented and smashed it beneath a hundred moshing feet. It brought meaning and humanity back to music.

I bring this up because there is a problem with a different artistic medium that is near and dear to my heart: theatre. Here it is, folks: the modern theatre is disco.

Disco was the predominant popular music of its time. Sure, there was interesting, non-sucktastic stuff happening beneath it, but it was beneath it. So to with theatre. The contemporary face of theatre is dominated by the blockbuster musical and revivals of blockbuster musicals; “Wicked”, “The King and I”, and their ilk.

Not that there is anything wrong with those, they fill the same niche as “The Avengers” does for movies: it’s a big, bombastic, fun spectacle. I saw the Broadway touring company of “Wicked” in 2012, it was dope, and anyone who left that theatre thinking that it wasn’t was wrong. But these shows are, unfortunately, indicative to the same unsettling trend that the Marvel Cinematic Universe exemplifies in cinema: style over substance.

The other big issue with the modern theatre is that it is perceived in the mainstream as being inaccessible, as an art form for the old and powerful. Audiences are dominated by the old, the white, and the rich; in other words, the people who have the least impetus to change the world.

The old aren’t going be here for long, the white have it good, and the rich have it better. It’s out of reach to the average American, or at least it looks like it. The average middle class American needs to use the money they would spend on tickets to pay rent; this reality combined with the fact that the “cheap” end of professional theatre tickets is generally over $20 only pushes theater further away from the lower end.

I can hear you thinking: “Why should I care?”

You should care because, friends, theatre used to be dangerous. As Western’s own Dr. Michael Phillips says in his Theatre History class, people have been killed because they were theatre artists. Theatre strikes fear into tyrants and has been known to lead, sometimes directly, to their demise. Why? Because theatre is human.

Theatre, at its best, is the pulse of a culture. It is an inherently visceral art form. In theatre, you are in the same room as these people. You are directly witnessing their struggles, their passions, their loves and hates and triumphs and failures, with nothing more between you than an implicit divide between actors and audience. There’s nowhere to hide from the truth.

No other art form has such ability to create empathy. This unique property is wasted on huge, feel-good musicals. Sure it’s saddening to see the injustices perpetrated on a green-skinned witch, but it’s downright devastating when a play shows you the injustices suffered by your fellow humans every day. Theatre does more than tell you what’s going on, it slaps you in the face and dares you to do something about it. It shows you exactly what’s wrong with the world you live in, and makes you care.

There needs to be a punk rock revolution in the theatre. Too long has it languished in the clutches of the elite, too long has it been an inaccessible art form, unavailable to the common man. Theatre has always been a voice for change throughout the world, a voice for those who have no other voice, but not in the America of today.

Important works are being written and premiered regularly, but the “high-class” perception of theatre has relegated their viewership to those who have no stake or vested interest in what they stand for, and those who do have an interest are put off by the saturation of blockbusters homogenizing down the form.

In these troubled times, we need all the help we can get. What I ask of you is this: seek out shows that tackle today’s issues, and support them. Support small, underground theatres. Go and experience the unbelievable power that theatre holds, and let it fuel you to change the world you live in, in whatever way you can.

 

Original Play by Western Students Takes “Flight”

By Nathaniel Dunaway
 Entertainment Editor

The best word to describe Western theatre’s spring play, “Frankie’s Flights of Fancy” is this: magical.

An original – or “devised” – work created by a group of Western students, this family-friendly show is an exploration of what it means to be a child, when adventures of the imagination and “flights of fancy” are delightfully common, and can be propelled by something as simple as a favorite toy.

The play will run May 27-30 and each performance will begin at 7:30 p.m.

“Frankie” opens with a little girl, the titular Frankie, entering a cobweb-blanketed room decorated with faded posters and paintings. The wallpaper is water-worn and sagging; crates and boxes of all sizes add to the clutter.

It’s not long before Frankie, who is played by third-year theatre major Belladina Starr, wearing a full-head character mask designed by the Portland theatre company Wonderheads, soon discovers that one of the aforementioned boxes is different than the others; this box is a portal to the imagination, to a world of dreams.

With the help of this magic box, Frankie is transported to an assortment of different worlds, all with their own unique characters and dangers.

Through the use of masks, marionettes, shadow puppets, projections and animations, Frankie chases a Wild West villain, conducts an orchestra, does battle with a Japanese demon and more.

The process of creating “Frankie” has been a year-long endeavor which began last fall. A class led by Western theatre professor Michael Phillips started from scratch to “build” a show from the ground up.

Starr, no doubt the star of the show, has been involved with “Frankie” since the beginning.

“Devised theatre is hard,” Starr said. “It’s so much about working together and being a team every step of the way. But when everyone comes together — designers, actors, tech, crew, everyone — and get past the uncertainty, and the challenges that arise, it’s rewarding.”

This isn’t the first time Western’s theatre department has explored original work. In 2013, a similar class, also led by Phillips, created and performed the devised show “Half a Block From Home.”

Once the story outline and general script for “Frankie” was completed, a new class, held in winter term, carried the project closer to its completion, establishing the specific logistics of the puppets, animations, props, and more.

The music for the show, a complete original score, was designed by music composition major Ian Knowland. This score was central to the magic of “Frankie,” helping to transport both the little girl and the audience to locales that include a rollicking old-timey circus, and a dimly lit, noir-soaked interrogation room.

Once the show was cast, it was up to the nine cast members and director Phillips to bring “Frankie” life.

“I have never used puppets,” said first-year theatre major Edgar Lopez, who, among other roles, portrays an old circus custodian who is secretly a master of shadow puppetry. “It takes a lot of team effort to make [puppets] work. I’ve learned to be able to move as one in a group. I’m also glad I took the movement class, [it] has helped tremendously, because this show is all about movement.”

The end product of this yearlong undertaking proves to be a touching tribute to the magic of childhood, as well as the magic of theatre.

“Getting to see something you helped create is beautiful,” Starr said. “It’s not like anything else.”

Student tickets to “Frankie’s Flights of Fancy” are free. Tickets for faculty and non-students can be purchased at the Rice Auditorium Box Office or over the phone at 503-838-8462.

2015 NBA FINALS

The NBA Finals Playoff series is set to start in Oakland on Thursday, June 4 with tipoff at 6 p.m. PST. The Golden State Warriors are favored to win the series with in-form Stephen Curry coming in off the back of game three against the Rockets where he broke the record for most three-pointers scored in a playoff season at 67 and counting. Klay Thompson is also heating up for the Warriors sinking 20 points in the final game against the Rockets. This is the Warriors first finals appearance since their last NBA title win in 1975.

The Cavaliers and Lebron James are arriving to the big stage battered and bruised. With at least four players experiencing day-to-day injuries (including James), the Cavs played one less game but are still feeling the physical side. This didn’t stop James’ trophy-hunting side from putting up a triple-double in the overtime game three, and a respectable 23 points in game four against the Atlanta Hawks. Looking for a boost, Kyrie Irving returned to the starting line-up after missing two games and posted an efficient 16 points and 4 rebounds in 20 minutes of play.

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