Under the Covers: A chat with Josip Novakovich

Josip Novakovich is a writer of short stories, essays, and novels, with many published to popular acclaim. He was recently shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize for “literary excellence… in a writer’s entire body of work.” Born in Yugoslavia in 1956, Novakovich grew up in Daruvar, in what is now central Croatia.

By Emilia Brahm April 25, 2013

Leisure

Georgetown student filmmakers search for their Muse

Spending a Saturday afternoon in the bioethics library isn’t atypical for Georgetown students, except if you have a camera and a crew of 10 people trying to turn it into a film set. Whispering directions to his two actors, Alex Waldon (COL ’15) and Taylor Mansmann (COL ’15), Andres Figueredo (COL ’13) is in the middle of shooting a scene for his Film & Media Studies thesis project, Muse, and attempting to avoid the wrath of the librarian in the process.

By Julia Lloyd-George April 17, 2013

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Company You Keep: Not what it seems

Terrorists aren’t oceans away; they are in our midst. The radical freedom fighters that were born out of ‘60s rebellion are on full display in The Company You Keep, an enthralling though not quite fully satisfying reminder that this term, which was still used only once in the film, is but a name for ideological fierceness and misguided passions that have a role in this country’s history as much as that of any foreign land.

By Larissa Ong April 17, 2013

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Restless in Washington

The millennial generation has much more to offer artistically than a 22-year-old writing songs about never ever getting back together. With this mentality, theINcrowd founder and creative director Seun Oyewole (SFS ’14) launched The Young and the Restless hip-hop showcase in 2010 to promote “people our age who are trying to take their music to the next level,” a goal that resonates with the event name.

By Kirill Makarenko April 17, 2013

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Newseum fondly remembers John F. Kennedy’s humanity

There are certain events in history we return to again and again, the controversy and the spectacle surrounding them driving our fascination and drawing us back to look for more. The assassination of John F. Kennedy is one of them, a catalyst of unrest and one of the omens that predicated what would be one of the most tumultuous decades in American history.

By Rio Djiwandana April 17, 2013

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Critical Voices: Fall Out Boy, Save Rock and Roll

Bands returning from a long hiatus have a difficult choice to make. They can pay their oldest fans a service and return to their musical roots, or they can pursue a new sound. After ending a five-year break with the unexpected release of Save Rock and Roll, Fall Out Boy has proven that they’ve still got the creative spark needed to produce compelling, fresh material unlike anything they’ve done before.

By Rhiannon Greene April 17, 2013

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Critical Voices: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Mosquito

Though their usual musical nuance is missing throughout most of their fourth album, Mosquito is the kind of eccentric experimentation that could only come from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. While it lacks the clear highlights of prior albums, such as “Maps” from the now decade-old Fever to Tell, Mosquito is not without its moments—but listeners will have to scratch beyond the surface to discover these glimmers of artistic success.

By Julia Jester April 17, 2013

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Under the Covers: A book as bland as matzah

Mystery, a love triangle, cross-cultural conflict, and a foreign setting—what more could you want in a summer read? And for us internationally aware Georgetown students, Second Person Singular’s author, Sayed Kashua, is yet another of its attractions.

By Emilia Brahm April 17, 2013

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Reel Talk: Risqué, violent movies ‘R’ us

Most movie fans remember the first R-rated movie they watched. If you have trouble recalling this formative experience, you probably had awesome parents who let you watch Commando when you were three. But that’s beside the point. A couple hundred R-rated movies later, we cannot help but miss the visceral reactions our younger selves felt as we saw explicit images on the screen, images that opened the door to terror, sexuality, and humor which our virgin eyes and ears had never been exposed to.

By Mark James April 17, 2013

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Astounding Trojan Barbie takes on a life of its own

Walking into Gonda Theater and seeing a Barbie doll’s limbs tied on cords is a bit of a shocking sight. At first, you think it’s just a child’s room gone horribly wrong, when in reality, it means so much more. As grotesque as it appears, it conceals profound conflict beneath the surface.

By Elizabeth Baker April 11, 2013

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D.C. Film Fest kicks off

Now in its 27th year, the D.C. Film Fest continues to showcase a comprehensive selection of foreign films and documentaries. This city-spanning event brings in some of the more enigmatic filmmakers and public figures of the age, but to categorize these guests as provocateurs would be a bit of stretch.

By Mark James April 11, 2013

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Trance will hold you in its sway

A psychological thriller can only go one of two ways—astounding success or abject failure. Every piece of the puzzle must come together in the end, the build-up to the ultimate reveal being propelled by unmistakable momentum. Director Danny Boyle masterfully achieves this feat with Trance, his fascination with both visual and metaphorical fragmentation showing through in every scene and suspense pervading every line.

By Julia Lloyd-George April 11, 2013

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Examining intimacy with “Let’s Not Ever Be Strangers Again”

I have never witnessed a performance art show, since it’s a relatively nascent artistic phenomenon to gain attention from the general population. The closest I ever got was visiting the Curator’s Office, a gallery near Logan Circle, to examine the extraordinary documentation of D.C. native and performance artist Kathryn Cornelius’s edgy experiment, performed in summer 2012. “Let’s Not Ever Be Strangers Again” details 34-year-old Cornelius’s experience of getting married to seven different people in seven hours, and promptly divorcing each one merely an hour after the wedding vows. All in a day’s work.

By Larissa Ong April 11, 2013

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Critical Voices: James Blake, Overgrown

A sensitive dubstep artist who’s been known to collaborate with Bon Iver isn’t exactly the kind of musician you find in droves these days. So, James Blake is somewhat of an anomaly in this sense, though the tremendous appeal of his idiosyncratic, folksy electronica is impossible to deny. With his sophomore effort, Overgrown, the London-based singer-songwriter proves that he’s in no way contained within the boundaries of genre.

By Dzarif Wan April 11, 2013

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Critical Voices: Brad Paisley, Wheelhouse

Few things are as satisfying to watch as an artist with nothing left to prove. With nine albums under his belt, country star Brad Paisley is truly in his comfort zone; now, he’s just having fun. A largely unedited, seemingly casual jam session merges his unique brand of comedy and a glimpse at pervasive social issues on the appropriately titled Wheelhouse, unleashing the full force of Paisley’s insight and creativity on a 17-track masterpiece.

By Kirill Makarenko April 11, 2013

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Loose Cannon: I wish I was in Dixie

Throughout this semester, I have been contemplating many aspects and incidents of drunken debauchery here at Georgetown. The more I thought about the subject—the wild nights, the painful mornings, the stupid and awesome decisions made—the more I wanted to know the meaning behind all of this intoxicated behavior. Why does Georgetown drink so hard, and how could I get to the bottom of this question?

By Hamilton Steve April 11, 2013

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Paper View: In praise of bad men

A glass of Scotch, a pressed designer suit, oodles of witticisms oozing with creative confidence. Don Draper, the anti-hero of AMC’s Mad Men, is the symbol of masculine perfection. Hairy chest? Check. Commanding presence? Check. Insanely rich? Marry me.

By Keaton Hoffman April 11, 2013

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Spring Awakening shocks and awes in Poulton Hall

This weekend, sex and suicide will be simulated on a Georgetown stage. This is not a lurid hook to get you to spend $8 at Poulton Hall. It is a salute to our Jesuit University and its students for their creative and mature handling of the, at times, violent and shocking content of the musical Spring Awakening. The show is masterfully done and displays the full spectrum of Georgetown’s talent from the singing, to the staging, to the orchestration.

By Liana Mehring April 4, 2013

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Gosling spruces up Beyond the Pines

Ambition can sometimes be a dirty word, depending on its reach and underlying intentions. A riveting film following fatherhood and its generation-spanning consequences, The Place Beyond the Pines is certainly no stranger to aspiration. Though a narrative triptych that throws its net a little too wide, the latest film from Derek Cianfrance, the director of indie darling Blue Valentine, is nevertheless a rarity in its ability to touch on themes of novelistic proportions.

By John Buckley April 4, 2013

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Outwin Boochever Competition breathes life into portraits

While the traditional notion of a “portrait” connotes the art of creating detailed personal representations, the National Portrait Gallery’s Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition takes the art of portraiture to entirely new levels. The exhibit transforms portraits into powerful works that communicate themes of personal identity, cultural differences, and the fleeting nature of beauty—qualities the average Facebook profile picture simply cannot capture.

By Rio Djiwandana April 4, 2013