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In an era saturated with superheroes and villains, “Spider-man: Into the Spiderverse” is a welcome novelty for the Marvel franchise, though its stunning visuals are not enough to counteract a narrative that is same-old, same-old.
Director and auteur Yorgos Lanthimos has captured the attention of critics for his audaciously peculiar imagery and unorthodox storytelling. His repertoire includes “Dogtooth,” “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Lobster,” films that have split the opinion of viewers. Some call his work clinical and unrelatable, while others praise it as fresh and iconoclastic.
Do good things come to R&B fans who wait? After teasing listeners for months following his 2016 debut solo album “Mind of Mine,” former One Direction star Zayn Malik dropped “Icarus Falls” Dec. 14.
In its tale of two monarchs, Josie Rourke’s “Mary, Queen of Scots” maintains major historical points but oversimplifies the narrative.
As the Recess section’s resident film lover, the responsibility to decree the year’s best movies often falls upon my shoulders.
A marble floor comes into focus as the opening credits begin to play. No music, no conversation, just the simple sound of the water swishing across the pavement and a plane's engine booming overhead.
Larry Moneta’s recent comments concerning China were heavily debated among Duke students, but they also revealed a much larger truth: Chinese culture is still a foreign world for most Americans, though more and more Americans now recognize China as a country worthy of their business interests. The language barrier is often perceived to be too large; therefore, its literature tends to receive only sparse attention.
For the most part, my family’s taste in Christmas entertainment is laughably generic. We listen to the holiday radio station and soldier through a thousand wincingly pitchy covers of “Jingle Bell Rock” in the hopes of catching Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s rendition of “Carol of the Bells.”
Last week, Recess released its staff picks for the best culture of 2018. Here are a handful of the best albums released this year.
When students head home for winter break, one board game may figure prominently into their free time: Settlers of Catan.
From the much-hyped return of the “Incredibles” series to a new exhibit at Raleigh’s N.C. Museum of Art, here are the Recess staff’s picks for the best culture of 2018.
The 1975’s lead singer, Matty Healy’s life is perfectly analogous to what he has produced with his newest album: all over the place. Healy has battled a heroin addiction for years, suffers from depression and anxiety, and has gone so far as to even call himself “Not that mentally stable.”
"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” directed by David Yates and written by J.K. Rowling, is the newest edition to the wizarding world franchise and “Fantastic Beasts” saga.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s magnum opus “Hamilton” has been a cultural phenomenon since its Broadway debut in 2015. The musical’s soundtrack is now a ubiquitous part of American pop culture.
Naps have become a staple of the college experience. College allows sleep-deprived and overly-stressed students to finally recognize the true beauty of a nap and its seemingly limitless healing powers.
When I was young, I was obsessed with my dad’s action figures. He had worked at a comic book store during graduate school, and the memorabilia he collected during his employment now covered nearly every flat surface in our spare room, where I would sit on the floor playing with the Spidermans and Silver Surfers.
In Marielle Heller’s film “Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” 90s era Manhattan possesses a melancholy that seemed to seep out of its very being. In an ever-damp and ever-cloudy setting, we are introduced to the now-unemployed Lee Israel (Melissa McCarthy), a foul-mouthed and cynical writer known for her biographies of Dorothy Kilgallen and Estee Lauder. The film is an adaptation of the real Lee Israel’s terminal publication by the same name, one that she published late in her career before succumbing to cancer.
I sat in the back row of the BB&T Pavilion in Camden, N.J., steady rain showering the fans on the lawn behind me. Marcus Mumford had been pouring his soul into the brooding climax of “White Blank Page” when dark clouds rolled overhead and thunder and lightning sent the band running offstage. For 45 minutes the storm repeatedly teased its retreat until, finally, the sky parted. As quickly as they had left, the band returned to the stage and, as the last sunlight of the day peeked through the grey, Mumford & Sons launched into their soaring anthem “Lover of the Light.”
Ariana Grande’s latest single “thank u, next” opens with a bright, synth pop beat. As the melody progresses, her sweet-as-sugar falsetto paints a chronological picture of her well-publicized romantic struggles.
Every president of the United States has been a man. But history was made in the final season of "House of Cards."
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