The Bay Area band Thirstbursters, which features Vassar’s own Zach Sorgen ’12, debuted the video for their single “Good Things” today on Cambio Music. Check it out here.
Sorgen had this to say: “My band, Thirstbusters, has been having lots of success this past year with music videos on the DisneyXD Channel and on Cambio (a collaborative site between AOL and the Jonas Brothers). We recently got a team together of managers, an attorney, and an agent all in LA. And [Friday] we’re releasing our third music video!”
It’s official as of this morning: the indie-pop band Of Montreal will perform in Walker Fieldhouse on Saturday, April 23 courtesy of Vassar College Entertainment (ViCE).
The storied fifteen-year old ensemble has been compared to the likes of Prince and David Bowie, thanks to a sound infused with soul, funk and psychedelia. As if that wasn’t enough generic diversity, their tunes also include elements of vaudeville, twee pop, glam and afrobeat. Their latest album, False Priests, was their third straight album to debut on the Billboard charts, this one at #34.
They will have a tough act to follow; last year’s spring concert was ViCE’s largest thus far, featuring an extravagant performance by the psychedelic pop stars The Flaming Lips at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center.
The Knocks, an electronic music duo, will open. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, March 23 for $18 with a student I.D.
The Film Department and Vassar Filmmakers have been hosting lecturer after lecturer in rapidfire succession this semester, each speaker a respective badass in the realm of film and television. The series has been made possible by a grant received by the Department from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. TONIGHT in Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film 109, the next iteration of this series is here, this time funded solely by the Film Department.
Check out a screening of the 1978 Oscar nominee Pretty Baby at 5:00 pm, starring a 12-year old Brooke Shields, Susan Sarandon and Keith Carradine. And try this on for size: AT 7:00 PM in the same locale, Keith Carradine will discuss Pretty Baby, his other films and his experiences as an actor. The man might be familiar to students thanks to his robust television career. “Damages,” “Dexter,” and “Dollhouse,” have seen his latest roles (the killer D’s of drama, one might say).
The space opera is coming back, bitches. Note the trends in all artistic media: Avatar grossed a small country’s GDP and is taking award season by storm, a slick Star Trek remake revitalized the famous series, two acclaimed new Flaming Lips albums (Christmas on Mars and Embryonic) boasted intergalactic narrative and sounds, and a sci-fi-adventure video game called Mass Effect 2 just sold two million copies in its first week and is already being hailed as the game of the year.
Vassar has a super cool opportunity to explore the roots of the sci-fi sub-genre that has made such a resurgence. The director of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Nicholas Meyer, will visit and lead a Q&A session about his production career and the filmmaking process after a screening of his 1982 classic film.
When I say classic, I mean it: The Wrath of Khan is widely considered the best Star Trek film of the lot (sans remake) by film critics, consequently making it one of the most celebrated sci-fi films period. Truth: I have never seen this movie. Which is why I am SO going to this screening/lecture and you should too; not only will you get around to seeing one of the most important space operas out there, you will totally get insight on the film from the source.
I shouldn’t just frame this as a sci-fi event. It is also a screenwriting workshop, and for all aspiring filmmakers out there, know that Nicholas Meyer has chops. He was involved in the writing process for The Wrath of Khan, which sports the legendary and oft-quoted line from a dying Spock: “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” Idk if Meyers actually came up with that line, but maaaaaaan that would be cool.
But of course he has racked up more credentials than Star Trek. He got an Oscar nom back in 1976 for his screenplay for The Seven Per-Cent Solution, and has received accolades for his writing on Somersby (1993) and Elegy (2008). Oh, and he directed the most-watched TV movie of all-time, a freaky nuclear apocalyptic drama called The Day After. I saw it in middle school, and its imagery still freaks me out to this day.
This is all part of an top-notch series by the Film Department on screen-writing. Professor James Steerman will be giving a workshop tomorrow evening, and Kelly Reichardt, who penned the charming Wendy and Lucy, will be swinging by for a lecture on Feb 24th.
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