Arts & Culture

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Get acquainted with The Ready Set

Jordan Witzigreuter, known on the music scene as The Ready Set, gave this year’s BearStock an energetic opening with his dance-able, alternative-pop music. Before the show, The Ready Set sat down with representatives from Mercer’s media outlets, including Mercer 99 and the Cluster. This is the exchange ...

Warner Bros. “42” is less than legendary

I really wanted to like “42”. The story of Jackie Robinson is a truly inspiring one about the fight against racism, a pivotal moment in sports history. Also, because parts of the movie were filmed in Macon, I felt obligated to like it out of loyalty. On a surface level, I did enjoy the movie—but ...

Latest Players’ performance leaves great ‘Legacy’

Karen Zacarias’ play “Legacy of Light” is the last show I will ever see as a Mercer student, and I am not exaggerating: the Mercer Players could not have ended this season on a better note. Visually stunning and brilliantly acted, “Legacy” shows how well the Players can take a wonderful (albeit ...

Interview with Switchfoot’s Tim Foreman

Alternative rock band Switchfoot delivered a fantastic performance at BearStock this year, engaging the audience both with music from their newer albums in addition to their hit “Dare You to Move”. Switchfoot could not linger long after their performance April 13, but the Cluster managed to catch ...

‘Adventure Time’: a cartoon to redeem modern-day cartoons

When it comes to animated shows, they seem to be spiraling down in quality. Cartoon Network has been reduced to airing live-action shows such as “Dude What Would Happen?“ or “Unnatural History”. The golden age of cartoons seems to have passed by with “Samurai Jack”, “Courage the Cowardly ...

Author Interview: Kat Zhang

Senior at Vanderbilt talks about her speculative fiction novel Kat Zhang’s novel “What’s Left of Me”—the first book of the Hybrid Chronicles—takes place in an America like our own except in one respect: every person is born with two souls in their body. For most of childhood, the two souls ...

The Battle of the Bat-Man

Which animated version of Batman is the best? David Ellis offers the answer. Since the dawn of time humankind has asked itself the important questions. Apples or oranges? Soup or salad? Sadly, the answers to these questions elude most people, but the answer to an even greater question might be answered: ...

‘Seventy-Six Trombones’ march through Theatre Macon’s ‘Music Man’

Jim Crisp, Jr. has done it again at Theatre Macon on Cherry Street. His cast and crew bring Meredith Wilson’s classic, “The Music Man”, to life with energy and enthusiasm. I had never seen a production of “The Music Man” before the Sunday matinee on April 7, but I can say that Theatre Macon ...

Grand welcomes the Russian Ballet

I have a secret obsession with ballet. I watch a lot of documentaries and movies like “Center Stage” far too often. Because of this, I was thrilled when I heard that the Russian National Ballet was coming to The Grand Opera House with Prokofiev’s “Cinderella”. Reading the program notes, I ...

‘Sherlock’ vs. ‘Elementary’: The many sides of Holmes

Though Arthur Conan Doyle published the last Sherlock Holmes story in 1927, the legacy of Sherlock Holmes was far from over. The detective has been reincarnated more than almost any other literary character in the Western canon. As a culture, we can’t get enough of Sherlock Holmes. His name is a household ...

E.L. James’ newest work: A Parody by S.M. Stroup

E.L. James, author of the best-selling “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy, is writing a new book called “Fifty Shades of Grey: Inner Goddess (A Journal)”. The book will be a writing guide for new writers as well as an instructional guide on how to find your “inner goddess.” Though the book isn’t ...

Timberlake’s ‘20/20’ shows maturity after long hiatus

Justin Timberlake is back. For the first time since 2006 Timberlake has released a studio album, titled “The 20/20 Experience”. With this album, we see a man who is ready to leave his past behind him to venture into something new and different. Over the years, Timberlake has taken his fair share ...

Fairy tale remakes need to stop, guys

Seriously. After six consecutive critical flops, you’d think they would learn Starting with the failure that was Warner Bros.’ “Red Riding Hood” (2011), five different studios have tried their hands at remaking old fairy tales with thematically modern twists. Since then, Hollywood has produced ...

‘Oz’ not ‘Great and Powerful’, but not bad

Sam Raimi’s “Oz the Great and Powerful” follows in the footsteps of Tim Burton’s 2009 movie, “Alice in Wonderland”. Both rely heavily on CGI visuals and characters, and even share the same teams for the visuals. Each film is an original story grafted onto a preexisting work, “Oz” being ...

Zombie flick a heartwarming hit

Isaac Marion’s zombie romance novel comes alive thanks to Summit Entertainment’s adaptation, “Warm Bodies”. Jonathan Levine does a brilliant job of adapting a novel told mostly through internal dialogue into a film that is visually engaging , humorous and heartwarming, balancing the macabre ...

National Players stage Grand performance of Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’

The National Players brought an intriguing performance of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” to the Grand Opera House as part of the GrandKids Arts Education series. The National Players is a unique group for the Grand to bring in; though it is a professional theatre company that tours internationally, ...

TV shows favor Byronic heroes

Because who doesn’t love a little moral ambiguity in their protagonists? Imagine a hostile encounter between Sheriff Andy Taylor of “The Andy Griffith Show” and Deputy Rick Grimes from “The Walking Dead”. While Taylor considers why they are even battling, Grimes will have already shot Taylor ...

Oscars unsurprising, minus MacFarlane’s crude humor

The 85th Annual Academy Awards proved to be an interesting one as Family Guy writer and voice-over phenomenon Seth MacFarlane took over hosting duties. Seemingly, this was supposed to be MacFarlane’s year. With several shows on television, the release of his first feature film “Ted” and hosting ...

The Grand Presents: The Mikado

“The Mikado” remains the greatest of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Savoy Operas, so named after the Savoy Theatre where most of them premiered. Designed to satirize British society through its Japanese characters and setting, this light English opera follows a series of absurd events within the town ...