'Jesse James' epic gives elegant insight into bandit icon

Courtesy of RottenTomatoes Imagine a movie that stars Brad Pitt as the legendary outlaw Jesse James.

Radiohead sticks it to The Man, impresses fans

Courtesy of Harp Magazine "How come I end up where I started?" sings Radiohead's Thom Yorke to kick off their newest album, "In Rainbows." In many ways it is a signal of what is to come over the next ten tracks, in Radiohead's most accessible and simple album since 1995's "The Bends." On "In Rainbows," Yorke and company return to making music for the sake of music, instead of allowing experimentation or politics to rule the record. Still, despite being more lyrically accessible and in many ways more mainstream, "In Rainbows" does not ignore Radiohead's technical and stylistic expansion over the past 12 years.

Arts Ambassadors breed excitement for Hop events

Grey Cusack / The Dartmouth In the battle to maintain student involvement in the arts on campus, these guys are the special forces.

'2 Days in Paris' depicts lovers as both caustic and cuddly

Courtesy of outnow.ch "2 Days in Paris" is a romantic comedy dipped in acid.

Installations examine history, politics and island identity

Bluegrass festival preserves San Fran's free spirit

Courtesy of FunCheapSF.com SAN FRANCISO -- Though this past weekend's seventh annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, Calif., may have been more than inviting to the Bay Area's peacenik population, the music was far from half-baked.

Jazz show was wacky but melodious

Courtesy of willdoo.com Jazz should be heard and not seen.

Zac Efron: Hot Heartthob or Teenyboppin' Terror?

Courtesy of Allocine Blogs Online Editor's Note: In honor of "Hairspray" playing at the Hop and "High School Musical 2" remaining creepily high on the Billboard Hot 200 music chart for, um, seven weeks now (as well as Mr. Efron's ubiquitous presence in supermarket tabloids the world over), we here at the Dartmouth Arts section thought it necessary to weigh in on Zac Efron, in all his audience-dividing glory.

Cunningham premiere turns both silly and mesmerizing

Courtesy of the Hopkins Center The world premiere of Merce Cunningham's "XOVER" at Moore Theater Friday night began with a revolution -- at least, in relative terms. After about 45 minutes of watching dancers stretch their arms in unforgiving, solid-colored Rauschenberg encasements, their suddenly sleeveless bodysuits seemed scandalously new.

'Chance Operations' will shape Cunningham's 'XOVER'

Courtesy of Ballet Dance Magazine / The Dartmouth Staff Without even a bit of dance knowledge under my belt, I came to believe in the Merce Cunningham experience. Typical of Cunningham, rather than returning to a celebration of his past works for the seminal 50th anniversary of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, he continued on his ceaselessly inventive departure from his experience in traditional dance into a world of glorious experimentation with the most current in a string of innovative collaborators -- Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg are noteworthy past examples. Yet as complicated as his work remains, Cunningham proved that even the most inexperienced audience members could be given a chance to act as participants in the translation of his richly conceived work. To call Cunningham simply a choreographer doesn't do him justice; his work blurs the boundaries between dance, art and music, and makes a commentary on all three. In a way, it is appropriate that I was originally attracted to Cunningham's work through the music rather than any other facet. And the notion of chance is what Cunningham's work is about -- "Chance Operations," to be specific, a term that Cunningham himself branded with his lifelong collaborator and companion John Cage to serve as a formula for the Cunningham experience. Their famed method relies on the completely isolated production of all three forms of music, art, and dance in order for a natural, spontaneous explosion of creativity to occur on stage before the audience's eyes. Each night, a roll of the dice will determine which of the two compositions will go first.

'Elah' packs emotional punch into murder mystery

Courtesy of Rotten Tomatoes Years from now, when Americans shamefully survey the emotional and physical wreckage of the Iraq War, many will look back on "In the Valley of Elah" as the first film to successfully articulate our nation's anguish.