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The Dartmouth
July 25, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth
Arts

Arts

Lichtman's '21 Small Paintings' presents a challenge

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Susan Lichtman's exhibit of mostly recent oils on linen, "21 Small Paintings," shows in the Hopkins Center's Upper Jewett Corridor (the hallways on either side of the Hinman mailboxes) through the middle of October. Lichtman's dark interior scenes display poorly in this less than museum-like setting (especially on field-trip days for local elementary schools), so at first they might remind one of earlier, vaguer Pierre Bonnards dragged through the mud (no offense meant -- pretty mud, I mean). Bonnard does not deserve this comparison, and in further analysis the comparison does not capture much of the sense of Lichtman's oeuvre.


Arts

'Strange' days indeed for Amos

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Ask just about anyone what they think about Tori Amos, and -- assuming they have heard of her at all -- they will express either devotion or antipathy.




Arts

DFS film series kicks off at Hop

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Everybody's feeling it -- the freshmen at college, the princes who find themselves paupers, even the girls who realize they're not in Kansas anymore. Tragic heroes such as these, thrown out of their elements and left to fend for themselves, are the focus of the Dartmouth Film Society's (DFS) fall series, "A Fish Out of Water." The series, which opened yesterday with a double feature of "Something Wild" and "Breakdown," will feature 28 movies throughout the term -- from "Memento" to the 1934 classic "Tarzan and His Mate" -- that focus on people living outside their comfort zones. "If something were to happen to you, and your regular life totally ended," said Sydney Stowe, manager of Hopkins Center Film, "would this [change] do you a favor?" Such a question provided Stowe with the inspiration for developing the series, which she planned nearly two terms ago.Film selection for each DFS series is an ongoing process.




Arts

Mullins' solo acoustics captivate Dartmouth crowd

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Three guitars, a cowboy hat and a sense of humor. Armed with these unlikely accoutrements, singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins played to an utterly enchanted audience in Spaulding Auditorium last Friday night. Widely known for the sweet-sounding melodies of "Lullaby," and "Shimmer," the RIAA platinum solo acoustic performer showed that he had much more to offer than just his popular hits. His casual manner and between-set jokes captivated the audience, making the impersonal 900-seat auditorium seem more like an intimate coffeehouse as he crooned his musical anecdotes. Sitting at a table outside Dartmouth's own Courtyard Caf before the show, the Atlanta native took some time out to tell The Dartmouth a bit about his life and career. "I never expected to have the kind of success I had with ['Lullaby']," the singer said of the piece which he feels "really got [him] on the map." According to Mullins, the fictional character to whom he offers soporific musical solace in the song was inspired by a real-life Hollywood girl who used to attend his concerts regularly. "That's how most of my songs are written," he said, taking a drag from his cigarette and explaining that his lyrics usually come from his own experiences, and are further developed through journaling.



Arts

Water puppets make a splash

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Twice in one week the BEMA has played the stage. After the in-house rendition of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" last Thursday and Friday, the Hopkins Center is currently presenting Water Puppet Theatre from Vietnam. As a performance space, the BEMA rarely seems particularly useful.





Arts

'The Score' steals the show

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Despite Robert De Niro's occasional forays into humor, such as "Meet the Parents," "Analyze This" and "We're No Angels," audiences have come to expect commanding performances when De Niro appears in tough underworld crime sagas. "The Score" is De Niro's first movie of the 21st century that delivers truly classic De Niro grit, packaged in a reasonably well-assembled movie. While "The Score" does not challenge the sheer brilliance of his command performances in "Goodfellas," "Casino" and "Heat" -- roles that eclipsed all other works of the 1990s -- his latest work plays to the sensibilities of those previous masterpieces.


Arts

Cake's taste remains unchanged

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"When we first started playing at the bar down the street it was just hipsters scratching their goatees," Cake singer John McCrea said in a 1998 interview. "We belonged to them, and then we were stolen away by the jocks." To blame for that phenomenon were such hits as "The Distance," "Never There" and the band's deadpan cover of "I Will Survive." There's no denying that Cake's music has a quality that appeals to many different types of people -- and repels an equal number.



Arts

Wainwright's CD lives up to his first

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"Everything I like's a little bit sweeter, a little bit fatter, a little bit harmful for me," Rufus Wainwright sings in "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk," the outstanding album opener from his sophomore release, "Poses." The song itself is a good example of the kind of guilty pleasures Wainwright sings about, the kind that abound on this complex but catchy neo-folk-pop record. Wainwright is the son of folk legend Loudon Wainwright III, and has therefore found himself in the unenviable position of having to prove himself musically in order to avoid the "easy ticket to fame" stigma that has dogged the likes of Sean Lennon and Jakob Dylan. But prove himself he has.


Arts

'00 artists show bare essentials

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Two Dartmouth Class of 2000 graduates -- Brad Siskin and Thomas Beale -- won the Perspectives on Design award, and as a result, their work is being exhibited in the Jaffe-Friede Gallery in the Hopkins Center until July 23. The works of Brad Siskin and Thomas Beale are not at all the same -- Siskin's comments both cynically and profoundly on what we do with our emotions,and Beale's on altered organic forms. But both are wonderful and deserve some interested eyes.


Arts

'Final Fantasy' pushes the boundaries of animation

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Video-game movies do not enjoy a proud heritage. "Super Mario Bros.," "Mortal Kombat" and the like are, inevitably, unwatchable garbage. The difficulty has been to create a film from a text that has only nominal narrative and character development -- to somehow transfer the essence of the game while removing the most crucial part, interactivity. Square Pictures' "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is a video-game movie, but that is the only similarity it bears to "Tomb Raider" and the other tripe that populates this subgenre. First, "The Spirits Within" is the first movie to be produced by the same company that made the original video games.