David LowThe hit movie Zombieland marks the directorial debut of Ruben Fleischer ’97 and was number one at the box office when it opened nationwide on October 2. During its opening weekend, the film sold $25 million worth of tickets in the U.S. and Canada and cost Columbia (Sony) Pictures and co-financier Relativity Media only $23.6 million to produce. It has remained in the top 10 films at the box office in the weeks that followed. The film also was notable for ending a recent trend of poor openings for movies with horror elements such as Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row. Zombieland…
Olivia Drake“Every university should have a labyrinth, for it represents our desire to unravel the essential mysteries of human existence. It is a problem to be solved, a question to be answered, a paradox to be considered. Each labyrinth has a center and, as a diagram of learning, its tangled patterns lead us to that hidden core. Even as the pursuit of knowledge follows many diverging paths there is also a basic symmetry to these designs, a unified whole that pleases the eye and piques the mind.” - Stephen Alter '77 This month, the Wesleyan community can leave the stress behind…
Thomas Kail ’99 is the director of a new play, Broke-ology, by Nathan Louis Jackson, which opened on Oct. 5 at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City. This touching and often humorous play concerns two African-American brothers who care for their ailing widowed father in Kansas City, Kansas, as they face their own responsibilities. Kail elicits first-rate performances from the four-person cast, which includes Wendell Pierce (The Wire), Crystal A. Dickinson, Francois Battiste, and Alano Miller. The play opened to several positive reviews. In his review in The New York Times, Charles Isherwood wrote: …
Documentary filmmaker James Longley ’94 has been awarded the prestigious $500,000 MacArthur grant, along with 23 other recipients. Longley’s low-budget, self-financed films are intimate portraits of people in politically volatile countries in the Middle East. While working on his documentaries, Longley lived among ordinary families and gained access to individuals living in places rarely recorded by Western filmmakers. Two of Longley’s works, Iraq in Fragments (2006) and Sari’s Mother (2006), were nominated for Academy Awards. Iraq in Fragments chronicles life in war-ravaged Iraq through the eyes of an abandoned young boy on the streets of Baghdad, the collective energy and…
Several Wesleyan alumni-related films were part of the recent program on view at the Toronto International Film Festival, which was held Sept. 10–19. The festival has become the launching ground for films from around the world as well as for films that go on to win prominent awards. Among the films shown were Youth in Revolt, directed by Miguel Arteta ’89 (Chuck & Buck, The Good Girl), a very funny comedy based on the cult novels by C. D. Payne about the misadventures of a sex-obsessed 14-year-old Nick Twisp with a French alter-ego who inspires him to misbehave. Michael Cera…
Matthew Weiner ’87, the creator of the TV series "Mad Men" won two Emmy awards at The Emmy Awards ceremony Sept. 20. Weiner won for best drama and writing. According to a Sept. 21 New York Times article, Weiner attributed the success of his show to the lack of interference from the businessmen who finance it. (AMC, a cable channel, only recently began scheduling original series.) “I may be the only person in this room who has complete creative freedom,” he said in accepting the award.
Bill HolderDavid Montero ’98 has been nominated for an Emmy for "Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story in a News Magazine." The nomination recognizes his Frontline documentary titled "Pakistan: State of Emergency," which explores the volatile Swat Valley. At the foot of the Himalayas in the border area with Afghanistan, the Swat Valley is an impoverished area that has provided a fertile ground for conflict between Taliban forces and Pakistani troops. In a Frontline interview, Montero said, “I first went to Swat in May 2007. Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric in the valley, had begun to become a problem for…
Lin-Manuel Miranda ’02 was featured prominently on the two-hour season premiere of the highly popular medical series House, which aired on September 21, 2009 on Fox. On this episode, Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie, checks himself into the Mayfield Psychiatric Institute, to recover from a Vicodin addiction and other bad behavior. The well-written premiere introduces several intriguing new characters who viewers are likely to see again this television season. Miranda plays Laurie’s roommate, Alvie, and becomes his co-conspirator at the hospital. Near the end of the show, Alvie and House perform a rap number together. Miranda is scheduled…
Lisa Drennan ’09 signed a professional volleyball contract in Europe and will play for a team in Brondby, Denmark for the 2009 season. Drennan closed out her Wesleyan volleyball career in 2008 with her second NESCAC Player of the Year honor as well as second-team AVCA Division III All-America laurels. Also named a second-team CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-American in 2008, Drennan ranked among the top five players in Division III for average kills per set for three straight seasons (2006, 2007 and 2008) while leading the NESCAC each of those years as well. She ended her Wesleyan career ranked…
Dr. Geoffrey Ginsburg ’78 of Duke University and his colleagues have developed an experimental genetic test that can detect common infections before people know they are sick, according to an article in USA Today. The test can distinguish between bacterial and viral illnesses, which may help physicians determine when they first see a patient whether giving antibiotics to a person will be helpful. Unlike existing diagnostic tests, which typically detect either the germ itself or antibodies, the new approach detects the activation of genes that govern an immune response. It requires no more than a finger-prick of blood. USA Today…
Sadia Shepard ’97 is one of the producers of the new documentary The September Issue, directed by R. J. Cutler, which opened in movie theaters on August 28 to positive reviews. The movie focuses on the world of Anna Wintour, editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, and her influence on the fashion industry. Wintour was also the inspiration for the novel and movie The Devil Wears Prada. In his review of the film in Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman writes: “… we observe the process by which Wintour and her vast army of editors, designers, photographers, models, and gofers labor, throughout the summer…