A recruitment ad for Google
Wedding crashers Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn team up again in Shawn Levy’s feel-good buddy flick about two underdogs with no technical skills who talk their way into a summer internship program at Google and show that spirit can overcome even the most difficult of projects. Nick (Wilson) and Billy (Vaughn) are watch salesmen who lose their jobs and face a bleak future in which their sales skills can’t translate into anything other than selling mattresses for a scumbag boss. Billy somehow lands them an interview for internships at Google, The committee decides that hiring two charismatic guys with “life experience” who humorously BS-ed their way out of actually answering the interview question represents a nod to diversity at a company where everyone else is too predictably educated.
Superman: the man, the hero — and the genre
Man of Steel is a Superman movie. I don’t mean just with regards to its subject, but as a definition of the genre. And, even though it is a good movie, the self-imposed constraints it followed to fall square within that genre make it a good-enough movie, when it could have been — or at least I was hoping it would be — a great movie. The plot of the movie suffices to keep it afloat, although I do think the city-wrecking fighting went on for too long. The special effects are well-executed, even if the shaky-camera trick may have been overused.
A poignant tale of unsettling compromises
One afternoon during last fall, I came back from class exhausted and frustrated by the never-ending amount of studying and homework waiting for me. I decided to relax and watch a movie that would require minimum mental attachment, which for some reason always helps to clear my mind. I remembered my friend telling me to watch some romantic movie from the 90s called Before Sunrise. I wasn’t very picky at that moment, so I found the movie, made some mood-elevating dinner and sat down for a session of good old leisure.
Summer sounds of Danish electronic soul
This year ought to be a milestone for Robin Hannibal. Just earlier this year, he and Mike Milosh released a spectacularly sensual album Woman under the artistic moniker Rhye, which swept the critics and the fans off of their feet. Now, only a few months later, he reunites with Coco O, the second half of his well-established musical project Quadron, to release their sophomore album Avalanche and set the ground for this summer’s music scene.
Fool me please
Now You See Me is the story of four small-caliber magicians that pop out of nowhere to form a magic troupe called “The Four Horsemen” and pull off a jaw-dropping magic trick: robbing millions of euros from the vault of a Parisian bank without ever leaving their stage in Las Vegas. The heist gets them the attention of the media, the public, and — since they promises even bigger acts in the near future — even the FBI and Interpol.
Speed and fury at its finest
They’re back! The star-studded cast of the venerable 12-year-old franchise, with its explosive combination of fast cars and furious drivers, returns to deliver another high-octane action thriller. Justin Lin is once again at the helm of the movie, continuing his stellar directing performance on the franchise. Lin was in fact instrumental in resurrecting and rebooting the series after the first few mediocre sequels.
Movie or game?
A couple weeks ago, Nintendo declared that it was going to enforce its copyright over third-party made “Let’s Play” videos, and began demanding ad revenue from the YouTube videos of gamers playing Nintendo games.
More of the same
The latest big-screen installment of the Star Trek franchise is great news for all Star Wars fans (“Wait, wait... what?” In a minute.) Although as an action movie it may appeal to a broader audience, Into Darkness is designed to delight Trekkies, the more hardcore they are the better. It is the perfect Star Trek movie, with all the familiar trimmings of the old-school classics we have come to love.
Something new, something blue
I grew up surrounded by blue and white dishes — Spode Blue Italian, Churchill Blue Willow, Chinese rice pattern teacups. They are comforting objects, objects of beauty, but not things that I often think about.
Evoking the Arab Spring through music
The MIT Wind Ensemble (MITWE) scored a coup last Friday when PBS aired the television world premiere of MIT-produced documentary Awakening: Evoking the Arab Spring Through Music. The documentary featured MITWE’s performance of Awakening, composed by MIT alumnus Jamsheid Sharifi ’83. The piece is intended to encourage listeners to contemplate the movement that swept Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and other Arab countries. MITWE director Dr. Frederick Harris commissioned the piece from Sharifi, a renowned New York-based composer, who felt personally connected to the Arab Spring because of his Middle Eastern heritage.
Exclusive Feature: Fandom at MIT
It’s difficult to separate the concept of nerdiness from MIT. The Coop sells stickers that say Nerd Pride, our mascot is the beaver (nature’s engineer), and Conan O’Brien pokes fun at MIT’s nerdiness on his Twitter. But is the Institute truly a nerdy place? The Tech surveyed the undergraduate population of MIT to settle this question. 1402 students — 31 percent of the undergraduate body — responded.
Time to pretend
30 percent of MIT students who responded to The Tech’s survey (427 people) have dressed up as a character from Harry Potter, Firefly, Star Trek, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. While many of this number are very likely casual fans who threw on a Gryffindor scarf to see the premiere of The Deathly Hallows, hidden within this statistic is a number of devoted MIT students who take costumes to the next level — cosplayers.
Iron Man Costume
One of the interesting costumes we came across was an Iron Man suit created by Brian Chan ’02, an instructor at the MIT hobby shop. “I like Iron Man because it has a good story of a self-made super hero,” he said, “Also, in the series, Tony Stark is an MIT Alum, so I think it would be a shame if none of the best Iron Man costumes came out of MIT.”
Fandom in student groups
Fandoms come in all shapes and sizes, and MIT has a smattering of several groups dedicated to different aspects of pop culture. The Tech sat with a few groups on campus to examine where fandoms fit in at the Institute. Not all groups we wished to interview were available for comment.
Fandoms, the Internet, and Harry Potter
Flourish M. Klink, a lecturer in MIT’s Comparative Media Studies (CMS) program, has built a life around fandoms. After running her own Harry Potter fansite and being on staff at Fanfiction.net, at age 13, Klink co-founded the Harry Potter fanfiction website FictionAlley with nine others. FictionAlley was “incorporated as an educational non-profit with the mission of helping people learn to write through fanfiction,” said Klink, and it was one of the first fanfiction forums on the Internet that made writing improvement a site-wide mission.
Tastes at MIT By Kali Xu Campus Life Editor
If you could meet one fictional character, who would it be?
Editor's Note
It’s difficult to separate the concept of nerdiness from MIT. The Coop sells stickers that say Nerd Pride, our mascot is the beaver (nature’s engineer), and Conan O’Brien pokes fun at MIT’s nerdiness on his Twitter.