From record-breaking tours to smaller indie albums, 2023 was a year filled with great music. While chart-topping hits created a smaller impact than usual in the year’s musical landscape, many iconic and beloved artists released albums. The Thresher’s A&E writers recap ten of this year’s best album releases.
Full stop, 2023 was the best year for film since the pandemic. From “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” breaking box office records, to the deluge of awards contenders that came out in the last months of the year, there was seemingly always something playing in theaters worth watching. The Thresher’s A&E writers recap ten of this year’s best film releases.
Perhaps the biggest flaw with “The Boy and the Heron” is its title, or at least, the title presented to Western audiences. The name inspires an image of the drab, hackneyed animated parable, an image that stands opposite to the sheer visual spectacle and thematic scope found within the film.
As the spring semester gets up-and-running, many of us will reckon with the consequences of registering for 18 hours of organic chemistry, discrete mathematics or some unholy combination of tedious and unmanageable STEM. While passionate about your major, it can certainly be overwhelming to have such a dense serving, and many people will be looking for a taste breaker.
Finals season is among us, which is definitely a step up from syllabus week. Looking for places to study is overwhelming, but you can easily get in your groove once you find the ideal spot. Whether you’re looking to study alone or with a group, check out these study spots on and around campus to ensure the best finals experience.
In many ways, Rosemary Hennessy’s university education was marked by the immense social and cultural changes of the late ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.
Set 64 years before beloved heroine Katniss Everdeen entered the arena, “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” employs a young President Snow as its protagonist. As it turns out, long before he was orchestrating the Hunger Games seen in Suzanne Collins’ original trilogy, Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) was poor as dirt. Between his father’s death and the Snow family’s sudden loss of wealth, Snow, his grandmother and his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) must fend for themselves.
When I met Becky Hill at Weekend One of Austin City Limits, the first thing I noticed was her outfit. Wearing a denim mini skirt, bedazzled corset and white cowgirl boots, Hill looked right at home in Texas. Hailing from Worcestershire, England, though, Hill was a long way from her hometown.
The 15th annual Houston Cinema Arts Festival took place Nov. 9 to Nov. 19, showcasing films from diverse perspectives. Both fiction and nonfiction films from around the globe were showcased across Houston, enriching the city’s greater film community. Here are some of the best films showcased at the festival this year.
Eli Roth’s new holiday slasher “Thanksgiving” boasts a most appropriate tagline: “This year, there will be no leftovers.” And even if there were, after sitting through the movie, you probably will not have the appetite for them.
December may seem like a dreary time of year on campus, but there are plenty of events happening in Houston to lift your spirits. If you’re hoping to get your mind off your mounting pile of exams to study for and essays to write (or procrastinate on), then look no further.
When PinkPantheress released her debut mixtape “To Hell With It” in October 2021, few expected she would have a Billboard top five single in the next couple of years. After creating her first songs on GarageBand as a teenager and releasing them on SoundCloud, PinkPantheress found breakout success as a TikTok sensation. This first mixtape was a fantastic introduction to the voice of an exciting new artist, inventively combining samples, 2000s style contemporary R&B and liquid drum and bass instrumentation to create bittersweet snapshots of love and longing. Two years later, PinkPanteress is back with her first full-length album, “Heaven Knows,” that sounds more polished than ever while still including the mix of yearning and rhythmic beats she’s become known for.
At this point, the Marvel discourse has become as ubiquitous as the film series itself. Since “Avengers: Endgame” was released, clickbait articles about superhero fatigue have flooded the internet. And while this commentary is often completely hackneyed, it comes from a very legitimate place. Upon announcement, “The Marvels” felt like an obligation to longtime fans, rather than an event to look forward to.
Houston is a city bursting with creatives, many of whom are local, getting their art, crafts and food onto the scene — only if you know where to look. If you don’t, though, the Thresher has got you covered. Here’s a list of local markets for those looking to shop small or find their next eccentric buy.
Situated just outside Hanszen College is a structure that at first seems to be yet another construction site on Rice campus. As you look closer, it eventually reveals itself to be a multimedia piece of art, weaving together sight and sound. “Ash and Spirits,” created by artist Devin Kenny, is the newest installation on campus and the most recent addition to the Moody Center for the Arts’ Platform series.
In a world dictated by facts, seemingly everything can be explained by some scientific principle or research. Certain events, though, just can’t be explained, falling outside our conceptions of how the world works — which many call the paranormal. Records of unordinary events have been kept for centuries in the form of books, photographs, letters and government documents. Since 2014, the Woodson Research Center at Fondren Library has been gathering these accounts detailing the supernatural, placing them in a collection aptly named the Archives of the Impossible.
Jimmy Buffett, the legendary star behind “Margaritaville” and “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere,” passed away earlier this year. Now, his latest album, “Equal Strain on All Parts,” has been released posthumously. As a lifetime fan of Buffett — or, a ‘Parrothead’ — this album did not disappoint and likely won’t for those new to his music as well. Though currently lacking my Margaritaville Crocs, I was thoroughly happy with Buffett’s final journey.
If you’ve seen ktru or Lovett College Woodstock shirts around campus, chances are they’re made by Possum Prints, a small-scale screen-printing company founded by Keegan Pierce, a Lovett senior who “just really likes possums.” Pierce founded the business in the summer of 2022, creating shirts in his living room, and is currently working on college night shirts for Lovett and Sid Richardson College. He will also be live-printing and selling shirts at Archi Market Monday, Nov. 13.
Artist, architect, engineer, rock climber and Pub general manager — Natalie Pellette nearly does it all. A Hanszen College senior majoring in studio art and civil engineering, Pellette has immersed herself in various academics and activities at Rice, though she didn’t have a typical start here. Hailing from San Diego, she first attended Scripps College, a liberal arts school in Claremont, Calif. before transferring to Rice.
