Special Projects

Women's basketball takes down Tulsa, 56-53

Things were merrier in 2012 for the Rice women's basketball team than in 2013 so far. After a long Winter Break home stand, the Owls lost their first game of the new year to 37th ESPN ranked Texas A&M University team, ending a five-game winning streak. The team then opened Conference USA play with a fall to Eastern Carolina University before rebounding with a victory against a bottom-of-the pack University of Tulsa team.

Leebron visits 100 hotspots on walkabout

This semester, be on the lookout all across campus for President David Leebron. 

Men's Basketball falls to Memphis, 77-51

After a loss in the league opener last Wednesday, the Rice Owls men's basketball team traveled to Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday for its first Conference USA road game of the season.

Martel selects two new pairs of RAs

Flu season reaches fever pitch in Houston

Residential college governments hold too much power on campus

Club combines religious tolerance, service

Zero Dark Thirty incites controversy

Alfred Hitchcock famously remarked that he enjoyed "playing the audience like a piano." In the first scene of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) plays all 88 keys at once. She is faced with a serious challenge: to portray the Sept. 11 attacks in an innovative manner that will shock the audience without depicting either stock news footage or recreated images of planes crashing into the Twin Towers. In the most brilliant opening scene of recent years, the screen stays black as we listen to overlapping 911 calls from the Twin Towers. These first few minutes are terrifying and set the tone for the rest of the film: the lurid manhunt for Osama bin Laden.

CelebrateART Festival exhibits student talent

Prepare yourselves, Rice University students. Sooner than you know, your hipster friends, laboratory partners, engineering roommates and those athletes you have never spoken to will be sharing their artistic talents at the second annual undergraduate-led CelebrateART Festival, Jan. 25-26. This year's festival, similar to last year's, will be held in and around the Rice Memorial Center and will showcase student works in visual arts, photography, film, music, dance, performance and fashion. The festival, sponsored in part by Rice Public Art, the Rice Student Activities President's Programming Fund and Saint Arnold Brewing Company, has expanded from one to two days in order to spread out the acts so that festival attendees will be able to experience more of the events.

The Fifth Lap

Ten thousand stories passed by Rice last Sunday morning. 

The Fifth Lap

New chef heats up North Servery

As students at Rice greet their new semester, North Servery is joining in on the fun by welcoming a new chef.

Freeman impresses in Jackson's rambling Hobbit

"Why the halfling?" In The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, the long-awaited prequel to the Lord of the Rings saga, Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen, Lord of the Rings) responds to the elf-queen's question with ageless wisdom: "I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage." 

Last Year in Entertainment

From Frank Ocean's Channel Orange to Cloud Nothings' Attack on Memory, 2012 was marked by norm-breaking albums that pushed and blurred the boundaries of their genres.

Men's basketball perseveres

The Rice men's basketball team, after fading late against the University of Texas at Austin Longhorns in a 57-41 defeat Dec. 29, traveled northeast last Saturday to play Harvard University in Rice's final game before opening its Conference USA schedule on Wednesday. But from the outset, the Owls (3-11) had no answer for their hot-shooting hosts as the Crimson (8-5) jumped out to a 43-21 halftime lead on 63 percent shooting from the field. Harvard hit as many 3-pointers in the first half as Rice had total baskets and Rice fell behind early in spite of a career-high 19 points from freshman guard Max Guercy, who was named the Conference USA Freshman of the Week for his efforts. The Owls lost 92-62, falling to 3-10 in their most lopsided defeat of the season.

Last Year in Entertainment

2012 was not a stellar year for movies. The highest-grossing film, The Avengers, was amusing but instantly forgettable. Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master), Judd Apatow (This Is 40) and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) all failed to live up to the greatness of their previous films. The once-great William Friedkin (The Exorcist) made the worst movie of the year, Killer Joe. Despite some major disappointments, several films showed why cinema is still the greatest art form.

The Owls triumph over the Falcons

For only the second time in 50 years, the Rice Owls football team has a bowl victory to celebrate. After winning five of their last six games to be eligible for the postseason, the Owls beat the Air Force Academy in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl by a final score of 33-14, providing the program an opportunity to be proud.

This Week in Entertainment

Movies:

Glasscock School gets new home

The Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies will be getting a new home in the Anderson-Clarke Center, to be built in West Lot between Rice Stadium and campus Entrance 8. Construction began Dec. 13 and will be completed approximately a year from now, according to project manager Tina Hicks.

Swishahouse hip-hop collection moves to Rice archives

Rice's archive collection recently got more swag. The Woodson Resource Center is now home to the Swishahouse Collection, which includes Paul Wall's platinum album, mix tapes, CDs, posters and more. According to Director of the Center for Engaged Research and Collaborative Learning Anthony Pinn, these materials moved into the Woodson Center over the summer and are now processed and ready for use.