Arts & Entertainment – Page 12

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

26Sep

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment

Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

BY: KYLE KERSEY In his review of “Inglorious Basterds”, Roger Ebert said “Tarantino films have a way of growing on you. It’s not enough to see them once.” I have now seen “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” five times in theaters, consuming more than 13 hours of my life (not counting previews and the like). And I might go see it again. Perhaps that speaks to my opinion on Tarantino’s 9th film more than anything else. The story takes place in 1969, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Rick Dalton, the former star of the fictional NBC Western “Bounty Law” (a combination of real-life western shows like “Gunsmoke” and “Have Gun-Will Travel”) who finds himself on the fringes of an ever-changing Hollywood scene. His career trajectory is not too unlike those of James Arness or Richard Boone; TV cowboys s...

A tale of two debuts: Kanye’s faith and Weezer’s anomaly

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Opinion

A tale of two debuts: Kanye’s faith and Weezer’s anomaly

By KYLE KERSEY Anderson .Paak – Ventura (Soul / R&B) Give me soul Anderson .Paak over rap Anderson .Paak every day of the week. Twice on Sunday. He’s bringing the Marvin Gaye on “Make it Better.” “What’s Going On?” era Marvin Gaye. The best Marvin Gaye. And he’s pulling off some “Brown Sugar” D’Angelo funk on “Winner’s Circle.” He even managed to lure Andre 3000 (of Outkast fame) away from his self-imposed exile to drop some bars on the relentlessly groovy opener “Come Home.” After “Oxnard,” where .Paak and producer Dr. Dre (notorious for his heavy-handed methods) diverged toward hip-hop, I was worried that his days of soulful R&B were over. His effervescent personality (and pearly white smile) were less present than before. It wasn’t as fun. This shit is jammin’. There’s not a ...

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Features

Culture Club: free passes for Pima students

By JOSH GRAY Pima Community College has partnered with Act One to provide free cultural passes to Pima students. Culture Passes are free admission tickets that you and a guest can get by going to your local Pima Library. Act One is an organization that helps provide art and cultural experience throughout Arizona schools. Act One is a non-profit organization that is privately funded. “A lot of it comes from donors and foundations, individual donors and foundations, corporations, that's the bulk of it,” said Geri Wright, CEO and president of Act One. Act One offers two main programs. Its first program is the Act One field trip, which helps Title 1 schools that can’t afford to take their students on field trips. Since the organization’s founding in 2011, Act One has provided “nearly ...

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment

The return of Media Fusion

By AMARIS ENCINAS The Digital Arts department at Pima Community College will be hosting its annual Media Fusion on May 3. Media Fusion specifically showcases three aspects: film, game design and animation. It started in 2017 and takes place at the end of each Spring semester. “It grew out of an annual showing of student films that has been going on for many years,” said Greg Loumeau, head of Pima’s digital arts program. “Dennis Landry, the former digital art department head who passed away last May, came up with the idea to expand the film event to include student animations and games.” Landry named the event, and he created the design for the posters that are used every year to promote the event. “This year’s event will be the biggest yet,” Loumeau said. “We’re going to have a li...

18Apr

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment

Dance Fusion

By COSTA B. PAPPAS Pima Community College’s dance program kicks off their spring dance fusion show on April 26 and 27. With Nolan Kubota as their director, the performance combines contemporary styles with ballet, modern jazz, and other styles. The event will be open to anyone who wishes to come for a cost of $10. Walking into the dance studio, all the dancers were hard at work. There were dancers in the corner stretching, others on the floor standing a top bottles while a group practiced acrobatic tricks. I was shocked to even find one girl sitting on a bed of nails in a mermaid costume for one of the dances. All the music for each dance varied. In one room a hip-hop song was playing while a jazz song played in another. Interviewing Yazmin Campa, 20, she explai...

A Sentient Roomba’s Guide to Music: Little Simz and Solange drop the first great albums of 2019

30Mar

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Arts & Entertainment, Opinion

A Sentient Roomba’s Guide to Music: Little Simz and Solange drop the first great albums of 2019

By KYLE KERSEY The Beat Report is a bi-weekly music report on some of my favorite new stuff music has to offer, as well as some great albums celebrating anniversaries. Little Simz – GREY Area (Hip-Hop) “I’m Jay Z on a bad day, Shakespeare on my worst days” is a bold statement for anyone to open their album with, no less an underground rapper. Boldness is a running theme on the London rapper’s third album, and Little Simz makes good on her braggadocious opener “Offence,” delivering the rare album that’s directly inspired by classics – she cites “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” and “Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City” as examples – without sacrificing its voice. On an aesthetic level, one might miss the presence of such influences. It’s hardly a West Coast gangster story album with Dr. Dre ...

A Sentient Roomba’s Guide to Music: How I learned to stop worrying and love The Roots

14Mar

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Opinion

A Sentient Roomba’s Guide to Music: How I learned to stop worrying and love The Roots

By KYLE KERSEY In case you didn’t know by now (or haven’t been paying attention, which, I mean, fair enough), The Beat Report is a bi-weekly music report on some of my favorite new stuff music has to offer. It will also will feature retrospectives on great albums celebrating anniversaries this year. No genre is off limits. Everything written about is recommended and encouraged. And if you don’t know, now you know. Something New: Ariana Grande – “Thank U, Next” (Pop) Let’s talk about the chart-topping elephant in the room: It’s similar to last year’s “Sweetner,”, an incredibly clean pop album that checks all the boxes: it’s catchy, it’s energetic, it’s … catchy. Oh, and it’s vulnerable. Very vulnerable. “Ghostin’” stands alone as the zenith of vulnerable pop, a ballad that runs over a ...

14Mar

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment

Vagina Monologues

By MONTY GANTTSpring2019VaginaMonologuesV1 On March 28th at the Proscenium Theater at 7 PM, Pima Community College students, staff and alumni will come together to put on a performance of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.” Upon first glance at the title of the show, it may seem like an open discussion forum of anatomy for women. But despite its shock and awe title, this show is far from that. “The show is based on a series of interviews that Ensler conducted with various women of all races, ages and ethnicities,” said Jennifer Wellborn, West Campus Student Life coordinator. The interviews Ensler conducted were then transcribed into different segments based on the respective experiences from the lives of the interviewed women. Since then, many arts programs have adapted “The Vagin...

The sound of the woodwinds comes to Pima

28Feb

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Arts & Entertainment

The sound of the woodwinds comes to Pima

By KYLE KERSEY Mark Nelson isn’t just the acting dean of Arts at Pima Community College, he’s also an accomplished tuba player, teacher, band director and musical historian. Nelson’s office, located near the entrance of the Center for the Arts building at West Campus, is adorned with stacks of CDs, old recording equipment and assorted instrument artifacts. On his wall, posters hang from every musical for which Nelson has conducted live music with a group of student performers. It’s a tradition that will continue this year, when Nelson conducts a student group for the theater production of “Mamma Mia!” which runs from Feb. 21 to March 3. Five days later, Nelson will be conducting the PCC Wind Ensemble. The ensemble includes an assortment of flute, oboe, piccolo, saxophone, trumpet, Fre...

Five great albums snubbed at the Grammys

28Feb

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Opinion

Five great albums snubbed at the Grammys

By KYLE KERSEY February’s no fun. Football season is over. Arizona has yet to reach peak surfing weather. There isn’t much new music. Oh, and the Grammys happened. That’s bad, too. 1. Pusha T – “Daytona” (Hip-hop) Boomers will deride it as everything that’s wrong with hip-hop culture. I’ll praise it as a pugnacious poem to sinning that’s no different than the excess of ’80s hair metal except it’s actually good. Pusha’s latest record isn’t going to blow anyone away with an ambitious concept or deep themes. It’s as straightforward as it gets. “Hello,” he says. “My name is Pusha T. I deal drugs and hate Drake. Here’s some songs about me dealing drugs and hating Drake.” Simple, yet effective. Kanye provides some of his grittiest production to date to back the pugnacious Pusha T. It’...