Author: Christopher Sheridan

Film, Print, Reviews

Film Review: Endless Love

March 3, 2014

Going to the theater alone on Valentine’s Day to ironically watch Endless Love while surrounded by couples is not among the most exciting parts of my life. It’s superseded just barely by the teller asking “Just one?” when I ordered my ticket then apologizing profusely after realizing how it came across. I quickly assured him of the nature of my visit: far from wanting a wistfully romantic experience on February 14th, I was merely excited to see what someone had referred to as “a movie so hilariously bad, it’s like Airplane without the punch lines.” Sadly, this was not the case.

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: Wildbeasts – Present Tense

With the glut of electronic artists saturating the music market in recent years, it can be frustrating to find something that doesn’t sound like the rest of the crowd. Copy-paste beats, generic hooks, and unimaginative samples can make the electronic landscape boring at best and grating at worst. Artists such as CHVRCHES and Cut Copy have helped break that monotony. The newest release from UK-based Wild Beasts, Present Tense, is another; and it lies far enough on the right end of the spectrum to hang with the big boys of electronica—if they’re not part of that group already. Present Tense makes a strong case for assured membership.

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: Mogwai – Rave Tapes

February 17, 2014

Mogwai has been churning out albums at an incredible rate. Though their official albums number less, the band has been releasing music every year since 2010 and almost as consistently before that. This has not diluted the quality of their output in any way; the darlings of what has been dubbed “Sub Pop” at some times and “Post Rock” at others continue to pump out quality releases one after the other, albeit with little variation. At last, Mogwai decides to reinvent a bit, and the results are easy on the ears as always.

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Music, Print, Reviews

Album Review: Alcest – Shelter

Shoegaze is an odd musical genre, with the difference between transcendent power and boring repetition resting squarely on effective execution. A secondary challenge for bands in the genre is redefinition, as the label refers to the performers literally looking down at their feet as they perform—not really the most exciting of images. Sigur Ros has thrown everything but the kitchen sink into carving their own niche, right down to using a violin bow on a guitar, while My Bloody Valentine opts for a more raw, upbeat sound.

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Film, Print, Reviews

Film Review: Her

February 15, 2014

Few things hurt quite as deeply as losing a loved one. While losing someone to a deadly disease, it might be more painful when someone you’ve loved decides that they are no longer willing or …

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Community, Print

Portals in Greeley? Ingress the Game of Cellular Domination

February 11, 2014

The genius of Ingress is its integration with Google Maps and, by extension, the real world. Any given landmark around your town or the world can be a portal. Downtown Greeley itself is packed with them—the gazebos, statues, and odd architectural bits are almost all portals in the game, all ripe for contention between the Enlightened and Resistance.

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Film, Print, Reviews

Film Review – Thor: Dark World

November 29, 2013

Another year, another installment in the huge Marvel movie universe. Far from just a series with a set of films, the Marvel movies are a multifaceted collection of stories and characters that are less a linear narrative and more a web of plot. Their interconnectedness gets more impressive with each passing film, as each installment hearkens back to past films and sets up new ones. Thor: The Dark World does a decent job of each, but the writing isn’t quite strong enough to rank among the best of Marvel.

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