Browsing: Arts and Entertainment

Baylor students who wander around town looking for a great bite but find the same old options can finally have a say in their dinner.

You may have seen their advertisements on your Facebook sidebars, “Something exciting is coming to Waco!” The website, www.1401Speight.com, is letting Wacoans choose the cuisine of their upcoming Waco restaurant, via voting on their website.

The website, started by Baylor graduates Vincent and Chelsea Harris, gives four options: gourmet tacos, upscale franks or sausages, a burger bar or “other,” where you can write in your own vote.

Baylor has a rich musical scene, and it’s about to get even richer with the third annual JaZZ and StanZaZ show tonight.

The show, hosted by the Zeta Phi Beta sorority and Diverse Verses Poetry group, will be held from 6:20 to 9 p.m. in the Bill Daniel Student Center Den.

Performances will include song and spoken word poetry selections by Baylor students from a variety of backgrounds.

Movies about the mentally ill tend to render them in cute, charming strokes — with only the occasional blast of ugly to remind us, “Oh yeah, this gorgeous, lovelorn soul is still crazy.”

And “Silver Linings Playbook” has a hint of that. You cast Bradley Cooper as a mentally ill man who probably got out of the psychiatric ward a bit too early, and Jennifer Lawrence as a young cop’s widow who isn’t really coping with that fact, and the Hollywood ending is written all over it.

A 2,500 year old Eurepides classic is getting a steampunk makeover in the Baylor Theatre’s production of “Hecuba,” showing nightly until the weekend.

The show itself was truly a work of art. From the beginning to the end, the actors and actresses, including Michael Griffin as Polydorus and Nellsyn Hill as Hecuba, helped bring the performance to life through pure emotion.

Though the story contains historical elements, Waco graduate student and director Christopher Peck says the play speaks for itself.

Today’s Baylor Symphony Orchestra concert will shine the spotlight on one of the School of Music’s outstanding student musicians.

Ricardo Hamaury Gómez, winner of the 2012 Baylor Concerto Competition, will perform Hungarian composer Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 today at 7:30 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building.

Uproar Concert Promotions, an organization that is branching off of student-run record company Uproar Records, is launching its first show this week.

The Rocket Summer, a one-man band started by Bryce Avary, will perform in Waco Hall this Thursday, with both David Dulcie and Layne Lynch opening. Lynch shares an interesting connection with Avary.

President George H.W. Bush had a problem so important he sent a memo to White House staff asking them to take a pledge. His dog, Ranger, was packing on the pounds.

“WE AGREE NOT TO FEED RANGER. WE WILL NOT GIVE HIM BISCUITS. WE WILL NOT GIVE HIM FOOD OF ANY KIND,” the pledge read.

It’s been five years since Kristen Stewart was plucked from supporting player/indie-film obscurity and thrust into the spotlight as the female face of the “Twilight” franchise. Five years and five films will have passed, as Stewart grew from someone the New York Times labeled “a sylph with a watchful, sometimes wary gaze” into the 22-year-old named by Forbes as “the highest-paid actress in Hollywood” — earning some $34.5 million, according to estimates.

Contestants of the 12th annual Miss Phi Iota Alpha scholarship pageant will showcase brains and beauty at 7 p.m. this Saturday in Waco Hall.

Pageant vice president David Luna says that they try to make every year better than the last, with more contestants and more money.

Located on a street once ravaged by prostitutes and drugs in a low-income, low-education area, Mission Waco’s Jubilee Theater and World Cup Café offer a ray of hope to a neighborhood that most people often avoid.

Country singer Sammy Kershaw is thankful to be alive after his tour bus was struck by another vehicle.
It happened Friday in Nocona, Texas. The impact caused major damage to the bus, and the car was totaled.

Sure, Carrie Underwood might have lost out to brassy spitfire Miranda Lambert at the 46th Country Music Association Awards in Nashville last week. But the host – who pulled off the duty for a fifth time with fellow country star Brad Paisley – is reveling in all the attention the genre is currently getting.

The Waco Symphony Orchestra’s “A Salute to Sgt. Pepper!” concert on Thursday night is sure to be nostalgic for some and perhaps novel for others.

The concert will commemorate the 45th anniversary of The Beatles’ eighth studio album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was released on June 1, 1967.

Rolling Stone magazine ranks the album No. 1 on its “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list, saying, “‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ is the most important rock and roll album ever made…by the greatest rock and roll group of all time.”

Rock band No Doubt quickly found itself in hot water after releasing a new video last week for the song “Looking Hot,” which featured an Old West theme and singer Gwen Stefani in Native American-style clothing and taking part in native rituals.

At 5 p.m. today the bells in the belfry of Pat Neff Hall will knell as part of the homecoming festivities.

Lynnette Geary, resident carillonneur (pronounced CARE-uh-lahn-oo-er), and one of her students, junior from Spring, Texas, Jonathan Castillo, will perform the annual homecoming carillon recital.

Geary said she’s lost track of how many years she’s been performing this recital now, but she’d guess at least 16.

Pianist Helge Antoni, an Exclusive Steinway Artist from Malmö, Sweden, will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10 in Roxy Grove Auditorium.

The recital, Inspiración Latina, will feature the music of composers Scarlatti, Albeniz, Turina, de Falla, Villa-Lobos, Ginastera and Piazzolla.

IT’S ADVENTURE TIME.

The Emmy-nominated series featured on Cartoon Network is returning for a fifth season after its shocking cliffhanger season finale, which aired Oct. 22.

But why would college students enjoy this supposed kids show?

The answer lies within the show’s context.

The student-organized ensemble Renew Music Group will offer audience members a different experience not typically heard in the School of Music at its upcoming concert.

“This sort of thing hasn’t really happened at Baylor in a long time,” said Mark Utley, Fredricksberg senior and percussionist in the group.

The concert will take place at 10 p.m. Nov. 6 in Jones Concert Hall in the Glennis McCrary Music Building.

If you’re like the rest of the world, music is part of your daily routine.

You crank it at the gym. You blare it in the car. You hum along to it while boiling pasta for dinner.

You can’t imagine life without music. But are you hearing it?

Bond Girls are known for being symbols of beauty, class and style, so it’s no surprise that actress Berenice Marlohe has taken on the role. She plays Severine in the upcoming 23rd James Bond film, “Skyfall,” slated for release Nov. 9.

You find yourself in a dark forest, with only a flashlight and a cheap camera to chronicle your experience. You begin walking through the forest, the only noise being the gravelly sounds of your footsteps as you venture deeper and deeper into darkness.

Approaching a makeshift tunnel, you notice something that shouldn’t be there. A white piece of scratch paper taped to the inside wall. Picking it up you can see what it says with help from the flashlight.

“DON’T LOOK… OR IT TAKES YOU.”

Coming from a place of pain and brokenness may be enough to cripple the average person, but Christian singer and songwriter Kyle Sherman has responded to difficult times in life by calling out to God through his music.

Sherman’s debut studio album, “Hear Me,” was released Oct. 7.

A decade after George Lucas said “Star Wars” was finished on the big screen, a new trilogy is destined for theaters as The Walt Disney Co. announced Tuesday that it was buying Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4.05 billion.

The seventh movie, with a working title of “Episode 7,” is set for release in 2015. Episodes 8 and 9 will follow. The new trilogy will carry the story of Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and Princess Leia beyond “Return of the Jedi,” the third film released and the sixth in the saga. After that, Disney plans a new “Star Wars” movie every two or three years. Lucas will serve as creative consultant in the new movies.

The full-band stylings of Lomelda echoed through the auditorium of University Baptist Church on Friday, with front-woman Hannah Read delivering a solid performance, according to those in attendance.

Lomelda, which started as a solo project by Read, has expanded to a huge local following over the past five years. Their music, which could be called a mellow, harmonic sound, had the audience in awe at the CD release show.

“I thought it was a really cool experience to have such an intimate show with all the instruments put together,” said Corpus Christi freshman Jeaneva Alvarez, who attended the show.

Wednesday’s annual Halloween organ concert will be a different way to spend the holiday and is likely to change some people’s perceptions of the instrument.

“When people think of organ they think of two things: They think of church music and they think of scary spooky,” said Isabelle Demers, assistant professor of organ at Baylor.

Demers, who has only taught at Baylor since the beginning of the year, said she thinks the spooky organ sounds people are used to hearing, such as in film scores, are often synthesized and usually don’t do the real thing justice. She said the organ should be experienced in a hall.

It’s funny how the beloved movies of one’s less politically correct youth turn out to have a lot more edge to them once you show them to your own kids. “Back to the Future” has more sexuality than you remember, and little blasts of profanity. “Adventures in Babysitting,” “Bad News Bears” and “Goonies,” even more.

Housed in a shabby little building at 1815 N. 18th St., Kitok is one of Waco’s more unconventional restaurant options. The mixture of American and Korean cuisine has earned quite the reputation among Wacoans who can look past the first impression.

“The Walking Dead.” “American Horror Story.” “True Blood.”

TV dares to scare us every day now. Who needs Halloween?

Taylor Swift’s fourth studio effort, “Red,” makes a statement as bold as its namesake color: As Swift matures into a woman, her talent is here to stay.

With an eclectic mix of radio-ready pop songs, twangy country tunes and heartbreaking ballads, Swift proves her range both lyrically and musically.

Although she teamed up with several co-writers for this album, the lyrics are still signature Swift.

As an avid horror movie fan, I was eager for the release of the newest “Paranormal Activity.”

“Paranormal Activity 4” is the latest film in the “Activity” series, and many had hyped it up to be a good one.

I excitedly waited several months in hopes of leaving Waco’s Starplex Cinema startled at every shadow and wary to hang out with any people named Toby.