The intense, brutal “Green Room” is not for everyone

The movie “Green Room” follows the Ain’t Rights, a hardcore punk band from D.C. making their way through a disappointing tour across the Pacific Northwest. After a college show falls through, Tiger (Callum Turner), Pat (Anton Yelchin), Reece (Joe Cole) and Sam (Alia Shawkat) eagerly take a gig in the backwoods of Oregon. It’s a […]

GSA members discuss Univ. failings to address diversity

A group of graduate students insisted Brandeis had failed to properly address diversity and inclusion in the graduate student population, and discussed the toxicity they felt in the environments at schools such as the Heller School and International Business School at a public forum held by the Brandeis Graduate Student Association (GSA) on April 21. […]

“Eye in the Sky” drops hard hitting bombs on audience

“Eye in the Sky,” the latest directorial effort from director/screenwriter/actor Gavin Hood, is an excellent critique of the modern war on terror that presents all the sides of a specific issue—drone strikes—while also making the filmmakers’ opinion on it clear. It skips circular logic and asks its audience their opinion on extrajudicial assassinations by the […]

Community comes together in a quiet Take Back The Night

This Monday night, a group of students, faculty and administrators gathered at the Rabb steps for Brandeis’ annual Take Back the Night (TBTN) event, during which students march through and stop at three residence quads and the Shapiro Campus Center, sharing personal stories standing in solidarity against on-campus sexual violence and assault. The event was […]

Cobalt’s “Slow Forever” is worth your time

Black metal has never been a genre I’ve been able to really mesh with. Despite my love of extreme music and metal in particular, black metal—especially the church-burning Norwegian kind—has never been my thing. For me, traditional vocals of the genre sound like someone trying to sound scary in a haunted house, and that does […]

Brandeis is under at least one Title IX investigation

Brandeis is the subject of at least one confirmed Title IX complaint investigation by the Department of Education, with another unconfirmed at the moment by the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE) news website. According to the Brandeis University section of the CHE’s database on Title IX investigations, “[the] Education Department said it had opened two […]

Reflecting on four years as a student journalist

My time at Brandeis, including my near four years serving at The Brandeis Hoot, is coming to an end. A lot has happened over the course of this, but very few events have meant more than my time at this newspaper. From my humble beginnings as an inconsistent arts writer, to both news and arts, […]

Ed Callahan responds to incidents on South Street

Members of both the Brandeis University and Waltham police departments are working together in close proximity to address the recent series of incidents on South Street, Brandeis Head of Public Safety Ed Callahan confirmed in an email to The Brandeis Hoot this Thursday. “It is our protocol for Brandeis and Waltham police to work very […]

Deadpool delivers high action sequences, sex jokes, and juvenile gore

Tonally, “Deadpool” is very similar to two movies I do not like at all: 2010’s “Kick-Ass” and last year’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” Both of those movies are ultra-violent and in your face with immature humor, bright colors and general wildness. But they are also very mean-spirited, almost begging for attention with their antics and […]

Savages’ new album ‘Adore Life’ delivers unapologetic lyrics

Savages’ sophomore album “Adore Life” is a great album to have around because it does not fall victim to the second-album-slump that sometimes affects bands whose debuts were highly acclaimed. For example, Jack White’s first solo album “Blunderbuss” was an interesting and fun garage rock album and expansion of White’s style, while his second record […]

Lycus’ ‘Chasms’ is the perfect addition to doom metal

“Chasms,” the sophomore album from Oakland, CA’s Lycus and their Relapse Records debut, opens with a chaos both jarring and appropriate at the same time. “Solar Chamber,” one of only four songs on the album (though they are all 10-plus minutes long), starts with an explosive guitar chord, accompanied by pounding drums and layers of […]

Brandeis welcomes Ronald Liebowitz as ninth president

Ronald D. Liebowitz, former president of Middlebury College, will become the ninth president of Brandeis University, succeeding Fred Lawrence, who left at the end of the last academic year. Liebowitz will take over from Interim President Lisa Lynch on July 1. Before coming to Brandeis, Liebowitz served as Middlebury College’s president from 2004 to 2015, […]

Seminal rapper speaks on “Art, Race, Activism”

Renowned rapper, record producer, activist and teacher KRS-One addressed Brandeis students this Wednesday in Rappaporte Treasure Hall as part of the “Arts, Race, Activism” integrated arts project. The lectures are funded by the Brandeis Arts Council and organized by the African and Afro-American Studies Department (AAAS), the Fine Arts Department (FA) and the Rose Art […]

Students unite against racism in march

Almost 200 Brandeis students, faculty and others marched in solidarity against violent and racist threats against African American student activists at the University of Missouri this Thursday, Nov. 12 also demanding more action from Brandeis administrators to address and condemn anti-black systems and incidents. The protest was organized in under 24 hours by undergraduate and […]

Schusterman reflects on 20th aniv. of Rabin assassination

The Schusterman Center for Israel Studies held a discussion and panel reflecting on the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin this Wednesday, Nov. 4, the 20th anniversary of the assassination itself. Rabin was killed on Nov. 5, 1995. Before being killed by Israeli right-wing extremist Yigal Amir, Rabin focused his tenure on making peace […]

BCJ holds first divestment march of the year

Brandeis community members marched into the Shapiro Campus Center (SCC) demanding the university divest its endowment from fossil fuels this Tuesday, Oct. 27, an event that ended with Brandeis Interim President Lisa Lynch joining the activists to promise more substantive action on the issue of the environment. Lynch had just had a meeting of Brandeis’ […]

Cult Leader make tradition impressive on debut album

Salt Lake City’s Cult Leader is a band born of death and hatred. To be specific, the death of Utah metal/grindcore band Gaza and the hatred between band members that led the band to fire vocalist Jon Parkin. After Parkin was accused of sexual assault 2013, Gaza started facing cancelled shows and calls to boycott […]

‘The Martian’ fails to compel despite visual beauty

Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” is undoubtedly his best film in years, a return to form to the simple and stylish science fiction that made him famous in the seventies and eighties. Though most of the film takes place on computer-generated landscapes, they are beautiful in their composition. Drew Goddard’s screenplay brings a lot of great […]

Survey results force univ. to confront sexual misconduct on campus

Multiple high-ranking members of the Brandeis administration held a town hall in Sherman Function Hall Thursday night, Oct. 9 to discuss the results of a “campus climate survey” sent out last semester. The survey was designed to gauge the effect of sexual misconduct and assault on Brandeis students. The results, which were released Thursday morning […]

Deafheaven continue to defy labels with New Bermuda

When San Francisco kind-of-metal-but-also-kind-of-not five-piece Deafheaven released their sophomore album, 2013’s breakout “Sunbather,” it was as if they had been born just to be divisive. “Sunbather” was a wall of intensity with a whirlwind of guitars, pounding double kick drums and throat-shredding screams from singer George Clarke, with a few added dashes of My Bloody […]