How visual media holds up the portrayal of suicide
By Bryant Francis
I’ve never had a friend or a family member struggle with thoughts of suicide. Speaking with friends that watched those close to them attempt to or go through wth the act, I’m given a lot of words—painful, horrifying, tragic—but words don’t really capture the meaning [...]
Author Archive
Seeing Suicide
College Student Mistakes Cult for Fraternity
By Bryant Francis
Local police responded to a 911 call on West Street yesterday in response to reports of excessive drunkenness. The caller reported that members of the fraternity Omega Phi Beta appeared to have consumed large quantities of alcohol and were blacking out, moaning deliriously and uttering “weird, kind of freaky chants.”
Officers responding to the [...]
The Video Games Live Concert Experience
By Bryant Francis
On July 10, Video Games Live, in association with the National Symphony Orchestra, performed at Virginia’s Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, bringing the music of such composers as Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, Christopher Tin and Koji Kondo to life. These names are not the names of composers of classical music, [...]
RAW FROM THE SAW: Moon
Moon, Liberty Films UK, 2009
By Bryant Francis
This summer saw plenty of big-budget sci-fi extravaganzas. Lots of giant robots, explosions, more giant robots (it was a pretty big theme). So in all the noise and grinding of metallic limbs, it’s fairly easy to let a small, quiet film like Moon slip under the radar.
Moon, directed by [...]
Read the rest of this entry »Buzzsaw Asks Why…
Ithaca College did not properly prepare for a large incoming class
By Bryant Francis
As the fall 2009 semester began, Ithaca College found itself host to the largest incoming class of freshmen in the history of the school. All well and good, since last year’s class fell a bit short of the expected goals, but this year’s [...]
Death Panels are Taking over America!
Op Ed by Wally Wiggins
Actually by Bryant Francis
I’m proud to be an American. Every day, I wake up and hum the lyrics to that fantastic Bruce Springsteen song, turn on Fox News and chow down on a hearty bowl of Wheaties, loving this great country and its amazing leaders. But now I hate my government, [...]
U2 No Line on the Horizion
Interscope Records, 2009
By: Bryant Francis
Let’s get one thing clear right now–this is NOT The Joshua Tree. There will never be another Joshua Tree; the band itself has declared (somewhat metaphorically) that it is past The Joshua Tree.
Now, with that out of the way, let’s focus on what this album actually is. No Line on the [...]
Food Video Games
By: Bryant Francis
Technically speaking, video games have been around for almost over 40 years now, though most people will only think back to their days playing “Pac Man” as the earliest of the age.
Since then, the portrayal of food in video games has widely varied, as it really
hasn’t been necessary to have players sit down [...]
Indie-pendence: Best indie projects of 2008
By Bryant Francis
2008 was certainly a huge hit for blockbuster movies, with films like Iron Man and The Dark Knight making enough money to pay for the tuitions of the entire Ithaca student body, it’s easy to forget the many, many independent titles that were released this year. Here are a few that should go [...]
Fallout 3
Bethesda,
2008
By Bryant Francis
Welcome to the apocalypse–or, at least, the apocalypse as envisioned by Bethesda Softworks in their newest release, Fallout 3. In this latest addition to the Fallout universe, you play as a resident of one of a series of “vaults,” which were designed to keep paying citizens “safe” in the event of a nuclear [...]



