Author Archive

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]