The Mount Holyoke College Art Museum will be hosting its "Changing Prospects: The View from Mount Holyoke" exhibition from Sept. 3 to Dec. 8. The exhibit focuses on depictions of the 940-foot peak. Highlighted in the exhibition is Thomas Cole's historic landscape painting, "The Oxbow," in addition to various premiers, books, lectures and tours. Museum hours, tour hours, directions and exhibit information can be obtained by calling 538-2245.
SELECT FLICKS
Cinemark at Hampshire Mall
(587-4233)
"Blood Work," the latest crime thriller from acclaimed director/actor Clint Eastwood is a surprisingly good film about an FBI agent brought out of retirement to work on a twist-laden case involving his own blood analysis. Based on the novel of the same name by Michael Connelly.
Stephen Dorff is a police detective working alongside a health examiner (Natasha McElhone) to solve a series of grisly murders in the horror flick "Feardotcom."
Dana Carvey and James Brolin star in "Master of Disguise," a heavy-handed slapstick comedy about an unassuming Italian waiter who faces a difficult problem - he constantly mimics his customers and intensely desires to change his appearance. Unbeknownst to him, he comes from a long line of 'masters of disguise,' do-gooders who can access a power called 'Energicio' to become changelings. Things quickly turn troublesome when Carvey's powers are challenged by the forces of evil, of course.
"Signs" is the latest (and best) effort from Hollywood writer/director sensation M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars Mel Gibson as a family-man with a tortured past in Bucks County, Penn. whose life is turned upside down when crop circles and other strange happenings begin to disturb his tranquil farm. Soon, the annoyances turn out to be much more sinister than anyone expects as the world prepares for a hostile, full-scale extraterrestrial invasion. Joaquin Phoenix also stars.
"Serving Sara" is a surprisingly hilarious flick starring Matthew Perry (who knew that someone from the cast of "Friends," Jennifer Aniston aside, could pull off a good movie?) and Elizabeth Hurley. Perry is a jilted process server with pipe dreams of having his own winery in Napa Valley, Hurley is the "trophy wife" that he's trying to serve for divorce. After a sidesplitting chase through Manhattan and its surrounding areas, the two decide (read: Hurley's character pays him off) to join forces in an attempt to get back at her slimy ex-husband.
Al Pacino stars as a disillusioned producer desperate for a hit in "Simone," the quirky comedy about the first believable synthetic actress-a masterfully rendered digital creature he dubs 'Simone.' When the 'actress' hits it big, seemingly overnight, Pacino is forced to deal with the growing proportions of the moral dilemmas presented by his famous fraud.
Pleasant Street Theater
(586-0935)
"The Good Girl," starring Jennifer Aniston in a role so refreshingly different from her vapid "Friends" character it's astounding, is a darkly humorous and moving film about what happens when people stop being polite and start getting really depressed and strange.
TALKS
Harvard University historian Drew Gilpin Faust will deliver a talk entitled "Missing in Action: Naming the Dead in the American Civil War" on Tues., Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m. in the Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115). Gilpin has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, published numerous books and is now the Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a professor of history at Harvard. This, the College's first annual Hawkin's lecture, is free and open to the public.
'Transcendental travel writer' Pico Iyer will lecture on "Moving Around a Moving World: Travel as Modern Reality" as part of Mount Holyoke College's "Destinations: New Meanings of Travel" series. Gamble Auditorium, Mount Holyoke. Thurs., Sept. 12, 7:30 p.m.
TUNES
Nationally acclaimed folk singer/songwriter Doria Roberts will headline Mount Holyoke College's First "Sunset Serenade" lawn concert, scheduled for Friday at 6:30 p.m. on the lawn behind Dickinson Hall at Mount Holyoke. This is a free event and is part of an ongoing series called "Something Every Friday," sponsored by the MHC Student Programs Office and the Jeannette Marks House.
STAGE
"Memory is a Body of Water," a play written and performed by Lisa Biggs '93 with co-creator Tanisha Brady Christie, will be performed in Kirby Theater on Sept. 13-14 at 8 p.m. Coming to Kirby after a highly successful and critically acclaimed run at the New York 2002 Fringe Festival, the play is based on actual events and focuses on three modern black women and an African ancestor "lost under the sea." Admission is free.