Cadenza

Reviewing the new, festival-style line-up

So just over a week before the event itself, we finally have the full roster for this year’s spring W.I.L.D.

While vibrators and sexuality may be no big deal nowadays (you can major in sexuality studies, for God’s sake), the world of Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)” is a lot more buttoned up. Thankfully, we no longer live in the tightly bound Victorian era, and the director of “Vibrator” is much more open to discussion than the drama’s characters.

British film magazine Empire is widely considered one of the best mainstream film magazines in circulation today. In 2010, writers for the magazine put together a list titled “The 100 Best Films of World Cinema,” with “world cinema” defined as including any and all non-English films. Now, I’m a film and media studies major at Wash. U.

The first time I Googled “James Blake,” soon after the release of his stellar 2010 debut EP “The Bells Sketch,” I was surprised to learn that there was also a tennis player named James Blake and that he was significantly more famous than his musical counterpart.

Two years ago, I had a bone to pick with Kurt Vile. His breakthrough album, “Smoke Ring for My Halo,” was drawing significant critical praise, but to my ears his songwriting was lazy and formless, the product of a subpar musician hiding behind layers of hazy guitar and monotone vocals.

Sometimes, it’s nice to take chances. Other times, like in the case of Brad Paisley’s eighth studio album, “Wheelhouse,” it turns out to be a disaster. For his newest album, Paisley decided to cover topics that range from domestic abuse to racism and religion.

A couple of home runs and stolen bases later, I’ve seen enough baseball for the year and in half the time of your regular Yankees-Red Sox game. The story of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball, “42” is a solid little sports movie filled with all of the usual tropes and cliches, if a little light on the sports action.

It is a dilemma as old as the town of Schenectady, N.Y., itself: do we punish failure or reward ambition? In his new movie, “The Place Beyond the Pines,” director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance aims high, forgoing many of the rules of screenwriting and Hollywood cinema.

Focus Features recently hosted a college press junket to “The Place Beyond the Pines,” and I was lucky enough to be in attendance.

Walking through Brookings Quadrangle in the past couple of weeks, you’ve probably noticed a gaggle of pre-freshmen, kids playing Frisbee and an odd little tent camped out in the Beaumont Pavilion. That tent (and the beautiful stage behind it) currently belongs to All Student Theatre and its production of “Our Town,” playing every night at 8 p.m.