by Drew Graves | Mar 8, 2022 | Arts and Entertainment, News Slider, Opinion
“The Batman” has finally been released to overall positive but also some mixed reviews. I’ve heard this film heralded as the legendary superhero’s best film adaptation yet – and others saying that it didn’t hold a candle to Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. As a longtime fan of Batman and the universe presented in the comics, I thought the movie looked promising from the first trailer. First things first, this movie differentiates itself from previous Batman films in one key way: a heavy emphasis on the “detective element” of Batman’s character. The movie almost felt more like a crime/psychological thriller than a superhero flick. This was a welcome change for comic fans, such as myself, who have always known Batman to be a detective, but this change was understandably quite disorienting for a lot of Batman fans who were introduced to the hero through the “Dark Knight” trilogy. Another big difference I noticed in this version of “The Batman” was that Gotham felt more developed as a setting. In the other films, I was a bit disappointed in how the city was essentially just a backdrop for the action. Gotham has always been a huge part of what I love about Batman – and this movie absolutely did the city justice. The cinematography was amazing throughout the film. There were a lot of gloomy, rainy scenes but I feel it certainly fit the darker atmosphere Matt Reeves was going for. Another polarizing element of the film is its extremely long runtime at almost three hours. I personally know quite a few people that aren’t able to sit through movies...
by Drew Graves | Feb 18, 2022 | News
Since the pandemic began in early 2020, masks have been commonplace. Though they’ve come and gone, the imagery of masks have been in the back of our minds since the first signs of the pandemic. Masks have been a part of Lipscomb students’ lives for nearly two years at this point in time, and it’s fair to say that we all want this to end very soon. In the span of a week, the amount of people wearing masks in Allen Arena for the Gathering as well as in my classes decreased substantially. The reason for this, of course, was February 8 marking the end of the indoor mask mandate on campus. Though it remains highly recommended that one wears a mask indoors, it is no longer enforced, and because of this a large number of students and professors have stopped wearing masks during class. Even prior to February 8 when the mask mandate was still intact – there was a decently sized number of individuals who didn’t wear masks indoors. After observing the general population on campus and mentally taking notes on how many students and faculty members wore masks for a brief period of time after the mandate officially ended, a conclusion was reached. The ratio of mask wearing students and students without masks for one day of regular classes was found to show that roughly eight percent of the students encountered that day were wearing masks after the mandate had been lifted. In speaking with some Lipscomb students enjoying dinner together at the honors house, some interesting student opinions on the subject were gathered. “…When it...
