A&E

Internationally renowned violist Jerzy Kosmala participated in the second Faculty Master Class last Monday as part of an inaugural series of events organized by the UC Irvine Music Department. Students performed pieces from some of classical music's greatest composers to a diverse audience of professors, students and community members.

"We are the last bastion against crappy, sound-alike radio in Orange County," says its philosophy on the KUCI website. "We are the voice of freedom for all the independent music that gets snubbed by the major labels. We are the defenders of the faith for those who choose to express a different opinion. We are corporate rock's worst nightmare. We are KUCI."

Overblown stage? Check. Melodic, atmospheric and sing-along numbers? Check. Two-hour rock spectacular? Definitely check. Coldplay in concert? Worth every painful penny.

Halfway through "Milk," we find Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) greeting campaign supporter Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch) near the steps of San Francisco City Hall. Like Harvey, Cleve too has cleaned up his stringy hair and replaced raggedy threads with business casual attire. Harvey is visibly upset. He tells Cleve that he wants him to keep his flamboyance visible regardless of the etiquette that political theater may require. To drive the point home, he frolics up the marble steps, twirling and singing on his first day as the nation's first openly gay public official.

The Killers is a fun band. Sure, there is the occasional lyric that can be interpreted as deep until the next one has you scratching your head, but this band isn't supposed to make you think. And the best part is, they're completely unapologetic about it.

Somewhere between the westerns of the 1960s and the melodramas of the 1930s lies Baz Luhrmann's original vision of "Australia." The outback native's fourth film strays far from his sling-shot angles and obsession with close-ups to give a sweeping, epic view of both the breathtaking Aussie landscape and the epic romance he created for it.

It's a risky investment to place Danny Boyle, the British auteur responsible for the visually jarring "28 Days Later," behind the helm of a Dickensian tale chronicling the rise of an impoverished Mumbai child from squalor to stardom.

There is perhaps no time in our country's history more vital than now for Richard Greenberg's "Take Me Out," the 2003 Tony Award winner for best play that encapsulates so much of America's inner psyche. Much like America, the play focuses on issues of racism, masculinity, homosexuality and religion while still making room for something as "insignificant" as baseball. The catch: Baseball isn't so insignificant.

It has been deemed one of the greatest love stories of all time, and the chemistry between the film's on-screen couple remains the stuff of legends. Its massive box office success has spawned many remakes in the years since its original 1995 release, but none could truly capture the beauty of the original film, nor the sheer size of its fan base. The film is the Indian "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge," loosely translated as "Those of Heart Will Take the Bride," the mid-1990s blockbuster which, 13 years later, is the longest-running film in Indian cinema, setting the record in April 2007 when it celebrated a whopping 600 weeks of continuous play in Mumbai theaters while continuing to provoke massive outbreaks of swooning among generations of South Asian women. In fact, rumor has it that there is still a theater in India that plays the film every week to a packed house.

Nestled near Cyber-A Café in the revamped corners of the UC Irvine Art Department, the University Art Gallery has been the venue for some of the most intriguing art exhibits. From studio art seniors exhibiting their collegiate work to guest artists utilizing a multitude of media platforms, the installations have always been insightful and thought-provoking. "Freudemocracy: 2008-1968" is no exception; it reaches a vast arena of existence, spanning time and space alike. Its content renders ideas not only important to the curators of the exhibit, but also to the current social and political state.

Nickelback's "Dark Horse" and Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak"

While it's never an easy task to adapt a book to the screen, let alone a book as popular as "Twilight," director Catherine Hardwicke does an excellent job being true to the book's essence. "Twihard" fans and non-fans will not be disappointed by the film.