Happy Monday, Berkeley!

Welcome to the end of March, the beginning of spring and the beginning of Aries season!

On Monday make a point to go see “Us,” the newest social horror film from Jordan Peele, the mastermind behind last year’s Oscar winning “Get Out.” If you need any more convincing, check out Anagha Komaragiri’s glowing review of the film that was published in The Daily Californian this weekend. The film will be playing all week at Berkeley’s United Artists 7. The 7 p.m. showings are usually the busiest, so if you are worried about it selling out, check out a screening earlier in the day or later at night!

The Canadian songstress Helena Deland is playing Tuesday at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco. Pitchfork describes the sound from her new album, From the Series of Songs ‘Altogether Unaccompanied’ as “Americana-tinged indie rock, yacht pop, folk, woozy synth balladry.” If you are in more of a pop country vibe, Maren Morris will also be performing this Tuesday in San Francisco at The Masonic. Morris is the voice behind the smash hit and Grammy-nominated track “The Middle.”

On Wednesday “Lyric Voices” will be opening at the SF Ballet. The program promises to blend music, lyrics and dance to show how the three can work together to create spectacular works. The performance will feature three choreographers and three pieces, “Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem,” “Bound To” and “…two united in a single soul…” The numbers are about everything from grandfathers to technological dependency.

This has been an exciting week for music releases and Thursday is the perfect time to catch up on all of them. Lizzo released her newest single “Tempo” featuring Missy Elliot Wednesday. And on Friday, Nilüfer Yanya, the mastermind behind my most listened to song of 2018, “Baby Luv,” released a full-length album Miss Universe. Some highlights from the overall terrific album are “Tears” and “Baby Blu.” Indie musician Andrew Bird also released a new album this past week, My Finest Work Yet, which is definitely worth a listen.

Take it easy this Friday and check out some of the most recent TV shows and movies from around the web. “Selling Sunset” is one of the newest shows rolled out by Netflix this past week. It follows the real estate agents who sell some of the most expensive houses in Los Angeles, and includes all of the cattiness and drama expected from a Bravo program, but in the clean packaging of a Netflix original. Netflix also released the newest addition to the growing number of music biopics with “The Dirt,” which focuses on glam metal band Mötley Crüe. The movie features both Pete Davidson and Machine Gun Kelly who are arguably establishing themselves as the Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks of our time.

This Saturday is my 21st birthday, so spend your Saturday with some of my absolute favorite pieces of art from my 21 years on this planet. Check out the 1979 movie “The Warriors” which is available to rent on Amazon. It is fun and a little kooky with some of the best costuming I’ve ever seen on screen. Listen to the album Side Pony from the bluesy rock group Lake Street Dive, one of my favorite bands since high school. To finish out the day, watch the first season of “Veronica Mars,” a gone-too-soon detective show from the early 2000s starring Kristen Bell. If you fall in love with it half as much as I did, fret not — there are plans to release a new season on Hulu with the original cast very soon!

But enough about me! The rest of the Daily Cal arts and entertainment department has been working as hard as ever to put out another amazing slate of arts content this week. Areyon Jolivette and Maya Kashima wrote a piece on the evolution and growing pains of transitioning the traditional “Vagina Monologues” into the new “Our Monologues” that was recently put on at UC Berkeley. Grace Orriss wrote a column about life on stage as the perpetual sidekick and also published a review of a “Twelfth Night” adaptation being put on by Generation Theatre. Malini Ramaiyer also wrote a spectacular column that feels especially poignant with graduation looming about life, obligations and the things in between.

Onward,

Kate