Grade: B

“All The Light Above It Too,” Jack Johnson’s seventh album, is pretty standard fare from the surf-rock crooner. Except for three songs, “You Can’t Control It,” “My Mind Is For Sale” and “Gather,” I would have been unable to differentiate this album from any of his past six.

That’s not to say it isn’t a worthwhile listen. Jack Johnson maintains his ability to share his relaxed mood with his audience. The issue is that every song has that mellow attitude that he’s known for, resulting in a lack of excitement.

“You Can’t Control It” is a heavily rhythmic, multi-instrumental tune. The lyrics reassure the listener of the insignificance of human life. The chorus goes, “Understand one thing/if and when you drink from this vast ocean/you can’t control it.” While it’s a somewhat desolate message, in context with the rest of the song, it’s comforting. The bad things in life don’t have a great bearing on life.

“My Mind Is For Sale” is a bubbly but frustrated rant against Donald Trump and American Republicans. For the chorus, Johnson sings, “I don’t care for your paranoid/us against them walls/I don’t care for your careless/Me first gimme gimme appetite at all.”

The juxtaposition of the upbeat melody with Johnson’s angry message to the president has a similar effect as “You Can’t Control It.” I could hear and appreciate Johnson’s concerns but felt reassured that things are alright, overall. It’s not a song of outrage, but of knowing that we, as a country, are better than our president.

Johnson warns us about becoming too invested in our own culture of commercialism in “Gather.” In one of the verses, he sings, “And who’s gonna tend the garden/If the rain forgets to fall/And who’s gonna spend as much as they can on baby Jesus at the mall?” This is his call to stop wasting our time being consumers and appreciate a simpler way of living.

The rest of the album doesn’t stick out as anything new. There is another love song to his wife, “Love Song #16.” It’s a sweet one but there is nothing original about the lyrics or melody. “Big Sur” is just an appreciation of nature. I admit it’s necessary for a lot of people, but coming from Johnson it felt like a repeat of his past songs.

There aren’t any songs I didn’t like, and several that I was very impressed with, but at its core, “All The Light Above It Too” isn’t different enough to be noteworthy.

On Thursday, Sept. 21, the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions hosted its 11th annual lecture on sustainability. The keynote speaker was Thomas Dietz, a professor of Sociology and Environmental Science and Policy at Michigan State University. The title of the talk was “Facts versus Values: How can we make better decisions?”

Dietz began the discussion with a quote from Andre Gide. “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

The main focus of Dietz’s lecture was the concern that humans are hurtling toward a reckoning with the changing climate and quickly evolving technology.

Dietz emphasized that the climate-related problems we’re dealing with now are about to become much more serious. He reminded the audience of the gravity of our situation, pointing out that the current species extinction rate is 1,000 times higher than usual and the ocean is more acidic than it has been for millions of years.

Dietz’s worry is that our society has turned climate change into a political issue and

Americans are more divided than they have been in decades. He cited a Pew Research Center study showing that members of the United States House and Senate have been crossing party lines less frequently every year.

The other primary focus of the lecture was that humans, as a society, could be caught off guard by the advancement of technology, especially artificial intelligence. Dietz argued that humans have the ability to think through problems using values instead of facts, but robots operate purely on logic and statistics.

Humans in less skilled jobs are very likely to be replaced by robots in the future. These sectors make up a large section of the job market, including professions in manufacturing, marketing and accounting. With this on the horizon for our capitalist society, Dietz questioned if Americans will find themselves welcoming a 10-hour work week or struggling with an unemployment rate near 75 percent.

The overarching theme of the lecture was that the scientific community is not trusted enough. Dietz said, “For four decades, about 40 percent of the public expressed ‘a great deal of confidence’ in science.”

He expressed frustration toward the public’s tendency to listen to politicians before scientists. He was eager to praise organizations like the University of Maine Mitchell Center for acting as the bridge between science and the public.

Dietz also offered his own solutions to the divide between the scientific community and the American public. He urged reducing the influence of money on politics, fighting gerrymandering and supporting politicians with close ties to science.

After Dietz’s keynote address, Brady Davis, UMaine 2017 graduate, introduced former U.S. Senator George Mitchell. Davis, a recipient of the Mitchell Scholarship, expressed his gratitude to the senator. The Mitchell Institute has given financial assistance to over 2,500 Maine students.

Mitchell used his time to warn the audience that Maine will be one of the areas most affected by the changing climate. According to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, since 2004, the Gulf of Maine has warmed faster than almost anywhere else on the planet.

“The threat is not distant for the people of Maine. It is here, it is now,” Mitchell said.

Grade: C

Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, and Mark Strong return for the second outrageous installment of the “Kingsman” series. In “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” the dapper spy organization finds itself all but destroyed by a global drug empire called the Golden Circle, led by Poppy Adams (Julianne Moore).

Eggsy (Egerton), Harry (Firth) and Merlin (Strong) discover the Kingsman’s American Counterpart, the Statesman. The American organization consists of Agents Tequila (Channing Tatum), Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), Ginger (Halle Berry) and Champagne (Jeff Bridges).

Matthew Vaughn relies on many of the same techniques as in “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” The fight scenes are stunning, and the audience is left grinning at the completely over-the-top, but flawless choreography.

As fun as it is, Vaughn lets the action overpower the emotional story that made “The Secret Service” so enjoyable. The first movie follows Eggsy’s Cinderella story as he competes to become the next Kingsman agent. The audience is able to get attached to him, becoming invested in his character.

“The Golden Circle” lacks any kind of emotional story arc. Harry is revealed to have miraculously survived the gunshot wound to the head from the last movie, negating any sense of shock as half of the key characters from “The Secret Service” are killed off.

On the same note, Harry’s rise from the dead was revealed in the first trailer, undercutting what should have been a fantastic reveal. The audience is left unenthused by Firth’s entrance and the rest of his role, which is far less enthralling than before.

Vaughn’s only explicit attempt at an emotional appeal is Eggsy’s tumultuous relationship with his girlfriend, Princess Tilde (Hannah Alström). “The Golden Circle” departs from the spy movie archetype of the womanizing agent finding a new sexual object in each installment, with Eggsy trying for an exclusive relationship with the Swedish princess. The appeal falls flat however, owing to Alstrom’s unimpressive performance and Egerton’s mostly stone-faced acting.

The American counterpart of Kingsman had great potential which was mostly wasted by a lack of real character development from any of the members. Tatum, as Agent Tequila, was expected to have a large role, but it was cut to just a few scenes when he was poisoned and put out of commission for most of the film. Pascal seems to have been shoved into Tatum’s role, and while entertaining, he lacked the charisma that Tatum brings to every project. Bridges’ role as the head of Statesman was the biggest disappointment. His character never leaves one room for the entire movie.

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is an Americanized magnification of the prequel. It’s fun, but lacks the charm that made “The Secret Service” so enjoyable.

Grade: A

“Wind River” is Taylor Sheridan’s third film writing project, following “Sicario” (2015) and “Hell or High Water” (2016). “Wind River” follows the same brutalist formula of his other two films, this one being the chilling story of a homicide on a Native American reservation in the most remote territory in Wyoming.

Sheridan tells the story of Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen), an FBI agent assigned to investigate the murder of a young Native American woman. Arriving from her post in Las Vegas, Banner is totally unprepared for the bitterness of Wyoming winter, mirroring the audience’s feeling of a deep chill from the circumstances.

Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a federal wildlife officer, working as a tracker and hunter of livestock predators. He finds the body of Natalie, the murdered woman, and assists Banner in tracking the killer. Renner exemplifies the role of the hard cowboy, pulled into service by a tragedy in his past.

The dialogue throughout “Wind River” is spare but hard-hitting. Sheridan relies on gritty, often shocking crime scenes and Renner’s stony inflections to carry the mood. Although the story arc relies on the emotions relayed by the cast, they all manage to avoid overacting. A change in facial expression from anyone is rare, but the audience is never left in the dark over Bannon’s and Lambert’s reactions to the sharp twists of the film.

One pitfall of an otherwise phenomenal thriller is the distracting soundtrack. The bleak attitude held through the film would have been complemented by a less invasive score. There are several scenes when the audience is left processing a gruesome shootout only to be interrupted by the abrupt beginning of a song.

The most important theme of “Wind River” is our country’s marginalization of Native American issues. There is no full documentation of Native American women who have disappeared, as explained in the last minutes of the film. Every other demographic has thorough records of all missing persons.

Native American disappearances are often attributed to alcoholism, and law enforcement will rarely start a full investigation. “Wind River” explores this through the representation of the tribal police department. Ben (Graham Greene) is the chief of the severely understaffed police department on the reservation. When Banner asks to bring in backup, he tells her that Wind River isn’t the kind of place that gets backup. When Ben, Banner and Lambert go to the sheriff to get help investigating at a nearby oil drilling station, Banner remarks on there only being six deputies in an area the size of Rhode Island.

For a movie about Native Americans in which both protagonists are white, Sheridan deftly avoids the white knight syndrome that afflicts many similar films. Lambert is not portrayed as any better off than any of the beaten-down residents of the reservation. Sheridan sticks to the reality of what the sidelining of Native American societies looks like.

On Friday, Sept. 1, the International Student Association hosted its first weekly international student Coffee Hour of the year. The event was well attended, filling up the North Pod of the Memorial Union with languages from all over the world.

The University of Maine welcomed 134 new international students for the fall semester of 2017. According to Mireille Le Gal, international student and scholar advisor at the office of international programs, new students came from 47 different countries. The largest number of students came from China (20), Canada (15) and the United Kingdom (13).

This year’s students came to UMaine to study in a wide variety of disciplines. Elbrus Novruzlu and Elkhan Salmanov came to UMaine from Azerbaijan to get their master’s degrees in computer science.

Novruzlu and Salmanov shared that they are enjoying the university so far. They are surprised by the slow pace of Maine, and impressed with how beautiful the campus is.

“It is very silent here,” Salmanov said, “we come from a big city, so we are not used to so few people.”

Leon Cortes came from Colombia to get his master’s degree in civil engineering.

“It’s cold here,” Cortes said, “look at me, it is the summer and I am wearing a sweatshirt.”

Wataro Saito from Japan is calling his semester here a vacation. He studies planned genetics at UMaine’s sister school, Hirosake University. Saito is taking art classes here, and he is a big fan of UMaine so far.

“It is awesome,” Saito said, “I love nature, I love quieter places. I like hiking and rock climbing.”

Iran-native Mohsen Farshad came to UMaine to attain his doctorate degree in chemistry. He shared that Maine is much less developed than he expected. He says he was surprised by how few buildings there are, compared to the reputation that the U.S. has in his home country.

Farshad is also concerned that people aren’t accepting of others’ differences here.

“When I try to talk to people about politics, they think I am a Muslim and they will be scared. Even though I am not Muslim.”

He thinks that the climate here is one of the contributors to his perception of Mainers’ cold attitude.

“For eight months a year, people walk from building to building. Maybe from a building to their car and from their car to another building. They do not talk to anyone unlike themselves.”

Farshad says that in Iran, everyone is social.

“My mother, if she doesn’t talk to another person all day, she will go crazy.”

The International Student Association hosts Coffee Hours every Friday at 4 p.m. in the North Pod of the Union. Every week, different organizations host the Coffee Hour and serve free food to both local and international visitors. For more information about the International Student Association, please visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/UMaineISA.