Photos taken by Harper Vincent.

Living in the midwest requires an arsenal of clothing for different weather conditions. In one season, you may be wearing shorts one day and a puffer jacket the next. Some can find maintaining a good selection difficult when dorm closet space is so limited. Thrifting is a great, eco-friendly way to frequently update your wardrobe and donate unwanted pieces in the same trip.

For your convenience, I have ranked all of the thrift stores within three miles of William Jewell College’s campus. I ranked on a five-star scale using four criteria: selection, affordability, organization and the integrity of the business itself.

4. Goodwill

Selection: 3/5

Affordability: 4/5

Organization: 3/5

Integrity: 2/5

Yes, we have a Goodwill here – it’s located around two miles northwest of Jewell’s campus. However, I do not recommend taking the trip to visit this particular Goodwill. For such a large building, its selection is quite small. It still has the low prices characteristic of Goodwill, but those prices come at the cost of contributing to a company with a shady past that includes paying disabled workers less than minimum wage. As well, Goodwill stores throw away a significant amount of their donations. However, apparently some Goodwill locations recently went bagless, so there’s that. Good for them.

Overall score: 60/100

3. Savers

Selection: 5/5

Affordability: 2/5

Organization: 5/5

Integrity: 2/5

There is a significant amount of appeal stored in the sheer size and wonder of Savers. It’s huge and the stock changes constantly. They’re great about keeping their racks seasonally appropriate, even for specific holidays. The organization of the store is very sensible. However, their prices are often outrageous, even with their 20 percent student discount. This company has had its fair share of scandals and throws away many of its donations. However, Savers gets honors points for being open late on most evenings, which is a rarity for a thrift store.

Overall score: 70/100

2. Immaculata Manor Thrift Store

Selection: 3/5

Affordability: 5/5

Organization: 3/5

Integrity: 5/5

A thrift store located next to Price Chopper on Brown Street that is unknown to most Jewell students, Manor is a small thrift store that solely pursues funding for the Immaculata Manor organization, a non-profit that supports individuals with developmental disabilities and helps to offer them independent supported living (ISL) residences and better integration within the Liberty community. All of the workers are volunteers, and the prices are incredibly right. On most days, the most you’ll pay for an item of clothing is two bucks.

However, the racks are jam-packed and clothing does not get rotated very often, so you cannot visit very regularly. Their website is sparse, so it is difficult to tell what they do with their leftover items. The organization of the store is not very intuitive, though the women’s clothing is color coordinated. They also have begun to stock more furniture and household-related items. Overall, this is a lovely place to spend your money!

Overall Score: 80/100

1. Hillcrest Hope

Selection: 4/5

Affordability: 5/5

Organization: 5/5

Integrity: 5/5

Chances are that you have driven by this place hundreds of times and never thought to go inside. I urge you to visit this wonderful store sometime – this thrift store donates all of its proceeds to its parent organization, which holistically supports low-income families within the Liberty community. As a thrift store, it excels in almost every area: it is impeccably organized, the clothes are cleaned before being racked, its large selection changes fairly often, it offers a large selection of non-clothing items and 95 percent of what is donated either gets sold or recycled. Plus, the whole store has Goodwill-level prices!

Overall score: 95/100

In recent years, the reputation of the Oscars has steeply fallen in the public eye, both in its popularity and respectability. Various scandals, lack of diversity and representation in its nominees, as well as frustrations with the very limited scope of the Oscars’ selection process have led to astaggering drop in viewership.

Regardless of the awards show, 2018 was a great year for filmmaking. These eight movies deserve a few hours of your time, despite any nomination(s) or lack thereof.

1. “Roma” (Dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

Before I get to the films that didn’t get much Oscars attention, I must give mention to “Roma,” the cinematic black and white masterpiece from the director of “Gravity.” The film is a fictional recollection of its director, Cuarón’s, childhood and the nanny that cared for him in 1970s Mexico City. It’s a stunning balance of careful intimacy and grand artistry and provides a unique and subversive perspective on social issues like gender, race and class. Every shot is so carefully constructed, from intimate scenes in the family kitchen to the massively violent rebellion in the middle of the film. “Roma” is available to stream on Netflix.

2. “First Reformed” (Dir. Paul Schrader)

This massively under-hyped film is not for the faint of heart or spirit. The power of this film lies in the contrast between its stern, plain exterior and color palette with the raw, emotional unraveling of its primary character – a cancer-ridden Reverend played by Ethan Hawke, who is in the midst of a traumatic and spiritual crisis. It also contains a truly hallucinogenic moment of intimacy that is one of the most fantastic scenes of 2018 between the Reverend and Mary (Amanda Seyfried), a parishioner who seeks help for her depressed, radical environmentalist husband.

3. “The Favourite” (Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

Viewers should not expect a typical 18th century period piece from the director of films like “The Lobster” and “Killing of a Sacred Deer.” It is an almost entirely fictional power struggle between two ambitious women that leaves Queen Anne caught in the middle of it all. Despite its sinister moments, the characters’ spontaneity, absurdity and the setting of sheer decadence not unlike the 2006 film “Marie Antoinette” make this film an absolute pleasure to watch.

4. “You Were Never Really Here” (Dir. Lynne Ramsay)

In what is perhaps the best Joaquin Phoenix performance so far, this film manages to leave an aggressively violent imprint on the viewer’s mind, despite only being marginally graphic. It focuses on a PTSD riddled war veteran turned hitman who must rescue a child form a prostitution ring. The cinematography and editing of this film leave a lasting impact that is so unique, it is almost indescribable. The result is a film that expands the notion of a deeply psychological character study.

5. “Cold War” (Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)

As if one stunning black and white film within one year wasn’t enough, 2018 also gave us “Cold War,” a film so precise in its historical stage setting one almost wonders if they are being transported into 1950s Poland. Despite the unforgiving reality of history, the film immerses the audience in an incredibly intimate romance with strong performances coming from both actor and actress. It’s the kind of on-screen chemistry that has your heart thumping along with the characters. Very few words are spoken within the film, which makes it even more transcendent of language and culture while still maintaining fierce originality in the story it tells about the realities of living within the era.

6. “Annihilation” (Dir. Alex Garland)

You might have blinked and missed the release of this Netflix Original earlier this year from the director and cinematographer of “Ex Machina.” The film delivers fantastic performances from Natalie Portman and Oscar Isaac and offers a unique dystopian premise that somehow succeeds on all fronts, despite the possibility of falling into silly alien thriller tropes. The ending contains my favorite cinematic moment of 2018. I will not spoil it entirely, but I will say it involves an eerie alien dance. If you hate ambiguous endings and sci-fi, this is one to avoid. However, if you like a movie that you’ll be dissecting for days to come, “Annihilation” is for you.

7. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Dirs. Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman)

I think almost anyone would enjoy this movie. Apart from the story of Miles Morales being a welcome and original addition to the Spider-Man cinematic universe, this film is a visual and aesthetic delight. The film synthesizes comic book panels and contemporary animation in such a way that must be seen to be believed. It also carries a valuable message and adds a genuinely unique and diverse hero to the heavily caucasian-dominated Marvel universe.

8. “Sorry to Bother You” (Dir. Boots Riley)

Perhaps the title of most underrated film of 2018 should go to “Sorry to Bother You,” an in-your-face satire that offers forceful social critiques of capitalism, race, gender and class through rebellious and theatrical subversion of many on-screen tropes. It grasps the audience’s attention and confronts them with injustices, but avoids being a purely heavy-handed dose of political commentary. It’s staggeringly entertaining, funny, rhythmic and offers almost psychedelic styling and cinematography. There’s so much to unpack in this film, it’s better to just watch it for yourself.

Photo courtesy of Netflix