Discussing Film, Music, TV, Books, Video Games and More
Zac: The Twilight Saga has come to a close and Bill Condon, arguably, has made the best entry yet into the series with Breaking Dawn – Part 2.
Heather: Seriously – you think this is the best Twilight movie yet?! Did we even see the same movie?
Lauren: No Heather, don’t worry, he’s joking… [waits patiently]… Wait, you’re not joking? Oh… [Read more...]
Zac: Snow White and the Huntsman (#SWATH, love that hashtag) is the second take on the classic Grimm fairy tale to be released this year and it is a visual feast that could have used a bit more plot and character development. [Read more...]
Hello internet perusers! We are back with round 2 of the four part year break down of things to come. Between April and June, the writers on HST have plenty that we are looking forward to in movies, music, and games,, and we want to share them with you. No, none of these are April Fool’s jokes. Zac is actually really excited to see a movie about male strippers. [Read more...]
Two nights ago I had a dream that winged creatures were attacking my school, which for some reason looked like a castle. As my friends were devoured in front of my eyes by hungry jaws (RIP Cassidy), I could not cower in fear because I had a mission. That’s right, thanks to weeks of seeing Breaking Dawn – Part 1 trailers on TV, my dreams were being infiltrated, this time with Kristen Stewart. As I did everything in an attempt to save her, I ended up sacrificing myself. Clearly I should have gotten her to promise that she would not waste her life, because after seeing Breaking Dawn Part 1 I am really afraid I dream died in vain. [Read more...]
The Twilight Saga is coming to an end with Breaking Dawn: Part 1 and while some are counting away the days till it is out of their lives it should be remembered as a series that missed opportunities to actually be interesting. [Read more...]
That’s right, my write-up for rentals has changed yet again. This time around (and hopefully I will stick to it this time) I will write up little blurbs about the movies I have seen in the past week on Fridays, giving you suggestions for what to pick up and what to avoid when considering what to rent that weekend. On this weeks list we’ve got: The Back-up Plan, The Last Song, Operation: Endgame, Repo Men, The Runaways, A Single Man, and The United States of Tara.
Fight for the Last Copy:
United States of Tara: Season One
This Diablo Cody created, Showtime TV show is about a woman who has recently gone off the medications that have helped to suppress the other faces of her multiple personality disorder (or dissociative identity disorder). Toni Collette plays Tara, and the way in which she moves in and out of these other personalities is pure artistry. Though this is a serious topic, it does not shy away from the humor of it all, thanks in large part to the people she becomes. In the beginning she is aware of three: Alice is a 1950s housewife, Buck is the redneck hick with a heart of gold, and T is basically the teenage slut, but eventually another emerges (but I will not spoil in for those who want to watch) in response to the overriding story arc of Tara digging into her past to discover what caused this disorder to take form during her teen years.
The show does not just stop with how this disorder effects Tara, but shows the strain it puts on her family. John Corbett plays her supportive husband who i leading the search to discover her past and must constantly coral the other personalities (though he is far from ashamed of his wife). [Read more...]
When I speak of my love of the vampire genre I always throw out references to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Underworld, 30 Days of Night, True Blood…the list goes on and on. However, unless directly asked I would never admit to having read all of the Twilight novels in a week or owning one of the two prior films. Maybe it is the mushy soap opera nature, or maybe it is how much the fanatical Twihards creep me out; but no matter the case, I was embarrassed to admit that I find some level of enjoyment from these stories. But after watching The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, I can now say with no shame that I am a fan of the Twilight series.
This entry into the series sees a lot of established storylines built into the previous films coming to a head as Bella moves closer to graduating high school. As far as the love triangle is concerned, Bella has yet to answer Edward’s proposal of marriage and Jacob is still stubbornly persisting in his hopes of convincing her that he is the right supernatural being for her. Also, Victoria has yet to give up her grudge over the Cullen family making a bonfire out of her life-after-death mate at the end of the first film, constantly trespassing into their territory. [Read more...]
The third film in the quadrilogy (yes Breaking Dawn is splitting in two, but it is really one movie) known as The Twilight Saga, Eclipse is actually good, in fact it is really good, and is a huge step forward for the franchise before the finale.
Now, the film takes no time to try and catch up the outsiders and I won’t try to do so either. Bella and Edward are busy going back and forth over the vampire’s marriage proposal while Alice sees a vision that will set the film’s plot into motion. A growing threat in Seattle threatens the supernatural, and human, inhabitants of Forks and while the Cullens try and figure out what is going on up north in Seattle they must also try to keep Victoria and the Volturi from Bella. The circumstances force the vampires and werewolves of Forks to form a loose alliance for the best of all of them and Jacob makes one last attempt at the heart of Bella whom he loves.
Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways is a dark, messed up, and insane dive into the depravity and pitfalls of fame destruction of age film that yields three very good performances from, Michael Shannon, Kristen Stewart, and Dakota Fanning.
Before the sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll the members of The Runaways were just young girls that loved, praised, and aspired to be the next gods of rock in a male dominated industry. Joan Jett wanted to be a punk guitar goddess while Cherie Currie wanted to be David Bowie but they would together be a part of something the rock n’ roll community had never seen. When Jett catches the ear of Kim Fowley, who proclaims himself to be a music producing genius, the duo set out to form the first all girl rock band. Filling out their band with ample musicians, Lita Ford, Sandy West, and Robin (a fictional character to avoid the drama surrounding a revolving door of bassists) Fowley needs one final piece before he takes this show on the road; a blonde bombshell to sell the sex side of the band. Enter Currie, a fifteen year old with jail bait sex appeal to spare that is learning the vocal side of things as she goes to become the lead singer and lead icon of the band. From here the group begins cutting their chops and working up the ladder before breaking out in a huge way.
Even with director Catherine Hardwicke’s take on bringing the first book of this series to screen, Chris Weitz fails to do little more than use her vision as a guidebook on how to direct The Twilight Saga: New Moon, and therefore, recreates a lot of the problems that plagued the first film while simply trying to appease the salivating masses of obsessed fans.
If you have read the books of this series, then you know exactly what happens in this ridiculously faithful adaptation. For those of you who haven’t, New Moon begins with Bella’s 18th birthday, which proves to be just as traumatic as she believed it would be. [Read more...]
The Twilight Saga returns with a new director, a new set of monsters, and a New Moon, but the film feels rather rehashed and far to similar to previous film instead this time it is girl meets wolf; compare to girl meets vampire.
Everything starts off alright, in fact it was making me feel quite positive about everything unfolding. Chris Weitz’s direction is far stronger and more confident than Twilight’s Hardwicke, with the camera doing far more interesting things. The focus seems to be solely on Bella, her father, and Edward and the Cullen’s as it should be and pushing all the unnecessary characters to the background. The actors seem to be doing better; everything seems to be going in the right direction and then the Cullen’s leave. The most, and almost only, interesting thing about these films is taken away for the majority of the film and only return in the final few scenes to save the film from being a fairly bad experience.
[Read more...]
Greg Mottola’s follow up to Superbad shares little in common with that previous film, which isn’t a bad thing as this is an honest and sometimes sweet coming of age tale for a fresh college grad.
James has a plan. As his graduation present his parents are supposed to help fund his trip to Europe with friends, where he can finally lose his virginity, and then he will move to New York to attend an Ivy League school for graduate degree and everything will be peachy. Well upon graduation he discovers that his dad has been demoted and his parents can no longer float him along any more and that he must get a summer job. The only place that will hire him is the local dead end amusement park, Adventureland. James is stuck working the game booths for the course of the summer in which he meets a number of interesting individual, the most interesting being a cute fellow twenty something named Em. James and Em click and they begin hanging out quite a bit and eventually fall into a sort of pseudo relationship of sorts. Meanwhile, James bonds with Joel, a dorky fellow games worker and Connell the parks repair man who is also a fairly successful musician on the side, or so they say. As the summer goes on, we get to see the ups and downs of James and Em, James struggles with his affinity to fall in love, the comings and goings of the park, and the challenge of fighting his urge to get laid over his faithfulness to a relationship. [Read more...]
The hotly anticipated adaptation of the hit teen vampire romance series is a fairly successful adaptation to the big screen.
Bella (Kristen Stewart) lives happily in Phoenix but is forced to relocate back to her home town of Forks, Washington, the wettest and most cloud covered city in the country. Moving in the middle of second semester of school, she is quickly thrown into a who’s who of the school by her new friends she makes upon starting up at school. Everything is the norm as a twelve year old’s view of high school, all except an odd family of kids that stick to themselves, the Cullen’s. Bella is first introduced to the only single member, as the rest of the siblings are oddly ‘together’, Edward (Robert Pattinson), who appears repulsed and disgusted by the sight, smell, and presence of her; so much so that he misses a week of school before coming back. Upon his reappearance, Edward, is fairly polite and charming, though remaining fairly awkward from time to time. They begin to form a bit of a friendship with seemingly potential for more, when an incident in the school parking lot causes Bella to begin to inquire about the history of the Cullen’s. [Read more...]
Sean Penn directs his first movie in six years and knocks it out of the park. Into the Wild follows the post graduate life of Christopher McCandless, an Emory graduate that decides to give up everything he has and set off on a life of tramping around the country in an attempt to rediscover himself. [Read more...]
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Iron and Wine continues his road down the glossy, highly produced road with Ghost on Ghost. This time around, however, he knocks this album out of … (more)
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I don't know how they do it, but Game of Thrones keeps getting better as the seasons move forward. Even though it wasn't quite as exciting as last … (more)
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Apparently, modern day witch hunts do exist. In case you haven’t heard the story of the West Memphis Three, now is your chance to read all about … (more)
Ross Matthews is right about one thing – any self-confidence he feels about his writing skills is without a doubt delusional. He’d have to be … (more)
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Ken Levine deserves some kind of medal. First, he introduced us to the world of Rapture, where we would kindly roam the halls of a forgotten city … (more)
Plagued by delays and shortcomings, 2012 was an up-and-down year for video games. We saw triumphant returns to form, fantastic new IP's, and some … (more)
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