The Hangover

Twists and turns makes this movie a sure-fire hit.

The Hangover is the kind of movie you watch when you feel like you want to know what can happen in one night, all the consequences and joys, all the love and hate, just anything that can happen all in one night. The Hangover, featuring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach G., is a funny take on what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Strangely enough, this comedy is actually pretty mature at times, not influenced by pointless cursing or sex scenes like most teenage comedy garbage. It’s a far better fim, more polished, and more work definetely went into it. The screenplay and plot is what shines the most in the film, including a beautiful cast with great acting from everyone. At times, especially the first 30 minutes, the movie was quite dull and really not funny, and those times are where the film can be frowned upon.

But in all reality, no one can watch this film and honestly say they didn’t have a good laugh druing or after the film.

Although it’s no masterpiece, it’s not a pile of trash or anything but those means either. It’s just an overall positive film with some shortcomings that could have been more costly than they actually were. If your a lover of comedy films, or just a lover of films in general, due yourself a favor and at least rent this movie, becuase I guarentee you’ll have a good laugh later.
Scores:

• Sound: 7/10
• Acting: 10/10
• Action: 8/10
• Story: 10/10
• Humor: 9/10
• Visuals: 7/10
• Unique Taste: 6/10
• Tilt: 8/10
• Lasting Appeal: 8/10

Overall Score:   73/90     81%  (Good)

Set Your Goals: This Will Be The Death of Us

Set Your Goals has proven that they are a force to be reckoned with in the Pop-Punk scene, and this album only makes that force stronger.

With the release of TWBTDOU, Set Your Goals has evolved more as a band. I think that Set Your Goals just may very well be the future of the pop-punk/hardcore-pop scene. They function together as a band very nicely in unison, and that’s especially hard considering that they have two different vocaslist. The guitar riffs differ from each other, both bringing different things to the table, and finally making other bands relaize why there’s even another guitar in there. The bassist does a nice job of realizing that even though you play bass, that doesn’t mean you have the easiest part in the band, as his riffs can go from nice and subtle to brutal and menacing. And the drummer, probably the most talented in the band.

Their intro song, which has the same name as the album, couldnt be a stronger opener. The drum intro is heaven to anyone’s ears, and the voacals get better and better with each passing second of the song. Although Set Your Goals doesn’t do too much to set themselves apaart from other vocalists in the pop-punk scene, their vocals fit so perfectly with the music that I can’t coplain too much, as I love it anyway. The next great song on the album is Summer Jam. It has such a nice beat to it, and the lyrics are about them touring with each other kind of like AFI’s 6 to 8, except with A LOT more pop.

The next song on the album that really stood out (not that the rest of the great songs are bad), was The Few that Remain, which features Paramore vocalist Hayley Williams. The song is a great mix between hardcore and pop-punk music, that even incorporates some hip-hop beats midway into the song. And if you ever call Set Your Goals, “Too poppy of a band…”, you must listen to the next track, Gaia Bleeds. It’s a straight forward hardcore song with probably the best vocals on the record.

All in all, Set Your Goals hit the jackpot with this album, as it leaps miles ahead of their already good predecesor, Mutiny!. If your a fan of hardcre or pop-punk music, pick up this album now.

Tracks with Scores:

• This Will be the Death of Us: (10/10)
• With Hoffman Lenses We Will See the Truth: (9/10)
• Look Closer: (8.5/10)
• Summer Jam: (10/10)
• Like You to Me: (9/10)
• The Fallen… (8/10)
• The Few that Remain: (9.5/10)
• Equals: (10/10)
• Gaia Bleeds:  (10/10)
• Flawed Methods of Persecution and Punishment: (9/10) 
• Arrival Notes: (9.5/10)
• Our Ethos: (9.5/10)

Overall Score:    93%   (Outstanding!)

The Twilight Saga: New Moon

The teen sensation New Moon  get’s a massive step down from it’s first outing Twilight, as the love tween-love posed starts Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson go at it again. Let’s start from the very beginning on the film.

The film begins with Bella (Stewart) and Edward (Pattinson) go to Bella’s eighteenth birthday party, held at Edwards “mansion”, with all his bloodsucker family members there. What they didn’t expect to happen was Bella’s cutting herself accidentally with paper and thus bleeding, setting off an alarm in one of the vampire’s minds, making them want to attack. The First thing I didn’t like about this movie was how less photogenic it appears to be when compared to the first film. A lot of the nice lighting ffects and shady gloom was taken out of this film, maybe to give it a more up-lifitng feel? Well, this doesn’t work. The film’s plot was meant to be dark and gloomy, but I think the actors and directors tried their best to divert from such a gloomy persona, and that was their first of many mistakes.

Another aspect of the film that went wrong was the acting. Of couse, Stewart and Pattinson put on a remarkable performance, but putting them aside leaves the film with a bittersweet cast that just barely proves to be satisfying enough. One of the most famous actors, and one that many critics expected to be very promising, was Taylor Lautner himself, and hey, he even got his own spot on the poster! Great! So that means he’s a new “major” character right? Yes! That means he’s a good actor, right? No. Sadly enough, Taylor Lautner puts on a mediocre performance that falls short of OK. He seems like the kind of actor that should just stick to television performances or maybe even being recruited to Disney Channel (becuase we all know Miley Cyrus is such a good actress right?).  The rest of cast leaves more to be said, but I want this review to be as short as possible.

Overall, I’m going to sum up more of the film. The plot is derived from a good book, and the plot is good as well, but the variations from the book cannot be avoided, and although sometimes for the better, there are just some things you can’t leave out. The acting could have been loads better, but at the same time, Stewart and Pattinson save the film with their graceful performances…but with such little chemistry together in the film, you can’t help but realize that without enough Cullen, the movie series is going down the drain, and this movie had nowhere near enough Cullen. The mood of the film leaves more to be desired, with a movie that tries too hard not be gloomy.  Overall, the movie really was a disappointment, it could have been loads better, but at the same time, it couldn’t have been any worse. This movie is for die-hard fans, I mean, DIE-HARD ONLY. If you didn’t read the book, or if your not a regular Twilight/New Moon fanatic, I suggest not seeing this movie.

• Sound: 5/10
• Acting: 3/10
• Action: 4.5/10
• Story: 6/10
• Humor: 4/10
• Visuals: 3/10
• Unique Taste: 3/10
• Tilt: 2/10
• Lasting Appeal: 7/10

Overall Score:     37.5/90    =    41%  (Bad)