James King, Arts & Entertainment Correspondent
Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the best Star Wars movie that has ever come out of the franchise. I know that may sound like an exaggeration, but after catching up with the franchise so far, it has become my favorite entry in the franchise.
Continue reading “Hot Take: “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” … the best movie ever?”
Breanna Hill, Arts & Entertainment Editor
Fall has officially begun and with fall comes festivals, haunted houses and more activities to celebrate the new season.
Continue reading “Fall festivities happening around Jacksonville”
Miranda Prescott, Arts & Entertainment Correspondent
You would be lying to yourself if you said that you have never heard of a small concept known as fanfiction. Or, rather, you would be a human being who does not geek out over book characters or television shows. So, rather, you would be a normal person with a normal life.
For those who love the previously mentioned activity, fanfiction is a wonderous world where people who call themselves “aspiring authors” write the same plot line that at least 500 other authors have done before, using someone else’s characters from major works. They do this because, normally, they can’t create more than five characters for their given plotline on their own. I should know. I was a fanfiction writer.
The keyword there is “was.”. I finally quit around 2015, after spending four years of my life doing such activities. However, I’ll check in from time to time to see how everything is going in the communities I once wrote under. In my illustrious career as a fanfiction writer, I noticed three main types of writers that I feel sum up the idea of fan fiction quite nicely.
“The Almost Novelist”
This is the type of writer that writes so well that their story could possibly, in some cases, be better than the story they have modeled theirs after. This archetype, surprisingly, has allowed many major authors today to have a platform to create their own works, mostly. Some authors today use their fanfiction to create original works. I’m pointing at you, E.L. James. You are the perfect example of this type of fan fiction writer.
“The ‘Insert Self Here’ writer”
This writer is found mostly in fanfiction written about real-life celebrities. One Direction, BTS, you name it. The reason they are found here is because they like to insert themselves into their own stories. These writers use their work to live the dream of being with Harry Styles. They are also probably the most common type of writer you will see. Mainly because if you ever read fanfiction, you are probably reading stories like these. Some writers will even let you fill in the blank. Like Mad Libs, but slightly more awkward because these scenarios are with real people in fictional settings.
“The… what?”
This is the writer that absolutely makes no sense. Their storyline is all over the place, and their descriptions of things are incoherent and they improperly use the right words in them. Characters jump in and get killed off at random. When they speak, the characters often cannot even say words properly. And do not get me started on the plotline of these stories. More than likely, this writer is of ages 14 or less and have no idea how the world really works. For laughs, I often investigate these types of stories, and I immediately add at least 10 years to my lifespan while doing so.
Sure, there are more types of fanfiction writers out there, but these three are the ones everyone has probably ran into more than once or twice while scrolling through websites dedicated to this valuable art form. Now, is all fanfiction bad? Not really, but it is slightly illegal in some context. Thankfully, fair use does indeed exist.
Breanna Hill, Arts & Entertainment Editor
It is officially spooky season, and with that in mind, I have decided to rate my top three horror films based on my own personal checklist. I highly recommend each film because they are all incredibly well directed and have everything you need for a terrifying night in.
This first one is definitely one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. The reason I find it so terrifying is because of the different horrific aspects it was able to layout through the entire film. It didn’t just focus on jump scares. It didn’t use that cringy horror music that easily shows you something scary is about to happen. It genuinely brought in different aspects that make horror movies worthy of watching and combined them with seemingly no effort at all.
The movie I’m talking about is called “Hereditary” that was released in June of 2018. The film tells a tale of an abnormal family that just recently lost their grandmother. The family falls apart after the death and the tension is quite thick. The grandmother was a bit on the spooky side, even having books about death and all things gory and spooky. The granddaughter was much like the grandmother, eerie and all around weird which caused her to isolate herself from the family and come off as shy. Later on, the girl ends up dying because of an incident her big brother had while driving. She died a pretty horrific death. Her head was chopped off which caused me to shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Tension grows higher between the mother of the family and the son because of the whole incident that ended her youngest child’s life. The husband tried to keep the peace, but was unsuccessful in every attempt he made. She continued to grieve but eventually found a way to contact her daughter, wanting to feel her presence if at all possible. This causes paranormal stuff to happen throughout the majority of the film. Towards the end, the mother becomes possessed by her dead daughter, kills her husband and her son. The dead daughter then takes over her brother’s body as a host body, and that’s how it ends. It creeped me out immensely. This is definitely a must watch.
The second film that really messed me up and caused me to sleep with the lights on for a couple days would have to be “The Possession of Hannah Grace”. I was a bit hesitant to watch this movie in the first place when it came out in 2018 just because of the simple fact that movies dealing with possession freak me out almost as much as horror movies with incredible jump scares. I find the whole aspect of possession terrifying. I happened to be a huge “Pretty Little Liars’’ fan so I couldn’t help but to watch to support the actress Shay Mitchell. The film centers around Shay’s character, Megan who ends up getting a new job at the hospital as an overnight morgue worker. She works the shift all alone around dead bodies. I could not imagine having that job. Megan ends up taking in a dead body on one of her first nights on the new job. The body is in terrible shape, and you can barely make out that the deceased is a girl. The girl is Hannah Grace who the movie opens up on. It shows Hannah having an exorcism done to her, but it clearly fails and kills her and the priest. The scene where that takes place genuinely scared me to death.
The movie continues with the corpse causing certain things to happen, basically starting to haunt the morgue portion of the hospital which in turn makes Megan realize what’s going on. The jump scares are pretty phenomenal and the acting is incredible as well. Here’s another movie to add to your watch list.
The final movie that I urge any horror film fan to watch is “Mother” starring Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem. This film was released in 2017 and I knew I had to watch it because of my love for Jennifer Lawrence. I think she is an incredible actress and I highly doubt that the role could have been filled and portrayed as perfectly as it was had there been a different actress portraying the character Veronica. The film is the most unique film that I have watched in quite some time. It has the possibility to be interpreted in different ways, and to be quite honest, I was a bit confused the first time I watched it. I did a bit of research on the film and it turns out that I’m not the only one that was confused with how the film ended. There are various videos online with different perspectives on the ending and several explanations. The complexity of the film was definitely talked about for a while after the film was released.
The film revolves around a married couple who live in a beautiful Victorian home in the middle of nowhere. It starts off seemingly peaceful. The woman is spending all of her free time renovating and decorating their new home, while taking care of her husband and being the best wife she can be. The husband is a widely known author and is currently working on a book of his when a knock can be heard from the door. Curious as to who it could be, the couple opens it up to find a man that they have never met before. The husband offers him a place to stay in their home after hearing of this stranger’s misfortune. His family shows up, becoming guests as well and causing the couple’s serene isolation to disappear. It is an insane film that causes your brain to wonder what actually happens. What part of the film is a fantasy and what part of it is reality. Watch and interpret.
Breanna Hill, Arts & Entertainment Editor
Post Malone has risen to the top of the charts on numerous occasions and continues to make musical history. He recently just dropped a new album on September 6 of this year titled ‘Hollywood’s Bleeding’. It features collaborations with Ozzy Osbourne, Future, Halsey and a few others.
Post Malone has been one of my favorite artists since he emerged not too long ago. I found his music to be quite refreshing, not just because of the beats and the rhythms he used but because of the truth he shares within his lyrics. He has always been quite open about his past relationships, which are described time and time again within several of his number one hits. He makes himself vulnerable to the world in order to release music that everybody is able to relate to at some point.
As soon as this album was released, I took the time to listen to each and every one of the songs. I was shocked by some of the collaborations that were within the album. I mean, honestly, who saw the whole Ozzy Osbourne thing coming? Definitely not me. I believe that this album is definitely some of his best work. I always love when artists collaborate on projects with other artists, but I love it even more when it’s something totally unexpected.
The quality of the music is phenomenal. Post again makes himself vulnerable with most of the songs. I find myself realizing that his comfort zone is speaking out about relationships, love and heartbreak in general because most of his songs are related to those subjects. I know others can find the repetition of certain subjects in an artist’s journey to be quite boring and predictable, but I don’t believe that to be the case in this situation at all. He was also able to create other songs that had to do about his views on certain issues that the world is facing and dealing with today, like the Internet which is the title of one of his songs on the new album.
Though I find myself jamming out to most of the album, there are a couple of songs that I stray away from just because of personal interest and my individuality which is okay. Everybody interprets music differently and not everybody likes the same thing. I definitely have my favorites from the album that are on constant repeat. The one I find myself playing first every single time I open the album on Spotify is “Take What You Want” featuring Ozzy and Travis Scott (shocker, huh?). Another favorite of mine is “Circles” because of the beat. It gives me hippie vibes and it genuinely makes me happy, despite the not-so-easy message the song conveys. If you’re a big fan of the times that Post Malone shows off his rapping skills in his songs, I definitely recommend listening to “On The Road” featuring Meek Mill and Lil Baby. They all show off their talent in this fast paced tune.
The album has something for everybody. It has various subjects littered throughout the songs. It has upbeat tempos and slower tempos and it shows off Post Malone’s ability to change things up a bit. I highly recommend listening to the entire album because of the good quality music it produces. I rate it a 9/10. Let me know what you guys think.
