In every medium that the story has gone through one thing has remained the same: heart. The story is filled to the brim with it. The movie comes from such a personal and true place that it is hard not to love this character and his journey. As Birbiglia himself put it at a press day Sept. 2, “some of the minutiae of the story isn’t true but the parts people usually don’t believe are.”

In the movie Mike Birbiglia plays Matt Pandamiglio, a young struggling comedian/bartender with a great girlfriend and a sleep disorder. Matt is a bit directionless and not exactly a functioning adult yet. The interesting thing about this movie is that it really is more a coming-of-age story than a romantic comedy – albeit an unusual one, given that coming-of-age stories aren’t usually about guys in their mid-20s with an ongoing eight-year relationship. And it’s a relationship that is beginning to lump more and more pressure onto Pandamiglio as marriage is becoming a an increasingly real possibility.

This stress soon becomes physically embodied by Matt’s constant and intense sleepwalking. This is an area where the movie really has fun. Some great bits of physical comedy that include him digging through the fridge on his hands and knees or winning the Dustbuster Olympics are hilarious. This is a movie packed with jokes from beginning to end either through voiceover, the snappy dialogue, or other bits. An area where the movie pulls into Woody Allen territory is a sequence with the man behind the voice of Matt’s book-on-tape joining him in the car to discuss his possible disorders.

The movie has been and always will be from Birbiglia’s point of view, which is why the voiceover and breaking the fourth wall works so naturally throughout. Addressing the audience works especially for some of the movie’s and the original show’s best jokes. The vision of the film makes it a few steps smarter than the average romance-y type story and at times goes for a more serious tone; it isn’t an all-lighthearted affair. But even in the story’s darker moments Birbiglia hands the audience a joke to help them laugh through the pain.

The cast is a hodgepodge ensemble comprised of some well-known character actors and some great comedians.

“The comedians in the film are just friends who I could call and ask to do the movie,” Birbiglia said. This gives the film even another layer of authenticity. ”Most everyone worked for next to nothing, which is a step up from me as I worked for exactly nothing”.

The film was produced with “This American Life” host Ira Glass who has been having Birbiglia on for years to tell his stories. Their collaboration effort results in a very satisfying film that any listener of Glass’s show would enjoy. On his working relationship with Glass, Birbiglia deferred to his wife description of them.

“As a married couple which is concerning thing from your wife who is a part of my married couple, by law,” she quipped.

The two certainly worked hard to get the film off the ground and have followed all the way through to market it by going city to city and by doing anything else possible. As he explained it, “the film has literally no ad budget”. So if you do happen to get the chance to enjoy the film make sure to post on Facebook or Twitter about it, per Birbiglia’s request, as this is the only form of advertising the film will get.

If you are in one of the lucky cities that will be featuring Sleepwalk with Me in the coming weeks, take the opportunity to see a film that is completely personal yet infinitely relatable. See a film that can tackle some of the harder parts of growing up but with a wink and a nod, not ridiculous melodrama. In short, see this smart, funny, and heartfelt film.

The post Sleepwalk with Me: A Labor of Love Worth Loving appeared first on NextGen Journal.

However, Phelps, the youngest at 27, is retiring a full 35 years before the average American with the doors pretty much wide open to whatever he wants to do. So that is the question: what will he do?  I’ll say now that I am not a medium contacting the great beyond. If I had that power, I’d be on my yacht ruling over my empire right now. I am merely an observer with an interest in what a guy worth 45 million who has done nothing but swim for more than half his life will do now that he is done with his only marketable skill. To quickly lay it out, I‘m basing these predictions on the only information I have on Phelps that is not swimming related, because he has made his retirement so abundantly clear that the man never even drink water again.

This is what I know:

-He had a 5-second cameo on “Entourage.”

-He was seen using a water pipe (bong) that “allegedly” contained marijuana.

-His diet is absolutely massive.

-He has little to no decipherable personality of any kind.

Putting all the information into my predicting machine leads me to one resounding conclusion: REALITY SHOW. Practically everyone is doing one these days (even Clint Eastwood, that’s right, “Mr. Get off My Lawn,” or at least his daughters). Expect it soon, too, as Phelps has gotta strike while the iron is hot or people will forget about him the way they do when he isn’t in the Olympics or using that lung capacity for non-swimming related things, allegedly.

There is a wide range of reality shows that populate the current television landscape. So many choices.

We could see Phelps hosting an extreme eating/cooking competition style show. “Phelps’ Food” could be a huge hit on the Food Network or Travel Channel featuring celebrity guests trying to out-cook and out-eat the celebrated Olympian weekly.

We could see Phelps in a “day in the life” program showcasing the activities of early retirement. Ya know, shuffleboard, watching stuff on Netflix, and hanging out with Mary Jane, allegedly. Realistically “My Phelping Life” may not be the most interesting show, so maybe we add in housewives to throw some drinks around.

We could even see a Phelps life swapping kind of show. Putting the most decorated athlete of all time to live on a farm to milk cows or sending him to Comic-con dressed as Darth Vader or Batman among a crowd unaware of his achievements would be damn good television. “Flipping with Phelps” could be a ratings monster.

After his reality show phase, realistically lasting 1 to 1.5 seasons, Phelps will still have plenty of options left in front of him.  The man trained for 16 straight years, and while he should have been pursuing a degree he was really preparing to win 8 gold medals in Beijing. So why not go back to college? He could literally go to any school in the world and finally have the college experience he missed. He can go to freshman orientation, toss a Frisbee around the quad, and even join a frat. Can’t you just imagine Phelps walking around in a bro tank with a backwards visor? Though that guy kinda exists; Ryan Lochte #jeah. That’s a thing Lochte says, look it up.

So now we’ve got Michael Phelps walking around with a reality show under his belt and a degree to his name. Where to go? How about the whole world? He has already been to Sydney, Athens, Beijing, and London for business. How about the rest of the world for pleasure? Live it up down in Brazil while using his height to play some beach volleyball and enjoy some greenery, allegedly. Visit Africa to get some long distance speed and try some local herb, allegedly. Go hang out with Usain Bolt and Johan Blake in Jamaica to party and enjoy their cash crop, allegedly.

After his reality show, college years, and travel time he’ll be pretty far into his retirement. This will be about the time that Phelps will begin some serious philanthropy and possibly return to swimming as a commentator. And what a commentator he will be. He definitely won’t be the interesting part of the broadcast booth, but with some public speaking practice, he can go into some good technical swimming talk. He’ll also be the announcer that can relate anything to one of his own war stories from the pool. Pair him up with the right guy (not Bob Costas, Al Michaels, or Ryan Seacrest) and he’d be a good addition to network TV.

Then his free time can be spent in the basement staring at a 3-D poster of a rocket ship through a lava lamp while eating a whole bag of Cheeto puffs, allegedly.

The post Michael Phelps: Life After the Pool appeared first on NextGen Journal.

“I am done when I say we’re done” -Walt, playing the part of newly-crowned kingpin

Based on the events in the stellar finale of Breaking Bad’s fourth season, the future of Walt, Jesse, and co. was brighter than usual, but uncertain at the very least. After many excruciating attempts to kill the man who for so long held both their lives in his hands, they did it. They harpooned the White Whale. They took down one of the baddest bad guys in history, Gustavo Fring. And that’s exactly where the fifth season picks up, almost.

There was that scene. That kind of scene where Breaking Bad lives. That kind of intrigue-building season-long payoff scene that makes Breaking Bad the kind of show that comes around once in a generation.

There is our anti-hero, Walter White, sitting alone at a Denny’s counter with a plate of eggs, hash browns, and bacon. He rips apart the bacon and configures the pieces into a 52, just the way he had his veggie bacon served to him in the pilot on his 50th birthday. This man looks different, different than we have ever seen Walt, his hair grown out but shaggy with an accompanying unkempt beard.

Through the small talk with Lucy, the only pleasant Denny’s waitress, it is revealed that not only is it in fact Walt’s birthday, but that his current ID, faked, is from New Hampshire and uses the last name Lambert. Finally, the reason Walt’s there walks in the door. After a quick exchange in the bathroom, Walt walks out with a set of new car keys, leaving a 100-dollar tip. He goes into the parking lot and finds a car, and in the trunk he finds one big gun. BANG. CUT TO CREDITS.

Was Walt really in New Hampshire? What could he need that gun for? What has possibly transpired in the previous months to lead us here? The kind of hair-raising questions that Breaking Bad loves to setup and knock down by the end of a season, never quite the way you expect.

Then the show really did pick up right where it left off. News reports are out that Gus Fring has died, Hank is finally deemed safe by the DEA, and Walt can catch his breathe after a heart-pumped victory, kinda. If there is one thing Walt has learned by now, it is that loose ends will always, always, come back to haunt you. So he cleans up the bomb-making materials and the incriminating Lily of the Valley when he remembers a very crucial detail. He and Jesse were under constant video surveillance, and with Gus dead, the police would be collecting his personal belongs to rummage through for evidence. Video of Walt and Jesse cooking meth in a super-lab would be very, very helpful evidence.

If I had one tiny minor small complaint with this episode, it is that it was very light with Jesse. We don’t get much or any of his reaction to the Gus-is-dead aftermath, except that he is still willing to protect Walt from Mike’s wrath in one of the show’s best moments. After that he does brainstorm the idea that eventually keeps their private cooking show away from police eyes. He even gets to scream, “Magnets, bitch,” fulfilling the requirement that he say “bitch” that awesome way he says it at least once an episode.

But right now, in the wake of Fring’s death and the rise of King White, the show is all about Cranston. He dominates the screen. He is living in a world he has shaped, a world where he is right, where he is feared, where he wins. Certainty is all but certain. After the evidence/magnets ploy, Mike is still unconvinced it all worked and asks why Walt is so sure it did. With a voice that could silence a riot, Walt responds simply, “Because I said so.” We live in the time of King White. All hail the King.

In other news, Skyler has to deal with the consequences, albeit unintended, of her own actions. The slimy Ted Beneke survived that freak tripping accident and is in the hospital. Scared of what he might say and to whom, Skyler goes to visit him. You can tell how bad it is going to be by how long the camera holds on Anna Gunn’s trembling face, and yeah, it is that bad. But Beneke won’t talk. And once again the show takes an opportunity to demonstrate just how much Walt’s initial decision to cook meth has reached out to affect anyone remotely close to him.

Also this week, Hank gets to see the burnt ruins of the once-great super-lab, as he notices the matching design and dimensions in Gale’s notebook. There is not too much left for him to find. The big find this week came after the evidence room upheaval, when an officer discovered a Cayman bank account scribbled behind a picture of Gus and Max from the Los Pollos Hermanos office. This should only fuel Hank’s fire to truly finish his investigation.

This premiere did a fantastic job of first tying up the loose ends from last season’s finale that in turn only opened up the door wider for an unbelievable and unpredictable season of television. Welcome to the empty sandbox. Now it is time to watch Walter White play in the sand.

The post Breaking Bad Season 5 Premiere Closes Some Doors, Opens Others appeared first on NextGen Journal.

Newsroom has the smell of Sorkin all over from the beginning. A guy stuck in the doldrums of another moment of his normal life that he isn’t all that happy with snaps. It’s the classic model. Sorkin did it with Wes Mendell on his last show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and he did it in The West Wing episode, “Let Bartlet Be Bartlet” after 18 episodes of characters treading water.

This time it is Will McAvoy, played wonderfully by Jeff Daniels, who after a few years of playing the pandering no-opinioned “Jay Leno of news anchors” goes out on limb and has an opinion. It comes in the form of a rant to a group of college students during a political panel prompted by the question, “Why is America the greatest country in the world?” Will, after trying to stay neutral as ever, finally jumps of his skin and rips apart the current state of affairs, both political sides, and the current generation.

It’s a moment that practically every review will point back to the 1976 film Network and Peter Finch’s famous “I’m mad as hell” speech. But looking at it there are key differences. In Network, Finch is truly at the end of his rope and a man having an emotional breakdown/breakthrough that he and the audience embrace. This takedown, for the lack of a better term, is a momentary lapse of judgment. An immediate regret especially once it goes viral. But it still serves as the springboard to a journalistic awakening.

It also leads to a major move by the drunken head of the news division Charlie Skinner played by trusty old Sam Waterston. After the staff flees News Night, Skinner arranges to bring back Mackenzie MacHale as executive producer after years embedded overseas along with some of her staff including her senior producer Jim Harper. Staying behind during the transition is McAvoy’s assistant turned associate producer Maggie Jordan and blogger Neal Sampat played by Allison Pill and “Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel respectively. This is a show with a very deep bench of talent and to this point they have been used effectively. Still to make an appearance among the cast are Olivia Munn and Jane Fonda. This show is not holding back.

McAvoy is an interesting rationale and pragmatic thinker and voter who will be Sorkin’s mouthpiece on pretty much every major issue of the last two years. That is one of the intriguing choices Sorkin has made, putting the show two years in past means the team will be breaking actual news stories like the BP oil spill featured in the pilot. By the end of the episode, this rag tag bunch of misfits manages to pull the oil spill story together by that night’s broadcast and it is a glorious return to form for McAvoy and the team. Whether or not, this Herculean reporting job could be completed in such a time is up to debate but Sorkin never claimed for the show to be dead on accurate just close enough to the truth to still be interesting.

While the show certainly has it’s moments of lightning-paced development and leaps forward, it also happens to be bogged down with a little too much preaching about the importance of broadcast news and an informed electorate. This isn’t the worst thing to happen as it does allow so excellent actors to devour some well-written prose but it can grind things to a halt here and there. Another interesting aspect to the continuing show will be the inter-office relationships. The ongoing romance and ensuing love triangle between Maggie, Jim, and ex-EP Don or the back-story between McAvoy and McHale serve as a nice foil to the ultra-seriousness of reporting damn good news every night. It certainly will help make these characters multi-dimensional.

The interesting thing about Sorkin’s previous forays into television is the amount of importance given to the work being done whether it is working in the White House or working on a late night sketch show. And while this quality can be endearing and tonally correct for a show like The West Wing where the country’s future is at stake, it can be completely overbearing and disruptive to a show like Studio 60 where maybe that commercial parody sketch bombed. Newsroom, while not handling the nuclear codes, certainly is able to carry off this pride-in-your-work self-importance.

To this point, Newsroom has only showed promise and upside for a very impressive first season. While it hasn’t hit its stride yet fans must remember it even took The West Wing two or three episodes to get on a four-year hot streak. The good news about Newsroom is that Sorkin is back and he is writing for as good a cast he has worked with.

The post More as This Story Develops: Newsroom Has First Class Showing appeared first on NextGen Journal.

The outstanding play of Anthony Davis, tournament MVP and future No.1 NBA draft pick, was a huge aspect of this team’s success. He was absolutely a one-man wrecking crew in the paint by grabbing 30 rebounds and recording 11 blocks in the Final Four games. With 186, he set a NCAA freshman record for most blocks in a season. But the dominance didn’t stop with Davis. Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, fellow freshman and lottery draft pick, also provided dominance inside that could not be matched, especially given his length and athleticism. Add the perimeter scoring ability of guards Marquis Teague and Doron Lamb, include Terrence Jones with his ball handling and versatility, along with the senior leadership of point guard Darius Miller, and the Wildcats managed to easily set the pace of every game and roll over any opponent in their path.

However, this was not just a night for the players of Kentucky; for their coach, John Calipari, it represented the removal of one tremendously big monkey from his back. After taking UMass to the Final Four and Memphis to the championship game, this is his first national title. Last year Kentucky made it to the Final Four but fell to eventual champ UConn. This is a career-defining, and certainly a legacy-building, win for Cal, who is perhaps better known for questionable recruiting tactics and vacated wins.

But as the saying goes, winning cures all. Those questions feel answered with this resounding win, and the future remains bright for one of the nation’s premiere basketball programs. According to ESPN, Kentucky has the second best recruiting class in the country as of now, and with a couple more signings it could easily have the best once again. This is all the more crucial now that Calipari has demonstrated that he can win with a group of talented youngsters.

The future of these current players seems even more interesting. They are beginning the process of declaring and preparing for the impending NBA draft. This team has six players projected in the draft, with the entire starting five going in the first round. Soon these players will be scattered to the wind, landing across the NBA landscape and ready to make an impact.

In a way, Calipari has pioneered a new system of emptying the chamber and reloading the gun for next season. The rule keeping student athletes in college for at least one season has led to a fleet of “one and done” players, most recently arising from Kentucky. Usually a talented bunch lacking chemistry won’t be able to get too far in the tournament. (Exhibit A — The Wildcats 2009 team who also had five players in the draft’s 1st round but made an early exit in March).

It will be interesting to see if this system continues to work over the years or if team’s with more senior leadership and experience playing together eventually win out. For Calipari, young talent is a renewable resource, one that he is especially good at mining. But it takes a special group to make a title run, and upsets are always at a premium in this beautiful event, so who knows what the future holds for college basketball. But most assuredly, Kentucky will be in the conversation, and it is bound to be fun to watch.

The post Young ‘Cats Rule the Court — Kentucky Clinches NCAA Championship appeared first on NextGen Journal.

There were, of course, the usual upsets that happen every year. A pair of No. 5 seeds fell to No. 12 seeds as per usual. Since 1985 there have been only three years (1988, 2000, and 2007) when at least one No. 5 seed didn’t go down in the first round. This year Wichita State fell victim to last year’s Final Four surprise team VCU and Temple lost to South Florida. VCU couldn’t keep its hot streak going against Indiana, but they gave the Hoosiers quite the scare before letting them move on to the Sweet 16.

South Florida faced another spoiler in its next matchup. Ohio, not the more athletically gifted Ohio State, came in ranked as a No. 13 seed playing No. 4 Michigan and defeated the Wolverines 65-60, led by a 20-point performance from D.J. Cooper. Then USF and Ohio did battle on Sunday night to decide who would move on. For much of the game, the two teams were very close but with about two minutes left, Ohio pulled away to a 62-56 victory.

While these No. 12 seeds crashing the party is usually par for the course, on Friday something utterly unprecedented occurred. Since the tournament’s format was expanded to 64 teams in 1985, there have been a mere four upsets of No. 2 seeds in the first round. A matchup between a No. 15 seed, usually a small mid-major school that was only invited after winning its conference tournament, and a No. 2, usually a top ranked national power hailing from one of the big-time conferences, is usually a quick proposition ending with an easy win for the No. 2.

But this year, that simply was not the case. Just ask Missouri and Duke- who at the hands of Norfolk State, a team who had never made the tournament, and Lehigh, a team with only four previous tournament games under its belt and no victories, shocked their higher rated opponents and the world by pulling off improbable but convincing upsets within hours of each other.

Norfolk State represented a tough match up for the undersized Missouri because of their big man Kyle O’Quinn, who dominated the paint for the Spartans. After finishing the game with 26 points and 14 rebounds O’Quinn exclaimed to the world, “We messed up some brackets! We even messed up my bracket!” As for Duke and Lehigh: many believe Duke has been consistently overrated for years, and simply benefited from its high rankings over time. With the exception of 2010’s National Championship, the team since 2005 has constantly underachieved by reaching the Sweet 16 at best or exiting earlier.

If Duke truly has been rolling through on nothing more than goodwill, it certainly caught up to them this year. Unfortunately for the underdog lovers out there, the later games of Norfolk State and Lehigh were not as bright as their first round “shining moments” — these two Cinderellas ended up losing in the second round, to Florida and Xavier respectively, like all other No. 15 seeds who bravely moved onto the second round before them.

As for other underdogs still left in the running, there are some interesting teams still around who could make some noise in the remaining weeks. No. 11 NC State, who easily got past its first opponent San Diego State and then barely escaped Georgetown in its second game with a 66-63 victory, is definitely one of those teams. The Wolfpack will play Kansas in the next round, a team that needed a furious comeback to survive a very tough Purdue team.

In the same region, No. 13 Ohio will be taking on No. 1 North Carolina, who could be without point guard Kendall Marshall, who broke his non-shooting wrist. Two other upsets that could be lined up are for the teams that beat the No. 15 seeds. Florida, a now hot and dangerous team, will be taking on ultra-physical No. 3 Marquette, and Xavier — a team ranked lower than its talent level would suggest because of a mid-season brawl — is taking on No. 3 Baylor, who, like Missouri, is a bit undersized.

Realistically, who knows what is going to happen in the next set of games. Of the 6.5 million brackets submitted on ESPN.com, not a single one was perfect after the weekend. The odds of picking a perfect bracket are astronomical — that’s the wonderful thing about this tournament. At the end of the day, nobody knows what’s on the way, and anything can happen.

The post March Madness Upsets: No. 15′s and The Cinderellas Yet To Come appeared first on NextGen Journal.

Sports fans have been and will be seeing this headline a lot in the next few days. As hard as it is to believe sometimes, these athletes, with their huge personalities, who act as giants of their sport, are heroes who rarely get to leave the game they love with the grace they played it. You can look around a league like the NFL and think guys are untouchable, but the events of the week proved that is simply not the case. In the words of Bob Sugar, sports agent from “Jerry Maguire,” “This ain’t show friends, it’s show business.” When it comes down to the case of a guy like Peyton Manning —  a once in a generation type player and arguably one of the best to ever throw the ball —  it was simply business.

If Manning had even an average year by the standards he set previously, then the now famous $28 million signing bonus would have been worth every penny. But for the Manning who sat out a full season recovering from three neck surgeries with his progress tracked by Bigfoot-style home videos on a team about to completely rebuild — 28 million dollars is too steep a price even for the guy only two years removed from his fourth MVP. It is simply the nature of the business.

This isn’t the first time and it most assuredly won’t be the last. The club of great quarterbacks to finish their careers with a different team has simply added a member. Johnny Unitas, an NFL and Baltimore Colt legend played his final snaps in San Diego. Joe Namath, nicknamed “Broadway” Joe was so engrained as a Jet, yet retired a Los Angeles Ram. Joe Montana, a 49er hero and arguably the greatest quarterback ever, finished his playing days a Chief. Most recently Brett Favre, a beloved Packer and NFL ironman, ended his career playing first as a Jet, then with the rival Vikings. Now Peyton, the face and soul of his franchise, will close out playing in a new uniform.

This surely has to be one of the most amicable splits in NFL history. Both owner and quarterback had to fight back tears during the press conference announcing the decision. The two men worked for weeks trying to compromise but one simply didn’t exist that could satisfy the needs of both sides. This type of split will not make things any easier for the man trying to fill the huge iconic shoes left before him. Favre pretty much burned his bridges to Green Bay after he left, making it easier for fans to jump on the Rodgers bandwagon. But this is not the case for Manning, who bowed out of the way respectfully as presumed first overall pick Andrew Luck will step in. Over the next few seasons, these two will be compared every step of the way. Fans will be left to wonder where their team might be if Manning were still the signal caller. Expect to see a side-by-side comparison of Manning and Luck until the end of time. Even though they will never take a snap together as teammates, and they may hardly ever play one another, these two men will forever be linked in the history of sports. In the words of Neil Young, “The King is gone, but not forgotten.”

But now for the question as to where “the king” will land. If he has successfully recovered, Peyton could pretty much step in anywhere and improve most any team. He represents not only a great quarterback but also an undisputed leader of men. Manning played for years with a rag-tag bunch of receivers whose play he elevated by the virtue of just being him.

The list of teams who are going to pursue Manning will be long. The Dolphins, Redskins, Seahawks, Cardinals, Jets, and others are all in the running. The choice will truly be Manning’s and not the other way around. He will still be able to bring in a hefty payment for his services and, if everything thing healed accordingly, he’ll probably see the playoffs a couple more times before it’s all said and done. You wish these moments were rare and didn’t have to occur, but yet they always seem to happen. Not every player gets to be as lucky as John Elway, walking off into the sunset after winning back-to-back Super Bowls for the team he played his whole career.

So what does the future hold for Peyton Manning? A new team, a new life, and a new legacy.

The post “The King is Gone” — Manning and the Colts Split appeared first on NextGen Journal.

Though this year the NBA All Star game did fall on the same date,  it’s too similar to the Oscars to matter: it features millionaires congratulating each other for being so awesome. Here are some of my top moments from last night’s ceremonies. Even though it is pretty easy to poke fun at these awards, I really do enjoy them and look forward to them from year to year.

Best Host:
In a shocking upset, Billy Crystal. For the 9th time, Billy Crystal took the Oscar stage as the show’s master of ceremonies. This followed the brutal crash-and-burn performances of James Franco and Anne Hathaway last year, featuring Franco’s top-flight sleep inducing aloofness and Hathaway’s over the top depression-inducing energy. From the ashes of this smoldering sad and sleepy time in Oscar history arose the reborn Phoenix-like Billy Crystal with his standard safe Oscar shtick. It might have seemed stale if last year’s telecast was funnier. However, just having the guiding hand of a comedian at the helm was enough to keep things moving along at a decent pace with jokes throughout.

Best Billy Crystal Joke:
The looser and more off-the-cuff Crystal saying when he saw “The Help” he wanted to “hug the first black woman I saw. From Beverly Hills, that’s about a 45 minute drive.”

Best Moment(s) of Genuine Comedy:
1a.) Emma Stone is perfect. It is incredibly difficult to nail a presenting bit. These tiny moments take some serious comedic chops to sell something aimed at an immensely broad audience. Usually they crash and burn. But Stone and Ben Stiller were a great combo. Stone had just enough goofy confidence to pull off the overexcited first-time presenter gimmick. Also standing next to Ben Stiller, Emma Stone looked even taller, funnier, and more beautiful than usual. Move over creepy Jim Carrey, the rest of the world is in line.

1b.) Chris Rock is a comic genius. He tried once to host this show and did a very Chris Rock job. It worked for those who like Rock but the masses were upset with how harsh he got. He was Ricky Gervais before Gervais set the Golden Globes ablaze with his relatively tame “The Tourist” jokes. However, in his presenting job, Chris Rock struck the perfect chord of funny and mocking. This time he attacked a group that really deserved it, voice actors that think voice acting is hard work. Rock’s rant was hilarious.

Best Dressed:
I don’t care.

Most French Guy in Attendance:
Jean Dujardin. Jean Dujardin is so French that he is like an over-the-top Sacha Baron Cohen French character.

Best Speech:
Discount the three main categories: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Lead Actor. So I go to Best Adapted Screenplay. While Alexander Payne did most of the talking, there was a beautiful and subtle gesture by Jim Rash, now the Oscar-winning Dean, which wrapped the whole thing up. Sticking his leg out in Angeline Jolie fashion was a nice moment making fun of just how important she thinks she is.

Biggest Surprise:
Meryl Strep winning Best Lead Actress. Yes, that’s right. The Academy’s most nominated actress in the history of awards, won. In fact this is the second time she was nominated for a film with “iron” in the title and 17th time overall. This was her third win. Her last was all the way back when Sylvester Stallone was culturally relevant.

Best Peacemaking Effort:
The Academy granting Iran’s “A Separation” a win is clearly a golden-plated CineFile-style olive branch begging that country to stop playing with nuclear weapons and radioactive things. Also, the film is truly fantastic. It’s a bit heavy because, well, it’s set in Iran and not many great things happen there. Beyond that, it shows the slow dissolve of a couple’s 14-year marriage. So it isn’t exactly “The Muppets,” but it’s a good movie you’ll only want to see once.

Biggest Snub:
The Muppets not getting to perform their Best Song nominee, and the fact all their songs weren’t nominated because they are just so darn cheery. If a medley of the new Muppet songs like, “Life’s A Happy Song”, “ Pictures in My Head”, “Man or Muppet”, along with the old classics like, “Rainbow Connection”, and “Together Again” wouldn’t brighten up that room, literally nothing would. A huge missed opportunity for an all-time great Oscar moment.

Biggest Head Scratching Moment:
Having Adam Sandler repeatedly speak un-ironically about his love of movies when it was announced earlier that he had broken the record for most Razzie Nominations with 11 (including both Worst Actor and Worst Actress). I like the guy, but maybe he’s not the foremost authority on cinema.

Best Tweets About the Oscars:
As those of you out there in the Twitterverse may know, most big events (i.e. the Grammys, the Oscars, the Country Music Awards-“Country’s Biggest Night”) all inspire quite a bit of tweeting. Some hilarious. Some cringe worthy. See: Reactions to Chris Brown (women in favor of domestic abuse). See: Reactions to Paul McCartney (“Who is Paul McCartney?” ONLY ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS! Sorry for the outburst). See: People tweeting random minutia from their day (“I want breakfast.” It’s not completely on topic but still mind-numbingly awful.)

Anyways these are of the hilarious tweet variety- done by the professionals out there who make ironic comedy jokes for a living.

“For the love of God, thank the boys who stormed Normandy”-Norm MacDonald

“This year’s “In Memoriam” segment will feature a montage of all the Nicholas Cage movies that died in 2011.”-Andy Borowitz

“It warms my heart to think about how unbelievably bored the little girl next to Scorcese must be.”-Paul F. Tompkins

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The Descendants

Directed by Academy Award winning filmmaker Alexander Payne, The Descendants revolves around the lives of the King family in the wake of a boating accident that places the matriarch in an irreversible coma. Matt King, played expertly by George Clooney, is a classic absent workaholic father who had left the hands-on parenting to his wife Elizabeth. Because of this traumatic event that rocks the family, Matt is thrown into the emotionally treacherous territory of having to relate to his two daughters- while also struggling to decide whether to sell the remaining land his family inherited in order to bring in money for less well-off cousins.

Balancing these two precarious situations becomes even more complicated when his eldest daughter Alexandra reveals that her mother had been carrying on an affair for the past several months. The ensuing comedic drama comes from Matt, Alexandra, Matt’s youngest daughter Scottie, and Alexandra’s dopey surfer friend Sid embarking on a mission to tell family and friends of Elizabeth’s condition and to find the new man in her life.

There are very few movies that allow for two simultaneous storylines that build to two separate and equally satisfying resolutions — this is one of them. Clooney’s performance is the heart and soul of this movie. He plays every scene to perfection and hits the right notes between drama and comedy the entire way. You no longer see George Clooney, mega-famous movie star, but instead Matt King, everyman struggling father. His performance is remarkable and more than deserving of an Oscar win.

He is backed by other fantastic performances throughout the film. His daughters — played by debutante Amara Miller and Shailene Woodley from the television show The Secret Life of the American Teenager — are fantastic as the grieving daughters dealing with the loss of their mother. Along with Nick Krause as Sid, who plays the best “comic relief with a heart” in recent film history, the trio supports Clooney to perfection. Beau Bridges as cousin Hugh, one of the relatives wanting to sell the land, puts in great work as a force pressuring Matt. The adulterous husband in Elizabeth’s life, played by Matt Lillard along with Judy Greer as his wife, both contribute brief but powerful scenes of resolution.

Payne’s direction does not depict Hawaii as the beautiful, tropical paradise that heaps of tourists typically experience. Instead, we see a different side of the the Aloha State, as Hawaii becomes as urbane and normal as any other location for a movie family.

The script of The Descendants, written by director Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash, is rightly nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. The blend of laughs and serious moments throughout hits the perfect emotional tone. Any fan of NBC’s Community would love to see this film win Adapted Screenplay just to watch Jim Rash — Dean Pelton of Greendale — become an Oscar winner for this richly deserving film.

At its very core, this movie demonstrates how important relationships are between families and refocuses the lives of people who have lost what really matters. Sometimes it takes a tragedy to wake people up, and the tragic moment in this film, though sad, brings together a family in need of emotional support. The Descendants is a hilarious and poignant film that deserves a wide audience as well as the Oscar attention it has garnered.

The post Breaking Down the Best Pictures: The Descendants appeared first on NextGen Journal.

One of the breakout stars of this past year’s EDC in Las Vegas was the burgeoning phenom of the electronic scene, Skrillex. Skrillex’s rise has included a breakout into the mainstream, something few modern DJs have managed to accomplish. He took the underutilized subgenre of dubstep, then mixed it with new experimental sounds and brought it to every college party across America. He even brought it to television with a trailer for “Red Tails.”

Now, he has five Grammy nominations – including Best New Artist – and three Grammy awards under his belt, with victories for Best Dance/Electronica Album (Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites), Best Dance Recording (“Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites”) and Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical (“Cinema”).

But before all this, Sonny Moore was a 17 year old who got his start as the guitarist then lead vocalist for Georgia-based rock band “From First to Last.” Being a talented and trained musician before his transition to DJ Skrillex in 2008 has certainly informed his current music.

“Without question it helps that his musical ability extends past the DJ music programs,” said college sophomore Ricky Carpenter.

Moore left the band in February 2007 to pursue his own unique music career after considerable damage to his vocal cords that required surgery. For two years, Skrillex played locally in Los Angeles clubs- until 2010, when he released a pair of EPs, “My Name is Skrillex” and “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites.” It’s the latter for which he garnered two of his Grammy wins Sunday.

Skrillex’s exploding popularity has opened up doors for him with many other great musicians. He has recently collaborated with bands like The Doors and Korn. He will also be releasing his first studio album in 2012, “Voltage.” Skrillex’s Grammy nominated music video for “First of the Year” also gained an extra bit of notoriety by appearing on the reincarnated “Beavis and Butthead” show.

Skrillex has earned a reputation for being quite the showman, also part of his performer roots.

“Skrillex is the best DJ I have seen live. He is energetic, has an amazing time with the crowd and is more fun. He’ll do things like stage dive and crowd surf that really gets everyone riled up,”  said Eric Schwantes, a junior at Brigham Young University and a professional photographer who attends “raves” regularly to take pictures.

With five major nominations and three victories for Skrillex, it has become clear that electronic dance music is now being taken seriously. Or, at the very least, the Grammys are recognizing it for its mass appeal. Either way, EDM is pushing its way into the forefront of the American music scene and Skrillex is one of the pioneers of the genre who will be around spinning his tracks for years to come.

The post One Small Step for Skrillex, One Big Step for EDM appeared first on NextGen Journal.

Sam Cooke

Sam Cooke had, arguably, the greatest voice of all time, one that this generation may hardly ever hear. The one word that comes to mind immediately is not range, (though his is impeccable) but power. The sheer power of his voice, stemming from his deep gospel roots, could fill up any room or performance venue. For my money, he is the original and greatest soul man to ever carry a tune. He put his whole heart and body into a song and his voice was as smooth as silk. This pure talent makes his death at the young age of 33 all the more tragic.

Best Album:
One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club

My personal favorite of his albums is this 10-track, 38-minute live performance in Miami. The band performing behind him is incredible and off-the-cuff set list gives it a greatest hits feel. Amazingly, he’ll give little bits of commentary during songs and has the audience sing along for large chunks that end up sounding fantastic. The best track on the album is a medley of “It’s All Right” and “For Sentimental Reasons” — the track is brilliant, sweet and perfectly melds these two great songs together.

Rod Stewart

Rod Stewart is best known to this generation for doing “American Songbook,” aka all those covers of songs your grandmother loves (at least that’s how I first heard of him). But after looking back at his discography, you’ll find a cutting edge British rocker lost in the shuffle. His raspy and gravelly voice added an edge to his songs at a time when clean crisp-voiced Beatles dominated the airwaves. He started with the British band The Faces, whose biggest hit was “Stay with Me” — absolutely worth a listen. Stewart then went out and achieved superstardom on his own time.

Best Album:
Every Picture Tells a Story

This was Stewart’s third studio album and it managed to reach No. 1 in both the US and the UK. The title track is one of Stewart’s biggest hits. Introduced by a 30 second mandolin solo, “Maggie May” was probably his best known work however. The ballad — which Stewart himself admits has “no melody”  — is funny, sweet and heartfelt — an instant hit.

Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin was once upon a time known as “The Queen of Rock and Roll,” but today her music is virtually unnoticed by a generation who may only occasionally hear this vixen’s beautiful surprisingly low folksy voice. Joplin is a counterculture icon who performed at Woodstock and was able to grab hold of an audience then bring them on an emotional ride that could range anywhere from confidence to a deep vulnerability. She was a true original. She is a member of the 27 Club — taken too young from a heroin overdose.

Best Album:
Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits

This album, released in 1973, three years after her death, is one of the best collections of an artist’s cumulative work ever. Each of the 10 tracks displays a facet of her amazing voice. She could do everything from a jazzy aria by George Gershwin like “Summertime” to the folksy “Me and Bobby McGee” to the rock infused “Piece of My Heart.” In the 1999 re-release the song “Mercedes Benz” was included — a favorite of mine.

Tom Petty

The Florida native has an easygoing rock voice that can tackle any chorus, especially the most addictive ones like that of “Free Falling.” Petty re-burst onto the scene in 2008 with a stellar Super Bowl halftime performance. This was great to watch as an old Petty fan as it served to kick off a world tour and record sales for his greatest hits, which jumped 196 percent. Petty and the Heartbreakers were on the forefront of “heartland rock” in the seventies, practically defining the genre of rock with bits of country and raw lyrics.

Best Album:
Greatest Hits

While it does seem unfair to suggest a performer’s greatest hits album as his best, this is simply the truth. There is not a single song on this album that isn’t an absolute classic. It is a playlist that features equal amounts of songs over three different decades showing the lasting power of Petty’s music.

Warren Zevon

Warren Zevon, the son of Russian immigrants, is best known for his hit song, “Werewolves in London.” Though Zevon’s career was derailed momentarily by his alcoholism, he bounced back with one of his best albums. After a commercial setback Zevon managed a second comeback, occasionally filling in as bandleader on Late Night with David Letterman and putting out an emotional final album. Written and recorded after his diagnosis with terminal cancer, the album The Wind with the beautiful and heartbreaking “Keep Me in Your Heart” is a must listen.

Best Album:
Stand in the Fire

This live album by Zevon captures a high-energy performance and capped off a decade of great recordings. The live version of Werewolves is even more fun than the recorded track. This hard-rocking tale of a werewolf terrorizing Europe is catchy and a great one to sing along with especially the iconic howls. The final two tracks of “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead” and “Bo Diddley” close out a powerhouse hour-long concert.

The post Great Voices of the Past You Should Know appeared first on NextGen Journal.

Now that I got that out of the way, I can explain that this is not an all-love relationship. Like any good fan, I reserve the right to make what I feel are helpful suggestions to improve the experience. These suggestions stem from a very dark and very real hatred that burns in my very core for the NCAA and what it repeatedly does to hurt college sports. I am not saying we should abolish the NCAA or sneak into its headquarters in the dead of night, burn it to the ground, and salt the Earth so nothing will ever grow there again, as much as I have wanted to do that at times. I do fully recognize that the NCAA or a governing body like it must exist for college sports to function.

So without further ado, here is my anti-love letter to the NCAA.

First and foremost, I hate the NCAA because of the annual debacle known as bowl season. For the most part I understand the appeal of bowls, where teams that would never usually get to play in the postseason get a chance to win their own exclusive piece of a championship puzzle. Even if that piece happens to be the Beef O’Brady’s Bowl, the Franklin American Mortgage Bowl, or the Taxslayer.com Gator Bowl. A particularly depressing one this year was the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, which featured two teams that had already fired their head coaches, one of which (UCLA) limped into bowl season with an under .500 record of 6-7. UCLA lost the game to Illinois in an all-around display of plain ugliness.

I can handle these absurdities because, at the end of the day, I love football, and, frankly, the more the better. But the fact that there is no playoff system in place is absolute madness — and not the good kind in March. Every other sport at every other level in the history of the world uses a playoff to determine who is the best team in the land… except for this division of college football. Yes, even the lower divisions of college football use a playoff format. At the end of every season, commentators and experts on ESPN, CBS, and every other sports channel state their cases as to why certain teams should be playing in the championship game over other teams. This is an unfortunate reality of accepting this horrible system.

The conversation isn’t about who has the depth, leadership, and skill to make a playoff run and be crowned a rightful champion but instead what two teams did enough to make it to a single game that determines the one best team in the country. Look at the championship game this year between LSU and Alabama. LSU was clearly the undisputed and undefeated No. 1 team in the country (or the #1 seed in the hypothetical playoffs I wish were happening). They faced the allegedly No. 2 team, Alabama. Alabama, who already lost to LSU this season, didn’t win its conference, didn’t even win its own division of its conference, and had only three wins against teams with winning records and only two against teams in the BCS top 25. This is compared to an Oklahoma State team with one loss, a conference title, a top 10 strength of schedule that included wins against BCS-ranked teams like Texas, Kansas State, Baylor, Oklahoma and, as of the Fiesta Bowl, No. 3 ranked Stanford. So clearly the argument can be made — and that fact alone should be enough to institute a playoff system as soon as humanly possible. Much like in the court of law, if a reasonable doubt exists, how can any champion in the BCS era be considered legitimate?

I understand the reason for the bowl system. I don’t know if you are familiar with the term “money,” but yeah, that’s what all those ridiculous bowl game names mean. The next time you hear the Meineke Car Care Bowl, understand that Meineke shelled out big bucks for those naming rights. So don’t blow up the entire bowl system. You can make money and have playoffs that determine a real champ. Keep the junky bowl games that allow little-seen teams to play under the banner of a crazy company name and then have an eight-team playoff. Even sell the naming rights to the playoff games. Who cares if the semi-final game is called the Discover Orange Bowl? Certainly not me — as long as it means the winner of that game will play against the winner of the Capital One Insight Bowl in the Allstate National Championship game.

Now as if all that isn’t enough, there is another layer to this bowl season that drives me equally crazy. The fact that certain conferences receive an automatic bid to a BCS bowl game over non-BCS schools who not only have better records but literally are ranked higher in the AP and BCS polls is an absolute travesty. Boise State, a team ranked seventh in the country this year, ended up in the MAACO Las Vegas Bowl when teams like No. 23 West Virginia and No. 15 Clemson, both sporting three losses, played in the Orange Bowl. As if automatically trying to keep out mid-major conference teams wasn’t bad enough, there is a clear bias among BCS bowls against these teams. Just take a look at this year’s Sugar Bowl, which took at-large bid No. 11 Virginia Tech that didn’t win its conference and had two losses on its record. Again: “money.” The idea is that a “national power” will bring in the bigger audience- it completely disregards whether one team is more or less deserving than another team. This is all the more frustrating because of the shroud of mystery that surrounds the choosing of these at-large bids. Why and how specific teams end up playing in the games they do over other teams with better records and higher rankings will forever remain a mystery, a la the Bermuda Triangle or Roswell.

This lack of disclosure leads me into my next reason for hating the NCAA. The NCAA had (has) free reign to punish any team without due process, as well as free reign to pick and rank the teams in the NCAA tournament in basketball. The punishing and tournament selection of colleges seems as random as a blind man’s hits on a dartboard. Year after year, teams are left on the bubble, while other teams not only make the tournament but also are seeded well above their record, AP ranking, and RPI ranking without an explanation of any kind. The selection committee is made up of ten random athletic directors and conference commissioners throughout college sports. However, these closed-door meetings, more reminiscent of dirty politics than anything, offer zero accountability. This isn’t as truly upsetting as the football debacle because, well, at least there exists a playoff system.

Now on to one of the most infuriating parts of the NCAA’s jurisdiction — the punishments they hand down to schools on a regular basis. Just this past year, the Ohio State University was one of these teams to be punished. What were they punished for? First, players took improper benefits from a local tattoo parlor owner in exchange for memorabilia, star quarterback Terrelle Pryor reportedly made over $40,000 for selling autographs, a football booster overpaid players for summer jobs, and, to top it all off, head coach Jim Tressel knew of these infractions and lied on four occasions to keep his players on the field. The punishment? A one-year bowl ban, the loss of nine scholarships, and probation (whatever that means).

Compare that to the punishment of USC just a few seasons before. The “crime?” A single player, Reggie Bush, received very expensive gifts, including limos and suits, from two sports marketers who had no affiliation whatsoever with the school. The punishment? A two-year bowl ban, a loss of 30 scholarships, the vacating of wins, and, again, “probation.” This seems a little bit lopsided — and that’s not just my Trojan blood talking.

What’s the difference? Just look at the facts. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith is the chair of the NCAA basketball committee and was involved with numerous other NCAA councils and committees. Ohio State just hired superstar college football coach Urban Meyer, while superstar coach Pete Carroll had already abandoned ship for the NFL. USC is in the PAC-12, a west coast program, whose late night games could be meaningless for a year or two. Ohio State is in the Big 10 with huge 100-plus year rivalries against Michigan and Penn State that bring in millions of dollars every year. Also, the NCAA already threw the book at USC a couple seasons ago — why stick with that precedent?

However, I do think the NCAA finally did something right with the Ohio State ruling, something that has been ignored in many other cases. They punished the coach, Jim Tressel, for five years by putting a “show-cause” ban on him, meaning any team willing to hire him must show cause for why it is not to be punished. While it’s not perfect, it does address the problem I call Calipari syndrome. John Calipari is the current basketball coach at Kentucky University. He has been to the Final Four and the championship game and has been a proven winner over the course of his career. Coach Calipari didn’t start his career at Kentucky, though. He worked his way up from UMass to Memphis, turning both of those programs into perennial contenders. The problem, though, is that both of those schools have since had their Final Four appearances and other wins vacated and were fined the tournament revenue they made (Memphis was also placed on probation three years). While I believe in innocent until proven guilty, I also believe in the old adage “where there is smoke, there is fire,” and the only smoke I see is coming from the smoldering programs Calipari left in ashes before moving onto bigger and better work.

The NCAA punishment process wasn’t always so fair and balanced (I know how shocking that is). If it weren’t for the lawsuit of former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian, who faced the NCAA’s wrath beginning the day he published a column pointing out their willingness to punish smaller schools as opposed to big-time programs, things would have been much worse. The investigation as a result of the lawsuit revealed that the NCAA Infractions Committee would consistently build cases on hearsay and wouldn’t share evidence with the school under suspicion. There also was no appeal process in place for punishments. Tarkanian sued the NCAA for harassment, and while the association admitted no wrong doing, it settled out of court for $2.5 million. And as previously shown, money talks… and, well, you know the rest. This leads to my final reason for hating the NCAA. Jerry Tarkanian has never been enshrined in the NCAA basketball Hall of Fame. Even when his resume includes four Final Fours, coaching three schools to 20-win seasons, the fifth highest college coaching winning percentage of 78.4 and a career 729 wins putting him 21st on the all-time win list. (Of the 20 coaches ahead of him, only four are not inducted).

This is a pretty long and detailed examination of my ever-growing hatred for the hypocritical, biased, and shadow-government style NCAA. But again, let me reassure you that I love college sports. It gives a meaningful and interesting alternative to sports filled to the brim with overpaid athletes and their “storylines.” It’s just that, at the end of the day, the system is egregiously flawed, more than most, and needs serious repairing. Until then, I’ll still be tuning in for college football Saturdays, the bowl season, and basketball with unpaid players, especially the March of madness every spring.

The post Why I Love College Sports But Hate the NCAA appeared first on NextGen Journal.

The first was the ultimate experiment in micro-budget filmmaking and viral marketing. The final cost of the film was somewhere between 11,000 and 15,000 dollars, and it first gained notoriety online that grew its reputation much like an urban legend. When all was said and done, the first movie earned over 100 million dollars, a pretty nice return on any investment. That kind of return not only guaranteed a sequel but the launching of America’s new favorite horror franchise. The second film was part prequel/sequel that came out last year and brought in over 80 million dollars on another shoestring budget.

Now for the third straight year, a Paranormal Activity film is ruling the October box office. In fact, the third installment, with its 54 million dollar weekend gross, has the record for highest fall opening ever. As of right now, the worldwide gross of the franchise stands at 450 million, compared to a measly 8 million dollar budget between the three.

The third film in the series is a straight prequel that tracks the activity all the way back to the origins. The year is 1988 and the main characters from the first two films are young girls living with their mother and stepdad, who luckily happens to be wedding videographer. Otherwise, all the activities would have completely undocumented. He sets up three cameras in the home, one in the girls’ room, one in the main bedroom, and lastly one that rotates back and forth between the dining room and kitchen.

It is the final camera that directors Henry Joost and Ariel Shulman use most to their advantage when providing big scares. These two were responsible for 2010’s Catfish, a documentary that borders mock-umentary, and the two do a good job duplicating the style of the first films. They provide big scares as promised within the format that has worked so effectively before. The last 15 minutes are a genuinely heart-pounding scary that will keep most audience members on the edge of their seat.

The question that seems to arise most often with this series is, if the films are so similar and I have seen the first and second then why should I pay to see the third? It is a valid question, one that also came up with The Hangover: Part II, and it’s especially relevant since some of the biggest praise these movies have gotten is that it hasn’t changed formula like previous found footage horror film The Blair Witch Project, whose sequel went big budget with little return.

The answer is simple; if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. In terms of true scares, the Paranormal Activity series is by far the best at getting its audience first generally uneasy, then terrified. It just works. And as the classic rule says, “Give them what they want,” which based on those box office numbers people still want more activity. Finally, there really is nothing like being in a packed theatre for one of these movies. It’s an experience that is fun, scary, and better than most films. By the end, every person sitting in the dark together has bonded over what equates to the scariest team-building exercise ever. If you liked the first two you’ll like the third. That’s a guarantee.

The post Paranormal Activity 3: A Phenomenon appeared first on NextGen Journal.

At the center of it all is Bryan Cranston, probably best known as Hal on Malcolm in The Middle, who plays the conflicted White perfectly in all directions. He plays him as loving father, scheming criminal, disheartening liar, and every shade of grey between these roles. The show hinges, first and foremost, on this tremendous performance. But also along for the ride are Aaron Paul as Walt’s partner Jesse, Anna Gunn as Walt’s wife, and Dean Norris as Walt’s DEA agent brother-in-law. The genius of the show lies in the ripple effects of Walt’s actions that can only be appreciated when seen reverberating through the fantastic performances of this supporting cast. Bryan Cranston has already won three Emmy’s for his work here, and Aaron Paul has one for the third season. It is an absolute lock that they’ll both be nominated, with it being even more of a lock that Cranston will win again. Paul, however will face stiff competition from another newer member of the cast. Giancarlo Esposito portrayed employer/nemesis Gus Fring, the coldest and most professional bad guy in the history of television. His calculated demeanor left him one step ahead of everyone’s favorite anti-hero nearly the entire season. This season’s long mono y mono battle has a wonderfully satisfying resolution, especially for those who have been fans since the beginning.

The acting isn’t the only thing that makes the show stand out amongst other network/cable dramas. The filmic style takes full advantage of its Albuquerque on location shooting. The desolate and open desert landscapes work well when juxtaposed with the tight and cramped moments inside. The emotionally trapped White can be seen visually stuck with fantastic use of mise en scene. Being able to communicate this without words adds to the beautifully executed claustrophobic feeling. This isn’t done any better than the final shot of the episode “Crawl Space”. This eerie image will stick with me for many television seasons to come.

The slow burn technique that the show’s creator Vince Gilligan has employed here works perfectly. The basic structure of storytelling begins with the rising action, leads to a climax, and then finishes with the falling action. Breaking Bad will spend about more than half of its season, much longer than the average rising action, putting all the pieces into place that builds tension to an absolute fever pitch. By the time the punch hits, it is so well earned that the show can pull off anything. It has proved this now three years running.

The serialized show has done something that no other show has ever even attempted. It has taken the show’s hero, a man with his back against the wall, and has transformed him into the show’s sole villain, yet managed to keep him likeable. If you have never watched this show, get on the bandwagon; buy the DVDs, find it online, do anything to see it. And if you are already a dedicated fan, inspire your friends to start it as well.

The post Breaking Bad: Breaking the Mold appeared first on NextGen Journal.

With these infamous words comes the world’s first and best known case of political backstabbing. Since that fateful 15th day of March in 44 B.C. the political arena has only gotten more cutthroat, if less outright violent. The George Clooney-directed political thriller “The Ides of March” leaves nothing on the field.

To be clear, this is not your typical political conspiracy thriller. There is no spy work, no secret plot for government dollars, and no bad guy. The antagonist is politics itself. The grounded and realistic battle has the highest stakes of all; who will be the leader of the free world. That’s the scenario set up with only days before the Ohio Democratic Presidential Primary. The stage is set for a showdown between two candidates who, based on the circumstances of the election, are on the verge of being able to redecorate the White House.

The story begins on young up-and-coming political operative Stephen Meyers played masterfully by Ryan Gosling. At 30 years old Meyers has finally found a candidate he can believe in. Governor Mike Morris is liberal in all the right ways. He has a resume that includes a military service record, a balanced budget, and a state fourth in education. He has a lead in Ohio and a win will lock up his run. Clooney’s work as Morris is only outdone by his job behind the camera. He keeps the focus squarely on the electrifying performances of all five of the Oscars nominees who make up the principle cast. This is an actor’s film.

It is actually pretty amazing Meyers’s political idealism lived to see the age of 30 — Mr. Smith’s died within weeks of arriving in Washington and mine at a mere 19 — and yet there it is, right out on his sleeve. Ida Horowicz, a New York Times reporter played by Marisa Tomei, describes Meyers as being “all goosebumpy” about Morris. It’s no spoiler to tell you that over the course of the film his idealism is ground to dust. In this political tragedy the journey really is the destination.

The journey consists of the fantastic performances of Gosling, Clooney, Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Giamatti. Hoffman and Giamatti are powerful forces as opposing campaign managers. Hoffman owns every scene he is in with sheer power. His brief speech on loyalty is one of the film’s best moments. Giamatti embodies the bitter and jaded politico to perfection and gives some poignant advice to Gosling at a pivotal turning point in the film.

Having spent many months of hard work on a grassroots campaign, I can vouch that the film gets the atmosphere of a political campaign right. Even the somewhat monotonous details about programmed cell phones, robo-dialing and the intern hierarchy all ring true.

Meyers enters the film one way, goes through a baptism of fire, and emerges a different man. Transformation is at the heart of good storytelling and this one from idealist to realist is nearly perfect. The film may not say something new about politics, but never has it been said so succinctly. See this film. See it for the performances. See it for the realism. See it for the journey.

The post “The Ides of March”: About the Transformation appeared first on NextGen Journal.