Lifestyle

• Second Time Isn’t a Charm: The 10 Sequels You Wish You Hadn’t Paid to See

  Lifestyle November 17, 2009 at 4:44 pm Comments are Disabled

  Ross Bonaime, Staff Writer This Friday, much to the chagrin of the many people who don’t want their eardrums to burst from screaming, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is set to be released, looking to be packed with not only vampires, but werewolves as well. Also released this month was the sequel to cult classic Boondock Saints. Because of these unfortunate sequels, here are the top ten worst sequels of the decade. 10. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull When audiences went to go see the fourth film in this groundbreaking action franchise, they hoped for more of Indy killing Nazis and discovering lost treasure. Instead, Doctor Jones found himself in the middle of a broken family, with Shia LeBouf as his lost son, Indy finding alien lifeforms and even surviving a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. With the latest installment, Indiana went from a pulp comics action hero to a baby daddy having adventures too ridiculous to believe, even for Indy. 9. Big Momma’s House 2 It’s bad enough that Martin Lawrence is still making comedies, but for him to make a sequel to one of his most terrible comedies is even worse. In […]

   

• Dialogue Vs. Dynamite: Solving the Feud Between Explosions and Plot

  Lifestyle November 17, 2009 at 4:40 pm Comments are Disabled

  Evan Benton, Staff Writer Last weekend, I was arguing with a friend from my high school who was in town for the night. I had just come out of a University Mall Theatres screening of Inglourious Basterds, and was particularly surprised and enthralled by the film. The strength of Basterds was its writing, as it is in every film Quentin Tarantino has ever made. He possesses a narrative style all his own, and writes dialogue so realistic that it makes even the most outlandish and fantastical themes seem plausible. The friend from my high school, Steve, has been my friend since the first day of school in eighth grade. And in those nearly eight years, half of every conversation Steve and I have ever shared has involved the topic of film. We bloviate on the best movies of our generation, dismiss certain actors and actresses and praise others, and generally consider ourselves the most luminous film aficionados of our generation. And when two people such as these discuss something they love, sometimes they high-five in concordance, but they mostly butt heads in discord, the latter of which applied to this particular argument, which occurred while Steve was about seven beers […]

   

• In Bed With Billy: Friends with More than Benefits

  Lifestyle November 17, 2009 at 4:34 pm Comments are Disabled

  Billy Curtis, Sex Columnist Relationships are meant to be complicated. Throughout life, as we grow and change, so do the associations we have with people in our lives. Maturity levels rise, lessons teach what previously wasn’t known and sometimes, even friends can end up being something more. I never really thought about dating a friend and the option never really presented itself to me. But after doing some extensive research on my close friends and relatives, I realized that most of their relations began as a simple friendship. I witnessed such an account with my friends, Catherine and Kyle, just last year. We all had been friends for quite some time and, after awhile, my friend Latham and I began to notice some peculiar behavior between our two friends. The covert stares that they thought no one was noticing, or secret smoochies that went on behind closed doors, were all clear indications that something was going on. My entire group of friends and I found it even more hilarious that we knew they were dating before they even did. After a couple of weeks, and after their realization that we all knew what they were up to, they casually came […]

   

• Crooked Musicians, Straight to Success: Supergroup Fuses Genres on Debut Album

  Lifestyle November 14, 2009 at 5:07 pm Comments are Disabled

  Pearson Jones Them Crooked Vultures is a new band with a lot of history and nothing to prove, because they already have. That’s what happens though when your basses is John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), a musical shining golden god who has announced his return finally after three decades by joining up with two of Zeppelins most devout followers, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age. Overly glorified and most undeserving of the label, super-groups have never had a high success rate; unless you were one of the few die-hard Slash fans who thought Velvet Revolver succeeded in becoming a mock-up of a new generation Guns and Roses. An album can be bombarded to death with ideas when you get so much talent in one room. Sometimes too much of a good thing is the one thing you don’t need. Them Crooked Vultures is their own deal, though. They don’t commit to just one style of the trio, though they do subtly rob ideas and formulas from their previous projects that made each one of these musicians into the legends they are. This album isn’t Zeppelin homage, even though Grohl and Homme probably would […]

   

• Cracking Up with Cook: Popular Stand-Up Comic Takes the Stage at the Patriot Center

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:40 pm Comments are Disabled

  John Powell, Asst. Sports Editor Controversy is apparently wrapped in jeans and a t-shirt. When people look at comedian Dane Cook, he makes people laugh or people hate. From his humble beginnings of performing in a laundromat for his first standup show, Cook has gained international acclaim after appearing on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend in 1998. His standup has given him roles in more than 20 movies and TV shows going back to 1997. He has appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman, Comedy Central Presents, and has even hosted Saturday Night Live. His five albums are consistently funny, and his second album, Retaliation, debuting at the number four spot in the Billboard 200, making it the most successful comedy album since the release of Steve Martin’s A Wild and Crazy Guy in 1978. Adding to the Steve Martin and Dane Cook relationship is the fact that Martin’s comedy was what inspired Cook to get into comedy in the first place. Cook’s fame and success has not come without criticism, though. Comedians such as Lewis Black have openly said they did not like Cook’s comedy. “[He] doesn’t make me laugh at all, in any way, shape or form,” said […]

   

• CFA Hosts Jazz Ensemble

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:36 pm Comments are Disabled

  The George Mason University Jazz Ensemble and the Fairfax Law Foundation will be presenting the 8th Annual Jazz for Justice concert. The event will be held at the George Mason University’s Center for the Arts Concert Hall on Friday, Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. The proceeds of the event will go to the charitable efforts of the Fairfax Foundation. It will also help support the Mason’s Jazz Studies program. The George Mason Jazz Ensemble will be performing with Geoffrey Gallante, a 9-year-old trumpet prodigy, who will serve as the main attraction for the performance. Freshman and communication major Sha’ Air Hawkins will lend his voice as a guest vocalist. George and Edward Weiner will guest conduct the entire ensemble. Director of Jazz Studies Jim Carroll expressed his excitement about the contributions the event made. “The Fairfax Law Foundation provides a valuable contribution to the Fairfax community through its programs educating young people on the justice system and its pro bono work,” said Carroll. “Our Jazz Ensemble is delighted to partner with the foundation year after year, and we’re thrilled to perform this year with such a gifted young musician as Geoffrey.” The program for the evening includes Duke Ellington’s ‘Caravan” […]

   

• GMU Players Take Center Stage: Actors Rescue Weak Plot

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:35 pm Comments are Disabled

  Dylan Hares, Staff Writer The world of literature is oversaturated with coming-of-age stories – especially unimaginative ones. They follow the same pattern, reach the same climax and follow the same conclusion. They are boring and stale. Such is the case with Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! Set on Independence Day during the early 1900s in New England, Ah, Wilderness!”is the story of an upper class family who is genuinely ordinary. Their oldest son goes to Yale and their youngest daughter is peppy and annoying. Their 17-year-old son, Richard Miller, is a brooding, angst-driven teen who feeds off of the anarchist material of Irish writers such as George Shaw and Oscar Wilde, quoting them and others extensively in long, exhausting and melancholy monologues. We learn about Richard’s brother Arthur and how the time he has spent at Yale has made him stuck-up. We learn about Uncle Sid and his excessive drinking and Lilly, the girlfriend he can always come home to when he is drunk and not have to worry about leaving her as long as he looks sorry. Any information we get about the father and mother, Nat and Essie, does not contribute to the story at all, nor does any […]

   

• Talking About The Box: Diaz, Kelly and Marsden Talk with Broadside

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:34 pm Comments are Disabled

  Based on the short story by Richard Matheson, The Box is a new psychological thriller directed by Richard Kelly and starring James Marsden and Cameron Diaz that depicts a financially unstable 1970’s couple who one day receive a mysterious box with a button inside. They are told that if they push the button, they will receive one million dollars, but someone, somewhere in the world will die. Broadside recently had the chance to sit down with Diaz, Marsden and Kelly to talk about their experiences on making the film. Have any of you read the short story or seen the Twilight Zone episode this movie is based on? JM: Embarrassingly, I never read the short story, not out of laziness, but because we just wanted to focus on our version of what we were doing. I did see the Twilight Zone episode which—Richard where are we with that whole mentioning the Twilight Zone episode? RK: I’m under the impression that I’m not allowed to mention those words legally. [Laughs] But the short story was something I read when I was young and it had a huge impression on me, obviously, and I optioned it from Richard Matheson and I spent […]

   

• Disasterpieces: The 10 Best Movies About the End of the World

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:31 pm Comments are Disabled

  Ross Bonaime, Staff Writer This week, director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow) will destroy the world once again with his newest disaster film, 2012. As audiences, we’ve seen many horrible disasters and the many ways the world has come to complete destruction. Here are the greatest disaster films: 10. Sunshine Before director Danny Boyle turned a slumdog into a millionaire, he made this space-epic about a group of people who go to “restart” the sun to save the freezing earth. The slow breakdown of the astronauts with the fate of the world at their hands makes for a thrilling space drama. 9. Cloverfield An unidentified monster destroys New York in the surprise hit from last year. The film uses a first-person point of view to generate a greater sense of fear than in many other past disaster-films. The haunting monster that easily looms over the Big Apple is chilling. 8. Independence Day Yes, it’s cheesy and ridiculous. Yes, it’s over-the-top. And yes, it’s odd that aliens use Apple computers. But the film that made Will Smith a movie star is a fun action film that goes for cool explosions and hilarious one-liners. 7. 28 Days Later Imagine […]

   

• ‘Tis the Season for A Christmas Carol: Director Robert Zemeckis Teams Up with Jim Carrey for New Take on Holiday Classic: New Carol? Bah, Humbug

  Lifestyle November 12, 2009 at 4:28 pm Comments are Disabled

  Josh Hylton, Staff Writer And the onslaught begins. Here we are, not even 10 days into November and the Christmas spirit has already begun to seep through the cracks of the nation. Christmas commercials are popping up on television, retail stores are preparing for the inevitable hordes of holiday shoppers, and Christmas music has already begun to ring in our ears. America has a strange fascination with the holiday and Hollywood is happy to oblige, this time in the form of yet another version of the timeless classic, A Christmas Carol. A quick Internet Movie Database (IMDb) search of “A Christmas Carol” pops up 26 exact matches of the title, with an extra 12 partial matches that include adaptations of the story from the Muppets, Sesame Street, the Flintstones and, evidently, Barbie. There are quite literally dozens of versions of this story and although director Robert Zemeckis’s newest iteration is far from a bad film, it is this overabundance of adaptations that really holds it back. By now, you know the story. Scrooge, a greedy, curmudgeonly old money-grubber, hates Christmas. He treats his employee, Bob Cratchit, like scum and he thinks of nobody but himself. Little does he know, though, […]