Preorder Not Preorder
Entertainment

To Preorder, or Not to Preorder: Part II

Sometimes it seems like all the good games are right around the corner, but often upon release they turn out more hype than anything else. Last semester, I ran a feature on video game preorders, within which I gave advice on which games to preorder. I advised caution towards Star Wars: Battlefront, and recommended both No Man’s Sky and Fallout 4. Since that time Fallout 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront have been released, and their reception has been mostly in line with what I predicted. In this feature, I plan to describe several upcoming, noteworthy games that I have played pre-release.

BHR
Entertainment

Blue Hawk Records: Number Eight is Great

Blue Hawk Records is Monmouth University’s student run record label. Every semester, the Applied Music Industry class taught by Professor Joseph Rapolla, head of the music department, holds auditions and scouts artists, records and produces a compilation album and hosts a live show at the end of the semester in the Rebecca Stafford Student Center. This semester will be the record label’s eighth compilation album. After the success of Shades of Blue last semester, the label’s seventh compilation album, the student officers at Blue Hawk Records are excited to see what this class has in store for the album this semester.

21 Pilots
Entertainment

Get to Know Twenty One Pilots

Twenty One Pilots, with Tyler Joseph as the lead singer and Joshua Dun on the drums, has gone from a duo that strictly played small venues with a general admission audience to a band that everybody has heard of. After their release of Blurryface in May 2015, the duo gained a wildly vast mainstream presence that is only continuing to grow. “Stressed Out” and “Tear in my Heart” are songs that most people at least recognize or are just completely obsessed with. You can find Twenty One Pilots anywhere from Tumblr, to Spotify, to iTunes, to headlining tours, all the way to various events where they guest perform. Just a few weeks ago, they played at the X Games in Aspen, Colorado. The band is clearly doing something very right.

The Revenant
Entertainment

Raving Over “The Revenant”

Every once in a while, a great actor that has been around for a long time gives a high caliber performance that reminds you of why they are so good at their craft. In a nutshell, they solidify why they are masterful at transforming into characters. We’ve seen this with Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, and Daniel Day-Lewis. This year, the actor that joins the ranks of those brilliant performers is Leonardo DiCaprio.

The Hateful Eight
Entertainment

Don’t Overlook “The Hateful Eight”

With the Oscars coming up very soon, I couldn’t help but notice that one of my favorite movies of the year went completely under the radar—and not only to the Academy, but also to the entire public. Grabbing only a mere three Oscar nominations, Quentin Tarantino’s new film, The Hateful Eight, contained everything one can hope for in a Tarantino film: malicious characters, excessive blood and gore, an intense climax, and dialogue so funny and natural sounding that any actor can have a ball with it. This new “who-done-it” murder mystery takes place in a snowed in haberdashery in Wyoming during post-Civil War America, where eight unlikely visitors are forced to spend a whole night with each other. Questions about race, capital punishment, war, and loyalty to one’s family brings these characters to violent ends, and the story culminates in a third act that kept me on the edge of my seat and guessing the whole way.