by: Zoe Greiner and Montana Pelletier

Movies reviewed:
Hocus Pocus (1993), Halloweentown (1998), Twitches (2005), The Shining (1980), Scream (1996), The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Hocus Pocus (1993)
Rating: PG
Stars: 5/5
Actors: Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Thora Birch, Vinessa Shaw, Omri Katz, Sean Murray, Doug Jones
Thoughts: An utter classic. It brings me back to the Halloweens of my childhood, when I sat in my living room in the absolute dark, eating myself into a coma. It has many silly moments and silly characters, but has a serious theme that all kids with siblings can connect to. There are also a few adultish references that still make me laugh now.
You can find it on freeform.go for free with commercials

Halloweentown (1998)
Rating: G
Stars: 3.5/5
Actors: Debbie Reynolds, Kimberly J. Brown, Judith Hoag, Joey Zimmerman, Emily Roeske, Phillip Van Dyke
Thoughts: In complete Disney Channel fashion, this movie starts out with an angsty teenager and a cool grandmother. There was sibling rivalry and the plot was predictable. I will always find joy in a fantasy-esque Disney movie that grasps a teenage dream of being extraordinary. However, the acting is subpar and reminds me of every bad Disney show ever. So, overall, it’s great if you want to relive the glory days, but watching it again is seriously questionable.
You can find it on iTunes, Amazon Video, YouTube, and Google Play for 3 to 6 dollars.

Twitches (2005)
Rating: PG
Stars: 3/5
Actors: Tia Mowry, Tamera Mowry, Kristen Wilson, Patrick Fabian, Jennifer Robertson, Pat Kelly
Thoughts: Wowza. Another bad Disney film that I loved as a child. Somehow, the acting isn’t as important, as the story itself, when watching kids movies. The storyline in itself could be fascinating, but the fact that it feels like a soap opera ruins it. The twins, Tia and Tamera, haven’t done a lot now, and it’s kind of understandable because only kids want to watch that acting.
You can find it on iTunes, Amazon Video, YouTube, and Google Play.

The Shining (1980)
Rating: R
Stars: 4.5/5
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Joe Turkel, Barry Nelson
Thoughts: The Shining is a classic that has few faults. This is a great combination of jump scares and thrilling mind games. As the movie continues, you start to be driven crazy, just like main character. It’s a fully immersive storyline that draws you in immediately. If you are into oldies, then you’ll love this.

Scream (1996)
Rating: R
Stars: 3/5
Actors: Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber
Thoughts: Although bloody, this movie is undeniably funny. The mix of betrayal, gore, and mystery, combined with witty and quick jokes make this perfect for Halloween. However, it is difficult to get attached to the characters which stops this movie from trapping your attention like it wants to.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Rating: R
Stars: 2.5/5
Actors: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams
Thoughts: From this movie came the Paranormal Activity style of horror films. Handheld camera, first person POV, and completely relatable characters. Because this movie was the first of its kind, it wasn’t executed wonderfully. The idea behind never really seeing the witch, and leaving a mind boggling amount of questions with you, is admirable, but stopped you from enjoying yourself completely. If you consider yourself a movie-hipster, watch this. But don’t expect to get very scared.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

-The 13th Amendment

The amendment above, is what this documentary centers its historical timeline on. The documentary 13th, directed by Ava DuVernay, explores the history of U.S. racial inequality. 13th is filled with many shocking statistics, audio recordings of U.S. leaders, and videos of hate crimes against black people. The documemntary also focuses on the fact that the U.S. prison population is disproportionately filled with black people. 13th analyzes the way society views black people and the history behind the racist caricature of black people as thugs.

Usually I’m not a fan of documentaries, but this one is one that is worth the watch. While watching it, I couldn’t help but get engrossed in the way information was presented, and to be in shock at the statistics presented.

13th has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, an 8.2/10 on IMDb, and recieved overall glowing reviews.

Senior student, Tahji Brown, recently made an album called: Watermelon – which is made up of all original songs he created and produced himself. He is an artist, and he likes to sing and make music, specifically rap/hip-hop songs. He also features other students on some of his songs as a way of having them express their creativity by singing.

Tahji has a variety of songs on Watermelon that almost everyone can listen and dance to, because they’re fun. My two favorite songs from the album are “Bad Apologies” and “Fortune Cookie” (feat. Nehali Van Der Leeuw). Some of his songs have very peculiar names that I didn’t understand at first, but when I asked Tahji what is the inspiration behind each song he said: “Every song on this album has a different story and they all relate to me.” The songs of the album Watermelon is Tahji’s fun way of showing how much he loves watermelon.

I’m not a fan of hip-hop/rap music but Tahji Brown makes his music in a way that people of all ages could enjoy. Last year he made an album called: The New Cool – and he sold over 86 copies to students at Highland. He is still currently selling copies of Watermelon and everyone says they love to hear the music he creates. I always want to support any local artist in my community, especially in Highland Park.

Tahji Brown is a creative singer that produces fun music in hopes of making people feel happy and excited. If you’d like to hear a few of his songs, check out his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBiYEPM0basnm0RqIEpq6Cg

With the American release of Guardians of the Galaxy 2, on May 6th, now seems to be a good time to talk about future movies from Marvel, and about the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole.

Currently, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in Phase Three. Phase One consisted of introductory movies for the main Avengers characters (Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America: The First Avenger, and Iron Man 2) plus The Avengers. It was Phase One that started the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and first drew attention to it, with the release of Iron Man in 2008 and culminating in The Avengers in 2012.

Phase Two consisted largely of sequels to the Phase One movies, such as Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Avengers: Age of Ultron. These movies expanded on characters introduced in Phase One and tended to be rather darker and grittier than the “comic book” feel of their predecessors. Along with the sequels came two other movies, Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, that introduced new characters and plotlines. Phase Two spanned from 2013 to 2015.

That brings us to Phase Three, which started last year, in 2016, with Captain America: Civil War, which functioned as a sequel to Age of Ultron. The other two Phase Three movies released thus far have been Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. 

There are seven movies planned for the future at the moment, which will continue the trend of some movies being sequels and others introducing new characters. Two of them (Spider-Man: Homecoming and Black Panther) will serve to formally introduce characters who first appeared in Civil War, while four of them (Thor: Ragnarok, Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, and Avengers 4) will be sequels. The last planned movie, Captain Marvel, will introduce an entirely new character.

Jay Asher’s book: Thirteen Reasons Why, is about a girl named Hannah Baker who committed suicide and had made a set of 13 tapes containing reasons as to why she killed herself. The main character: Clay Jensen, receives these tapes and listens to each one because he is one of the reasons, along with many other people who made an impact on Hanna’s life.

This book was turned into a Netflix series just last month, and I was anxious to watch it because I had read the book in my health class and wanted to see how they would portray the book. Each episode was like listening to one of the tapes, only with action and drama to be seen.

The characters were spot on, the stories were made well, and the whole series really kept me engaged on what would happen next

The difference between the book and the series is we follow more of Clay’s life and what he goes through while listening to these tapes in the series; where as in the book we listen mostly to Hannah and the tapes while following Clay’s actions from time to time. They also changed an important point in the book, and that is Hannah’s death, but just like with movies, they need to change a few things in order to really draw the crowd and make it seem interesting.

An important topic to learn from either the book or the series is the seriousness of suicide, or depression, or anxiety, etc. According to Medical News Today – Suicide is one of the top 10 leading causes of death, and most of those deaths are teens and young adults. Thirteen Reasons Why shows you all about the warning signs of suicide and how it could be prevented.

If you would like to know more about these signs and/or depression, visit your school guidance counselor for more information.

If you haven’t heard the new Julia Brennan track on KDWB you might’ve never heard of this new artist from Minneapolis. This upcoming artist was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1999. Music has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember, considering she took piano lessons since she was only four years old.

She recollects in her biography about memories of her mom being a wedding singer, and her grandma being Ms. Minnesota. Her talent? Singing and playing the piano, much like her granddaughter. From these two women she gathered her inspiration to become an artist herself.

Some other inspirations for the young singer are Adele and Sam Smith.

Julia released her three song EP “Inner Demons” in the summer of 2016. She had the three songs just sitting around on YouTube until one day she decided to send them to KDWB to see if the popular Twin Cities radio station would play them. The people at the radio station ending up liking her song a lot. They called her back and interviewed her about her new EP. After that her young career took flight as she soon was able to snag a record deal with the prestigious Columbia Records.

Her song, “Inner Demons,” currently is at #7 on iTunes’ Singer/Songwriter chart and is an instant hit in the Twin Cities.

Julia’s voice influenced people with her lovely piano music. Her music reflects on people going through hard times: especially on her song “Inner Demons.” On this track, she talks about how “demons fight their battles with fire” and why it’s difficult to rise against the things that hold us back; most of those things being inflicted by ourselves.

Brennan said in her biography that “Inner Demons” is about a time when her friend was going through a hard time. She didn’t know how to help her friend but she wants to give a voice to those people in the silence.

All of her three songs use piano and vocals to express her emotions. Julia Brennan is a great listen for anyone battling their own “inner demons” or for anyone who wants to hear some soulful music with incredible vocals.

For more information about Julia, please visit: www.juliabrennanmusic.com ⊹ ALL THINGS JULIA  (music-video-bio-art) for articles-broadcasts ⊹ INNER DEMONS video-audio ⊹ INTRODUCING JULIA BRENNAN ⊹  THE MAKING of INNER DEMONS video ⊹ www.gomoxie.org

Arrival, a science fiction and mystery movie starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner, was one of the nominees for Best Picture this year at the Academy Awards. This is special, because science fiction movies are rarely nominated for that highest of awards. In order to do so, the move in question must be very high-quality.

So, of course, I went to see it, and I can now confirm that it is, indeed, really excellent. It’s also the kind of movie that is hard to talk about without ruining it, but I’ll try my best to avoid spoiling it. I will tell you that once you see it once, you’ll want to see it again in light of the ending. It’s also got beautiful cinematography; the sort of movie that you’d want to see on as big a screen as possible. I saw it in the movie theater and loved it.

The movie is set in the present day, immediately after twelve giant, featureless oblong “spaceships” touch down all over the planet at seemingly random locations. It focuses on a linguist who is brought in to figure out how to communicate with the aliens inside, squid-like creatures called “heptapods” for their seven legs. The whole movie is driven by a need to ask a simple question – “Why are they here?” – before intergalactic war breaks out.

Of course, the movie isn’t perfect. It’s very slow-moving, so even though its running time isn’t even two hours, it can feel much longer. It can also be quite confusing at times, because some scenes are shown out of order, and the timeline of the movie doesn’t really make sense until the end. The soundtrack is very loud and sad, and can sound like an endless funeral dirge at times.

The ending, however, is fabulous in a very bittersweet way, and the story is overall quite interesting and thought-provoking. I recommend it highly.

If you have a love for musicals or anything romantic then La La Land is the perfect movie for you. This movie starts out with the two main characters, Mia and Sebastian, who meet on a rather rude note, which gives their relationship a bad start. Even though these two seem to barely have anything in common, they both are struggling creative types that are trying to find their way in life, there’s a spark that they both feel, pushing aside the two bad encounters that they had, which only leads to them to start a love filled relationship that makes everyone’s heart swell.

This film will make you feel all sorts of emotions from sad to happy to disappointed all in a matter of seconds. This Oscar nominee is a brilliant film that has made millions fall in love with it.

La La Land is still showing in theaters, so catch a showtime as soon as you can; you won’t regret it.  

Everyone knows that Christmas movies are a clear indication that the holidays are truly here. Out of curiosity, we wanted to know what movies Highland favors. We distributed a survey asking students to pick their favorite film out of these five choices: The Polar Express, The Grinch, Home Alone, A Christmas Carol, and Elf. Christmas movies are a great way to spend the holidays and this was the perfect kick off to winter break!

When we surveyed our classes, the results came back, and without a doubt the family classic Home Alone was the favorite Christmas movie. Most people wrote that they liked it because it was funny and entertaining. They said things like:

“It shows that mischief can be mixed with love. True loyalty lies in the heart.”

“It is a funny movie and is great for the family.”

“Because it’s funny and entertaining”

As for the other movies, there were a fair amount of votes for Elf and The Grinch. But it is easy to understand why most of them picked Home Alone. We love all of these great Christmas movies and any one of them could have been the top choice for our Highland community.

Based on our survey’s outcome, Home Alone was deemed the winner as the best Christmas movie of the five given. The movie has always been labelled by many as a Christmas essential, and we here at Highland would have to agree. If you’re looking for a light-hearted family film to get over the holidays, or anytime, Home Alone is a perfect choice.