This movie takes place in China about 1983 when China’s Royal Navy is trying to capture pirates.    

The theme of the movie is action. Playing the main character of Sergeant Dragon Ma is Jackie Chan. He is part of the Hong Kong Marine Police’s effort to suppress the pirates, who have been raiding ships for months. Members of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force, and the MP, who have  strong interservice rivalries, get into a fight in a bar. Shortly after this, Captain Chi (Kwan Hoi-san) releases all of the sailors to their commanding officer, and two of the MP’s ships get blown up.

Over all this movie deserves a 3 out of 5 stars

Even though the movie is a couple years old, I recommend this movie to all people that like action, and who don’t mind watching some old movies. Although this movie is not in theaters, you can watch it on Netflix, Hulu, or any other movie streaming website service.

If you’re a student looking for places to eat in the Highland area, don’t look any further, here are the five best restaurants around (in no particular order).

The Cleveland Wok is a high quality Chinese buffet featuring staple items like egg rolls and sweet and sour chicken. They have great service and the food is fairly priced. However, parking is hard in the street; you most likely will have to park in the back of the bank next to it. The Cleveland Wok deserves to be on this list because they have excellent value and service.

The Neighborhood Cafe is much more than a cafe. It provides breakfast, lunch, and dinner along with happy hour specials. It is on Selby and Snelling, but if you take the 84X after school, which is right next to the school buses, you can get there fast. The Neighborhood Cafe deserves to be on this list because of the big portions they serve for a good price. It also has a cozy environment and the staff is friendly.

Smashburger is a chain restaurant that serves not only burgers, but also chicken sandwiches, salads, and shakes. The burgers come in a large variety of options, along with the create your own option. One of the unique burgers they offer is the Buffalo & Blue Cheese burger, that has buffalo sauce and an egg bun. The atmosphere is very hipster-like and relaxed. It deserves to be on this list because of the wide variety Smashburger provides.

The Highland Grill is a little more pricey than the other options, but the food is definitely worth it. The Highland Grill provides a large array of American breakfasts and entrees. The atmosphere of the Highland Grill is very social; on warm nights you can usually find people relaxing just outside the restaurant socializing while enjoying their meal. It deserves to be on the list because of its beautiful decoration and chic style.

Which Wich, a restaurant that specializes in subs and sandwiches, is located on Ford Parkway right next to the Walgreens. For a sandwich shop, they have a lot of variety. From vegan options to seafood. The food is reasonably priced and uses high quality ingredients. The wait is usually not that long and you can either eat in or take out. It deserves to be on this list because of it’s creativity in sandwiches.

In the world of audio and headphones, it’s all about Beats and Bose, the top dogs in the industry. Which is better? Is there even an answer to such a question? As with everything else, they each have their pros and cons. Let’s go over them here.

Beats is the marketing master in the headphones industry. Having professional athletes wearing them in public and in their commercials. Beats are recognized world-wide as a high end brand for audio products. A reputation any of its competitors would do anything for. For this reason, people perceive them as “the best” instead of seeing them for being simply the most popular.

On the other hand we have Bose, the main rival competitor to Beats. They may not have the best appearance out there for headphones (gray, white, silver) but they’re still as good as Beats. Their brand has literally become synonymous with quality, especially for those audiophiles that care for highs, lows, frequencies, and the like. While their bass and volume are more leveled (less dramatic), keen ears will be able to recognize a quality that screams quality and is worth every penny spent.

So in the end, overall Beats and Bose are very similar, however, I would choose Beats over Bose as they are more comfortable and have a better sound, overall, in my opinion.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is released on February 5, 2016 in theaters across America. The film stars Lily James, Douglas Booth, Matt Smith, Sam Riley, and Bella Heathcote.

The Jane Austen novel of young love and pride takes place in 19th century England. This film, directed by Burr Steers, honors Austen’s original story, only Buur adds one more complication to the love story-an army of hungry zombies.

Highland Park High School was contacted by a producer from the film offering the Plaid Line staff two tickets to see the premiere of the film at MOA as well as the opportunity to participate in a nation wide conference call with the cast. Excited, I, and another writer, John Edwards, accepted the invitation and saw the premiere.

The movie was exactly what you think it might be, a strong and independent woman who falls victim to prejudice daily but somehow falls in love with the same man that oppresses her, all the while fighting the never ending war against zombies.

The day after the premiere we were told that we could participate in a press conference where we could ask the cast questions about the movie. The press conference was scheduled to take place at 2:30 and last till three. My fellow writer and I racked out a few questions we were eager to ask and report back to our fellow readers. Patiently we sat next to the phone listening to the smooth jazz that reminded us we were on hold; for half an hour. It wasn’t till after four “thank you for waiting”’s and a few minutes after three did the press conference begin.

We were instructed to press a pattern of buttons and wait for an operator to ask our questions. If we did that, we couldn’t listen to the cast answering questions from a few writers who were fortunate enough to be able to ask a question. A few questions later, we thought we finally had our turn; the operator had our name and we had our question ready. That was when the host of the conference said “Thank you for participating in the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies press conference…” and that was it. Fifteen minutes of listening to redundant questions, struggling to figure out the procedure to ask our own, all the while the holding-jazz-music was laying in the back of our heads.

So overall, we would give the movie itself, 3.5 stars out of 5 due to its cheesiness, and lack of originality.

As for the conference call, we would rate that experience 0 out of 5 stars. Overall, not worth the time invested.

In an effort to find out how to best listen to music on a phone, I researched the top two best music apps for the iPhone and Android phones.

The 1st app I found for Android is Google Play Music. The pros of the app are:

• Being able to upload your music
• You can save your online music for offline play

And the cons are:

• It focuses more on its online content than your offline content, so if you’re looking for something that’s solely for offline content you’ll want to look elsewhere

The 2nd app I looked at is Soundcloud for both the iPhone and Android. The pros of the app are:

• You have the option of either uploading an already recorded audio, or recording it on the spot
• There are NO LIMITS to file sizes
• There are tons of music and artists available

And the cons are:

• That you can’t play the songs offline
• That some of the songs that you look for won’t sound like the original

The best app I found for the iPhone and Android is Spotify. The pros are:

• That it’s free
• You can listen to popular artists

The cons are:

• That you have to put up with ads on your screen and audio commercials between songs
• The cost to get Premium varies from $1-10