Mount Hood

Agents of “S.C.O.O.B”

By: Ashton Newton
Staff Writer

With Marvel’s wildly successful cinematic universe, other franchises have begun to dig into the idea of a shared movie universe. DC began theirs with “Batman v Superman,” and Star Wars has theirs with the upcoming spinoff “Rogue One.”

But one of the more surprising cinematic universes was revealed with Warner Brothers’ Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe, the first movie in the universe being a new animated Scooby Doo movie, “S.C.O.O.B.” slated for a 2018 release.

All that has been said about plot so far is that the film will have the “Mystery Machine Gang” working for a larger organization.

Tony Cervone will direct “S.C.O.O.B.” Cervone has directed a lot of Hanna-Barbera and other Warner Bros animated movies.

The Hanna-Barbera universe will consist of traditionally animated films with characters from the studio’s long list of past projects, including Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, and the Jetsons. Their long list of animated shows that used to play on Cartoon Network can now be found on the Boomerang Network.

Hanna-Barbera dominated animated television from the ‘60s all the way to the early 2000s so, seeing their characters on the big screen will be a very nostalgic experience for many people.

Now the question is, will the Scooby Doo gang, Atom Ant, Quickdraw McGraw, and other beloved characters ever comes together “Avengers” style?

On television, the characters did occasionally come together in special episodes. One of the most memorable being the 1978 “Yogi’s Space Race,” crossing over The Flintstones, Quickdraw McGraw, Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, among others.

In a world filled with cinematic universes, the Hanna-Barbera animated universe has the potential to be one of the most nostalgic and entertaining that has been seen yet.

“S.C.O.O.B.” releases September 21, 2018.

Everything in its right place

By: Darien Campo
Staff Writer

Last week, Radiohead’s manager Brian Message announced that the band’s ninth album would be released on June 11. Fans around the world collectively rejoiced.

A few days later Radiohead released a statement saying that “Brian Message is not Radiohead’s manager […] any quotes from last night’s event […] should not be attributed to RadiohScreen Shot 2016-04-25 at 6.57.05 PMead’s management.” And fans around the world collectively groaned.

As one of the groaning fans, I have no idea where we stand at this point. All I know for sure is that sometime in the near future (probably (hopefully)) Radiohead is releasing a brand new album.

In the meantime, I’ve been playing my all-time favorite Radiohead release, “Kid A,” on repeat.

Released almost 16 years ago, “Kid A” marked Radiohead’s first dramatic transition from guitar-driven rock to the more ambient/electronic vibes of their latter releases. It’s hard to have a middle-of-the-road opinion of this album. Fans either loved the drastic shift in composition from their previous release, 1997’s “OK Computer,” or they felt betrayed that Radiohead’s newest work tends to sound more like electronica and dance music instead of rock songs. Context made this album so groundbreaking in 2000, but even today the music holds up as strongly as ever.

Even with a new sound, “Kid A” faithfully continues the work left off with “OK Computer” with its tone of synthesized calm. The cover art shows a vast landscape of snow and mountains, and just over the horizon we can see a forest in the distance burning to the ground. Through these songs, we get the feeling that something terribly wrong is happening, but the lyrics attempt to put up a front of forceful serenity that comes off as almost more frightening.

If you haven’t listened to this record in a while, or even if you’ve never heard it before, now is a great time to pick it up. Songs like “Everything In Its Right Place” and “Idioteque” give me chills everytime I hear them. “Kid A” was a marvelous step forward for Radiohead, and is now considered a defining album in their collection. Radiohead has said that their last album, “King of Limbs,” was a transitional period for them. With what little we’ve heard from members of the band, Radiohead’s (possible) upcoming release just might be another gamechanger for the band.

Review: LEMONADE

By: Ben Bergerson and Brianna Bonham

Good art makes you feel something, great art makes you feel what the artist is feeling, which is something that few artists can do repeatedly. Beyoncé has delivered provocative, beautiful music for years, so don’t be surprised that her new project slays on a new level.

The global superstar has blown the world away with her release of “LEMONADE,” a powerful visual album about infidelity. The hour-long release on HBO and Tidal took us through the pop star’s process of recovering from Jay Z’s “betrayal,” and fans suspect that it is also about her parent’s relationship.

The video is amazing. An artistic portrayal of her emotions throughout the grieving process, it consists of the tracks from the accompanying album “LEMONADE,” and spoken word poetry. Words such as “denial,” “anger,” “apathy,” “emptiness,” and “resurrection” flash across the screen, corresponding to the next scene. Beyoncé is unafraid to show her emotions in the video which created a genuine and raw product that was, at some points, difficult to listen to.

As “PRAY YOU CATCH ME,” the first track on the album, is played, Beyoncé sings while she is crouched on a stage, dressed in black. After that scene, she is shown in a room filled with water, floating and using spoken word poetry. “You can taste the dishonesty, it’s all over your breath…” are the last words she speaks before changing to the next scene.

The whole visual album is built this way, a combination of spoken word, songs from the album, and illustrative video. All this builds up to the end of the scene where she says, “But still inside me was the need to know … Are you cheating on me?” Our jaws dropped as it quickly switched to the next scene, leaving us to digest the shocking information.

Throughout the video she consistently features black women. She uses the poetry of Warsan Shire as interludes, and is joined by famous black women such as Serena Williams, Zendaya, and Quvanzhené Wallis. Blue Ivy and Jay Z are also in the video.

Featuring strong, black women in the setting that this video does celebrates their beauty and power through stunning visuals and representation.

Wrapping up the whole project, the title “LEMONADE” comes from a quote from her grandmother, Agnez Dereon: “I had my ups and downs but I always found the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.”

Contact the authors at bebergerson13@wou.edu and bbonham15@wou.edu or on Twitter @ben_bergerson or @brianna_bonham.

Re-Opening “The Jungle Book”

By: Declan Hertel
Entertainment Editor

From the moment the first trailer for “The Jungle Book” dropped, I wanted it so freaking badly. I have no especially great love for the 1967 version, beyond enjoying it as a child, but this new take on it looked gorgeous and had a killer voice cast, and I’d been super stoked for it since. So as the lights went down on a Friday afternoon screening, I found myself giddy, hoping that this movie would be as awesome as I had imagined it would.

And you know what, it came pretty darn close. This is a solid flick.

My favorite thing about this new version, directed by Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”), is that it doesn’t care that it’s gorgeous. James Cameron’s “Avatar” blew us all away in 2009 with its spectacular visuals, but honestly, it knew that’s really the only thing it had going for it: it looked stupid good.

“The Jungle Book,” for my money, looks better. But it doesn’t care. Painstaking effort was put into making it seem like this movie was shot by real people in real places with real cameras starring real animals. It’s not out to show off, it’s out to tell a good story, and just happens to feature visuals that would have been unthinkable five years ago.

As for telling a good story, this is where the movie falls slightly (but just slightly) short. In this age where blockbuster films are—seemingly as a rule—two and a half fugging hours long, I feel weird saying this, but here goes: I wish “The Jungle Book” was longer.

Coming in at a tidy one hour and 40 minutes, “The Jungle Book” certainly doesn’t overstay its welcome, but it also leaves too soon. When I say I wish it was longer, I don’t mean they should tack on another 20 minutes; I mean that I wanted another 30 seconds here, two minutes there, so that they could flesh out the great, great stuff they’ve got. Not more content, but fuller content. All the makings are there for a wonderful epic: it’s just not epic enough. I have fantasies of a director’s cut, but I realize that’s kind of a silly notion.

Personally, the visuals are worth the price of admission; just because the film doesn’t draw attention to them doesn’t mean they aren’t attention-grabbing. The voice performances are invariably great and delightfully understated (particularly Christopher Walken as a big-ass ape), and newcomer Neel Sethi—merely 10 years old—does a truly admirable job of carrying the film. I would love to see him get more work and improve his already pretty notable abilities.

I could say an awful lot more about the film, from the individual characters, to the perfect inclusion of “Bear Necessities,” to the slightly weird inclusion of “I Wanna Be Like You,” to the multiple questions raised by basing a mass-market movie in 2016 on a work steeped in the attitudes of a deeply racist time (next week in editorials), but alas—I’m almost out of words. Suffice to say “The Jungle Book” is a solid, highly enjoyable flick.

Contact the author at dhertel11@wou.edu or on Twitter @JournalFunTimes.

This is the Junk You Are Looking For

Screen Shot 2016-04-17 at 9.49.15 PM

By: Ashton Newton

There are few bands that give me the same feelings that M83 does. It’s been that way for longer than I can recall. Something about listening to their mellow synthpop sound, deciphering their poetic lyrics, and jamming out to their fast danceable tunes grabbed hold of me and refused to let me go.

That said, when “Junk” was announced I could barely contain my excitement. M83’s 2011 LP “Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” was one of the most breathtaking things I’d ever listened to, and shaped the way I look at music.

“Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming” was a very cinematic record; the songs went with each other and flowed perfectly. The album was hugely inspired by movies. But “Junk” is different in that the songs are meant to stand alone, yet work together in an unrelated way.

The first song to release off of “Junk” is “Do It, Try It”, and it’s apparent that M83 was trying something entirely new with their music. The song is weird, completely on purpose. The pop sound is so upbeat and all over the place that it’s so weird it’s danceable.

Weird and different sounds are very present in “Junk.” The songs “Bibi the Dog,” “Walkway Blues,” and “Road Blaster” are all very fast paced dance songs that rely on unrecognizable synthpop sounds to create a groovy beat that the queen would have no choice but to dance to.

“Junk” also has its sweet side. Susanne Sundfor lent her voice for the song “For the Kids,” a more traditional sounding ballad. “Atlantique Sud” is a beautiful French duet with Mai Lan that is the most sentimental song on the album.

Beck also makes an appearance on “Junk” in the song “Time Wind.” Beck’s vocals with M83’s music make for a really cool song. Rock artists and M83’s music go very well together.

There are some songs that are a bit underwhelming for me. M83 is known for long and epic instrumental songs like “Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun” off of their album “Before the Dawn Heals Us,” but on “Junk” the instrumentals like “Moon Crystal” and “The Wizard” just feel too short and rushed for their style.

The album ends with “Sunday Night 1987,” one of the most calming songs on the album. M83 ends their albums with songs that leave you thinking and with a smile, and “Junk” is no exception.

“Junk” is an extremely satisfying album to listen to. M83 gives a new, unique sound with songs for every mood and person.

Contact the author at anewton14@wou.edu.

Clash Royale Hits the U.S. App Store

By: Ashton Newton
Staff Writer

The modern App Store has become very predictable. Each week, it gets updated with a fresh batch of Clash of Clans clones and Flappy Bird clones, more than one could count.

Developer Supercell started the action base-building craze with their 2012 release of Clash of Clans. The game is estimated to make $1.5 million per day.

Last month saw the release of Supercell’s Clash Royale, a pocket-sized MOBA based off the characters and world from Clash of Clans. And it’s amazing.

For anyone who doesn’t know, MOBA stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, and games like League of Legends and DOTA 2 have taken over the competitive gaming market. Each year, multi-million dollar tournaments are held and professional players from around the world battle.

But with Clash Royale, the idea of the MOBA game is simplified and put in the pockets of the masses. The game pits you against another player and you have to send out troops to destroy the other players towers and castle, the first to lose their castle loses the battle.

Clash Royale instantly became the top grossing and most downloaded app on the App Store upon its release. Today it sits comfortably as the second top-grossing app, with Clash of Clans at number three.

It’s a simple game, yet there is so much room to master it and become more competitive. The game features cards for different troops that you can send out, so over time you can collect them in game and play around with different line-ups. There are 48 cards in total.

The game also has a feature called TV Royale, where you can instantly start watching a game between two players at the highest rank for enjoyment or to see the strategies of others. You can also, just like Clash of Clans, join a clan with your friends and talk, casually battle, and trade cards.

Clash Royale is free to play, but gives you the chance to spend real money on gems and coins to get more or improve your cards.

Clash Royale is out now on the Apple App Store and Android Market.

Contact the author at anewton15@wou.edu

How Superhero Movies Fail Their Characters

By: Declan Hertel
Entertainment Editor

There are a lot of superhero movies these days. This is not news to anyone. They consistently make big, big money at the box office, and there’s no real end in sight, with Marvel’s release schedule stretching at least into 2020 and DC’s cinematic universe just getting revved up.

These films have a deep and rich history of heroes and storylines and villains and themes to pull from; some of these characters have been around three times as long as I’ve been alive, having adventures in their countless comic books. So, it seems to me, the question is: why are these films so shallow?

Let’s waste no time: modern superhero movies aren’t allowed to take risks because they only have two hours and need to appeal to as broad an audience as possible to recoup the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on making them, and then some. Meanwhile, comic books cost a fraction of a fraction of a movie budget to produce and distribute, and can tell stories over the long term. Because of their low cost and long form nature, they’re allowed to (gasp) take risks with their storytelling, to tackle heavy issues and really meditate upon the American consciousness in a meaningful way.

Carmen Petaccio wrote a piece for The Atlantic this March about the increasing darkness of superhero films, and how this washed-out grittiness feels false, or out of place for stories about superheroes, and refers to the “Civil War” storyline, the basis for the next Captain America movie, as if it was created out of thin air for the films as a cynical attempt to keep the audience interested. This is a somewhat disheartening example of Did-Not-Do-the-Research: it would take a minimum of effort to find that in fact, the “Civil War” arc was a long and sordid affair in the comics world. And, while I agree with him that the upcoming film looks like mediocre fan fiction, that’s only because it literally doesn’t have the time available to it to tell the story well. In comics, the “Civil War” was a brutal and bloody conflict, involving pretty much the whole Marvel universe, over freedom vs. security in America: do we force heroes to register and be under government control, or do we let them continue independently and assume the risks therein? This is an issue even more prominent today than it was when the arc began, and I fear that the films will only pay lip service to these themes in exchange for two and a half hours of colorful men punching each other.

Comics are also the only superhero medium that allow heroes to be rounded, three-dimensional characters (though of the TV series, “Daredevil” comes close, and “Jessica Jones” closer, and yet … ) John Green railed against Batman in a Vlogbrothers video from about a year ago, saying that if Bruce Wayne/Batman really wanted to help Gotham, he’d invest his money in schools, rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure, into bringing the city into the modern age; instead, he pours gajillions of dollars into gizmos and gadgets for him to use to bring down Gotham’s psycho population, only for them to escape from Arkham Asylum, so he must begin the cycle anew. This is an absolutely fair criticism of the movie version of Batman (specifically speaking here about Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy): he comes off as a selfish, near narcissistic playboy who gets off on beating criminals to a pulp when the sun goes down, and who seems to care precious little about the well-being of the city.

But in reading the pretty freaking brilliant run of “New 52: Batman,” written by Scott Snyder of “American Vampire” fame, after a badass opening fight (because let’s not forget that Batman is a badass), Bruce Wayne delivers a speech unveiling a plan to do literally all the stuff Green claimed Bruce Wayne doesn’t do. He promises to rebuild the infrastructure, fund schools, and modernize Gotham’s public transport, among other plans. He notes that he already has a number of highly interested donors and buildings already all but underway (and yeah the new buildings he proposes will include new Bat-outposts for him to use, but they will also be the source of legitimate boosts to Gotham). In these comics, Bruce Wayne is a deeply troubled man with a savior complex and deep love for his city that he utilizes his ultra-wealth to act upon, both as Batman when night falls and in his own guise as a philanthropist.

And this is where movies fall short. They can’t show the truly interesting and meaningful explorations of the humanity of heroes. They can’t show the nitty gritty. They can’t show Bruce Wayne glad-handing with potential investors and donors. Audiences (especially in the Chinese market, but that’s a different article entirely) want to see colorful dude number one punch colorful dude number two in the face. While this can be fun, it totally misses the point of superhero stories, which is the same point of Greek myths: godlike beings who struggle with their inherent humanity.

Superheroes at their best give us a new way to explore the human condition through the struggles of powerful beings. Unfortunately, I fear that with superhero films being the purely for-fun, somewhat vapid popcorn flicks they are, superheroes and comic books are experiencing reinforcement of the stereotype that they are for children and maladjusted man-children. But at their best, they’re not: besides the decidedly adult stories of a great many franchises (having just read DC’s brutal and disturbing and brilliant “Death of the Family” arc, I can attest that this shit ain’t for the younger set), they’re a means, like Greek myth, to explore being human through the eyes of the superhuman, to cast light directly on human foibles as they shine through the cracks in the armor and deeds of these characters.

Contact the author at dherterl12@wou.edu or on Twitter @journalfuntimes