I’m not going to pretend I was greatly enthused at the prospect of reading “The Shack.”
I’d heard of it before it was assigned as summer reading for all seniors as a precursor to their Senior Synthesis class, and it seemed like the sort of hokey self-help book I despise.
Before I started reading, I found myself scoffing at the seemingly contrived plot and the rather blunt religious message.
In William P. Young’s “The Shack,” a man, Mack, struggling with his faith in the aftermath of a tragic personal loss meets God in a deserted mountain shack.
The book is billed as potentially having the same effect on our generation John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” had on his, and is a New York Times best seller, with over 2 million copies in print.
The Brophy Religious Studies Department chose to use the book in Senior Synthesis classes because “it raises themes and questions about suffering and forgiveness, and relationships with God and between human beings,” said department Chairman Mr. Jimmy Tricco ’99. “The number one reason we picked ‘The Shack’ was to provide an opportunity to reflect on experiences of God.”
Is “Madden ’10” worth the $60 price tag or should you keep playing Madden ’09?
The quick answer is a definitive yes.
According to EA Sports, “Madden ’10” features many new and improved aspects over Madden ’09, including better graphics, more details, an overall more realistic experience and a new animation technology called PRO-TAK.
During lunch or after school, any Brophy student can hop online and download the newest music album or single and listen immediately.
However, this can mislead many avid fans of music. The large amounts of new artists emerging at any given time is a blessing and a curse for discerning ears. Fear not, there is hope because amongst the rough there is a diamond, and he goes by Drake.
Many people try to call video games art.
With newer and more advanced graphics, storylines, voice acting and actual conceptual beauty as a result of a hard day’s work, this claim is reaching credibility with each technological leap.
Of course, there are video games which are pure fun. With no real will to supply innovations to the industry other than by providing entertainment, these tend to be addictive, fast paced, and containing either plenty of geometric shapes and puzzles or lots and lots of explosions.
Musical collaborations usually turn out one of two ways. Amazing, like anything featuring Kanye West, or dreadful, like anything featuring Akon.
For indie folk super group “Monsters of Folk,” the collaboration turned out wonderfully.
Five years ago, the stars aligned when stunning folk figures, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes and M. Ward collaborated for a tour under the banner “An Evening with Conor Oberst, Jim James, and M. Ward” which included an appearance of the PBS program “Austin City Limits.”
Was lying the summation of years of scientific observations and experiments, or the brainchild of an intellectual prodigy?
Neither. Average Mark Bellison stumbles upon the quintessential truth, or untruth, of honesty in this season’s first comedy “The Invention of Lying,” in theaters since Oct. 2.
It is rare when a movie based on a book summarizes everything the book was enjoyed for.
It is even rarer to find a movie that will add a new layer of complexity to the story.
Studios often make the mistake of taking a well known property (“Harry Potter” for instance) and mass-producing it to the public with little respect given to the original source material.
Welcome to Zombieland, a world where the living dead rule the planet and a handful of survivors are in search of a sanctuary–as well as some Twinkies.
Joining the ranks of horror comedies featuring most notably “Shawn of the Dead,” “Zombieland” does nothing revolutionary, yet still manages to produce brilliant moments that make the movie well worth your time.
Spending two and a half hours a day after school for the next two months with Ms. Dorothy Dunnion memorizing pages and pages of dialogue might sound like some sort of punishment that not even Mr. Bopp could come up with
But for the cast of “The Grapes of Wrath,” this is just rehearsal.