The Best E3 to Date!

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there nerds, nerdettes and everybody in between who just so happened to take a glance at this article. If you know what E3 is, then you know what this article will be about. For anyone who doesn’t know, here’s the rundown of it all: E3 is a massive convention held annually that is pretty much all about video-games, so for anybody who plays video-games avidly, going to E3 is essentially their Mecca. E3 stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, and while some years are definitely stronger than others, E3 has been noted for being the Comic-Con for video-game news, announcements, demonstrations and so forth, and managing to produce excitement among the gaming community in the process. This year, however, from what I saw on the news-feeds about everything that was shown at E3, I am very confident in this opinion that I hold: this has been the best E3 ever! You knew that that was where I was going with this from the title, but really, I truly mean this. I don’t know if a single E3 has produced so much buzz, what with announcements like the Final Fantasy VII remake, or the demonstrations of the highly anticipated Star Wars: Battlefront, and of course the plethora of indie games that are sure to cause quite a stir, there was a lot of variety from this year’s E3.

Because there is so much that comes out of E3, I’m not going to be able to talk about everything that came out of the conferences there, just the really big stuff or the things that I remember seeing and being impressed with. I’m going to cover this E3 section by section, starting with announcements, then games that were shown off in actual demos, and finally every miscellaneous thing that I remember. Trust me, if I wanted to, I could go over 10 pages on this article, easy! But I think that’s far too much for a simple article; it would be a report, not something that you can easily be done within 10 minutes, tops. So sit back, pour yourself tea, coffee, water, or whatever other refreshment you like, and let’s talk about dem vidya-games!!!

Okay, so this E3 has been noted for making some pretty big announcements, and I’m going to be covering the largest ones, as I have said. First, I think that I should talk about Fallout 4. Yeah, they demoed the game a bit, and there was that announcement trailer a little bit over a week ago, but really, that was just an appetizer to the real reveal at E3, and man, what a reveal it was! The game is distinctly a Fallout game, in the vein of its predecessor, Fallout 3, but this one boosts a graphical upgrade, (it’s not as graphically impressive as some other titles shown, yes, but that matters very little to me), the character you play as is fully voiced and is married to the potential other character of the opposite gender you can play as, (fully customizable, of course), and said character flees with their family into one of the Vaults to escape the impending nuclear destruction headed for you. You wake up with no memory of the following events, however, and you discover that not only do you appear to be the sole survivor of your Vault, you have woken up 200 years later. Quickly trying to gain a bearing of your surroundings in this new apocalypse-ridden landscape you are stranded in, you go about your not-so-merry way, it seems, with a dog companion in an attempt to survive and maybe, just maybe, figure out what on earth allowed you to sleep and not age one iota for 200 years. The game’s announcement was followed by one of the largest waves of hype I’ve ever seen; so large, in fact, that pre-orders have already sold out. And the game doesn’t come out until November. Like, a whole month before Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Wow.

Fallout 4 wasn’t the only big one, though; I mentioned it before, but now I can talk about it in full: the long-awaited and highly anticipated remake of a game that is considered one of the greatest of all time, Final Fantasy VII.

Final Fantasy VII was a title that was noted for its, at the time, revolutionary CG cutscenes, it’s brilliantly crafted turn-based battle system, (due in no small part to Materia: little magic orbs you equip onto your characters to have them possess whatever attributes they contain), a riveting story, believable -if sometimes cartoonish- characters, and one of the best hero-villain relationships witnessed in any format, Cloud and Sephiroth, (it’s a Japanese game, bear with the silly names. Trust me, behind that there’s a whole lot more than you might think). The graphics used were of a strange, blocky style, and to be honest, it could be jarring compared to the realistic models used in battle as opposed to the ones you used when traversing the world of FFVII. Despite this, it is personally one of my favourite games ever, and my favourite in the whole Final Fantasy series, alongside with Final Fantasy VI. Final Fantasy VII is the game that made Square Enix a AAA developer and publisher, the game that sold the original Playstation, and the game that has what is probably the biggest spoiler moment in gaming, which is one of its saddest moments too. To hear that they are remaking a game that is near and dear to my heart warms me to no end. They made the announcement with one of the best CG trailers I’ve ever seen, dropping it after some obscure Final Fantasy spinoff called World of Final Fantasy. Watch this, and tell me that even as a CG trailer, (which can be the most deceiving as they don’t have any actual gameplay), the production design and the expertly crafted cinematography aren’t gorgeous to look at.

I do have to mention that the original game could be pretty silly, seeing as it took after a more anime-like style than previous games in the franchise, and this is even evident in its artwork by Tetsuya Nomura, the director of this upcoming remake and Kingdom Hearts III, (more on that too; gosh, there’s just too much to cover in one article sufficiently!). The game has quite a few moments where it forgets reality altogether to deliver an over-the-top but nonetheless impressive story. Examples include characters falling from high buildings only to somehow survive when they should be squashed like pancakes; a random motorcycle chase; borrowing a freaking snowboard from a 9 year-old to go down a mountain and beat your enemies to your destination; and even having our main hero, Cloud, cross-dress as a woman in order to save one of his two principle love interests from a perverted crime lord. Yeah. However, considering that this is a Japanese game, I somehow wonder why these moments don’t ruin the game, but actually add to its weird-but-different child-like charm. So, if you’re on board with what I just said, then you can look forward to a darker, more realistic take on the beloved 1997 classic with most of the silly moments intact, (cross-dressing is confirmed to be included, so this reassures me that they’re completely committed to doing this remake), and expect for it some time in 2017, seeing as that would be the 20th anniversary, and they will want to capitalize on that, I’m sure. You can even get the original game on Steam, the PS3 store as a PS1 classic, and pretty soon iOS and, eventually, the PS4 store.

Did I also mention that this thing will be a monster? I mean, the original sold roughly ten million copies, and with digital sales that number may have jumped over 12 million; this one trailer got over 10 million views on all of its YouTube uploads combined in just a few days, (without the aid of any internet ads I've seen), with numerous reaction videos posted by fanboys crying in relief and joy. That’s not even mentioning the fact that this one trailer gave a dramatic boost to Square Enix’s stock as well. So I predict that even though it is coming first to the PS4 with other platforms likely to be announced afterwards, it’ll jump over 10 million copies, easy. In other words, an absolute beast of a game.

Since I have talked in depth about those two, I regret that I will have to skip over the rest of these announcements, so let’s make this brief, shall we? Shenmue III, the conclusion to the highly acclaimed trilogy; never thought it would happen, but I’m glad that the trilogy is going to be completed despite their less-than-satisfying commercial performance. Dishonored 2 has been announced, really loved the first game, so having Emily and Corvo as, from what I know, dual protagonists this time around, is encouraging to me; wonder what scenario they’ll go with seeing as the end of the first game is based upon your actions. Horizon Zero Dawn looks like a rare mix-match of different genres stemming from post-apocalyptic to sci-fi and who knows what else; the female protagonist Aloy looks awesome, really curious to see how this one will turn out. Nier 2, which I don’t know much about, has people buzzing, so that has to be mentioned as well. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Wildlands looks like a Ghost Recon game through and through, so very happy about that; Abzu is an indie game with you as a lone diver in a world beneath the sea, (Abzu is a Mesopotamian word for 'deep sea'), and it doesn’t hurt that the game’s art style is beautiful. Xbox One now has limited backwards compatibility, allowing you to play 18 Xbox 360 games as of right now, they are aiming to increase that number and I have no doubt that they will seeing as they now have a big advantage over the Playstation 4.

That covers the announcements, so onto the actual demonstrations.

Star Wars: Battlefront has been met with a mostly positive response to its gameplay, noting that the game uses the Frostbite 3 engine to very good effect in order to simulate very well the visceral and rather awesome combat in Star Wars; a blaster rifle modelled after an assault rifle never looked or sounded so good! You will mostly be playing as infantry, but if you meet certain requirements, you can play as your favourite characters from Star Wars. These include, but are not limited to, Luke Skywalker, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader. So when I crush the necks of my sworn enemies while swinging my red lightsaber around like a child, I can now thank DICE and EA (for once), for making my dream as a geek come true. However, there are some criticisms to the gameplay, one being that the flight controls for piloted aircraft vehicles is rather poor, and that the game appears to be a little simple, at first glance, but those that have pointed out these flaws in the game only got as much time as everybody else, so I guess that if there is some sort of beta-testing later with select players, which I’m sure there will be, they will want to further pound out and improve on these problems before the release date.

Dark Souls III was also demoed, and while it was an announcement, they did show actual gameplay of it. Dark Souls is known for being rather hard, and this proved true for this second sequel. The dev who was playing the game couldn’t even beat it! So for gamers out there who are fans of these types of games, look forward to a third one coming your way at some point. Also, the Microsoft Hololens was shown off, and the general word of mouth is that it works far better than the Oculus Rift, and it lets you play Minecraft too. So, I can chip away at a virtual block whenever I want when wearing it while viewing videos of cats being cute and dogs looking guilty, all while watching that Final Fantasy VII Remake trailer again and again just like the sucker that I am. But that’s just me. Oh, and with the Hololens, you can play Halo 5, and I am told that the result is glorious, so that should give people looking forward to the Hololens and/or Halo 5 hope.

Kingdom Hearts III was shown, and this highly anticipated game, which is the finale in the Keyblade trilogy but not the end of the franchise, is a strange mix of Disney and Final Fantasy characters with many original characters that exist in that specific series. You play as Sora, a young teenage boy who fights with weapons called keyblades alongside Goofy and Donald Duck and is out to thwart the return of the evil Master Xehanort, who is set up to be Sora’s greatest enemy and nemesis. The series actually has a lot more layers than you think, and I know that a lot of people are passionate and rabid fans about it, so seeing the fast action-gameplay mixed in with the Disney-style type of art design pleases me, and makes me happy for people who are fans of the franchise. I never got the chance to jump in myself, but given the amount of remasters and re-releases these games get, I’m fairly certain I’ll get the chance at some point.

Now that I am on page 4 of my article I am miserable forced to just skim through the rest. Just Cause 3 looks to be ridiculous fun with the promise of hours upon hours of senseless destruction; Black Ops 3 looks 'meh', and quite honestly looks like a poor attempt to revitalize the franchise by developing a crock-pot of all of the plots and premises of sci-fi films over the past 20 years and throwing it into the game, but instead of achieving a fresh result, it honestly feels like painfully recycled ideas to me at this point, but that’s just my opinion; the sports games shown are FIFA, Madden and all of the rest of them, you know the way they are, and while I personally see them as recycled games with very few changes, again, that’s just me, and I know that these are all going to sell a ton so what do I know? Also, I forgot to mention the Last Guardian earlier: this is a game from the creators of Shadow of the Colossus, viewed as one of the greatest games ever made, and is a puzzle-action game following a boy trying to escape a castle's ruins with the aid of a strange but gentle bird/dog-like creature. This game has had a tumultuous production, being pushed back and cancelled once or twice. Now it is finally going to be coming out on the PS4 sometime next year.

Also, I saw some more Batman: Arkham Knight footage at E3, and even though it’s awesome, I don’t think that that really did anything to convince them to buy the game, as Arkham Knight is hyped up as much as you can hype a game. And it lives up to it, I hear, so I’ll gladly think about that when I’m able to play my digital copy. And The Phantom Pain still looks completely, 100% awesome with a capital Snake!

To cover the not-so-great of E3, the new Metroid game doesn’t look, feel or play like a Metroid game, they didn’t show off the new Zelda game for the Wii U, and it appears to be more Mario and Yoshi games. Don’t get me wrong, I love Nintendo, I just feel that the way they’ve been marketing themselves a bit strangely, not to mention their ridiculous online policies when it comes to YouTube videos of their games. And following their lackluster sales, my concerns do not appear to be unfounded. Never the less, they are still Nintendo, and they probably have a bunch of great stuff lined up.

I feel this article has gone long enough, so I will have to say that this will wrap up my coverage on E3, and I do sincerely wish I could have written more. However, like I said, 10 pages is not good for an article. And in-depth report? Sure. But not an article.

I want to thank you all for reading this, this will be my last piece I do for the blog as a Grade 11, but as I said in the latest Thursdays at the Theatre, I will still be updating that through out the summer with the aid of the great editors over at The Titan Times. I wish you all a great summer, I hope you at least appreciated my enthusiasm for video-games as I love them just as much as any other form of art, and remember, if you wish to stay up to date on everything that we do here, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. That will do it for me, so stay strong, Titans! Josh Volkers out.

(Final Fantasy VII is really a great game though, just saying. Probably going to go back and play it, now that I’m thinking about it.)

Thursdays at the Theater: Vol. X

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there, everybody, this is the last week we have of school, most of you are beginning to take your exams, and I believe that most of the Grade 12s have finished their exams by today, so congratulations to every single one of you who are moving on from high school, and I wish you the very best in whatever you wish to do out in the big, wide world that we call home. Among these departing seniors will be none other than our very own Izabela Pitula and Carolyn Martinko! Carolyn’s been a big help with all of the wokr she has done as our copy editor and she is an incredibly enthusiastic individual, and you should know Izabela’s contributions already. Izabela’s just had her last sports round-up published, so believe me when I say that I have nothing but the best wishes for all of the Grade 12s. Now though, it’s time to talk some movies!

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 9

By: Joshua Volkers

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Hello once again, film fans! I’m coming at you with article number 9 and counting, I currently have a cold that makes my nose feel like the inside of a rubber balloon at a 6 year-old’s birthday party, but do not fret! For nothing will stop me from writing you guys another article, so allow us to dive right in.

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 8

By: Joshua Volkers (featuring Angel Hsieh)

Hello again, fellow film fans! We find ourselves in the later part of the month of May, where the first large part of the summer blockbuster season begins to draw to a close to make way for Part 2, which is June. Despite the fact that really what everybody has been talking about at the beginning of May, and in the weeks leading up to it, was of course Avengers, we’ve seen a few other films released since then. But before I give my take on what is releasing, it is time to bring on a recent collaborator of mine. The high school newspaper’s very own Angel Hsieh was able to see Pitch Perfect 2 the other day, and so the following words are her review of the film:

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 7

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there, ladies and gentlemen. It is finally May and that doesn’t just mean warm weather, that also means that the summer movie season is starting to kick into high gear. And man, did the summer kick off with a bang releasing Avengers: Age of Adaline -- I mean, Ultron, Ultron.

May The Fourth Be With You

By: Joshua Volkers

Daaaa, da da daah, du da daaaah dududududah dah daaah! Dah da daaaah dah, da dah daaah --
 
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, today is May the Fourth, and it is Star Wars day! A few years ago this article would have simply been a nice tribute article, however, seeing as the franchise has been bought by Disney and is set to be revitalized with this year’s The Force Awakens opening worldwide this December, we at the newspaper decided it would be a nice way just to recap everything that has been going on with Star Wars so that anyone who possibly feels confused about the announcements that have been released can get caught up on what’s what. Now, as a big Star Wars fan myself, even I get a little overwhelmed with the amount of news coming out about what Disney plans to do with this franchise and what they are currently in the process of doing as you read this article, so I hope that this clears the air for some people.

Thursdays at the Theater: Vol. 6

By: Joshua Volkers

As we see April come to an end, this means a lot of different things for us all. It means warmer weather, being able to roll out our summer wardrobes, and of course, the quickly approaching summer vacation that every student has learned to cherish and enjoy over the years. However, it is also when the month of May begins, and we get this giant bunch of summer blockbusters that satisfy our desires to have spectacular action and likable characters presented to us over the course of roughly two hours. Of course, the big movie that everybody’s going to be talking about is Avengers, and we’ll get to that in a second, but aside from that, this is shaping up to be a great summer for all audiences to enjoy due to the variety of films that I see slated for release.

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 5

By: Joshua Volkers

As it stands right now, the weather outside in April may be a little bit colder than some would like it to be up here in Canada. So, that means we have to stay inside for at least a few more weeks before we can enjoy any warm breezes. Like I said in a previous entry though, that does potentially give you more time to go to your local theater and check out any new releases you’re interested in, or stay at home and watch some old ones!

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 4

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there, Titans! It is now officially spring and the fact that the temperature is slowly but surely maintaining an average of above zero, as well as that spring smell that comes once the soil is not capped by snow, we are looking at warmer times coming fairly soon. But, before all of that, we still will have to stay inside before doing anything out in the warm outdoors, seeing as it’s not warm at the moment, so that does force you to do more indoors. And hey, you found this article, didn’t you, so why don’t you read through the whole thing and see what I have to say this week about movies?

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 3

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there, Titans! It’s time yet again for the bi-monthly dose of your local high school blog talking about movies. Now that we’re beginning to wrench winter’s grasp off of us, the season of movies for the year of 2015 is probably going to kick in really soon! At least, I hope. To be honest, there haven’t been very many movies so far this year, just one really, that I can recommend that aren’t, er, strictly mature, we shall say. And any others that are fun watches are few and far between. Again, like I said in the first volume of this feature, January is toilet-bowl season, and February isn’t much better. But going into March, things have got to get better, right?

Chrono Trigger 20th Anniversary

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello there, Titans! Do you know what day it is today? Forget about the title, what day is it today? Some may say an ordinary Wednesday, where they wait for the rest of their week to unfold to reach the weekend. If you’re not reading this on the day it’s published, you may be enjoying a nice Sunday, or struggling through a dull Monday, or chugging through Thursday, possibly planning to go out somewhere to avoid the usual throng of people that flood the restaurants on the weekend. But today, March the 11th of 2015, marks the 20th birthday of Chrono Trigger, the beloved JRPG videogame released back in 1995 and celebrated as one of the best video games of all time.

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 2

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello, Titans! For anyone reading these as they come up on the blog, this will have appeared to you the day after the Oscar’s overview that was posted yesterday and written by yours truly. It serves a great companion piece to this article, because, you know, movies. So, if you haven’t already, then why don’t you check it out right here.

Okay, so as some of you may have realized over the years, whenever the Oscars do their show, it almost always seems as if the week that follows is rather... limited. Not that there aren't movies that constantly come out every week - of course there are. It just seems that compared to other weeks, there are a lot fewer. We went over all of the films that are out already, so let’s run down the ones that are coming out this weekend and the following weekend. And when I say that, I mean the ones that I’m allowed to talk about due to certain necessary restrictions following our school’s guidelines. Want to know what’s coming out? A horror movie called The Lazarus Effect, which is PG-13, stars Olivia Wilde and focuses on people dying and coming back to life. And that’s it. No, I’m serious, that’s all I can talk about. There are three other major-release films coming out this weekend and the next, but they’re all rated R or are very heavy 14A films up here. (And on a side-note, why is the horror movie the one that’s the friendliest one to families, relatively speaking? Well, it’ll probably stoink, but you never know.) And even then there are only four movies coming out in wide-release that we Canadians can get in the bitter cold of our stubbornly proud yet quiet country. FOUR!!!

Argh, forget it, I need to take my mind off of this. Well, it’s February, and it’s almost over, so what classic movies released in February? Let’s see here... no... no... that one was in summer... oh, Batman and Robin, what are you doing here...! Ah, here we go! Ta da da daaah! 

The Breakfast Club, photo via
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A classic that’s almost 30 years old, this film, which was widely considered to be ahead of its time, details a single all-day detention shared amongst five high school students who seem to have absolutely nothing in common. As the day progresses, however, the students begin to talk with one another and divulge why they’re there and eventually why they are the people that they have become. They realize that they’re all much more similar than they first anticipated, showcasing how individuals can rise above the stereotypical labels that are set upon them by other people. Written and directed by John Hughes, it’s often considered one of his best works, and as it was released in February, hey, why not talk about it? And since this is being posted on a high school blog run by high school students and teachers, written by a high-schooler who may be branded with the stereotypical label ‘mystery man’ (I try not to flatter myself), that makes it even more important in my eyes. 

Oh, the film is also being released on March 26-31 of this year to celebrate its 30 years of release. I don’t know if any of you would be able to attend a screening, or even would want to, but in case anybody wanted that info, you’re welcome.

That’s all for this week, folks; be sure to tune in a couple of weeks from now when I post the next entry of this bi-monthly article, and I’m sure we’ll be able to cover at least a little bit more next time around. I’m Joshua Volkers, reporting for The Titan Times, bringing you the latest and greatest in the world of cinema. As always, I humbly request that you follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook so you can keep up to date on everything we post, and don’t feel afraid to drop a little comment for us to read down below. See, a ton of options for you to interact with us, right at your fingertips! With that, I’ll be seeing you in two weeks’ time. 

Remember Titans, stay strong!

The Oscars Overview

By: Joshua Volkers

Ah, another year, another Oscars, and with that comes cries of outrage, cheering, flat jokes and a whole bunch of golden statues! (Among other things.) While our resident fashion guru Katherine Liakakos covers the Red Carpet for this prestigious event, this will be the actual overview of the show itself. Of course, we’ll be going over the actual show, but first I want to get to the awards. Enough blabbering though; it’s time to dive into a pot of tears, laughs, speeches, upsets, and of course our old friend controversy, so let us talk about the Academy Awards!

Now, we’ll get the big one out of the way first: Birdman won the night with Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Original Screenplay and the biggest award of the night-Best Picture overall. But remember kids, even though it’s rated 14A up here, there’s still a lot of, er, explicit and brutal content throughout the film. What’s curious is that Birdman is described as a ‘black comedy-drama’ film, and is the first comedy film to win Best Picture since Shakespeare in Love, 16 Oscar shows ago. For anybody who consciously remembers when that happened: feel old yet?

I’ll quickly run down the rest so that we can get onto some of my criticisms for the show in just a sec here. The Grand Budapest Hotel, with just as many nominations as Birdman, won awards for Best Costume Design, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Production Design, and Best Original Score; Best Sound Mixing and Film Editing went to Whiplash and J.K. Simmons won Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film; Interstellar was awarded with Best Visual Effects; Big Hero 6 was named Best Animated film of the year by the academy; Best Animated Short was Feast (not the 2005 horror movie); Best Adapted Screenplay went to Graham Moore for The Imitation Game (great speech by the way); Best Foreign Language film was a Polish movie named Ida; American Sniper was awarded best film Editing: Selma had the best Original Song, Glory, (breathtaking performance by Common and John Legend); Best Live Action Short Film went to The Phone Call; Best Short Subject and Feature Documentaries were Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 and Citizenfour; Best Supporting Actress went to Patricia Arquette for Boyhood; Julianne Moore won her first Academy Award after five nominations over her career, including this year; and finally Eddie Redmayne won for his role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, (loved his enthusiasm!)

Oh holy rusted metal Batman, that was a lot to recite in one paragraph! But, anyways, this is really what I wanted to talk about, the show itself. It… fell flat. I would say it sucked, which it kind of did, but then again we live in a world where the 83rd Oscars Ceremony happened (the one James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted). But really, the Oscars do not have a good grip on making an entertaining show for people to watch. Look, I’m not saying you put on something that’s the quality of Macbeth, but for the love of every single frame captured in Hollywood, that Oscar ballots joke was chuckle-worthy at best the first time they brought it up. After that, pfft! Flat. The jokes when NPH was walking through the audience? Flat. There were a few good ones of course; Adele Dazeem made a stunning return, as John Travolta acknowledged his mistake and apologized to Idina Menzel on stage for the whole world to see. He got a little creepy there for a few seconds, but he brought it under control. Over the past few years, Oscar hosts have been sketchy, with mixed feelings on Seth MacFarlane and Ellen DeGeneres, Franco and Hathaway an absolute embarrassment, and Billy Crystal as the Oscars’ literal golden boy being deemed the best of the bunch.

So what is it? Is it the writing? Is it the hosts? What is it that makes the Oscars unbearable to watch at points? I’d say it’s a few things: for starters, it’s too long. They devoted 14 minutes to Best Original Song-and only a few minutes to Best Picture. They need to shorten the time they take for each category, and I think it`s time to move a few of the categories to a separate night to cut time. There is a second Oscars show that`s not televised for the rest of the awards they can't show on the big night, so why not do that? I think that you could also televise it as an accompanying show before the main show.

Aside from the length of the show, I'd also say get a better team of writers who know how to keep a large crowd entertained, and also, let the hosts fly off the handle a little like with Seth MacFarlane. I would love to see Dwayne Johnson host an Oscars someday. I mean, imagine all of the smack talk that would go on! I don't know if the Academy would ever allow someone like him to do that, but it would certainly give that spark that the show has been missing for a little while.

As you can probably tell, I could talk about the Oscars for an hour, but I feel I have to wrap it up here. So, that was the 2015 Oscars, and while the show itself was disappointing, hey, we stay for the awards, don't we? Anyways, I’m Joshua Volkers, reporting for the Titan Times. Follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, stay tuned to any articles or news we put out, and hey, there’s a comment section down there, so why don't you give us your thoughts on the 2015 Oscars? Talk about anything that happened during the ceremony; the recipients of the awards, the host, the skits, the guests, anything! And with that, I will see you next time, Titans! Stay strong.

Thursdays at the Theatre: Vol. 1

By: Joshua Volkers

Hello, Titans! Today marks the first day for a bi-monthly article on movies, the ones that have recently come out, are coming out, and then we’ll be taking a quick look at a film from the past as a bit of a ‘Throwback Thursday’ element. After all, you’ll have the entire four-day weekend to have the opportunity to check out some of the films that I’m going to list here.

Christmas Movie Recommendations

By: Joshua Volkers
Photo Credit: Marco Hidalgo

You can catch some of your holiday favourites live in-theatre!

Hello Titans! It’s everybody’s favourite time of year now (save for the one grumpy guy on your street who mutters curses under his breath every time he passes a Christmas decoration), and as you can tell from the title, I am talking about a form of media that we are all familiar with. Since you guys have already had recommendations on what music to listen to while avoiding the insanity of last-minute shopping, hopefully, I decided that it would be a good idea to give you a baseline of what movies you may want to watch this Christmas. With that said, let’s jump in.

Christmas movies are so fun; they get you into the festive spirit of Christmas, and they teach good morals (usually). One of my favourites is “Elf”, starring Will Ferrell as a human who grows up as one of Santa’s elves, and knows little about how the world really works. When he goes out to New York City to find his father, silliness and hilarious shenanigans occur, but it is a good film to watch with the kids who are pushing 10, maybe 9 years of age. I also triple-dog dare you to watch “A Christmas Story” (hehe, see what I did there? Did you? NO!? Well, you just have to watch it then), which is a wonderful film that focuses on the dysfunctions present in most families. With enough warm nostalgia to keep the young ones entertained, and enough dark humour for the adults, it’s a great watch. To quickly run down some other ones, I’d recommend the 1950’s version of “A Christmas Carol”, “Fred Claus” if you’re looking for idiotic fun, plus “Miracle on 34th Street” and “It’s A Wonderful Life” for some classic movie magic.

I also like to make the case that not all Christmas movies need to have the theme of Christmas, so watching fun films like the “Harry Potter” series, “The Avengers”, and “Guardians of the Galaxy” might get you more into the spirit of Christmas if that’s your thing.

We hope you enjoy these recommendations and that you leave your own favourites in the comment section below! Have a very merry Christmas!

Christmas Concert Preview

By: Joshua Volkers
Photo Credit: Taryn Bratz & Maddi McNevitts

Hello Titans! I am here to report to you what to expect from the Christmas Music Concert this year! For those of you that don’t know, everybody who is a part of the school’s music department (including the junior and senior bands, concert choir, jazz band, and guitar classes) is going to be performing amazing music on Thursday December 18th from 7:00 p.m. to, at the latest, 9:00 p.m. Anybody in possession of a ticket bought from Mr. Harkin before then is welcome. The tickets are $5 each, but anyone who is performing in the concert or has helped set it up will have backstage VIP access, so that’s the only way you are getting into this thing for free.

For anybody turned off by having to pay for it, allow me to win you over: the night will feature classic Christmas jingles that everybody should have heard, as well as other songs to mix things up. For example, Silent Night will be performed, but there is also a Spanish piece called ‘La Madre de Los Gatos’, which translates to 'the mother of the cats'. Each group will be performing anywhere from 3-6 pieces, so there will be plenty of content to enjoy- or potentially- roast. In addition to all of that, yours truly will be performing in the concert, struggling to play pieces by the band Kansas, Beethoven, and that famous German composer called, eh… it was… aha, that’s it: Franz Xaver Gruber.

So anybody who is looking to enjoy music for a couple of hours and is willing to pay $5 is welcome, again, from 7:00 p.m. to, at the latest, 9:00 p.m. Remember, this all goes down in the school theatre, so be there to enjoy it. And since it was Mr. Harkin who provided me with the info to write this little preview, I feel that I should inform you that he may or may not wield a flaming guitar by the end of the night. Probably not, but remember you wouldn’t be able to see it in person if it were to happen unless you’re there, so buy the tickets in Room 333 for the concert if you want, and we hope to see you there. 

Thank you Titans, and remember to be extra festive this time of year, look forward to your holiday vacations, and stay strong during culminating season!