By Nicholas Lives

So once again a new album lands on my lap waiting for review. Even though I have literally no background in music, I still believe it's rather fitting I review it, in order to give these musicians a more laid back outside perspective. But if you've read any of my other album reviews, you already know this.

So anyway, "Kids in the Street" is apparently a new album from the so-called All-American REJECTS, the band that gave us that song everyone loved in Middle School, "Dirty Little Secret."

(Exasperated Sigh)

Alright, let's get this over with.

...So after having injected my computer with the contents of this two-song sampler CD, I have noticed something a bit odd: The two sample songs don't have song titles.

Given this lack of information, coupled with the fact that I can't be bothered to go searching for titles on the internet, I will be supplying my own titles to each song for your convenience.

NOTE: If you want to hear the song yourself, click on the title.

Track 1: "Teen Angst Nightmare"

Apparently it's customary these days to open your songs with the audible SKREEEEECH of a speaker giving feedback. Considering I'm listening to this on a pair of earbuds,this horrid sound had no where to go but directly into my ear canals. This is quite a painful first impression.

As the after-effect of the SKREECH wears off on my ears, I am now starting to hear some actual music and lyrics. Unfortunately, it's not much better.

From what I can understand by the angst-driven man's lyrics, this is yet another song about a breakup and the guy is getting over it. Basically, this is the guy's version of that obnoxious "So what? I'm still a rock star" song that still gets played on the radio every so often.

The irony about songs like this, though, is that despite the singer's claims that "they are over it" and that "they don't care about it anymore," they contradict themselves somewhat and prove that they are indeed NOT completely over it by writing an entire song about it. If you really are moving on, why are you wasting our time singing about it, huh mister angst?


Track 2: "Busy Little Bee"

Bahahahaha!! Alright, if the lyrics in this song were made to be intentionally bad, then kudos to you, All-American REJECTS, because you just made my day.

"You're a pretty little flower, and I'm a busy little bee."

I honestly can't tell what I'm supposed to take from that, fellas. I mean, at first I thought it was supposed to be some kind of innuendo-based metaphor, but then I remembered that the metaphor for sex isn't "the flowers and the bees," but it's "the birds and the bees."

That aside, the rest of the song seems to indicate the guy in the song is just pallin' around with this "pretty little flower" of a girl, so why exactly does he refer to himself as a "busy little bee?"

Well let's think about this for a moment: Bees are known to land on flowers in order to collect nectar from them, which usually gets some pollen on their little bee bodies, which they then carry over to other flowers, and areas, which helps cross-pollinate and whatnot.

Perhaps then, what this guy means to say when he sings "I'm a busy little bee," is something along the lines of:

"I am taking things about you and spreading them to other women."

Oh, I get it! It's about gossiping, right?

To wrap things up here, I'm just going to go ahead and give these two songs a score so we can all get on with our lives.

"Kids in the Street" gets 2 gossiping-busy-bees out of 5.

By Nicholas Lives

As I'm sure most of you know by now, the annual Alta High School Film Festival is soon arriving, with the due date for entries being as early as January 25th. This of course means that anyone who wants to enter in a film of their own better start jumping on that particular ball soon, lest they wind up with a 5-minute video of their cat sleeping.

So what do you do if you are interested in making a film of your own, but you don't know the first thing about what goes into making a movie? Folks, whether you like it or not, Nicholas Lives is here to help.

Pre-Production!

A common mistake made by amateur filmmakers is that often they believe that the best way to approach making a film is to just wander around with a camera filming everything they see and then hoping for the best.  Wrong.

Planning is everything. If you want to make a film of your own, even if it's just a silly 60-second comedy sketch, then you have to have a plan of some shape or form. Whether it be a professionally written script or a series of stick figures scribbled in crayon on the back of a napkin, if you don't have a plan, you don't have a film.

Production!

After you've put together some sort of plan for your film, it's time to start filming. Here's a few quick tips to keep in mind while filming in order to make things easier when it comes to the editing process:

- Don't go out of your way to film scenes in chronological order when not necessary. If, for example, two of your scenes in the film took place in the same warehouse but at different times in the story, film all the warehouse scenes first so that you don't have to be trotting back and forth between locations.

- When filming in the dark, make sure to always keep the actor's lit, otherwise you'll get a very grainy picture. The best way to do this is by having someone shine a light on a piece of white paper, which will reflect some of the light onto the actors without looking unnatural or distracting.

- Don't use the "zoom" function in the middle of a scene. This usually winds up looking pretty tacky in the final product. If you wish to zoom in on your subject, let the scene finish and then film it again at a closer angle. This will allow you to integrate the close-up shot into the film during the editing process.

Which brings me to...

Post-Production!

When you've finished filming your masterpiece, now is the time to make it all come together by transferring the footage into an editing program. Several free ones are available, such as iMovie for Macs and Windows Movie Maker for PC's, so you shouldn't have much trouble finding one that suits you. Here are a few general tips to keep in mind during post-production.

- Music should add to the scene, not distract from it. Before you import that "Poker Face Remix" into your fight scene, ask yourself: Am I adding this in because I like it or because the film needs it?

- If you find that you can't hear the actors in your film talking for one reason or another, you can always dub their voice. This basically means recording the actor with a separate microphone in a quiet room, and having them talk in-sync with their lips on the original footage. It may sound hard, and that's because it is. That being said, don't underestimate the negative effect bad sound can have on your film. No one can appreciate your masterpiece if they're too busy trying to hear the actors speak.

- Don't overuse the pre-built "transitions" that come with your editing software. Most movies use only the most basic of cuts, meaning that they literally just jump from one shot to the next. When's the last time you saw a movie use a cheesy "page turn" transition? You may think it looks cool, but trust me, it doesn't. Don't do it.

Well, I hope some of you aspiring filmmakers out there found these tips useful. I look forward to seeing all your films at the Alta High Film Festival on February 1st!

By Nicholas Lives

Movies can be magical things. Movies can take you away from the horrors of your life and put you into the horror of someone else's life. Movies can take you on magical journeys through time and space. Movies can also often be big piles of crap. Hollywood has the tendency to do annoying things in their movies, and that's why I made this list. Hollywood, listen up.

NICK'S UNABRIDGED LIST OF THINGS HOLLYWOOD NEEDS TO QUIT DOING BECAUSE IT'S GETTING ON HIS NERVES:

1. Stop replacing actors in sequels.
For me, this is a big one. Whenever a sequel to some mediocre film comes out, and the studio finds that the original actors chose not to participate, they decided to try and pull a fast one on us by hiring similar-looking actors and then pretending they're the same characters. Look, we're not idiots.   
    The most atrocious example of this Hollywood switch-a-roo is when they replaced the "Daddy Day Care" protagonists Eddie Murphy and Jeff Garlin with Cuba Gooding Jr. and Paul Rae in the equally atrocious sequel, "Daddy Day Camp." So what, Hollywood? Did you think that replacing a black actor with another black actor and a fat actor with another fat actor would convince us that they are the same people from the first film? Putting aside the fact that a movie like "Daddy Day Care" shouldn't even need a sequel, that kind of actor replacement is just downright insulting to the audience's intelligence.

2. Stop shoving pop culture references where they don't belong.
I can't help but groan in agony every time I see a character in a movie interrupt the story just so he can throw in a reference to Facebook, Twitter, or whatever music artist was popular at the time, all in some vain attempt to "modernize" the film. We don't care how "modern" your movie is, we just want to watch the movie. Nothing sets off my crap-o-meter more than when a character in a movie says,

    "Yeah, I saw that on Youtube. LOL."

Keep your LOL's to yourself.

3. Stop making crappy movies.
This one speaks for itself. It's pretty simple really. Hollywood, this is something you really need to work on. Just admit you have a problem. Think of the children.

By Nicholas Lives

So here I am again, reviewing yet another music album in my not-so-professional-but-apparently-entertaining way.  Today's special little album is the recently released "Wildflower," starring the vocal talents of a certain 16 year-old American idol runner up by the name of Lauren Alaina.  Normally a 16 year old singer with her own album would be a rather impressive feat, but considering how many pimply youngster singers are invading the music industry these days, it's really not much of a surprise to me anymore.

So Wildflower, then.  Let's start with the first track shall we?

1. Georgia Peaches
This one seems to be very classic country.  Upbeat, fun, and many references to girls wearing jeans.  What's with country singers and their jeans anyway?  I never hear anyone write songs about their cargo shorts.

2. Growing Her Wings
Oh boy, yet another teen song about growing older and more mature.  Never heard one of those before!  Alaina keeps mentioning how she's "stuck in rice county," and how she longs to spread her wings and "fly," but considering she's singing this on her debut music album, something tells me she's not really "stuck at home."

3. Tupelo
Tupelo is apparantly a city or a town of some sort, in case you didn't catch on to that.  I sure didn't know what it meant until Alaina kept singing about "heading way down to Tupelo."  I mean, there's not much else you can "head way down" to, unless its an underground civilization of mole-people or something.  Actually, in retrospect, that might actually make for a better song, because this one is repeating its "la la la la's" to the point where I feel as though my head may explode.

4. The Middle
Looks like we're shifting from upbeat country to blues-y country.  Listening to the soft guitar strums in the background along with Alaina's suddenly mournful tone tells me that this song is undoubtedly about some guy she likes who moved away or something of the like.  Not that the vague nature of the lyrics are helping clarify that.  With all this talk about "staying," and "making it last," she could be singing about her poodle for all I know.

5. Like My Mother Does
This song was apparently Alaina's first single hit.  This seems pretty reasonable, since the content of the song is certainly different than that of most teenage songs these days.  Whereas most teenage singers spend all their time singing about boy crushes and how much they love wearing jeans, (including Alaina of course) this song revolves around Alaina's love for her mother.  You ask me, that's a pretty bold move for a song.  Quite moving, but at the same time, I can't help but feel the song was made with the intention to make people cry.

6. She's a Wildflower
Is that the album title I see there?  Yep, it sure is!  Well this better be the best dang song since they were so keen to name the whole album after it.  This one seems to be the kind of song we're sure to see in movie trailers about groups of teen girls being all independent and strong and what-have-you.  Decent enough, I suppose.

7. I'm Not One of Them
Alaina seems to be harnessing the angry energy of "Pink" in this little sassy number.  I must say that songs like this, where the lead girl sings about "you're gonna have to do better than that" in order to win her over, always give me a bad impression of the singer.  Why does she go around telling guys that their not good enough for her?  Talk about a heartless way to reject someone.  A simple "No" would suffice, Missy.

8. The Locket
Judging from the title, this one is gonna be very sentimental and soppy.  Let's see if I'm right... (plays track)
Yep!  Alaina starts singing all mournful again about her military-enlisted boyfriend.  Wait a minute, boyfriend?  Well if that's the case who was she singing to about "doing better than that" in the last song?  Is it the same guy?  Well no wonder he went off to war!  He was probably tired of dealing with your judgmental attitude, Alaina.

9. Eighteen Inches
The title of this one is apparently referring to the distance between
a person's head to their heart.  I guess no one can say that Alaina doesn't do a little anatomical research before writing her songs.

10. One of Those Boys
First, Alaina's telling us "she's not one of them," possibly in an attempt to rid herself of female stereotypes.  Now, just three songs later, Alaina's telling us she only wants a stereotypical backwoods boy with a truck and a fishing pole.  What's with the double standard, huh Alaina?  Men are allowed to be grouped together in a sentence but not women?  Tsk, tsk, tsk, Alaina.

11. Funny Thing About Love
I swear there has to be about a billion songs with this title.  Everyone thinks love is such a "funny" thing, but I never hear any laughing or giggling in these songs.  What gives?  On another note, when the phrase "can't get enough" appears in your love song, you deserve to get your teeth kicked in by Barry White.

12. Dirt Road Prayer
Finally, we've reached the end of the road. (See what I did there?) This final song slows things down again after the fast-paced previous one.  This seems to be about as sad as Alaina gets in this album, but unlike the others, this one seems to be a song of hope rather than a song of loss.  For some reason I can't help but envision a Nun kneeling down on a gas station dirt road while I listen to this.  Anyway, good ending I suppose.

FINAL WORDS:
Overall, the lyrics all feel pretty cliche and dull, but the mix of upbeat country and blues country makes it an easy album to listen to.  The best of the bunch is most definitely "Like My Mother," because it actually finds a way to stand out amidst the many country songs about jeans and dirty trucks.

OVERALL SCORE: 3 Strong-Independent-Teenage-Girls out of 5.