“Ted Lasso”, “Fall”, and Izzy’s favorite book. Photo Courtesy of senior Olivia Cusick.
Hello! As the 2022 – 2023 Expressions Arts and Entertainment editor, I wanted to use the wonderful reporting team to reflect the media that students at San Luis Obispo High School enjoy.
In the modern age of technology, new media is constantly being created. The Expressions team is excited to give reviews on a few of these every week. Music, film, television, books, and any art form that students and staff want to discuss, are given a free space to do so.
You too can join the team for the Sunday Showcase! If you are passionate and want to talk about art, email me at [email protected].
I thoroughly hope you enjoy the Sunday Showcase!
Drama as Season 3 of Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” premiers soon. By reporter Nico Aebischer
Viewers are getting impatient for the next season. Photo Courtesy of senior Olivia Cusick
Season 3 of Apple TV’s “Ted Lasso” is currently in production, and many San Luis Obispo High School students are excited for the new season to premiere. Like any good show, “Ted Lasso” has heart, comedy, drama, and of course, soccer.
The series follows the life of Ted Lasso (actor Jason Sudeikis), a former college football coach from Kansas who quit and moved to England to coach a fictional Premier League soccer team, the AFC Richmond Greyhounds.
Due to the fact that Lasso had no experience with coaching, playing, or even watching soccer, this is widely regarded as a bad move, with Lasso being met by angry Richmond fans that already despised their new head coach. The Richmond crowd even went so far as to shout the word “wanker” over and over again as Lasso stepped onto the pitch.
But what separates Ted Lasso from regular people is his unbelievable enthusiasm and kindness. He jumped into the challenge headfirst, not caring what people thought of him or if the team won, so long as they got something out of the game, a fact that came much to the despair of the AFC Richmond supporters.
But what makes this show so good isn’t the comedic genius, the enticing drama, or even the fruity language, although all of these factors certainly add to the show’s appeal. Instead, it is the wonderful characters and the bonds they create with each other that earned the show its Emmy for “Best Comedy Series.”
Unfortunately, the new season of “Ted Lasso” was thought to premiere this October, but was recently moved back to an unknown time due to rewrites in the plot. It is also not unlikely that Season 3 of “Ted Lasso” will be the last. Actor Brett Goldstein, who plays the role of Roy Kent, said in June that the series was originally planned to only last three seasons. This, especially since it is not an official statement, doesn’t really mean much, so there still could be more seasons in the future, it’s simply too hard to tell.
In the meantime, while we wait for the future of “Ted Lasso” to unfold, watch the first two seasons if you haven’t already. You don’t need to be a soccer fan to enjoy this special series.
Sources :hollywoodreporter.com cinemablend.com deadline.com
“Fall”: The most stressful movie of 2022. By Arts and Entertainment editor Olivia Cusick
Is it time to reevaluate heights in your life? Photo Courtesy of senior Olivia Cusick
After one audition in Los Angeles, I had a two hour break before the next one. My family decided to go to the cinema, and “Fall” just happened to be playing at the perfect time. Never before has a movie instantly created as much stress as I felt in that small IMAX theater. I believe San Luis Obispo High School students should watch this slowburn tense movie.
Director Scott Man’s third movie, and first since 2015 is incredibly stressful. With a small set, 12 cast members, and three million USD used to make it, “Fall” is one of the smallest productions to perform in theaters in recent years.
Due to the unfortunate event of my little brother slamming his thumb in the car door, my family ended up missing the first ten minutes. I soon realized that the first ten minutes of most movies are sort of worthless, unnecessary exposition, all of which is soon explained in the following ten.
Following the death of her husband, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) joins Shiloh ‘Hunter’ (Virginia Gardner) up a two thousand foot abandoned radio tower. Why? To make more followers for Hunter, of course. Don’t we all love influencers?
As they climb, we refocus on Becky’s loss of her husband. He died while rock climbing with the pair. Naturally, climbing a rickety tower, in the middle of nowhere, around eight months after such a traumatic loss proved rather difficult for Becky.
Hunter wants to do all sorts of dangerous stunts, for those beloved followers. At the peak of the tower, filming with a drone, the girls are hanging over the drop with one hand. During these, the entire audience is gasping. It’s hard to breathe, staring at those girls, feeling the wind, and seeing the drop.
As they attempt to climb down, we see the screws shake out, with each step the ladder slowly snapping below. The ladder eventually crumbles, with the girls close enough to the top, to catch each other.
Oh no. Now they are stuck together. They also notice that there is no cell data. Oh no! Now she can’t post. They try to use a shoe to cushion Hunter’s phone to make a post on her instagram begging for help. They drop the phone and wait. No one comes.
If you have a fear of heights, this movie is not for you. This movie created unimaginable stress and vertigo for me.
The small space of the cell tower makes the movie rather slow. With a run time of one hour and 47 minutes, some scenes are so dragged on that I wanted to scream.
I feel “Fall” is a great representation of the idea of the greed and selfishness that social media has created. The entire reason they got stuck was because Hunter wanted to continue to grow her followers.
Despite its slow burn and stress, I enjoyed this movie. Gardner’s performance was fantastic, captivating me from the start. Currey wasn’t my favorite until the climax of the film. With a massive twist, her tears make me want to cry. Walking out of the film, even the smallest staircases threw me back in.
Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15325794/
New on Izzy’s Bookstore Front: “Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory” By editor Izzy Nino de Rivera-Krieger.
“Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory” by Raphael Bob-Waksberg
Genre: Humor, Short Stories, some Science Fiction thrown in there?
Izzy’s Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Price (Retail): $17.00
Price (Barnes and Noble/Amazon): $15.30
Length: 256 pages
Any warnings?: Strong language (yes, as in the big-scary-F-word I’m forbidden to write down and more), made me cry and feel exposed/emotionally vulnerable, references to sex.
Like many bookworms at San Luis Obispo High School, I’m always on the lookout for new stories, new books, new novels, etcetera… Many of my English teachers and History teachers through the years at SLOHS can attest to this. Special shout out to English teachers Kari Smith and Ivan Simon for letting me borrow (and sometimes keep) book recommendations they give out.
Going beyond my love of books that I’ve harbored since elementary school, I’ve gotten extra time to read since receiving treatment for a medical condition I have, books have an even bigger space in my mind and heart now.
Since I don’t have access to my phone in treatment, while I was packing the night before I took off to Northern California, I packed a grand total of 38 novels. Some still have to be approved by the facility I’m at since some discuss more sensitive topics.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to finish all 38 of the books in between treatment, meals, schoolwork (from a distance), and therapy, but I could at least finish a good amount before I leave given the amount of time without any laptop for schoolwork we’re supposed to have. I would have to finish one fat novel (or a relatively small novel) a day and not to say I can’t do it if I tried, but I can’t do it.
I requested to have a bunch of books in my room for comfort and some familiarity of home while I spend a month away from the only town I’ve ever known. The staff actually let me keep about half of my collection to peruse through before I go to bed. I never felt so relieved to see so many books stacked next to my bed, when normally it’s a sense of obligation I get to read them soon or they’ll start collecting dust.
I’ve begun putting them in my drawer and having the ones I finished on the shelf below the drawer.
Hopefully, this new column can also find books that are up your alley, even if you don’t consider yourself that much of a reader. I read both long books and short books across most genres.
But I digress. Now onto why you’re actually here.
The second book I finished during my first week of treatment was one that I originally saw on “Bookstagram”. It’s the book-nerd side of Instagram, essentially.
The creator of ‘BoJack Horseman’, producer and author Raphael Bob-Waksberg, brings in the dark humor that ‘BoJack Horseman’ is known for, while also having incredibly profound statements and wildly funny stories on love. Some are more cynical on the idea of love, but all of the stories are heartfelt on what love means in all relationships. This is the first book in months that made me both cry but also feel like it was giving me a hug through its pages.
I have to be honest, I wasn’t all that interested after reading the back when I first picked up the book in Barnes and Noble. Like, seriously? An engaged couple with their interfering family arguing about how many goats to sacrifice at their wedding to the Stone God? A struggling employee at a theme park of U.S. presidents who finds out love can’t be genetically modified? What kind of fantastical crap ended up on my Instagram page? Was I really going to buy this?
I was, however, very impressed with the reviews. Including the two from both of his grandmothers which I found wholesome that he included them in the reviews.
News flash: I bought it after reading Nana’s review.
It was similar to my initial judgment of ‘BoJack Horseman’, one of my favorite TV shows now, when I first started it. Just another adult cartoon with stupid humor with a talking horse. Big deal. But no. The deeply personal statements in that show have, honest to God, affected me as a person and my standards for television now – and the scene that shook me to my core has become a fundamental part of who I am.
“Diane, I need you to tell me I’m a good person,” was the quote from BoJack in the first season that forever kept me hooked on the show.
This book has also affected me as much, or even more, than ‘BoJack Horseman’ did, and five stars isn’t enough to describe my immense love and admiration for the book. I’ve had a lot of favorite books. It’s hard to choose one, as many book lovers will tell you. But I think I found “the one“. You may think I’m exaggerating for the sake of selling you on the book but I have never been more serious about my commitment to this book. (Commitment issues, hello?)
Love really is both the best and the worst thing in the world. It breaks, it heals, it hurts, it aches, it bonds, but it awesomely makes us human.
In the book, we encounter multiple relationships, ranging from a dog and his owner (from the perspective of the dog), an estranged half-brother and his younger sister on a family trip to Puerto Vallarta, the Up-and-Comers band through their rough beginnings and tragic story, and many more.
Love isn’t just about the romantic aspect, although we do encounter quite a few couples, both through their pain and through moments of bonding. I started reflecting on my own relationships with people – my family, my friends, my colleagues, my exes – and seeing how love was often front and center of what I did for many people. Even as painful as some of those relationships ended or were strained by circumstances, love is what we all abide and communicate by. Love is omnipresent in almost all we do, whether the love is seemingly “over” or love being shown in all kinds of different ways we can’t quite fathom.
Although I have many favorite stories from this collection, my favorite was one Bob-Waksberg already published on the Missed Connections Craigslist page in 2013, titled “Missed Connection–m4w”. It was one of the stories on the back of the book that mildly caught my attention, about a pair of lonely commuters who ride the subway, but eternally fail to make that initial contact, the first move, and sit in silence forever.
The quote that was the most profound in the book to me, about words unsaid, was, “When the train returned to Avenue J, I craned my neck as we entered the station. Perhaps you were there, on the platform, still waiting. Perhaps I would see you, smiling and bright, your long white hair waving in the wind from the oncoming train. But no, you were gone. And I realized most likely I would never see you again. And I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet still not really know that person at all.” (36)
Absolutely broke me.
And this was only one of the first stories in the book that would break me.
We’ve all been in situations where we wish we did that, we wish we said that, before it was too late. It stung me because I thought back to all those missed opportunities, both in my love life I later regretted not taking my chance, or even in every day interactions, where I wish I said “thank you” to someone or a simple “I love you” to someone that needed it.
If I were you, I’d buy the book right now, sit (or lay down on the couch) and take the book one story at a time. Drink a cup of coffee or tea with it, or water if you don’t fancy either of them. I didn’t use tissues even though I cried because I’m a wimp like that, but feel free to grab them. Some may move you, some may not, and you may not be a crier like I was. Each story, even the shortest ones or the stories with just lists as their stories, need reflection afterwards.
If I ever gift this book to one of my friends, it’s the best gift I could possibly give to someone to show them how much I deeply appreciate and love them. I would go through the book to pre-annotate it for them so they feel like I’m reading it with them or them having my thoughts or what reminds me of them.
I am beyond ecstatic about this book and I hope you also fall in love with this book.
I’m available for some book recommendations/consultations at [email protected] or through Instagram at @starryybella. Feel free to email me or message me about books, or to maybe recommend some books for me to talk about in this new column. I’d also love to hear about your reactions to this book if you read it, it would mean the world to me. Just please, send your name and your grade level (or if you’re a staff member) in the email. That is all I ask, please. I don’t need more spam emails or randos trying to sell me on new erectile dysfunction medication even though I am not assigned male at birth. If I get signed up for another spam email list, I will sue. Just a warning.
Via: Amazon.com
