Reviews

Southpaw movie review

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Release date: July 24, 2015

Opening weekend revenue: $16,701,294

Lifetime gross: $51,289,443

IMDb rating: 7.7/10

Personal rating: 6.3/10

Undefeated professional boxer Billy Hope (Jake Gyllenhaal) is 43-0. His offensive, sometimes reckless, boxing style has done him well in his perfect boxing career. His wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) is tragically killed in a brawl between Hope, the trash talking, title-hungry boxer Miguel “Magic” Escobar and their entourage.

After going into a harsh, depressed downward spiral, Hope ends up losing custody of his child Leila (Oona Laurence). Rejected by society and his own kin, Hope is forced to start his career over again with an underground trainer named Tick Willis (Forest Whitaker) to try and defeat the current champion Escobar and avenge his wife’s untimely death.

A 6.3/10 rating is a very generous one. If  I were to rename the movie, it would be “Southpaw: the Great Disappointment.”

From the opening scene to the final credits, “Southpaw” was an enormous let down.

After Gyllenhaal’s performance in “Nightcrawler” I had high expectations for him in this follow-up film.

Gyllenhaal was not this film’s undoing. He gave a good performance for the script he was given. The issue was the poor writing and lack of connection with the characters.

There is a conversation where Hope finally gets Willis to train him. In which Willis tells Hope to be at the gym the next day, and Hope asks him “To train?” and Willis replies “No, to bake cookies.” That was one of the most pathetic, predictable, and in all honesty laughable lines I have heard out of a movie in a while.

The scene where Hope’s wife dies is an awful one. It consisted of McAdams’ poor ability to portray someone who is dying along with Gyllenhaal’s repetitive chant of saying “baby” over and over again.  

Willis is thrown into the movie way too late to be as important as a character as he is. Not only that, but the lack of background knowledge makes it hard for any viewer to feel emotionally connected to him.

Save your money, do not go to the theaters to see this movie. Stay at home, and wait to see it on TV when it plays over and over again.

News

Orchestra recruits new members

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    With a new school year beginning, the high school orchestra is off to a quick start.

    On Sept. 11, just two weeks after the school year started, the orchestra performed a recruitment concert for the fifth graders at Lakeview. The orchestra did the recruitment concert to form the fifth grade orchestra.

    The orchestra spent the first two weeks giving their all to get the songs performance ready. They spent every day  perfecting the songs for the concert.

    They played “I’m Shipping up to Boston,” “Viva la Vida” and  “The Avengers.”

    They had student announcers that announced each song. The section leaders for each section of the orchestra played a piece so the students could hear what the instruments sounded like. They also gave a small description of the instruments.

    After the orchestra played, the fifth graders were able to try each instrument if they wanted to. The students showed the students the basics of how to play so they could decide if they wanted to join orchestra.

    The students are now working on music for their concert on Oct 7. At this concert they will play songs from the recruitment concert as well as new songs.

Editorials

Homework stirs controversy among students

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By Kyla Zeigler

Weekends are days where students can sleep in and relax. The only problem is homework can get in the way of those relaxing days.

Homework, whether during the week or on the weekend, is something most students are not looking forward to doing. Getting home from a seven ­hour school day to look at ­two hours of homework a night can be a drag. While most students dread homework over the weekend, it is also okay to bring school into students’ lives outside of the classroom.

Unfinished projects or papers sometimes need the extended time a weekend offers. Some students work after school or are involved in extracurricular activities, so they are not able to get what they need to get done during the week. It is true in which some students have events that take the entire weekend and homework over those days are added stress, but those are not very often. On top of that, most teachers are lenient on giving extensions for unplanned circumstances.

While it can not be helped, homework should not happen all the time over the weekend, only when it is necessary. Most students do not mind doing a little bit of homework sometimes, but when it starts to get in the way of their family and social life, then it starts to become a problem for them. Students would much rather go and hang out with their friends then do homework, but there are times where students have to sit down and get work done.

It is not a bad thing for students to bring home work from school but some students believe that school work should stay in school. Although this is understandable, there is not enough time during the school day to finish all that needs to be learned. Going home and doing some school work helps students remember what they were taught in school. It also allows them to get help from older siblings or parents if there is something they do not understand.

Though most students would disagree, having homework over the weekends is not as troublesome as they think.

Sports

Football VS Nordonia

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The Nordonia Knights were supposed to be the Bulldogs biggest competition that they had to play thus far. Well, it was up until the final six minutes of the fourth quarter where the Bulldogs pulled away to win the game 65-37 Friday night.

It was a crazy game, and at point the Knights cut the lead to 38-30 in the fourth quarter, but at the end of the night the Bulldogs took better care of the football and leaned on their running attack to move the ball.

The Bulldogs improved to 5-0 while the Knights dropped to 2-3 on the season.

Senior running back Jayson Gobble had a huge night. Rushing for 253 yards on 34 carries, Gobble also added five rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown.

The receiving touchdown was on a trick play where junior Logan Lindsay ended up throwing it to Jayson for a 43-yard score. Gobble took a handoff and pitched it back to Lindsay for the easy touchdown; this gave Stow huge momentum very early in the game.

“I was indifferent when the trick play was called,” Gobble said. “I just saw it as a chance to get yards and we took advantage of the opportunity.”

At halftime the score was 24-7 but it felt all but over. The average fan would know the Knights would not fold over. On their first possession in the second half the Knights were driving. This was until the Bulldogs forced one of the three turnovers they created when senior Monte Board recovered a fumble on the Bulldog 27 yard line, ending the Knights momentum.

Junior quarterback Kyle Vantrease had a solid game himself. Vantrease rushed for two touchdowns, including a savvy 18-yard rush that really deflated to the Knights.

On the following drive sophomore Joe Gobble put the final bite in the game with a 63- yard pick-six.

Stow’s next game is on Oct. 2, when the Twinsburg Tigers come into town.

“We knew from the Wadsworth game and one it would only get tougher,” Senior Owen Fankhauser said, “We will get everyone’s best shot, and we wouldn’t want it any other way.”

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