Arts and Entertainment 

By Olivia Slagle 

You sink into the comfort of your sofa, the feel of the remotes ridges in your hand while you search for something easy and nostalgic to watch, “Oh, Futurama’s back.” 

After ten years of absence, the sci-fi comedy “Futurama” has returned to television exclusively on Hulu with an eleventh season in July. So far the season has a total of ten episodes with another ten on the way and is still a perfect pick for when you need something digestible, simple, and fun to watch.

Futurama was released in 1999 and aired on 20th Century Fox Television. David X and Matt Groening, directors best known for “The Simpsons”, “Life is Hell”, and more recently  co-created, “Disenchantment”. 

The show follows Fry, a delivery boy who accidentally gets cryogenically frozen in New York and awakens in the year 3000. Displaced in time, Fry has to navigate life as a delivery boy in the future living alongside aliens, robots, humans, and mutants alike. 

A side character in the show, “Zapp Brannigan,” is a military captain of the spaceship named the “Nimbus.” Brannigan represents the stereotypical misogynistic, egotistical boss that doesn’t understand boundaries. A running joke in the show is Brannigan’s blatant sexual harassment of women and his subordinates. His personality, though acceptable when it aired, raised controversy and concern in the present time. 

In the self-aware new episode titled “Zapp Gets Canceled” Brannigan’s obnoxious behavior gets him fired after “getting canceled” for taking a public bath on the Nimbus and using his subordinate “Kif Kroker” as a bath towel.

Brannigan then gets a crash course on respecting others by “Dr. Gary Kind”, who harasses Zapp into learning workplace norms. Brannigan’s reformation episode is humorous yet self-aware and, for viewers, incredibly satisfying.

The episode is a stark difference to “Bend Her,” the show’s thirteenth episode of its fourth season. The main plot is that the sassy robot Bender has a sex change in order to win the fembot Olympics. 

“Bend Her” has aged horribly; the joke itself is insensitive to the widespread connotation that trans women transition for the sake of personal gain and not identity. While that insensitivity had once been tacitly accepted by the public, 2003 is definitely a different time from today.

Futurama has evolved in a way that avoids market myopia and it’s heartening to see. It maintains the humor that fans love while making efforts to be relevant to current events and the social norms of today. 

Reboots these days usually don’t do well due to half baked cash grab jokes and plots, shows especially forsake what attracted fans in the first place to reach a different audience. Reassuringly, “Futurama”’s new season has kept its loveable charm while confronting the shows’ problematic characters.

The funniest part of Futurama is that none of the characters are in on the joke. The whole show is absolutely satirical, all of the characters are ridiculous which gives it a “Simpsons” silliness, but remixed with a sci-fi flair. 

The show’s return is not a flop or a disappointment and is definitely worth watching.  While starting from the beginning will always be advised by hardcore fans, jumping in with the new season wouldn’t be a problem. Futurama generally carries itself from episode to episode and doesn’t heavily rely on an overarching plotline, just consistent themes.

By Samantha Hong 

“Perks of Being a Wallflower,” directed and written by Stephen Chobosky, follows a freshman named Charlie Kelmeckis as he explores high school. The movie touches on serious issues like mental health, sexual assault, and sexuality and is a must-watch for everyone, especially high school students. 

The film revolves around a group of seniors, Sam, Patrick, Mary Jane, Alice, and Bob, and their pseudo-adoption of Charlie. Together, they create an eclectic group of personalities full of fun and adventure. Patrick often refers to their group as "misfits" in the book and film. 

As the movie progresses, the plot hones in on the lives of Sam, Patrick, and Charlie. The audience learns about Sam, played by Emma Watson, and the sexual assault she faced when she was young. We see how the trauma and abuse from her early life affect the person she is today and her difficulties to trust and seek out safe and healthy romantic relationships.  

Next, we learn about Patrick, played by Ezra Miller, and his sexuality and perspective on being openly gay while being in love with Brad, a closeted gay football player. We watch Patrick slowly deteriorate from the facade and flamboyant persona he feels he must portray as he deals with heartbreak and ostracization. 

Lastly, we watch Charlie, played by Logan Lerman, go through his freshman year, dealing with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. We get hints of some of the trauma Charlie has endured in passing. For example, at a party, Charlie reveals his friend's suicide in middle school to Sam in graphic detail. 

However, it isn't until the end of the film that we discover the origin of Charlie's mental health issues, which started with the grooming and sexual assault of his aunt. 

Each backstory to the three protagonists depicts their resilience and perseverance despite all the hardships they've had to endure. No matter what happens, Sam, Charlie, and Patrick are ready and willing to overcome their pasts. 

However moving each story is,  it is the main quote and theme of the plot that makes this film so important to watch. It takes place when Sam, in a conversation with Charlie, asks him, "Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?" 

Charlie responds, "We accept the love we think we deserve."

I think this quote is so important and truthful. It holds meaning to the characters and to life. 

Throughout the film, Sam, Patrick, and Charlie choose partners that hurt them. Sam dates a college student who doesn't respect her. Patrick dates Brad, who is embarrassed by him, and Charlie dates Mary Jane in a loveless relationship. All three of them seek the love they think they deserve and cyclically hurt themselves in the process. 

The same message applies to reality. Adults who grew up with abusive parents tend to date abusive partners because they believe themselves incapable of a kinder and healthier relationship. Self-destructive and self-loathing people are incapable of accepting love because they don't think themselves worthy of it. 

Years ago, I watched this film as a Freshman and I am grateful I did. As I moved through high school and navigated relationships with friends and partners, I stayed mindful of what Charlie said to Sam. Who were the people I chose to be in my life, and did their treatment of me reflect the treatment I wanted? Was I deserving of the love I accepted? 

We moved through life choosing our friends, our family, and our partners. We want to be loved. We want a kind and healthy relationship, but for that to happen, we need to first believe ourselves deserving of love. “Perks of Being a Wallflower” does an amazing job of conveying that message. It’s beautiful, detailed, meaningful, and very much worthy of your attention and time. 

By Morgan Hones 

Five Nights at Freddy’s, FNAF for short, is a popular horror game series with a passionate fandom that expands its lore by creating a mountain of their own fan art and videos, some of them being even scarier and more disturbing than the games themselves. They finally came out with their own full length movie on October 27, 2023. Backed with a lot of hype, it came to theaters ready to reach out to the masses, but did the movie live up to the expectations?

In my opinion, they did a good job at conveying the Five Nights at Freddy’s vibe and staying accurate to the lore as a PG-13 movie, though I am disappointed that it wasn't an R rated movie instead. Coming out as a PG-13 movie made it more challenging to make it scary, and honestly, apart from two jumpscares (from balloon boy), it really didn't scare me at all. Might I add, I am someone who gets scared easily when watching horror.

The movie, produced by Scott Cawthon Jason Blum with the studio Blumhouse, takes place in the early 2000s. Most of the setting is located at a closed down pizzeria called Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. The movie stars Josh Hutcherson playing as the main character Mike Schmidt, a newly hired security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s. 

The thriller follows Mike Schmidt as he realizes his night shift as a security guard at the pizzeria won't be as simple and straightforward as he thought. 

The use of real life animatronics for Bonnie, Freddy, Chica, and Springtrap truly impressed me and definitely made a better impression at making the viewer experience feel real, rather than if they were CGI’d. The emotional and mental connections between the animatronics and Abby Schmidt, played by Piper Rubio, were very well-displayed, making the movie easy to digest and understand.

In conclusion, I recommend first and foremost that you watch the movie yourself and have your own opinion on it. I personally found that it lacked greatly in the horror department because it was PG-13 and didn't really have any gory or scary moments. Besides that, the movie was a fun watch and had a somewhat interesting storyline, which could've been more complex, but was easy to digest. I myself am not a part of the FNAF fandom, but from what I've seen, the movie stayed true to its original lore.

By Aneyah Wolridge 

This book wasn’t worth the hype I originally thought it was going to be. “The Inheritance Games”, written by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, had such a promising storyline, only the execution was a little off to me.

I initially thought this was one of my five-star reads of 2023 because of all the positive buzz I heard on social media. But after contemplation, I decided to give this book a three-and-a-half-star rating out of five. This story had potential, but it had a few components that I wish were not included or emphasized in my opinion. The build-up was really good in the beginning, but in the middle, it felt like a filler which made everything a little confusing. The ending felt rushed, too action-packed, and anticlimactic all at the same time.

The main two components that I wish weren't a big part of the story are the rags to riches plot and the love triangle. I get that these are important to the story, but it was too surrounded by these subplots and not the actual mystery at hand. Let’s start by explaining what the book is about.

The Inheritance Games is the first of three books in the trilogy. The basic plot of the story follows Avery Kylie Grambs, who’s a junior in high school, and who barely has money to her name. She's been living with her older step sister, Libby, since her mom died, and her dad isn’t present in her life. They ended up having to fly over to Tobias Hawthorne’s mansion despite never meeting him to read his will, Avery ended up inheriting 46.2 billion dollars, and the mansion. Outraging his entire family, why would this random girl come out of nowhere and inherit that much money? 

The money was all hers, only on the condition that she lives in the mansion for an entire year with his four handsome grandsons and a family that doesn’t necessarily have the most positive feelings towards Avery, while she tries to solve one more riddle left by Tobias Hawthorne.

We also meet the four grandsons at the will reading. Also known as the Hawthorne brothers, Nash, Grayson, Jameson, and Xander. Nash is the oldest brother with a cowboy-like personality. Grayson has a stone-cold personality towards Avery and suggests she must’ve done something to inherit the things she did. Then we got Jameson, a rebellious boy who skips school. Finally, we got Xander, the youngest who’s intelligent and nerdy.

I didn’t get to explore all four of their personalities too deeply in this book except for Grayson and Jameson, Avery’s two love interests. I wish I got to explore their personalities a little deeper since they all seemed similar to me while I was reading this book.

It was fun to see Avery start to adjust to the life of being a heiress to a huge fortune. But, it would’ve been better to focus less on that aspect of the story, and to focus more on the mystery at hand, why Tobias wanted Avery to inherit all that money, the mansion, and leaving his family with practically nothing compared to what she  was going to inherit.

The love triangle between Jameson, Grayson, and Avery is insane to me because it wasn’t Jameson and Grayson’s first time in a love triangle. Before Avery, a girl named Emily Mclaughlin was dating both Grayson and Jameson, but died while cliff jumping with Grayson. She had a pre-existing heart condition which was her cause of death. Both brothers blame themselves for what happened to her, Grayson blames himself because he shouldn’t have taken her in the first place, and Jameson blames himself because he followed them and just stood by when she was dying.

But they made  this the whole point throughout the entire book to bring up this girl who’s no longer alive, while she had nothing to do with the plot of the story. Emily this, Emily that. I was about ready to close the book if I heard anything about Emily one more time. I wonder how they made it possible to make such a big part in the story and insert her into almost everything when she’s not even alive. I get if they brought her up once or twice, but throughout the whole book is annoying .

Finally, half of these characters were just insufferable, especially Jameson. Avery’s best friend Max would use fake swear words to replace the actual ones, while it was funny at first it got old quickly. And Jameson is one of the most insufferable characters in the book. One minute he was all over Avery and so enthusiastic about this mystery his grandfather left him, but when they found the clue about Avery’s birthday, which coincidentally was the same day Emily died, he suddenly changed to , “I don’t think I want to play this game anymore.”

At the end of the day, my opinion might lack some things because this is only the first out of three books, and maybe I’m being too judgemental and critical. But this book simply wasn’t for me. Despite that, I would be interested in reading the second book to see where things go, despite how much I just bashed the first book and found it extremely underwhelming. I would recommend this book if you’re just getting into reading and need something with short chapters, is sort of fast paced, and is easy to follow.

By Ashen Rain Blumberg 

       From October 26th to November 9th this year, Lincoln’s Drama Department showed five productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream." This continuation of their long-held tradition, where a different Shakespeare play takes its turn in the Little Theater spotlight every four years, remains an ode to classic literature’s continued potential for new generations facing timeless struggles.

          Closing night sold out as audiences scrambled to their seats to see the curtains open to an extraterrestrial forest. Triangular mosaic walls transition from deep blue around the edges to bright pink in the center; white drapes, furniture and foliage represent the roots of a towering bioluminescent tree, which gives life to everything around it.

          As earthly Athenian players and couples trudge through their newfound terrain, winged characters, clad in sparkly rainbow western gear, ensue chaos upon their visitors ‘normal’ love lives.

          “A lot of students connected with the modern take we had on it in terms of the costumes and the set,” said Elaine Walenta, the director and Drama teacher.

           Claire Cover, an actress in the play, has performed in Shakespeare productions ever since she was eight after her older sister exposed her to the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival.

           “One of the reasons Shakespeare stuck with me for so long is because even though the text is often so vastly different from what we hear today, the characters and the emotions are so completely human,” said Cover.

            “Shakespeare has a couple of plays where people go into the forest and they change, and the forest represents change,” said Walenta. 

               Despite fairies being under the impression they’ve mastered the human follies of infatuation, they are as subject to it just as the Athenians, thinning the veil between the mortal and magical realm once more.

              “There are some really dark and real moments in it that just amp up the comedy,” explained Cover. “There’s a lot about navigating the lines between this world that’s so over the top and different from our own, but then the human characters ground it so much. I really like the way ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ as a whole kind of shows every aspect of love in a way.”

              “[Shakespeare] distinguished himself from his contemporaries by his use of language,” Walenta noted. 

              This language, heavily inspired by the speech and interests of common folk, pushed Shakespeare’s popularity to a wider range of people, who could then enjoy his productions inexpensively. With the power of affordable tickets, wild slang, and themes relating to the underrepresented people of the Elizabethan Era, these plays paved the way for a diverse audience.

             “Shakespeare plays are really raunchy,” Cover said. “They’re full of murder, really stupid jokes; they're full of sex jokes as well; there’s swearing, there’s betrayal, there’s love; they’re really exciting at their core, but in an academic setting, sometimes we manage to strip all of that away, and I think that ties into the historical way that, especially in the Victorian era, Shakespeare began being seen as an elitist thing.”

               This year’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Lincoln helped reinforce the message that Shakespeare is for everyone by providing access to enjoy Shakespeare from the accessible venue of school. 

               “A lot of students read Shakespeare first,” Walenta said. “They don’t actually see a play, and Shakespeare’s meant to be seen and heard. So, if you can bring that energy to people’s first encounters with Shakespeare, I think their idea of Shakespeare might be a little bit different.”

                 In the play, when the veil is thinned between the mortal and magical world, so is the social construct of what constitutes normal love. From a convoluted love square between Athenian youth, to a feverish affair between a donkey-headed working class citizen and a fairy queen, the forest is free from rigid rules.

                "Yeah, it is really deep and well written,” continued Cover, “But it's also full of dirty jokes, and it’s made for the people. To anybody who came and saw it, thank you, really appreciate you, thank you for supporting Drama and Tech!”

By Samantha Hong

Friday, November 17th, 2023, The Hunger Games franchise released a prequel to the original series called,"The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes." The movie occurs 64 years before the first Hunger Games with Katniss Everdeen. It follows the life of Coriolanus Snow, also known as President Snow, as he mentors his tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, in the tenth annual Hunger Games. This prequel lives up to all the hype and success of the previous Hunger Games films and is a must-watch. 

The story is divided into three parts: the mentor, the prize, and the peacemaker. The first part follows Snow as he mentors Baird and tries to build trust within their relationship. The second part, the prize, is all about the 10th Annual Hunger Games and Baird’s victory. The third part follows the finale, the peacemaker. Where Snow is stripped of his name and sent to district 12 to become a commoner that eventually reunites with Baird. 

“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” is a masterful film that explores ignorance, prejudice, and survival under the dystopian-lense. Suzanne Collins, the author of the prequel and the series, utilizes the Hunger Games, the Capitol, and the districts to break down reflections and mirrors to the social structures in our own society. 

The Capitol exemplifies the wealthy. The social structure within and between each district exemplifies the competition between middle and upper class. The Hunger games itself is a reflection of humans' reduced down to their survival needs. 

In the film, Dr. Gaul, the current head game maker, mentions to Snow how the Hunger Games shows us “Humanity undressed.” I love this expression because it accurately describes both the Capitol for its immorality and disconnect with humanity, and the tributes, reduced down to creatures in the wild trying to outlive each other. 

Furthermore, as we move through the film the most interesting parts are examining the duality of Snow and the duality of the games and what it came to represent. First, the duality of Snow is fascinating.  Croyo, and his tyrant self, President Snow, in the Hunger Games series are two very different people. Coryo embodies the moments before destruction, someone still capable of being better, someone capable of love. While President Snow, in the Hunger Games series is callous, cold, and cruel.  A man who uses love as a weapon. 

In the original series, it is Snow who says, “It is the things we love most that destroy us.” 

His love for Baird, in the end, destroys his humanity thus creating the tyrant we know. 

Moreover, seeing the differences between the 74th and 10th Annual Hunger Games, helps audiences understand and notice the transformation of the games. Initially, the show was on its last limbs, barely watched by the Capitol and seen as disgusting. Then, 64 years later, the Hunger Games becomes a spectacle, a valued, honorable tradition to Panem. Though it is shown in the film, the audience is able to discern the weaponization of the districts and the Capitol’s perception of the games, changed under the reign of Snow. 

 One of my favorite concepts of this film is the romance between the two protagonists. We watch Snow, from an objective perspective, and his love for Baird seems innocent and kind. It is heavily discussed amongst the fandom whether or not their love for each other is true or simply born out of circumstance. Which then comes to ask viewers how they define love. Can love only exist if pure, or can it be born from the ugly? 

Additionally, the movie is full of parallels to the original series. First, Baird is the author of "The Hanging Tree" song, which eventually becomes the anthem for the rebellion in the original series. Secondly, the field where Baird writes the song is the same field where Katniss and Peeta end up in the epilogue of Mockingjay. Third, Tigris, Snow's cousin, is the same Tigris who helps Katniss and her cohort hide while they are trying to breach the Capitol and usurp Snow. Fourth, the corset on Baird’s dress is embroidered with katniss and primroses, a nod to the Everdeen sisters. The film does a wonderful job at paralleling the prequel to the Hunger Games franchise without taking away the individuality of being its own story.  

In all, this film is fantastic. It consists of small details and thoughtful direction. Coriolanus Snow's story is masterfully told, showing through his duality of character and his hunger for power.  Even if you haven't watched the original series, the "Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" is a must-watch and a great start to your Hunger Games obsession.