By Katie Winters

We’ve all become accustomed to subjective matters as the focus of reality TV shows, whether this means following the lives and experiences of people or competitions that rest upon the opinions of judges. The CW’s America’s Next Top Model is of course a well-known example of the latter, but Bravo has found a real niche in this category as well, taking the existing model and diversifying the offerings.

Starting with Project Runaway and continuing with the culinary arts and interior design, Bravo has now expanded their repertoire to include visual art.

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist is a competition, pitting artists against each other to see who could “create the best art” from week to week.

Initially this seems impossible to many. What does a challenge even consist of in an art show? And of course, the conundrum of the extremely subjective nature of art comes into play. Fashion at least has guidelines in the form of current style and there is a certain amount of objectivity to the taste of food.

But art is all over the board, with many different styles, matters of aesthetic and many mediums to utilize. There isn’t even much consensus on what art is, so it is understandable that viewers could be incredulous about Work of Art.

However despite all of these possible traps, Bravo made a good show. It was engaging and entertaining. Even though everyone will have a favorite and there is always that contestant that makes pieces no one understands, the viewer doesn’t feel that those who went home were sent home without reason. So often those who were eliminated were sent home because of an idea that completely missed the mark or skills that lacked. The challenges became more of ideas to be elaborated on with small hurdles to force the artists to stretch their ideas and skills.

Most interestingly though, is the unprecedented view this show offers you. Normally in these competition shows everything between the issuing of the challenge and the presentation of the work is fighting, drama and catty behavior.

Though Bravo did not do entirely away with this winning combination, what the viewer sees in the work room is an artist’s process. For anyone interested in how pieces come to be, from inception to completion, this is groundbreaking.

The chances of seeing this in the real world are slim to none, but now it’s broadcast for all to see.

This show is worth watching. I had my reservations at first, but Bravo and the show’s creators and producers handled the subject well. This along with the unique chance to view artists at work on consecutive challenges makes the show worth all of the typical reality TV fare.

Of course if you are a big fan of the drama of having people compete with each other so intensely, this is just another field to watch it occur in and you will certainly find some interesting characters in the group, like Miles who keeps trying to persuade female competitors to create nude self-portraits. If you didn’t manage to watch the show this summer, I strongly suggest you catch up now as we all wait for the next season.

By Ken Macri

The Expendables is a great action movie with a brilliant cast that is explosive throughout. The plot isn’t anything spectacular, but it is carried out well by the strong cast and contains plenty of intense action.

The plot involves a team of mercenaries who head to South America to overthrow an evil dictator who is abusing the locals and trying to seize power by working with former CIA agent turned drug lord, James Munroe (Eric Roberts).

Mr. Church (Bruce Willis) offers Ross (Sylvester Stallone) and his team the dangerous job of traveling to Vilena to overthrow the island’s evil dictator General Garza and his American partner Munroe, and Monroe’s henchman (Steve Austin), in the process.

Ross takes his team of mercenaries, consisting of knife-man Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), combat expert Yin Yang (Jet Li), weapons specialist Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) and Toll Road (Randy Couture).

The team used to be six strong, but their last member, Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) goes crazy during the opening rescue mission and is therefore left out after trying to kill Ross and Yin Yang.

Ross’s main reason for killing General Garza and Munroe is not the money offered by Church, but so he can save Garza’s daughter Sandra (Giselle Itie) from being tortured and killed for aiding the Americans.

Ross realizes he must rescue Sandra so he can save a life after all the lives he took. It was Tool (Mickey Rourke) who gave him this advice during a powerful scene between Rourke and Stallone. Ross’s feelings for Sandra are the only real emotional drama, because the film is way too busy providing some flawless action scenes.

There are so many great gun battles and fight scenes in this film, but my personal favorite was the fierce one-on-one battle between Austin and Stallone during the climax of the movie.

You can expect nothing less than a hardcore, action-packed movie from Stallone, and when you add the supporting cast of action legends, it is really fun to watch.

Overall, I think the only flaw that this movie has is the fact that some talent was wasted with too little screen time, such as Rourke and Crews, due to the number of big name action stars in this film.

Nevertheless, The Expendables is by far the best action movie of the summer, and it is really great to see Stallone back in his element, much like he was in Rambo.

And by the way, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back on the big screen in this film, and he did a solid job in his one scene.

By Mark Gould

Remember taking that aural trip to Michigan back in 2003? Or how about when you felt the “Illinoise” in 2005? If not, then you may be unfamiliar with the indie rock scene’s most promising star, Detroit-born Sufjan Stevens.

By Lou Cunningham

People need violence to feel comfortable. As a matter of fact, we are so constantly bludgeoned with images of grotesque blood and gore in TV, movies and even music that we are completely desensitized by it. We react to scenes of murder and torture in much the same way we react to any common everyday occurrence. We either shrug it off or we laugh.

A new major motion picture by the name of Kick-Ass (the latest in the endless line of comic-book adaptations) is turning heads like never before because it takes our understanding of violence and pushes it to levels it shouldn’t reach.

The story revolves around a couple of kids who take it upon themselves to dress up as superheroes and fight crime. This sounds like the ingredients for a silly PG-13 family-friendly action-comedy, but instead it is a blood-soaked, excessively violent, rated-R affair that has somehow been disguised as a comedy.

By Mark Ramdular

April is a month which, as common knowledge will dictate, produces showers. In return, these showers produce May flowers. Unfortunately, the video game industry is not a product of nature. Thus, video games simply are not raining out this month. In fact, while I haphazardly continue with this series, one can say it is barely even drizzling. Similarly, my wallet also suffers the fate of being absurdly dry. However, there is good news.

That good news is that this writer has an immensely large video game collection. Is it something to be proud of? Well, it’s not the first pickup line I use at the bars, or even the second, but to each his own. That being said, the video game being discussed is somewhat of an oldie.

Suikoden V came out in 2006 on the PS2. It was developed and published by Konami, with developmental help coming from Hudson Soft. Historically, Suikoden games are infamous for two things — one, they always end up being rare, because they go out of print faster than a speeding bullet, and two, Suikoden games that are in the main canon are released excruciatingly far apart from one another. Suikoden V is no exception to either of these rules. Furthermore, rumors about the next installment have only recently popped up on the internet. Despite these two offsetting traits, the Suikoden series of games maintains a rabid cult following. Otherwise, why would there be five games and a plethora of spin-offs?

Suikoden V takes place in the Queendom of Falena eight years before the first Suikoden game. In this country, while the Queen rules, the male throne recipient has control of the army, known as the Queen’s Knights. You take control of the Prince, who is not entitled to inherit anything and doesn’t actually have a name until you give him one. However, even this emasculation doesn’t stop the Prince from being close to his sister, Lymsleia, the rightful heir to the Queendom.