One Tree Hill is love, One Tree Hill is life

Is it possible to both love and hate a television show at the same time? Absolutely. Since fall break I've been watching the drama TV series One Tree Hill anytime that I open Netflix. It is horrifyingly unrealistic, but I LOVE it.
OTH is probably the most overdramatic show I've ever seen, next to Grey's Anatomy. It follows popular high school athletes, their friends, and enemies in the fictional town of Tree Hill, North Carolina. A lot of the conflict surrounds Lucas and Nathan Scott, basketball stars and half-brothers who sway between kinship and rivalry. Lucas is played by heartthrob Chad Michael Murray, and Nathan is played by the equally handsome James Lafferty.

Lucas & Nathan at basketball practice. (YUM [baes])

Other prominent high schoolers include head bitch/cheerleader Brooke Davis (Sophia Bush), talented artist and music lover Peyton Sawyer (Hilarie Burton), "tutor girl" Haley James Scott, and the geeky but lovable Marvin "Mouth" McFadden (Lee Noriss). Then there's the parents... Lucas' kind mother Karen Roe (Moira Kelly), Lucas' and Nathan's sociopath father Dan Scott (Paul Johansson), and Nathan's crazy mother, Deb Scott (Barbara Alyn Woods).

There are all sorts of funky romantic pairings that happen on this show and it is hilarious. It's as if there's only 3 guys and 3 girls in the whole school with the way they all end up cross-dating. For example: Lucas + literally every character.

Brooke & Lucas - troublesome relationship

(Ok Brooke, calm down u r crazy)

Lucas & Rachel - idk what even happened here

(KEEP YOUR CLOTHES ON, BRUH)

Lucas & Peyton - the pair I've loved since episode 1

(Ah yeeees I approve of this pairing.)






Basically he dates everyone and it's a tad bit creepy. There's also crazy stuff that happens in literally every episode--i.e. teens getting married at 16, everyone getting pregnant at the same time, online stalkers pretending to be Peyton's brother, sociopaths all over, etc.......

I'll tell ya, it definitely keeps life interesting. Maybe a little too interesting...I find myself telling stories more dramatically lately and then I think "Is OTH actually influencing my life choices??" Maybe?! I don't know?! All I know is that I can't stop watching it, it's addicting. No shame I'm 5 seasons in and won't stop till I'm done. Have I mentioned how awesome the soundtrack is as well. Snaps for 90's and early 2000's music choices. Not to mention the actors sing on the show....pretty cool

(If any of you readers watch this show and want to discuss the craziness/awesomeness that is One Tree Hill, plz do. It'll be a great time.)

Hammet in High School

When I was in high school I really loved mystery movies and noir films. Although it's been a while since I have watched any, I wanted to see if the genre had anything new to offer. I went on Netflix and saw that "Brick" was on, and although i had seen it before five years ago, I wanted to check it out again to see why it did not really stick with me the first time.

The movie was directed by Rian Johnson, who has recently received attention because of his sci-fi thriller "Looper." "Brick" stars Joseph Gordon Levitt, in one of his first break out indie roles, as Brendan Frye,  a high school outcast who discovers that his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emile DeRavin), has gone missing. Although it is a high school movie, the characters talk as if they are in a 1940s detective movie. With the help of his friend Brain (Matt O'Leary), Brendan gets involved with the drug underworld of his high school, while also dealing with jocks, stoners, the Vice Principal who acts like the chief of police to Brendan's Philip Marlowe.

The movie has beautiful cinematography and the music helps create tension in the most pivotal, tense scenes. The script, although sometimes hard to follow, creates a great mystery thriller from beginning to end. Seeing it a second time, I think I understood the characters' motivations more and how everything fit together. I really think its one of the more underrated movies to come out in the last decade and should not be overlooked by film lovers just because of the high school setting.

 I highly recommend this movie if you like noir, off beat high school movies, or Joseph Gordon Levitt.

Awkward.....a real-ish high school story

I have lost pretty much all respect for MTV since they stopped actually playing music. I've been saying for a while that they should change their name to RTV (Reality Television). They hit on something good when they blazed the path for reality, but it became their new "thing". For the longest time they relied on reality tv's cheap trick of voyeurism to get viewers, so I was skeptical when I heard the they were now starting to venture into the field of fictional programming. I did not think that the minds who thrust Jersey Shore on the world could come up with anything of merit, but I was soon highly surprised. After some praise that my co-workers gave the pilot I was curious to see if there could be any creative minds left working at MTV. Low and behold I believe they have stumbled upon the best teen drama in a while.

Their new high school drama, Awkward. is about an average-ish girl navigating the awkward terrain that is high school. It is surprisingly funny and more accurate then most shows set in high school. One of the things that adds to their believability is that they have a you cast (in comparison to most shows that are based in high school). Though the cast is not actually of high school age, they are the youngest cast portraying high schoolers on tv today. Many shows now a day cast people in the mid to late 20's or even in the their ealy 30's to play high school characters. These actors aren't too far separated from those awkward years of discovering themselves and making mistakes in the hell-ish place people call high school.

The show is seen through the eyes of the main character Jenna sharing her life with her blog readers (MTV actually goes the extra length to publish the blog as a form of interaction with the audience to add to it's growing sense of reliability). The show starts off when Jenna has sex with the popular guy days before school starts but he wants to keep his feelings for her secret from the world. Later that night she has an accident that makes the world think she tried to commit suicide and the rest of the show is the comic incidences that follow after she gains her new title of "That Girl".