The James Logan Courier

By Farah Ali, Courier Staff Writer

So fresh, fierce and flawless. The spunky Katy Perry has left all in awe of her sparkling and sassy summer songs from the newly-released album “Teenage Dream”, now in stores.

Whether it's from melting popsicles to melting hearts, Perry always turns up the heat in all aspects of the music industry. Perry’s song “Teenage Dream” was ranked #4 on the Billboard Hot 100.

“I called the album ‘Teenage Dream’ because I feel like I will always want to be the pin-up poster,” Perry said. “I definitely want to be in everybody’s dreams at all times until I get to Liz Taylor’s age when I’m not in your dreams anymore, and I’m just a diva!”

By Ryan Lam, Courier Staff Writer

Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman tells his story as a world champion and college student who does not feel satisfied with his life until he meets a strange man. This man - given the nickname Socrates - changes how Millman perceives the world around him.

The story revolves around Millman's change from being a regular person to becoming a peaceful warrior. Socrates, Millman's teacher, guides him to happiness. Socrates begins his instruction by showing Millman how his previous methods of thinking were the root cause of all his unhappiness. The author uses insightful anecdote and clever quotes to help explain complex concepts that Socrates taught him. Once Millman realizes his errors, Socrates gradually teaches him how to find joy in everything life has to offer.

By Ajay Bains, Courier Staff Writer

Madden 11 has the classic Madden feel with an easer interface.

The franchise, started in 1989, is now the best selling football game in the world. The most recent edition has many new features.

Madden 11 has all the basic game modes such as "play now", "franchise" and mini-games. However, the new game also has new modes such as "Madden moments". This mode allows the player to complete a challenge, which comes from certain big moments or plays during the previous season.

By Glenn Gamboa
Newsday (MCT)

Is there a band more maddening than Maroon 5?

Yes, Adam Levine has a distinctive, soulful voice. Yes, the band, especially guitarist James Valentine, knows how to lay down a great groove. That's what makes the haphazard, half-finished results they turn out on Hands All Over (A&M/Octone) all the more exasperating.

One minute, Maroon 5 is firing on all cylinders, with the '80s throwback "Give a Little More" and its undeniable dance hook. The next minute, Levine is whining as he counts down from five and rhymes "zero" with "hero" in "Curtain Call."

By Andrea Higares, Courier Staff Writer

Girlfriend Material by Melissa Kantor is the perfect twist on finding one's first love to the hardship of family and friends.

16-year-old Kate wishes for nothing more then her perfect planned out summer- from hanging out, playing tennis with her best friend to writing fiction. Anything to keep her away from the troubles at home with her fighting parents.

Everything changes when Kate's mother tells her that they are going to Cape Cod to visit her rich friends on their seaside home. To make it worse, Kate thinks her mother is doing this to make her father jealous. The only thing Kate can think of to make this summer suck less is the Cooper-Melnich family's daughter Sarah. Sarah is the totally opposite of Kate: gorgeous, outgoing and confident. But Kate's “perfect” summer is ruined when she learns that Sarah sees Kate as an unwanted houseguest.

Kimmai Nguyen, Courier Staff Writer

What if you could meet your imaginary friend again but he wasn’t imaginary anymore?

James Patterson, author of Alex Cross, shies away from his thriller novels to write a love story in Sundays at Tiffany's. Pretty odd, right? But Patterson’s writing style in his mystery books is different from this romantic comedy. With the same short, easy to read chapters, he makes this novel a page-turner.

Jane Marguax’s life isn’t simple. She’s rich, smart and has the perfect boyfriend, but behind all those qualities she has her own insecurities and flaws. James Patterson describes Jane as a lonely only daughter to an overbearing mother and no-show father. Jane’s only friend as a child was a charming, handsome man named Michael; that changed when she turned nine. As Michael leaves, he tells her that she would soon forget him because that’s how imaginary friends worked. They would be a friend until they simply couldn’t anymore and the child would forget about them. But that didn’t happen to Jane.

Hundreds of Heads (MCT)

Need help getting into college? Here's some advice about scholarships, financial aid and loans from the book "How to Survive Getting into College" (Hundreds of Heads Books, www.hundredsofheads.com, $13.95), straight from people who've done it:

"A main reason I stayed in my home state of Michigan was financial. I didn't want to put my parents through more expenses, and there are good schools here. I'm getting financial aid and I got student loans, and that's how we're paying for college now."
— Jessica Newman, West Bloomfield, Mich.; Michigan State University

"Go for it, whether you think you'll get it or not. Apply for those $1,000 and $2,000 scholarships for writing a paper. I know people who have gotten a few of those, which added up to $5,000. That's a good amount of money to help pay for college."
— Trent, Grapevine, Texas; University of Colorado

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)

Every year, a few games surface that belie the prerequisite that a game must be good in order to be any fun.

This year, the leader of that pack has to be "Naughty Bear," a thoroughly bizarre, poorly-coded and very arguably reprehensible game that might, because of how easy it is to exploit as well as how strange it is in the first place, be something you might wish to see anyway.

"Bear" stars players as the titular Naughty Bear, who, after getting ostracized by the other bears in his village, decides to turn his hurt feelings into a murderous rampage. The bears look and sound like your prototypical stuffed bears, and the village in which they live is similarly saccharine. The only difference is that players can use a range of weaponry and nearby objects — from toilets to grills — to turn the village into a crime scene. The truly skilled can even traumatize the other bears into turning on themselves.

From staff reports

For those interested in traditional Chinese performing arts, Fantasia Performing Arts Center welcomes you to its largest show of the year taking place this weekend.

Fantasia, a nonprofit organization, wants to preserve and promote traditional Chinese arts by regularly performing free show to the public. This year’s annual performance will be held at the historic Heritage Theater in Campbell.

The core drama will be "The Magic Lotus Lantern" (Bao Lian Deng in Chinese); the program will also include classical, ethnic and fan dances, as well as opera kung fu and sword dances.

By Andrea Higares, Courier Staff Writer

Resident Evil 4: Afterlife made $27.7 million in sales last weekend alone. The movie follows Alice (Milla Jovovich) on her quest to take down the Umbrella Corporation, who created the deadly T-virus that brings the dead back to life as zombies and can infect others that are bitten.

The movie starts with Alice in the Tokyo Umbrella Corporation with her clones, trying to kill one of the head honchos Wesker. They fail; in the process, all her clones are killed and Alice herself loses her superhuman power due to an antidote made specifically for her by Umbrella. But throughout the rest of the movie, she still seems to have superpowers.

By Julia Ortiz, Courier Staff Writer

Canadian singer and song writer Lights Poxlietner released her first album in September of 2009. Titled The Listening, her album contains a variety of catchy electropop tunes.

She has been featured in songs by The Tremulance, The Febuarys, and Canadian films such as One Week. Since then she has also won Indie Awards for Single Solo Artist and Favorite Single catagories and Best New Artist in the 2009 Juno Awards.

By Timneat Ghebray, Courier Staff Writer

Flying Lotus released his third album, Cosmogramma, in May 2010, and five months later it is still nothing short of spectacular.

An uprising producer from Southern California, Flying Lotus is not a common household name. He proved yet again that his fusion of jazz, electronica and hip hop can harmonize into perfection. Some compare his abstract style to that of the late Sun Ra; admittedly, the album starts off true to its name - spacey and a bit out there - but gains glorious momentum with the passing of each song.

By Milto Ungashe, Courier Staff Writer

Hawaii native Jack Johnson’s most recent studio album To the Sea sounds like a tribute to the easygoing island lifestyle he left behind. The mellow, breezy and beachy feel of his music is complementary to his use of instruments like the ukulele and tambourine, giving the album a very summery feel.

Fans of Jack Johnson always know what to expect: some calm and comforting music that makes listeners want to relax. He always delivers and this album is no exception.

By Julie Mendoza, Courier Entertainment Editor

John Green has become a popular author in young adult fiction. Paper Towns is a mystery revolving around Margo Roth Spiegelman. Green often creates strikingly beautiful and adventurous female characters in his novels; Margo is no exception. She can’t function the way society expects her to. Her impatience makes it impossible for her to wait for things to get better, and where there is impatience, there is impulse. Everyone regards her as someone who provides adventure. What they didn’t realize was that she only developed her impulsive qualities to escape the “paper towns,” the thin in genuine aspect of her life.

Margo refuses to get trapped in the plastic walls of the dull premeditated futures of her peers.

“College: getting in or not getting in. Trouble: getting in or not getting in. School: getting As or getting Ds. Career: having or not having. House: big or small, owning or renting. Money: having or not having. It’s all so boring,” said Margo on page 33.

By Nataniel Lazaga, Courier Staff Writer

Mario is one of the oldest and most popular game characters in game history. The character found his start in 1981 with “Donkey Kong (arcade)" and his legacy goes on this year with his most recent game, "Super Mario Galaxy 2."

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

Conventional wisdom would suggest that while "Crackdown's" combination of open-world freedom and superhuman powers made it a deserving cult sensation in 2007, enough has happened since for more of the same to not be enough. "Infamous" and "Prototype" trotted out similar ideas with deeper storylines, "Assassin's Creed" sped up rooftop bounding with its parkour controls, "Just Cause 2" blew the roof off the limits of verticality, and "Red Faction: Guerrilla" raised the environmental destruction bar considerably.

By Ben Fritz
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

LOS ANGELES - On what's historically been the slowest weekend of the year at the box office, only one new movie will try to tempt audiences across the country.

"Resident Evil: Afterlife" is the fourth entry in a series of consistently solid performers based on the horror video-game series.

It's the only movie opening nationwide. In the past, the weekend after Labor Day frequently has produced the lowest box-office receipts of the entire year, according to data compiled by Hollywood.com. As a result, few studios tempt fate by trying to get a share of what's likely to be a small pie.

By Linh-Chi Nguyen, Courier Staff Writer

The seamless blending of soul and hard-hitting rock 'n' roll is hardly ever pronounced in music today. Emerging from the post-hardcore scene, the band Emarosa produces an album nothing short of disappointing. The sextets' self-titled sophomore album integrates a more structured sound while still maintaining the melodic rhythm expressed in their first full-length album titled Relativity. With several alterations that could be made in the next album, Emarosa could definitely be one of the most diverse sounding bands known today.

A positive contribution to the band is vocalist Jonny Craig's beautifully refined voice. Craig destroys all scene cliches with his unbelievable tone Since joining in late 2007, Craig perfectly fuses his euphoric R&B sound with the addition of Emarosa's crushing guitar riffs, resonating synth and complementary drumming.

By Julie Mendoza, Courier Entertainment Editor

The Runaways was an all girl American rock band in the 1970s established by the infamous Joan Jett. After meeting music producer Kim Fowley the two recruited Cherie Currie, Lita Ford, Sandy West, and Jackie Fox into their psychedelic music experience that became a commodity throughout the country. None of the girls were even eighteen when the band was formed which greatly increased their popularity. These young ladies refused to be underestimated by intimidating artists who assumed they didn’t know how to play their instruments. Their first appearances were at house parties, where they were taught how to handle the ruckus. The Runaways rocked to music that matched their raw qualities. Their lyrics consisted of rebelling against school and parental control. Some of their particularly enjoyable hits include “Cherry Bomb” and “Queens of Noise.”

During their road to fame the girls were treated like “dogs", a term that Kim Fowley often called them by as a high form of insult. He kept their earnings, put them in cheap motels, and rarely spent money nourishing them with proper meals. It wasn’t until they were signed and well into the life of stardom did they decide to turn on him, a decision any smart and rebellious girl would make.

By Tish Wells
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)


Since China is now the second-largest economy on the planet, any book offering insight into its language, history and culture is welcome. "Dreaming in Chinese" is an easy way to be introduced to the Middle Kingdom.

Written by Deborah Fallows, it is a memoir of her three years in China when her writer husband, James.

Fallows, who has a PhD in linguistics, decided to learn China's most common language, Mandarin, and found it more difficult than other languages. "Since Mandarin has an inventory of only about 400 syllables, about a tenth of English, the language is simply flooded with homonyms _ words that sound alike but have different meanings ... Tones are a way to get a lot more mileage out of each syllable. If you slap a rising tone onto a syllable, it has one meaning; if you pronounce that same syllable with a falling tone, it means something else."

By Billy O'Keefe
McClatchy-Tribune (MCT)


From the optional-but-recommended pre-game data installation to the offering of three imposing control schemes to the tutorial and eventually the game itself, "Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker" stakes its claim as perhaps the most demanding game in the PSP's five-year-old library.

But if you're part the intended crowd, and if you have company, the good news is that Kojima's latest wholeheartedly justifies that demand with an experience that's as filling as any of the big-screen "Metal Gear Solid" games.

By Julie Mendoza, Courier Entertainment Editor

This summer I spent two hours of my life watching Sunshine Cleaning. If I must say, it was two hours well spent.

The film is directed by Christine Jeffs, starring Amy Adams (Enchanted) as the struggling single mother having a love affair with a married man. Her life became a downward facing rollercoaster after being head cheerleader in high school.

By Farah Habad, Courier Music Editor

Wale Folarin, a prominent rapper under Jay-Z's label Roc Nation, released yet another mixtape with a Jerry Seinfeld theme. Entitled “More About Nothing” he brings about a new, distinct style to his work.

Twenty one original songs, many of which have sampled beats, defy the new wave of music played on hip hop radio stations. With no autotune and no cliché rhymes, he reinstills realness into his music.

By Kevin C. Johnson
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MCT)
There was a time early in the career of folky-pop group She & Him when all anyone wanted to talk about was the involvement of front woman Zooey Deschanel.

Initially, she was yet another movie star who dared to step out and be in a band.
"When we were doing press a few years ago," says guitarist-producer M. Ward, "about half the questions were about how bad Bruce Willis' records were and stuff like that."

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Scholastic
(400 pages, $17.99)
By Susan Carpenter
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

Almost two years after Suzanne Collins first burst onto bestseller lists with her dystopian young-adult thriller in which 24 children are dressed up in costumes and forced to compete to the death before a television audience, "Mockingjay," the final act of the "Hunger Games" trilogy, has arrived, bringing a wrenching conclusion to the tale of a country in chaos and the 17-year-old protagonist who caused it.

Fans aren't likely to be disappointed.