Leisure4 THE MOUNT

Photo couurtesty of Maria Kucera via Flickr

With an ice-cold drink and a buttered popcorn, summer is a great time to kick back and enjoy a movie. This past summer offered a great selection of summer movie titles. A remarkable total of thirty-two Hollywood-budget movies were released. Out of the thirty-two, one particular movie stood out: Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim entails an immense apocalypse between humans and aliens. The aliens, known as Kaiju, feed off the Earth and its resources as they battle humankind out of existence. But human kind prevails. In order to survive, many countries contribute large masses of money to build giant killing machines. These giant killing machines are known as Jaegers. Jaegers are giant robots that can reach the size of a small skyscraper. Armed with weapons and two human beings behind the steering wheel, Jaegers kick butt. To put it short: imagine a Godzilla movie on steroids...with a story. For an action/adventure movie buff, Pacific Rim, is a hit. Pacific Rim features several killer fight scenes along with a few crazy destruction moments. According to the Rotten Tomatoes, Pacific Rim was guaranteed fresh with a 72% rating. Rotten Tomatoes is a movie review website owned by Flixster that mixes critic reviews with reviews from the public

audience. For some movie review critics like Rene Rodriguez of the Miami Herald, Pacific Rim merits the overused term “awesome”. Because of its “awesomeness”. Pacific Rim made $98.4 million dollars fresh out of the box office. For some, Pacific Rim wasn’t so good. Senior David Uwinganji thought that Pacific Rim was terrible because there was too much action and not enough of a storyline. David is not the only person that disliked the movie. Anthony Lane of the New Yorker thought that Pacific Rim was like giant wrestling match of “two angry cathedrals going dome to dome”. According to the makers of Pacific Rim. The movie may have a chance for a sequel. Director Guillermo del Toro and co-writer Travis Beacham have been hard at work on a possible sequel. But does the Pacific Rim storyline merit a possible sequel? Del Toro thinks that hard work and time will tell. With enough time, the makers of Pacific Rim will have a chance to brainstorm a plausible storyline and bridge something that “makes the mythology roll,” according to del Toro. Pacific Rim had its good and bad moments. For some, Pacific Rim was a giant mess of action and falling buildings. To others, Pacific Rim had it’s moments of “awesomeness” that made a person enjoy an “awesome” fist bump with another random movie goer.

Omaha summers are filled with all kinds of entertainment ranging from classicals play like Shakespeare on the Green to loud, head banging concerts at Memorial Park. This summer, especially,

had some of the most incredible concerts to ever hit the entertainment business come to the Omaha area. A variety of bands and artists that came to the Omaha and Council Bluffs area ranging from some small time country bands trying to get their shot at the big leagues to the top rap artists amazing people wherever they go. Some of the bands who made their way to our area include Lil Wayne with T.I. and 2 Chainz, Pat Benatar, Loverboy, The Flaming Lips, One Direction, and The Zac Brown Band. Many of these bands were headliners at Music Festivals going on in our area, like the Maha Music Festival, the Memorial Park annual concert, and Stir Concert Cove. The Maha Music Festival on August 17th had a crowd totalling 5,100 fans.Some of the bands who attended were the Flaming Lips, the Thermals, Sons of Fathers, and many more smaller bands. Junior Ryne Grenier attended Maha this year. Grenier said, “I didn’t know some of the bands. I would definitely recommend this concert to someone.” Another festival that went on during this summer was Bank of the West’s

23rd annual concert at Memorial Park. This year, Loverboy and Pat Benatar had an incredible performance at the concert. Past bands like Styx, Foreigner, The Beach Boys, and many others have done the same. This year was one of the

largest crowds that this concert has had, totalling around 50,000. Like always, after the amazing performance, there was incredible display of fireworks to end the celebration. It’s one of the largest firework shows in Nebraska after the Home Run Derby at TD Ameritrade Park. Though summer has now passed, there are plenty other concerts coming to our area soon. One of these bands is the newly famous country band, Florida Georgia Line. They will play in Council Bluffs at the WestFair Amphitheatre on September 13 with Greg Bates, Jon Pardi, and just recently added to the list, Tyler Farr. The concert is officially sold out but one can still win tickets through Kat 103.7. Juniors Luke Tucker, Logan Kalkowski and John Gutsmiedl will be attending. Tucker said, “I’m pretty excited about it even though I don’t know the bands a whole lot.” It doesn’t matter who you are, everyone has a genre of music that makes them get on their feet and get crazy. And that’s what’s good about the Omaha area; there’s plenty of different types of bands that perform during the year. But in the end, all these different types of music have one point, to make you relax and have fun.

Oliver Jarosik | Staff Writer

Colin Svoboda | Staff Writer

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Midwesteners rock out at the Maha Music Festival.