Jazmine DavisStaff Reporter

On Sept. 21, the Grammy winner of Best New Artist of the Year released its new album, “You Get What You Give.” The Zac Brown Band released its first album “Far from Ein-styne” in 2004, and “Home Grown” a year later. The band has had five big hits on its last album, “The Founda-tion.” It was nominated for Best Country album. The five hit songs were “Chicken Fried,” “Toes,” “Free,” “Whatever It Is,” and “Highway 20 Ride.” “Chicken Fried” went double Platinum and “Toes” went sin-gle Platinum. Although the older album didn’t appeal to me much, I like the new album a lot better than

the other one. The CD has the same kind of sound as the oth-ers, however, the CD definitely has its twists. This album’s songs have more meaning to me and relate to me more. This album is expected to hit No.1 on the the Billboard 200. According to data sales from Nielsen Sound-scan, the album sold about 153,00 in CDs in the first week of selling, and that topped the new Maroon 5 CD. The song “Who Knows” has a reggae sound to it. One might say Jimmy Buffett wrote most of the songs, but, in fact, he did not. “Knee Deep” fea-tures Jimmy Buffett, but it does not sound like a Jimmy Buf-fett style. The song is more of a country sound. Another one of the band’s songs is “Martin.” It is a beautiful, country ballad.

Another one of their good songs is “Let It Go” and it is talking about not holding grudges and not having worries about things if you just let it go.

“As She’s Walking Away,” featur-ing Alan Jackson, is rising on the country charts and can possibly get to No. 1 on the charts.

October 2010 GCHSEntertainment10

One might say that “The So-cial Network,” a movie based on the story of a Harvard University student who invented Facebook, sounds like a terribly boring film that belongs in a trash pile along with many other mediocre mov-ies released this year. Yet, after viewing the film, the person would most likely change their opinion. “The Social Network” is one of the best movies to be released so far this year. Despite almost universal praise by critics, before seeing this film I was convinced that it was not going to be more than a boring biography about how a nerd be-came rich. However, after only five min-utes of watching the movie, I was completely drawn in. I’m in agreement with the ma-jority of critics who think David Fincher, the movie’s director, has created a cinematic master-piece. Mark Zuckerberg’s journey from lonely college geek to lonely multibillionaire geek is a fascinating story filled with

deceit and greed that appeals to any fan of drama. Jesse Eisenberg portrays Zuck-erberg as an incredibly intelli-gent but heartless young man. Much of his dialogue is delivered blandly and with an unemo-tional face, creating a character that one spends the entire movie trying to figure out. Along with Justin Timberlake’s supporting role as Shawn Parker, a fast talk-ing businessman that you can-not help but like, the movie has some amazing acting. The movie covers several years in its two hour length, but one feels as if they are not missing out on any of the details of the story. It is also remarkable that this film covers subjects like writing in computer code in de-tail without losing the common person’s interest or going too deep into a subject. Although the real life Zucker-berg complains that this movie is not completely accurate and portrays him negatively, I feel that the film is not biased. Al-though it may be implied that Zuckerberg might be a bad guy, it is open to interpretation. Besides, the movie is so en-tertaining and believable that I doubt many movie-goers will question its authenticity. The movie should be a hit with teens because of its youthful cast and dramatic story line. “The Social Network” is definitely not a movie to miss.

Facebook film entertains, Eisenberg proves skills

Zac Brown Band album

to top Billboard charts

Video games effect brain

While many teens are at home playing video games several hours a day, they do not think about what kind of effects some games have on the brain. According to feature writer Su-san Carney, teens have more ag-gressive thoughts and behaviors when it comes to playing violent games. One study involved teens from age 13-17 who played mil-itary based games and a group that played nonviolent games. After getting results from both categories, they found that the teens that played the military games showed more activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain which plays a part in emotional arousal, and less activation in the parts of the brain connect-

ed to focus, concentration and control. Biology teacher Ryan Adling-ton agrees. “The brain responds to its sur-r o u n d i n g s , whether it’s a violent re-action or a good one.” The initial surprise, or disgust felt when viewing vio-lent images is gradually reduced over repeated viewings. This means that the images make less and less of an impact over time. Instead of finding them shocking and disturbing, teens soon find these realistic scenes as amusing and entertaining. Many characters in these games perceive violence as amusement and they do not get punished

for their reaction. Although many video games have negative effects on the brain, there are many posi-tive outcomes to playing video

games. “They make you smarter and improve your hand-eye coordi-nation while

also gaining a faster reaction time,” freshman Jacob Doggett said. Video game expert Earl Hunsinger considers the posi-tive effects on video gamers by explaining that playing video games involves problem solv-ing, planning, estimation and analysis of the moves or actions of both a person and their op-ponent. This effects the player

positively by developing in his problem-solving skills, ana-lytical and estimation skills and quick decision-making. There was considerable vari-ability found in the amount of time that kids spent play-ing. Fifty percent of the sample spent less than three hours per week playing games, the rest were equally divided between regular players who spent any-where from three to seven hours a week and heavy players who spent over seven hours a week says Media Awareness Network. According to junior Jacob Martin, video games are an all day activity. Some teens play video games for more than nine hours a day, but one thing gamers should keep in mind is that to much of a good thing is a bad thing.

Derrick WhittingtonSports Editor

Photo courtesy/ http://voices.wahsingtonpost.com“You Get What You Give” by Zac Brown Band

photo courtesy/ www.onlinemovieshut.comJesse Eisenberg in “The Social Network”

photo courtesy/www.trendsupdates.com

Austin Allen HowellEntertainment Editor

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