In Defense of Beth Greene

Beth Greene is not on most fan's radar from The Walking Dead. As a minor character shown by the writers when the storylines call for it, she is not a central figure like Rick Grimes or Carol Peletier who carry the brunt of securing protection through violence. As a young adult and mother figure, Greene's importance to the group (or lack thereof) opens up an intriguing discussion about the role of a survival in the walker apocalypse.

At the beginning of season two, the Greene family was introduced; a small religious-minded clan living on a peaceful, isolated farm out of the dog-eat-dog climate. Their knowledge of the world coming to an end was mostly shown to them through the television and various happenings with members of their community. In the safety net of their barn, they didn't square off what Rick and his group had to deal with: violent invasions of walkers into their camp, scrounging for food and water, and dealing with dissension between the ranks.

Shutter Island (2010)

Photo Credit: Shutter Island / Paramount Pictures

By 2010, Leonardo DiCaprio had teamed up with director Martin Scorsese for the fourth time when they adapted Shutter Island to the bring screen. Throughout the year I truly enjoy watching this movie, especially to get into the Halloween mood. Dramatic, beautifully composited, and wonderfully acted, one of cinema's most formidable duos forged a flawed semi-masterpiece in misdirection.

Set after World War II, U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels (DiCaprio) is brought in to investigate Ashcliffe Hospital, a psychiatric asylum that houses criminally violent patients on an island. Paired with a new deputy (Mark Ruffalo), Daniels interrogates the whereabouts of a missing patient Rachel Solando. Security, nurses and the psychiatrists in charge are disturbing reserved and calm. Daniels attempts to get to the bottom of the truth of the case but battles more against his own sanity.

In cinema, asylums are a gold mine for genres like drama and horror. Female characters are often the chosen victims entered into a mental health facility by families that don't understand them and societies shunning their breakdowns or disagreeable personalities from the public e.g. The Snake Pit, Girl Interrupted, Sucker Punch, and Changeling -to name a few. The characters are often locked away by stern and impatient overseers who are forcing them to feel like they are "crazy"., Usually it's up to the audience to decide who is more unhinged: the authority or the out-of-control sufferer. In Shutter Island, a different take is used not only with a male character as the main protagonist but also the setting itself and its inmates.

The Walking Dead Season 5 Premiere Moments

The fourth season finale of The Walking Dead left its viewers with a bushel of questions: What happened to Beth? Would Carol and Tyreese survive on their own? With Rick, Michonne, Carl, Daryl (and the list goes on) being held captive at Terminus, where was the community at this self-promoting sanctuary? In one of the goriest season premieres (possible ever, ever ever) two-thirds of our concerns were answered (we're still waiting on Beth) and brought about some of favorite moments of the show so far. The list is available behind the cut due to spoilers - in case some readers haven't seen it yet! Consider yourself warned!

Gone Girl (2014)

Photo Credit: Gone Girl / 20th Century Fox

In the heart of a sleepy Missouri town, the Dunnes seem to be facing the ultimate crisis. On the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary, Nick (Ben Affleck) discovers his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has vanished from their home. Appearing uninterested nor fearful about his spouse's disappearance, Nick's cool exterior rouses the suspicions of Detective Rhonda Boney, the town, and then the entire nation. Following the footsteps of other classic spousal thrillers like Rebecca and Fatal Attraction, Gone Girl is not like most cinematic marriages.

Flashbacks expose the beginning of their romantic union, carnal desires, and dreams of the future. As the daughter of successful authors who created a children's series about her life, Amy is amazing; the Cool Girl who seems absolutely perfect. Nick is her white knight armed with insatiable charm, pandering to anyone who makes him feel like the man he wants to be. As the years tick by, and the Dunnes crash into reality, both Amy and Nick stop pretending. Like doting singletons who polish their online dating profiles and use flattering photos of themselves instead of accurate ones, their facades wear away. Flickers of domestic abuse, financial strains, and adultery emerge. The movie is not about how Amy goes missing, but how domestic entrapment, dominance, and submission reveals who we truly are versus how we sell ourselves and when the jig is finally up.

10 Favorite Ghost Adventures Episodes

Photo Credit: Ghost Adventures / Travel Channel

The crew of Ghost Adventures - Zak, Nick and Aaron - travel to some of the most abandoned and historical sites around the world to capture supernatural evidence in lockdowns from dusk until dawn.

When you catch one episode of Ghost Adventures, you're bound to call it - at first sight - fake. "The orbs they catch are bugs or dust." "The voices that are recorded are fake." Or that Zak is psychotic. (If you see any of his brilliant over-the-top monologues, you'd agree he really just like catching evidence of ghosts.) I'll agree with only the latter.

I never happened to believe in ghosts nor entirely deny the existence of the supernatural..but the biggest skeptics will find themselves in love with the investigations of asbestos infested and abandoned historical sites. I happened to catch the show one afternoon on a fourth of July weekend, my sister denounced it fake, I forced her to keep watching, and now we've been avid fans for three or four years strong. As another Halloween season is coming, I just couldn't pass by an opportunity to spotlight my ten favorite episodes. These are our Ghost Adventures!

Master of Resurgence: The Strangely Brilliant Career of Ben Affleck

In comparison to the McConnaissance - a media-wide hailed return of Matthew McConaughey - Ben Affleck's star status has held up strong despite the variety of guilty pleasure movies he's starred in. After nearly twenty years in showbusiness, the California actor has evolved into a filmmaker forging a strangely brilliant career.

Before he had taken on roles in major blockbusters, Affleck's filmography kicked off on a high note. After acting in several indie movies, the young impressive star and co-star/writer/actor/friend Matt Damon struck gold with Good Will Hunting. An unrecognized genius student (Damon) is forced to become a therapist's patient (Robin Williams) after assaulting a police officer. Gaining critical acclaim, the 1998 drama earned the newbies an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and an Academy Award for supporting actor Robin Williams.

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Set in a futuristic Chicago, a city is made up of five factions based on various virtues. As teenagers, your rite of passage into society is to take an aptitude test which shows you which house you belong in. If you're brave or smart you belong in Dauntless or Erudite, respectively. Or you may belong in Abegnation or Candor, if you're selfless or honest. And, there's Amity, which stays out of the conflict by holding onto peace. If you don't belong in any faction - which holds more value than your own family - you are Divergent.

Veronica Roth's series follows Beatrice Prior, a young woman who grew up in Abegnation and choose to join Dauntless. Her reasons, however, are skeptical. After her own aptitude results, she discovers that she is Divergent. The true faction that she belongs to is one that can't be controlled by the government, where its people live on the outskirts of the city, homeless, jobless, and without a respectable place in society.

By choosing Dauntless, Beatrice tries to form a new identity - changing her name, making new friends, and doing her best in her faction. Her odd position in-between factions leads her to discover secrets about the entire society and it functions.

Told in first person from Beatrice's point of view, it's hard to recognize the differences between characters and the factions. To be honest, the world-building is a mix of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, and its writing blurs together. Despite the story centering on drastically different virtues, the characters from alternating factions sound and act alike. Fellow Dauntless initiates Christina (from Candor) sounds like Al (from Candor) who sounds like Will (from Erudite) who sounds like Beatrice. They try to be "brutally honest" with each other, yet are just throwing melodramatic insults and comebacks back and forth. Their tones rarely vary nor do their sense of humor or emotional responses.

And, there's also Beatrice's love interest - Four. In this new surprising world of pulling knives on each other and getting drunk (a lot), Four is the brooding mysterious leader of the initiate's training. Tris feels a connection to him yet can't pinpoint if he really likes her or not. She becomes his undoing of not playing everything close to the chest anymore, and he wills her to be strong enough to take care of others and lead a revolution. It's not a particularly engimatic romance, but it's just okay as far as young adult relationships go.

What Divergent struggles with the most is its own world-building. The reasoning behind why Divergents are so dangerous binds the book for its nearly 486 pages. A mysterious unrest within Erudite is slowly unravels as its leader Jeanne is raising an army of sorts. The motivations of which are skewed - she wants order and control among the factions, but she does it through brainwashing and chaos. Besides turning portions of society into mindless drones, she's not much of a villain.

Additionally, it was hard to take the baseline of what makes the factions work together and fall apart seriously. Dauntless members test themselves by  hopping on moving trains, physically beating each other to a pulp, perform through hallucinatory tests where they experience their greatest fears, get tattoos...and so on. There's no real line drawn between forcing yourself to be an adrenaline junkie or showing true bravery.

As an author, Roth is admirable for creating a series that has hit it big. While reading Divergent, I questioned which faction I'd fall into naturally and which one would I choose to join. On the same level of Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, her book contains unique interactivity between the words on the page and the reader.

Overall, looking at the writing, I found it to have poor world building, cliche prose, and a mix of popular aspects that worked for other series. I felt like the book was trying to push this idea of a personality divided society with very little to go on about why we should care about Abegnation, Amity, Erudite, etc. besides their individual traits - which made it hard to relate to the characters.

Perhaps if this book was the second of the series, where the first developed a relationship between the people and their factions I would've been more intrigued. Otherwise, it all feels a bit forced and not a strong debut  considering it's a literary young adult phenomenon. I think I'll be waiting for the movies to find out what happens.

Rating: ★★☆
Have you read Divergent? What did you think?