Ratchet & Clank for the PlayStation 4 exists primarily to promote and piggyback on the recently released Ratchet & Clank film, which hit cinemas this weekend to a deafening thud of indifference. Original developer Insomniac has reunited with the iconic Lombax/Robot duo, which propelled it to elite status when the first game hit PlayStation 2 in 2002. This is a major reboot that hopes to bring a faded star back into center stage and with it the entire platformer genre. Like the game’s titular heroes, unbelievable stakes are on this game’s back. But the execution of this impossible mission couldn’t be better.

Once the defining genre of an industry, platformers have fallen out of favor in the last two console generations. Audiences transitioned to action games that focused on combat or more realistic characters and settings. In hindsight, the original Ratchet and Clank may have signaled this transition. While the characters are kid-friendly, there’s a focus on ballistics rarely seen in platformers. Ratchet’s arsenal of weapons stretches from standard blasters to strategy-based area attacks to the downright absurd. There’s something tremendously satisfying about blowing up an entire fleet of robots and forcing the few stragglers to dance against their will before zapping them with a laser that converts them into helpless sheep. 

Ratchet & Clank constantly throws new concepts at players – entering them into hoverboard races, tasking them with unlocking puzzles, even throwing them into vehicular combat. Most of these side-diversions are fun, though they ramp up in difficulty towards the last act of the game. Boss encounters, in particular, stretch on long past their window of novelty and hold up the action. Yet for the vast majority of Ratchet & Clank, it’s a perfectly balanced blend of wild firefights and inspiring exploration.

The gameplay is fluid and fun, running at a stable frame rate while boasting top-notch lighting and texture design. Insomniac traded assets internally with the creators of the feature film, and the attention to detail shows. Every planet is unique, diverse, and feels distinctly alive. When the PlayStation 2 was initially announced back at the turn of the century, developers remarked how games were indistinguishable from animated feature films. It took 14 years and two entire console generations, but Ratchet & Clank may have fulfilled that prophecy.

Nostalgia is a dangerous drug. Our brains often mute the bad and only remember the good. For Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac has done something incredible: made the version of their game that fans remember playing as a kid.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @ChrisBerg25

The minds behind Titanfall and God of War 3 have found The Force.

Respawn Entertainment emerged in 2013, a collaboration between many of the ex-Infinity Ward developers responsible for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Their first game, Titanfall, arrived to a thunderous welcome as one of the first must-play titles of the the new console generation. While Titanfall 2 is currently in progress (with a full reveal set for June 12), Respawn also took time this week to confirm the major project that will follow in its’ heels — one taking place in a galaxy far, far away.

On May 4th, a blog post from Stig Asmussen appeared on Respawn.com, detailing the next project from Respawn as a “a third-person action/adventure game set in the Star Wars universe.” Asmussen was formerly the project lead on Sony Santa Monica’s God of War III. He joined Respawn in 2014. 

The Star Wars project is still in the early stages of development with the post indicating that Respawn is looking to hire new talent to build the game. This marks the fourth major Star Wars game out of Electronic Arts — including Bioware’s The Old Republic MMO, DICE’s Battlefront, as well as the next game from Amy Hennig (Uncharted) and Jade Raymond (Assassin’s Creed). 

Call of Duty is jumping into the future, as Battlefield retreats to the past

This was a huge week for military shooter debuts, with the leading two franchises in the industry facing off with dueling reveals. First up was Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. After years of playing around with ‘near-future’ concepts like exoskeletons, neural enhancements, and a horrifying digital bust of Kevin Spacey, the biggest series in video games is going full science fiction.

The introductory trailer boasts zero-gravity gunplay, seamless ground-to-space missions, and a cover of ‘Space Oddity’ that is just as inappropriate as it is terrible. It seems to be another classic Call of Duty spectacle, now with significantly more robots.

Of more interest to classic fans may be Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Remastered. A full remake of the 2007 classic that redefined a genre, Modern Warfare: Remastered features the original game’s campaign — plus 10 maps for multiplayer. But if you’re looking to fill that nostalgic buzz on the cheap, some bad news is in store. According to Activision, Modern Warfare Remastered will not be sold independently — rather only as a pack-in for the $80 ‘Legacy’ edition of Infinite Warfare. That decision did not sit well with fans of the classic game, who have bombarded the reveal trailer with over half a million dislikes on YouTube.

Meanwhile on the opposite end of humanity’s war timeline, EA unleashed the first details about the next Battlefield game which will be moving to the oft-ignored first World War. Titled Battlefield 1, the introductory trailer promises the same outstanding visual perfection DICE is known for, but applied to a whole new conflict. Trench warfare, mustard gas, and even Ottoman raiders on horseback inspire true awe. Battlefield 1 will be released on October 18th, on all current generation hardware.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter, @ChrisBerg25

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story said that the online campaign known as Gamergate was collectively behind some reports of harassment against women in video game culture. The instances are from a select few people, not necessarily the ethos of the movement as a whole.

JoJo Stilletto’s first exposure to the world of burlesque happened inside a University of Oregon classroom.

“When I was a freshman, I was tossed into a campus production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show completely blind. Within a year, a few friends and I were running a local cast,” remarks Stilletto, more commonly known by her non-stage name, Jessica Obrist.

A journalism alum from the class of 2000, Obrist holds a day job in the world of advertising. But she has another degree, this one self-proclaimed: She is the “Professor of Nerdlesque, world’s leading expert in nearly naked nerds,” – and her show Bechdel Test Burlesque will be coming to the UO on Friday, April 29.

Bechdel was the product of Obrist and four other women, united by burlesque’s unique ability to satirize and highlight both the body and brain. It’s a geek-focused comedy and dance show that celebrates the female form while also paying homage to female heroes. The show takes iconic female characters, new and old, and places them in skits that satirize the patriarchal elements of their respective stories.

“It’s important that we can do a skit about Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the same stage as one about a Star Trek captain,” Obrist said.

While the term burlesque may conjure ideas of strip clubs or other forms of shallow sexual pageantry, Bechdel follows in the art-form’s legacy of social critique.

“The original burlesque shows would satirize contemporary operas and politics while wearing form-fitting costumes. Burlesque has always been a way for women to use their bodies and sexuality [by] calling it art,” Obrist said.

The show gets its namesake from the Bechdel Test, a feminist theory introduced by graphic artist Alison Bechdel. It’s a simple test: If a film features at least one conversation between two named female characters, do they talk about any subject other than a man or a relationship? Despite this low bar, most films fail the test.

Bechdel Test Burlesque is making an appearance at UO thanks to a visiting professor at the women and gender studies department, Ed Chang.

Chang has taught multiple classes about pop culture at the UO, including explorations into the worlds of director Joss Whedon and live-action role playing. When Chang came to UO, the university worked with him to get an Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Grant — typically used to attend conferences and provide research materials. Chang set a portion aside to bring an outside educator to the university.

Rather than a guest lecturer, he reached out to Obrist — an old friend in the Seattle burlesque community. Alongside fellow producer Sailor St. Claire, she had previously put on Bechdel Test Burlesque for Seattle’s GeekGirlCon.

“What’s really great about it … is that it takes these female characters from literature or pop culture and highlights their intellect, their power, their strength, their feminist principles, things like that,” said Chang. The show features many modern characters, like Rey from Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Avengers’ Black Widow

While Chang admits representation of women in entertainment has improved, he also says there’s still a ways to go. “These characters still often get subordinated to men, or they are not as three-dimensional as they could be.”

Artistic statements like Bechdel Test Burlesque have never been more relevant, with the representation of women in nerd media becoming a hot-button issue online. Those opposed to the social politics of female inclusion in nerd media have become a venomous force and have staged online harassment campaigns against women.

Some of these inflammatory remarks come from those who’ve piggybacked on the hashtag #GamerGate from the online ‘GamerGate’ community. Cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, creator of the webseries Feminist Frequency, was one such target for these threats.

“Feminist speakers like Anita Sarkeesian can’t even speak in public without threats of violence,” remarked St. Claire in reference to an incident last year when Sarkeesian’s planned appearance at Utah State University was cancelled when she was threatened. “But being scared is not the answer.”

By continuously vocalizing the movement, St. Claire posits that this the best way to turn bystanders into allies and allow the “dark places of the web to wither up and die.”

For the performers of Bechdel, it’s an opportunity to go above and beyond in expressing their personal fandom. Maxie Milieu grew up with Buffy the Vampire Slayer — watching every episode recorded on VHS, a massive collection inherited from a close friend. That relationship with the show has inspired her to portray Buffy on stage multiple times, in various iterations. Bechdel Test Burlesque marks her third time with the character.

“I’m searching for a way to do a badass Buffy act — trying to bring something awesome and empowered,” Milieu said. “I didn’t want to just go on stage and do a sexy dance as Buffy. There’s so much more to the character than that.”

Maxie Milieu portrays Buffy the Vampire Slayer in ‘Bechdel Test Burlesque’.

Sin de la Rosa brings various characters to life on stage, but holds a deep connection to those from the world of Star Trek. As a biracial kid in the mid-90s, she found unlikely representation in B’Ellana Torres — a half-human, half-Klingon woman in Star Trek: Voyager.

“A lot of her struggle to exist simultaneously in two cultures really struck me when I was a kid,” de la Rosa said.

She describes the process of bringing any character to the stage as “creating a Frankenstein,” where elements of her own personality combine with the fictional persona.

While many perceive burlesque to be a voyeuristic artform, the team behind Bechdel proves the power of agency. This is titillation done on their terms. De la Rosa remarks, “If you are a feminist woman, there’s an underlying fear that being sexualized means falling into the male gaze. Burlesque means saying it’s okay to feel okay about yourself.”

St. Claire has been a member of the burlesque scene since 2009 and holds a doctorate in English literature from the University of Washington. She sees burlesque as “an extension of the body” in female-driven storytelling. Feminist critique of pop culture is a deep well of conversation, but one that St. Claire feels can be “less focused on women’s sexual lives, more about intellectual. Bechdel Test Burlesque is about blending them together.”

In addition to celebrating these female characters, Bechdel also critiques the stories from which they come. The goal is criticism that can celebrate something beloved while acknowledging the need for change. St. Claire feels that learning through fun is a vital tool in social discussion, rather than wholly focusing on classroom conversations that may miss the power of real-world practice.

“When we use art to show what art is doing, it’s so powerful,” she said.

As the show approaches, Obrist is honored to be brought back to the UO and credits the school for her unique style of performance.

“Thanks UO, for making me into such a special weirdo,” she said.

Bechdel Test Burlesque will open at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 29 in the Global Scholars Hall Great Room (GSH 123). Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and cosplay is encouraged. UO Students are invited to attend, free of charge.  As you may expect, the show contains some nudity and is thus 17+.

Correction: An older version of this article used an incorrect spelling of visiting women and gender studies professor Ed Chang. This error has been corrected.

In this installment of Double Takes, Emerald writers Casey Miller and Chris Berg review the season six premiere of Game of Thrones.

Chris’s take

The clock is slowly creeping towards midnight in Game of Thrones. With less than 30 episodes left until the saga of Westeros is concluded, there’s little time left to close the book on the most ambitious fantasy story ever told on screen. Yet if you took the season six opener “The Red Woman” as any indication, we’re no closer to conclusion than where we were before.

After the shocking climax of season five left Jon Snow bleeding out in his own namesake, the fanbase has spent months eagerly awaiting his fate. When Cersei Lannister traversed the great walk of shame, they speculated on her plans for revenge. As Arya Stark found her eyes turning white, they asked how her transformation to a faceless assassin would conclude. The answers to all of these problems are nowhere to be found in “The Red Woman,” rather only further definition of said problems. Rather than take a leap forward and progress the development of characters, Game of Thrones seems content to just show off the next immediate moment. It’s a slow burn that certainly accents the show’s impeccable sense of atmosphere, but does little to satisfy those most desperate for closure.

There are some notable events, for sure. The Red Viper’s domination of Dorne made progress in bloody fashion, Sansa and Theon found safety in the company of Brienne of Tarth, and Melisandre stripped away her exterior. It’s all building to something, yet there’s a nagging sense that “something” isn’t close.

There’s a moment towards the middle of “The Red Woman”, where Varys and Tyrion walk the streets of Marin to find the Queen’s fleet decimated. Defeated, they proclaim, “Looks like we won’t be sailing to Westeros anytime soon,” and a horde of fans could only sigh and anticipate another season of small progress.

Follow Chris on Twitter @ChrisBerg25

Casey’s take

Season six began how we all expected: checking in on Jon Snow. He may be dead, but he’s not buried yet. With the increasing presence of Melisandre in the show, he may not be dead for long – which, by the way, is a phrase that can only be said regarding Game of Thrones.

We know Melisandre as the Red Woman, who is a priestess of the Lord of Light and possesses unusual powers, which may or may not ultimately resurrect Snow.

One theory is that Snow is actually one of the last Targaryens, as his eyes flashed purple before his death, and he will be born again in flames à la Daenerys, but with the help of Lord of Light priestess Melisandre.

Otherwise, this season opener was essentially a check-in with all of the main characters. Sansa and Theon (goodbye Reek!) escape Ramsay’s clutches temporarily after everyone’s favorite knight Brienne and her squire Podrick come to the rescue. One of Ramsay’s men deliver one of the episode’s best lines when Brienne defends Sansa: “It’s a bloody woman!”

Thus, the theme for this season: powerful women.

But one of the more heartbreaking moments of the season opener is Jaime’s return from Dorne, but without his daughter Myrcella. Even though Cersei could not possibly be more depressed after her Walk of Shame last season, this break her even more. But her brother/lover Jaime, as always, is there for his sister and repeats their personal motto: “Fuck prophecy; fuck fate; fuck everyone who isn’t us.”

Now, Dany is expected to live with other Khal widows in the Dothraki capital, and Tyrion and Varys are struggling to keep her city afloat during riots. We didn’t see Bran or any of the characters in his storyline, and we caught up with blind Arya struggling on the streets as a beggar. Ultimately the biggest storyline of the episode was that of Melisandre, who – as per fan theory – may be much older than she appears, and the showrunners showed viewers the stripped-down version of Melisandre, literally. If you didn’t know what a five-century-old woman would look like naked, now you do. That’s Game of Thrones for you.

As a University of Oregon student, you are the apple of the advertising world’s eye.

You are the elusive “social influencer,” who can turn the tide of a box office receipt with the power of your tweets. This results in every marketer under the sun catering their product to your whim, bending over backwards with free samples and exclusive preview screenings.

The Emerald is here to guide you through this catered treasure trove, with a Free Screening Alert. This week, it’s Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping. Regular peasants will have to wait all the way until June 3, but Universal has toured the film across college campuses in early showings.

This Monday, April 25, Popstar will be screened for free at the Bijou Arts Cinemas (492 E 13th Ave).

The creative team behind The Lonely Island – Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone – brought Saturday Night Live into the YouTube era. The team behind Hot Rod and SNL digital shorts like “Dick In A Box,” “I’m On A Boat,” and “Jizz In My Pants” is taking its musical proclivities to the big screen.

Popstar is a satirical take on the current pop music scene, and the flood of autobiographical documentaries on the lives of 21-year-old millionaires. Combining The Lonely Island’s tendency for hysterical earworms with a star-studded cast (Sarah Silverman, Adam Levine, and plenty more make appearances), Popstar looks like a damn fine time at the movies.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @ChrisBerg25

In this installment of Triple Takes, three Emerald writers share their thoughts on the new film The Jungle Book.

Chris Berg

Jon Favreau took one hell of a leap of faith by committing to remake The Jungle Book as a live-action/CG film. With one single human actor in the entire film and an environment generated wholly by computer imagery, it’s easy to see how this trip into the jungle could’ve ended in disaster. But the end result is a modern piece of movie magic.

Boasting the most convincing digital scenery since Avatar, the world on display feels unquestionably real. Even the animals, voiced by an all-star cast and occasionally breaking into song, are crafted with immaculate detail. Unlike James Cameron’s tour of Pandora, The Jungle Book has to contend with reality as a comparison point. We all know what a tiger looks like, and convincing our brains that a digital recreation is the real thing is no easy task. But every animal in this Jungle passes with flying colors.

The narrative is simple and charming, working ideally as a path to take us through two hours of visual splendor. Captured in stunning 3D to create a wonderful panorama display, The Jungle Book is bound to be one of 2016’s top cinema experiences.

Daniel Bromfield

The Jungle Book feels like an instant classic. It’s the kind of movie people go back to, either for the taut action or for the stunning visuals; about every five minutes, there’s a shot that feels iconic as Jack’s stroll down the spiral hill in Nightmare Before Christmas. If all this movie had going for it was the end credit sequence, it’d still be worth it.

The characters are mostly tropes, though they’re believable, especially Ben Kingsley as big-hearted stick in the mud Bagheera and Idris Elba as hyper-violent Shere Khan. The most poignant character arc is that of Bill Murray’s Baloo, whose love of the “man-cub” Mowgli turns him from cold-hearted conman to blubbering papa bear. The only distracting celebrity was Christopher Walken, whose King Louie was basically just a scarier version of Baloo.

The Jungle Book’s biggest flaw is that it’s a bit confused. It starts with operatic grandeur, then turns into a lighter-hearted movie where animals talk in New York accents. Some of the comedic elements seemed out of place, as in when Mowgli jostles beasts that exclaim “Excuse me!” There are also only two musical numbers; I wish they’d either included all or none of the original 1967 Jungle Book songs, which mostly seemed there for nostalgia.

A lot of the kids watching this won’t have seen the original, so nostalgia might not have been the best approach for this project. But when those kids revisit it down the road, they’ll have tons to marvel at.

Anna Lieberman

Although actor Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli in Disney’s newest remake of The Jungle Book, may be one of the only completely real visual elements of the film, every anthropomorphic animal and environment feels just as true. Creators have brilliantly reintroduced classic and loved characters in a form that’s endearing, believable and entertaining.

It’s inspiring to see just how tangible collaborators of The Jungle Book have made talking bears, wolves and snakes feel, all with unique and animated personalities. The voice cast behind each animal face from Raksha (Lupita Nyong’o) to Baloo (Bill Murray) make each element of the film even more brilliant and charismatic.

The real star, though, is Sethi, who carries audiences through the entire duration of the film. He’s never acting directly on screen with real people, but his interactions with the animals he befriends are admirably convincing. Disney has introduced the world to a young, impressive talent.

The heroic and compassionate score is also a highlight of the film. Composer John Debney integrates classic songs like The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You into the film in a way that’s sentimental, yet refreshing. The rest of the score successfully matches each emotional interaction or fast paced action sequence and serves as a form of entertainment in itself.

The Jungle Book is the latest installment in the recent trend of transforming animated Disney classics into live action movies, and it is a remarkable success.

The Greatest Challenge of Dark Souls III is Running The Game

Dark Souls fans pride themselves on tackling their franchise of choice head-on. FromSoftware’s series of notoriously difficult action games are dense with mysteries, often requiring group critical thinking to be overcome. But a different sort of foe is bringing PC players of the recently released Dark Souls III to their knees: a devastating crash early in the game.

The game has an odd tendency to lock up completely as players approach the first bonfire. Players flooded the Steam game forums with reports of the crash and quickly took to forming theories on how to avoid it. Initially fans theorized that the issue could be traced to specific models of graphics card or installation issues. So far, the fixes shown indicate something a bit stranger. Setting the game’s lighting to “low” seems to prevent the issue, as does starting the game under the “Knight” class and “never removing the character’s helmet.”

According to publisher Bandai Namco, a patch for the issue is coming soon. In the meantime, Souls fans will have to contend with their poorly-lit knights to keep the game stable.

Everybody Wants To Make a Pokémon Movie, Apparently

Do you want to be the very best? Like no one ever was? Do you want to catch them all? Is training them your cause?

If you said yes to all of the above, you may be among the likes of some big name movie studios. Late Thursday night, The Hollywood Reporter published a story claiming that an aggressive “top-secret bidding war” was underway for the live-action rights to the Pokémon franchise. The story lists three studios as the most interested bidders. Leading the pack is Warner Bros. (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings), who released Pokémon: The First Movie back in 1999. In recent weeks though, Legendary Entertainment (Pacific Rim, Godzilla) allegedly made a series of aggressive offers. Sony Pictures (Spiderman, Men in Black) is also apparently “very interested.”

Furthering the legitimacy of the rumor is a tweet from screenwriter Max Landis (Chronicle, American Ultra) that insists some form of attachment to the property. Landis has made headlines in the past for his suggested approaches to established universes; you can hear one of his better pitches in this Nerdist interview. Whether or not Landis’ take on Pokémon ever sees the light of day may depend on which studio wins the bidding war, but it seems some take on the property is inevitable in the near future.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter, @ChrisBerg25

Every action film is based on some desire for self-fulfillment. When we go to the cinema to see James Bond or Iron Man save the world in a globetrotting adventure, part of us wants to be in their shoes. We feel the adrenaline pump through their veins, brace ourselves for their falls, and sit at the edge of our seat when all seems lost. So why not remove the middleman and cast the audience itself as the hero? Hardcore Henry is the willing subject of this experiment, and the result is a spectacular failure.

Shot entirely in first person through the use of mobile GoPro cameras, Henry tells the tale of a mute amnesiac cyborg on a quest to rescue his wife. His foe is the dastardly Akon, a villainous Russian hellbent on building an army of super-soldiers. The story is little more than a framing device to get Henry from one action sequence to the next, occasionally interrupted by a trip to a brothel. The entire experience plays like a 13-year old boy’s violently erotic daydream.

For the most part, the action is hard to follow. If you’ve ever complained about “shaky-cam” in post-Bourne action cinema, Hardcore Henry is your nightmare committed to film. Every punch, roll, and kick is accurately represented in first person to create a hodgepodge of whirling blood and flesh. The low resolution of the GoPro cameras and relative low budget CG effects only highlight the janky nature of it all. Basic visual appeal like “cinematography” and “shot framing” have gone out the window with this filming style, and little is done to compensate.

Fortunately, one actor stands out in the shallow talent pool. Sharlto Copley (District 9, The A-Team, Elysium) has quickly emerged as one of his generation’s most versatile character actors, and Hardcore Henry takes full advantage. As the mysterious Jimmy, Sharlto appears as everything from a disgruntled cop to a coke fiend to a WW2 general. Each character is more delightfully outlandish than the last. Do any of them play a vital role to the plot? Not in the slightest. But Copley gives the film a human face sorely needed in a narrative shot from the hero’s perspective.

Hardcore Henry is a rollercoaster ride, but not one at Universal Studios or Disney World; no, this the coaster that comes to town at the yearly carnival, held together by haphazard welding and copious duct tape. There’s no doubt Hardcore Henry is a bad film. Yet it is one whose existence is not unwelcome – a fascinating novelty, only worth the time for those with a burning curiosity.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter, @ChrisBerg25

Punk music is brisk and brutal. It’s the sound of energy, the emotion of release. It doesn’t linger, refuses to blink, and won’t pull back in the face of disgust. Green Room isn’t a movie about punk music. But it’s one that lives by the same moral creed. Jeremy Saulnier’s follow-up to the 2013 indie darling Blue Ruin takes his unforgiving eye for realist violence and imbues it with a thrashing pace. The end result is bleak, angry and impossible to ignore.

Set deep in the Oregon woods, Green Room follows a punk-rock band that takes a last-second gig at a dive bar inhabited by local skinheads. After the show, they become witness to a murder and are trapped in the green room as the club’s owner (Patrick Stewart) attempts to scrub clean all evidence. As they make a push to survive until morning, the band is forced into increasingly dark territory. The inevitable confrontation is a gore-loaded affair, where the cinematic hopes of our heroes often meet the crushing blows of reality. The script is solid, dotting a simple premise with memorable dialogue and chilling takes on gang warfare.

At 94 minutes, the film moves along at a steady clip. There’s not quite enough time given for the tension of the situation to feel real, or for the honest terror of these characters to come across in the room. The story feels lacking, with characters that never quite get enough definition. The fast pace is exciting to witness, but doesn’t do the script enough justice.

Saulnier’s view on the Northwest backwoods is appropriately muted, painting rural landscapes with cold grey-blues and a smattering of green that sinks into the dark night. Inside the club, fluorescent lights and sparse window light illuminate a space that lives in shadow. This is a dark film in both tone and palate, occasionally to the point of distraction. There’s an honesty to how everything appears on screen, but that isn’t always conducive to great storytelling. Some key moments are overly concealed by the night, subtracting from their impact.

But worry not, as there is plenty of violence left to see in Green Room. The film boasts a classic sensibility to bloodshed, entirely practical and filmed in full. The edits never shy away from the grit and gore, but Green Room never feels excessive or exploitative. Rather, it feels precisely as messy and intolerable as the reality represented. There’s a grounded perspective to every shot, letting the audience feel the tension of what may lurk around every corner. No drama is added to the moment a bullet is fired or a knife pierces flesh. By ripping away many of the comforts that modern cinema uses to shield us from violence, Green Room goes a step beyond.

Like a good punk song, Green Room is harsh, energetic, and over before you know what hit you. But like the genre itself, the aesthetics and overall style might get in the way of really conveying a message.

Green Room will be released in Portland and Seattle on April 22 before expanding nationally on the April 29.

Follow Chris Berg on Twitter @ChrisBerg25

Life as a student can be rough.

Between midterms, finals, closing shifts and hangovers, there are a few precious perks to being in college. But fret not, weary movie lovers. As a young adult between the ages of 18 and 23, your brain is considered prime real estate by all manner of film studios. So when a hot new release is about to hit cinemas nationwide, Hollywood will provide free screenings for college students.

This Thursday, April 7, University of Oregon students can be treated to a free screening of Jeremy Saulner’s Green Room, plus an exclusive Q&A with the director and producer. The screening will start at 6:30 p.m. at Lawrence 177, with doors opening at 6 p.m.

Green Room is Saulner’s second feature film after the critically beloved Blue Ruin (2013). His eye for brutally realistic violence is likely to be on full display in this dark rural thriller. Set in a backwoods nightclub, the film follows a punk band who find themselves witness to a grisly murder. As the last remaining evidence of the crime, a gang of white supremacists begin to surround the band – who have holed up in the club’s green room. Anton Yelchin (Star Trek), Ali Shawkat (Arrested Development) and Imogen Poots (V for Vendetta) star as The Ain’t Rights, who are forced to fight their way to safety in the Pacific Northwest-set, hyper-violent thriller. Patrick Stewart also makes his presence known as the gang leader seeking to clean the slate.

A Q&A session with writer-director Jeremy Saulner and producer Neil Kopp will begin at 8 p.m. UO ID is required for admittance, and seating is first-come, first-served. Arrive early to ensure a seat for what looks to be one of 2016’s most nerve-rattling films.

Green Room is rated R for “strong brutal graphic violence, gory images, language and some drug content.”