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Racing around the deserts in Morocco, riding wild camels and skydiving are just some of the tasks the competitors must complete in ABC’s TV game show, “Expedition Impossible.” Hosted by Dave Salmoni, 13 three-person teams must compete in 10 intense adventures and episodes in Morocco covering 2,000 miles in order to walk away with $150,000 and three new Ford Explorers.

Mark Burnett, creator of “The Amazing Race” and “The Apprentice” produces “Expedition Impossible.” Like the other shows Burnett produced, “Expedition Impossible” is well made with extraordinary views of mountain peaks and raging waters as well as having one-on-one interviews with contestants.

This show appeals to everyone by having all kinds of competitors including cops, firefighters, football players, fishermen and military veterans. The competitors provide comedy by having humorous personalities and are constantly cracking jokes. There is occasionally a little drama within the teams. AJ and Ally, siblings on the team “Fab Three,” often bicker during the competitions. The drama between them is relatable to everyone with a sibling. However their drama is quickly resolved and the main focus is on the adventure, a characteristic few shows share.

The dynamics of the show are simple. Whoever finishes the adventure last will be evacuated on an airplane back to their home. The adventures contain many components including challenges such as skydiving to find a symbol that corresponds with one on the contestants’ map to indicate where they are going. There are around six challenges every episode. This is a very fast paced show and the contestants are usually jogging for many miles in order to finish the challenges.

Going into the first episode one would be shocked to find out that on the team “No Limits” one of the competitors, Eric, is blind. However, his credentials such as climbing Mount Everest and going on other intense adventures without sight might lead one to root for his team. The adventures are intense and the competitors never give up, especially Eric, who kayaks through rapids with sharp rocks. Even though he falls into the rapids many times, he is able to navigate the waters well and his team usually finishes in the top three.

Another team on the show, “Team Kansas,” often struggled with the adventures. In one episode one teammate Lindsey falls off a wild camel and gets trampled on.

Lindsey stated during an aired interview “this expedition is dangerous.”

The adventure show is considered to be “an epic Indiana Jones-style experience,” according to Burnett.

The show is completely thrilling to watch and the daring challenges adds to the suspense. The challenges test the abilities of the competitors to an extreme with new challenges each week. The competitors are amusing and delightful with their sense of charm and wit.

Last Thursday’s season four premiere of “Jersey Shore” didn’t launch with a powerful blast. 

The show opened with Snookie posing in unusual positions for her passport picture and it gave viewers a good chuckle — maybe even a laugh — at something sane people would not attempt.

As many of the show’s viewers are aware, this season was filmed in Florence, Italy, making this the most anticipated season compared to the first three. 

Unlike previous season premieres, about 15 minutes was wasted on showing how the cast members arrived to their home in Florence.

The house that they stayed in is by far the most extravagant compared to the other two. Snookie’s reaction to the view of the house, “Wow! It’s like a castle,” is definitely an understatement.

Once everyone was together, the crew made an attempt to go out onto the streets to find somewhere to eat. The confusion on their faces while trying to read directions in Italian was priceless alongside watching Pauly D and Snookie driving stick shift cars.

Drama was kept at a low-key during the premier. The cast spent their first night sightseeing close to home. Even at night the area looked so pure and natural to the point where one would wonder how the show got permits to contaminate the place with its presence. 

Of course it wouldn’t be “Jersey Shore” without some fist pumping. 

Watching the show was like visually diverging into a different world, especially when the cast checked out their first Italian club later that night. Unlike the clubs promoted in previous seasons, there were blinking lights, fire tables and dancers everywhere. Inside the club felt so live that it was probably the only thing viewers envied the cast for.  

While watching the show without wanting to change the channel, viewers had an opportunity to notice some different aspects about the cast.

The first thing Ron and Sammie talked about was their readiness to be single and not be miserable for their time at the house, compared to crying over each other in every other episode last season.

Snookie looks more tan and a bit slimmer, something that The Situation picked up right away. Also, there was something different about Jwoww, like she had work done.

By the end of the show and sneak peeks of the season, a scene was set up for expected drama to come later on. Rifts and heated arguments occur among the cast along with unexpected hook ups.

Most likely the premiere didn’t match the vision viewers had for it due to the regulations the Italian government established specifically for the filming of the show. For example, the cast wasn’t allowed to be filmed while drinking in clubs.

However it felt good to see the excitement the cast had being in their native country, even though Snookie doesn’t know where Italy is on a map.

Regardless, the premiere focused more on the surroundings of the cast rather than the cast members themselves, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The scenery of the show has to be the most awaited aspect of the whole season in addition to witnessing the cast trying to adapt to their temporary home.

What can’t be left unnoticed is the irony behind the pride the cast members have for their country, yet only one of them can speak Italian.  

It all started out with a dream last Wednesday night. I was standing in the Great Hall with Hogwarts students and Professor McGonagal. She asked me to perform a spell on an imitation of a Death Eater. I was a little intimidated at first, because no one else had to say a spell. I remember saying to myself “Cedric Digory didn’t have to say a spell so why do I?” But, without complaining out loud, I successfully performed the ‘Expelliarmus’ spell on the imitation, and watched my classmates cheer for me. I also seen the satisfaction on McGonagal’s face. “All this to get in,” was the last thing to come to mind after that.

“Project Runway” began its ninth season on July 28. The Lifetime show, which airs on Thursdays at 9 p.m., originally premiered six years ago.

 â€œProject Runway” follows chosen designers from across the country as they compete in various weekly challenges.

On this journey they are accompanied by their mentor Tim Gunn and judged by supermodel Heidi Klum. She is not only a judge on the show, but also the host and the executive producer. Klum is also joined by Nina Garcia, Michael Kors and a weekly celebrity guest judge to critique the designers’ works.

The show, which is a spinoff of the Emmy-nominated series “Project Greenlight,” gives designers an opportunity to show their collection at New York Fashion Week.

Each week they are given a new assignment. The time when they are in the workroom gives a sense of how difficult the competition really is. It also gives insight to how each specific designer works.

Once the designers complete their looks for that week’s challenge, they have a runway show where each design is shown and then judged. This part is great because this is the first time you see their whole outfits put together, so most of the time the finished product is a surprise to viewers.

After the runway show, it’s time for judging. The judges are always very honest with their opinions, and tell it how it is with their expertise. They really do a good job on showing how they truly feel on a contestant’s piece, no matter how harsh the critique is.

Anya Ayoung-Chee is one of the most interesting contestants on the show because she only learned how to sew four months before she entered the competition. Even with her lack of experience, she has been at the top for the past two episodes and shows a lot of promise.

The show has always been entertaining. Starting with the first season, the way the show is filmed created a competitive yet fun atmosphere.

Sometimes the challenges may get boring. Most of the challenges are repeated, with slight alterations. The challenges that get a lot of play are the ones where they design an outfit for a specific sport or celebrity, and the muse challenge where they go around Manhattan looking for inspiration.

On the other hand, when the challenges are interesting and unusual, the show is fun to watch. That, in a sense, is the best part because it shows the real creativity in design.

“Project Runway” is definitely a fun show to watch, especially if you are interested in designing. However, after nine seasons it is time to put this show to rest. Even though it fits well with Lifetime programming, in reality offers nothing that other shows do not already. The show is becoming too cyclic and rarely gives viewers something new and exciting to watch.

Mat Kearney’s new album “Young Love,” which was released earlier this month, is already doing well. The album reached number one on the top albums in the iTunes store the same day it came out, causing Kearney to tweet, “Oh Lord…I can’t breathe…” Two days later, he tweeted again and said, “Still shocked.”

Kearney has been successful in the past as well. The single “Nothing Left To Lose”, which he released in 2006 sold more than 500,000 copies that year, and the album “Nothing Left To Lose” sold more than 450,000 records. Following all that success came the album “City of Black and White,” which reached number 13 on the Billboard Top 200. Now Kearney didn’t seem to experiment too much with his new album. His guitar strumming compliments the lyrics nicely in most of his pervious work, and he did the same for “Young Love.” Although he stayed the same, he did add some new sounds to his album. 

The first song from the album  is called “Hey Mama” and starts with hands clapping and is very upbeat. His song “Ships In The Lights” also has clapping going on, but this has a more serious mood to it. The clapping gives an interesting sound to songs and can even inspire one to dance while listening to it.

“Hey Mama” is a love song along with a few other songs on the album. The album title, “Young Love,” makes sense because a lot of the songs are about the emotions and situations that come with being in love. The love songs can relate to any of his fans, but especially to the younger generation since he focuses on what it’s like to make mistakes, meet the person of your dreams, and just fall head over heels for them.

The guitar strumming and the drums in this album stand out the most because even though they are simple to play, they bring the songs to life. Even with the most serious songs, the music makes it possible to sway along and clap your hands.

Kearney is a Christian and his song “Closer To Love” from his album “The City of Black and White” was played a lot on Christian radio stations, and drew in his spiritual fans. Kearney’s song “Down” on “Young Love” goes back to his religious beliefs. Although, “Down” talks about screaming at the “top of our lungs, ‘hallelujah,’” it’s possible to miss that it’s a Christian song by its upbeat, head-bopping mood.

The album “Young Love” smoothly transitions from songs about love, to songs about God, to even a song about his dad (“Rochester”), and he does this with catchy beats and relatable lyrics that will attract many fans.

Anyone who is acquainted with Glenn Ficarra and John Requa writers of “Bad Santa” (2003) may be astonished by the couple’s ability to harvest the over-romantic film “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”

In this amusing, wisely directed romantic comedy, Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) and Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) are a married couple getting a divorce due to his wife’s infidelity. Going through withdrawal after being separated from his wife, Cal accepts Jacob Palmer’s (Ryan Gosling) help to recreate Cal as a man. After following his buddy and becoming a womanizer, Jacob then takes a different path and meets Hannah (Emma Stone) and falls in love for the first time — which is where the movie started.

Gosling and Carell’s friendship began with Gosling’s interest in saving Carell’s miserable life caused by Carell’s failed marriage and cheating wife. Gosling said that Carell reminds him of someone, who the revelation of brings the audience closer to Gosling’s character.

Another plot line to this story is that Cal’s son Robby (Jonah Bobo) is in love with his teenager babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who’s in love with Cal, leaving a interesting but also disturbing twist to this already complicated plot.

This film has a lot of hilarious moments, most of which include Gosling who surprised the audience by stealing the the humor spotlight from Carell. His character’s story of the hot guy does not have it all was portrayed very well and at one point or another during the film, you felt sorry for every character. 

This entertaining film has outstanding cinematography. When Jessica asks a peer for advice on how to sleep with older men, the girl pulls her to the side and gives her the help she needs. Jessica then has a light shining on her face almost so bright that her face isn’t visible anymore to show that she was enlightened. Although this may sound cheesy, it wasn’t because Jessica didn’t have a creepy grin, giving her a sense of maturity. 

Another attention-grabbing choice was the rainfall after Cal and Emily has an argument outside of their son’s middle school parent teacher conference. Cal responds to the rain with, “What a cliché.” Of course this is what everyone in the audience is thinking and then he blurts it out, making the rainfall easier to accept.

One expects this film to be a romantic comedy instead it’s a depressing film with funny moments. It allowed the audience to truly accept the character’s struggles and strife, but then lightheartedly laugh about it. This gives the movie depth unlike most romantic-comedies that seemingly drastic scenarios are always sugarcoated leaving the audience no choice but to dismiss the intensity of the story.

The actors in “Crazy, Stupid, Love” did an outstanding job, all in which completely embodied the role that they played. Carell seemed to shed his “Office” persona, as did Gosling with his film “The Notebook.”

Writer Dan Fogelman focused on the idea of having a soul mate and although it may not work out that will be the only person you will ever love. This film is a must see for anyone who enjoys a good film that both slaughters and restores your hope for love.

Considering that it was done by teenagers, “A Day In North Brooklyn” is an exhibit that is bound to surprise its guests with the talent put into each piece.

The artists come from the Manhattan and Little Neck branches of the Ashcan School of Art, which provides art classes to high school and college students. This summer, the students were offered the chance to exhibit their works at the Arts@Renaissance gallery (2 Kingsdale Avenue in Williamsburg) until August 26.

The gallery served as a mental institute where the old shower stalls and the tiled floors still remain as part of the gallery, creating a very eerie feel, drawing an interesting atmosphere to the art.

Supposedly inspired by the sights of Brooklyn, the 36 piece exhibit features several sculptures and paintings of severed body figures gives off a dark and mysterious feeling that don’t really make a connection to the Brooklyn community. These pieces push too hard for a deep and meaningful reaction.

Despite the lack of true meaning behind their works, the students of the Ashcan Studio of Art still are able to display their talent and skill. Each work was extremely detailed, and the technique in each piece was used correctly. In “Greenpoint Oil Spill” by 17-year-old Jinsoo Chan, the use of perspective drawing to represent three-dimensional images on a two-dimensional plane was used precisely. The quality of the work is professional, and there are several times the viewer needs to be reminded that the works were done by teens.

“Untitled” by 16-year-old Christine Lee was a piece that had the touch of a more mature person. “Untitled” was a depiction of a train stop in various mediums, including oil paint, cardboard and acrylic paint. The windows at the train stop were done with much detail, and the way Lee brushed a layer of charcoal to create a musty atmosphere made the work all the more interesting.

In an interview on the work, Lee said, “I learned a lot from my classes at Ashcan, and I used the techniques I learned in my piece. I didn’t try to think too hard about what the work meant, I just painted, glued together what was in my unconscious.”

However, this was not so for all the pieces. Many of the students tried to create a meaningful message with their art, and in turn, made several different pieces look the same. With this, parts of the exhibit lacked creativity and true meaning, although the pieces were well done.

Sgt. Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is an Irish cop from the county of Galway who spends his time drinking on duty, stealing drugs from victims’ bodies, and having fun with prostitutes. So when an international drug smuggling gang causes turmoil in Boyle’s town, the FBI has no choice but to get involved and Boyle ends up teaming up with Agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle) to catch the criminals. At first, Boyle’s personality clashes with Everett’s no-nonsense attitude and their opposite views is what makes the movie funny. For example, when Boyle raises his hand at a meeting and tells Everett in his heavy Irish accent, “I thought only black lads are drug dealers. And Mexicans.” This line is the start of a string of racist remarks from Boyle’s part.

The movie lived up to the great reviews it got and there were almost no boring moments. John Michael McDonagh did a fantastic job with the screenplay. He used a mix of dark humor and action to make the movie enjoyable. The jokes were hilarious and not clichéd, and Boyle’s amusing personality only helped make the movie memorable.

The final scenes were different from usual movies and the ending is something you wouldn’t expect. The movie’s explosive ending, literally, brought a different angle to the usual shoot-out scenes in the usual “two cops work together to stop the bad guys” movie.

Boyle and Everett together made a great team once they got over their differences and worked together. They made the movie watchable and their little disputes made it extremely entertaining.

Gleeson’s acting was great in “The Guard.” He always brings something good to his roles. What’s supposed to be funny, he makes hilarious, what’s supposed to be sad, he makes devastating (think “28 Days Later” when he played Frank and he got infected) so it was easy to expect something good out of this movie. 

Though the cinematography and the soundtrack weren’t amazing; they didn’t take away from the overall outcome of the movie. However, there were a few songs from the soundtrack that stood out such as the traditional Irish music.

Overall, the movie was great though some of the jokes might go over teens heads.

The iconic “Planet of the Apes” series was rebooted August 5^th with the premiere of “Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” which aims to show the franchise in a more human light as it paves the way for the dethroning of the human race at the hands of its simian counterparts.

The film is a prequel of 1968’s “Planet of the Apes,” the story of an American astronaut who travels to the future and finds that apes have become the dominant species of the planet, and humans are their mute slaves.

“Rise” stars James Franco as Will Rodman, a scientist on the brink of producing a cure for Alzheimer’s. But before Will can market his research, the test subjects, apes, are abruptly put down. Unbeknownst to Rodman’s superiors, one of the test apes gave birth to a chimp, Caesar which has greater than normal intelligence.  

The real stars of the film are the apes, largely due to the digital animators. For the first time in the 43-year history of the “Apes” franchise, the apes are completely digital and not costumed actors. These apes are realistic yet scarily human like. 

Will raises the chimp but despite his care, Caesar discovers how different he is from his human peers. When Caesar attacks a neighbor for scolding Will’s diseased father,  he gets sent to a primate sanctuary, where he is abused by the owners (Brian Cox and Tom Felton) and his fellow apes.

Eventually, the apes realize they have a common enemy and Caesar assumes leadership over them. Now with an army to support him, Caesar ignites an ape revolution in San Francisco.

Despite the trailer’s indications, this $90 million blockbuster is not an action film or a sci-fi thriller, although there are elements of both and it is marketed as such.  In fact, for much of the movie, the plot has the pace of a drama. This is a showcase of the complexity of the primate mind: our cruelty, our power to love and our willingness to test the limits of nature.  NICE

Director Rupert Wyatt challenges the audience to cheer for the apes. Because they look so human, one starts perceiving them as such. One begins to understand why they’d want to wipe us all out based on the actions of the film’s humans.

Freida Pinto (“Slumdog Millionaire”), who plays ape doctor Caroline Aranha, has only aesthetic value. Pinto is given little impacting dialogue or action and appears to only be eye candy to attract a wider audience. 

Tom Felton, known for his portrayal of Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, once again plays a bully, this time in the form of Dodge Landon. Landon’s bullying is so effective that he sets the stage for one of the signature characteristics of the franchise: talking apes. When Landon attempts to tase Caesar into submission, the chimp yells “NO!” and grabs the Taser away from the frightened boy. 

”Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has intense man-to-simian violence and vice versa.