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                         Warm Bodies-2013

Sniffing out the scent of human flesh, they grunt, snarl, and hunt. They show no mercy and pound down windows and doors, and become frustrated when faced with a large concrete wall. Then they get shot in the head and die. Zombies; the uncivilized monsters we come to love.

Never do viewers get to see the inner thoughts and feelings (if they even have any) of a zombie’s rotting mind. “Warm Bodies" flips that script. Breathing new life into this otherwise lifeless popular horror genre; Jonathan Levine, director and screen play writer, shows, through dialog and audience connection, that zombies have a heart, even if they are cold at first.

The main character’s internal speech of his zombie life, wins the viewer over from the start. “Why can’t I connect with people?” R (Nicholas Hoult) wonders. R is unsure of what his name was before his life as a slumping zombie except that it began with an R. Actually R doesn’t remember much of what he did, pre-apocalypse. This loss in identity makes the viewer’s feel for R. A viewer will find themselves rooting for R.

Hoult manages to get laughs and draws us into his character. Although most of Hoult’s character includes clever voiceovers he essentially plays a silent-film character, much like Charlie Chaplin. Showing his charisma is an un-charismatic character is a tough job, but Hoult treats it like a cake walk.

While on a hunt for food R and a group of zombies come across some human survivals. Amongst the humans, Julie (Teresa Palmer), Julie’s boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco), and best friend Nora (Analeigh Tipton) are attacked by the hungry zombies. R and Julie have a strange meeting; moments after they lock eyes for the first time, he’s eating her boyfriend’s brains.

Now you can presumably say that for Julie it wasn’t love at first sight. As R smears blood on her to mask her human smell; Palmer shows the perfect balance of emotion between frightened and freaked out.

When gorging on Perry’s brains, R knows what it might be like to be Julie’s boyfriend. Since for R it was certainly love at first sight he can’t help but remind himself to not scare away the girl of his dreams. “Don’t be creepy.”

Following the pursuit of Twilight, Levine attempts to make R and Julie the next big thing. This is a charming and typical adolescent romantic comedy with a twist, “Warm Bodies” gives new perceptive to the term young love.

Falling in love with Julie gives R a strange humanizing effect, curing him. But of course with any good love story there will be complications between the two love birds. As the daughter of the general (John Malkovich) of a militia trying to execute the zombies, Julie’s zombie boyfriend would pose a problem.

Levine does a remarkable job at making this teen romance movie just that, a teen movie. Keeping it fairly clean with hand holding and some kissing this movie is just what it’s rated Pg-13. However parents should be sure to keep an eye out for some foul language and a scene where Julie strips to her undergarments in order to dry her clothes.

Based off of the novel written by Isaac Marion by the same title, Levine balances love and gore as well as it could be. Aside from Hoult’s alluring internal speech, the stars’ performance brings this movie to life. Palmer is brave, funny and makes flirting with a zombie seem realistic.

Even more animalistic than the zombies, skeletal creatures called Boneys appear throughout the movie. When zombies have lost all hope they rip their skin off leaving a quite freakishly looking skeleton.

Of course every movie has its flaws and “Warm Bodies” isn’t an exception to that. The Boneys are average special effects that run kind of like stiff robots. Music can either enhance a movie or not and for this movie, the music was not an enhancer. Some of the musical choices in “Warm Bodies” are broad and predictable; for instance at one point in the movie a cheesy love song comes on and minutes later another cheesy love song.

Aside from these slight disadvantages; “Warm Bodies” is great entertainment. With a run time of 98 minutes this movie is filled with laughs, love, and acceptance. Although the humor can be cheesy and predicable you find yourself rooting for R and Julie.

Mary Pols from Time Entertainment said “Warm Bodies is the first movie worth paying to see in theaters this year.” Agreeing, Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times also said “I kinda love this movie." And who wouldn’t love this movie?

At least 1,130 colleges and universities in the U.S. have become smoke free and at least four in Washington State. Green River Community College, Seattle Pacific University, Walla Walla University, Everett Community College, and others are among the few that have transitioned to this amazing trend.

Cigarette butts, lighters left, and empty boxes, this is the sight that vice president of college services at Everett Community College Pat Sisneros remembers. His school recently went tobacco free and he is seeing an improvement in scenery.

Bert Umayam, my grandpa, was an avid smoker for 20 years. Then one day in 1990 he quit.  “My kids kept asking me to stop so I stopped.”

 Bert then gives me this statement that blows my mind, “Once you stop, you hate the smell of smoke.” To think that a person can no longer even stand a wift of what they had done for 20 years is mind blowing.

Turning Edmonds Community College into a tobacco free school would have a positive effect on the school, students, and faculty. Being on campus here can be a blessing and a curse. For those students and faculty members who are avid smokers having designated smoke areas helps them to relieve their habit. However, for those faculty and students especially who don’t have an itching need to smoke, they are consumed by the lingering odor.

Tobacco products aren’t restricted to just smokes but also chew as well. Since I play softball for the school we share the hitting facility and field with the baseball players. It is really a sight to see when your peers have no respect and just spit and chew on the field and in the cages.

The same thing goes for smoking when students don’t have the respect to go to the designated areas. Sarah Crane, student athlete at EdCC, said “Sometimes people smoke around smoke designated areas instead of actually in them and it’s not my place to tell them to move.” She later goes on to explain how she avoids the smoke designated areas because of the lingering smell that gives her headaches.

She also explains that it’s a terrible inconvenience when she is trying to walk to the dorms from her class in Snohomish. Walking behind Alderwood would be the faster route, but since that is one of the smoke designated areas she takes a longer way so she doesn’t have to smell the smoke.

When the students do go to the designated areas they don’t always dispose of their contents properly. To turn our school into a tobacco free campus would benefit many people. If we were to become tobacco free, we would follow a policy very similar to that of Everett Community College’s.

Everett acknowledges that tobacco in any form is a significant health hazard. Non-smokers at Edmonds, when asked about EdCC becoming a tobacco free campus were all for the idea. Student athlete Briana Lloyd-Bennett stated, “The smoke makes me sick sometimes. It just hurts my nose when I smell cigarettes. As soon as I smell the smoke I can’t help but cough.”

She tells about how annoying it is when the smoke follows her. “I hop into the elevator at the dorms and the smell of smoke lingers. Next thing I know I come home smelling like a chimney,” Briana Lloyd-Bennett explains. Not only does the smell of cigarettes linger in the halls and elevators, but also on peoples clothes.

Pat Sisneros, the vice president of college services at Everett Community College, is “pleasantly surprised that there are no issues.” Pat said that their current tobacco policy wasn’t cutting it because students had voiced their concerns about second hand smoke. Everett was much like Edmonds, where they had designated smoking areas and they tried to put them in areas with less walking traffic.

However, with enough students voicing concerns and complaints the school looked at becoming a tobacco free campus a few years ago. Their main reason for deciding to become tobacco free was mainly for public health reasons. Everett was undergoing the construction of the new Nursing and Health Sciences building and Pat thought that the timing was perfect to implement a new tobacco policy.

Pat wanted Everett to be a part of this positive change. He hoped that with the new policy the campus would be cleaner. He also wanted to use the positive influence of the college to try and get students and faculty to stop smoking, or to not even start.

The transition to a tobacco-free campus wasn’t likely to go over well with the students who smoke. Everett Community College student and smoker Jenell Clark, expressed her thoughts about the change on her campus loud and clear.

“It sucks (expletive deleted),” Clark said, Cigarettes are stress relievers, she continues, if I don’t get a smoke in before class it leaves me aggravated. Clark continues to say how she doesn’t understand why her rights were taken away. The majority of people would respect and understand the rules set by the campus. So why punish the actions of everyone when it’s only a select few.

Being that some smokers are inconsiderate about their smoking habits I wanted to know if she was one of  them. “I had gone out of my way to be courteous of you now please why don’t you do the same.” Clark said, knowing that not everyone is as courteous as her she said “We need to be smarter as non-smokers and smokers. We need to realize and accept the rules, expectations, and boundaries of everyone.”

Even the people that aren’t necessarily ok with the new tobacco policy such as Clark find a bright side to it. As of Sept.1 a $20 citation is issued if caught smoking on campus. Pat say that no citations have been given out. The students and faculty are adapting well to the new policy. Turning Edmonds to a tobacco free campus would help with keeping our school cleaner and greener.