 Hi, and welcome to Scramble. Today we have a musician on the show, a marvelous young man named Justin Colas, who will be singing and playing the ukulele for us. He's quite good, and I think you will enjoy him. We also discuss the hot movies that are in theaters right now, Man of Steel and The Purge. Yes, we do. We have quite mixed opinions on these movies, however, so be prepared for a fiery debate. So, let's go and talk to Justin. And we are joined here today by Justin Colas, an on-the-rise musician studying at the Chico State Musical Program. Now, Justin, tell us, what are some of your influences when it comes to that music? Well, I would say there are many, but if I had to choose a couple, it'd be the people that I'd bass my music off of, mainly. People like Jason Maraz, Jack Johnson. Bruno Mars inspires me just because he's actually a talented singer, and that's pretty rare nowadays. So, those type of people, yeah. So, I know that you're going to Chico State right now. How long did you know that you wanted to be a musician? Was it something that kind of was recent? No, definitely. I've known it for a long time, and I've been working at it. Eighth grade was probably when it actually kicked in, but I've been playing for a long time. So, what do you play? What music instruments do you play? The piano is probably my strongest technically, technical instrument, whatever. But piano and ukulele and now vocals is a newer thing. But I dabble on the drums and the guitar now. So, you play a little bit. I play a lot. I'm trying to be a composer. Okay, so what are you majoring in in college? Music composition. Film scoring. Oh, film scoring. Oh, it's quite an assortment. What's your favorite genre? That is a question that most people would answer. I don't have a favorite. I listen to everything, but I probably would like alternative pop type stuff. Just because that's what I'm most similar to, I would say. Any interest in Hawaiian music? I know you. Quite efficient out of the... Yeah, what with the ukulele and all. Hawaiian music is definitely a passion of mine, I would say. Big is fan. Beautiful. Exciting. So, are you currently recording with anybody? Yes, I am assigned to label, it's called New Vintage Artists. It's a studio down in Sebastopol. And I'm working on a new single, I guess you would call it. That's really exciting. It's called Life is Good. You're going to give us a little demo of that, I guess. So, how was the life of a signed musician, signed young musician? Basically, just party every day, girls. No, just kidding. It's basically just nothing. Okay. You actually have to do a lot of other stuff. You find yourself not really getting as much time as you'd like with your passion. Is it giving you any sort of income, or are you hoping that will come with a release? Hopefully that will be coming with the release. Income is coming from babysitting and such. We'll all start somewhere. Justin Bieber started with YouTube videos. I've been working on that. In about three years, you might follow his path. Okay, so you tried YouTube. Have you ever tried to audition for The Voice or American Idol? It's funny, you mentioned The Voice first, because actually, I believe it was February, I auditioned for it down in LA. And it's pretty exciting. I wasn't actually scared at all just because I would go in there. Just give it your all, see what happens. I got to sing two songs where most people got to sing one, so it was exciting. I'm going out next year. Who do you sing for? It's a random person that I do not care about. So not CeeLo? Not CeeLo Green. Real shame. Probably. Most definitely. Let's go and hear you play. Your life is good. Alright, thanks. A song, I really like that. Yes, I reckon in about three years you'll be hitting reporters and throwing wild parties. You wrote that song yourself. How do you go about writing a song? Usually, hopefully I usually have inspiration, but yeah, I write the chords first usually, and then just kind of jam, and then lyrics just come to me kind of. And it's not too difficult actually if once you do it a lot. Like Taylor Swift? Like Taylor Swift. After you've had all those relationship failures, so much inspiration. What are your songs about? Most of them are love songs, but a lot of them aren't even about anyone. Some of them are, but summertime, happy things, going for what you love. Like life is good. I don't know, sad songs are always fun to write about. Fun. Well it's good that you can pull inspiration from, I mean I'm basing this off the one song, I heard life is good, good that you can pull inspiration from happy things. I'm like, I'll tell you a swift to find solace in breakup songs. It's true. You're beating her in that respect, Justin. Thank you. So how long have you been writing songs for? Songs with lyrics in my senior year of high school. Of high school, wow. I like a year. Almost two. And do you have a signature style you're going for? The Dora perhaps? You read my mind. You read my future. Beautiful. And your stage name, do you have one? People have said Justin Love. That's good. I've probably just gone with Justin Colas or J Cole, J Swag, I don't know. Whatever happens. Better try to mark that one. Yes. So do you have like a plan for where you're going to be going as a musician or do you kind of plan to have that on the side and then have your composing? The biggest dream would be to just be like, not like Justin Bieber but what he's doing, so just like touring and performing. So more like a Jason Razz or making money. Jason Razz, yeah. And you'll treat the press nicely? Yeah, of course. But if not, that's why I'm going to school for composition just so I could try and do something. I think everyone should have a plan B. Yeah, I'm probably going to need a plan C maybe. It's always good, so we'll see what happens. Just go through the alphabet. I mean, life happens. Yes, well said. Okay, so this next song that you're performing, do you want to give a little intro on that? How long has it existed? Let the Levies Break is the name of it. It is definitely probably, I think it's my favorite song, lyrically. It was my eighth song. Adam, I have like over 50 now. So it's one of my first ones. So I think it is lyrically pleasing to me because I hadn't written that many songs back then so I wasn't out of ideas for what to say. All right, well, let's take a look to Let the Levies Break. This second song is called Let the Levies Break. I think Let the Levies Break is my favorite song. I really like that one. Exceptional. Any inspiration? I challenged myself with that song to not say the word you. So it was supposed to be like a deeper... It was tough in the love song. It was tough. All right, so where can we find your music? Good question. I'm on YouTube. I just type in Justin Colas. It should come up. I am on SoundCloud, also Justin Colas. And Facebook, you can like my page on there. Justin Colas. I think I will be doing that. And hopefully soon you'll find on iTunes and other places like that. Where you will get money. That's what you're coming on the show today. Thank you Justin. The one thing I love about the summer is the movies. There are amazing movies coming out right now. The world has ended in almost every possible way already. And it's just June. And you know what? It's going to keep ending with The Purge, Man of Steel. I mean, World War Z. I mean, there's a lot of good stuff coming out. So, you know, start prepping your wallet. Because you're going to be inside a movie theater a lot this summer. Personally, I will pay 8.50 every day to see the world decimated in a different setting. All right, so let's start with Man of Steel. We both saw that movie. That's the first for the show. I hated it. It was probably one of the worst movies I have seen in a really long time. I was so disappointed because I love Superman. And I was a big fan of Superman Returns, the movie that came out in 2002, 2003. So, you know, I was anxiously waiting, but woefully disappointed. Okay, if you want to start the real review, Man of Steel was actually very good. The best-executed Superman in years. It's really the movie that made Superman fans proud to be Superman fans again. And first of all, they did not use Lex Luthor, which every other Superman movie uses. Well, that's because this is the first one out of like several. You know, they started at the beginning of the comic. Exactly, and it is at its core an origin story, which has never been fleshed out quite in the way that Man of Steel did it before. It had two great roles by Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner as the biological father and the adopted father of Superman. Just lots of great father-son. But there wasn't enough focus on those figures. I feel like they just kind of were pushed to the side when they really should have been main characters. But the scream time they did have was very profound. And you really saw how Superman was shaped into a confused young boy with these extraordinary powers into the man that he is. Okay, I liked all of those actors. They all did a good job. It was the villain that I just could not stand. It ruined the whole movie for me. Doctor Zod? General Zod, first of all. Nora, thank you for... That's how out of it I was during the movie. It's because you're eating sushi. You can't eat sushi and watch a movie. That just does not make sense. Alright, so General Zod was just as powerful as Superman, which just kind of made Superman just not... They're both Kryptonians, Nora. But you couldn't see how powerful Superman was. That was what the first two-thirds of the movie was about. Yeah, but it wasn't enough. I need to see him saving people. I need to see him giving the kiss of life to someone. Because really I did not see that with General Zod in the way because he just... It made Superman just look like this normal guy. Well, you probably tell it they're both extraordinary given the fact that they destroyed a major city. Yeah, but what was with that? They smashed New York. It would cost billions of dollars and everyone would be super pissed. The other alternative was that the world was turned into Krypton through Terraform. They would hate him though. They would just be this villain in the eyes of the people because he would just fly and smash into skyscrapers for no reason at all. Well, I mean they addressed that. They said that the people would not accept him. Almost like the Batman story. When there's something they do not understand, they reject it. But that wasn't about him destroying buildings. Like he could just go around them. But what are we going to do to him? Superman will be fine, trust me. I don't know. It was one of those movies where you're sitting in the theater kind of looking at your watch going, this is almost done. Let's wrap this thing up a little bit. Oh, another thing actually. Glad that you mentioned the huge battles and the facing someone against him that is his strength. I'm so glad they did not bring Kryptonite into this because I am so sick. I was looking for the Kryptonite though. I am sick of Superman's abilities being immediately diminished from a single rock. You didn't even get to see his abilities. Rock. Because he was sent to the spaceship where his powers were taken away. He couldn't breathe well. For a very short amount of time. I mean it just lost its magic. I was happy about the lack of Kryptonite though because Kryptonite has been used as a cop out by Superman moves forever. Because the only time that Superman will be in danger is because of Kryptonite. And the fact that he faced someone as strong as him was a real breath of fresh air. And not having looks loose air. I do not like dirty air. Lex Luthor. We'll see him later. There's definitely going to be a sequel. It was set up for one. Hopefully without General Zod in the story because he was, you know, killed. Killed. I know. Yes. That's right. Anyways. So you saw another movie. I did. I saw The Purge. 2002 has stated that for one night, once a year, all government officials such as police, military, even hospitals will be completely off duty. And no crimes committed during that night will be investigated. So everything is legal. Murder, assault, robbery. And it is based around one family that actually sells these security systems. One of the, one of the kind of upper class families. And going into this, it seems as if, and they even hinted at this, that The Purge was there to eliminate the lower class, the poor and the, you know, non contributing members of society. And that was how the economy in the U.S. flourished at the time. And that was actually true. It did work better because of that, but it's also raising the question, is that right to do that, to eliminate the lower class just to help the American economy? And the movie did not address these issues. It hinted at the fact that they'd make a huge social change, but it ended up just being about the family trying to survive. So it set up these huge societal questions, but left them unanswered. Was it a horror film or? It set itself up as one. It had tense moments, but it wasn't that scary really. So it seemed as if it was going to be a societal statement, but it just wasn't. It was about the family trying to survive at the end. And it was really just unsatisfying in almost every way. And you did not like any of the characters. I didn't want them to survive at all. They didn't develop as I thought they would. They didn't really make any changes. No one, it would have been better if the family was against The Purge, but they were actually for The Purge, so they didn't mind killing people. I thought they were going to have to overcome that to be able to kill, but no. It was just unsatisfying. Yeah, it was just like a dry loaf of bread. Well, it seems like one of those movies that is a good idea just doesn't quite reach the exciting level. But I like to try to envision what would Davis be like if there was a purge. Ooh, that's rough. What's something you would see happening if there was a purge in Davis? Groups of teenagers, perhaps even Harper students riding around on bicycles without helmets at night. Past the 11 o'clock curfew. It would be rough, nor I'd be scared. Don't lock your doors, don't go outside, bar your windows. Bicycles stolen, perhaps. Skateboards ridden on downtown Davis sidewalks. What would we do? People just not using the bike paths. Actually, no, that's already a reality. Someone throwing a soda can in a trash bin. Not a recycling bin. Yeah, just nightmare. So if you're ready to experience a porn film that never quite made it to the level of being a horror film, I think the purge may be that movie for you. But it isn't, so don't go and see it. Yeah, don't go see any of the movies we just mentioned because none of them are good. I think you should save your money and wait for something better to come out. But do vote for an actual Davis purge. Thanks for joining us on our movie, Ria. Thanks for tuning in to Scramble today. I hope you really enjoyed that episode. It's quite a varied episode. Musicians, movies, summer plans. And let us know if you ever want to see anything on Scramble. You can contact us through the website and we'll put what you want to see. Yes, the future's looking bright, really shaping out to be quite the biggest dozen. Have a great summer. Stay classy, America.