by Nels Nelsen

The theater program at St. John Bosco put on their annual Spring Coffeehouse and Improv on Friday, May 2, 2025, where audience members saw a variety of performances done by students at Bosco and St. Joseph’s.

The coffeehouse performances were done as a first act where there were singers, dancers, actors and a jazz band. Everyone who had stepped up had something interesting to offer like singing their favorite song or acting out a monologue.

Improv was after the intermission, which had a Minecraft theme consisting of a cast of actors who did games on stage where they had to improvise their own lines and commit to a character on the spot from the recent Minecraft movie.

The energy on the night of the performance was electric. Everyone who came focused on the show, and the engaged audience just kept feeding energy to the performers on stage.

Bosco Theater Director and Visual and Performing Arts Department Chair, Mr. Martin Lang, had hopeful expectations going into the night of the show, which were clearly satisfied.

“I have great hopes that it’s going to be a great show” said Mr. Lang “I know the acts are good. I know the comedians. They are sharp and funny, and so I’m hoping it is a great way to end the year.”

Mr. Lang puts on shows like these so that people can feel free to perform and show their talent on stage. It is an opportunity for letting loose and trying out something new.

Jayden Garcia, a junior and actor from Bosco who came to support the show, particularly enjoyed it. 

“I just wanted to help support them and be able to do future productions,” said Jayden.

His favorite part of the show was the second half with the improv. To him, it was just funny, and he had a blast watching the performance. On a scale of one to ten with ten being the highest, Jayden Garcia rated the show a ten.

He highly recommends the show next year for others because it is just a genuinely good time with people laughing and live musical performances.

Noah Villalobos is a sophomore at Bosco who also attended the show. His favorite part was the jazz band during the coffeehouse performances because most of the people who played in the band are friends of his.

Sophomore actor, Jacob Perez, performed in the improv and dressed up as the Minecraft movie’s rendition of the character Steve.

Before the show, he had some rather typical emotions for someone in his place.

“I’m a little nervous, but I’m excited and optimistic about it,” said Jacob.

The kind of mindset he had before the show was that not everything he said needed to be funny, but it needed to build the character he was acting as in the current moment. Another thing is that he also does not focus on what the audience thinks.

Jacob believes that what sets improv apart from traditional acting is the emotion. In a play, you stay in a limited range of emotion since the characters have a specific way they need to be portrayed. With improv, you get to express yourself more in a character.

After the show, Jacob was happy with his performance, but he thinks that there is still room for improvement. 

In his head, he always tries to find what is right for the scene, to stay in character and to keep it funny. Even though it was not as good as it could have been, Jacob would still want to perform again because he loves going on stage with all his friends.

“Mr. Lang says not to see it as a family, but I kind of disobey it and like to speak about all of us as family,” Jacob Perez said.

by Augustus Rodriguez, Lampoon Editor

Stephen King’s newest book combines all types of horror with many short stories.

Stephen King is a famous horror author with him writing classic horror novels like Carrie, The Shining and IT. 

Now Stephen King’s newest book, You Like It Darker, has left readers with horrors they haven’t read before in a Stephen King story. 

The newest book is a treat to Stephen King fans, as all of these short stories come from scrapped ideas from throughout his whole career. 

The story consists of twelve unique short stories: “Two Talented Bastids,” “The Fifth Step,” “Willie the Weirdo,” “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” “Finn,” “On Slide Inn Road,” “Red Screen,” “The Turbulence Expert,” “Laurie,” “Rattlesnakes,” “The Dreamers,” and “The Answer Man.”

He did not just pick up these scrapped ideas; rather, he reshaped them into their own standalone stories. 

These scrapped stories include a sequel of Cujo, one of his previous novels, various scrapped characters, a different ending to one of his works titled Salem’s Lot and even ideas for previous known books that didn’t make it to the final products. 

It’s also very impressive that Stephen King has different types of horror for each story. This allows the stories to be able to stand on their own two feet. If a short story doesn’t suit your liking or isn’t your type of horror, then Stephen King will offer you something new in the next story. 

Although Stephen King is known for psychological horror, he seems to experiment with new types of horror. These range from Gothic fiction, religious horror, folk tale horror and even experiments with “Lovecraftian” horror. 

Each one of these stories has its own thrills and joys when reading it. They almost mimic Stephen King’s old works, which shows that he still has the momentum to write as he did so many years ago.

These new stories bring in a sort of fresh air into the horror genre, as most horror stories today struggle with personal narratives when it comes to their characters. 

With this book, the characters of every short story are easy to remember, and it is easy to see what the characters are going through and their struggles. 

The ideas of the stories come from different parts of King’s career as a writer. The unpublished stories can range from the early 1970s – before King got his big break – to all the way in the 2000s.

It’s really easy to know which stories come from each time period. The short stories have a great way of telling what the tropes are.

Many of these stories deal with content that Stephen King never really touched upon—hence why they became scrapped ideas.

His mastery of storytelling and character development makes these short stories feel like full-fledged novels, not unlike those that he usually puts out. 

His mastery in the horror genre is impressive, as he almost has dipped his toes in every type of horror and has made it feel like he usually writes in these new styles. Instead of writing about how scary the dark is, he usually writes about what’s inside the darkness and why you should fear it. 

It’s a bit similar to another book that is related to Stephen King. In the 1990s, writer Stephen J. Spignesi compiled The Lost Works of Stephen King, which showcases all of Stephen King’s unpublished works. 

The only difference between the two books is that You Like It Darker sticks to a theme really well, while the latter is just a bunch of Stephen King stories bunched together. 

The only major con of this book is pretty straight forward: some of the stories are really a testament of their bygone time. They would have really been instant classics if Stephen King were to release them during the era that they were written in. 

The stories are well written, but as the popularity of elevated horror and psychological horror rises in the genre, these scrapped stories really show their age. 

Another potential issue is how abrupt some of the stories end, and how they move on to the next story. Certain stories in You Like It Darker, however, have wonderful and clear cut endings like “Rattlesnakes” and “Two Talented Bastids.” 

It felt like Stephen King prioritized some stories to give his full attention, instead of giving that same full attention to all of the stories. The stories are wonderful to read, but some of them would have been better if they had gotten a bit more love to them and some more pages to read. 

Even with these issues, the book still has its moments and is a genuinely great read. It’s also very beginner friendly for those who want to get into the horror genre but don’t know where to start. 

If you want to have a good scare or read some never-before-seen Stephen King book ideas, You Like It Darker is a good pick to read. You can pick up You Like it Darker at your nearest bookstore.

by Nicholas Valenzuela

Snow White bombs the box office with a pitiful 87.3 million dollar global launch. Where did it go wrong?

Over the past couple of years, Disney has heavily led into live action remakes, with many movies being recreated including The Little Mermaid, Dumbo and Aladdin, with the newest live action movie being Snow White.

Snow White has been plagued with controversy for as long as it was announced, and most of the controversy stems from the princess herself, or the actor who plays her, Rachel Zegler.

Zegler made several comments talking poorly of the original story, saying that the story is a love story of a man who “stalks” her and calling it dated. She said that they changed the story, and Snow White won’t care about true love. She will be dreaming of becoming the leader she knows she can be.

On top of that, the seven dwarfs did not have any dwarves casted, and instead had people from many different races casted as them. After comments from actor Peter Dinklage, Disney changed the dwarves to be CGI in the “live action” Snow White. It left many people angry, feeling like many dwarves had been robbed of the most recognizable role. 

Rachel Zegler also commented on the Israel-Palestine conflict in support of Palestine, despite her co-star, Gal Gadot being from Israel and previously serving in the Israeli army. This caused so much controversy that Disney had to hire extra protection for Gal Gadot.

Something that definitely had an effect on the box office bomb of Snow White was the 2024 presidential race. When the results came out that President Donald Trump had won the election, Rachel Zegler took to social media to post on Instagram Stories, saying 

“i echo ethel cain’s statement more than anything. may trump supporters and trump voters and trump himself never know peace,” said Zegler on an Instagram post.

This decision proved tone deaf, alienating a portion of the film’s potential audience. Now, despite the major controversy, I went to see the movie on March 20th, a screening at my local theater that happened a day before the movie was released. How was the actual movie, and is it worth the time and money to see it?

When I went with my sister and mother, we decided to go and try to get the tickets at the door, something that my older sister thought would be difficult, because Disney movies typically have a large amount of people going to see the movie, and on top of that, we arrived around five minutes late, so we missed some of the previews, which was sad because honestly that would’ve been the best part of this movie experience.

When we got there, we realized how lucky we were to have any pick of seats in the whole theater because it was completely empty! We went in and another family sat next to us despite having the whole theater free.

One part I have to say, Rachel Zegler does not fit Snow White’s character. Snow White’s character in the original Disney story was very soft and demure, and Rachel Zegler’s voice is very powerful and loud. She objectively has a good voice, but it didn’t seem to fit the character.

The story starts off with Snow White as a child, given the name Snow White for surviving a blizzard. This is not a huge change that really matters, but one change that does matter is the exclusion of the prince. The prince does not exist in the remake. He is replaced by a revolutionary that goes by the name Jonathan, and Snow White meets him when he is stealing from the Evil Queen. 

Speaking of the Evil Queen, Gal Gadot’s acting as the evil queen was absolutely pitiful. Her acting came off as very blank, like she did not want to be there. Her singing felt off in this movie as well, as it just did not feel like there was any force or passion behind her singing. It felt very artificial.

The dwarves were actually one of the better parts of the movie, despite the fact that the CGI was not that good.

Speaking about CGI, the animals in the movie also appear to have the same problems that the dwarves have. They don’t show up as often. The original movie had the animals as a big part of the movie, giving them a ton of personality, but in the remake, they felt very shooed in, like they were just there because they were in the original and not like they were given any love or importance to the story.

One of the biggest differences between the original and the remake was the death scene of the Evil Queen. In the remake, Snow White decides to take on the queen herself after being revived from a true love’s kiss. She eventually runs the tide by convincing the soldiers to turn on the queen by simply remembering their names to change their loyalty.

The Evil Queen runs to the castle and smashes the Magic Mirror, which in return kills the Evil Queen. Although it is never explained how, she just vanishes into dust sucked in by the mirror.

In the original, the Evil Queen falls off a cliff after the rock is struck by lightning, but before that, the dwarves chased her with their pickaxes. If it wasn’t for the lightning being struck on the rock, the dwarves would have for sure killed her. In the remake, the death feels very artificial and not integral to the story. While in the original, it’s one of the most iconic scenes.

In the end, the movie was changed a lot and not for the better, which is clear by the box office performance. It felt like the movie was changed for the sake of changing it, and frankly, Disney might’ve had more success releasing a remastered version of the original 1930s cartoon. Save your money, and if you really want to see how bad it is for yourself, wait a month for it to be out on Disney+.