Movies and music for the teens in your life

Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway star in ‘The Intern’.

Teenagers are notoriously hard to by Christmas gifts for – it’s all to easy to pitch the gift too old or too young – or worse, give something that’s just plain uncool.
Help is at hand. Here, TY student Sadbh Rohu shares her guide to the DVDs and CDs that teenagers would love to find under the tree this Christmas.

Movies we’ll love
Drama
The movie ‘Noble’ is a great pick. It tells the true story of Irish woman Christina Noble (played by Deirdre O’Kane), whose unimaginably horrific childhood at the hands of an unfit alcoholic father, leads her to Vietnam after a dream she had about the poverty stricken children there.
When Christina arrives she is overwhelmed with an urge to help these children, but how can one person possibly make a difference? She is confronted with the problem of having only three months to find a local partner, and fund and build an institution before her tourist visa will expire. Through seeing flashbacks of her early life in the movie, you begin to understand how Christina is trying to give the children the love and protection she never had.

Lighter note
Sometimes us teens just want some light viewing, and ‘The Intern’ will give you just that. Its star-studded cast includes Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro and Natt Wolff (much loved for his appearance in ‘Paper Towns’). Anne’s character (Jules Ostin) is the boss and founder of an online fashion company, while 70-year-old Ben Whittaker finds himself looking to get back into the business game and so seizes the opportunity of becoming her senior intern. The movie shows us how his charm, humour and life experience helps him to create a heartwarming and hilarious bond with both Jules and the other younger workers.

Crime thriller
Believe it or not, the movie ‘True Story’ is, in fact, a true story. New York Times journalist (Jonah Hill) finds himself jobless after it was discovered that his cover story was not entirely true. Now, with all his credibility lost, he cannot find a new job.
However, when Hill discovers that a man named Christan Longo, accused of murdering his entire family, has stolen his identity, Hills’ character sees the opportunity for a story that could rebuild his career. The two form an unlikely, twisted friendship as they feed off each other’s mistakes. This movie is a crime thriller, and it’s chilling characters have you questioning your judgement up until the very last second.

Our kind of music
Irish
Our very own boy band Kodaline released their highly anticipated second album ‘Coming Up For Air’ this year. Surprisingly, even though their debut album ‘In a Perfect World’ had been such a success, they decided to move away from their previous sound with their new producer Jacknife Lee. The new album made the US Billboard 200 and was number one on the Irish albums charts. The four singles released from the album were ‘Honest’, ‘The One’, ‘Ready’ and ‘Love Will Set You Free’. The album, which contains 15 songs is really easy to listen to, and better still, it’s Irish!

International
Us teenagers can be really hard to buy for and our music tastes are pretty diverse, so a safe bet would be the NOW 92 album. This is a two-disc album containing a total of 46 hit songs from the charts. It contains artists from Sam Smith and One Direction to Ellie Goulding and Calvin Harris. There has to be an artist on it that everybody likes, so you can’t really go wrong!

Up and coming
Saint Raymond gained popularity in Ireland in 2014 after he supported Ed Sheeran on his X tour in the Three Arena. He recently just released his latest studio album, ‘Young Blood’. It contains upbeat songs, such as the title track, while also having slower ones, like ‘Carry Her Home’. My personal favourite songs on the album are ‘Brighter Days’ and ‘Great Escape’. Literally anybody could enjoy this album because of the unique range of songs that you could listen to anywhere.