It is a Tuesday morning when Mohamed Elsayed visits the UWM Post to meet with me for an upcoming article. I say hello and instinctively stick out my hand. He does not reach to meet my greeting.

“Sorry I can’t shake hands,” he says. “It’s against my religion.”

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If you walked through Turner Hall during the English Beat show on Sunday, Feb. 17 you would have noticed that the mean age of the crowd was not 14. They were, for the most part, a good 20 years older than your average college student.

The opening band, the Rx Bandits, took the stage and shared their unique music, more of a mixture of pop-punk and reggae than ska, with the crowd of middle-agers. The only brass instrument in the band at the time was a trombone and it was rarely used.

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Anyone should have been surprised at how diverse of a crowd had shown up to Friday’s Limbeck show. There was a coalition hipsters, Riverwesties, Bros and a fair amount of people that seemed too old to be fans of such a rising band, but that’s what I think is most impressive about the band: Their ability to draw a crowd no matter where they play.

This was the first time Limbeck had played a venue as large as the Turner Hall Ballroom in Milwaukee, but it felt like an absolutely perfect fit.

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Typically I try to be humble about my current situation, because I know I am very fortunate to be having the experience I am, studying in Milan and interning for a renowned designer; but with Fashion Week coming to a close, I feel I must brag a little.

After working countless 12 hour days, the Maurizio Pecoraro fashion show went off with out a hitch, and has been receiving wonderful reviews (and I got to borrow thousands of dollars of Pecoraro to swathe myself in, even a mink coat). The editor-in-chief of American Elle magazine even stopped by the show room to check out the accessories which accompanied the beautiful pieces of the Fall/Winter 2009 collection.

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Tim Burton is one of America’s contemporary auteurs—he creates fantastical and imaginative films. But Burton’s visions are not entirely original. Like most artists, he has been influenced by art of the past, consciously or otherwise.

But this column is not about Tim Burton. It is about a 1919 silent film called “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” The reason I brought Burton up is because “Caligari” is a German Expressionist film, an artistic movement that has heavily influenced Burton, as evident in “The Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Sweeney Todd,” just to name a few.

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I don’t form sentences myself; I simply rip from the mouths of fictional characters.

While walking around campus recently, I overheard two separate groups of people quoting “Anchorman” and “Superbad,” within a minute of each other. It dawned on me that these two films are just a few of the many examples of movies that have become absorbed into the normal college vocabulary.

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Bob Barker was not just the host of “The Price is Right,” but throughout his nearly 35 years with the show, he became the show. It took on his personality.

From the cruelty-free prizes, which he insisted on after becoming vegan, to the old-fashioned microphone he used that uniquely fit the feel of the show, Bob Barker became an irreplaceable piece of “The Price is Right.”

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“I’m standing on top of the world,” the very first words of the movie so boldly proclaimed. But “Jumper,” the sci-fi action flick adapted from the novel written by Steven Gould was no where near as daring as its opening lines.

Fast-paced action scenes, glowing special effects and the sense of the extraordinary are what one would expect of the usual sci-fi action film. That’s what I expected and I’m sure that’s what Steven Gould expected when his novel, “Jumper,” came to the big screen. We were both sadly mistaken. “Jumper” was nothing but a big mess of a “there one second and gone the next” concept.

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If you are easily offended or even the least bit squeamish, “In Bruges” probably isn’t for you. Lucky for you people/babies, the movie clues you in on what kind of an experience it’s going to be within the first minute.

Before the audience even gets a glimpse of a human being, we can already hear Colin Farrell throwing down more f-bombs per sentence than a Polynesian pirate.

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Ripe with exuberance, vibrant colors burst onto the screen. Ambiguous forms dance before the camera’s lens. Exquisite melodies seduce and forge a binding contract. “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is a masterful portrayal of one man’s struggle with life in the face of crippling adversity.

Award winning director Julian Schnabel brings to life a film based on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby. Julian Schnabel has crafted a non-linear narrative that takes on the form of a rhythmic and twirling stream of consciousness.

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I miss the cartoony feel of the old “Advanced Wars.” It brought a unique quality to the game that made it less serious but just as fun. One didn’t realize how many people they were slaughtering or sending to their doom on a decoy mission when all the characters looked like they could have starred in a cartoon show from the early 90s.

“Advance Wars: Days of Ruin” seems to have taken that all away. Along with many new improvements they also have changed the cast of characters from a wacky ragtag army that fights an evil sinister villain you could find in a Bond film, to a dramatic group of emo soldiers that are mostly concerned with sharing their feeling than defending the survivors of a meteoric apocalypse.

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Ah, steampunk. Just the word brings images of scientific Victorian romanticism to some, and looks of confusion to the faces of others.

Steampunk began as a literary offshoot of science fiction, and evolved into an entire punk/gothic subculture. Early examples of literary steampunk include the works of Jules Verne, author of such classics as “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Around the World in Eighty Days.”

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Suburpia isn’t anything new to Milwaukee. The popular local chain rivaled Cousin’s Subs in the 1970s and 80s but was then forced to close down all 20 of their locations due to financial troubles.

With locations in Wauwatosa and Waukesha open for a little more than two years, Suburpia is slowly trying to regain their Milwaukee fame by opening another location on the East Side.

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