I wouldn't normally post short stories like this on here, but I wanted to share this moment of "this is my life" sort of stuff, and it's too long for twitter.
I called Mum today. When we were talking, she asked me, "If I want to send you a website on the email, how do I do that?" I was actually shocked, not because she's never asked me stupid questions about the Internet before [she has.], but because she's probably sent me hundreds of links in the last few years. So I walked her through copying and pasting the link, again, and then I had to head off to class. An hour and a half later, she texts me to not forget to read her email. I do so. She has copy and pasted the entire website into the email. Yeah.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Sunday, 2 January 2011
2010
It doesn't seem so long ago that I was sitting here, adjusting to 2010 and remembering 2009. January saw me finishing up my first ever college winter break, which seemed to last forever, up until the moment it was over. I saw Rocky Horror live for the first time with Greg and Jesson and, more terrifyingly and against my better judgement, with my and Greg's mothers. Oh gosh. I remember wanting to go snow tubing desperately, though I never did.
I had a birthday party here at home with local friends, when we saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show for my second time, and against the will of most of my friends, but I didn't turn nineteen until two days after classes started again, and to celebrate that, friends in college ordered takeout and enjoyed it in the common room, and we ate a cake that Mum had made me. I do remember that She Who Must Not Be Named showed up uninvited, and that bugged me a lot. After we ate, only two friends remained to watch The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with me, hogging the common room TV from anyone that might have wanted to watch the State of the Union address.
I took the Jeopardy! test for the first time. With upsetting results.
During midterms, I wrote a wonderful essay on the nature of dreams for my philosophy class. It was stressful, but it was actually a fun paper to write. Kelsey wrote one in the form of a dialogue between Alex Trebek and Johnny Gilbert. We also spent two and a half hours a week sitting through A History of Modern Philosophy with a very silly professor who is apparently mildly famous within his field. I also took my first college French class with an amazing professor, and I'm convinced she is Monsieur's long-lost-relative-of-some-sort. I continued German and I took European history for the first time since 'global' in eighth and ninth grade. I also started band and bassoon lessons.
I made a transfer application to Drew University, and was accepted with a small scholarship. Then I wrote them a letter asking them to defer my enrollment one year. They wrote back and said I wasn't allowed to take more than a certain, small amount of credits [something like 11] in the next school year. Oops.
I also had my first ever college spring break. It was two weeks long and spent at my own home, hanging out with friends. Trina came and visited for a couple of days and we went roller skating. After Easter, my triple turned into a double and Kelsey and I rearranged. I even got a fort out of the deal.
In April, I saw my first opera, Die Zauberflöte.
In April or May, I took a trip to Mount Holyoke to perform a German play which I had had a major hand in writing, though my character only had a couple of lines, only to be left out of the programme, and to come in third place out of three schools competing. Nonetheless, the German Theatre Workshop was a fun experience and I made some new friends out of it.
At the end of the semestre, things took a turn for the worst with The Bad Thing, which had a great deal to do with She Who Must Not Be Named. So I did not enjoy most of May, and I was just incredibly grateful when it was all over. It was also around that time that I got the news that Dan H would not be returning to Conn for sophomore year. He was, indeed, transferring.
Summer was the best because it was long and I did not have anything to do for a very long time. No job, no homework, just friends and relaxing.
There was, of course, AnimeNEXT.
Then, within one week, everything exciting that would happen that summer, did.
On 24 July, I went to see David Mamet's Race with Liam and Viggi, and I was lucky enough to get signatures from the cast and A PHOTO WITH EDDIE IZZARD. And then I promptly stopped breathing. It might not be an understatement to say that that was one of the most exciting moments of my life so far.
On what I think was the hottest day that summer, I went to the beach [*gasp*] to celebrate Kristin's sweet 16. She and I being as pale as we are turned into lobsters. Very pained lobsters. I seem to remember, at the end of the day, her mother yelling at her for not putting sunblock on because she was already extremely red, and she said back that she'd put it on four times and still got burned that badly. I also remember Ying seeing me come back out of the water and freaking out: "You're all spotty!" Having all but given up sunlight, it has been years since I had had so many freckles.
Just days after that, I went to a water park for the first time in years with David, Arianna, and Kristin. It was more fun than I had remembered it, and I did not get further sunburned. And by the end of July, I was packing for a trip to Belfast! Which I wrote about while I was there but never actually posted anything [maybe I should amend that...].
It was yet another dream come true, having never been to the UK before, even though it was only for a week.
September saw me back at COLLEGE, to my dismay, but newly resolved to bury myself in schoolwork and planning for a very different future. I took two French classes - one in film and one seminar on prostitution in the 1800s. I also worked very hard to get into Chinese 201, a class which would eventually get the better of me. I continued German with 201 and I continued my theatre studies with Technical Theatre, a class on the building, managing, and designing aspects of what goes into making plays. I had so much fun with that that I actually got a job out of it, hanging lights and building sets. I didn't get a chance to work this year, but I have promised myself that next year, when I have an easier schedule, I will. And of course, band and lessons.
There was NYAF and NYCC, and I got separated from Jesson and everyone for a long time with a dead phone battery and ended up taking the bus home by myself. But I did get to meet and speak briefly to Zach Weiner, which is really, really, really cool.
Sophomore year was dramatically different from freshman year, though only separated by a few months of break. I had a car. I came home almost every weekend except for two - the one after I first arrived and the one before Thanksgiving. She Who Must Not Be Named, surprisingly and to my great joy, did not return, though I wait in fear to find out whether she is returning for the spring semestre or is in fact waiting until next fall. Kelsey came back, though, even though she wasn't supposed to. Dan did not. I had my own room and I decorated it by getting rid of all the furniture except the bed.
I started thinking more and more about my actual future [ooooh~], something which I'd never wanted to do before, and which landed me in this upsetting school in the first place. I thought about what I wanted to accomplish in the film industry, and the incredible amounts of fun I had in my French film and tech theatre class made me realise that, though I love acting, I would be content working on films in a more creative role [ideally directing, but that's unlikely, I guess]. And I realised that I didn't only want to study film as a theory, like literature. So I started new applications, this time to the UK. In the end, they went to Nottingham-Trent University for Film and Linguistics, York University for Writing, Directing, and Performing, York University for Linguistics and French, Aberyswyth University for French and Film and TV studies, and Queen's University Belfast for Film and Linguistics.
The year ended with decent expected grades - they haven't been received yet but I'm expecting hopefully all A's except for Chinese and possibly my seminar. There was a very large paper on prostitutes to be written and a very strange movie about a German drug dealer and love triangle [more of an arrow shape, actually].
There was a fabulous Christmas, filled with gifts, friends, and family. I was accepted into Aberystwyth. There were many movie days, only to be added to in the early days of this new year. There was dancing. And there was cake.
So 2010 had its ups and downs, and frankly, I'm not too sorry to see it go. But I do think that it has prepared me in wonderful ways for whatever will come next. At least three things that I survived - The Bad Thing, learning German, and learning bassoon - can all be pointed at as I say, "Well I survived that, so I can do anything!" The year was, in complete honesty, heart-breaking, and I don't mean in the traditional sense. But it had its wonderful moments, and I wouldn't trade them.
As for 2011... I don't know what it's going to bring. My classes still haven't even been finalized for the spring semestre, and fall seems worlds away. I'll have a decision to make, in some ways difficult, as to whether or not I am going to the UK for the next three or four years, and if so, which school. But what I do hope for the year is the strength to continue dealing with a school that I don't love, the confidence to make this school work for me in my last months, and the perserverence to find and follow what it is that I actually "want".
Here's wishing you all a very happy and lucky new year.
I had a birthday party here at home with local friends, when we saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show for my second time, and against the will of most of my friends, but I didn't turn nineteen until two days after classes started again, and to celebrate that, friends in college ordered takeout and enjoyed it in the common room, and we ate a cake that Mum had made me. I do remember that She Who Must Not Be Named showed up uninvited, and that bugged me a lot. After we ate, only two friends remained to watch The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with me, hogging the common room TV from anyone that might have wanted to watch the State of the Union address.
I took the Jeopardy! test for the first time. With upsetting results.
During midterms, I wrote a wonderful essay on the nature of dreams for my philosophy class. It was stressful, but it was actually a fun paper to write. Kelsey wrote one in the form of a dialogue between Alex Trebek and Johnny Gilbert. We also spent two and a half hours a week sitting through A History of Modern Philosophy with a very silly professor who is apparently mildly famous within his field. I also took my first college French class with an amazing professor, and I'm convinced she is Monsieur's long-lost-relative-of-some-sort. I continued German and I took European history for the first time since 'global' in eighth and ninth grade. I also started band and bassoon lessons.
I made a transfer application to Drew University, and was accepted with a small scholarship. Then I wrote them a letter asking them to defer my enrollment one year. They wrote back and said I wasn't allowed to take more than a certain, small amount of credits [something like 11] in the next school year. Oops.
I also had my first ever college spring break. It was two weeks long and spent at my own home, hanging out with friends. Trina came and visited for a couple of days and we went roller skating. After Easter, my triple turned into a double and Kelsey and I rearranged. I even got a fort out of the deal.
In April, I saw my first opera, Die Zauberflöte.
In April or May, I took a trip to Mount Holyoke to perform a German play which I had had a major hand in writing, though my character only had a couple of lines, only to be left out of the programme, and to come in third place out of three schools competing. Nonetheless, the German Theatre Workshop was a fun experience and I made some new friends out of it.
At the end of the semestre, things took a turn for the worst with The Bad Thing, which had a great deal to do with She Who Must Not Be Named. So I did not enjoy most of May, and I was just incredibly grateful when it was all over. It was also around that time that I got the news that Dan H would not be returning to Conn for sophomore year. He was, indeed, transferring.
Summer was the best because it was long and I did not have anything to do for a very long time. No job, no homework, just friends and relaxing.
There was, of course, AnimeNEXT.
Then, within one week, everything exciting that would happen that summer, did.
On 24 July, I went to see David Mamet's Race with Liam and Viggi, and I was lucky enough to get signatures from the cast and A PHOTO WITH EDDIE IZZARD. And then I promptly stopped breathing. It might not be an understatement to say that that was one of the most exciting moments of my life so far.
On what I think was the hottest day that summer, I went to the beach [*gasp*] to celebrate Kristin's sweet 16. She and I being as pale as we are turned into lobsters. Very pained lobsters. I seem to remember, at the end of the day, her mother yelling at her for not putting sunblock on because she was already extremely red, and she said back that she'd put it on four times and still got burned that badly. I also remember Ying seeing me come back out of the water and freaking out: "You're all spotty!" Having all but given up sunlight, it has been years since I had had so many freckles.
Just days after that, I went to a water park for the first time in years with David, Arianna, and Kristin. It was more fun than I had remembered it, and I did not get further sunburned. And by the end of July, I was packing for a trip to Belfast! Which I wrote about while I was there but never actually posted anything [maybe I should amend that...].
It was yet another dream come true, having never been to the UK before, even though it was only for a week.
September saw me back at COLLEGE, to my dismay, but newly resolved to bury myself in schoolwork and planning for a very different future. I took two French classes - one in film and one seminar on prostitution in the 1800s. I also worked very hard to get into Chinese 201, a class which would eventually get the better of me. I continued German with 201 and I continued my theatre studies with Technical Theatre, a class on the building, managing, and designing aspects of what goes into making plays. I had so much fun with that that I actually got a job out of it, hanging lights and building sets. I didn't get a chance to work this year, but I have promised myself that next year, when I have an easier schedule, I will. And of course, band and lessons.
There was NYAF and NYCC, and I got separated from Jesson and everyone for a long time with a dead phone battery and ended up taking the bus home by myself. But I did get to meet and speak briefly to Zach Weiner, which is really, really, really cool.
Sophomore year was dramatically different from freshman year, though only separated by a few months of break. I had a car. I came home almost every weekend except for two - the one after I first arrived and the one before Thanksgiving. She Who Must Not Be Named, surprisingly and to my great joy, did not return, though I wait in fear to find out whether she is returning for the spring semestre or is in fact waiting until next fall. Kelsey came back, though, even though she wasn't supposed to. Dan did not. I had my own room and I decorated it by getting rid of all the furniture except the bed.
I started thinking more and more about my actual future [ooooh~], something which I'd never wanted to do before, and which landed me in this upsetting school in the first place. I thought about what I wanted to accomplish in the film industry, and the incredible amounts of fun I had in my French film and tech theatre class made me realise that, though I love acting, I would be content working on films in a more creative role [ideally directing, but that's unlikely, I guess]. And I realised that I didn't only want to study film as a theory, like literature. So I started new applications, this time to the UK. In the end, they went to Nottingham-Trent University for Film and Linguistics, York University for Writing, Directing, and Performing, York University for Linguistics and French, Aberyswyth University for French and Film and TV studies, and Queen's University Belfast for Film and Linguistics.
The year ended with decent expected grades - they haven't been received yet but I'm expecting hopefully all A's except for Chinese and possibly my seminar. There was a very large paper on prostitutes to be written and a very strange movie about a German drug dealer and love triangle [more of an arrow shape, actually].
There was a fabulous Christmas, filled with gifts, friends, and family. I was accepted into Aberystwyth. There were many movie days, only to be added to in the early days of this new year. There was dancing. And there was cake.
So 2010 had its ups and downs, and frankly, I'm not too sorry to see it go. But I do think that it has prepared me in wonderful ways for whatever will come next. At least three things that I survived - The Bad Thing, learning German, and learning bassoon - can all be pointed at as I say, "Well I survived that, so I can do anything!" The year was, in complete honesty, heart-breaking, and I don't mean in the traditional sense. But it had its wonderful moments, and I wouldn't trade them.
As for 2011... I don't know what it's going to bring. My classes still haven't even been finalized for the spring semestre, and fall seems worlds away. I'll have a decision to make, in some ways difficult, as to whether or not I am going to the UK for the next three or four years, and if so, which school. But what I do hope for the year is the strength to continue dealing with a school that I don't love, the confidence to make this school work for me in my last months, and the perserverence to find and follow what it is that I actually "want".
Here's wishing you all a very happy and lucky new year.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
How I Rang in the New Year
On New Year's Eve, I went to see The Fighter with Jen J. It was really great [but that gets its own post].
After that, I showered and got ready for New Year's Even festivities. Mum and I went to the Royal Buffet [the one on Rt. 10?] for dinner with a bunch of Mum's friends, and then we went CONTRA DANCING! I had a lot of fun and met some people. I didn't dance much because I'm too shy to ask other people myself; I just wait to get asked. Eventually, Mum got mad at me so we went home.
I wanted to do something "meaningful" as my first actual action of 2011. So I decided to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
The New Year, however, was actually rung in this way: I was IMing Liam, while changing, while getting FotR ready for viewing, so the actual 11:59 to 12:00 moment was spent with me looking for my xbox controller with no pants on and a trillian conversation window open on my desktop. Classeh. I couldn't find my xbox controller so I brought everything downstairs and watched the beginning of FotR and continued chatting. And then my eyes started doing the whole WE'RE TIRED SO WE'RE GOING TO MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE burning thing. So I turned off FotR [only at the Prancing Pony! *sob*] and headed back upstairs for a long nighttime nap.
If the first hour of the year is any inclination, 2011 is going to be a really weird, probably painful year, with some good sprinkled in. Uh-oh.
Now, with that all said, I just want to wish you an amazing new year, filled with luck and love and happiness. See you in 2011.
After that, I showered and got ready for New Year's Even festivities. Mum and I went to the Royal Buffet [the one on Rt. 10?] for dinner with a bunch of Mum's friends, and then we went CONTRA DANCING! I had a lot of fun and met some people. I didn't dance much because I'm too shy to ask other people myself; I just wait to get asked. Eventually, Mum got mad at me so we went home.
I wanted to do something "meaningful" as my first actual action of 2011. So I decided to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.
The New Year, however, was actually rung in this way: I was IMing Liam, while changing, while getting FotR ready for viewing, so the actual 11:59 to 12:00 moment was spent with me looking for my xbox controller with no pants on and a trillian conversation window open on my desktop. Classeh. I couldn't find my xbox controller so I brought everything downstairs and watched the beginning of FotR and continued chatting. And then my eyes started doing the whole WE'RE TIRED SO WE'RE GOING TO MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE burning thing. So I turned off FotR [only at the Prancing Pony! *sob*] and headed back upstairs for a long nighttime nap.
If the first hour of the year is any inclination, 2011 is going to be a really weird, probably painful year, with some good sprinkled in. Uh-oh.
Now, with that all said, I just want to wish you an amazing new year, filled with luck and love and happiness. See you in 2011.
Friday, 12 November 2010
Quick Post : Stop Motion
A cinematographic phenomenon that I find incredibly interesting is one revolving around stop motion. Everyone knows what stop-motion is. [If you don't, think claymation, like Nightmare Before Christmas, or take a look at this Switchfoot music video to see an example of non-claymation stop-motion.
When people use claymation, they want the motion to be as fluid and life-like as possible, generally speaking, evident in Nightmare, Corpse Bride, and countless other [and non Tim Burton] films and shorts. I would think that's pretty obvious. Sometimes, when a director wants something to look like stop-motion, they remove a couple frames and make it look choppy. Then it dawned on me, while watching this Regina Spektor music video, that even if a director is using stop-motion*, like in this video and the Switchfoot one, they want it to look choppy, the obvious implication being that, if the stop-motion were too fluid, the audience would lose the effect of the stop-motion and see the film as another, traditionally filmed piece.
*I know for a fact that the Switchfoot video uses stop-motion. As for Regina Spektor's, I'm fairly certain that in this video they use a lot of real photographic stop-motion, particuarly so in the beginning, as well as the film-then-remove-frames technique, though I could be mistaken, as animation and stop-motion are not actually my strong points.
Blogging and Stopping
I've been thinking about blogging lately. I've slowed down on my posts between freshman year and now, but I'm not the only one. Most of my friends that I follow from LHS '09 have ceased to write new updates. I was wondering why this was. Of course, we're all busy on and offline, but surely we're not much busier than we were at this time last year?
I think I've figured it out.
Last year, everything was new. We left our homes - some of us *coughcough* having never had the opportunity to live in any other town for more than three weeks at a time. We left friends, families, and the comforts of homes. We were pushed into many new worlds, including academic and social ones. We had to adapt to the new, unsupervised lifestyle of the college student, and we had to scramble to find our place in the new social scene. And we were blogging. Blogging itself was new, but we were blogging because of that which was new.
Now, we've adapted. We're sophomores. This is our new normal. So while still 'new' in the sense that we've only been living this routine for about a year out of our almost twenty, it's still old. We're used to it now.
I'm not saying that this is the only reason we've stopped writing new posts, but I'm sure it's a huge prat of it. I can't imagine any of us think that 'oh my gosh another day in ___ class' or 'hey did you see that really obnoxious thing that happened on Saturday night' could possibly interest our fellow high school graduates any more, for the simple fact that they've probably seen much of the same in the last year. And to be completely honest, how exciting does it all seem now to us, the writers?
Of course, we're also really busy.
I think I've figured it out.
Last year, everything was new. We left our homes - some of us *coughcough* having never had the opportunity to live in any other town for more than three weeks at a time. We left friends, families, and the comforts of homes. We were pushed into many new worlds, including academic and social ones. We had to adapt to the new, unsupervised lifestyle of the college student, and we had to scramble to find our place in the new social scene. And we were blogging. Blogging itself was new, but we were blogging because of that which was new.
Now, we've adapted. We're sophomores. This is our new normal. So while still 'new' in the sense that we've only been living this routine for about a year out of our almost twenty, it's still old. We're used to it now.
I'm not saying that this is the only reason we've stopped writing new posts, but I'm sure it's a huge prat of it. I can't imagine any of us think that 'oh my gosh another day in ___ class' or 'hey did you see that really obnoxious thing that happened on Saturday night' could possibly interest our fellow high school graduates any more, for the simple fact that they've probably seen much of the same in the last year. And to be completely honest, how exciting does it all seem now to us, the writers?
Of course, we're also really busy.
Saturday, 18 September 2010
End Women's Suffrage!
My sister showed Mum a youtube video that afterwards Mum insisted that I watch. It's a man visiting an American high school "of excellence" and asking students to sign a petition to end the "monstrocity" that is women's suffrage.
The video provides commentary on many things, not the least of which include the way people are willing to sign their name to a piece of paper without knowing fully what it is they're promoting, and, of course, the myriad of ways the American school system is letting its students down. It's also somewhat upsetting because small, fringe groups of "conservatives" actually hold that women's suffrage should never have been passed.
As interesting as a conversation about this video clip would be to me, what I found more interesting and upsetting was my sister's reaction to my and my mother's reactions. I was doing something else when Mum started showing it to me, and I merely asked "Why am I watching this?" She told me it was because she thought that I'd "think it was interesting", and I replied that "it's just sad". Later into the video, she commented on how "somebody's failing" - referring, of course, to the way that so many young women were absolutely clueless to the point of the petition they were signing. My sister became very angry with us that we couldn't take a joke, and said that it was "just a silly video" and that she lived with "the most judgmental people on the planet".
I'm not writing this to in any way smear my sister's reputation, contrary to what she maybe believe if she read it. I merely want to use this opportunity to discuss the way jokes and serious problems intermingle and the way that we often have very different opinions about where those defining lines lie. The problem between my sister's and my own interpretations of the clip were not in drastically different viewpoints on any of the issues addressed, but in our individual willingness to call that "funny". Basically, our senses of humour. What she thought was almost mindlessly hilarious, I viewed as intelligently satirical and incredibly upsetting because of the real-world truths it highlights.
This phenomenon is everywhere.
The problem with certain TV shows - Family Guy, for example, or even Spongebob Squarepants - for me are the sense of humour required to enjoy them. A clever one liner in a comedic drama like Castle feels so much more satisfying than watching Spongebob sustain possibly fatal injuries... agian. So much of Family Guy is intelligent humour, but the creators need to back those witty quips up with barfing that looks like someone broke a water main and with jokes about rape, which, aren't really funny at all. The "rape joke" thing has a lot more in common with this suffrage conversation, though, merely because they do make people laugh, but when you think about it, they're actually very offensive and can be extremely hurtful to someone who has had any sort of experience with rape. But I digress.
This short little video that sparked so much bitterness in my family portrays social undertones that I cannot ignore. Watching young girls sign up to have their right to vote taken away from them hurts because it's a right that so many people worked so hard to earn, and that so many other people around the world still do not, and never will, possess. The conversation about the fact that these girls don't even know what "suffrage" means could literally go on for days, and, in certain political and social arenas, has. I appreciate the creator of the video for the witty way he exposed these social shortcomings, and that's why I think his video is powerful. The difference, though, is that my sister appreciates the way he highlighted certain individuals' ignorance [for lack of a kinder term], which is why she felt the video was powerful. The only difference was the way we interpreted the video's power. And the fact is, she thought it was funny.
Thoughts?
suffrage: the right of voting : franchise; also : the exercise of such right
The video provides commentary on many things, not the least of which include the way people are willing to sign their name to a piece of paper without knowing fully what it is they're promoting, and, of course, the myriad of ways the American school system is letting its students down. It's also somewhat upsetting because small, fringe groups of "conservatives" actually hold that women's suffrage should never have been passed.
As interesting as a conversation about this video clip would be to me, what I found more interesting and upsetting was my sister's reaction to my and my mother's reactions. I was doing something else when Mum started showing it to me, and I merely asked "Why am I watching this?" She told me it was because she thought that I'd "think it was interesting", and I replied that "it's just sad". Later into the video, she commented on how "somebody's failing" - referring, of course, to the way that so many young women were absolutely clueless to the point of the petition they were signing. My sister became very angry with us that we couldn't take a joke, and said that it was "just a silly video" and that she lived with "the most judgmental people on the planet".
I'm not writing this to in any way smear my sister's reputation, contrary to what she maybe believe if she read it. I merely want to use this opportunity to discuss the way jokes and serious problems intermingle and the way that we often have very different opinions about where those defining lines lie. The problem between my sister's and my own interpretations of the clip were not in drastically different viewpoints on any of the issues addressed, but in our individual willingness to call that "funny". Basically, our senses of humour. What she thought was almost mindlessly hilarious, I viewed as intelligently satirical and incredibly upsetting because of the real-world truths it highlights.
This phenomenon is everywhere.
The problem with certain TV shows - Family Guy, for example, or even Spongebob Squarepants - for me are the sense of humour required to enjoy them. A clever one liner in a comedic drama like Castle feels so much more satisfying than watching Spongebob sustain possibly fatal injuries... agian. So much of Family Guy is intelligent humour, but the creators need to back those witty quips up with barfing that looks like someone broke a water main and with jokes about rape, which, aren't really funny at all. The "rape joke" thing has a lot more in common with this suffrage conversation, though, merely because they do make people laugh, but when you think about it, they're actually very offensive and can be extremely hurtful to someone who has had any sort of experience with rape. But I digress.
This short little video that sparked so much bitterness in my family portrays social undertones that I cannot ignore. Watching young girls sign up to have their right to vote taken away from them hurts because it's a right that so many people worked so hard to earn, and that so many other people around the world still do not, and never will, possess. The conversation about the fact that these girls don't even know what "suffrage" means could literally go on for days, and, in certain political and social arenas, has. I appreciate the creator of the video for the witty way he exposed these social shortcomings, and that's why I think his video is powerful. The difference, though, is that my sister appreciates the way he highlighted certain individuals' ignorance [for lack of a kinder term], which is why she felt the video was powerful. The only difference was the way we interpreted the video's power. And the fact is, she thought it was funny.
Thoughts?
Sunday, 11 July 2010
The A-Team - I Liked It!
I know it's late - I promised Saturday - but here is one of my two posts!
Comic book hero movies and summer blockbusters haven't necessarily been good. Ever. Of course there are a few gems out there. That's only natural. I mean, last summer the only movie we had to look forward to that fit that profile - based on a comic book, huge budget summer blockbuster, lots of explosions - was the infamous Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. So I understand why anyone might be wary when it comes to 2010's The A-Team.
But it was really good.
That's right. I liked it a lot.
First of all, the cast was amazing. Obviously, the original team was built perfectly - you've got the brains, brawn, charm, and the wild card. None of them would be particularly amazing alone, but when you bring their very specific talents together, the team is basically unstoppable. The team in the movie specifically was all that and more. Liam Neeson does wonderfully as the no-nonsense, intelligent, plan-it guy slash killing machine. No question there. A part towards the end I found myself thinking, "Of course he's not dead, didn't you see Taken?" Bradley Cooper, of Hangover fame had me nervous for a little while. Before I saw the film, I was thinking, "How could this charmer from The Hangover POSSIBLY fit in with Liam Neeson the BAMF in an action hero movie?," but he worked so well as Face. Of course, I don't know the original A-Team, but his character was charming, silly, and excellently executed. Then, of course, there was Sharlto Copley, better known as Wikus from District 9. Initially, I was worried he was just going to be a stereotype of a crazy guy, because that's definitely how he came off in the beginning, but he was pretty amazing. He had me laughing much of the movie through, and when things got rough, he pulled something crazy out of his bum and saved entire operations. For instance [spoiler], he and B.A. are trying to clear customs and he was supposed to be the rabbi and B.A. was supposed to be from an African country but their passports get switched, so to keep his cover, Murdock ends up improvising Swahili, and it worked. Then there was B.A., played by Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, an actor I have never seen or heard of before, though apparently he was in one of Jesson's favourites, The Midnight Meat Train. He was also very good - he never tried to be Mr. T., which I think was very appropriate, and he filled out the character quite nicely, bringing him a human side and a charm that one might not expect from a comic book depiction of "the muscle". Overall, the acting was exceptional and the characters all worked together wonderfully.
The plot was fairly decent too - it wasn't about taking down bad guys or saving the world so much as clearing their own names. But for that reason [spoiler], the ending was unsatisfactory. They clear their names but "breaking out of prison is still illegal," so they have to go back in. Face got his ex back, too, which at first bugged me a lot - she doesn't deserve him - but [spoiler] she actually slips him the key to the handcuffs through an overly-passionate kiss, leaving the ending wide open. Though if the cast is the same and the plot is as good, I would definitely not mind seeing a sequel in a couple years.
The effects were great but the CGI was never overwhelming, which is typically a problem that's been bothering me a lot in more recent movies.
There were also times where the dialogue was a little... cheesey... bordering on awful. But the chemistry of the actors and the light-hearted feel of the whole movie more than make up for any faults. I would be lying if I said anything short of "I loved it". I highly recommend this movie - and face it, if you want to see a movie this summer, your other options are kids' movies [though Toy Story 3 was amazing and I've heard good things about Despicable Me, they're simply not for everybody], Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse. So weigh your options carefully : I think you'll find that, besides Toy Story 3 if you're into it, The A-Team will be the best movie you see all summer.
Unless Inception turns out to be really good.
Comic book hero movies and summer blockbusters haven't necessarily been good. Ever. Of course there are a few gems out there. That's only natural. I mean, last summer the only movie we had to look forward to that fit that profile - based on a comic book, huge budget summer blockbuster, lots of explosions - was the infamous Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. So I understand why anyone might be wary when it comes to 2010's The A-Team.
But it was really good.
That's right. I liked it a lot.
First of all, the cast was amazing. Obviously, the original team was built perfectly - you've got the brains, brawn, charm, and the wild card. None of them would be particularly amazing alone, but when you bring their very specific talents together, the team is basically unstoppable. The team in the movie specifically was all that and more. Liam Neeson does wonderfully as the no-nonsense, intelligent, plan-it guy slash killing machine. No question there. A part towards the end I found myself thinking, "Of course he's not dead, didn't you see Taken?" Bradley Cooper, of Hangover fame had me nervous for a little while. Before I saw the film, I was thinking, "How could this charmer from The Hangover POSSIBLY fit in with Liam Neeson the BAMF in an action hero movie?," but he worked so well as Face. Of course, I don't know the original A-Team, but his character was charming, silly, and excellently executed. Then, of course, there was Sharlto Copley, better known as Wikus from District 9. Initially, I was worried he was just going to be a stereotype of a crazy guy, because that's definitely how he came off in the beginning, but he was pretty amazing. He had me laughing much of the movie through, and when things got rough, he pulled something crazy out of his bum and saved entire operations. For instance [spoiler], he and B.A. are trying to clear customs and he was supposed to be the rabbi and B.A. was supposed to be from an African country but their passports get switched, so to keep his cover, Murdock ends up improvising Swahili, and it worked. Then there was B.A., played by Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, an actor I have never seen or heard of before, though apparently he was in one of Jesson's favourites, The Midnight Meat Train. He was also very good - he never tried to be Mr. T., which I think was very appropriate, and he filled out the character quite nicely, bringing him a human side and a charm that one might not expect from a comic book depiction of "the muscle". Overall, the acting was exceptional and the characters all worked together wonderfully.
The plot was fairly decent too - it wasn't about taking down bad guys or saving the world so much as clearing their own names. But for that reason [spoiler], the ending was unsatisfactory. They clear their names but "breaking out of prison is still illegal," so they have to go back in. Face got his ex back, too, which at first bugged me a lot - she doesn't deserve him - but [spoiler] she actually slips him the key to the handcuffs through an overly-passionate kiss, leaving the ending wide open. Though if the cast is the same and the plot is as good, I would definitely not mind seeing a sequel in a couple years.
The effects were great but the CGI was never overwhelming, which is typically a problem that's been bothering me a lot in more recent movies.
There were also times where the dialogue was a little... cheesey... bordering on awful. But the chemistry of the actors and the light-hearted feel of the whole movie more than make up for any faults. I would be lying if I said anything short of "I loved it". I highly recommend this movie - and face it, if you want to see a movie this summer, your other options are kids' movies [though Toy Story 3 was amazing and I've heard good things about Despicable Me, they're simply not for everybody], Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Twilight Saga: Eclipse. So weigh your options carefully : I think you'll find that, besides Toy Story 3 if you're into it, The A-Team will be the best movie you see all summer.
Unless Inception turns out to be really good.
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