The Way Way Back

I had heard a lot of great things about the movie The Way Way Back and so I wanted to find out for myself why everyone liked it so much. To be honest I went into thinking that since it got talked up so much it wouldn't size up to the high expectations that I had from everyone else.

It surpassed all expectations I had and I ended up loving the film. It is another one of those "root for the underdog" kind of films but it was great. It is about a boy and his mom, his mom's boyfriend, and his mom's boyfriend's daughter going to stay at a beach house for the summer. The boy pretty much gets bullied by the boyfriend and it makes for a great film.

As I was watching this film I couldn't help but get sucked into it. I cheered at parts, laughed at many other parts, and got mad in other parts of the movie. I didn't have any trouble getting sucked into the world and life that the creators made in this film. It was a journey I got to experience with all the characters and I loved every second of it. Go see it if you haven't yet already, you won't regret it.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

I finally found some inspiration in the films I've been watching recently. So get ready for blogs.

Now, the first on my list is a classic that my family and I watch every year. We always watch the Charlie Brown movies during the time they are made for. This is the first time in years that I've missed watching It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown. But while I'm on my break, we decided to watch the Thanksgiving one. And I noticed a few things that I just find interesting.

The first is how true one of Lucy's first lines are. She had just pulled the football from Charlie Brown and she mentioned how some traditions just slowly fade away.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MmFfTJlIvhQ

Charlie and his family are supposed to be at their grandmother's house for dinner at 4:30. This Thanksgiving, that was the time my dad was expected to be at work to help with the preparation and beginning of Black Friday sales.

Another thing is that I just love this style and how there can be such a lack of lack of shading on the characters but yet they still don't look completely flat. You can tell that there's some depth to the character in how they move and everything and I just love it.

And then finally, right at the end I've always had a problem with Woodstock eating the turkey. He's a cannibal! That's just so wrong! Lol.

Frozen

I am very surprised that I’m the first to write about this, especially since many animators here I’ve talked to have listed their inspiration as “Tangled,” but I saw Frozen the other day. I thought it was a solid film. I know some people might complain about the somewhat scattered plot structure, or the lack of villain for a lot of the movie, but I loved it. The plot made sense to me, and I enjoyed the ways in which it differed from a stereotypical Disney movie. Also, I know that children are going to love this movie because my 5 year old little sister’s least favorite part of any movie is the scary villain. This movie avoided that and replaced it with more comedy and heartwarming relationships.

Sven and Olaf

The comedy is what I liked most about the movie, which was carried by Olaf the snowman and Christof and his reindeer Sven. From the trailers I thought I would get annoyed by Olaf, but he never stopped being hilarious and adorable. His solo “In Summer” was definitely a highlight for me. I especially liked the comedic music in the movie, but all the songs were solid. There was the occasionally corny lyric, but the melodies and vocals were fantastic all around.

Oh and the animation was really good too. The character animation was great as expected, but the snow simulation blew my mind. Anyway I highly recommend this movie!     

The Reward

Above is the entire short titled "The Reward". It is made by SunCreature Studio in over in Denmark.

I really enjoyed watching this animated short! Its cute and has a great little story behind it. 

This short is about two unlikely guys who are forced to share a treasure map and go on an adventure together. They end up becoming friends and form a strong relationship. Long story short, they realize that the real treasure is the men that they have become and and see themselves grow up into warriors and as lifelong comrades. 

I just love the character design and the unique style to this short! I love how the makers emphasized their relationship and the overall character development instead of the story (which surprisingly works!). Thus, the story is simple while the characters themselves are complex and interesting. The animators, producers, and writers did an excellent job in telling this story and sharing the character's insights and development in just 10 minutes. 

"The Reward" is quirky, funny, adventurous, and all around a quality animation. I think that others in the class will like it including Professor Leeper. ;) 

 Plus, the visuals and animation is so smooth and stunning! Just look at it!

Oh and did I mention that they will be making this into a series?!? Yep, that's right we get to see more of these two awesome characters! :) On their KIKSTARTER, they update on their production and even share some of their concept art and sketches which are pretty cool. I can not wait to see what these two do in their future quests! 

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The other night I watched Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I’ve wanted to see this movie ever since I saw previews for it a few years ago, so I was excited to finally sit down and watch it. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close stars Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock, and Tom Hanks. The movie is about a young boy who loses his father on 9/11. He and his father were extremely close. His father left behind a key. So his son travels around New York City to find what the key unlocks hoping to make sense of what happened to his father. I thought this movie was a really good, sad, touching story. It got me thinking about where I was when 9/11 happened, I was so young I don’t remember much. I was in 2^nd grade and I don’t remember hearing anything about it until I got home from school. I remember my brother and me being at my grandpa and grandma’s house right after school and they had the TV on and told me about it. That’s all I can remember about that day. I thought Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was a touching and a good story that showed the lives of families affected by the tragedy.

GRIMM

a drama crime series based on the classic Brother's Grimm fairytales, in the town of portland, a homicide detective, Nick Burkhardt, found out that he is a descendent from a elite line of criminal  profilers called Grimm, but there not like original humans. Grimm have an ability to see the creatures of the Grimm fairytales for what they are, basically they are human but a Grimm can see the other side of of them which are the creatures. it a really good show and it on it third season and the show starts every friday at 9 pm  on NBC.

Injustice: Gods Among us

From the creator of Mortal Combat, injustice is the a fighting style game that uses the Super heroes and super villains of the DC Comic world. there are four character types, Power(Ground), Power(Flying), Aerobatic, and Gadget. for example, as Superman is for Power(Flying) and Batman is for Gadget. and there is also for each character is different super move and a character power. so play as your favorite hero or villain and beat the heck up of the others in his powerful fighting game. but the sadness of this game is it does not have the bloodiness of mortal combat's fatality of this game, I wanted to see what kind of organs makes the Joker laugh.

What are YOU thankful for?

So first of all, how was everybody's Thanksgiving? Did you eat any pie or potatoes? Did you get a food coma or a Thanksgiving hangover? I know that I ate and fellowshipped well with my family, friends, and with people I had never met before. 

Thanksgiving for me this year was weird to say the least because this is the first Thanksgiving without my parents, siblings, and other family members back home in Northern Cali. Well, enough of that sob story! I can't complain though, I have such a loving Aunt and Uncle here locally and great friends who are so generous and make feel like a part of their own families and their traditions. Overall, I am thankful for my family, the grace that God has given me, and his perfect plan for my life.

What are you thankful for?

On a side note, to cheer you up, my Aunt Val wanted me to draw her some yoga turkeys so here you go! :) 

Oh, and to make this digital media related here is Jimmy Fallon's Thanksgiving themed "thank you notes". Its hilarious! (173)

So I hoped that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving and that you enjoy your family and the food! Also, if you shopped on Black Friday, I hope that you scored great deals and did not get killed in the great battle of the local mall! Oh and get some much needed rest guys and a Happy Thanksgiving! :)

Spy Movies Review

     There are lot of spy movies that director have made of spy. It take of lot courage, and some more things to become a spy. It would be cool to be a spy, but it a lot of work to become one. So here some of my Top Spy list movie. You can be any ages.
      3. Austin Powers: He a British spy that get his hand on to stop his brother which is Dr. Evil. The Women's like him and he like his women's. Dr. Evil and Austin are two brother when they were little their dad and mom was a vocation. Their dad went to use the bathroom and he look back the car explode spilt the Austin and Dr. Evil were Dr. Evil was raise by the Dutch. Mr. Powers thought that Austin was the only one that didn't die from the car accent. Austin didn't know that he had a brother in till his dad told him who his brother.
     2.Charlie Angles: The Charlie Angles is about a three girls that are friends. Each three are grew up different this guy name Charlie pick his three that can protect the world from danger gangs. The three girls name is Natalie, Dylan, and Alex. Dylan she is a tom boy that like to listen to medal, Monster truck, and bad boys. Natalie does like to get her hand dirty rather it getting a cow out of it mother. Alex like to do gym mastics, and bite anyone at chest. That how the Charlie become  pick Natalie, Dylan, and Alex.
    1. Spy Kids Trilogy: It all began with Spy Kid  that has Carman and Juni  their parent get kidnap by Alexander Minion and Felix Gumm. Alex and Felix was truing the spies into these cartoon character. Carman and Juni save everyone and stop Alex from taking all the spy agents.
      Spy Kids two Carman and Juni goes help this scientist and his crazy animals. Stop one of spy agent taking this  disks, so Carman and   Juni stop him  of what he is doing.
     Spy Kids 3 game over is where any kids play this video game and play. So Carman get held captive in this video game and Juni has to go into the game to save Carman. Carman, Juni, and Grandpa has to shut the game and protect the world.
     Spy Kids  All the time in the world  these other two kids name Rebecca and Cecil Willison. Marissa is a step mom to Rebecca and Cecil. Marissa is a spy and related to  Carman and Juni.  It is up to  Rebecca and Cecil to stop this time scientist. The Time Scientist got stuck in time when his dad was testing time and he got frozen in time to watch his dad to figure out how to undo what he did. Time Scientist watch his dad grow old and dies. Time Scientest tries to go back to see his dad one last time, but each time he does he false to. So Rebecca, Cecil, Marissa, Carman, and Juni save the world and time one last time.
     Those are my favorite spy movie what is your favorite movies.

The Kurosawa Retrospect

     So now that Signs and Wonders is over for the semester, I decided to write up my final opinions on the Kurosawa films as a whole since I watched all of them. It was really cool seeing them in chronological order because you got to watch how Kurosawa took what he learned from each film, and gradually refine his process. Something I noticed while watching the first few films is how much longer they felt as opposed to the later films, but the thing is...they weren't actually longer. In some cases it was even the opposite. I would attribute this to how much

Kurosawa improved his pacing. In his first few films, Kurosawa tended to linger on certain scenes a little longer than he probably should have, and seemed to move his stories at a slower pace in general; the most extreme example of this being his film Stray Dog when he spent 15 minutes on a montage of detective Murakami walking around the city streets while nothing really happened at all. In his later films though he really managed to tighten up his pacing; one his best examples being Seven Samurai. Though this film (207 minutes) was almost an hour longer than one of his previous films, The Idiot (166 minutes), it seemed 

shorter. This may have to do with the fact that we watched Seven Samurai in two parts, but I think it would not have mattered. Every moment of Seven Samurai felt like it forwarded the plot and at no point did I ever feel bored, which is more than I could say for The Idiot. Ran is the one exception to this rule because despite it being the last film chronologically, there were parts of the film that really seemed to drag on unnecessarily.

     Another aspect that was fun to watch across all the films was the evolution of Kurosawa's most frequently recurring actor, Toshiro Mifune. Toshiro Mifune was not only present, but a main character in every single Kurosawa film except for Ran. It was cool to see how his rolls in each film changed as he got older; from the young, upstart Yakuza in Drunken Angel to the veteran warriors in both The Hidden Fortress and Yojimbo, Toshiro Mifune was excellent in each roll that he played. I feel though that he was at his best when playing wild characters like the bandit from Rashomon and Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai. Those characters were some of the most vibrant and entertaining I've ever seen in film.
     All in all, I don't regret watching a single one of these films, and would recommend any one of them to anybody as worth watching. It's no small wonder why Kurosawa's works have lasted the test of time and inspired not just new films, but entirely new genres of film.

The Final Kurosawa Review: Ran

     Ran in terms of scale was a massively lager film than any other film we've seen this semester. It was also made a good many years after any other film we saw (1985) as well and is the only Kurosawa film shown this semester that was in color. Despite all these bells and whistles, I was still a bit disappointed with this film. The plot seems to follow the tried and true trappings of a classic Greek tragedy (and is also an adaptation of King Lear). We have a very classic setup at the beginning of the film where the main character, Hidetora, sets himself up for his own demise when he passes leadership of the family to his eldest son. The youngest son tries to dissuade him of this decision as he knows what his brothers are planning, but Hidetora foolishly ignores his advice and even goes as far as to banish the only son who cares for his well being. The evil scheming of the two other brothers and their thirst for power eventually leads to the downfall of the entire family.
     The story had alot of potential, but after watching three really great films from Kurosawa in a row (Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, and Yojimbo), this one came as a bit of a letdown, especially with the pacing. The first half of the film moves very quickly and has lots of intense action, but after an epic battle half-way through, the film comes to a grinding halt and we spend the last half doing...well not much of anything. It really reminds me a lot of the book of Job. Everything goes to hell in a hand basket right off the bat and we are left for the rest of a very long story just watching the main character morn his loss. On the positive side, the battle scenes were by far the most spectacular of all the films and the sets were enormous and very well constructed. The film is also of very high quality and rich color, but these elements alone are not enough to make a great film.

My 3 Favourite Music Videos

We were asked to post about our three most favorite music videos, so here are mine.

The first music video that I liked the most was Valentino by Diane Birch. I thought the video was made in a very creative way. The way she transitioned onto the projection screen with timing and precision was great. The way she changed her attire during the transitions and made it in and out at the right time was very precise. It was also very interesting to see Diane Birch synchronize her feet with the movement of the projection.

The second video that I liked was Cibo Matto's Sugar Water. To be honest, the song did not make sense to me and I did not know what was going on. However, the video was very creative. I thought it was a great idea to run two videos simultaneously, one in reverse and the other in a normal shot, and create a point where both of the videos meet at the exact same shot. Even though I didn't understand the song or the concept, I think the idea of video was fantastic. 

The third video that I like was Dumb Ways to Die that was made for the Metro Trains. I think the characters in that animated music video were very simple and interesting. Everyone has a very brutal experience but the way the blood comes out and their flesh is exposed is hilarious. I think just the idea of portraying way in which people can die in a hilarious way is profound in itself.

Bri and Rebekah said I should do it.

Castle in the Sky

(Possible spoilers…for you Karli)

This has to be one of my favorite Miyazaki films (then again, I don’t think I have seen one I have disliked yet), also one of the first I ever watched. And as I am watching it with my siblings right now, I figured I should blog about it.

If you didn’t know, the movie is about two kids trying to find Laputa, the castle in the sky, one because she is descended from there, the other to finish his dad’s dream of finding it. There are also pirates, and the military looking for Laputa, the pirates and most of the military want the gold, while Musca and the secret agents was all of its gun power. I think this movie goes into the difference between a child’s wonder, and the greed that seems to be held by many adults, for power and or money. Those principles can change, as we see the pirates choosing to help the kids in the end (but they get the gold), and Pazu at one point takes money from Musca to leave sheeta with the government.

So, my last thoughts on the movie, don’t let the power get to your head.

Random thought of the blog: Did you know that Miyazaki (at one point, im not so sure with his new movies) made it a point to put a flying scene in all of his movies? Well, this one is full of um.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

I was able to watch the play Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on my birthday. To be honest, I did not feel like watching the play at all that day, but I thought I'd go and see it anyway, and what I saw astounded me.

I was aware of the story before I saw the play. I remember bits and pieces of the Hollywood movie as well as the Bollywood remake of it. What I did not expect was how hardworking our theatre department. I was mesmerized by everyone's acting. The dialogues were well written and well delivered. I'd like to give a shout out to our very own Sean Fitzpatrick and Sam Jones. You guys did an awesome job!

(Picture Courtesy: Sam Jones' facebook wall)

I also enjoyed the live music. It was well synchronized between the scenes. This is a place where coordination is the key; it plays an important role in keeping the show running smoothly. Another element of the play that really kept the show running smoothly was the transition between scenes and sets. I think it was done extremely well because there were hardly any problems or delays because of that and everyone seemed to know what they were doing.
Another thing that I really enjoyed was the musical performance of all the actors. I think the cast did justice to the songs and performed well. I think we have enormous talent in HU and that talent should be encouraged.
Timing and precision go hand in hand. If either of them is taken away, the show can become a mess. I think the theatre department it doing a great job. I will try to watch more plays in the future.

Thief 4

so this game to me looks like assassin creed with 1-player action style and in a cool way. the publishers are Square Enix, creator of Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and a lot more. it come out onFebruary 25 of 2014 and I am going to going to seriously buy it. if any of you are gamers, and are concerning on buying this game, the platforms are for Playstation 3 and 4, xbox one and xbox 360, and on the PC.

and here is the video of Thief 4...

Misrepresentation

I was able to watch the documentary titled Missrepresentation. Coming from a country like Pakistan I was surprised to see that women are abused even in countries like the United States of America. They may not be abused physically or mentally, but the way the media portrays women as sex symbols has destroyed their virtue and chastity. However, media has also caused the portrayal of women to have an adverse effect on the women who view media.
One of the things the documentary addressed that really stood out to me was that idea that when women view media they suppose that what the women in that form of media are doing is something that they should be following. That means that if teenage girls in a movie are wearing really short skirts, then the teenage girls watching the movie will consider wearing short skirts regardless of what others think. Media influences people, in good ways and in bad ways. What media makers fail to realize is that by portraying women as sex symbols they are influencing the women watching to become sex symbols and the reason why they are successful is because they show some sort of positive result that creates a desire in women to achieve the result they have seen.
Overall, I thought the documentary was great. I believe it was an eye opener for me and I understood a lot about women in terms of media. The chastity and virtue of women must be respected in and out of media. I will do my best to preserve the dignity of women in the things that I make in the future.