Blues Brothers

Sunday I watched the Blues Brothers at the MCA building which would be the last Signs and Wonders showing of this semester. The Blues Brothers is about two brothers (who are always getting in trouble with the law) trying to get their old blues band together in order to raise money to save their former Catholic orphanage from going under. Thinking their quest is a mission from God because of what they are trying to save, the brothers becomes more bold in trying to escape capture from the police. One of the things that makes this movie so interesting is all the ridiculous car chases that goes on. The first chase was in a shopping mall. What I liked about this scene is how all the cars was trying to create the most destruction in the mall while trying to make it look unintentional. In the last car chase, the brothers had a huge army of police cars chasing them. The great thing about this scene was not just the unrealistic mass number of cop cars but how extremely easy for them to crash and be alluded, and how indestructible the brothers were. This movie was filled with humor and I loved it.

Ran

This will be the last time I blogged on Kurosawa film due to it being the end of his series at Signs and Wonders. It seems weird, not just because this series has ended but his last movie, Ran that was shown Thursday was actually in color this time due to it being made in 1985 (quite a time span between his 1961 film Yojimbo which was made before this one). Ran is about a king that divided his kingdom between his three sons. One son proclaims it to be a bad idea and becomes exiled because of it. The other two take their share of the kingdoms , kicks out the King, and wars over their brothers share. The exiled son takes in his father (the King) and tries to make right this mess but gets killed in the process. This seems to be the trend with any person who is given power. Imperfect man who is given power that requires perfection from them, never seems to work out. At the end of Ran, the King, his three sons, and (I would guess) half of the people in each kingdom gets killed from what I gather the culprit to be greed, hatred, and revenge. Kurosawa has finally stopped the happy ending trend in Ran.

My Top Three Music Videos

Tuesday's class on music videos is surprisingly one of my favorite classes in DM 101 so far. I didn't think I liked music videos, assuming they were all like the Video. Killed. The. Radio. St clip shown first in class, but after that, they were all awesome, one after the other. But my favorite ones which is not surprising to me, is the animated ones. I don't think of myself as a dark or violent person, but my favorite ones in the animated category was just that, like The Owl by I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, Massive Attack by Atlas Air, and Kaly Live Dub by Allaxis. What I like about The Owl is the amount of emotion the owl and the crow showed. There was no guesswork to figure out what was going on in their head and that's coming from a creature that can't show facial emotion. What was cool about Massive Attack was the transition of the monster buddy with its cape waving in the wind, to the bunny itself waving in the wind. And obviously the best part about Kaly Live Dub is the passenger in the car changing characters with the fast beat of the music. It gave me chills how awesome the two mediums worked together like one.

Yojimbo

I just want to say when I started coming to see the Kurosawa films at Signs and Wonders, I didn't like them all that well, mainly because I'm not a fan of old black-and-whites. I just came to find something to blog on, but I find myself wanting to come see his films more and more each showing. It seems like each film Kurosawa makes is better than the previous one. His recent film I watched Yojimbo is my favorite so far. First of all, there's two things about old black-and-whites that I don't like. One is there acting and special effects are oftentimes pretty lousy, (yes I know, what do I expect, it's the 60s, the knowledge of making good special effects just wasn't out there yet)  the other thing is, they often may make scenes drag on and on.
 Yojimbo is a combat movie and Kurosawa plays as an assassin, in this scenario he's a good guy who liberates the town of all its gangs. Typically whenever there is a fighting scene in his films, it's somewhat hard to watch, but this film he did a pretty good job at it, even the special effects was good. It wasn't perfect but for how old this film is, I was impressed. Another thing Yojimbo has or doesn't have, is seems that drag on. They had me sitting on the edge of my seat, if that tells you anything.

Once

I just want to talk on Sundays movie Once. This was a really good movie but I was bothered by how it all played out at the end, the guitarist (played by Glen Hansard) not getting the girl, (which was played by Markéta Irglová) but more importantly the part she played in the outcome in particular. One thing about her seems clear to me, she wanted no romantic relationship with him, but it was painfully obvious that he did, so why did she put him through all this heartache. At the beginning, he wanted nothing to do with her. It seems like she was just cruelly playing with his emotions. The guy was hurting at the end but she was smiling, happy being reunited with her husband as if nothing happened. The guy left broken, but then again, he was broken to beginning with. Then I started thinking of what she said at the beginning when she threw her 10 cents in his guitar case," I see you every day playing and you never played that song". I think what she saw in him was a gifted man in pain, that give up on life. I think all her questions, prying into his personal life was really just, her trying to figure out why. It turns out that he has a treasure trove of songs that he abandoned when his girlfriend left. I think Markéta Irglová  only intention were to get him to act on his talent. Yes, just like in the beginning, the film shows him broken again but this time he's going somewhere with his talent. She seems coldhearted at first but now she seems more like a mastermind. When it comes to her getting involved in his life, I believe she was just trying to ride the rail of, not enough to get him to do anything, to just enough, for his sake.

Hidden Fortress

This blog is another Kurosawa film on Hidden Fortress from Thursday night's Signs and Wonders. This film takes place after a war between clans. But the story is primarily about the strange friendship between two peasants, Tahei and Matashichi. I say strange because their relationship is constantly on the flux between a seemingly tight brotherly bond, to becoming a seething backstabbing enemies, sometimes changing back and forth in the same scene. The reason that is, is basically due to their greed for gold. The greed is far greater than their friendship. In this film, they come across the defeated clans gold. Their eagerness to have it all to themselves, gets them in trouble. They become slave to the precious metal, doing all sorts of hard labor in order to keep it, and fight over it all along the way. I found it funny how the two of them wanted the gold so badly, so they could have a lazy carefree life but ironically ended up work harder than they've ever have, in order to keep it. The gold keeps slipping away and coming back, as well as their relationship. They even put their lives in danger for it. Tahei and Matashichi went through so much together but at the end, they only got to keep one bar of gold. And for the first time in the movie, they divided fairly as friends. I suppose they realized, that much gold is more hassle than it is worth.

Miss Representation

Thursday night I watched Miss Representation which turned out to be a big eye-opener. I needed to watch this, for the reason that I was ignorant to the extent of just how powerful the media has, on controlling who we are as a people. Not only that but I was unaware to the magnitude of content in the media that has been falsely betraying women as only a sex object. I think a film like this is more geared toward men than it is for women. It is so easy for anyone, not just men, to overlook something that doesn't affect them. By not taking seriously the power of the media and the true role women offer to society, we have unknowingly triggered a bizarre form of self distract on ourselves and more importantly we are missing out on the potential women have to offer the world. I like how this film was presented, through the eyes of a new mother (Jennifer Spebel Newson)and the questions to raising a daughter. For any parent, to bring a daughter into this world seams cruel. To invest that much love into your offspring, knowing that society will hold her back from her true potential and treat her like trash, is criminal. Everyone in the media business should watch this film. I think single-handedly, if just the media changed the way women is perceived, the rest of the world would eventually follow.

Heima

Sigur  Ros, Heima is the topic of choice for this blog. I have never heard of this band before and it was the first time hearing their music at Sunday, Signs and Wonders. To me, the music has a peaceful melody to it, borderline sad at times. It is a really unique sound. For those of you who don't know, this band is from Iceland who had hit it big in the US. In this film, they return home to tour their homeland, playing for free as a way of giving back to their people. Their homeland has spectacular scenery with huge planes of carpeted bright green grass and absolutely no trees in site. It also looks almost like a wasteland with decaying buildings, ships stuck on shore, and wrecked passenger planes, with only a few small private communities here and there. I found it interesting that just like their music, their homeland is a peaceful land almost sad in places. I'm not sure why but I found the site of decaying buildings and old machinery more cozy than sad. But who they are as Icelandic people is reflected in the music itself. This movie was worth showing up for twice, to finally see.

Seven Samurai

This blog is on the second half of the Seven Samurai that was shown at Signs and Wonders. Unfortunately I was unable to attend the first half so I'll talk on the part I did see. What I watched in this movie was a small farming community including, the seven samurai, is fighting a war against a group of bandits. A lot of people died but at the end, it's the farming community that comes out on top. There was some parts of the film that was slow that made the movie drag on but with that aside, it was a pretty good movie. I would have to say my favorite part was how it ended, the little community of farmers won but at a great price. All the farmers sang with glee over there victory, as they work their fields, but not the three remaining samurai. The elder samurai just looked at the grave mounds on the hill, at the top was four mounds, each had a sword sticking in it. As the three remaining samurai stood by the grave, overhearing all the singing, the elder of three said," the peasants won but not us". I like how true to reality that scene was, I truly doubt that mere citizens have the same outlook on winning a war then the soldiers that fight to win it. That scene seems to capture the true essence of loss. When it comes to war, no one wins.

It Might Get Loud

One of the recent Signs and Wonders showed the documentary It Might Get Loud. Three great guitarists (Edge, White Stripe, Jimmy Page) get together and talk about their profession. At the beginning, they showed all three arriving separately to their meeting destination. Something I found interesting was, as they were arriving, all three acted a little cocky about themselves, toward the meeting, but none more so than Jack White. He thinks the meeting will end in a fist fight and his plan for the meeting were to trick the other two into revealing their secrets. Well the meeting started out somewhat awkward but they quickly got the conversation going by sharing what made them passionate about their profession, from their they shared their humble beginning, onward. At this point all three seem to be developing close bonds toward each other and their conversation began to reveal personal thoughts during their hard times in life. But back to that thing I found interesting. At the end, they are all openly teaching each other there techniques, no trickery necessary. At the beginning they didn't think they would like each other but ended with them behaving like close old friends. Something else I found interesting was how strikingly similar their lives were in comparison to each other, in each stage of their lives. Perhaps that's why they hit it off so fast. The documentary ended beautifully with the three played together like their own personal band. This film was a joy to watch.

Blood Brother

This blog is on 'Blood Brother' that showed Thursday. One of the things I found interesting about Rocky ministry service at the HIV orphanage, is how it affected him. The living conditions in India is horrible, the people there is judgmental towards him, passing all the blame of their tragedies and misfortune on him, and all the work that goes into protecting and taking care of the kids were hard, but the love those kids gave him is far greater than any love he got in the US or anywhere else. At the beginning of the film, Rocky sister reflects back during their childhood, about how hard Rocky worked to get his father's love and approval to little or no avail, but now when he goes to the HIV orphanage, those kids overwhelm him with it. It's no wonder he calls his time over there, the best days of his life, despite all his hardships. The scene that was most powerful to me was when Rocky was in the US and he gets a call about one of the boys in the home who contracted a deadly virus and is near death. Rocky rushes back to India to be by his side only to find him looking like ground hamburger. The boy appears to be already dead, not responding to anything, but just a few minutes with Rocky and he starts to come alive again. It seems almost surreal the power family has on a person. Everyone who had that virus, died in that hospital except the little boy with Aids. The kids at the home needs Rocky but I think he needs them even more.

Red Violin

I want to blog on Sundays, Signs and Wonders on "Red Violin". This film is about the long history of this one, red violin and all the people who has one's own it in their day. With the violin being the main character, the film would occasionally show a scene through the S whole of the violin to give the perception that it was living and that the viewer was seen through the eyes of the violin. But what I want to talk on, is the technique that was used to make this film. The violin had many owners, which means many short stories that made up this one movie. I found it interesting that three nights ago at last Signs and Wonders, the film making method was the opposite, when they showed "The Idiot". There it was on just one story, ONE VERY LONG STORY about an idiot that was gifted in knowing the true nature of people, two women who recognized that, their longing for his love, and all the drama that goes with it. It's not my intention to say which method is better, but rather to point out the diversity there is out there, when it comes to film making. One of the many things I liked about Red Violin was how the violin (the one constant) was used to tie all the stories together in order to make the method work.

Circuit Marine

This blog is about 'Circuit Marine' that we watched in class Thursday. All the films that was shown that day was message driven towards kids. Circuit Marine stood out to me for two reasons. First of all the message was on death which I think is one of the most hardest facts to accept even for adults, that everything that lives on earth will eventually die. The second reason is the effectiveness of its technique that was used in making the subject matter the easiest to digest. The technique that is used is to take the death of a living thing that is perceived as insignificant, and work your way up to something that is less bearable until you get to something you hold as, too precious to die. In the film the captain would draw pictures of all (I guess you could call them) his beloved crew mates, that have passed away, and he would hang it in his Capt.'s quarters. At the beginning of the film it showed a picture of a flower on the wall which I think was a really good idea because of all the living things there are, plants is probably the most easily accepted when it comes to death. Anything with a face is harder to accept but when it comes to annoying insects like flies it's also easy. The film kept its trend from fish, to the parrot, then lastly the cat's. To carry on with this trend would be (no pun intended) overkill. At this point the trend becomes self-explanatory that all that lives will eventually perish.

Gloomy Sunday

Sunday's movie night, I watched 'Gloomy Sunday'. The story in the movie is fictional but it was based on a real song (Gloomy Sunday) and the reported suicides that would occur after the song was played. It's no secret that music has the power to bring on a powerful emotional response. There are lots of examples out there to speak of but I'm going to mention only one that came to mind. I remember after the movie 'Titanic' was made and on the news there was a story where a reporter was trying to figure out why women all over America would breakout crying whenever the song from Titanic plays on the radio. I remember thinking back then, that's a pretty powerful emotional response and all it took was around 3 min. of music. But this movie 'Gloomy Sunday' is not just about a song, but also a love triangle that was formed between a lady, a hostess named Ilona and two other men, the restaurant owner, and its pianist. The three was in a tight spot. All three needed each other so they eventually decided to share Ilona. It sounded like everyone in the theater agreed that this love triangle was gross and so wrong (I'm going by all the grounding that our group was making during this particular event in the movie). But I found it interesting that after the pianist committed suicide, a new love triangle formed introducing a photographer turned Nazi Col. He was jealous over the restaurant owners relationship with Ilona and wound up sending him to the concentration camps. Perhaps it would not be wise of me to judge the original relationship, after seeing the alternative. I found this to be a really good movie. 

Rashomon

Thursday night in Becker Hall, I watched the film "Rashomon" which is said to be one of Akira Kurosawa best films. From all the films that has been shown of Kurosawas, "Rashomon" is probably the most unique or at least the most unique in its day. All this film is about is one scene, a murder that takes place in the woods. The murder keeps being retold by different eyewitnesses in their pursuit to explaining how this murder came to be and each eyewitness tells the story a little different from each other. Back in the day, I'm sure this technique of storytelling would have been pretty ingenious. If you think about it, it's pretty remarkable how he (Kurosawa) was able to make a full movie on only one scene and keep his audience entertained. But there is one thing that I'm not too impressed with, in the events leading to the murder, the bandit and the male victim were sword fighting to the death. That one thing I'm talking about is the two swordsman and their ability to fight. When they would fight, it was as if all their motor skills, like their ability to run, their accuracy in aiming, or just to stand in general, seem to have been taken away from them. Every move they made was way over exaggerated. Watching this fight was more comical then it was dramatic or suspenseful, which I doubt that was Kurosawa intentions. But in his defense, the film industry being so new and all, I'm sure that was top-of-the-line acting back in its day. To me, out of every Kurosawa film I watched so far, "Rashomon" would probably be my favorite.

The Story of Anvil

Sunday night at Signs and Wonders show the movie "The Story of Anvil". At the beginning of the movie I thought to myself ,"oh no what have I agreed to watch". It started out with the history of Anvil at its prime, they did everything (or almost everything) that society shuns. One clip, they showed an old 1980s talkshow interviewing the singer, instantly I laughed seeing all these proper, well-dressed, civilized people in the audience with the talkshow host standing among them, facing the stage where the rough looking Anvil singer dress in his usual rock cloth was sitting. He was clearly out of his environment. To make things worse, the talkshow host was reading the lyrics to one of his songs. All I will say is, it was about sex. The audience was gasping in disapproval as it was being read. The host intent was clearly to prosecute him and instead of the singer drooping his head in shame, he was laughing. Seeing this clip answered the question I had at the time, which is, why purposely do all that which is offensive to society. I think the band was trying to make a point. If it was up to man to judge who would go to heaven or hell, heaven would be a lonely place to be. That's not to say, what the band was doing is justifiable but rather to say, people tend to focus on the wrong things. Remember how in the Bible, the Pharisees would make all these laws on the Sabbath like, you can't walk through a wheat field because that may cause wheat to fall to the ground and that's considered harvesting or if you throw a ball in the air and catch it with the same hand, that's considered work. The Pharisees were focusing on the wrong things, and they hated Jesus because he called them out on it. Jesus and Anvil message was similar but their delivery are like POLAR OPPOSITES. But back to the movie, after about 10 min. of revealing Anvils history, the film cleaned up its content somewhat and it turned out to be an enjoyable film. I would talk more about this movie but this blog is too long for my liking.

Stray Dog

Thursday night at Signs and Wonders was the night they showed the movie Stray Dog. To say whether it was good or bad, coming from me, would be unfair because I'm still not a fan of oil black and whites and since all the dialogue was in subtitle due to it being a Japanese movie, it was like reading a book on the big screen. I could either read what was being said or watch the movie. And those seats, the seats in the mini theater was really uncomfortable. I don't mean to complain but from suffering from bedsores developing on my bottom and worrying if rigor mortis was setting in my joints, toward the end of the night, made it hard to appreciate the movie. I will say though, I thought the story was very well constructed. I can see why Akira Kurosawa is quite a legend in the film industry. But the best part of the night was after the movie. I'm not talking about when it was time to leave but rather during the group discussion. There's some parts of the movie that is quite significant, that I would miss if it wasn't for someone who brought it to light in the discussions. One example would be, after a long and exhausting chase, the criminal in the film was caught and cuffed, both he and the officer were so exhausted that they both collapsed and were panting heavily for air, then the criminal would start to whine loudly. I thought his behavior was strange but someone made a comment that it was because he (the criminal) was the stray dog due to his panting and howling he makes

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Drawing the Passing

I wish to begin by saying, this class has been very enlightening. The literature, discussions, and films we watch have all altered my way of thinking towards the better, but I would have to say my favorite part of class would be the films. I suppose it's probably because I can remember films I watch better than books I read or lectures I hear. But in Thursday's class, Prof. Leeper showed the film "Drawing the Passing" that I found to be the most informative. It showed a man (William Kentridge) at work on an animated film, but his technique was no ordinary way of animating nor was it anything I have ever seen but completely unique. Instead of drawing pictures on thousands of sheets of paper that would plays a scene, this man would do a charcoal drawing on only one sheet of paper, snapping a picture of it on a camera, and then alter or redraw it on that sheet, and repeat that process over and over again to play a scene. And his finished product would be extraordinary! It seems though, like his work was some form of obsession to him. His work is so painstakingly slow and tedious, and you can see it in his eyes that this was mind numbing work to him, yet he showed no signs of stopping or letting it get to him. I just think it's so neat to not just see the different ways to animate, but what type of person it takes to actually do that work.

Man Bought a House

The main theme in Tuesday's class was about love and how to perceive it. Toward the end of class we watched several short films on that subject but the one film that I believe I like the most, the one I want to talk about is, Man Bought a House. Since the only people who read these blogs are fellow classmates, I won't bother to tell you what you already know about how the story goes, but I do want to at least make mention the part I want to focus on. In the story the rat received three of what she perceives as gifts, it being the rat poison which was the greatest treat she ever tasted, the bear trap which she perceived as a beautiful piece of mechanical art, and the severed cattail she wore as a scarf. The rat couldn't makes sense to why he was being so nice to her. She thought he must really love her to be doing all this. What I thought was so great about this film was to me this love story seemed so innocent as if I was perceiving love through the eyes of a child. It seems like as adults we relate to love as desiring the most beautiful and sexy beings whereas in this story, looks don't mean anything rather it is the character of the man that brought on the rats love and it was the rats love that brought on his love. Whether you're attractive or as ugly as a rat means nothing to a child. I guess the point I'm trying to make is, it's strange that by seeing things through a child's point of view  reminded me about what true lasting love really is. I'm not sure if that's what the director was trying to convey but that's what I got from it.

Spinal Tap

Sunday I went to the MCA building to see the movie Spinal Tap. I thought this was going to be a serious movie about a real rock band on tour. Well it appeared serious at first but the things that the band members would say was ridiculous. The movie started out with the band Spinal Tap being interviewed. They were talking about why they went through so many drummers and their answer was that they kept dying, but it was how they died that was so ridiculous. For example, the first one died in a gardening accident, they don't know how he died, the investigator told the band at that time," some death are better left unsolved". The other drummer choked to death on vomit (someone else's vomit). Whose vomit it was no one knows. The third drummer just spontaneously exploded one day during one of their concert. All that was left of him was a small blob of green goo on his seat. The whole movie was filled with stupid humor like this and I loved it. I was laughing the whole car ride home after the movie just thinking about some of those scenes, it was definitely worth seeing.