Book Recomendations

After this course, here's a list of books I want to read in the very near future.

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
To Kill a Mockingbird
Where the Wild Things Are
Tale of Despereaux
The Count of Monte Cristo
Tekkonkinkreet / Black & White

The Bicycle Thieves

I've chosen this film to recommend due to it straying from the norm in storytelling. The film is can be seen as a coming of age film. Neorealism was considered the golden age of Italian cinema, and for good reason; Italian Neorealism is a film movement that was a game changer in film. Instead of the everyday happy movie, these films challenged the viewers thinking. Not every film was happy, and more importantly, was so real it could be mistaken as canon if they weren't filmed so elegantly. Everything from the sets to the actors were as natural as possible, the actors being nonprofessional actors in most cases, and the sets being on location. A Neorealism film I’ve watched was Ladri di biciclette, known as The Bicycle Thief. One thing that I found out from the film’s title, the translation isn’t literal, the actual title is plural, which is a spoiler for the film. I think at it’s core, the movie is simple, surprisingly simple for today's films, but the way it was executed was unlike most films I’ve seen. I think the underlying story of the film covered the son’s journey of coming of age. If one sees the father as the main character, it’s a simple film, but if the son is the star, it becomes deep as how the whole world is sheltered from him, from being told to go away when crimes are made, to being hit for doing nothing. The ending has the son in tears, because that’s when the father’s shield is completely shattered, and the son sees him for what he is, and gets a taste of the real world. The acting of the film was phenomenal, I wasn’t watching a film, I was watching some guy with a camera follow these series of events showing me what happened. My personal reaction to the film was well received, if not above the norm, until the ending. The ending was sad, and felt very unsatisfying at first; it felt like a cut, instead of an ending, but, it made me think about the film. After thinking about it, it makes sense, and makes it more emotional of a piece.

Trump

When i look at I look at an image of Donald Trump like this, I think of the time when all the media nonsense was nonexistent. When I see this image, I simply think of a corporate head, someone that calls the shots and isn't afraid to crack a few heads to get his business ahead and keep it well. Before the media explosion with Trump running for president, I only knew him for his smart business decisions, like bankrupting his companies to get further ahead, cheating the system to most, but, not being in the wrong when it comes to a technical standpoint. When I see this picture, I think of him like when I thought of him now, not a man hungry for attention.

write a dream

Sometimes, in my dreams I'm there standing on a large rock formation, looking out to the surrounding ocean, seemingly endless in depth, yet there is a beach that appears only when you tire of swimming and need to rest. Jumping into the water reveals the brilliant colors of the coral reef below, something only a painter could create, especially color wise, blues that are bluer than blue, reds more vibrant than the finest Chinese ornaments , and crisp purples that would suck your soul away. Fish would swim around and tickle your toes, nibble maybe, but never bite. Eventually in this paradise, it comes to an end when you grow tired, when you dose off, you die, and return to the real world.

Reading from a critical position

With the short story I've read, when thinking about identifying versus relating, it sparked questions I never thought of before. I've always thought of the two words as basically one of the same, at least on the broadest sense of the words. While reading Even the Queen, with the intent on writing this passage about identity, I kept thinking 'yeah, I could say that I identify with the main character.' As time went on and I was able to meditate about it, I do not identify with the lead, instead, I relate. I've always thought about identifying as something that cannot be completely true, due to past experiences being unpredictable and the like.

One thing that struck me odd about the story, was the representation of women. There was only one man in the story, who had a very minor part in the overarching story. Even though the man's part was minor, it was well established that men were the rulers of the land and women had little place in the world. The feeling I got from the story was, even though there were hardly any men, that the men were behind a one way glass, looking in on the action, but never revealing themselves; always in control.

While I cannot say I identify with anyone living under those same restrictions, I can relate. As a person, I feel very few people can identify with those in this story because of the conditions being radicalized to the extremes. I feel this story comes from a place of relate-ability and the author wrote it from a place of heart, but I doubt even the author can identify with the lead 100%.

True Grit: Story verse

Before reading True Grit, I had my preconceived ideas about how the story was laid out, and how the characters interact with each other. With True Grit, and it's two movie adaptations, one could question what the true version is, myself included. The story verse was not altered in either adaptation of the book, but, for some reason, the byproducts were complete opposites. When it comes to story verse, I believe the author can only make the story, at one point they have to hand it off to the community, which is why there are clear differences in the two films. Neither is wrong, and there being such differences only celebrates how Charles Portis crafted a fine story verse which doesn't collapse upon itself when the characters are portrayed in drastically different ways.

Influence

After the class discussion about what influence actually consists of, and discussing how the Grand Budapest Hotel has a great deal of influential power, my view of influence has been changed. Before, I used to view influence as importance, not viewing it something that will happen, instead, it was something that has happened. I'd view films like Tron, Star wars, Pearl Harbor, etc, as the forerunners of technology; they set new goals and prerequisites when looking at current films due to having to best the older films with the latest and greatest. While I still view them as influential, I see it as a different form of influence due to them being long ago. Now, it seems like everyone has their minds aimed at the future, and because of that, everyone is trying to envision what the next hot thing is. Some say it's virtual reality, others, who aren't thinking about technology, and more are thinking about state of mind, are thinking about The Grand Budapest Hotel, in terms of film. When I saw the film, it was marvelous the way it was told, color and composition wise, each shot wasn't a wasted canvas like many other films before it. This film, to me, feels like it'll be cemented in the visual hierarchy of the great bench mark films such as Bladerunner. Sci-Fi films have copied Bladerunner to the point that all Sci-Fi looks the same to a certain degree, but, it's because the source was so great artistically. I feel like The Grand Budapest Hotel might have this same effect on shots and colors, since it was eye candy from start to finish.