What is it about a song that makes us hum it everywhere we walk, why is it so catchy? Why does it get stuck in our head? Some of these things are what makes a song good. This year, Robin Thicke has charmed the entire world with his hit summer song Blurred Lines which has been at #1 for numerous charts for long periods of time. Everywhere you go, you hear it. It’s on the radio, It’s on TV, it’s on Youtube. There’s numerous covers and parodies of that song. You can’t escape the “catchiness”. If you’re not hearing the original song, or someone else singing it, most of the time, it’s you that’s singing it. I will admit it, so do I. As an overall fan of heavy metal, I have let myself get afflicted with the catchiness that is Blurred Lines. I don’t know if I should be embarrassed or not, but I can’t help it, the song is just that good. When I come to college and my friends say hi to me, I always answer back saying “Hey hey hey”. Maybe I’m just going deaf, going blind, or just out of my mind. Needless to say, I’m a fan of the song, generally speaking. But I also hate it. Therefore, I am going to give a critique about something I am a fan of.

Despite being one of the most ingenious songs of this generation. It’s definitely controversial. The most common criticism towards the song is due to ethics and I definitely agree. The main cause of this is the music video of the song. The music video is just all sorts of awkwardness and disgusting. For those who haven’t seen the music video, it is basically, Robin Thicke, TI and Pharell doing all sorts of sexually harassing and teasing actions to 3 women and these women seem to enjoy it and submit themselves to these 3 men as if they were sex slaves. In the music video, the women are seen interacting with phallic symbols such as bananas and sausages, riding on top of dogs and are partially nude so to speak. On a quick side note, there’s also an unrated version of the music video on Youtube, where everything is the same, except the women are completely naked. I’ve seen it, I don’t know why I clicked on it other than the influence from impulsive curiosity.

So why am I talking about all this and chastising it? Because that is exactly the problem that I have with the song. It just seems so disrespectful to women. On another side note, the women in the video are not any better either because they just accepted to do this video and degrade themselves. I just fear that this song will be a bad influence on the male gender of this world. Some will probably think that it is fine to degrade women like that, but not in this generation. Some might argue, that it’s just a song, but even Robin Thicke himself has already said in an interview about this song : “What a pleasure to degrade women, I’ve never gotten to do that before”. He just confirmed that that was the intention of the song. Oh…and he’s a married. I don’t know how his wife reacted when she heard this song and saw the music video but there must have been some uncomfortableness. I simply think that they could have made a different kind of music video for this amazing song. Why did Robin Thicke have to take the controversial route? Did he just want to provoke the media all over the world for attention?

At the end of the day, Blurred Lines is still going to get stuck in my head all the time and this was just something that came through my head. Overall, the song is good, the music video is not.

 

 

When I watch movies, it’s usually on Netflix or at the theater and the movies are usually recent of this decade, so I don’t watch classic movies from past decades and I wasn’t born during those times but I have a lot of common sense to know that old Hollywood movies are most of the time better than the mainstream movies that we have this generation and I haven’t been able to actually see it with my own eyes, until now…Oh boy have I been missing out. Thanks to my college cinematography class and my teacher Lisa Schmidt, I got the privilege to watch one of the most powerhouse of all the classic powerhouse Hollywood movies from the 1950s; Sunset Boulevard and I decided to share my impressions after having finished watching this amazing masterpiece.

First off, the film is in black and white but I did not let that ruin my enjoyment. I enjoyed the film just as much as I would enjoy a film with colors. I still remember “that”, or should I say, “those” jaw-dropping moments during the viewing of the film and after the viewing of the film and I can assure you, there are plenty of moments that made me react overtly, but in a good way. I recall after the film had ended and my teacher raised the lights and decided to start a discussion about the film. One point she asked the class what we thought about the main character Joe Gillis, she turned to me and asked me to share my thoughts even though I didn’t raise my hand. I was still in awe and absolutely speechless, I didn’t know what to say, so I just lied and said in a quiet tone that I was not sure. There were too many things that I wanted to say. Let me get this out of the way though, this film is 100% good for sure. I’m more of a fan of action or adventure movies and this film doesn’t fit in any of those two genres and I honestly think it is better than any film I’ve seen this year. It was that excellent. So how and why?

The genre of this film is noir. Now I know what the noir genre is. In my interpretation, it’s a dramatic, cynical, mature themed story where one of the following common trends happen : The main character dies or evil prevails over good. Noir is supposed to show that the good guys don’t always win and that even the main character is flawed and not supposed to be nice, sometimes the main character is just as mean as the bad guys. Basically to dumb it down, noir is a genre where there is nothing positive, everything is sad, gloomy, cynical from the characters to the theme of the story. I think Sunset Boulevard did a perfect job representing just that. Joe Gillis is one of the most well written, well developed characters in the history of any narrative story. What I like about him is he’s not perfect, he is flawed, I believe we call this an anti-hero. He isn’t the stereotypical perfect  handsome nice prince charming guy that wins at the end. This is one of the main reasons I absolutely love this film, it’s because of Joe Gillis and his portrayal as an antihero. In this generation, we have the cliche, overused, boring stereotype of the main character having to be a perfect, handsome, sympathetic, likeable prince charming that prevails over evil and everybody lives happily ever after. You have no idea how I dislike these type of stories. I don’t dislike all of them however, I do love the book Treasure Island and the main character Jim Hawkins fits this stereotype. But most of the time, I hate it, thank god this film didn’t have that, especially in a noir genre film.

Holden and his character Gillis were definitely amazing in this film in every way, but I can’t give him all the spotlight. In noir, I also like to root for the evil guys, or in this case, the evil girl. Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond steals the show with her spot on performance at portraying a crazy, delusional, disturbing, old widow with an obsession of trying to revive her acting career. She gets more and more disturbing as the film progresses and by the end of the film, she is absolutely creeping the hell out of me I wanted her off the screen because I thought she was going to come looking for me next. But this means that she did an excellent job with her acting and her performance was accurate and impactful.

In brief conclusion, Sunset Boulevard made me leave the classroom with a grin just like how I was grinning through the entire film with all the cynical but humorous dialogue, the dark and twisted theme, the terrific acting and the shocking and inspiring ending that can teach the viewers a few morals and ethics about life. What makes a film good to me is not just when there’s a good story, good characters, good acting and entertaining scenes. It’s when after the credits roll, you just remain speechless because the film made the reviewers react in awe. Sunset Boulevard succeeded in making me react…and in a good way. It proved to me that a good film doesn’t need CGI, blood, tons of action, tons of stunts and 3D as long as long as it has an impact on the viewer whether it be emotional impact or etc.

So recently, Lisa Schmidt had tweeted this link “http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/worst_summer_movies/” which lists the films of this year that were not appreciated by the general public or the critics for whatever reason, whether it be the lack of effort in making it or the bad performance of the actors. Those films scored bad reviews. But let’s look on the brighter side of things. What are the best movies of 2013? Here is a list of which films I think deserve to be acknowledged and appreciated.

– Iron Man 3

I didn’t see the first Iron man or the second one…but I did see the Avengers and that alone was enough for me to get an idea of what is going on in the story. I’ve watched enough Marvel superhero movies in my lifetime to know what to expect when I walk into the movie theater and that is pure excellence. Robert Downey has always been a terrific and charismatic actor and I feel with age, he will only become even better the more experience he acquires. He could be the next Robert de Niro. His portrayal of the Iron Man superhero is in a way that audiences of all age ranges can admire and relate to. He plays an Iron Man that is not too childish but not too mature either. All the other actors in the movie are spot on as well in playing their parts. The special effects are like eye candy, but then again, any superhero movie with CGI is eye candy. The film is able to maintain the balance of being both serious and humorous. It knows when to be dramatic and it knows when to be funny, so the audience is always on the edge of their seat. It’s rare that we ever get a superhero film that teens and adults enjoy, but this one nails it on all levels. There’s a reason why it’s the highest grossing film of 2013.

– Despicable Me 2

I recently had the chance to see this one while I was on vacation in Vietnam. My cousins love cute, funny, non-serious movies and once in a while, I do as well. So they invited me to come see this fantastic sequel at the movie theater. This is the only computer-animated film that made it on my list…it’s also because it’s the only computer-animated film I saw this year, but I doubt I would need to see any other after I’ve seen this one. When you watch this movie, you can’t help but smile. There is no way you can be in a bad mood while watching this nor after watching this. I think we’ve all heard by now the hilarious voices that those little yellow people ( I don’t know what they’re called ) make that it has become like a mainstream thing. Some people have made soundboards for this and others have it as their ringtone. This film is absolutely funny from beginning to end. I also like the concept of the main character being a former villain and is now trying to be a good person. Not necessarily an “anti-hero”, but more of a bad guy trying to seek redemption, I like these kind of stories and when it takes a comedic approach, that’s perfectly fine with me. Overall, good performance by the voice actors, clever ideas, very funny, I would recommend watching this even if you’re a christmas grinch or any kind of grinch.

– World War Z

Now this right here, this is a true masterpiece and my favorite one out of this list. It may possibly be my favorite one of this year, but I’m probably just saying that because the second Hobbit film doesn’t come out until December. This is definitely my type of film, not zombie films (even though this is one), but I mean films that take more of a dramatic serious tone where the main character is not perfect and not the generic handsome guy that is stronger than everyone in the film. Brad Pitt’s character has flaws, he’s not an invincible, immortal guy with superpowers, he’s just a human being that’s using his own skills, intuition and instincts to survive, no miniguns with infinite ammo, the only experience he has is being a UN employee prior to the zombie outbreak which is pretty much the plot of the film. In addition, he’s like one of the only men out there that can rock the long blonde hair look, but coming from an asian like me, that probably doesn’t mean much. The flow of the plot is consistent, understandable and keeps the audience’s attention all the way until the end for a satisfying conclusion. This film is a good representation of what an apocalyptic zombie outbreak in the real world would be like in the future and how the human race would react to this type of situation regardless of the silly noises that the zombies make which does make the film kind of funny at some moments. Be warned, there will be moments where the film uses cheap jump scares, such as a zombie popping up right in front of that big cinema screen and making a loud noise, but this is not real fear, it’s only a temporary thing to startle you, but do not worry if you think the film is scary, it’s not. This could be good for some people who hate being scared and disappointing for some people who were expecting horror elements from this film because this film is still tagged on the internet and in the theaters as a horror film. Overall, if you like zombie movies, watch this, enough said.

– Oz the Great and Powerful

This one was a fantasy adventure film about a man who meets some allies along the way and in the end has to defeat a witch. Sounds familiar right? Yes indeed, Oz the Great and Powerful is based on L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels and The Wizard Of Oz film. It’s actually a parody, a pretty entertaining one at that and it has Mila Kunis. The film probably scores extra points just for that…most likely from guys with hormones. You can’t blame us, it’s Mila Kunis. This film definitely has some impressive CGI works. James Franco’s interactions with the monkey voiced by Zach Braff and the living china girl doll voiced by Joey King are the highlights of the film and I would say some of the best dialogue in acting. Beware if you like realistic films though, there is nothing realistic about this film at all and don’t worry if you don’t see any colors at the beginning of the film, it starts out in black and white but will start showing colors after a dozen minutes. I would say the themes in this film are about friendship, trust and confidence. The ending is also good because it teaches an important moral / life lesson and that is to never leave your friends behind, always be there for them and always believe in yourself as well. This just shows how a film as silly and ridiculous as this can still send a powerful message to its audience all while being exceptionally entertaining.

I remember last summer being bored, so I thought to myself, why not watch a movie on my Netflix? I decided to watch the popular but controversial film that all the fangirls at my high school kept talking about, I’m sure you’ve seen it or at least heard of it. Yes…The Hunger Games, one controversial messy bloodbath of underage individuals engaging in lethal combat, starring the amazing and beautiful Jennifer Lawrence, but I’ll talk about my crush on Jennifer Lawrence and how attractive she is when holding a bow in another blog when I have the time. For those of you who don’t know what the Hunger Games series are about, read the book. No, I’m just kidding, I’ll get back to that in a minute, because after all, today’s blog will be focused on the aspect of comparing the film adaptation of a story to the original book adaptation and sometimes vice versa is possible as well, but the former is a lot more common. I enjoyed watching the movie, everything about it was entertaining, each actor played their part very well, the scenery and tense atmosphere was spot on and the interactions between the characters such as Katniss and Peeta was adorable but also not too cliche like Twilight…and of course…the violence…I’m a boy, why would I not love the violence and I don’t know what’s the big deal with this controversy of teens killing each other. The violence is not even that graphic, we barely see any blood. The director seemed more focused on telling a good story rather than trying to show off his skills with CGI and that is perfect the way it is. Overall, it’s a great movie if you can disregard the fact that we do see teens killing and getting killed. There is a reason that these kids are pitted against each other in an arena, it’s part of the story, the director is not trying to piss anybody off ( I apologize for that vocabulary), so don’t worry.

Now, I was one of those people that watched this movie without reading the book beforehand and for a bunch of other movies too like The Shawshank Redemption and World War Z. All the people that I know that love the Hunger Games movie have read the book before the movie and they all say the book is better. I believe them no doubt about it. The book is usually better than the movie for most stories because for one, it is more open to the audience that is experiencing the story. Maybe it’s because when you read, you can use your imagination to picture the scenario that’s happening and that makes it more exciting. The author’s descriptions of the characters, the settings, the mood and the events are also more elaborated. When I read, I don’t know what the main character looks like. I have to assemble all these descriptions that the author has written about the main character and use my own imagination to picture what the character look like, same thing for the settings. This makes it much more amusing, it’s like a mild interaction. It’s like a small interactive teasing game between the reader and the author. So if I were to see a film adaptation of a book that I just read and I see what the main character looks like in the film, I would just be like “Oh, I never pictured him/her like this.” The shock factor is gone. In addition, usually in a film, there are so many things left out or the portrayal of the characters are not accurate. Don’t get me wrong, I watch films because I’m lazy and I’m a sucker for visual entertainment and a night out with friends at the movie theater, but I know that the quality of immersion you get from a book is usually superior.

But what about the general public that just want to watch movies and dislike reading? Are there any good points to watching the film compared to reading the book? Yes there is. Watching a film can also be an exciting way to get a taste of the story in all it’s animated picture and CGI goodness. It’s a much more casual entertainment option and the audience doesn’t have to give much effort to watch something compared to reading something. Film definitely wins points over books in the audio department. You can hear the narration, you can hear the characters speaking, when you read a book, you have to be quiet and the people around you have to be quiet, audio is pretty much nonexistent when it comes to reading. Believe or not, being able to hear plays an influential role in the enjoyment of the audience when it comes to any form of media. This is kind of a nerdy example, but when I play a first person shooter video game…say Call of Duty on Multiplayer, if I play with the sound off, guaranteed I’m probably going to be on the bottom of the scoreboard or I will have no idea what is going on. I need sound to hear the footsteps so I know when an enemy is approaching or if a grenade just exploded near me so I can bail out of there. I also need the sound so I can hear the announcer say which team completed which objective or the time remaining until the match is over. Now, try to watch a movie or a sitcom with the volume muted. Pretty lame now isn’t it? How are you gonna laugh if you don’t hear Sheldon saying Bazinga or what Howard Wolowitz is yelling to his mom? How are you gonna be scared if you just saw that character just walk into the haunted house but you don’t hear the doors creaking or the victims screaming and all your hear is your mother blow drying her hair in the bathroom?

In conclusion, films vs movies are a love it or hate it relationship and we all prefer our own ways of experiencing a story in a certain way compared to another individual. I for one still prefer watching films even while knowing that the books are superior most of the time.

“Liking” and “appreciating”, two words that seem to have the same meaning…or do they really?

“I like playing Tiny Tower.”

“I appreciate playing Tiny Tower.”

Which of the two senteces above sounds better? The first one right? As you can see, there is a difference between these two terms and more often that we know it, we mistakengly get confused or flustered from how to use these two words properly. I do admit that it’s not obvious but I feel that it is important to be able to distinguish between the two terms. Anyways, here is what I think is the difference between liking and appreciating.

Right from the start, when you hear the word “like”, it sounds like the more casual word compared to “appreciate”. It is such a common, overused word in our everyday vocabulary, compared to the word “appreciate”, nobody seems to like to use this word. Maybe it sounds too boring, it’s too long to say or write and we are just too lazy and don’t want to give the effort to say it. “Like” is the more quick and efficient word with a direct meaning and it ends there. There’s nothing more to it.

“Appreciate” is a much more beautiful word but we can’t use it casually. There are times where it is more ideal to use it tho…I mean though (haha sorry recent Ray William Johnson video had me cracking up). First off, when you hear the word “appreciate”, it sounds more professional, it’s a word that would be used to give a positive critique to something. For example, the recent movie review of Riddick that Lisa Schmidt posted on her twitter. This would be considered an appreciation because the reviewer is elaborating in a full blown paragraphed and well structured article on why she likes the movie instead of just saying that she likes it. Movie reviews are common forms of appreciation, only when the reviewer actually likes the movie of course. Here’s another example to prove my point.

There are times where the word “appreciate” could also be a synonym for “thank you” where you are immensely grateful for something. For example in the following sentence:

” I appreciate you sending your condolences.” In this case, using the word “appreciate” would be ideal. Now look at how it sounds when I use the casual word:

“I like that you sent your condolences.” I don’t know about you, but using this word in this particular type of situation sounds awkward as hell. In addition it is morally wrong because it sounds rude.

In a brief recap, the difference between these two words is vague and not always obvious to point out, but hopefully, we all know in which situation it is preferable to use which word, especially in movie class with Lisa where we will be both “liking” and “appreciating” films.

*Before I leave, I know this is a little off topic but I would appreciate any classmate reading this to show your support to my band by giving that like button on the fanpage a gentle click… I would “APPRECIATE” it 😉  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heroes-Avengers/270624456372123

This week, my teacher in movie class brought up a fairly debatable subject which made us rethink and truly reflect about what we already know. What is art? When I heard this question, I didn’t quite reflect immediately because I was in some kind of trance, in a deep thought trying to break down the components and structure of the question to fully understand it. The entire class agreed that art is a form of expression, of creativity that is represented with visual pieces of work, such as a painting, a book that you wrote, or a movie that you made. But is it really just that? It can’t be, I thought to myself. It can’t be that simple of an explanation, because then, everybody in the world would be an artist that has created a work of art. I doubt that’s the case. There must be more to it.

Now first of all, let me say that I am a musician. I play drums and I have composed numerous songs for my band. Does this make me an artist? Most of you would answer in a quick and direct answer: “yes”, because I intentionally used my artistic human ingenuity to create something that was a direct source of my ideas and inspirations. However, if I was walking on a winter day and I accidentally fall flat on my back on the snow and left behind a snow angel, would this be considered art? Some would agree, while others would disagree. Regardless, it is quite bold, controversial and awkward to be questioning on what is art. But just for fun, I will share with you what I think.

 

I think an important factor that determines if something is art or not would be if the artist created it intentionally. So if I were to go back to that snow angel example above, it’s not art because I did not make that on purpose. Another important factor that determines if something is art or not would be is its availability for visual display. Is the artist willing to present it to a public, or did he make it for himself only? Now this gets tricky, sometimes an artist will have created a piece of art for his own personal reasons or to satisfy his own boredom  and it would still be considered art…if it were to be displayed to be viewed by the general public for example in a museum. For example, Hitler’s hobby was to paint, he wasn’t really good at at it and he’s one of the most terrible people in the world. He is known for his genocidal acts, not for being an artist, but people are still buying his paintings and calling it art.  As you can see, trying to define what art is and what isn’t is kind of a double-edged sword. There’s a credible opinion but then there’s the total opposite of an opinion and it stays just as credible.

One factor that apparently determines if a work of art really is art, is if it represents something or someone or somewhere or whatever. I disagree with this. There are some works of art out there that don’t even represent anything and they’re not even aesthetically pleasing either, but for some reason, they are considered masterpieces and appreciated by the most reputed art critics in the world.

To conclude, the definition of art remains an open controversy to many, but maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be and it’s better like that.