Today's post is all about lurve. This word can mean and be a lot of things, I want to focus on one particular failed love since the Grammy's just happened and Facebook and Twitter definitely went boom with this one. Chris Brown and Rihanna. Both performing at the Grammies.
There were hate images and statuses on Facebook and Twitter alike and then Chris Brown himself tweeted telling everyone to hate it because it didn't matter now that he had a grammy. Here's my thing. I like Chris Brown's music. If he did not go to jail that's the justice systems fail. If he gets invited to the Grammies and still comes out with CD's I'm supposed to be angry or boycott it because he's a douche? I just don't see it. I did not turn on the grammies to see him possibly hit Rihanna. I do not know Chris Brown. So I like his music, that has nothing to do with his personal life.
In the end this all goes down to tabloids and sites like Perez. Sure I get a little starstruck sometimes when meeting a celebrity, but this whole whose dating who? How does she look without makeup? It's all just creepy and should not effect a song or a film or whatever form of media these celebs participate in. It does I just do not necessarily like this. In the early years of film actors and actresses were not even named. Of course around 1912 that changed and the Star System was born. Actors were named and would even go around promoting films. If you got a film staring Mary Pickford it would probably be a hit. When Elvis first became popular they would keep his picture off of his albums because he had a distinctive African American sound and at first by doing this the record company could draw in more listeners.
Now it would be impossible to hide such information as a celebrities name or skin color (unless your MJ. Am I right or am I right?) But seriously with this technology age I think we the consumers need to back off celebrities and their personal lives a little more since all this technology makes stalking too easy.
Kimberly
Note: Yes the title is a sick joke of sorts. Laugh with me or scorn me. It's cool either way.
A Pretty Reckless day means a day that one feels the need to listen to The Pretty Reckless. I'm considering adding this to urbandict.
The Pretty Reckless. Not much to say in this conversation, the players are not really important. The music, that is where it's at. It's rock with punk and alternative and all little bits of different rock in there. It's dark dreary and fun. It's romantic? and incredibly messed up.
The possibilities that make up a Pretty Reckless day include:
at some point thinking "WOW today sucks"
those days when your feeling BAMF and wanna rock that feel with the right music
a day when everything goes wrong
a day when your sure the world and god is against you
any other day with a super depressing or BAMF like moment in it
Of course, you can listen to TPR any day and every day, but in my experience it's like getting any new music you listen for a while then it gets old. However, TPR may get old until that Pretty Reckless day comes along and it is the best music to listen to on a day like that. Seriously, I know this post has no special media meaning or whatever, but look them up and love them. The point is, it's been a Pretty Reckless day for me and misery loves her some company especially the angry depressing music kind :)
Kimberly
note: They are back on tour...fingers crossed I'm seeing them in Hollywood in March with Deb! Also, I'm putting some of their songs in the playlist, however there were a few faves I couldn't find so I'm going to list em' here for you to look up later:
"Where Did Jesus Go?"
"Panic"
"Heart"
and more obviously I'm not just going to make a list of EVERY song, but it hurts to leave some out!
Silent movies. Throughout the last couple of weeks I have had to pleasure and pain of watching quite a few. The thing is, before talkies came into the picture (ha double entendre) silent films had become an art form of their own. Back in the day, they were called silent dramas to differentiate between live dramas which were on stages.
The acting was pretty bad in the beginning. It was too much. D.W. Griffith was one of the first film makers that had his cast tone it down. Georges Melies was definitely the man with the ideas. He came up with ways to do many special fx. Edwin S. Porter has been dubbed the "Father of the Narrative Story". Back to D.W. Griffith the "Father of Film Grammar". The shot which was the same as the scene has now become a singular thing within a whole scene.
Silent films went from 10 second shots like The Kiss from Edison's studio and Lumiere brothers getting a train pulling into a station to feature length films; the first in America shown in its entirety was Oliver Twist in 1912 and was five reels long. Silent films even sometimes had color in them. The way that happened would be if someone colored in with paint a dress still by still or dyed the whole reel to give it a blue (or whatever color) tone.
Many genres existed in the silent film era. Gangster movies, comedies (come on Chaplin and Keaton!), suspense (did you know Alfred Hitchcock made silent films?!?), horror (some even with the "oh wait you are crazy twist a la Shutter Island"), westerns and much more.
Intertitles are another thing you just need to know about before going into a silent film. These are the little "diddies" that keep you knowing what's up exactly and let me tell you the language in them is hilarious and just sometimes a little scandalous. Like films (vidoes whatever) these days the audience can tell a good film by how little exposition is needed to keep the film going. So less exposition in speaking and intertitles are usually a good thing as long as one keeps up with the story. Also these intertitles were easy to translate so before sound movies were much more international.
Of course this art died or moved forward depending on one's opinion with The Jazz Singer (1927) the first talkie. There are still some hold backs and some films that look to the past. This past year The Artist came out. A silent movie about the struggles of the change from silent movies to talkies. Maybe we all need a little more silence in our lives.
Silent movies I've seen/suggest:
A Trip to the Moon (1902) The Terrible Turkish Executioner (1904) The Man With the Rubber Head (1901) -this amazed me fx wise!
*all of these are by Melies and show great fx
The Great Train Robbery (1903)
*Edwin S. Porter and one of the first narratives. It's good!
Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)
*D.W. Griffith was the film maker here. This movie had dramatergy, toned down acting, the alleyway shots created depth. One shot when the Snapper Kid and two others are creeping agains the wall these are all just new types of shots that hadn't been done before. It was credited as the first gangster movie (swoon) I love gangster movies and all around it's just really good!
The Tramp (1915) The Immigrant (1917)
*Charlie Chaplin did these and the tramp was his persona in a lot of movies up until the 1930s. The tramp was his most famous of personas. Here is some great satire and slap stick comedy!
Cops (1922) Sherlock JR. (1924)
*"Buster"Keaton also known as The Great Stoneface did these films and let me tell you he did his own stunts AND definitely has intertitles that were making me laugh. Also, look how many pages Keaton took out of Melies book of fx! It's really quite amazing.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
*I must admit I did not pay amazing attention when watching this movie. Not because it wasn't good, but because I was busy with other things (fail on me), but this one is a suspenseful horror movie so check it! I plan on going back to it too!
The Lodger (1927)
*Yes Hitchcock made silent films. I seriously was so shocked by this. But it's good and it still has Hitchcock-ian moments. Seriously, it's good.
Metropolis (1927)
*I have not seen it. I want to. It's all sci-fy-ey.
Anyway, if you are interested in going back to see some of the roots of movies a lot of these are all over the internet. Youtube even some on Netflix and probably more illegal means if you must. The one thing to keep in mind: The stories do move fast in the later years of silent films and intertitles can only get you so far (and if you look away and miss one? Well good luck!) So if you plan on going into a silent movie, do not try and do anything else while watching said movie. But please do.
Kimberly
Note: All of them through "Buster" Keaton are only about 10 to 30 min and the rest are feature length or nearing that. And here is a youtube video of The Man With The Rubber Head for your great pleasure!
Try and think about it real quick: how often do you want to know something really quickly so you jump online search vampire diaries wiki or 1870 wiki. I know I jump on wiki every time I need a quick answer. Sure I can't use it for a term paper and every answer comes with a grain of salt, but I can take it.
How often do you use wikipedia a week?
At first I found myself weary when I heard that there was going to be a mini wikipedia black out (among other sites). Then I thought, huh, AWESOME.
So SOPA, stands for the Stop Online Piracy Act. I guess in theory this sounds good. Let's protect copyright at any level we can. I mean come on, I'm a photographer and film maker, which means I like the idea and respect the idea of copyright. Now according to wiki (and yes I verified this other places) SOPA stands to, "allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months". SOPA isn't the only bill sites are protesting against. There is also PIPA, the Protect IP Act. Once again from wiki, "The Protect IP Act says that an 'informational location tool shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures, as expeditiously as possible, to remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the order'. In addition, it must delete all hyperlinks to the offending 'Internet site'".
I don't know about you, but this is utter crap to me. What about the twelve year old who posts a video with friends with an underlying track of Free Bird going? Oh wait that was me and I was probably 19 or 20 at the time... All of us do this though and now it is illegal? Or will be if the bill turns into a law? Nah, I don't buy it. There are real piracy problems and copyright issues out there I know. I also know this is not the solution. The world has changed and companies and production studios, etc. need to get on that bandwagon because trying to fight it with bills that could get children into trouble is not the answer.
I'm sad that I couldn't find more sites to black out for half a day in protest, but it is what it is. If you want to do something about these bills then go here: http://stopcensorship.org/.
Maybe you are for these bills. Tell me in the comments section your opinion!
said Ricky Gervais last night while hosting the 2012 Golden Globes.
The Golden Globes' first ceremony was on 1944 and has since increased in size, formality, and aura. These awards unlike the Oscars and the Emmys are given out for achievements in film and television.
The categories for awards have grown in increasing size as well. Though the most prominent award still remains the Cecil B. DeMille award given for "outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment."The year of the awards inception, it was obviously given to its namesake. However, the next year which was the 10th anniversary of the Golden Globes it was given to Walt Disney. This year's winner was Morgan Freeman.
Some thoughts from this year's show: I was pleased to see Martin Scorcese win Best Director of a Motion Picture with Hugo. I was slightly surprised to see how many television shows were nominated from HBO and other movie type channels.
Possibly most noteworthy in this year's Golden Globes, was Spielberg's acceptance speech. I have not seen The Adventures of Tintin which won Best Animated Feature Film, but that didn't exactly matter. The most important part of this win happened to be the speech. Spielberg talked about film majors and how lucky we (as in Kimberly and other film majors) are through their cell phones aka production studios. Youtube according to Spielberg is our new movie theatre. Spielberg likes this advantage we are given and even gets to watch short films sent to him by fans.
Video courtesy of youtube
This is of course the best possible outcome when it comes to making movies with friends and throwing them on youtube. I am not sure this is a great gift. It might be like Wall-E or Blade Runner when there is too much it all becomes trash. People would have to sort through that trash to find the diamond in the rough of sorts. Additionally, with all these people having access to youtube and their own "production studios" that fit in their pockets the competition gets more intense. Although, I now can have a demo reel and place it on youtube or vimeo which would make life easier in future job searches. In an industry where you usually must know someone who knows someone to break into, I guess there is no real answer to this debate on whether youtube is making the path easier for us future film makers (fingers crossed) or harder.
Kimberly
Note: Deb would like to add while it is great that some of the best actors, actresses and directors of our day are being recognized for their work, these award shows are nothing more than a PR ploy to keep names in the media.
So anti eco-friendly, but you get the point.
Image courtesy of Kimberly Roach
It's a new year and some shows are coming back on and others premiering for the first time. It's an exciting time and stressful. So much is going on beyond television with going back to work and school, etc. I feel like this makes TV a necessity including nay even empowering trash TV. We all have at least one guilty pleasure TV show. Sometimes it's so bad we don't even want to put it on our Facebook likes or what have you. I say we because I actually hope I'm not alone in this venture. Here's the thing, I've realized. Don't be ashamed about your trash TV. So many people LOVE Jersey Shore (I do not). The point is if your someone I know and you watch it especially my roommates I will mock you. So?? I got called out for watching Teen Wolf and at first I was like “ah crap,” but thankfully it was Facebook messaging and I had a moment to compose my thoughts. I basically pointed out that I was super busy last summer and coming home and turning on a stupid TV show that required no thoughts worked perfectly for me and although Vampire Diaries is an epic show and not one I would classify as trash TV look at it's name. Come on can it get worse? Anyway, at the end of the day I say be proud of your trash TV and well if your not proud of it, own it. Saving face is better than looking guilty and ashamed (unless you actually did something bad then by all means show your guilt please).
Note: Is it just me or is a lot of the trash TV out there reality shows?
Anyway, my trash TV includes:
Teen Wolf
Bad Girls Club (I've watched it like twice, but OMG it was goooooood)
Yeah I guess I don't watch too much trash TV on purpose. There is always that I'm so bored okay Tyra or Maury...However, these are extreme cases. There are still some guilty pleasure TV shows out there that I watch especially dramas and most are always set in High School. Some are more guilty than others like Secret Life. The writing on that show pushes it toward the trash side of the line.
My guilty pleasure TV includes:
Anything on ABC Family
Merlin (it's on Netflix check it)
Accidentally on Purpose, My Boys and 18 to Life (all finished and quick watches)
Drop Dead Diva (I feel all old person-ish)
These shows may not rival Breaking Bad or The Vampire Diaries in writing; at the end of the day they do their job and remember just focus on the word pleasure when the term guilty pleasure is used to identify a show you watch. The same goes for trash TV it may not sound pleasurable in anyway the context behind the word trash makes it so dark sounding, but It does it's job just right. One last thing, we must all admit to ourselves trash TV makes us feel a bit better about ourselves. It's an ego boost and no one should deny us that pleasure once in a while.
"I call her Snix. Her wrath of words is called Snix juice." Santana Lopez states to the principal to try and get out of suspension after slapping Finn Hudson. This lame cop-out obviously does not work.
Lately I've been thinking about consequences and the bigger picture; more importantly how this does or does not fit in with narratives in the media. All narratives have three things in common: conflict, consequence (which can double as a conflict) and resolution. To push forward plots and the drama to keep audiences interesting some resolutions come too quickly and some consequences get overlooked. Glee is one of those shows that did that too much. It got busted on and changes were made. Different episodes in season three have gone back to old plot points and looked more intensely at them. This includes:
Quinn's pregnancy
Bullying (which will always be Glee's primary theme)
A different consequence and aspect of sexual preference
In a Writing for New Media class, I wrote a blog covering the first seven episodes of the third season of Glee. That blog works as an experiment to prove Glee's watchdog status with the media that also covers the consequences behind plot points.
To read more please click here: http://gleeintherealworld.blogspot.com/
