Dead Poets Society (and other things)

Sorry I haven't been writing lately folks, I've been a little busy... you know, just little things like graduating high school. No biggie.

I've decided not to spend too much time talking about graduation since I really have nothing to say about it other than I feel totally and utterly relieved. I know college will be a lot of work, but for once I'm not thinking about next year's high school activities and classes. Clean slate. Don't get me wrong; I did enjoy high school, but the idea of a clean slate is exciting for me, mostly because I've never had one before. During graduation, I sat next to people I had known since Kindergarten and possibly before, and though I will miss all of the people smiling next to me in the countless photos, it'll be interesting next year.

Wow, look at this. Nostalgia's already made me its bitch.

Anyway, Dead Poets Society, since Joon did request it. I suppose I've been meaning to watch this, especially after I watched a clip of it during Film Studies last year. (Can I call senior year "last year?" This is weird.) Do you ever see something that you don't realize has meaning until later on? I suppose the clip that I watched in Film Studies should've ruined the whole movie for me; if you've watched it before, you'll know it's the one that makes you cry like a baby. I did not cry that day in Film Studies, though, because although it was a very sad scene, there was no background behind it, no context. I didn't understand what was going on, and I didn't think much of it until I watched it again within the movie.

Dead Poets Society is about a snooty American all-boys prep school that teaches boys to conform to societal rules and that they are basically not fit for individual thought until they "become men." Then all of a sudden, along comes Mr. John Keating, the English teacher who shows the boys in his class a different way of looking at the world and at themselves, demanding that they treat their passions with respect and that they "seize the day." It's a back and forth battle between this crushing and ever-pursuing society and the rebellious and ambitious boys, and whether or not society wins is entirely up to you.

As I watched, my Film Studies teacher's slow snarl popped in my head like an informative little commentator, and I remembered what he had said about this movie. The theme is pretty blatantly stated as conformity, or rather the effort of some to destroy it in order to encourage young people to think for themselves. I could see a lot of ways in which this movie could've been aggravatingly cheesy (I almost said "very cheesy" but Mr. Keating would've been quite ashamed), but they somehow avoided these cliches and made a story that will work those tear ducts.

If you've read any of the other blog posts I've written, you'll know that I have some issues with overactive authority figures. This may effect my biased opinion as I tell you to watch this movie nownownow, but I assure you it is a good film. Some of the camerawork was confusing. It was just a little jarring to me, but considering the scenes in which it were jarring, I'd say it fit. The acting, of course, was excellent... for a movie made in 1989. I will warn you that there are cheesy spots, but only the kind to make you smile, not cringe. Unless you don't smile at adorable 1980s romance. Cynic.

Comment on this post or any other if you have a movie or book you want me to review... Otherwise I will consider reviewing Fight Club, Perks of Being a Wallflower, and The Casual Vacancy, which is basically how I spent this weekend. Summer is such a glorious thing.

P.S. Just one more thing. The word "nice" used to mean "stupid." Here's a snippet from www.dictionary.com:

"Nice, it turns out, began as a negative term derived from the Latin nescius meaning “ignorant.” This sense of ignorant was carried over into English, and for almost a century, nice was used to refer to a stupid, ignorant, or foolish person... By the late 1500s, nice was used to describe refined, polite society."

The rest of the article can be found here: http://hotword.dictionary.com/nice-guys/#o1RTQtmw3u3s1XfO.99 

Oh, how did you know I'm an English nerd? What gave it away? The coffee stains? It's always the coffee stains...

Man of Steel!!

You know it's summer and you're a lazy bum when you wake up so late you can't decide whether to eat breakfast or lunch. I just ate so many bowls of cereal.

Last night, I went to see Man of Steel, and it's a good thing I don't do a vlog, because I would be talking so loudly; my ears have been sufficiently blasted. I can't tell if it's just the movie or if the dude controlling the volume at the theater was on drugs or what, because that movie was SO. LOUD... Are there still people who control volume at the theater? I should know these things.

Anyway, before the movie started, there was plenty of time to discuss it and dash all of my hopes and dreams. First of all, I just don't want to hear about Rotten Tomatoes ever again, because Man of Steel got a 59% rating (supposedly it was 55% last night) and even Now You See Me got a measly 48%! And America worries about grade inflation... The second thing was that my friend and I had noticed that the trailer had been very blue. When I say blue, I actually mean the color blue, not the mood. Movies sometimes have theme colors (The Matrix = green, Sweeney Todd = ketchup red), and it would just be a bummer if any movie had blue as a theme color when it's about aliens and superheroes and not very blue things.

The movie was not blue. Sure, there was plenty of it, but not enough to make it the theme color of the movie, so thank goodness. What it was, however, was action-packed. The rhythm of the movie as a whole was nicely done; the first half was a series of flashbacks and random acts of heroics which somehow made sense despite the crazy time jumps. If it hadn't made sense I would be very upset. There are basically five stages of Superman: infant, elementary schoolboy, adolescent, Henry Cavill without the beard, Henry Cavill with the beard.

To a certain extent, I have to agree with some of the critics. I feel terrible, I know, but that dialogue... I tried paying attention to the cinematography, but writing is my first love so it was hard to ignore the quality of writing in this script. There are just... so many lines that should never be used. It also would've been nice to see dialogue in parts where they just had shots of characters' faces. What were they thinking? I have no clue, because all I see are vaguely smiling faces. Or was that a wince? A smirk? I'm lost.

Here's one thing that I noticed A LOT of... Being a huge Joss Whedon fan, I couldn't help but notice all of the actors who had been in Whedon's shows. Amy Adams did show up in a Buffy episode as Tara's cousin, Harry Lennix was in Dollhouse, Tahmoh Penikett was also in Dollhouse, aaand awkward that's it. It probably felt like there were more because of the fact that it was fairly late at night and because Michael Kelly looks like Jeff Ricketts who played the second man with "hands of blue" in Firefly. You don't see the resemblance? I'm not crazy, I swear.

What I did notice right off the bat was how the flying scenes were shot. Joss Whedon did this whole spiel about how when he was making Firefly, he wanted the shots of Serenity to be slightly chaotic, with random zooms and pans that made the whole experience more chaotic. This is exactly what happens in Man of Steel. Every time something was flying, I wanted to lean over to a friend and say "OH MY GOD JOSS WHEDON DID YOU NOT SEE THAT" but of course no one would've heard me over the power of Hans Zimmer.

Speaking of music, one of the friends I sat next to is a HUGE fan of Hans Zimmer, and explained some pretty cool stuff about the technicalities in his music. I didn't understand 90% of it (no offense, it was very interesting anyway) other than "OH MY GOD THOSE TRI TONES" and the difference between Hans Zimmer and John Williams. If you don't know these two real-life superheroes, just know:

Hans Zimmer = Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lion King, Batman (the newer trilogy), Inception.

John Williams = Jaws, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, Superman.

The main difference between them is that you probably have one of John Williams's theme songs stuck in your head right now, whereas when you think of the movies that Hans Zimmer has done, you think intense atmospheric music but wait what was that melody?... I personally like John Williams because I do like having that melody, but Hans Zimmer did a spectacular job with this movie. A spectacular job blowing my ears off, that is. With awesomeness.

Overall, I do recommend you see this movie.

Aaaand that's all I have to say about that because I'm about to go edit a music video that I shot for a friend today!! Hoorah!!! I'll have a link at the ready when it's all done and on YouTube, but for now if you want to check out the musician, April has a YouTube channel here.

P.S. Little did I expect I would actually get a comment on my last post! But I did, so I will be watching and reviewing Dead Poets Society soon. Keep those comments coming if you want more reviews or any other topics covered... Within a range of comfort. I will probably never talk about certain things. Let's keep this PG-13, people.

Damn it, I'm an adult.

First, as promised...

Double rainbow all across the sky-y-y!!

Acid unicorn. On steroids. Oh my god.

I WANT ONE.

Also, in case you were wondering, this apparently exists.

I don't see how this kind of advertising would help...

I'm going to ruin the moment now. Apparently I have issues with authorities and rules. Apparently.

Here in the US, we have that silly little law stating that you are not an adult until you are 18, and you can't earn money online unless you're an adult. I suppose this is a reasonable law considering the government probably doesn't want ten-year-olds selling avalanches of their old matchbox cars and photos signed by Justin Bieber, but lately it's been pissing me off. I've been thinking of all the ways I can possibly save (and spend) a little money before I head off to college, but it turns out that saving part can be difficult, especially since I tend to have gaping holes in my pockets. Darn it, I shouldn't have spent that $1092019 on Unicorn Farts; what was I thinking?? 

If I were 18, I would be able to make money selling old crap on eBay and Amazon, I could write articles for Yahoo as a freelance writer, hell I could even make like five cents a month on this little blog with AdSense. But damn it, I'm 17 so I am an invalid working three jobs over the summer so I don't starve in college. Ok. That was a slight exaggeration since I'm probably going to eat a truckload of food in college, but regardless, that's a lot of money that I could have earned. 

There is that option of mooching off of my parents' accounts, but for all of you out there considering doing any kind of joint account with an adult, just know that it is a total pain in the ass and it takes up way too much of your valuable time, not to mention the transfer of money can become confusing with all of the online payment methods and gimmicks out there. I say this from experience; last year I made a Kickstarter account with a friend of mine to fund a project, and though it sounded so simple at first, when the money started changing hands it was a temporary nightmare and for a few minutes I thought I lost about $2,000. Not good not good not good. 

There are so many solutions out there... Or so it seems. Can't sell things online? Sell them in the real world! All you need to do is just sit at a second-hand clothing shop and watch three people sort through all of your perfectly good slightly used clothing, only to find that they took two out of the twenty items you brought! The best part about this story is how I trudged home with my bag full of new-looking t-shirts that they didn't take when I had just seen a whole rack-full of hideous unwearable clothing. Honest to goodness, I found a cami with shoulder straps so long I could wear a shirt over it and make it look like a skirt. ...how does one even...

No, Early, it really doesn't.

On a happier note, less than twelve more hours until I see opening night of Man of Steel! I is exciteddd. I'll review that, then consider mentioning my mixed opinions about V for Vendetta. Got a movie you want me to review? Mention it in the comments! If you're awesome and check this blog out often and somehow like it, click that awesome little button on the right... The one under "There are no members yet" that says "Be the first!"... I'm worse at advertising than the guy selling Unicorn Farts.

Control Freaks

This post will be particularly hypocritical since I can be a bit of a control freak at times, but for now, let's talk about the control freaks with actual power in this world, therefore excluding myself.

Let me preface this rant by stating that I do believe that for the most part, the education system in America is declining at an alarming rate. Much like control freak-ish governments, the school systems believe that with just one more regulation or rule, everything will be right as rain and all of the problems will be solved. It's as if they've never even heard of thinking outside the box. Sorry to break it to them, but you can't fix motivation levels of students with simplistic incentives. People even tried money and regarding long-term results, it was mostly unsuccessful. I digress.

We, as human beings, tend to like freedom. We enjoy it in this wonderful country of ours, and we tend to get just a little bit upset when that freedom is threatened. Much like the country as a whole, freedom within high school is valued by many, but at this point, there are so many rules and regulations that it's impossible for the administration to even enforce most of it because they don't know what those rules are. The lack of logic in these situations can lead to inconsistent punishments, which can even lead to more discrimination within the school's disciplinary system. There was once a study done by one of the AP Statistics students: random students of various genders and races walk loops around the hallways without a pass to see how many times they're stopped by a hall monitor. It was pretty mind-boggling how many times the black students were stopped compared with the white students or Asian students. Apparently my school is racist after all.

So what is the point of the hall monitors anyway? They are, after all, supposed to stop everyone without a pass in the hallway. If they can't get that straight, what else could go wrong? Every time there's a reminder that there's a dress code, I get very confused. So they're enforcing it now? *walks two feet outside of the classroom* Whoops, I guess not.

Just recently, NY state created a new rule so that students can't enter a testing area with any electronic device on them with huge fines that come with violations of this new rule. The one reason this rule made me laugh was because it includes headphones when they say electronic devices. So I could potentially walk in a testing room with headphones in my pocket and nothing else and get fined thousands of dollars. "Uh, sorry sir, I didn't realize I could get in so much trouble for listening to... oh right, nothing, because headphones don't produce sound." Now, this rule doesn't really make me too upset because there are so many other ridiculous ones, but if I started naming the ones that really get on my nerves, we'd be here much too long.

If you went to high school here in the U.S., most likely you've heard of senior skip day. It's an age-old tradition that's right up there with senior pranks, and I am sad to say I did not participate because I'm paranoid about everything. But see, that's my entire point. There are schools out there that don't let seniors walk at graduation if they participate in senior skip day. I cannot express in words how pointless that is. Yes, you're encouraging your kids to go to school just one more day. Great. Question. What do seniors do in class in the last few weeks of school? Oh, right, NOTHING. Teachers give quizzes and tests on skip day to make sure their kids are in class. They haven't given quizzes in weeks! The entire premise behind these silly little stress-makers is one thing along: control. These people think that it's better to have the tightest grip possible on others so that they're the ones in power. On my list of things that annoy me, this is right up there with young adults who treat me like a two-year-old. Ughhhh. Rantrantrant.

Everybody likes freedom. And adults wonder why teenagers can be so rebellious.

P.S. I apologize for such negativity; I'll try to make my next post about rainbows and unicorns and puppies.

Now You See Me

I will talk about how I'm done with high school once it's actually sunk in that I'm done with high school. It'll probably take a couple weeks at least. For now, it's movie review time.

When I saw the trailer to the movie Now You See Me, I was actually a bit skeptical. I have this fear whenever I see a very cool trailer that it's just because of the music and that the pacing of the actual movie will be different and make me uncomfortable. Who am I kidding; everything makes me uncomfortable.

Here's the short: Four street magicians with very few resources are brought together by a mysterious man who gives them each a tarot-esque card. One year later, they stage three performances, where at each one, a large sum of money is stolen and given to the less fortunate in the audiences. After each one, they manage to piss off three different men who begin to chase after these magicians, trying to learn their tricks and catch them before their next act. Everyone is suspected of being someone other than who they say they are, and intense chase scenes commence until finally, the truth about the magicians is revealed to the audience.

Now, this ending sounds rather boring when you think about it since it seems to wrap up so nicely. But PREPARE TO BE AMAZED. "Because the closer you think you are... The less you actually see." What I particularly enjoyed about this movie was the audience interaction. When I say this, I don't mean the characters are breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. I'm saying they don't break the fourth wall and they talk directly to the audience. When they say "look closely," they're not just talking to the other characters in the movie. So sit back, try and guess, because suspicion will be everywhere until the very end. I went with a group of friends so I know that I wasn't the only one who was surprised by the ending.

Plot-wise, this movie was amazing and I highly recommend watching it in theaters. With some movies, I can recommend that you go see it, but not necessarily in theaters because it wouldn't make much of a difference. Some movies, though, like this one, are just better on the big screen. Visually, it was captivating, with complex scenes and very nice and somewhat dizzying camerawork. I wouldn't necessarily say I was gripping the edges of my seat, but only because this film provided a different kind of excitement that was more on the intellectual level. It was like Inception with less emotional background and more action scenes, which in some senses was nice.

I believe that in order for me to properly critique this film, I have to give it some actual criticism as well. The characters in this movie have almost zero background, which wasn't bad for the plot, but it was bad for the audience. Background, though it may be inserted into some movies at awkward times and make the audience yawn, can make characters more relatable, therefore making the audience more attached to them. Example #1: (SPOILER ALERT) One of the characters dies. I won't say why, how, when, or who, but I will say that the only reason any of us were sad was because he's cute. That's not a good reason for the audience to be sad.

Second thing I'd like to critique: there's a point to which something can be too fast-paced. Action movies have the luxury of being as fast-paced as they want to be, but for movies involving intellectual backgrounds and subplots, the audience needs a bit more time. Don't get me wrong; I understood what was going on and I'm only a little slow, but there will always be a difference in letting the implications of a gunshot sink in and letting the implications of an underground, historical, and slightly mystical organization sink in. It just allows for the awesomeness (or the lameness) of a plotpoint to be fully appreciated by the audience before moving on to the next mind-blowing scene.

So there it is. If you read this while it's still in theaters, go see it! If not, then watch in on the most high-quality device you or a friend owns because it's certainly worth a cinematic experience. 

Distracted from Distraction by Distraction

I might've mixed the title up; I can never remember how it really goes. Anyways, I apologize for being boring lately, but I've been busy... Having fun... Got back yesterday from the Pocono Valley Resort for my class's senior trip, where I only found out at the end of the day that during the summer, it's a weight loss camp. Makes sense, because I am pooooooped. For one day, though, it was absolutely fantabulous.

I still have lots of work to do, so to keep y'all entertained, I give you my AP Calculus final project. It was super fun to make and hopefully you'll learn something. Whoo yay for entertaining animated stick figures and complex psychological discussions! There's a bit of math in there, too. Kind of.

If you don't know me, chances are you won't get the the little inside joke. You'll know what I mean, unless you too know a Michelle with amazing math notes.

Crap, I just realized you can see who I am at the end of it. Um... That's not me... That's my distant cousin three times removed... Awk.