Friday, October 01, 2004
Happy October!
It's a new month! Woohoo!
Hm. What's new? Let's see...I did bad on a Math exam, but I expected that. The class average was 60%...and the teacher says that's good. See how hard the IB program is now, people? Anyways, I scored about 10% higher than on my last math quiz, so I guess I should be optimistic about it. I'm improving!
I talked to Mr. Lehmann some more about my Extended Essay. Over the weekend I'll probably write out an outline or general plan. Then he can help me think of a title and a good structure. I want to have most of the first draft finished by the end of November...but that's going to be hard to achieve with everything else going on. I did the calculations. If I started today, and wrote 130 words per day, I could make it. Unfortunately, I don't plan on starting today. Some time next week maybe, at the earliest.
Wednesday night I saw Mystic River. It was good. The acting was some of the best I've seen. Sean Penn definitely deserved his Oscar. For an example of how profanity can be necessary in a film, and add more depth and emotion to a character, see the scene at the beginning when he finds out his daughter has been murdered. Wow. Unfortunately, I was kind of disappointed at the "message" the film presents. I couldn't decide: was Clint Eastwood promoting the ideas of these characters, or was the audience expected to view them as flawed people, and therefore flawed ideals. I'm not sure, and that's not a good thing. If we are not supposed to agree with the characters, he should have made that clearer. As it is, I felt like I completely disagreed with what the characters were saying, especially the last few scenes.
Last night, I saw the Ingmar Bergman 1950s black-and-white Italian classic (whoa, that's a lot of adjectives) The Seventh Seal. The title is taken from the book of Revelations, describing the angels opening the seven seals to unleash the Apocalypse. I understood why it's seen as a classic. It was really good. It's set in the 14th century and follows a knight, Antonius Block, who has just returned from fighting in the Crusades. He comes in contact with Death...literally. Hoping to gain a little more time to live, in order to discover the meaning of life and whether or not God exists, he challenges Death to a game of chess. If he wins, Death will not claim him. If he loses, he'll die. However, he and Death will take turns making moves at various times during his journey home. During this time, he'll be allowed to live.
There's so much stuff about God and religion and death and life and love crammed into 90 minutes, it's amazing. It's definitely a movie one should view more than once. Bergman very strongly attacks the church - priests steal and lie, monks wander the streets whipping each other and claiming the world is coming to an end, the Apocalypse is at hand, and due to the Black Plague everyone will die. The idea is that if they suffer enough, maybe God will be merciful. However, I'm not sure if Bergman is attacking religion, or faith. It would depend on your interpretation of how events unfold. Especially the ending.
So Block travels home, searching for answers. His companion, Jons, strongly advocates that there is no God or afterlife, it's all a bunch of drivel. They were sent to die for religion in the Crusades...and it's all meaningless. Block, though, keeps asking questions. He wants to know what awaits him after Death. The ending could be interpreted in a variety of ways: has he found faith at last? Or is everything really meaningless? There's so much going on, it's hard to find out what Bergman is really trying to say. But it's really good. Plus, it inspired the games with Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure! Oh yeah! Hehe.
Also, it stars a very young Max von Sydow. I knew I had heard that name before. I always get this guy confused with Herman Munster and the judge in My Cousin Vinny. But nooo. Max von Sydow is the guy who would later be in movies like Conan the Barbarian, The Exorcist, and Minority Report. I haven't seen those first two, but I know I've seen him in other things as well. I didn't realize he was Italian.
Anyways, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, but some people will probably hate it. After all, it's an old black-and-white movie from Italy. So the style is very different from filmmaking styles nowadays. It seemed very Shakespearean to me (the "play within a play" reminded me of A Midsummer Night's Dream), though thankfully the language wasn't quite that old-fashioned.
Today we saw the first part of Donnie Darko in Film Society. Woohoo! I love this movie! As you people already know. After that, I had a really good "fellowship" meeting with friends that meets every week, where we basically discuss spiritual matters. Then we went out to eat...I went out and got coffee with Souwa and had a good conversation...things are good. I like life. Every once in a while, it's good to just roll in the grass and do a cartwheel. Today is the Día del Niño after all(Day of the Child). So unleash your inner child! Be happy! Woohoo!
I wish I didn't have so much homework this weekend. I really need to just film something random (like a wall or a room or something) and figure out how to import it to my computer. Then I can play around with Adobe Premiere until I figure out how to edit things properly. After that, I plan on shooting an actual short film. I've got my idea ready, but first I need to know how to use everything! Agh! I'm impatient.
Hm. Anyways, happy October. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day Frank the Bunny first visits Donnie Darko. What a coincidence.
Quotes of Da Moment:
"...I grant no reprieves."
Death, The Seventh Seal
"Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call."
--Antonius Block, The Seventh Seal
"Love is the blackest of all plagues. If one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love. But you don't even die of it...Love is as contagious as a cold. It eats away at your strength, morale...If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection."
--Jons, The Seventh Seal
Hm. What's new? Let's see...I did bad on a Math exam, but I expected that. The class average was 60%...and the teacher says that's good. See how hard the IB program is now, people? Anyways, I scored about 10% higher than on my last math quiz, so I guess I should be optimistic about it. I'm improving!
I talked to Mr. Lehmann some more about my Extended Essay. Over the weekend I'll probably write out an outline or general plan. Then he can help me think of a title and a good structure. I want to have most of the first draft finished by the end of November...but that's going to be hard to achieve with everything else going on. I did the calculations. If I started today, and wrote 130 words per day, I could make it. Unfortunately, I don't plan on starting today. Some time next week maybe, at the earliest.
Wednesday night I saw Mystic River. It was good. The acting was some of the best I've seen. Sean Penn definitely deserved his Oscar. For an example of how profanity can be necessary in a film, and add more depth and emotion to a character, see the scene at the beginning when he finds out his daughter has been murdered. Wow. Unfortunately, I was kind of disappointed at the "message" the film presents. I couldn't decide: was Clint Eastwood promoting the ideas of these characters, or was the audience expected to view them as flawed people, and therefore flawed ideals. I'm not sure, and that's not a good thing. If we are not supposed to agree with the characters, he should have made that clearer. As it is, I felt like I completely disagreed with what the characters were saying, especially the last few scenes.
Last night, I saw the Ingmar Bergman 1950s black-and-white Italian classic (whoa, that's a lot of adjectives) The Seventh Seal. The title is taken from the book of Revelations, describing the angels opening the seven seals to unleash the Apocalypse. I understood why it's seen as a classic. It was really good. It's set in the 14th century and follows a knight, Antonius Block, who has just returned from fighting in the Crusades. He comes in contact with Death...literally. Hoping to gain a little more time to live, in order to discover the meaning of life and whether or not God exists, he challenges Death to a game of chess. If he wins, Death will not claim him. If he loses, he'll die. However, he and Death will take turns making moves at various times during his journey home. During this time, he'll be allowed to live.
There's so much stuff about God and religion and death and life and love crammed into 90 minutes, it's amazing. It's definitely a movie one should view more than once. Bergman very strongly attacks the church - priests steal and lie, monks wander the streets whipping each other and claiming the world is coming to an end, the Apocalypse is at hand, and due to the Black Plague everyone will die. The idea is that if they suffer enough, maybe God will be merciful. However, I'm not sure if Bergman is attacking religion, or faith. It would depend on your interpretation of how events unfold. Especially the ending.
So Block travels home, searching for answers. His companion, Jons, strongly advocates that there is no God or afterlife, it's all a bunch of drivel. They were sent to die for religion in the Crusades...and it's all meaningless. Block, though, keeps asking questions. He wants to know what awaits him after Death. The ending could be interpreted in a variety of ways: has he found faith at last? Or is everything really meaningless? There's so much going on, it's hard to find out what Bergman is really trying to say. But it's really good. Plus, it inspired the games with Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure! Oh yeah! Hehe.
Also, it stars a very young Max von Sydow. I knew I had heard that name before. I always get this guy confused with Herman Munster and the judge in My Cousin Vinny. But nooo. Max von Sydow is the guy who would later be in movies like Conan the Barbarian, The Exorcist, and Minority Report. I haven't seen those first two, but I know I've seen him in other things as well. I didn't realize he was Italian.
Anyways, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone, but some people will probably hate it. After all, it's an old black-and-white movie from Italy. So the style is very different from filmmaking styles nowadays. It seemed very Shakespearean to me (the "play within a play" reminded me of A Midsummer Night's Dream), though thankfully the language wasn't quite that old-fashioned.
Today we saw the first part of Donnie Darko in Film Society. Woohoo! I love this movie! As you people already know. After that, I had a really good "fellowship" meeting with friends that meets every week, where we basically discuss spiritual matters. Then we went out to eat...I went out and got coffee with Souwa and had a good conversation...things are good. I like life. Every once in a while, it's good to just roll in the grass and do a cartwheel. Today is the Día del Niño after all(Day of the Child). So unleash your inner child! Be happy! Woohoo!
I wish I didn't have so much homework this weekend. I really need to just film something random (like a wall or a room or something) and figure out how to import it to my computer. Then I can play around with Adobe Premiere until I figure out how to edit things properly. After that, I plan on shooting an actual short film. I've got my idea ready, but first I need to know how to use everything! Agh! I'm impatient.
Hm. Anyways, happy October. Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day Frank the Bunny first visits Donnie Darko. What a coincidence.
Quotes of Da Moment:
"...I grant no reprieves."
Death, The Seventh Seal
"Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call."
--Antonius Block, The Seventh Seal
"Love is the blackest of all plagues. If one could die of it, there would be some pleasure in love. But you don't even die of it...Love is as contagious as a cold. It eats away at your strength, morale...If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection."
--Jons, The Seventh Seal
# posted by Andrew Johnson : 10/01/2004 11:10:00 PM 
