MEANINGLESS

Can You Kill Shakespeare

2010-07-30T12:52:00.000-07:00

Posting's been tough this summer with school then moving then working. In the meantime, here's a link to a profile I wrote about the creators of this comic book called Kill Shakespeare. Check it out, lemme know what you think.

Films of 2010 thus far

2010-07-07T02:19:00.001-07:00

This is truly the worst year for the mainstream film. I'm not fully up to date on the smaller budget films but I hope they're doing better than everything else. Let's a take a look at the year in film thus far to truly understand how bad the year's additions have been.

The Book of Eli: cute premise with a boring outcome. It masks religious depth with superficial action that's more insulting than inspiring.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Greek mythology is great, but Chris Columbus has last his directing flare. Bad acting and a storyline that just felt too insulting.

Shutter Island: Martin Scorsese is becoming too predictable, creating a film that, while a branch out for the director, treads on territory better suited for someone like Christopher Nolan.

The Wolfman: I'll never know how Anthony Hopkins, Benecio del Toro, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt all signed off on this one. Even worse, this is the director for the upcoming Captain America film. I fear for the future of my favorite superhero.

Alice in Wonderland: While cute and moderately enjoyable, Tim Burton has done so much better work than this. Remember Big Fish and Sweeney Todd. The film's uneven and largely uninteresting despite a large amount of CGI wonders.

Clash of the Titans: Let's just face it. The original wasn't that amazing and the remake was far worse. Sam Worthington is a promising actor but the director needed a screenplay worth telling. It tried to be 300 without action, decent acting, or good pacing. So boring.

Date Night: Fun stuff but largely disappointing considering the star power of Tina Fey and Steve Carrell.

Iron Man 2: I saw Iron Man three times in the theaters. I could barely sit through one screening of the sequel. It was enjoyable but far too slow, cliche, and riddle with unnecessary scenes. Plus, the film score was almost satiric. I still have faith the third installment will be better and the upcoming Thor film looks amazing.

Robin Hood: It was Gladiator with a jumbled plotline. In the end, who cares.

Prince of Persia: Fun video game and a dull, and rather racist, film with great actors trying to pay the bills on their summer homes.

Shrek Forever After: A sad end the a franchise that started so well. Old jokes and a plotline that cheapened any sense of character development for everyone except Shrek.

Get Him to the Greek: Forgetting Sarah Marshall was a fantastic comedy, but this spin-off greatly needed the original screenwriter to keep the magic alive. Funny moments, but nothing that caused my stomach to hurt.

Eclipse: The Twilight films are nothing but disgusting examples of filmmaking, proving that tween audiences greatly need to branch out and find something with more artistic worth...with less sexist storylines.

The Last Airbender: I'm pretty the sure the year climaxed with this pile of shit. It dishonored the cartoon it was based on. Just awful, awful, awful.

Amidst the year that will go down in the books as the death of the blockbuster, there were a few gems...just a few. Kick-Ass was wonderful. The Losers had good action and fun wit. Toy Story 3 debunked the myth of the terrible third film. The real winner of the year though is How to Train Your Dragon. Finally, Pixar will be properly dethroned at the Oscars and the Dragon is the one to do. It remains the only truly great film in 3-D.

I'm saddened by how bad this year has been, thus I've turned to TV shows for refuge. Sons of Anarchy, Nip/Tuck, Supernatural, and The X-Files. Hopefully, when the weather cools down, Hollywood might rediscover entertainment. Until then, I remain very annoyed. Hopefully Despicable Me, Inception, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World will change my mind.

TV After "Lost"

2010-05-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

So the series finale of Lost aired last night, and I was only slightly disappointment. After six years of this show, I never thought it would end the way it did: three parts ambiguous, one part answers. But perhaps letting us know everything would ruin it. Show creator J.J. Abrams's Cloverfield monopolized on the mystery of the unknown, having a huge monster simply show up and destroy. Just like a viral video, a bunch of people filmed something horrifying and we never discovered the reason why anything happened. Lost functions is a similar way, allowing the audience more power in the interpretation process than other shows provide. However,much like the ending of Battlestar Galactica, I'd prefer a few more answers. What I like about TV shows to begin with is the time needed to develop stories and make the conclusions that much more satisfying, but many of them don't seem get there. Answers, perhaps I'll post more on this later. For now, still processing the end. My Lost friends and I will all have to find a new show to watch. Wipeout here we come.

Reflections on Academic Blogging

2010-05-07T03:31:00.001-07:00

Over the past semester I've been attempting to be more aware of the direction of my blog writing, creating the feel of an academic blog. This isn't entirely new for my writing hear as my first post was a two-part argument where I claimed that church worship music represented Adorno's idea of standardization. Based on my personal experience of church music as a worship leader, I went into detail about a genre of music I felt was created based on a different standard of music making, one that tried to create a "neutral" sound, like elevator music or anything else that ignores cultural roots. Since then, the blog has existed between discussing my academic career and simply posting whatever I want, like my favorite post about using a women's bathroom and just writing about it as a story akin to something on This American Life. This semester, I tried to consider using the blog both more frequently, posting 10 times, and trying to examine what I'm posting about in a more academic way. For myself, academics comes in my personal approach to fan-related topics and attempting to contemplate their deeper meaning. I think I was successful in this on most posts, while others were posting because I just wanted to write about something and other venues just wouldn't cut it.

I've been blogging since 2005 on this site and I'll continue to do it now and in the future. One of my favorite moments remains when author David Dark (one of my favorites) found me and posted that he was intrigued by my enjoyment of first-person shooter video games coupled with one of my favorite books by a pacifist author, John Howard Yoder. This has been a wonderful space to be a part and I hope turning into a more academic blog will help me find the community that comes with it online, something I haven't been able to really do yet. Welp, it's been a great semester learning how use technology in more academic settings. Here's to more of it in the future.

My latest project

2010-05-05T00:23:00.000-07:00

After much blood and tears, I've finished my first paper of the semester. For my Visual Research Methods course I had to create a space for it online. I love creating web space stuff even though it is a very frustrating process. Anyways, click here to read the paper.

Words of the semester

2010-05-03T13:48:00.000-07:00

This is my second semester at Claremont Graduate University in the cultural studies program. I'll be finishing up my second master's degree this fall and hopefully moving into the PhD right after. My former degree in theology and culture gave me a very different take on cultural studies, thus I learned much about the discipline last year, learning about such key ideas as the culture industry, understandings of the bourgeoisie, subaltern studies, and many other concepts. I though it'd be fun to list those special key terms that continually come up this semester and have guided my research.

1. Cultural capital: my thesis focuses on fan studies, specifically fanboy culture, and the idea of cultural knowledge attained that provides various groups with power and status keep appearing everywhere I turn.
2. Authenticity: through studying Digital Storytelling and other forms of media that focus on portraying groups, the idea of something being "authentic" provides me with new ways to analyze not just non-fiction but fiction as well.
3. Diaspora: sure I'd heard the term before but my Transnational Media Theory course provided deeper insight into its use.
4. Double consciousness: D.E.B. Du Bois coined phrase provides exciting possibilities for my future studies on various groups and migration but also can be used for my specific focus in superhero studies, examining the duel role of a costumed hero and an "everyday" person moving through life split between two opposing identities.
5. Reappropriation: like the work "juxtaposition," I was just really excited to learn how to use it in a sentence.
6. Agency: understanding the role media texts play in people's lives, moving past simple explanations of escapist consumption.
7. Hybridization: I'm still working on what it means exactly in reference to idealized understandings of the effects of globalization, but its use continues to intrigue me.
8. Participatory culture: I've already learned about active reading and the more I read by Henry Jenkins and John Fiske help me understand this idea of engaging culture and making it a more active, rather than passive, part of daily life.
9. The Lesbian gaze: I've heard and read about the male gaze, but learning hot to distinguish between a lesbian and transgender gaze in cinema was new and incredibly helpful for understanding how the camera function in film.
10. Visual culture: I didn't know the phrase existed before this semester and I continue to want to know more about it. I did an video essay on an aspect of visual culture at the beginning of the semester and I'm a little bummed because I really would've loved to write more about it.

A fanboy waxes academic

2010-04-30T15:19:00.001-07:00

So lately, I've been rather excited about the future of many things superhero related. First, off they just released the first image of Thor in the Marvel Comics movie scheduled to hit theaters next year. I love the character because of his relationship to my favorite superhero team the Avengers (featuring such characters as Iron Man, Captain and America later on starring my favorite line up in the New Avengers: Buck Barne's Cap, Luke Cage, Wolverine, Spider-Man, and Hawkeye), but I've also respected their choice on approach. Rumor were that the role of the Norse god of thunder would be done by a WWE star, but they chose to go a very different direction. The film large features a British cast with Thor cast as an Ausie actor. Further, Kenneth Branagh, known for his Shakespearean film directing and acting is overseeing the project. The film will also tie into the crossover universe they're creating between other Avengers character films like Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America, all leading up an Avengers film. Now, they've cast comic book film familiar face Chris Evans as Cap in his solo film and my jury's still out on this choice. However, many of my concerns were appeased after he provided a hysterical performances in the Vertigo/DC Comics film The Losers that came out last weekend. Here's a link to my review on the film for my newspaper job. Let's hope he can buff up and be serious as the star spangled hero who's captured my heart (even though I never consider myself a patriotic person...I'm still fleshing that one out).

This all then leads me to some news about this universe I'm more excited about, Marvel's choice of Joss Whedon to direct The Avengers. Whedon may seem like an odd choice to many since his only feature film job was the 2005 film Serenity, based on his canceled TV show Firefly. This is the man behind such wonderful cult following endeavors as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel (to of my favourite TV shows), and the webisode experience Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. He also has history with Marvel Comics, writing for the series The Astonishing X-Men, along with writing continuing comics volumes for his TV shows. All that to say it's exciting to see someone direct this film with a personal investment in the characters and Marvel Universe.

This is all very exciting to discuss for two reason. First, May 7th will mark the third comics film this year with Iron Man 2 (The Losers and Kick-Ass came out over the past couple week). Second, I've been finishing up my thesis on fanboy culture. As you can probably tell, I approach the subject with great bias and it's been a challenge to address that bias in an academic way. I've spent so long trying to take first-person out of my paper writing and leave it to blogging and film reviews (even with film reviews, I waited over a year to use personal pronouns, allowing myself time to develop an audience that would be OK hearing my me personally in such a setting). My thesis has been both fun and exhausting, trying to determine what research to use and when to back off the scholarly works and tell the story myself. I'm proud of the direction it's taken and plan to try to publish it. Without providing too much spoilers for it, I'm taking up the challenge of determine what fanboys like. By collecting and categorizing user responses to superhero films I attempt to understand how fanboys (myself included) interpret popular superhero films. The project began with the questions of how do fan communities oppose popular film texts they find insulting. The project morphed into something very different as my sample group showed less signs of resistance to the media production system (somewhat to my dismay because I greatly hoped to find that fanboys (I do addressed the gendered use of the term as well) resisted the idiocy of Transformers 2 as much as I did). Instead, I learned more about what constitutes a good superhero film for the group. I'll leave it at that for now and simply close with, "It's a good time to be a fanboy though I do hope he does get a little smarter."

702: It's Just the World We Live In

2010-04-07T19:28:00.000-07:00

We're back with another original video. This one's called 702. The premise is a zombie horror-comedy mockumentary that questions the nature of objectivity and journalistic involvement in a post-apocalyptic setting where the end of the world makes critical analysis through say film a rather fleeting endeavor. I've always wanted to make two films, a documentary about the house I live in and a zombie movie. I never thought that I would just merge to two ideas together and go from there.

Here's how it all came together. I proposed an idea to a three other classmates and then we started writing. We went through several drafts before filming. Here's a link to the first draft I created, and here's a link to the second draft Saralyn created based on our brainstorming. And even during shooting, the process was very organic. My roommates just sat in front of the camera and talked. I also had a bad spill out of my attic, fracturing my ankle-caught on video and in the film. After that happened, we had to rewrite some parts and pass off my lines to other people who could still walk. It was difficult to keep a 12-person crew focused and quiet during shooting. We also had trouble finding a day that worked for everyone. Luckily, my two roommates who had to get to work decided to call in and say they couldn't make it.

The editing process was pretty enjoyable as well. Unlike the video essay, where I tried great a very tightly edited package, there weren't as many cuts here and that made things dramatically easier. Since I was stuck on a couch for several days after the great fall, I started editing earlier. I approached it by thinking about a mix of documentary styles and viral videos, thus the final product was a mix between a heartfelt exploration of place and something more akin to Cloverfield or Quarantine. We had some challenges with footage since we ran out of time to do reshoots and some shots didn't fully show everything going on (people running, fake blood, etc.) but the final product was very raw and looked great to me. I also found another challenge in choosing music. I didn't want to use any music that I couldn't get copyrights for, thus the music in the film was either created by me (three songs), a bluegrass song made by my friend, another acoustic song made my another friend, and, during the credits, a rock song performed by Nick Maldonado's band Destroy the Runner, the fine gentleman who got someone to cover his shift and drove up from San Diego to play the lead zombie in the film.

We went into the project to create a piece that questions the nature the documentary and, really, the point of higher education when people are dying. However, the final project did so much more as the interviews revealed some fascinating things about representation. Horror-comedies often critique their own form and we do that here too. We have some cliche moments: Elliott saying "I'll be back" and then getting killed first; the final showdown where several people die; the angry locals at an outsider who caused the problem in the first place; and the issue of representation. As in most horror, women usually remain in subordinate roles, either by dying first or relying on male leads to protect them. Here, we stay with that by having two girlfriends/fiances already dead prior to the incident with significant others with nonchalant responses to their permanent absences. Further, the death of the female documentarian solidified this view. This gender issue was not intentional prior to filming. One story about Bryan having to mercy-kill his fiance was actually rooted in a real dream he had but the story Roy tells was just something that he jokingly said (with his actual girlfriend in the other room) during filming. Even though no as visible in the film, we also had two female zombies (no intentional but more based on who could show up for the day). The other unintentional representation came after my injury. Anyone in a wheelchair or with a crutch dies first in these films and, well, I needed to because my actual ankle was the size of a softball and I couldn't run to the care, thus I died early in the final showdown so I wouldn't cause the swelling to grow.

I'm very proud of the final project and it's given me new energy to start doing more writing and filming like this. Welp, with that said, hope you enjoy the movie and be sure to pay attention to the credits, there's a few easter eggs in them.

Worst/Best Week Ever

2010-03-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

This past week was one a tough one. I had the normal routine for the week - preparing lectures, doing class readings, meeting with the student newspaper staff, etc. - but this week, everything hit at once. Paper due Tuesday, rough draft of thesis due Wednesday, not too bad. Then...Friday came. The day start relatively early (especially for me), with a meeting at APU at 8am, about the nature of the role and nature of the student newspaper on the college campus. I had to leave the meeting early at 9:10am to head to Monrovia to present at the Christians on Diversity in the Academy conference. When I first sent in a proposal for this conference, I thought I was requesting the usual 15ish minutes slot to present on my research but when I was accepted, I found out I had an hour (bring it on). My session was titled "It's Just a Movie: An Oppositional and Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Reading Film." I provided an approach to viewing film for people without a film background that would allow for an appropriate use of the medium that considers film technique important along with a greater attentiveness to issues of representation and ideology. Here's a link to my PowerPoint presentation.

After the conference, I returned home to prepare filming for a class project. It was quite the event. There's four of us involved in the project with 9 people involved in shooting. I won't give away the details of the content of filming just quite yet but say we had a lot of fun doing it. We filmed from about 12:00pm to 4:30pm. We got a lot of great stuff and a bunch more we didn't plan on getting. We did have a few interesting set backs however. We filmed at my house and when I attempted to get out of my attic, I thought it would be appropriate to just jump out, not realizing I was falling about 8 feet. Most of the weight landed on my left foot. I thought I broke it. We had to revamp a bunch of the shots we were filming because I couldn't walk without a limp and in fact can barely stay on my foot. Sure it was a damper on the day but the film footage we got was so fun.

Back on the foot. Luckily, I didn't break it-just a bad sprain. As the day went on, my leg got worst. The roommates took care of me and busted out the frozen vegetables and icing tools. I couldn't move for the rest of the day. As the swelling got worse, I couldn't put any weight on my foot. Suddenly, a phone ringing or the need to go to the bathroom became a chore only resolved by hopping on one leg. I ended up using crutches for the rest of the day. I was a little worried at night because my bed isn't close to the ground but I found a way into it. I kept the leg elevated and wrapped, planning to go to a doctor, but then I woke today and I can move the leg more and put some weight on it. That's a nice twist I think. Anways, this week=crazy. Friday=crazier.

I'm online!

2010-03-01T13:02:00.000-08:00

So for those of you who don't know, along with adjunct teaching journalism, desktop publishing, literature, and writing compoistion and attending Claremont Graduate University for my second master's degree, I also write film reviews the Beverly Press in Los Angeles. It's a local newspaper for the Wilshire, Hancock Park, and West Hollywood area with about a 12,000 a week run. For people that subscribe to our paper and the Los Angeles Times, it's actually distrubted with that paper every Thursday. Well, the website just got a new template that's more user friendly. In the past, PDFs of the weekly paper were there for upload and now individual stories can be accessed. It's nice to have a direct link online to your work. Only one of my reviews is online right now, but I imagine they'll be updated more often. Here's the link.

Death and Rebirth: Captain America Takes Up Arms (video essay made Visual Research Methods)

2010-02-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

The above is a video essay I've created about the significance of Captain America's assassination and rebirth with a gun on his belt (something the old Cap didn't have). Over the last three weeks plus, I've clocked anywhere from 2-6 hours a day on this puppy. I started by gathering video clips from YouTube and DVDs, along with soundbites from Podcasts, radio broadcasts, and special effects sound offline. I've got footage from all over the place in there: video blogs, fan news videos, Fox News, the Colbert Report, NPR, and film clips. Then there's the exorbitant amount of comic book stills and covers from DC and Marvel Comics.

After I gathered all the pieces, I spent a lot of time just playing around with how to organize it all. I decided to take a journalistic approach. I let the stills and video clips go first, telling a story of a character once revered to murdered. I originally planned on a voiceover but then I just kept creating it without one, everything seemed to just flow so well. Finally, I did run out of audio clips and decided that I wanted to insert my voice in it, vis-a-vi, voice of God style. I looked at the clips I'd created and wrapped my voice narration around the edited content already there. I recorded the audio with my iPod, using the voice memo application, and emailed myself the files when I was done. I did have to redo one clip because it peaked when recording (and you can probably tell which clip it is since I couldn't get it to sync). Before this project, I didn't know how to get images to move across screen, something I had to learn since I was dealing with vertical comic book covers over a horizontal visual space. Thankfully, somebody posted a YouTube tutorial to do just that. The second to last main piece was locating sound effects. The beeping sound at one part of the video in one beep copied and pasted many times over--and the military document that goes with it is several different frames, one for each new letter added to a sentence. Everything else was just learning how to structure it all. Thinking of essay form greatly helped with that process after several changes to the structure.

It was a conscious effort not to choose "Patriotic" songs because I wanted to show that what's been happening in the Captain America storyline is helping redefine how the character wears the American flag on his chest.

The last part of the puzzle was music. It was a conscious effort not to choose "Patriotic" songs because I wanted to show that what's been happening in the Captain America storyline is helping redefine how the character wears the American flag on his chest. Instead, I chose mood music from Clint Mansell (Requiem for a Dream), Cliff Martinez (Solaris), Nine Inch Nails, Bear McCreary (Battlestar Galactica), and The Appleseed Cast.

I used KeepVid to rip videos offline and Quicktime to convert them to use in Adobe Premiere. I also used Photoshop to prepare images for video, edit some images ("Dust and Speckle" helped me smooth out a few), and create some photo art as well. The biggest problem I encountered with this projects was Premiere's tendency just to shut off on occasion without warning...and more importantly a chance to save the work I'd done. This process alone added several hours of work. It was an exhausting process to create this film but I'm very broad of the final product. I've done other videos before but never without having to shoot anything. It was both a challenge to solely use other people's material and refreshing not to have to worry about importing.

We showed this videos in class today and I do agree with the criticism. The video moves very fast. This comes from both my frustration with online videos I'd seen that stay on any one image too long without moving and my love for fast-paced film (yes, I did like the new Star Trek, along with films like 300, but not Transformers 2, that's the line). There was just so much to say in 5 minutes. I realize that my familiarity with the material made it difficult for me to notice this but, at the same time, I created a video that would appeal to Captain America fans on the viral webscape. My intention was to create something that move quick for people that already have a working knowledge of Cap but also something short enough that it could be viewed multiple times and still have something new to offer the viewer. That said, I definitely should've spent more time showing the main image I address. If I were to do this video again, I'd redo the voiceover to it flows smoothly, spend more time on volume settings, and extend it to about 8-10 minutes. I have enough footage here with images alone to do that.

Boys Don't Cry and the Gaze

2010-02-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

The head of the cultural studies department Dr. Eve Oishi (my Transnational Media Theory instructor for a class at Pitzer) guest spoke in my Visual Research Methods class last Wednesday. We discussed several readings from The Visual Culture Reader on sexuality. I fount our first class discussion on Judith Halberstam’s “The Transgender Gaze in Boys Don't Cry” to be the most intriguing. Halberstam’s essay discusses the transgender gaze of the film, as opposed to the male gaze, which dominates the majority of Hollywood films and reminds the viewers of the often-male point of view of most popular films. For an easy example of this, just check both Transformers films and try to tell me that the camera doesn’t exploit Megan Fox’s body much like an adolescent male would (targeted demographic for the film).

Halberstam discusses that the first part of Boys Don’t Cry but transforms into a lesbian gaze at the pivotal moment in the film. Dr. Oishi played for us the clip in question and we engaged it. The clip of interest occurs after Lana (Chloë Sevigny) learns that the man she had been dating, Brandon Teena (Hilary Swank), was not a biological man but a biological woman. Lana approaches Brandon in the secluded barn he lives in, not with anger but willing to accept him. However, the language used in this interaction changes the dynamic from a man and a woman to two women. With Brandon’s head in her lap, Lana says to him, “You’re very pretty,” something she wouldn’t have said prior to the reveal. The interaction here changes the way the two act and then turns the story from transgender to lesbian.

We also discussed the cinematic conventions used by the film that provide problems for interpretation. By earlier showing sex scenes and then, in this scene, fading to the aftermath, attempting to show the difference between showing sex on screen and implying making love, the film places itself within the tradition of other Hollywood films. In the end, Boys Don’t Cry sacrifices transgender politics for gay/lesbian ones. I must admit here, I have only viewed the scenes from class and haven’t scene the film, but I don’t imagine this is a far stretch. Gay and lesbian politics have won out in other cinematic examples as well, especially in the form of stories solely about white people, turning gay and lesbian issues into white issues of sexuality. Boys Don’t Cry then aligns with other Hollywood films because it simplifies something like sexuality, just as other films, like Crash or Pursuit of Happyness, simplify such things as race for the sake of a the story.

We ended this part of class talking about how most scholar, when analyzing films, tend to favor criticism based on how the film ends. I’ve noticed this feminist criticism of Thelma and Louise for ending with their deaths. The same criticism could be used here, as it ultimately ends with the death of Brandon Teena, leaving only assumedly heterosexual couples to find love without threat of death. Dr. Oishi discussed the Brandon’s home, an isolated little shack with nothing visible inside, just a bright view of the sky above when the door is open. The shack serves as a metaphor for Brandon; he won’t find hope in his life on earth, only in the sky. We discussed if just looking at the end should ignore the journey along the way of most films and I find myself torn.

Last Airbender at the Super Bowl

2010-02-06T01:12:00.001-08:00

So I just watched the Super Bowl 30-second spot for The Last Airbender, otherwise known as Avatar, if it weren't for James Cameron's film nabbing the copyright before Viacom could with their Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. I find myself both intrigued and worried about this one. The initial film teaser looked interesting enough and the SB spot looks even better but one uncomfortable truth remains, M. Night Shyamalan is still the director. His films started out interesting enough peaking with Unbreakable, but Lady in the Water and The Happening proved his fallibility. The guy doesn't seem to like people telling him when he's got a bad film on his hands. In that way, he pulls a George Lucas, biting off far more than anyone wants to chew.

Regardless, the story of Avatar remains a rather fascinating one. It's rare for a children's cartoon to pull off a three-arch story like it did, providing an unexpected level of intelligence from the viewer. This one's good prove of Steven Johnson's thesis in his book Everything Bad is Good For You where he argues that popular culture is actually making its consumer smarter and reflecting that they're getting smarter as well. Johnson's optimism is both refreshing and uncomfortable at once. I find I want to believe him but the recent success such films as Transformers 2 don't bode well for such statements. Still, Avatar is proof that the fantasy genre remains an under tapped playground for real narrative engagement, as films such as El Laberinto del Fauno and Princess Mononoke proved. Avatar, whose creators have said they pulled much from Hayao Miyazaki's work, tells a fascinating story about the connection of the four tribes of the world all connected through the four elements. Certain members of each tribe can bend their designated element: earthbending, waterbending, firebending, and airbending. Over 100 years ago the fire nation attacked the rest of the world and have been trying to claim dominion ever since. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, can resolve this war. What's most interesting about this story is how the war comes to an end. I won't give it away, but it's quite unique and not what most would think or expect. Anyways, it's totally worth the viewing and it's my goal to get my nephew into the show.

Oscar Announcements

2010-02-02T12:31:00.000-08:00

So they announced the Oscar nominees. Quite an odd list:

Best picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

I don't know what to do with this list. First off, I'm so apathetic to Inglourious Basterds. I imagine the competition's between Avatar and The Hurt Locker though Up in the Air and Precious are strong candidates as well. Personally, District 9 is my vote - an absolute delight that had me engaged the characters and the premise the entire way through, even with the bloody conclusion. Tarantino films lost it for me some time ago and this one just felt way to predictable. I don't know why I'm so stubborn about this but I have no desire to see The Blind Side. It just looks shallow, aiming for cheap emotions rather really addressing social change. Again I know I should see but there's so much more out there that I want to see and this isn't close. Anyways, I don't know if this was the best year for the Academy to switch to a 10-film Best Picture nomination but it should be interesting to see what happens.

Juxtaposing News

2010-01-28T12:58:00.000-08:00

As I log onto my iGoogle account I find the headlines for my news sources fascinating, ranging from the Leno/O'Brien showdown and Carrie Underwood singing at the Super Bowl to dry spells easing global warming and the death of J.D. Salinger. For myself, this has been a unique couple of days in the news. Salinger's death alone was rather a shock though I must admit that I have not read his renowned The Cather in the Rye, thus his death, while shocking, does not hit me the same way the death of Madeleine L'Engle or Stud Terkel's did. Yesterday proved to be a rather odd news day. Since December, I've been waiting for Apple to announce the much-rumored tablet (basically an over-sized iPod) they've been working on and yesterday they finally did. I sat with my roommate and watched the 1.5 hours presentation on the new product and its features. I'm both intrigued and underwhelmed by it. I find it quite interesting that Mac found a place some years back in education programs, providing the computers for school use and lasting software programs, yet their latest inventions, save desk and laptops, are not really meant for educational purposes. Not yet anyways. With all the PDFs printed out in a regular CGU class, purchasing a digital reader would seem like a financially sound one considering the cost of going to Staples once or twice a week, yet no one has really created a program with annotation capabilities. Current eReaders have trouble with annotations, turning something like reading in the Kindle and Nook into a passive experience with little real ability to take notes as you read. Sadly, the iPad (a name one NPR host said was probably created without women in the room) does not change this pathetic standard. They'll get there but for now, this new Apple tech doesn't feel like a step forward for education but another way for people to half engage their digital surroundings.

Oddly, I didn't mean to write that much about the iPad. What I really want to discuss is something far more significant that occurred yesterday. When I opened iGoogle to check out the video on the iPad, I saw a headline from NPR that caught me off guard: "Leftist Historian Howard Zinn Dies At 87." My roommate, a high school history teacher in Montclair, and I spent some time reading about his recent death and reflecting on his works, not just his most popular book A People's History of the United States. I'm sad to think the most exposure some will have to Zinn's existence comes in the form of a brief reference in Good Will Hunting. I'm not a history buff, but I greatly appreciate Zinn's work for helping not "rewrite" history like some of the naive would say but provide a holistic account of this country's formation. As Ronald Takaki and others would do later, Zinn told the story of the U.S. without the tone and bias of imperialistism. He tells the story of the U.S. with unrepresented voices. We don't just understand what occurs within "popular" historical structures but in everything. He also reanalyzes major historic figures and looks at everything they did. For example, Columbus is not some wonderful visionary who found an unpopulated world but a conqueror who enslaved people in a new land and introduced the "New World" to genocide.

While many could've potentially learned about Zinn in history, sociology, or ethnic studies courses, I came across him in a very different way. While in seminary I took the course Advocating for Social Justice and, for the final paper, we were permitted to write something related to our fields of study. I decided to write on the use of narrative film in social justice formation. My roommate had the Zinn reader and I began to read his essays. I was so fascinated by what he had so say. Until then, I hadn't really thought much about socialist ideas (besides the a few pieces of Marx I enjoyed) and Zinn wrote with passion about the connection between civil rights and socialism. I didn't find anything directly addressing the use of film in the liberation struggle, but his theories and ideas guided my research. I don't care much for patriotism. I find the term's meaning too ambiguous and no established institution has earned my trust--though I do find some hope in ideas presented by those like the musicians in the former band Boysetsfire when they sing, "Who will stand up? Who will fight? If you love this country, take it back from those who would destroy it! Protest is patriotism." I find in Zinn, and others like him, a new face of this country that cares more about that often prooftexted "justice for all." Here's to his life and may his death become a time to reflect on what he stood for and where we can go. For those interested, here's click here to check out NPR's story on Howard Zinn.

Army of Darkness midnight screening at LB's Art Theatre

2010-01-25T05:11:00.000-08:00

Sitting at home doing homework on Friday, I received a call from my friend Casey in Long Beach informing me of a midnight screening of Army of Darkness. This was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up, so I took the gf and we joined the LB people for a magical cinematic experience. For those who don't know about this film, it's one of my all-time favorites and definitely my favorite B-movie. It's the final chapter of the Evil Dead trilogy, directed by Sam Raimi, who would go on to direct the Spider-Man trilogy, Darkman, and Drag Me To Hell.

We went to the Art Theatre in Long Beach with about 50 other attendees. There's something so refreshing of viewing a film like this with people who share your enthusiasm. No need to justify this guilty pleasure that I feel absolutely no quilt about. I mean, what's so terrible about a department store worker who gets sent back in time to help Lord Arthur fight the Deadites with his boom-stick (double-barrel Remington), chainsaw (which takes the place of the possessed hand he had to lop off in the film prior), and remarkable ability to create enough gunpowder to take on a demon army. It's all just fantastic, with enough one-liners to make the world's top markers sad they didn't think of them first. This film is the accumulation of 50 years of western, action, and horror films. And the final product is just plane hysterical.

I will say, there are some rather humorous references that most people won't notice in the film; nods to The Day the Earth Stood Still, Gulliver's Travels, Tom & Jerry, and Tarzan, among others. Plus one character, the director's brother, has at least four bit parts, if you're paying attention. It's hard not the appreciate the detail in writing and the homage to film history. Plus, Evil Dead 2 was proved that film could be low-budget with a skeleton cast and still be a bloody good time. Like my friend Garret says, the first five minutes have dialogue and the rest of the film is AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!! Anyways, some B-movies have stood the test of time and this was clearly fits the bill...unlike Daybreakers, which I saw the other week and couldn't get away from soon enough. Vampires sell themselves so I find it rather confusing to understand how some films can be so bad...oh Twilight, you wretched mess. With that, here's a clip with some of the magical one-liners:

Rear Window in Boulder

2009-06-30T23:22:00.000-07:00

I've been in Boulder, Colorado for the past week hanging with Gar and Aubs. It's been a pretty swell time, minus my sickness which is almost gone finally. I love coming out here, though the altitude messes with my breathing. The Shelsta clan is all good people. The funny thing is, I haven't done much. Just wake up (late) hang out with the Shelstas when they're back from work, maybe watch a movie, and see how they interact with those around them. I like vacations where I can just take in the surroundings.

I bet you're wondering why I have this picture of the classic Alfred Hitchcock film. Well, Gar and Co. do this thing on Tuesdays where they all get together and watch a summer movie and, you guessed it, Rear Window was the choice tonight. I don't know why I get shocked when I find that I enjoy a film more than 50 years old. It's Hitchcock, of course I'll love it. Vertigo anyone? This one is incredibly unique. It all takes place from main character Jame Stewart's point of view as he watches what his neighbours do from his apartment, as he nurses a broken leg. The suspense builds as he witnesses a neighbour doing something odd. He's been watching these people live their monotonous lives for six weeks and he knows that something's wrong when a guy starts acting odd. The events unfold and we're there with Stewart to the end to find out if his neighbour is just trying to break to mold or is a stone cold killer. Cue awesome '50s dramatic music here.

Sidenote, isn't it sad that something is wrong when people start acting different. People suck don't they. Anyways, in Colorado until next week. Good times. Tim out.

IT'S HERE! IT'S FLIPPIN' HERE!

2009-06-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

WELCOME. WELCOME. WELCOME. I would like to formally welcome you all to the new blog. I've had some fun and grief getting it to look like this. HTML code sucks. Whoever invented the internet clearly did not have an artistic eye (frikkin' math majors). Anyway, expect some major changes. I'll be adding a lost more articles I've written in the past (edited to blog format) and I'll be updating this puppy a lot more. I wanted to use the url name "Meaningless" but it was taken, so I chose to add "magazine" to the end since the end goal is to create one. Here's my trial effort.

A few things about all the...things. The three rotating pictures at the top aren't just for show, they're links to stories and I plan to change them whenever I write something new that's worthy of being hightlighted. Everything should work, from the search engine to the "recent" and "popular" sections. I've created generic links at the top for different topics I've written about. They're labels linked to the old blog (it's all a work in process). I'm open to suggestions and if anything doesn't work, lemme know. And for all you Twitter people, I'm thinking about it--maybe I can link it to this somehow. Welp, enjoy the new dew. I've really missed posting on this thing. I keep having ideas but felt paralyzed since I wanted to update the layout. It was really annoying. In the next few weeks, expect some rants on the superhero films of 2007, why I no longer like Roger Ebert, and how excited I am about this summer and fall. Peace.

P.S. I posted this old picture for a few reasons: a) I needed to test placing an image on the new post, b) it's a great picture that embodies my hopes and dreams (ya know, being a rockstar), and c) when you fling a guitar like that it scrapes your neck, and since a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into this thing the image of me getting scraped in the neck fits...kind of.

Battlestar Galactica: Rest in Frakkin' Peace

2009-03-23T02:10:00.000-07:00

I just watched the series finale of Battlestar Galactica tonight. Now, to some of my friends, this comes as a relief as it won't be on as much in the house, making way for potentially less nerdy things. To them, I will simply smile and hear their latest complaints when they begin to notice the new shows, like Dr. Who or my latest rediscovery of Babylon 5. The nerd will live on. On that note, I've also been collecting a large amount of comic books lately. I have most of the Civil War story arc from the Marvel Universe, along with several trades from The New Avengers storyline. Anyways, back to BSG.

I know many people will discuss the finale with a very critical edge. My roommates didn't particularly care for the end, and I must admit I think it could have been better. But besides the nit picky, I was very satisfied. It answered many of the questions and ended with just enough ambiguity. I appreciated the finale's pace. It didn't end with a battle, but almost created a very lengthy afterward. Sure, Return of the King did this and everyone got annoyed, wondering when the credits were coming. But BSG had a lot to close off and it didn't feel the need to do that when the explosions very coming. Instead, it just revealed them naturally. To hell with the 3rd act from the screenwriter's playbook. Without giving any details away, the ending was what I expected and wanted.

I'm gonna miss this show. I know people think I'm crazy when I say this, to which my only response is you don't know, but BSG is the best show on TV right now. Its end only marks the continued downfall of television dramas. Sitcoms are doing fine, but dramas are getting thrown off TV quicker than Garfield can eat a lasagna. BSG's end means I'll have a greater reason to turn off the TV and return to my DVD collection. It deserves the Emmy for best drama. Season 4 was sensational, as were the other seasons, and it did things shows have never tried. Its brilliance lies in its ability to be remain true to itself.

It's a sci-fi show that addresses terrorism, love, God, genetics, robotics, Greek mythology, cloning, class struggle, military culture, ethics, and prophecy.

And all the while, a Bob Dylan song is playing in the background.

I'll greatly miss this show. I'm looking forward to the made-for-TV BSG film that'll premiere later this year (though it's a stand alone). And I'm also curious about the spin-off series Caprica, coming out next year. I don't know if the concept of the show will last, but I'm committed to giving it a try. The golden era of television has long been over, and BSG's exodus marks the outro of a diamond in the rough. BSG, RIP. And for that matter, TV in general, RIP.

The Story of David Comes to NBC

2009-03-19T01:34:00.000-07:00

So iTunes is just one of the best things created since awesomeness came to the earth. Steve told me today that the pilot of the new TV show Kings was on it for free. I downloaded the hour and a half episode of the new NBC show episode titled, "Goliath" and watched it with my roommates. For those who don't know, Kings is a modern retelling of the story of King David. It's set in a fictional kingdom that functions much like how we'd imagine a place like England would if they had a king, but the setting is a mix between New York and Chicago. The architecture shots of the capital, known as Shiloh (Hebrew lovers, look it up), are incredible and truly set the stage for the show. A closer look behind the scenes also reveals some fascination stuff. Producer an director Francis Lawrence (who directed films like Constantine and I am Legend) is Catholic. Former Heroes producer Michael Green is Jewish. And another major producer (his name slips my memory, though I did hear him speak at a panel at USC last) is one of the few Muslim producers in television.

I've been curious about this show for some time and I must say, I was not let down. My roommates and myself watched it with the biblical story in mind and found that it truly set up the source material well. Few characters have the same names as in the Bible, save the lead, David Shepard (get it?) and Rev. Samuel. David's relationship with the king is one of love and confusion. Rev. Samuel is stern. The show doesn't shy away from using the name of God. Even Jonathan's character is gay, something that brings much disappointment to the king. This is a controversial debate in the David story. Some say King Saul's son was gay and others say the love he had for David was brotherly love, not romantic love. Either way, taking a side makes for great drama. The production is also wonderful, and there's a lot of butterflies throughout the pilot. At the end of the episode, butterflies (the king's favorite image to evoke in the public) land on David's head in the form of a crowd.

Watching this show, I couldn't help but see similarities between Saul's character and President Bush. We have a king who uses the rhetoric of "God" to unite people, though those close to him roll their eyes at it, but he does many things God would not approve. Rev. Samuel approaches the king and tells him he is no longer in the Lord's favor. We see a man who loves his country but doesn't admit his shortcomings. In one scene, the king's daughter proposes health care reform, but the king wants to end the war and not worry about such things. Hmmm...shameless! The king is even controlled my a brother-in-law with a substantial amount of gold. Sounds a lot like the accusations against Bush's millions in the oil business.

It's refreshing to see that as Battlestar Galactica comes to an end, there are still shows worth checking out. While most TV producers are content adding to the legion of cop and hospital shows, it's nice to see that the medium of television can still pump out an original idea. Let's see if it lasts.

I'm on the staff page!

2009-03-12T15:52:00.000-07:00

Check out the address below, I found it funny. There should be a pic, don't know why it's not there.
http://academics.biola.edu/english/faculty/tim-posada

Wonder Woman and costumed heroines...briefly

2009-03-12T01:15:00.000-07:00

So I just watched the animated cartoon Wonder Woman that came out on video last week. It was created by the same animators that created Superman: Doomsday, which was rather entertaining. As many know, I'm a huge fan of comics, though the Marvel Universe has my hearts many times more than DC Comics. Still, Wonder Woman was actually quite enjoyable, which makes her terrible costume all the more tragic. There's a reason no one has brought her story to the big screen (though Buffy creator Joss Whedon was actually begged for the job a couples years back), the outfit is dated and far too ridiculous. I was watching this cartoon and enjoying the mythology I was presented with: Amazon woman fight the god of war Aries, and after a great battle Zeus orders their queen to inprison Aries rather than slay him; years later, the Amazons live in isolation from the rest of the world until an Air Force pilot crashes on the island; Aries escapes and brings his warlust to the U.S., influencing all men towards their weaker and more violent sides; Wonder Woman, with an army of Amazon women, take on a god; Wonder Woman then finds her way back into society, finding a man to love--but he's the one waiting up for her, preparing dinner. But as I enjoyed this cartoon that had a generic feminist undertone, I couldn't help but laugh at how the costume undermines the point.

Are we really supposed to take the idea of "girl power" seriously in comics if the woman are still dressed like their dominatrix counterparts so many years ago? Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and so many more desperately need new looks. The latest trend in Hollywood has been to take their cues from the fanboy, an affectionate term for crazed fans who have dedicated years of their lives obsessing over cult phenomenons like Star Trek, Star Wars, and comics. And it should be easy to guess the sex of this cultural movement from the name and the general views of femininity often presented. I know the fanboy wouldn't want to see Wonder Womnan's costume change in any potential film versions of her, but it needs to happen. Sure, leave the red, white, and blue colours, but give her some pants and some bra support. It's been going on long enough, let the male gaze take on a different shape than it's usual sexism.

Since I'm talking about the female costume, it seems appropriate to bring up Watchmen as well. I recently turned in my review on Watchmen, in which I critiqued the film pretty intensely. The editor I send my articles in to at the newspaper emailed me back, telling me she agreed with my criticism of the film but also thought the worst thing about the film was its treatment of women. The treatment of women she's referring to is also in the graphic novel. There's a rape, an execution of a pregnant woman, and general distancing from seeing women as heroes (the Silk Spectre's number one strength in the story is her female role in relation to convincing Dr. Manhattan to save the world--something a man couldn't have done). I often don't know what to do with this part of the story, but I'll have a chance to really get into it when my Biola English class goes through the graphic novel. Writer Alan Moore is a very fatalistic man, and for these negative portrayals of women, he creates many more negative views of men. He's just fatalistic throughout the work (and, based on interviews with the man, his life seems to reflect his narrative negativity).

Comics were created for a male audience, but times are changing--though the demographic hasn't changed that much. But just because men are the primary consumers doesn't mean the adolescent bias should continue. Many are discussing how comics have been moving from low culture to pop culture to high culture. If the medium truly wants to make it to the top, it needs to cloth the females, get rid of the general stereotypes, and start to truly see things differently.

"Who Watches the Watchmen?" I did!

2009-03-06T03:27:00.000-08:00

It's 3:30am and I just returned from watching Watchmen at a midnight showing in Red Bluff, CA. Going into the film I was plagued with several emotions. Critics really didn't care for the film, though Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars. Regardless, I had been excited for his film since I saw the first preview for it when The Dark Knight came out. After viewing it I find that I really want to see it again. It's 2hours and 43minutes long, so it's hard to remember it all. I find that I'm feeling the similar emotions as when I saw V for Vendetta (ironically, based on a graphic novel by the same writer/illustrator team as Watchmen). I liked it, though my original idea of what I thought it would look like is completely off.

I'm not going to give a long review as I will be writing one for the newspaper I submit articles to, so if you want to know my full thoughts just go to their website and download the PDF (or you could just ask me in real life). I will say that it was great to watch the movie after reading the graphic novel is based on. The director took greats pains to make this film the perfect adaptation, and it is...perhaps to a fault (more on that in the review). Still, I loved the graphic novel. It wasn't a superhero story about good and evil punching each other in the streets. It was a mystery story that ends in a very unexpected way. This isn't the left and right scenario most superheroes face. This is that gray area most superheroes don't seem to find themselves in. That's why Watchmen is such an important piece of superhero literature and an important piece of literature in general. TIME magazine has this one in their top 100 American literary works written since 1920. Imagine that, a major magazine has Watchmen on the same list as The Great Gatsby, Lolita, and A Clockwork Orange. Makes sense, it is that good.

I won't give anything away, but I will say the film is completely worth the price of admission for those who want to see a superhero film expand the genre's scope. It's not as good as The Dark Knight but it's an enjoyable film. Actually though, I really wanted to write this post because the film got me thinking about my top 5 favourite superheroes again and I wanted to update my list with a little more detail.
5. Gambit: there's something about a southern dude who turns playing cards into kinetic energy and throws them at his enemies; also, his uncertain loyalties make him very interesting.
4. Green Lantern: a regular dude given the power of the gods in the form of a ring; it's like Lord of the Rings stuff but with more green and aliens.
3. Wolverine: I can't help it, he's just great; Hugh Jackman brought him to life and the different versions of him in the comics are cool; he's the ultimate assassin in the Ultimate X-Men and the Weapon X storyline is so intriguing.
2. Rorschach: You'll see him in Watchmen; the uncompromising anti-hero with a strict code of honor; he's methodical, crazy, and, in the film, the inkblots on his mask continually change--so cool.
1. Captain America: I know, why would I love a character that was created to motivate soldiers in WWII; yet there's something intriguing about him; a classic hero trying to survive in contemporary America; and he leads the rebellion against the government when it decides to force all superheroes to register; interesting how he reflects this country--especially when he's assassinated and his sidekick Bucky, who was once brainwashed into a super soldier for Russia and now uses excessive force when he pleases, becomes Cap.

Pop Culture from the Margins

2009-03-05T02:19:00.000-08:00

Last semester I taught pop culture and had a few students that had some amazing papers that I thought they should share with the school and they got that chance on Wednesday with Common Day of Learning at APU. The students did a great job and had quite a crowd. I put together a panel of three students and myself and they were able to speak for a full room. All the seats were taken and many others were sitting against the back wall. Not bad for an event that took place at 9:30am. The title of the panel was "Pop Culture from the Margins." I was really proud of how the students did.

I started the talk by presenting a methodology that covered that basics of what the panel was about: issues like privilege, representation, hegemony, and postmodernism wrapped into 15 minutes. The students-Whitney, Kim, and Eric-then presented on different ideas under this flag idea. Whitney and Eric were in the pop culture class, and Kim is on the newspaper staff, along with Whitney. Whitney gave a great talk on the "self-tropicalizatioin" of J-Lo in her films. She provided some important details on the way J-Lo has used her Latin roots to create her image. Next, Kim discussed changing gender roles in science fiction, specifically focusing on the unique gender issues presented in Battlestar Galactica (I take a little pride in helping her come up with the idea). Eric then closed with a discussion of the comic book's transition from low culture to high culture.

The students seemed very receptive to what was discussed, and rightly so since the student speakers presented their information with great interest in their topic and appropriate detail. Not just bragging, but we had a great panel that covered the many different aspect of "pop culture from the margins." Common Day of Learning is often considered a joke or annoying obligation by some students, but if they attended our panel, they found some great information with a very timely application. Good times.

Next stop, New Mexico

2009-02-26T03:56:00.000-08:00

So I'm about to leave for a conference in Albuquerque in a few hours. I'll be presenting on a California culture panel at the 30th Annual Popular Culture and American Culture Association Conference. I presented here two years ago and it'll be interesting to do it again. Last time I did a paper on how three hyperlink films-Magnolia, Short Cuts, and Crash-represent the various aspects of Los Angeles, and this year I'll be discussing horror cinema's relationship with LA.

My presentation is titled "No One Can Hear You Scream: Los Angeles in Horror Cinema." For those who won't be attendance, I discussing what we fear about LA, based on horror films. Oddly, my conclusion is that horror films are largely silent about LA. Most such films are set in the suburbs or in the woods or back-country, focusing on people from the burbs getting attacked by "freaks." I began trying to find any random film I could to make a paper out of and then I realized I was looking too hard for obscure films, ignoring the obvious trend. Thus, my paper changed focus from what the few films have to say (though I do mention them) to a argument for silence. Horror films are known for feeding off the fears of contemporary culture (I say this acknowledging how bad many of them are), and apparently horror film viewers aren't scared of LA. This doesn't mean there isn't unease in the City of Angels. It does mean people, I argue, that the horror film watcher is more concerned with horrors elsewhere. And if "elsewhere" is defined as the burbs or anywhere people from the burbs could be, then what we have going on in the genre is a unique form of segregation.

There's plenty of things going on in LA for people to scared of, but such things are secondary as most viewers might consider the situation an "us and them" thing. The chief demographic for a blockbuster film is the 18-year-old, white, middle-class male, and he wants to see a film that represents him--and representation is often based on ethnic, gender, and economic background. Thus the viewer does not see himself (I'm intentionally using a male pronoun here to prove my point that horror film are not gender or ethnic neutral) in an LA horror film because it is a multicultural place. LA films deal with ethnic issues and horror films are known for avoiding such things in their attempt to remain neutral, appealing to everyone. Or course many have learned that attempts to appeal to a broad audience means silencing the minority view.

This is the premise. I then go on to discuss ways to engage horror films with this in mind, pulling mostly from an idea by bell hooks called "the oppositional gaze," which forces the viewer to discard passive viewing and actively engage a film text.

Unlike the last time I presented at this conference, I didn't write a formal paper. I found that I have about 15 minutes to speak and can do so in anyway I choose. I'm gonna approach it just like a very focused class lecture. Last time, I wrote a 15-page paper and still created a speech with notes. I was so nervous and spoke so fast. I laughed later when I showed up at the conference and found that I was the only one on my panel not reading straight from what I had written. I soon learned that most conferences are done in this way. Yet, there are those who just speak and with the stress of applying to a PhD program, preparing another presentation for Common Day of Learning at APU, and general class prep, it would be easier to treat this conference like a class session. I finally feel confident enough to do this. Of course I'll stutter and lose my place in my notes, but that's no different than what normally happens. At least now I can mess up with more confidence.

That said, the conference should be quite entertaining. There are several panels on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and comic books in general to keep the nerd that I am very happy. I'll probably have a few more books in the collection when I return too. Here's for academic fun. Cheers.

The latest

2009-02-12T00:23:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here watching Flight of the Concords and I felt like writing a TV blog. We'll start with my list of my top 10 favourite TV shows.
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Battlestar Galactica
3. Angel
4. Firefly
5. Avatar: The Last Airbender
6. Scrubs
7. How I Met Your Mother
8. Bleach
9. Friends
10. 24
I must say, TV is on a downward spiral but there some quite entertaining shows. Flight of the Concords might be the most original. Battlestar Galactica is the smartest and best written. I'll be sad when it ends in a few episodes but it sure is going out with a bang. 24 is still as intense as ever and keeps the suspense ripe. Heroes and Lost are pissing me off, as they continue to recapture the flames they had from season one. I haven't seen Mad Men yet, but I hear wonderful things about it. How I Met Your Mother is steady by slipping on occasion, but Big Band Theory is on fire, along with 30 Rock and The Office. I must say that I've been into Smallville and Supernatural lately too. I acknowledge the tween nature of these shows but have that they both have grown with their audiences. Supernatural is rather dark and has a great storyline right now, involving angels, breaking seals, and the end of days. Smallville got rid of most of the teen drama and is focusing on Clark Kent fighting foes like Doomsday and Braniac. Bleach is still my anime of choice; 200 plus episodes in and always getting better. Cable TV also has two gems, Entourage and Dexter. A show about an actor and his buddies, great. A show about a likable serial killer who kills other serial killers, even better. BBC TV also has some good ones, Torchwood is one of the best sci fi shows of recent years and the short-lived Primeval had some fun moments.

I will say that I don't care much about many new shows, but I am intrigued by a few. Dollhouse marks creator Joss Whedon's return to TV since Buffy, Angel, and Firefly. Kings also looks wonderful. Francis Lawrence, director of Constantine and I am Legend, has created a modern-day retelling of the story of King Saul and King David. Should be pretty interesting.

Welp, that's my TV rant. I end by saying I am sad Avatar is over and acknowledge that I watch more TV shows than most people...I'm okay with it.

Top 10 update

2009-01-13T14:57:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year where my taste in movies changes. I live with many people that don't share my enjoyment of foreign or obscure films, so the rest of the year I wait for said films to come out on video. But Oscar season allows me, and those around me, the excuse to check out the hype of any kind of film. On Saturday night I saw Slumdog Millionaire and I was blown away. It's up there as one of the best love stories I've seen since Moulin Rouge. Last week I saw Che. It won't get many nominations but it is easily Best Picture worthy...far more than the incredibly overrated and rather disappointing Benjamin Button. Anyways, I still have a few more films to go from 2008 before the Top 10 list can be official, but here is an updated version. As expected, Wanted and Quantum of Solace got pumped.

I know some may wonder how they were there to begin with and the answer is quite simple. First, Wanted is hysterical. It's A Purpose Driven Life with guns. It's quite telling to see the American rhetoric of destiny and individualism exposed for the bloody mess it is. The film was clever and a good shoot 'em up. Any good top 10 list will acknowledge that entertainment and escapism is important as well films with a critical edge. As for Quantum of Solace. I love what they're doing with James Bond. He's no longer a glamorized alcoholic womanizer. He's a flawed man. Post 9/11 tension finally made it's way to the Bond films and after decades of the same old thing, it's nice to see a one-dimensional character get some layers. Yes, there was far too much action but Daniel Craig is the best Bond ever (I'll argue anyone on that point) and the film gave me great hope for the future of the franchise.

Now there's also the issue of why Cloverfield is on my list. First off, I'm not alone as several other critics put this postmodern monster movie on their list as well. I loved this film. I took the ideas of The Blair Witch Project to the extreme. It was brave enough to tell a story people might not want from a blockbuster. And it had some great cinematography. I felt like I was on a 3D ride and I enjoyed it all. The characters were decent and the storyline was ambiguous. Sometimes closure is overrated.

Well, w/o further ado, here's the update list in order, pre The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road, Rachel Getting Married, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader (if any of the finalists make the cut, Wall-E will be the first to go).

1. The Dark Knight
2. Slumdog Millionaire
3. Let the Right One In
4. Iron Man
5. Milk
6. Cloverfield
7. Che
8. Tropic Thunder
9. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
10. Wall-E

Simpler Times

2009-01-04T14:55:00.000-08:00

I remember when all I had to do was wake up, eat, pretend to enjoy work, do homework, play video games, watch a movie, and go back to sleep. Life was simpler in college and grad school. Now, it's not that it's not that simple, there's just not much time to prepare for the constant change. Trying to figure what I'll be doing in the spring has been a confusing endeavor. I thought I had it figured for about three weeks back in October/early November. I was going to teach three classes and assist school newspaper at APU. I had two 400 level classes lined up at APU, Faith and Values in Journalism and Senior Seminar. I was incredibly excited about both of them...they got canned from low enrollment. I suddenly realized adjunct teaching is stressful. I began contacting several colleges from Chapman to Pasadena City, trying to find any classes I could. My one goal, not to have to substitute teach. Nothing came through. I still had The Clause and that was it. Luckily, I was offered to teach another class in the spring at Biola. It's funny how I got hired there a few days before the semester started and now it's my bread maker. So I was set. I was going to spend all of January preparing for the Biola class at the end of the month and for the PhD application deadlines coming up on February 1st. But of course something else came.

So two days ago I was offered another class at APU, Public Affairs Reporting. I decided to take the class and am frantically preparing a syllabus and doing the appropriate reading to prepare for such an endeavor. In August I was able to prepare three weeks worth of lectures before the semester started for three classes. Now, I'm gonna going week by week. I'm not complaining here, because I'm so thankful for the second class. I'm gonna love the preparation and the challenge of entertaining 10 students in a three-hour class. I am, however, laughing at how this all has happened. I've gone from full to empty to partly full. I'm excited about the semester, but I gotta say I'm looking forward to the day when I have my PhD and a full-time job that will insure I get classes every semester. I get too much anxiety to live semester by semester.

The End is Nigh

2008-12-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

So it's almost the new year and I'm getting closer to deciding on my top 10 films of the year. I just saw Australia and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and, while I enjoyed both, neither will make the cut. I still need to see a few more key films to make my decision: Che, The Wrestler, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Reader. I say Revolutionary Road but, honestly, it's a Sam Mendes film (he did American Beauty, Road to Perdition, and Jarhead), so while one of those three films might be great, the others were mediocre. Thus, I don't care about his latest film--even if Leo and Kate are back together. Well, here's the list so far (in no particular order).

10. Wall-E
9. Wanted
8. Quantum of Solace
7. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
6. Tropic Thunder
5. Cloverfield
4. Milk.
3. Let the Right One In
2. Iron Man
1. The Dark Knight

While this list may change, I don't think the worst films of the year will. Granted this list is incomplete since I doubt I've seen all the worst films of the year.

10. Burn After Reading
9. The Punisher: War Zone
8. Max Payne
7. Mamma Mia
6. Blindness
5. 10,000 B.C.
4. Jumper
3. The Happening
2. Don't Mess with the Zohan
1. Miracle at St. Anna

Long time, no blog

2008-11-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I haven't been on here for a while. Teaching has been exhausting and my writing has gone into either preparing lectures, grading papers, or writing film reviews. But alas, as my roommates sit next to me watching Jericho, I find that I just might have the energy to do some writing.

First off. The election is over and my man Obama won. For the first time in a while I don't feel hopeless about this country's sad track record. I know he won't be able to do everything he wants to, but we desperately needed somebody new. Symbolically, this country needs to look different than it has been over the last 8 years. Also, I am saddened by the support behind Prop. 8. People can argue anyway they want, homophobia and bad theology is behind this one's support. I held discussions of the prop. in both my Biola and APU freshmen writing classes. It was truly amazing to see how different each group responded. Of course there were naive and prejudicial opinions in both classes (more at one than another though), but it was a night and day difference. It's not really that either campus had different views, just that some people know how to approach disagreements in a respectful manner.

In other news, I'm going potentially insane trying to nail down the classes I've be teaching in the spring. One of them was canceled, so I have to go on the hunt again. I'll find out probably next week if Biola will pick me up again. No matter what, I've truly learned that I love teaching and can't wait to start a PhD program and get that much closer to finding a full-time job. This whole adjunct thing is gonna be the death of me, not knowing what my schedule will look like from semester to semester. On another note, I was thinking about trying to teach at a college in Lithuania this summer. First off, it would be pretty fun to do it and second, it would look great on my CV (curriculum vitae), my academic resume. But with everything up in the air with my future, I have to admit that unexpected doors have been opened. I was expecting to have much more difficulty trying to find classes than I have had. Master's in theology don't normally get chances to teach pop culture, journalism, ethics, or general writing classes. I guess it helps to have a strong network of people that want to support you. (If I was anyone else right now, I'd make some claim about a "God thing" but my cheesiness factor was used up on bad one-liners in my lectures on Monday.)

Anyways, I'm sure I'll have a lot more focus in blogs to come, but for now I'll have to settle with a journal entry. That's it. Peace.

Upcoming movies to be stoked about

2008-08-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

So the summer is basically over and with it, all the big movies are done. But there's still a lot I'm looking forward to this year and in the coming years. So here's a list of what I'm most excited about.

2008
James Bong 007: Quantum of Solace
Casino Royale may not have been the best James Bond flick, but Daniel Craig proved to be possibly the best Bong yet. Finally we're seeing the character have a soul. No more sleeping around and cocktails for the hell of it. This Bond is all about the mission and does what he has to, which may mean blowing off the girl rather than sticking around. He's emotional and emotionless, and with Marc Forster, director of Stranger Than Fiction and Finding Neverland, this film should be great.

Burn After Reading
The Coen brothers are returning to comedy after their evil tangent with No Country for Old Men. Brad Pit, George Clooney, and Tilda Swinton together, awesome.

Twilight
Hey, vampires are always awesome.

The Punisher: War Zone
I actually liked the first Punisher film. Even though the sequel has a different actor in the lead, it still looks to be a good time, super dark. After the first trailer hit the big screen, director Lexi Anderson said she was surprised they found enough action footage without gore. Colour me intrigued.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
David Fincher directed Alien 3 before doing thrillers, serial killer stories, and Fight Club. His next film looks completely different. It's nice to see him returning to films that could never happen. It looks like a Tim Burton film, but twice as smart.

2009
Watchmen
The director of 300 is back with another graphic novel adaptation...actually, the graphic novel adaptation. It looks amazing. This film more than any other has me freaking out. It's the mid '80s. Richard Nixon is still the president. Superheroes, while common in culture, have been made illegal. A lot of people wanna hate on 300, but it was a faithful adaptation, thus I have faith in director Zack Snyder (he also did the Dawn of the Dead remake, which was pretty good).

Wolverine
I didn't know what to think of this one until I saw a bootleg trailer that premiered at Comic Con. Now I'm stoked. Wolverine is a great character and using the Weapon X storyline to introduce a grip of new characters is a great idea.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This one should've come out this year, but they pushed it back eight months, so annoying. Especially since the preview is to good. I love these movies and The Order of the Phoenix was great. We''ll see if they can keep it up.

Terminator Salvation
Christian Bale is one of new favourite actors, and attaching him to one of the most interesting sci-fi concepts is brilliant. Ever since the first Terminator movie, I've wanted to see the human/robot war. Finally, it's happening, and John Connor is Bale. Sweet!

Star Trek
I grew up on the Star Trek movies and shows, so this one makes me all nostalgic. But reminiscing about my youth isn't the only reason I'm gonna see this one. Creator of Lost and Cloverfield, J.J. Abrams is helming this, so it'll be interesting to see what fresh eyes can do for a very old franchise.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
I enjoyed Transformers, but it definitely took way too long to introduce Optimus Prime, luckily all the characters are established, so the explosions can just begin. Here's to badassness.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra
I grew up on this cartoon, so the idea of seeing Snakes Eyes in live action gives me nothing but good feelings all over. It's gonna be mindless and thoroughly entertaining.

Top 50 Villains

2008-08-22T03:01:00.000-07:00

So a bunch of film sites have been posting their favorite cinematic villains, and I just had to chime in. This is my list, so film history takes a backseat to my personal preference. Don't hold me to the order after like 15. I've also got a top TV villains list here too.

Top 50 Film Villains
Jack the Ripper, Iam Holmes, From Hell
Dracula, Gary Oldman, Dracula
Lady Deathstrike, Kelly Hu, X2
The crawlers, The Descent
Alonzo, Denzel Washington, Training Day
Freddy Krueger, Robert Englund, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Samara Morgan, Daveigh Chase, The Ring
The shark, Jaws
Zero Wolf, Raoul Trujillo, Apocalypto
Queen Bavmorda, Jean Marsh, Willow
The Joker, Jack Nicholson, Batman
Hans Gruber, Alan Rickman, Die Hard
The Fratellis, Anne Ramsey, Joe Pantoliano and Robert Davi, The Goonies
Jigsaw, Tobin Bell, Saw
Jennifer Carpenter, Emily Rose (when possessed), The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Hayley Stark, Ellen Page, Hard Candy
The Operative, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Serenity
Prince Nuada/Nomak, Luke Goss, Hellboy II/Blade II
Zorg, Gary Oldman, The Fifth Element
Lord Voldemort, Ralph Fiennes, Harry Potter
Ursula, Pat Carroll (voice), The Little Mermaid
Hannibal Lector, Silence of the Lambs
The Cloverfield monster, Cloverfield
Woo-jin, Yu ji-Tae, Oldboy
The Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard of Oz
The Witch, Lucille La Verne, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Satan, Rosalinda Celentano, The Passion of the Christ
Ommadon, James Earl Jones, The Flight of the Dragons
Mr. White, Harvey Keitel, Reservoir Dogs
Kevin, Elijah Wood, Sin City
Mr. Glass, Samuel L. Jackson, Unbreakable
Agent Smith, Hugo Weaving, The Matrix
The Emperor, Ian McDiarmid, Star Wars
Roy Batty, Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner
T-1000, Robert Patrick, Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Evil Ash, Bruce Campbell, Army of Darkness
The Predator, Kevin Peter Hall, Predator
The alien, Alien
The White Witch, Tilda Swinton, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Captain Hook, Dustin Hoffman, Hook
Anton Chigurh, Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
'Verbal' Kint, Kevin Spacey, The Usual Suspects
Ringwraiths, The Lord of the Rings
Doc Ock, Alfred Molina, Spider-Man 2
G'mork, Alan Oppenheimer (voice), The Neverending Story
Darth Vader, David Prowse & James Earl Jones (voice), Star Wars
The infected, 28 Days Later
Captain Vidal, Sergi Lopez, Pan's Labyrinth
The Joker, Heath Leger, The Dark Knight

Top 10 TV Villains
Captain Aizen, Kyle Hebert (voice), Bleach
Lucy Butler, Sarah-Jane Redmond, Millennium
Cancer Man, William B. Davis, The X-Files
Princess Azula, Grey DeLisle (voice), Avatar: The Last Airbender
Benjamen Linus, Michael Emerson, Lost
Sylar, Zachery Quinto, Heroes
The cylons, Battlestar Galactica
Caleb, Nathan Fillion, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Angeles, David Boreanaz, Angel
The Shredder, James Avery (voice), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

A little bit of an insane week

2008-08-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

So last Wednesday was my last day at the newspaper I'd been working for since October 2007. To celebrate, I went to Long Beach to hang out with Casey for a few days-something I've been doing every Wednesday since I got back from New York/Florida. What was supposed to be a two or three trip turned into a week long adventure. This was the vacation I needed. It was relaxing and packed full of stuff and many new faces.

Wednesday night I show up in Long Beach around 9pm. Casey and I chill for a while before going over to one of Casey's friends' houses. From there, a bunch of us take off to the nightlife, where we meet a number of savory, but mostly unsavory, characters. The party makes its way back to Casey's place, where we stay up talking until 5 in the morning, finally noticing the sun rise and deciding to go to sleep. Also, I love playing Halo.

Thursday I woke up at 2 in the afternoon and spent the day at a coffeeshop, preparing my Freshmen Writing syllabus. Around 8, Casey and I met up again and went over to the same friends' house. We'll call it the party house. We show up in the middle of drama. This is reality show stuff. You stole my beer so I'm gonna slap you, then start a rumor that you punched me, and then I'll drunkenly skate my anger away. It was rather ridiculous, but that's life in Long Beach. Anyways, the best part of this evening was meeting Chuck. He seemed like the cliche drunk guy chillin' on the front porch until we got him talking. The dude taught himself Greek to learn what Paul was talking about in the New Testament. I love these kinds of moments.

Friday
I wake up late again and do the coffeeshop gig. Casey and I opt for a chill night. We catch a late showing of Pineapple Express, before Casey's three friends from Arizona, Amber, Kalani, and Natalie, show up at 2 in the morning. So come 2, we head to the beach. We're just walking around when a group of 7 people invite us to join them and have some free Coronas. So random. That night was great.

Saturday Yet another late start. We get up, hit some coffee, and head to Hermosa for the Hermosa Shorts Film Festival. We do this until 10pm. There are a lot of amazing short films and some really bad ones too. I'd actually scene one, titled Monsoon, last year at a small film festival in Colorado. Crazy. Anyways, it's this night that I decide I'll stay until the girls leave on Wednesday. Why not, I don't have a job. We end the evening hanging around at the party house and then throw on Blade and fall asleep.

Sunday
Beach day! So we don't leave for Sunset Beach until 3pm. Very late start, but we still get 2 exhausting hours in on the water. Casey and myself frog hopped each other into the waves. Sounds fun until the big wave knocks you over. "My kidney! My kidney!" So, we keep it chill that night. Amber and I end that evening at the Pike, a really awesome bar in the area, while everyone else knocks out early.

Monday
So by the way, last week I set up an interview on Monday at Biola to teach a writing class this fall. Since I have no work clothes, the "ladies" (that seemed to be the word of the week, since "ladies" always seem to sound shady) help me find some dress clothes-I needed some anyways. I end up with these nice dark blue pin-striped pants and a light pink shirt. The interview was fine, though the Biola faculty application is 20 pages long with 5 pages of response to their statement of faith. Bull shit! Afterwards, I meet up with the girls at Hunington Beach. We chill, walk around, and stick our feet in the water. We then head back and catch Greek food for dinner. We do yet another night at the Pike and bond some more. Have I mentioned how great these girls were.

Tuesday
Late start. We decide to keep it simple and just head to the Irvine Spectrum. These girls like to shop. But I did find some awesome plaid dress pants from H&M. We do this for a few hours and head back. We decide to finish the night, and week, off at the beach. We take a guitar and some drinks down to the sand and spend the rest of the night singing the first half of whatever cover songs we know.

Wednesday
I wake up nursing a headache and we say our farewells. Threats are made to visit in less than 2 weeks, and hopefully they'll come true. This trip reminded me of how much I love meeting new people since my job and other environments don't really afford me such opportunities. This was truly the funnest week of my summer. I was legen...wait for it...and I hope you're not lack tose intolerant, because the next part is...dary. And now, back to preparing lectures.

The Mutant Chronicles...don't expect much

2008-07-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

While I was at Comic Con this past weekend, I attended a world preview of the film The Mutant Chronicles, starring Thomas Jane and Ron Perlman. I thought it would be fun to once again write about a film that hasn't come out in theatres yet, and be one of the first people in the world to review it.

It's a sci fi film about a world in chaos that becomes infected by mutants that want to turn everyone else into mutants as well. This is one of the projects Jane chose to take instead of doing The Punisher sequel, which is scheduled to come out in December with a different actor in the leading role of Frank Castle. On that note, Perlman played Hellboy in the recent film Hellboy II: The Golden Army, which was fantastic. But back to Jane. I can't believed he passed on reprising a role on the superhero communities favouriate anti-hero-especially when the sequel looked to have more funding and a potentially deeper storyline. Instead, the promising actor did once again another terrible film. Following the Stephen King adaptation The Mist, Jane has proven that he does not know how to pick acting roles. He had the potential to follow in the footsteps of such actors as Clive Owens but instead chose to pull a Jason Statham, taking any action role to pay the rent and not worrying about the quality of the script.

Perlman has been known for starring in many B movies, from Alien: Resurrection to In the Name of the King, but Jane always seemed to be different until now. The Mutant Chronicles is ridiculously bad. It's a British B movie with the patronizing dialogue and story to prove it. I imagine my audience of three will not be inclined to see such a film anyways, but alas it's fun to write about something no one can refute-unless the other viewers just happen to stumble on this. Anyways, the film felt like a high-budget Sci Fi Channel original film. Meaning, it had more than a TV budget but less than a quality feature film one. Tom Jane gave a disclaimer at the beginning of the film that it was still a work in progress. Some edits were rough and certain effects just needed to be fine tuned, but the foundation of the film was shit. The storyline could've been engaging, but the acting was poor and the dialogue was as chiche as it gets. It was also surprising how gory it was. I've never seen that many stabs in the neck in one film. Initially it had a mild visceral effect, but became repetitious. And boy, the dramatic moments of the film were more unbelievable than George W. Bush trying to tell the American public that he really does want peace (okay, cheap shot). About five minutes in the film, the dramatic film cued up for the first major death of the film. Sorry, five minutes isn't enough time in a low-budget film for an emotional connection worth using dramatic music for.

I love sci fi films, but I'm getting sick of so many bad screenplays being approved. I don't understand how it happens, but it's way too common. Even blockbusters like Transformers are prone to these problems. Anyways, The Mutant Chronicles sucked. Go see something better than that piece of shit when it hits like two theatres nationwide. From the look of it, Death Race will probably be better, but that's more comparing two types of shit.

To All You Runners Out There (You know who you are)

2008-07-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

So Saturday was sports day. The idea was simple. Wake up early, play football, ultimate frisbee,
softball, basketball and run around the track. We were all rather exhausted after football but we kept going. Come lunch, after frisbee, I felt awful. Three hotdogs and then softball ain't a great idea. PS, neither is sliding during softball. The side of my leg looks a burned piece of chicken. At this point, I was done for the day. As much as I wanted to keep going (no I didn't) I went home to shower and recover. The rest of the day went well but when I wake up the next morning for church. (That's right, I went to church. My roommate's pastor was speaking on homosexuality and I couldn't resist. And for an added bonus, the congregation sang "God Bless America" and "I'm Proud to Be an American." Gotta love twisted views of religion and patriotism.) Waking up was awful. Every move hurt and sneezing hurt every muscle in my stomach. The rest of that day went by in a similar mood.

And now we're to today and to the title of this post. I woke up and decided to go for a run. Thought it might help out the soreness that is my entire body. So I tried running. I made a substantial way for someone who hasn't really run since junior high. I had two things going against me: running hurts like hell and so does the blister on the back of my ankle. I eventually took my shoes off and finished running because the damn blister hurt so much. When I got back, I was still in a lot of pain.

I know that I can't avoid this forever, but I hate running. If I'm gonna get my hurt going and feel energized, I need a different activity. All running reminds me of is how much I hate running. I did a review on the film "Run Fatboy Run" a while ago. One of the best parts of the film occurs when the main character finds out his ex's jerk boyfriend runs. He simply replies, "Why?" I laughed so hard because that's exactly my response. In the same way that I don't understand how people like drinking coffee or watching sports, I don't understand how running can be fun. I did tell my roommates that we should do more sports and, come August, I'll probably get a gym membership, but I absolutely hate running. It feels like such a hopeless endeavor as the end is almost impossible to see. So that's my rant for the day.

Things to do before I die

2008-06-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

So I was rather bored during my layover in Phoenix this morning, so I created the ultimate list of my adventures and goals for the future.

Visit the Great Wall of China
Visit Tokyo
Write a book
Create a comic book
Create a film
Create a website/magazine
See Sigur Ros live
Bungee jump
Learn to play piano
Learn to bartend
Learn a second language
Attend the Cannes Film Festival in France
Compete in a Video Game Tournament (either Halo or Gears of War)
Storm out of a job exclaiming, "I quit"
Live in another country
The Bull Run
Octoberfest
Kiss someone on New Year's (I know, how sad)
Participate in a protest rally
Take a piss on the Hollywood sign

Wanted, or What does the NRA think about Assassins

2008-06-28T14:50:00.000-07:00

I watched Wanted last night. I knew I was in for something different, since director Timur Bekmambetov isn't known for creating a sober film. His Russian fantasy films, Night Watch and Day Watch, are a crazy mix between an acid trip and a few episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants. This makes complete sense when creating a comic book film, though I do wonder if the general public will be ready for this one. Wanted definitely has its own style. The voiceover narration, by James Mcavoy, makes the film more than just a sheer superhero film, though it's technically a supervillain film. Newby Mcavoy is asked to join the Fraternity of Assassins, designed to create order around the world. He is one of a few people in the world with a rare gift; he can slow down time and respond quicker to his surroundings. This makes him more agile and an amazing gunman. But the point of the joining the Fraternity isn't for the sake of humanity's survival. No, Mcavoy's character joins up because he doesn't know who he is and feels that this group of killers can help him find his destiny (a commonly used word in the film), or purpose.

The entire film actually felt like a fucked up version of Rick Warren's A Purpose Driven Life. He wasn't doing what he should've been with his life when he had the 9-5 job. Now, he was livin' the dream. Getting the much-needed rush to calm his anxiety and help him find clarity...you know, amidst all the killing. The way "purpose" is addressed in this film is almost satiric. This is "Fight Club" for gun lovers. While bullets fly through people's skulls, Mcavoy says, in voiceover, "this is me taking control of my life, my destiny, what the fuck have you done lately." I wanted to cheer and laugh at the same time. Obviously, the film was shooting for badassness, but it sure was telling at the same time.

On a different note, I really think the film would've been better if it had followed the graphic novels it was based on more. The premise is amazing. In 1986, the Fraternity decide to kill all the superheroes of the world and decided to quietly control it through their organization. The series picks up with an uprising in the Frat, where some members are tired of remaining on the sidelines of society. There are no good guys-not ridiculous idea that assassins are a necessity for peace. In Wanted, assassins are just people trying to take over the world. Also, the Wanted series also has magicians and people with other types of powers besides awesome gun slinging, but perhaps concepts like curving the bullet were enough for one film to handle. It wasn't perfect but it sure was entertaining. And James Mcavoy is an amazing actor. He definitely pulled off the action hero role. Props.

10 Things I learned in New York

2008-06-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

10. New York is a very humid place (right now, worse than Florida)
9. Hegemony comes from the root word "hegemon," having something to do with imperical rule. :)
8. When your mouth is dry, beer isn't the cure.
7. People from Australia are cool.
6. It is possible to go a few days without meat and still have good meals.
5. "How I Met Your Mother" will always be a great show.
4. This city still gives me anxiety.
3. Even in New York, $80 is too much for a cab.
2. I wish there were more cities that stayed up this late.
1. Opera in the park, who really pays attention.

Good times.

Hope, Change, Progess and all the Other Rhetoric

2008-06-17T21:30:00.000-07:00

I should be writing about possible changes in bicycle laws in the City of West Hollywood or the new funds raised by community organizations to renovate the front lawn of a high school, but I just can't do it right. So I've decided to take a break from work writing to write about something I haven't written about in years, politics. Unlike some people I know, I only get jazzed about these things every two and four years. Besides that, I try to stay up with issues but my simple mind can only take so much before I zone out and put on another episodes of Ninja Turtles or Vultron. But alas, here I go, venturing into a world everyone seems to think they are an export of but few actually let their say be heard come election time.

It may be clear to some that I'm no fan of the conservative standpoint, even though I'm apparently considered one simply for being a Christian (which I still find hysterical since a prereq for being a Christian is being a revolutionary who gets in the way of legalism and tells oppressors to fuck off). Anyways, I was one of the few people that actually voted for John Kerry almost four years ago. I didn't particularly care for the man, but Bush was just that scary. But I currently take no pride in being right (even my father, who often considered himself a strong republican, lost faith in the right-this was a big victory for me after years of debating with him and my mother). I am relieved that it's almost over. Currently, a former Democratic presidential hopeful is trying to impeach Bush, and I am very okay with that-though it won't happen. It's politics time again, and all the naivety that comes with it is out and about.

I find all the rhetoric for and against presidential candidates rather intriguing, and I'm always ready to fight someone I disagree with. I must say, I super stoked about Barack Obama. There's a lot of talk about his experience and other subtle ways of saying the country isn't ready for a black man to be in office, but I'm thrilled. I would vote for Obama because he is black. And I would've voted for Hillary Clinton simply because she is a woman. I don't see anything wrong with this. The alternative is a moron, but besides that, we desperately need leaders that are not old, white men in major roles. This is huge. We live a country that doesn't want to admit how severe racism is, and sexism for that matter. Just check out the segregation and distribution of wealth in any major city, it's beyond tragic. It should be illegal. Now with that said, I've never been more excited about a candidate than Obama in all the time I've been able to vote. Yes, he sure is a damn good speaker, and I guess such speech could be problematic since it could be seen as manipulative (see Aristotles three principles of rhetoric), but I see what Obama stands for and really see a chance for this country to get of the shit it's been getting deeper in for the past eight years (I'm sure this length of time is more, but I can only speak for the time I paid attention). So here's to affordable healthcare (it'll be nice to have some again), a public figure that will help heal racism, and ending the war. I know this is all very simplified, but whaddya expect, I care about cultural implications, thus lack much of the practical language and application politics and policy require.

I'd also like to add that the picture of Obama here is awesome. The artist, Shepard Fairey, is one of most distinctive right now, creating works that bring together art, social justice, and capitalism-a combo rarely done well.

Anyways, yay Obama, fuck McCain.

Yet Another Nerd Out Moment

2008-06-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

I just got back from a special theatre screening of my favourite anime, Bleach. The show created a film in 2006 called Bleach: Memories of Nobody, for two nights at select theatres they premiered the English-dubbed version of the film. The screening was just like a midnight showing of a film or attending Sundance; you're surrounding my people just as obsessed as you. It's quite refreshing after the months of torment from roommates and friends about my abnormal interest in this Japanese phenomena. Before the film started, there were several previews of selected anime TV shows and it was great to here people cheering them on-this cheering would continue throughout the movie when familiar faces appeared for big battles.

There were no previews for films before the movie, but there was a 15-minutish piece on the Via Media, the American distributor of Bleach, on the process of converting the Japanese manga for an English-speaking audience, and converting the anime for an English-speaking audience as well. The video actually began with a good five-minute clip of the Bleach creator sketching the main character. It reminded me about how I used to be able to draw but somehow forgot...oh well. Anyways, the video was rather interesting and it included interviews from voice actors and the editing team at Via Media. There are more than 170 episodes in the show's history and I'm almost caught, thus it was rather interesting to see the faces of the voice actors and learn about what's going with the Japanese creators and the American team. P.S. the creator is gonna be at ComiCon in San Diego this July, and I'm totally gonna go here him speak.

The film was about what I expected. It had nothing to do with the main story arch of the show, which is incredibly in depth, but did it's own thing with new villians and a new character it could kill off at the end. It was still cool to see the fight scenes of memorable characters and watch something with crisper animation-the music still sucks. It was a pretty cool experience and, as usual, I love going to the movies. The End.

Mmmmm, the Wind

2008-05-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

Today sucked. Besides the fact that I spent more than two hours trying to get from Glendora to Beverly Hills (what a shit hole). Besides the fact that I continue to find new ways to get scolded at work (man, I can't wait to quit). And besides the fact that I can never seem eat normally or healthily at work. I spent over 10 hours at work looking outside to see trees moved by the wind that I desperately wanted to be moved by. I love windy days. Here's a list of things better than windy days:
1. sex...probably
2. ...
That's it. Of course, when I got home after nine, the wind was gone and I would've been too tired to bask in it anyways. Sidenote, I'm convinced that journalism can swallow your personality if you're not careful. Cure, socialize, drink, remain slightly apathetic about work, and blog. Back to wind. I love wind. If it's caress did it for me, I'd be a happy man. The sound of it at two in the morning makes me want to sleep forever-and that's saying something since I usually stay awake until four. Though it's 1:47 right now and I'm feeling the bed pull...but not yet. Besides those random moments when you're driving and a gust yanks the into another lain, wind has few negative elements (get it). And for the love, I was stuck inside all day. I don't care about pretty sunny days, a good wave at the beach, or daisies floating in the air. Give me wind, some rain, and snow. It's all wonderful to me. Just don't make we stare at it through a window that can't be opened. That's cruel and major cause for window vandalism.
Sidenote two, my intro to journalism and freshmen writing classes are both full. I currently have 39 students between three classes. The fall's gonna be crazy. Syllabus stuff is still going strong and I'm receiving quite a few books to review.
Sidenote three, if you wanna see me singing a song, rapping, and all around acting very inappropriately, check out Steve's latest blog (he's linked on my panel). I apologize now for the vulgar things I say and excessive use of the word "fuck." I swear, I don't normally talk like that...before noon...when I'm asleep. I'm done.

Top 10 Fantasy Films

2008-05-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

So I saw The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian last night, and I quite enjoyed it. Way better than The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Darker and even had a rather bleak ending. They added some stuff that wasn't in the book and it worked really well. Funny, dark, and epic battles. It's inspired me to create my new fantasy top 10 list.

10. Hook
9. Spirited Away
8. The Neverending Story
7. CON: Prince Caspian
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
5. LOTR: The Fellowship of the Ring
4. Princess Mononoke
3. Pan's Labyrinth
2. LOTR: The Return of the King
1. LOTR: Two Tower

Teeth: When “It” Fights Back

2008-05-15T04:06:00.000-07:00

A film was recently released on DVD called Teeth, and you’ll never guess where they’re located. I’ll give you a hint…vagina. I saw the premiere of this film at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film description said little more than a synopsis about a high schooler who runs a purity campaign begins going through some changes. No shit. It then concludes saying that if you don’t know what the vagina dentata myth is, then you will. It’s true. So the premise is pretty simple. A girl is born different. She gets a crush on a guy. They kiss. He wants to go farther and she doesn’t. Unfortunately, when he forces himself on her, those sneaky teeth kick in and kick out his little guy. Some idiots still believe that most women had it coming when they get raped. Welp, this guy definitely had it coming. Use your penis for evil and you lose it. The girl then learns to control her newfound power. When she’s happy, it doesn’t bite. But if you piss her off, get ready for something really, really fucked up.

I remember watching this film with a large group of people that cringed, shouted, and laughed in unison. The film was definitely a mix between comedy and horror. Also, it really wasn’t that good. Bad acting. Ridiculous music. Superficial plotline. It really only had shock value. But that’s more than most horror films have these days. I remain convinced that this film, while trying to become a girl-power film, actually doesn’t do anything new. It simply allows women to enter male-dominated film with the same aggression and bloodlust as men. This isn’t something new, but the old reversed. With that said, the vagina dentata myth still speaks loudly to Western culture—and world culture for that matter. Culture truly forms around the dominating ideology of penetration as the ultimate form of power. What is a knife if not an extension of the penis, spreading its power to whatever victim, male or female, it seeks out. There’s a reason most serial killers in movies use knives and go after women. Teeth serves as an alternative to penetration as power. The vagina becomes a weapon that can engulf the penis. The foreign object is at a disadvantage on the home turf.

There’s part of me that wants to buy this film even though I may never watch it again. Though I am curious to see the rated-R version as I saw an unrated one. Three castrations will stick with you. The subject matter is intense and easily ignorable to many, but when I left that many, there were a lot of 45-year-old female viewers talking about how the chick flick was just redefined. There’s something powerful in this crappy movie. Just imagine the possibilities of such a concept or similar ones, thematically, maybe not just conceptually, in the hands of a film master

Something Drastic

2008-05-12T13:27:00.000-07:00

So I did something rather compulsive yesterday...That's right. My hair has reverted to a size unknown to me since seventh grade. The mop on my head was getting rather unmanageable and the person who normally cuts my hair doesn't live close by anymore, thus I'd been debating this for a few days. I was ready to do and Steve pointed out that doing it myself would make it much shorter than I originally planned. But alas, I was impatient and just did it. No scissors, just the buzzers on a 1-inch setting. I don't regret it, but I'm suddenly very aware of my receding hairline. It ain't that bad, but a bit of a reminder of where my head's going in the future. I also have a few gray hairs saying hi to me, but I kinda like 'em. I feel like they give me street cred, or at least add a few years of wisdom to my face. Either way, what's done is done. I'm not gonne keep it this length and it'll probably grow out nicely in a month.

Top 10 Comic Book Movies

2008-05-07T00:55:00.000-07:00

So I've been inspired to create my top 10 superhero movies list, since I just looked at one that was ridiculously stupid. Sorry, this ain't an opinion, the guy was a dumbass for his list. Oh well, not everyone can be right. (keep in mind, there's a lot of superhero movies coming out, so this list could easily change)

10. Batman
9. Superman
8. The Incredibles
7. Blade II
6. Unbreakable
5. V for Vendetta
4. Batman Begins
3. Iron Man
2. X2
1. Spider-Man 2

Just Because

2008-04-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

So I know I been about as inconsistent about updating my blog as U2 are about putting out good music, but alas here I am again. Since it's 3 in the morning, I find rather appropriate to do a blog on something important to me, my fears and dreams. One of my roommates bought Planet Earth and we were watching it tonight. Sorry nature people, I'm a city boy in every way, thus this was about as enjoyable as, well, the anime I make my roommates watch. I especially was freaked out by the great white sharks attacking seals. Holy shit, that was some of the scariest stuff I've seen since George Bush getting reelected. These demon fish (yes, I called them fish, get over it all you grammar-correcting snobs) could jump like 10 feet out of the water and eat their prey. There's a reason I'm up right now. I know I'm gonna dream about those over-sized plot devices for sea horror movies. I got such anxiety from watching them...even writing about it is freaky.

Second thing, I've been going through the TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel, and I stand by it. Could I please become a vampire. I know I'm not too big into blood but at least I wouldn't have to worry about organic, fair trade, or added chemicals anymore. Also, I'd be hella (that's right, hella) strong. Throwing people across rooms. Chillin' in a layer thinking up plans for world destruction. What's not to love. And, of course, the most important part. NIGHT TIME! I love night time more than I like sarcasm. When I worked for Starbucks, I went insane having to get up at 3:45am to be at work by 4:15am. I go to bed at 4, not get up then. Even having to wake up at 8 is annoying (before everyone begins judging me and calling me a lame/lazy ass, I do get up at that time normally, just not enjoyably). I thrive at night...case and point, this amazing blog entry. Here are the key reasons why night time kicks some major nocturnal ass. First, there's not sun at night time. Second, it's easier to put on layers without worrying about heat (also another reason why the sun sucks). Third, people do ridiculous things as the night progresses. Fourth, there's just something about being around someone and watching to time go by. Fifth, it helps the days feel like they're longer. Sixth, any city looks better at night. Seventh, hide and go seeks. Eighth, midnight showings of movies rule. Ninth, the silence is rad. Lastly, if night time is good enough for Dracula, then who am I to argue. So there you have it, I love the night. If I could, I'd love to go to that city in Alaska that becomes night for a month.

Well, there you have it. This is my late night rambling. I think I'll finally go to bed.

Pop Culture for the Soul

2008-04-14T23:55:00.000-07:00

I officially have all the classes set up to teach at APU this fall. I will be teaching Freshmen Writing Seminar, Intro to Journalism, and Studies in Popular Culture. I'm so incredibly thrilled. For FWS, movies will be my theme. I'm planning to have the students write critically about such films as Princess Mononoke, Pan's Labyrinth, Moulin Rouge, and Enchanted. They'll do reviews, a film journal, and a major paper about a specific film. I think it'll be a great way to teach writing. Intro to Journalism should be a blast. It'll be part writing and part critical understanding of the journalistic media. I'm planning to have the students read a book called The Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word, which addresses the changing cultural environment that cares more about visual rather than textual mediums. I'm also going to address current journalistic trends through such books as Nickel and Dimed, Why White Kids Love Hip-Hop, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, and When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. The students will learn to write like a journalist and appreciate and critique the different styles of media coverage of contemporary society. I think Pop Culture might be my baby. I've already begun compiling a reader, which will have certain chapters from different books, along with three other books the students will read in their entirety. The class should be a lot of fun.
This and other things have really made me optimistic about my future. It's weird how paranoid I've been, and how things have really started coming together. It's all been rather surreal lately. I owe a lot to my old teacher Karen Sorensen. She plugged me for The Clause job and continued to plug me for other positions, which I now have. So, I've never written a syllabus or run a class in this kind of a setting. I have quest lectured before and spoken at conferences. This is going to be a very unique experience and should give me a good clue as to what I'll be doing in the future and how I should go about. I can't wait until fall...though summer should be interesting as well.

Spring Break: A Wild (Mild) Time

2008-03-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

So it's spring break and I'll actually been rather busy. Unfortunately, not busy in the normal sense of spring break. I still had to go to work at my newspaper job, and I also had to finish my presentation for the conference this weekend. Because of this, I've been living off a combination of fast food and sheer nerve. Writing has become my only form of communication (oh, irony) and I can't seem to write what I want. Towards the end of Thursday night, it all did start coming together. I read my speech for the following day aloud to my roommates and it all felt like it was beginning to make sense-I just might convince the PhDs at the conference that I'm worthy of being listened to.

The week wasn't entirely wasted to the academic bubble. Between meals and reworded paragraphs, I actually did some exercise-of course, what I mean by this is playing Rock Band on xBox 360. I'm getting better at the drums and actually finding myself enjoying music once more. Though I really hate songs with an overuse of the bass drum and most the songs on Rock Band do this. As Thursday rolled around, I was in a bit of a panic as I wasn't up to where I wanted to be with my writing, and the house was getting rather dirty. I couldn't seem to focus and continued taking breaks to play ping-pong, rock band, and check if there was anything new about the upcoming G.I. Joe and Hellboy movies. Yet, I did manage to get to a comfortable point with everything-though I wished I had more time as I would've loved to memorize my speech or perhaps create a powerpoint presentation to go along with it. I did try to end the night right with an anime I rented called Vampire Hunter D, but the disc was scratched and mid-80s animation just ain't what it is now. So, I turned it off and ended the night with some of the second book, or season, of Avatar: The Last Airbender. There's something truly brilliant, fun, and funny about that show.

Friday morning came and I was running a little late. I wanted to make it to the session before 11:00am, thus I was forced to grab breakfast at Burger King-French toast sticks just ain't the same anymore. I took off to Loyola, which is off the same exit as LAX. I arrived at the campus in pretty good time, but Campus Safety didn't know where the conference was. I looked around for a while and became rather nervous. I wondered if it was being held off campus and I missed the memo. I tried calling numbers, but no one was picking up. Finally, I gave a call to a roommate to check the conference info...fucking shit, it's next weekend. Now, if I had known that Loyola is a Catholic school, I might have thought it odd to hold a conference on Good Friday. Alas, I didn't know and apparently can't see straight when it comes to checking dates. I'm normally not a flake about such things-in fact, I'm rather obsessive about them. Maybe I'm losing my edge...okay, I never had one. Either way, the conference is next weekend and I'm a little relieved. I now have the extra time to familiarize myself more with my material, and, today, I made a bomb-ass powerpoint presentation.

Conference Stress

2008-03-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

Next Friday I'll be presenting at a religion conference called "Convivencia: Religious Identities in the New World" at Loyola Marymount University. My presentation will be titled "Children of a Babbling Labyrinth: the Reforming Other and Mexican Filmmakers." I will be looking at the films Babel, Children of Men, and Pan's Labyrinth, which were each directed by Mexican filmmakers, and addressing how they represent three unique directions Mexican filmmakers can take in the global film market. My focus will be on how the films feed off each other, as they each premiered in 2006, and the way they each approach topics such as suffering and liberation. All the while, I'll be making a claim that such a viewpoint is necessary for the growing discipline of theology and film studies. As of now, I'm drawing from such scholars as Walter Wink, Gustavo Gutierrez, bell hooks, and several other theo and film scholars.

I looked at the list of paper sessions and I am on a panel with two very unrelated papers: feminist power in Latin American and Muslim/Christian relations in Israel. In fact, there is only one other paper about film at the conference, and of all people, my old professor Carrie Peirce is presenting it. Her class at APU is one of the few that changed my life perspective and now I'm presenting on a similar field as her (this rather makes me feel insecure). Either way, this conference is a great opportunity, though I am completely stressed about what I am going to say and how I'm going to do it. I've debated just writing something out and reading it. I know that sounds boring but I've seen it done several times and it might be a good idea since I'm going to be one of the younger presenters there. That last thing I want to do is worry about stumbling over my words. Well, all I have to do is finish writing that damn thing. For the life of me, I can't seem to tie it all together in a tangible and critical way. My normal textual vomit style of writing papers isn't going to cut. However, there seems to be a light at the end of Plato's fucking cave. We'll see.

AHHHHH!

2008-03-13T17:46:00.000-07:00

So everything's been happening at once. I've been having a great time overseeing The Clause at APU and rather bummed that I won't be doing it in that fall as I am simply a fill in. But this has opened up several opportunities for me. I am now going to teach a section of Freshmen Writing Seminar and there is potential for a section of Intro to Journalism and Public Comm-and it's all thanks to a newspaper job I took in West Hollywood. If I didn't get that job, I wouldn't have gotten The Clause gig and I wouldn't have gotten my foot in the door at APU. Thus, I have movies to thank for this all as I got the job at the newspaper because I found an ad on JournalismJobs.com and sent them my writing samples.

Besides the potential for fall classes, I was also contacted by one of my old professors who will be on sabbatical next spring in needs someone to teach his classes. I'm not qualified to teach one of them but the other is Christianity and the Creative Process, which I have been drooling over since I graduated from Fuller. Needless to say I would love this class. Oh, and today I received an email about potentially running the APU yearbook next fall. Apparently the art department is dropping and communication studies or alumni might pick it up. Either way, the chair of the comm department recommended me. It seems kind of funny, but it would be a great chance to improve something that the entire student body would see. I'm trying to see how this would all work as an adjunct who can only teach five classes for the entire academic school year. Perhaps the yearbook wouldn't count as a class...problem solved.

So career events have actually begun to pick up. My plan to teach at APU actually turned out to be an idea that paid off. I'm enjoying myself right now and can't wait to see what happens in the future. I hope my performance reviews go well.

Catching up on films

2008-03-04T00:35:00.000-08:00

As I have been out of grad school for a few months, now I have found that the number killer is boredom. The avoid this, I have tried to keep busy with three jobs, attempts at a social life, and viewing far too many movies with a Blockbuster queue. My adventures have taken me through foreign and classic films, anime, and several TV series (By the war, Prison Break is my new addiction, check it out). I recently tried to catch up on all the Oscar films in order to do an "Oscars in Review" piece for the newspaper I write for. In my research, as I like to call it, I finally came around to a film that was not nominated for anything, Lust, Caution.
This was director Ang Lee's follow up film to Brokeback Mountain. There was a large amount of controversy surrounding the film as it was rate NC-17 for some rather graphic sex scenes. Comically, an R-rated version was released for rental in the states. Lee is not the kind of director to bask in such scenes for the sake of pornography. As he has done in other films, he taps into sexuality in its most violent and graceful. It's a very jarring experience. Actress Wei Tang was truly robbed of an Oscar nomination for this role. I didn't really think Marion Cotillard deserved Best Actress for her role as Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose. Tang deserved a nod and possible win, but an NC-17 film would never be up for the prestigious Oscars, known for avoiding real controversy.
The film's plot was pretty simple. Tang becomes an unlikely spy in China during World War II trying to infiltrate the life of a major leader. But her lust takes over and dissolves her caution against an evil man who is both her love and hatred. SPOILER ALERT: I gotta say, Ang Lee needs to have a happy ending in one of his films. It's become too predictable (like a Martin Scorsese film) to expect everything to south his films. SPOILER END.
If you're okay with the R-rated sex scenes (I know it goes against the principles of art, but I fast forwarded through them), the film is pretty amazing and is the most plot-driven thing Lee has ever done.

Top 10 Films of 2007

2008-02-29T21:18:00.000-08:00

I've finally caught up on all the films I wanted to see from 2007, with the exception of Into the Wild, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Persepolis, and Lars and the Real Girl. So my top 10 list may change, but here it is as of now.
1. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
2. Once
3. The Orphanage
4. Across the Universe
5. Ratatouille
6. The Savages
7. 28 Weeks Later
8. What Would Jesus Buy?
9. Superbad
10. 300
Honorable Mention:
Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, Knocked Up, Lust, Caution, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 30 Days of Night, and Sicko.

Cirriculum Vitae

2008-02-27T23:45:00.000-08:00

EDUCATION
• Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, 2009 – Present
Emphasis: Media Studies
Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA
• Master of Arts in Theology, 2007
Emphasis: Film, Culture, and Media
Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA
• Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies, 2005
Double-emphasis: Media Studies and Journalism
Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA

ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Azusa Pacific University
• Faculty Adviser, Spring 2008, Fall 2009 – Spring 2010
Oversee approximately 40 students of the university newspaper, The Clause, providing support and guidance on news reporting, interviewing tactics, and page design, along with organizing the newspaper budget, managing 16 paid student workers, and serving as a mediator between the staff and the campus administration.
• Adjunct Instructor, Spring 2008, Fall 2009 – Present
Courses:
Public Affairs Reporting, JOUR 430
Studies in Popular Culture, COMM 370
Student Publication Workshop, JOUR 325
Desktop Publishing and Design, JOUR 315
Introduction to Journalism, JOUR 210
Freshmen Writing Seminar, ENG 110
Readings in Communication, COMM 497
Advanced Public Relations, JOUR 460
• Assistant Faculty Adviser, Fall 2008 – Spring 2009
Providing technical support for the paid student staff of the university newspaper, The Clause, teaching design software (InDesign, Acrobat, and Photoshop), along with critiquing news articles and training the staff on diversity issues

Biola University
• Adjunct Instructor, Fall 2008 – Present
Courses:
Studies in Critical Thinking and Writing, ENG 110A (argumentation)
Studies in Critical Thinking and Writing, ENG 110B (literature)

ACADEMIC HONORS
• Journalism Student of the Year Award, 2005

PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS
• College Media Advisers, 2009 – Present

PRESENTATIONS
• "Othering the Media: An Introduction to Moving Beyond Dominant Ideologies," presented at the 8th Annual Common Day of Learning at Azusa Pacific University, March 3, 2010
• “Covering Race, Ethnicity and Culture on a Faith-Based Campus,” presented at the 88th Annual Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers National College Media Convention, 2009
• “Popular Culture From the Margins: A Methodology,” presented at the 7th Annual Common Day of Learning at Azusa Pacific University, March 5, 2009
• “No One Can Hear You Scream: Los Angeles in Horror Cinema,” presented at the 30h Annual Meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association, February 2009
• “Children of a Babbling Labyrinth: The Reforming Other and Mexican Filmmakers,” presented at the 2008 Convivencia: Religious Identities in the New World conference at Loyola Marymount University, March 2008
• “The Importance of the Media in Shaping the News,” presented at the 6th Annual Common Day of Learning at Azusa Pacific University, March 5, 2008
• “Connections of Disbelief: Network Narrative Films & the Real California,” presented at The 28th Annual Meeting of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture and American Culture Association, February 2007

PUBLICATIONS / WRITING CREDITS
• Contributing writer of the NavPress publication, 7Minutes with God

RELEVANT EMPLOYMENT
• Park La Brea News/Beverly Press
Reporter/Page Designer, part-time, 2007-2008 (film critic to present)
• Bonita Unified School District
K-12 Substitute Teacher, part-time, 2007-2008
• MosaicRC
Music Director, part-time, 2004-2007
• University Relations (Azusa Pacific University public relations department)
Writer and Photographer/Photo Librarian, part-time, 2004-2005

FREELANCE EXPERIENCE
• Contributing writer for publications Get Your Tournament and rednoW
• Writer for Skratch magazine, 2005-2006
• Film reviewer for The Semi, Fuller Theological Seminary, 2005-2007

WFF!

2008-01-27T13:31:00.000-08:00

To my future has been unfolding in unusual ways lately. Here's the nutshell:

So things have been interesting lately. I've decided to stay on at the newspaper in West Hollywood. It's a consistent job and good opportunity. In the next few weeks I'm gonna see if they'll let me run an extensive piece on the Academy Awards-do a review on the past year instead just one film. It should be fun. I also have the opportunity to redesign their website if I learn how to do it, so if anyone knows where I can learn HTML stuff, that'd be great.

Advising The Clause is a truly unique experience. I wonder what my old prof felt like when she first took this job. It's an odd way to begin teaching at college. There's no lectures. All class work comes at the end of the semester. Everything else is more hands on outside the classroom. In some ways I like it because of the fluid structure, in others, it's harder to understand what's expected of me.

I had an interview to teach Freshmen Writing Seminar at APU. The interview lasted like five minutes. I was asked why I wanted to teach the class and a few other questions. I was then told that since I have already gone through the adjunct interviews, things are looking up. He ended by saying that he wished I had an English degree but was willing to look passed it. So things are looking good for me to teach FWS in the fall. I have some other possibilities too, but nothing is certain.

Soon enough I'll be looking for PhD programs again. What the hell am I going to do during the summer!

Life

2008-01-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting here watching The United States of Leland, writing this blog, taking a break from writing an article about a spike in MRSA among gay men, ages 18 to 35, and listening to Steven laugh his hardy laugh in the other room. My mid-weeks are always interesting. I wake up on Tuesday and drive out to West Hollywood. I hate that damn drive, but I do it because I need the money, though I no longer enjoy working for this boring little newspaper that has a bigger ego than a puppy that doesn't know it will soon be castrated. (Steve is laughing again) So after the newspaper, I went home for a few minutes and got ready to head to my second job, faculty advising for The Clause. I felt a wee bit awkward last week, but this week felt a lot better. I'm really gonna enjoy this. I've been answering a shit load of emails for work. After the meeting was over I came home and got into a rather loud argument about if a president should or shouldn't pledge to the flag or not. It was a quite long argument and I got kinda bored halfway through, but I continued until the end. So that's about my average mid-week day. A little tiring but fun.

I'm Back

2007-12-27T18:26:00.000-08:00

Pardon the absense since my last post but it's been hard for me to sit down and write since my job requires me to do the same. Life has been crazy lately. I had to cancel my Christmas plans to go see my brother, nephew, and nieces because of the newspaper job. Instead of hanging with my family on Christmas day I went to see Alien vs. Predator: Requiem and decided to sneak into No Country for Old Men and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. That's right, I did nothing on Christmas, but this problem with work won't be continuing for much longer as I will be quiting the paper in the next two weeks. While I'm not a fan of getting yelled at for what I consider petty things, that is not why I'm quitting. I'm quitting because I will be adjunct teaching at APU this spring. I will be the faculty advisor for my old student publication The Clause. I will only doing this class at APU right now, but I've made it through the extensive interview process involved to teach there. From now on, when I apply for a different teaching position on campus I will only have to meet with the person in charge of the specific class I hope to teach rather meet with a dean and someone from the provost as well. I'm finally optimistic about my teaching future, though I have no idea what I'm gonna do for a job during the summer. It's gonna be an interesting semester. Hopefully quitting the newspaper in West Hollywood will help write here more. Until then, peace.

New Happenings

2007-11-29T01:38:00.000-08:00

So it's 1:39 in the morning and I've had a little bit to drink. I acknowledge that this could be a very incriminating post, but I'm okay with that. I've had a long day, thus I chose to end it by having two red bulls and vodka, a beer, and a bunch of chips and salsa. Oh yeah, I also watched Saw III with my room ate and friend. It was a long day because I haven't exactly made the smoothest transition into my new job at the newspaper. I'm a perfectionist in my writing, and this flaw/quality caused me to work too slowly today. I was given seven pages to design today, but since I hadn't started them, due to the two articles I had to write, by 2:30pm, I had two pages taken away and only designed five. While this inevitably made my day easier, I was still very embarrassed thus incredibly frustrated. I felt that I could complete the pages, but my boss did not. And it is very hard to work with someone constantly reminding you that you're working too slow. I had an off day, but constantly hearing that I'm not where I should be will not help. I love that those in charge get more so irritated even though they're not the ones doing the work. I know I fucking screwed up, I don't need to be reminded, so fuck off.

Well, I made it through the day just fine. Normally, I would be dwelling over how badly I performed but something else happened. I received an email from the communication studies department at APU asking if I wanted to interview for a job teaching Intro to Journalism. One of my teachers is going abroad next semester and told me she would recommend me to teach some of her classes...apparently she did. I could be teaching a college class in the spring. Further, the email I received had an attachment from the film, television, and theatre department which stated that the dean of that department, who I have been in contact with, is planning to use me for a class in the fall of 2008 for Christianity and the Creative Process. I know that everything is hearsay and not for sure but it all gave me hope in the future and allowed me to think less about present failures and more about future success.

Thanksgiving and Anime

2007-11-26T10:49:00.000-08:00

So my Thanksgiving break is coming to an end. I've been in Florida since last Wednesday hanging with my family. I come back to SoCal tomorrow and literally have to go straight to work from the airport. Thanksgiving is always fun because turkey, stuffing, and mashies are my favourite foods. Most of the holidays with my parents are spent hanging around doing nothing. We did even less this holiday because we didn't even leave the house that much since we had so many leftovers from Thursday-thus we only ate out twice the entire week. So we chilled and watched a punch of movies: Beowulf, Lord of War, Battlestar Galactica: Razor (it was pretty sweet and tied into the show rather well), Wild Hogs, and whatever else was on. It's always fun to do nothing and talk with my parents and pet the dogs, Shaq and Falkor, and cat, Thor (I know, our animal names are inspired by sports figures, an '80s fantasy film, and Greek mythology). I was able to be a little productive during the week. I began working on my movie "Top 10s" for the years 1999-2007. I also finished my review on the Beowulf for my job.

I did something else of interest as well. As I've said before, I've been getting into anime and I have a new favourite, and I've been watching it every night after my parents fall asleep. It's called Bleach. The concept is simple enough:
A high schooler named Ichigo, who can see spirits, comes in contact with Rukia, a Soul Reaper from the Soul Society. She is insured when fighting a Hollow, souls become demons terrorizing the real world. She temporarily gives her Soul Reaper powers to Ichigo to fight the Hollow but his spirit energy absorbs most of her powers. She is then stuck in the real world and Ichigo becomes a substitute Soul Reaper. The storyline becomes more complex with the addition of around 30 characters. Rukia is eventually arrested for doing this and will be executed in the Soul Society, thus Ichigo and his several of his classmates, who have received spiritual powers because of their invovlement with Rukia and Ichigo, go to the Soul Society to break her out. What follows are crazy fantasy battles, rather enjoyable characters, and very odd Japanese humour. I'm very hooked on this show as I've seen 80 episodes and there are still 70 more to go. I love ninjas and fantasy, and this show has it all. Right now, Ichigo and the gang are fighting these creatures called Bountou, which are basically vampires-hell fucking yes! In conclusion, post-colleged nerdom reigns supreme and I'm very okay with that.

Page Design Software

2007-11-08T20:20:00.000-08:00

I've just finished my second week at my job working for Park LaBrea News/Beverly Press. In the first week I layed out four pages and this past Wednesday I layed out seven. I always enjoy doing this stuff, but I've been having many set backs to finishing at a reasonable time. I have a rather old iMac computer, a bad chair, an old newspaper for a mouse pad, no Photoshop on my computer, and, most importantly, we use Quark to do page layout. Yes, this is a post to bitch about using an archaic design program. I fucking hate this program so much. There are basically two design programs, InDesign and Quark. Newspapers used to use PageMaker and when Quark came out it was the new savior. PageMaker became updated and turned into InDesign, but most newspapers had gotten used to Quark and didn't want to switch. But InDesign is the better program. Tool bars, look, program compatibility, and whatever else, InDesign is just better. I used to be so fast at layout and now I'm working on a program that's half as good and twice as old. I'll get used to the program but it's just so slow. Oh well.

Good-bye Starbucks (thanks for nothing)

2007-10-30T23:54:00.000-07:00

I gave my two week notice at Starbucks today. After two years of coffee and tea(rs), I am almost free. I will soon be having my "Fuck Starbucks/Belated Graduation Party." I can't wait to burn my hat, apron, and work shoes and pants. This is all possible because I got a new job. Along with substitute teaching, I will be working part time for Beverly Press, which publishes Park LaBrea News. Check out their website at www.parklabreanewsbeverlypress.com. They gave me a test run in which I wrote them a movie review with a deadline of the next day. I wrote a review on 30 Days of Night (in three hours) and sent it off to them. They published it in the 10/25 (check archive for a PDF of the article). They called me for a second interview, and on Tuesday they offered me the job. It's part time but I'll be doing movie reviews, page layout, copyediting, and whatever else they tell me. Right not I'm working on a review of The Darjeeling Limited. It's good to be done with Starbucks and finally using my journalism degree.

The long day to come

2007-10-23T00:59:00.000-07:00

Tonight of all nights I should be in bed, but my hope to one day become a vampire continues to effect my sleeping habits. Alas, my nocturnal yearnings will have to take a backseat to waking up at 6:30 to be at San Dimas High School by 7:15 in order to spend the day subbing for who knows what. I'm not complaining because I do enjoy my newfound career, but right when I thought stability was on the rise I received a call from Beverly Press, a newspaper in Beverly Hills. They want to interview me after I'm done subbing. Thus, I will be hustling from San Dimas to Melrose Drive, while finding a place to change into my interview clothes (which I just finished ironing [I also had to put together an updated version of my writing and designing portfolio]). And after this interview I have to head back to Glendora during rush hour traffic in time for my 6:45 shift at Starbucks (yeah, I'm gonna be late to that one).

For those who care, I sent out my resume and writing samples to the Beverly Press for a job opening doing movie and restaurant reviews. I explained that restaurants are not my background but can quickly become competant. I had given up on a call since I sent it out like a month ago (and the ad on journalismjobs.com has even expired), but they called back. They said they were looking for a writer and someone to help with layout on Wednesday. I explained that I am a strong writer (and they obviously liked something since they called) and that I have a background in layout using the program InDesign. They use Quark (as most places do, though I'm not a fan), but the guy said that he thought I could get used to it pretty easily. Well, they want to meet me and here we are. It's a part time deal, which works great with subbing and trying to prepare PhD stuff. Plus, he said it could evovle into something more perminant. Here's to, hopefully, putting my degree into practice...it's about fucking time!

TV series checklist

2007-10-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

I hate regularly scheduled televison, but when shows come out on video, I'm quit the fan of marathons. I thought it would be fun to create a list of all the TV serieses I've watched.
Completely Viewed:
Battlestar Galactica
Lost
Heroes
24
Scrubs
Arrested Development
House
Friends
Firefly
The Office
Babylon 5
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Samurai Champloo
Undeclared
Seen most of:
Supernatural
The Boondocks
Family Guy
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
30 Rock
Mellenium
The X-Files
The OC
Getting into:
Bleach
Naruto
Entourage
Rome

P.S. 30 Days of Night was a pretty damn solid movie. The critics said that it did for vampires what 28 Days Later did for zombies and what Saw did for serial killers, and I rather agree. These were not the cliche vampires that enjoy the night life because of their twisted sexual desires. These were smart vampires that acted more like the ultimate hunter. The blood hunger of children of the night with movements similar to a werewolf. S.O.B., I really love vampire films. This one did it right, so fuck what a lot of the other critics said.

My firt day in the world of substitute teaching

2007-10-16T20:57:00.000-07:00

So it seemed like a normal day, but something was different. I went to bed pretty late but instead of playing my pre-sleep Halo session, I chose to go to bed around 2:30. This turned out to be in my favour as I received a call at 6:30 to sub for an elementary school in San Dimas. For today and tomorrow I'm a rolling sub covering grades 1-5. Grades 1-3 were quite a journey today. I began the day teaching big number subtraction to third graders. They were a pretty good class but I was actually stumped some of the stuff certain students had. Next, I went to a second grade class. The difference was huge. The first teacher gave me a print out with what students to keep an eye out for and exactly what to do at what time. The second teacher simply handed me a book told me to read it to the students and let them work on stuff. This was a hellraiser class. Kicking, screaming, blah, blah, blah. I took lunch and came back to finish the day with first grade. The kids drew vegetables and then we went out to recces. There's nothing like kids with energy. After that things got a little interesting. One student didn't make it to the bathroom in time and another threw up grass and leaves.

It was an interesting experience and I'm looking forward to doing it again. I had one student who didn't speak any English, another kid who was voluntarily mute, and several other students that didn't like listening to English. By the end of the day, students in each class started calling me Mr. P. It's funny what people do when they can't pronounce a person's name. I find it rather endearing. The rest of the day would have been a haze if it weren't for the fact that I had to go to work at the land of coffee and broken dreams.

Forget blessing America...God bless horror movies

2007-10-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

I just watched The Descent again with one of my room ates and his girlfriend. Some people hated this film, but true movie lovers and fans of horror saw that it was an important contemporary film that gives hope to the future of horror. With Halloween coming up, more films are showing their colours (which are normally red 'cause, ya know...blood). I am so excited about two in particular: 30 Days of Night and Saw IV. 30 Days of Night is about a small community in Alaska that must survive the 30 days of night when the last remaining vampires in the world have come out to feed. I love vampires. Blade, Dracula, and Buffy are just a few of the blood-thirsty friends I've made over the many years of this fascination...and, I dare say, fetish. 30 Days of Night is also created by the same writer/director team that created the disturbing and uncomfortable film Hard Candy. Such genius team of arthouse filmmakers are the perfect editions to the vampire metanarrative.

I know that Saw IV is a different story. I am constantly given shit for my love for these gore-graphic films. But I am drawn to them. There is something going on in them that hasn't happened in the horror films of the past. Racial and gender stereotypes are being questioned. Moral issues are being updated. And predictability is becoming less obvious (though, obviously, not gone). But even more than that, the Saw franchise has done something all other franchises have not. They are a continuing story. Author Steven Johnson discusses how TV is proof that people are getting smarter. Shows like Battlestar Galactica, 24, Lost, and Heroes require people to continually tune in. More is required of the viewer than an inconsistent commitment. To get the story you have see it from the beginning. The Saw films are doing that. Of course they are not perfect films, but they are the first series of films to expect more from their viewers. Characters return and ambiguous moments from other films are explained. They are first horror films, but they forcing the genre to become smarter. I say "forcing" because the Saw franchises' success cannot be ignored. Gory movies making over $100 million each is not normal. They are soon to become the most profitable franchise passing up Freddy, Jason, Michael, Leatherface, and, the most profitable before Saw, Scream.

If horror movies are getting smarter, what does that say about the rest of pop culture. I am rather excited to see where things go. Granted reality TV is still mind-fucking the intelligence out of everyone and MTV is truly doing their best to make the most money at their worst, but the power of the cultural underdog just might overtake some of the giants.

My Journey into Anime

2007-10-12T00:33:00.000-07:00

As the years go by in my life I have come to terms with a lot of things about myself. I will have back hair in the future. I am sarcastic and can only hope that it will not scare off people or offend people to the point of tears. And my personalty will make some people think I'm okay. But I have found that I am okay with how nerdy I am. Thanks to my friend Casey, I came to terms with my love for sci fi, as we sat through the entire series of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica's three seasons. The latest installment of my nerd power comes in the form of anime. This comes as the natural progression of my enjoyment of the films by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. His films are not anime, though they are often placed in that category. I was also introduced to anime through a cartoon my roommate got me into called Avatar. These are not anime but considered as such simply because they are Japanese fantasy cartoons. Alas, watching these masterpieces gave me the in to a lot of other things. I began watching everything I had heard of in the past or seen at Hollywood Video: Ghost in the Shell (1 & 2), Akira, and Appleseed (me and Garret watched Appleseed and were rather disappointed). But none of these did it for me, so I gave up...until my roommates found some new stuff. Another roommate started bringing in other things like the TV series of The Ghost in the Shell (which was much better).

But two others have stuck out: Samari Champloo and Karas: The Prophecy. Champloo is a one season series about to samurai masters traveling with a 15-year old girl in search of the samurai who smells of sunflowers. It's a samurai show with good action scenes and great wit. Even though it's a period piece, it remains incredibly funny and modern. The soundtrack is completely hip hop and scenes change to the sound of a record scratch. There are several jokes about weed, sex, and whatever else. It's so good. Karas: The Prophecy is a rather confusing film about the spiritual and real world's coexistence. Awesome fight scenes and animation and, once you understand it, a very intriguing story. Karas is the protector of Tokyo. He flies around in the shape of a crow and when he finds trouble becomes the ultimate ninja warrior I have ever scene. He has this contraption that allows him to morph from a ninja warrior into fight ship that shoots at whatever he's chasing...and at random moments his crow wings come out. It's all visual beautiful and intellectually jarring.

I've seen bits of the shows Naruto and Bleach and very much want to get into those too (even though they cost about $70 to buy each season). Hopefully, getting an online renting account will make this latest obsession a little less financially injuring.

Resident Evil 3, now there's a bad movie

2007-10-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn't be a surprise, but Resident Evil 3: Extinction was a terrible film. I saw it with Casey on Saturday and we were physically in pain. I hate watching films where the premise seems easy enough to create something entertaining and they just fuck it up. The previews for Resident Evil 3 looked pretty good and its predecessors were minutely good. But the third was just not good. I was watching wondering how this film went through its writer of origin, re-drafts, read-throughs from producers, actors, and execs and finally, brought to life by a director-all the while being viewed by sound engineers, graphic designers, cinematographers, and who else had to suffer through this film's creation.

Let's begin with the plot...and we're done. The plot came about 30 minutes too late, and it wasn't strong enough. Oh yeah, and that part in the preview where Milla Jovovich is standing in the middle of an apocalyptic Las Vagas...that's only one seen. The rest of the film feels more like a bad remake of Mad Max with a quarter of the intelligence and even less of the entertainment. The characters were everywhere and most just died in one scene. The other's were written off. The big boss battle at the end was so anticlimactic. And on top of everything else, our leading lady who started as a super soldier turned genetically enhanced super soldier could, all of a sudden, move things with her mind. And they never explain why she can do that.

The Resident Evil franchise has become one of, if the most, popular video game movie series. That's a little sad. I actually like Jovovich as an actor. She was amazing in The Fifth Element and does decent in her other films, but like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, she just picks bad roles. In the end, what a piece of shit.

Trying to live

2007-10-08T00:40:00.000-07:00

Life has been rather unique these past view weeks. For my loyal audience of three, you know that I've graduated and am hoping to move beyond the borders of the land of coffee and broken dreams. To coincide these unique events, I'm churchless and one of my closest friends Casey has moved back to Arizona for a little while. Needless, to say life is going to be different. To compensate for the lack of educational motivation I've been tracking down websites that will publish me (expect a few more film reviews on some other sites in the next view days and weeks). I have a new motivation and sense of urgency in my desire to write (today I even began mapping my eventual book The Gospel According to Horror Movies). I'm rediscovering my love for music (I saw As Cities Burn play the other night, and their new album continues to move me). I've even begun to branch out of my usual daily gang to meet some new faces, though I'm still not ready to return to church yet. Crossroads are weird thing. I hate them yet can't avoid them. I know we're supposed to like change, but I can't remember the last change that I've actually been okay with. Everything's always forced. For the love it would be nice to have some stability. Either way, life is good...so's TV.

A Good Day

2007-10-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

Today was a pretty damn good day. I did, however, have to go to work, but I won't let that spoil anything. I got my summer grades today, and the final scores for my grad career are A, A, A, and A-, brining my GPA to 3.63. I also have had some articles published online at the websites Getyourtournament.com and rednow.com. Me and Casey are over half-way through season six of 24 and just finished book two of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Life is pretty good. All I need is a real job and a real girlfriend. Until then, Buffy the Vampire Slayer here I come.

Either than that stuff, life is interesting. I've been trying to read Culture Jam but it's just no an interesting book. The concepts are fine but the practical application isn't there and the pessimism is a major hindrance to motivation. On top of that, I can't find the book. I'm hoping to start reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy and finish reading Teaching to Transgress. I've begun mapping out my musical (my emo love story musial). I'm writing some other articles for rednow.com and trying to get some others published on other websites. The diet is gonna start any day now, and hopefully subbing will go through soon so I can quit Starbucks (and hopefully find my soul again). Life is good.

The ultimate Shoot 'em Up film

2007-09-15T22:08:00.000-07:00

I caught an afternoon film. Guy films have always been their own breed of gore, sex, and "guy" stuff. Shoot 'em Up takes everything cliche about shoot 'em up films and makes us laugh at the entire genre. I'm a slave to Clive Owen's films. Paul Giamatti is always great. And the amazing Monica Bellucci is incredibly hot (plus she was born in Perugia, Italy, the city I studied in for five weeks). This is truly the ultimate shoot 'em up film. Everything about the was too cliche and predictable to be unintentional. Owens plays Mr. Smith, the unlikely and resourceful hero who often states what he "hates" about America. Giamatti is the hitman we never thought he could be. And Bellucci is the caring prostitute. You know you're in for a histerical movie when the first gun fight features several hitman trying to shoot at Mr. Smith while he tries to deliver a baby. A major climax in the film occurs during Owens and Bellucci's sexual climax with another gun battle-but they don't stop having sex but, as one of Owens' oneliners states, redefine blowing your load.

Resourcefulness has always been a major element of shoot 'em up films. In a scene in a gun factory, Mr. Smith sets up the ultimate booby trapped guns that just require the pull of a rope to take out 10 guys with one tug. Another great scene occurs when Owen holds four bullets in his knuckles and sticks his hand into a fire, shooting the bullets into the man that should have killed him rather than taunted him.

The movie is half gun battles, half oneliners. Everything is intentionally rediculous. People either saw it as cliche or brilliant. Film critic Richard Roeper hated the film, but that's to be expected from a critic that has no taste. When the intro is simply Clive Owen sitting on a bench eating a carrot and then muttering "fuck" before getting into a gun battle, ya know that this is not a film that needs character development, plot, or abstract symbolism. The medium is the message. A british dude bitchin' about society while killing everyone around him is the perfect way to critique violent American culture.

Shoot 'em Up is quite the awesome movie. It felt like Crank and Planet Terror with the tribute feel of Kill Bill. Thanks to Army of Darkness, farce films became a more confusing phenomana. Farce could still be enteraining. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are histerical, but they functions as films even you don't get the joke. The canon of Sam Raimi has reached its climax through Shoot 'em Up. It's still a good action film, though if you don't get the joke it's more insulting than The Transporter 2 and Bad Boys 2.

Grad school is at an end

2007-09-05T23:56:00.000-07:00

September 14, 2007. This is the day all of my work is due for the summer quarter. And this is it. Next Friday marks the conclusion of my Masters program at Fuller Theological Seminary. I decided to take four classes this summer (you're only recomended to take three), and I have the work for two of them left to do. Next week I'll be turning in small papers on the films The Fountain, Pan's Labyrinth, Transformers, and The Hills Have Eyes, along with two book reviews and a 50-page magazine about Obey art that will consist of roughly 20 regular-sized pages of writing. Hopefully the film articles will end up online, as I am trying to get them published on websites. I am done with everything but the Pan's Labyrinth article and a little of the writing of the magazine. It's weird to know that after next Friday I can read whatever the hell I want. I can write to write. I do plan on finding conferences to present at and will continue to write, but I will have to motivate myself. I'm gonna be done with school for at least two years. That's fucking strange. I think I may go insane.

Gears of War is my unofficial life

2007-09-03T23:12:00.000-07:00

So I've been playing a shitload of Gears of War lately. I can't focus on my homework and the only way to unwind is to play a video game with more blood than Evil Dead 2. There are two xbox 360s in the house, thus we've been doing a lot of online gaming. I don't care how nerdy it is. I don't care how much people think I'm wasting my time. Some people shop, jog, and pray. I play video games. I'm okay with it.

Summer Reading List

2007-09-03T01:40:00.000-07:00

I just checked out Sojourners' website and looked at Jim Wallis' summer reading list-it inspired me to create a similar suggested list:

Culture Jam: How to Reverse American's Suicidal Consumer Binge-and Why we Must by Kalle Lasn (I'm reading this now, pretty interesting)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Performing the Faith: Bonheoffer and the Practice of Nonviolence by Stanley Hauerwas
A Black Theology of Liberation by James Cone
Why White Kids Love Hip-Hip: Wangstas, Wiggers, Wannabes, and the New Reality of Race in America by Bakari Kitwana
Body, Soul, or Spirited Bodies? by Nancy Murphy
The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-Bless, Christ-Haunted Idea by David Dark
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks
Revolution by George Barna
Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

I can sub!

2007-08-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

I got my CBET results back, I can now become a substitute teacher. I am one step closer to quitting Starbucks, thus making life a happier one. I've been excited about this idea for a while now for several reasons. I'll be able to make enough money for rent, food, health insurance, and whatever else. I can make own schedule-work just enough to pay bills or work more. Subbing will allow me the time off I need to visit people for weekends or whatever. Plus, I won't have to work on weekends. Lastly, subbing will give me a little bit of teaching experience, helping me prepare to do adjunct teaching in the spring. Things are happening...

Church is over

2007-08-27T11:41:00.000-07:00

I led worship for the last time as the worship leader at MosaicRC. Two months ago I met with my pastor and told him that I'm ready to move into the next phase of my life. I'm graduating from Fuller in three weeks and will hopefully begin stitute teaching soon. It'll be wierd without grad school or the smell of coffee in my hair anymore, but I'm excited. With only a commitment to pay rent, I'll have more freedom to visit friends that moved away. I'll also be able to read for fun and play video games with guilt.

Leading worship for the last time was a surreal experience. I loved what I was doing, creating new ways to do worship was a joy in my life, but I'm ready to go somewhere else. My church was great but I need to find a church body in the isn't in the suburbs. I've been plagued by guilt for the last two years for always talking about social change but not doing it. Finding a more established church body in an urban context will hopefully solve that.

My father gave me the idea to go check out the big wig churches around here like Harvest, Saddleback, and the Dream Center to see what the fuss was about. I rather like that idea and plan to do that, going to places like All Saints in Pasadena, churches in LA, and wherever else people suggest I should go. I don't expect to find spiritual fulfillment in a church for a while. It's become too much of a habit (and I can honestly say that I have never felt God in a church [I'm not making that up]). So it only makes sense to look around to see what's out there. In the mean time, I'm hoping to join/create a small group/book club/weekend cult to keep me in line. Things are changing and I'm very excited about no knowing where the fuck I'll end up in a few months/years/decades/life times.

Superbad was super good

2007-08-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw the teen comedy Superbad. But unlike the American Pie franchize or the lates about Tucker's demise, Superbad has something to go with its raunch. This is the third film in a growing trend of comedies that are at the peak of perversion in order to return to morality. While not by the director of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, it was written by the actors of such films and produced by that director. Superbad, while not smooth and sincere as Knocked Up and lacking the character chemistry of The 40 Year Old Virgin, had a soul. It's a film about three nerds' last chance to get laid before they graduate from high school. Their tactics are shady and the film's events are ridiculous, causing a severe amount gross out dialogue and some rather off-colour situations. But the film's conclusion is not a promotion of questionable behavior, like one-night stands or sleeping with a drunk girl, but a hope for deeper relationships. The driving theme of the film is that high school politics are a paradox. Drinking does not make sex okay but adds to an evening's drama. Trying to get with someone just for one night does not help loneliness but adds to depression. Perhaps that greatest joy of high school is the charish the frienship one has and let things happen naturally.

This new wave of moral raunch comedy reminds me of the idea, finding God in the trash. These films are first comedies to make us laugh. It was incredibly perverse, but luckily, I, along with a large majority of this country, love such jokes. I find the reality such conversations far too real. These comedies voice how people really act or what goes on in their repressed heads. Many would say that such a movie is destructive to society. I can only respond by saying that films and shows like Die Hard, The Passion of the Christ, Braveheart, 7th Heaven, and The Pursuit of Happyness have proven to be much more detrimental to society by promoting false images of reality through issues of race, difference, conflict resolution, and the meaning of life. Of course people will say this is an exageration, but I'm saying is that a film like Superbad can only be accused of bad taste, while a film like The Pursuit of Happyness, which could be promoted by a church or watched with a family, implies that anyone can get over financial and racial downfalls through a good job, thus the social system that created the problem is allowed to continue. Atleast Superbad avokes a real emotion rather confirms of submissive place in society.

Stardust: Surprise of the summer/week/day

2007-08-16T15:21:00.000-07:00

I saw the fantasy film Stardust and was actually quite blown away. The previews looked ridiculously cheesy, but critics were giving the film good reviews. The pace and feel reminded me of the original Pirates of the Carribean film with a epic film score to accent it as well. The characters were engaging and there were not tangents-everything came together in the end. It was also quite hysterica, but not at the sakee of the plot-of course British films usually are better than American films at maintaining narrative integrity. The special effects weren't overbearing but well done and realistic. The events of the storyline flowed while maintaining an element of unpredictability. In the end, God bless the Brits and their graphic novel adaptations. I wish we had more films like this one.

Jack Bauer gets results in real-time

2007-08-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

My friend Casey and I have been going through the show 24 over the past two weeks. We are half-way through season 2. Gotta say, it's pretty damn good. The first season was frustrating and rather repetitive. Season 2 has been more consistant and twice as intense. It's no Battlestar Galactica (not intensity wise, but good show wise), but so far the second season has put it up there with the calliber of Lost. While the first season of Lost might be one of the most sensational starts to a show, each season to follow lacked the edge and consistancy that made that show so addicting (I hear great things about Heroes and will confirm such rumours soon enough). My other friend told me that he didn't like the show because it was too unbelievable. I agree, it is very unbelievable. But alas, I don't watch shows for believability but for the intense writing that connects everything through unexpected circumstances, thus I find that show to be one of the best out there right (I have heard that later seasons dwindle and I will, once again, confirm this later). It's amazing to watch a show that dares to kill off any character. I do, however, find that Elisha Cuthbert (The Girl Next Door and Captive) to be there simply because she is attractive. I have never been less engaged with a major character and more annoyed with the choices she makes. I could never watch 24 on a weekly basis because it would ruin me. Watching Lost and BSG cause enough stress in my life-and I still can't shake the season finale of Scrubs. 24 would make my life a living hell because of how into shows I get (oh the days of The OC and House).

I must say though, it is very interesting to watch a show that raises so many ethical issues. The show, so far, does not portray many appealing female characters (season 2 has some, but seaon 1 had none). Further, there are several torture scenes done by the governemtn, and they are by lead character Jack Bauer, who "get's results." Call me an idealist, but I am an aspiring pacifist who does not believe in any forms of violence for they only seem to reinforce the system they are trying to take down. 24 is a prime example of this. We condone what Jack Bauer does because millions of lives are at stake, yet we do not condone what the terrorists do because they are trying to kill us-even though they may have the same convictions and motivation as Jack. Further, Jack's blatant disregard for authority reminds me of the updated cowboy. He's the resourceful lone ranger who flips off the rules and always gets his man with no regard for his own life-and in true updated form has a great care for family. This is John McClaine (Die Hard) on TV but darker. Yet, when I watch this show, I don't care about such things as ethics. This show takes away my moral misgivings about such actions that do not protect the sanctity of life for the sake of the moment. I submit to the will of this and other films and shows.

I know that my theological studies should tell me that I do it for a higher reason than entertainment. I should be looking for a the theological implications of Jack's patriotism and relating them to my committed to God. Perhaps I should be understanding this show in such vague terms as sacrifice, bravery, courage, love, and justice. But I don't give a shit about them when I'm watching the show. Such things will come later, if at all. I watch this show for release. Release from a long or even short day. I suspend my disbelief and watch Jack fight for America (something I would never do) because the show is enjoyable on a very superficial level. Of course I watch other things for that deeper level: Pan's Labyrinth made me question my definition of heaven and hell; Hero took through a martial arts film that spoke against the use of violence to bring change; and Children of Men made me tear up when a world filled with hatred of immigrants was given a bleak glimpse of hope through the sight of the first child burn in almost 20 years. But 24 is, while layered and intelligent, truly enjoyable because it is escapist. This serves as an important example of the significance of aesthetics in art. Anything art worth the process it took to gain an audience will engage people on this level. Some art will go deeper, but this "superficial" is the most important part. This is something socially driven art must learn-artistic mediums must be properly used with talent in order to create an effective message.

24 is straight up good. Call me a TV whore, but I enjoy and get more out of the community I form watching this and other such shows than I would from church or a prayer group. I'm not a bad Christian. I'm just being more honest than those who claim to have a more holy purpose in life. 24 serves no greater purpose in my life than giving me a story. I see little wrong with this for we do it all the time. And if anyone has a problem with it...I don't care.

Prayer and the art of paralysis

2007-08-07T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have had many arguments recently about the idea of prayer. First, I am quite exhausted from arguing as it is destructive and when you win you really lose. Rhetorical debates optimize much of what I am trying to be against but constantly fall prey to. Thus, I write this as a way to hopefully end my argument on this front-or at least verbalize my views in preparation for the next round.

I don't know what to do about prayer. My mother often tells me to simply talk to God as is he/she is next standing/sitting/eating/chillin' next to me, but I can't. I find God in many places but this supernatural presence that my mother, and others as well, feels is not of my world view. I can't simply pray. I find most church practices to be destructive and its view on prayer falls under this category. I have been asked to prayer before/during/after I lead worship some weeks and I just can't do it. I don't talk to God like that. There is something very encouraging/unique about the Orthodox view of prayer. The idea that prayers are predetermined takes away the narcissistic notion of God-talk and brings Christianity back into its original context-with the people. I know, I've had a few people say that such a focus on community is too much like socialism. I can only say about that is, "Fuck off, and read more." The my buddy Jesus just doesn't do it for me, and when I do pray by myself it's completely for selfish reasons and rarely in a form that would seem to serve the proper purpose.

Prayer must have a wider definition than the usual-head-bowed-eyes-closed formula. Prayer must be more than words that are thought up on the spot. I find that when I write, play music, watch a film, discuss theology (not argue about it), read, and commune with others, I am closer to a holistic definition of prayer that actually encourages me to move. Prayer in the common form does nothing for me but remind me of how boring mainstream Christianity is-and that is the great tragedy of the 21st century. Too often to I hear of groups that come together to pray but do nothing else. This is not only counter-productive but contradictory. From what I can gather, prayer is not about a two-way conversation but a three-way one: God, the individual praying, and the surrounding community. When we forget about praxis, we have turned Christianity into a self-help guide that is only suited for privileged people that have no need for a better life. The prosperity gospel is far to prominent in its many deceptive forms. Speaking in tongues and prophecy have become euphemisms for a hyper-spirituality that does not cause social change but reduces the gospel to an "inner peace." Such a thing does not sound bad until we realize that we have been manipulated into believing in something that Jesus did not teach. Internal and external issues are equally important to God, but American privilege has allowed such divisions.

The power of prayer is a vague concept I can only hope will gain meaning in the future. As of now, I am sceptical. Prayer meetings have little use to me (I say this acknowledging that my own social location has influenced my view and in now way am I making these claims universal). I have seen prayer be used as an excuse to remain unmoved. I seen prayer used to misinterpret the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And I have seen prayer used in such vague ways that do nothing but remind me that it has lost its power amongst the Western privileged. I do not say this as a pessimist for I am happier than I have been in quite some time. I say this because I, and many others before me, have thought this but feared the wrath of the less educated who would demean it with claims of blasphemy. I can only hope that I will see prayer become something more substantial. Until then...amen.

Post-Harry Potter Denial

2007-08-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

I am sitting down right now watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Why this film? Because I have already gone through the other three films out right now, saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix in the theatre twice, watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers this afternoon, and Fellowship of the Ring earlier this week. I have also recently watch Spirited Away and, as usual, can't stop talking about how flippin' awesome the film Pan's Labyrinth was. All of this because I read the seventh and final installment of the Potter series Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which-I still stand by-should have been named Harry Potter and He-Who-Must-not-be-Named. I read the 700 plus page book in two days and am rather sad that it's over. Lord of the Rings is over, Eragon was an awful film, Narnia was just decent, and now, I know how Harry Potter ends (don't worry, no spoilers here). Fantasy is truly my favourite genre of films, books, and life. I love every page I turn and wish I was a part of every world I see on the big screen-even the screen version of Narnia...but not Eragon.

The Harry Potter books were just about the only fiction I read. With them gone I only have Chuck Palanhiuk to turn to (Fight Club, Survivor, Diary), and he just doesn't have enough books out right now. So here I am, whining about the end of something, once again. I don't care if people say it would ruin the credibility of the books, I really want Rowling to do the seven years of school Harry's parents went through. That would be frikkin' awesome...and allow me to stall my fictional grief for another 4,000 pages. I can only take so many academic books that try to enrich my mind. And why is it that I can remember all these little details from a fictional book or a movie, but I can't, for the life of me, remember the book I just finished on the subject I'm studying.

Fantasy has the magical power of showing us a utopian world within the world. It shows us that our lives might be missing something important. Unfortunately, I interpret such films literally and find that what I'm missing could not possibly be found in this life (and if not here, maybe not ever if there is not afterlife [that one's for you Garrett]). When I was visiting Colorado, Garrett told me his ideal heaven was Hogwarts. I told him I would agree with that, but say that my heaven was Hogwarts and Jedi Academy school. Picture it: my lightsaber is my wond. I saber fight and then cast a spell in the middle of the battle. That's just good entertainment. But until then, here's for all the upcoming fantasy and perhaps a dream come true when VR technology lets me chill in middle earth, take a road trip to the Death Star, and be pack for pumpkin juice at Hogwarts by 6.

Sunshine

2007-07-31T00:20:00.000-07:00

I saw the film Sunshine and felt like saying a few words about it. Critics and film lovers alike gave it a B...I agree. I actually quite enjoyed it. Good special effects, intriguing character deaths, though they basked in them to the point of cheesiness most of the time. It was a film worth seeing that didn't really bother to deal with a deeper meaning.

This is a film from the freak that brought us Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, and Millions. His films (with the exception of Millions) are an artistic blend of sadism and hallucination topped with a dash of hope. Sunshine falls into such a category though it is one of his weaker achievements. Poor acting for a crew with such accomplished past films. The film's enemy was intriguing but a little cliche since his reason for trying to destroy the ship's mission to reignite the sun was because God was calling humanity to die out with the sun. However, he is never shown in the film but appears much like a ghost in an acid trip-a very nice effect.

With all this said, the film was great. The music was unique but epic when it needed to be (though the song at the credits was lacking). I watch this film as I do so many others these days, with my eye critical to the film's technique and what it was hoping to do. This is how I could enjoy such films as The Fountain, The Matrix Reloaded, and Spider-Man 3-I acknowledge the flaws and simply surrender to what the film is trying for. And Sunshine tried for something that I thought worked. It's a thriller in a spaceship on its way to the sun. It was intense and kepy my interest the entire way. Director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland proved, once again, that they are a good team that can do something fresh whenever they change genres and decide to make a film. Sunshine didn't change sci-fi the way 28 Days Later changed the zombie movie genre, but it kept me interested. I'll buy it when it comes out-it's totally worth seeing again.

PS I've heard that many people did not like this film. National Public Radio gave it a bad review and Roger Ebert only gave it 3/5 stars (and it was one of the worst written articles that guy has ever done). In fact, one of the guys I saw it with didn't like it. I can only say that sci-fi is a tough sell that, I dare say, most people don't get. So if people say this film blows, then they probably don't care for sci-fi to begin with (or at the least the good stuff [I know elitist that sounds, but, fuck it, it's true]).

Real Community

2007-06-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

My old roommate and still close friend Garrett stay in California for a week. The surrounding events made for an interesting dynamic: finals just finishing, I walked in Fuller's graduation ceremony, my parents were out, and along with Garrett was his two sisters and brother. For the few days that my parents were here along with Garrett, we all hung out, ate dinner together, and even went to the beach together. I must admit that some of it was stressful because I was being pulled in several directions. But the end result was still a fun week.

Every time I hang out with Garrett, I am reminded about what a blessing truly is. We always say that our material belongings are a blessing (and not the privilege they really are), but my friends are my blessing. Steve and Casey are two of my closest friends in my life daily. In my extended friendships are Tyler, Shane, and Jon and my roommates Dominic and J.D. Garrett and Jacob are two of my friends that I also do not see as much but have a continually close connection. This is why I often reflect on how much I loved college. The friends I made are here to stay. I may not see them that much, but I will always remain close to them, love them, and be able to connect with them. As Tyler once told me, every time we hang out, we pick up where we left off. It would be easy simply say that I'm living the past, but I believe it's something else. Steve recently read a book called Urban Tribes. According to my read-headed lover, this book addresses a growing trend in community development. "Urban Tribes" are defined by people who live together in urban settings. They consist of friends made in college and their goal is to merge those friends with the friends they each make at work. While I do not live in an urban area but something between the urban and the burbs, this urban tribe things rings true to my life. I watch a show like Scrubs and see my life embodied in a hospital sitcom. I watch Knocked Up and see myself doing to same silly antics with a group of goofy friends that never bothered to worry about growing up and letting the 9-to-5 change my life. I take hope in the friends I have made.

These are the same friends that have given me a safe haven to be myself in. I don't have to worry about getting married right because it's simply not a priority. And that whole "biological clock" argument is simply insecurity masked in faulty reason. I find that the way I live is closer to a truly biblical community than that of the average American isolated and far too fucked norm. I love having people in my life, daily. The American Dream is often based on the bad theology of individual motivation. Community is often turned into a pleasure rather a necessity. Now that's unbiblical. Anyone who lives their lives in isolation, whether married or single, is not living a healthy life that has a chance at embodying the Kingdom of God. I'm not overreacting on this point either, if we truly want to understand what the Bible says about community, then we have to be able to acknowledge that we have used our own social locations to falsely interpret scripture on several occasions. When we can do this, then we can see that we are not living according to the Bible's definition of church-we're living according to America's.

In closing, I love my friends. I love how they build me up and tear me down. I love that we, together, have been able to hold onto the convictions we had in college. While social justice, real community, and video games are usually trends for the young and impressionable, we have been able to hold onto that fire. Some of us have been able to see it, others have tried and gotten burned, and still others are just beginning. Regardless of which, we are all living more healthy and full lives that can actually cause change in a country that's apathetic, a job that lacks ethical concern, and a church that's bored.

Kareoke Culture

2007-05-20T21:56:00.000-07:00

Saturday night, my friends and I celebrated our friend J.D.'s exit from the bachelor life by going to a San Clemete Irish pub on kareoke night. I was incredibly fun. We began our musical performaces with an out of tune version of "Minnie the Moocher," sung by Dominic and your humble narrator. The night would continue with "When a man loves a woman" sung by Dom and Jackson, "Time is on my side" sung by Jon Berk and J.D.'s best man Dave. Later, I sang my token cover song "I believe," changing the line "He'll see me a person, not just a black man," to "canadian" at the end. The crowd cheered. The climax occurred after a rather shady rendition of "Baby got back" sung by a large of group of marginally attractive women who reffered to themselves as the Pirates Princesses. Steve, Jon, and myself took the stage to sing "Bohemian Rhapsody"...and then every guy in this side of the pub jumped on stage and joined together in the loudest sing along of one of the most difficult rock songs to sing. It was incredible. I'm convinced the kareoke man hated because none of us took the songs we were singing seriously, or at least as intensly as our two predecessors that monopolized the mic until we showed up and showed them up with our amazing stage presence.

What was amazing was how loud we all were. We were that group that sang to every song. Danced to every beat. And razed our glasses after every singer. We empowered those who would normally feel self-concious on stage. The amazing part was that we were all rather sober, though everyone probably thought we were drunk. This may be a negative, but I'll take it as a positive since we didn't need artificial material to give us energy and comfort to be loud and happy. We're naturally good-hearted people that love others and don't have any inhibitions about what others think. Though I must say that John Englehardt is my favourite drunk. He met a random dude and kept hunging him and eventually got a shot of whiskey from the guy. He also met an fellow seminary student and they each confided in each other about their drunken states.

I couldn't help but wonder about people that do this on a normal basis. This was my first official kareoke experience-or atleast one with music in the background. I wondered if this was place people went because they couldn't get real jobs here. Was this the only place they could truly express themselves without worrying about because taken that seriously. It's like a person that masks their aggression in a joke. Besides us, these people took their oke seriously. These were people that did theatre, choir, and band in high school. This was their tribute to the past. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but there were some people there that just looked defeated. I wonder what would happen if they would have taken that singing lesson more seriously or, at least, gone out for a part at the local theatre. But until that realization, kareoke seems to serve an important part in this culture, giving people their three minutes of fame with the safety of their day jobs. But alas, Blessed Union of Souls would simply remind us that "love will find a way." Perhaps love will lead people into something real beyond kareoke.

Little Children: wow!

2007-05-14T20:57:00.000-07:00

Last night I watched Little Children, a film by director Todd Field. Field's films are dark with with a powerful moral core that questions the integrity of suburban life (see also his film In the Bedroom). As I watched Little Children I couldn't help but wonder how this film was not nominated for "Best Picture." True, I felt like I was watching the sequel to American Beauty, but this should not take away from the power of a film that, in many ways, tells the a more compelling story than American Beauty while tapping into the real horror of white, middle-class life. Infidelity, pornography, perversion, isolation, gossip, and day care: this film has a threesome with comedy, melancholy, and beauty. Ben Folds' picture of the rockin' suburbs finds a home in this film, right next to Edger Allan Poe's usual dose of disdain for the complacent and Van Gogh's idea of a good Christmas present.

Little Children tells the stories of an unhappy mother and a stay-at-home dad who are unhappy in their given situations. During this time, a many who was arrested for exposing himself to a minor (probably masturbating in front of a young girl) moves into the area, and an ex-cop, with nothing else to do, makes it his mission to make this "ex-con" feel unwelcome by posting fliers with his mug all over town, while honking at his house in the middle of the night. This character is the scapegoat of the community. In Walter Wink's Unmasking the Powers, he addresses a community's need for a scapegoat (using the story of the Legion-possessed man as his support). A scapegoat serves several purposes. Obviously, scapegoats allow blame to be cast where it should not be cast. However, this man has done terrible things and, to a degree, does not redeem himself right away. But the community's demonizing of him reveals their own fears. The film reveals the secrets of several people in this suburb: a transvestite neighbour, a husband who travels to sleep with random men, people having affairs, women gazing at men they wish they were with instead of their boring husbands, and a husband choosing porn over his wife. The "pervert" is the blatant example of this community's hidden sin. These are not good people. They are petty, arrogant, and uninspired to do anything meaningful beyond join a book club and discuss what they want to see happen rather than cause change.

I find that I left this film angry and confirmed in my hatred of the burbs, but still hopeful. I refuse to allow my family to become a vacuum of apathy that only cares about who's front lawns are properly cared for. The highlight of my week will be spend reflecting on the old days when I felt more alive. My family will not be tied down by the need for a big house. My family will know our neighbours (but this will be in a city context, still no suburbs). Little Children is a reminder of what happens when everyone around you is white-or has been assimilated into the "white" way of life. It's a sad attempt at the American Dream that ultimately ends in some poor attempts at meaning through meaningless jobs or the pathetic idea that life is all about making it to retirement. Pardon the tangent but I really hate how privileged and isolated so many are in this fucking country. While Little Children does not truly offer a way out, it offers hope in a place that, by nature, is bound to tear itself apart. Conclusion: see Little Children, it's better than every film that was nominated for "Best Picture." Sorry, as much as I loved Little Miss Sunshine, but Little Children was a little better.

Motorcycle Diaries: the anti-Che & anti-road movie

2007-05-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

I have little respect for Relevant magazine. Some time ago they did a film review on the film The Motorcycle Diaries. But this review did not actually discuss anything about the film save the concept of portraying Che Guevara in a possitive way. The review simply tore the film apart for portraying a montrous killer as a young idealist. Unfortunately, such a review only furthers the distance between North American (or western) views on such things this film addresses. It would be easier for us all to simply disregard Che as a muderous revolutionary whose lust for power proved that the CIA was justified in aiding his assassination. It's very western to demonize someone and believe that they were not pure-hearted idealists. I do not know the complete story about Che. What I know is limited to the credibility of those whom wear his T-shirts and this film that I cannot shake.

The real Che and the Che of his diaries may be two different people, but that is not what is important. The Motorcycle Diaries is not about Che, it is about a young potential med student who goes on a road trip in hopes of finding himself and getting some tail, but instead realizes that the world he wanted to take advantage of was too fucked up for another apathetic academic snob to ignore. The Relevant review missed it spent its view hundred words more worried about the messenger than the message.

This is a gorgeous that has caused me to rethink things. Suddenly, I don't to learn German in order to better understand certain cultural scholars, instead I have, once again, heard the call of Spanish and the hope of reading from large body of writers that revealed much about the oppression of Latin America: Che, liberation theologians, and Octavio Paz. I find myself torn by a film. When a bunch of stuck up white people are tyring to say that film is ruining the youth of America, I find myself moved by something those same ignorant/apathetic/don't-know-any- better white people would not even be able to find amidst their complaints.

I've been taking a road movie class, and find that this road movie critiques every other Americna road movie. While it does so in several ways, I find myself stuck on one scene. Che and his traveling companion come across an older married couple traveling and looking for mining work (this is the only work they can get since they are communists). They ask if Che and co. are looking for work, and they say no because they are traveling just to travel. Here is the biggest kick in the nuts (this could work literally as road movies are a male dominated genre) of most American road movies. The road movie is a reflection of western privilege. Only in the U.S. could someone travel just to travel. We dream of being mobile...with our back up plan. People camp and travel because they are forced and we camp and travel for liesure activity. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

Fast food and coke vs. Lent

2007-04-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

This year I tried to give up something for Lent. Two years ago I attempted to give up cussing, but that only lasted half a damn day. This year I took a 40 day fast food and coke embargo. I was a weird experience. I found out how dependent on easy food I am. I'm a stress eater and not having easy access to food was hard. Also, I love coke. Beer, cocktails, slurpies, martinis, cider, shakes, or juice-nothing tastes better than a coke on tap (I don't care what any fool says, coke is better than that piss water Pepsi). I went to In 'n' Out today. It was amazing. Luckily, the 40 days has given me a new appreciation for less heart burn (though I had a lot of red wine yesterday, causing that trend to change).

But after the 40 days, I found that it did not cause me to reflect on the cross. I hate to say this but I am numb to the Christian calender. This may be a flaw, but I find such dogmatic things to be a huge distraction to understanding the Bible. I love the Lord and continue to search meaning in the scriptures and books on theology and biblical interpretation, but I cannot find God within the walls of a church. It has a become a huge distraction. When I was a music major I began to hate music. Thus, I switched to a different degree and found a new love for songwriting. I do not mean to demean those that still find God in church practices. I am not even making a declaration that I will not take part in them. I truly believe that I must be within a community in order to understand God-I am simply distracted by Sunday morning politics. In Karen Osiek's book Beyond Anger, she discusses the importance of feminists within the church as well as those who choose to leave the church. Both make important statements: there is hope within and there is hope from without. I find myself somewhere between there. I believe that the American church can become something amazing, but it is not there yet. I am within my church to, hopefully, find the reasons for those traditions and, also, become part of the change I always whine about.

Lent can be a powerful event, but for now it didn't bring me closer to God-just lowered my belt size. I haven't left my church and do not plan to (and hopefully if any from my congregation read this will not see such vulnerability as a negative). I am simply a guy with Donnie Darko synrdrome-I see something wrong but am paralyzed to change anything because I was shot down when I tried to make such changes.

Ninja Turtles for the Entire Family

2007-03-26T02:44:00.000-07:00

So my roommates and I dressed up like the ninja turtles and went to see it on Friday night at the West Covina AMC. Our cast was as follows:
Casey-Raphael
Steve-Donotello
Jon-Leonardo
Tim-Michelangelo
Dominic-splinter
Jackson-Casey Jones
Matt-Foot soldier
Katie, Mellissa, and Kristen-themselves
We planned for the 9pm showing, but alas re arrived at the theatre at 8:30, thus the sold out showing forced us to wait an extra 1 and a half hours for the next show. We spent out time taking pictures with hundreds of jr. highers. Surprisingly, only three moderately adolescent boys gave into pathetic vocabulary with claims that we were gay. There were two bratty kids inside, but Master Splinter took care of those kids with his ancient words of wisdom about the ninja way. The majority of people loved it and wanted to take pictures with us. One such girl jumped and teared up like she had just met Justin Timberlake. Before the film began we all went to the bathroom, a teenager asked me what film we were going to see and I said, "Music and Lyrics," and walked away leaving the poor kid stumped. Everyone had a great time. The actual film was alright, it needed a better storyline. But the character chemistry was good-though Splinter's voice vaguely sounded like a New York godfather's. We all had a great time.

Year of the Fish (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:53:00.001-07:00

It’s Cinderella in New York’s Chinatown. But this Cinderella isn’t a daughter-in-law put to work for the evil stepsisters, she’s a immigrant from China that refused to do the usual work at a “massage” parlor, thus she was forced to do all the cleaning and cooking. Add to this a unique visual effect also found in Richard Linklater’s Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, and this is a shoe-in for the “most indie film ever” award. Also, the fair godmother isn’t as much a nurturing figure as she is a creepy old witch that runs a sweatshop. Besides the intriguing visuals only, possible through painting over top of what was filmed, The Year of the Fish has a wonderful soundtrack created from within the film. The romantic interest is a professional accordion player, and his music becomes the music of the modern fairy tale. Just as the melody sung by Mercedes becomes the theme of Pan’s Labyrinth, the accordion consumes each scene’s mood and is then elevated when the full orchestra builds on what the accordion began. Unfortunately, this film does play on many stereotypes. All the Asian characters fall into the normal categories of bitch, slut, and innocent/ignorant/weak. While it may be argued that the leading lady defies these stereotypes because she is stronger, she begins from this stereotype and is really only elevated with the help of another man. And the conclusion does not defy the system of oppression that allowed Asian immigrants to be imprisoned in places like a “massage” parlor. It actually makes light of the system. However, it might be more appropriate to say that the film does not try to answer the question of oppression, but simply states that amidst such tragic circumstances people can still find love and happiness.

Padre Nuestro (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:53:00.000-07:00

Padre Nuestro won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic feature. This is the story of two Mexican illegal immigrants who sneak into New York. One is going to meet his father he hasn’t met, while the other is simply trying to get away from all the trouble he brings upon himself. The second boy then steals the identity of the first and poses as the son of someone that is not his father. The other boy survives on the street, befriending a homeless woman, and tries to find his father, while being forced to do low pay jobs and sexual favours to survive. What makes this film so unique is that it is a foreign language film set in New York. Unlike most films like this, the social oppression of illegal immigrants is in the backdrop of this film. The storyline takes a much larger role than any political statement. The end result is a compelling story about interlocking characters, leading to the climax with their final interaction.
Padre Nuestro was a very intriguing film, but it did not deserve to win best dramatic feature. There were several other films that were more deserving than this one. This film once because of its setting and story. Letters from Iwo Jima provided much the same response—telling the same story from a different perspective. And like Letters from Iwo Jima, Padre Nuestro was not a truly engaging and strong story but was just different enough to cause people to take notice.

Bugmaster (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:52:00.001-07:00

Bugmaster was the most difficult film to understand at Sundance. This film is one of director Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s (Akira and Steamboy) few live action features. It is a period piece set in a mystical Japan where people called “Bugmasters” travel and use their special herbs, potions, and powers to calm bugs that cause pain to humans. The film features two driving stories, one in the past and other in the present. The two stories are connected by the lead character. Unlike Ôtomo’s normal dose of anime, the special effects of this film are subtle. But like most anime, the storyline is thick. Many compared this film to those of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke), this comparison is only made by people that do not know enough about Japanese cinema. The only commonality between the Bugmaster and Miyazaki’s films is the purity of nature. Bugmaster looks at the spiritual realm of creation and discusses a growing spirit that exists deep in the forest. Unfortunately, this film becomes hard to follow at this point and ends rather abruptly, thus to say more would require a second viewing.

Save Me (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

While For the Bible Tells Me So was very informational and well done, Save Me did a better job at presenting both sides of the “homosexuality” argument. The lead character Mark (Chad Allen) is put in a ministry meant to help gay men become straight. While there, he finds a community he loves and is able to kick drugs. But while there, Scott (Robert Gant) and him fall in love. While films like Saved portrays Christians as a completely irredeemable, dogmatic bunch, Save Me has a much healthier perspective. Once again, as opposed to Saved, which felt like it was made by a bitter person trying to get back at the private high school he or she went to, Save Me was made with the hope to bring people together. Many of those involved in making this film are Christians and gay (Chad Allen actually attends All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena). With this said, the Christians in the film that believe acting on homosexuality is wrong are portrayed as single-minded and evil but humans that, just like the gay Christians, have God in them as well. This is a powerful film because it does not answer any questions but simply concludes that God is with everyone. While the film did suffer from Lifetime channel production value, it remains a powerful piece of art that will bring about a conversation better than anything else.

Teethe (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:51:00.001-07:00

It’s hard to describe how bad this film was. The concept is great: a teenage girl, who runs a purity campaign, discovers that she has teethe in her vagina and begins to enjoy the power that comes with such a gift/curse. In a male dominated culture, it is easy to see the appeal of this film. It is summed up in the opening credits. The credits are a digital image of eggs and sperm swimming around. At key moments the music becomes very intense and several sperm attack one egg. This continually happens until the end the credits when one egg eats three of the sperm. Terms like “nail,” “penetrate,” and “prick” all reference the dominance of male masculinity. This rhetoric subtly works to keep women in subordinate roles. Thus, a film like Teethe becomes a powerful statement against male dominion over sex. It has the potential to reveal the power of women to “eat” men who do not see their sexual partner as an equal.
Alas, the end result was a very poor film. The acting was terrible. The music was overly dramatic. The plotline was weak. The character development was stereotypical at best. The only thing this film could do was make an audience laugh and convulse in the same breath. Three men were castrated and a gynecologist lost four fingers. Teethe was a film that did not know what it wanted to be, and the end result was mediocrity with a double-shot of shock value. Many women after the film laughed about how it redefines the term “chick-flick.” Unfortunately, this remains more true than most people will realize. This film is not a film about “girl-power.” It is a film that exploits girl, thus allowing women to enter the same game that men have been a part of for years. Thus, the same system this film may claim to go up against is actually the same system it is a part of. Thus, Teethe is just a like a “chick-flick” because it allows women to remain in their subordinate roles still playing the same game their supposed male rival is playing.

Banished (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

Racism is not a dead issue, and Banished is one of many documentaries that reminds people that it is not. This film focuses on the stories of several black families who try to trace their family roots back to their former family homes before their grandparents and/or great grandparents were run out of certain towns. The families found out that legal records could not justify the current ownership. One man tried to have his relative dug up to be given a proper burial, and upon requesting for the city to cover the burial costs, the city refused and tried to charge the man with stealing from the city.
While there are interesting parts to this documentary, it proves one of the classic flaws in many such films: too preachy. Michael Moore successfully ruined the documentary-director voiceover narration, and this film, like Moore’s, falls prey to the same awkward feel that leaves no room for dialogue. But this film does make incredibly sound points. In the hometown of the main leaders of the KKK, many people try to blame the KKK for creating a high image of racism. But the people do not want to admit that the KKK feels comfortable in this city for a reason. While some may argue that retribution for slavery is a dead issue, this film shows that it is not. The families interviewed in this film are not asking for reparations from slavery time but from 60 years ago. These are easily documented wrongs that only extreme denial can avoid. And the white people of the cities in this film do deny their responsibility.

The Island (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:50:00.001-07:00

The Island is a telling story about the pain of a saint. The story begins with a young crewmember who is forced to shoot his captain after they are captured by Nazis. The boat is then blown up and the young man is washed ashore near a monastery, where he would spend the rest of his life. The story then takes place when he is much older. People constantly visit him to receive healing. While he is a bit senile and eccentric, he heals everyone who comes to him and tells them what they need to hear. When he is not healing people or moving coal, he spends his time praying for forgiveness.
This is the story of a saint. Many ask questions about why certain people are blessed with such gifts while others are not, and this film does not bother to answer that but reveals the paradox. Many consider this monk crazy, but God chose him to be a healer, prophet, and servant. But for all his transcendent power, he has no peace. He is given this amazing gift, but his religion is so dogmatic that he can only obey and hope that God will see his redemption through his servant hood and grief. Yet there is hope in this film. Could someone evil truly do what God allows this man to do? The point comes through the implications of the story: God exists in people whether they realize he is there or not. This has profound implications for the rest of the world beyond the label “Christians.” I wonder if anyone will agree.

For the Bible Tells me So (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:50:00.000-07:00

How could a first time director score interviews with Desmond Tutu and Mel White? Few films have been as moving as this one. To here the stories of Christians who can accept homosexuality as something blessed and not something to overcome is rare. Whether, I agree or not is irrelevant because these stories provide hope for people who would otherwise leave the church altogether. This film, by itself, it very bias, but so is the other side of the argument. If people can transcend their biases when watching this film, then they will be able to see a group of people that are still loved by God and, more importantly, can still remain part of the Christian community. Mel White has been a longtime hero of mine, and to hear what he had to say (and to meet him) was so encouraging. God is working through this man’s ability to bring about a more diverse community of God. Anyone should be able to watch this film and see what homosexual people have been mistreated and things must change. And the film is honest in its representation of Christian conservatives—who have caused much pain. I do not know if I believe homosexuality is acceptable or not, but I know that people can remain within the body of Christ in such a state. This documentary offers great insight into a growing trend in Christianity: people reinterpreting the Bible and finding out that they may be wrong and should change their approach to those they considered sinners.

On the Road with Judas (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:49:00.001-07:00

This is one of those films that takes forever to simply explain. Director J.J. Lask is in the film as himself, an author of the book On the Road with Judas, and in the film he has created the screenplay for his book. There is a fantastical interview show, where the characters of the book and the screenplay actors meet. Each version of the characters tell the love story they are embarking on. While oddly complex, Lask does a decent job of making it easy to understand. This is truly one of the cliché indie films. In true postmodern form, this film is all about taking a seemingly ordinary love story and telling it in an extraordinary way. People’s inability to move past broken hearts drives this story, causing all those emotional, love-sick, anti-Valentine’s day people to be reminded, once again, that they are alone and it’s their own fault. The end of this film accents this nicely. While the story of the major characters in the novel and screenplay is happening, a subplot about Lask occurs where he tries to convince the novel’s romantic interest to allow him to write the book and eventually screenplay about her. In the final moments of the film he is sleeping with her and talking to her about how she was portrayed. But when the camera pans back to the bed, she is gone. It’s a powerful moment that reveals that the paralyzing nature of love cannot change without choice.

Black Snake Moan (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

From the director of Hustle and Flow, Black Snake Moan proved to be a great surprise. Finally, a film that is sexual with a purpose. It’s a story about a woman (Christina Ricci) who was sexually abused and has grown up constantly needing sex to survive. She comes in contact with a bitter farmer (Samuel L. Jackson) after a bad night of partying. This farmer suddenly feels the need to nurse her back to health. During the process, he finds out that she has a deeper pain going on. He then takes it upon himself to cure her of her “wicked ways.” He then chains her to his living room as a way to make her go “cold turkey” on her addiction to sex. What follows is a lot of hysterical dialogue and surprisingly engaging characters. There are two intriguing aspects of the film. First, Samuel L. Jackson sings several blues songs, and they are extremely well done. The music and the lyrics are well thought through. Second, the symbol of the chain is quite powerful. We are given the its literal when Jackson chains Ricci to his living room. We are then given its symbolic use when Ricci has a small golden chain wrapped around the waste of her wedding dress. In one of the final moments of the film, she must choose to use sex to solve her problems or change, and she grabs hold of the chain and decides to take a new path.

Hounddog (Sundance Film Review)

2007-03-12T16:48:00.000-07:00

Pre-viewing controversy surrounding Hounddog turned out to be more interesting than the film itself. Dakota Fanning is a very talented actor, but her ability to fascinate a crowd with her youthful performance could not deter the lack of intrigue built into the screenplay of Hounddog. Hounddog is about a little girl who is forced to grow up too quickly, lacking sufficient support from her family. Lewellen (Fanning) is able to be a playful youth until her father is struck by lightning and can no longer take care of himself. Add to this a stereotypically fire, brimstone, and whisky Christian grandmother, and Lewellen must forget about a happy life. Her only joy is in the music of Elvis—particularly his rendition of “Hounddog.” It is this redition that the stereotypically pimpled face milk boy sees Lewellen perform and halfway through the film rapes her. This was not an exploitive seen, and actually was not a strong enough event in the plot to matter—it should have occurred earlier in the film. And yet another stereotype (the black man as primitive witch doctor there to serve the interests of surrounding white), the neighbour and snake export helps Lewellen come to terms with her demons by singing the one song she feels caused her rape. But she sings “Hounddog” in its original context before Elvis redid it for a white audience. This is the only redeeming moment in this incredibly boring and over-dramatized film. The continually changing context of “Hounddog” creates an interesting look at the power of music to seduce and liberate. Unfortunately, the film is simply boring and relies on one-dimensional characters that have been created through far too many Deep South period pieces before this one.

Joshua (Sundance Film Reviews)

2007-03-12T16:47:00.001-07:00

If you’ve ever wondered what a boring thriller could look like, then watch Joshua. It was like watching The Omen, minus Satan, but add far too much predictability. Of course little Joshua was standing behind every door, waiting to scare his mom. Of course little Joshua was systematically driving his family insane. And of course he won. The film’s music embodied how dull this film was. The storyline revolves around the age of Joshua’s newborn sibling, and every time we are told how old this newborn is, a piano note or two is struck hard resonating into. While the idea may have been to create the tension Hitchcock or Palanski were masters of, it felt more like the soundtrack of The Firm. But hey, a John Grisham book adaptation would have been better than this not-so-thrilling “thriller.”
After this film ended, Fox Searchlight interviewed me about my thoughts on the film. I didn’t want to slam the film, so I said, “It was a slow thriller.” Unfortunately, someone at Fox Searchlight was stupid enough to buy this, which will be lucky it is makes over $15 million. I watch films like these and am given hope. I’m given hope because if that could make it into Sundance and get bought, then something actually good has a chance as well.

Strange Culture (Sundance Film Reviews)

2007-03-12T16:47:00.000-07:00

Strange Culture is a documentary about post 9/11 paranoia and the power of the government over artistic expression. It documents the story of Steve Kurtz who was arrested as a potential terrorist and is now being charged for mail fraud with a possible penalty of 20-years jail time. Kurtz originally called the police when his wife had heart failure. When the police arrived they saw Kurtz’s lab and chemicals. Considering them suspicious, they called the FBI who came into investigate. Kurtz was preparing for an art show that merged chemicals and art. Even though everything Kurtz had was legal, the FBI continued its investigation because of several things that seemed suspicious: a flyer for an art show that had Aramaic writing on it, the laboratory windows were covered with aluminum, Kurtz was a liberal professor, and many lab samples contained bacteria. It would later be learned that the bacteria was plant and fruit bacteria ordered online. Because of this online transaction, Kurtz is currently being charged with mail fraud—the only thing the FBI has been able to prove. While mail fraud is normally a civil matter, the FBI is trying to make it something more, thus making the penalty much worse than a fine.
Strange Culture is an interesting documentary to reveals something that many are currently very frustrated with. It reveals what happens when paranoia takes over logic in an age that is convinced that everyone is a terrorist—it’s Good Night and Good Luck for the current time. Unfortunately, the documentary was poorly made. The music felt like the soundtrack to a soft-core porno. The narrative flow of Strange Culture was unfortunately reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean 2: awkward, never-ending, and just lacking. With that said, it was an intriguing story poorly attempted.

Trade (Sundance Film Reviews)

2007-03-12T16:46:00.000-07:00

Trade will premiere nationwide come April. This film begins in Mexico and events are set in motion when a 13-year-old girl, Adriana (Paulina Gaitan) is kidnapped by Russian traffickers and smuggled across the U.S. border. This Adriana’s brother, Jorge (Cesar Ramos), tries to follow the smugglers with the help of an FBI agent Ray (Kevin Klein), who has been searching for his daughter who was kidnapped many years ago. Together the FBI agent and the boy follow the smugglers’ trail to New Jersey. Along the way, the world of underground sex trafficking is revealed in a harsh but not exploitive way. Scenes of prostitution and rape help to unfold these horrible events, but it is not scaring in a way that Requiem for a Dream and City of God are.
There are truly no big names in this film save Kevin Klein, who is moderately well-known but by no means an A-list actor. Yet the opening credits reveal a driving force behind the film: Ronald Emmerich, director of Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, and The Day after Tomorrow. Emmerich originally hoped to direct this film, against the approval of studios that were used to his usual multimillion-dollar blockbusters. While Emmerich not be able to direct this film, it is a major statement that such a large name would take interest in such a production.