Body Images

Because it's an illustration, this particular image of the female body can be essentially made perfect. She's laying in a very promiscuous pose, basically like she's inviting someone to come and have sex with her. The purpose of this image is to be appealing enough that someone would want to display it. Her body is for display purposes, especially since she isn't, in fact, a real person. Since this image is vintage, her body type isn't at all like those of high fashion models today. She actually has a body that would be more likely to actually be "real."

Auteurship - Robert Altman

The Long Goodbye -

This was an interesting movie for me. I found Marlowe's character to be very intriguing and almost comical, especially considering his role in the story and the theme of the film itself. Marlowe is a strange and quirky man who almost seems to have a sense of sarcasm and a lack of seriousness throughout the film. I think that his character was really what held together the story and made this film interesting for me. There are so many things happening in the storyline, and a lot of dark and serious topics being brought to life, but all the while, Marlowe maintains his cool and witty personality. The way he acts and his commentary on the things going on around him give a little bit of light to the dark situations he comes in contact with throughout the movie.

Gosford Park -

This film definitely reinforced my feelings about Altman's auteur style. Despite his dark and intricate storylines, Altman builds interesting characters and seems to almost focus more on these characters' quirks and idiosyncrasies than on the story at hand. Despite this film and The Long Goodbye both dealing with some heavy subjects that the characters are facing, there's still a lightheartedness that's brought out by the focus on the relationships and actions of the characters. Altman doesn't seem to like following the traditional techniques of making mystery films. Generally speaking, a mystery film begins with the necessity to solve a mystery, then the plot is built around finding the answers and solutions. But Altman's approach is to keep the main focus off of the mystery at hand.

Beyond Therapy -

This Altman film breaks the boundaries of the other two films that I watched. While still developing a lot of the characters and making them quirky and interesting, this film is definitely more plot-based. After viewing these films, I decided to read some online reviews of them. This film definitely seemed to get the most negative comments from Altman fans. I can definitely see where they would be coming from. If you're used to Altman's usual style of focusing more upon the characters and somewhat ignoring the underlying plot, then this film would definitely be a surprise.

From my experience, which is never having seen any other films by Altman, I feel that my understanding of his work is mostly about his treatment of characters and plot. I enjoyed The Long Goodbye the most of the three, and I think it's due to my fascination with the main character, Marlowe. I'm definitely someone who likes watching films with interesting characters. While it's important to have an interesting plot I can follow, I feel like I can somewhat overlook the plot if there's a prominent character that I can either relate to, or just generally find interesting to watch. Marlowe was definitely such a character. His sarcastic comments and odd ways of doing things kept my attention on the movie despite sometimes feeling a little lost in all that was going on in the twisting plot.

Fear & Loathing

The biggest impression I was left with after reading the screenplay of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was my amazement at how well the feelings of the highs were conveyed. This whole movie really is meant to be like one long drug trip, and all of the associated feelings, ideas, actions, and of course, consequences.

Though there is a story going on within the script, a lot of the focus is on the drugs and the affects they have on the characters. The descriptions of the things the characters see when they are tripping are a very crucial part of reading the lines and understanding the characters of this movie. Special attention was paid to how the trips go and how they affect the thoughts and actions of the characters. Rather than simply acting disoriented and high, it's important for the characters to thoroughly read these descriptions of the crazy things that the drugs are doing to their minds, and act accordingly. There's a big difference in how you can portray a generic drug trip, and between how you act as someone who is seeing giant insects right in front of their very eyes while everything appears normal to everyone else they are with.

Also, even from the beginning, it's apparent that the hitchhiker running away evokes a definite sense of panic in the lead characters. This panic is only heightened by the two trying to cover up reality with their psychoactives. Drugs generally make the user paranoid, which should definitely be a key consideration when acting the parts of these characters.

Both of the main characters of very eccentric and unique people. Their parts are definitely ones that should be played accurately, but also should be experimented with to get their eccentricity and spontaneity out of it. An actor should not be afraid to get very deep into the mindset of these drug trips and go a little bit wild with their interpretations of them.

Lolita

The novel "Lolita" certainly challenges the "normal" expectations of a love story. But, in a sense, it really does this all by changing one key element, and giving the story an immoral twist. Though poetically written, and, in fact, a beautiful story, it can be a hard story to follow because of one major difference: the love is between a young, teenage girl, and a middle-aged man. Aside from this one detail, everything about the love shared between the two characters is really incredible. Nabokov does an excellent job of taking a shocking subject and delivering it in a way that can still be appreciated. Personally, as I read the descriptions Nabokov wrote for the way that Humbert appreciates and views Lolita, they were written in a way that allowed me to look past their vast age difference, and see inside to what the character felt for the young girl. It challenged my own conceptions about what elements of love or a relationship can make it "wrong" or "right." Is it really wrong if both people involved are truly in love with one another? Should things like age, or any other situation really play such a heavy role in something as subjective and personal as love? Had Lolita been the same age as Humbert, this book wouldn't have had nearly the shock-factor, nor would it have raised so many questions about morality. But, at the same time, I really don't think it would have been as interesting. I think the same applies to love, and, really all aspects of life. Who truly has a 100% normal life? I believe as human beings, we feed off of the "abnormal."

Black Dahlia - James Ellroy

The novel "Black Dahlia" is set in the 1940s in Los Angeles, California. Taking place around WWII, the novel portrays the depraved and corrupt side of Hollywood and L.A. It lives up to its neo-noir label by truly darkening its setting. Granted, the subject of the novel, the murder of Elizabeth Short, is very dark in and of itself, Ellroy certainly takes it that extra step. Because the murder of Short has still not been solved to this day, and there isn't a lot of detail about the case, Ellroy was able to take liberties with the story and weave his own, very dark version. What starts with an investigation into a murder quickly twists and turns, revealing dark secrets about the characters involved and morphing into a pretty sick sequence of events leading to the death of Elizabeth Short. Ellroy's story does well to depict the darker side of the times by allowing the investigation to reveal secrets of the characters involved.

Fairytale — Low ink.

Bzzzzzz, bzzzzzzzz, bzzzzzz.
Alanna snapped out of a deep sleep upon hearing her cell phone violently buzzing across her nightstand. She squinted at the clock beside her which read 4:30am. "Who the hell would be calling me right now?" She checked the caller ID and saw her friend Jen's name flashing on the screen. "If this is a drunk dial I'm going to kill her," Alanna thought aloud. She picked up the phone and a frantic voice started speaking rapid-fire on the other end:
"Alanna! Oh thank God you picked up! I need help right now! Something is seriously wrong with my laptop!"
"You called me at four thirty in the morning because you're having computer problems?" Alanna growled back at her friend, "I think that's what 24-hour tech support is for."
"You don't understand," said an exasperated Jen, "this isn't normal."
Alanna sat up and rubbed her eyes before responding: "What do you mean?"
"Well, Ruby and I were just talking on iChat, and I started to get a little hungry, so I told Ruby that I wished I had some pretzels."
"And?" Said Alanna curtly, beginning to question the severity of this problem.
"Well, this image popped up on my screen. It was a bowl of pretzels, and it said 'print me' on it. It was strange, and I thought maybe Ruby had sent me something, so I printed it out, and, it... well... it became REAL!"
"Goodnight, Jen." Alanna was about to turn off her phone and go to sleep, dismissing her friend's outlandish claim that her computer had somehow materialized food.
"But Alanna, I promise I'm telling the truth. I'll prove it. Come over and see for yourself."
Alanna thought for a couple of minutes before finally agreeing to go see what Jen was talking about. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she said as she turned the keys in her car's ignition. She drove the few minutes over to Jen's house and was greeted at the door by Jen, who looked tired and a little shocked. They walked upstairs into the computer room. Sure enough, there was a bowl of pretzels sitting on the desk, but that didn't prove anything to Alana. "So you have a bowl of pretzels. I ate some with lunch today but I didn't feel the need to wake you up to tell you about it."
"Just watch," said Jen, obviously annoyed by her friend's lack of faith. She opened up her chat window again and turned on her printer. "What do you want right now? Name anything," prompted Jen.
"Fine, ummm, I want a cup of green tea with honey," Alanna said laughing to herself at the ridiculousness of what she'd just said.
Jen typed the request into the chat window, and just like before, a window popped up with an image of a neat little china teacup with steaming tea inside.
"Ok, that's cool. How did you write the code to make it do that?" asked Alanna.
"Just watch!" said Jen. She pressed the print button, and within seconds, a teacup appeared in front of them, identical to the one that had been on the screen moments before. Alanna just sat there slack-jawed. She slowly reached over to the cup and touched the handle. It was completely real, even hot from the tea inside. She carefully lifted it up and tasted it. It was green tea with honey, just like she'd asked for.
"Jen, do you understand the power that we possess now?" Alanna said without taking her eyes off of the cup.
"I KNOW!" said Jen enthusiastically. "We can have anything we've ever wanted!"
The girls went to work typing endless things into the window and printing out the things they asked for. They started with some simple things like some breakfast and more hot tea for both of them, then moved on to other, more material things.
"I can finally have that new bag I saw at the mall!" shrieked Jen, typing furiously into her computer as objects popped up all over the room. Suddenly, the alarm in Jen's room went off, and the girls had to get to class soon.
"Let's agree not to tell anybody about this," said Alanna picking up the jacket she'd just printed to wear on the way to class. "Agreed," said Jen, "we'll be the only ones able to have anything we want with the push of a button.
The girls finished getting ready and went to class together. Neither of them could concentrate all day, and they spent most of their time writing lists in the back of their notebooks of all of the things they desired. Meanwhile, back on the computer at Jen's house, a different message popped up on the screen. It was a low ink warning for the printer, but since nobody was around to see it, it went unnoticed, and disappeared.
When the girls had both finished class, they met up and hurried back to Jen's. When they got up to the computer, they started again typing in all of the things they'd thought of during the day. Jen had just pushed the button to print out the new cell phone she wanted, when she noticed something was wrong. As she watched the phone materialize, she noticed a couple of buttons were missing from it.
"What's going on?" yelled Jen, "this phone's messed up!" Alanna took it in her hand and inspected it. She noticed the faint outlines of the keys that were missing, and got a concerned look on her face.
"Jen," she said "how much ink was left this morning? I mean, we printed out a lot of stuff."
Jen furiously threw open the lid of the printer and pushed the ink test button. The window popped up on the screen showing almost no ink left.
"We have to go buy some more," said Jen, "I'll drive."
It was getting late, but the girls managed to find an open office supply store. She ran right to the ink section and found the last box of ink for Jen's printer. They bought it and drove home quickly to install it.
Once they got it back in, they both felt relieved, and decided to pick their next item together.
"Let's start by getting some of that sushi from Yoshi's! I'm starving!" suggested Alanna. Jen started typing, but this time nothing popped up on the screen. Jen started panicking and entered her request into the window again and again.
"It, it's not working," Jen said, dejected. The girls sat there for a while staring at the screen trying to figure out what they'd done wrong. They looked all around at the hundreds of objects they'd collected from that morning, and realized it must have been an anomaly. They started out feeling sad and annoyed by the loss of their incredible secret machine, but soon started to just feel guilty about how far they'd taken it.
"We could've done some great things with that," said Alanna.
"You're right," said Jen. "We were just greedy."
They agreed to look over the things they'd made that morning and give some of them to their other friends as gifts.
"I guess I don't REALLY need another green scarf. Lisa would probably like it, anyway," said Alanna.
You know, I feel better now," said Jen. "I'm glad we're at least using a little bit of this for some good. Wanna order a pizza, you know, the old fashioned way?" Jen asked, pointing to her cell phone. The girls laughed and continued to sort through their stuff, feeling glad about everything that had happened to them that day.

Media Dialogue

August 30, 2010


1: Do you ever think what it would be like if there were a sort of “Google” for
real life?
2: Well, I mean, there is. You can use it to find anything you want, really.
1: Well, no, you can’t find real-life objects. You’re limited to what is on the Internet.
2: That’s not a very big limit… just about everything’s available now.
1: But, what I mean is, more the ability to use Google to find things around you, things that are physically near you. For example, I was in Publix grocery shopping yesterday, and I was looking for a specific thing, and I thought, what if Publix had some sort of directory where you could look up the products by brand or category, and it would give you their exact location in the store.
2: You know, they do have people working there who essentially do that same thing.
1: In that situation, yes, but that’s not always the case. What if I lost my car keys
in my room?
2: You’d have to retrace your steps and think where they might be.
1: Or, what if I had a way to search for them with technology. I could input my keys into some sort of device; so that when I couldn’t find them, all I would have to do is recall them on the device and it would locate them for me.
2: That is a good idea. I can see how something like that could have its place, and how it could be useful, but not as much the grocery store thing.
1: And, why not?
2: So many technologies are taking away the need for real people, and thus taking away real interaction. When was the last time you actually picked up the phone to find out the hours of a business?
1: Only when they don’t have a website.
2: Exactly! People of our generation don’t tend to interact with people the same way that people our parents’ age do. What you essentially just suggested was replacing hundreds of jobs by more machines. Add in some self-checkout counters and grocery stores suddenly don’t need employees anymore.
1: Come on, you know how often those self-checkouts don’t work, there’d have to be someone around to help people with that.
2: You know what I mean. I think the mechanized future we are headed for is not going to be as helpful as people think it will. We’re getting rid of the need for people, and therefore getting rid of jobs, and I think in 50 years, people aren’t going to know how to interact with each other.