WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Finding a short film that embodied my genre of choice, Romantic Comedy, was tough because most of it was categorized under pure romance.

I hit the jackpot with “Mixtape” a Luke Snellin directed short that did a lot of things well in 3 minutes. 

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watch?v=RESwG23_YGw

The movie Notting Hill, starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant, is a love story like many other, but something special about this film makes it more charming and endearing than the others.  The girl is beyond famous, and her would be ‘prince charming’ is certainly anything but.  He wins her over with his charm, lack of woo-ing, and I don’t think the fact that even though he knows she’s famous but still treats her normally (for the most part) hurt his case.  She falls in love with him because he is everything her Hollywood ex-boyfriend was not; he’s casual, kind, quirky, and cultured.  He’s a catch and he didn’t even know it.  And then, all of a sudden, they find themselves in love – and of course there is a happy ending because a love story should always, in theory, have a happy ending.  The viewer of this movie is truly left in a euphoric state of how magical love can be and for that reason I write my ode to you Notting Hill – the ultimate romantic comedy.

“The Boy in The Striped Pajamas”- youll love it even if you are not into history or war.

What happens when a country finds itself to be ruled by a fanatic, a sick person? Not only its citizens are afraid to say no to follow the orders of the presidents, but a number of people die, a huge number of people die. 3 million Jews died in concentration camps in the time of Holocaust, 3 million people is a lot of people, just imagine, say, Jamaica to be erased from the map (and the population of Jamaica is 2.7 million- even less than 3 million). These are only Jews that were killed, there were millions of people of other nations destroyed.This war set a huge seal in the history of my country (I am Russian), my country still feels the traces of war in its demographics. There were at least one person taken away from an average Russian family by this war.

I love watching movies about World War the second, movies about concentration camps in particular. There were so many books written and films shot, not all of them are good, but some of them, once seen, will stay in your mind forever, and one of them is “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”.

This move is about how Nazis son, going for a walk, comes to the wire of the concentration camp where his daddy burns people works. He meets another boy , same age, who (just like this boy) likes to play and is playing next to the wire. The two boys become friends, and the Jewish kid invites him over to play with him in the camp, gives him the striped pajamas so that he was not noticed, after what the kids are taken to one of the gas rooms and both die with hundreds of other people.

The scary part is that for the boys the pajamas is just some weird type of clothes that you have to wear all the time and the wire shows your territory, when for the grown-ups it is an indication of the fact that a person needs to be slaughtered just for being Jewish or Russian or gypsy (or for not having the Aryan blood) and the wire keeps them in their little cell. The boy could easily run away, he came outside the wire to play with his friend, but he sees his life there as something not dangerous at all, his little mind just does not know yet that people can be so cruel and can kill for nothing. The other boy sees this little Jewish boy as any other person to play with, he does not know what Jew means yet, he does not see the difference between them.

This kind of movies (historical drama, holocaust movie) is the most interesting to me. Watching these movies is just like being immersed into the past, sometimes horrible past thus letting all the events go through yourself and understanding the history a little bit more. Another movie, which is one of my favorites, is “The Pianist”. It tells us about a very talented Jewish pianist hiding in Nazi Germany from being taken to the concentration camp. Another movie which is on the list of the movies I have to watch is “The Schindlers List”.

http://blogs.woodtv.com/2008/11/21/review-boy-in-the-striped-pajamas-is-sad-and-poignant/

Why hasn’t this become mainstream fashion yet?
Photo Credit: Peter Jackson I New Line Cinema

By Sean Creamer

watching a film is a concept that always something that has eluded me. Why would someone sit and watch the adventures of others, when they could easily get up from the couch ridden with potato chip crumbs and soda stains, don a set of leather armor, take up the sword and create an adventure of their own (disclaimer: the writer does in fact do this from time to time).
While I do not watch movies often, I personally subscribe to a love of fantasy. Although this world that we live in is chock full of unexplored land, I feel that delving into a fantasy film such as The Lord of the Rings or the space cowboy television show Firefly grasp my adventurous spirit and will hold me upon the decrepit couch long enough to enjoy a good story and shovel popcorn into my gullet.
I love the idea of a coming of age and fantasy movies rarely fail to deliver what I want to see when someone comes of age. Sure, a protagonist can get the girl of his dreams after some romantic hijinks or someone can have a breakthrough with a disease, but real life sucks. This is stuff that kinda goes on everyday.
And honestly, who wants to see stuff that you can see by just looking through your kitchen window?
No. I require the slaying of beasts or human devils to prove that a character has indeed earned their stripes and has stepped fully into the darkness of the world created for them, whether for good or ill.

I can relate with the characters who find themselves thinking that they are destined for greatness, but the adventure has not yet presented itself to them. It is kind of how I feel about life, that everyone has an adventure waiting for them.
While not all fantasy characters may experience a beginning this humble, it is one that I am drawn to and find that it is one of the purist forms of character development.
Don’t get me wrong: I love to watch Seth Rogan and James Franco battle crooked cops and toke on the Pot Marijuana in Pineapple Express, it is always a trip, but nothing compares to the enchanting scenes and magical scores of The Fellowship of the Ring.
A viewer is simply whisked away to Hobbiton’s rolling pastures and homes under the hill. The splendid acting and effects of this movie create such a fantastic world that I cannot help but take up my grandfather’s old sword and challenge my brother to intense duels to the first blood of the thigh.

Comparing to sci-fi, comedies and action films, my favorite film genres are romantic and independent films. I am a huge viewer of romantic films are from any languages or cultures. I am just competent to connect my soul so deeply with an insightful and meaningful romantic film. Some of my all time favorite romantic films are Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Notebook, Titanic, Notting Hill, A Walk to Remember and many more…All of these movies are close to my heart, especially, A Walk to Remember is a special film to me. This movie is not only about love, romance and physicality also about hope, dignity and stimulation of life.

A Walk to Remember is a film about Landon Carter, a popular face in school, and Jamie Sullivan, a strong, introvert and beautiful girl. While Jamie has high dreams and hopes about life, Landon has no plan for future. He is more involved with making fun and jokes on students. And a prank on a student gets him into punishment, such as, serves in after-school community service and performs in the lead role of a school play. Therefore, Landon meets with Jamie in these activities and became close to her. They have fallen in love and feel the intensity of the relationship. However, it covers by a dark cloud when the secret reveals that Jamie has terminal leukemia and the treatments are not going to be effective anymore. But, Landon and Jamie do not give up their love. They get married before Jamie die, and Landon becomes a better and successful person in life because of Jamie’s love.

Jamie: You know what I figured out today?
Landon: What?
Jamie: Maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I had for myself. Like this journey never ends. Like you were sent to me because I’m sick. To help me through all this. You’re my angel.

The reason of my fascination about the romantic films is its beautiful and emotional expresses. It is a medium to describe a story or a plot about two passionate people who are willing to go through together all the happiness and sorrows without falling apart. It also inspires viewers to fall in love.

 Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0281358/quotes

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/A-walk-to-remember-a-walk-to-remember-692260_1024_768.jpg

Bryan Lee

I must say that this year is the year I fell in love with Foreign films and I find myself asking “why the heck haven’t I been watching foreign films earlier than this. What makes it so crazy is that I lived in Germany for four years and only watched on Germany film, can’t recall the name but I do remember that it was a scary movie and supposed to be a classic. Try googling “classic scary Germany movie and let me know what you find and I’ll probably remember from the choices. With foreign films I find them to be more compassionate and complex than American films. I feel that American films play it safe and lack creativity and Foreign Films tend to expose a social injustice and allow you the viewer to render your own opinion. Now maybe it’s a cultural thing but a lot of the foreign films aren’t as vulgar the American ones and I’ve maybe watched about 10 of them and maybe saw a sex scene in one of them. Maybe it’s a cultural thing with a lot of them or maybe they want to be able to have everyone watch the movie and not just one specific demographic. One thing I noticed with a lot of foreign films is that they love attacking social injustices.

     One of my favorite foreign films is MY NAME IS KHAN and it is about a Muslim with Asbergers syndrome who has to deal with a lot of prejudice after 9/11 happened. He decides to take a journey to meet Barak Obama to let him know he isn’t a terrorist and what prompts him to make this journey is the fact that his son is beaten to death by kids upset by the tragedy of September 11th. This movie was a love story(they show him falling in love with a woman who doesn’t mind that he has asbergers syndrome), this movie shows tragedy(their son is killed in a hate crime), also shows injustice (while in the airport Khan is searched by Customs agents because someone hears him saying a Muslim prayer while waiting online to go through Airport screening and they think he is a terrorist and contact the authorities. One thing he says while being questioned by the TSA agents is that he is not a terrorist, which is a poignant statement. What he is simply saying is “just because I’m a Muslim doesn’t make me a terrorist”. This movie was heartwarming from beginning to end and quickly became one of my favorite movies of any genres. I truly think that foreign films have better story lines and aren’t one dimensional like a lot of the American movies. Foreign movies seem to touch on every human emotion and you feel fulfilled after you watch them. Now don’t get me wrong, there are crappy movies in foreign cinema just like there are crappy movies in American cinema. I just feel that if there was a contest then creativity award goes to foreign films because their characters you find yourself relating to their characters more or at least feel you know someone who reminds you of one of characters.

     We also have to take into account that a lot of foreign movies have been adapted into American movies; some of the main ones are The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I’ll tell you this now, the Swedish version of the movie is much better. When I went to Sweden, my friends out there were pretty upset with the American version and felt that it didn’t do the European version or the books it was based on any justice. Movies such as The Grudge and The Ring were adapted from Japanese films of the same name. Believe me; the Japanese version of  The Grudge and The Ring  are definitely much scarier. One night while at home with my girlfriend, she asks if Netflix has the movie SHUTTER starring Joshua Jackson. Now they didn’t have the one starring Johua Jackson but they did have the original Shutter which has done an all Thai cast. Check out the American Version and then the Thai version and leave me a comment to let me know which one was scarier. As we started watching it my girlfriend and I realized there was something about this movie that lead you to believe it was much scarier than the American version and within the first 5 minutes a dead woman popped out of a picture and we both screamed soprano style and that’s when we realized that we would be turning that movie off and watching a comedy for the remainder of the night.

     One thing about American films I don’t like is they want you to believe everything in the world is fine and there is no injustice and if there happens to be injustice then one tough man can solve it and right all wrongs. Foreign films tend to be more realistic, they show the disparities between class, they show that unity can help you get through adversity and they show that anyone can be the hero regardless of skin color or religion. Right now I’m really into Bollywood films, I love how in certain scenes of the movie they will break out into a song and dance routine which is always expertly coordinated. That’s something you only see in Musicals and there aren’t too many musicals in American films. Indian films take the cake because the actors have to know how to dance as well as act, just imagine Denzel Washington having to sing and dance in everyone of his movies.

     One interesting fact is that the first film ever made was Eadweard Muybridge’s Horse in Motion in 1878, and he was an English photographer that immigrated to the United States. Now ask yourself, if the director of the first film immigrated from England could this be classified as a foreign film since he is a foreign director? Hmmmm. I’ll let you think about that one, but while you’re doing this, check out Horse in Motion, its actually better than some movies I’ve seen most notably the new Resident Evil movie which was truly disappointing. Oh and while you’re watching the first film ever made you will notice that the first actor is Black, now how about them apples  🙂

www.imdb.com

I find it essentially hard to pick a favorite genre when it comes to films. I enjoy watching feel-good movies, dramas, thrillers, adventures, comedy, romance, independent, the list only continues. The genre I pick depends on my mood. However, brat-pack films of the ‘80s never get old to me. I never tire of watching, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles it’s pure nostalgia. I wasn’t born in the 80s’ but in the early 90s’ and remember these movies coming on television. They remind me of my childhood. They make me feel relaxed and at ease.They are coming-of-age, comedies.

I guess coming-of-age films are appealing to me because I am still coming of age. I am still going through the growing pains and standing between marginal lines of adulthood and adolescence.  I can easily relate to all the stereotypical characters of The Breakfast Club, the brain, the beauty, the jock, the rebel and the recluse, they resonate a part of me. Even now as I am writing this I can’t help but smile, “Don’t you (forget about me)” by the Simple Minds which was a soundtrack in the film is playing in my head. A good film is like a good book the characters are relatable, lifelike, a person you know or yourself. I enjoy films where I am enamored with the characters and I become a character in the film. The Wood is another coming-of-age film that I enjoy holistically. I remember watching this being particularly jealous of the unabated brotherly love that Big Mike shared with his friends. Films like these bring nothing but euphoria to my life.

A Genre of movies that evokes serious passion or hatred: Science fiction drama of Cinema.

     Science fiction is a genre of fiction, which contains description of possible and imaginary futures or worlds; mostly it evolves around future settings. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Truman Show are my love songs and I probably watched them more than 30 times.

     Some might have had an occasion to think to himself or herself—“my life could be managed by someone else”. The Truman Show is a satirical comedy drama film directed by Peter Weir and written by Andrew Niccol. This film was originally drafted in the tone of a Science Fiction thriller. However, Jim Carrey’s acting added comical sources on the film; personally, he expressed emotional aspects of Truman Burbank well. So, I did not feel much confused or frustrated from grasping the setting. Truman Burbannk lived his entire life, failing to recognize that his whole life had been managed by one mastermind—Producer Christof. The producer put Truman Burbank on a small world, in which he could control Truman’s life, and also film his life through cameras, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Therefore, Truman’s real emotion or reaction through the certain situation captured and this was the gist of story that the Truman Show delivers to the audience.

     Eternal Shine of the Spotless Mind is also a Science-fiction film, about a couple that tries to erase their memories of each other. Many couples tend to feel painful after their relationship changed from passion into bitterness. Clementine erases Joel from her memory; then Joel tries to erase her also, but his ego finds out that he does not want to erase memories of Clementine.

     I have recommended those two Science fiction films when my friends asked me for a suggestion. Some of them really liked, while others hated watching them, perhaps because of complex and far-from-real plots of the stories. Perhaps, these complexities that require understanding, led to confusion to my friends who are used to conventional movie settings and story lines.

     I would definitely say that Science fiction films are my love songs; because they force the audience to become more aware of the possibilities of not so straightforward, visual reality. At the same time, they urge people to be self-aware, about their true identities and even about philosophical question of the purpose of our existence.

Eternal Sunshine link – –  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338013/

The Truman Show – –http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/

“All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.”

by Jean Cocteau

Music is not only a set of notes played beautifully. It is also a very important role in society, especially when it comes to films. With the right notes and tones, the audience’s experience amplifies. The background music supports a scene and actor’s emotions, which done successfully can cause the audience to shed a tear or intensify the suspense feeling. It allows the audience to understand the current situation, know how to feel, and enhance the mood setting. However, background music is not the only type of music in film.

I am a huge fan of musicals. I find them to be most entertaining because it is not just a film genre. A musical is a form of story telling which incorporates music and dance with speech. It can include other genres, so that is more than just a musical. For example, my all-time favorite film is the classic musical, The Phantom of the Opera. The Phantom of the Opera is a romantic drama set in music. It’s about a mysterious half-masked man who falls in love with one of the performers at the opera house. He does whatever it takes to make sure she has her chance in the spotlight to make her fall in love with him. It’s a very touching film and I would highly recommend this film to others.

If you’re in the mood for a less dramatic and comedic musical, I would recommend Grease. It’s a romantic-comedy with more upbeat songs compared to The Phantom of the Opera. When I was in high school, I had the Grease fever. I think I enjoyed it more as a teenager because the film was focused on high school students. I was able to relate to it and visualize myself in a similar situation which made the experience even more enjoyable.

If you’re hosting a family movie night, I would recommend Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music. The Sound of Music was the very first musical I ever watched and because of Julie Andrews’ performance and vocals, I grew to love musicals. My passion for music was actually inspired by this musical. After watching this film, I dedicated myself to studying how to play various instruments such as piano, bells, clarinet, violin, vocals, and guitar. Because of this film, I love and appreciate music.

The fun doesn’t stop there though. Nowadays, if a musical is successful enough on film, it can be performed live on Broadway!

I have an unabashed appreciation for the automobile, and all things automotive. I could spend hours talking about it, and I often do. Daily. I understand that this makes me a bit of weirdo, and for that reason I understand why most “car movies” usually aren’t about cars. Or if they are, they’re inexplicably terrible.

There are a lot of movies with excellent footage of really cool cars doing fantastic things. Ronin, starring Robert DeNiro, Jean Rene, and a young Natascha McElhone (Hank Moody’s ex-wife on Californication), is among my favorites. Primary reason being it features a female assassin driving a BMW M5 the wrong way down a Parisian highway at insane speeds. It’s perfect.

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