Assignment 19: Plastics

Most of the advice we receive in our lives is unsolicited and quite frankly inane.  However, every once in a while we get a real gem and changes our trajectory.  What is the one piece of advice given to you that has stuck?  Explain its effect on your life.

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, February 4th at 11:59 pm

February 11th is the last day to make up blogs 17-19

Assignment 18 - Erin

1. So far high school has been a mixed bag for me. I don't think that in the future I'll look back and say that the best years of my life were here, but I won't have all bad memories. My friends have been such a constant in my life through high school, so I hope that, before we graduate and go our separate ways, we can take a small trip together. Just go somewhere different to Lexington together, as our little family. Maybe just to Cincinnati or some remote small Kentucky town, but I'd like to have an adventure with my friends before the next chapter of our lives begins.

2. College. For many, it's years of parties. For others, it's years of hitting the books hard. As of now, I plan to attend college to study filmmaking. Since I was a kid, I've been making films by myself, but filmmaking is anything but a solitary career. It's a team sport. A multitude of specialties are needed for films, from artists to cinematographers to everything in between. So, by the time I'm finished in college, I hope to have my team. A group of friends who also share my passion for creating. A group that I (hopefully) will have made some art with. And a group that will work together after our schooling to make more art.

3. It's difficult for me to choose between two of my all time bucket list goals because they aren't really comparable. They encompass different aspects of my life. One of those goals is to travel to Japan, and spend a significant chunk of time there. My ancestors came to Hawaii from Japan, and I've always felt a connection to the country and it's culture. Japan has such a rich and fascinating culture. Before my time on earth is over, I feel that I must go back to my roots. Immerse myself in the culture that my ancestors knew. I already have a list of places in Japan that I want to visit, including the Arashiyama bamboo forest, Nara deer park, and a myriad of Shinto and Buddhist temples and shrines. I think visiting Japan will be not only an interesting life experience, but somewhat of a spiritual experience for me as well.

The other goal involves a much more long-term commitment. I hope to one day raise a dog –from puppyhood to adulthood. I'm the sort of person who doesn't feel as though I want children, granted, that may change in the future, but I highly doubt that it will. However, I have the great desire to be a mother to a dog. To raise and nurture a companion, to be my buddy. As someone who hopes to have a job that will mean a lot of traveling, a dog is a partner who could accompany me. This goal is for much later in the future, though, as I'd like to have a measure of stability before embarking on the responsibility of caring for a life.

Assignment 17: Theodore

Here is the text of my review, which is going to appear at

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ball_of_fire/reviews/?type=user&sort= 

as soon as the website approves it. 

Ball of Fire (1941) is a charming comedy about eight Princeton professors, 

happily composing an encyclopedia, who encounter the real world when a 

Mafia boss’s girlfriend uses their library as a hideout. America entered World 

War II less that a year after the making of this movie, so it’s surprising how 

sunny the film is. Even at its most villainous, the Mafia only shoots a few 

chandeliers and tries to stop true love.

The professors may be loosely based on the Institute for Advanced 

Study (IAS) — a research foundation in Princeton that opened in the early 

1930s. In this case, truth is stranger than fiction. While none of the movie’s

 professors can drive (despite their beliefs to the contrary), real-life professor 

John Von Neumann, who helped design the earliest computers, liked to drive 

around Princeton and read a book at the same time. The movie’s physicist, 

Professor Gurkakof, blamed his car accident on the theory of relativity; 

eminent logician Kurt Gödel spent time at the IAS proving that, according

 to relativity, it might be possible to travel back in time by taking long, 

round-trip voyages. In fact, the movie IQ (1994) pokes fun at the IAS more directly.

Despite their quirks, the professors soon prove to be kindly old men 

who welcome a bit of excitement in their lives. The male romantic lead, 

Professor Potts, at first acts like a hidebound grammarian: He knows that the 

statement “two and two is five” is grammatically incorrect, but doesn’t realize 

that “two and two are five” is also wrong. But he soon realizes that words alone

 cannot express his true romantic feelings — an accurate message for this amusing movie.

Assignment 18: Buckets and Buckets

Welcome to your first blog prompt for 2016! Yay!

A bucket list is a list of everything you want to accomplish before you kick the bucket. That doesn't mean you can't have such a list for specific aspects of your life as well.

To begin the year, generate your own bucket lists - one for high school, one for college, and one for life. Then, write about the priority on each list.

1. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish high school?
2. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish college?
3. What is the number one item on your bucket list before you finish living?

(This blog is inspired by Axel Liimatta - former academy teacher - my friend and former colleague that inspires me to live every day more fully)

Minimum of 150 words - due Sunday, January 21st  at 11:59 pm

February 11th is the last day to make up blogs 17-19

Assignment 17 - Erin

If you were to ask me who I think one of the best directors working today is, without hesitation I would answer Edgar Wright. Quickly after that answer I would also add Wes Anderson, but I’d like to focus on Edgar Wright because chances are you’ve never heard of him. He made his entrance to American audiences this past summer (2017) with his original film Baby Driver, which you may or may not have heard about. Prior to the release of Baby Driver, Wright was mainly known as a cult classic director with the majority of his fan base in the U.K. Other notable Wright films include Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and –my personal favorite– Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. To discuss Edgar Wright’s unique style of filmmaking, I’ll be comparing Scott Pilgrim and Baby Driver.

Though on the surface both of these films seem fairly different, they share more similarities than meets the eye. Both follow the story of a loser protagonist who just wants a better life, as well as love. Both feature an ensemble of stars who bring the story together. And both contain Edgar Wright’s idiosyncratic ability to tell a story to a beat.

Now, how that beat flows depends on the film. 

In Scott Pilgrim, quick-fire dialogue and visual cues keep the pace; while in Baby Driver, the entire film is underscored by and coordinated to a playlist, playing out like one long music video. If we trace these methods of pacing back to the roots of the two films, we can find why they work so well. For instance, Scott Pilgrim was adapted from a series of graphic novels all centered around video game style battles. So the use of blunt ping-pong dialogue between characters mimics the way most people quickly read through the dialogue on a page of a comic, or a screen of a game. On the other hand, Baby Driver centers on the character of Baby, to whom music is an integral part of his life. His major quirk is that he's always listening to music. By making the audience always hear what Baby is hearing, we better connect to him. Either way, the purpose of crafting the films to a rhythm is to fully immerse the audience. Often times poor pacing leads a viewer to become bored with a film, either they can’t keep up or feel as if everything is way too slow. Wright uses the pacing of his films to keep his audience invested, and feel like part of the story. From the opening scene of Baby Driver (a car chase perfectly choreographed to Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s “Bellbottoms”) to the final scene of Scott Pilgrim (three characters emotionally bouncing lines off of each other), Edgar Wright’s films move to the beat.