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Showing posts from 2011

Go Get a Job, and why that isn't as simple as it sounds

About a month ago I had the opportunity to crew on a documentary shoot about the Occupy movement in Los Angeles. It happened to be on the two month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. An impromptu protest was launched at 7am that day, and protesters were arrested. Another protest was schedule for noon. As I was waiting I saw cops on bikes go back and forth along the street. Several helicopters were in the sky. Next thing I hear is cop sirens and six cars flew by and turned on Spring. The filmmaker and I made our way to Broadway where the protest was under way. As we were getting the equipment together I hear sirens again. In come six cop cars, but out pops the riot police. They flick out there batons and load themselves onto these trucks prepared for transport. I got the chance to walk with the protesters and witness this exchange. Young Asian man yells "Go Get a Job". A protester responds with there are no jobs. They go on and on with this topic and I felt like interrupting.

Time to give Sucker Punch the Knock Out

I watched Sucker Punch for 99 cents and I'm glad that's all I spent. While I think Zack Snyder is a step up from Michael Bay; he too shares the same flaws. He's good with visuals, but has issues with story beats and is clueless when it comes to weaving a cohesive story. The story is about a girl named Baby Doll, who accidentally kills her sister while defending herself from her evil stepfather's attacks. She is sent to an insane asylum, where in 5 days a doctor will come and give her a lobotomy. She develops a plan to escape after going into her dream world, where a Raydenesque character tells her she needs to retrieve four items and the fifth one will be revealed at the appropriate time. She teams up with other patients, Amber, Blondie, Rocket and Sweet Pea to bust out of there. Don't these sound like names of the Pussycat Dolls? This movie was a point of contention for some critics over whether it was exploitative of women or empowering. I stand on the side tha

Cautiously optimistic: Sam and Addison

(If you haven't seen the Private Practice season finale proceed with caution. Spoilers ahead) Have to admit that I was very close to being over Private Practice, but they had to go and suck me right back in. It all started with the Sam and Addison break up. I can understand if they broke up and it was for a believable reason. Trying to force someone to have a child by a certain time frame seemed rather unreasonable, and I felt like she needed more time to deal with her mother's death. She then proceeded to get involved with a new character played by Benjamin Bratt. You almost thought she was going to run away with him, and then boom there she was at the end in bed with Sam. Her resolution to their problem? She was going to have a baby on her own, but she was also going to stay in a relationship with Sam. I believe that this is a brave decision on the part of the showrunner and writers to go this route. It would have been so easy to use Sam's reluctance to have child

La Douleur Exquise: The Exquisite Pain

If you are a fan of Sex and the City you might remember this episode called La Douleur Exquise translated as The Exquisite Pain. This is one of my favorite episodes of the series because it equated that relationships can turn masochistic and not in the typical sense. In the beginning of the series it seemed like no matter what Big did to Carrie she would keep coming back to him. It is in this episode that she realizes she is in a masochistic relationship with him, and that she keeps hurting herself over and over. It reminds me of my own bittersweet relationship with my own Mr. Big. I think part of the reason you keep going back is you assume that your love is so powerful that the other person will change because of it. When they don’t a sense of disappointment sweeps over you and you try harder. However, there is a time and place when the realization takes over that the pain is not worth it. It’s like taking a razor blade to your arm and you keep cutting and cutting. I like to use exam