Farahbellina's Journal

My Facebook Badge

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 18:56:35 GMT

I just figured out how to create a Facebook badge. So here it is:

Hello again & My Facebook profile

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:25:04 GMT

Hello guys,

I know that I have not posted on this journal for a LONG LONG LONG time, and I apologize for that. I'm sure you thought that I was dead or kidnapped by aliens or something.

Anyway, truth be told, I've switched from LJ to Facebook. Since it's the new happening thing to do. :-) If you want to add me on there, message me and let me know. Okay?

Greek Folk Festival June 9, 10, 11

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 21:10:12 GMT

http://www.greekfolkfestival.com/

This looks really cool!!! I think I'll go if I have time.

yeah, I know I haven't updated much in the last few weeks. But I was very busy, and tres fatiguee....

I recently joined the gym in order to get in shape. LOL. Will also be taking an aquatics class too. So I will definitely stay active.

Theatre: The Frogs

Sat, 13 May 2006 19:36:22 GMT

http://www.umbc.edu/cgi-bin/webevent.cgi?cmd=showevent&ncmd=listweek&cal=cal13&id=26065&ncals=&de=1&tf=0&sib=1&sb=0&sa=0&ws=1&stz=Default&sort=e,m,t&cat=&swe=1&cf=list&set=0&m=05&d=9&y=2006

I went to see The Frogs performed at UMBC--they performed it in front of the Pond. I was a bit nervous that I wouldn't understand what was going on, since I have never read the play before. But it was very understandable.

And very funny. Even the kids in the audience got the jokes.

Also, they served Greek food at the end of the show. Yum!!!

Theatre: "For a Better World"

Sat, 13 May 2006 19:28:57 GMT

Theatre: "For a Better World"

For a Better World by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by Jan Caspers.

For a Better World (Für Eine Bessere Welt) explores the skewed reality experienced by soldiers—young men and women in uniform—doomed to remain in a state of constant warfare. The military conflict encompasses all modern warfare, the time frame for final victory is never, and the possibility of finding meaning in life outside of combat unthinkable. Beautiful and terrifying, For a Better World redefines what it means to survive a war. Roland Schimmelpfennig has been described as the hottest new playwright of his generation in Germany. His plays have been produced at the Royal Court in London, as well as throughout the rest of Europe and in Canada. This production is a North American premiere.

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0Je5rKCplpE0BwBktZXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2cDBpbnJ0BGNvbG8DdwRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMgRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANpMDIyXzQ4/SIG=12e5if3bi/EXP=1146877954/**http%3a//www.goethe.de/kug/pro/stuecke/englisch/schimmel.htm

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LaSuaUpVpE9pYAbQ9XNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE2Z3MwOXF0BGNvbG8DdwRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANpMDIyXzQ4/SIG=12bj7vmo8/EXP=1146877716/**http%3a//www.goethe.de/ins/ie/prj/eut/pla/for/enindex.htm

I was absolutely blown away by this play. The dialogue is poetic, transcendent, industrial, and uber-avante-garde. The structure, and the storyline is trans-real. It's kooky and cybernetic and ultra-futuristic.

UMBC's Theatre department did a GREAT time, as usual. The set was amazing. They covered the whole stage with sand. There was a large glass tank, too. The costumes were beautifully tailored. The actors were perfect. You could ALWAYS hear everything they said; they didn't mumble. The actresses were sexy, especially the girl who portrayed Persephone. Wow. It was a very mature production; it was very professional. I can't say enough good things about it. I was blown away.

Interview Meme

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:10:23 GMT

Stolen from my Darkpaintedrose
01- Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me."
02- I will respond by asking you five questions of a very intimate and creepily personal nature. Or not so creepy/personal - state your preference if you care.
03- You will update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
04- You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the post.
05- When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions

MLL film: Mountain Patrol

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:53:51 GMT

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386651/

Mountain Patrol Review

This film is like a documentary in many ways. It is based on the experience of real life Mountain Patrol people, and it depicted what was actually happening in Tibet—it depicted the reality of the situation in Tibet, where the Tibetan antelopes were being poached to extinction. The film is about the struggle between vigilante rangers (i.e. The Mountain Patrol) and the poachers. The line between good and evil is blurred. The good are not completely good. The Mountain Rangers are volunteers, who don’t have any government funding, yet they want to do the right thing: they want to protect the endangered antelope from extinction. Since they have no funding, they are forced to sell some of the antelope skins that they capture from the poachers in order to sustain themselves—they know that that is a crime, but they have no choice. The poachers are not “evil” either. The harsh climate made it impossible for the poachers to farm—because they had no other alternative, they started hunting antelopes. This catch-22 was very realistic, and it added to the “documentary-like” feeling of the film.
The setting is majestic, and the cinematography is brilliant. The film was shot on location in Kekexili, Tibet, where the sky is cobalt blue and the snow-topped mountains in the background convey the harsh lifestyle of the Mountain Rangers and the poachers. I think that’s the best quality of this film—that it transports the viewer to Tibet. (I took me a while to shake myself “out of the film” when it ended. This was no doubt the impact of the cinematography.) There was one scene that I found absolutely fascinating. That was when one of the characters falls into quick sand—he struggles and struggles but then he slowly submits and is swallowed by the sand. That scene was absolutely terrifying! I guess I am used to seeing “last minute rescues”—in movies, you expect for someone to come at the last minute and rescue the poor guy who is being swallowed up by quicksand. But magical rescues don’t happen in real life. And in this film, the guy dies. No one comes to magically rescue him. Likewise, the leader of the Rangers is shot in the end by the poachers. No one rescues him.
The film has a slight “American Western” feel to it, as well. We see the characters with guns, uttering death threats quite often. Yet, there is a lot of Tibetan spirituality in the film, in spite of that. The Rangers sing beautiful songs together; they dance outdoors and sing beautiful songs—songs which are like prayers or meditations—songs that are so ethereal that they wouldn’t fit into an American Western film. But set against the Tibetan mountains, they seem to belong to the film. It’s almost as if the harsh life of Tibet in itself is responsible for creating the spirituality of its people.

MLL film: Kung Fu Shuffle

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:48:52 GMT

http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geursfK1JE8CABquFXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTE3a2w0YjkyBGNvbG8DZQRsA1dTMQRwb3MDMQRzZWMDc3IEdnRpZANGNzM1XzEwMQ--/SIG=11ncr4pqb/EXP=1146322079/**http%3a//www.imdb.com/title/tt0373074

Kung Fu Shuffle Review

Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Shuffle is a hilarious film with an amazing ending. It is set in 1940s China. The gangs rule the cities, and the most dangerous gang of all is The Axe Gang, led by Brother Sum. The only safe place is Pig Sty Alley, because the people there are so poor. The plot revolves around a wannabe gangster named Sing, who wants to be a member of The Axe Gang. Sing and his sidekick, Bone, try to get money out of a young barber, but the townspeople are too strong for them, and beat them up. The real Axe Gang soon show up and get beat up, too—because Pig Sty Alley is actually the home of quite a few kung fu masters. One of them is a “fairy,” a whiny homosexual man, who uses his bangles to fight. Other masters include the Landlady, who uses her “lion’s roar” to drive out the assassins sent by the Axe Gang.

This film is funny, and full of unexpected laughs. One of the film’s messages is that ordinary people can be extraordinary, and that you shouldn’t judge people by outward appearances. At first, I couldn’t figure out why the people of Pig Sty Alley were so afraid of the Landlady; I thought she was annoying, rude, fat, and very mean, and that she didn’t care about the people of Pig Sty Alley, and that she hated her husband. But as the film continues, I saw that this was just a façade, a mask. She loved her husband, and did care about her townspeople. She and her husband were actually kung fu masters, who put on a façade in order to hide their true identities.
The message is that you have to look below the surface, and that people have hidden potentials. Let’s talk about the hidden potential of the main character, wannabe gangster Sing. Sing is actually a “good” person. When he was a child, he wanted to be a “superhero” and protect people. He had bought a booklet about “The Buddhist Palm”, which told him how to become a kung fu master. One day, a mute little girl (The Lollipop Girl) was being harassed by bullies, and he decided to protect her—but of course, since he was a scrawny little kid, he got beat up by the bullies. His philosophy changed, and he began to think that “good guys never win.” So, from then on, he decided he would try to be one of the bad guys. But that doesn’t ever work for him. His heart is too good. Also, he’s so unbelievably scrawny that even nerds with glasses can beat him up, and he never succeeds at being bad. Sing absolutely hates this, because his failure at being bad makes him feel even more like a loser—in fact, it’s his low self-esteem that makes him want to be a bully in the first place; he doesn’t want to follow the path of compassion because he associates it with victimhood, and he wants to distance himself from anyone he thinks of as a loser. That is why he is mean to Bone and to the Lollipop Girl and to the nerds with glasses. One odd thing about Sing is that he heals very quickly from all of his injuries; this is because his “chi” or life-force is very strong. But his chi, his full potential is trapped within him. It is only released, when he gets beat up by the Beast defending the Landlord and the Landlady from harm. In this attempt to be compassionate towards the weak, his soul is freed, and his full chi potential is unleashed. When this happens, he becomes a kung fu master, and can beat up the Beast. Not only is he changed physically, he is changed mentally and spiritually. He becomes Buddha-like. When the Beast throws a weapon at him, he changes the weapon into a flower. (This is what the Buddha would have done.) This causes the Beast to bow down before him. Buddhist compassion is one of the biggest themes in the film. Sing learns compassion, and he is able to finally accept the love of the Lollipop Girl when they are reunited at the end of the film. The ending is very deep and very spiritual.

Aristophanes The Frogs

Fri, 28 Apr 2006 14:44:53 GMT

UMBC's Theatre Dept will be showing Aristophanes' The Frogs on May 11th, 12th, and 13th at the UMBC Library Pond. I will probably go see it on the 13th, since that's a Saturday. Let me know if you want to tag along.

French TV 5

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:40:18 GMT

I was watching TV 5 (A French channel) this morning at school, and it was so interesting how I could understand most of what was being said, even though I haven't taken a French class in years. I guess the mind never forgets, eh? It's fascinating how Parisians talk, how they gesticulate SO MUCH, how they are so animated, how they constantly tilt their heads and widen their eyes when they speak. I was thinking how their mannerisms were so different from what we see on American TV. And the beauty standards are different too. The women look so different from American women--there seems to be more brunettes on TV in France. They also had those characteristic French features, the dark eyes, the aquinine noses, the slender figures. And of course, the frenzied hand gestures.

We have Dish Network at home, and I was thinking that maybe in the future, I would add a French channel. It wouldn't be a bad idea.

Film: Mountain Patrol

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 17:27:00 GMT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kekexili:_Mountain_Patrol

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386651/

Mountain Patrol Review

This film is like a documentary in many ways. It is based on the experience of real life Mountain Patrol people, and it depicted what was actually happening in Tibet—it depicted the reality of the situation in Tibet, where the Tibetan antelopes were being poached to extinction. The film is about the struggle between vigilante rangers (i.e. The Mountain Patrol) and the poachers. The line between good and evil is blurred. The good are not completely good. The Mountain Rangers are volunteers, who don’t have any government funding, yet they want to do the right thing: they want to protect the endangered antelope from extinction. Since they have no funding, they are forced to sell some of the antelope skins that they capture from the poachers in order to sustain themselves—they know that that is a crime, but they have no choice. The poachers are not “evil” either. The harsh climate made it impossible for the poachers to farm—because they had no other alternative, they started hunting antelopes. This catch-22 was very realistic, and it added to the “documentary-like” feeling of the film.
The setting is majestic, and the cinematography is brilliant. The film was shot on location in Kekexili, Tibet, where the sky is cobalt blue and the snow-topped mountains in the background convey the harsh lifestyle of the Mountain Rangers and the poachers. I think that’s the best quality of this film—that it transports the viewer to Tibet. (I took me a while to shake myself “out of the film” when it ended. This was no doubt the impact of the cinematography.) There was one scene that I found absolutely fascinating. That was when one of the characters falls into quick sand—he struggles and struggles but then he slowly submits and is swallowed by the sand. That scene was absolutely terrifying! I guess I am used to seeing “last minute rescues”—in movies, you expect for someone to come at the last minute and rescue the poor guy who is being swallowed up by quicksand. But magical rescues don’t happen in real life. And in this film, the guy dies. No one comes to magically rescue him. Likewise, the leader of the Rangers is shot in the end by the poachers. No one rescues him.
The film has a slight “American Western” feel to it, as well. We see the characters with guns, uttering death threats quite often. Yet, there is a lot of Tibetan spirituality in the film, in spite of that. The Rangers sing beautiful songs together; they dance outdoors and sing beautiful songs—songs which are like prayers or meditations—songs that are so ethereal that they wouldn’t fit into an American Western film. But set against the Tibetan mountains, they seem to belong to the film. It’s almost as if the harsh life of Tibet in itself is responsible for creating the spirituality of its people.

UMD's Stylus

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 22:02:44 GMT

http://stylus.umd.edu/

I was looking at UMD's Literary Magazine, Stylus, in order to figure out what sort of poetry/art they typically accept. I guess I'm looking for places to submit to.

For A Better World

Fri, 14 Apr 2006 21:19:19 GMT

The UMBC Theatre Dept. will be producing For A Better World from April 26-May 7th.

http://www.umbc.edu/theatre/betterworld.html

Check it out! I'm planning on seeing it!

MLL film: Shower

Thu, 06 Apr 2006 21:00:01 GMT

"Shower" directed by Yang Zhang

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0215369/

Shower Review

This is a very subtle film. The opening scene gives us a false impression that
it will be all about youthful nudity, fun, and possibly sex. But that couldn’t
be farther from the truth. This film is about the rarest of all topics: male
bonding. And not just macho male bonding between gang members or schoolboys, but
male bonding between a father and son. Da Ming is a Shinzhen businessman who
comes home because he thinks his father has died. But this is just a ruse—his
mentally handicapped brother, Er Ming, had sent him a drawing informing him that
his father was dead in order to get him to come visit them. Da Ming is relieved
when he finds that his father is alive and well, but we can tell that he isn’t
excited about the visit.
Da Ming has moved on. We can even imagine that he never really fit into his
father’s lifestyle. His father is the owner of a public bath, where he gives
back massages and socializes with his customers—his relationship with his
customers is very sincere and very intimate—he gives them marital advice and
provides them a place to relax. His public bath is comparable to a western bar,
where men come to relax and talk about their problems with other men. The
concept of a public bath is a part of traditional Chinese culture, and we can
assume that it is too “backwards” for Da Ming to relate to it, because Da Ming
is much more comfortable living a much more modern life in Shenzhen. We can even
tell by Da Ming’s subtle facial expressions that he is very uncomfortable with
his father’s lifestyle. That is why he had “abandoned” his dad and had moved to
another city—he had even married a woman and hadn’t told her much about his
family—this was probably an attempt to run away from his past.
The main plot revolves around Er Ming and Da Ming’s reluctance to be responsible
for his mentally handicapped brother. Da’s father knows exactly how to handle Er
Ming—he knows how to relate to him, how to go jogging with him, how to joke with
him—in other words, they have a wonderful rapport, so it is not hard for his
father to take care of Er Ming. Da Ming, on the other hand, is too “adult” and
too “grown-up” to be able to relate to Er Ming. We can also tell that he is
ashamed of his brother’s odd habits, so that is one other thing that keeps him
from being able to relate to him. This leads Da Ming to lose Er Ming when he
takes him out to buy a ticket—Da is simply not focused on Er Ming, and that is
why Er Ming wanders off. His father is furious—he expresses his true feelings
towards Da Ming—he tells him that he is aware that Da is embarrassed of his
lifestyle. Soon afterwards, Er Ming comes back home, and Da Ming and his father
“make up” and reconcile. After Da’s father’s death, Da has to care for Er Ming.
This proves to be a difficult task. It would have been easier if he had told his
wife about Er Ming. When Da leaves Er Ming in the psychiatric home, Er Ming is
very unhappy—that was the saddest scene in the whole film. I really felt very
sorry for Er Ming and for Da, because he was in a very difficult position. I
wish this film hadn’t ended at this point, because I was dying to know if Da’s
wife would accept Er Ming or not. I wanted to know what would happen to Er Ming.
Of course, Da assures Er Ming that he would always stay with him. So I guess I
should assume that they would “live happily ever after” and that Da would take
good care of him. It is still a sad, poignant film, very subtly directed. I
think there should be more films that deal with this subject in the media.

Book: Journey into the Whirlwind

Sun, 26 Mar 2006 20:53:01 GMT

I'm reading Journey into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Semyonovna Ginzburg for my Russian class. It's a lovely memoir of life in the gulag during Stalin's reign. The writing is beautiful, absolutely beautiful: classical, witty, empathic.

This book is comparable to Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago.

I hope the French club at our school does another screening. :-) Moreover, I wish it had more members! It has only five currently.

Hospice

Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:18:59 GMT

My father is now on hospice care. The radiation and chemo were not doing him any good, so we talked with his doctor, and we've come to realize that there's really nothing more we can do.

The hospice nurses are helping us to make him comfortable. The social worker is coming tomorrow to help us fill out paperwork--we will need to get power of attorney, etc. There's so much paperwork; I feel like I'm drowning in it.

Anyway, I think this will take up all of my time for now. I did get lordfauntleroy's email. I will hopefully get a chance to see him eventually, once things get calmer.

Film: Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 02:06:47 GMT

Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0211915/

Film: Ermo

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:00:18 GMT

Ermo directed by Xiaowen Zhou:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0109738/

This film has a very slice-of-life quality about it. There are no glamorous actors, dressed to the nines with artful make-up. There’s no festive or elaborate clothing, or sophisticated sets. No ninjas à la Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. It’s just a simple tale of a peasant woman named Ermo, who is supporting her family through hard physical labor. She makes noodles and sells them as a street vendor. We sense some tension between Ermo and her snotty neighbor, Xiazi, who owns a television set. Ermo must endure Xiazi’s cruel and oftentimes crude comments whenever her son has to go watch TV at Xiazi’s house. We find out that Xiazi hates Ermo because Ermo was able to produce a son for her husband, who used to be the town’s chief.
We sense a sexual competition between these two women. Ermo’s husband is old, disabled, and sexually impotent. It’s not hard to imagine that a part of Ermo (a silent part, perhaps?) desires Blindman, her neighbor’s younger husband right from the start of the film; she bemoans a lack of a sex life early in the film. And we sense that Blindman desires Ermo, too; he tells Ermo that Xiazi is cruel to her because she is jealous of her. Blindman offers to take Ermo to the market in the city so that she can sell noodles there. He even finds her a job in the city, where she begins to make more money than she ever made before. Blindman is jovial and helpful, and this neatly leads to a love affair between him and Ermo.
We find out that Ermo is a driven, stubborn woman. Her bargaining skills are tough-as-nails, and once she sets her sights on something, she puts all of her effort into it. Once in the city, Ermo gets obsessed with a large screen television set she spots in a store. She wants to own it, because she doesn’t want to have to depend on her neighbor’s charity, and she wants her son to be able to watch TV without having to humble himself. We sense that her desire to own the most expensive television set is a desire to out-do her neighbor, but also a desire for status. She wants to be independent. She wants a big TV to make up for the fact that she is in a boring marriage, has no sex life, and has to support her family by herself. I saw a parallel between Ermo and many minority single-mothers who live in the inner-city in Baltimore—they also want to buy expensive clothes, or makeup, etc. to make up for a bland existence.
Ermo’s affair with Blindman does not fulfill her. She does not love him. She does not want to be “owned.” That is why she refuses to divorce her husband and marry him when he proposes to her. She also refuses to take money from him, because she is not a whore. No, for Ermo, honest hard work is what leads to fulfillment. She works hard, and saves her money, and finally she is able to buy the huge television set she craves. It is a symbol of power and capitalism. When she finally owns the set, she is exhausted. The film ends with Ermo’s family sleeping in front of the television. This film doesn’t give us any drama, or overdone action. But it does capture the mundane very well. The ending indicates the boring reality of life, which keeps on going. Life doesn’t necessarily give us fanfare when we achieve our goals. Ermo is a very realistic film.

DC and hair salon

Sun, 05 Mar 2006 20:44:27 GMT

I went with a friend to see a film screening in DC this Saturday. When we got there, we found out that all the seats were gone. *sigh* There was a huge crowd of people who were turned away. Then, I felt like I'd wasted my whole day, since it took so long to drive there in the first place.

Today, I had an appointment with my hair stylist. I think she did a decent job with the cut; the angles and layers look good. I like being pampered at hair salons. But it always takes forever!

MLL Film: Eat, Drink, Man, Woman

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 01:05:09 GMT

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman is a film by Ang Lee:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111797/

Eat, Drink, Man, Woman Review

This film, at first seems like a formulaic film, and in some ways it is. There is the main plot of a widowed old man whose daughters must care for him now—that is formulaic. But the plot becomes more complex, and even cartoonish, as the film progresses. First we learn that the Old Maid, Jia-Jen (the eldest daughter) has really made up a story about heartbreak to avoid intimacy—we, the audience, can sympathize for her. Yet her story is too conveniently resolved, so much so, that we want to groan. She finds a man too conveniently and too quickly—we know that the school coach cares about her, but we’re not aware that he “loves” her, and he seems so uncomfortable and surprised when she kisses him that we also find their hasty marriage suspicious.

Jia-Ning’s (the youngest daughter) quick marriage with her friends’ boyfriend seems more age-appropriate. We can easily believe that two teenagers would fall into bed and end up pregnant. So even though this resolution is clichéd, it’s still believable.

The more poignant and more nuanced plot is the middle sister’s story. Jia-Chien is the sophisticated, cosmopolitan, sexually-liberated airline executive. When her lover dumps her for someone else, that is a surprise to us, because she is obviously beautiful and desirable, and we can’t understand why this has happened. We are just as confused as she is. We can understand her apprehension to get into bed with her gorgeous co-worker—he is not “free”—he is in an unhappy marriage and has a son. And Jia-Chien is cosmopolitan enough to know that sex won’t necessarily lead to marriage. She is disillusioned by love, and knows that sexual-liberation doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness or freedom.

The film doesn’t have a forced ending. Jia-Chien isn’t forced into that stereotypical tug-of-war between Eastern and Western values (that sort of East/West dichotomy is simplistic and flawed and does not apply to this film). She chooses her path. She chooses to become the family chef, which is a role that has been denied to her for so many years. By cooking in the family kitchen, she is actually progressing—she is starting a new life and going on a new journey. The journey is both inwards and outwards and complex, just like a real woman’s life. I found this film quite compelling—in some ways, it was like a Chinese soap-opera, but in other ways, it was quite complex. It was easy to see how complex life is for the characters in this film. There were many things that were easy to relate to—such as the widower-plotline. However, there were things that were distinctly Taiwanese, such as the way Taiwanese Christianity is practiced—it is practiced in a distinctly Taiwanese way in the film. Also, I got the feeling that marriage was an “essential” thing in Taiwanese culture—unlike the US, where you can be a single-mother and nobody thinks there’s anything wrong with that. All in all, I enjoyed how modern Taiwanese life is depicted in the film.

I could really relate to this film, more than the other ones, because my dad is in the advanced stages of cancer right now, and is undergoing radiation/chemo therapy. I find myself often wondering what it would be like to live without him. It's actually very stressful and oftentimes, I feel alone. I know that I will have to take care of my mother if that were to happen, and I feel so young, and sometimes, I'm not sure if I'll be able to handle the responsibility. *sigh*

Film: October (directed by Eisenstein)

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 21:28:16 GMT

Sergei Eisenstein was a master filmaker in the early days of the medium. The film, October, is a historical account of the Russian Revolution in October 25, 1917. Originally, this film was silent - music was added later by Sergei's assisant, Grigori Aleksandrov. Eisenstein (1898-1948) was a seminal figure in the history of film, known for his stylistic innovations. October, which was a propagandistic celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution, is an example of Eisenstein's theory of "intellectual cinema," that is, the communication of abstract thought by visual means. The viewer must read and analyze it as a reader would approach a poem or a novel, looking for metaphor, symbolism, irony, and characterization.

You can watch this film online at:
http://www.liketelevision.com/web1/movies/october/

Lenin's Tomb and The Frogs

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 22:28:29 GMT

I am reading a book titled Lenin's Tomb. It is so informational. I recently learned that our university's theater department will be doing Aristophanes' The Frogs this semester. WOW!!! I can't wait to see it in May. I love anything involving Greece/Rome. Oh, if any of you is into theater, you guys should come see it, too!!!!

Film: To Live

Thu, 16 Feb 2006 21:48:49 GMT

This is the film we saw in the Chinese film class this week:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110081/

It's titled Huozhe ("To Live") and was made in 1994. It's been banned in China due to its Anti-Communist plot. Oddly enough, Communism is also a big topic in my Russian Culture class, so the two classes seem to be merging on some levels. I like that!

I will post my paper on it soon.

MLL class film: Shadow Magic

Tue, 14 Feb 2006 21:03:38 GMT

As I mentioned before, I'm taking a class on Chinese film this semester. We watched a film called Shadow Magic last week, and I wrote a short blurb on it. Here it is:

Shadow Magic Review

Ann Hu’s Shadow Magic is an empathic look into the Chinese past. It depicts life in the early 1900s with charm and charity and cleverness. The setting is rural, with the townspeople going about their daily existence with camels, carts, and goats in the background. They are almost untouched by Western civilization. The only Western thing in their small town is a photography shop, which is thoroughly Chinese and doesn’t seem like any photography shop found in the West. We meet the protagonist, Liu Jinglun, who is played by the actor Yu Xia. He is enterprising and extremely curious—he is the chief photographer at the shop, and not only that, he also knows a bit of English, which he has apparently taught himself from books. He also owns a phonograph, and tries to get the other townspeople to try Western things. They are frightened of them, because they feel that they are betraying their culture when they play with Western inventions, and they feel that these inventions are full of Western black magic. Most of all, they fear that the West will conquer their culture, and that their culture will die out.
The replacement of Chinese culture by Western culture is one of the main themes in this film. And Raymond Wallace, the whimsical Englishman, represents that. Raymond is charming and friendly, but he doesn’t really understand Chinese culture; his ignorance is always leading him to commit some social faux pas or other—he means well, but he somehow always causes trouble. He symbolizes the West’s ignorance, as well as its ingenuity. Liu teams up with Raymond, and becomes westernized—this leads Liu to betray his people, but at the same time, he is able to introduce them to the West. His curiosity is a double-edged sword, apparently.

I would definitely recommend this film to everyone! :-)

This semester's classes

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 19:48:46 GMT

I finally signed up for all of my classes. I had to get cleared from my advisor, and get some financial aid paper work straightened out. And I finally did that yesterday and felt so relieved.

I'm taking two MLL (Modern Language and Linguistics) classes. One is on Russian culture, and the other is on Chinese film. I LOVE them both so far. I've always wanted to learn about those two cultures, especially Russian culture, but I could never fit them into my schedule before. I even tried to take a beginners Russian language class, but 101 is not offered this semester, and I don't know enough Russian to jump into a higher level class. Hopefully, I'll be able to take it next semester. :-)

I'm also taking the TESOL training course this semester, which will give me the credentials to teach English abroad this summer, if I want to. Or I could teach it at one of the community colleges around here.

My other goal is to get more involved on campus. I want to do more with theater and film. I'm not sure how to do that. But there is a Theatre club on campus--I should join that.