You Rock!

Read this. Then we can talk.

ARTICLE: DIABLO CODY

Did you read it? I can wait......

Ok. I read her response on her myspace page sometime last week before the Oscars and I was furious right there with here. How could they exploit her for that!

I love that her "costume" represented what she wanted to about her. She is wild and crazy and her outfit was totally her own. (Sure I didn't really like it) But I love that she owned it and it felt like she was an individual expressing herself which is something I agree with whole-heartedly!

In the classroom, I thought about costume design. What do our clothes really say about us and how can we communicate a person's character through clothes? Obviously, we know that Diablo Cody doesn't take crap from anyone and she is one of a kind. She also has a very practical side too. He originally made her a second pair of shoes to switch into because she refused to wear "uncomfortable heels" all night... I think it is even more awesome that she refused to wear them because they were not her!

I apologize that I am so obsessed with her, but I have a soft spot for great people who do what they are good at and get recognized for it. Go girl!

Speaking of Inspiring Basketball... Old School Movie Review #5

I watched this documentary on Thursday afternoon also and I have to say that I was so impressed. I loved the story and I was so glad that it was caught on film. I don't think the story could be better told in any other way. In fact, I have thought about it all weekend long and I was thinking of how well the story unfolded and how there was real footage for the games, and rehearsals... this would just not have been an effective Disney movie—though the plot is the same as one. I couldn't tell if those making the documentary decided beforehand to make it and it just ended so well... or if it was more of a way to go back and see it all play out after the events had already taken place.

In the classroom this would be so fun to watch and to discuss because we can talk about why the medium of documentary is so effective and how else this same story could be told.

The Real Hoosiers

Here is a mini documentary-style news story that Jon showed to our Hands on a Camera class this morning. We talked about how it is a great example of the documentary use "Transcendence Through Tribulation" but I also think it shows the other two "Voice to the Voiceless" and "Exalt the Everyday." This is a great inspiring story about a small community and an autistic boy with a lot of heart. We talked about it in terms of what Jason went through to get here being the water boy all of those years and being autistic...etc. I was fascinated at the crowd and how they responded to him. This story is a personal story for those who were there and it was captured and told in a way that made it more so.

It would be fun to discuss whose story this is and who is telling the story. We could also talk about how this specific video in some ways captures all of the points of documentary and maybe how we could tell a similar story from a different point of view. For example, I think it would be incredibly fascinating, now having this footage, to go and interview a handful of students on the team or in the crowd who all obviously loved and admired Jason as a friend and peer.

Here is the article and video: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/02/23/earlyshow/main1339324.shtml

Caution: Spoiler Warning... I will tell you what happens... (Semi) Old School Movie Review #4

(First complaint- do not put a picture on the cover that gives away the entire dramatic question of the film. We are all sitting here thinking "will they get back together? Then, she shows up in a blue dress, he says lets go-its going to rain, and boom- we know all because we entered the disk and saw it. Hmm. That was stupid. Keep an already non-suspenseful movie right out in the audience's lap. Real Cool.)

I recently watched "The Notebook" and I have a few things to say about it. First is that everyone kept saying how sad it was, "you better wash your make-up off cause you're going to cry!" Or "Oh, you have to be in a depressing mood to watch that- you will bawl your eyes out..." I don't know that I wholeheartedly agree with either of these warnings. I did shed a few, but perhaps not for the same reasons that you might think. I wasn't surprised at all which guy she was going to marry, I wasn't surprised at all about the old couple and how they would turn out. I thought the film did a few things very well that got me, probably more circumstantially than artisically—if that makes any sense at all. I explain:

The story reads like any other "chick flick" because it has the fall in love sequence, the someone-or-something-tore-us-apart-to-make-us-all-dramatic sequence, then the musical montage as they get back together, and then the happily ever after moment that girls will study over and over to compare their boring unromantic lives to. Sorry men.

I enjoyed the voiced over dialog (voice of the young heart throb as an old man) who explained the reality of the relationship. He explained how the two fought about everything. They argued and they teased each other incessantly. But the one thing they had in common was that they were crazy about each other. After her mom makes her family leave and she almost marries some other guy that would seem to be perfect for her—and who the parents love—she comes back home to find her first love with her dream house that he built from the bottom up. After a perfect few days, they have to decide what to do- he is a country boy and she a city girl. What he says to her is my favorite part of the movie because it is so honest of some relationships. He says to her, "This wont be perfect. It will be really really hard and we will have to work at it every day. I need someone to tell me when I am an arrogant son of a B——, and you need someone to tell you when you are a pain in the A—. Which, is about 99% of the time, but you have an incredible turn around time!"

I love the honesty in that statement. No- marriage isn't roses and dancing all of the time. The people we marry aren't going to be perfect or have all of the right things to say. But they should be between two people who know each other well enough to challenge them and keep them on their toes. I appreciated that they tried to create a sense of reality in that moment.

So when did I cry? I guess it was as I thought of those couples that have been separated and get to be together again. It made me think of the real love that they must share because of the struggle that it is everyday to make it work. It isn't the young love that makes me cry—it's the old love. Deep, I know.

Beck made me shed a few?

I think this touched me for more than a few reasons. Partly because I know how I had similar reactions to the news, partly because I owe a lot to the man who changed me and inspired me to change-- still does and will. With my media-conscious eye, however, I was touched at how tender Glenn Beck was to carefully choose his words on a topic he felt so strongly about and yet knew is bringing his religion to the front of a political show on national television. I commend him for is upfront honesty in this personal moment that we all shared. The honesty about how humbled he is by it touches me. Thanks Glenn for a real insight into your life that gives me a better sense of how the gospel works in our lives.