I thought it would last a little longer.
Dianne, Erick, and Amy have just left for college. It feels as if they left as fast as they came in. Don't get me wrong, there's still alot of people here, it just ... won't be the same.
Thursday at the park was great. Of course, it was more than just great, but I'm just going to write great. I wish I could record time in my brain and just not forget things. I could write them, but as most people who know me know, my anxiety gets in the way. It's hard for me to write things because I get anxious about writing them. It gets hard. I feel overwhelmed; like there's not enough time, or there's too much to write, or what I write, in retrospect, won't be able to really capture what I want to say, and if I were to reread it sometime in the future ... I wouldn't be reading the right thing. If that makes any sense.
I feel as if I'm making myself seem like a nervous wreck on the verge of a breakdown. Ah well.
So Thursday. Who was there .... Chris, Amy, Dianne, Erick, Melanie, Abraham, Wen-hui, Jeans, David, Juan, Gina, Carolina, Karina, Maria. Going to miss hanging out with everyone this summer, which is horrible, because it's barely begun. Well, at least it was alot of fun. Red Lobster played a big part. As we all know, you're not supposed to eat food that you find lying around. Much less if they were on a rock in the ocean. But the biscuits were fresh. And ... ahem ... it was Amy's idea...and ahem ... Mel had (2).
Not dead yet, so I don't think they were poisoned.
Days like that make me very happy to live here in Miami. It really is beautiful. Even the heat can be beautiful. The city is beautiful; the ocean. I wish we had more parks though, larger ones.
Sunset on the grass is something really ... special to me. Even when everyone is all tired and sweaty. Or is that especially? We didn't get to really watch the sunset, but it was that time of day just before, when everything is very yellow and hazy, although in my memory I'm probably exaggerating that aspect. The smell of grass. It's just so nostalgic. It has to be my favorite time of day, everything seems at such a standstill, I guess because it's such a short period of time. There are so many songs I could use to describe it, I'll have to look for a good one. I always associate things or times or places or memories with songs, and colors, I remember better that way. I will try to post a song or picture or something that fits with the day.
My biggest, and possibly most meaningful, regret thus far, at least in high school, aside from a different, much more painful, lifelong regret, would have to be not knowing most of these people longer. I get sad sometimes, seeing them in pictures from middle school, four, five, six, seven years ago, and so many of them are together in those pictures, and it hits me how little I've known them. I already miss them. For what seems the first time in a very long time, I feel so integrated into a group of people, so accepted, and not because I'm a social outcast or anything; I'm used to having alot of friends, but these guys really feel close. I feel so comfortable with all of them, and I can hang out with pretty much any of them and have a great time. It makes me feel as if I was for some reason set back a year. Of course I wouldn't have it any other way though, I'm too content and lucky with the direction my life has taken to wish it were different. I just wish I had gotten to know them earlier. I feel as if I have to start over now, a little.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Cabaret
I wrote this for an assignment in my Speech, a.k.a. Classical Lit and everything that is awesome class, as part of a film review assignment. I really did enjoy the movie, as much for it's inherent strangeness as for its incredible depth. I could totally sympathize with the characters in this one. I love nostalgic films, and this is one that reminds us that the good times can't last forever.
Cabaret, like most other musicals, opens in song, and we are first introduced to the oddly sinister - and just plain odd - Master of Ceremonies, who immediately welcomes a certain uneasiness in the viewer, like only a man with upturned eyebrows, black pupils, rouged cheeks, a face full of pancake makeup, and a sleazy smile can do. We are brought into the world of the Kit Kat Klub, a cabaret in 1931 Berlin, where Weimar politics, bribery, courtship, and alcohol melt together under the emcee's all-knowing smile; a room where the red, white, and black sashes of fascism slowly multiply before our eyes.
Cabaret is a film of many things, and among those things are uncertainty and uneasiness, perfectly instilled through Joel Grey's embodiment of the emcee, whom we never see without makeup. Can we trust him? His smile seems, at times, too knowing. The secret is his sly manipulation; as the political landscape of Berlin, Germany, and all of Europe changes, so does his show. In his world, everything is "beautiful," and he twists reality so you never really know which side he is on, if he has chosen one at all.
As these changes take place, we follow the story of two young people: Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli), a recent addition to the "Klub," and Brian Roberts (Michael York), a British academic who just moved into the city and into Sally's boarding house. Sally is a girl who loves the spotlight and aspires for stardom as an actress, and Brian is in the city to study philosophy. Their personalities immediately contradict each other - Sally is a flamboyant extrovert and Brian is a reserved English tutor - and, as expected, they become best friends and exude perfect chemistry.
Liza Minelli is the perfect channel for the spirit of pre-Nazi Germany, and she steals the show. Her wide-eyed face and big smile betray eagerness as well as a certain loneliness, not to be confused with naiveté. She is either unaware of the rapid changes taking place around her, or more likely, does not care to pay attention. She is too preoccupied with fulfilling her own dreams, with music, lights, love, lust, drink, and escaping the stark, brutal realities right outside the cabaret doors, much as the German citizens turned a blind eye to the truth behind the propaganda fed them by the Nazis. Minelli embraces Sally's world with ease, never appearing overbearing even as she dominates every scene she is in. She convincingly rejects conventional mores with subtle irony, all the while balancing a love for life and an underlying fear of losing it. Her performance perhaps is what carries the film the most, acting as both representative of an oblivious population and as a deeply conflicted individual searching for happiness, and as such, she brings humanity into a movie filled with elaborate facades and the people who hide behind them.
The musical's integration of songs is also unique, and along with the cinematography, turn watching the film into an experience. At no point in the film do any of the actors break out into song; the movie is not a fantasy. Part of the film's realism comes from the lack of "escapism" inherent in most other films of the genre, where the performances appear as spontaneous outbursts. The only escapism here is that which is offered to the audience, and which inevitably ensnares both Sally and Brian - not the most comforting fantasy. To the characters, the world outside their own is made up of only pictures that they can pass on by. Each song in Cabaret contributes in some way to the complexity and ambiguity of the characters (Tiller Girls; Two Ladies); to flamboyance, rampart desire for extravagance, as well as criticism thereof (Money Money); and, of course, to the changing country and cabaret itself (Tomorrow Will be Mine; If You Could See Her).
The German kabarett itself had its roots in the French restaurant-clubs that sprung up during the late nineteenth century, but it was different from our traditional conception of the cabaret (most of us picture girls dancing the Can-can at the Moulin Rouge in Paris); Germany offered more satirical and politically biting commentary in its entertainment. Berlin itself, during the tumult of the post-WWI era, became the European hotspot for cabaret entertainment, until they became censored and suppressed under Hitler's regime. Fossey's film captures the atmosphere of the culture of interwar Germany through its lack of constraint and the inability of Sally and Brian to reconcile their personal desires with the fantasies played out on stage.
These elements, along with an abrupt ending following the final song, "Cabaret", all contribute to an amazing film that probably takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate. We are always kept guessing and in the dark, with the colorful lights and fog of the performances masking as much from the characters as from the audience. The story is not happy, but one wouldn't expect that from a film that foreshadows the horrors of Fascist Europe. The ultimate rise of the Nazis will eventually signal the end of the cabaret, and with it the aspirations of its inhabitants, who find it impossible to control their inner demons. Cabaret is both a artistic extravaganza that wholly absorbs you and a striking insight into the lives of people caught in circumstances that they either can't or refuse to accept.
Cabaret, like most other musicals, opens in song, and we are first introduced to the oddly sinister - and just plain odd - Master of Ceremonies, who immediately welcomes a certain uneasiness in the viewer, like only a man with upturned eyebrows, black pupils, rouged cheeks, a face full of pancake makeup, and a sleazy smile can do. We are brought into the world of the Kit Kat Klub, a cabaret in 1931 Berlin, where Weimar politics, bribery, courtship, and alcohol melt together under the emcee's all-knowing smile; a room where the red, white, and black sashes of fascism slowly multiply before our eyes.
Cabaret is a film of many things, and among those things are uncertainty and uneasiness, perfectly instilled through Joel Grey's embodiment of the emcee, whom we never see without makeup. Can we trust him? His smile seems, at times, too knowing. The secret is his sly manipulation; as the political landscape of Berlin, Germany, and all of Europe changes, so does his show. In his world, everything is "beautiful," and he twists reality so you never really know which side he is on, if he has chosen one at all.
As these changes take place, we follow the story of two young people: Sally Bowles (Liza Minelli), a recent addition to the "Klub," and Brian Roberts (Michael York), a British academic who just moved into the city and into Sally's boarding house. Sally is a girl who loves the spotlight and aspires for stardom as an actress, and Brian is in the city to study philosophy. Their personalities immediately contradict each other - Sally is a flamboyant extrovert and Brian is a reserved English tutor - and, as expected, they become best friends and exude perfect chemistry.
Liza Minelli is the perfect channel for the spirit of pre-Nazi Germany, and she steals the show. Her wide-eyed face and big smile betray eagerness as well as a certain loneliness, not to be confused with naiveté. She is either unaware of the rapid changes taking place around her, or more likely, does not care to pay attention. She is too preoccupied with fulfilling her own dreams, with music, lights, love, lust, drink, and escaping the stark, brutal realities right outside the cabaret doors, much as the German citizens turned a blind eye to the truth behind the propaganda fed them by the Nazis. Minelli embraces Sally's world with ease, never appearing overbearing even as she dominates every scene she is in. She convincingly rejects conventional mores with subtle irony, all the while balancing a love for life and an underlying fear of losing it. Her performance perhaps is what carries the film the most, acting as both representative of an oblivious population and as a deeply conflicted individual searching for happiness, and as such, she brings humanity into a movie filled with elaborate facades and the people who hide behind them.
The musical's integration of songs is also unique, and along with the cinematography, turn watching the film into an experience. At no point in the film do any of the actors break out into song; the movie is not a fantasy. Part of the film's realism comes from the lack of "escapism" inherent in most other films of the genre, where the performances appear as spontaneous outbursts. The only escapism here is that which is offered to the audience, and which inevitably ensnares both Sally and Brian - not the most comforting fantasy. To the characters, the world outside their own is made up of only pictures that they can pass on by. Each song in Cabaret contributes in some way to the complexity and ambiguity of the characters (Tiller Girls; Two Ladies); to flamboyance, rampart desire for extravagance, as well as criticism thereof (Money Money); and, of course, to the changing country and cabaret itself (Tomorrow Will be Mine; If You Could See Her).
The German kabarett itself had its roots in the French restaurant-clubs that sprung up during the late nineteenth century, but it was different from our traditional conception of the cabaret (most of us picture girls dancing the Can-can at the Moulin Rouge in Paris); Germany offered more satirical and politically biting commentary in its entertainment. Berlin itself, during the tumult of the post-WWI era, became the European hotspot for cabaret entertainment, until they became censored and suppressed under Hitler's regime. Fossey's film captures the atmosphere of the culture of interwar Germany through its lack of constraint and the inability of Sally and Brian to reconcile their personal desires with the fantasies played out on stage.
These elements, along with an abrupt ending following the final song, "Cabaret", all contribute to an amazing film that probably takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate. We are always kept guessing and in the dark, with the colorful lights and fog of the performances masking as much from the characters as from the audience. The story is not happy, but one wouldn't expect that from a film that foreshadows the horrors of Fascist Europe. The ultimate rise of the Nazis will eventually signal the end of the cabaret, and with it the aspirations of its inhabitants, who find it impossible to control their inner demons. Cabaret is both a artistic extravaganza that wholly absorbs you and a striking insight into the lives of people caught in circumstances that they either can't or refuse to accept.
P.S. I like drawing pics of movies that I like.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
3rd Post Today
So, this is fun. I'm going to start condensing my posts into single ones per day though. Simpler.
I'm devastated to say, I must wake up tomorrow. Well, later today, since it's like one in the morning. I must wake up at 8:30. During my summer vacation. To go to a three hour AP Calculus BC summer prep session. That's the fourth time this week. It is interfering horribly with my post-school summer plans. I, am not a math person. I read. I write. I watch movies and draw nice things. I do not write equations or draw functions or explain limits. Or find the velocity of stationary dots.
So why, you ask, am I going to learn about Calculus, and why BC? Alas, I've already taken AB, otherwise known as Hell pt. 1; why continue learning Newton's dreaded creation for a whole second year? Because, Lopez is the nicest person on the planet and it is impossible to say no to him.
Actually, I'm pretty good at math. Tis why I ended up in Calculus in the first place. And I have a certain respect for it. I also love science, at least biology. I just really don't want to wake up and go learn about lines and the like for three hours.
However, it is my summer, and I shall make the most of it. I took a very lengthy nap today, about 5 hours long to be exact. So, I will compensate to the best of my ability of time lost tonight. I've already accomplished tonight more than I have the last three days, thanks to Melanie, that amazing person, with this here blog. That's right: tonight I will begin reading something. Dan Brown's Lost Symbol, to be exact. Because I've had it for six months and haven't started.
I really love reading, it's horrible that I haven't been able to read as much as I would love to; I blame it on my nervous/anxiety disorders. It's simply almost impossible for me to sit down and read, or anything for that matter.
I will come back later and write whether or not I accomplished my goal ... or fell asleep.
Chances are the latter will happen.
God I wish I was here. Favorite. Beach. Picture. Ever. Well, at least top 5.
Second First Post: 21 Grams
My first post was a little bit of a dud. But now I will start what I was looking forward to since I last made this blog two hours ago ... movie reviews!
It's a sad concept, and would make for a very interesting book, or novella. In 1907 Dr. Duncan MacDougall tried to gather scientific evidence of the human spirit. His research indicated that each time a person dies, we lose 21 grams. That's the weight of our spirit, what makes humans human. Of course, his ideas and research were totally dismissed as being unscientific, and well, wrong. But it makes for one amazing movie title.
21 Grams is the story of Cristina Peck, Jack Jordan, and Paul Rivers -that's Naomi Watts, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Penn - and their (incredibly depressing) stories and how they intertwine with each other. It's one of my favorite plot devices, also used in Crash (one of my favorite movies) and in Iñarritu's (the director of 21 Grams) other film, Babel, and his other film, which I have as-of-yet not seen, Amorres Perros. If you've seen either, you know where 21 Grams is heading, though.
Cristina has just lost her family; Paul is dying of heart failure, and needs an organ transplant; and Jordan is an ex-convict who has found a new life in Christianity. The movie interweaves their stories seamlessly. I can't give away too much, though, because it might ruin it.
I usually like movies alot more after I've had time to dwell on them (and by that same token, I many times come to hate movies after I've initially liked them). I think this is one that I'm liking more the more I think about it. It's initially just too shocking and depressing to really "like," it's kind of like saying I "like" reading Anne Frank's diary. That I watched it with my parents (nudity plays a large role) didn't make it much better. But it was definitely beautiful. I don't usually cry during movies, unless it's Sophie's Choice (which I hope to write about soon), but it's impossible not to while watching Naomi Watts' reaction as she learns the fate of her beautiful family. I don't know which was harder to stomach: watching her in 21 Grams, or watching Sean Penn in Mystic River, when he finds out about his daughter (which isn't giving away anything, that's pretty much the first thing that happens in the movie).
But the movie's themes themselves are hard to swallow. What is our soul? How intricately is our soul tied to our bodies? How are we tied to the people around us? Sean Penn is a mathematician in the movie, and his description of mathematics is anything but boring; it's beautiful. He describes to Cristina how mathematics is the study of our relationship to eachother; the study of fate and coincidences; for anything to happen - whether it's meeting somebody, getting into an accident, falling in love - there must be a delicate balance of occurences that lead up to it. Then, there's the question of faith and falling in love. Is it possible to start again, after you've lost everything?
If you can get past the stark brutality of the movie, it can really get you thinking. It definitely seems like the typical dramatic film that appears to have been made solely for grabbing awards, but it was much more than that. It just strips it's characters apart, and it's a little hard not to look away.
First Post
It would seem I'm writing my first post. Interestingly, it feels awkward; I guess because it's my first post. I think I'll just let this be an ice-breaker. I'll write more in my second post. When I'm not feeling awkward because it's my first post, of course.
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