Romeo & Juliet: THE MOVIE

This is the film adaption of William Shakespear's, "Romeo and Juliet," by Baz Luhrman. The film takes place in the modern era, but the actors speak in verse, just like in the original version. The film follows the story of Romeo, who falls in love with Juliet. Unfortunately, she is a member of a rival house.

Although I appreciate how the film tries to replicate the language of the original version, it falls short in terms of being believable. While talking in verse seems like a good artistic choice, it ends of leaving the characters seeming dry and scripted. While I like the director of photography's choice of color tone, the film troubles me when there are random speed ramps when panning the camera. This choice almost makes the film seem comedic, and like a Disney movie.  On the brighter side, there are many good things that I like about this movie. I   like how the film uses almost angelic color tones when Romeo is talking, but uses harsh and striking blues when a villain is talking. It's interesting how the film uses the television as vehicle for bringing news and information to the masses in the movie.

In conclusion, there are many negatives to this film, but there are also some positives. The film isn't perfect, but I like how Baz Luhrman managed to reinvent such an old and well known text. Out of all the movies I've ever seen, this is one of the more off beat ones. (2001 Space Odyssey and The Tree of Life) The cinematography was very unique, and so was the film over all. The acting wasn't terrific, but the superb directing definitely made up for that. I'd give the film a 7/10

"The Girl Who Played With Fire," Final Thoughts

"The Girl Who Played With Fire," by Stieg Larsson is the sequel to, "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo." The first book is an introduction to Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomskvist, and the mystery of Harriet Vanger. On the other hand, the sequel explains the events and issues that resulted in Lisbeth being the way she is. It elaborates on what occurrences led to Lisbeth acting so violent towards others, yet it explains why she is so introverted.

As a child, Lisbeth regularly watched her mother being brutally abused by her disgraced father, who has entered and exited Lisbeth's life as often as she would beat someone up or get kicked out of school. There's a direct link to Lisbeth's troubles as an adult, and to her suffering as an adolescent. The actions of Lisbeth's childhood are in no doubt the cause of her shortcomings-leaving Lisbeth with a nonexistence father, a now dead mother, and a sister who is ashamed of her.  Lisbeth become so enraged by her father's abusive ways, that she firebombed his car as he was pulling out of the driveway.  Her father survived, but it forever affect Lisbeth for the rest of her life.

Lisbeth is the way she is, because of her childhood. That's nothing new.  It's the destructive way of how it affected her that is so troubling. This reminds me of kindergarden, when the teacher told us that we should think before we speak. It's not that we should think before we speak, but that we need to realize how our actions affect our consequences. There is no greater example of that saying than in this book.

Salvador Dali=Awesomeness

"Sleep," by Salvador Dali is a surreal painting from 1937.  I think the painting tries to explain how some people in the world choose to block out the problems of society by choosing to ignore them...thus becoming completely oblivious to life itself.

In the center of the painting, there is a large pseudo-human face that is suspended by U-shaped wooden poles. The area around the face seems to be a frozen waste land with a castle in the background. I think that the purpose of the proximity between the castle and the face was to show how the castle is a center of people and realization, while around the face is basically nothing...meaning that the face is possibly isolated from life. The wooden sticks suspending the face are an example of how society is trying to break the face's isolation, by supporting it instead of letting it fall into complete separation.

When Salvador Dali painted this image 75 years ago, I think that he had the intention of explaining his possible struggles with being anti-social. Sometimes at night I look into the stars and think that I'm just a tiny little thing in a vast universe of a trillions. I think of space and the Earth and think that it's just one planet in a myriad of solar systems.  This painting explains that in reality,  people try to block out that realization; they think that the only thing in life that matters is themselves. I think that's what the picture's trying to demonstrate.

And The All-Star Mentor Is...

The All-Star Mentor is Alex Casimir. Go give him some love at <http://fsab2011.blogspot.com/2011/12/jack-gantos-mistakes-into-sucess.html>

I chose Alex as my All-Star mentor, because I think that his blog post exemplifies what a blogpost should look like. Alex does a great job of getting his message across, and his also does it very well. I don't think that Alex's blogposts are perfect, but I can tell that he puts a lot of hard work into them. This is the reason why I chose his as my All-Star Mentor. 

The Girl Who Played With Fire...and other things.

The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson so far seems to continue the same themes and issues as the first book in the series. The subjects of sadism, rape, and all of those other morbid topics appear to be just as prevalent in the first book as the second. I feel that the first book heavily concentrated on the issues focusing around the disappearance of Harriet Vanger, while the second book seems to focus more on the personal life of Lisbeth Salander's and how her life translates to the real world.

In the first book we learned that Salander is an introverted, wild, and just plain weird person, however, we never really learned or understood why she was this way. We know that she was put in a foster home when she was younger, but we don't know why. I only know that this time period in her life is called "All the evil." I'm not sure of what this exactly means, but I can speculate that she was probably abused as a child since it's a very sensitive topic. If Salander was abused as a child, it seems to have affected her greatly: she's a loner, and doesn't trust anyone. It's as if being abused lost all of Salander's hope in society; that's why she's probably the way she is now. It's like she has Post Dramatic Stress Disorder and whenever anyone asks her about her personal life, she shuts up. To compensate for her short comings, she becomes a sex addict. My only reasoning behind is that it gives her a sense dominance that was possibly taken away from her when she was younger.

In conclusion, I've come across the idea that these books weren't just written to be entertaining. It's pretty clear to me that this book and the other books alike were written with a specific agenda in mind. It's obvious to me that these books were written to bring awareness to a serious issue that our society faces today: human rights. It's about how powerful people take advantage of vulnerable people, such as prostitutes or illegal immigrants, and exploit them unjustly and immorally. This is true in all of society, and it's an excellent point that Stieg Larsson makes.

RAPE (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo)

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," by Stieg Larsson is starting to get to a point where I can't put the book  down. It has action, violence, suspense, and just about everything else you can imagine. The investigation of Harriet Vanger is in full sale, and Bloomkvist is enlisting the help of Salander to help with research.

What I found the most interesting was the fact before each chapter, the page said that in Sweden, 13% of women were sexually abused by their boyfriend.  I think that this is one of the themes of the book, since Lisbeth Salander struggled was personally affected by this. To expand, my first idea of the book was how big business was taking advantage of the middle class; it seems that the issue now is how people take  advantage of other people for personal gain.

It first started with someone deliberately giving incorrect info to Mikael Bloomkvist; it's continuing with Lisbeth getting raped by her guardian/trustee that was appointed by the government; Now it's proceeding with  Mikael dealing with the murder of Harriet Vanger.  This book is no doubt crazy, however, it is extremely entertaining and thought provoking. Beneath the captivating story line, there's something deeper, more meaningful in this book than that.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTO n' stuff

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, is a pretty powerful book so far. I really like how the problems of the book are realistic and relative to today's problems. 




What makes this story interesting is that it's about a journalist who's accused of libel by a big business speculator. I later find out that the big business speculator actually embezzled funds from a government program-that's what the journalist accused the big business speculator of. However, the reason why the journalist was accused of libel is still unclear. I can infer that this has to do with big business taking advantage of the "common folk."  The only possible way that the journalist got sentenced for libel is if the big business man did something possibly illegal. 


What really amazes me is how well this topic relates to the real world. Time magazine just named the Occupiers as the "Person of the Year." They protested civil and human rights, and it's those things that the businessman in the book might be violating. So far, the book is excellent and I hope that this continues.