Pray the Devil back to Hell

Yesterday I watched the documentary Pray the Devil back to Hell directed by Gini Reticker. The movie takes place in Liberia, a country in western Africa. The country itself was formed around 1825 by the ACS, American Colonization society, in a hope to return the freed slaves to Africa.  Much like what is going on in Israel, the tribes who already lived on the land have been fighting for years to reclaim what was taken from them. The movie describes how the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace came together to bring a peaceful end to the Second Liberian Civil War.

The Second Liberian Civil war initially started in 1999 when LURD, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, was formed by the Guinea government. Then in 2003 a second force formed. Together they attacked Liberia using child soldiers and slowly took over all the of the country until they reached the capitol where Charles Taylor and his government where. 

The movie speaks of the horror of war. They have multiple first person accounts of rapes and murders by the conquerors who were "helping the people". The whole movie is narrated by the women who headed Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. They explain that everyone wanted the natural resources in Liberia and didn't care about the people. In an attempt to escape the murderous rebels ran to the government, who were equally horrible to them but as Leymah Gbowee, the head of the group, explained the people would rather have a devil they knew than one they knew nothing about. 

In a hope to solve the problem she, and other women from her church started the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. They congregated in the capitol bringing together both Christian and Muslim women. Their idea: a sex strike. They were going to starve their men of sex until they stopped fighting, as well as having a food strike. In the end the government of Liberia began peace talks, which were eventually mediated by the UN and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace took over reconstruction from the UN and set up a democratic government.

The mood of the film was very interesting. It was very sad because the film makers used a lot of b roll from the actual war. There were many shots of people shot, bleeding out, kids without limbs, and other horrific shots which emphasized the emotion of the film. The director, using first person accounts and b roll, took away from the informational aspect of the movie, because there was so much rampant emotion he never got to explaining other elements of the war. For example, why didn't the government just break up the hunger strike. Or after the rebels blew up part of the US embassy why didn't the US attack like we did in Libya? Questions like these were ignored because of an over use of Pathos. Over all the footage was amazing but at points the emotion got in the way of the facts.

I very much liked how the director used a narrator for the whole movie. She had a very soothing voice and charismatic personality that the viewer had to like her. Plus she had orchestrated the whole strike, so she was incredible.

I would definitely recommend this movie. It is an absolutely amazing story of what people can do without war, without guns, without death. These women, armed only white t shirts, stopped a whole war between three warring factions. It is just incredible what they have done. It shows that everyone can do something to help no matter how bad it seems. Definitely go watch it.

The Last Shadow Puppets

What do you get when you mix the talent of two famous English musicians? These guys. Miles Kane and Alex Turner met up whilst on a tour for the Arctic Monkeys, for whom Turner sings. Kane was the guitarist for the Little Flames, which went on tour with them. They became friends and then when the little Flames came on tour again in 2007 Miles Kane played guitar for the Arctic Monkeys final track, 505. They decided to collaborate their skills and write some music together. The band, the Last Shadow Puppets, was created in 2007 and released its first album, the Age of the Understatement, on February 20th, 2008.

The songs combined the best of their two bands, the amazing voice of Alex Turner, which was some what lacked in the Little Flames' songs and the beautiful melodic guitar play of Miles Kane. In the Arctic Monkeys' previous songs the guitar play had been a lot harder, with an almost metallic touch, while the Little Flames had used more bass to create a softer sound. According to the band they took this softer sound from their influence from the beetles.

After they released their album it rose to number one on the UK album charts and became a contender for the 2008 Mercury Music Award but lost to Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid. They later released My Mistakes were made for you.














So these songs won't play on Blogger... but they're really really really good. So here are the links:

My mistakes were made for you

Calm like you

The Psychology of Music

Everyone enjoys music, whether it be a very new song or an old time song. People have long loved the beats and melody of music, but can it also have positive effects on the human body? In our media class we must create a documentary on a subject which interests us. I believe that music is one of the most important part of our society that is over looked by our schooling system. Music is part of every society, every culture, every nation and yet music programs are being cut from high schools around the nation.

Listening to calming music before you go to sleep and after you wake up has been proven to bring down high blood pressure. Music has also be proven to increase immune system health by decreasing the hormone cortisol, which is related to stress. Music can also increase productivity in a whole range of activities. It can help you sleep, wake you up, work hard, and decrease stress. Doctor Weinburger Ph.D said that listening to music can increase cognitive skills, language ability, creativity, reasoning, and social adjustment. Music has such an important effect on the mind and peoples live's yet it is basically ignored by the schooling system. My idea is to make a documentary about the importance of music in life.

The Gaza Stip

Whats going on in the Gaza Strip?

Israeli forces have killed 11 or more civilians in the past 5 days of bombing of the Gaza Strip. Of most recent, Israeli forces have bombed the Hamas prime minister's office. They have systematically began destroying Palestinian rocket launch cites and have killed the Hamas Military Chief. Over the past couple days the Palestinian's and Israeli's have repeatedly attacked each other in response to attacks from the other side...kind of ironic.Both sides have stated that the reasons for their attacks have stemmed from attacks of the opposition. So who really started it? According to Emily Hauser, and American Israeli writer, the attacks originally began with the Israeli, although the fight between the two sides has been going on for what seems to be forever Hauser has pin pointed a time during the past month where she believes the current war has started. On November 8th Israeli forces killed a young boy of either 12 or 13. Later that day, Palestinian forces destroyed an Israeli tunnel in response injuring a guard but killing no one. Two days later the conflict continued when Palestinian forces fired rockets at an Israeli patrol injuring two soldiers. That day the Israelis responded by firing into Gaza multiple times hurting and killing many civilians including a ten year old boy. They also used drones to fire missiles into Gaza. From there on it continues how we all know it. Israelis using their superior American Funded defense system to stop Palestinian Rockets while also attacking Gaza and the Hamas returning fire. So who started it? This time it was the Israelis and even if one made the argument that the death of one person in a war torn area like the middle east shouldn't induce an attack on this scale, the Israelis still up-ed the anty by firing multiple times into Gaza which led to Palestinian rocket fire. According to the New York Times Obama released his opinion on the crisis while on his trip in China. He said, "There’s no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders. We are fully supportive of Israel’s right to defend itself.” This is not the response that should be given. For once Obama must step in and ask that Israeli and Palestine come to a truce on the matter. Although Israeli is defending themselves they also did start the fight and Obama should not commend such violence. Although, as we have all heard countless times in the past election, Israeli is our greatest ally in the Middle East we must still accept what they are doing is wrong and we can not stand behind it.



Waiting For the World to Change - John Mayer

Just thought it was a cool song

The Fall

I did my fall video as a serious of clips that represent the way I see the fall. To me, the fall is about reminiscing and looking over the last year, but also about friendship and second chances. I know it seems like spring would be a better choice for second chances but the fall shows a time of death, where the trees all fall asleep, so to speak, but even then when they are dying there is still beauty and this shows that all things can be good and go well, a second chance.

Anyway, I filmed all my clips outside trying to find interesting shots that intrigued me but also retain much of the grace in the world. The first clip I had of my fire pit with water in it was actually really beautiful when I was filming it and I really wanted to capture it but unfortunately my camera didn't agree and ruined it by making it really bright.

I edited the video with youtube video editor which has never let me down, until now. As the videos were being uploaded to youtube for me to edit I went to CCmixter and found a song to go with it. I really like the song and put a link to it at the bottom for those who would like to hear it. Anyway, turns out youtube doesn't allow you to upload songs onto their editor so I spent another hour and a half looking through their songs which aren't very good, but it paid off, I found the Alchemist by Michael Zapruders rain of frogs. Its excellent you should all listen to it.

song i originally found: Loveshadow / CC BY-NC 3.0

Refurnishing the Green

This Friday was my birthday, and as a gift, from my wonderful girlfriend Alia, I received tickets to go see the Celtics v Wizards basketball game at the Verizon center on Saturday, November 3rd. It was incredible, I had a great time, I got to watch my favorite team; the Celtics, and and got to spend time with Alia. Anyway, I also got a look at the new roster of the Boston Celtics after their major overhaul in the off season. After losing three-point king Ray Allen to the Heat. The Celtics acquired shooting Guard Jason Terry from the Mavericks, as well as Courtney Lee from the Rockets. Although neither of them are as good as Ray, they both will be excellent additions to the team.

My personal idol in the NBA is Rajon Rondo, the Celtic's point guard. He, in my opinion, is the best pure point guard in the league. Last season Rondo averaged almost 11 points per game, 10 assists, and 2 steals. What makes Rondo so incredible are his assists. If we look in the NBA, there are budding point guards such as Russel Westbrook and Derrick Rose who have taken the shooting guard position and brought it to the point. Rondo keeps it old school. He has such a strong team, and is such a strong passer that he doesn't need to score, but when it comes to crunch time Rondo can light up the court. In game to of the Semi Finals Rondo dropped 44 points on the Miami Heat while still getting 10 assists.

The Celtics also retained "the TRUTH" Paul Pierce and Center Kevin Garnett, both future hall of famers as well as Brandon Bass. With the core of the team mostly intact the Celtics have a strong platform to build off of.

One surprise I had during the game was the performance of Jared Sullinger, who the Celtics acquired through the draft this year. In the previous season they were lacking size and as a result they drafted two big men, in Sullinger and Fab Melo. Sullinger had a solid performance, contributing 5 rebounds and 4 points. I was also happily surprised to see that the Celtics had received Leandro Barbosa, a 9 year veteran, who I like because of his quickness and ability to get to the basket. He will make an excellent addition to the team in the form of a sub for Paul Pierce.

Even with the lose of Ray Allen, the Celtics have found themselves much stronger coming into the new Season and will be a contesting team.

This week has been a bit hectic on my part because of the impending end of the quarter, or at least that is the only reason I can think of. Anyways, I haven't really had much time to do anything or learn about anything that interested me, so I am going to write about something that I heard about a week or so ago and has now surfaced in media world.

European nations have cracked down on tax evaders recently in a new hope to earn a little bit of money and gain some wiggle room for the country. The US government as well as many other countries in Europe, including Germany, have demanded that the Swiss banks release a list of all the people who have bank accounts in their system. The banks, who were known for their secrecy, finally complied, and in 2010 Christine Lagarde released a list including 2059 Greeks. Many other countries have used these lists to root out the evaders. Greece has not.

For some reason, probably due to widespread corruption in the government, they have abstained from searching for people, the country itself didn't make to big of deal about it since the media also was kept on the down low. Finally after a couple months Kostas Vaxevanis, an editor for Hot Doc, a big investigative journal in Greece, discovered the list and released it in his magazine. The article has created a big scandal in the Greek atmosphere.

The publication of the list has raised questions as to why the government has moved to act on the list and bring in the evaders. Currently there is a search going on to discover who has seen the document and why nothing has been done. Maybe, by the end of this the government will pull out some of the corrupted government officials.

Anyway sorry that wasn't the best, like I said all I've had time for is school work and sports practice.

Perks of Being A Wallflower

Last weekend I had an eye opening experience at the movies. I went to go see the Perks of Being a Wallflower. The movie is about the experience of a brilliant student entering high school and trying to fit. After a very disappointing first day, Charlie, Logan Lerman, made two good friends in Sam and Patrick. (Emma Watson and Ezra Miller, respectively) The three of them push each other, and support each other in their own personal wars. Sam must make her way into Penn State, Charlie past his childhood, lack of friends, and Patrick must work out his secret love affair with Brad. This movie had all the components of a cheesy teenage wishy-washy movie, needless to say I wasn't too excited to see it, but at the end of the hour and forty minute movie I was completely and utterly blown away.


Probably the biggest reason the movie was so heart warming is that it touched on so many different issues, it spoke about Friendship, drugs, sexuality, family, love, and sadness. Everyone watching has at least something to relate to. Charlie's friendships are a beautiful thing, when he is most down, with no one therefore him, Sam and Patrick reach out, and when Sam needs help Charlie returns the favor. As Charlie Wither sung, "Lean on me, when you're not strong, and I'll be your friend, I'll help you carry on", this rang strong in this movie. When Patrick is down, eschewed by Brad, Charlie steps in and the two of them grow close in the process of restoring Patrick to his normal self.

Logan Lerman had a career creating performance. He portrays Charlie as an introvert person. When they, Charlie, Sam and Patrick, are at a party towards the beginning of their friendship charlie sits in a corner, but its not simply the action its how that portrays his performance. He looks so awkward, his limbs scrunched together and yet the look on his face shows complete bliss. This really gives life to Charlies character, who although is incredibly awkward around other people, because of his old lack of friends, is okay with it because at least now he has friends. Lerman draws the viewer almost tying you to him, and when he pains, you pain making the themes all so much more powerful.

Emma Watson and Ezra Miller both had incredible performances. Emma Watson played Charlie's love. She was the bad girl, the one that goes to all the parties, gets really wasted, high, and laid, but she is such a lovable character. Partially because of the pretty face; that always helps, but also because she had such a lively personality. Her character is trying to redeem herself, trying to get away from this bad life and at this she is pitch perfect. Miller brings the most life to the movie. His character is always the happy one, the lively one, and the one that makes you smile. He brings his own energy and flair to the movie. In the scene after he gets shut out by Brad, Patrick and Charlie go out and drive about town, on the spur of the moment. Scenes like this, where no matter how hard it is Patrick still is happy and lively make his performance and character great because it brings hope to the movie.

There are many movies were the only reason the movie is at all worth watching is the cinematography. For example Hanna, which had an unoriginal story line and okayish acting but some of the best camera work of the year making it visually appealing. In Perks of Being a Wallflower, the Cinematography took back seat to the acting and story line, but even then the director, Stephen Chbosky, managed to slipped in interesting scenes. For example in the tunnel scene, the camera follows the truck up and over the bridge, revealing all of town with Sam standing on the back of the truck. It is an amazing shot because it shows all of them together can take on the world.

A point Chbosky brought up a lot through out the movie were the letters that charlie wrote to an anonymous friend, who I took to be Charlie's dead best friend because Charlie says at the beginning that felt he abandoned by Michael, his best friend, because Michael shot himself with out even writing so Charlie writes to him as a way of remembrance. The letters represent Charlies emotional status. Towards the beginning they are common, but as the movie progresses and he makes friends they become infrequent. Finally at the end, in  honor of his recovery, the letters come to an end.

I would recommend this movie to just about anyone, admittedly it would be more touching for a high schooler, but because it ranges so many different topics it can be enjoyed by anyone. After watching this movie it left me in awe, I felt completely cleared and open to the world, and for me, that feeling made it incredible. Go see it.

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

Spain goes to all costs to remain free of Greece's Sinking Ship

Spain goes to all costs to remain free of Greece's Sinking Ship

Spain's parliament has gone to long measures to keep the government and its investors from being forced to borrow money from the UN and the European Central bank to pay for the countries economic crisis. The European Central Bank, ECB has recently stated that they will buy an unlimited amount of any countries debt  as long as they agree to the Eurozone Bailout. The Spanish national government has begun a series of austerity measures and cuts in spend, much like Greece to decrease its debt, and therefore keep it from needing EU help, a measure that they do not want to take because they believe it will drag them down like it has to Greece. Greece, much like Spain, has a plagued economy when they first began borrowing money in an attempt to heal themselves it did nothing. The economy of Greece sucked up the first loan without any sign of health. The loans continued to stack up, paying for the previous one, causing the economy to snowball into catastrophe, pounding a sickly economy into a dying mess. Spain believes that agreeing to the Eurozone Bailout of 500 billion dollars will begin such a process in Spain.


A recent measure in Spain has wrought a much bigger uprising against it than many of its predecessors.  The Spanish Parliament recently authorized a 10 billion Euro cut in education funds, it also asked teachers to work longer hours and for schools to increase class sizes by 20%. The strikes have covered almost every university in the nation and have roped in between 20% (according to the government) and 80% (according to the unions) of teachers in Spain. They have also brought many students who believe that a cut to the school system is the wrong way to go. With unemployment among young people at over 50% what better way to spend their time that learning and preparing for a stronger generation. Many against these cuts have stated that although cuts on education may bring money now it will lead to weaker future generations who will not be able to keep the country above water. Spain must find other ways of collecting money that does not tax the welfare of the country.

Heart Beat By Glaneur de Sons

I picked this sound bite for the montage at the end where he looks around to see where the flag is or at the point where the SWAT team shoots Jett's brother. For both of the points, after we slow down the beats, it will create a slowed down, pause in time effect that will increase the suspense of the clip.

I would have preferred to use deep breathing for when Jett is looking for the flag because it shows the viewer he is tired and it causes suspense in the way that the viewer doesn't want him to fail, rather than suspense because they believe he will get hurt.

Fight Scene by FallenKnight

This will be (unless its vetoed by the group) the music for the end of our movie, basically the training montage we have put together. It gets a lot better towards the middle, and the cats pretty cool so we should include it.  The clip is supposed to go with the music and make the viewer hyped up. If this one doesn't work I believe the 300 Violin Orchestra by Jorge Quintero would do quite well.

Clip 1: Tuxi walks up and rubs his face against the camera

Clip 2: Tuxi jumps to grab a ball

Clip 3: Suzy walks along a rock wall

Clip 4: Suzy sniffs the camera

Clip 5: Suzy jumps off a table

I made a 5x5 about my two cats showing things they enjoy doing. I used a PowerShot Elph 100 Hs Full HD camera and youtube film editor. I tried to use wevideo but it kind of killed itself and wouln't upload any of my videos. To be honest I don't really like my 5x5, well no, I do like it because my cats are fantastic but I dislike the whole concept because there is no story being told and no really space to have really cool shots. For our next one i think a time lapse would be really cool but I don't know how we would do it. 

Battle Los Angeles . Jonathan Liebesman . PG-13 . 2011
Marine Staff Sergeant, Michael Nantz (Aaron Eckhart), is brought back into the marine core, from his job of training troops in Camp Pedelton, when a series of large meteorites crash down in the oceans near many major world cities. These meteorites turn out to be alien invasion crafts Sergeant Nantz must join forces with 2nd lieutenant Martinez (Ramon Rodriguez) and his platoon to reclaim Los Angeles.

Battle Los Angeles Trailer

This movie cuts the definition of a Dystopian movie a little close, but none the less it is a very good trailer. Battle LA most closely represents bureaucratic and post apocalyptic control. It is an example of post apocalyptic because during the alien apocalypse people who are found with the group of soldiers under Nantz believe that it is a better place, that they must stay with him because they will be safe. It is also an example of Bureaucratic control because everyone has turned to the US government for help, the government now has total control and is the last hope for survival.

The trailer itself was incredible, although the movie was okay, it used many different techniques that although they might not all be helpful for our video were very interesting to witness. The trailer begins with pictures of aliens that keep fading in and out, this puts the viewers mind in the right place. Then a very sad song fades in which slows down the pace of the viewers mind and hart so they can fully take in what they are watching. This is matched up with a lot of clips of death and escape. This is incontrast to the 1984 trailer which uses fast, loud music and many clips to overload the viewers sensory ability and beat the meaning into them, unlike this one which melts the meaning on to them. Both of these techniques seem very effective and are both worth thinking about adding into our trailers. Also A lot of the shots fade in and out. This is an effect that we should definitely add.

The article that I read, World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others, was possibly the most repetitive article I have ever read. In begins by raising the example of a young 11 year old volunteer who gets all of her ideas for projects from comments on her blog. The article then goes on, completely forgetting the girl, to explain how the world is changing and teaching style must be adapted to cope with the giant flow of information. Fair enough, go on. The article at this point has unfortunately run out of information. It basically makes the same point over and over again with only one point at the end where it says that teacher's mustn't be so harsh on online study groups. In this article it made one point that I thought was very important and completely symbolized why the educational system isn't ready for online education. That quote was "being produced by amateur writers," the article is basically saying not everything that is online is actually true. Unfortunately many kids believe that everything online is true, for this reason I believe that the in class form is still far superior. To the article's benefit I did find the part at the beginning about the 11 year old blogger quite surprising. I wouldn't have imagined that someone that young would get that idea and actually create a blog, viewed by people all around the world, all by her self.

Connected learning...is...an interesting concept. I personally don't believe it is majorly effective unless its a project. I don't believe students will go out of there way to learn about something in there free time for the sole reason to write a post about it. Students are expected to be in clubs, to play sports, to hang out with friends, and also to have 2-3 hours of homework ever night. I don't believe that as well as all this students will write on their blogs unless it is an assignment, and therefore we must do it. We simply don't have time.

Personally I believe it would be really cool to link my blog to both sports blog of some type as well as some sort of history thing, because I really enjoy certain aspects of history, such as more medieval/ancient, more guessery less knowledge. Unfortunately we don't do to much of this in class.

My article

Seeking Glory, and Fighting Evil, With a Paddle

by A. O. Scott

The New York Times

The movie review I read was not a very good example, the author, Scott, obviously had a hatred for the movie and therefore his review had a lot of pathos as Ms Cullen would say. It was very emotional and because of this the author seemed to just rant in no particular order. He begins with a quick comparison  between Balls of Fury and Hotrod, basically saying that they are the same and really bad. Then he talks a little about some of the characters, such as Feng, and calls them bad too. He finishes up with a short description of the movie, only short because as he put it, "since it would take me longer to recount the story than it took the screenwriters." He doesn't touch on cinematic aspects at all. 


I believe we must take his example as an example of what not to do. In our projects we should keep our critiques emotionless when it came to describing the aspects of film. When providing one's opinion one can use emotion but, as in this review, emotion during the aspects of film simply clouds one's judgement and doesn't allow one to fairly critique and get their point across. 

My annotated link




BYE!

Andreas

Hey,


My name is Andreas... Uhm. This is my first blog, so guess here it goes... I am a CAP 10 student and Blair High school, after attending a whole mash up of elementary schools, and going to SSI. I play soccer and basketball. I really enjoy the directing/cinematography aspect of movies, because I believe that no matter how bad the story and acting is good cinematography can make any movie good. For example in Hanna, the story and acting was okay at best, but the filming made it an incredible film. In middle school I was in LCL...run by Mr Mayo! Anyway, in this class I had two projects which I both really enjoy and was proud of was the documentary i did for my passion project, a film of the life of Drogba and Mandela. I also did a claymation with Connor which was great fun, because with claymations one can go outside of the constraints of the classroom. With the clay one can make whatever they wish, we for example we made a car race, something that could not be done in the real world with real people acting.

These blogs are an....interesting...idea. I believe it could be quite helpful in contacting and organizing group projects such as the change project. I also believe it could be quite helpful in contacting teachers, we ought to make a forum that students can post questions that the teachers will answer. This would allow the answers to be open to other students who may have he same questions.

Byeeeeee,

Andreas