Sunday, March 27, 2011

Old Baz

We all are reading Romeo and Juliet, and so far for me the details are all mute. I feel like in many of the scenes I was not getting the full effect, I was only just getting the jest of it, nothing deeper.When I saw that watching Leonardo DiCaprio for two hours could get me extra credit I can't tell you how exited I was, maybe it was that thought, or maybe it was the fact that I was sure that watching this movie would explain it all. The movie was in short perfectly strange, mildly deranged and would not have been complete without a whole lot of guns.

You really got a feel of how they live their lives truly despising the other, of course you had to take into account the terrible acting that was done by the Montague boys, they get kudos for being just that bad.It made you wonder a little bit a bout Baz Lurman this movie was his creation, did he truly mean it to come out in this way?

When the movie first begins you zoom in and out on a television women reporting the recent events of horror, the next shot was of  the heads of the houses, Montague and Capulet rushing to the scene. You know that this must be one of those movies that gives you a short of the end first, before it goes into whats really happening.

Seeing this gave me a pit in my stomach, I hate that part of the title, the tragedy I have always wondered why they have to die. While watching this movie I got increasingly aggravated at both Romeo  and Juliet, Romeo for not seeing the letter from the priest, at Juliet for not saying something when she awoke to Romeo poised, about to down the poison.

The movie helped me see why they had to die, why they could never have lived. They could never have escaped their families while on this earth, their love only prevailing in the wost way possible. But for them, it may have been the only way for their love to work at all.

Thank you Baz, you really helped me out.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Marley and Me. (revised)

Let me get one thing straight, I am not the biggest fan of dog books; or animal books for that matter (even if many of you argue differently). Officially I have read three, Alex and Me , My Friend Flicka, and of course Marley and Me. When I read those other books, each was flawed in the way you might expect and animal book to be flawed. each one was either too sappy, or just not well written. This book did not over complicate the dogs life, nor rephrasing it to make him perfect. this book simply told you what the owners knew, the hilarious stories of the worlds worst dog.

this book also brings up an important point: mortality. most animal books are forced to end with the animal dying. That's what happened. Animals have so much of a shorter life span then a human. ours is long enough that sometimes we lose sight of it. They don't have that pleasure. for an Animal, especially a big dog, life can sometimes mean only ten years, they aren't given enough time to forget.

Plenty of people, from all over the world feel immortal at their prime, life becomes a game (a fun one at that), and feeling pain doesn't quite seem possible.

I was reading my book on the subway this weekend, and nearing the end of my book an old woman sitting next to me leans over and smiles, she says "I love that book!" I looked at her, her face was deeply wrinkled and her lipstick badly smudged. She wasn't immortal. I smiled back and engaged in a deep conversation about the book with her until my stop (basically comparing the movie to the book).

Around the middle of our conversation I realized that she thought I had never read the book before. Now to say that this was untrue was an understatement, I had read this book thousands of times; it never got old.

therre happens to be an episode o a show called Doctor Who, where there's this whole thing with Agatha Christie,  when he says how much he loves her books she shakes him off saying that soon they would be forgotten. And how wrong she was! It gave me an odd feeling to think that something that will out live us all is literature. In class we are reading the words of Shakespeare, the very same one that died five hundred years ago. the immortal, those who are going to outlive us all are not vampires, or zombies. It's the books.

Mentor Blogs

After reviewing most peoples blogs, i found out three things, 1) was the fact that many wrote for length 2) many many wrote for depth, and it turned out long; and 3)some people write for depth and end up with shorter posts that have more meaning then all the rest.

A good example of this is Tomin's blog, at first, he goes into what the poem meant to him and then explains his second take on the poem itself. after scrolling through his blog I found a few note worthy things. for starters, many of his posts were also poems. I read a few to discover that these were actually really good! my favorite was the revised version of hers, because it showed more than just anger but anger at her, for leaving.

Alberta's blog also stuck out to me, maybe its not only because of her posts, but because I can see the blog is one hundred percent hers. when you first see it your eyes are overwhelmed. nothing makes sense about the design, or the little comment thing under the blog title. Nothing relates to itself, but it is also totally Alberta's.

Lastly, I think Timothy's blog deserves mention because his responses are just screaming with his personality.  I can literally hear Timothy saying it as I read his posts. He also left a lot of stuff up for grabs, he didn't pick apart the meanings of every little thing. He gives you a starting thought or idea and lets you run with it, but does not necessarily reveal all.