Manufactured landscapes

The beginning of the movie killed me, how many rows can you show of people doing the same exact thing over and over and over again! They march all their employees out every day and they all look like clones, all dressed the same, in a pattern of 5 rows, four people deep. The get talked down to like little school children of everything they did bad the day before. This movie gave me a headache with doing the same thing over and over again inside the factory. I get that this artist was inside the factories to see where all these manufactured materials start but he didn’t have to show every little action in so much detail. It was sad to hear some of these peoples stories. Such as the one where at one village where it was also a site for recycled products such as TV monitors and when they compacted them down to size lead would leak out and when it rained the lead would pour into the lakes and streams. It got so bad that they now needed to send away for their water. This movie makes me think how lucky I am to be in America, the land of opportunities and the privilege to go to college and get a great job not sit at a desk all day doing one action repeatedly. Like the girl who had worked at the factory for 6 years and said she can do over 400 breakers a day! That looked like very tedious work! I like the comment that the guy said about ships being able to connect us and their part of the reason globalization has been able to take on the proportion that it has. Another story that was disheartening was the little boys who worked neck deep in oil mills, hauling buckets of oil. It is very dangerous and cheap work, my heart went out to them. As the movie progressed I start to like it a bit more, I like how it goes to a place of manufactured landscapes, gives a little story about it then shows the artist, Canadian photographer- Edward Burtynsky pictures of that place. People pointed out through out the film that his photos make this manufactured landscape look beautiful, I have to disagree on that, natural is better. It was stated in the film that, these people look at work “for their country”. The worlds largest damn took 17 years to complete but kept out floods, helped with transportation and electricity. 1,100,000 had to relocate to work on the damn, that is shocking to me! 13 cities had to be moved to be flattened out to make way for this damn. The people living there were the ones being paid to tear down their own communities. The urbanization in China is like no where else in the world, what used to be 70% agriculture and 30% urban is now 70% urban and only 30% agriculture. “We are changing the nature of this planet” was quoted and I strongly believe in this, we are taking a beautiful atmosphere and turning into ugly sky rises.  

War Photographer

From the very first scene in this movie I could tell it was going to be great! It shows a man holding a camera up close with smoke burning in the background and a quote appears that reads, “If your picture isn’t good enough, you weren’t close enough. The only negative I got from this movie was that some parts were not in English so as they were discussing the photographs I was reading what they were saying instead of looking at the actual photographs. They say a photographer portrays people in a way that no one else can and I believe Jim does this. He has so much courage to go straight up to people when they are in so much despair and take pictures. Such as when the mother was crying over her sons coffin, he caught her emotion in a way no one else could. It was quoted in the movie that in war, civilized behavior is suspended, this masquerade and war photographs showed this awful behavior. The story about the family living in Indonesia really touched me. The father was ran over by a train several years earlier and lost an arm and a leg and now lives in the gravel in between the train tracks. How scary for him but it is all that his wife and children can afford. This story about this man, James (Jim) is about a man that is always pushing his limits to get the perfect picture. I agree with him when he said at the end of the day people really do want to know about tragedy and what they can do to help. Such as the man who read an article about the family in Indonesia and how he is very poor but will send $20 a month to the family for as long as he can. Jim inspires people to do good. 

Shall We Dance

What I got from this movie was that a man Named John Clark who seemed to have everything and wanted nothing finally found something that he needed which was happiness. He was a very happily married man with two children but wasn’t completely satisfied with his life. He would take the train to and from work every single day and would always pass a dance studio and see this women looking sadly out the window. One day he decided to stop in and sign up for lessons, little did he know this would change his life for the better. However with him being gone all the time his wife suspects he is cheating only to discover he has been dancing all along. In the movie you don’t realize if he starts taking the dance lessons because he has a crush on the dance teacher Paulina or because he really just wants to dance. One scene where he meets his son at the bar and sees him and his new girlfriend dancing this feeling takes over him and you see all he wants to do is dance. One of the lady that takes dance lesson there named Bobby enters a dance competition and John is her partner. For weeks they practice and you can see he doesn’t mind because he just loves dancing that much. One the day of the competition Bobby and John are so great but john get distracted when he hears a, “go dad” and looks into the audience to see his wife and daughter. He and Bobby stumble and half of Bobby’s dress rips running them out of the competition. Once he sees how angry his wife is for hiding this from him he quits dancing for a while. When Paulina is having a going away party his wife leaves him a note saying to go to the party and she finally found something to put in the box for, “the man that has everything”. A new pair of dancing shoes!! He is debating on whether or not to go and on the train on the way home is a sign hanging over the dance station that reads, “Shall we dance Mr. Clark?” The next scene you see him tying up his shoes and you see him coming up the escalator all dressed up, rose in hand and he goes up to his wife, his partner and asks her to dance. Such a romantic moment! John and his wife show up to Paulina’s party and John dances with Paulina to her going away dance. I love how the movie wraps up with everyone dancing in their own atmosphere. 

Billy Elliot

I absolutely love this movie, I saw it when it came out in 2000 and have not seen it sense. This is one of those movies that never gets old. I love how Billy stayed true to himself throughout the entire movie and didn’t let anything stop him from achieving his dreams, not even his father or brother who greatly disapproved of his decision to dance. It seemed his father strived for him to be a man’s man and to be in boxing but Billy’s heart just wasn’t in it. When the man caught Billy dancing and told him he looked like a “wanker” that was very disappointing, just let the boy dance! I feel like his father and brother did a complete 180, in the beginning of the movie they were totally against Billy dancing even just for fun in the ballet studio. Later when Billy’s ballet teacher comes to the house and tells the family about the audition at the Royal Ballet School in London they start to shift their opinions. Once part of the miners strike his father decides to go back to work to save up $2000 for Billy to attend the school if he gets in, however his eldest son stops him from entering into it again. With the help of the community they end up pooling enough money for Billy to attend and also the strike ends right when Billy gets accepted. My favorite part of the movie was on Christmas when Billy and his friend go into the gym late at night and are dancing and Billy’s dad spots him and instead of just leaving or apologizing to his father Billy dances his heart out in front of his father. At this moment Billy’s dad runs to his ballet teacher’s house and has a change of heart, he wants what his son loves. Also in the end of the movie when his father, brother and childhood friend attend his performance and you see only a glimpse of him dancing but it is in that moment that you see his joy, his love, and his passion! 

Viva La Revolucion exhibition

Wow what a treat this was, I am so pleased that I got to go to something such as this. There were so many things to see explore and read about, I greatly enjoyed all of it. I really liked how some were in a museum then you had to go drive around to find the graffiti that were on buildings and that you could listen to the details of them all from your phone. When I first walked in I was very pleased that you didn’t have to pay if you were under the age of 25, I like museums and all but not when I have to pay a ton of money to go visit them. I walked into one of the rooms and to my left their was a trash can that was moving and had musical beats coming from it, it scared me at first! This piece of artwork was created by David Ellis and his representation of the trash can to me had a very urban feel to it. Next was my favorite piece that I had seen all day, it was titled, Swimming Sisters of Switchback Sea by, Hermanas Nadadoras Del Mat Tornatras. This piece was astonishing! It had so much incorporated into it, including ladders, furniture, and many elements. She has people in cardboard and refers to them as the “forgotten people”. As stated in the definition of the piece, “the presence of nature is seen throughout this piece which she calls, the rebirth of nature. With the mixture of urban wreckage they spiral together to form what is the world and to those who are forgotten.” Truly an inspiring and beautiful piece. Next was my second favorite piece, this one called, Scratching the Surface by Rasgando La Superficie. When I was walking towards it I could clearly see that it was a women’s face with some shadowing but as I approached it more it didn’t look like anything, just some brick that had holes in it. How this artist made this piece was by removing layers of history by cutting into the brick with a chisel and a rotary hammer. What provided the contrast was plaster paint and the brick background. As I walked into the education space their was a piece of art work set on the side wall that was made out of what looked to be plastic and resembled many flowers squished together and you could see all the way through it. Light from the outside shined through it and just added to it’s brilliance. I also greatly enjoyed going into the Dzine room and looking at all the fabulous paintings and tricked out bicycle and carriage, the carriage truly was made for a prince. I also liked that you got a map and could go all around downtown San Diego to look at the different types of graffiti, how people manage to put such masterpieces on scratched and broken down walls is beyond me but never the less amazing. 

Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision

This was my favorite movie we have watched so far. This 21 year old college student named Maya Lin had entered an architectural contest and was not expecting to win at all and ended up wining the entire competition. Her design would be chosen for the Vietnam memorial. She also was not expecting how much backlash she would get for the memorial, one Veteran even called it a "black scare". Many put her down for winning stating that she wasn't a veteran, was Asian and was a female but she never let any of that stop her. People who were trying to stop the memorial were very mean people and would do anything to stop it. Her memorial would list the people who have died serving this country during the Vietnam War and would be listed in the order they died instead of by their last names, no one wants to walk up to the wall and see 30 Dan Smiths. It is better as Maya said to take the extra three minutes to look up when they died and find that specific persons name on the wall. When I was 12 my mother, brother and I went to this wall and my mom was able to find her ex boyfriend who died in this war, I always wondering how she was able to find his name so quickly through all these thousands of names. It was fascinating to see how much this young woman achieved in her life at such a young age, she was the second youngest person ever to graduate from Yale with a doctorate. Veterans who attended her graduation thanked her for her memorial and mentioned that numbers are just numbers but by her putting the actual names of people that died really made you remember. When Maya was asked to do a Civil War Movement memorial she really wanted to strip the movement to the bare and get the spirit of it out and what came to her was a Martin Luther King Jr quote that she would use on the memorial. Along with that she would she would intertwine people's deaths with political movements and involved water. She involved the water so people could feel it and get a sense that they are part of it. My favorite piece that she did was the one composed of all glass; it was stunning and so different from anything I have ever seen. As the man at the end of the movie stated what Maya Lin has is "courage" and I couldn't agree more! 

The Buena Vista Social Club:

This Movie was very inspiring the fact that these musician's used to be known as Cuban's best, only to be all but forgotten several years later. This is not my type of movie, I really did not like that it was all spoken in spanish except a little english at the end, and how I had to watch it and read the subtitles, this made it very hard to follow. Also Cuban music is not my taste in music so even after they interviewed each musician and then they played a song I just was not into it. I felt myself loosing interest in the movie pretty fast and it was hard for me to watch the entire thing, I did but it was a very long movie. The one story that I liked the most was the young man who taught himself how to play the piano from a very young age and later meet up with a neighbor of his who was blind and they ended up making beautiful music together, I thought that was very inspiring. Overall I did not think it was a good movie but no the less very inspiring how almost all these musicians taught themselves how to play their own instruments at a very young age.