Made it!

Made it through my first online class with a lot of success i would think. The class was interesting and the organization of assignments was well done. Blogging here was also surprisingly entertaining. Good luck to everyone on finals and have a good holiday.

Not so sure...

I recently stumbled upon this comparison of lyrics in the 70's to lyrics today. What it's trying to say is that songs were more creative and in-depth then what is being produced today. There is nobody that can agree more with this then me but I believe they are comparing two very different things here. First they give you fantastic lyrics from arguably the best rock band ever assembled and comparing it with some ringtone rap music. The 70's produced some of the greatest music ever recorded but I'm sure that there were some songs that were just as bad as this one by Far East Movement. There are many rappers today that have extensive vocabularies and have purpose behind their music unlike the example this picture gives. I agree with the message behind this picture but not with its content.

Tis DA season.

Its that time again.. Its crazy how fast Christmas sneaks up every year. Now its the time where all the Christmas films plague the television channels. Everyone has their favorite but mine has to be Jingle All the Way. Schwarzenegger plays a workaholic father who forgot to pick up the fastest selling toy earlier in the season. Now its Christmas Eve and Arnold is rushing all over the Twin Cities to find a Turbo Man doll for his kid. One of the main reasons this is one of my favorite Christmas films is because it includes a few great Arnold quotes such as "I'm not a pervert! I was just looking for Turbo Man Doll," "Put the cookie down!!," and "Its just a stupid little plastic doll!!" A mixture of laughs and moral fiber, Jingle All the Way is a great holiday film.

Turkey for Da Troops.

According to an article in USA Today, 144,854 pounds of turkey, 4,308 cans of cranberry sauce, and 38,292 pies were sent to Iraq this year hoping to bring some Thanksgiving cheer to the many service men and women over seas. The most interesting part of the article is that only 144,854 pounds of turkey were sent this year compared to last year when 376,924 was sent. This just reflects the amount of troops that have been with-drawled in one years time. Hopefully it will be even less by next thanksgiving.

At Anywhere. Dude, Blonde... YOUR A CREEP

Another new networking website has become a big hit in recent months. LikeALittle.com is a website created by students at Stanford University and quickly spread to other schools across the country including BSU. The website enables you to anonymously call out a boy or girl you've seen around your campus that you think is attractive whether it be a girl in your class or a guy you saw riding past you on a skateboard. Using no names you must describe the person by where you've seen them and their hair color. I just heard of the site 2 days ago and now everywhere people are talking about it. If you go to the site and read some comments, I believe you'd find it as entertaining as I do.

REALLY?

I feel this is commercial hits the nail on the head. PEOPLE ARE TOO ATTACHED TO THEIR PHONES. I love how this commercial shows all the perfect examples of when not to be using a phone especially there part where the guy drops it in the urinal. Do you really need to be using a phone when your relieving yourself? Personally a huge turnoff for me is a girl who has her phone glued to her hand and I'm sure many others would agree with that. There is a part in the commercial where a bride is on the phone as she is walking down the aisle. Obviously this is an exaggerated idea but I don't think it's to far off..... On another note. I don't understand what this commercial is trying to advertise. It's still a phone and your going spend just as much time on it. REALLY?

Hip-hop and the Middle East

During my critical perspective communications class the other day, we were trying to decide what were the major reasons that Muslims and other people of Middle-Eastern have a problem with American hip hop/rap music. Most of the class and I bounced around a few different ideas that made sense but nobody was able to point out the most obvious feature in that hip hop is an American export. This thought blew my mind, being that it is so obvious and so true at the same time. From what I can understand, anything "American" is not approved of over there and music is no different. Also, different styles such as clothing, attitude, and such derived from hip hop music is also making an impact on their culture.
 In a sense it is just another McDonaldized feature
taking their society by storm. Thoughts?

DA walking dead..

In recent years, there has really been a vampire and zombie boom in popular culture. From magazine covers, to books, to movies, to television shows, vampires have really outgrown their welcome in my opinion. Zombies have always been a personal favorite of mine but for some reason I never realized that they haven't made a zombie based television program until I saw a preview for The Walking Dead on AMC during fear fest. Besides being about zombies, the other thing that caught my attention was that I noticed the show is directed by the director of the Shawshank Redemption and produced by the same producer of The Terminator. The show focuses a police officer name Rick Grimes who awakes from a coma to find the world over run by the living dead. The season is only 2 episodes deep so far but I can already tell this show is going to be a personal favorite. The show is on Sundays at 10pm on AMC. Tune in.

DA movie map

Found this picture today while surfing the net. Thought it was pretty interesting. Depicts a map of the United States with a film that represents each of the 50 states. Its pretty cool the range of films that are used but all are agreeable except I feel they could have chose a better film for California than FTARH.

(Click Picture)

AMC Fearfest 2010

If your like me than you love a good scary movie and there's no more appropriate time then Halloween. For the past two weeks AMC has been dishing them out all day. If you haven't already, tune in and catch your favorite holiday flick. This week they are playing a new Halloween every night.

Till death do us part.

Found this.. thought it was funny.. is this what the worlds coming to?

Fathers on TV

There have been so many different types of families depicted on television through out the years. It seems that as society changes so do the families. A great way to express how different we have become since the dawn of television is to compare two of the most famous TV dads, Ward Cleaver and Al Bundy.

Commercial Placement

I never thought about the placement of commercial before today. I just always thought commercials where thrown here and there without a thought. I realized this today when I was watching ESPN. I flipped and a commercial for Jamison Irish Whiskey was playing flowed quickly with a Mens Warehouse spot and then it dawned on me. You never see any feminine commercials on this channel. There aren't any tampon adds or make up commercials during Sports Center. What had blown my mind is something very simple. Of course the producers are going to select commercials that appeal to the target audience (male). Thank God we have one thing to call our own.

Bad Planning?

Just found this costume.. thought it was pretty funny.

Peeping Tom

This week, I learned different THEORIES about different ways to view male and female characters in films. The two main ways are known as scopohilic and narcissistic looking. Scopohilic is the act of subconsciously viewing a subject as an erotic identity and narcissistic looking demands identification of the object on the screen through the spectator's fascination. According to researchers, scopohilic relates more to men and narcissistic relates more to woman. In simple terms, the man views the character sexually and instead of the woman viewing the man sexually, she views the woman with envy. We then implied this way of thinking with the Hitchcock classic, Rear Window. Rear Window focuses on a man who is stuck in a wheelchair and the only form of entertainment is to watch his neighbors go about their business. Hitchcock is known for casting very beautiful woman in his films and this one is no exception. The famous Grace Kelly plays the main love interest which sets off a lot of scopohilic views for the male audience. There is another woman in the film who is known as Ms. Torso because she likes to practice her dance moves in her underwear across the court yard. Not only does this emphasize the scopohilic view but I feel that this triggers the narcissistic view with the woman audience. Agree or disagree???

ARRIVEDERCI!

This week in my critical perspective communications class I learned of the negative European views on American culture and pop culture. I learned that the people at the famous Frankfurt School viewed culture and mass culture differently. Things such as real, imagination, active consumption, individual creation, and European fell under culture while false, distraction, passive consumption, mass production, and American fell under mass culture. I was able to relate this to the American film Inglorious Basterds during the climactic scene when Lt. Aldo Raine comes face to face with Col. Hans Landa. Raine is American and posing as an Italian film maker. He can't speak much Italian and is restricted to only the basic words such as gratzie and arrivederci. At this point you have already learned that Landa is German and very intelligent. He can speak many languages fluently and makes it obvious that Raine is not Italian through their conversation. I feel this scene makes the European look smart and dominant and the American as dumb and inferior. However, I feel that my point is summed up in the scene prior to this where the German actress Bridget von Hammersmark asks Raine, "Can you Americans speak any language other than English." Even though there are plenty of Americans that are highly intelligent and can speak many languages, it obvious there is a strong difference between the view of intelligence between American and European cultures. 

DAGNABIT!

On the most recent episode of Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, Rob describes a recent fight with his mother that he regretfully ended up cursing out. He felt so bad about this that he started a "No cursing coalition," in hope to persuade other people, mainly kids, to use alternate words instead of curse words. He even went undercover to a nearby nursing home to see what kind of alternate words the elderly use. Based on this Rob went on to design his a clothing line based on these words. Even though this was meant to be comical, I felt that I could really relate to it. I feel that kids these days use dirty words way to often. I find myself saying words like shit and fuck way to often. Sometimes they slip in front of my boss, or a teacher, or the elderly, or even my saint of a mother. The worst is when your in a public place and you say one of these words to loud and you confronted by a parent of a child near by. But who is to blame? Are parents the ones at fault? Maybe TV or films or music? I could always agree with my father who would tell me, "I don't understand your music. The Beatles made millions of dollars without saying one curse word." I feel that using these words just make us sound dumb and feeble minded. I agree that there is a time and a place for these words to be used but all and all I think that it's something that we really need to tone down as a culture.

THEY LIVE!

THEY LIVE! is known as one of the greatest cult classics of all time. Written and directed by horror master John Carpenter, the film focuses on a drifter who realizes that aliens have taken over the world. WWF legend Roddy Piper stars as the Drifter referred to as Nada. Nada goes from place to place looking for work until one day he discovers a special pair of sunglasses. These sunglasses reveal to the one using them the truth of the world, ALIENS EXIST! To the naked eye people and advertisements look as they normally do but through the glasses the aliens are exposed and the billboards read messages such as 'Conform,' 'Obey,' and 'Consume.' I think this film would have tied in very well with this weeks topic because it is a perfect example of how a film can fall into different genres. The film can be considered sci-fi thriller, horror, and comedy. There are a lot of underlying themes in this movie as well. One of the main themes takes a shot at the wealthy. When you wear the sunglasses in the film, you can see who's an alien and who's not. Mainly the people who were pretty or had nice things were the aliens and when you put the glasses on they became hideous monsters. The theme that I feel ties in with our class and the media is the subliminal billboards. Like I said, when you wear the glasses you see subliminal messages on the billboards. In the film, it is a control device for the aliens but what I think Carpenter is trying to express is how the media tries to control us, by telling us what to wear, where to eat, what to think, etc. They Live makes you really think a lot about the world around us. SEE IT.

Good Flick.

I just finished watching the film The Orphanage. As a real big fan of horror movies I must say that I already know that this film will be one of my favorites. Two things that really scare me in movies are children and old woman and this film had both. The ghost of Thomas was really frightening with the sack on his head and his deformed face. The part when he appears in the hallway and Laura thinks it's Simon had me on the edge of my seat. The old woman Benigna was really scary especially when she was found creeping in the shed. The part that really made me jump twice was when she was hit by the speeding van and then again when you thought she was dead then grabs Laura's wrist. I like when movies introduce something small, maybe a quote or an object that you might not take notice to at all, then they bring it back and make it relevant in the end. This movie had a lot of that. Some examples are the lighthouse light, the Peter Pan story, and when Simon asks again at the end of the film "can I wake up?" However, i felt the ending of the film was really confusing the first time. I had to go back and try to understand it better. I hadn't realized that the flashback of her in the closet meant that she had accidentally trapped Simon in the basement and that the strange noises in the house were of Simon trying to escape. This film used a lot of classic horror techniques that really made the film work. Low angles and dark corners were seen a lot but I have to say that the scariest thing was the music. Music is what can make a movie really scary. A good example of this is the original Halloween. If you took the music away from the film. It wouldn't be half as scary as the finished product. All in all, I really enjoyed this film and it was a perfect example of good horror genre.

A troubled man.

The television show True Blood has gained a lot of popularity in recent years and since it's 3rd season concluded a week ago, it's easy to say that its a successful series. The show has a lot of characters that do different things to contribute to the show. One character that has stuck out in my mind through this past season is Terry Bellefleur. In the first two seasons of the show, you don't see much of this character. He simply is a cook at the bar and grill known as Merlotte's. He has a few lines here and there, however, Terry is one of the most interesting characters on the show because of his troubled past. Terry is a veteran of the war in Iraq. He has come home to try and live his life again but he is haunted by his past in the war and suffers from post traumatic stress disorder. He doesn't talk much and is usually awkward. He gets confused easily and is often crying. The third season doesn't explain exactly what happened to him but they show more of his character. You see how troubled he is by his experiences. Through the things that he says you can tell that he sometimes confuses life in America with his past soldier life. I feel that he is an interesting character because he is not a character you see. Actually I can't think of another television show that has an Iraqi war veteran of this nature in it. I don't necessarily agree that his character is needed for the show to run smoothly but I do like how they try to bring the issue of how it's like returning from war to light.

I like turtles....

On the newest episode of Tosh.0 the hilarious 'I like turtles kid' got a web redemption. For those who don't watch the show, a web redemption is when Daniel Tosh brings in the star of the funny video and has a short segment with them about what happened in the video and then usually has a parody involving what happened in the original video in an attempt to redeem themselves. We find out that the I like turtles kid is actually named Jonathan. Tosh interviews him and finds out that he was 10 when the video was made and that he had just come from a turtle exhibit. Jonathan says that he was so excited about the turtles that turtles was all he was thinking about at the time. Then Tosh goes on and brings him to a room that has nothing but turtles everywhere. They do a couple other small skits including a turtle race, eating turtle soup, and Tosh wears a ninja turtles costume. Finally Tosh asks the famous words, "Are you ready to give it another shot?" This time Jonathan is painted like a turtle and this time says that he likes zombies. The I like turtles video is one of the funniest youtube videos I've seen and thats why i fully loved this web redemption.

Machete

While reading chapter 2 in our media students book, I began to the apply the different roles or spheres of action to the different characters of the film Machete that I saw this past weekend. First, the movie is focused on a Federale skilled in the weapon that gave him his nickname. Of Mexican decent, Machete launches a brutal, over the top revolution I guess you could say, for his fellow illegal immigrants. Since this movie depicts the type of abstract hero that our book talks about, it was hard to pinpoint the real hero of the movie.  Machete isn't your typical hero type. He is an old man with scars and tattoos. He kills people brutally and humorlessly through out the movie. Since he is the star of the narrative you have agree that he is the hero. He also is the one doing the action that is progressing the film and in the end he receives the reward, such as the 'princess,' that the hero is known to receive. Great movie. Go see it.

Same distance from ground zero.

Personally, I wouldn't like to see the construction of a mosque in the ground zero vicinity but while wasting time on the web site Stumbleupon.com I came across an interesting article displaying images of other things that are the same distance from ground zero as the proposed mosque would be built. 

you can find this article at http://daryllang.com/blog/4421 

even though the things that this website displays aren't as controversial as a mosque, I believe that establishments like these (mainly the first two) should not be allowed near ground zero either.

Season finales

Cant believe the latest season of Entourage is coming to a close along with Hung and True Blood. Its crazy to think that Entourage is in its 7th season and sad to think that the 8th will most likely be the last. This season took us in a different but not so unfamiliar direction. Vincent Chase has developed a drug problem and has started to worry his group of friends. At first I thought it was dumb that this was happening this season but then I realized it wasn't dumb and started thinking why this hasn't happened sooner. Stars today are constantly getting in trouble with the party life of Hollywood which causes me to think, "what makes Vinny Chase any different?" Hopefully the outcome of the last episode will be a good one but will definitely leave us with a cliff hanger. Even though its disappointing to see the seasons end we can all look forward to the new season of East Bound and Down as well as the premiere of Boardwalk Empire and the second season of How to Make It In America.

New

Hey, never really used anything like this before but I'm excited to become efficient with it and explore its possibilities.