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.