Thursday, June 30, 2011

Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir, 1932)

Jean Renoir's satiric gutting of René Fauchois' play is one of the director's finest works, a biting work whose ambiguous target (does it ultimately side with individualist anarchy or bourgeois liberalism?) is less the result of an unfocused screenplay than an even-handed work of humanity. With roots in Herman Melville's similarly perplexing short story "Bartleby the Scrivener," Boudu Saved from Drowning is both an absurdist ode to rebellion and a sympathetic, even positive portrayal of goodness within the oblivious bourgeoisie.

The titular Boudu is the tramp qua tramps, played by that great beast Michel Simon of L'Atalante fame (or perhaps it's more accurate to say that Vigo's film later featured Simon of Boudu fame). Gigantic, scabrous, and stumbling in a way that suggests less habitual drunkenness than a body that infuses red blood cells with gin, Boudu is the Dionysian keeper of a park on the Seine. When his dog runs away, the distraught bum hurls himself off a bridge into the river, drawing a crowd of middle-class people who gasp and shriek but do nothing. It is up to a bourgeois man named Edouard Lestingois, who sees Boudu jump while mockingly watching the man through a telescope in his apartment, to run downstairs, across the street, down the bridge steps and finally, slowly leap to the man's rescue. Even the hero must maintain composure and be sure not to get all his nice clothes wet.

Renoir's framing of that save, at once suspenseful and comically protracted, defines Lestingois with almost no words: he is a kind man, unable to let Boudu drown as a crowd down below watches in a horror that turns to fascination, but he also adheres to his social status. He only sees the tramp in the first place because he people-watches for freaks, and his composed half-run across the street and slow walk down to the river show him valuing his image as much as this man's life. But no matter, bourgeois onlookers shower Edouard with praise even as he is still trying to revive Boudu, commending the man and promising him medals as he slaps the bum about the face to bring him back to consciousness. They don't particularly care about this hobo, only that Edouard did something interesting; Lestingois' own wife, Emma, seems to regard this beached, bearded beast as an inconvenience, only reluctantly lifting up his head when Edouard asks her to as he continues to perform exercises on Boudu.

Eventually, the man comes around, and a joyous Edouard takes the tramp into his home to clean him up, unconsciously following that proverb that whomsoever saves a life must continue to look after it. But Lestingois soon comes to regret that decision: Boudu, far from grateful or humbled by the rescue, brings his explosive temperament and anarchic habits into Edouard's home. He thanklessly tosses aside shirts he does not even try on before declaring they won't fit, spits on the floor and refuses to eat their meals, demanding simpler repast like sardines and bread. Later, forbidden to hock phlegm on the floor, Boudu slinks around a room looking for some salivary outlet, at last settling on the pages of a book by Balzac with a look of impish victory.

Like Bartleby, Boudu is wholly at odds with a modernizing, collectivizing society; he takes orders from no one, does not alter his ways and proves so immobile that even those who grow sick of his presence cannot seem to eject him from their lives. Edouard, like Melville's narrator, is weak and overly kind, never taking direct action with Boudu though he grumbles behind the tramp's back. Speaking with his wife after Boudu has become a poltergeist in their home, Lestingois says, "One should only come to the aid of one's equals," his sardonic tone not hiding how convinced of this statement he has become.

Renoir clearly delights in Boudu's unshakable primitivism: he suffuses a tracking shot of the man limping around the park with his uncynical grace, morphing a shot of this grotesque creature into a pure evocation of the park's warmth and idyll. In comparison, the camerawork in the apartment is more confined, mathematical. Renoir uses long shots that put window- and doorframes between the camera and the actors, constricting them further in the compartmentalized bourgeois world. In one masterful shot, Renoir places the camera outside several perfectly aligned doorways, peering into the deep background at the dinner table as the maid, Anne-Marie, gets up to go to the kitchen. Only when the camera tracks left with her movement to frame the young woman in two window sills does it become clear that Renoir was in another apartment across the way, emphasizing how cramped and conformist the bourgeois structure is.

The clear aesthetic preference for the open, inviting natural world stacks the film in Boudu's favor, but Renoir takes great pains to complicate Edouard. The first shot of the film, in fact, is a visualization of the man's unorthodox, almost pagan daydream, frolicking like wood nymphs with Anne-Marie, with whom he carries on an affair. That search for sexual rejuvenation shows how badly Lestingois wants to break out of his limiting social structure, a character revelation only deepened by his relationship with Boudu, who clearly tempts him on some level with his primal connection to the id. Yet he still follows convention and even bends Boudu into the bourgeoisie, or at least so he thinks.

Amazingly, this boisterously comic movie nearly sparked riots in Paris upon its release, though (according to Renoir and Simon) simply because Boudu ate with his hands. That is almost certainly an exaggeration, and even if it was the stated reason for disruption, the visceral French reaction against the film likely stems from its commentary on the prewar bourgeois values it exalted: Anne-Marie engages in an affair with Edouard because she sees it as her way of climbing the social ladder. Boudu is driven to throw himself off a bridge because the cops won't help him look for his dog, but a woman who comes along saying she can't find her 10,000-franc puppy draws damn near the whole precinct in a search. Emma, like the original audience, finds Boudu's unclean hands revolting, yet Boudu notes how much more disgusting it is to spit and sneeze into a handkerchief and then place the mucus-soaked rag back in one's pocket for decorum.

Boudu is so utterly offensive to middle-class, socialized tastes, so outside norms, that one soon discovers he is not rebelling against convention so much as entirely removed from it. A condescending woman has her child give him five francs at the start of the film, which confuses him as money has no value to the man who only needs to beg a sandwich off someone to be happy. When a wealthy man pulls up in a car, Boudu hands him the fiver sarcastically but also reveals that money is not a concept he particularly understands or cares about. And when the tramp briefly adopts bourgeois attitudes late in the film, he does so solely to mess with the middle-class, seducing Lestingois' wife and wooing Anne-Marie as well when he wins a lottery.

But in the end, Boudu has the last laugh over his saviors, capsizing a boat at his wedding, dumping the party into the river as he suddenly displays the ability to swim and flees from the middle-class life he seemed to have in the bag, a complete reversal of the traditional ending of the play. Eager to get out of his bourgeois trappings, the soaked Boudu grabs the clothes off a scarecrow, but the savior imagery of the Christ-posed scarecrow does not entirely suggest the bum is a deliverance figure for the trapped bourgeoisie. It's just as easy to feel relief for the Lestingois family at being free of the man, but as Renoir's satire closes, it's clear that Boudu has shown them the true worth of the foundation of their lives, decent as these people may be.

Congratulations to Mr. & Mrs. Gaylor


Our friends, Christie & Jimi got married over the weekend in Duck Key, Florida. They had a beautiful wedding and we wish them a happy & joyous marriage. I wish we could have been there.
Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. Gaylor.



Gatul ma tii !!!


Ghost Town - Morganville Vampires Book 9 Review


Claire: Brat.
Michael: That's no way to talk to a vampire.
Claire. Bloodsucking brat.
Michael: Better.
***
Shane: Hey, Mikey, you get her (Claire) hurt and I'll end you.
Michael: You let anything happen to Eve  and I'll do the same.  While you're at it, don't get yourself killed, either, bro.
Shane: Ditto and don't kiss me.

Exciting, thrilling, amazing.

Book 9 in the Morganville Series did not disappoint. It kept me at the edge of my seat. SPOILER ALERT: Everyone caught amnesia and the pain of having someone you love not know who you are was very imminent.

I love how this book was written. Claire was practically the only one who didn't get amnesia and therefore, the only one who could save everyone and she had to fight her way through all the obstacles.

Another exciting find in this book is Oliver and Amelie. I won't give it away but it tickles my fancy (haha). It was very brief but I love it :)

Finally, when true love is at hand, no matter if they couldn't remember each other, the four characters, Shane, Claire, Michael, and Eve stayed by each other's side and watched each other's backs and felt the same affection before they lost their memories.

Advice Column #1

me-advice.jpg

Dilemma: I really like this guy. We started hanging out two months ago. I have a ton of fun with him and his family but I am afraid of screwing things up. I am also afraid that he won't feel the same way. He laughs at everything I say and tends to touch me and joke with me a lot. You know how us girls start to make simple things a big deal when we like someone. Lastly, him and his family are going with us to vacation in Europe. I'm scared!

Dear European Traveler:
   First of all, when things get "screwed up" in a relationship, it's not just one person's fault. "It takes two to make mistakes in a relationship." I truly believe that quote because in my one and only past relationship, we both did things that obviously made the other upset. We both could have fixed things but chose not to. Bottom line, if things don't work out, don't blame yourself.
   Now, as far as where this is going, I'm not sure how you approach guys, but I personally just wait until they make a move. Hints aren't going to cut it. Guys (as well as girls) can't leave it to the other person to assume how they feel. If he really likes you, he would find a way to tell you and maybe pursue something more than friendship.
   As with the laughing and joking, that's pretty normal. The touching, I think that's a bit more cultural. Not sure about your culture, but in some, it's pretty normal.
   Lastly, going to Europe with both of your families, that can put a little bit of pressure if you want it to. But if you just act natural, and relax a little bit, things would be okay. Just focus on enjoying your vacation and less on analyzing him. It's much more fun that way in my opinion.



Quote of the Day: "I will listen to more than the words being spoken to me... listen for the heart expression... search out their meaning, and then speak from my own heart." --Dance While You Can

Justin Bieber Without Music Genre

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Justin still thinking hard about his new album. Even his confession, he had prepared a lot of things, writing songs and playing acoustic guitar that is stored on his laptop.

This is the answer to whether Justin preparing the next album? Maybe if you guys lovers Bieber, then the nice thing, the next album had prepared as hard as possible. ''I want to work a lot for yourself. I write his own songs. I will work with many producers,''I Bieber told reporters.

Although not yet disclosed what kind of album that was working on, he asserts, his music has no genre. Not included in any existing genre. Or conversely, he frees kepaa anyone to put his music into any genre. ''I just want to play music,''he concluded
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Surfing in Surga Beach Beautiful Calm nan

Synonyms And Synoyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
ENJOY the long school holidays will be fun if you go through with interesting activities. One of them, a trip to the beach. Paradise beach, located in East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara can be reverensinya.

As the name implies, Paradise beach, a tourist attraction unspoiled beaches. Because not many tourists know its location. Trips to the beach which is located in the Gulf Ekas, East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara can be a trigger spirit.

Towards Paradise Beach need not struggle a bit, because the path to it is difficult to take. The roads are many cavities, broken, and muddy in the rainy season.

When I got there, tired and weary will pay off with beautiful beaches lost Heaven. Do not imagine palm trees and the breeze alone, lapping waves were too fierce. As well as having a strong wind.

However, the beach is being looked into by the surfers who are looking alleys and hills to ride the waves. Most tourists who come here are foreign tourists. They hire big cars to get through the damaged roads.

The atmosphere of these attractions was calm, quiet, natural, no hawkers who offer goods on tourists. There was only the roar of the waves and bird sounds great-grandchildren shouted.

First, the average tourist who are also surfers still stay at home resident or anyone brought a tent and sleeping hammocks hanging from wear.

Fortunately, now there are still a bit despite lodging. Approximately 20 rooms that include five rooms around the coast of Heaven (Hamlet scarf Slag), 15 room approximately 1 km to the north of the beach, located on the hill.

If you stand on this hill above the beach of Heaven, and saw the cluster of hills stretching from north to west bay Ekas, like watching a girl lay sleeping.

There's more, on that hill, we could see the sun rise against the background of Mount Rinjani. Travelers can also stop by the house residents to weave a variety of rattan products or skinfold (type of grass that propagates in the tree).
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Enchantment of the Sumur Tiga Sabang Beach The Exotic

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Sabang Island, Aceh was sprinkled with beauty. Many attractions located on the island nautical miles Indonesia is zero. One of the Three Wells beach, white sandy beaches exotic.

Being on the beach during the day, we will be greeted by a stunning natural painting. Legal visit there some time ago. Sprawling blue sea in front of the eyes, shimmering sun drenched afternoon. Meriaki white clouds blue sky.

Sea-scented breeze shaking the palm trees that line the foothills that follows the coast. On a hill a few bungalows terpacak pile-pacak in between coconut trees grow irregular.

Spending a vacation to the beach was really fun. Three wells are one of the beaches into tourist destination abroad in Sabang. Beauty that makes many travelers fall in love with this beach.

Adequate facilities at this beach. In addition to a number of bungalows which are ready available for lodging, a restaurant with exotic shades are also available. Constructed of wood restaurant is built on a pile of the hill, is available from the menu and abroad.

We can enjoy the scenery and distant sea breeze with relaxing under an umbrella while tasting menus are available. Or sit back on the porch bungalow.

Strains of coconut leaves, waves, birds chirping Meandering enough to make you feel peace in serenity.

The beach is beautiful it's not complete if you do not go threw the body into the water, enjoying the waves. Three wells are also very suitable for the location of the baths. Waves were not so vicious and pulled at this location there are also coral reefs, with the presence of colorful fish.

Three wells beach can be reached only approximately 10 minutes from Sabang. Public transportation here is public transportation, which can in message anytime. Travel to Sabang itself can be reached from the port of Ulee Lheu, Banda Aceh. From there, ferry boats KMP BRR and two fast boats ready to take you to the island of Sabang.
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Rossi: Replace Motor Right Decision

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Surprisingly Ducati uses a new motor in the Circuit Assen. Valentino Rossi assess the decisions made are very precise.

As reported earlier, Ducati was a surprise Rossi replace old motors with new motors and named GP11.1. Actually, the chassis is intended for MotoGP 2012.

Actually, Rossi was not too good performance. Although managed to finish in fourth position, but the former Repsol Honda and Yamaha star was lagging about 30 seconds from the Dutch MotoGP winner, Ben Spies in the race.

Although the performance of the chassis 2012 that is still using 800cc machines do not give keuntunga, but Rossi is confident the decision to replace the old motor with GP11.1 a very appropriate decision.

"It is a very appropriate decision, we had to. With the increase in motor performance GP11.1, then our distance with the top drivers are not too far," said Rossi told Motorsprint on Thursday (30/06/2011).

"The new motor is a rapid progress. For example, the rear tire is more stable and the gearbox is an advantage. We can tell you the legend of the old Ducati rear tire is gone," said the Italian racer.
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Microsoft Reveals A Terrifying Virus

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Microsoft has just discovered a new computer virus is so dangerous, the user must reinstall the operating system, if the infected computer.

As quoted from TechEYE, Wednesday (29/06/2011), trojan named 'Popureb' was dug so deep that attacked system. One way to recover is to reinstall the computer operating system.

Chun Feng who wrote in the Microsoft Malware Protection, said that if the user's operating system hit by Trojan attacks: Win32/Popureb.E, it is advisable to immediately fix the Master Boot Record (MBR) and use the recovery CD to restore the infected system.

Trojan attack Popured MBR hard-drive, the first sector where the code is stored to help the system operational, after the BIOS on the computer doing its start-up check. This Trojan is not detected by the operating system as well as by any security software.

This means if the computer is infected, then the operation of the computer still seems to work, but new data will not be written on the hard drive.
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Indonesia Sign Countries Prone Paralyzed since Asteroid

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Developed countries like the United States and Britain cited as areas that will experience the worst impacts of asteroids in case of attack. But do not be too quick to feel relieved, the article of Indonesia are also included in the 10 countries with the worst impact.

Thus the results of the study researchers from the University of Southampton reported by the Daily Mail, Thursday (06/30/2011). In conducting the study, researchers used the software NEOimpactor, or project of NASA's Near Earth Object.

For the first time, scientists identify any countries that will experience the worst impacts of asteroids in the attack, which makes them 'lame' and almost impossible to return to normal.

Based on these studies, the ten states with the greatest risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, USA, Philippines, Italy, Britain, Brazil and Nigeria.

China, Indonesia, U.S., India and Japan face the risk of loss of population in large numbers. While the countries with the threat of major damage to its infrastructure is the U.S., China, Japan, Sweden, plus Canadians who do not fit in the top 10.

The research was conducted following the threat of asteroids that occurred early last week when a rock the size of two buses passed by Earth at a distance of approximately 12 thousand kilometers. Until a few days before the asteroid passed by Earth, astronomers had thought that it was just a foreign object space junk.

"The risk of asteroid collisions with Earth are increasingly viewed as the greatest natural disaster that can be faced by human civilization. The consequences of human population and infrastructure of the disaster is enormous," said Nick Bailey of the University of Southampton.

"Nearly 100 years ago, a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest impact of an asteroid collision in history, when a small object with a diameter of 50 meters exploded in the air," he continued.

"Fortunately, the asteroid crashed in uninhabited jungle areas. But if it exploded over London, the asteroid could destroy everything," added Bailey.

According to data DailyGalaxy.com, it takes the asteroid with a diameter greater than 12 miles (19 312 128 meters) to completely destroy all plants and animals on earth.

Asteroids such as that allegedly had destroyed the lives of dinosaurs and other ancient creatures 65 million years ago.
By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Michael Bay, 2011)

If there is any sliver of decency in this universe, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the third entry in the most crass, vile and offensive big-budget franchise in Hollywood history will be its last. If it is any better than the series' previous installment, that is only because it sublimates its racial, gender, political and aesthetic travesties into an even longer, more interminable celebration of reactionary ideals. For a series predicated on the idea that some things are more than meets the eye, the Transformers movies represent one of the least varied, consistently shallow sagas to ever hit the big screen: Transformers 3, like its predecessors, is a masturbatory affair, perhaps even more so than the execrable Revenge of the Fallen. Whatever shred of humanity existed in these films is obliterated, leaving only an unadulterated tribute to He-Man masculinity in response to hysterical conservative perceptions of the Obama era.

Sam (Shia LaBeouf, whose increasingly greasy look in each film he does suggests he hasn't showered since Even Stevens got canceled) saved the world and brokered an alliance between man and Autobot, but no one will give him a job out of Ivy League college. The poor guy has to settle for an absurdly large D.C. apartment and being supported by his disposable new girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), whose car-collecting boss, Dylan (Patrick Dempsey), openly flirts with her in front of Sam, further emasculating our hero. Compounded by the American government having locked Sam out from communicating with the Autobots, he needs a complete world invasion of Decepticons to let him prove his manhood, raising the question of just how many people need to die for Shia LaBeouf to feel comfortable about his dick size.

The film opens with the most crass, avaricious distortion of historical footage since Forrest Gump to turn the moon landing, a genuinely awe-inspiring event that continues to provoke wonder and human pride today, into a front for investigating a spaceship crash. Turns out, Prime's predecessor, Sentinel, crash-landed on the Moon 40 years ago, carrying with him an important weapon that would have decided the Civil War on Cybertron. Now, the Autobots must retrieve the deactivated Sentinel Prime and the device before Decepticons discover the ship.

That's all the plot background you need, really. However, those who continue to absolve Bay as someone who caters to experience over story sure are ignoring the endless pile-ons of narrative threads and convolutions that affect all the Transformers films but this 155-minute slog most of all. Dark of the Moon is really no different from its predecessor, only bigger. But that increase is all proportional, so while the climactic war for Earth might be on a larger scale than what came before it, it takes up about the same percentage of screen time.

Ergo, we get more individualist hokum as all government officials are yet again portrayed as feckless, spineless bureaucrats holding back Sam and the Autobots from getting the job done. We also have to sit through Sam's usual relationship drama, albeit this time with a character simply dropped into the franchise and given no development; Bay's idea of character establishment for Carly is a tracking shot closed in on H-W's ass as she walks up a staircase to greet Sam. And we also get endless exposition, told-not-shown mythology for a bunch of goddamn toys that eats up at good hour and a half of the 2.5-hour movie.

Bay might have subtracted some of the more onerous aspects of Revenge of the Fallen, but he's only found all-new ways to make the same dumb movie. Bay frames so many shots from low angles that after a certain point it seems less an affectation to stress the heroic properties of the Autobots and Americans than the result of getting rid of the tripod for budget reasons. The 3D looks good but is still nothing more than an add-on, and one can only make out snippets of stereoscopic depth because of the usual editing and compositional clumsiness. In fairness, Bay does lengthen the shots, though it seems the average shot length of his action moments has gone from .8 seconds to one whole second. (An integer? Oh, Mr. Bay, you spoil us with your 24 frames!) And when a shot is held for one of a seemingly unending series of slo-mo shots, the constantly moving parts of incoherently smashed together Transformers turn what are meant to be moments of gasp-inducing wonder into headache-causing confusion. ILM had their job cut out for them with Tranformers, animating hundreds of moving parts on each robot, but I've come to regard their work as something similar to overzealous scientists in outbreak movies: they were all so eager to see if they could make something so frame-collapsingly complicated that they never bother to ask if they should.

Even by Bay's standards, the disregard for acting here is horrific. Huntington-Whiteley makes Megan Fox look like Meryl Streep: she says her lines as if reading cue cards without her contacts in. I'm worried about sounding paternalistic here, but frankly, this isn't her fault. She has no experience and no charisma, but that's what Bay wanted, and it's not like she has much of worth to say anyway. Bay met her while shooting Victoria's Secret commercials, and this may be the first case where more was demanded from her for a lingerie shoot than acting in a big-budget film: the women in Axe Body Spray commercials have more meaningful lines than Huntington-Whiteley does here. Saying she should have known she was just there to be hot and to get suitably dirtied up is akin to saying she was "asking for it," and at this point I feel sorry for anyone who has to work with both Bay and LaBeouf.

Besides, why pick on her when she appears in a film with a whole host of people who ought to know better? Frances McDormand and John Malkovich join fellow Coens alum John Turturro, who unfortunately returns once more to speed-talk his way through pompous, histrionic lines. Malkovich coasts on autopilot, taking off from his forcefully smug condescension to reach a cruising altitude at manically infatuated with robots. McDormand's performance is better, but she fares worse for being the bureaucratic punching-bag who keeps a leash around the Transformers' wrecking-ball testicles until she realizes that she should have let them run rampant after all. Ken Jeong appears to add another Asian stereotype to his C.V., also hinting at aggressive homosexuality for a couple more yuks. The best actor here is Buzz Aldrin, brought out of retirement to excuse Bay's tacky appropriation of one of the true feats of American exceptionalism. Aldrin, a true American hero who has experienced the true awe of space travel and exploring the unknown, has to paint a look of overwhelmed reverence on his face to talk to a pocket of air to later be filled in by an unimaginatively humanoid alien. Now that is a performance.

And so, Dark of the Moon is another arduous foray up Bay's vas deferens, a wantonly destructive paean to distorted, boot-in-your-ass American shit-kickerism. Autobots never fight more than 50 yards away from a American flag billowing behind them, and they even seem content to kill Arabs for Uncle Sam. Hell, Megatron, who keeps coming back from total annihilation because the source material has a dearth of other standout villains, even wanders around the desert wearing a cowl over his half-destroyed, almost leprotic face like an Arab terrorist organizing a sleeper strike. And finally, we have Sentinel Prime, the revived Autobot leader who clearly becomes an Obama stand-in, surrendering to our enemies. Of course, the only group to whom Obama has actually capitulated are Republicans, but Bay paints Sentinel as a weak appeaser letting terrorists come in and destroy the world just so he can say he brokered a deal for the greater good.

Bay loves a good apocalypse under Democratic presidents, forcibly tearing apart any liberal globalism so America alone can triumph in the end and prove reactionary politics the only true virtue. Of course, in real life, America flourished in peacetime under Clinton and Obama had bin Laden shot in the face, while Bay has done nothing more than make obscenely expensive, morally bankrupt commercials for General Motors. So let me modify an earlier statement with its obvious true meaning: the human race does not face extinction so Sam Witwicky can feel better about his masculinity but so Michael Bay can feel like a big man. Like Bill O'Reilly, who appears in the film, Bay is loud, obnoxious, and posturing; he uses the achievements of others to promote his own cult of personality and disguise how little individual might he truly demonstrates. In a sense, Dark of the Moon stands as Bay's masterpiece, the auterist statement to make irrelevant the idea of auterism as the predominant measuring stick for film as an art form. It is the Tree of Life of shit, a career-summarizing monument that definitively proves Michael Bay is not merely an awful director but a repugnant human being.



Addendum 6/30: The more I think about this film, the more I find it incredibly disturbing that the carnage of the final act, in which Chicago (incidentally Barack Obama's home turf) is ripped apart by Decepticons in the absence of Autobots, who essentially hide to teach humans a lesson about not respecting them. Tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people die, just so we'll appreciate our robo-allies. That is profoundly messed up.

Selena Gomez - Normal Teen

Yesterday (I think), I was browsing my YouTube subscriptions and there was a new video from Selena Gomez called "Meeting Shia." It was very short and sweet. It was a true proof that Selena is just like any other fan when meeting her celebrity crush. It was so refreshing to see her reaction! I love her for that :)

Outfit of the Day - 06/29/2011

I'm feeling good about these outfits and faces of the day. Today, I am wearing a pop of color. I was going to wear sneakers but when I noticed, I was already on my way down the stairs, and I didn't feel like changing anymore! Sorry if my makeup is kind of hard to distinguish. I just did a natural look today.

Hope you like it :)



Quote of the Day: "I WILL TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for my reactions to people and stop blaming others for how I am feeling. I WILL KEEP SILENT when the opportunity comes to talk behind someone else's back." --Dance While You Can

Top 10 Award

I would like to thank GraceyCandice, and Lilley for giving me this award. If you all haven't seen their blog, click their name. :)

One of the rules is I have to tell you 10 of my favorite products. I'm not a BIG makeup person, so this will be a mix of everything.
1) BH Cosmetics 24/7 Liner
Bhcosmetics BH Cosmetics 24/7 Eye Liner
2) Clean & Clear Finishes Mattifying Moisturizer
3) Sigma Travel E25 brush for blending
4) Lindt Truffles
5) Bath and Body Works lotions
6) L'Oreal Telescopic Mascara
7) NYX Luscious Green Nail Polish
8) Santee Silky Brown Nail Polish
9) Pink Canon SD1400 IS Camera
10) Vampire Series
  

Lastly, the 10 bloggers I pick for this award:

Check out their blogs, they are really awesome! :)

Bringing Up Baby (Howard Hawks, 1938)

One of the chief reasons Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby is the king of the screwball comedies because it never stops. It has a straight man in Cary Grant's hysterically put-upon paleontologist, but no one in the movie is at all normal. Hawks himself later criticized this after the film proved, amazingly, to be a complete flop, saying he should have had at least one person acknowledge the lunacy and provide some kind of sanity anchor. But that's what makes the movie so great: it never steps outside itself to note how ridiculous (and downright naughty) everything is.

Some of the first lines of the film are pure innuendo, showing Grant's David Huxley, framed in an unflattering, goofy Thinker pose trying to figure out where a brontosaurus bone goes and telling his fiancé "I think this one must belong in the tail." "Nonsense," she says, "you tried it in the tail yesterday." This sets the ball rolling on a flagrantly sexual movie that inverts gender roles, making Grant the creepily stalked object of affection of Katharine Hepburn, who flashes into the movie like a firecracker and only gets more spectacular from there. While David is out playing golf to woo a potential museum investor, Hepburn's Susan walks up and plays his ball. Then, she drives off in his car, dragging him along on the running boards. Take a deep breath, this is as calm as the film gets.

Grant had already established his comic persona that would serve him well for the remainder of his career, but he still plays entirely against type here. He's so good at being clumsy, using his acrobatic talents for the first time in film in service to magnificent pratfalls, that it's easy to forget that this is Cary Grant, sexiest man who ever lived and a powerhouse leading man. He submits entirely to Hepburn, who has never seemed more masculine despite the absence of her usual suits. Hepburn is the aggressor, sizing up the bumbling paleontologist and seeing that beneath his obscuring spectacles and stick-up-his-ass gait, he is indeed Cary Grant. Naturally, she'd like a piece of that, so she begins contriving wilder and wilder reasons to keep David from his wedding to the frigidly, ironically named Miss Swallow (who almost certainly has no idea what her surname references and would be appalled if she did).

The titular Baby of the film is not, as one might have guessed, a human child but a tame leopard Susan's brother sent back from Brazil for their aunt, the same patron considering the donation to David's museum. Before long, the whole world's gone mad, with David and Susan chasing around their leopard; another, far less agreeable one they let out of a zoo truck under the impression it's Baby; and George, Aunt Elizabeth's dog, who steals the brontosaurus bone David has with him and buries it. All the while, Susan's antics attract attention and her lies grow more and more fanciful.

Hepburn and Grant had already co-starred in two films, the even more gender-bending Sylvia Scarlett and the commercially disappointing but critically lauded Holiday, and they had another coming in 1940's The Philadelphia Story. Their familiarity each other makes for intense chemistry, even as both convince the audience they've never met before in this movie. By the same token, Hawks incorporates enough self-reflexivity—Susan using Grant's character name from The Awful Truth to identify him in an elaborate lie to the cops, the use of the star dog Asta for George—that the look of knowing on Susan's face from the moment she sets eyes on David suggests she has some of her actor's awareness. As fast as the film moves, the actors needed that past working relationship to let them feel so believably attracted. It's difficult to describe how the movie builds their romance even as it never flags, something the film itself points out when David says, "It isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you. But, well, there haven't been any quiet moments."

Not quite as fast-paced as Hawks' own His Girl Friday, Bringing Up Baby nevertheless feels the most breakneck of the screwballs even as it is also one of the most carefully composed. Obviously, it takes skill to move at this speed, but that wouldn't automatically make it good: think of all those showboating heavy metal guitarists who wow everyone by playing arpeggios over, and over, and over. Like, yeah, great, you can do scales, now when are you gonna be a big boy and write something? Bringing Up Baby doesn't simply assume that by pushing forward it is funny. It relies on a perfect cast of loony characters* to complement Grant and Hepburn, who crucially play their roles with conviction. Hepburn purportedly did not realize the importance of this at first, overselling her lines because she was in a comedy, but Grant, by then a close friend, set her straight**. If Bringing Up Baby is a film where no one is a reasonable, sensible human being, it is also one where everyone in it likes to think himself reasonable and sensible. That, fundamentally, is why it remains one of the most enduringly funny comedies more than 70 years after its release.

*My favorite side player is Walter Catlett's Constable Slocum, a bumbling sheriff so forgetful he finds himself in pleasant chats with those he seeks to arrest, only to snap back to reality and explode in rage at having been "duped" into treating the perps with pleasantries.
**For a far more thorough account of Hepburn's on-set evolution, read this piece by Sheila O'Malley.

Brian De Palma: The Bonfire of the Vanities

Brian De Palma may be perennially mistreated by a Hollywood that doesn't fully understand where he's coming from, yet I don't know of many directors who have been given so many chances to lose his backers' money. By this stage in his own career, John Carpenter had been all but finished by an industry tiring of his diminishing returns, but De Palma was on just on the cusp of being a validated mainstream filmmaker despite his box office receipts: he'd been given a glamorous gangster picture and a moralizing war film, both of which he infused with his own film-school geekdom even as he demonstrated an ability to play by Hollywood's rules. Having established himself as the '70s film-school leftover best-suited to the decade he'd already mocked with Scarface and Body Double, he finally had his chance to climb to the top.

The Bonfire of the Vanities is the apex of the director's late-'80s rise to prominence within the industry, and damn near the nadir of his career. To be clear, it is not as awful as legend would have you believe, or at least, it isn't to me as I've yet to read Tom Wolfe's source novel. I have actually come across some people who not only defend this film but say they prefer it to the book. If that is true, Wolfe's novel must be a real piece of shit. For even without the knowledge of the book's full contents, De Palma's fiasco feels so incomplete and haphazard it's a wonder the director only realized the problems in retrospect.

If Wolfe's roman Ă  clef was meant to be a detailed account of '80s New York in all its schismatic glory, highlighting the split between the budding Wall Street aristocracy and the terror of crack-ridden streets below the high-rise apartments, De Palma's film paints broad strokes of weak satire. No, that's not right; the film only softens one side of the dichotomy between wealthy, oblivious whites and impoverished minorities. Which side gets it easier in the eyes of majority-baiting Hollywood? Oh, take a wild guess.

Tom Hanks, not yet moved beyond his lighthearted comic image, plays Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street investor who makes millions by the minute and enjoys living the life of luxury. Hanks, only a few years out from his dramatic breakthroughs in Philadelphia and Forrest Gump, occasionally flashes an edge that he could have brought to the fore had the screenplay wanted him to truly delve into the seedier aspects of a Wall Street player. Instead, the film uses Hanks' comic charm, portraying him as out-of-touch but not particularly loathsome in any capacity, despite his general celebration of his garish lifestyle and infidelity with a Southern gold digger named Maria (Melanie Griffith). Even when the two accidentally drive into a crime-ridden area of South Bronx and run over one of two black men who accost them, the film does its best to absolve Sherman while placing any blame for the racist and classist attitudes brought up in the hit-and-run squarely on the shoulders of Maria, caricatured out of human recognition into a whining harpy.

This simplified satire might have worked had the same humanizing effect been given to the other half of the film's overview of New York. Instead, poor Sherman, in the wrong place at the wrong time, runs into the undiluted fury of the poor and minority bloc of the city, their grandiose anger exposing hypocrisies and self-defeating extremism while the privileged enjoy a charmed interpretation of white-collar oblivion. The caricature of Al Sharpton, Reverend Bacon, borders on the racist, with De Palma's low-angle shots of bulging eyes and flaring nostrils nearly framing actor John Hancock in minstrel poses.

Bacon rails against the notion of the unidentified driver of a Mercedes getting away with the cops' indifference, rightly noting that they wouldn't just drop the case if some black driver had run over a middle-class white family. But like Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, Bacon is as much a self-promoter as he is a civic crusader, and he clearly plays up for the cameras to make himself the focal point of the manipulated outrage. But he's successful, and soon he's got Weiss (F. Murray Abraham), the D.A. looking to for a way to win the minority vote after prosecuting minorities overwhelmingly, quaking in his suit. Abraham removed his name from the billing over a contract dispute, but part of me wonders if he did so after reflecting on his performance. If Hancock must make out the leaders of the black community to be nothing more than charlatans looking to crucify a white devil to maintain their stats, Abraham plays Weiss as a flagrant Jewish stereotype, greedily hunting power and also looking for a way to get one up over on the WASPs. When Bacon accuses him of letting the wealthy white go unpunished, Weiss frets over being seen as a "hymie racist pig," then muses aloud how the Italians, Irish and WASPs will love to see him squirm.

Obviously, this is satire, but it's paper-thin, and De Palma inserts nothing to offset the racist view of the city's minorities being wholly self-serving. Instead of flecking human beings with ironies and contradictions, he presents two-dimensional caricatures with comedy that isn't funny enough to absolve the troubling simplicity of their ethnic identities. Pointing out the class blindness that affects the underclass is a perfectly valid criticism, but here the blacks and Latinos come off as nothing more than a mob looking for a white scapegoat. And even when De Palma finally gets down to going after the elites—presenting them as entertained by Sherman's connection to such a pedestrian crime like Roman nobles approvingly watching enslaved gladiators torn to ribbons—he still lets Sherman almost completely off the hook. At the ridiculous trial that closes the film (presided over a black judge instead of the book's Jewish one so as to make Sherman's acquittal seem victorious rather than proof of the system stacked against non-whites), poor, frail Sherman is framed against a screaming, hissing, even singing (hymns, natch) crowd of the poor and pigmentally varied. Whether the De Palma meant it or not, and the swelling, unironic strings that accompany the verdict suggest at least someone did, the audience is meant to root for McCoy to get off Scot-free.

This is all bad enough, but various other additions weigh down the film in subtler ways. The film nearly approaches cleverness when Sherman attends a performance of Don Giovanni and clearly sees himself in the character, a point De Palma then drives him with a sledgehammer, ruining the one good part of the film. Bruce Willis, foisted upon De Palma and a noted pain on-set, plays the alcoholic reporter Peter Fallow, who desperately launches the hit-and-run case to give himself a popular story to justify the paychecks he drinks every day. Whatever role Fallow played in Wolfe's novel, he has no reason to exist here, and De Palma must resort to a framing device that awkwardly inserts him into the movie so Willis can deliver stiff voiceovers in that noncommittal drone of his.

The Bonfire of the Vanities is so clumsy that even the moments of pure De Palma fail to add some life into the film. A swirling overhead shot of Sherman and a coworker is an ingenious touch that makes great use of the striking floor design, but it only goes to show how little time the director spends in Sherman's corporate world. A split-screen between Bacon's self-aggrandizing harangues and a changing right image first showing an amused Fallow looking on then a nervous Weiss watching on TV feels like someone trying to ape De Palma with no regard for composition or juxtaposition. Even the elaborate, wildly entertaining tracking shot that opens the film, following Fallow as he arrives for a speaking engagement through the underground of a complex past admirers and pack reporters, fails to maintain its power when placed in context with the rest of the movie. When the film soon moves completely away from Fallow for an hour, the shot, maybe even Fallow's entire presence in the film, seems a self-serving addition.

After filming completed and The Bonfire of the Vanities went out to a critical and commercial savaging, De Palma finally admitted his error, even letting Julie Salamon come in and write a tell-all on the film's troubled production. I want to read that book as much as Wolfe's source novel: even a basic summary suggests studio tampering, uncooperative stars and wasteful expenditures. But hell, all of that is visible on the screen. It is stunning that a filmmaker as radical (aesthetically and politically) could make a film so firmly reactionary in its ultimate absolution of the luxury class—compare the subverted race roles of the "Be Black, Baby" segment of Hi, Mom! to the clearly demarcated racial cartoons drawn here. Almost as unforgivable, it's one of the director's dullest films. Even the "punchline"-lacking Untouchables (to take a page from Pauline Kael) felt more alive than this.

The only good thing I can say about The Bonfire of the Vanities is that it sports simply one of the greatest shots to ever appear in a De Palma film, a perfectly, almost freakishly timed shot of a Concorde jet landing at sunset as the landing strip aligns perfectly with the descending orb. It is a stunning, arduously planned moment, and it's the best indication of how much better the film might have been had De Palma and his crew been given a better cast and screenplay. From what I can tell, a more accurate representation of Wolfe's novel might have been right up De Palma's alley; he would have delighted in tearing everything apart. Instead, he made by far his most reactionary film, a lighthearted spoof of the upper class and a vicious portrayal of the poor and disenfranchised. Had De Palma not made his mea culpa later, I might have thought he did this on purpose; his other big Hollywood spectacle, The Untouchables, is also conservative. But even the wide berth I give to De Palma's irony has its limits, and if The Bonfire of the Vanities was meant to be as bad as it is, well, mission accomplished.

Violenta


In timp ce tipi la prietenul tau, alta isi doreste sa-i sopteasca la ureche. In timp ce il insulti, alta il curteaza si ii reaminteste ca e un barbat de isprava. In timp ce il lovesti , alta ar vrea sa il iubeasca. In timp ce l faci sa planga ,alta ii fura zambete!!!!!!!.
Pune asta pe peretele tau si fii contra violentei domestice!
Acest text trebuie luat ca un pamflet si lupta pentru egalitatea intre sexe.Pentru ca am vazut si barbati batuti de femei.:))

SMASH And Their Girlfriends

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Since the increased popularity of Smash, seven men from Bandung was the idol of the young women. Not infrequently from fans saying they want to be close to even be a lover of one of its personnel. But what about the actual status of the personnel Smash? Is it true that they cover the story of his love to still be stocking charm with fans?

The question was denied by Bisma and others. They were never seen together because no lover wants to combine work and her love affairs. "Sometimes if you want to work invites pity as he's also afraid of having to waiting for work but nevertheless try to balance it," said Bisma.

Bisma, Reza, Ilham and Dicky currently is undergoing an affair with a girl whose identity has not wanted them for the public. But Rafael, Rangga and Morgan admits she still comfortably busy themselves with their current job. "Now was I, Rangga and Morgan again focus at work so do not want thinking about it first,
collect money just for marriage," said Rafael
 By. Synonyms And Synonyms

Men Hate When Women Do This

Synonyms And Synonyms
Synonyms And Synonyms
Women with wide hips, breasts and buttocks plump able to make men crazy. But actually there are some behaviors that women make men crazy, in the negative category. What?

Men want women to understand that they do not like the habits that was launched following Sheknows.

Obsessed with weight

Men do not understand why women are so obsessed with weight. For men, when you lead a healthy lifestyle and maintain food intake that was enough. Not a few men who actually shake their heads every woman analyze the shape of her body in front of the mirror for too long because not long ago was just a pack of ice cream.

"I hate it when the wife starts complaining about her body. I'll leave the room," said Nick (30).

gossip

The love to get together with girlfriends, it's hard to leave behind the woman. Unfortunately, most of us even ended gossip about others-men do not see this as something to be proud of.

captious

Fault-finding is one behavior that is very unpopular man. Not only do we have disrupted the couple, but when the carping began to emerge that the signals we do not believe in the ability of listening partner.

Better, tell your partner what are the benefits if he does what you ask for, rather than remind him of her anger over 16 times per minute. Explain why the action is important and how you will be disappointed if he did not.

Angry and silent

Although he was smart enough to shut down did not say anything, but this action will only make your partner angry. The man became frustrated when you squelched.

"Why my wife does not say just what he wants, instead of not picking up the phone and did not reply to Easy Street," explained Vic (31).

If you do not talk about the problem, then the problem will get solved Suli. So talk!
By. Synonyms And Synonyms