I love my family. They are the highlight of my life. I don't know where I would be without them. My mom especially. She has done so much for me. She gave birth to me. She feeds me. Tonight I have spent the evening with them and have been nothing but a pain, I'm sure. Right now they are watching "Tangled" which is a great movie. I'm just too tired and want to get some homework done. Plus, I don't own a car at the moment. Some old people drove into me. Not very cool, but at least I'm alive. I am looking to find a rental car, but everywhere I look you have to be 21 or older. Usually at least 24. What is that? Age discrimination? I think so.

Anyway. This September, I would really like to rent a house with a couple friends. Maybe that would work. We'll see what God has in store.

I am quite sore. My back feels all knotted up. I think its from the accident. Ive had back problems for a while. I need to see a chiropractor. I know I'll end up seeing one. But I need a car! On a side note, our party was off the hook! Great time!

Casting- A Hard Thing To Do.

I can now understand why a Casting Director for film or theater is a highly paid position. Let me explain.

Yesterday as I mentioned, we had auditions for the Shoreline Shorts. For those who don't know the Shoreline Shorts are student written, student acted, and student directed stage plays all wrapped up into one fantastic evening of theater. Anyway about 15 girls auditioned for it. Out of these 15 girls, it is up to me to choose 2. Never thought it would be so difficult. On the way to school this morning I was thinking how hard it would be to narrow down from 100 people. So my respect for the casting directors everywhere has grown significantly.

In other news, this morning we had to do a scene in acting class. It was only a 5 minute scene but for some reason it was quite hard. I kept fucking up the lines. It didn't help that my partner also kept getting out of it, but that's no excuse. I must learn to deal with that as an actor. I don't know if I even have talent. That's the thing. I must realize whether or not I can pursue this as a career. I hope God will give me hope and guidance throughout the year, and perhaps allow me to see things clearly.

Relationships... Why Bother?

So, I haven't written a blog in almost a year now, but I feel like this would be a great creative source to let things go. Let go of a lot of stress and other emotional ties that come with being a young adult actor.

This week is going to be very exciting. We had auditions for the Shoreline Community College spring theater production today. I will be directing one of the pieces, perhaps two, and hopefully acting in one of them.

Sunday I have an audition lined up for an online tv series being shot down in Tacoma. First paying gig I will be auditioning for. Kind of nervous but I think this is the best time to try things, crash and burn.

Some people say acting is easy and that getting up and filming a movie isn't really work. I would beg to differ. Good actors spend so much time and thought building their characters within their mind but this is work that no one notices. But you do notice, you can see that through their performance that they truly have given over everything. Their emotions, their bodies, and their souls. I always wonder if that's why my relationships never work out. I feel as if I may be faking my way through them. Am I acting? Is my life an act? A television show for people to tune into every week? Needless to say, I feel empty without a person to share this journey with me. I feel lost.

I met a girl once. She was a tiny little thing, beautiful in every way. One day our eyes made contact and we shared a smile. That smile. I will never forget. There's something about being in love. Something no one can explain. But you can feel it. And I felt it. Anyway turns out this girl had a boyfriend. I wasn't really surprised, how could she not have a boyfriend? She was cute, sexy, and friendly, to say the least. I thought she had felt it. I thought there was something, some kind of connection. But perhaps we're all actors in life. Faking our way through day to day experiences. Breaking the hearts of others with no knowledge of doing so.

I Am Love

I volunteered at SIFF last week passing out sample coffee packets and tearing tickets. After my duties were complete, the staff there told me that I could go into the theater and watch the film they were showing. The movie was called Lo Sono L'amore, or in English, I Am Love.

The film takes place in modern day Italy, where our main character, Emma Recchi, lives quite luxuriously with her family. Her husband, Tancredi, an Italian man, inherits a small fortune when his father decides to leave the family business to him and his son Edoardo. Early on in the movie, Emma seems content with her life, yet she seems to be bored with the wealth and Italian style of living.

Though the movie touched on a lot of social issues, one that stuck out to me most was an issue of assimilation. Emma Recchi, (played by Tilda Swinton), is a Russian immigrant who has married into this very wealthy Italian family. The film goes into no details as to why this marriage has taken place. One can assume it is most likely for the wealth involved. As the film progresses we are told of things Emma has lost due to the very process of assimilating into Italian culture.

Tancredi, Emma's husband, had forbade her to speak any Russian at all, and even goes so far as to change her name. We learn later on that Emma has forgotten her true, Russian name and in losing that, a piece of her identity is also lost.

Things begin to get a little bit more interesting when Antonio, a friend of Emma's son Edoardo, comes into the picture. Antonio is an artsy man. He is interested not in making money but in doing what he loves, which is cooking. He meets Emma through Edoardo and the two of them click right from the start. Emma also has a passion for cooking, but because of her wealth has never actually cooked a proper meal. Instead the housemaids do all the work, who I might add, were all people of color, but that's a whole different can of worms.

Emma and Antonio begin to develop a deep relationship, one of passion, something that has been lacking in Emma's marriage for years. Antonio also loves her for who she is, and never tries to make her be someone she doesn't want to be. In the end Emma breaks free from the confides of a lush and rather bland lifestyle and becomes who she feels she is.

Sources- Image from newdirectors.org

Skateland

I recently had the pleasure of attending SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) and watched the film, Skateland. I was quite surprised that this film was actually entertaining and kept my interest.

The Film takes place in small town Texas, in 1983. Our protagonist, Ritchie Wheeler, played by Shiloh Fernandez, is one of the managers at the local skating rink. Throughout the film he is pressured by his family and some of his friends to go on to bigger and better things.

Although it is not mentioned, it seems his family, namely his sister, wants Ritchie to go to college so he might make a name for himself and also make much more money then he does doing what he loves. But despite what anybody says, Ritchie happens to love what he does and throughout the film is reluctant to do anything to take him away from what he knew and loved as his home. This idea of doing something "more" with his life, becomes problematic when his best friend Michelle, (who goes on to become his boyfriend) literally takes on the assumed role for him and sends in an essay, that Ritchie had written, to a well known college. Though the film doesn't completely play out the ending we are left with a few details. He gets the woman of his dreams, and is headed to college where, after completing plenty of school, will be setup with a well paying job.

It seems that the film was trying to tell the audience that this is what you should do. This is the way it is. If you continue to do a low paying job that you happen to love, you won't get a wife/partner, nor will you have the means to "succeed" in life. So, "love"turns out to be an issue of class, which should never be the case.

The one thing that bothered me most about this film, was the way the women in it were portrayed. Now before I go on, this film was a time piece and I am not sure as to how women were treated or viewed in the 80's and so can not judge on that level. I will be basing my observations off of what I saw as demeaning to women.

Within the first 10 minutes, we are exposed to a full frame of a woman's butt in skin tight jeans. Interestingly enough we are never exposed to a man's butt in skin tight jeans and if we were it certainly wouldn't have filled the entire frame! Director Anthony Burns is of course calling out and appealing to male audiences here like most Hollywood movies. The objectification of women doesn't stop there, one of the characters in the film refers to his girlfriend literally as, "his shit". One of the most demeaning lines I've ever heard. It not only is implying that this women is just an object, but he also calls her "shit". Not something anyone would ever want to be referred to as.

Along with the issue of objectification, there are also some issues that seem to deal with the patriarchal society of America. Ritchie's mom, played by Melinda McGraw, ends up leaving the husband early on in the film due to many factors. One of them seems to be the fact that she seems to never be home cooking dinner for her family due to yoga classes. Her husband can't seem to stand the fact and thinks that due to her absence, the family is falling apart. The children, Ritchie and his sister, even end up blaming the mother for the divorce and she becomes not the victim but the perpetrator for the events.

After the film there was a Q and A with the director and some of the crew members. Anthony Burns said that one of the reasons he wanted to set the movie in 83 was because of the strong Woman's Movement. He said he had made the roles of the women really strong for this reason. Personally I found the woman's roles to be very weak. The mother was portrayed as a whore, "feminist" and was definitely one of the characters you were not supposed to like. She threatened the "masculinity" of the father.

When the woman was in such a strong role such as, Michelle, they had to be promoting and upholding the ideas of a man. Not surprisingly the women in this film also had to be side characters and when their strength was shown it would indefinitely benefit the man.

Sources: Image taken from- twilight-buzz.com

-Teddy Bears and Sith Lords-

The Star Wars films are by far some of my favorite movies and am in no way condemning them. That being said, I will be exploring and critiquing some of the characters in the saga and how they relate to differently-abled stereotypes in film.

In "America On Film" on page 366, it mentions that Classical Hollywood often used "little" people as actors. In the Star Wars films this is no exception. Though there are plenty of dominant images and characters played by "little" people in the saga, the one that sticks out to me most is that of the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi.

For those who don't know, Ewoks are cuddly, little teddy bear like creatures living peacefully on the moon of Endor. These costumed characters are portrayed by a large number of "little" people, and seem to be in the movie only to help the main "able" characters. They have no depth of personality and only two of the characters are given names. It is also keen to notice that throughout all of the Star Wars Saga not one "little" person is given a role in which they play a "normal" non costumed role. Plenty of other characters and species are portrayed by "little" people in the movies including R2-D2 and the Jawas but as stated before, these characters are in the films only to help the main "able" characters or to carry out a devious plan, in the case of the Jawas.

The Star Wars films revolve around one central character. Anakin Skywalker Aka, Darth Vader. Although he starts as the protagonist and hero of the first 2 films, by the end of Revenge of the Sith he has become a dark and villainous Sith Lord. I would say his role as Darth Vader fits very well into the Obsessive Avenger stereotype as mentioned in "America On Film" on page 365.

Anakin's journey to the Dark Side seems to begin in Attack of the Clones, towards the climax of the film, wherein he loses his hand in a lightsaber duel. Though his hand is easily replaced with robotic one, Anakin's revenge seems to stem from this very injury. In the first 15 minutes of the next movie, Revenge of the Sith, he enacts his revenge and beheads the man who took his hand from him. So begins Anakin's journey to becoming the Obsessive Avenger.


At the climax of Revenge of the Sith, Anakin loses nearly all of his limbs in a near fatal duel. He is even burned and his face changes drastically, it becomes disfigured and filled with scars. After being fitted up with robotic body parts and a menacing helmet to cover his scarred face, Anakin completely fulfills his role as the Obsessive Avenger. It seems throughout the classic trilogy, Darth Vader's hatred and want to take over the universe stems from his disfigurement. Vader, even within his own group, uses his violence on the "able" bodied and brutally chokes several officers for no logistical reason.

It's also interesting to note that as soon as Anakin becomes "disabled", he becomes the villain and the story focuses once again on an "able" bodied hero.

Sources:

• America on Film Representing Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality At the Movies by Harry M. Benshoff and Sean Griffin
• Pictures taken from- thetoyzone.com
• Ewok Picture- http://blogs.coventrytelegraph.net/thegeekfiles/ewok.jpg
• Anakin Picture- http://www.galacticbinder.com/images/DarkestMoments/anakin-burning.jpg
  

Murderball- Disablility and Masculinity

This week in class we watched Murderball. This film documents a group of quadriplegic men who play a totally different game of rugby. We talked a little bit about the issues of masculinity and disability and how these two intersect in the film, but I thought I might share and try to expand these ideas a bit more.

One of the things that stuck out to me was that throughout the movie there seemed to be this sense of hyper-masculinity. The game itself was very physical, violent and exerted a large amount of aggression. Also, due to there accidents, nearly all of the men seemed to play on the team to demonstrate to themselves that they had not lost any part of their masculinity.

As the film progresses we are introduced to many different men. Each individual but yet each exuding one certain trait. This idea that athleticism demonstrates masculinity is very dominant in the film. Joe, the Canadian coach, said he would have preferred his son play a sport rather then music. American sports are dominated by males, like most of the other aspects of our culture and present competition to be rewarded and yearned for no matter the cost. When asked about the competition between Canada and the US, one of the players states that it's all out war, this alone is an example of how serious their competitiveness is.

Another interesting thing I noticed was how few of women their were in the film. Not one player on the team is female. Nor do they interview any quadriplegic females and let them speak their mind or their points of view, which I'm sure might have differed quite a bit. Why did they choose not to interview any females anyway? Maybe there are no girls interested in quad rugby. Maybe the presence of the female would take away from the "macho-male factor, not sure but it's definitely something to think about.

I personally enjoyed this movie greatly, and thought that it had an inspiring feel to it. Something that all of us, as humans, can relate to no matter our sex.

Sources: Image taken from: http://www.woodstockfilmfestival.com/images/documentaries/murderballl.jpg