Author Archives: Angela

Left me blue

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When I first read the description for The Blues Brothers, I thought it would be the type of movie I enjoyed. It turns out, this “musical crime comedy” wasn’t what I expected. I had never heard of The Blues Brothers, and I was surprised that multiple people had voted for it to be shown. Unfortunately, this got my hopes up.

 

I thought this was going to be a bubbly, stage-musical-esque film, but it turns out that it wasn’t really. There were definitely parts of the film that resembled this – like the first church scene and when Aretha Franklin broke out in song, but other than that, I wasn’t a big fan of the story. Perhaps the main characters, I couldn’t call them protagonists, were too unsettling for me. Maybe it was their blatant disregard for the well-being of others and their own hygiene. Perhaps I just didn’t like seeing morally bad people getting away with all of their nonsense.

 

Really, the two main Blues brothers just got annoying. Their obnoxious behavior got old really quickly. There were surprise Nazis in the middle of the movie, there was a crazy ex who was creating military-grade weaponry, and they somehow were able to outrun whole police departments. I can deal with some suspension of disbelief, but overall it was just too much for me. The characters weren’t likeable enough for me to get the story. I did laugh at certain lines and generally enjoy dark humor and satire, but the Blues brothers didn’t have redeemable qualities. They didn’t care about strangers, but were also inconsiderate to their supposed friends. They misled them about their plans, they ruined one guy’s job, they ruined another’s relationship – all for $5000.

 

Were there definitely messages about religion, racial issues, and the militarization and brutality of American police, I personally didn’t find the film worth watching. HAD Hill mentioned that the cast consisted of a lot of big-name musicians, but I wasn’t that into the music either. Personally, I didn’t see the appeal of the movie, but there are clearly others who enjoy it, so to each their own.

Couldn’t relax

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Last Saturday, I attended the first Yoga at Rose event and to be honest, I was disappointed. This was my first actual yoga class. I think the only other time I sort of did yoga was a ten minute mindfulness session in my high school gym where we were stretching and breathing along with random teachers. I thought that was more relaxing.

Perhaps I was too in my head for a lot of it, but I didn’t feel the relaxing benefits people usually think about when it comes to yoga. It wasn’t that I was distracted by my typical worries about school and life. My thoughts were just not as free as I thought they would be.

I wanted to relax, but something about the class and atmosphere was somehow unsettling to me. Perhaps it was the speed of some of the motions. I didn’t feel like I was extending or stretching some parts of my body fully when doing them and it felt rushed, which definitely didn’t help my mind relax. I wasn’t feeling the warrior poses, which seem kind of quintessential yoga, and I don’t think technically my alignment was off, but the instep of one of my feet got progressively sorer throughout the motions.

Perhaps the most distracting thing was what the instructor kept saying during the whole session. At one point, she said something about astrology – I can’t even remember what she said about it – the mention of the word astrology was shocking itself. Eagle pose supposedly helps clear out the lymph nodes. Every single thing we did was qualified as good stress relief. The music sounded kind of campy. The constant sounds from the dining hall and people looking in and making comments was also distracting.

I don’t know what exactly it was, but I didn’t leave feeling any more relaxed. At the beginning, I truly had the best intentions of spending part of my Saturday settling into my body and centering myself, but I just couldn’t relax in that space. I wish I had a better experience with the yoga class. In terms of relaxation, this is something I probably won’t be doing again soon.

Do it with the vine

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Last weekend, I participated in Into the Streets with Rose House. This wasn’t my first time, so honestly I wasn’t surprised that we were working outside. I was, however, surprised by what we ended up doing. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to happen, but the last time I did ITS, I didn’t have to go to the kick-off event and instead, we focused specifically on the organization we were helping, finished everything we had to do, learned a little, and left two hours earlier. This time around, it was definitely a different experience.

First off, I wasn’t really feeling the kick-off event. It’s an okay concept, but I feel like with the long lines and whole groups checking in, getting t-shirts, and watching student groups perform could have been forgone. It honestly felt like I was wasting the two hours of not being effective at all. I signed up to volunteer, not to wait around Kennedy Hall.

After the kick-off event, we got into taxis to go to the YMCA Outdoor Education Center. Before the event, we had just heard that we were going to the Y, so when the taxi driver said that there were only portapotties available there, we were caught off-guard. But in the end, the weather cooperated nicely, so it ended up being a good time outdoors.

This was definitely a community resource I hadn’t heard of. 100 acres of land that does programming throughout the year for people who want to learn new skills and kids for summer camps. When we got there, we waited for instructions in the main pavilion area, and over the course of about half an hour, about seventy ITS volunteers were ready for marching orders. Since there were so many people, we were split up into different projects. Some of them involved going to different parts of the land, but about a third of the volunteers stayed around the main pavilion.

Since my foot was hurting, I decided that instead of being part of the group that was carrying logs around, I would join the “artsy” project. It turns out that this artsy project was not actually that artistic, but it was interesting. Our group, made up of some Rose scholars and GRF Magdala, were charged with weaving grapevine through an existing structure to make it watertight. This seemed like a pretty impossible goal, as the existing shelter(?) had pretty big holes, most of the vines we had to use were really stiff and long, and it’s sort of unfathomable how it could become watertight. At one point, when we were pretty much out of usable vines, another group was tasked with pulling fresh vines off of trees, and that looked exhausting yet fun.

It was definitely an interesting experience, trying to get the vines to weave through the existing structure. From the outside, it was hard to figure out where and how to thread the vines through. From the inside, it was a struggle to keep focused with debris falling all over your face and clothes. In the end, we didn’t get it anywhere near watertight, but there was clear improvement. I wasn’t too sure what community benefit this had, but I can definitely appreciate that the structure that was there when we started must have taken a good amount of teamwork and time.

Not feeling like I had explored enough of the outdoor education center, I decided to join another group who was cleaning up the archery setup from the summer camps the Y runs. There, we disassembled hay bales and kicked around the loose hay. We then brought the targets and their stands back to the original pavilion. Honestly, I wish I could have seen more of what they had. I know another group was working on their playground and I think another group was setting up a new trail. For the most part, I had spent my time around that starting pavilion.

At the end, all groups were gathered around and we were clearing an area of land that is hopefully going to be used for things like soccer. Along the way, I got poked by one of the mean plants they warned us to watch out for, I learned what a wild strawberry looks like, and had some fun throwing rocks out of the way. Before the final send-off, we regrouped and did a breathing exercise, taking in more of the fresh air the woods had to offer. Overall, the volunteering was an enjoyable ITS experience. I could have dealt without the two hours before that when we didn’t really do anything, but I got to spend time outdoors on a surprisingly nice late-October day, got to know some more Rose scholars, learned some interesting things, and helped out the local Y. Definitely not a bad way to spend a Saturday.

 

Photos from this weekend's Into the Streets volunteering event, courtesy of GRF Magdala:

Posted by Flora Rose House on Monday, October 30, 2017

A lack of understanding

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I’ve always heard about Sundance, but I was never really interested in the idea of eclectic films. I don’t know if my mind has changed after viewing a compilation of shorts from Sundance. That’s not to say I don’t have eclectic tastes; mine just don’t seem to match up with what Sundance tends to tout. To be honest, it seemed like a collection of videos you might find on the weird part of the internet. Perhaps my perception of a short film is skewed because I grew up with access to online video sharing, but I don’t understand trying to hold film to a more expensive standard.

The shorts were definitely eclectic. The first one dealt with water and obsessive thoughts, and honestly, I didn’t want to watch it. It made me uncomfortable, which I guess was part of its intent, but I didn’t understand its purpose. This was sort of a running theme throughout the shorts – I guess I’m just not the target audience for these pieces. The shortest short was one on technology, and to be honest, I don’t really know why it was part of this collection. It’s a concept that is overplayed and unoriginal and besides the quality of the equipment used, I don’t think the writing or acting were superior to something you would find in a quick youtube video.

Perhaps my problem in not understanding these shorts is online content. Since there was so little plot happening in the first short with the water and in a short about a bathroom attendant, I just felt like they were a little too long. I get that setting up a character is important, but I felt like I didn’t need to see that much. Since I’m regularly busy with other things to do, I often watch sped-up videos or just stop watching if I feel like there’s a lot of nothing going on.

Another short that seemed very internet to me was the one with the diving board. It seemed very strange to me how this experiment was set up. It’s not like these were completely random people that went to the pool that day and walked up 10 meters to the platform. There was clearly some incentive to them jumping. Also, the participants clearly knew about each other, because one of them even mentioned an older woman taking the leap. This one too felt like it was longer than it needed to be.

The weirdest short was the animated short about a vagina. It’s a piece about a woman exploring her body but suddenly the vulva comes off and turns into its own creature and rubs itself against different things in her apartment, but the woman is still connected to what the pussy experiences. This, to me, was the epitome of weird internet video.

Unless there was a message I just wasn’t getting, these shorts just did no resonate with me. I don’t think I would watch anything else made by the same people if their work tends to be similar. Call me a millennial, but I would rather stay at home and curate my own viewing experience of online videos, or shorts (whatever that terms actually means).

Don’t know why I didn’t watch this earlier

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This was by far my favorite Flora’s Friday Film showing I’ve attended this year. I’ve heard good things about it, but I’m kind of lacking in the movie-watching department. This film came out when I was in high school and had rave reviews, but I never got around to watching it. In fact, I was looking at the list of Best Picture Academy Award winners, and before this, I had only ever seen five – and two of those I watched for the first time in the last year. I’ve enjoyed all of the ones I’ve watched, but I guess they wouldn’t be award-winning if they weren’t good.

Perhaps the most memorable piece of information I had about this film before watching it was that the film rating was bumped up due to the profanity of a particular scene in which curse words were used. When watching the movie, I felt like it didn’t deserve this rating. Sure there was some cursing throughout some parts of the film, but they weren’t really derogatory or violent. Besides the potential language issues, I felt like this was definitely a movie that a family could watch together.

I don’t know how many cinematic liberties were taken in the film, but I enjoyed the story. The film depicts the personal growth of King George VI as he transitioned into power. The beginning starts with a clear depiction of his struggle with speaking. His wife finds an unconventional speech therapist and over time, he opens up about his personal life which in turn helps him psychologically overcome the speech impediment. What I perhaps appreciated the most about the film is that it wasn’t a complete victory and happy ending. It wasn’t like Lionel was able to amazingly get rid of the stutter – it was a long process with setbacks that led to clear improvement, but wasn’t perfect.

Overall, I thought the film taught me some things and reminded me of some things that I don’t often think twice about. For one, I learned that kings didn’t actually have to be known as the names they were born with. Blame my primary and secondary education, but I had no idea that kings would or could assume new names when taking the throne. Another thing that the film reminded me of was the improvement of technology. During the final king’s speech of the film, King George VI is in a room with Lionel and is trying to get comfortable working through a potentially underprepared speech. After it’s over, he exits to take a picture of him sitting at a desk for the radio broadcast, as if that’s how the whole speech was delivered. Thinking at how things are done now, this wouldn’t happen. Things are now live-streamed with potentially multiple cameras, and if he had been as exposed as many public figures are now, I don’t know how history would have panned out.

The film also touched on some pivotal childhood memories that shaped who ‘Bertie’ was. His experiences as someone naturally left-handed and the even more traumatic physical hardships he endured were heartbreaking. It does take works like these to remember that kings, especially the more recent ones, were really just like all of us. I would definitely watch this film again, but probably with subtitles this time. This was really an uplifting movie that put me in a good mood after watching it, and would definitely recommend it to anyone unsure about the film’s premise or acclaim.

Not my favorite

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I had heard good things about The Martian – both the novel and the film – from science fiction fans. Personally, my opinion on science fiction is very dependent on the material and presentation, and when I first heard the premise, I didn’t realize how soon in the future this film was set. It didn’t have the total futuristic feel of some more prototypical science fiction pieces, but it still had a lot that seems way beyond the limit of our capabilities in the next twenty or so years. The unit on Mars, the Hermes vessel, the technology in general seemed beyond the scope of what could happen in the next couple of decades.

Some things were actually quite distracting. For one, the cameras. There were all these cameras with responsive interfaces showing things like the partial pressure and oxygen composition that apparently were equipped to run and record into some memory somewhere a whole slew of vlogs long past what would be needed for the intended mission. And are recordings of everything, as in those consisting of normal surveillance-style shots, a good use of energy? And is it energy efficient to be heating the whole unit up to a temperature that’s fully comfortable? What sort of technological leap had to be made to get all the necessary stuff they brought with them to Mars and have it set up as operationally well as it was.

Other than that, I also had a hard time getting past some of the overly dramatic for no other reason than to be dramatic scenes. Perhaps this was one of the most annoying things about the film. The sounds, the shots, the motions – a lot seemed like it was added for what people might call cinematic effect, but I guess I wasn’t really convinced they were necessary.

One thing we were told to think about was being alone. Being literally alone with no real personal contact with anyone else, not knowing if you would ever see another person again. Personally, I think it takes a whole other type of person to want to survive something like that. I don’t know if I could even think that way. If I were completely stranded and didn’t figure out a reasonable (this is a key word because a lot of the things Watney did before he was safely on the Hermes were crazy) way to make it out alive, I would have just thought about what I might have left behind for people to find in the future, but also to find a way not to have to suffer in my last days alone. The tenacity some people have shown in their fight to stay alive is truly something that’s hard to wrap my head around.

Overall it was an okay movie. Because the movie was set pretty close to current times, it felt believable on Earth but felt unbelievably exaggerated in the extraterrestrial aspects. I probably would not really enjoy watching it again, but it was a decent film with some entertaining moments. I guess if you’re more into survival and imaginative science fiction pieces, this might be a better fit for you, but I guess it didn’t quite hit the target for me.

Not Really the Entire History of You

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Last Friday, as my first Rose Scholar event of the semester, I attended the Flora’s Friday Film viewing of an episode of Black Mirror. To be honest, this was the only event I could make that week, and I mistakenly thought the movie was Black Swan. GRF Ty introduced the series as a modern Twilight Zone-esque work, but I had no idea what that meant, and am still not quite sure, but I was open to the idea of watching it.

The episode was described as a world in everyone has access to records of everything humans see, hear, and do. Before watching the episode, Ty asked us to talk a little with the people around us about what that world would be like and if you would want to be in that world. My immediate thought is no. There were absolutely no benefits that came to my mind. While being social is nice, my privacy is even nicer. I could never think to live in a world where anyone could know what I did at any point in my life. That was scary. Some other people mentioned that they did not want to have information about other people and how that was the scary part, but I still maintain that a total loss my privacy is much more terrifying that having the ability to access other people’s information.

After the show, when discussing how it was with other people, someone else who also had not seen this episode before had a similar note. The technology in the episode wasn’t as developed as we expected. When the description of the premise is that everyone can access the memories of what people see, hear, and do, I was picturing a world in which we all kind of have a connected, collective memory in which the memory as an accessible recollection of information was what was recorded. I was thinking that such a memory would encompass all sensory information – feeling, actions, smell, pain, etc.

Instead, the memories are clips of what people see and hear in perfect wide-angle view (that’s not how vision works, but I guess for the sanity of the viewer it’s acceptable, but also kind of weird) and these memories can be projected onto either your eye so that only you can see it or onto one of many screens that exist in the world. There’s an implant behind you ear with a controller that you physically hold to manipulate, which also seems like a bad idea, so only you have immediate control over viewing those clips. It wasn’t a hyper-connected society where everyone knew everything – it was a weird way of recording first-person what people do. One big thing that was bothering me was the implant. The processing power and the information transfer to project memory clips onto different screens must involve a lot of heat generation, which would be bad for the device and the head it’s in.

The episode was weird. The concept seemed contrived and its low-tech feel was distracting. I get that what I was picturing as the premise would be hard to pull off in a TV series or movie, but I was just disappointed by the promise I perceived it didn’t live up to. The series was definitely hyped up before the episode started, but if the other episodes are similar, I probably won’t watch them. Ty mentioned that this was one of the less grim episodes, but honestly it didn’t really seem grim to me at all. Perhaps the execution of the technology in the show was a whole lot tamer than what I expected and therefore a lot less personally uncomfortable, but it just wasn’t my type of show.