Jessica Alba…The Blind Girl

I’m normally a bit nervous of approaching films with Jessica Alba in them. She didn’t do such a bad job with Fantastic Four, but still I can’t help but feel she is a bit girly. I think she’s employed for her looks and not her acting…but recently she’s surprised me.

Poor Jessica has been swamped by the media because she has good looks, and isn’t afraid to use them. You could also blame it on the amount Jessica has been marketed. Don’t worry this post isn’t going to turn into I-think-Jess-is-amazing rant. This is more of a comment on a recent film of hers I saw titled The Eye.

The Story line

Alba plays a blind girl (Sidney). Her senses are well honed other than the obvious one that is kaput. She is very talented, she plays the violin well (with an orchestra) but like many that are blind, she wants to know what she’s missing out on. So she happens to receive a cornea transplant from a Mexico woman. This woman saw dead people (or at least people about to die) now Sidney has the same problem.

Her doctor doesn’t fully agree with her. She has started seeing for the first time, so the doctor thinks that she’s just taking time to adjust. It was interesting because at some stage I thought the doctor would pull the cliché and tell her to go and see a shrink. I was actually hoping that would happen. If you see stuff that’s not normally there, you’d think that would be the logical thing to suggest. To my surprise it wasn’t mentioned not even once.

Going back to the story the Sidney finds out more about the Mexican girl. Things get out of control when you start to interfere with dead souls about to claim people.

Is it worth watching?

Hmmm…well I going to have to go ahead and disappoint Jessica Alba fans and say no. It might make you scared at parts and shit your pants, but as horror movies go its weak it doesn’t really go anywhere. I think they could’ve looked into Sidney’s ability seeing undead souls. Another criticism is Alba’s supporting actor was weak and clichéd. Dr Paul Faulkner played by Alessandro Nivola.

This was based on a Hong Kong film, which I’m keen to watch. Often the American industry remakes Japanese/Chinese horror films, and messes them up badly. This might be the case although I’ll have to see the original first.

PhilosopherPoet

The force watching over you

Today as I was leaving to work the sun was out. As I was leaving I was not blinded by it, but instead looked and saw the moon was visible against the blue backdrop we call sky. It was inspiring and comforting in an odd sort of way. When I see signs in nature I pay attention to them. Nature is a symbol of our roots, and the place we came from. We came from apes, which in turn came from something else…and it goes on until all we’re left with is an amoeba surviving in nature.

 

 

So indirectly when you think of nature, you’re reminiscing, and finding comfort in something bigger than yourself (and dare I use the word deity). Well for me the moon is a sign of tranquility and peace. The moon ’sleeps’. When we are busy throwing the Z’s the moon (besides being present is sleeping as well). Yes it’s a symbol of night, and arguably it may be watching over us. But I think if you see something you can’t assume its awake. This morning though I felt the moon was awake…watching me maybe. It seemed fresh on the blue sky, although it might’ve been visible since the previous night.

 

It was a comfort to me and I felt looked after. It’s good to have a symbol to start off your day with.

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

King Henry VIII Returns…as a Hunk?

I’m referring to the film I saw recently titled The Other Boleyn Girl. The Media has recently had a fascination with the politics revolving around the Tudor period. Phillipa Gregory brought out a novel called The Other Boleyn Girl, this movie is subsequently based on the book. I’ll first start off slow about what the film was like, and build to my eye-catching title.

 

 

Brief Outline

 

The Two Boleyn Girls Mary and Anne are fighting for the Kings attention. The title is focused on Mary, since this is the woman that seduced the king and didn’t lose anything – and went on to live a normal life and die a natural death. Maybe because she wasn’t killed she was ‘forgotten’ by history. So this movie centers around her and her relationship with her sister and the King.

 

These two women are trying to bed the King, not because they choose to, but rather because they are under a large amount of pressure. This comes from their Sir Thomas Boleyn (the girls’ father) and the Duke of Norfolk (their Uncle). The Duke most probably applies the strongest pressure. Anne is the first daughter in the family to be ordered to try and seduce the King. Paradoxically Mary is the first (not because she is married) being the one who nurses the injuries of the King after a hunt.

 

King Henry VIII loses interest in Mary once she bears a child, and moves his attention on to Anne. Anne has since been exiled to France and returned a far more mature, as well as out-spoken. Anne is far more manipulative than the previous Boleyn girl, and forces the King to divorce his current wife. This means he divides his loyalty as well as splitting from the traditional Christian church.

 

All I can say is that the rest follows the same path that history did.

 

 

Mary (the blonde seductress)

 

 

 

 

This character most probably had the most freedom, since there is little known about her in history. All historians have is her name, relation to Anne, and record of her bastard son. Scarlett Johannson plays a reserved character, although one foible that is contrary is her beauty. This was maybe a factor that brought the King to her initially. The film portrays the affair between her and the King being a more romantic and intense experience. It was hard for a woman not to catch the eye of the King (unless she was from a different social class).

 

Mary is a pure bombshell and stands out in beauty, whereas her sister stands out in personality. Mary is the eldest and feels responsible for the most in the family. She ruins her own marriage, and betrays her sister by catching the eye of the King when Anne was initially instructed to do so. Despite the Father and Uncle giving orders, they regard themselves to be superior to these to girls.

 

Once she finds out that Anne catches the King’s attention, she now feels responsible for part of it and also bears a bastard son. In a sense she was the most unlucky because she was unable to produce a legitimate heir to the throne. Although she escaped with the most, she was not the political player her sister was. She ‘failed’ everyone but because of her reject she escaped unscathed.

 

 

Anne (Miss hard-to-get-married-to)

 

 

This woman was almost as famous as her husband was infamous. She produced an heir, spilt the church and miscarried two male children. This woman was seen as the most manipulative in the story. She fell out with the King early on. Her family was ashamed when they learnt she had secretly married a man from the court. Her family exiled her to France. When she returned she heavily seduced the King (although she was determined to marry him) they had a relationship. So in other words she was a sly fox, who made the King desire her so much he split the church and called his relationship with Catherine of Aragon.

 

 

King Henry VIII (Attractive?)

 

This is called the reason Hollywood should be shot. I went onto Wikipedia, and here’s a picture of what King Henry VIII should look like:

 

 

 

First off this guy is fat. He’s a modern-day MacDonald’s junkie. He is also blonde, and has at least a double chin. Now here is the Hollywood version…

 

 

Now this guy has clothes that hardly fit on him. Also his chin doesn’t merge with the rest of his body. He also doesn’t look the least bit unattractive (oh and he’s Australian, not as bad as American although close nonetheless).

 

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Storyteller

Don’t forget that your fragile face, still watches me. Your arms grow into the dark. You once said that light made you more blunt naked, than flinging off your tight clothes. “The darkness makes me feel beautiful.” And I understood that. The night slid over us like a thick skin. I lay next to you. The black cleaning out the dirty daylight, riveted to my skin. At night I was caught in your voice. You drew the lines and shapes my eyes were looking for. Despite the night and the curtains hanging there like wise monks…I could always see your lips.

 

As a child I listened to my librarian. We all gathered around her. Whenever I listened to a story, my probing eyes always locked on to a feature, and remained rapt for the rest it. I watched the old lady’s double chin wobble. It also grew and shrunk sometimes supported by a hand when the book became heavy. Her face was probably as animated, but the substance drifting in the voice buried me into the background of mine.

 

Jessica, I have watched her lips. It seemed as she was opening a storybook every night, and explaining the drawings. Most people say that in your face your eye contains the most emotion. If that was so those nights Jessica’s lips carried the most empathy. She could just touch it with an unbuttoned finger, or move the corners out to the end. At the end of the chapter, she’d lick them. It was brief gloss over them, a constant habit.

 

Jessica turned my head into something that spoke. She drew out my feelings, and taught me the dark. In the morning, she’d never look the same. This morning I bent over her calm figure. I looked into her glossy eyes. Two irreversible cataracts covered her eyes since infanthood. They were as permanent as two coins on the eyes of the dead. I looked at her and smiled. A tear sliced the side of my face.

It crept down onto my lip

(Period)

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

What Programmers do…

Mostly, when you see programmers, they aren’t doing anything. One of the attractive things about programmers is that you cannot tell whether or not they are working simply by looking at them. Very often they’re sitting there seemingly drinking coffee and gossiping, or just staring into space. What the programmer is trying to do is get a handle on all the individual and unrelated ideas that are scampering around in his head.

 

-Charles M Strauss

 

 

I’m not really a programmer but I’ve hung around a few programmers, and this seems to be true.

 

PhilosopherPoet

Dialogue?

The questions are moldy,

And the people are holy,

Swamping the church floor.

I should have learnt

that when you get burnt,

You’ve ask that question before.

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

you gave me the chains

i am a

boy-splattered-burned

chaos

eating

my thumbs.

i write rampage

throw the seared

tears…

the approachingmumbles

thataim the mystery

silent bruises

lying there like

peeled paint

 

ask for pain

 

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

if I have made my lady – cummings

This would be one of my favorite e.e. cummings poem. I haven’t got much time this morning to blog, so I’ll just cut and paste this and you can figure out the rest…

 

 

If I have made, my lady, intricate
imperfect various things chiefly which wrong
your eyes (frailer than most deep dreams are frail)
songs less firm than your body’s whitest song
upon my mind – if I have failed to snare
the glance too shy – if through my singing slips
the very skilful strangeness of your smile
the keen primeval silence of your hair

- let the world say “his most wise music stole
nothing from death” -
you will only create
(who are so perfectly alive) my shame:
lady whose profound and fragile lips
the sweet small clumsy feet of April came

into the ragged meadow of my soul.

 

 

 

Enjoy the poetry

 

PhilosopherPoet

Do Ghosts Exist?

Now when I talk about ghosts, I don’t mean the prankster that has a bed sheet over his head. I’m also not necessarily referring to only the frightening entities. Ghosts have some negative connotations attached to it. It assumes that this spirit/force/entity is out to get you. The evil against the good. If you’ve watched a horror movie or two, it doesn’t make it any easier.

 

Yes I do believe there is something out there. Ghosts and spirits have got a lot of bad press through the media. I’ve spoken to people who’ve witnessed ‘ghosts’ these other people. What I’ve heard is that they are rarely harmful. On the other hand I’ve read accounts of people being scratched and cut by invisible beings.

 

I’m pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. So here are some pictures I found on the web concerning ghosts…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last image displayed here isn’t an actual ghost. It’s a special method someone uses on stage to give the appearance on a ghost-like figure. I’ll go into some detail another time. I like the image though…very powerful.

 

 

PhilosopherPoet

Violent Film Demotes Violent Crime

When I first heard this I didn’t think it was possible. To me it sounded like a contradiction. Intuitively you think, well a violent film is fuelling people’s minds with intentions to go and act out various scenes. It also may turn would-be murderers into serial killers. Let’s also not forget that violent crime and porn are strongly linked.

 

Well, I found out the opposite. The whole process is counter-intuitive. I was reading a research paper, in psychology. The research was carried out by Gordon Dahl (UC San Diego and NBER) and Stefano DellaVigna (UC Berkeley and NBER).

 

 

Abstract:

 

Laboratory experiments in psychology find that media violence increases aggression in the short run. We analyze whether media violence affects violent crime in the field. We exploit variation in the violence of blockbuster movies from 1995 to 2004, and study the effect on same-day assaults. We find that violent crime decreases on days with larger theater audiences for violent movies. The effect is partly due to voluntary incapacitation: between 6PM and 12AM, a one million increase in the audience for violent movies reduces violent crime by 1.1 to 1.3 percent. After exposure to the movie, between 12AM and 6AM, violent crime is reduced by an even larger percent. This finding is explained by the self-selection of violent individuals into violent movie attendance, leading to a substitution away from more volatile activities. In particular, movie attendance appears to reduce alcohol consumption. Like the laboratory experiments, we find indirect evidence that movie violence increases violent crime; however, this effect is dominated by the reduction in crime induced by a substitution away from more dangerous activities. Overall, our estimates suggest that in the short-run violent movies deter almost 1,000 assaults on an average weekend. While our design does not allow us to estimate long-run effects, we find no evidence of medium-run effects up to three weeks after initial exposure.

 

 

This is a hotly debated issue. Interestingly enough, there were too many variables. Like any experiment, you have to hold onto the variables that you can control the best (whether they support your hypothesis or not). The long term effects could not be determined for a number of reasons. The one would be time constraints, but also over a longer period it’s a combination of factors that result in a person acting out violence. Let’s face it they’ve been through a lot more, so situations of abuse and belittlement may become stronger factors in the end result.

 

It’s a counter-intuitive process. This is why the ancient Greeks used the gladiators in the arena. It reduced crime on the streets. It provided a catharsis. People will rather absorb there minds in the violence, than take the ‘initiative’ to go out and act out crime. The reason being is its more work. People generally will choose the easiest option, sitting and watching people kill themselves is far easier than picking up a sword and running off to do it yourself.

 

These are the facts, they may be true, although I still don’t think it’s justifiable to blunt people’s minds with endless violence. Whether you’re increasing or decreasing the crime, the values you promote to society are far more crucial in my opinion.

 

 

PhilosopherPoet