So, I found out today that the deadline for submissions to the student film festival will be on March 31st. This gives me just about 2 and a half weeks to borrow a camera, film something, slap some audio together, edit it, and submit it. Even then, it might not actually get shown during the festival, but I think it’s the process that counts.
What I’m thinking about doing is setting a video to a song in either Japanese or French. This way, the lyrics won’t matter as much, but the music will set the mood of the video. I can’t imagine that it would be too difficult to film something, but then again I’ve never really done it before so I wouldn’t know. I think I might abandon the idea of cutting the film into individual frames and setting them to a beat because it would only have worked for this one song I had in mind (“Foundations” by Kate Nash) that had a very strong beat throughout. A lot of the other songs I had in mind were different in that they weren’t as strongly electronic and didn’t have the same sort of definite beat throughout.
So, that’s the good news.
The bad news is that I still don’t really have a definite idea of what I want to do. I’m sure it’ll develop over the course of filming though…
Before I begin, watch this music video because it’s awesome:
That dude’s voice can go so high… it’s kinda weird. I wonder what it’d be like for your voice to get that high. I think my voice is around… a baritone or something? I just know that I can’t hit some of the higher notes without shifting into falsetto. I think… I dunno. I didn’t have any vocal training, so I don’t really know what I’m talking about… hahaha…
Anyway, so I went on an adventure last night. I got picked up from my house at around 8:30 PM and I didn’t get back until a little after 3:30 AM the next morning. Lessee…
So we ended up going Denny’s first to get some food. I got the steak sizzle platter… or whatever it’s called. I just know that it was around $8.50 and I paid with my Discover card for the first time! YAY! FUN!
Then we went to go watch the new Harry Potter film. These are my impressions. I ought to warn you that there will be spoilers, both for those who haven’t read the books and for those who will complain about people revealing differences between the book and film. So… if you haven’t seen the film, don’t read this review, even if you’ve read the books. Mind you, there’s nothing radically different plot-wise like there was between the “Fight Club” film and the “Fight Club” book. Anyway…
First of all, many liberties were taken with the film. Some scenes were removed and others were added. For example, there was a scene where Harry flirted with a cute waitress… who was HOT. I liked her very much. Harry’s re-entry to the Wizarding world was changed. There was also a bit in the middle of the film where the Death Eaters attacked the Weasley house. Conversely, the whole subplot with the new Minister of Magic was removed entirely. There was no reconciliation between Harry and the Dursley’s. In fact, the Dursley’s didn’t even show up in this movie. Many of the lines have been changed but most of the key conversations remained untouched.
Now, you may be expecting that I would be outraged by these changes. Certainly, many of my friends were, at the very least, disappointed by the film and felt that it was a bit of a letdown. I, however, found the film to be… brilliant. And I will explain why.
I don’t think this was meant to be a good film adaption of the Harry Potter books. What I do think is that it’s meant to be a great film in and of itself, regardless of the source material. Certainly, some of the hardcore Harry Potter fans would find this to be blasphemy. My answer to this would be that books and films are two different mediums and as such, they must be judged on their own merits independent of each other. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” had the best acting to date. Whereas before the senior actors like Michael Gambon were performed admirably in their roles while the younger members, like Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, were merely serviceable, I felt like almost everyone’s performance in this film has greatly improved from previous films. Although I still feel like Radcliffe’s portrayal of Harry Potter was still weaker than that of most of the others, he delivered his lines well and did well enough in what he was meant to do. However, he didn’t excel in the same way that Emma Watson did. I felt that her character was… incredibly real, not only in her delivery, but in her facial expressions and her body language. As for Rupert Grint… well, he seemed to have a bit of a smaller role than the other two, to be honest. By far, the best actor in this film was Tom Felton. He was absolutely brilliant. I can’t really think of any other way of expressing it. Granted, he didn’t really have to do much more than be a vaguely emo child, albeit one impeccably dressed in designer suits, but he did what he was meant to do, and he did it very well. He also had an interesting motif in the film, and there was a new theme thrown in just for him. As for some of the more minor roles… well, Helena Bonham Carter was as crazy as her character, Bellatrix Lestrange, was, but beyond that, nothing else was really that different.
As I said before, the greatest difference was that this movie was really shot and directed as a movie. I certainly felt that it was more well connected plot-wise than some of the previous films. The cinematography was much better and the film dispensed with much of the childish humor. Despite it’s PG rating, most of the humor is hidden in metaphor and is related to teenage sexuality.
Let’s see… what else… I think that’s about it. The special effects were pretty good. There was only one thing that was a really bothered by, and that was the Milennium Bridge falling into the Thames (I think that’s right… I’m not really familiar with London, sorry), which just looked a bit too fake for my liking. Some of the emotional scenes were a bit less powerful than I had hoped (although that might just because I’m a bit heartless), and Radcliffe STILL hasn’t learned how to cry on cue, but there’s not much you can do there.
Some of the fan’s might hate this movie because of the changes it makes. However, I feel like the changes were necessary for the purpose of maintaining the flow and pacing. Otherwise… I think the film would’ve suffered to assuage the feelings of the hardcore fans who fail to recognize that books and movies are different mediums and as such, most be treated as such. Anyways, I really enjoyed it.
So I’m watching the backlog of movies that I haven’t watched over the last two years or so. Included in this list of movies-to-watch are “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” directed by Clint Eastwood, “The Bank Job”, “Ung-Bak”, “28 Days Later”, and “28 Weeks Later”. While I’m writing this, I’m also watching “Juno”. On a somewhat completely separate note, I’m a bit annoyed by the dialog and the music. Words like “boss”, “wizard”, “pork swords”, and “wicked” are a bit… strange to me, and don’t really like the indie folk music. I do like her hamburger phone though. It’s kinda cool.
SOOOO… ANYWAY. Onto pregnancies. I wonder what I’d do if I got someone pregnant. At this stage of my life, I think I’d still be freaked out, but less so than I would’ve been in high school. Of course, I didn’t manage to have sex in high school, so that kind’ve made pregnancy impossible… which is good.
So… yeah… pregnancy. I don’t like babies. I don’t want a baby of my own. I probably wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. I think I’d be a good… dad? Maybe? So if whoever was unfortunate enough to get pregnant by me didn’t want to keep the baby (either abortion/adoption), then… all the better, I guess. If she wanted to keep it, and raise it, then I guess I’d have to just go along with whatever she wanted… I guess.
So I guess my life wouldn’t be over… not necessarily. I’d probably be cut off by my parents, financially, I think. Not entirely sure, but pretty sure anyway. I’d suck. I’d have to do something else with my life, I think.
So… yeah, note to self, don’t knock anyone up that I wouldn’t want to stick with for a while. ^_^
So anyway, today I went on Urban Dictionary because I was bored and also because I didn’t know what a reach-around was. Now I do. On an entirely separate note, I’ve decided to write a blog post on atheism.
I’m fairly certain that most of those who reject atheism are at least somewhat religious. Perhaps not fervently religious, but at least religious enough to defend their religion against naysayers.
Atheists do not replace religion with science. As a rule, science must change based on new data, new experiments, and new instruments. Religion, however, does not. Any particular religion is based in whatever holy text that particular religion uses. Though it is true that interpretations of this holy text may change over time, the text itself does not. Therefore, religion is fundamentally immutable. Because of religion does not change, it can provide solid explanations to the universe and a purpose to life. Atheism, on the other hand, only provides some half-answers and leaves many things unexplained, including the purpose to life.
Ultimately, religion and science provide possible explanations, none of which are perfect. Religion is imperfect because its basis cannot be verified. Science is imperfect because humanity’s knowledge of life, the universe, and everything is incomplete. However, atheists do not claim that science is complete or perfect. Those who believe in religion, who believe in a higher being, ultimately do. Atheists do not believe in science, they believe in the absence of religion.
On a separate note, I’m watching the 2004 remake of “Dawn of the Dead”. YAY!
