Movies with Issues

In one of the side in the book, Social Conscience Film is discussed. It mentions the movie Thelma and Lousie and how it changed the image of "the passive, male-dependent female". I never knew how much I needed to thank that hilarious movie. Nowadays, examples of strong women are everywhere but I guess our generation is lucky when it comes to that. I would not have made it in the 50's where my only job was to be a housewife, I have to many opinions for that role. I have taken for granted the fact that in movies, the main character can be a female without having a man at her side. In celebration of the Kentucky Derby, I watched the movie Secretariat. The female lead breaks the mold of typical housewife in order to take over the farm and enter the world of horse racing. Nobody respected her and they told her she didn't belong, but she fought and in the end she won (of course, because why else would they have made a movie about her). She did all this without her husband's support which is common in our generation. I want to say thanks to Thelma and Lousie for making it possible to be an independent woman in movies and real life.
    The other part of the discussion in the box that interested me was the fact that issue-driven movies hadn't been a big part of the film industry until Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1993. That movie still makes an impact on viewer today which tells you what a genius Spielberg is. But now, every other movie in theaters is a serious film with a message. As fun as it is to go see such movies as Harry Potter, Tangled, and Pirates of the Caribbean, the movies you really remember are the ones that make an emotional impact on you. One of those movies for me was the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The Hurt Locker. It is another movie about war and it documents the soldiers fighting in it. It was a movie that made me want to do something. I think the best issue-driven films make you want to take a stand for something in get involved with the fight, figuratively. As much money as the fun, entertaining movie make, I think it is the emotional, pack-a-punch movies that really keep people coming back to the theaters.

In the End...

The epilogue of Allende's "The House of the Spirits" was probably my favorite part of the whole book. I don't say that just because the book was finally over, but also because everything came full circle. Nothing bugs me more than when I have questions after I finish a book or a movie. (Inception's ending is still nagging me) Allende manages to tie up all the loose ends though in the final chapter. Alba makes her way home and convinces Esteban to write the story of their family. This allows the reader to understand how the book came to be and why Clara, Esteban, and Alba are the narrators. Also, with Esteban's death, all the characters from the beginning of the book are gone. With Alba being pregnant, it also shows that the story will continue on. I have hope that without Esteban's evil influence, Alba's child won't have to go through any traumatic events. Alba's child will also be the first in the family to have its parents happy and together out of love. Clara and Esteban's relationship took a toll in the behavior of their three kids, especially Nicholas. The fact that Blanca and Pedro could never be together led Alba to believe that her father was dead. Hopefully, this next child stands more of a chance for normalacy than any of the previous characters had. I loved the way that Allende came full circle with the story by using the same words "Barrabas came to us by sea."  I thought it was a neat trick that they wrote with Clara's diaries and that is how the beginning of the book got started. The fact that Allende leaves us with more hope than we have throughout the entire novel is nice of her. It leaves the reader feeling like the family is finally ok and I think that is the message Alba wanted to send by writing the book.

Postmodernist Architecture

Architecture fascinates me and I wish we could have discussed the architecture in the chapter more in class. I think the combinations of architecture with sculpture created some amazing pieces. I think Robert Venturi said it best when countering Mies van der Rohe's statement "less is more" with "less is a bore". Sure it might be cheaper and more efficient to mass produce apartment complexes, but nobody likes to look at those. People travel all over the world to get a glimpse of some well made buildings. I think the money made by tourism to places with incredible buildings such as the Taj Mahal, Louve Pyramid, and the Guggenheim Museum make up the money spent on building those works of art. Looking at a famous painting is one thing but imagine being able to walk inside and experience the setting of the painting. For me, that is an architectural masterpiece allows its viewers to do, experience it. The building that really caught my eye though was the Walt Disney Concert Hall in California. The design by Frank Gehry is breathtaking. The light reflecting off the stainless steel plates create a rippling affect. It is to blend together the minimalist ideals with the sponeity of action painting to produce a simple yet complex  magnificence. This sculptural architecture is just getting started and I'm sure there will be more great buildings, like Gehry's, to come.

Optical Illusions

White Disks by Bridget Riley

I have to say that i think op art is my favorite art style. I would much rather spend five minutes looking at a picture trying to find out how the painted lines are moving than try and find the hidden meaning within a Picasso. Both styles of art are appreciated and the simple colored basic lines of the op art doesn't take any thing away from the intricate brush work of multiple color layers done by Picasso or Van Gogh. In my opinion the op art paintings are more fun to look at because they challenged your brain. I always feel like I'm getting a mental workout by examining an opitical illusion. Bridget Riley had a strong hold on this style. In using achromatic colors such as black white and grey, her works appear to move, flicker and pulsate. These painting are entertaining to look at. In the painting above, the black dots seems to produce a white afterimage if you stare long enough. These afterimages create the allusion that the dots are actually flickering.

This other work by Riley is just as simple with regards to colors and lines. The whole things is made up of short diagonal lines. By lengthening the lines and making them skinnier, an illusion is made. When staring at the image, it seems to be spiraling downward. I like that the bottom is a white hole instead of a black hole. I think Riley deserves a lot of credit for making a painting move. This is a very different style of art that can be expanded into many different uses.