Happy Thursday! Today is the closest I’ve come to not getting this note out due to computerlessness. I’ve spent most of my week in the computer lab (where I am at currently), because apparently my laptop is so disease-ridden that it’s taking four days to run a scan. But I will persevere.
In this issue of Thursday Today:
1) Last Weekend with The Ink-Man
2) Get Your Own Thursday Tan!
3) Writing Critical Papers on Contemporary Media and Getting Away With It
4) No Chicken Dinner: a Movie Review of 21
5) There’s a Veronica Mars in All of Us (and a criminal in everyone you know)
1) Last weekend, of course, was the start of principle production on The Ink-Man. Bright and early the cast and crew assembled at my apartment, and off we went to capture my dreams on High-Definition Mini-Digital-Video Tape. First we had Sam and Brianna frolic across a field. Then we blocked the entrance to the ER for a while shooting the seduction scene. Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052258&l=2ac2b&id=56903048
Day Two was just as productive, and we knocked out two entire scenes before conflicting schedules broke apart our happy little family/crew. Highlights included Brianna sleeping all morning because we didn’t really need her, and Sam getting all his arm-hairs ripped out by painter’s tape. Acting in APU student films is no walk in the park, although you may be required to frolic. Pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2052351&l=7ce35&id=56903048
Shooting continues right after class today, and through the weekend.
2) Ever wanted to really experience Thursday in a Southern Californian way? Now you can, in only three days! Step one: carefully acquire a base tan by sitting in the sun in short sleeves for a safe amount of time. Step two: the next day, uncover the previously covered parts of your arms and sit in the sun for a long time. The next day, you’ll have the perfect red-and-brown Thursday look all your friends will envy. Be creative! Try your own patterns and designs!
To pass the time while sitting in the sun for extended periods, we recommend getting an anatomy lesson from your nursing major friend. Do you know where blood comes from, how it dies, and where it goes? Do you know how your diaphragm works, and how the esophagus passes through it? Do you know that the lungs are not balloons, but have the same consistency all the way through? Did you know that a “collapsed lung” is just a way to describe that the vacuum surrounding your lung has been punctured? Learn all these things and more while working on your very own Thursday Tan ©.
3) Between the hardships of working on a full keyboard in the computer lab and working on my roommate’s Mac, I somehow managed to write a 6+ page paper yesterday. Now I’m sure you’re asking, “Just how on earth did you manage that?!” I’ll tell you.
My secret to writing lengthy papers and turning them in on time is simple: contemporary media studies. You’ll remember my writing a 10 page paper on The Office last year. This time it was High School Musical, analyzing its similarities and differences in comparison to classical musicals.
Now I’m sure many of you just can’t believe that I can get away with writing critical papers on such frivolous stuff as current media. But I tell you I can, and it’s because of the blossoming field of Media Studies. An academic approach to today’s communication, how it works, what it’s saying, the ways in which it affects the viewer.
It’s all very scholarly, and it may secretly be what I want to do with my life.
4) “Winner, winner, chicken dinner” is how the movie starts, and it only gets worse. As he does through much of the movie (setting up the final twist which comes across as utterly staid), the narrator explains exactly what that means, how it originated as the ultimate congratulatory remark to the winner of a hand of Blackjack. This movie does not deserve the same congratulations.
The film is based on a book based on some kind of “true story,” so it is predominately not entertaining. Whereas a story has rises and falls and in-laid hints, 21 has a straight track of step-by-step predictability up until it derails itself right off a cliff. The main character is painted into his personality arc; otherwise decent actor Jim Sturgess blustering lines about “who he really is” just because the script told him to and not because his character has any substance. It was about half way through when I realized I’d seen his character arc before—strikingly similar to Troy Bolton from High School Musical 2.
Kevin Spacey (when will he stop producing vehicles for himself?) plays the terribly coercive team-driver, whose mystery isn’t set up until the moment before it’s explained. Along with Laurence Fishburne’s aging security figure, Spacey plays unmotivated and strangely self-important when the audience could care less about them; they’re there because the plot needs them, and neither put much heart into their roles. In fact, many of Spacey’s expressions seem forced, not acted, and Fishburne does a job comparable to any hobo off the street.
Among its other primary faults is the way in which it continually and continuously forgets two of its major characters, Kianna and Choi. Both Asian-American, their role on the team is token at best. While Kianna is just as undeveloped as any of the characters, she at least has some plotty screentime opposite Sturgess. But Choi, portrayed by Aaron Yoo, is almost a throw-away, having one major plot point which is corny at best. The tragedy here is that Yoo plays his character as if the camera is always on him: spunky, quirky, and all-around interesting. Now if the film had been about Choi’s jaunts in Vegas, I would have taken this movie to the best chicken restaurant in town.
5) Sometimes in Veronica Mars, clues just happen to add up in ways you might disbelieve. But let me tell you, coincidences do happen. Like when you randomly want a chicken sandwich from McDonald’s, when you go, you discover that it was a McDonald’s bag all a long, and not an Old Navy one like you have believed. A vital clue in an ongoing investigation which I am probably not at liberty to discuss further.
Beth and Jenn have become hooked on the episodic drama of the spunky teenaged detective. To the point that, when trying to express her school spirit, Beth announced, “Go Pirates!” We are also planning on solving crimes from now on, so if you need any crimes solved, we’re here for you.
But seriously, just imagine: You’re on the phone with your friend when I call you. You get to say, “Hold on, Punky’s on the other line.”
-Stephanie
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