Documentary Review

Recently I watched the documentary "The Red Chapel", made in 2009. It's about three Danish guys who pose as a theater troupe called The Red Chapel troupe, and go to North Korea under the pretense of cultural exchange. Actually though, they're spying. The name Red Chapel is a communist reference, but to a communist group spying on Nazi Germany, so maybe not the idea that the North Koreans had. The group is made up of the journalist Mads Brügger, and the comedians Simon Jul and Jacob Nossell. Simon and Jacob were born in Korea, but given up for adoption and grew up in Denmark. This was the first time they'd been home. Here's the trailer, kind of long, but good.

Mags is a weird sort of journalist. He impersonates things he's not in order to get information he wants, and that's what's going on here. He gets these two comedians to pretend they're a communist sympathizing theater troupe, so he can get in and try and expose North Korea and get good solid evidence of the atrocities the government commits. The troupe does actually put together a show, with skits and tap dancing and songs, to perform. But tt turns out a little differently than he expects. Besides focusing on Mags' search for truth, the documentary also looks at Jacob's experience. See, Jacob suffers from cerebral palsy, so he's usually in a wheelchair, has speech issues, and his muscles don't work the way they're supposed to. His intelligence level is normal, but everything else is really obvious. North Korea has been accused of killing children with disabilities. As they get closer to the performance date, the North Korea government representatives assigned to the troupe give Jacob a smaller and smaller role, eventually saying that he can't even talk. Jacob says that when he went there he was naive and didn't realize how bad it really was, he was only 18, but it really did serve as an awakening for him, as well as to highlight the issue of how people with handicaps are treated in North Korea.

Something that I really like about this documentary is that there's a counterpoint to Mags' view that North Korea is terrible, and he is right in doing whatever it takes to get the information out. Mags says that he has no scruples at all, and he joins in in doing whatever the North Koreans are doing so they won't get suspicious, but Jacob won't do it. He believes that the issue is more complicated than Mags will admit too, and they have some interesting discussions about it. But Mags also talks about whether he prompted Jacob into an emotional breakdown, and whether he's right for doing this without being confronted which I liked. It was nice that he entertained the thought, and talked about it in the movie. While a lot of it is dedicated to him trying to catch the North Koreans, and he can be a bit of a jerk sometimes, he's honest and I thought that was good.

This documentary is really interesting because it shows what it's like inside of North Korea. At least as much as is possible, given that the government really doesn't allow anyone outside of a given area. But they are shown a lot of Pyongyang, schools, culture centers, and they go on some picnics. Mads compares going on a picnic in North Korea to going on a picnic in the Black Forest in Nazi Germany. While watching the movie, you're always reminded of the terrible conditions, the totalitarian government. Pyongyang is empty, there's almost no one in the streets. And the three Dutch guys have this lady named Mrs. Pak follow them around everywhere, all the time, and they're only allowed to see what the government wants them to see. They have a camera, but they have to turn over the film to government censors, who will cut out any parts they see as demeaning to their "Great Leader", Kim Jong Il (remember this was made in 2009). 

"The Red Chapel" was made with not that great of a camera, and it was just one camera, so they can't really get all that fancy with the cinematography. But the editing is really nice, especially in this one scene where they all go to school. There's a bunch of super talented genius kids, and pictures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il everywhere, and it's all edited so that is goes by very quickly, with the Great Leaders in pretty much all of the shots, and it's really overwhelming which is how it was for the Jacob and Simon. There's also a recurring motif. Trusted members of the inner party get these little pins with a picture of Kim Il Sung's face on them, and whenever they meet someone new there's a shot of the pin. This isn't really editing, but it's kind of in the same category. They used a lot of archival footage of old performances, or old appearances of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, and that really added to the image of North Korea that they were creating.The sound is similarly sort of elegantly understated, basically just whatever they had available. They got to watch some performances by some of the super talented genius children from the school, and sound from those performances is used in throughout the movie. Other than that, it's mostly just dialogue, ambiant noise, and also Mags' narration that was added in after they came back to Denmark. 

I thought this movie was really interesting, and it might not be interesting to everyone, but I think if you're interested in current events or world history or stuff like that then it would be interesting. Also it's just entertaining to watch and see the interactions between the government officials and the three Dutch guys who are trying to see how far they can push it. After these three guys, no Dutch journalists have ever been let in to North Korea. Here's the movie poster, here is a link to the movie's website, and this is the end.

Today I went to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, because they had an exhibit called Women Who Rock about women in music, and it was really cool and so I thought I would write about it. They started in the 1920s ish and then into now except they went from now back to the 1920s so it wasn't in chronological order which was kind of annoying. But they had the costumes, and lps, and lyrics, and they had Joan Jett's guitar, they had a bunch of people's guitars and several bass too. So that was really cool, especially getting to see the handwritten lyrics. They had tv screens playing biographies for all the artists featured, and then they also had a room where they played music videos.

The exhibit was broken down into several different time periods, and I'm now going to write about one person from each time period (briefly) and then link a video. Because that little paragraph was short, and everyone in the exhibit was really good. So to start off our journey through female music making or whatever, let's look at Maaaaa Rainey. It's actually just Ma Rainey. She was one of the earliest, and a very influential blues artist, known for her powerful voice, energy, and her peculiar "moaning" style of singing. She made songs that poor people in the South could relate to, like "Bo Weevil Blues" and that made her really popular also she was really cool so that helped. Here is one of her songs. Quality isn't that great, because at the time Paramount had terrible audio recording equipment so sad. It's called Booze And Blues.

It's really bluesy, and wonderful, and you can kind of hear her excellent voice. Alright so now we move on to the thirties. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was not only an excellent guitar player, she was also willing to cross the line between spiritual and secular, and bring gospel to us atheists. Fun fact: a video of her playing is also featured in the movie Amelie (the first e should have an accent but I don't really feel like figuring out how to do that). Anyway, so Rosetta was really influential on people like Elvis on Johnny Cash, and she was really good, so here's some of her playing. It's called Up Above My Head.

Ok now to be honest I can't really remember the forties very well, so I think what we'll do now is just sort of skip over to Ruth, yes Ruth Brown. So Ruth Brown was an R&B artist, who made R&B more commercially successful. Ok so now we're going to start getting into the part where not only are the female artists influential and good, they write songs about women's issues. So Ruth Brown popularized R&B, and Atlantic (record company) was known as "the house that Ruth built" because she was so successful and everyone loved her. She also wrote a song about being in an abusive relationship, and the song ended with her saying that she was going to leave. This is technically not the regular version, but I like it better. It's called Mama; He Treats Your Daughter Mean.

So then there was the sixties. Doo-woppy girl groups, or single acts, was how women interacted with music. There were actually just a lot of them, and they usually had really cool names. So for the early sixties (by the end it had changed a looot so the museum divided it into two halves when organizing, and i am following in their footsteps) we're going to look at Leslie Gore. Besides having a good name, she wrote one of the first feminist anthem songs. She also decided to go to college, instead of continuing on with her 15 minutes of fame kind of career. So while she may not have really influenced music a whole lot, she was an important figure for women. Here is You Don't Own Me.

The second half of the sixties were pretty different from the first half. Psychedelic rock, folk, hippies, all kinds of weird stuff. Janis Joplin is a favorite of mine, and also a very influential person, so she is our focus person (that sounds right) for the late sixties. She had a fantastic voice, and sang with so much passion, and was incredible, and her lyrics had all of that too. It's so raw, and she sang about things without boundaries really. She sang about love REAL LOVE MAN I feel kind of silly saying that, I'm all of sixteen years old, but you can hear it in her voice it's real for her. So I have to link Piece Of My Heart what kind of person would I be if I didn't.

And so now it's the seventies, in time travel women's music land. My personal tastes are going to greatly interfere here, since they gave pop artists like Cher and then rock musicians like Joan Jett I'm going to go for Joan here always. So this paragraph is about Joan Jett. She founded one of the first all-girl rock bands, and it was even mildly successful in Japan yeah! Then she started Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and wrote awesome songs, and was an awesome guitarist, inspired at least in part the riot-grrrl movement, and she still plays today. Way to go Joan. I'm gonna go with Bad Reputation here even though it had bad words aahhh

And now we're onto the eighties almost done guys they kind of lumped the nineties in the with the eighties and the two thousands I guess everyone would just like to forget them, right? Haha well moving onto Kim Deal, and punk! Kim Deal was the bassist for The Pixies, and then she went on to form her own band, The Breeders, where everyone except for the drummer is a girl. She's a great bassist and guitarist, and she achieved success with both The Pixies and The Breeders. Both bands were really popular in the 90s, and the punk movement. This is Cannonball, one of The Breeders' most successful songs.

And so now we're in the present! Mostly the museum people chose to focus on pop music artists, which makes sense, since they're the ones who have been the most visible, and it's sort of our generations music much as it pains me to say that. But ok so they had three separate display cases for Lady Gaga which really bugged me, because Lady Gaga is really just a pale imitation of Madonna and there are tons of other people in that exhibit they could have given two extra cases too. One of them was her meat dress too. Ugh anyway, back on track, this paragraph is about Bikini Kill, from the riot-grrrl movement which was pretty much all feminism and Bikini Kill was one of the biggest bands out there. The last couple of songs haven't been really explicitly about feminism, but pretty much all of Bikini Kill's are. So this is the last song, and it's not exactly a calming finish but whatever. The video is cool too. Here is Rebel Girl.

So in conclusion, it was a really cool exhibit. I knew a lot about the later musicians, but not a lot about the early ones. There were a lot that I didn't mention, but they were all very interesting. Like other women in the 19th century, they had to fight to make their voices heard, and we can still hear them today how poetic was that. But they made good music, about important issues, and it was a good exhibit. If you can go see it before January 6th at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, you should because it's pretty interesting. The end.

I watched my pretty much all time favorite movie for about the millionth time today, and as I was finishing it, I thought, "Hey now I know what to write for my blog post." Yes yes so today our topic is the best movie ever, CRY-BABY YEAH. So there's greaser (they're called drapes) named Wade "Crybaby" Walker, and he's played by young Johnny Depp (swoon). And then this square, Allison Vernon-Williams (Amy Locane) is all I'M SO TIRED OF BEING GOOD (direct quote. as I said before, I've watched this movie a loooot), and she runs away but her boyfriend is mad, you know. Typical.

 It's directed by John Waters, and is a satire of Grease and musicals like Grease and the 1950s. It makes fun of the stereotypes of the super goody two shoes kids, and the burning-cars-for-fun kids too. Also, I really like the music. It's good, man. Since this is technically a review, I shall now review it. See this movie, this wonderful movie is a really good satire, but it also manages to still be a good movie. It's got character development, and some wonderfully camp and also some just wonderful normal lines. And there's a great car chase (sort of) scene, and then a great prison break scene so that checks some boxes. The acting's also pretty overdramatic and great which is as it should be.

So yes that is pretty much all I have to say about this movie, and it is fabulous, and you should watch it, and here is the trailer and it's great.

Yes ok and now this is the end.

Yes so we're supposed to write blog posts every week, but no one told me to my face, so I just didn't and forgot and everything was terrible but that's an exaggeration, it was more like mildy bad. Anyway, this is my first weekly blog post even though I was supposed to start like a month ago. So I'm going to write about this video, which is basically just an ad for Barney's (it's also supposed to reference Disney's famous Electrical Parade).

It's actually just really boring and long, and the awful part only comes towards the end, so I'll summarize it for you. Baasically Minnie Mouse, the beloved children's character sees this dress in a window, and she's like wow that's really wonderful I wish I could wear that but I guess to wear that I would have to be a model in Paris. I don't really know, basically she ends up in Paris and there's fashion runways and paparazzi, and a bunch of animated people who I'm pretty sure are supposed to be actual people but I don't know anything about the fashion world so I can't recognize any of them. I think I saw the cast of Sex and the City though. Anyway, so basically she goes to this fashion runway show, and there's Daisy Duck, and Goofy, and Cruella De Ville and Tiana (The Princess and The Frog) and everyone is getting their makeovers. So everything is fine until they get to the actual runway. And then little Minnie Mouse walks out onto the stage, and suddenly she's transformed into this rail-thin anorexic dead-eyed model. The same thing happens to all the other characters (and really, they didn't choose the best characters to be models anyway. Cruella De Ville is a villain, and Goofy is just a mess (his outfit is really awful too)).

So if you don't already know what the problem is with this video (well, actually multiple problems), I'll just let you know. Minnie and the others are supposed to be children's characters. Innocent, pure, honest, good, and all those other 1950s values. Children's characters are very unsexy, because they're for little children. And yet, Barney's has sexed up sweet little Minnie Mouse. The way they've done it is also quite disturbing. If anyone actually did watch the video, then they probably notice how skinny everyones legs and just generally their whole entire bodies were. Barney's and whoever was in charge of this video made Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck and Tiana and everyone else anorexic in their attempts to make them looks sexy. The first thing might not bother some people, but the second one is really just bad. Oh and that's not even the worst. Ready?

“When we got to the moment when all Disney characters walk on the runway, there was a discussion. The standard Minnie Mouse will not look so good in a Lanvin dress. There was a real moment of silence, because these characters don’t change. I said, ‘If we’re going to make this work, we have to have a 5-foot-11 Minnie,’ and they agreed. When you see Goofy, Minnie and Mickey, they are runway models.”

That is a quote from Barney's creative director, denis Freedman. So Minnie Mouse isn't thin enough, or tall enough to wear your dresses? And the only solution is to make her an anorexic model? That's a great message to send to little girls, who adore Minnie Mouse. Their hero has to change her body type just to wear a dress. But once she's skinny and tall, everyone loves her. Of course I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised. That's already what girls get told. Still, this just seems like a step up from everything else. If Minnie Mouse can be slimmed down in a short for a department store, what's to stop it from happening to just regular Minnie, and other children's characters. But still, it could have been worse. I will leave you with the conceptual drawings to contemplate.

Here is my Capture the Fall video. Finally. It's quite lovely. I used my iPhone, and then my iPhone didn't work, so that's why it's this late. There were actual real technical difficulties, I'm not just making it up. So this is a video of my trip to my dads house in New Hampshire, which is why it's called Fall in New Hampshire. 

Tada.

Sorry Mr. Mac, but I'm going to write this post about the great and wonderful Nikola Tesla (credit for inspiration to Brianna). Because he doesn't get the credit he deserves. This post will go in chronological order of his life, so lets start with the early life of this genius.
He was born in 1856 in Serbia, in the little town of Smiljan, which is a pretty great name. His father was a priest, and according to Wikipedia, his mother had a talent for memorizing epic Serbian poems. She seems like a pretty cool lady. But this post isn't about her, it's about her child. Who was accused of cheating by his teachers because he could do calculus in his head. Yeah, you know. Just calculus. So after an eventful early life in Serbia (it's actually really interesting, but really long, and I won't get into it here), he moved to New York City in 1884, when he was 28, to go and work for Thomas Edison. Because that's what young inventors would do in those days. Edison's place was where it was at for inventors, because Edison was like God. So off Tesla went, to go and work with the great and powerful Thomas Edison. But Edison and Tesla viewed inventing very differently. Edison was much more of a trial and error kind of guy, but Tesla could envision his inventions in his head, and solve all possible problems there too. So they fought a lot.
When Tesla arrived, Edison was working on direct current generators, which is a type of electricity. These were reeeaally inefficient, and Tesla, kind gent that he was, offered to fix them up. Edison told him that if he could do it, he would pay Tesla fifty thousand dollars. In today's money, that's a million dollars. A couple months later, when Tesla did what he said he would, did Edison pay up, like he said he would? No. He said "Tesla, you don't understand our American humor." And then offered Tesla a small raise. Yes, Edison really did. So of course Tesla left.
He formed his own company, and started working on an alternating current generator. Alternating current is another form of electricity. This pitted him in a "War of the Currents" against Edison. But Edison's direct current required expensive copper cables to be buried in the streets with power stations every mile because direct current electricity cannot travel very far. So Edison's method was expensive and basically very pointless, but of course he couldn't admit defeat to the much cheaper and much less expensive to install alternating current. Never! Instead, he started electrocuting animals. Because of course. His plan was to show how dangerous alternating current was, when in fact direct current and alternating current are basically the same level of dangerousness, and he was using a much higher level of wattage than would actually be sent through wires into people's homes. But electrocuting elephants really makes a statement, so no one would buy into alternating current. But through several exhibitions, like the 1893 Chicago World's fair, Tesla was able to show the world that no, alternating current didn't electrocute animals. Come on, Edison.
But that's not even all he did. He invented the radio. No, Guglielmo Marconi did not invent the radio. As Nikola Tesla said, "Marconi is a good fellow. Let him continue. He is using seventeen of my patents." (so in case you didn't get that, Marconi stole ideas from Tesla). Tesla also invented a spark plug for internal combustion engines in 1898, pitched the idea of radar to the U.S. military in 1917 (Edison was the head of R&D for the U.S. Navy though, and he just couldn't let that grudge go), started experimenting with x-rays two years before Wilhelm Rontgen (the guy who is credited with the discovery of x-rays) announced his discovery (at first, it was believed x-rays could cure ailments, but Tesla cautioned against it. Guess who ignored that? Edison x-rayed his lab assistant so much that the assistant had to have his arms amputated, and then later died of mediastinal cancer (your mediastinum is basically the cavity where your heart is). Edison also almost blinded himself by repeatedly x-raying his eyes. He is then later quoted as saying "Don't talk to me about x-rays, I am afraid of them."), built the first hydro-electric plant at Niagara plant, recorded radio waves from outer space, discovered the resonant frequency of Earth (it actually took 50 years for scientists to verify something Tesla had found out in 1890), built an earthquake machine that nearly demolished one of New York City's neighborhoods, successfully produced the extremely rare phenomenon of ball lightning (Nikola Tesla did it in the 1890s, but no one has been able to recreate it since), he held patents a hundred years ago that are now used to make transistors (an important component of computers), invented remote control, and sooo many other things. Basically he's a genius.
So what happens next is a little surprising. He has his moment in the sun, get's invited to all the parties, has fun electrical experiments with his best buddy Mary Twain (yeah). But Tesla was never the best business man, and his ideas were not really the best business. So he lost a lot of money. He ended up living alone in a little New York apartment, talking to pigeons and living off of Nabisco crackers. He died when he slipped and hit his head on ice, got back up, and walked to his apartment. He died unrecognized for all of his achievements, all of his contributions, all of his discoveries, everything that he did. It's really pretty sad.
So this is Nikola Tesla awareness post. Because he should be at least as well known Thomas Edison, if not more so. Recently, over one million dollars was raised to turn his old laboratory, Wardenclyffe, where, by the way, he planned to produce free energy for the entire world. See, the things he invented are just endless. Oh, the death ray story is really good, you should go look that one up because I should probably stop. Basically, Nikola Tesla deserves to be remembered. And this is certainly not really well written, but I think it conveys the idea of how smart he was well enough for me to be able to tell you that there's not a reason why Nikola Tesla shouldn't be a household name.

So I would like to redo yesterday's post, if possible. I had just gotten back from an impromptu doctors visit, and I didn't know what to write about, and I was watching Freaks and Geeks so I decided to write about that even though I couldn't really write about why I liked it. But now I have thought about an actual topic, so I'm going to write about that, and then maybe we can just pretend that the other post didn't happen. By we I mean myself and Mr. Mayo. So basically what I'm saying is I would like you to grade this one instead, please. Here it is.

Basically I'm writing about the future, more specifically my fears about it and even more specifically my fears about college and then getting a job after that. I've been told for so long that I can do whatever I want to, when I grow up I can be whatever I want because I'm just so amazingly special. But actually, now that it's almost about to happen, it really doesn't look that way. It looks like I'm going to have to work really hard to get into college, work really hard and acquire massive debts in college, and then spend the rest of my life trying to find steady work and paying off college loans. My family is pretty well off, but even so, we're not well off enough to pay my way through college. I think I've got like 10,000 in my college account. That's enough for maaaybe a semester. And I want to be a neurologist, which means med school, which means at least 10-13 years of college, including getting a bachelors. I have to get my bachelors, then go to med school for four years for a medical degree, and then complete a three or four year residency. For the class of 2009, the average debt of a med student was $157,990, and 25.1% of med school graduates have debt in excess of $200,000 (Association of American Medical Colleges). And the average cost of going to medical school has risen 5-6% each year (also Association of American Medical Colleges). And then once I get out of college, I have to find a job. And currently, 53.6% of college grads, with a bachelors, 25 and under are unemployed or underemployed (I couldn't find one about med students) (Census Bureau's Current Population Survey and the Department of Labor). So that's not exactly comforting. And who knows if I'm even going to get into college in the first place. I can add that to my pile of worry. This is not exactly a good time to be going to college. Although, who knows. Maybe by the time I'm done with my 10-13 years of college, it'll be better.

Oh yes, and here is my media element. It is a picture that I found, that I think pretty accurately shows why I am worried and why everything is terrible no that last part isn't true but I'm still worried.

We have been instructed to write about anything that we want to. I FEEL SO LIBERATED. So what I've decided to write about is....yes, it is the show Freaks and Geeks. Even though it's set in the 1980s, it is very relatable. Also, young Seth Rogen, young James Franco, young Jason Segal. The other people didn't go on to become famous, but they're good actors too. It's an awesome show is what i'm saying. There's only eighteen episodes though, which is really disappointing. My god though, those episodes are good.

Edit: this is the shortest post I've ever written, and it's about something I want to write about. Just an observation.

I haven't really had a chance to work with my dystopian trailer group, since I missed a lot of last week, but what I have done is scriptwriting. A lot of the lines that were written were long and awkward, and so I tried to shorten them down, so they would work. In our script, we have a government that is brainwashing people, a police force that is making people conform and chasing them down if they don't, and a reference to a leader who is worshipped. That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Our trailer is told from the perspective of Student A45, so that's how the story will be told. Through her experiences. It's in a chronological order. So she starts off conforming, but with a feeling that something is wrong. And then she finds a book, which spurs her to become more revolutionary. And the trailer ends with a dramatic finish when she is caught by the police. All told, that's eight scenes. I think it's going to turn out nicely. The end.

Aaalright this is my 5x5 video

1. Pouring water out of the fish bowl
2. Cleaning the fish bowl
3. Putting the fake plant back into the fish bowl
4. Pouring water into the fish bowl
5. Pouring my fish into his home, the fish bowl

It's about my fish, well, cleaning my fish's bowl. So you don't really see my fish until the end. His name is Fishmael. I made this video using my Panasonic Lumix camera, which is pretty nice. I edited it using iMovie, which was pretty simple. I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I think it looks pretty nice, and I'm happy with it. For our next independent video project, I think we should do something like a music video, or the 5x5 project with music. Because I like music, and I thought this was fun. The end.

The Woody Allen film "Sleeper", while still resembling his more traditional comedic works, does take place in a dystopian future, where people are led by a mysterious leader and a government that keeps the citizens dumb, in a "Brave New World like scenario. Woody Allen's character, Miles Munroe, is cryogenically frozen in the year 1973, after a routine surgery goes horribly wrong. He is awoken 200 years in the future by a group of scientists hoping to use him in for the resistance. Hijinks ensue.

In the trailer for the movie, Woody Allen is interviewed by an unseen person about the movie. He answers the questions sarcastically, and the clips shown after his answers show how sarcastic he is being, because really, he is being extremely sarcastic and it's pretty funny. Early on, one of the clips establishes the problem that Miles finds himself confronted with. Other clips show the kind of society that exists in "Sleeper". Most of the clips shown, and the answers given by Woody Allen emphasize the comedic and romantic nature of the movie. The interview with Woody Allen is really effective, and the clips make the movie look entertaining and funny. Overall, it is a very effective trailer. However, I don't think I'll be able to use most of the techniques used in this trailer. For one thing, Woody Allen's schedule is probably far too busy for him to come and star in our dystopian trailer, and for another, that was a joke. While this movie takes place in a dystopian society, it is largely a comedy, so the trailer is pretty comedic too. The dystopian movies that we aren't actually making are way more serious, and so for our trailer we're going to have to use different techniques than those used in this trailer. This very trailer. That one right there. This is the end of my post. The end.

Alright so for this post I am writing about this article, which is called "World Without Walls: Learning Well With Others". What a title. Such alliteration. Ok so basically the author of the article is saying that schools have to move on from the traditional ideas of teaching, and embrace the technological revolution to help teach. So using blogs for connecting outside the classroom, and Google Docs, and all those other great websites. I mean personally, I don't know why it's taken this long. Sharing websites have been around for a while, and it's a really great idea. For one thing, the school's are always saying that they're trying to use less paper, and yet they send home piles of it. And it's not like the internet is going to go away, so you might as well adapt to it. Adapt or die. Our school system is already not that great, but by not updating themselves they fall even further behind. So I think it's a good idea. Relating specifically to our class, I do think it's a good idea because we can post videos and talk to our change group members, and do all sorts of other useful things like that.

One of the points that the article made was that we're going to have to be more careful about where we get our information. Here is my direct quote yeah "We must also expand our ability to think critically about the deluge of information now being produced by millions of amateur authors without traditional editors and researchers as gatekeepers". I mean, we all pretty much know this. Our teachers have been telling us which websites to use for research and which ones not to use since middle school. But when you get into blogging, it's a little bit different. People talk about things that they don't actually know about, and say that they're things they're not. I dunno, I just feel like it's different because all the websites are pretty much in the same format, and you're basing you're judgement of whether to trust the information or not on what they're saying and nothing else. 

I didn't really like the way the author talked about kids and their dealings with the internet. Thats what surprised me. The way she wrote about it was like kids don't use the internet at all and we need to protect them from it. Which is totally not what actually happens. We little children know our way around the interweb pretty well, and we also know what counts as the creepy candy van on the internet. All those classes and super dramatic movies about kids being lured into getting into the creepy candy van taught us well.

Aaaalright I'm almost done the last thing I have to do is say what I think we should use our blogs to learn about. I would like to learn more about filming techniques. So I can make my videos look cool. Because whenever I try to film something, it looks really boring and bland and awful. So that is what I would like to learn about. Alright. The end.

Alright so this assignment is to write about a movie review. Review a movie review. So I'm writing about Roger Ebert's review of the awesome movie, "The Fall". It's great. The movie, I mean. Mr. Ebert's review was published by the Chicago Sun-Times. Said review has a pretty basic structure. He starts out with his reactions to the movie, and a little description of some of the images, and then he moves into the plot. He gives a really detailed description of the plot. Then he moves into his analysis of whether a reader would like the movie or not, with some reasons, and then the final paragraph deals a little bit with the theme and it's also just sort a conclusion. Wrapping things up. He writes a lot about the plot, but he didn't give away the ending which was really nice. Even though I've already seen it. I just don't like it when people do that. There's not a lot about the scenery or the other dramatic aspects of the movie, which I found surprising since they're so spectacular in the movie. Ok so our movie reviews. I think we should get more freedom with them, because last year when we did this we really didn't get a lot of freedom and had to write exactly what the teachers wanted us to write. Which was ok, I guess, but it would be really nice to have more freedom. Some basic structure would probably be a good idea, so that you can grade it, and so that we have some idea of what we're supposed to be writing about. Also, it would be awesome to write more about what our opinion was on the movie, not only whether we thought it was good or bad but also what we thought could be improved in the movie. Like if we see plot holes or something. So now I'm done. Here is the review that I reviewed. The end.

Hi so my name is Ruth. The "I like turtles" thing is kind of a joke, but I guess I'm really going through through with it. I mean, look at my background...that's going to change eventually. I'll leave it up for effect. So let's see. I only kind of like turtles, I don't really have an opinion on them. My favorite animal is actually penguins. They're awesome. What do I do....I watch television and I eat and I sleep and I read and I listen to music and I do some art stuff and then I go to school, and isn't that just a fun mix of stuff? This is actually a school blog, so I'll talk about some school stuff now. I'm a sophmore, and I'm in CAP, and I don't like getting up early for school at all. I wish the lunch periods were longer. Those are my opinions about school. I'm supposed to say what aspects of film-making I'm interested in. I like making them, that counts. Let's see in eighth grade my class went to New York, and we interviewed the director of SNL (I am two degrees away from Tina Fey hahaa) and shot a bunch of b-roll, but I don't remember ever actually touching the camera...but it still counts. I did a lot of editing. Which I have now forgotten how to do. So how can we use our blogs...well, I mean maybe the teachers could get blogs so we could have another resource in addition to edline and I guess edline kind of already takes the place of a blog but edline takes a while to update, or is that just for grades....it might be useful for the teachers to have blogs too. I dunno. For our change project, if we split up the project into assignments for different people, the different people could use the blogs to keep each other updated on their progress. And my third and final idea iiiiisss.....we could post finished videos onto our blog so that we could share their glorious and magnificent beauty with the world. My assignment is finished. I'm changing my background now.

Wait no I have to have a picture ok here's my picture

It's a microscope because I like science, and a microscope does everything you would ever possibly need to do in science. I'm a good schience officer. Ok. Now I'm done.