Yesterday I saw a Russian film called "Frescoes." It had it's premiere at Sundance last week and was being shown publicly for the first time at NYU. It was about a group of people living in Armenia after an earthquake that wiped out over half the town. I was really tired while watching it and dozed off. It was very slow, but had some moments that were really poet, those moments kept me awake, but in general I think I missed too much of the movie to really pass any judgement on it. Much of what I saw was really beautiful and sad. The director was there too and he answered some questions afterwards which was interesting. A large Armenian group had showed up and had lots of questions for the rather animated director.

I also watched the first half of John Woo's "Hardboiled." This movie is just damn cool. I hesistate to say it's good just because it has so many parts that are just cheesy as hell, but it's got some neat editing and the shootout at the beginning of the movie is great. It was about 4 in the morning half way through the movie so I went to bed.

I also watched a tiny bit of "Un Chien Andalou" again, just because.

Today in my Cinema and Literature class we watched Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." Eh... Some moments were great, like the beginning with all the workers marching around in their underground city and the end with the children escaping the flood, but a lot of it was just alright. For the time that it was made it's revolutionary, but I guess you had to be there...

Later tonight for my Language of Film class, we're watching "Princess Mononoke." I haven't seen that on the big screen so it's going to be really cool. I'm excited.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see "The Hours" with a friend...

Okay, enough about movies. School is fun, I'm enjoying all my classes except for Writing the Essay which is just an evil class that I'm required to take.

I've been having some fun with my new camcorder. I'm in the process of making videos about my roommates in my spare time. My first one was about Leonard and it's on our website at http://homepages.nyu.edu/~bjl229. It's really cheesy, I was trying to do something in the MTV real world style. When I work on real project, trust me, they won't be like this. I was just getting a feeling for the camera and my editing software. The next one is about Francis and I'm doing it in the headache inducing MTV fast cutting, lots of sped up footage, City of God style. It's kind of fun, I'm just getting these nasty habits out of my system before I start working on projects for school... The video about Leonard took about 4 hours to make, the one about Francis I'm taking some more time on...

Nothing more to say, I'm just waiting for my next class to start...

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Saw the Brazilian film City Of God (****) today. Wow. Very stylish. Very MTV, but with a great story and the substance to back it all up. It even takes the cliche fancy camera tricks and does original things with them. Basically it's about a poor area of Brazil called The city of God struggles between two rival gangs within the city. Kinda Goodfellasish. I won't go anymore into it, but you should see it if it's playing anywhere near you.

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Saw Mulholland Drive yesterday. Wow... I'll let you know what I thought later. I need to process it for now...

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Got back around 1 in the morning on the day classes started.

My flight from Colorado to New York was pretty crappy. First of all I didn't want to leave, but to make matters worse, when we were 40 minutes away from Denver some guy became "distressed" and we had to turn the plane around. We flew back to Denver and the flight ended up arriving in New York two hours late. It was the worst flying experience I've had yet. Worse than my 13 hour ordeal flying back to Seattle back in December.

Colorado was so much fun. I don't really feel like getting into the details of everything I did, but basically I hung out with Kim in Colorado Springs and we went to a city called Estes Park. Estes Park was absolutely gorgeous. Nestled in the Rocky Mountain, it was cold as hell and the wind was blowing like crazy, but we had a great time. Colorado is a really pretty state by the way... While in Estes Park, very little seemed to go our way (including her car dying), but we had a great time just being together and playing lots of cards. I learned a new card game called Egyptian Rat Crap which I suck really bad at, but my Spades skills are improving.

Basically, it was a really fast six days and unfortunately ended too soon. There's so much more that I could talk about but I'll keep it to myself. I had FUN. Hopefully she'll be able to visit Seattle this summer *fingers crossed*

Hmmmm, what else. I'm hungry and I have to go get some photos developed.

Oh yeah, classes started today. Woohoo...

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Saw two movies today.

The 25th Hour
****
Woohoo, this film was great. Much better than Summer of Sam, but it was no Do the Right Thing. The music was fantastic, the editing was interesting, and the performances from the cast were good as well. The story was a little weak, but the film seemed more interested in emotions and the feel of the city which is conveyed very well. The story was visual poem for New York City and eventually the country in general. At times it's angry and at other times it's beautiful. Thankfully, Spike Lee doesn't get too mushy or patriotic about his love for the nation. Instead, it's about the people inhabiting the city and country and he gets around to covering just about everyone either through monologues or characters in the film. I enjoyed the film a lot and look forward to seeing it again, but The Pianist is still my favorite I've seen this year.

Catch Me If You Can
***
I'm not a big Steven Spielberg fan, but I must admit I enjoyed this movie... My new verdict on him, I like him when all he's doing is having fun. Saving Private Ryan was bad. Schindler's List was okay. Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jaws, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are all great. This movie is a return to those sorts of fun movies he made in the past and it was fun to watch. At times it felt a little long and there's nothing really breathtaking about it, but it was neat. The best thing about the movie though was Christopher Walken. He kicks so much ass...

ok, that's all i feel like saying right now. Seeya.

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My grades

Storytelling Strategies B+

Writing the Essay B-

Animation A

Conversations of the West A-

hmmm... stupid writing class...

I got a region free DVD player today! Woohoo! That means I can watch DVDs from all regions on it. Yep... I also got a copy of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance on DVD. Woohoo! Great movie, I'm making a copy of it onto a tape right now so we can watch it in the dorm since I won't be bringing my new DVD player with me.

What else... I'm going to see the 25th Hour and Catch Me If You Can tonight. I'll write later about what I thought of them.

I bought a Camcorder. A sony Trv27. Booyah... Lots of money gone now though.... Lots....

Alright, not much else to say. Gotta go.

Posted by Ben at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This is my first time writing since I got home. Weird.

Anyway, I've been eating well and enjoying myself. Getting lots of sleep. The only reason I'm writing in this right now is to mention a film I saw today that was just incredible.

Regardless of what Roman Polanski's done in his personal life, he's an awesome filmmaker. Chinatown, Rosemary's Baby, and the Pianist are three of the best films I've ever seen. The Pianist is actually my favorite of the three I've seen and it's my favorite film I've seen since I saw George Washington a couple years ago. I have his version of Macbeth which I'll watch tomorrow. I decided to take a pass on the Ninth Gate.

I'm too lazy to go into the film, but Adrien Brody was good, the directing was very sharp and sensitive toward the subject matter without squeezing the story for every sentimental moment it thought it could find like Schindler's List did. Really good stuff in every respect.

I think I'll start using stars to rate movies. It's a crappy system for a myriad of reasons, but it'll have to do. I realize that sometimes my descriptions of certain films might not give a very good idea of how I felt about a movie. Who am I fooling, as if stars are much better... oh well...

The Pianist ****

I also saw Y Tu Mama Tambien **** today, another highly acclaimed film from this year, it was very good as well.

Other stuff I've seen recently.

A Korean film called The Way Home ***, it was good.

Eraserhead *** Very interesting, I'm most definitely going to have to see it again.

Scooby Doo * Terrible.

About Schmidt *** 1/2 Good, great performance from Jack Nicholson.

Die Another Day ** Bad, but not as bad as Scooby Doo.

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