Iron Man

Okay, so I'm a little late on writing this review, but one might argue
it's a miracle I'm writing up all the movies and plays I've been
reading/writing/seeing.

Iron Man was a good film to open up the summer movie season. It had
good special effects, witty one liners, and a charismatic lead
character.

I thought there were some areas to be improved, the first being the
removal of Gwynneth Paltrow, who was, in my opinion, the weakest of
the bunch.

The story. I'm not exactly familiar with the source material, so I
can't really lay claims on either its originality or its veracity.
It's rather riddled with cliches, but nothing that breaks the
proverbial bank, so to speak.

The villains were largely stock. I didn't care about them, or
sympathize with their plight.

See, this brings up an interesting question, the question of the
villain. Who can they be, who are the best villains? What elements do
they contain? Do they have similar components? That, indeed, will most
certainly be a future topic of this blog. Perhaps it will be something
I work on outside of the blog and bring a real researched essay on to
near on this topic. For now, play well, write something, and click on
some ads to make me some money.

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Let me begin with the blatant admission that I love Indiana Jones. He
was an iconic figure from my childhood dreams, and I have been
dreaming and hoping for more of his saga since the end of the last
film. I even, at one point, began to read the novelized versions of
the film, and got snared into reading some of the novels which dealt
with Indy's other stories. All that said, I'm not in the leagues of
many of the superfanboys out there.

Bias acknowledged, on to the review. The film was pure spectacle. That
might be what you're looking for. Not me. Boiling it down for you, if
you really enjoyed the Temple of Doom, then this flock might be a
great film for you. Me, my favorite of the original trilogy was the
Last Crusade, which had a great blend of true story telling and
special effects wizardry. This latest entry into the series could have
used more in the story department because I'm pretty sure George Lucas
spent most of his time dreaming up new and zany ways to have Indy
fight this new selection of the eponymous and free to hate enemy.
Soviets.

The films from the past (and I am not speaking in general terms of all
films from the past, but films in the Jones series) there has been a
heady deviation from reality, clearly magical realism taking place,
and that's great. I loved it. This film, IJATKOTCS (not the shortest
acronym by any means), takes reality and throws it away. At times, it
feels as if Lucas got confused, and thought he was playing in his
Star Wars sandbox. The ants come to mind.

However, the acting was generally good, and I appreciated the
reincorporation of some of the characters from previous installments.
I find this notion vital for any series, whether it be on film or
television.

The basic elements of the story are pretty interesting. The
incorporation of elements of US history are quite fun.

Good film? Can't honestly say Yes. I enjoyed the romp for the most
part, but I'm not aching to see it again.

Sent from my iPod

So I was thinking-

I've had a lot of very interesting discussions with friends about the concept of "art". Is there some answer to that brutal question, what's is art?

Art is:

Well, I don't really know. I think a perfectly reasonable, if overly vague, answer is, Art is something that makes you feel something. But does it stop there? Clouds in the sky make me feel things. Are they art? Outside of opening up a debate about nature as art and God as painter, I'm not sure I think of clouds as art. I mean, I might be wrong, but then again, I have the electronic microphone here, so this is me working through my own sense of what art comprises.

So, do we then say that art must be made by humans? What about the elephant paintings? Do they qualify as art or as a neat trick?

For me, I'd have to say that a requisite of Art for me does rely a lot on emotion. But also thought. and humanity. I think artistic pieces need to have some sense of relation to the human existence. Otherwise, we run the risk of having just pure spectacle. I'm very curious at the contemporary divide between spectacle and, because this blog focuses on theatre and such, dramatic art. (I'll talk about spectacle vs drama later)

So. Did I answer that question? What is art? No. Maybe scratched the surface, its a deep question, and I'll hit it again. Now, Indiana Jones.
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Questions

I realize, as I look over a host of my posts, that I seem to ask a lot
of questions, and don't seem to offer many answers. In that regard,
and to compliment what I think I know about playwriting, I'm going to
try to answer some of the questions that I've postulated on the past.

Of course, someone is using my computer right now and I'm writing on
this, so I really don't know what questions I've postulated in the
past. I will deviate from the writing talk for a moment of gadget love
and say that the typing on this thing isn't as bad as I thought it
might be, and might actually be something I could get used to given
enough time.

Okay, so questions I will try to answer in the following week.

1. What are good jobs for writers to have?
2. How does one write well rounded characters?

Kay. There we go. I guess I will also try writing a fee articles fo
online publications. Anything I'm search of the almighty dollar. Rest
assured dear readers, if there is some of my writing online, I will
link it back here.

On a final note, I got my first check from my ads, and I would like to
thank all of you for spending time reading this.

Much love.

Sent from my iPod

Trying something new

Hello friends,
I've decided to set up my iPod touch to handle some emailing and
blogging capabilities.

I'm hoping this will increase my productivity, but who knows.

Sent from my iPod

Well now.

Been a bit of time I suppose, since last I came upon this hallowed ground. I have completed year one of Sarah Lawrence College, and it has been a doozy of a year. I hope, and I know I've said this before, that I will be able to keep this blog going better in the summer months, and hopefully establish a bit more of a web presence. That being said, here's a quick summary of the year.

I wrote ten plays. That's right. Ten plays.

1. Hard Fish (yeah, I know I technically wrote this in the past, but I did six whole new drafts of it, and the play is pretty different than the original.)
2. This is Not About Love (a crooner musical with songs I don't own the rights to.)
3. Ninety Minutes to Eternity
4. The Door in the Fourth Wall
5. The Sanity of Byron Constantine
6. Axe Gambit
7. AFK
8. The Prodigal One
9. Faux Real
10. Woyzeck: The Musical

So there we go. The real turning point, in my opinion, was at play five. That's where my professors noticed real improvement and felt they were finally getting a piece of me as a writer in the plays, and that the plays weren't so distant and impersonal. I'm quite proud of a number of the plays. I think "Faux Real" is the favorite for me, though I also really like what came out of my Woyzeck adaptation. I've submitted two plays to the department for a full production, and plan on submitting some other plays to other theatres for development/production soon. SO, if any of my lovely readers would like to suggest places to send plays, let me know.

That said, I'm back here. On the blog. AND, I'm looking forward to a productive summer. For the mean time, I'm headed to the laundry room. It's time to move. Again.