Well...

So it's 13 days until I leave Chicago and I'm excited and sad. Generic feelings everyone has when leaving a place they, well, don't want to leave. The classes I had this semester were amazing. I had the more fun here than I ever had in high school. Next semester I'm going to NYFA. The New York Film Academy. I've lived on Long Island my whole life and I've gone to NYC countless times. Some of the time to do stand-up comedy, most of the time to just walk around and enjoy the day. If you've never been to NYC just walk down State street and imagine it dirty, crowded, and don't, I REPEAT: DON'T, make eye contact.
I'll miss everyone and everything. The teachers here are really knowledgeable. The friends I've made here are also knowledgeable...and sometimes stoned. But, that's an art student for you.
I'll come visit once in a while.


Hopefully, you'll visit me in NYC!

My two best friends here are in relationships but don't feel the need to tone it down around me. Like baby-talk, cuddling, having an 'I love you' war. It's getting really tiring.
My friend Jordan got a call from his girlfriend and when he answered his phone, his voice changed. This is what we call "the girlfriend voice". It's when a man's voice changes significantly when talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Tone gets higher, range gets more distance (as if to say, "Hey, I have a girlfriend and I want everyone to know!), and the baby voice comes out at the very end of the call. Guys, i know you're in love or whatever and that's great, but grow a pair and talk like a human being.
The last thing I look for in a guy is 'how well he can be act like a complete ass'. You look and sound like an idiot when you do that and your girlfriend is retarded for liking it.

I don't hate people that are in love....just the retarded things they do.

What qualities do I look for in a great film?

Well, I don't walk into a movie theater or throw in a DVD thinking, "Ok, I'm looking for this, this and this." If you go into anything like that, 99% of the time, you're going to be disappointed. If I were to watch 'The Usual Suspects' and say, "Ok, I'm looking for a steady plot in which the bad guy meets his deserved destiny." Not only am I going to be wrong, I'm going to have my mind blown! But, the reoccuring good aspects I find in good/great movies are what I aptly call 'The Usual's'. The Usual's are: Good dialogue, good angles (camera and writing angles), and good endings. I know 'good endings' is kind of vague. But, I have a movie in my collection that I keep merely on the fact that it is a GREAT example of how a bad ending can ruin the whole, once enjoyable, movie. "Mr.Brooks". (I won't give away the ending in case someone wants to see the movie, but you can ask me in class if you like) I've always said a phrase that I will never take back because it's a thousand percent true, a thousand percent of the time...

"Five words that will ruin a great script, '...And then he woke up'. "

The dream sequence has had its place in sitcoms & movies in the past. It's time to kill it, nail the coffin shut, throw it in the grave plot and cover it in cement so it never comes back.
Moving on, sometimes a movie with no resolution can be amazing. Which ones? Off the top of my head: Happiness, What Just Happened?, Doubt, W, ...My roommate liked The Knowing... That's all I can think of but they are great movies!

Great camera angles make me all warm and fuzzy inside. (Take that however you want...)
I've seen great camera angles in such shows as House & Dexter. When I say camera angles, I don't mean just where the camera is pointing. I mean when you see one scene and you know exactly what they are trying to emphasize and what message they're trying to send without a word of dialogue being said.

Good dialogue; Everyone has a favorite line from movies they like. Take for instance the movie that god Martin Scorsese his Oscar (finally...) "The Departed". I love Jack Nicholson's monologue in the beginning of the movie. My favorite line of his is: "You could become cops or criminals. What I'm sayin to ya is this: When you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?" That line tells you almost everything you need to know about that character. Law, restrictions, life & death situations, pressure, none of it phases him. I could go through the whole script and find a quote that I love on each page. Not to mention the beautiful direction. (Thank you Mr.Scorsese!)

All I'm saying is, I've named my qualifications of what makes a good movie, but everyone's motives are different. It's hard to put definite qualifications on something that is based on indiviual opinion.

What Just Happened?

I was in Epic Burger today with my roommate and her boyfriend. While they were talking I zoned out and started watching one of the TVs that hang on the wall. I was watching an old black and white movie. I'm not quite sure what the title was. There was a blond in a lavish dance costume, tap dancing in the middle of 8 men in tuxedos. She wasn't anorexic looking, her dancing was perfect and on cue, she was wearing hardly any make-up. Then I thought, "What happened? What happened to cinema? What happened to the standard of entertainment along with the ridiculous standard for entertainers." I've been trying to figure it out but I honestly don't know how or why certain actors/actresses/filmmakers/directors etc...have lowered the bar. I could only imagine what the premiere to 'All About Eve' was like.
For those that don't know, "All About Eve" came out in 1950. It starred Anne Baxter, Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe, Celeste Holm, George Sanders and my favorite actress of all time, Bette Davis. It won 6 academy awards; Directing, Screenplay, Actor in a supporting role, Sound recording, Costume design for a black and white film, and best motion picture. If you just watch the movie you'll see what real cinema is. The actors are phenomenal, the costumes fit the characters, the delivery of the dialogue is unmatchable. I fell in love with the film industry after watching "All About Eve".
At the risk of sounding like an 80 year old, times have changed. Times have changed a great deal. Now, we have a never ending saga of horrible movies (Transporter, Crank, Superhero movies, etc...) and very few original screenplays. With the economy the way it is, no studio wants to take the risk (or give the chance) to an original screenplay unless you're a big name writer/director. It's sad really. I am a directing major and here I am sitting, drinking coffee, writing a blog for a class for a profession that may not thrive for long. I'm not saying as soon as the economy is back to normal that every movie made from then on will be great....but maybe, JUST MAYBE, they'll stop making SAW movies.

My Major

My major actually came along as a mistake.
Before I came to Columbia, since I was 12, I wanted to be a pastry chef. (Yeah, it was a stretch) I even went to an open house at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) and took a short summer semester there. It really was fun and amazing and I learned so much. Being that the CIA is a prestigious culinary school, it was beautiful and I couldn't wait to go! But one day I sat down and thought about it. Do I really want to push and pull cakes out of the oven for the rest of my life? HELL NO! So by sophomore year of high school, I knew I didn't want to be a pastry chef. But I hadn't told my parents yet. I was scared to tell them that I had no direction in life. (I was 15.) lol! Anyway, I had applied to Jonson Wales. You get accepted there...you're on your way to becoming the head chef at the Borgata! Graduate from there and you can travel anywhere, cook whatever and still make 6 figures. I got rejected. After 6 hours of cursing I cooled down. I didn't want to go but I thought I'd at least get accepted. When I called them and asked why i didn't get accepted, they said it's because in my oceanography class in high school, i got a D. I didn't know Oceanography had anything to do with cooking...Oh, wait...it doesn't! lol. (Yeah, I'm still a little bitter.) Moving on, I was looking for something else to fulfill what I wanted out of life. I knew I wanted to inspire people, I wanted to be recognized for my good work, (not necessarily with money or awards or fans, just something, ya know?) I wanted to be apart of something big! I thought....Stand up comedy! I was 40 minutes away from NYC, the comedy capitol of NY! So many people started there. I started to do stand up but I knew I couldn't do it full time. I did so many shows that I was forgetting whether it was Monday or Friday. It was a lot of fun, but my money all going into transportation. So after persuing 2 careers in one year I was exhausted. I held myself up in my room just watching movies. Then I saw a movie called 'Hard Candy'. That was the first movie that I ever noticed was beautifully directed. After the movie, I knew I wanted to direct. I started stealing my friends video camera and making short films with my friends. None of them were any good of course because all of my friends are shit at acting and I was an ameteur. It was so much fun and I actually enjoyed setting up shots, filming, directing and editing them. I picked up a couple of low paying or no paying acting jobs in the city just to be near a camera. Being in film was where I wanted to be.End of my Senior year of high school, I decided to tell my parents what I REALLY wanted to do.
Here I am.
Next semester I'll be going back to NYC to the New York Film Academy.

Are you kidding??

My experience is somewhat bitter-sweet.
When I went home (Long Island, NY) for Christmas vacation I was in line at a starbucks on a sunny, cold yet beautiful Thursday morning. I was in a good mood since I'm a morning person....sometimes.
Anyway, there was a woman in front of me and she placed her order of many coffee's and Cranberry Bliss Bars. Her total was $10.78.
She only had a ten dollar bill apparently because while the only employee there was making the drink for her, the woman in front of me took a single dollar bill out of the tip jar and paid with it. When she got the change back, she kept it. Her phone rang and she proceeded to tell the person on the phone that she couldn't talk because she was at the doctor's office.
When she left I ordered my drink, paid and stuck a $5 bill in the tip jar. I felt so bad for that poor woman employee. She was up and working at 7 in the morning. The only reason I was up and out at 7 is because I had stayed up all night and needed caffiene. (I doubt that the blonde working girl had the same luxury) I didn't tell the sweet employee that the woman took the dollar because I believe in Karma. What goes around, comes around.
Two things I learned are:
(1) Some people can never be trusted
(2) I would never be like that woman.
Of course we all lie, but to take money from a hard working person no matter how miniscule the amount is just low. I waitressed for quite a while and if anyone took my tip, I'd gouge their eyes out. It's rude, disgusting and they should be beheaded for it.
Little white lies like, "That shirt DOES look great on you!" is ok at times. Lies like, "I'm taking your hard earned money because I don't feel like digging through my purse for change." is NOT.

So three cheers for the people we look at and say to ourselves, "At least I'm not like them."

Yesterday I went to the movies with my roommate. She insisted we see the movie 'PUSH'. I sighed in disbelief and went to the damn theater.



Not that I have anything against action movies, it's just...with all these Oscar nominated movies out right now, she chooses 'PUSH'.



It starts with a voice over by Dakota Fanning. She explains that in 1945 the Nazi's found people with psychic powers and started doing tests, to make them weapons. Now OUR government is doing these experiments in present day. "The war ended, but the experiments didn't." There are many variations of these people.





Pushers - They push thoughts into your head. They make you think whatever they want you to think, is true.



Movers - People with super telekinetic powers. (The main character is a male that doesn't quite have his 'moving' powers at their peak.)



Bleeders - When they scream, the decimal they reach is unfathomable. The sound makes you bleed out of every hole of your body.



Stitches - They can heal you...and also kill you.



Watchers - People who can see the future. (Dakota Fanning is a 13 year old watcher)





This really should have come out in the summer. Seasons really DO have an affect on how much a movie makes. If you have a theater within walking distance of your house, and you're not sure if you're going to like the movie you plan to see, are you more likely to walk to the theater in 75 degree weather or 25 degree weather? Exactly.



'PUSH' is definitely a summer movie. Other than that, it's just a run-of-the-mill action movie. Nothing spectacular, nothing ungodly horrible. Just a movie.



There was a lot of hub-bub about Dakota cursing in this movie. She says "Shit" twice. That is the only time she curses. It wasn't shocking, either. If anything, it was foreign and awkward. There were even times when the filmmaker tried to make her look sexy. In one instance, there was a shot of Dakota in a short skirt holding two guns. The camera only focused on her thighs and hands. Trying to make it seductive. GROSS!!!


In any case, the movie on a scale of 1-10 was about a 5.
A lot of college age kids are more likely to see movies like 'PUSH' rather than 'Doubt' or 'Revolutionary Road'. Please stick to the Oscar nominated movies. They are well worth it!