Quickie Review - The 400 Blows

I'm probably the only cinephile, who has taken film classes, appreciates cinema as an art form who didn't like this film. I greatly appreciate the techniques and subtle nuances used and recognize how many tines they've been copied since, but the story itself left me feeling empty. The pace was painful at times and with the exception of the psychological exam scene, the acting was rather mediocre. If not for the hilarious running scene early on, the aforementioned psych scene abd the escape, the movie would have a complete waste. Maybe it's my personal feelings about childhood, adulthood and acceptance that swayed me in my thoughts, but I felt the movie was nothing more than metaphor after metaphor, never giving this viewer the substance I was craving. I realize my views will be neither popular or taken seriously, but other than it's technical merits and it's age, I'm at a loss as to it's reverence.

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White Privilege

This was a post I wrote on Facebook after surprisingly not seeing any moaning about the Documentary by Jose Antonio Vargas, titled White People Dayyum! I just scrolled my timeline and not a single white person got their feelings hurt by White People. I unfortunately haven't seen it, but the number of fake accounts that popped up on twitter, tells me it was a damn good show. Here's the thing. If someone of color aka non-white says "White Privilege," are you offended? If you said yes, then you are exhibiting white privilege. It has nothing to do with how hard you work or study, how you stayed out of trouble, because here's the thing, that is entirely the point. Somewhere out there, there are 100 Black, Spanish, Native American, Arab, Asian, who worked and studied as hard as you and never got in trouble, but they don't have what you "earned" or achieved. Stop looking at the one person you know who isn't white that achieved as your benchmark. Loo

11 Rules of Life - Bill Gates?

I read this on Facebook this morning. A friend had posted it and said that every child should have to receive this. I of course read it and started to think. I immediately wondered who really wrote this, as I rarely see things like this attributed to the proper person. I immediately found it was written by Conservative Charles J. Sykes when he wrote a book about how America is dumbing down our youth. I read it twice and started to wonder how true it was. Below is a link to the actual picture I saw. So let's look at each of the rules and analyze them. Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it! - Life is not fair in that we are not all afforded the same opportunities based on race, creed, color, socio-economic background, but in general, those who are afforded the same opportunities to succeed are very often rewarded for their individual efforts. Sure there may be underlying circumstances, but hard work is proven to pay more often than not and those who strive for succ

Quickie Review - Finding Vivian Maier

While I thoroughly enjoyed the film, especially the first 15-20 minutes, I was a little bothered by the way the film played out. The interviews with the clearly disturbed brother, sister and the mother, who obviously, was in for a cut, didn't need to be in the film. Then the woman who suggested abuse, yet seemed to have her life defined by Maier, as she tried to muster every ounce of emotion and fake guilt. Her friend, more than happy to be party of the charade. People who talk about abuse for the first time, usually don't do so on camera. The fact these scenes were so prominent, shows that they felt wronged that they were not rewarded. Maloof on the other hand, seems to disappear from the documentary during this part, almost hiding away from the fact, he went from complete praise, to even making money off of her, to destroying her personal legacy. He almost mentions the family of boys taking care of her rent, as an afterthought. Her burial spot, never shown, yet a video of her

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