Broadband Blue

When it comes to technology, there are certain success and caveats to it. Some individuals thrive from it; others flounder. For myself, I’ve found myself at an impasse where I can never precisely say if technology is a boon or a detriment. I can say however, it has definitely changed my life in many capacities.

            Growing up, I had a network of friends. We used to keep in touch through calling each other on our landline phones; small talk at school; or even visiting each other’s homes at the drop of a hat. In time, I lost touch with some of my friends from grammar and middle school, leading me into a smaller if more inward group in high school. Without getting into too much detail, I didn’t put much stock on this crowd as I did my previous circle. Mind you, this preceded the advent of social media, so it was still an analog means of keeping in touch. Upon graduating from high school and moving towards college, all of these dynamics changed due to the prevalence of three key platforms: Snapchat, Facebook, and the rise of smart phones.

            College was the wild west of social media. I added people who ranged from acquaintances to close friends. You could post statuses regarding how frustrated you were, garnering instant attention from your peers. Snapchat allowed you to send brief glimpses of your day-to-day activities with the “lost” photos preventing possible embarrassment and incrimination. Finally, everyone and their mother had either an Android or an iPhone by 2011. Our definition of socializing was forever changed.

            For myself, the rise of these allowed me to keep in better touch with my peers. Friends who lived away at school were in contact within seconds at my fingertips. Never had I to worry about losing touch with peers, or so I thought.

            The downside to social media and how it ultimately changed my relationships is the perceived notion of inclusivity. By sharing your activities, everyone is privy to what your up to. In spite of that, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re included in that person’s plans. I’ve had occurrences where friends would fib about being busy, yet in their Snapchat story, they are all hanging with one another. Through Facebook, consistently tagging the same group of people on a status showcases a perceived notion of who their close friends are. It’s these indiscretions that create for me a fear of missing out (or FOMO).

            I’ve come to learn that social media is not an extension of my peer group. It is a means to an end for networking and periodically interacting with your friends. I primarily use Facebook to express my opinions or to keep in touch with workplace peers (within the film industry, it’s best to have a gang). Snapchat is probably the platform I use most frequently with all peers, regardless of how close or not I am. It’s not as personable and the brevity of the content prevents things from being incriminating or embarrassing.

            Personally, sincere interpersonal relationships have floundered with social media. However the ease of communication has improved, so it’s fair to say that it is a mixed bag.

Brief Christmas Reviews

Hello all! You probably read the Les Mis review but considering the scant amount of time I've had and the number of films I've seen, I'm going to present this post with a few brief reviews of what I've seen in the past two weeks. Don't fret, the prolonged format of the previous reviews will come to past:

1) Django Unchained.
  Once again, Tarantino has produced another cocktail of black comedy and hard violence. This time set in the style of western exploitation. Like Inglorious Basterds, he plays loose and fast with history. E.g. the titular Django and his partner Christoph Waltz are ambushed by klansmen......the film is set in 1858. While not as revisionist as the murder of Hitler, its more than enough to tic off a few history buffs. Tonally, the film bounces back and forth between gritty violence and slapsticky humor. Its not bad, but it can be a little jarring to see Waltz toy with a few slave owners and then seeing huge squibs of blood fly across the screen no less than five seconds after. Also, the film drags in the third act, I half expected the film to conclude but then it continued for another 20 minutes. But regardless, the film had some excellent performances from Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and espescially Leonardo Di Caprio as the head of Candy Land (watch the movie). If you like Tarantino's output post Jackie Brown, this movie will not disappoint. 

2) Zero Dark Thirty

 My Kathrin Biegolow Cherry was popped and damn was it done right. A thriller that didn't move too fast or plod- it was just right. Jessica Chastain is a compelling protagonist and the heft of Boal's script get you enraptuered in this woman's quest to find Bin Laden. A personal highlight are the interrogation scenes, CIA operatives do not play when it comes to retrieving information. I will never put my child in a box ever again, or will I? Though what everyone is waiting for is of course the assassination. I won't divulge too much, but its a great example of an action film that gets the viewer excited, but doesn't treat him like an idiot. Go see it. 

Banksy- An artist by any other name

In the world of Art, one area of study that gets both maligned and praised is the graffiti scene.
     A notable artist from it is the imitable Keith Harring. With his bold outlines and loud colors, his art was very califorinian and bright. However, most Graffiti art is rough crude and in some cases, not even original. Here we go to the British Artist, Banksy.

Banksy represents a style of Graffiti art that focuses less on abstract art to more realistic stenciled style works. A good example of this is his piece of an ATM attacking a young girl:

A majority of his art is worked that is based on either subverting pedestrian ideas or if not that, usually it'll be something amusing like a hole that leads to a tropical paradise on a staid grey wall.
Art like his true to the art of Graffiti.

An upcoming local artist

Gino Volpe

Visual Aesthetics

4/10/12

Indie Artist (Musa Hixson)


Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing the chief artist at the Brooklyn Artist Incubator, the man in question: Musa Hixson. I met up with Musa at mu job







Musa was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1977. Around his tenth birthday, Musa and his family moved to New York City. In the spring of ’94 Musa traveled to Rwanda and Uganda as a US Delegate through an invitation from the 7th Annual Pan African Congress. While in Uganda he visited with a Tutsi family that informed of the genocide that was accruing simultaneously in Rwanda and Burundi. This trip inspired a life long interest in the artists’ role in social, economic, and environmental issues and changed his understanding of the power of the visual arts an s a toll to bring social and political issues to the forefront. In 1995, MUSA returned to Brooklyn, to attend the Graduate school at Pratt Institute and earned an MFA in sculpture, from there his work took off.

As far as the medium of his art, Musa has a preference for making pieces out of a bevy of natural and manufactured pieces. His selection includes steel and rope, as well as more natural sources like wood and soil. One of his pieces: Graines de Rêve is an excellent example of this mash up of materials. The piece includes two ropes in twined baskets, well one basket and one cornucopia. From out of the Cornucopia is a small pile of metallic balls. Strikingly enough, this amalgam of both synthetic and organic materials works, making something as innocuous as rope and silver balls striking to the individual.


In so far as a form of expression, Musa explains hat art for him is not form of personal expression of idea, rather a way for him to express a sentiment felt by the surrounding community. The feelings he shares in regards to his art is connected to his work, but not the feelings he shares himself.

Recently, he has taken a break from working personal art projects and has spent the last three months promoting the Cuban festival Soñando en Color (Dreaming in Color) The Soñando en Color project is part of the Havana Biennial, a Biennial Art festival that celebrates Cuban culture through a variety of artistic mediums. Musa’s involvement in this festival is through a promotional gallery in New York and a series of online promotional videos. For Musa, this is his pride and joy and the success of the event is paramount. If all turns out well, Musa will have the inspiration to work on more pieces.

In short, Musa Hixson is an example of contemporary artists at their finest, if not for the drive of people like him, we would not have a successful artistic movement.

Memorial sites

My family isn't the most sentimental when it comes to memorials. We're fairly typical, a few pictures of the kids, a wedding photo here and there. You get the idea. However, you have to make due and here I think I my have a one that fills the quota.

Here, we have my parents, happily married.


Next, are the various news clippings my parents took of the various news pieces made by the Staten Advance at the time of their engagement and wedding. It was interesting how then the news had interest pieces on engagements, let alone marriage.





Finally,we have the hutch ( the area over the fireplace) that has mostly hummel and precious moment dolls, I'm not too sure if this holds significance, but it makes an adorable set piece for the living area.



Finally, towards the end we have a more traditional area, my communion gallery. Several photos of myself, nothing really to note but its a really cute array of pictures.

Film for discussion

Darren Aronofsky, filmmaker, directyor, artist, writer, autuer. What more can you say to describe the man. Despite having only five films under his belt, the impact he's left on the cinematic landscape is incredible and quite a feat for someone with very little in the ways of higher education. While most remember him getting notice for Requiem for a Dream, Aronofsky made his feature debut with the 1998 thriller Pi. Co-written with the film's star Sean Gullete, Pi lays down the foundations of a contempary tech thriller with some grainy cinematography, taut dialogue and an atmospheric score.

the film deals with our protagonist, Max, a brilliant Mathematician. Max's goal: find the key number to help sove the universal equation regarding life. Here, he is torn between aiding that of a group of Hasidic Jews and a Wall Street firm that intends on using his talent for financial gain. Along the way, MAx deals with fixing his supercomputer, coping with visions of a disembodied brain, and various stomach churning moments of cinematography.

The best aspects of Pi is that it shows a budding Darren Aronofsky laying the groundwork for his iconic techniques. The stomach churning camera rigs, bizzare imagery, a haunting score and so on. His dierection of actors is alsdo impressive, Sean Gullete makes you feel for him, his paranoia, confusion, you feel just as disoriented as Max thanks to Gullete's facial expressions and body language.
On a final note, the techno driven score by Clint Mansell is just to die for, with heavy influences from NIN, it effectively gives you chills as well as allowing you to ump your head along.

Overall, a good first outing for a fantastic director. Til next time folks.
- Til next time folks.

Film as art

Film as Art
For a film to transcend from its classification, as a film to a work of art is tenuous process that often uses time as its judge. Does the message of the film hold up, are the characters still relevant, how well written is the story, etc. For me, one film that lives up to those factors is the Gene Kelly classic Singin in the Rain. Singing in the Rain is the story of the classic Hollywood film that tells the story of the industry’s transition from silent films to talkies. The people concerned by this the most are the silent film stars, namely leading man Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), his sidekick Cosmo Brown (Donald O’ Connor in a stellar performance) and Lockwood’s leading lady, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen). As mentioned before, the conceit of the film is the conflict between Lina’s transition from silent to talkies, due in part to her squeaky voice. To combat this, Lina enlists Don’s budding love interest, Katy (Debbie Reynolds) to dub her in the moving picture. From there, people clash, dance, argue and sing. Oh how they sing.
Metatextuality is now common place in the entertainment today, shows like 30 Rock and Community frequently reference films and television shows within their programs, sometimes even lifting tropes from a genre and milking it for a whole episode. While Singin in the Rain doesn’t necessarily reference specific Hollywood films, the film instead pokes fun at the overacting of the silent often to great comic effect. Also, Singing in the Rain holds the distinction of being a jukebox musical, for which the film does not have any original songs; rather it uses preexisting songs during its musical sequences. Even the titular Singin in the Rain, did not originate from this film; the film that holds that distinction is The Hollywood Music Box Revue, circa 1929. However, one of my favorite songs, from the film, also holds the distinction of being in one my favorite scenes in from the film. That would be O’Connor’s Make Em laugh, which holds the distinction of being the lone original song from the film (but don’t let Cole Porter hear you say that).
The scene in question has O’Connor describing his love for comedy. OF which he dictates that his main goal in Hollywood is to “Make me laugh”. O’Connor’s physicality as a dancer is impressive and his athletics don’t slouch either. Aside from traditional dancing, O’Connor shakes, flips, stumbles, hops up and down, pantomimes a date, and my personal favorite, runs up the fake wall of a Hollywood set. Granted he lip-synched his song, but regardless, his performance hides this fact and makes you truly believe this man is singing and dancing at the same time. O’Connor was an entertainer true and true and he took it all the way to the hospital. Literally, he was hospitalized after filming because his cigarette habit killed his stamina. But to go back on point, this scene stands as my favorite because of the purity of it. An entertainer is in his element, he’s happy and he does not want to do anything else but make people happy. For me, that is true pure, jubilance right there.
All in all, Singin in the rain has been and will always will be, one of my favorite films. From the song and dance numbers, the sharp script, beautiful cinematography, it is pure cinema right there.