Band Of Brothers

This post I would like to talk about one of my favorite shows, Band Of Brothers. I recently re watched the whole series and the show is breathtaking every time I watch it. It follows the story and lives of Easy Company from the 101st airborne division during WWII. The characters literally go through hell and back during the war and I think the show depicts the concept of wartime very well. Its crazy how the show can have characters the audience can relate to the most and have them disappear at any given moment and I felt it showed the vulnerability of man very well. Some characters go through unforgettable experiences and if they manage to come out alive they are just filled with undesirable memories in their minds. Another reason why I love this show is the cinematography. The locations and various shots of battle just made the show so much more profound.

Full Metal Jacket

So in starting my Stanley Kubrick movie escapade, I decided to start with Full Metal Jacket. The film is one of a kind, and surprisingly contains many famous movie quotes that left me saying "that's where that came from!". One of my personal favorites was "me so horny, me love you long time!". Classic. As far as storytelling goes, Kubrick is a god, as Full Metal Jacket is not only a compelling war story with intense action, but a linear story line unlike most Kubrick films. Each shot was incredibly beautiful and could be a painting in my opinion. I'm excited to see the multitude of other Kubrick films.

Same War, Different Battles

My newest TV addiction is Canada's Bomb Girls.

Set during the beginning of WWII, Victory Munitions is building bombs to help the cause.  A richer, well to do woman, Gladys Witham, wants to help out with the cause and not just by making appearances at her father's fundraisers. Instead of taking the office job at VM, she decides to go against her parent's wishes and ends up working on the floor. Her dad ends up using to his advantage and uses her as the spokeswoman for his grocery store chain.

At the factory, we meet a wide array of characters with great background stories for each of them. Like Kate, a woman on the run from her abusive bible thumping father. From the first episode, you know that she's had issues trying to fit in and keep the past, the past. She also gets the nickname "Church Mouse" for her gospel-like singing voice.

And my personal favorite character is Betty McRae. She's sassy and very strong willed and one of the best workers at the factory. She ends up taking Kate under her wing and falls in love with her. She tries to be a girl and dates one of the boys at the factory but it ends up more like a bro-mance with hanging out in bars and talking about hockey with him. She also is a farmer's daughter with three brothers so when someone twists her the wrong way, she can handle what's thrown at her. In an episode when three German POWs escape, she ends up finding one in her boardroom's basement and we learn that other than being a lesbian, we find an even bigger secret. She's actually German and her family has hidden fellow German's from internment camps. Although the escaped Nazi believes that she's fellow Nazi, she ends up ratting him out explaining that just because she's a German, doesn't make her a Nazi. She also beats him up a little bit which was pretty awesome to watch.

Vera Burr, due to a factory accident she's now slightly disfigured... well, has an awesome scare on her face, is known as a "Patriot-tute", a woman that sleeps with soliders for gifts. She's also sassy and very on her toes due to the accident.

Floor matron Lorna Corbett, whose two sons are pilots in Europe, her daughter is working as a nurse at the local hospital and her husband is a veteran of WWI and was left disabled and in a wheelchair after a bomb exploded near him. This all leads to affairs and stress at work... But she's also one of the strongest women next to Betty.

There are more characters in the show that really bring to life what it was like to really be fighting on the homefront during WWII. They try to show that this isn't just a man's war and that everyone can pitch in some how. With some great acting, cinematography and costuming, this is probably one of the best TV shows I've watched in a while.

Also... I need all of the shoes and dresses this girls wear... 

Marwencol

     Last week, I attended a showing of the film Marwencol (2010), directed by Jeff Malmberg, at the Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery. The documentary follows Mark Hoganhamp, a victim of a brutal assault that left him with severe brain trauma. Mark had to start from scratch. He lost all of his memory when a group of teenagers viciously attacked him outside of a bar. Hogancamp recovered after a limited period of rehabilitation and returned home. He was having trouble going back to his life because he barely knew who he was. He created a fictional town called Marwencol, in his backyard, and used military dolls to represent the characters that he created. The town was like therapy to him. One doll represents himself, one his dream wife, and many other dolls represent his friends in real life. Hogancamp started to capture stills of Marwencol town life with his cameras and keep the hundreds of developed pictures in boxes. A photographer asks what he was doing one day when he was dragging a toy jeep along the side of the road. Hogancamp told him that he takes pictures and the people are real to him. The photographer was interested in the idea and kept in touch with Hogancamp. Many aspects of Mark's life are highlighted but the photographer he meets convinces him to have a showing of his work at a NYC art gallery. Hogancamp summons the courage to make the trip to his own show but he isn't sure how to be social with many people when he arrives at the exhibition.

http://www.marwencol.com/   
(^^^CHECK OUT THE TRAILER AND LEARN ABOUT THE MOVIE ABOVE.)

I thought that the documentary was missing a few parts that the audience would've liked to see. I would've liked to hear about his ex-wife that he cannot remember and only sees in past wedding videos. I would also like to know what happened to the teenagers and if he has any family and their reactions to his fictional world. I don't think the documentary was trying to milk Hogancamp's story by any means but the photographer in the film seemed to take advantage of Mark. The photographer thought that his pictures were interesting so he blew them up onto large canvas and organized re-prints on the gallery's walls with Hogancamp's knowledge of how his work was composed. No one can understand Mark's world and the photographer seems to make it seem like Mark isn't normal and his world is just a spectacle to others, not his life. I recommend you watch this unlikely story because it is truly amazing and unique in so many ways.

Never Forget

The Eye Writer

Tempt1

We live in interesting times, no question about that. Plague, famine, kids killing people in remote villages from their drone playstations in Las Vegas, sipping RedBull. It is quite difficult to know how we can provide an ounce of balance to a ton of misery, so that ounce must be something really special to rescue our impossibly damaged spirit.

The influx of very damaged very young humans, the broken byproduct of that biggest business which is war, ends up in the landfills of society, the eternal superfund from which some people pick up the pieces and try to put things back together, albeit in a very different way. A leg here, an arm there, an eye or two, perhaps a brain? Can we pull us back together?

I will call him Luis

While searching for an appropriate picture to help me cut through the fog I had trouble finding one of the millions of miserable children which survive doing such a thing, because Corbis Corporation, the photo "service" owns most of them. I wonder, do those children get a percentage directly deposited to their pig accounts?

I guess you get the point. What triggered all this diatribe was me thinking about what we do on a daily basis, our "job" in other words. Do we really do something useful, something that tips the balance and creates a positive change? I think one of the reasons that the Open Source movement is so important is that it is a sort of groundswell, difficult to perceive because it is so pervasive and widespread.

But this movement, so dangerous to the monopolists of the world will tumble the most arrogant of them. There is no corporation, not even the most technically sophisticated that can evolve as rapidly as thousands or millions of people working together for a common cause.

As a little sample, I offer this movie about such an endeavour, one that ends with a call to hackers all over the world to collaborate, in this and any other way that might become the glue that binds us together again, into our cyborgian future.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Open Frameworks, F.A.T., Graffiti Research Lab, graffiti legend Tempt1 and of course EyeWriter got together to produce that ounce of energy for each and everyone of us...

Here is the how to and all the good monopoly-breaking stuff for those DIY's among us. Keep on DIYing...!

The ugly american god

According to vice-president candidate Palin, the war in Irak is god's will and plan. We should be grateful for it:

"Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's will."

God is also apparently a shareholder on big-oil and is very keen on pumping up whatever is left so that total destruction can be assured in time for his glorious second coming. Make sure you have your camera loaded and please post the event on YouTube.

"I think God's will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get the gas line built, so pray for that."

Like they say, this strategic candidate has an excellent record on both energy and the environment, issues that are intricately related. And, proverbially, two birds can be killed at once. Since it is her stated belief that human activity has no impact whatsoever on global warming (use the internet to check this outrageous if not plain stupid statement) then it is OK to "drill, drill, drill", "kill, kill, kill" so that we get rid of that inconvenient wilderness full of animals that deserve to be killed, not to mention the rest of humanity. That way we can all enjoy front seats at the Apocalypse. Excellent strategy.

Palin's favorite hobby

It is a sad thing to see the pathetic crowds pumped up by such shows of indifference to life, coming from someone who claims to be on god's side in everything she does. With that consultant who needs Kissinger?

It used to be that the "ugly american" usually referred to some individuals that exemplified the worst arrogance that this country exported abroad. But as of today the global perception has shifted to the "ugly country" which I guess plays very well with the political campaign slogan of "country first". After all our exports were suffering, now we have a true product that we are supposed to be proud of.

Made in America.