For Colored Girls review

I watched this movie from Tyler Perry called “For Colored Girls” and it was probably his better film. Of course that’s not really saying much since all of Tyler Perry’s movies are shit and this was just a step above shit which is crap. So “For Colored Girls” is crap. I wish it wasn’t. I wish it was something worthy of the style in which he tried to present it. Tyler, unfortunately, doesn’t know how to be a filmmaker. His problem is that he thinks films and plays are the same, but he needs to learn that they are two different arts.

So here’s what he tried to do: he took some well written poems and tried to tell dramatic stories around them. He incorporated the poems into the screenplay and tried to make it work as dialog, much like music in musicals work when a song tells the story in place of dialog. It’s a clever conception; unfortunately Mr. Perry isn’t a clever enough filmmaker to make this work.

The problem with Mr. Perry’s movies is, sadly, his directing. He has a great vision for what he wants to do, but misses by that much when it comes through as a completed film. It’s one thing to see something and think “I would like to do that for my film.” But if you don’t know the purpose for doing it then the effect doesn’t work.

Take the opening shots for example. The camera follows one of main characters kicking out one of her (many) men and we follow him out the building where the camera stops to introduce another main character. The camera then follows that character back into the building and we get her story going and eventually we follow that character out the building where we are introduced to another character coming into the building and then we follow her.

The style in which Mr. Perry uses isn't bad, however, he immediately over uses the style. We have seen this style of camera movement before in films and there is a trick to pulling this off seamlessly. Tyler Perry should have only done that move once, in the opening to introduce one character, but he did twice and that immediately bored the viewer because the magic of how effective that filming technique has been over used and it was no longer creative.

The average person might not have noticed that, but a film critic would. I don’t want to sound like I’m talking out my ass here, but I love film art. I don’t watch movies just for entertainment, but for the art of filmmaking. Which is why things like this catch my eye. Trust me, every shot in a film is thought out like a math problem. That shot alone probably too three hours to a day to set up, about 10 people behind the camera to make sure everything worked on time and about three or four or more takes before they got to what was in the film. So if you think I’m being nick picky about that one shot, you don’t know film art.

Now, back to the poems being dialog. This was not a terrible idea, if this was a play. In a play you are allowed to be over dramatic and theatrical, which is what happens when you put poetry in the dialog. But the beauty of film dialog is to be real. Film, whether fact or fiction, is supposed to give the illusion of us peaking in on this characters lives as if this was happening. We are supposed to see these lives as we see our own. People are supposed to talk and act as we do in real life, in some way, shape or form.

This is why we except animals as humans who speak English. We create something that is like us making it easier for us to connect to it and view it as something from us. Musicals work in this form because music is something we all can relate too. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you listen to, music is easier to pass off dialog because we all have a musical soundtrack to our lives.

The music you listen too relates to you in your life. I’m sure at some point in your life, whether it was walking to school listening to your headphones or at home doing the dishes with the radio playing, you felt that sense that a song was saying what you were feeling or what was happening. If you’re in love and a beautiful love song comes on you’re probably going to feel as if your world is being narrated by that song.

This does not work with a poem because everyone doesn’t like poems and certainly people don’t walk around as if a poem is narrating their lives. Some might, but chances are they are probably poets. So to replace dialog with poems in a film does not come across well. Mr. Perry would have been better with just making a less dramatic film inspired by the poem, not lead by them.

Mr. Perry needs to work on ending his films on more realistic notes as well. This movie ended with two women in a strained relationship with their mother, a successful woman with HIV from her undercover-brother husband (over the fucking top there), a rape victim, and a woman in mourning over the lost of her two children who were murdered by her abusive husband—all on a rooftop celebrating as if a tragedy never happened. I know the point is supposed to be, “Life goes on,” but does not like this.

The problem I have with this ending is that it’s generic. Very generic and unrealistic and it doesn’t fit the story. Tyler Perry always tries to wrap up over dramatic movies on a romantic comedy note and you just can’t do that. You can’t fill a movie with 90 minutes of crying, sadness and drama and spend the last 5 minutes as if life is just so sweet, even with all our horrible troubles. Yeah right!

So Mr. Perry, you are getting better, but you have so much to learn. You need to learn how to balance drama with comedy with a happy ending. Learn and understand what it means to make a movie and deliver on completing the journey. You are very lazy in your attempt to make something beautiful by coping what every other film does without understanding the motives. Find your identity and go with it. Learn to be original, because right not you are a half-assed imitation of a true filmmaker.

Yes, Americans are that stupid

Yes, Americans are that stupid. For those of you worried about whether or not America is ready to re-elect President Obama all I have to say is don’t be surprised if they don’t. I say “they” and not “we” because I am not throwing myself in the same category as the Americans who are stupid enough not to re-elect President Obama. And here’s why those people who aren’t are stupid.

President Bush was re-elected on 2004 although he had already proved that he was not capable of running the country. We were heading straight for a recession then and by the end of Bush’s last term we were there. The Republicans wrote Bush blank check after blank check for that worthless war and then shelled out a bunch of borrowed money to bail out AIG, banks and GM.

So in 2008 Americans went against the grain, voted differently and elected the first black man to office. Obama promised changed and despite what the pundits are brainwashing into American’s head, this country has changed.
In 2004 everything was about the damn war in Iraq and finding weapons of mass destruction and terrorist. In 2008 the topic was back to the American people. In the two years that Obama took office we have been talking about the American agenda. Our healthcare; our jobs; our money. We have been talking about US and not Iraq and that is change.

President Obama has done one thing I bet the entire country can agree on and that is get Americans focused back on our lives and our future. When you turn on the news they’re talking about us again and our economy. Something the republicans and the Bush administration ignored for 8 years. The result of that ignorance is the country President Obama inherited.

So now, getting back to re-electing President Obama, people are upset and frustrated because he hasn’t “accomplished” what “he said he was going to do.” This is shocking news because he said during his campaigned that he was going to change health care, has he not? He also said he was going to lower taxes for the middle class, have you not noticed that your check is a little bit bigger these days? I’ve noticed.
The problem with stupid Americans is that they truly believe they are smart. Any person who is getting pissed on, but believes it’s raining is not smart and that’s what conservative pundits are doing to their listeners. If you believe for one second that Republicans are seriously worried about the American deficit then you really like golden showers because they’re not.

Republican fucked up the country big time and all they want now is power and control. We’ve seen what happens when this country is in the hands of Republicans: jobs get lost, debt gets bigger, and taxes for the upper class get lower. Republicans don’t want health care reform because they don’t want President Obama to succeed.

They’re not worried about the deficit. How could they be if they don’t want to raise taxes for the wealthy and cut spending? They feel that because they work “so hard” for their money that they shouldn’t have to “give” to anyone. The American deficit is big because all the crap that happened during the Bush era and they know it, but they want you to forget that.

Health care reform is for American so naturally it should be paid for by us. Oh, so since we want to us money to help American’s suddenly we have a deficit problem? Where was this argument when Bush was in town asking for billions and billions of dollars to pay for the ridiculously non-war? Where was the talk of a deficit when we were bailing out everyone? Guess the deficit was fine then, right?

And what about the money President Obama HAD to borrow from China for the stimulus packages that he gave to every state to try to boost the job market? The Republican governors said they wouldn’t use it because “they don’t need it.” Or because they didn’t “think” the plan will work. Well, how about not knocking something before you try it?

Republicans haven’t proved Obama has failed, but proved that Americans are stupid enough to believe he has. To out it simple for idiot Americans out there: the Republicans were given a house, they burned it up, Democrats were sent in to help the Republicans fix it, but the Republicans instead watched on the sideline and reported back to you that things aren’t getting fix, but didn’t mention that it was because they weren’t helping.

Sorry, but America is in its worst state because there are just too many stupid Americans out there who are allowed to vote. Even the Republicans recognize how God awful the Tea Party is and they’re coming from their side. Americans are letting pundits convince them there they’re doing badly, when really, they’re not.
And Democrats are no better. The only thing worse than getting pissed on is watching someone runaway while you get the shit beaten out of you. These politicians are a disgrace to the country. If they’re not lying they’re running and either way Americans get screwed. We have no choice but to go to the polls and chose between a douche and a turd. No one is fighting for us. If they were they would work together.

I hope that enough happens and President Obama gets re-elected because I feel like he’s not getting a fair chance. He is surrounded by wimps, dicks, and pussies and none of them will fight for him if they think it will make them look bad. We don’t have politicians in office fighting for us, but only for themselves and their party.

In the end we’re all stupid because we don’t do anything to change. We tell them one thing and then flip flop on it at the next election. I can’t blame politicians for feeding off of what we say we’re hungry for. But I do blame them for not being responsible enough to shut up and do their job. Your President is your President, try to work with him. Nothing will ever get done in this damn country if we (as stupid Americans) don’t start telling our politicians to work together and figure this shit out.

Winter's touch -Review Winter's Bone

So I just finished watching this movie called “Winter’s Bone” and now I’m feeling writery (not a word, but I like it). It was an odd movie about a 17 years-old girl who is in charge of taking care of the family which includes her mute mother and her two younger siblings. They live in a redneck sort of town either up North (where they have southern accents for some reason) or the northern part of the South (because the weather is cold and getting colder throughout the movie).

The story focuses on the family’s missing father, Jessup, who put the house up as payment for bail. He has a court appearance in a few days and if he doesn’t show up, the family loses the house. The house is all this young girl and her family has for a home, so she sets off on a mission to find her father to make sure he shows up to court. This hunt, however, turns out to be more dangerous than anyone in the town would want to get involved in and the deeper she digs the deeper she starts to dig her own grave.

But the mission is a must if she is to keep her family together. With the help of some neighbors, family, friends and even some enemies, she finds her dad and there is a bittersweet ending. While the movie falls a little flat of raising the sense of danger for our 17 year-old heron (somehow you just know that she is going to be okay no matter who’s threatening her), the lead actress’s tough, yet innocents, demeanor trains us to feel what she is feelings. If she is feeling brave and confident, then we the audience feel brave and confident. If she is rattled or worried, then we are rattled or worried. If she feels numb or pain, we feel the same.

The actress, whose name is Jennifer Lawrence by the way, will probably (and should) receive high remarks and praise for her work. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an Oscar nomination. It’s just that type of work that gets actress’s attention and helps them build a promising career.

But my feelings after viewing this movie are light. Meaning, good. I don’t feel sad for the family or the characters, although there is merit in feeling that way. Without giving away the ending, I will say that our heron finds her dad in a way you wouldn’t want to find your parent. When she does discover him, she has already come to terms with the result. Meaning there was nothing left to do, but do what needed to be done to help her family.

While she does shed tears for her father (how could she not) she Sally Forth’s with her duty knowing that there is little to nothing left to do to help her dad in this moment. She is forced to face a challenge will beyond the years of a 17 year-old in order to do the right thing for her family.

It’s that strength in her that I see in myself. It reminds me of when I lived in Chicago and I was her, taking care of my family against the sour spoils of our environment. Sure, I wasn’t 17 nor was I raising two younger siblings. But I certain could relate to playing the hand that’s dealt to you and getting over the bullshit really soon.

So what I lost my mother when I was 5. So what I found my father’s dead body on his bedroom floor at 21. So what I wasn’t born rich. I was handed a deck of cards and simply told to deal with them. I didn’t seek pity on those with a better hand, but I certainly didn’t settle for the lesser hand I was dealt.

It took bravery, courage, fear, fight and uncertainly for me to keep moving out of the place I was at. While I’m still pulling myself up and still trying to get a better hand to play the game of life with, I am not turning over my cards and expecting someone to pick them up and play them for me. I still have to do this myself.

This reminds me that I haven’t been thankful enough. I really haven’t been thanking God aka My Spiritual-Self enough for all that they have giving me. I have a wonderful life that is getting better and better and so I have nothing to fear. Everything is a turning point and I still have the chance to make choices that will deal me the right cards.

Earlier I was feeling bad about money and I didn’t want too. Something had happened earlier which now prevented from going to the movies to see a movie I desperately wanted to see. So I was stuck staying home and renting. “Winter’s Bone” was the movie I rented. Now I’m feeling better about money because now I see I didn’t need it like I thought I did.

Sometimes it’s hard to see how full of wealth you are because you’re looking at the wrong thing. I watched this movie on a $600 TV that I got myself last year because I wanted it. I worked hard enough to afford and because I did, I’m happy with what I did for me.
Success isn’t measured in money, but how happy you are. Money is just a sweet piece of cherry that comes with happiness, sometimes, but not all the time. What I felt after viewing “Winter’s Bone” is that money buys very pieces of happiness, but it helps bring us closer to the things that make us happy.
At the end of the movie our heron is given a large sum of money due to the hard work she put in just to keep the house. She needed to keep the house to keep her family. She didn’t go out looking for her money; she went looking for her daddy. When she did go looking for money in the movie she found that it would be much harder to get than it would be than finding her daddy.
All in all this was a satisfying movie. I didn’t cry (would have liked too), but I didn’t walk away feeling cheater. I’d become use to seeing movies like this where the end is less than satisfying. While I can’t think of any now I would say my beef with movies like these come from bio-pics in while the main character dies or is killed in the end. I guess because that didn’t happen in this movie I feel like I was served justice.
This movie made me feel more grateful, without being a heart-warming family movie. It was just the right about movie discipline in order to tell a tough story and still have you walk away like you didn’t miss anything. Like all your questions got answered. Basically, you paid for a show and you got one.

"The Social Network" effect

So I went to see the new movie, “The Social Network,” today and I found it to be a rather good movie. It’s a movie not about the scandalous thought process behind the world phenomenon of Facebook and how it was built to destroy the minds of millions. It’s a movie about a kid who got pissed off after being dumped one night, wrote a blog trashing his ex-girlfriend and her family’s name (and bra size), posted it on his schools private “Facebook,” while creating another website in which he compares women’s looks to one another and sent out a link all over the school for all to vote and humilate.

The film grew to be something much bigger than that. It tells the story of a socially awkward genius who takes the seed of an idea and injects hormones into it that makes the seed better and stronger than it originally was. Problem is that’s sort of illegal and this kid manages to piss two different parties off at the same time and gets sued (separately) by both.

The movie was a great piece of work. It doesn’t make you feel guilty about being on Facebook, in fact, it makes you glad that someone had the foresight to see what a brilliant idea this was and wanted to share it with the world, and not just the Harvard asshole elite (which was the orignal purpose).

“The Social Network” is the story of the single signature social change of our generation. The movie shows why Facebook beat out other websites like MySpace -which was set to take over a nation before Facebook came along- as the biggest thing to hit our generation since the internet itself. The movie doesn’t make using Facebook look bad or it’s creators. It simply tells how A became C without bias.

But this blog isn’t about this great movie (which I really want to see again), it’s about how I felt after the movie: depressed. There was a sad subtext in the movie that was beautifully express through the lead actor’s, Jesse Eisenberg, brilliant performance: money doesn’t equal happiness.

For the past few month’s I’ve been trying to win the lottery in order to get more money in order to not have to worry about money. I want to win so I’ll be financially secure for a while and buy that dream home I’d been wanting and go on that dream vacation. I also wanted to quit one of my jobs so I could devote more time to writing and finishing my book.

Since I started this little dream I have done the following: quit one of my jobs and finished my book. Although I have not yet won the money, I have done two of the things I most wanted to do and I’m very happy with that. I’m glad I’m finished writing all the chapters of my book, though I have a lot of editing to do, the hurled has been conquered.

However, I find myself depressed because I'm single. I thought it was due to the fact that I'm not winning the lottery, but I realize that winning the lottery will probably only keep me lonely. I had decided to stop dating to focus on my writing and keep myself from getting distracted from my work. Now that I'm finished I'm ready to get back out there, but finding love is harder than finding a publisher.

As I start my search I use my old tried and not so true method of online dating. As I jumped back into the dating pool I am reminded of just how cold it is. Although I know it’s true what my former boss use to say that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and expecting a different result, I have not learned my lesson.

After being on a few dating sites for less than a week I feel discouraged and disappointed with the results. But that's how I am. I get bored with the whole dating business easily and want to change my mind almost before I've given myself a chance at love. Perhaps, I could be bipolar. My mood changes so much that I hate making decision because I’m not 100% sure I’ll stick with it 5 minutes later.


But for some reason, after viewing this movie, I’m left with this depression feeling. The feeling of not knowing at all what I wanted to do once I was done with the movie made it worst. I was supposed to have had a date, but I guess I wasn’t what he wanted, so I’m stuck again wondering what’s wrong with me.

Rejection, failure, loneness, all these things makes for one difficult Saturday night. I might get up later and dance or workout, but the reality of my circumstances won’t change. See that’s the thing that sucks about feeling like this: temporary fixes. I can write, read, dance, workout, pump myself up to believe that things aren’t bad, but even I know it’s just a phase.

I’m probably PMSing, I’ve been masturbating like a man for the past week and I’m still very cranky. I could have hooked up and fucked a dude this weekend, but I know I’d just regret it later. I could go to McDonald’s and blow my money on fatty foods knowing that I’ll just regret it later because that’s what I do. I know this routine, unfortunately I don’t know how to win it.

Writing helps. I’ll be at work all day tomorrow and that kind of blows, but it’s also where I need to be. I need to be out of this depressing house, even for 21 hours, just to pretend I’m normal in my head. There are so many things I should be doing, but I’m not because I’m depressed. I need to get back on my birth control pills because they were helping.

I’ve written all I can write now. I’m gonna try to read something and drift off to my dream life. Maybe I’ll get happy enough to get me to the next page or able to watch a little television. Whatever I do, I just hope it’s not suicide.

In Joy

In an odd twist of faith I got my answer and I’m totally okay. I’m not angry, I’m not sad. I want to cry because I feel like it’s finally over. I feel like everything I want will come my way now because I let everything go. I feel as if I won the battle.

I’ve been able to confirm my first love is married and happy and I’m so okay with it. I don’t feel any anger I feel relief. Not even jealous, just joy. I feel more thankful than I’ve in a long time. I want to cry, but the feeling not that overwhelming yet. But now I know my spiratual self is listening. She’s listening and she knows what’s best for me. All these missing pieces are falling back in my life and now I’m soooo ready for the future. I feel like my future has just begun.

I’m so good. I’m wonderful. I’m beside myself. I’m soooooo good right now and this is my moment and I’m in joy! This is what it feels like to be in joy.

The Bitch

The Bitch


When I broke up with him I felt nothing
I never loved him anyway
More glad than sad to be rid of him
I never meant to be cruel, I just didn’t love him

If you were to hear his side of the story
You would be lead to believe I was an assassin:

“She shot me in my heart, the parasitic bitch, and then stabbed my wound.”
“She kicked my soul, making it bleed.”
“She’s a cold-hearted BITCH with no soul!”

We had planned our lives together, though the dream was always his
I never saw us as “us”
There is no reason why
He was not pathetic
He was not indecent
He was not a bad person

He just was not the one.

I walked away with no desire to ever see him again
I knew he would be hurt…
I knew he would suffer…
I knew that if I leave, it would kill him to live

…but still I left him
I was not sad
I did not care for his pain because there could be no other way

As long as my plan was to leave, there would be hurt
That’s just the way it is

Over the years he would have changed my name several times:
“That Heartless Whore!”
“That Bastarded Bitch!”
“That Gutless, Spineless, Piece of SHIT!”

Every dastardly colorful name he could use
Except the one name I truly deserved to be called:
The Bitch who did not love him
And there was nothing he could do

Found something

So here it is, another weeknight, and I'm sitting alone at my computer getting ready to get ready for bed. My usually routine is to watch some smutty Internet porn until I'm really sleepy and then go to bed. However, tonight I decided to look up one of my favorite actors on google, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I found a fan site that lead to a website which he runs called "hitRECord.org." It's a website where a bunch of people can post videos and remix them and do all kinds of crazy shit. So I thought "Humm, this is better than Internet porn." Art is good. I haven't been able to get as into to art as I like, but what I am into is something different. Something new from something old. So I'll browse through this site and hopefully I'll be inspired enough to do something.