Stephanie H.'s Blog

I do not really care for Fast Cheap and Out of Control.  Maybe I don’t get the meaning or what Morris is trying to do, but it was very hard to follow and watch.  I ordered it from Netflix and maybe it was because my recliner was so comfortable, but I nodded off several times yesterday while trying to watch it.  Needless to say it took more than an hour and 22 minutes to watch it.  I felt like the stories were intertwined well considering the obscurity of the topics, but I didn’t feel that the people were as enthusiastic as they should have been about their passions.  The interviews felt very forced, as someone mentioned in class.  The music was very loud and distracted me from the stories.  I don’t think that it was a good match.   Except for the fact that it woke me up, it did not benefit the movie to have it.  I feel like in comparison toVernon, Florida, the people were not sincere and I could not form any interest or connection with their stories.   It was hard to stay focused on what they were saying.  Besides for a few tidbits here and there, the film completely bored me. I thought the robot guy was especially boring.   I find it hard to take any meaning from it, but I am trying because if we are spending a whole week talking about the film, there must be something there that I am not grasping.

I really like the quote that was mentioned in class yesterday that says “painting creates eternity and photography embalms time.”  I really agree with this and think that it is an interesting way of looking at the two mediums.  I am pretty passionate about photography, always catching good shots when they come along.  It really is a better way to truthfully capture a moment or a feeling that is actually going on.  I like to paint too, but I feel like this medium, if used to portray something realistic, is only an attempt to grasp what is happening, but cannot truly get it right the way a photograph or film can.  The painted image will be there for an eternity, but I feel that it is does not truthfully portray a real moment in time, but that it creates a new one that is infused with imagination and only a pinch of actuality. 

I think it is really odd how the police overlooked evidence, and used unreliable witnesses to sentence an innocent man to death.  I know this probably happens more often than we hear about in the news. They just wanted to solve the murder quick, fast and in a hurry, regardless of the consequences.  Why didn’t the police care that Harris had a rap sheet already at age sixteen, and then through the rest of his criminal life, he basically received little punishment until he killed again.  If the police had prosecuted the right man in the first place, they would have prevented a lot of crime.  I would feel sorry for Harris if I did not know that he sued Morris after he helped free him. 

After thinking about Vernon, Florida some more, I have decided that I like it better than I did at first.  Once I got past the animal stuff, I think it is really neat how they all are trying to find the meaning of life, even if they do it in a strange way.  It just goes to show that even the simplest people can still have profound thoughts. Oh and I have to add that this makes me feel a little better about the town I am from.  I thought my hometown was pretty out there and countrified, but this place makes my town look pretty darn sophisticated.   It is nice to know that there are places that are more rural out there. 

I watched Vernon, Florida today and I find it to be very strange.  There are some very disturbing images in this film.  I noticed a lot of animals, or mention of animals that bothered me.  The old guy kicking the turtle is odd.  It seems like he really believes that that is the way to make him go faster. He says the turtle is a gopher and that you can eat it, which shows how senile he really must be.  It was hard for me to watch him torturing the opossum.  My heart kind of wrenched when he holds the opossum’s tail and it tries with all it’s might to free itself.  Also, the hunter with all the turkey feet hanging up is weird.  I know people hang up deer heads after they make a big kill, but the turkey feet seem a little on the strange side. The guy with the pitchfork who is fascinated with night crawlers and the worms I don’t understand. It seems like an odd thing to talk about.  I also think it is interesting that near the end the couple is stroking their dog affectionately after all the other animal references are cruel.

So I started working on my paper last night, (which by the way I had good intentions to do over spring break, but things like concerts, shopping, and movies got in the way 🙂  Anyway, I decided I would give the suggestion of watching the scene with no sound on a try.  I have seen the 1994 adaptation of little women several times, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered several things in the background, as well as in the character’s gestures that I never picked up on before.  I’ll save the details for my paper, but I found several interesting choices by the filmmaker. 

Is it good, or do I just like it?   I think that a movie is good if the viewer enjoys it.  Who cares what a critic has to say, or if it wins awards.  Isn’t it the filmmaker’s goal to make a movie that the audience will like and go see?  I find that a lot of times movies that I think are good and that I enjoy are perceived as merely mediocre in the eyes of the “all knowing critics.”   But what do they know about what is good?  Is it just good because they like?  Is it good because of the innovative techniques the filmmaker uses?  Is a movie good because it makes a lot of money?  None of these things should matter.  To me a movie’s worth is in the eye of the beholder.  

I really like the idea that someone had in class about clinging to the best part of a movie.  I think we all do that when watching something that does not live up to our expectations.  Who wants to walk out of a movie that they just spent $8.00 on?  Nobody does, so we stay and find what good we can out of what we are presented. 

However, sometimes it is hard to see any good in a movie.  This is the case for me with the 1949 version of Little Women. Besides for it being funny because of the poor casting, I find that there are not a lot of positive things that I can say about this movie.  Sure, maybe June Allison was the best part of it, but she still in my eyes is not good as Jo.  She and the rest of the cast overact.  From what we have seen of the movie so far, the whole thing is totally over exaggerated.  Jo is not natural in this adaptation.  She is only shown as loud and in your face, and we don’t get to see her softer side. 

It is interesting how each adaptation of little women puts in references to the time period that they were made in.   The 1933 version makes sure to point out how the girls are working and doing their duty to society to correlate with the great depression.  The 1949 adaptation includes a scene where the girls go shopping, which would have been encouraged at the time.  The 1994 version uses Marmee to emphasize feminine equality, and the 90s were all about “girl power.”  By watching the different adaptations, one can gain some insight to what the issues were at the time the movies were made. 

I found the documentary by Nokuthula Mazibuko to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would be.  It is amazing that people were still treated like that 30-40 years ago, and even now in some places in the world.  I really liked the end of the documentary where the students at the school today read poetry and sang.  It is important that they not forget what their predecessors went through to be education so they know what a privilege it is to go to school.  I also found it interesting to get the perspective from the film maker on the editing and music selection.