"We got Married."

Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to watch a Korean Reality TV show online, "We Got Married." I was watching the show for background info. on an article I was writing about reality television, but as I began watching the show (with english subtitles), I got sucked in quickly. Next thing I knew I was sitting there at the computer for a good 4-6 hours streaming each episode. The show is addictive.

The show is based on Korean celebrities who are paired up by the producers of the show and have to pretend to be married while supplied a budget for food and all of their newlywed purchases. There is no competition or goal like most Western reality shows, but celebrities are interviewed between the filming of episodes to disclose their private feelings about their partner, and in the show's closing each shares if they would want to stay with their fictious wife/hubby. Couples watch the showing of episodes each week in a studio with two hosts, giving their feedback, as the season progresses.

The show opens on a holiday, similar to the Western "Valentine's Day" where each couple begins buying furniture and unpacking in their new apartment. The viewer is quickly sucked in by the endearing couple Solbi and Andy Shinhwa. You a get a warm and fuzzy feeling watching the cute couple. Shinhwa is a musician and Solbi secretly discloses that she has "admired" Andy for years. It is quickly evident that she carries a very flirty relationship with him as they approach their new apartment and take the elevator before arriving.

Like many Korean shows, the season is long. It continues on with several new seasons, each with new couples. I jumped into the 18th episode to see how things were coming along, but it's easy to sit there and watch each episode, waiting for things to progress. Not much had changed between the couples several weeks later (who by the way I found out are only filmed living together about a few days every couple weeks. This sort of killed the illusion a bit, but it's still an endearing show).

Solbi (cute little long-haired blonde) and Andy Shinhwa-handsome musician with penetrating brown eyes, Blonde hair pulled in a pony tail, but when he dies his hair black and cuts it a couple episodes after the pilot...no, the cuteness is gone :(
Solbi and Andy Shinhwa: the adorable "high school" couple, flirty, playful, with childish puppy-love.

In Young and Crown Jay: the conflicted, on the verge of divorce couple.
In Young is a drama queen with a "China doll" cute face and a bob hair cutt. Crown Jay is a famous wrapper who throws in the occasional english phrases, "C'mon Baby" he tells In Young. She's very high maintenance, constantly demanding Crown Jay buy her things and criticizing Crown Jay's actions. He plays a long, broaching her ego and trying to trick her into the doing the dishes for just once.

Alex (singer) and Siney (model): the "serious," gentle, romantic couple. At first appearance, they are shown walking slowly together, trying to make conversation shyly with an instant sign of attraction and Alex's "this is awkward." Alex and Siney become progressively romantic, making goo-goo eyes at one another (and humorously all the other couples live in an apartment, but they live in a mansion together). They carry an intimate conversation and she reveals that she has had her heart broken before and feels it's hard for her to open up again. Still, her gaze reveals an obvious interest in Alex. Alex sings her a lullaby warming her heart, bakes her a chocolate cake and says, "Even though we're a matched couple, I think it could make a good destiny," he tells her.

Saori and Hyung Don: the "comedic couple," the comedic relief of the show. Hyung Don may not have good looks or charm like the other guys, but he's a fat, Garfield like character, who is a very funny guy. He makes humorous comments, but has difficulty showing affection to Saori. He's embarassed to show her any affections, so he eats and sleeps all day. Saori makes a real effort to connect with him, cooking him a birthday meal, trying to get him to exercise with her and convincing him to go rollerblading with her after much begging. Neither one of them know how to rollerblade, and he stumbly rollerblades off to go play basketball without her.

Watch the show!!! : http://www.mysoju.com/we-got-married/

Quotes of the Week

"The best thing is waking up every day waiting for the seasons." -Jesse Frias 5/9/09

"Your boyfriend is the person you're supposed to really trust, right?" -5th grader said while I was substitute teaching and he was working on an assignment to illustrate one of his vocab. words, trust.

(My reply) "No, not really...I mean, well sort of." -5/8/09

Born Yesterday

Early April, I stepped into Mt. SAC’s studio theater, also known as “the black box” on a photo assignment, catching a glimpse of actors rehearsing “Born Yesterday.” I stood behind the director, against the black wooden walls, of the intimate theater setting I had spent so many years at. A female and male actor were sitting on a bench, living a real moment of life. It was a moment of something beautiful, the mysticism and creation of a scene that is acting. My heart sank. I didn’t stay long for the rehearsal. I left, but even though I missed theatrical acting badly, I knew that things were happening perfectly according to plan. I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

April 17, I went to see “Born Yesterday,” at the Sophia B. Clarke theater, but even though I left my heart on that stage, I fully enjoyed myself in the audience. Arthur Santiago (who played Eddie Brock, a short 1940s gangster) walked out on stage with a smile, rosy cheecks, and black slicked back hair. Immediately, his smile drew me in, and his energy, walk and silent behaviors were impressive.

After the show, Ralph Eastman took me back stage to meet Casey Currie (who played Emma “Billie” Dawn), Arthur Santiago, Anthony Rutowicz (who played Jim Devery), Mike Johnson (who played Harry Brock) and Paul Flores (who played Paul Veral). It was interesting to see these actors behind stage because they seemed so different offstage, out of character, makeup and costume. Two of the actors, Flores and Santiago, I almost overlooked.

Getting to meet these actors in person was my chance to connect to the art on stage as well as the art of living, socializing. I perhaps came off as a bit too “star struck,” but I couldn’t help myself. I was so excited. I left on an extreme euphoric high. As I left the school, in the dark night hours, I drove past a gothic guy and his girlfriend who had been sitting by me in the audience. Seeing them, I felt touched by love, and it was overwhelming. I drove home.

I enjoyed seeing the show so much, that I decided to see it again, on closing night. I had criticized Mike Johnson’s performance in Act I of opening night, but he did so well on April 25, that he made me eat my words. Wow, he gave such a solid performance the whole night. His anger and nefarious tendencies were spot on, all night. That was real acting. I realized that Casey Currie still needed to bring more emotionality into her performance, particularly Billie’s crumbling relationship to Brock. But overall, I really enjoyed watching the show again. Even though I was in a hurry to get to a party, I didn’t have to face the disappointment of leaving the theater empty handed. The actors had to be out of the theater quickly because they were meeting with an “edjudicator” from the Kennedy Center American Theater Festival. The organization travels across the country critiquing the work of college actors for educational and competitive purposes.

It was a chance opportunity at a final greeting with Paul Flores, Anthony Rutowicz, and Mike Johnson. I was about to leave the Performing Arts Center, when best of all, I got to speak with Arthur Santiago about his preparation for becoming Eddie, the short gangster with an attitude.

Check out my interview with Mr. Santiago at: http://wendysworld.podomatic.com/

Who's Been Sleeping in my Bed?

Elizabeth Montgomery shines as Samantha on the popular 1950’s “Bewitched.” One step backward in time she played Mellisa Morris on “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?” A versatile actress, she embodies real emotion and a distinctly different persona (than Samantha and wicked counter part Sabrina) as Mellisa. However, while Montgomery may seem a good reason to watch “Who’s Been Sleeping in My Bed?”, it isn’t.

The movie has a lousy plot, is unrealistic, corny (which not all old dramas are), has bad acting (which many old dramas do), is SEXIST, and has a poor ending which reinforces sexist themes.

Mellisa Morris (Montgomery) plays an art teacher soon to wed her fiancé Jason Steel (Dean Martin) an actor suffering from cold feet. His days are filled entertaining the wives of his poker buddy pals. These women’s husbands aren’t giving them attention, so they seek it from Jason, cooking for, dancing with, massaging, and seducing him. Morris tries to win her husband back by pretending to marry someone else.

The events of the plot are sparse: man evades marriage; wife tries to win the man with commitment issues back; man gets angry; wife cries; and all is well.

Most of the cast in the film can’t act, displaying the mechanical acting of early Hollywood films. The leading man, Dean Martin, and Morris’s best friend, Stella (Carol Burnett), give poor performances. Burnett’s amateur performance was surprising considering her reputation as a professional comedic actress.

Even though the film is a comedy, it unintentionally makes a joke out of professions (by being unrealistic). Mellisa and Stella ride around in a car plotting to win Jason back (as if these two professionals have all the free time to carryout an elaborate hoax during a work day). Jason goes to a friend psychologist who is eager to turn Jason into a client (which is an unethical behavior as a psychologist). The psychologist eagerly looks at his watch, sits at a desk distancing himself from Jason, and then sedates Jason with a needle injection before beginning talk therapy. It’s absolutely ridiculous, unethical behavior for a therapist. And lastly, acting is mocked in a scene where Jason plays his doctor role carrying out a surgery. Jason’s director stands by saying it is an award-winning scene, even though the actors aren’t saying or doing much.

But the WORST thing about the movie is it shamefully promotes gender role stereotypes. When Mellisa finds out that her husband to be has been spending all his free time with affectionate women, how does she address the issue? BY TRYING TO WIN HIM BACK BY TRAPPING HIM INTO MARRIAGE! There is no punishment for his actions, and she rewards him by taking up all the shameful, submissive female roles that the wives tried on Jason. She spoon feeds him a sweet dish, dances seductively for him while wearing a sexy outfit, and massages him.

Women are shown as seductresses who use their sexuality to get their only need in life: men. The women in the movie are constantly chasing men, while men are shown as disinterested in relationships. Jason sees a bachelor livelihood as the way out. The men spend their free time playing poker and ignoring their wives.

The subtext of the movie script is that marriage and real romantic relationships between men and women are a trap. In a scene where the psychologist lays down and begins unloading his marriage problems onto the secretary, marriage is shown as prescribing psychosis.

The plot rides out as an unwieldy train heading for disastrous crash, as viewers hope it won’t derail. It does.

The movie ends with Mellisa throwing herself on the bed, crying. Her life is over since she can’t have Jason [who doesn’t even really want to marry her] who she needs for a feeling of completion. Again, another gender stereotype, that women are supposed to use tears to get what they want and men use forcefulness. His machisimo saves the day as he aggressively drags Mellisa off the bed and forcefully kisses her.

After spending all his free time with married women, Jason is rewarded when his fiancé uses a “feminine,” submissive, tactic to seduce her husband. Then, again, he receives a final positive reinforcement for his bad behavior when he wins back his wife. The viewer can only hope that this isn’t the end of the movie, but it is. The real issue is ignored: if it’s such hard work just to get these two together, then how is their marriage going to play out? Jason isn’t ready to be married, and he probably never will be. He has commitment issues, and they’re not going to go away with marriage.

If this movie was a hard, satiric piece about sexist roles, then it might have some merit, but it isn’t.

NigaHiga

Staying up late while browsing the web, I stumbled across a YouTube video that caught my attention. “Hi, I’m Dr. HanatewakusoshiseoTadashiteteriyakisuzukihondacivic and I’m going to be making you a little less dumb with every video” Ryan Higa said.

The voice came from a highly attractive, Asian boy with smooth skin, high cheekbones, black, short hair styled with auburn highlights. He wore a black blouse, diamond- studded earrings and spoke behind a white background that gave his phony doctor persona an air of realistic sophistication.

“My goal is to increase the vocabulary of every kid, parent, auntie, uncle, dog, cat, frog, and so on,” Higa said. “Today’s word is the word, ‘Powned.’”

Those who follow gaming or recall the pop-culture word will find the video particularly funny.
The video’s creator, Ryan Higa, has a YouTube audience fan base of over 1 million viewers and over 100,000 myspace friends. He is a Hawaii Native studying film at University of Nevada Las Vegas and has his own video production company.

His YouTube videos are silly, creative concoctions like “How to Be Emo,” “How to be Ninja” and “How to be Gangsta.” Higa and his friends parody video game fighting references, “Mortality,” pop music and whatever else they can get their hands on. Higa lip-syncs to his own Ninja song, creates a dialog between Chris Brown and Rihanna by playing both of them and in a recent video mocks the “Shamwow” informercial.

Check out Higa’s “Nigahiga” Youtube profile at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab5lwgcJRiE

Easter Sunday

The Vibrant energy of church enriched my spirit as I drove from Hacienda Christian Fellowship in La Puente back to Ontario. It was Easter Sunday and you could feel it in the air-the colorful attire of congregation members, radiant peacefulness of the day, little children with their families. I had attended a sermon on the resurrection of Jesus and felt a little uneasy at times, not because I was there as a journalist, because I was there as a non-Christian.

"I’m going to ask you to mingle with strangers for two minutes” said the first speaker. I shook hands, greeting those around me, opening myself to others for the first minute. After that, I clammed up, and went to go sit down. I felt a few tears coming, but held them back. I was thinking how it was harder for me to open myself up to people than it was for others. It was a powerful worship service, as cathartic as church often is-singing, praying, connecting with others, and word of the divine.

“Most of us see death as the point of no return,” Pastor Romero said. He referenced his exposure to various religions as a professor of religion at Mt. SAC. He said that he did not believe in reincarnation, but that the spirit continues after death in one direction or another. He wasn’t like most reverends I had heard before with his use of humor and highly captivating speech. With his sermon, the modern church band, and a visceral theatrical scene of a turbulent marriage salvaged through prayer and love, it was an intense service.

When I arrived at home, the spirit of Easter Sunday was still with me. From my bedroom, I heard my neighbor playing with a puppy. Should I go outside and make a connection with the neighbors? Should I attempt to step over all the pain and unkind words members of that family had caused me in the past? Should I vulnerably extend my hand forward again, hoping that my good intents will finally meet good ends? My neighbor’s girlfriend was there, so I hesitantly glanced in their yard. No, not this time. I sat down on the porch, warming myself in the sun. I saw the back of her long black hair, and black clothes as she walked around the front of the house.

Still thinking

Behind squinting eyelids, I awoke, lifting my head and looking outside my bedroom window. A single penetrating blue light was surrounded in blackness. Mortality, I thought. What was the haunting apparition? It was the light coming from the apartment complex behind the church across the street. Oh, yeah, that’s right, I’d seen it so many times before.

Lately, the theme of death has come into the forefront, that recurrent chapter in the illusion of life. Seeing the scene of Carlos Sevilla’s fatal accident on Youtube, thinking of my neighbor’s passing again this time of year and the recent passing of a family friend. The details of the friend’s death are not quite clear; a possible heart attack was at work. All the melancholy things I want to say, how we are raised believing life is endless, until we are older and life starts slipping between our fingertips….I want to say how cheated I feel when I realize the harsh reality that it’s all ending, that life is only a brief phase….But I won’t. I’ll stop the impending tears, and breath. I’m breathing right now, but let me speak no more on these things. I’d rather maintain the illusion of life.

Tonight’s dark blue sky, glowing golden moon and grey clouds are haunting. I thought about all that’s been going on lately, the personal account I wrote about the time I was hit by a car. I thought about how my professor told me she was hit by a car, and the story I covered yesterday. Yesterday a female Mt. SAC student was hit by a car and flew three feet. She suffered mild head injury and was flown to USC Trauma Center. Today, I heard from a guy who supposedly held her and attended to her wounds before EMTS arrive, that she was back at home and doing okay. I’m glad for that.

Not the Usual Usual

I’ve already written (in other blogs and my “autobiography”) about how my life has seemed like a movie lately. In the past nine months, I’ve birthed a journalism career that has taken off almost precariously.

Last week, I was in New York’s Times Square covering a story about protesters wanting to “Free Tibet.” Five days later, I was standing in Down Town Los Angeles, the site of a presidential speech outside of the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. As I was driving to school that morning, I heard on KNX 1070 that President Obama was on his way to Pomona. Little did I know, I would be headed to Pomona an hour later, and catching a glimpse of a skinny black man wearing a suit and waving. It was Obama. I, along with Frank and Magali, captured the Village Academy Students (also enrolled in courses at Mt. SAC) on film. They walked outside of the electric vehicle plant across from the high school victoriously after having met the President. A joyful vibe of excitement was in the air as they shared their stories.

We headed out to Los Angeles, covering a crowd of supporters and protesters outside of the Complex. There were Obama fans, political activists, and a couple loonies. A man with a black suit, a diamond grill in his mouth, and an Obama mask stood on a fire escape hovering over the crowd. When unmasked, he said that he was there to speak against the crime in Los Angeles. A man selling tamales had recently been killed near the area.

A woman dressed in patriotic red, white and blue sold, “Barack-in-the-Box” a jack-in-the-box toy with an Obama doll inside. She created the contraption that her and her husband sold on the Internet.

One of the more serious groups at the site, The Armenian Youth Federation, was chanting, “Recognize genocide…Obama keep your promise.” Shunt Jarchafgiam, 22, central executive adviser, said the Armenian protesters wanted Obama to keep his promise on formal U.S. recognition of the Armenian genocide.

Waltzing through the crowds was a short-haired man in a white suit. He carried a loudspeaker in hand, voicing his message. “If you need to get the government’s attention, you know what to do. There are hundreds of numbers to call to reach the white house.” He called himself H.R.M.S. Cesar Saint Augustine de Buena Parte (“His Royal Magesty Supreme”).

Buena Parte said he runs a movie prop business, a Church (Las Cirisis Church Group) and gives people advice on anti-aging. Buena Parte said he did not support President Obama, and that he himself came up with several ideas that would have helped the housing crisis.

Buena Parte said he has ran for president many times, since 1996 while listed under the federal elections committee. He complained that the country is being controlled by a view dominant, wealthy groups-The Williamsberg Aschiatic Group, Bilderberg Group and The trilateral commission.

He had a few good points, but his eccentricity made you wonder….

“1996 I declared war on the United states symbolically. I sent video tapes of my program, I had a program on cable axis TV and told them, that I over threw the country. I declared war first, gave them 30 days to answer. They didn’t answer, so I became the emperor of the United States, and you’ll find me on the internet with that title.”

Buena Parte added that he had renamed the United States of America.

“It’s no longer America. I renamed it in 1996. It’s The United States of Turtle Island.”

So Long "The Big Apple"

“So, how was New York?” people have been asking me lately. New York.... the first day of the trip: it was 6 p.m.; I was on one hour of sleep; I hadn’t eaten since noon; I badly had to pee; there were no public restrooms available, and I was following journalism peers out of Brooklyn, and we were lost. I found myself in a back alley where one of my peers was peeing up against a wall. No, it wasn’t the public restroom I had been searching for. I turned around, tears streaming down my face with the shame of someone carrying a tear-stained face because of primal human urges calling.

“What’s wrong?” one of my peers asked me. “I have to fucking pee!” I said angrily. He suggested I use the back alley as a restroom. “I’m not going to pee against a fucking wall,” I said…He found me a restroom soon after, but the fun I was having wasn’t about to end.

We ended up at the Tea Lounge after a long subway ride and lots of walking. It was about 8:00 p.m. and I still hadn’t eaten or slept. Loud techno sounds boomed in the room, punishing my eardrums, telling my I couldn’t sleep. A show by the name of “Exploitation Extravaganza” or something like that was showing on a movie projector. Offensive images of bloody women, topless, being tortured in some scenes or brainwashed as sex objects in classrooms in other scenes played. I wanted to get out of there, go back to the hotel and sleep, but I was stranded because I didn’t know how to get back on the subway station. Midnight approached and we had Chinese food, but then some genius decided it was a good idea for everyone to go to another bar and go dancing. That was the final straw. I was not about to stay any longer. Luckily, I made my way back to the hotel with the help of some of my journalism peers.

Needless to say the first day of New York didn’t go so well, but luckily, the next few days were much better. I went to a couple of workshops at the CMA convention, and met up with the journalism crew at the Rockefeller Center by Radio City Music Hall. I noticed a curious sensation, the corners of my mouth upturned in a smile. It felt so good to be smiling again after a long period of blackness. Lately, every time I feel the corners of my mouth turning upward, it is a noteworthy sensation.

New York

Friday the 13th.  It was the day I boarded a plane to New York, the day traces of deja vu continually reemerged: the familiar site of tiles on my bathtub.  I remember that memory, but it happened so long ago.  How could I just be seeing it now I thought.  Some other moment in the day felt familiar, I think it may have been when I was helping out Elderberry Elementary School.  "For some reason, talking with her made me feel nervous, but I got over it..." I wrote the passage when I was writing in my diary thousands of feet above the ground.  At that moment, it hit me again, deja vu.  

What is deja vu?  There is no universally accepted answer, and no universal belief in the existence of the phenomenon.  The firing of neurons in the brain is the explanation by psychobiologists.  Others believe in a form of spirtual or paranormal explanation for the occurance.

"What is deja vu?" I asked Frank who was sitting next to me on theplane.  He spoke of reincarnation, which I do believe in to some extent.  I was introduced to the concept during my upbringing.  He interpreted deja vu as a recollection of meeting others, "kindred spirits" perhaps in a former life.  but deja vu is a memory of an isolated event from this life I suggested.  

He spoke of time travel.  Perhaps there is no past or present life, just a single life, but he said,  "Reality is not constant.  Time and space are relative.  Everything is connected.  It's just how you manipulate it."  Then he ended with," I can't wait to get some fucking pizza."  

Dreams

“What the hell do you want?” she said to me. It’s not exactly how I like to start my day. I was thinking I knew how she must feel when I speak coldly to her. She had been laying in my bed looking sickly and I rubbed her arm and maybe murmured some kind words. She, was my mother, and it was just a dream.

My remaining minutes in bed today were comprised of terse scenes and intermittent blackness. We don’t dream all night, just in between periods of R.E.M., about every 90 minutes, I think.

I dreamt I was standing out in the side yard of my house, looking up at a bright white half moon in the night sky. I asked my mom, “This is really happening, right?” It seemed too real to be a dream. She said no.

In another dream, I saw the Hungarian church across the street from my house. It had a blue and gold banner with an emblem on it that made it very recognizable. It was the emblem for PTK or something.

“You never set your alarm clock” Charlye told me in another dream. She said that the power must have gone out (at my house). I was thinking about how wise she is. I was thinking how I had just set it, but to my surprise, when I looked at the clock, four flashing green zeros showed. She was right.

I know why I dreamt some of the things I did. Last night, my mom was laying on the couch with a heating pad on her hands and her feet were soaking in a bucket of hot water. She has arthritis. I got a little frustrated by the third request she made, to turn off the light, but then when I saw her on the couch I felt bad. Some of the guilty feelings in my psyche were released in the dream along with the scenario of her sickliness and laying down. The dream about the alarm clock resembled the fact that the night before the power had gone out and I did have to reset my alarm clock.

Several months after having written an article about “Dream Analysis,” I’ve come to take on an opinion on the matter. I’ve always thought dreams are significant. I think our emotional and mental states reflect something higher about us, some sort of Nirvana. Our dreams are a reflection of that higher existence, a higher reality that is traceable in our emotions and psyche. Maybe they are somehow the doorway. Examining these states is absolutely imperative for “transcendence.”

What I’ve come to believe is that dreams are meaningful, but not through a clear-cut application of precision. Symbols, experiences and feelings are chopped into our dreams, sometimes with seemingly random application. However, it isn’t just the art of the mind or some means of self-expression. Some or entire parts of dreams may just be self-expression, but not all. I believe dreams are an expression of the physical (i.e. environmental factors), unconscious, and superconscious factors acting upon us.

Psychologists who believe in dream analysis consider physical and unconscious factors. Edgar Cayce was known as the “sleeping prophet” for his ability to self-induce an unconscious state and provide medical diagnoses for thousands over the years. Cayce believed in a third factor, the superconscious, which is an expression of the divine in our dreams.

Nacho Libre

I have a monkey on my back. As a journalist and educated college graduate well versed in literature and theatrical acting studies, my movie watching suffers. I recall the time I sat and watched “Instinct” starring Anthony Hopkins with my dear friend and neighbor, Manny. Afterward, I had an analytical discussion of the film with Manny. From a literary standpoint, it is enticing to examine the characters. I stood out front of my neighbor’s house as he put away the trashcans, and I discussed potential issues of racism and greed in the Showbiz characters in “Crash” with him. After watching “Silence of the Lambs,” I returned the film to Manny. I asked him something about the relationship between Hannibal and Clarice or explanations for Hannibal’s psyche, and he said: “Why do you have to analyze the film? Can’t you just enjoy it?”

He was right. The way I watch movies now will never be the same as it was years ago before I had any college courses under my belt. I’m trying to find my niche as a journalist. I know I could make it as an A&E reporter, but the more I write A&E reviews, I suffer the calamity of being unable to watch movies or play solely for their entertainment value. I pick them into little pieces so that I am no longer a viewer and evermore an analyist. Can’t I “just enjoy” them? Maybe not, especially not as I review films.

This predicament was brought to the forefront of my mind after watching “Nacho Libre” (Jack Black) last night. I’d rather sit and talk about how great the actress in the Progressive auto insurance commercials is. However, I’ve seen the film and so now I “have to analyze” it.

Briefly, “Nacho Libre” is funny if you enjoy the type of dry, oddball humor of “Napoleon Dynamite.” The film is a success because each scene is a slice of life, a painter’s great landscape. Extreme care and thought are behind the mis en scene and creation of expressionless, dull characters and authentic settings. From the poverty stricken area of Mexico, to the world of bizarre Mexican wrestlers (i.e. a pair of fighting hyena-like dwarfs or Nacho Libre’s companion, Esqueleto) settings are immersed in realism. So are the character’s. As with “Finding Neverland,” the issue of innocence and platonisim vs. romantic love between a man and a woman is examined through the doey-eyed nun, Sister Encarnacion and Nacho Libre. Jack Black carries Nacho Libre with machisimo, sensuality and such believability that you find yourself questioning if he truly is Hispanic. As Nacho Libre, Black truly is hilarious.

Childhood Recaptured

"Tonight we drink to youth and holding fast to truth; Don't wanna lose what I had as a boy..."I only want the truth; I'll never lose what I had as a boy," the Incubus lyrics played on the radio.
Several hours later, “Finding Neverland” starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet played on the television. I was expecting to see an adventurous fantasy film (i.e. "Hook," "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy) but that’s not how the movie turned out. Still, I found the content of the film very enjoyable. It was a dreary tale with a slowly moving plot (neither of which are bad factors, consider the beauty of the melancholy “Prozac Nation” or the slow plot developments of “Castaway”). Recalling the Incubus quotes and watching the film reminded me of something I, as an adult, often forget myself-the beauty of childhood.

“Finding Neverland” was enjoyable because it intertwined a great childhood classic, “Peter Pan” in a film with themes of innocence. The burdens of adulthood and growing older were touched upon. An old playgoer whose husband recently passed refers to the ticking clock in the crocodile’s mouth as the ticking clock of mortality. Adult characters face sickness, death, gossip, mindfulness of one’s image and reputation, and lost love. However, the most endearing element of the film is the innocent, platonic love between Sylvia Davies (Winslet) and Sir James Matthew Barrie (Depp), as well as Barrie's flights of imagination and playfulness with her children. Yes, there is a non-romantic love that can exist between a man and a woman that is seldom remembered or seen on the big screen. Barrie is informed of the gossip being spread over his time spent with Davies and her children. He replies, “You find a glimmer of happiness in this world; there's always someone who wants to destroy it."

Amsterdam crash

I find myself traversing by way of air travel frequently as of late- from my California home to Texas and back home, California to New York, back home, and So. Cal to Northern California and back home.  The little technicalities of air flight have become clearer, little tricks to make it past security without blinking twice, keeping my seat in it's upmost position to appease flight attendants, and ensuring that I have something to occupy my time in the air-"The Dark Knight" playing on my macbook.  These little tips are a traveler's passing amusement, but beyond friendly time killers, a more serious concern vibrates in my cranium.  It is the quick thought that penetrates in all passengers boarding planes:  Will I make it there safely?  I, like all others, find comfort in passing this thought beyond existence as quickly as possible, like most mortals do upon the thought of mortality.    

Television footage of wrecked flights are on the airwaves all of the time.  Last night, the channel 9 news broadcasted a Turkish Airlines plane crash in Amsterdam, which departed from Istanbul before difficulties arose at 2,000 feet.  

As I take steps onto the next airport terminal, I will comfort myself in idealistic thoughts that should anything go wrong on my flight, things will turn out at least as well as they did in the Turkish Airlines and  US Airwaves Flight 1549. 

Only nine passengers were killed in the devastating crash in Amsterdam.  More miraculously, all passengers  on US Airways Flight 1549 arrived safely from New York City's LaGuardia Airport bound for Charlotte, North Carolina.  They plummeted into the Hudson River, adjacent to Manhattan on January 15, 2009. All 155 on board survived.