Beauty- Directed by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro

This stunning and captivation short film was directed and edited by the Italian experimental animator Rino Stefano Tagliafierro. I have been to his website and checked out other pieces of his and I must say his work is very addictive to watch. It is never boring and, in my opinion, you will not learn or see the underlined meanings or symbolism with in his work.  Below is the film's manifesto if you will by Giuliano Cori but before I get to that I wrote a little bit on what 'Beauty' meant to me as I was watching and a little bit on the message it holds.


Mr. Tagliafierro brings to life the frozen moments in time captured with in the paintings and tells a cohesive, well structured and believably connected story with one hundred and seven-teen different paintings from what I was able to count.  Through the work of his CGI and digital construction Beauty dose not seem or feel as if the viewer is looking at painting but actual people who are at times looking back at you as the piece goes on. I loved the movement from life, happiness, innocence, to passion, desire, fear, anger, chaos and death. With the ties to religion, politics, war and science "Beauty' flawlessly accomplishes summing up the characteristics and history of humanity. The title 'Beauty' is thus not only represented within the paintings of the short film but in the story it tells about our past and about society.  I know that I am still not doing this phenomenal piece any justice which is why I have also put in the Manifesto for 'Beauty.'

The Enigma of Beauty

«Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;»
(W. Shakespeare, Sonnet no. 19)

"Over Beauty, there has always hung the cloud of destiny and all-devouring time.
Beauty has been invoked, re-figured and described since antiquity as a fleeting moment of happiness and the inexhaustible fullness of life, doomed from the start to a redemptive yet tragic end.
In this interpretation by Rino Stefano Tagliafierro, this beauty is brought back to the expressive force of gestures that he springs from the immobility of canvas, animating a sentiment lost to the fixedness masterpieces.
Its as though these images which the history of art has consigned to us as frozen movement can today come back to life thanks to the fire of digital invention.
A series of well selected images from the tradition of pictorial beauty are appropriated, (from the renaissance to the symbolism of the late 1800s, through Mannerism, Pastoralism, Romanticism and Neo-classicism) with the intention of retracing the sentiment beneath the veil of appearance.
An inspiration that returns to us the sense of one fallen, and the existential brevity that the author interprets as tragic dignity, with an unenchanted eye able to capture the profoundest sense of the image.
Beauty in this interpretation is the silent companion of Life , inexorably leading from the smile of the baby, through erotic ecstasies to the grimaces of pain that close a cycle destined to repeat ad infinitum.
They are, from the inception of a romantic sunrise in which big black birds fly to the final sunset beyond gothic ruins that complete the piece, a work of fleeting time.

Giuliano Corti
(english translation: Thomas McEvoy)"




And here is a show reel of Mr. Tagliafierro's work


Show Reel 

http://vimeo.com/61252928 

Dead Again: An Homage to Vertigo

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This post will clearly be about Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again, which was released in 1991, it (roughly) depicts a story of a woman, Grace who is haunted by nightmares of the murder/death of her past life.  The modern film acts as an homage to Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo. Kenneth not only directed this film but also stars in it along side Emma Thompson. Whom, by the by, he was married to at the time of the film's production and release. 

It has been quite some time since I have seen this film but I came across some old notes for it and I thought it'd be a cool idea to post my original thoughts and notes from the film in a short entry before I go back to re-watch it. 

Branagh plays the role of Mike Church, as well as, Roman Strauss. And Thompson plays the part of Grace and Margret Strauss. In the beginning of Dead Again, when the mute women wakes up from her nightmare and opens her room door a nun steps out of darkness just like in the ending of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, when Johnny,Jimmy Stewart's role, and Madeline/Judith, played by Kim Novak, were in the bell tower in the church. 

Another thing I noticed about the nun was the large cross she wore around her next which I think was homage to Hitchcock trait for making certain objects look bigger than what they are. Other than that, I did not see any other complements to the way Hitchcock manipulated the size of objects and things. 

 Dead Again also used quit a few low camera angle shots of the main character Mike’s apartment, which resembled the low camera shots used by Hitchcock in Vertigo of the church bell tower. I also noticed that the main character in Dead Again last name was church so that was also another under the radar comparison or homage to Vertigo. 

Story wise there were many more compliments to Hitchcock in Dead Again, such as Mike taking the girl he called ‘Grace’ home and Mike’s character being an private detective again a complement to Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Just like in Vertigo when Johnny took Madeline home after she had fallen into the bay. The woman Mike was taking care off had two names, ‘Grace’ the one he gave her and her real name ‘Amanda’ just like with Johnny and Madeline/Judith in Vertigo. 

A subtle thing I realized that happened in the beginning of the movie was the fact that the main character Mike was sitting in his car on the wrong side of the road.  In Hitchcock’s Vertigo his main character had driven on the wrong side of the road twice. Another clear homage to Hitchcock was the use of the three sixty-camera angle that is used in Vertigo with Johnny and Judith. 

Branagh uses this camera angle when ‘Grace’ and Mike visit the antique shop and the shop owner hypnotizes ‘Grace.’ One of the things I noticed in Dead Again was that Branagh used sound to convey the lurking of danger or he would have a musical build up for the climax of certain scenes. For example the scene between Mike and ‘Grace’, after she was hypnotized and saw Mike in her vision, he blows up and pulls her from room to room handing her all of the pair of scissors he has and there is this music from a neighbor playing on the piano that builds and gets louder and Mike starts to yell louder. 

 It was almost as if the music was trying to play over Mike, and Mike was trying to yell over the music as if he could hear the build up. The scene is building to the breaking point of him mistakenly calling Emma's first character, Grace, Margaret and the build up in music wasn't something I remembered seeing very much in Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Why I Watched I Am Number Four

Because I watched Beastly and it was way better than I thought so I figured I'd give Alex Pettyfer another shot at impressing me.....sadly I have to say he failed. There were so many moments while watching this movie I kind of just went "What?......What is happening right now?" You know when I wasn't laughing so hard at how ridiculous everything was and how serious everyone was trying to act about the entirety of the situation. 

It wasn't until 25-30 minutes until the end of the film that things started to get good. Now I have not read the book I Am Number Four, or the Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore, however, I have put it on my to read list because I strongly believe that the story had the potential of being way better than the way it was presented in the film. Because let's face it who doesn't love a good Sci-fi story about aliens living among us? I know I do! Makes me think of the good old days when Roswell was still on the air. Now THAT was a GREAT show.

Getting back on topic here, I felt like the film was trying to hard to cover everything the book series covers which is what lead to it's failure. 

Summing up the Film I Am Number Four:

Plot holes, cliches--gaa-lore-- a lot of inconsistencies in regards to the direction in which the story was suppose to go. Something that was really annoying and not really clear to me was why there was such a pushing need to have a love story between the main character, John Smith aka Number Four aka Alex Pettyfer, and--the lamest blonde wanna be photographer ever--Sarah Hart aka Dianna Argon. I wanted to like her, honestly I did but her character made it so hard not to. When ever she was in a scene she never sounded or acted as smart or as rebellious as she is painted to be.

No to mention how the two of them are literally just kind of thrown together, I mean he--John/Number Four-- is not even there five minutes and he has dinner at her house??!? With her family?? And then because they know so much about one another  they go up to her bed room together, alone. And he just picks up her personal journal and she just lets him?!?!? BS!

But what really got my blood boiling was when she gave him one of her Nokia SLR cameras. I mean,why the hell did she give him that? Not only was it an expensive vintage camera, but one of her favorites to a complete stranger?!?!? False. Everything about this is just----no, wrong.

Moving on to the the bad guys/alien villains:

They were not at all scary, why? Oh, so many reasons but off the top of my head: they're wearing these 1970's platform shoes with bell bottom pants, shopping in the super market and driving around in this brand new black Camero. Wow! I didn't know killing royal aliens paid so well on here on Earth.

When Daniel/John Smith/ Number Four& The Discovery of His Powers or Legacies:
One second, John/Number Four has no idea about his powers/legacies, as his hands start glowing and heating up in class, and then the next he is suddenly aware of all of his powers?  And greater still we see him testing them for all of five seconds resulting in him not only having complete control over them but he has also somehow mastered them...... BULL.

Number Six & The Shape Shifting Alien Dog (Possibly The Only Good Parts of The Movie):
She was bad ass and consistent! I'd watch the film again for her scenes only because she saves everyone, covers John/Number Four's tracks in the beginning of the film and could clearly hold her own against the weird 1970's bad guys who some how managed to kill several of the other royal legacies holders. And the little alien shape shifting dog like creature was a nice touch but how Number Six, aka Teresa Palmer, knew who or what it was having not met the dog was a little strange and random. 

"The dog just shape shifted!"-Sam

"Oh that's because he is your dog from our home planet, he came here with us to protect you(only you didn't know it)"--Number Six

Thus ends this movie review rant. Till the next time goonies!(oooh Goonies......)

kdrama Que Sera Sera, what a disappointment.....

I'll try to make this short and painless though I think that will be very difficult. the Kdrama Que Sera Sera was in my opinion was a complete wast of time. Which is sad and hard for me to say because I loved it up until episode 9. I was so happy and glad the for once the lead was sticking it to the lead jerk after he continuously bullied, belittled, picked and hurt her. Han Eun Soo ( the lead girl) was at first a little too timid and annoying at first but she grew on me and Kang Tea Joo (the lead guy) was such a player and a jerk that I was rooting for the two of them because she actually seemed good for him. She was brutally honest and straight forward with him and after he kissed her on a wim without giving her a real reason why or admitting that he may have actually found her cute she did the right and smart thing by going to the police station and filing a sexual harassment case against him. XD to me it was a win-win situation and well deserved on his part.


 Then in a drunken state on Eun Soo's part we see a little hint and spark of emotion which made me happy and you could see a change in him towards her in his eyes but it didn't take long for him to completely crush her and break up with her. That kind of behavior on his part left him no right to even speak to her or for him to be offend or hurt when she acted and treated him the way that she did afterwards.


 After their split, Eun Soo soon begins to bond and grow closer to her new boss Shin Joon Hyuk who was pretty amazing through out the entire series. He was in love with his serrate sister and pushed her away because he did not feel he was worth being with her because of his background. His feelings for her were strong and pure but out of everything he wanted her, Cha Hye Rin, to be happy. Unknowing to Joon Hyuk that Hye Rin and her new bo, Tea Joo were only pretending to be together to make him jealous. This never stopped Tea Joo from messing with Eun Soo every single time he had the chance,especially when he was given a job at the department store where Joon Hyuk was the CEO and Eun Soo was an intern. AND It didn't stop Eun Soo and Joon Hyuk from forming a relationship I am happy to say. However, in episode 9 when the two couples end up going on a fashion i.e. business related trip together things take a bad/weird and down right twised turn for the worst. After an intense dinner together, Tea Joo gets drunk and goes to Eun Soo's room where she and Joon Hyuk were together on the balcony.


He gets even more angry and decides to blurt out that he, Joon Hyuk, and Hye Rin were lovers. ( this should not have ended the way it did because in several scenes in the drama it is clear that Eun Soo knows or it is hinted to her that Joon Hyuk was at one point with Hye Rin, but whatever) Eun Soo responds to Tea Joo by sticking with Joon Hyuk and kicking him out of her room. Soon after Tea Joo goes to get drunk yet again and cries at the bar which I enjoyed seeing, and Joon Hyuk apologies for not telling Eun Soo about his real relationship with Hye Rin and that he wanted the trip to be a real beginning and a fresh start for the two of them.


At that point I was on cloud 9. But however the happiness soon fades when the following night Tea Joo barges into Eun Soo's room kisses her and attacks her, pinning her down on the bed as she attempts to stop him. Hye Rin finds them and what do you think she does? She attacks Eun Soo. Why? I have no idea but you'd thin she try to help her after just nearly being raped. Tea Joo pulls Hye Rin off of Eun Soo and pulls Eun Soo, who's cloths are ripped out of the room and out to the entrance of the hotel where he confesses his so called love for her. Eun Soo pulls free and walks out into the rain where Tea Joo follows and she turns around and kisses him. 0____o I'm sorry but this is where I stopped watching and dropped the show from my drama list.


Maybe its just the western in me and god I hope I'm wrong but when a guy forces himself on you like that and you are trying to push him away I would never go anywhere with him, listen to what he has to say or accept him in any way shape or form. And all I kept thinking was WHERE IS YOUR SEXUAL HARASSMENT SUIT NOW????? YOU CAN CLEARLY FILE ONE NOW. What is with these girls? Do they like being treated like trash and not human beings? WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU CHOOSE A GUY LIKE THAT???

To get over the nasty ease it left in my mouth and head I had to re-watch Coffee Prince, no that I'm complaining because it definitely brightened me up but geez louise. Needless to say I stopped watching the drama altogether because it is clear how it ended. But I want to say a few good things about it, up until ep 9 there were a lot of good revenge moments and cute ones between Eun Soo and Joon Hyuk.


  UPDATE ON OTHER DRAMAS: Still watching City Hunter because I don't want it to EVER END! ^_^ I have to finish Rooftop Cat, although the relationship between the two leads reminds me of Tea Joo and Eun Soo. I can't wait until the new kdrama BIG comes out!! I've missed Gong Yoo oo much!! And there are at least three other drama's i will try to start watching this week as well. *sigh* so much to do, so little time. Till next time, annyong. ^_^