Mini review - Death Note (animated version)

Death Note is the story of a young man, named "Light", full of disgust and hatred towards society, bestowed with a god-like power when he finds a notebook called the "Death Note". When a name is written in the book, that person will die.

(I don't want to give anything about the story away) The story raises questions about morals, power, corruption, trust, and human nature. The animation is very well done; the characters are lifelike. The suspense is perfect, and leaves you begging for more but without cliffhangers! Overall, I really enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to almost anyone.

Mini review - Minecraft

(I'm going to write four more mini reviews that won't be on class materials, because those two movies were the only things I remembered well enough to review)


Minecraft is a blocky sandbox. There are no quests, no objectives, and no tutorials, either. The entire point of the game is to have fun exploring, discovering, creating, and doing whatever the Hell you want in your own randomly generated world (with or without friends). The game is still in Beta, but it's taken nerd culture by storm, with more than one million purchases as of recently. This is partly because the developer is a fun guy that listens to his fans and their suggestions.

Also, joining a server and ransacking/burning down other people's houses never gets old.

Overall I'd recommend the game to anyone with an imagination and time on their hands.

Mini review - Momento

I missed about twenty minutes of it so I don't fully understand it, but what I did see had me on the edge of my seat. The presentation was a bit 'in-your-face', but it pulls it off because it's genuinely interesting. The way it played from end to beginning has been done before but this movie does it very well and with good reason, the movie plays out as though we are experiencing Leonard's forgotten memories. I was begging to know more about the story as the film carried on. There was a lot of twists, too, which are always fun, and the characters felt true to life. Several times I caught myself guessing whether or not Teddy was actually a friend.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed it and I thought it was a good movie. I'll probably watch it again sometime.

Mini review - Back to the Future

Back to the Future (one) is a classic and I honestly can't say anything bad about it, not because I would be punched in the face by everyone I love if I did, but because I can't think of anything that I myself would improve upon. The movie has a very lighthearted spirit, yet the plot is tense and gripping. It's comical, but enthralling. It's a "classic" for those reasons, and because it's one of those movies you can watch again and again, and every time, even though you know what's going to happen, it's still just as fun as it was the first time.

In conclusion it's totally awesome and stuff.

Do the mini reviews need to be about class material?

Rip, A Remix Manifesto Post #4

The filmmaker made this documentary to voice his opinion on remixing and copyright. His friend, an artist named Girl Talk is not allowed to publish his music, which is essentially samples from the music of other artists. Instead of remixing one song, he remixes several songs. This is frowned upon by copyright laws, even though he indicates where he took the samples from. I personally agree with the filmmaker that this is silly, it's not as if he claims the samples themselves are his own.

There is indeed a bias on the filmmaker's part, but it's okay because.. well.. he's right. Girl Talk does what he does for fun, he doesn't claim the samples to be his own, and it's.. well, it's all good-natured. There was obviously an element of "We're the good guys, these are the bad guys!" but in this case it's kind of true, y'know?

Copyright is sometimes good sometimes bad. The idea is usually that an author deserves credit for his work. Fair. But in cases like Girl Talk's, it's just.. silly. I somewhat agree that everything online should be available for us to re-create. As long as full credit is given to the original creator I think everything should be fine, but in the end it's all up to the original creator, because sometimes they don't want their work remixed.

Overall I think the documentary was really good. It was interesting, enlightening, and thought-provoking. The manifesto itself definitely had a lot of truth to it as well. There was easily a bias, but.. well who cares Girl Talk should be allowed to make music! >_<

Grandma made me take down all of my posters of Johnny Depp (third assignment)

I couldn't personally enjoy them because my attention span is similar to that of a gnat. With no colour, no sound, and very long shots compared to shots in modern films (which are like 1-4 seconds amirite), it's hard to get engaged at all. However my opinion sucks and that doesn't mean they can't be "good". Putting aside the fact that they're considered historical art, they can be enjoyable if you aren't a hyperactive teen with (modern) action and drama essentially being viewing requirements.

The Great Train Robbery is considered a milestone in filmmaking. It used many innovative techniques, such as cross-cutting (which was new), double-exposure, composite-editing, camera-movement, and on-location shooting. It is still interesting to watch today (because it's filled with action). I imagine it was a Hollywood thriller back then. Supposedly the last scene in which a bandit fires point-blank at the audience was really, really scary and there was some controversy and whatnot over that. Crazy 1900's people. I want to show them A Serbian Film.


The Great Train Robbery was actually interesting because of the use of cross cutting and moving shots and all that fancy stuff that was very new at the time. The Charlie Chaplin short was interesting but only in a nostalgic way, because that type is humor is really, really outdated, and I don't remember the name but it was that one film glorifying the KKK making them look like heroes, that one was interesting only because it's so hilariously racist now. That's all I guess.