Nordic Art & Graphics Challenge 2008

NEWS:
I was invited to judge the Nordic Art & Graphics Challenge 2008 (September 27-November 22), so those of you who are into art contests should take a look (over $5,000 of prizes).

WEBLOG:

Quickie film/TV reviews:

Generation Kill – I didn’t find out about this show until very recently, and since I’m a big fan of The Wire, I had to check it out. Just like The Wire, Generation Kill (originally articles, then a book, then TV series) is all about absolute realism, down to the last tiny little details. I’ve read online comments by numerous marines and they all praised the show as being the most realistic they had ever seen, though the point of view is a bit one-sided since the show is focused on a few characters and paints the commanders in very bad light–to the point of being comical. I personally find it impossible to believe that stunningly stupid and incompetent commanders like ‘Captain America’ actually are allowed to be in the military, let alone lead men. Supposedly the embedded journalist from Rolling Stones who rode with the Recon platoon had bonded with his humvee mates and wrote his articles/book from their biased point of view, and there had been public rebuttals from the parties the book made to look bad. Since it’s docu-drama, the narrative isn’t meant to engage you emotionally, impart moral judgment, or raise intellectual discussion–it simply tells you what had happened over there during the invasion, and it’s up to you to formulate your own ideas and thoughts about what it all means. For me personally, such an approach is slightly dry, but given a choice I’d prefer it to the possible alternative of being melodramatic. Black Hawk Down suffered from being melodramatic, and it could’ve used the same treatment that Generation kill had. The war films and TV series that I think have a good balance of having both engaging narrative and realism are ones like Band of Brothers, Jarhead, Full Metal Jacket…etc.

Wall-E – I knew this would be a good film because everyone I know raved about it–people whose taste I trust. It certainly was very good, as are just about all the Pixar films. I wish it it had been edited a bit slower, since I’ve recently started to feel like today’s films are edited too fast, and try to cram in too much while keeping a shorter running time (The Dark Knight had this problem too). Shots don’t have the proper time to play itself out for maximum effect, and scenes are hurried though like they are trying to check off one more item from the “To Do” checklist. Other than that one complaint, I thought the film was quite beautiful and charming, and very brave for using minimal dialog and actually letting animation tell the story. In a world full of fast-talking animals making pop-culture and fart jokes, Pixar films stand head above shoulders over the rest.

Kung-Fu Panda – I thought the film was entertaining, but I wasn’t blown away by it like most of the critics were. The story was a bit clichéd and I had hoped that Po would learn some really profound lessons by the end of the film, but for the most part the film remained lighthearted and didn’t have enough substance for my taste.