Media Journal Week of: April 20-April 24

For my weekly media journal this week I read a book called, Now You See Him..... This particular book was an autobiography by one of the greatest running backs of all-time, Barry Sanders. He talks about his childhood, growing up, his family, and of course his life on the football field starting from when he was in pee-wee leagues.

The cool thing about the book is if you know about Barry Sanders, you know him as a quiet, reserved guy that almost always would keep to himself. To this day, he is the most humble football player to every play the game and the thing was, he was the greatest, he didn't have to be humble, but, he was because that's how he was raised.

The majority of autobiographies by former pro athletes are usually arrogant, and has a holier than thou attitude with it. Sanders' book is the exact opposite and actually just a pretty good read in general. Hearing him talk about the hardships of his life are pretty humbling experiences.

I recommend this book not only to football fans but, fans of autobiographies in general as well.

Media Journal Apr. 13-17

For this week's entry I am going to talk about a documentary I saw on Hulu this week. The documentary was named "Confessions of a Super Hero". This film is about people living in Hollywood that acts as various superheroes on Hollywood Blvd. There is a Superman, Batman, and a Wonder Woman that is followed throughout the documentary. It is interesting to see these people's stories and how there are struggles just like any other job. They rely on tips which is not always a good thing and is a very up and down way of income. The documentary does a good job of portraying them as regular people that just happen to have an irregular career.

Media Journal Apr. 6-10: Kickin' It

For this weeks journal entry I watched a documentary titled, "Kicking It". The documentary was about homeless people around the globe competing in a soccer tournament. The soccer tournament was named, "The Homeless World Cup", directly connected to the biggest tournament in the world, Fifa World Cup.

The documentary mainly focused on homeless people from the United States, Kenya, Spain, Ireland, and Afghanistan. It was pretty exhilarating getting a feel for how these people live day to day and how they are people like just everyone else, just took a wrong turn along the way whether it was drugs, alcohol, or petty offenses. Most of the people depicted in the documentary were gracious, caring, socially aware people. When it gets to the pitch (playing field) everyone is equal and people aren't judged by appearance rather by how well they do their job on the pitch.

It is also eye-opening to see how grateful they are for everything they receieve while playing in Cape Town, South Africa. It is a pretty good documentary with enough material to keep you watching and a pretty good underlying message. The documentary is available on Hulu.com

Media Journal March 30- April 3rd

My journal entry this week is about a documentary I watched titled "Back to School". The documentary aired on PBS and it follows the education of seven impoverished kids in struggling countries where education takes a backseat to family and work. Narrowing it down even more, I was mesmerized by one Kenyan student named Joab. He attended school and then his mother fell ill and he had to leave to help support his family. A while later he came back to his school and was able to be at the top of his class throughout all of his hardships. In watching this film I just realized how blessed some of us are and how much we take our education for granted. It also gave me a better understanding of the world around and not to just look at what's readily available in front of me. His face is becoming more recognizable around the world which is a great thing seeing as the school system he is in needs all the help in the world.

Photoshop Re/De Construct

For our Photoshop assignment I decided to deconstruct an AIG logo. The reason I chose this logo was all the controversy surrounding the company right now and the relevance it has to our economy and every day lives.

I put Adventures In Greed underneath the logo instead of their usual American International Group because it is more fitting for a company who spent the tax payers money on illegal insurance transactions.

Media Journal Mar. 23- Mar.27

For my journal entry this week I am going to write about a part in the documentary "Green". The part I am going to be talking about is the end of the movie where the Indonesian man is shown flying a bird kite around. The man is surrounded by developing buildings and shops that are made of wood and located in what used to be a forest.

The irony of this part is that he wants to fly the kite to simulate a bird that they do not have in the village any longer after their homes were cut down, if there would not have been deforestation he wouldn't need to simulate the bird because it would still be flying around in it's habitat.

People do not realize just how long the chain or how many things they affect by using the things they purchase or use daily. In a rapidly growing civilization the resources for the animals are quickly becoming obsolete.

The Celluloid Closet

On Wednesday we watched "The Celluloid Closet". It was the first time I had seen the movie and I had no idea what it was about. The content of the movie shocked me but, was a new take on documentaries so I was drew in. The movie does a good job of pulling the viewer in with scenes of LGBT acts in movies which most viewers are not accustomed to seeing. The movie also uses humor and wit in their scenes to give it the comedic factor to lighten the mood.

The documentary has a good flow to it by not really bogging down the documentary with too much interviewing but, also does a good enough job of getting the confessions of the directors of GLBT and actors who are or portrayed to be GLBT. There are many scenes to portray what the movie is describing such as the Hays Code and the restrictions that were put on movies. That was supposed to decrease many things in movies, especially GLBT characters. It did, sortof. The characters were given more underlying actions of the LGBT preference.

The other thing I noticed in the movie was the support and extensiveness of their research. There are 70+ films featured and 26 credible people of the LGBT and film community in the documentary. I think that is the most impressive thing to me, they looked that deep and were willing to take that many personal opinions into account to make the documentary
well-rounded.

I especially enjoyed Tom Hanks' submission, it was very accurate and upfront about the gay scenes and what it was like to talk about them with your friends the next day. Adding in credible films and people make the documentary itself credible and makes viewers willing to watch.

This film was a good documentary and despite my usual bitterness toward documentaries because some documentaries are just as bias as they portray the people documented to be, I might watch this film again. It is weird to see how far censorship or lack thereof has come. Now we see almost anything on movies with nothing more than an R rating. It seems the Hays Code is long forgotten.