Singleton-Perfect Blue

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One thing that I really enjoy doing is watching movies.  Movies are a very important hobby in my life.  One particular genre of movies that I enjoy watching are suspenseful or thriller movies.  So once I learned that Perfect Blue was a psychological thriller, I became exited.  The beginning of the movie was pretty dull, but it pick up as it continued.  An aspect of this movie that really sucked me in was the confusion in the anime.  At certain points in the movie, it very difficult to distinguish between what was reality and what was fake or an allusion.   Although it was confusing at some points, I was stilled enjoyed the film.  In class today, I favored the discussion we had about the film and how it relates today’s society.  For example, the use of the internet in the screening and Facebook.  I don’t use my Facebook that much anymore, but I never thought of how we create these profiles on websites to make a hyper reality or character for ourselves.  On the other hand, when I part take in these websites, it’s not to create something, but just to get connected to others.  But I guess in a way you can become something you’re not on social networks by inserting false or imaginary information about yourself.  Therefore, you are making a hyper reality.

            As far as the movie go, I felt that identity was really lost in this film.  Partially Mima, Uchida (Me-Mania), and Rumi .  While watching this movie,   I thought all three of these characters where all nut jobs.  Mima for starters, really got on my nervous in this film.  She disappointed me in this film because she allowed others to take control of her life.  Personally I felt that she didn’t really have a set identity, she didn’t even know who she was.  After becoming an actress/model, she started seeing an imaginary version of herself.  This really spooked her, and affected her mentally.  Even though see kept arguing with hallucination about who was the real Mima, she still wasn’t sure herself.  Another character that had an unstable personality was Uchida.  Similar to Mima, I also thought he lack a personality as well.  Also, as the movie shows, he didn’t even have a true purpose in life.  He was just really heavily obsessed with Mima.  As we point out in class, he had tunnel vision.  The movie reveals this by the placement of his hair, covering his left eye.  This is why sometimes I refer to him as one eye guy.  On a bigger note though, he was so caught up in Mima’s life, that he too was devastated when she changed careers.  As a result, because he really didn’t have a personality, he was able to be trick by hyper reality.  For example, once he created that website for Mima, Rumi started to use it and manipulate him.  He thought so highly of the pop star Mima that once he meet the  real one, he tried to rape and kill her, which he received from the pop star Mima (Rumi).  Last, Rumi was a little similar to Uchida.  She too wanted Mima to return to her innocent self.  At first Rumi seemed normal, but toward the end of the movie we find out that all the killings were because of her.  The killing were a way of getting back at the individuals who played a part what Mima has become.   In a way I find it funny because even though she felt other were also controlling Mima, she was doing the same thing as well.  Rumi unstable personality really shows at the end of the screening when the director shows Rumi dressed up as Mima.  This was a really big shocker to me.  I never knew that people can get caught up in others lives so much that you try to take them out and become them.  Another weird scene was when Rumi was in the mental institution looking at her reflection.  This was abnormal because Mima was the image shown in here reflection.

            Not only did the unstable personalities intrigue me, but the use of women in media.  From watching perfect blue, we can tell how society uses women in the media world.  As this relates to Mima, it was enough for whatever she was doing.  For example, once other found out how popular she was getting, they wanted to shift her role in life.  Also once he became an actress, that wasn’t enough either, she had to be a model.  This is also true in life today.  Once a talented woman shows her potential in on area, unless they want to, society tries to then sell whatever other talent that person has.  For example Beyonce, when she was discovered, she was a singer.  However, now not only do she sings but she also acts as well.  To be more extreme, some people may take a good looking singer and use her as a sex image for magazines.

            Last, the roles of celebrities are to basically entertain other people.  No matter what celebrities do, they are no doing it just for themselves because their audience places a big part in their career.  The public kind of chose how successful an individual gets.  Therefore, once individuals become celebrities, they become a type of product for the enjoyment of others.  Wheatear its acting, singing, modeling, etc, all of these skill are marketable and  controlled by society.

            Perfect Blue was a very entertaining movie.  It really got me to see how celebrities are use in our daily lives.  Now I wonder how many individuals in this business actually control their own lives.  I also wonder how far they will go to satisfy others before they lose themselves.

http://gameusagi.com/images/perfectblue.jpg

Singleton-Botchan

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I thought both Botchan and Student Days were messed up films.  In Botchan, you have this teacher from Tokyo who moves to the west to teach kids.  Once he arrives there he’s welcomed by the faculty and gains respect for one of the math teachers.  As the film goes on, Botchan realizes that the students are very cruel and unfocused.  They harass him constantly and show no interest in their education.  Not only do they disrespect him in the classroom, but they also mistreat him outside the class.  One scene in particular where they annoyed him was when they were stopping on the floor above him as he was trying to go to sleep.  After living in the town for a while, the vice principle mentions that someone is probably manipulating the kids to do those things towards him.  With this piece of information, Botchan assumes that the other math teacher in controlling the kids.  Botchan confronts him and later learns that it’s not him, but it’s the vice principle whose advising the students to act the way they do.  Eventually, the two teachers spy on the vice principle and catches him talking about how he tries to get rid of the two.  Once hearing this, the teachers let him know that that are aware of his plan and that justice will be serve.  So, they start to fight him and his sidekick, who is nicknamed buffoon by Botchan.  At the end of the movie, the two teachers leave the town and go their separate ways.  In Student Days, this student tries to pass this exam in order to get accepted in to school.  After failing the first time, he tries to study harder so he can do really well.  As the movie goes on, a love interest is introduced in the film.  He really liked this girl and planned on proposing to her after he passed the exam.  Later, the film reveals that he has a younger brother who also plans on taking the test.  However, the younger brother is not as serious as the older one because he’s using the first exam as a practice run.  The older brother eventually gets annoyed by the younger one because he’s studying really hard, while the younger one is just carelessly over looking some information.  This causes the older brother to go study somewhere else.  While he’s gone, his love interest comes over looking for him.  Since he’s not there, she starts to spend time with the younger brother.  At first he doesn’t think anything of it because the younger brother knew how he felt for her.  After the exam, the older brother discovers that he failed again, but his brother past.  So, he goes home and catches his brother and the girl in the room together.  They were cuddling and he overheard his brother telling her that he wished that his older brother passed.  The girl reply back by saying the older brother wasn’t as smart as he was.  This makes the elder brother highly upset and he goes out to get drunk, and at the end of the film, he drowns himself.  Personally, I thought that the teachings and leanings in the two films weren’t present in the film.  In Botchan, the students were being too out of control and over whelming for Botchan to really teach them.  The students in this film really didn’t care about their education because they were too busy being control by the vice principle. In Student days, no one was teaching the students how to prepare for the exam.  The students were on their own and had to find their own method of studying. To me, it seemed that the eldest brother was the only character who was actually studying.  Everyone else was just going with the flow.  For example, the older brother’s friend didn’t study and failed the exam; however, the younger brother also didn’t study as much and still passed.  So, in both films education wasn’t heavily expressed in the two movies.  My high school experience was a little similar to Botchan.  Just like the students messed with Botchan, the students at my school did as well.  If any teacher was a push over, then they might as well be prepared to get targeted.  One teacher that I can remember was my sophomore adviser.  He was a biology teacher and a relatively nice guy.  The students took advantage of his kindness and did a lot of horrible things to him.  One thing I remember that they did was stealing the mouse off of the school computers in the classroom and on top of that, they stole his personal laptop.  He eventually quiet because he couldn’t handle his class.  I felt bad for the guy, but you had to be tough to teach at my school.

Singleton Kenneth-Ninja Scroll

             I know in class, we talked about how The Japanese not believing in all bad or all good.  Ninja Scroll showed elements of bad and good in the film.  The movie was about a samurai named Jubei. As we discussed in class, Jubei was like Robin Hood.  For example, in the beginning of the movie when one of the guys he was fighting laughed at him for only accepting twenty pieces of gold from a small village, even though his service was worth much more.  However, Jubei didn’t care because he knew that was all they were able to give. He was very reasonable with the poor and took what they could give him as payment. Jubei also established some morals and values for himself.  A few codes or morals that he followed are loyalty and respect.  The movie proved that he had loyalty by him completing and following through with the missions he took on.  He also showed his respectfulness by not having sex with the ninja girl, even though that would have got rid of his poison.  As the movie goes on, he gets caught up fighting against the eight Devils of Kimone. Each of the eight devils had a special power, for example the leader Gemma, was able to reincarnate himself and the Oni Tessai was able to solidify his body into rock form. 

           Symbols of rebellion in the film are the shogun of the dark in their plan to take over and regain power over the government from the Tokugawa who were currently in power, as well as Gamma and the devils of Kimone using the shogun of the dark to help defeat Tokugawa and create their own powerful reign of terror. 

          Another aspect of this film that captured my attention was the woman is the film.  Even though they might not have been as strong as men when it came down to fighting, they still had an edge over the guys. For example the ninja girl Kagero had a strong poison in her body that killed anyone who tried to have sexual contact with her. I think this showed how women could be a sort of powerful poison to society.

          This was a very great and interesting movie. It really got me to think of anime in a different light. Though this movie was very simple in style, it was good in presentation and content.

Singleton Kenneth-Akira

     Akira was one of the most confusing anime films I have ever seen, but it was very interesting.  Even though the movie was hard to understand, it was still good from beginning to end.  Akira was basically about a biker gang member named Tetsuo, who gets abducted by the military after he gets hurt by an aged psychic boy.  Once Tetsuo was captured by the government, they did experiments on him and he suddenly had psychic powers.  Having psychic powers sounds cool, but for Tetsuo to have it was a terrifying thing.  This was terrifying because Tetsuo was the weakest member of the group. An example to prove this was when Tetsuo tried to ride Shotaro’s bike.  Shotaro is the leader of the bike gang and his bike symbolizes his leadership over the gang.  When Tetsuo tried to take it for a spin, he could handle it and the bike end up stopping on him.  With that being said, Tetsuo new found power allowed him to feel powerful and useful.  However, he becomes out of control and the government tries to restrain him.  This causes riots in the city and chaos.  In the end, Tetsuo ends up dying because he tried to do too much with his premature powers. 

      In general, I thought it was wrong for the government to run experiments on children, especially without their permission.  This showed how much power the government had over the city as well.  Another way that the government expressed their dictatorship was to let the military to run around like policemen.  Everyone had little free will and control of their lives.  An example of this would be when the military wanted to or did shoot people because they had a gun.  Another example that showed how much free will individuals had was when the kids went to the principle office.  The coach yells at them and then slaps all of the group members.  Another point that was intresting was the kids themselves.  They were really rebellious and really didn’t have any authority figures over them except for their school.  Since they didn’t have any parents, I think this made them to act that way because there was no true authoritarian figure over them.
      In closing, I thought that this was a very good movie.  Although confusing at first, it really grasped my attention.  Akira really showed how corrupt a government can really become. It also showed how the government can really strip a society free will away.

Singleton-Introduction of myself

Hello everyone, my name is Kenneth Singleton.  I am a psych major and plan on minoring in criminal justice.  I love to listen to music everyday and just watch the day go by.  My favorite genre of music is hip hop, but every now and then I will listen to gospel.  I am from Laplace, Louisiana, but I am staying on campus.  I am usually a very quiet and observant person. The only time I really get crazy or goofy is when I'm with my friends or in the present of football.  I love to help people and getting to know others as well.  I also enjoy watching movies.  The last movie I seen was 30 minutes or less.  Personally I thought is was and okay movie.  It could have been better but at least it didn't lack to much from what the previews were advertising.   My favorite movies would have to be the entire fast and furious, except for Tokyo Drift.  To me Tokyo Drift focus on too much of racing and fell of the action part.  Other than that I really love the series for the action and cars.  Even thought I don't know a whole lot about cars, I still have a big interest in them.  Currently my favorite car would have to be the Dodge Challenger.  I really like the car because to me its like an update old school car.  Like I mentioned earlier, I am very interested in football.  My two favorite teams are the Steelers and Saints.  Its very hard for me to pick between the two because I like them both for different reason.  For example, I like the Saints because they are my state team and have one of the best offense in the league.  However, I like the Steelers because they have one of the best defense, if not the best defense in the NFL.  They also have my favorite NFL player on their team, which is Troy Polamalu. Another interesting thing about me is that I hate pictures of myself.  Sometimes I don't mind but I don't like expected pictures.