Saturday, July 23, 2005

Dutch Masters

Dutch Masters Exhibition

When?
24 June to 2 October 2005
Where? National Gallery of Victoria
Cost? 15 bucks.

Info at: National Gallery of Victoria

Went to the Dutch Master exhibition at the gallery today with Karen, Sara and her friend Annie (or anne.. ?)

It was really wicked. Why?

At first there was a lot of typical portaits, much like the mona lisa. The attention to detail was immculate and every stroke of oil to canvas is immaculate.
Problem to me was the subject matter. The transcrib boxes said some things like "...given a erotic connotation" and it was just a lady looking at you doing nothing explicit. Maybe that's how "erotic" was back then, i don't know.

All i know was i didn't care too much. After seeing 10 odd portraits my enthusiasm slowed. So i tried concentrating on the stuff around the figures or how the subjects were positioned. Nothing. Colours were dull, lifeless and same could be said for the expression. My feedback: Rich 16th century blokes and gals smiling while a professional artist worked their magic. Once again the actual painting ARE amazing... i started to question how free these masters were able to work... seeing as their works did not hint signs of self concept, aspirations and interpretation.

I started to understand they worked much like in Star Wars, apprentice and master so much of the masters technique and "eye" was handed down to the pupil limited self-thought.

But i said this exhibition was wicked didn't i?

As the exhibition went on, the world of these masters opened up. Landscapes, using the flawless eye captures the life of commoners, towns, buildings right down to the last leaf on a tree. I could actually "feel" myself in a world that is not remotely close to modern times... beyond the sea merchants and rich pompous men with their family (going back to the portraits).

They were farmers, the buildings were crude and some works it seemed as though man and mother earth lived as one as there was no works depicting war and conflict (even though i'm sure this occured but the artist chose not to do this.) Facinating.

Self concept? The gallery answered my question as these artists thought about the value of their science and technology fabricated ingeniously with human skills, realising that death is a part of this "balanced" world.

Go see and feel this experience.

8/10.

---

Life is Beautiful.

Masterpiece. Perfectly written, directed and acted. Reminded me of "Caberet" from an italian flavour with the subtle insertion of the Nazis but no music and no Liza Minelli (music i don't mind, but liza minelli? God i hate her)

The story follows Guido (i think? Translation might be wrong) a man, a father and a jew in the time of nazi occupation in italy.

His imagination, creativity and charisma are the ingredients that kept his family bonded together one of the world's darkest eras.
It a movie that brings back the theme of "love conquers all" without the corniness and crap we are fed by hollywood.

Humourous and heart wrentching. I won't watch this movie again because i cannot bear some scenes that will rip me into pieces. Truly powerful.

A must see.

9.5/10

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I will be updating Karen's visit in the seperate post since there will be photos and all that... I'm outties.

-Jay

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Semester 2

Listening to: [ Audioslave - Like a stone ]

Looking at my unit outline for my semster 2 i feel like i have a real chance of doing well. The course work doesn't seem so hard as long as i put in the effort.

Academically i didn't do so bad last semester considering the exam timetable... i was told i could apply for a special consideration but it's 2 weeks too late. You live you learn i guess.

Right now i'm sitting in the Matheson Library with nothing but banana peels and a coke next to me. I swore to myself i would stay here and learn, i have but i accomplished that in about 40 minutes and i'm bored shitless until my next lecture which is about another hour away. With my phone barred cuz i cant afford to pay my phone bills i'm in a bit of a rut at the moment. I hope a casual job or something will help pick things up...

The comic project is just about to wrap up pre-production as we start to move into production which is goign to be really exciting.

I watched Sin City the other day with Pete, Monin, Karen, Omer and Mark and i thought the movie was pretty cool... the only thing i liked about it was it was black and white and how the stories tied in with each other.

I liked also how they made the movie really ficticious but the downside was the deliberate and crap acting from some of hollywoods best which is a shame.

7/10.

I'm bored, i can't even write a blog properly to fill time in... I'm gonna smoke or something...

-Jay

Monday, July 11, 2005

I hate macs.

Why?

I've been spreading the word lately about how good Macs are, trying to get people to get Mac's because how great their OS is, how reliable it is and how ever so pretty it is.

I feel so betrayed like a bad break up, and I want to come crawling back to Microsoft but I can never show my face there again.

WELL! Mother fucking piece of shit....

I had written a REALLY long blog. I was about to post it when the mac died on me. This happy message with a grey background saying I had to restart just came out of no where. It was conveniently displayed in 2 other different languages which made me furious. Then there was a nice picture display with the "power up" sign was in the background made me want to throw this laptop against a wall, imagining it smashing to pieces made me smile.

Like mac's way of saying "sorry dude about this abrupt mistake in our OS, but to make it better we've put this in other languages and pretty graphics on the back"...

Here's my reply... FUCK YOU.

Fuck you and die you fucking cunt.

Imagine if I was actually writing something more important, like my script, my assignment do I have to always save after every sentence now that it feels like this grey screen might appear out of no where when you aren’t doing anything suspicious. Christ I'm not even surfing on pornographic sites... (yet) so what's the deal?

No messages telling me i should save my work or the mac doing it for me... just a convenient "you need to restart"
and no amount of key punching, swearing can change this.

For fucks sake it might as well down turn off. I would've felt a little easier.

Anyway... besides my point of MAC ARE SHIT DON'T EVER BUY ONE...
My original post had more of the following:

I'm unwell. I have a virus and I feel like shit.
The firm is well.
Mum is in Sydney.
Cousin Karen is coming down from Sydney.
Batman 9.5/10
Mr & Mrs Smith 7/10
Steamboy 4/10.

And finally. I hate macs. I resent my mac...

Arseholes, I want my data back. Can i be bothered doing the full movie reviews again?

Yes, but probably on a Windows OS. Fucking cunt.

-Jay

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Meeting 1: The beginning of Chalkboard Studios