My report: I didn’t pick this picture and naturally I fell asleep while attempting to watch it. Basically the film was about a woman dying for one and a half hours. I’m not making fun of cancer patients, just the movie. The humor was not good. This film has a very specific market. Maybe people in their thirties, with kids, that have gone through the same, and even they may not find it funny either.
Rating:
About it: Director Steve Stockman takes the helm for this semi-autobiographical comedy drama about an estranged family that comes together for one last goodbye, and finds their assumedly brief farewell inexorably dragged out for two excruciating weeks. Aging matriarch Anita (Sally Field) is dying, but before she goes, she has requested that her four grown children travel back home to visit their ailing mother on her deathbed. Eager to gain a better understanding of the dying process, daughter Emily purchases a variety of self-help books on the subject. Though brother Keith (Ben Chaplin) soon arrives determined to float through the process in typical L.A. Zen mode, Emily contends that the only way to be prepared for the future is to consider every detail that can go awry. When PR executive Barry arrives intent on getting some work done before death comes knocking, it appears as if he is more concerned with getting broadband Internet in the house than actually tending to his mother. Meanwhile, youngest brother Matthew sets at the sidelines biding his time as his unlikable wife, Katrina, callously speculates on which of the dying woman’s luxurious jewels she will be inheriting. Now, as Anita begins to look back at her life while reflecting on the time spent with her family, the question of who will hold this family together once she is gone casts a melancholy shadow over her fond memories. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
My dad has been here the whole week and me, him and my brother have been hanging out. Every day we go all over the place looking for something to buy… I don’t really understand that concept, but I won’t oppose it as long as I get something for all the driving. Ha!
I’m sore as hell… I started working out again and yesterday I did for an hour and then played basketball for five hours, now I’m feeling it. It feels good to get back in the gym though, so I won’t even complain.
Right now I’m putting together some Bob Marley songs for my dad. He leaves tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. and I’ve been promising him these CD’s for a while, so now he’ll have them. One thing I wanted to do was put together a DVD for my mom so she could see how we’re living here in San Diego, but I don’t have enough time. Maybe I’ll put it on YouTube so they can see it. There are options.
Man… this is some bullshit. I just woke and I’m hungry. I’ve got nothing in my refrigerator except for a bag of old spinach, butter and jelly. My car is gone ’cause my brother took it, so now I’ve got to walk over to Carl’s Jr.
My dad is coming tomorrow from Panama to visit for a few days. I’ll buy groceries before then and clean my place a little bit. I’ve got laundry to do too.
I wish I could say more, but right now I need to take a shower and get going. That large size Double Western Bacon Cheeseburger combo is calling me.
I had a strange dream yesterday. In the dream I was talking to Tupac and Biggie, all of a sudden I hear a hard clap and I wake up. I felt my bed was moving and there was no way I could have done that myself. It was just too real. So the first thing I did when I woke up was to check the room to see if there was anyone else in there. It was just weird, you know? And that clap, the sound was so real…
Today I had this dream that I was talking to Jay-Z while we were watching a football game. Again, I can’t remember the details of the conversation…
I think I just figured out why I’ve been having these dreams… I always go to sleep with my Ipod on. My brother Alex, who’s a doctor, tells me that there are two different types of sleep: non Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. Our dreams mostly happen during REM sleep and our senses do remain active during certain stages of sleep. So it is possible that my brain is assimilating the last bits of information coming through my senses, like the music on the Ipod. Three out of the last five songs I was “listening” to while sleeping before I woke up from my dream and turned off my Ipod were from Jay-Z. The night before I turned off the Ipod on Biggie’s “Playa Hater” song. I must have been listening to Tupac right before that.
I think it’s very possible that this is all true. I know that when I was working, studying and doing everything in between I wasn’t dreaming ’cause I wasn’t sleeping enough. Not only that, but it was very hard to remember things. It’s funny that sometimes when we think we’re doing a lot of good, we’re actually killing ourselves. It’s like trying to knock down a door standing just a couple inches from it: we can hit it with everything we’ve got but we’ll end up doing more damage to ourselves than the door, even if it eventually comes down. It’s better to step back a few feet, regain our strength and kick that door hard, one time!
I am who I am
I am the man who crawls into your bed in the middle of the night
And the same way I come, I leave when I like
I am the moon light you need so you can see at night
I am the sun that brightens your skies
Don’t ever think of me as your other half
Nor come to me when you need advice
I am not your friend nor your father
I am not your creator nor your messenger
I am not your brother nor your lover
I am who I am
I am the man who comes to you in the middle of the night
With a mood that supersedes my actions
I can be gentle or rough, but never expect me to act with hesitation
I make you feel good… and then I leave you to cry
I do not want your love nor do I need it
You know what I want and you will keep on giving it
Why keep asking for my name when you already know the answer
Wanting another answer is simply asking for more pain
I am who I am
And you must leave it at that
If you ask me one more time I will never again cross into your path
You see, in a relationship like this only one can have the feelings
The other is simply the perfect definition of a realist
I am the honest person that you’ve ever come across
I never lie to you, I don’t put anything on a cusp
If you have to leave me because I didn’t lie to you
I understand, and best of lucks to you
My report: this was a great story. Proof that you don’t need to say much to get points across. I would have never watched this movie if it wasn’t for the 2007 Best Actor Academy Award. Before I knew about the award I kept looking at this movie rental store and thinking I’d like to see someday, but didn’t want to take my chances just yet. The cover was weird enough to call my attention, but not to rent it. The best thing is how the entire movie is wrapped around what people would do for money, anything from deceiving families, to accepting or denying Jesus.
Rating:
About it: Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man — an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson’s loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses its attentions on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a failed silver miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself up from the bowels of the earth, both literally and metaphorically, Plainview embarks on a systematic and steadfast approach to mastering the oil business. Using plain-spoken and straightforward language, and accompanied by his young son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), Plainview launches a campaign to convince small-town property owners they should let him drill their land. Without him, they won’t have the equipment to access the profit beneath their feet. He builds an empire this way — and gradually becomes obsessed with the intrinsic value of power, growing increasingly irascible and paranoid in the process. Plainview meets his match in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a teenage preacher in the small California town of Little Boston, whose brother tipped Plainview off to the town’s plentiful supply of untapped oil. To fully reap the benefits of the land, Plainview must suffer the opposing whims of this “prophet,” whose legitimacy is questionable at best. And it’s unclear either man is prepared to pay the humiliating price the other wants to exact. There Will Be Blood features an anachronistic percussive soundtrack by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, and it was shot in the same town where the James Dean epic Giant was filmed. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide
I just finished watching the first season of the reality show “The Apprentice.” It’s a T.V. show about 16 candidates competing for an apprentice position with Donald Trump, one of the most successful Realtors in the United States.
Several times Donald asked the apprentices if they thought they had the genes for becoming a leader. I’ve always dismissed that thought, but now I’m wondering. Could it be possible that certain people are born with gifts that go beyond physical abilities? Like the way certain people process thoughts, the reason why babies know to hold their breath underwater and to suck on a nipple, and being able to learn sciences at faster rates than most?
I know what my gift is: I have a great mind when it comes to imagination and creation. This is something I know I can use well in business, where the true rule of the game is to make a profit by solving problems. I also know that my gift alone is not enough to be a good businessman. I still have/had to figure out how to persuade people, learn accounting, use a computer, etc. In other words, I still have to learn how to use the tools that would make me the greatest businessman of all times. It’s the same with being an artist. I still have to learn how to play instruments and write music.
I am lucky to have discovered my gift. Something tells me a lot of people don’t get to do that. The question is: do all of us have gifts we are born with? And are these gifts genetic? I guess the answer to the second question in many ways is the opposite answer to the question “do you believe in God?” Many would say our gifts come from above and not others.
I realize I am leaving a lot of questions unanswered and I do want to know the answers for these questions. I found a good article that explains why parents don’t have total control over how their children will turn out. I still need to research more, but if this is true, maybe it will help me understand why I’ve never liked going to church. Even though my parents forced me to go every week. My brothers never complained and many people even if forced, after 21 years of going to church every Sunday they end up with something. I moved to the U.S. and never stepped foot on a church again. It never became a habit, but maybe some day I will go if I want to.
Is being a businessman coded in the genes of Donald Trump or is simply from watching his father when he was a kid? I don’t care, but I do want to know more about my genetics. Figuring out won’t really do anything in terms of where I’m going, but it does help in answering where I came from.
My dad called. He calls pretty often these days. He wanted to see how everything was going and let me know that he’s sending money for me and my brother. I could hear music in the background and he was repeating everything I was saying so I could tell there was someone else in the room. It was my mom. After years of not talking, they recently started talking again and they both seem happier. I’m happy for them and whatever they decided as far as wanting them getting together… to me is like whatever. They will always be my parents and that’s what’s important. Like I said, whatever makes them happy.
When I was growing up there were times I wanted my parents to get a divorce. It would have made things a lot easier for me. I would have only had to deal with one instead of two every time I did something wrong. Sometimes I would get separate punishments from them. How is that fair?
I talked to my mom and she sounds good. I don’t talk to her as often as I do with my dad. If they don’t call, I don’t talk. I don’t know why, but I feel responsible for every woman in my life. Like I got to take care of them. As time keeps moving, I’m also starting to feel more responsible for my dad; and my brother now that he’s here living with me. I try to advise him without sounding bossy and I give him all the freedom he deserves. I just don’t want him to have to go through some of the bullshit I’ve had to go through the almost six years that I’ve been here in the U.S.
My report: I rented this movie because I saw it had comments from Russel Simmons, Whoopi Goldberg and Damon Dash in it. I wanted to know how black people in power felt about the word nigger, and it turned out to be interesting.
The word nigger or nigga is used among black people in the U.S. in many different ways. When I first came to this country I only knew one meaning for the word. It is that same racial slur most people know the word by. But when I heard on T.V. and on songs, people using the word nigga so freely I thought maybe it is OK for anybody to use it. So I tried using the word, but every time I did it just didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right because in my brain there was already a symbol associated with that word. It also didn’t feel right because no everybody, not even all blacks, feel the same way about it. The first and only time I heard my mom use the word nigger, she used it as a derogatory term towards my dad (when he wasn’t in the room) because they were having an argument. And even then it didn’t make sense that my black mom would try to insult my black dad by using the word nigger… they’re both black! It’s like this one time I was fighting with my older brother so I called him an “hijo de puta,” a common insult in Panama that means “son of a whore.” You see where the problem is? We’re brothers! By calling him a son of a whore, I was calling my own mother a son of a whore. As soon as I said, my brother smiled at me and said “we have the same mother you dumb ass,” we both laughed and that was the end of the fight. Never again did I use that same phrase on any of my brothers.
Here is my problem with the world nigger: it divides people. It divides blacks from all other races, and what’s most important, it divides blacks who are against the use of the word nigger from those who favor it. If you ask me, I would say the use of the word today in Hip Hop is mainly serving the same purpose it did when it was first used on blacks. I heard Chris Rock, a black comedian, say that there are black people and then there are niggers. I say niggers are blacks. He was trying to say that a nigger is a dumb black person who is ignorant and likes being ignorant, they like to “keep it real.” I am against his way of thinking because, again, it does nothing but cause more division.
I’ve heard people say that “nigger” is a racial slur, but “niggaz” isn’t. What? That is confusing, and the truth is that it is just another way to try to make the word OK. In Hip Hop lyrics, the word nigga is used all the time. These lyrics are not being heard by black kids, they are being heard by every race and culture on the planet. As artists, we black people are telling the word that it is OK to use the word nigga, but many times when we hear non-blacks use the word we get mad, why? The reason why is because the word, in many ways, still holds the same meaning it had many years ago.
The word nigga is a double standard and at the same time a form of empowerment. To the black person it could mean “I will use the word nigga because I want to, and no white person is going to tell me I can’t,” it could also mean “the word nigga is for us black people ONLY to use,” or “I am better than that other black person who looks just like me.” If you are a black person using the word nigga, you are using it to rebel or distinguish yourself. Either way, the true outcome is division.
I choose not to use the word nigga because it divides. If I use it it will be in a sense of unity amongst black people and knowing that everyone in the room is comfortable with the word. I truly love my race too much to help shred it apart. I don’t care what nobody, aside from all blacks, think of the word “nigga”. Let’s get our own black culture to unite so we can have a unanimous vote.
Rating:
About it: The biggest names in show business come together to offer their opinions on one of the most inflammatory words in the English language in filmmaker Todd Williams’ revealing and thought-provoking documentary. In its long and complex history, the word “nigger” has gone from a cutting and derogatory racial slur to a term of endearment frequently used by African-American youth culture. Though the word has in a sense been “taken back” by the very people that it targeted, it still has the power to anger and enrage when taken out of its new context. As a variety of celebrities including Quincy Jones, Russell Simmons, George Carlin, Damon Dash, and Bryant Gumbel offer their opinions on this polarizing word, the taboo of language is broken to reveal an ever-changing society that is constantly attempting to make sense of a dark past while simultaneously attempting to build a brighter future. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
I get butterflies in my stomach every time I have to stand up and talk in front of people. But with every time I do it I keep getting better and better. I had to do it today for one of my classes. I was actually looking forward to it and I didn’t get nervous to the point where my mouth gets dry. That’s how I show my full nervousness. I’ve seen people stutter, sweat a lot or even cry. I guess I’m lucky in that sense. I think the best a really nervous person can do is practice what is going to be said to the point where there is no need to even think about it. It will free up some of that nervousness.
At this point, all I’m really feeling is anxiety, and I don’t know that ever goes away. I really like having people hear what I have to say. I like having all eyes on me. What was different about tonight’s presentation is that I got to record it. That’s right. My brother came to the class and he recorded everything on my video camera. I looked at the video a couple of times and I had no idea I used so many facial expressions. Sometimes I open my eyes real wide while I’m talking, I use my hands a lot, my walk is really cool (I got to pad myself on the back for that one), when I talk sometimes my upper lip shrinks and a tend to smile quite a bit.
After watching this video, I know I am much better at public speaking than what I give myself credit for. The video boosts my confidence. Of course, there are things I can do better so I will look at the video again and make note of those things. Keep on pushing it, you know…
All these cartoons are bringing me back… After watching Chip & Dale I always had a new idea. I would go around the house looking for empty bottles and other things I could use to make small airplanes, helicopters, cages to catch animals, anything really… This and McGiver pretty much had the same aftereffect on me.
I was talking to my brother about the cartoons we used to watch growing up and it was funny that after all these years we could still remember the tunes from the beginning. Chi chi chi Chip y Dale, rescatadores!
I’m only missing half a verse to complete the lyrics on “One Night Stand.” I wish I could just do it right now, but the right ideas are not coming to me and I don’t want to push it.
I’ll definitely be doing some rewriting later when I start working on the vocals mainly to make sure everything flows well, but this is pretty much the bulk of it.
My brother is here, he made it to his new home safely and Monday we’re going to look for a two bedroom apartment.
Mentally I’m a little tired, but I’ve got a lot of energy right now so I’m not sure what else I’m going to do now. Maybe I’ll work on antoniobullen.com. Yeah… I need to get that new homepage done.
So I got to Bournemouth and not really to my surprise my brother wasn’t there waiting for me. I waited for a little while before I stroke a conversation with a college girl who was waiting for a friend to arrive from London. She told me there were some Internet cafes not too far from the bus station so I decided to go down there to get my brother’s number so I could give him a call.
I called, but there was no answer. I went back to the bus station and called again. This time I got his voice mail. Not more than five minutes after leaving the message, there he was.
My report: I didn’t pick this picture and naturally I fell asleep while attempting to watch it. Basically the film was about a woman dying for one and a half hours. I’m not making fun of cancer patients, just the movie. The humor was not good. This film has a very specific market. Maybe people in their thirties, with kids, that have gone through the same, and even they may not find it funny either.
