September 1st, 2009: Blog Assignment #1: Welcome to Blogland

Now that you have signed up, please spend some time looking around. Pick through the archives in order to get a sense of what is discussed here. Look at the stories. Watch some videos. Follow some links. Simply nose around. Feel free to comment on items you see. This is the only free-form blog I run. In other words, on no other blog are students invited to use the blog for communication about a subject. You are welcome to even post new ideas, links, etc as long as they are:

1. follow all the guidelines of Oakcrest High School

2. clean & free of obscene or lewd material. 

3. are not intimidating, mean or malicious

As you will come to see, when viewed on the OHS server, the blog is forced into restrictions, namely with Youtube, Facebook and other on-line communities.

At the end of each year, two members of the outgoing film institute class will be invited to become blog administrators. Administrators can make editorial decisions about the blog's contents, layout, design and marketing. They also moderate comments and are contacted of any publsihed items and materials.  This year's student blog administrators span the globe: Cassandra Nguyen (Northwestern University) and Alexander Peralejo (Arizona State University)

Once you get acquainted, please read the commentary posted below (Outdated Summer Flicks from Entertainment Weekly) and come in prepared to discuss tomorrow.

Outdated summer flicks - EW.com

Outdated summer flicks - EW.com

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Disney buys out Marvel for $4 Billion

http://corporate.disney.go.com/news/corporate/2009/2009_0831_disney_and_marvel_entertainment.html

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/disney-buys-marvel-for-4-billion/article1270467/

...I'm not sure how to react to this.

"Unbelievable, crazy, and completely true..."

November 6th

Why We Started This Thing in the First Place!

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/08/the_gathering_dark_age.html

Our New Film Institute Promo

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1893373

Great Advice for those About to Move on Toward Independence

Remember that when the dust settles...happiness and love are all there is.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1460906593?bctid=22804415001

I BID THEE A FAREWELL

bye oakcrest film institute, dont worry i'll comment all the time as usual

btw David Spade is an ASU alumni

Can you put a price on your Dreams?

"The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is an upcoming fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Charles McKeown. The film follows the leader of a travelling theatre troupe who, having made a deal with the Devil, takes audience members through a magical mirror to explore their imaginations."
-Wiki



(...looks a hell of a lot better than 'Alice'! p.s. Tom Waits as "Devil", lol)

Costal's Guide to College Textbook Purchases

A few people asked me about buying textbooks for college...so instead of writing seperate e-mails, I decided to write a few tips right here on the good old blog.

First, how to: Most colleges follow the same system for purchasing textbooks: Print out your schedule, go to the bookstore. Look for your course number and professor name on the racks. All of the required books will be available on a shelf with your professor's name and the course number.

Pros & Cons to text shopping:

Few upperclassmen purchase books BEFORE the 1st day of the course because they assess the importance of owning the book based on the syllabus. If the book is only used for one week of the course, they may try to share one with someone else, check with someone they know who took the course. For instance, many sororities and fraternities keep files of notes on textbooks, so some brothers and sisters avoid purchasing books (or in some cases even writing papers

: ( --makes me a sad panda--altogether.

Some students use discount or used book resources online to avoid the high prices at college bookstores. The downside of this comes if you are receiving grant, loan or scholarship money that can be applied to a bookstore, but not a third party vendor.

Waiting can be a tricky strategy because bookstores DO RUN OUT of books, though profs are usually sympathetic to this as they understand the perils of collegiate bookstores. Waiting also greatly increases the possibility of needing to buy books new rather than used. ALWAY choose a used book if available. Very often they already contain annotations. Sometimes, if an idiot owned the book before you, it can be distracting, so thumb through it at the bookstore before making a purchase. Otherwise, the savings is phenomenal, but buyer beware...college texts are like cars, as soon as you drive them off the lot, value plummets.

I do not recommend to my students that they trade in textbooks. It's a suckers bet. The pittance you receive is not worth it. Now I know the allure is hard to resist when you are flat broke and fiending for a Starbucks, but try. Old texts are much more valuable as future reference or barter fodder, especially within your major.

I am Joe Costal...and THAT's one to grow on!

The Happy Go Lucky Reader

If you have taken my class, you know I am a huge Kate Winslet fan. Obsessed. Period. No other way to say it. Even as the doomed April Wheeler, the embodiment of love soured as fully as Finn's sippy cup left in the car all day...I found her appealing and attractive. Even as a headstrong Nazi death camp guard...loved her. Genocide? Bad. But those eyes? Dreamy. Unibrowed and old...I would have taken her back if I were Liam Neeson. Then again, Liam Neeson saved all those other refuges from the camps, so...wait....I definitely confused my holocaust movies again.

Anyway, I have fallen in love with a character so deeply and completely in Sally Hawkins' Poppy. I could not even begin to imagine the last time a female lead character so captured my heart. We discussed in class the importance and the power of characterization. Your protagonist IS your story, and Happy Go Lucky is teeming with so many sharp, vibrant characters that are so real. In the conflict between the vision of optimism and faith that is Poppy juxtaposed against the dark, bitter, paranoid anger and yearning of Scott, the racist driving instructor...the film provides characters that are both strikingly realistic, yet still captivating. They are symbolic, but not flat. Delightful film...check it out and letme know what you think or thought. Happy summer by the way, and I hope you all rock it out as you head off (or back) to college.

Short version of post: hawkins deserved Oscar this year...Kate robbed her. The Academy keeps changing the format...maybe in subsequent competitions, two starlets like these will pudding wrestle for the nod.

Be well, and know that the OFI loves ya, baby!

Bringing Back the Beautiful

if you could bring back and marry a dead actress or actor, who would it be?

mine would be Audrey Hepburn at her breakfast at tiffany's age, i'm in love with a dead woman, beautiful and she sings