Review: Pan's Labyrinth

I’m in a movie reviewing mode lately, so here’s one for Pan’s Labyrinth:

This movie is absolutely visually stunning! It looks absolutely amazing and the story, characters and settings are extremely imaginative and creative. The composition is done fairly well also, nothing as noticeably spectacular or ingenious as with Kill Bill, but very effective none-the-less. The scene transitions are done extremely well though, and everything seems to flow together smoothly without missing a beat. The 3D animation in the movie also syncs up perfectly with the live action, making the visuals fairly “believable,” which really draws you into the movie.

The story is great as well. Like with Kill Bill, there is a strong underlying theme. With Pan’s Labyrinth however, you’re left unsure as to that theme by the end of the movie. In one hand, the story can be interpreted as being a figment of the protagonist’s imagination; an allegory of internal subconscious reflections of ones life based on their “sins and virtues”. On the other, it could very well be saying that the world is a sort of “magical” place and that the modern, analytical mind needs to take time every now-and-then to suspend their disbelief in order to see that “magic.”

All-in-all, an excellent movie, probably now in my Top 10! Go see it if you get the chance!

Review: Kill Bill

This was a movie a thought was awesome before I came to VFS. Now—thanks to Trent, my ‘Storyboard’ teacher—I’ve realized (along with everyone else in the class) how much of a masterpiece this movie is! Not only is the composition of nearly every single shot done to perfection, but the underlying metaphors, analogies and allusions within the story itself, being blended together so harmoniously, astounds me to even attempt to comprehend the movie in its entirety; even in its conceptualization!

In an extremely small nutshell…
Underneath the obvious storyline, you can see the transformation of the female protagonist as she rids herself from the using crutch of “masculine” power, in order to find power within her own “femininity.” Just the fact that this deeper story is told in a much deeper, philosophical, intellectual and unconventional way is further echoed by the non-linear movie structure and the drastically varying genres within the movie itself.

The moral of this story: ‘Storyboard’ class rules, Kill Bill is genius and it’s going to take a little bit of work if I wish to compete with the likes of Tarantino some day!

Fighting Shape

My new year’s resolution: get back into the shape I was in back in Thailand.

Well I started the gym a little over a week ago with some guys from school, and today I got my body composition analyzed at the gym. Surprisingly enough I’m not too far off from where I was in Thailand. I managed to maintain my body fat percentage—biking to school every day seems like it’s paid off—and in just the past week was also able to put on a few of muscle as well, so things are looking good. The only area I really need to improve on now to get back into “fighting shape” is drop my resting heart rate down from 60 bpm to the 40-50 range. Which means my cardio and endurance is gone need a bit of work.

And speaking of “fighting shape” a friend of mine I met in Thailand finally managed to get a protracted qualm he was having with the internet settled, and sent me a few video clips of me and some other students training in Thailand. Here is what I’ve got so far, hopefully he can get some more footage successfully sent to me so that I can post it up on here as well.

One note before you watch, there aren’t any frontal shots of me, so if you can’t figure it out, I’m the long-haired grub in the blue trunks. Enjoy:



And a little video that the same friend who gave me the footage editted and posted up on YouTube. Includes footage of some of the facilities and instructors at the Rawai Muay Thai gym (Phuket) that I trained at before aswell (but not at the same time he was), and other clips of training in Chiang Mai (the ones I'm trying to yank from him). :D

Holiday Recap

Now I understand that this post has been a long time coming, but I have an entirely legitimate reason for that:

I just moved into a new place with a few guys from VFS, right before we all left home for the school break. When we came back from break we realized that we didn’t have internet like they said we would, so we had to wait until a guy from Shaw could come in and set up the internet for us (today).

Please trust me though that I did mean to update this a good week ago, but was unable to due to said conflict.


That aside, I’d like to make a quick mention of the party I held for New Years. A friend of mine owns a DJ company, and my parents have a rather spacious basement, so I applied the negotiation skills I learned from the gracious Miss Clark at VFS. The result: a Hawaiian-theme New Years party with over $30K worth of sound and lighting equipment set up in my basement, with the only cost to myself being a few hours of cleanup in the morning. This was a practice run though. I hope to do it again next year, only this time charge $2-3 cover and use that money to hire a maid to clean up on the 2nd or 3rd, instead of doing it myself.

Here is a recap of the night done by Kyle Davenport in a special YouTube debut of “The Davenport Report,” enjoy:






Photos:





See you there next year! ;)