120th Street. Cars - Machines Need Love Too

I must admit that I wasn't all the excited about CARS the very first time I heard about it. But my impressions of it improved over time. I was a little bumped by the fact that we humanize everything we see - Racoons, Toys and now even cars!!! Do we love our machines so much that we need to make them look lovable? Truly, Humanism's dead, we're in the Age of Posthumanism....

Cticial theory aside, I must say that I LOVED the movie! Yeah, it was a little lame, old and slow at parts, but in its entirety, it's a really good movie. It's success lies in making objects that doesn't even look remotely human achieve a believable human face. You know it's a car that you're looking at, but the expressions, antics and movement exuded by the cars give them that magical human side. It was a little awkward during the first 5 minutes into the movie, when we reach the end, the audience are actually FEELING for the characters as if they were human. There's something utterly magical about the Pixar team, their story-telling ability far exceeds any of the major American animation studios, Disney included, that allows the audience to dig any movie they produce - regardless of the theme, characters and setting!

Oh yes, how can I NOT talk about the music? A nice mixture of American Country, Pop and Indie music (oh yes, I'm so gonna get that OST!)

Overall, it was a movie that entertained, moved and inspired. Ker-Chow!

119th Street. The Tower of Babel

The picture above is entitled "Rage Over Babylon". It's a picture based on the Biblical story of the creation and destruction of the Tower of Babel. It is an entry drawn by Ziv Qual for the "Spectacular Challenge", a competition organized by the CG Society.

One of my favorite Biblical story is that of the Tower of Babel. More precisely, it is the interpretive possibilities of the story the intrigues me. For those of you who are not familiar with the story, it goes like this: In the story, humankind came together to build a magnificent tower that bridges Heaven and Earth. This tower, is called the Tower of Babel.Through this tower, human kind aspires to enter the abode of God himself. God was displeased. He destroyed the tower, gave the people of Earth different languages so they can never understand one another, and hence unable to come together and build such a tower again.

As I have said earlier, the thing about Biblical stories is that it is able to go either way you want. It can, be seen as simply a story about how we ended up speaking in different tongues, or even a warning against ambitiousness of human kind to want to enter the guarded realm of God. I however, offer THREE interpretations of the story:

1) The story shows the creative and technological powress that can be achieved through a united effort of human kind.

2) The period in which human kind came together to build the Tower of Babel is the ONLY time when there is peace and unity.

3) God, by giving people different tongues and languages only served to DIVIDE humanity, and hence, created centuries of division, wars and chaos.

The more I ponder about the story, the more it made me think if PEACE is what God really wanted for human kind? Maybe we are meant not to understand one another, maybe we are destined to wage war after war against one another 'cause that's the only way we won't come together and build something that may challenge the authority of God. Why are we made to believe that we can't create things greater than that of God, when the Bible has told us that we could?

People see the Tower of Babel as some symbol of the transgressive nature of humanity. that requires correction from God. No. The Tower of Babel is symbolic of the brilliance of humanity, the unity of human kind - a unity that we know we can never again achieve. The story, will be for me an inspiration, a puzzle and an enigma.

118th Street. Let Me Fall...

There is so much magic in songs. We go back to songs at different times of our lives, and maybe at different moods, and a good song always offers us something - something that reflects what we feel at that exact moment. Some people say life is Mix Soundtrack; I couldn't agree more.

I have been writing about songs plenty of times now, and I feel that I haven't said enough. There're so much songs out there written by Indie songwriters. People don't know a lot about them, due the very fact that they are only known among a very tight and loyal fan base. Some singers deserve a lot more than that.

The song I'm gonna talk about this week is "Let Me Fall" by Bethany Joy Lenz. Lenz, if you guys are in the know, plays Hayley on my favorite series One Tree Hill. This song was actually played live in one of the episodes. Clearly, it shot Lenz to fame, for she was offered a recording contract right after the airing of the episode. Her album debuts this Fall. Here are the lyrics:

LET ME FALL

t's October again
Leaves are coming down
One more year's come and gone
And nothing's changed at all
Wasn't I supposed to be someone
Who can face the things that I've been running from...

Let me feel, I don't care if I breakdown
Let me fall, even if I hit the ground
And if I...
Cry a little
Die a little
At least I know I lived, just a little...

I've become much too good at being invincible
I'm an expert at play it safe, and keep it cool
But I swear this isn't who I'm meant to be
I refuse to let my life roll all over me...

Let me feel, I don't care if I breakdown
Let me fall, even if I hit the ground
And if I...
Cry a little
Die a little
At least I know I lived, just a little...

I wanna be somebody
I, I wanna be somebody
I wanna be somebody
I, I wanna be somebody who can face the things that I've been running from

Let me feel, I don't care if I breakdown
Let me fall, even if I hit the ground
And if I
Cry a little
Die a little
At least I know I lived...

It's October again
Leaves are coming down
One more year's come and gone
And nothing's changed at all

117th Street. Evangelion - A True Anime Classic

One of the measure of a true anime classic is how people still talk about it 10 years after its original release. I must say Evangelion has a HUGE impact on me when I first heard about it during my high school days. It was actually introduced to me by my pal w'Note, who was, if I remembered clearly, obsessed with Evangelion.

Evangelion, or Neon Genesis Evangelion as purists like to call it is probably the most original anime ever produced. In fact, Evangelion achieved so much in the anime world, all the other anime produced after it helpless atttempted to mimick its startling orignality, complexity and aestheticness. Of course, most were unscuccessful. What they did however, was to highlight how influencial Evangelion is. Arguably, what gives Evangelion this powerful edge over the subsequently produced anime is its treatment of the Christian history. In the anime, not only is God real, he is an adversary - capable of sending his angels to earth to get what HE wants. Humans, having progressed techonologically is able to face God in a stand-off and at times put him in his place. In the end, God, being God, triumphs and drags humanity into the dust.

Anything thing (movies, books anime) that offers an alternative view to Christianity is automatically labeled controversial. And Evangelion is controversial. Evangelion reproduces the Old Testament God in a startling new light and perspective. I feel that Evangelion is in fact attempting to validate the existence of God. In other words, human kind prefers an ACTIVE God - one who does something whose action is a signifed for his existence. But Evangelion doesn't stop there, as most people point out, including the strip above, it is really about the exploration of teen angst.

It is amazing that teens today face the exact same problem teens faced almost 12 years ago. The desire to want to feel belonged, to want to communicate with their parents better and of course, questioning their own sexuality. I think that is what makes Evangelion endure. Times have changed, but the problems that affected people then, affects us now. We have not solved the problems that were facing us almost a decade ago, even though we like to think that we have progessed. Considering this, perhaps we have progressed scientifically, but, morally, emotionally and spiritually, we remain stagnant, unable to proceed from where we have tripped.

This, perhaps, is characteristic of the human condition. We are more often than not in doubt. In doubt of everything, especially the point of our existence. Evangelion raises the same question, but offers a solution as well. Although we can never perfectly understand the point of our existence, we can understand it better if humanity has a common adversary, Existence, becomes meaningful once set against an opposing force that threatens to destroy that existence. God and Angels are therefore sigified Other that helps humanity define what it is. We can only understand ourselves through establishing differentiating ourselves from others who are different from us.

Till the day comes when humanity needs to come to terms with a radical Other, questions like who we are, what we are or why are we alive will remain pertinent. Evangelion will remain relevant, till of course, God refuses to stay in his heaven and messes up with the world.