Doubt (movie) was great...

Yesterday, I rented Doubt from my local video store. Being my second time moving from a play to a movie, I had a somewhat reasonable idea of what to expect. I think overall, Doubt did a little bit of a better job representing its characters, but that's probably because the playwright got to direct the film. There are a few key things I liked in the film that definitely took the film to the same height as its paper-based counterpart.

The final scene with Father Flynn confronting Sister Aloyisius near the end was done well. Father Flynn showed appropriate emotions during the whole affair. Sister Aloysius showed little remorse for the situation and acted smug and unrelentless towards Father Flynn.

The sermons were another aspect I liked. Father Flynn spoke with passion to the congregation. The first sermon also introduced us to Sister Aloyisius, giving us an interesting first impression as she walked by the pews, correcting the students.

It was a good film, and I think it did the play justice. The characters' looks and personas were quite different than I imagined, but I suppose that's the risk you take when you watch someone's visual interpretations. I highly recommend it to the rest of you. It's certainly worth a rental.

A lot alike to our other plays...

M. Butterfly can be compared with every single other play we've read over the semester. The idea of deceit is abundant in one form or another.

Let's start with "Art." When Yvan, Serge and Marc begin fighting near the end of the play, they let each other know how they really feel. In essence, they've been lying and decieving and pretending all those years.

"Amadeus" is easy. Salieri befriends Mozart until the moment when he can hurt him most presents itself. Last time I checked up on that sort of thing, it was an obvious form of deceit.

Yet another obvious one is "Spinning Into Butter." Simon as the victim to his own crimes is pretty deceitful. That's not to say that Sarah's hidden racism isn't deceitful, but Simon is the obvious one.

The only thing I can think of for "Joe Turner" is Jesse. His habit of wooing women then cheating on them is all that I could come up with. Bynum's pigeon sacrifices are secretive, but not a secret.

In "Doubt" Sister Aloisyous acts deceitful towards Father Flynn. She invites him in, telling him to expect a discussion about the pageant. It never makes you feel that the deceit is mean though. Deceit is deceit I guess.

Deceit in "All My Sons" is everywhere. However, the main form of deceit is Joe keeping his secret from nearly everyone in his life. That is probably one of the biggest examples of deceit from the class. He hid the war accident from everyone for years. That's the kind of deceit that needs talent.

The inly play that I couldn't find a concrete example of deceit in was "Mother Courage and Her Children." If I had to pick something fromm the play, it would maybe be Mother Courage's haggling abd hoodwinking habits.

And the example in "M. Butterfly" is Song's deceit towards Rene. I still would like to know how you don't notice obvious extremeties after being with someone for 20 years. Generally speaking, the main idea of an affair is to sleep with someone besides your significant other for as long as you can get away with it.

What are some other recurring themes that others noticed?

Song of Fraternization

After leafing through the play a second time, I found the "Song of Fraternization" to be the most intriguing. I think Yvette's song is probably the most involved, and could probably be put as a seperate story all by itself. It's a good story and it fits nicely in with Kattrin's character. I also think Prof. Newby put it nicely by calling her a "Woman of Convenience."

First of all, Yvette's story can be easily compared to Kattrin's, making the morals and warnings all the more possible. Yvette claims she followed the army around, offering a certain service to those that needed it. How is Kattrin much different? She is forced to also follow the army around the world, also offering services, albeit not the same kind of service.

Mother Courage is not helping the situation either. She starts the play off by tossing her daughters purity and innocence out the window by claiming she's being courted by the Lieutenant. So, even before we get to hear the "Song of Fraternization," Mother Courage is not setting a great example, despite the fact she is incredible at her job as a mother.

But, right after Yvette leaves from singing her touching and heart-warming tale, what does Kattrin do? She takes the prostitute's "garbs" and prances around all over the place in a camp full of deprived men. Mother Courage at least does the decent thing and takes her out of the situation.

What other comparisons or differences did you guys think of for this song?

Some contrasts I noticed in Buried Child...

There's a couple of random contrasts I just thought of.

I think the priest's presence physically and outside of the house adds some things to the plot. It's a little ironic that even though Halie has a horrible, unholy secret to keep, she continues to "relate" to the priest. It's almost as if she's going out of her way to convince the priest she's an honest, good person.

Vince and Shelly also seem to start out drastically opposite of Dodge and Halie, both in age and personality. But, near the end, the four of them begin to show more similar characteristics. It's like their personalities are coming together; Halie and Dodge seem to calm, while Vince and Shelly begin to see madness.

Like we talked about in class, the color of their clothing contrast as well. Dodge, Tilden and Halie are all wearing dark, negative, forlorn colors. Then, enter Vince and Shelly wearing sunglasses and a purple t-shirt, respectively.

Anyone else disagree?

Frank is unappreciated...

I think Frank is an unappreciated character. He's just as important as George, but he's given 1/3 of the lines. Think about it; if Frank was scrapped as a character, there would be a lot missing.

For one, the whole horoscope thing would be gone. That eliminates an important scene and concept. There would be no irony to the whole favorable day thing and he wouldn't be able to interrupt the confrontation with George. There would also be even less hope for a good ending for the reader/audience. But that point is obvious.

The more subtle missing piece is with Lydia. If Frank isn't there, there's little point to her as a character. Because of Frank, she's able to claim him as her husband when seeing George. If Frank were absent from the story, she could claim she's single which could very easily be enough to convince George to forgive and stick around.

Frank may not be the lead, but he's definitely a necessary supporting role for the story. Personally, I think Jim and Susan (neighbors) are a little on the useless side. If you guys can think of even more reasons why Frank is important, please leave a comment.

I'll Get the Towels....

Wow. That was a cool play to read, and I'm not usually one to enjoy that kind of thing.

I want to talk about trees. More specifically, I wanna talk about the downed tree in the Keller's yard. There are sooooo many things that it could and very well may be.

My initial thought after finishing the play was that the tree was probably put there to symbolize Larry's memory. It's so obvious. The one random night Ann, Larry's woman, arrives the tree snaps. The immediate day after that, all this dramatic crap happens, ending with towels and thorough carpet cleanings.

Seeing as Ann's arrival oh-so-subtly coincides with the dead tree, I think it's safe for me to say that the bad event of the tree is meant to contrast with Ann and Chris' engagement. Kind of like one thing dies, but something else is born. Like that.

Or, maybe the dead tree is supposed to symbolize Joe's imminent downfall, like a bad omen. It's no coincidence that Joe has kept his cover for years, and then it's compromised the day after Larry's tree snapped.

There's a lot there to compare with. I'm curious as to what everyone else made of the tree initially, before thinking about it.

I really can't decide about Father Flynn

There are so many places in the play where his actions could be taken as both a sign of guilt or frustration. The first example I thought about was in the scene where Sister Aloyisius had her final confrontation with Father Flynn. Up until this scene I had no reason to believe he was guilty of anything save for maybe a bad temper. But then Father Flynn starts begging with Sister Aloysius to not report him. Just this alone was enough to give me a little bit of doubt to Father Flynn's credibility.

The scene we talked about on Wednesday was probably the first example of John Patrick Shanley trying to give the reader or the audience second thoughts about the truth. The thing is, he does it enough to give you a double take of the situation, but not enough for you to necessarily take it as credible evidence. Personally, I didn't pick up on it until the idea was raised in class. I took it as him really not wanting to report Donald Muller and get him kicked out of Altar Boys.

Another I thought of was his solo confrontation with Sister James. Could it be he's trying to really plea with her to see the truth? Or, is it that he's playing on her need for simplicity? I'm not sure. It could reasonably taken either way. There's just no logical, evidence-based way to judge him given the information we're given.

The latest one I've come up with is also during the initial confrontation between Sister James, Sister Aloyisius and Father Flynn. Near the end of the scene, Father Flynn threatens to ensure Sister Aloysius a forced leave of absence. Again it could be taken two ways. Either Father Flynn feels wronged and thinks she should be at least be scolded by one the higher-ups, or he feels she is a threat to his secrecy and wants to get her out of the picture. I'm so confused!

Is there really any clear evidence to either find innocence or guilt in the situation?

My thoughts on "Joe Turner's Come and gone"

I'm not sure about anyone else, but I thought this play was super suspenseful. From the Juba scene on I really wanted to know what happened to Loomis.

There was something I wanted to bring up. Wasn't there a character in one of the Harry Potter book's? I'm pretty sure he was a Professor and a bit on the mysterious side if I recall. He may have been black as well, but that I'm not positive on. I'm thinking J.K. Rowling may be a fan of August Wilsom. What do you guys think?

Forgot to post the video....

I couldn't find the clip of the scene, but here's the trailer. The majority of the movie is Liam Neeson going undercover to sabotage someone and get his daughter back. It reminded me of Salieri.

Cool. That was different.

I liked "Spinning Into Butter" a lot. It was something different to read and it had a theme that I don't come across all that often. There were some "Oh, no she didn't!" moments during the racist monologue that made me snicker in disbelief. I know this isn't much of an original opinion, but I thought the higher-ups were douche-bags. They were trying to be un-racist but were subconciously making it worse. They picked a good setting too. Vermont is a little on the racist side, and in the same way too. Good play overall, though. I did find it a little messed up that Simon did all that to himself for attention(that's how I took it). Anyway, Vermonters should have this play programmed into their heads. Or maybe they shouldn't. I'm not sure.

Amadeus was...meh...

I didn't really care too much for Amadeus. Having Mozart's character be as immature and stupid as he was made the play feel a little less attention-grabbing. I think it took me a couple sessions to get through the play because I just was losing focus and couldn't care less about any of the characters. I guess that's not completely true. I liked Salieri. He reminds me of the dad in that new movie, Taken(which I suggest everyone see) when he "sabotaged" Mozart from the inside; kind of like a double agent. I'll post the scene I mentioned from the movie below.
I also kind of thought the Venticelli's weren't that useful. I would think the movie could identify the "rumor" element just as well without them. I didn't like the story, most of the characters, and I didn't have much better to say about the movie. To me, it seemed like it wasn't worth reading.

Art Wasn't All That Bad...

I mean I haven't read that many plays before so I don't have much of a standard, but I thought Art was pretty good. I'm usually not much for reading, but I enjoyed reading this. Yvan was probably the character I could relate the most to. That, and I think he was the primary source of humor. Don't get me wrong, Marc and Serge were pretty funny as well, but Yvan stood out to me for some reason. It could be the fact that I suppose he could be considered the main character. Being the neutral party, pointing him out as the main character would feel less one-sided, at least to me. All in all though, Art was enjoyable. I could silently read the lines and picture how an actor would say it. Pretty enjoyable.

Brief insight into the class thus far

I've never really had an English or Literature class dedicated to a single genre of writing. Now, I'm not much for reading, but I do enjoy a good tale; I just usually get them from movies and video games. It's not that I am against reading, but as an activity it has a hard time holding my attention. Anyway, looking at the semi-lengthy list of plays, it's fair to assume I'll get a lot of diverse stories this semester. I'm OK with that. I just hope I don't get picked to read the lead role in class. I suppose if no one else wants to, I will. I'm not nervous; I just keep to myself.

What is the point?

Well Darren, I'll tell you the point. Entertainment all started with plays and improvisation. Is it so hard to believe that some people still enjoy it? Not really. I'm pretty sure if we didn't have the standard HD television programming we do now, almost everyone would love plays. That's not to say there isn't a difference. Here's the good qualities I personally see in each.


TV/Movies

• Cool special effects.
• Able to show things that are humanly impossible, such as gore. It gives more freedom to present an idea in a more powerful way that is simply impossible to recreate in theatre, at least not to the same intensity.
• Camera shots/angles have an effect on viewer perspective. You could, for example, give the viewer a look through the eyes of the main character and see what they see.

Theatre

• More personable. You are within yards of another person who is human; you may or may not be able to closely relate to this person.
• Drawing emotions from the viewer is far easier. You are literally watching another living, breathing person suffer hardships or celebrate happiness right in front of you.
• Far less expensive to put into production. Even with scarce resources and potentially no money, an incredible experience can still be delivered with the right techniques.