Precious ***half, First Person Singular I M Pei***

Precious ***half, 2009


Very good movie, moving, and authentic in the details.  
The young actress - Sabourey Sidibe - was v v gd.  Such a difficult character to play and she did it very well.  Bravo.  Mo'Nique the actress who played the mother was v gd too.


First Person Singular I M Pei***, 2011


I M Pei is like satin, very smooth, very gracious.  Hard working and no isms... architecture is architecture.  Successful man, all his life.  He inspires respect.  And as he inaugurates the Hall of Fame of Rock and Roll, when asked about those cars hanging from the roof - he said, actually, he had no say in this... with a smile.  A bona fide diplomate.

心中天網島, Shinjū: Ten no amijima

心中天網島, Shinjū: Ten no amijima ***


Very graphic, b and w film thats truly beautiful.  
Each character speaks the hell that they are bind in.  
Everybody has their reasons to behave the way they do.
Though, I often wonder, don't people just run away?  Why commit suicide?

Pop British Philosopher : Alain de Botton 6 videos

  http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/philosophy-guide-to-happiness/

We tend to accept that people in authority must be right. It’s this assumption that Socrates wanted us to challenge by urging us to think logically about the nonsense they often come out with, rather than being struck dumb by their aura of importance and air of suave certainty.

This six part series on philosophy is presented by popular British philosopher Alain de Botton, featuring six thinkers who have influenced history, and their ideas about the pursuit of the happy life.

Socrates on Self-Confidence (Part 1) – Why do so many people go along with the crowd and fail to stand up for what they truly believe? Partly because they are too easily swayed by other people’s opinions and partly because they don’t know when to have confidence in their own.

Epicurus on Happiness (Part 2) – British philosopher Alain De Botton discusses the personal implications of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270BCE) who was no epicurean glutton or wanton consumerist, but an advocate of “friends, freedom and thought” as the path to happiness.

Seneca on Anger (Part 3) – Roman philosopher Lucious Annaeus Seneca (4BCE-65CE), the most famous and popular philosopher of his day, took the subject of anger seriously enough to dedicate a whole book to the subject. Seneca refused to see anger as an irrational outburst over which we have no control. Instead he saw it as a philosophical problem and amenable to treatment by philosophical argument.

Montaigne on Self-Esteem (Part 4) – Looks at the problem of self-esteem from the perspective of Michel de Montaigne (16th Century), the French philosopher who singled out three main reasons for feeling bad about oneself – sexual inadequecy, failure to live up to social norms, and intellectual inferiority – and then offered practical solutions for overcoming them.

Schopenhauer on Love (Part 5) – Alain De Botton surveys the 19th Century German thinker Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) who believed that love was the most important thing in life because of its powerful impulse towards ‘the will-to-life’.

Nietzsche on Hardship (Part 6) – British philosopher Alain De Botton explores Friedrich Nietzsche’s (1844-1900) dictum that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, any existence that is too comfortable is worthless, as are the twin refugees of drink or religion.

Life 2.0, director: Jason Spingarn-Koff; 2011

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/film/life_20_spingarn-koff

Life 2.0

director: Jason Spingarn-Koff; 2011

 James Wagner Au's interview with the Director Jason Spingam-Koff

 

When Strangers Click, HBO documentary of Secondlife

New Real Life/Secondlife use: House of Sweden

New Real Life/Secondlife use:


If a friend wants to speak Swedish and couldn't find anyone around them in Real Life, would a Secondlife friend do?  Would this be workable if someone doesn't know/doesn't like online things, would the person choose to use the Virtual World opportunity or stay no-Swedish-speaking-friend-to-speak-to?


Swannjie found a Swedish speaking friend from Sweden in Secondlife after visiting the House of Sweden building in Secondlife - an official representation of the Swedish Embassy in Real life -.  


Now, lets see what happens next.

HBO Documentary Featuring Second Life & Machinima Emmy Nomination

HBO Documentary Featuring Second Life & Machinima Gets Emmy Nomination for Innovation in News


"When Strangers Click",

 last year's HBO documentary about online romance featuring a couple who met in Second Life and a lot of SL machinima, was recently nominated for an Emmy award, under the category "New Approaches to News and Documentary Programming". (Emmy listings here.) The rest of the documentary, by Robert Kenner, while good, was pretty standard, so I strongly think the machinima footage was a major part of the Emmy nomination. (My friend Douglas Gayeton, who created the "Molotov Alva" machinima that HBO also picked up, helped Kenner a lot on that front.) I hope this encourages other documentary filmmakers to experiment with machinima, and to look for great stories to tell in worlds like SL. (I can guarantee you they're teeming with them.)

News of this comes to me from NWN alum Rik Riel, who was a consultant on the project, so thanks and congrats are in order. See a clip from the documentary after the break:


By the way, this isn't even the first SL project to get an Emmy nomination -- "Deep Down" got one last year, and in 2008, an SL project actually won an Emmy.