4 posts tagged “company”

How do I know if a movie is good or not?

A good movie can be many things. With the Oscars coming round the weekend, it is quite hard for me to say which ones are just plain good and which ones walk away with the golden statue.

A good movie may be anything that can whet your appetite. It is that cold beer that you truly need on a hot summer’s day. You open the tab and it goes down straight and easy. It is that cold can of beer that hits the spot and you truly forgot about everything else.

Juno is more than a good movie. It is a smart movie. A smart movie that does not attempt to be anything else nor does it try to sell anything else. A smart movie that is wickedly witty, original, and fresh you don’t even notice it the first time around. A smart movie that truly tells a story without complicating it with anything else.

It is as bright and clear as day – that’s how Juno is and that’s how it tells its story.

It is a film that will go down as a classic. If it were up to me, I’d fill all the high schools campuses with this film and make everyone watch it like an initiation rite to pubescence. But then, that would be another story.

Juno is a craft and you can see it with its screenwriting. It is polished and consistent. No lazy work done here. The telling of the story unfolds with each scene, with each relationship, with each conversation. You, as a viewer, get in on everything. The film isn’t played out as though you are cold and distant. So are so close to Juno, you might as well be her fairy godmother.

Anyways, if the screenwriting were any different Juno might have fallen into different hands and made into a cheap, cheap B-movie that will go by unnoticed. Thank god for the mind behind Juno’s insanely strong and witty character – Diablo Cody.

Her sharp rumor, her biting honesty, and her no-nonsense attitude won me over. Juno is a character that is in a class by itself. Ellen Page was born into the role of Juno. Who would have recognized her from X-Men – The Last Stand? If this role were given, again, to anyone else, they would have killed it. A blonde girl playing Juno would have just dangerously teetered into making the character a stereotypical slutty girl who also happens to be a bitch. But then again, the wit and the passion for rock wouldn’t have fit her too well and they will have to re-write that. (Call me biased, but hey, we are talking about movies here aren’t we?)

The movie’s gravity is centered on Juno. Everything that talks, moves and breathes defines her. This story is her and the succession of events just shows us this journey in her life. And the slices of her complex and ultimately simple personality, allows us to ponder and reach in to her deeper.

And so, if the presses or printing company were to run right now, it’d be that Juno won the Best Screenplay for the 2008 Oscars. If it didn’t, I think Juno would have gracefully said congratulations to the winner, gotten some good eats and drinks at the party and then get the hell out of there. She’d go straight to Paulie’s room, kick her shoes off, and listen to Patti Smith.

The word ‘pin-up girl’ doesn’t sound too good to hear.

Probably in the old glam of Hollywood, it presents a different story. In those days, you have beautiful models that would soon make it big in the showbiz industry. And while their “indecency” is a far cry from what you would see in today’s smut magazines, nothing would make you think twice that indeed, that era has its own glamour and style.

In the City of Angels, it makes you wonder while it was possible to market the calendars, who dared print them? Where they now and what are are they printing? Who was the Larry Flynt of that era? With all the Los Angeles printing services company providers in the market; I wonder what has replaced our pin-up and calendar girls?

There were the likes of Ingrid Bergman, Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford, Mae West, Ava Gardner, Judy Garland, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Doris Day, Sophia Loren, Brigitte Bardot, Grace Kelly, Mamie Van Doren, and of course, the one and only bombshell, Marilyn Monroe. All of these women have made it big and in one time or another, have been our pin-up girls.

There were these curvaceous women that would put Barbie to shame. They were all foxy ladies, no matter what roles and costumes you put them in. Our poster girls ranged from barn girls, rodeo girls, nurses, secretaries, high-powered bosses, meek students, exotic, foreign females, single mothers and of course, the adult women like Mrs. Robinson.

Nowadays, while the figures of our pin up girls changed, the rules of the games haven’t changed much. Being a pin-up girl can be two things at the same time - two kinds of pictures that illustrate women in a far distance from another. It can be a woman posing scantily clad in order to reach stardom or a star that wraps herself in a sexy, new package.

The style of pin-ups girls have become more than a distinct art form, but a formula you can use to get into Hollywood like some cheesy plot movie. Pop-culture have had its way of not just mass-producing things but have continuously made it seemingly immortal.

And so, as we ask such questions, we need to ask what has truly changed? What has not changed a single thing? If you want to answer the former, you need a better look into the bygone era. To answer the latter, well – pin-ups girls will always be pin-up girls it seems.

Just how does an online digital printing company celebrate the holiday season?

Simple - cater to a growing demand among clients for more individualism in greeting this festive season. Year in and year out you get these usual clichés that come with the holidays - snowmen, striped candy canes, not to mention the jolly fat man who rides in a reindeer-driven sleigh and loves going through chimneys to give children gifts.  No intention to knock the holiday staples here but just how it could be vastly improved if people injected some originality into their seasonal cheer.

No snow?  No problem - ditch Frosty!  Diabetic recipient - there are a hundred and one substitutes for a sugar-laden candy cane.  All that you need to do is inject something that best represents you into your holiday greeting. If you are a doctor, why not have The Fat Guy in olive green scrubs instead of red?  Lifeguards can get away with putting Mr. Claus in red Speedos (never mind if he REALLY needs to work the gut spilling over).

It would greatly help to fly the ethnic flag - show some pride on your roots. How about an African St. Nick?  That cat won't have any problems making his way down soot-filed chimneys.  Chinese? No problem – just ditch the sleigh and let him leap from rooftop to rooftop like Jackie Chan's Drunken Master.  You are but limited by the stretch of your imagination - a gay Santa, St. Patrick's Day leprechauns moonlighting as North Pole elves, even fresh fruits and unsweetened shakes taking place of eggnog and other fattening traditional season fare.

The growing accessibility of graphic software applications to households should bolster the acceptance of truly home-crafted seasonal greetings.  No longer do you sometimes dread going to a stationery shop desperate to look for a card matching your desired recipient only to find it out of stock.

Be resourceful - draw inspiration from what is around you.  Whether you're having a boatload of jolly goodness to share with friends or in such a deep funk as to shame the Grinch himself, there will always be a ready audience willing to share or commiserate with your holiday mood whatever it may be.         

I guess that is what the true celebration of the holiday season is supposed to be – camaraderie amidst individual differences, a true sense of unity not just among friends and family but even with strangers.    

Are digital prints “high” art?

As Duchamp presents his toilet bowl to the rest of the world, digital artists also beg the same question: What is high art?

Art history can be amusing. Whereas the standard of good painting used to be verisimilitude, or life like, it castigated photography as unworthy of being called high art. This then set the battle for photography to prove itself against paintings. Instead of concentrating on its strength with lifelike portraits, it opted to create surrealism. Elaborate tableaus are put-together, imitating common painting subjects. Petroleum oil is spread on glass plates to soften the edges of the prints, strobe lights were played around with, and different settings were studied.

Many traditional artists are crossing over to the digital world as artists slowly emerge in this world without ever touching a paintbrush. Most professional photographers are quick to extol its virtues. Digital art is a combination of painting, photography, and so much more.
 
Despite these strengths, few people will consider digital prints high art. For one thing, four color printing allows mass reproduction. I would hardly believe a mass produced poster, regardless of how well designed, or how new the concept, will fetch nearly as much as a painting of the same caliber. There is the Mona Lisa, and there are other Mona Lisas. While one is priceless, others can be bought cheaply in a souvenir shop.

Digital art can now be printed on an artist canvas, evoking the same feel and texture of a painting. Brush strokes can be imitated in Photoshop and transferred unto print. A 4 Color Printing Company can expertly do all these with the full color process having a gamut of colors that can imitate paint and numerous color combinations. From a distance of several meters, digital print can look like a painting. You may alter a photograph, or start from scratch. You may have anything as elaborate as a surrealist concept or a simple illustration.

For one thing, I believe digital printing has brought visual high art to its knees. Anything can be replicated, though not exactly, it can be done pretty accurately. Art can now be created and enjoyed by more people, even those who can’t afford the expensive paint brush and acrylics. Nor does it require the expensive equipment and chemicals of photography.

The masters of digital art are mostly nameless, and will remain to be so. While paintings can have the snobbishness of high art, but digital prints only smile in amusement.