Con Air

Con Air is a typical Hollywood action movie. There're enough explosions, chases, and fights to keep most fans of this sort of thing happy for weeks, and the acting is actually very good and believable all round. But it brought a different feeling to me from other Hollywood action movie gave me, maybe it’s because of Nicolas Cage’s perfect acting skill. The movie tells us a touching story besides the action scene.

Nicolas Cage,(Cameron Poe) plays the nice guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, and goes to prison after inadvertently killing someone harassing his wife in a fright. The judge decides that Cage, as an ex Ranger should know better than to use his considerable fighting skills on worthless drunks and sends him into prison. During his prison term his daughter is born, whom he refuses to let visit, but collects all of her pictures and letters. He also beefs up, grows his hair long, and acquires a stack of white vests, to help show off his physique. Well sure enough, after getting parole he is being transported on a prison aircraft for a ride home, when the plane is seized (through a planned and elaborate hijack) by the other inmates. Of course, the plane is packed with the worst criminals from across the whole country. Cameron got the chance to get off the plane and go back home to see his wife and daughter, leaving the other prisoners behind. But as an ex-Army Ranger, he chose to stay at the plane and saved his companion. He pretended to be a prisoner sentenced to death and get the trust of the escaping prisoners on the plane. After a long period of fright against them, he finally manage to take the plane under his control. With the help of a clever police he successfully caught the run-away prisoners and return to his families safely.

Nicolas Cage is one of my most favorite actors in Hollywood. Although he is not a man with the wisecracking charisma, his sad eyes deeply attract me. And his perfect acting skills made the movie out of a common action movie. He successfully showed us both a good husband and father. Although he has to be sent to prison, he still tried his best to protect his wife. And after killing the man who harassed her wife, he bravely took the responsibility. I think his wife was a lucky woman who can marry a husband willing to protect her with his life. I admired her.
And there’s one scene that impressed me the most in the movie ——the last scene. Cameron prepared a rabbit toy for his daughter as her birthday present. On the plane after the worst guy discovering that Cameron was cheating, he used the rabbit as the hostage asking Cameron to put down the gun in his hand, which will put him in great danger. But Cameron did follow his requirement because the rabbit was so important for him that he couldn’t lose it. From this we could see how deeply he loved his daughter.

At the end, the rabbit fell in the dirty water where Cameron picked it up and stretched it to his daughter with the utmost care. At first his daughter was a little afraid of the big dirty guy with blood on his face because it was the first time she had seen his father. But blood is thicker than water. Soon she caught the little dirty rabbit and called “Dad”. After hearing his daughter calling him “Dad”, Cameron tightly held his wife and daughter together, including the little rabbit.

Then came the theme song of the movie:

How do I,

Get through the night without you?

If I had to live without you,

What kind of life would that be?

Oh, I

I need you in my arms, need you to hold,

You're my world, my heart, my soul,

If you ever leave,

baby you would take away everything good in my life,

and tell me now

How do I live without you?

I want to know,

How do I breathe without you?

If you ever go,How do I ever, ever survive?

------- “How Do I Live “ Leann Rimes

here is the link of the movie from imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118880/

here is the link of the theme song from youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFnD3uwKHag&feature=fvst

Media Diary

My media diary was from 3rd to 7th of December. The reason I chose these days is because I went to Helsinki and Tallin at this weekend. Usually, my weekend is just like the normal weekdays if I am staying at home, surfing on internet, chatting with my friends or families, watching movies, listening to music and reading some books. We don't have TV in our apartment, so we never watched TV ever after we got to Finland. I think it would be interesting to record some days that are different from usual to see what will my life be when I'm not with my laptop. I had Finnish exam on 3rd of December so I went to university in the morning then came back home at around 6. Between the speaking exam and written exam, I spent several hours in the library. I logged in Facebook from the computer there and chatted with my friends in China for a while. Since I came here, the time differences made it difficult for me to talk with them. I never change the time of my laptop into Finnish time just to remind me of their time. In the evening, I watched a Finnish movie pretending that I was doing that for the listening exam on 4th December. It was a good movie and I thought it felt really different to watch a movie of that country after you've been living in there for a while.

I went to bed early on Friday because I had to take the 6:30 train to Helsinki and then to Tallin. I took some picture in Tallin by my mobile phone and sent them back to my friends in China. Then I realized that I hardly use my mobile phone as a phone here in Finland. I used to text a lot with my friends because I didn't like talking on the phone, however I did most of the talk with my friends and classmates here on internet. We share the information on Facebook instead of text message. Then my phone is just working as the alarm to wake me up early in the morning and sometimes as a camera because it's easier to carry. I talk to my mum on Skype several times a month. At first I didn't tell her my phone number because I knew she would start to send me message or call me if she knew the number but it cost too much. I taught her how to use the web camera and Skype before I left. But she insisted to get my number and promised that she wouldn't use it unless there's anything emergency. Well, I know that's not gonna happen because I'm receiving her message quite often now. It's interesting because she's the last person to send message from mobile phone to me when I was in China but now seems to be the one who texts me the most.

I took a lot of pictures in Tallin and Helsinki. During these two days, I didn't even have the time to think about what's happening on Facebook or on MSN. But whenever I'm with the laptop, I can always find something to do. Time really flies so fast when I am using the digital media. I could spend the whole day sitting on my bed watching movies and also watched the snow outside my window during the break between movies :D I enjoy enjoying the life with digital media however I also think it's a good idea to be away from them once a while then I can come back to reality and know exactly how long 24 hours really is!!!

Media diary

The period I kept a media diary was from friday 20.11. untill tuesday 24.11. and it was a very typical week for me, except the tuesday when I was sick. I actually thought I use less of media in my everyday life what actually happened. It feels I never have time to do anything, but now I can see it´s not totally the truth. I talk on a phone few of times a day for 5 to 10 minutes at time. Once or twice a week I talk longer with a good friend of mine, but even then the call lasts mostly for 20 minutes. I´m never on-line anymore. I used to be, but after my younger son was born, there is just no time anymore. I also marked out I´m doing many things at the same time, reading mails, watching tv, doing household works, playing with the boys, watching children tv programmes, talking on the phone and calming a child in sleep. Even in the evening after children are in bed and I get to spend my own time, I´m watching movies or tv programmes and doing homeworks and maybe talking on a phone too. Guess I can´t concentrate in silence anymore. Only time I´m actually focusing on one thing only is while I´m playing Nintendo Wii with my son. These sessions are also short, 20-30 minutes most, we played on friday and saturday. I was on a phone even when I was jogging, that´s really sad I think. I get a chance for a private sport moment maybe once a week and even then I´m doing something else but focusing on performance. I read a newspaper on one day only and watched the news on one day. I used to read a newspaper on every morning, or in the evening at least, if the day was a catastrof. Nowdays it´s good if I find time to read the paper on sundays.

All of this, except some phone calls, happend at home. I use my own computer, sheldom a friends one or the ones in University. I also marked out I didn´t surf on net at all.

MIITTA TÄTI (Aunt Miitta) tv show

Wellknown finnish comedienne Miitta Sorvali makes a comic show Miitta täti. Miitta täti is a selfeducated socialpsychologist, who runs therapy sessions for finnish socialites in the field of entertainment, sports and politics. When the guest first steps in the ”therapy room”, Miitta täti whashes he´s/she´s feets. She also holds the guests in her arms in a therapy chair, she asks questions and make songs with them about their situation. She plays with tabus and atrocitys.

Miitta täti´s way of talking to the guests is not so profitable I guess, but that´s exactly why the show is so fun to watch. Some guests have been quite stunned about the way she talks and that´s the most of fun.

On last show I´ve seen, her guest was Krisse Salminen, a finnish comedienne herself. Miitta made Krisse act like an elderly and ask her to luy down on hospital bed wearing hospital clothes and diapers. Miitta was wearing same kind of costume, but suddenly she had to take a piss in a pisspot. Ha-ha-ha, Krisse was laughing too. Miitta´s humour is based on her own humor, she sayd in an interview of IltaLehti (newspaper). The show is actually really rube and I don´t normally laugh at these kind of things, but Miitta does it so well.

Sorry, these sites are all in finnish:

http://tv1.yle.fi/ohjelmat/viihde/miitta-tati

http://www.iltalehti.fi/viihde/200911070171351_vi.shtml

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMqvzMy5WeI

Convergence culture

I have read Jenkins' book before, and I am re-reading it now, under a new light, after what was discussed and learnt this semester in our course. But there are some topics in the book, which called my attention above others, that I would like to discuss here, hoping to get back some comments and critics about it.

The first point that called my attention was the change (and/or inversion) in the roles of the media usage. Before the advent of the digital media as we know nowadays, the media (publicities, ads, publications, etc.) was used by the companies as a mean to impose and/or influence the customers (basically, all of us). It was clearly a top-to-bottom relationship, as pointed by Jenkins. And, although we always had the power to influence back through the consumption of a given product/idea, the media control was, without any doubt, in the hand of the companies. Who controlled the media had the true power. Being from a country as Brazil, this power is even clearer than I believe it was possible to notice in Europe.

With the advent of the digital media, this control changed. There is still the top-down control used by the companies to influence the customers, but we are not helpless targets anymore. Having in hands the possibility to research, comment and exchange ideas about pretty much everything, we have the power now to influence the companies and media on how we want things to be. And the companies are adapting themselves to this new reality and using it as much as possible to have the customers as allies and partners, instead of confronting them.

The second topic brought up by Jenkins and that called my attention was the idea of cultural convergence, mainly due to the fact that the technology allows us to mingle between different cultures, systems, political realities. There aren't limits to the interaction allowed by the digital media. I can personally see a good side and a bad side of it (I believe you can come up to several other pros and cons in this matter): The good side is the possibility of exchange ideas and information with people and cultures coming from different realities and such a situation was impossible before the usage of digital media was spread. This certainly enriches the cultural experience, improves the technology and creation of new concepts and ideas, among other benefits. But I can also see a bad side: With time, there is a possibility that there won't be anymore any unique culture, traditions defined by geographical situation, everyday life, etc. Everybody will be so inserted in the digital world and so aware of what is going on in other places that they might forget their identity as an unique person in an unique place in the planet. I hope I am wrong though.

But there is a third topic that called my attention and somehow answers the questions that I brought up in the previous idea. The information and data available in the digital media is so vast and rich, no one is able to absorb everything and everything is absorbed in a different manner by each individual. Therefore, no matter how open and available the information is, how easy it is to know more about any topic, the way this topic will be learnt will be different, so there will still be peculiarities in each culture and way of living, which will be kept. The question I see here is that these differences won't be influenced anymore by geography, by way of living or weather, as it was in the past. The main factor will be the way people understand the world and interact with it and how one understands the changes in the society and culture.

I'm very sure new topics will intrigue me, now that I am reading the book again. Nevertheless, there is no doubt this is a great book and a wonderful source of information for us.