Friends

I finally bought all DVDs of "Friends" a few days ago. It is almost ten years ago that I first started to watch this extremely amusing TV sitcom. At first, I just began to watch it with the purpose of learning English. It is definitely helpful for listening and learning English expressions and idioms, and there are many people who use this TV show as an English learning tool in Korea.

I don't know when and how I became a huge fan of this TV show, but I have watched it repeatedly and habitually. After three or four times of repeating from first season to tenth, I feel that those six friends are my own friends. I know it is rediculous and silly, but I feel like that way.

Anyway, these days I watch this becuase I enjoy it, not becuase I have to learn English. As I'm getting older, I tend to enjoy funny things, not serious things. It means that when I choose TV shows or movies, the most important criterion is whether it can make me laugh and happy. Though "Friends" is a kind of old-fashioned TV show and is totally insensitive to a real life or social problems in those days, I like their humor and characteristics of six protagonists in this respect.

I always like the story of dealing with growth. Watching the growth of six friends is another aspect of amusement and that's why I never get tired of "Friends," even though I am watching same episodes again and again.

I'll keep these DVDs as my first collections of American TV show and a memento of living in the U.S.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2187677044893009241#

The Last Song

The Last Song is a book written by a famous writer, Nicholas Sparks who wrote Dear John, Nights in Rodanthe, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, and The Notebook. Most of his works were made into movies, and The Last Song is coming out soon.

The story focuses on the rebellious girl, Ronnie who is sent to spend the summer with her father, who abandoned his family in the past. Her father was a music teacher and pianist, and used to go concert tours. He used to teach her to play the piano, and Ronnie has great talent in playing the piano. She has an experience to perform in Carnegie Hall at the age of 13. She, however, quitted the music after her father had left the family without explaining.


Ronnie refuses to talk to her father for three years, though her father wants to contact with her. She and her 10-year-old brother Jonah spend summer staying his father's house in North Carolina. Ronnie hates her father and hangs around with a bad girl Blaze and her notorious friends all day at first. While hanging around with friends, she is forced into a corner by Blaze who manipulates the situation and makes Ronnie a shoplifter. Meanwhile, Ronnie gets close to Will who becomes her boyfriend. Ronnie opens her mind to her father gradually after the shoplifting incident, because her father believes her truly and shows his unconditional love to her.

Yet, her father Scott has a secret. He has a stomach cancer and leads a time-limited life. He wants to live his beloved children and watch his children's growth for summer. (What a sad story!!! ) The reason he left his family is not because his love affiar with other woman or irresponsibility, but because he just found his wife's cheating by accident. Ronnie has misunderstood her father, thinking that he cheated and left the family. Scott loves his children so much and always has wanted to have a good relationship with them.

Peaceful time has passed and finally Ronnie and her brother becomes to know their father's termial illness and are shocked. Ronnie repents her act to her father bitterly, and decides not to go back to New York. She wants to stay with her father and spends her time taking care of her father who doesn't have much remaining time. She finishes the composition which her father doesn't complete. She plays their music, "The Last Song," for her father who is near death.

The process of approaching her father's death and Ronnie's devoted love for her father was so impressive for me. This story is not that serious literature thing, but just touches me quietly yet so deeply. The story contains love, life, death, and God, and makes me think of my parents, or the people whom I love. I cannot but shed tears while reading. I look forward to the movie now.

This is my favorite parts in the book.
"It's Galatians 5:22," he said, pressing the Bible flat in his lap. He cleared his throat before he started. "But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control."

Dreams (1991)

Akira Kurosawa's dream is one of the most visionary, deeply personal works in the 60-year-old career of the master behind Rashomon, The Seven Samurai and Ran. Comprised of eight episodes rich in imagery and insight (and featuring "Scorsese" as "Vincent Van Gogh"), it explores the costs of war, the perils of nuclear power and especially humankind's need t harmonize with nature.

To me, the most interesting sequence in the film is “Crows.” It is the most magical realism and surreal, the most dream-like. One of the reasons I’m attracted by this segment is the idea to walk through the paintings. It is very imaginative and distinctive. As a person who is a huge fan of Vincent Van Gogh, I became to plunge into his imagination or dream easily. When the young Kurosawa (as an artist) walks through the sketches, I can follow him with my own eyes as if I were with him. When he slides along the heavy brush strokes of the painting, I feel as if I were in the picture.

Other reason that this episode is interesting to me is “music.” I think music plays a vital role in this episode. Chopin's Prelude No. 15 D-flat major is played explosively as background music when Van Gogh explains his passion for painting, saying “I drive myself like a locomotive.” I think music and the scene are well-matched at the moment.

Another impressive point in this sequence is that I can see the vivid color from every single scene. It seems that the visual brilliance is one of the special features of Akira Kurosawa. He reproduced Van Gogh’s works perfectly as if it were a reality. The scene he talks with the women near the drawbridges in Arles and the last scene that crows are flying over the screen are really creative. And I noticed that Akira Kurosawa had a great passion for arts, reminding me that he used to be an art student when he was young. I believe it is an outstanding way to express his admiration for Vincent Van Gogh.