Category Archives: Movies

I Missed the Movies

Posted in Movies, Pop Culture, Self Reflection, Thoughts on the Pandemic by

Going to the movies used to be my favorite activity. It is perfect for dates, friends hangs, alone. It’s always a good day for a cold dark room and an enormous screen.

Need something to do on a weekend? Movie.

Had a bad day at work? Movie.

Wanna enjoy snacks in a dark room? Movie.

Some of my fondest memories are going to see movies.

My first outing as a pre-teen was to the movies.

In college, I all went to marvel at the first Black Disney princes.

My step-dad took our whole family to see every MCU movie opening weekend.

I saw ATL in South Carolina with my aunt while I was visiting her during my spring break in high school. We are huge fans of T.I. and I wanted to be New New aka Erin (Lauren London) during that pool scene. That’s a different conversation for a different day.

One summer, I went to a matinee every Sunday. I saw Columbiana, Friends with Benefits (2xs), Horrible Bosses, Madagascar 3, and Crazy Stupid Love.

The movies was a near perfect temporary escape. Not as good as a book, mind you, but a great second because you can more easily share a movie experience with loved ones. Then The Thing happened and gathering in cold, dark, rooms with strangers become verboten. I so deeply missed the opportunity to submerge myself in a totally different world for two hours and to experience it with my humans.

A Black woman in a yellow dress and black cardigan stands in front of an advertisement for the film, "The Little Mermaid". It features Halle Bailey as the title character and Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.
I enjoyed “The Little Mermaid”. I thought Halle Bailey was perfect. The new songs were fine.

I went to see The Little Mermaid with my Best Friend and her daughter. We enjoyed it and it reminded me how much I missed the splendor of the movies during the pandemic. It was so cool to go through the whole routine of popcorn, Icees, and previews. There were so many tiny humans dressed up like the characters from the movie. It reminded me of myself when the Harry Potter movies were coming out. We still kept our distance and the theatre was not crowded at all the way I remembered from the before times, but it was nice. I missed it a lot.

Can’t get Typography out of my Head

Posted in Books, Classes, Movies, Projects by

It was extremely important to me that I acquired some serious design skills while earning my masters. It also happens that two design courses are required for my degree. I took them both and at some point each of them focused on typography. That was a year ago. I thought I was done.

Now, suddenly, almost a year later, my head is full of typography. I think it was prompted by the project I did for my class, which I also blogged about here, and also by my desire to design my own logo, but I notice it everywhere. I’m always trying to explain Gestalt principles to people, mostly my mom, who really doesn’t care.

It’s bad… Like this meme. LOL!

Ryan Gosling meme about typography.

My life has turned into typography. I can’t get it out of my head.

Since I can’t get it out of my head I’ve decided I only have one option… read books about it!

I’m going to start by rereading the text book for my class Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton (@EllenLupton). I’ll do some research for more in the coming weeks. Just don’t be surprised by the sudden influx of typography themed posts here. I’m just trying to get this out of my system. Please bear with me!

Movies and New Media: Mockingjay Part I [Spoiler Free!]

Posted in Media in Media, Movies, Pop Culture by

I fell in love with The Hunger Games much later the most people. I believe that you can only be a fan of one Sci-fi/ fantasy series. Mine is Harry Potter, so I had a hard time even accepting that I liked the Hunger Games, but I did. I’ve only read Mockingjay and that’s because I couldn’t bear to wait for the movies to learn what happens. I’ve now seen all three movies.

Needless to say, they’re great. Jennifer Lawrence is amazing. It was wonderful to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman, to whom the movie is dedicated, one last time. I have some complaints, but that’s a different post.

I did notice something. When discussing new media in pop culture, the best place to see it are in movies. One of the huge debates among new media theorists, is that all new media developments are not good. Humanity should be wary of just developing new media without questioning the complete range of potential am uses.

If there was ever an example of new media used for bad, it is in The Hunger Games series.

Those animal creations we see in the arena, i.e. tracker jackets, the communication/surveillance devices, the weaponry used by the Capitol and the Revolution, are all prime examples.

Watching the movies just reminded me of reading Evgeny Morozov’s theory of technical solutionism. Just because we are able to make some technologies doesn’t mean we should make those technologies. We shouldn’t see every advance as beneficial to humanity. It may not be, but we can always hope that the odds are ever in our favor.

For more work by Evgeny Morovoz see the video of his talk for The Gaudian. You can also follow him on Twitter @EvgenyMorovoz

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