Profile Pitch Piece on Mark Wahlberg

I am hoping to be writing my final piece on the once 38 year-old rapper turned actor and producer, Mark Wahlberg. In this celebrity profile I will be focusing on Wahlberg’s amazing shift in the media from his troublesome years before and during his musical career to his now successful acting and producing career. I believe the change from rapper to actor was the best thing that could’ve ever happened to him. His story proves that there are some people who are meant to make music and some who are meant to make movies and he found his way to the right path of acting.

I will be using Wahlberg’s dark “bad boy” history to lead into his rapping career when he was a part of the musical group ‘Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’. I will be using many different biographical sources and interviews of Wahlberg. I’ll also be using some of his old hit songs such as Good Vibration and Wildside. I will use Wahlberg’s films as my primary sources. Films such as Fear (1996), The Italian Job (2003), Four Brothers (2005), Shooter (2007), and his most recently released film The Lovely Bones (2009). I will be using all these sources to support my case that his troubled history, turning him into a rapper then crossing over into acting was the best decision of his life. Although Wahlberg plays in a range of different movies, in most of them he plays the same “bad boy” that he once was growing up.

I believe I am the right person to write about Mark Wahlberg due to my fascination of his complete turn around of his life/career and as a passionate viewer of his films. This piece will be “sassy”, perhaps dark and mysterious piece, a reflection of Wahlberg, but captivating. It will open readers’ eyes to things they never knew about the big hunk of muscle called Mark Wahlberg and how he did a 180 and turned his life around when it seemed like it was about to spiral into a black hole.

Kael Criticism Revision

Kael vs. Adler

There is always that one relative that always has an opinion, appropriate or not, says more than they should, should quite while they’re ahead and ends up putting their foot in their mouth. If that relative were to become a critic they’d be something like Pauline Kael. Pauline Kael was a film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine. She was known to be very opinionated and closely focused when it came to reviewing movies. Her approach to movies would be very emotional and her writing style was strongly colloquial and making remarks of homosexual elements in movies became a trend of hers as well. She is often regarded as on of the most influential American film critics of her time. She left lasting impressions on many major critics, some good and some bad.

Major critics such as Armond White and Roger Ebert praised Kael in saying Kael had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades. Others, like Renata Adler, strongly disagree. Regarding Kael’s writing, Adler argues in her piece House Critic, where she critiques Kael’s work, that over the years Ms. Kael’s quirks, mannerisms, tactics, and excesses have not only taken over her work so thoroughly that hardly nothing of intelligence or sensibility remains but also that the critical discussion of movies have been altered astonishingly for the worse.

Kael had a tendency to let her emotions get the best of her reviews. In her reviews she shared her own reactions to films rather than analyzing them. In her reviews, Kael had a tendency of addressing questions to the reader that enlisted him/her in a constituency. These questions do not express what one sees as a view or perception, instead they are devices used to marshal a constituency that has, actually, no view at all. One sees this in a review Kael wrote in 1986 about the film Top Gun. After criticizing the film by calling it a “shiny homoerotic commercial featuring elite fighter pilots” and expressing her thoughts on the staged aerial dogfights with jets that, to her, were too quick and depersonalizing and nothing but “hunks of steel” flashing by, she plugs in one of her questions that marshaled a constituency. “What is this commercial selling?” she asks. Her use of such questions overshadows her reviews and, as stated before, her emotions and opinions takeover as well.

Throughout Ms. Kael’s career she faced some accusations of being a homophobe. She rejected the accusations as “craziness,” adding, “I don’t see how anybody who took the trouble to check out what I’ve actually written about movies with homosexual elements in them could believe that stuff.” Well perhaps people believed it because it was a reoccurring tendency of making such comments. For example, in her previously mentioned Top Gun review her comment continues with “The pilots strut around the locker room, towels hanging precariously from their waists, and when they speak to each other they’re head to head…” A statement like that one gives more than enough reason for people to wonder her views and accuse her of homophobia, and that will in turn bring speculations to all her reviews. Readers may wonder if what she is writing in her reviews is a well-educated opinion or is it her emotions and beliefs running wild.

Kael said she didn’t know how someone could believe what she wrote when being accused of homophobia with her critique on films she stated had homosexual elements. People believed it because she wrote it. She had made a career out of being a critic and had gained credibility, so naturally people will believe the words she writes are her actual thoughts. By saying she didn’t mean those comments, how is one to take her judgment on things seriously if she just stated that a critique of hers wasn’t a serious one? A critic loses credibility that way, loses the readers trust. To be a good critic one must have an open mind and see things in many different perspectives, think logically, can connect to the readers and can make a well-educated opinion. Pauline Kael is not such a critic, with her supposed phobia taking a toll on her writing along with her excessive use of colloquialism and questions to steering the reader in a direction caused her reviews to be drowned out by her own words.

NY Time Defense

For Haiti’s Benefit, They Are the World

Jon Pareles is an American journalist who, in the 1970s, was an associate editor of Crawdaddy!, and in the 1980s he was a contributing writer and editor to Rolling Stone and The Village Voice. He played jazz flute and piano, and graduated from Yale University with a degree in music. He currently reviews jazz and popular music in the arts section of the New York Times.

In Pareles review, “For Haiti, They Are The Remake”, Pareles introduction doesn’t really grab your attention, a weak led. He starts by talking about the original version of the “We are the World” single, recorded in 1985, to benefit famine relief in Africa and comparing it the 2010 version, to aid earthquake victims in Haiti.

Throughout the entire piece he compares various popular artists of today to the legendary artists who’s parts there tried to imitate. His tone is critical yet it seems as though he’s holding back because the song was remade for a good cause. It’s a bit “wishy-washy”, it is almost as if he wants to say he loved it and the effort the artists and producers put forth, but they fell short.

In the first paragraph when critiquing Lil Wayne’s part, originally sung by Bob Dylan, and his use of auto-tune he ends it with: “Lil Wayne, you’re no Bob Dylan”. He calls this poor casting for the single “one measure of the slippage between the original and the remake.” He goes on to downsize the line up of artists how some seemed to be mimicking the original artists saying they were “daunted “ by their predecessors. Pareles goes on to name the various artists in the original 1985 and their performances, so one would have to be familiar with the original version to understand the power the song had in ’85.

Jon Pareles sees it as gimmicky, a goo effort, in the last paragraph he starts with: “It’s as dutiful as it is sincere, but it’s not a peak.” All together he covers every part of the performance and comments on the video including clips of people in Haiti. Again it seems like he wants to like the performance but can’t ignore the negative parts of it. He’s torn.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/15/arts/music/15notebook.html

Kael vs. Adler

Kael vs. Adler

Pauline Kael was a film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine. She was known to be very opinionated and closely focused when it came to reviewing movies. Her approach to movies would be very emotional and her writing style was strongly colloquial. She is often regarded as on of the most influential American film critics of her time. She left lasting impressions on many major critics, some good and some bad.

Major critics such as Armond White and Roger Ebert praised Kael in saying Kael had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades. Others, like Renata Adler, strongly disagree. Regarding Kael’s writing, Adler argues in her piece House Critic, where she critiques Kael’s work, that over the years Ms. Kael’s quirks, mannerisms, tactics, and excesses have not only taken over her work so thoroughly that hardly nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility remains but also that the critical discussion of movies have been altered astonishingly for the worse. In this statement Adler makes a valid point.

Kael had a tendency to let her emotions get the best of her reviews. In her reviews she shared her own reactions to films rather than analyzing them. In her reviews, Kael had a tendency of addressing questions to the reader that enlisted him/her in a constituency. These questions do not express what one sees as a view or perception, instead they are devices used to marshal a constituency that has, actually, no view at all. One sees this in a review Kael wrote in 1986 about the film Top Gun. After criticizing the film by calling it a “shiny homoerotic commercial featuring elite fighter pilots” and expressing her thoughts on the staged aerial dogfights with jets that, to her, were too quick and depersonalizing and nothing but “hunks of steel” flashing by, she plugs in one of her questions that marshaled a constituency. “What is this commercial selling?” she asks. Her use of such questions overshadows her reviews and, as stated before, her emotions and opinions takeover as well.

Throughout Ms. Kael’s career she faced some accusations of being a homophobe. She rejected the accusations as “craziness,” adding, “I don’t see how anybody who took the trouble to check out what I’ve actually written about movies with homosexual elements in them could believe that stuff.” Well perhaps people believed it because it was a reoccurring tendency of making such comments. For example, in her Top Gun review her comment stating that “the movie is a shiny homoerotic commercial featuring elite fighter pilots in training at San Diego’s Mirama Naval Air Station. The pilots strut around the locker room, towels hanging precariously from their waists, and when they speak to each other they’re head to head…” A statement like that one gives more than enough reason for people to speculate her views and accuse her of homophobia, and that will in turn bring speculations to all her reviews. Readers may wonder if what she is writing in her reviews is a well-educated opinion or is it her emotions and beliefs running wild.

Kael said she didn’t know how someone could believe what she wrote when being accused of homophobia with her critique on films she stated had homosexual elements. People believed it because she wrote it. She had made a career out of being a critic and had gained credibility, so naturally people will believe the words she writes are her actual thoughts. By saying she didn’t mean those comments, how is one to take her judgment on things seriously if she just stated that a critique of hers wasn’t a serious one? A critic loses credibility that way, loses the readers trust. To be a good critic one must have an open mind and see things in many different perspectives, think logically, can connect to the readers and can make a well-educated opinion. Pauline Kael is not such a critic, with her supposed phobia taking a toll on her writing along with her excessive use of colloquialism and questions to steering the reader in a direction caused her reviews to be drowned out by her own words.

More Than Words: Booking Reading at K College

More Than ore Than frdsWords

The Monkey Version of My Father, My Non-sexual Affair. With titles like these one is sure to be intrigued and will want to hear more. Wednesday night in the Olmsted Room of Kalamazoo College the English Department held a book reading with a plethora of diverse readings performed by more than creditable professors. The readings varied from excerpts from non-fictions, memoirs of a tragedy, poetry, and autobiographies. Each professor’s compositions brought something new and different to the audience be it curiosity as well as laughter and happiness or teary eyes and dark saddening thoughts of death.

A hot fudge sundae had never before been more of a guilty pleasure than when it was the rich and sticky symbol of a forbidden romance. Andy Mozina began the night with an excerpt called My Nonsexual Affair using gripping imagery and personification to bring the hot fudge stain to life and stain our thoughts with guilt.

Although Mozina’s opening reading was sure to leave a mark, Beth Marzonie’s vivid perception of Rothco’s Room in The Tate Modern of London was clearly heard and seen in her descriptive imagery and her use of strong diction and alliteration. Amy Rodgers’ piece was filled with just the right amount of “sass” to fill a room of tired college students with sniggers, she didn’t hold back in her expressive stream-of-consciousness reading focusing on Carol Frost, the son of Robert Frost. One gets a taste of life in India for an ambitious woman in India when listening to Babli Sinha’s piece. Amelia Katanski’s reading, Noble Truth, is a story that is sure to leave a “salty” taste in your mouth. The Monkey Version of my Father read by Glenn Deutch was filled with comedy that would make anyone feel less embarrassed about, or perhaps proud of his or her own family. Marin Heinritz’s excerpt from an autobiographical piece, Cracked Wide Open by Proximity, showed the struggles a daughter and her mother had to prevail, be it health, romantic or family issues. It makes one think about what is really important in life just as her mother finding that being a mother to her was her purpose.

Bruce Mills’ excerpt from An Archeology of Yearning expressed the many struggles he had to deal with in raising a son who suffers from autism. Hearing the line, “What is happening”, uttered by his son numerous times is sure to load your heart with empathy. His story captured hearts and minds filled with sympathy and hope that there is a solution Mills and his family finds to get through such adversity.

Diane Seuss hits the audience hard with her response to I Dreamed William Beross called It Wasn’t a Dream, I Knew William Beross delivered with confidence and bluntness. With each one of her words having a tinge of sexuality and pleasure Di Seuss had the audience laughing and eating out of the palm of her hands and wanting to hear more of her thoughts.

The murder-suicide that occurred at Kalamazoo College in October of 1999 resulting in the loss of two young lives left a dark whole in many hearts. Gail Griffin’s memoir on this tragedy holds defined imagery that brings the piece to life. It is deep and dark yet spiritual and may cause more than a few tearstains on ones cheek, proof that you have been “marked” by her words, words that silence an audience and pierces their hearts with sorrow.

Although there were some people who presented their pieces better than others, all the staff members performed wonderfully. With so much variety in these readings it sends one on a roller coaster ride of thoughts and feelings of sex, art, family and death. All the pieces displayed passion and thoughts of these writers and their love and need to express them, and they do so magnificently.

Glitter, Glitter, Shine and Shimmer

“Quite soon we actually plan to take over the world!” said Brian Slade. In the 70’s the U.K. pretty much was the center of the world and glam rock was conquering all of it. In the liberal, raunchy film “Velvet Goldmine” you get a ‘VH1 Behind the Music’ look of the rise and fall of Brian Slade, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, a bisexual glam rock icon based off of David Bowie. Brian Slade inspires numerous teenage boys and girls to paint their nails, wear make-up, dress up in flamboyant clothing and explore their own sexuality. Brian Slade doesn’t do this alone, he’s greatly influenced by American glam rock superstar Curt Wild, Ewan McGregor, who later becomes his love interest, along with his with Mandy Slade, Toni Collette.

This star studded cast also consists of Eddie Izzard, not seen playing his usual role of a cross dresser and is known for his “transvestism”. Izzard plays the role of Jerry Devine, a Slade’s manager. Christian Bale plays the role of the reporter trying to write a piece on the once big Brian Slade and on his wild goose chase to find him, he looks back into his own past and how greatly Brian Slade and Curt Wild influenced him as a young boy confused about his own sexuality. These glam rockers never backed down from nudity, sex and drugs on or off stage. If you are one who considers themselves conservative, this dirty tale of rockers may be too much for you to handle. Liberal? You are sure to be entertained by the flamboyant costumes and make up, the glitz and glitter, strangeness and sexuality in the music videos and performances of Brian Slade and partner Curt Wild shown throughout the film.

“Rock and roll is a prostitute, it should be tarted up,” as said by Slade, glam rock was just that. Hair dyed in outrages colors, heavy eye, cheek, and lip wear, feminine clothing or no clothing at all. All of this shows the chaotic, free spirited way of rockers in the 70’s in this “mind mangling” film. Mandy Slade, Collette, said, “What is true about music is true about life: that beauty reveals everything because it expresses nothing.” Meyers and his costars do a great job of wearing the glitz, glam and the beauty of the glam rock era that, through pounds and pounds of make up and glitter, revealed true madness.

Avatar review revised

Do Actions Speak Louder Than Words?

“I see you.” That was one of the only phrases remembered from the film “Avatar”. Filled with special effects, explosions, and complicated love story “Avatar” lacked great dialogue. When Jake Sully, a paraplegic war veteran, is brought to another planet, Pandora, in the year 2154, which is inhabited by the Na’vi, a humanoid race, the dialogue gets more interesting. Perhaps the fact that the Na’vi dialect is a made up one is what brought more excitement to the dialogue of the film.

While Jake begins to bond with the native tribe and quickly falls in love with the beautiful alien Neytiri, the restless Colonel Quaritch moves forward with his ruthless extermination tactics so he can mine for the precious material scattered throughout their rich woodland, forcing the soldier to take a stand and fight back in an epic battle between the humans and the Na’vi for the fate of Pandora.

“Avatar” whether seen in 2D or 3D was filled with the right amount of romance and comedy that wouldn’t overshadow all of the action, although there were some aspects of the film that have people talking, good and bad. The Na’vi people resemble a number of African tribes, which some people see as a racial issue. With the arranged marriages, mating, using the nature around them but not destroying it, “Avatar” might as well have been titled “Africa”. Africans aren’t the only Natives the Avatar have been said to resemble. Native American culture is depicted in the way they dress, barely wearing clothes, the way they honor and feel about nature and the life around them. To someone familiar with African dialect they might say the Na’vi language sounded to like some type of African language. And coincidentally minorities played the actors and actresses who played the Na’vi: African American, Native American and Hispanic actors.

The fast movements of the camera be it in 2D or 3D may have brought viewers motion sickness, perhaps that is something the director should think of before shooting the movie. If people are getting sick while watching your movie, they won’t be able to enjoy it. The suspense music played at multiple times may have sounded repetitive to those familiar with the music of another film, “Troy”. Turns out both movies had the same music director, James Horner. Using the same music from a previous film makes this score unoriginal and less appealing.

The story of the Na’vi vs. the Army, and the love story between Marine Jake Sully and Neytiri parallel the story of Pocahontas. An outsider gets close to the natives, John Smith/Jack Sully. That outsider builds the natives trust and falls in love with the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas/Neytiri. The outsiders greedy leader wants to take over the natives land to get some thing they found is very valuable, Governor Ratcliff/Parker Selfridge. Need I go on?

Is this a film that will change someone’s life? Will lines such as “I see you” become a line used for generations like “Say hello to my little friend”? Only time will tell. But to capture an audience is to capture them with words, not just special effects and the amount of money spent on the production. This film lacked an original plot & strong dialogue, it may have some racial disputes coming its way, and it’s using the “sloppy-seconds” of an earlier films from the plot to the musical score. But if you’re one who enjoys a film with the familiar plot of war and star-crossed lovers, then this is a film you may enjoy.