Thoughts on a Film: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Okay, so recently (like last thursday to be exact) I got a Netflix subscription. Yep, that explains my disappearance from the world of blogging and also real life. So to make the most of this free month (honey you think I'm gon pay good money to sit on my butt?) I've been watching a plethora of different shows and movies (finally getting round to starting "Orange is the New Black" and "That 70s Show" which are both fab fab fab but more of that later) and one of which being "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" because it's something I've been wanting to watch for ageees!

I love the styles and the cast and crew for this film. It's basically like my dream teen movie. So cute!
I can't really reveal anything other than yes you need to be over 12 and preferably over 14 to watch this film cos there's some nudity and female objectification (which sucks but ya know we do live in a patriarchy so we might as well try and appreciate what we can).

The teenagers talk a lot about sex and relationships and, you know, wanting to be cool. It's great because it's like a "billdungsroman" kind of genre (that word may only apply to novels but whatever) and so we kind of grow with the main character as she explores what is actually important to her. It pretty much encompasses the basic teen desire of lust and the confusion between being in love and being in love with the idea of love. I find it sweet and also, sort of, relatable (cringe).

Here are some stills:

It's a fun teen flick with the perfect mixture of teen angst, lust, mushy cuteness and humour. I recommend it! Especially if you're into 80s' movies (they are my jam).

Art Throughout the Ages: Egyptian (3100 BC - 30 BC)

There's so much to talk about with this one. When we talk of "Egyptian Art", we're basically talking about the whole culture! There's a lot of arty things that Egyptians did - from amazing architecture to beautiful busts and statues. Here's my attempt at a summary...

The character and style of Egyptian work was to maintain a homeometric sense of regularity and accurate representation of actual life and nature. Many great works of the time period depicted gods, goddesses and the ostensibly "divine" Pharaohs. And they usually focused on them by painting them on tomb walls dedicated to protecting the dead and giving them the best kind of afterlife. Often, sculptures included in the tombs of the dead would include slaves, buildings, boats and animals to ensure the best possible afterlife for the person whose tomb it was. Funny, how they were so pragmatic and prepared about and for death. Love em. Cuties.

Famous Egyptian art:

Statues of Ramesses II at the Abu Simbel temples
Construction probably started in 1264 lasting 20 years till 1244 BC (funny it's like moving backwards in time). It's generally considered the greatest temple of its time. Ramesses is sure one VIP pharaoh. Dude, each statue is like over 18 metres!

Queen Nefertari, wife of Ramses the Great

Annoying how she's labelled as a man's product but unfortunately that is just another thing that helps with the context of the time period. But yes she was really fricking rich. The below painting which was found in her tomb, can be viewed at the Museum of Metropolitan Art in the small city of New York. Sometimes, she has black skin. Because interestingly black skin symbolised "new life" to the Egyptians.

The Funerary Mask of Pharaoh Tutankhamen
This was made out of semiprecious stones and blue glass and... wait for it... Over 10 kilograms of solid gold. Yes, that's right. Solid. Fricking. Gold. Who knows how the mask didn't freaking crush the guys head when it was put on him? Anyway, the pharaoh himself was pretty av. Y'know he'd started his rule for the New Kingdom when he was only 9, lasted for 10 years, managed to marry his half-sister, yadda yadda yadda. same old same old for a pharaoh in those times!

The Great Sphinx of Giza

This I really want to see. Look how bloody awesome it is! A sphinx is some weird-ass guard-protector that the Egyptians made up to protect their tombs and temples etc. They usually had the face of a Pharaoh presumably to symbolise lots of money and therefore power to kick ur sorry ass if u got in the way and this head was on top of some hench/buff body of a lion. This particular sculpture is over 73 metres long!! A portion of this can be found in the British Museum (gosh so many reasons to visit that place it's making me nervous). Also, this thing is so old. As in it was probably made in 2500 BC!

(NB: I had a longer version of this blog post but unfortunately that didn't save though I pressed the stupid button at least fifty six times... this one isn't as good because I am an impatient and easily irritable person soz)

The Egyptians were awesome people. They had great style and fabulous eyeliner techniques (of which they used cos they thought it would protect their eyes from the sun sorry guys u shouldve put kohl on that cool glass u used to make masks). And their structures were fantastically pragmatic and fantastically impossible and immeasurably clever containing booby traps and amazing artworks. Their pyramids were much more than just brick and clay on top of each other. Comparing them to the South American pyramids is like comparing Prada to Primark. Okay maybe that's a bit too harsh. But you get my drift, no?

Respect your ancestors, yo. Just kidding... all the real Egyptians have died out by now!

Thoughts on a Film: Christiane F - We Children From the Zoo Station

Today I watched "Christiane F - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo" after it catching my eye on I-D's list of the "35 most stylish films" (and you can check it out here).

There's something about self-destructing behaviour that can be really attractive. I think it's mainly the kind of sick pleasure one gets from torturing oneself like that. And how it kind of takes a certain amount of courage, or cowardice you could interpret, to do that. It's something that I don't think I could ever do, something I don't think I could have in me, but there's a fear inside me that, just maybe, it is possible.

That's the fascinating aspect of it. How one idea/object/thing can take over someone and someone can just become completely dependent on it. How this chemical can alter one's senses and dull one's strongest feelings of love towards another. I think that's a really important part of "Christiane F". What makes this film different from others like "Trainspotting" and "Pulp Fiction" is how young the actors are. And it's so real, they're nude and depicting scenes of all kinds of disturbing nature and thus they contain a kind of raw energy because they're so naive and inexperienced with the world but at the same time, they're seen and done things that most of us in the audience could never even imagine, let alone try.

Of course, nowadays, because of safeguarding laws and so on, underage young people could quite rightly never partake in showing such horror. Therefore, to see it now, and know it was based on a true story of the 1970s/80s in West Berlin and other parts of Europe, is shocking and does evoke a sense of catharsis in the audience.

But the most interesting part of our reaction is how we want to almost be a part of that world; to understand why this drug is so magnetising; to forget and run away from our own problems and have only one. Where is the next fix coming from?

The fact that the main actress is very attractive and seems to fit the "heroin chic"model willowy elegant but strong figure also helps perpetuate the audience's desire to join this world. Curiosity takes over us and it's so odd and off and surprising to ourselves even, because we know how wrong it is, how horrible the drug is. Christiane herself also has this internal battle of suppressing her desire to try the drug. Or maybe wanting to try the drug isn't due to curiosity, perhaps it's because of our fundamentally human need to fit in with the crowd. Make friends. Be popular. Be cool.
But these are just some of my thoughts. It's an interesting film. You should watch it. But try not to get influenced by it. Suppress those desires. You don't need drugs to be cool!!! God, I sound like some sad PSHCE teacher... If you do experiment, don't steal money from your family. That is wrong. At least steal from some douche on the street. And don't do it all for some dumb boy/girl/person you are attracted to either. You'll fuck your life up and I really don't want you to do that.

Here are some film stills because unfortunately teenagers and drugs is just a very stylish mixture and thus the atmosphere and the way the film was made very dark and bleak looking just works:

What's interesting is that David Bowie made the soundtrack for the film and his song "Heroes" is quite prominent in the film, especially in the opening scenes depicting the easiness of youth and also creating an ominous setting because we learn that these kids are the "bad" ones who steal and get high and sleep together. It's interesting because heroin itself (the name of which is officially diamorphine) was patented in the 1900s by a German company trying to sell it as medicine with the name "heroin" coming from the German word "heroisch" (heroic) as the first users described the sensation as making them feel heroic.

Bit of black humour is always welcome.

Stills like this capture the twisted beauty of the film itself, though the actress Natja Brunckhorst is the owner of extraordinary personal beauty.

It's a sad film about a sad person. The person it's based on (Christiane Felscherinow) has never really lived the "good" life as she suffered a lot of abuse and neglect as a child leading to her addiction and she's never recovered from the addiction. The saddest part is perhaps how she even takes pride in her heroin addiction calling it a part of her now and that it has even made her life good because she's now become famous and has met David Bowie and so on. It's so sad. I don't want to make any assumptions on her happiness and mental health state but it's sad that she's become complacent and accepts even welcomes such chaos. I don't know. It's hard to put this into words.
There's a really good article that's also kind of a film review of this and also kind of an analysis of our culture's obsession with heroin and how it influences art in a sort of positive way:
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/dec/22/art-heroin-christiane-f

Art Throughout the Ages: Mesopotamian (4500 BC - 539 BC)

The art of Mesopotamia spans from early hunter-gatherer societies to the Bronze Age - particularly the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian cultures which were thriving empires that existed in modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Syria and Turkey.The main pieces were of various, very durable forms of sculpture in stone and clay which were usually painted and also stone/clay narrative reliefs became popular as writing was invented at this time by the Sumerians. The lack of diversity in artwork is perhaps because little painting has survived from the era (the painting which has has been suggested to have been for design schemes).

Sumerian era (4500 BC to 2270 BC) 

The Sumerians lived in, where is now, the south of Iraq. Their art is mainly about exploring the relationship between people and the gods, plants and animals. Clay was common in West Asia instead of metals n stuff hence the vast amount of sculptures made of clay. There were also many cylinder seals which do also classify as art as they were used as a signature (which is traditionally quite a non arty kind of boring documentey officey type thing) and thus had to be really complicated so others couldn't steal their identity so there are many which are really quite intricate and pretty. As mentioned before, writing was also invented in this time woop woop! Go Sumarians!

Standard of Ur

This is a particularly famous Sumerian artefact and it was found in the Golden Cemetery of Ur (south of Baghdad in Iraq) and is approximately 4500 years old. It was probably in the form of a hollow wooden box with images of peace and conflict on each side. The exact purpose of the Standard is unknown though it has been suggested to be a music box or a chest for bearing religious documents or holding chicken poop as snacks (I'm kidding I'm sure no-one ate chicken poop ever). The one we have now is actually a replica of what we found in Ura all that time ago and you can see it at the British Museum in London (I have actually seen it and it was a long while ago when I was ignorant and just thought it was some old voodoo stuff and it is massive and quite nice). 

Akkadian Era (2900 BC to 2350 BC)

The Akkadians made advances to realism and created more detailed pictures of humans which thus differentiates them from the earlier work of the Sumerians. There was a new emphasis on Naturalism expressed by sensitive modelling of sculptures and cylinder seals. These present the iconography of the interactions between man and the divine world.

Victory Stele of Naram Sin 

Naram Sin was a powerful ruler of the time and this famed victory stele depicts him as a god/king figure. Rulers those days... so vain. You can find this cheeky sculpture at the Louvre Museum in Paris!

Assyrian Era (1500 BC to Fall of Nineveh 612 BC)

After the Dark Ages, the Assyrians became the dominant power of West Asia. Their art mainly consisted of polychrome carved stone reliefs which decorated imperial documents to convey royal affairs, chief hunting and war making. These scared other people when they visited the palaces and royal dwellings. 

The subjects were commonly animals, in particular horses and lions, and were very detailed. Human figures were also detailed and were commonly depicted in triumphant scenes of combat (just to show how badass they were and how much power these mighty Assyrians had). There were also these really odd figures that had wings, hooves and all kinds of weird shit with the weirdest being a human face with a beard (?!)... scarecrows maybe? for plebs? Nearly there. They were guardian spirits that guarded the doorway to the King's palace. They had 5 feet to symbolise that they could "turn" in any direction and were also massive (like twice the size of the average man, massive). Damn...

Ashurnipal II Hunting Lions 
This is a famous relief found in British Museum of a famous King and was one of the things engraved on his palace walls to scare visitors

Babylonian Era (1792 BC to 1225 BC and then 660 to 515 BC)

So basically the Babylonians were in power at the same time as the Assyrians but they were focused in the South of West Asia. Under Hammurabi (the first Babylonian King), Babylon became the most powerful and also largest city in the world. He established firm laws called Hammurabi's Code and this was the first time that the law had ever been written down in solid form. It's made out of stone and clay and contains 282 laws that govern things from criminal behaviour to wages to even adoption. Many more great documents were made on clay tablets and the production of cylinder seals was at an all time high. Stone reliefs were also still popular as ever and depicted cute little stories of death and conquest. Then the guy died and nobody else was as good as ruling as him so the Babylonians died out for 400 years until a renewal in 660 BC and this time, "Neo-Babylonian" people came into power. Nebuchadnezzar, the contemporary ruler, built his famous palaces at this time, especially known for their beautifully clever arches and domes (I think for the first time?) painted in lush colours.

Hammurabi's Code

Clay tablets etc.

 This one actually depicts Babylonian astrology stuff!

Neo-Babylon with Nebuchadnezzar's luxurious vision 

These are the Hanging Gardens of Babylon which were one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world (it's probably in modern day Iraq but no1 knows for sure)

This is the Ishtar Gate which was one of the 8 gates of the Babylon Wall which protected the city. A reconstruction of this and the Procressional Way into the city is in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. The Ishtar Gate is another one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world (jheeez yes nebby man like).

So yup, that's pretty much it for the Medopotamiams! I probably messed up the order somewhere around here or if you're a bit confused here's a link to a timeline of these interesting times http://www.ducksters.com/history/mesopotamia/timeline.php

Thanks for reading and hopefully this was as interesting for you to read as it was for me to make! (as cheesy as it sounds it's the truth lol)

Art Throughout the Ages: Stone Age (30,000 BC - 2500 BC)

So recently I've been really into ART. And when I mean "into it", I mean that I would like to do some and learn about it, not like actually knowing things about it (lol). But I thought this would be a good place to start - learning about all the different types Art throughout the ages, like I've always heard about Impressionist paintings or whatever, but I don't actually know what it is! Okay so, here goes (disclaimer: this compilation may be quite lame and inaccurate):

Stone Age

This was the era of cave paintings. The most common subjects were large animals, in particular, bisons, horses, aurochs and deer. Drawing detailed portraits of humans was "religious taboo" and probably meant that the person would die or something (just my own guesses here). The paintings were rendered by mineral pigments which were usually red, yellow or black in the form of ochre, hematite, manganese oxide and charcoal. The paintings have been suggested to be "hunting magic" meant to increase the number of animals by Henri Breuil. Another theory is by David Lewis-Williams to suggest that the paintings were the visions of shamans.
Apparently according to R. Dale Guthrie, since the main themes are of large beasts and also some Venus type figurines, the paintings were usually made by adolescent males (especially cos they made most of the population at that time) though some spotted horses could have been created by females (some vague sexism implied here but I'll leave it cos it's probably true which leads me to think is gender really a social construct? but I digress).
Some famous examples of cave paintings are in the Lascaux Cave in Southwestern France.

The caves at Maros in Sulawesi, Indonesia are famous for their handprints and they date back to 40,000 years ago making them the oldest examples of cave art.

The Venus/Woman of Willendorf is dated back to 28000 to 25000 BC near Willendorf in Lower Austria. If you want, you could go see it in the Natural History Museum of Vienna. It was made in Paleolithic times and there's so many confusing different terms but basically people hung out in groups and scavenged food and used rocks to make stuff. There are many such female figures out there similar to this one and researchers suggest they may be "fertility godesses" (and just to make clear they pre-date Venus the Greek goddess).

So that's about it for the Stone Age, I mean sure there's loads more you could learn about, but that would make this blog post HUGE and I'm sure you could read some great books that would actually be useful instead of wasting time reading random stuff I got from the interweb so this may be a good link http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/ger-asks-best-book-to-explore-prehistoric-cave-art.cfm 

I was going to put every period of Art into this blog post but now I've realised that that is really impractical and would make reading this and making this quite laborious. So, till next time chums!