Foreign Film Recommendations

Hello, hello! This week I wanted to share with you all some foreign films that you may like to see. I feel that watching foreign films is a great way of getting exposure to other cultures and to better understanding the world. (None of the following images are mine.)

Are you ready!? In no particular order:

1.Monster (몬스터):

Monster is a South Korean film that came out in 2014. It is about a serial killer who, by trying to clean up his older brother’s mess, eventually clashes with a girl who is not afraid to fight back. Be warned, there is a lot of gore! You can find a trailer for the movie here: MONSTER Movie Trailer

2. Charm School/Bad Girls (Niñas Mal):

Charm School is a Mexican film that came out in 2007. It centers around the life of a rebellious teenage girl who gets sent to an all girls school. There she is able to form strong friendships and finally make good choices for her future. This movie does have sexual adult content. You can find a trailer here: NINAS MAL – TRAILER

3. Boys (Jongens):

Boys is a movie from and based in Netherlands, released in 2014. It is all about self discovery as two young boys try and figure out their own sexuality. There is drama, there is romance, and it is all so adorably cute and heart-warming! The trailer is here : Boys (2014) Trailer

4. I Can’t Think Straight:

I Can’t Think Straight is a film from the UK and was released in 2008. In this movie two women struggle to find love when bound by the constraints of their cultures. Will they come together in the end despite the disapproval of their families? A trailer can be found here: I Can’t Think Straight – Official US Trailer

5. Miss Granny/ Suspicious Woman (수상한 그녀):

Miss Granny is a South Korean film which came out in 2014. I love this movie! It is very similar to that of 17 Again (with Zac Efron) or Seventeen Again (starring Tia &Tamera Mowry). The main character, Oh Doo-ri, gets a second chance at life after being changed back into a young woman, and ends up singing in her grandson’s band. Very cute, funny, and family friendly! The trailer can be found here: Miss Granny Trailer

6. Marie’s Story (Marie Heurtin):

Marie’s Story is a French film released in 2014. This movie takes place in the 19th century, is based on a true story, and follows the life of a girl who is both blind and deaf. With the help of a nun, the girl learns to communicate with the outside world. This is a real tear-jerker! You can find a trailer for this movie here: Marie’s Story – Official Trailer

I encourage you all to take the time to explore media outside of your own country, culture and language because your eyes will be opened to so many new experiences and possibilities. Some of these films may be found on Netflix and even Youtube.

Enjoy Life,

Brianna Renner

Alcohol. Parties. Roommates. Parties. Outings. Parties.

Like many, I’m sure, I thought a large part of the college social experience was dorms, sororities and frat parties. At the age of 11-12 as a 6th grader in Northridge, I fantasized about attending UC Berkeley. I abhorred the idea of attending CSUN (CSU, Northridge). It was the local college I would often see as I rode in the car with my parents; it was too familiar and held no interest for me. I wanted to be part of a big campus and mingle with the popular crowd that always seemed to exist in movies involving college life. I don’t know a soul who aspired to attend a community college or, even, a CSU, unless it was something like SDSU or Cal Poly.

When I got to my first of many community colleges, I came to find out that it really wasn’t any different than being in high school – most students I saw already had their friend groups and, generally, weren’t that interested in interacting unless forced to, at least in the prereqs like English 101 or Psychology 101 or blah blah blah 101. Being an introvert and having a lot of social anxiety, I didn’t find myself making any friends my first couple of years. It was a lonely existence and, frankly, more difficult to get through since I didn’t have a support network upon which to rely (this was also pre-cell phones, pre-Internet and, even, pre-pagers, for most). I had friends, but they weren’t going to my college so I didn’t have them to share the experience of being on that campus. And, really, when your friends and classmates are going to UCLA, UCSD, USC and so on and you’re attending Pierce community college, you can’t help but feel like a total loser, like you really couldn’t succeed in high school while everyone else could and did and were handsomely rewarded with entry into great schools. I didn’t have anyone around to tell me that, years down the road, it’s often how you finish, what you make of your experience and how you interact with society that are really going to matter in the working world. Seriously, I witnessed a Yale medical school graduate get rejected for a lucrative position in a private practice where I worked because, for one, his peers really didn’t like him (he was already working as a contractor for the practice; he was vying for a position to become one of the partners).

Anyway, what I did learn later while still at Pierce was that departments that had core groups of students, like theatre, ASL, music, etc., were where I would find faces that would repeat themselves in my classes in those departments so I finally got to know other students. It was nice – not being so lonely anymore, getting to know other students, making friends, flirting, even dating (although there were more than one creepy guy/stalker experiences along the way). The best place I found for making friends was in the theatre department as working on the productions meant spending a ton of time with a set group of individuals. The ASL department was also a good place to get to know other students, but while I got to know other students and even carpooled with a few to some ASL events, I never did get to be friends with any of them.

Yeah, I’m not sure if my love of theatre first grew out of an actual interest in theatre or finding out that theatre productions meant cast parties…lots of them. In addition to the cast parties were weekly Thursday night outings to a local bar (okay, so it was Red Robin after 10pm when it was more a bar atmosphere than restaurant). The bar outings didn’t really thrill me (I came to find out that hanging out at bars I find utterly boring). I really enjoyed going to the cast parties. These were great opportunities to socialize with other students my age (mostly) and drink alcohol. A LOT of alcohol. I know – okay, I THINK – the point wasn’t necessarily to drink alcohol but, well, I remember many of us consumed quite a bit of alcohol. My new friends introduced me to the “glory” of cheap booze in the name of Boone’s Hill Farm ($1.99!); I suppose it was the Two-Buck-Chuck of our generation. We were young and mostly broke so cheap booze (and lots of it, if/when possible) was the name of the game. We were also theatre students so being silly while drunk also played a part (as I recall, one situation was immortalized in the play of a now-famous comic book artist/then-unknown fellow theatre student when he incorporated a scene of a bunch of drunken partygoers in a circle singing “Hey, Jude”; what can I say – it seemed like a good idea at the time!).

It wasn’t always about drinking, the socializing. Out of this, we became a loose group of smaller tightknit groups who would go on to visit amusement parks together (Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios, Magic Mountain), attend plays together, work on outside productions together, see movies together and even spend holidays together. A few dating couples grew out of these groups; a few marriages materialized from these dating couples. Even after the school semester was over for the summer, many of us continued to socialize during the summer. This wasn’t even limited to students (during the period when the riots broke out after the Rodney King verdicts and we had to cancel a few of our performances due to curfew, our director invited us to her house for a potluck barbeque; when a couple of the professors retired, several of us, their former students, were invited to attend the joint retirement party for them).

At one point, I did end up housemates with a few of my fellow theatre classmates. It wasn’t the most ideal situation as I, stupidly, thought it would be more convenient to live in a party house so I wouldn’t have to leave home to socialize (I was pretty busy and really didn’t want to have to step out of my house to socialize). What I learned was if you live in a party house, then you really live in a party house, THE party house. Remember, we were still (fairly) young college students, my housemates and I, who were all living on our own for the first time. Having a house available for parties was a rarity (since many students still lived with their parents as Pierce, like many community colleges, does not have dorms) so that meant our house was a hotspot for parties and merriment in general. Still, despite the constant parade of guests in our house, it was an amusing and enlightening experience. I wouldn’t want to do it ever again, but I’m glad to have done it once (and, fortunately, it only lasted a few months).

As many these days are, several of my former theatre classmates and friends and a few of my former theatre instructors are my Facebook friends. A few months ago, one of them commented that that period of time when we were all there was a magical, special period full of fond memories. I’d have to agree. While it wasn’t all perfect, I loved it. I miss it. It was so much more than the college experiences I thought I’d have when I was a child dreaming about my future social experiences. It was a haven of learning combined with support, love, creativity, fun and excitement I will always treasure.

Next week – Part V: All the work, not the time.

LNR

Always a dresser, never the dressed

As a child, I’d always wanted to act which, thinking about how quiet, shy, introverted and without drama I am, is rather surprising. I think, perhaps, I was more enamored of the idea of acting, rather than acting itself. Having grown up in the pre-Internet age and with immigrant parents, however, meant I had not a clue as to how to embark upon getting involved in anything connected with acting. I figured it was all in whom one knows, and I knew no one. Even in junior high, I saw classmates in the drama classes and never saw it offered when selecting my electives so, again, I concluded that the students with connections were the ones who got to take the drama classes. An attempt taking drama class the one year it was offered in my first high school was disastrous as my instructor wasn’t really focused on teaching us (we spent most of the second semester sitting around the classroom doing nothing while he focused on his main job as the varsity football coach).

It was pretty cool to get to college and explore my interest in performing by taking an acting class in the theatre department one summer. I thought it would be a lot of fun, and I’d finally be able to demonstrate how awesome and natural I’d be as an actor. Ye-e-e-e-eah…not so much. My first scene partner was kind and was, actually, a natural. He gave me some advice on my delivery, which made me realize he was right when I utilized his advice. I found I really don’t enjoy doing improvisation exercises, which are a necessary part of learning to act. I learned I didn’t really get character analysis. And, yet, I still didn’t have the sense after that acting class to give up.

The following fall semester, armed with the acting class prerequisite necessary to audition for the school theatre productions, I proceeded to try out for the plays (the prereqs are necessary only if the actor is getting college credit). One director asked me – and only me – why I was auditioning…while I was on stage in front of everyone else auditioning. Fortunately, I was too ignorant and/or naïve to realize he was pointing out what must’ve been obvious to everyone BUT me. At the time, I later thought he was asking because I was a 21-year-old-but-looked-16-years-old Asian female auditioning for the role of a 30-something Caucasian female. However, in another production a few years later, that same director did change the ethnicity of a character by casting an actor who isn’t that ethnicity so I really don’t know why he called me out. I’m guessing because my acting was really that bad, I suppose. Still, I didn’t learn my lesson after that experience and did proceed to audition for a play one more time a year or so later. Silly me, I thought I’d be a shoo-in since it called for Asian actors. Wrong again. Asian I am; an actor, I am definitely not. Fortunately, this director was kind and didn’t tell me how incredibly bad my acting is. I simply didn’t get a call-back.

Meanwhile, I found myself getting more and more involved in the technical aspects of theatre. Another prerequisite necessary for getting the play production credit was one semester of technical stage production. What does that mean? Getting dirty! Actually, it wasn’t so bad, and I learned to really enjoy it. Twice a week, we spent three hours building the sets for that semester’s productions. We also had to work as a crew member on at least one production that semester. The smart students learned to talk ahead of time to the TD (technical director, who was also our teacher); they would ask him if they could do this or that assignment then sign up on the list that was posted in the hallway. I wasn’t a smart student that first semester as I didn’t know any of this. The not-smart students frequently were assigned lower crew positions, such as prop team crew member, scene shift crew member, etc. My teacher also didn’t know me so it’s not like I was going to get assigned a better position (such as light board operator, sound design/sound board operator and so on). I was relegated to prop team crew member. I ended up really doing nothing (it was a huge cast and crew) but did get to know my fellow crew members and the cast while we were backstage. The theatre bug bit me big time, and I was hooked.

The following semester, I, again, thought I was a shoo-in and when I signed up for a better crew assignment, I was sure I was going to get it, especially since the other person who requested it was brand-new. Nope. The other person got it (a guy). I ended up as house manager, which pleased me not at all, since my friends were all in the theatre while I had to stay in the lobby and missed everything going on.

I learned my lesson and, going forward, talked to the TD directly about what assignment I wanted. Still, it took another production or two before the TD started assigning me what I requested but, from then on, I got what I requested. I found my favorite assignments were ones that placed me in the control booth as I got to watch the performance as it took place (rather than spend it backstage in the dark and in silence). We were still in the dark but, being on a headset to communicate with the other crew members, we often weren’t in silence when we were between cues (cues are changes such as light change, sound effects, set change, etc.).

I also wanted to learn more and more about theatre so rather than focus on the rest of my general education, I took more theatre classes – stage makeup, costuming, light design, set design, directing, play analysis and more. I loved everything I was learning and found myself, often, working as a techie on two or more productions each semester. I had no goals of pursuing a career in theatre, but I was having so much fun doing it and meeting so many other students who knew a lot about theatre and shared my passion for it. It was a world I’d never known existed. It fueled an interest in live theatre that I previously did not possess as I knew nothing about theatre before my first theatre class.

It’s 20 years later after the last production I worked on in college, and I still have a passion for it. I went on to work on productions for a friend’s theatre company, a few community theatres in San Diego and, even, the Sacramento Music Circus (hence the title, as I worked as a dresser – the crew member who helps one or more actors with their wardrobe vs. the dressed, which is the actor).

Next week – Part IV: Alcohol. Parties. Roommates. Parties. Outings. Parties.

LNR