Aki's Blog

Ok, the 1999 film/mini-series “Noah’s Ark” – a film version of two famous stories from the Bible; Sodom and Gomorrah, and the building of Noah’s Ark – is great, in spite where it fails incredibly. A perfect blend of comedy and… what to call it? Action?

But there are unfortunately lots of mistakes, or changes from the original text – the Bible. The most obvious one is that Noah according to the film is in the story about Sodom and Gomorrah, which he is not. The Biblical person who has the role Noah has in the film is Abraham. Read more about the mistakes on this page.

Your standard soap opera season is divided into three parts of episodes, which themselves are divided into a total of five parts altogether. Although they’re defined as thirds, they’re not necessarily as long; the mid-part is usually the longest, and the last part is probably just between two and four episodes.

The first third holds two minor parts; the beginning introduces most of the main characters and mentions or identifies the conflict or crisis that the season will evolve around, even though it mightn’t have started yet – it can for example be a mere mention of its “eventual” future appearance. In the second part of the first third, the mid-point, the crisis develop, and forces the main character to make one or several hard decision(s) for the greater good, such as leaving a friend or partner, moving, quit abusing drugs, or in the more drama-based soap operas, murder or commit another type of crime. Reasons can vary a lot, with anything from as simple as “those drugs aren’t good for you” to more complicated.

The second third only holds one part, but it’s also the body of the story. As already told, this is usually the longest part, and this is in which the conflict develop further, and so does the characters on personal level. Characters that in the beginning of the story were unknown to one another are suddenly friends, and others were best friends but parted ways forever (or at least for a few episodes, as always in the soap opera world). As the conflict rises, and as good people suddenly turn evil, and whatnot, the suspense increases, building up for the last third.

The last third holds two parts, yet two very minor. The first part is the one in which the conflict resolutes. As the suspense is at its height, the season reaches its climax, and there are one or two episodes with barely anything with pure suspense. All the questions are finally answered, people may very well fall to their death – or, as a cliché in the soap opera world, return from the dead as they really “just fell into a coma” or “played dead”. Depending on what the main conflict of the story was, the resolution ofcourse differs; for example the true villain is discovered, after one or two innocent were apointed as villains earlier in the story. Arguments between friends finally goes away. Then comes the denoument, which literaly is “the end of the end” in French. The denoument usually just cover the last fourth of the last episode, and is therefore definitely the smallest part. After the climax comes the anti-climax, where we again see the characters in their natural habitat (home, school, work, etcetera), just like they were in the beginning of the season.

However, the phrase “the end of the end” lies, for in the world of soaps the end of a season is never the end, but merely the beginning of the next. The denoument often shows a hint or even a part of the beginning of the next story, all to get the viewer interested enough to wait a month or two and follow the next season as well.

Soap operas usually have a line of writers and directors for a season, possibly changing this crew for the beginning of another season but not very usually in the middle of one. Both the writers and the directors usually vary on their post, either through having one episode each on every third or fourth, or co-writing basically every episode. There can also be teams of two or three which co-writes, and then these teams vary instead. One member in either the writing or directing staff (or in both) is often the creator(s) of the series, but they usually only write or direct an episode once in a while, in spite the fact that they often visits the recordings or observe the manuscript before released to the actors.

Even though a single writer often has the main control of an episode’s manuscript, it is not nessecarily at first created by him, merely detailed. The writing usually starts with a meeting with the staff, either only the writing staff or with the directors or producers. The next episode’s content is discussed, whereas ideas are debated and in the end one is chosen to be the used story. A main writer is choosed to write the basic manuscript, either through personal choice, totally random or through the list, if the writers vary with a planned scheme.

When the manuscript is finished and checked through, the actors are given their lines one or two days before the filming starts. The filming then usually lasts for about two days, ending about a week before it is released on TV, as the schedule usually is that they produce the episode while the last one is airing, always being one week before the viewers.

Tom Cruise is one of the few super-famous actors who I believe actually deserve their popularity, who actually are good on stage. He and Johnny Depp are the two I can mention right up front that I feel this way about. The problem with him is how he almost only acts action films, and action is probably my least favorite genre in film. So I really love his performance in 2003′s drama-action-history film The Last Samurai.In The Last Samurai, Tom Cruise is Captain Nathan Algren, a war hero tormented of the memories of the Indian wars in which he acted, and the many innocent he has slayed. As the emperor of Japan wants to civilize his country, extincting the few samurai led by Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe), Algren is hired to lead the country’s new troups, basically farmers who hasn’t seen a gun before. After a failed battle in which the entire Japanese army is killed, Algren is captured by Katsumoto. After living with the samurai for a while, he realises that they aren’t the enemy, they are the ones trying to capture the natural beauty of Japan and keep it. Slowly, we are to realise that the emperor isn’t a “bad guy”, but more of a weak puppet led by assistants and war generals, while the emperor himself is unsure whether to keep or destroy the samurai. Throughout the film, Katsumoto several times says that if the emperor wants him dead, he has but to ask, and he will gladly take his life. The emperor never replies.The Last Samurai is one of my absolute favorite films, a great epic story that has everything: great actors, one of the best music scores ever in film history (by Hans Zimmer), love, death, cool weapons (okay, I admit it, I love Japanese weapons, samurai and ninjas), and a grande ending fight ending with the scene when Captain Alger meets the emperor, and gives him Katsumoto’s katana, and the ending quotes always makes me thrill of epic:”Tell me how he died.”"I’ll tell you how he lived.”I never have Swedish subtitles on while watching an English film, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the Swedish title “Den Siste Samurajen” (“The Last Samurai” in singular) on the cover. What the…? Translators should try getting their facts straight. Director Edward Zwick has himself said that the title refers to the last samurai troop, and NOT Captain Nathan Algren. Get your facts straight.Again: A great film, recommended to everyone. A great epic, with perfect balance of drama, history and action.

Tonight I finished my review of action film Inside Man which I wrote for english at school.

An ingenious bank robbery. A hostal situation. The greatest success of the year. American film INSIDE MAN of 2006 describes a genial gang of bank robber’s robbery of Exchange Place 20 bank at Manhattan, US. As the robbery evolves into an hostal situation, New York police starts to figure out that this is no ordinary bank robbery, it’s an attempt to unfold a sixty years old crime from the war. Starring Clive Owen as the bright bandit Dalton Russell, Denzel Washington as detective Keith Frazier and Jodie Foster as the powerful politician Madeleine White, this film is directed by experiences Spike Lee. It seems to unfold a new subgenre of action-thriller films; I’v never liked action movies before but truly loved this one. I’ve never found any other action film with this kind of superb storyline and realistic played characters. Talking about the realistic part; I didn’t fins any special effects at all, but the stunts, which weren’t overused at all, which I would expect from an action film. The most stunts used part was when the hostages were forced to wear this special costumes, and a man took his mask off, just because he didn’t want to “play their silly game�. The consequence was Dalton Russell beating him to death. The man’s stunts just looked silly and not to trained.The film aren’t using to much different settings; there are the bank, the crowd gathered outside and the police station, including some minor ones. The viewer don’t really see much of the bank even though most of the time is spent there, the entire scenes are quite dark and the director seems to have focused especially at the characters. In the second most used scene, the crowd, the characters are incredible. Every one of these scenes are a parody of the New York social lives and the many different cultures. In one scene, the police is bugging the robbers and realizing they are speaking an unknown, middle Europe language. Detective Frazier decides to transmit the voice through the loudspeakers to ask the crowd to say what language it is. When another police asks “Why do you think anyone would know that?�, he answers “This is New York. Someone gotta know it�.The robbery appears to be much more than what is seemed at first. Dalton’s gang is shown to break into the bank just so that the bank owner’s, Mr. Case’s old crime, betraying Jews to the Nazis, will be revealed to the media and police. Meanwhile, Case, who understand what is happening, tries to make politician Madeleine White to stop the robbery before Dalton success.Different from other action movies, Inside Man’s target audience is not fifteen years old boys, it’s rather ages around twenty-five plus. There are lots of advanced jokes and not just slapstick jokes as in many other action films. Though, the film may be seen with ignoring the jokes. Of course this is not as great, but it seems like the films is made so that everyone, not depending on their favorite humor, can watch it and enjoy. The film is excellently intelligent and it doesn’t feel like it’s focusing on car races or violence, such as other films in this genre; it is rather focusing on intelligence, which makes it into a great show. I really recommend this movie.

 *****five stars