Art and disappointments
If you have read my other blogs, especially the one about poetry analysis for IGCSE and IB students, you would know that I am a huge fan of literature. As the previous book that I have read once said, there is not enough time in your lifetime to read all the books that you want to read and in my case there is a lot more books on my 'readlist' than a lot of other people. In my perspective, there are a few things in this world that are infinite; books, games, movies and tv shows. You will never be able to finish all the ones that you want to watch in your lifetime, and even then there are new seasons always coming out faster than you can read/play/watch, and thus it may as well be infinite. For me, these three things are works of art, and I'm sure many agree with me with many highly regarded awards for gaming, books and of course, the countless media awards like the Oscars in existence. That being said, it is thus essential to be able to filter the bad pieces to ones that are good.
For example, I was at the library looking for "The Metamorphosis" written by Franz Kafka, rated one of the best literature pieces to exist. Instead I found "The Meowamorphosis", an adaptation of the book written in the perspective of cats rather than that of a cockroach which the protagonist morphs into, thus taking away the 'thriller' aspect of the book. Never in my life have I been so angry at the library for having such books, one that deface literature pieces by having trashy adaptations. Looking for other books on the shelf, I found "Shakespeare with zombies" and other defacing books made to shame top literature pieces all just to shift units and thus earn a profit.
In terms of TV shows and movies, there are many disappointments as well. However this is not really due to other top shows being defaced defaced by parodies but nevertheless do exist, but rather shows with bad acting and poorly made storylines. The only redemption for these movies are the highly budgeted CGI that make the action outshine the rest of the story. "Transformers Age of Exitinction" was a horrible storyline with a poorly made script, but the CGI in the Transformers series is considered to be one of the best of our time (Of course, this is nothing compared to James Cameron's amazing world of Pandora in his movie Avatar). However as much as I ask you to avoid these movies I spend most of my time watching mainstream movies in theatres, whether they are trash or not. I suppose the reason for this is that books are significantly harder to finish than movies, considering the length of the book and the effort it takes to read it all to appreciate the work compared to a movie, which only requires further sub-concious thinking of the acting and plot line for some time. Analysis has already been done for you if you search movie reviewers on YouTube, as my brother likes to do. For the record, "Shawshank Redemption" is hands-down the best movie I have ever watched, and I hope it's the same for many of you too.
Gaming has it's ups and downs as well. This is based on, similar to movies, good storylines, good gameplay and in this case good animations instead of good acting. Open world games also require a good strategic plan of where key areas have to be placed, as well as having the responsibility for the gamer to be fully immersed in this world that, if done right, should be more beautiful than reality. For me, I find the open world of the new game "Horizon: Zero Dawn" absolutely amazing. The level of creativity put into the world to make different biomes with hidden villages is very innovative unlike the game "Skyrim", which have very similar biomes everywhere you may turn. However that being said there are significantly a lot of Easter Eggs in Skyrim compared to HZD so it really is up to user experience. "The Last of Us" still holds to be one of the games with the best storylines that I have ever seen in gaming. The sad moments of watching Joel's daughter die and his perspective of having another chance with Ellie make the controversial ending all the more interesting than a typical ending to a zombie apocalypse. That being said, "Mass Effect" Andromeda" looks to have one of the worst facial animations, walking, punching, kicking and combat animations despite having a 40 million dollar budget. It has a poor storyline and a dislikable character. For me, this was a poorly made game and the biggest disappointment since "No Man's Sky", an open world game with repetitive gameplay and where every planet looks the same.
I seem to have digressed a bit on the main topic by listing examples, but I do hope that they have given you insight on what to avoid and what not to avoid when looking through these pieces which I consider 'Modern Art' (although I am using the term completely differently to the term used to describing trashy art pieces. That being said there are a lot of good meanings to many modern art pieces, though I fail to find the fulfilment in looking at them.)
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
For example, I was at the library looking for "The Metamorphosis" written by Franz Kafka, rated one of the best literature pieces to exist. Instead I found "The Meowamorphosis", an adaptation of the book written in the perspective of cats rather than that of a cockroach which the protagonist morphs into, thus taking away the 'thriller' aspect of the book. Never in my life have I been so angry at the library for having such books, one that deface literature pieces by having trashy adaptations. Looking for other books on the shelf, I found "Shakespeare with zombies" and other defacing books made to shame top literature pieces all just to shift units and thus earn a profit.
In terms of TV shows and movies, there are many disappointments as well. However this is not really due to other top shows being defaced defaced by parodies but nevertheless do exist, but rather shows with bad acting and poorly made storylines. The only redemption for these movies are the highly budgeted CGI that make the action outshine the rest of the story. "Transformers Age of Exitinction" was a horrible storyline with a poorly made script, but the CGI in the Transformers series is considered to be one of the best of our time (Of course, this is nothing compared to James Cameron's amazing world of Pandora in his movie Avatar). However as much as I ask you to avoid these movies I spend most of my time watching mainstream movies in theatres, whether they are trash or not. I suppose the reason for this is that books are significantly harder to finish than movies, considering the length of the book and the effort it takes to read it all to appreciate the work compared to a movie, which only requires further sub-concious thinking of the acting and plot line for some time. Analysis has already been done for you if you search movie reviewers on YouTube, as my brother likes to do. For the record, "Shawshank Redemption" is hands-down the best movie I have ever watched, and I hope it's the same for many of you too.
Gaming has it's ups and downs as well. This is based on, similar to movies, good storylines, good gameplay and in this case good animations instead of good acting. Open world games also require a good strategic plan of where key areas have to be placed, as well as having the responsibility for the gamer to be fully immersed in this world that, if done right, should be more beautiful than reality. For me, I find the open world of the new game "Horizon: Zero Dawn" absolutely amazing. The level of creativity put into the world to make different biomes with hidden villages is very innovative unlike the game "Skyrim", which have very similar biomes everywhere you may turn. However that being said there are significantly a lot of Easter Eggs in Skyrim compared to HZD so it really is up to user experience. "The Last of Us" still holds to be one of the games with the best storylines that I have ever seen in gaming. The sad moments of watching Joel's daughter die and his perspective of having another chance with Ellie make the controversial ending all the more interesting than a typical ending to a zombie apocalypse. That being said, "Mass Effect" Andromeda" looks to have one of the worst facial animations, walking, punching, kicking and combat animations despite having a 40 million dollar budget. It has a poor storyline and a dislikable character. For me, this was a poorly made game and the biggest disappointment since "No Man's Sky", an open world game with repetitive gameplay and where every planet looks the same.
I seem to have digressed a bit on the main topic by listing examples, but I do hope that they have given you insight on what to avoid and what not to avoid when looking through these pieces which I consider 'Modern Art' (although I am using the term completely differently to the term used to describing trashy art pieces. That being said there are a lot of good meanings to many modern art pieces, though I fail to find the fulfilment in looking at them.)
Cheers,
Matthew Tan
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