DOUTORES DA ALEGRIA/DOCTORS OF JOY

Priscilla Pizarro Costa

Doctors of Joy is a social organization founded in 1991, and through its work and art, the group brings joy to hospitalized children, their parents and hospital professionals. Along the years, “looneyologic” treatments have been made inside hospitals in three Brazilian cities: Belo Horizonte, São Paulo and Recife.

Their aim is to disseminate the Doctors of Joy culture. There are plenty of experiences to share, and based on what they learn from encounters between clowns and children, the decision to spread this knowledge to theaters, schools, business, and clown courses was the right one.

They offer a long course in order to become a hospital clown. A few years ago I attended this course for one semester, and it was a very gratifying experience. When I noticed how close you can reach children´s feelings, I saw how much easier life could be.

 And they also have the Clown Educational Program for Youth, and according to their site, it “…gives adolescents from different communities access to art through the clown language”.

The film Doctors of Joy is very interesting. Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weKtpnfgsTw

This non-profit organization is very important not just for hospitalized children and for their families to feel much better, but also because they educate youth, so they can become professionals and get ready for the job market.

To sum up, here is a citation: “The way the world is spinning nowadays, sometimes forward, sometimes backwards, it can make one somewhat dizzy…When you reach that point, only a clown can fix it!”.

Reference:

http://www.doutoresdaalegria.org.br/

Fantastic, Dramatic and Contagious! The social network

                                                                                                                                  Anderson Ferreira

What would you do if your school data were on a social network? The movie “The Social Network” deals with this interesting question. The film, directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, shows us the founding of the social networking website ‘Facebook’. The movie is an American drama adapted from Ben Mezrich’s book.

            First of all, the story begins at Havard University when a student called Mark Zuckerberg breaks up with his girlfriend Erica Albright. Mark and Erica were talking about their relationship, and because of this, Mark insults his girlfriend on his blog. Afterwards, the young boy creates a website called ‘Facemash’. It allows entertainment to the users. This way, this website brings popularity to Mark, and then the Winklevoss brothers invite Mark as a programmer for a website called “Havard Connection”.

            The film portrays Mark Zuckerberg as an arrogant person who betrays his friend Eduardo. There are many critiques about this film. According to the Business Insider site, “Facebook hates the movie. Zuckerberg says he will not watch it”. This is one of many critiques that the film received.

            The movie is not about the creation of one of the internet’s most successful websites. It is an image of reality that discusses issues such as  wisdom, power and hate.

            In brief, “The Social Network” is a good film and it´s worth watching it. You will see the creation of ‘Facebook’, the most famous website in the world. Watch it! You will like it.

SOURCE

www.businessinsider.com/ facebook

Witness

                                                                                                                                         Sandra

“Witness”, by Australian director Peter Weir (who directed acclaimed films such as The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society and Master and Commander) is an American thriller film that involves passion, emotion, crime and has as protagonists the stars Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis.

The film focuses on an Amish child, Samuel, who becomes the target of dangerous thieves. This Amish child ends ups witnessing a murder in which the victim was a cop whose throat was cut. John Book, a police detective who gets in charge of the investigation of this murder, only knows that the killer is a tall black man, and then takes the boy to the police station where Samuel tries to find the criminal in the photographs. Finally, the kid discovers who the murderer is when reading the newspaper and seeing the news of detective McFee, who is complimented for his work in the narcotraphic.

Samuel and his mother Rachel Lapp run away with Book to the Amish community where they used to live. However, Book’s idea of dumping Rachel and Samuel and leaving doesn´t work because when McFee tried to kill him, Book got severely injured. So John Book is forced to stay while he is recovering, and Rachel alerts him that he can´t go to a hospital because then it would be easy to locate Samuel and the person who shot him would likely kill the boy. Meanwhile, the assassins are still chasing them, trying to get them killed.

According to Wikipedia, “Witness” was a film well critiqued for involving the Amish religious freedom and the Pennsylvania government agreed not to promote Amish communities in the film because the Amish have a very traditional lifestyle with their community being very close and united. On the other hand, the Amish community has their own culture as for example: prayer before the meals, wearing always dark clothes and hats, sharing opinions together, and keeping usually the dialogue between them in perfect harmony. In my point of view, this is very important, to learn to respect the others and their rights, beliefs, values, without harming each other.

Therefore, the actors Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis developed well their characters because they worked with integrity and sincerity. John Book is very eccentric, he loves his job and tries to be a good police detective, he is a self-confident friend, completely self-assured.

Meanwhile, Rachel Lapp is a romantic, good mother who loves her son and looks after him lots of times with care and tenderness. She has a different lifestyle. The central idea of the film is to rescue the two people from dangerous thieves, they hide in a close and united community.

On the other hand, the scenes that most impressed me were the their meals, when they thank God for the food, the grandfather´s dialogue when he alerts Samuel about the gun, the discovery of the love when Book and Rachel are dancing and exchanging smiles filled with lust, their goodbye filled with sadness having no other option.

The story shows an impossible love because of cultural shock. Rachel Lapp and John Book fell in love, but because of his job, he had to choice. It’s a very moving and incredibly powerful and devastating story which is brilliantly performed by the two lead actors, who have fantastic chemistry together. The target audience is adults.

Therefore, I recommend that you watch it because it was nominated for 8 Academy Awards. It is very good to discover the crime and to share opinions about the political investigation.

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witness_(1985_film) (acesso no dia 16.08.2013)

CRITICAL REVIEW ABOUT THE MOVIE "THE SOCIAL NETWORK"

                                                                                                                                    Raianne Leite Diniz

            “The social network” is a North American movie that brings the story of the creation of a network more accessible in recent years, Facebook, whose main creator is Mark Zuckerberg (played by actor Jesse Eisenberg) and his friend Eduardo Saverin (played by Andrew Garfield). The film is directed by David Fincher.

            After his girlfriend dumps him, Mark creates a site in order to revenge himself. He posts photos of girls on the site, to promote which one is the hottest girl at the University. He gets help from his friend Eduardo, and the university computers crash due to the hits.

            Bringing a bit of the story of film to the "real world", we can find very similar situations such as Mark´s, who is an intelligent young man in a connected world, but struggling to relate personally. Of course having a social network where we can share music, videos, images, is not something exaggerated, once it is used in a moderate way. Its use can have very unpleasant consequences on people,  such as psychological disorders and social isolation.

            It is extremely important to be attentive to the abusive use of social networking, so that we do not become people with interpersonal relationship problems in the future.

            The movie brings a very contemporary theme, and because of that it is a great movie to be seen by people everywhere. It's a good movie for you to think about the internet, and the causes and consequences in your life. It's worth watching!

HEAVY RAIN

                                                                                                                             Matheus Trindade

A game filled with QTE, looking just like a movie, is it really that cool?

“Heavy rain” is an exclusive ps3 game released in the year 2010, published by Sony computer entertainment, and developed by Quantic Dream. In this game, it’s possible to choose every single action, from drinking water or a soda to trying to talk to a police officer or a reporter. Furthermore, this game introduces a new way of gaming making, its genre is hard to explain, but basically it’s a thriller in the same way movies like “Seven” or “The bone collector”, with film noir elements.

The plot of this game revolves around 4 main characters involved with the mystery of the origami killer. He is a serial killer that targets kids on a specific time of the year which has a severe period of rainfall, and in several parts of the game you control each one and your choices decide how the plot develops.

The characters are as follows: Ethan Mars is an architect that lost one of his two sons in an accident near a crowded mall that gave him agoraphobia, but the must unlucky fate of his is that the origami killer targeted his other son Shaun Mars; now Ethan needs to complete the trials that the origami killer gave him through a box to get his son back. A second character that you play with is Madison Paige, a journalist that has chronic insomnia and nightmares, and who sometimes checks in motels to try sleep better. In one of these hotels she found Ethan Mars and recognized him from the news, but without telling him she helps him sometimes, and conducts her own investigation about the origami killer. The third character is Scott Shelby, a former police officer who now is a private investigator hired by some families of the previously murdered children, and he goes to every family trying to get any leads that get him to the origami killer. Finally, the last character, Norman Jayden, an F.B.I. agent sent by the bureau to help the local police force in the investigation of the origami killer, uses an experimental device called the ARI (Added Reality Interface), which allows him to investigate crime scenes and analyze evidence in an efficient way. He struggles against his addiction to a fictional drug called Triptocaine.

The gameplay is how you realize how different this game is from conventional ones, since almost everything in this game is done with Quick Time Events, that is, the quick decisions you have to make during a cutscene on games like God of War. Therefore, the game with its plot makes these cutscenes and Q.T.E. unique, since the tension and the drama created exceeds the gamer’s expectation.  Furthermore, the decisions you make gives the direction of the plot, and there is no game over even if you failed a Q.T.E., so the plot goes all the way through the ending even if you are not willing to play it properly, which means trying to save Shaun Mars and catching the origami killer.

The soundtrack is nonetheless perfect for the emotions the game tries to pass to the gamer, since it’s a dramatic game and the soundtrack is a colossal part of the equation for a successful drama, so the soundtrack fulfills its part of this equation. The orchestral soundtrack was scored by a Canadian composer called Normand Corbeil and recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London.

To sum up, “Heavy Rain” is an excellent game, and if you have a PlayStation 3 it is a must have and must play kind of game, since it is exclusive. And if the trailers and the gameplay videos don’t attract you, give the game a chance because when you play, and get immersed in the gaming you won’t stop playing until you reach all the possible endings and choices you can in this game.

REFERENCES

 Cage, David, Heavy rain, Game develop by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. February 11^th, 2010