Mamma Mia!

I caught Mamma Mia! the movie sometime last week and I gotta say, it didn't quite live up to my expectations. The plot was a little weak and the story didn't flow quite as well as it should. However, it was quite faithful to the actual musical. Mamma Mia! is relentlessly cheerful and the ABBA tunes featured were infectious and made you wanna sing along too.

Set on a colorful Greek island, the plot serves as a background for a wealth of great ABBA songs which are used in remarkably appropriate ways. A young woman about to be married discovers that any one of three men could be her father. She invites all three to the wedding without telling her mother, Donna.

The story of this film is being told through song instead of just traditional dialogue. When Sophie decides that she wants her father to walk her down the aisle at her wedding, she mails out invitations to the 3 possible candidates and starts singing the song "I Have A Dream".

"I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality
And my destination makes it worth the while
Pushing through the darkness still another mile"

The lyrics of the song conveys her longing for her to meet her real father. She has never met her real dad in her life and her dream is for him to be present at her wedding to "give her away".


Group communication is also extremely prominent throughout the entire movie. When the lead character Sophie communicates with her best friends, whether it's about the wedding or how her mother's 3 ex-boyfriends are all under the same roof at the moment all thanks to her, they are going through a process called 'group socialisation'.

When Donna communicates with her best friends, you can tell which roles the three of them each undertakes during their discussion. Rosie - the single, fun-loving writer is usually the "harmoniser", the one who attempts to cheer Donna up when she starts crying in the toilet over her three ex-boyfriends. Tanya - the rich three-time divorcée is usually the "encourager", the one who reminds Donna of her free-spirited past.

The group communication between the three possible fathers is also somewhat hilarious since the three of them had no idea what to expect when they first stepped foot on the island for Sophie's wedding. Despite being thrown together unexpectedly, they still manage to get along pretty well while living on Bill's boat.

All in all, Mamma Mia! was a ball of fun to watch. Fans and non-fans of ABBA alike will still enjoy this fluffy movie thoroughly. For those who have watched it, how did you guys like it?

Resources: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795421/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mamma_mia/

Go Green?

I remember watching the highly publicized Live Earth concert back in July last year. The event was developed to combat climate change and it was broadcast live for 24 hours. The concerts brought together more than 150 musical acts in eleven locations around the world and were broadcast to a mass global audience through televisions, radio, and streamed via the Internet. The next Live Earth will be held on December 7, 2008 in only one place, Mumbai, India.

I've always wondered exactly how effective the concert was in creating global awareness for our climate crisis. Even though the performers at the concert were constantly talking about how we should save our environment, and even in between commercial breaks, various celebrities preach about going green, does it really spur on the television viewer to actually change their lifestyles in favour of saving the earth?

Despite the concert organizers' best efforts in trying to convince the audience through music, I honestly doubt that the message has been sent across. Me? I only jumped at the chance to catch some of my favourite bands performing all in one night at one massive concert.

I read an article on the net recently about the venue for this year's Live Earth and I started wondering if they were planning on using the same old tactics to try to get people to be more environmentally conscious? Tactics such as bands shouting out for people to "Go Green!" in the middle of their song and having immensely popular celebrities film short clips of them doing their part for the environment (last year's Live Earth had clips ranging from Ken Watanabe cycling to Jessica Biel recycling her trash) to "set good examples" for us to follow.

How will we perceive all these attempts to enlighten us about the seriousness of the climate crisis? Perhaps, people will start showing more concern for the environment with the huge media influence from this event but I think that it will be short-lived. After watching the concert, which will be broadcast live for 24 hours by the way and I don't see how that helps the environment at all, people may be inspired to perhaps recycle their trash or take a shorter shower but is it a true lifestyle change or just a spur in the moment thing?

With that said, I'm still looking forward to seeing the list of performers for this year's event!


Sources:
http://www.liveearth.org/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/world/news/e3if071151a9941bb2d0cd923bdde5d1684?imw=Y

The Democratic National Convention 2008 - Barack Obama's speech

I watched the speech that Barack Obama made at the Democratic Convention 2008 about 2 weeks ago and I was deeply affected by it. Truth be told, I've never been all that interested in politics. But when I watched the speech that Obama made, I was strangely drawn in. I listened intently to what he said and I actually believed him when he declared that he was going to bring about change in America when he became president.

When Obama spoke, everyone listened. The lexis in which he delivered his speech was confident, assured without a trace of doubt in his voice. He stresses the need for change every once in a while during his speech and stops talking when required to drive his point home. Judging from the cheers from the audience when he talks about his plans to improve the health care system in America and stop the war in Iraq as soon as possible, his speech obviously relates to them well and they are responding to it with fervour. The audience also starts to boo loudly when Obama speaks of George W. Bush and his failed policies over the past 8 years.

Obama makes good use of logos - the appeal to reason by mentioning that once he becomes president, he will end America's dependency on oil from the Middle East over a span of ten years. He reasons that John McCain has refused to invest in any renewable energy and today America imports triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.

When Obama talks about issues such as students studying while working or the difficulties of women when it comes to starting their own businesses, he relates a personal story of his own. His use of pathos is effective as it appeals to his audience's emotions. Obama mentions during his speech that when he sees students studying while working, he is reminded of his own mother and how she raised him and his sister on her own while she worked and earned her degree. When the audience hear that, they feel for him as well and trusts in the fact that he will do his best to solve the issue.

Obama has all along been speaking out on the issues that will define America in the 21st century. He makes good use of ethos in his speech when he says: "I get it. I realize that I am not the likeliest candidate for this office. I don't fit the typical pedigree, and I haven't spent my career in the halls of Washington. But I stand before you tonight because all across America something is stirring. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. It's been about you." He appeals to the audience by being modest when he talks about his lack of experience and that he doesn't fit the typical pedigree for presidential candidates.

All in all, his speech was a roaring success. I believe that after hearing that speech of his, even republicans would probably change their mind and vote for him instead.

Source: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

The iPhone.

A little over a week ago, I bought an iPhone. Technically I didn't have to pay for it because my mum used the $500 Singtel voucher that she got from work. To be quite honest, when I was going over my options for a new phone, I didn't consider the iPhone at all.

Firstly, I knew that I didn't need a phone that had 16gb worth of space for music because I much preferred my gadgets seperate from each other. An MP3 player for my music, a camera for taking photos and a phone for just calling or texting. And I also hated how overhyped the iPhone became, to the extent that people were even pre-ordering it beforehand and queuing up on the first day of launch just to get their hands on this phone as soon as possible.

Anyway, I ended up picking this one because the Samsung one that I wanted (F480) was out of stock and my mum's voucher was expiring soon. After using it for a little over a week, I'm glad that I decided to get this phone afterall.

The iPhone 3G is a perfect example of a transactional model of communication. Video calling, texting, emailing, voice calling enables simultaneous exchange between senders and receivers. With 3G technology, users are able to video call their friends instead of just traditional voice calling. Video calling is quite possibly the next best thing to face-to-face communication, not only can you hear the other party's voice, you can also see their various facial expressions. However, one bad thing about video calling is the tendency for the channel to be impeded by noise. The environment that the other party is in also plays a big part in communicating through video calling.

One of the pros for the iPhone is the amount of memory space available in it for people who don't mind listening to music on their handphones. It definitely beats the other phones which requires you to get a memory card in order for you to add more storage in it.

Another point worth mentioning would be the very handy and user-friendly touch screen interface. While using applications like Safari (Apple's version of internet explorer), a flick or tap of your finger would suffice in either scrolling down or zooming into the screen.

One other trait of the iPhone that I also liked immensely was the idea of sorting your texts into "conversations" where the parent message and all consecutive replies are grouped into one message alone. It makes viewing so much easier.

Of course there are cons to this phone as well. One jarring feature in the iPhone is the fact that you are expected to pay for custom ringtones. Apple expects you to purchase a song from the iTunes store, which I may add, is still not available to us at the moment, and then pay again if you wish to convert said song into a ringtone for use in your phone. It is utterly ridiculous in my opinion to have to pay to have your song converted into a ringtone.

Since I'm not one to nitpick, other than that very annoying trait mentioned above, there are no other major problems that I have with the iPhone. Some minor problems I had though were the softness of the maximum volume, slight lag of applications at times and the weight of the phone.

So is the iPhone worth getting? Yes if you listen to music on your phone, like internet on-the-go, and wouldn't mind carrying a slightly heavier phone than usual. But the price is pretty steep at the moment, so I say wait on it for a couple of months more before making that purchase. And who knows, maybe by then, there will be yet another phone launched threatening to out-rival the iPhone.