1st Day of Presentations

Wow! I was super impressed with the two group presentations that went today! Sometimes, on 1st days of presentations especially, the presentations just don't quite live up to the billing. However what we saw today would be an exceptional presentation in any class I've taken.

The first group's dictation of Jon's dream was great. I loved some of the moves that they made during their production and they did a great job of employing some props that were pretty funny and useful. I enjoyed the whole play on the dream-state requiring some action for Jon to have to attempt to accomplish. I noticed that it followed the heroes journey well. One of the moves that really stood out was the reappearance of the rose after Jon woke back up. It was really reminiscent of the Star Trek episode with the reappearance of the flute.

Even though the first group set a pretty high bar the movie lived up to the level for sure. I was extremely surprised by the effectiveness of the surreal aspect that the film had. Sometimes those type of films can just have a cheesy art-house feel to them without really working except on a "that's weird" level. Perhaps this class has helped me pass the "that's weird" level... anyways Kudos to Thomas' film abilities for sure! It had echoes of many of the texts we viewed/read for the class. By far my favorite part of the film was the the sucking stones on the bottom half while the recitations of the memorized Finnegans Wake was occurring on the top half of the screen. I can't remember what the music was at this part but it too was extremely effective. It had a certain emotional appeal that isn't often achieved without being too lowbrow and, as we've learned, the FW words aren't lowbrow at all!

After seeing these presentations I certainly have some anxiety of influence. The groups today did awesome and I'm excited to see what everybody else has cooked up.