Mood Management part 2: Entertainment or Entertrainment?

‘To be entertained’; it seems like this combination of words is used as a ‘verb’ nowadays. It seems like everybody needs to be entertained as soon as a little leisure time appears. But aren’t we enter-training ourselves? We get stressed after watching a soccer match and we get scared after watching a horror movie. Why are we ‘training’ our emotions every time we actually want to be entertained?

Mood Management part 1: Entertain human brain

How do you feel when you just watched a sad movie? And what if you read a romantic book? Most probably you will feel the way you experienced the storyline of a particular movie or book. But did you ‘need’ that feeling before you started watching or reading? Maybe you started watching a sad movie because you already had a bad mood, so that the movie would establish your feelings. Is this a circle of our own mood management? Or is it a straight line with a beginning and an end?

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Back in secondary school I got obsessed by the painting 'The Scream' from Edvard Munch. It was the moment in which I discovered that art can have different meanings for different persons.
Most people think that the title of this painting is about the grey coloured person in the middle. This person, standing in an open space is covering his ears and his mouth is opened. It looks like he is screaming. In fact, Munch interpreted his painting in a different way. Namely, the colourful open space around the person is overwhelming him. It seems like the landscape is screaming, which explains why the person is covering his ears. The person doesn’t feel comfortable at all in this space full of light colours and irregular lines.
Art in general can have an unlimited amount of meanings. Everybody can make up his own ideas and fantasies about art, whether the meanings fit together or not, whether it is the meaning of the painter or not.

Let’s just enjoy art by using our own fantasy.

Mamma Mia the Movie: here I go again.

Every family has a secret.
Every wedding has a few surprises.

After watching the colourful and light-hearted musical Mamma Mia, I am glad the movie is finally out in cinemas. After watching the trailer on the internet, I am sure I will enjoy this movie as much as I enjoyed the musical.
Mamma Mia is a movie that brings old-fashioned memories back to reality as well as a movie that provides new fantasies. All the original songs that are used in this movie are recorded in a refreshing way, which makes Mamma Mia the Movie even more nostalgic and modern as well. The movie is full of lovely songs and energetic dances. The beautiful story based on family lines is recognizable for a lot of people. The songs will most probably sound very familiar, even for young children. By using colourful scenery and actors like Meryl Streep, this movie is ready to rock the cinemas.

Open today: Sing along version of Mamma Mia the Movie at Barton Springs cinema.

Miss America

My mother gave me a book just before I was about to leave my home country. She was afraid that I would lose my language skills during my stay in the United States. It was a Dutch book called “Miss America” written by Nathalie Huigsloot. The book was very girlie, exaggerated and if it had been covered in one colour it would definitely be pink.
The main person in the story is Madelief who is a journalist in New York. She thinks about a lot of world issues during her daily activities in the Big Apple, which you wouldn’t expect in a book like this. While reading page 27 I got very surprised by the way the author explained human issues by defining it in an whole other context.
On that specific page, the author describes the way people live in New York in terms of ants living in ant-hills. Every ant is walking in a different way and with a different goal. Every time they pass one another they stop by and start a short conversation, whether they know the other ant or not. This was the issue that scared me while travelling to another country. You get to know a lot of new people, but you will never know if they really know who you are. According to the author of ‘Miss America’ humans are like ants, you don’t even have an identity or a face. However, when you start to take a closer look at the ants, you will discover that they all look different. Even if you don’t know all the ants you will meet in the future, keep in mind to identify all the faces of the ants that are important for you. Surprisingly, I found a life changing argument in this pink coloured, soft and girly book.

AMY (loves WINE)HOUSE

“They are trying to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no”.

After hearing her CD ‘Back to Black’ I am sure she’d better not go, go, go.
Ever tried to sing accurately, rhythmical and with perfect timing when you were drunk?
There is just one person in the world that is able to do this perfectly and regularly: the brown hairy beauty Amy Winehouse. Her jazzy sound gives an extra dimension to the combination of soul and hiphop.
“You know I’m no good”, she sings. Indeed, we know that. But listening to this album makes sure that this girl from London is certainly a good singer, whatever all of her addictions and imperfections are. Sometimes it turns out to be better to enjoy music and to leave the personality out of account.

Entertainment in daily life

Although the media is creating hundreds of incredible opportunities each day, although it has a lot of educational advantages and although the media is one of the most appropriate ways to communicate with as many people as possible, sometimes I think we had been better of with decent books and an old-fashioned typewriter.

Especially when I take a closer look to the changes within society in the past fifty years, I realize that something has to change. If it is the amount of obesity that increases every year - by now we are up to 31% - or the increasing amount of men and boys that get addicted to video games, all of these facts are quite confrontational for a media maniac like me.

After all, I will write this blog everyday in order to try to keep the entertainment world in shape, to confront the entertainment world with critical analyzes of particular musicians, movies, musicals and daily life experiences. All of this, for the world’s own sake, in order not to let the entertainment world become obese, to keep it from losing its own limitations.

Sources:
http://www.americansportsdata.com/obesitystats.asp
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/03/health/webmd/main1773956.shtml