First thank you Dr. Andersen for setting up this trip, I had a great time. Thanks for showing me how to use the buses it saved me a lot of time. Thanks for taking us all out tubing, that was a lot of fun, and for taking us out for Train Burgers afterwards, I'm glad you and Ryan enjoyed those burgers so much. Thanks for giving me that ticket to see This Film Is Not Yet Rated, it was hysterical. Thanks for the sushi, I'm sorry I was to sick to come with you guys. Finally, thanks for being a really great professor and teaching a cool class.

Thank you Ryan, you were a good helper monkey for Nate (Thank YOU, PAt. -Ed.), if there were a monkey of the year award you would get my vote. Thanks for keeping a great website. Thanks for saving me tickets and places in line and all that, and thanks for being a chill roommate, even when I woke you up with my hacking at 4 A.M.

Thank you Dr. Andersen, the younger, for the prescriptions that got me through the festival. I was really dying and you got me what I needed to continue.

Thank you classmates I'm very glad you were all really nice and no one hurt themselves or anyone else. I liked all the people on this trip and I'm glad to meet all of you. Have a great year and I hope you all had a good time.

Anyhow, the documentary did capture the level of emotion that Neil instills in his songs. Each word that comes from his mouth is infused with a memory or feeling so strong that it registers on Neil's face. Neil's facial expressions proved that some part of him was going back in time when he first wrote the lyrics, he was remembering those experiences.

Neil is so talented, he can play the harmonica, the banjo, the guitar and the piano; the man mine as well be a god!

Breien creates an air of suspense from the beginning, opening with shots of people who have gotten out of their cars in the middle of the street to stare confusedly at the sky. The phenomenon is finally revealed to be hundreds of black balloons floating ominously over the city. The image creates an unsettling tone as it offers no explanation for why this is happening. The balloons eventually deflate and fall to ground, each, upon inspection, bearing a name attached to it. Spectators of the event begin to examine each balloon and decide to bury each one in the snow.

Breien explained after the film that had been of an existent person who died innocently as victims of war and hate crimes across the globe. That the the circumstances of each death were completely unrelated to another serves to highlight Breien's point. It's about the senselessness of people killing people in general, not localized to one event.

By leaving out the particulars of each death and representing all the victims uniformly as black balloons, Breien removes prejudices which some would want to use to justify as a death. This compels one to examine the situation as simply life, and ending of life.

Breien displays a mastery of filmic aesthetics while delvering a powerful message with a social conscience.

I was not too impressed with this film. The beginning was somewhat intriguing mostly because I wasn't sure what was going on. An overexposed shot shows an old man drawing what looks to be some sort of looking glass up to his eye and peers through. Words like "head", "tail" and "survive" are spliced between the scenes upside-down and at odd angles. The film was really audio-visually abrasive and dragged on for way too long. I didn't detect any meaning really. It seemed just like some kids messing around in an AV lab.

"High Plains Winter", U.S.A., 2005, Directed by Cindy Stillwell

The film centers around ski-joring competitions in Montana and Idaho, showing the good and bad aspects of the sport. However, the real substance of it, I think, is the shots of desolate unpopulated tundra, stoic and snow-covered ountain ranges and herds of cattle marching across barren snow-deserts. Stillwells shots mirror each other, communicating a feeling of sameness and isolation. Some of my favorite shots were of electrical towers, their angular geometric shapes and enormous stature contrasting sharply with the flat Idaho and Montana landscapes. Stillwell pairs these with images of electrocuted birds hanging from the wires connecting steel giants. This film seems to say a lot through what it leaves out (there's no dialogue, and no commentary on the images). I liked her technique of placing two separate frames of similar images next to each other and scanning the shots so that they seem to approach a common point from opposite directions. This creates the effect of mountains being swallowed up into each other at the place where the frames meet.

"Quimera", Brazil, 2005, Directed by Eryk Rocha

Sequences of jump shot show cats walking down a street, close-ups of their eyes as a car approaches, a man shaving himself and shaving a cat, and blurry headlights drawing nearer. There is a sort of menacing tone and it's sort of implied that someone is perhaps mistreating the cats or that they are about to get run over in some shots. Still, you don't really know what's going on - it's like fragments of a story but you don't have enough to make it complete. Nonetheless it makes more sense than "Instructions for a Light and Sound Machine". It also had more of an artistic feel.

"Viscera", U.S.A., 2005, Leighton Peirce

Memories translate into blurry and disjointed images. Sounds are in disconnected clips. Very artsy but somewhat unremarkable. An examination of how sensory perceptions become ingrained in our memories.

"True North", United Kingdom, 2005, Directed by Isaac Julien

This was the only one with an actual plot. The film's story is based loosely upon the experience of Matthew Henson, who traveled to the Arctic with Robert E. Peary in 1909. He is supposed to have been the first man to reach the North Pole, but this was disputed at the time because he was African American.

Voiceovers from "The Negro Who Traveled to the Pole with Peary" are inserted throughout; the sincere tone of the text complements the intensity of the film. Julien uses a handheld camera to create an uneasy and slightly threatening feeling at times. Out of focus shots convey a cloudy-headedness, as if the cold, undernourishment, and weariness of the traveler were getting to her head. Shots jump from the protagonist to what looks to be thousands of pounds of falling ice-water illustrate the frailty of human life and the odds that one is up against in the icy abyss. It's man pitched against nature at its most extreme.

The text adds a morbid beauty, discussing the glory of death in a place like this and examining what it means to commune with or be part of something greater than oneself and how one defines their orientation to the world, the universe, God.

Though Julien uses varied mediums, every aspect of this film blends well together.

"Las Vegas", Italy, 2005, Directed by Olivo Barbieri

The director used a tilt-and-slide lens effect to make real images of Las Vegas look like a model. He said this was to mimic the skewed and superficial perceptions of the place (its backwards morals and representations of monuments in places half-way around the world, deifying celebrity and wealth, etc.). It seemed a lot more interesting when he explained but pretty much failed to communicate a lot of this as a film and was really boring to watch.

One of the most memorable parts of the movie for me was when Mary Magdalene was about to be set on fire. I remember the person sitting next to me seemed shocked, but if all they were going to do to her was set her on fire she would have been lucky. South Africa at that time, in the townships was an insanely violent place. The political violence was unbelievable and it did not recognize neutrality. For instance, Rastafarians represented a peaceful subgroup in South Africa that stayed out of politics; however, when one of the two parties, for there were two political parties that the white government would play off each other to keep black South Africa under control, would catch a Rastafarian they would make him eat the necklace he wore.

The film is very much an authentic record of South Africa, as well as a retelling of the gospel. As a South African I'm truly glad to get this chance to see the country again and to hear the story of its people.

In addition to the problems in Iraq, the soldiers bring problems home with them. Many veterans are suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). This is a serious psychological disorder that if untreated can permanently alter brain function and structure, which results in severe psychological problems.

This film convinced me that war is not the way to settle an economic need for oil. Innocent lives are being lost and this message needs to get out to the American public. I think this film does an excellent job of expressing some of the most pressing issues with the war in Iraq.

Instead, we see Lucy grow increasingly desperate and frustrated to reach out to her father. In one pivotal scene Lucy drunkenly appears at his door in the middle of the night. She bangs on the door and begs for Lowell to let her in. When he ignores her pleas, she becomes hysterical. This is really the first time in which we see evidence that Lucy has feelings. Until this time, Lucy has used alcohol to numb any feelings she might have otherwise been able to show.

By the end of the film, Lucy comes to realize that she has to stop looking at her father, her family and the men that she sleeps with as the problem; rather she has to look at herself and figure out what she can change.

I really enjoyed this film because it explores how fragile human beings are, even though some of us try to hide our vulnerability. This film made me optimistic about my future. Sometimes we all feel alone, as if few people can understand or connect with us. However, sometimes it is just a matter of looking at yourself to understand why we feel alone.

I For India is a colourful montage of images. Suri contrasts two very different worlds using footage from videos that her father, Yash, sent his family when he moved from India to England. Yash moved in 1965 to received medical training and found that the best way to communicate with his family was through the medium of film. For years they sent videos back and forth depicting cultural and scenic differences and also documenting social changes in their respective countries. The film also, perhaps without meaning to, reveals what happens to a family when separated for so long. Yash could not be there for the death of his mother or the marriage of his sister, and found himself torn between the need to be with his family in India and his desire to earn a decent living and bring up his daughters in a good environment. The two worlds are so different, one sort of experiences a degree of culture shock just through watching it. There was an intimacy about this film; it really demonstrated how important the people closest to you become when faced with so much that is entirely foreign. I for India is sometimes comical, at others, very moving; it is consistently dynamic and exciting. The film's conclusion sends a message that one must handle change gracefully, and take ownership of one's life.