Angels and Demons (film)

Last Saturday I and my girlfriend went to the cinema to watch the new film adaption of Dan Brown’s famous novel “Angels and Demons”. Although the film was thrilling and eventful at once, it was too long and sometimes too “modified” on the other hand. I read the book a few months ago and it is still one of my favourites. The fact that I liked the book that much was one of the reasons why I was really looking forward to watching the new film version in the cinema.
Now, after watching it I have to say that I am really disappointed of the result. I found it very disappointing to compare this new film to Dan Brown’s famous novel. The novel was not only much more interesting and thrilling than the film was, unfortunately and much more important was the fact that the film version sometimes was completely different from the great novel.
For example, there was no Leonardo Vetra in the film. The killed person in the beginning of the film was not the famous scholar and father of Vittoria Vetra; it was “just” a colleague of her whose name I cannot remember. Moreover, one of the four kidnapped and later on killed “preferred” Cardinals in the novel was Cardinal Baggia from Italy who interestingly survived the assassinator in the film and finally became pope. In the film there was also no fight in the fountain where Cardinal Baggia was rescued now. In contrast to the film, in the novel Cardinal Baggia died in a fountain and there was a fight between the assassinator and Robert Langdon, the American scholar of history who wanted to rescue the Cardinal.
All these above mentioned facts and lots of other differences made the film that uninteresting for me and I would not recommend watching the film to those who already read the novel. In conclusion, I can understand some changes of the film version in order to shorten the length, but I cannot understand why the filmmakers also changed some names of the protagonists and why they left some good thrilling scenes, especially in the end of the film.
http://www.angelsanddemons.com/

Moment of Zen 05/12/09

I am still asking myself if I will ever use some of these “new media” websites/tools we discussed in class. After our group discussion on these “new media” tools I must say that I am still interested to check them, but I cannot see how I could profit from these “new media” tools like Yahoo! Buzz. I had to prepare a handout on a “new media” tool called Yahoo! Buzz and I was very unhappy about the fact that Yahoo itself, by creating Yahoo! Buzz just wanted to drive larger traffic to their own website and that Yahoo hoped that it would give them an advantage over larger online media competitor companies, such as Google, the well-known largest website in terms of search engines. Therefore, I could see Yahoo’s personal benefit on the one hand, but I could not see any public utility on the other hand. Finally, I am really looking forward to learning more about the other “new media” tools and hopefully they will be much more useful for me than Yahoo! Buzz is.

Moment of Zen 05/05/09

The most astonishing fact about last weeks presentations on the old traditional media was the idea of the “printed” book as a traditional medium which still exists and which will supposedly survive all the other upcoming changes of the new media as well. I was wondering whether the traditional book will really survive the next modern era of the so-called new invented ebook. On the one hand the medium book exists for hundreds of years and is still that important today, but on the other hand the new ebook has got several advantages a book never had and will never have. On the one hand, it is much more comfortable to travel with a slim ebook than to travel with a traditional hardcover. On the other hand, an ebook is very expensive and what happens in case of low battery? I will always prefer traditional books instead of ebooks because I definitely like the idea of having a hardcover in hand and I also prefer to keep and collect the books after reading. All these above mentioned facts make it that interesting for me to see what will happen to the traditional books in the future and I am really looking forward to reading my next “printed” book.

Moment of Zen 04/28/09

What are the main differences between old traditional and new media?
What will be the "next" upcoming new media in the future and how useful will them be?
Why do porn websites play such an "important" role on the Internet?

Carl Djerassi

Recently there has been much discussion about the awarding of an honorary doctorate to Carl Djerassi by the TU Dortmund, Germany. Carl Djerassi was awarded the honorary doctorate by the TU Dortmund, Germany last Thursday April 23rd because of his literary works and not because of his worldwide success as chemist. It was Carl Djerassis’s 21st award to honor his works, but he was awarded for the very first time ever because of his literary works and he was awarded for the first time by a German university.
Actually, Carl Djerassi, a chemist, novelist and Professor of chemistry at the Stanford University, USA is best known as the father of the so-called Pill, thus as the inventor of the first oral contraceptive pill. The also called birth-control pill made and still makes it possible for many heterosexual couples and other heterosexual people to have sex without getting pregnant, therefore to decide when and with whom a woman wants to have a baby. The development of “the Pill” was a major breakthrough the scholarship and the whole world, especially the “women’s world” experienced in the mid of the past 20th century. “The Pill” and therefore Carl Djerassi allow women great latitude and for sure the men do benefit as well.
A great latitude Carl Djerassi himself really had to fight for to resume his own liberty. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1923 he was forced to flee from Austria in 1938 because of his Jewish background. When Austria became part of “Nazi Germany” it was to dangerous for Carl Djerassi and his Jewish mother to stay in Austria and they decided to escape to Sofia, Bulgaria where they already used to live until Carl was five years old when his parents broke up. Carl’s father was a Bulgarian Jew and he still lived in Sofia when he decided to remarry Carl’s mother in order to protect Carl Djerassi and her against Nazi Germany and against its leader Adolf Hitler. Later on Carl Djerassi went to the American College of Sofia where he attained fluency in English. In 1939 Carl Djerassi and his mother emigrated to the United States of America where Carl made his career and became one of the most important, maybe “the most important” chemist worldwide.
Last Thursday evening I attended the awarding of the honorary doctorate to Carl Djerassi by the TU Dortmund, Germany and I found it very interesting that Professor Grünzweig among other things called Carl Djerassi a “Kulturtourist” or a “Kosmopolit”. Indeed, it is interesting and difficult to say to which culture or nation Carl Djerassi exactly belongs. He is born in Austria, half Bulgarian and spent almost all his life in the United States. He also was awarded by so many different institutions and universities of so many different countries all around the world what makes him a so-called “cosmopolitan” and what makes it nearly impossible to say to which culture Djerassi now belongs or to which culture he feels he belongs to. How does Carl Djerassi define cultural identity for himself as a “Kulturtourist”? Is it for example like Stuart Hall defines cultural identity, thus a shared culture, but one true self besides others?
All this above mentioned facts and Carl Djerassis’s “second string to his bow” as a novelist and playwright make Carl Djerassi so interesting and impressive and it makes me think about cultural identity and cross-cultural literature more than ever before.

www.djerassi.com
www.tu-dortmund.de