Class of September 18th

Today in class, we focused our studies on several classic films such as Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Singing In the Rain, etc. We also briefly discussed the art Damien Hirst.
Damien Hirst recently had an auction where he made millions and millions of dollars. I immediatley recognized his art from the Jennifer Lopez movie "TheCell." Rather than saturate the art market with traditional paintings, Hirst creates scupltures that defy the norm. His piece, that is essentially a human skull covered in diamonds, is quite elegant, simple in design but screams volumes. Some of his other pieces feature various animals being perfectly preserved in tanks. Out of these, I prefer the shark. It appears like a frozen moment in time of a shark about to eat its prey. Normally we would have to rely on paintings or photos for such visuals, but here Hirst physically captures the image and brings it to us first hand. Most of his other animal pieces are nice but I'd probably look at them for their scientific value rather than their aesthetic value, at least initially. But all in all, I would rather study his art than someone like Goya's.
I very much enjoyed watching excerpts from the classic films. I never watched Singing In the Rain before but I really liked what I saw, so I'll have to find time to watch the whole thing. I always loved Casablanca. It has such a classy noir ambience to it that I find captivating. On the other hand, I hate Gone with Wind. Its boring, features characters that I just cant sympathize for, and is way too long. Eraserhead was pretty freaky. I'm not sure if I'll ever watch the whole thing but I researched it a little on Wikipedia.
The way things are progressing, I can't wait to see what other films we'll watch.