Beauty ShopWritten by Tamika Johnson
Beauty Shop tells story of Gina (Queen Latifah) as she moves to Atlanta so her daughter can go to an exclusive music school. She finds a job as a stylist at a high end salon but after a confrontation with her boss leaves and opens her own beauty shop.Beauty Shop doesn’t quite rise to occasion as it repackages and regurgitates characters, themes and plots that we have seen before. It is one thing to tell a story that has previously been done yet bring something new to what may be an overdone but entertaining storyline and it is another to retell a story and not bring anything new to table at all. Beauty Shop falls into latter category and suffers greatly for it. The main problem with Beauty Shop is that it is Barber Shop with women. From plot twists to characters inside shop, it is exact same movie as Barbershop except with Queen Latifah at helm instead of Ice Cube. There is funny, familial and penny pinching boss, Gina (Queen Latifah). There is misguided, yet full of potential stylist in training, Darnelle (Keshia Knight-Pulliman). There’s arrogant, know it all stylist who is a pain in everyone’s side, Chanel (Golden Brooks). There’s novice stylist of a different race that can’t get any business, Lynn (Alicia Silverstone) and finally there’s opposite sex stylist who is only one of his kind in salon, James (Bryce Wilson). Add to that money problems, someone trying to take over business and possibility that shop may have to close for good and you have same movie, same story without any added flare. You even have character that hawks their goods at shop: in Barbershop it was a man selling bootleg CDs and DVDs and in Beauty Shop it is a woman selling catfish and monkey bread. The concept of being original must have never crossed writer’s minds.
| | The Different Styles of Inuit SculpturesWritten by Clint Leung
At first, all Inuit soapstone sculptures from Arctic may look alike. However, there are variances in artistic styles among different Inuit art producing communities. Although all communities produce Inuit sculptures featuring both animal and human subjects, some seem to do more animals while others do more people figures. Some communities make their subjects appear quite realistic with lots of high detail while in others, a more crude and primitive look is preferred. There are Inuit sculptures that have a highly polished finishes and some that are complete opposite where they are left dull and unpolished. Some areas specialize in producing small scale miniatures much like artwork by their ancestors who first came into contact with white men. Inuit sculpture can range from quite conservative to bold or even wildly outrageous. Scenes can be playful like a piece depicting two Inuit children playing or with a sense of humor like a walrus waving. On other end, transformation and shamanic pieces can look disturbing or even frightening to some. Hunting scenes can portray gory realities of life and death in nature.
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