Noah (2014)

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Noah (2014)

Noah is a movie that has a certain fascination with it, but ultimately fails, but mostly ideologically. Cinematically, it is often impressive but also gets lost in CGI and awkward plot threads. It has an unusual protagonist that is very hard to like, which makes it a perfect role for Russell Crowe. The movie is… I don’t know, it certainly has its appeal and you can see some of the interesting thoughts that went into it, also not trying to make it a dumb faith-movie (it really isn’t) and treating it simply as a compelling story. But for whatever reason, the movie doesn’t really work. As a fan of Darren Aronofsky this is hard to watch even if you see his touches here and there. But in the end, my biggest problem with the movie is its message, which I’ll further analyze below.

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The Surface Is a Warm Blanket

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The Surface Is a Warm Blanket

I made the stupid mistake of taking all the exams I had written in my classes into the holidays for correcting. Normally, I try to get them done as fast as possible and to not take too much with me in the holidays, but this time there was just no other way. Getting through those four piles of exams, I couldn’t help but notice some patterns and have some thoughts that are partially troubling to me. Here they are.

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The State of Things

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Hey everyone, it has been a bumpy ride in the last couple of weeks. There have been much fewer posts since summer and since 1981 week it has gotten worse. Four posts in over a month is not how I want this blog to be. But a constant lack of time and recently some technical difficulties make it hard to keep up the pace. I just hope no one is giving up because I really hope things will get better eventually.  Maybe not right now, maybe it will take some time, but I don't plan to stop writing anytime soon. Stay tuned!

3 Months of Movies (VI)

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3 Months of Movies (VI)

It’s that time of the year again, the time for reflecting upon the movies I’ve watched in the last three months. It was a weird time because it also covers the summer holidays during which I watched a crazy amount of movies at home and at the cinema, but since the holidays are over and school has started I barely watched anything. I’m not sure how this will pan out in the statistics but I remember that I was thinking during summer that I might break a record for watching the most movies in that timespan and now I know this will definitely not be the case. But who cares about records anyway? I only care about statistics.

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Inventing the Child - The Genetics of Pretty Things

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Inventing the Child - The Genetics of Pretty Things

I somehow imagined I’d be writing these kinds of articles more often, but one little drop in interest in books by my older daughter stops a lot of the material for them. But now it’s time for more, as I’ve found a bunch of new examples of both the bad and the good in children’s books that try to sell ideas to kids.

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Behind These Castle Walls, Part II: Pinocchio (1940)

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Behind These Castle Walls, Part II: Pinocchio (1940)

For the second movie in my Disney series we get to the second animated full-length feature which is Pinocchio, released in 1940. I’d say as a movie it’s not as well known as some of the other Disney movies, while still pretty popular. Just as Snow White it is a well-made movie with great animation and interesting, creative set pieces. The story, based on a novel, was changed significantly and is at least as problematic as Snow White’s, in my opinion. While many themes are similar, some new ones are also introduced. But let’s get to the analytical details of this one, it won't be short.

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The Problem

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The Problem

What’s the problem? So, you tell us Kant said that we should neither be too lazy to use our own minds, nor too scared to question authority. And that Rousseau said that we shouldn’t teach children to try to be reasonable, that school teaches us useless knowledge and that teachers just think of themselves. We get it, really, but, you know, so what? Where’s the problem?

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Modern Problems at the Zombie Lake: The Movies of 1981, Part 1 [1981 Week]

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Modern Problems at the Zombie Lake: The Movies of 1981, Part 1 [1981 Week]

So, I watched 15 movies for this theme week and write about two of them separately. What about the 13 others? Will they just vanish and be forgotten? I decided to write one article about all of them instead and focus on different aspects. After I was done, it was too much for one article, so I decided to split it in two articles.

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Poster of a Girl: 1981 Edition [1981 Week]

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Poster of a Girl: 1981 Edition [1981 Week]

I just love movie poster analysis too much to not do it in a theme week. I know things often repeat themselves, but to me, instead of getting boring, drives the points just home even more. So here we go again, 1981 style!

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Enter the Ninja (1981) [1981 Week]

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Enter the Ninja (1981) [1981 Week]

(spoilers ahead)

I watched so many movies for this week and when I decided to stop I had a hard time deciding which movies to focus on. Surprisingly, I picked Enter the Ninja, probably the goofiest movie of them all. But it is one of those really enjoyable bad movies that I love (and that you have to watch a dozen terrible movies before finding one). The story is a joke, the acting is horrible, even a kid could point out the continuity errors, it’s offensive in many ways and many, many, many things make no sense whatsoever. But somehow, it’s fun to watch Franco Nero play a ninja (which is a silly idea in itself), only to clearly see that he never does any ninja stuff which is reserved for his stunt double (and original lead actor Mike Stone). The fight scenes are even decent in some regard, just everything else is incredibly sloppy and over the top. If you enjoy these kinds of movies, you’ll love Enter the Ninja.

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Blow Out (1981) [1981 Week]

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Blow Out (1981) [1981 Week]

(spoilers ahead)

Blow Out is an incredibly cinematic movie but it never becomes just an exercise in moviemaking by actually having something to say. Still, director Brian de Palma uses every trick in the book to enhance this story and to (often) visually explore an aspect of moviemaking that is not visual: sound. That alone is fascinating to watch but the movie also works as a dark conspiracy thriller about a disillusioned generation that mourns the 60s and 70s. John Travolta delivers a great performance here with a wide range of hopelessness, excitement, anger and despair. But this is a director’s movie and I’m not the first to suggest that this might be de Palma’s finest moment both as a director and a writer. The use of split-screens, change of focus with special lenses, long takes and a circling camera (in one spectacular scene that doesn’t ever seem to stop) are impressive and effective at the same time. After watching so many movies from 1981, this one stands out so spectacularly that even weeks after seeing it, it makes me feel good to see so much passion on the screen.

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Quest for 1981 [1981 Week]

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Quest for 1981 [1981 Week]

It’s 1981 week! This is sort of an anniversary theme week because about a year ago I had the first theme week about 1980, the year I was born, and now, one year later (and one day short of my birthday) we’re in 1981. I was one year old and don’t remember all that much. It’s the seventh theme week already and we still haven’t been to the 30s, 50s, 60s or 90s. We’ll get there eventually, but for now we’re in 1981, also known as the year Pitbull was born (and Britney Spears. And Beyoncé. And Natalie Portman. And other people.) Let’s go!

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Straight Outta Compton (2015)

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Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Straight Outta Compton is an effective musical biopic that is rare for centering on a group that made highly controversial music. N.W.A. basically invented (or at least popularized) gangsta rap and the movie does a fine job of showing their journey from the beginning to the end in great detail. I’ll discuss the value of those details in a second. The performances by Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell are great, and so is Paul Giamatti as the ambiguous manager. The music keeps us going through the rather long 147 minutes and the movie does a great job at evoking the racial tensions and police brutality at the time, effectively drawing conclusions for today. It’s a powerful movie that worked for me, but its problems kept nagging at me anyway, which makes it difficult to evaluate as a whole. It's also hard for me to say how well the movie works without nostalgia, which played a big part for me, which just goes to show how subjective we view movies.

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Did I Like This? (Niggaz4Life)

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Did I Like This? (Niggaz4Life)

Because N.W.A. is as popular again as ever before thanks to Straight Outta Compton, I thought it’s a good time to go back to my own feelings about their music. I was somewhat surprised to see I had written about their first album already (which I had forgotten, which happens after 250+ posts), so today I look at the far more problematic 2nd (or 3rd, depending on what you consider 100 Miles and Runnin’ to be) album Niggaz4Life (or technically Efil4zaggin), released in 1991. It is also their last album and, as more or less shown in the movie, was not as much of a team effort as their debut.

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X-Men: First Class (2011)

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X-Men: First Class (2011)

(some spoilers)

X-Men: First Class is an excellent comic book movie that is very satisfying for a comic book reader on a sheer entertainment level. It adapts the source material with joy and knowledge that is really refreshing. I honestly can’t say how enjoyable the movie is for a non-comic reader but I know that the acting is great (showing off a great cast from Michael Fassbender to Jennifer Lawrence to Nicholas Hoult to Kevin Bacon to Rose Byrne and, yes, James McAvoy who I’m not a fan of, but was still good), the effects are impressive, the 60s style camera and editing is fun and director Matthew Vaughn (also not a fan, but) does some nice things with the movie. The movie knows how to balance action, drama and humor unlike many other movies.

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Uncredited Terrorists

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Uncredited Terrorists

So, I read this really fascinating article at GQ about Arab American actors being typecast as terrorists. At first, this seems like an obvious story, nothing that would surprise you, “Of course they mostly cast them as terrorists, so what?” but the story pointed out some aspects even I wasn’t aware of.

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Southpaw (2015)

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Southpaw (2015)

Southpaw is an utterly conventional and manipulative movie that is only saved one of Jake Gyllenhaal’s most unique (and best) performances as the boxer Billy Hope. Gyllenhaal is not just good, he creates a character unlike anything we’ve seen before. Hope is so different and ambiguous. We cannot entirely figure him out, but that is part of his appeal. If you have seen the trailer, you basically know everything about the movie’s standard plot. There are no surprises and the emotions asked of you are a high form of manipulation. Sure, on some level it still works (daddy-daughter dramas always get me), but I can still criticize the movie’s laziness. The script by Kurt Sutter is a mess, leaving many plotlines unresolved and instead relying on us knowing how these stories go. Aside from some questionable shots, Antoine Fuqua’s direction is well done, especially the boxing scenes. I would recommend the movie only for Gyllenhaal’s performance, although it is strangely effective if you turn off your brain.

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 10: Teacher Focus

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 10: Teacher Focus

Finally, after all those weeks (actually, it’s been almost 5 months!), we get to the last part of this series. And we finish with a major issue that dictates most conversations we have about school: teachers. Teachers seem to belong to schools as much as students and the way they act in school seems natural and inevitable. It is one of the biggest problems our school system because it puts the focus in the wrong place. The focus of course is on the teachers themselves. They are the node where everything comes together and where the fate of every student is decided. One of the most common expressions when talking about school is “Well, that depends on the teacher.” Let’s break down what exactly that means.

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