To Kill A Mockingbird

I really, truly enjoy this film. I want to buy it, actually. Just have to find a place that carries it. I am super into the classic black and white movies, so this was perfect. Also, I have always been totally fascinated by the social and political aspects of times periods such as this. I also have the book sitting on one of my many shelves right now and I want to read it so bad. Maybe as soon as I get home I’ll pick it up and begin… this actually reminds me I need to look through my books and decide how many I want to donate to the school. Anyway, classics such as this teach us lessons, but often times people overlook the great works that do this teaching because of small aspects of it that are contributions to the setting and historical placement. Books are often banned because of the use of a single word or phrase that needs to be censored out of the educational system because of political correctness. What upsets me about this is that history is beginning to be censored and abandoned because of the mistakes that we have made and shameful parts that politicians and modern liberals would like to see erased because they don’t align with our modern society’s beliefs. Anyway, I really love Atticus’s character because he is so strong and reserved but you can tell he is a true Southern gentleman, especially in contrast with those around him. They are all caught up in their class and place in society and they don’t hold on to the positive aspects of the South, just their hate, resentment, and illusion of a higher social position based on skin color. Atticus is able to move on. He moves past the thinking of those around him to be an accepting individual that recognizes that no matter what skin color we are all human. We are all people, and legally we are all equal. As a lawyer he is dedicated to the law, and he is determined to protect the innocent as best he can. It really is a fantastic story. To be honest, I never read the story or saw this before, but I knew how the story was going to go based on other true historical events that have been recorded. Women and men would have African American’s killed for their mistakes and to hide relations. Women would have intimate encounters with men of a different color and nearly the same situation would have occurred, but there wouldn’t have been someone to protect the accused when the lynch mob came for them. I can’t wait to read the book.

Precious

This movie… I hate it. Maybe the reason I hate it could be contributed to the fact that ignorance is bliss and people don’t like to think about things that they know occur in the world but are depressing. I will admit I don’t like thinking about the people who are abused and go through a life similar to the one depicted in this movie. I do think though, that movies like this help start conversation and get people thinking about the state of the world that they live it. It begins a movement. Hopefully this movie and movies like it made people begin to be aware of the quality of life that some people are just existing in, and maybe there were a lot of advances made because of this awareness. I think my biggest thought that may have been sparked from this film so far is that I don’t understand why people have babies when they have no means of providing for them. (I know that the main character didn’t choose to have the baby, so my statement literally is for real life situations where people can hardly provide for themselves but still have children.) Think of the Octomom. She was not really even able to provide for herself then suddenly she had so many mouths to feed it was almost a fictional story. She was on welfare before so imagine her life now. Anyway, I totally understand why the main character tries to escape through her day dreams. Anytime that I wanted to escape I would read, but she can’t and resorts to her powerful imagination. It is amazing how humans cope with such frustrating and impossible situations. In the words of Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I actually have never seen this movie straight through, and I really loved it. It was much stupider than I thought, but I really liked that. Usually I can't stand movies that make me feel like I am losing brain cells, but it was more classically planned and written than most of the modern movies like that. It might also just be that I sort of grew up with watching clips of this film, so I knew sort of what to expect. There were so many parts though that were so stupid that I had to face-palm or look away. Like, "What? What the hell? Is this really happening?" Yes, yes it was, To be honest, I don't think I even would have been able to come up with something as funny as that. Yeah, I am hilarious, but that is on the spot comedic genius. I wonder if any of this movie was left to improvising... It sure seemed like it in some spots, just based on how they were talking. This is making me think of the show "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" where the actors improvise all of the lines in different skits. You never know where all of that will go, and that is the exciting part of it all. Anyway, the movie was really good, but made me lose about three IQ points. What if writing these movies made you gain IQ points from all of the people that lose them due to your movie? That could get a bit intense...