film: What Dreams May Come

Jerman's Rating: 4 steps forward, 0 steps back. I'm seeing more and more 0s, which I though didn't exist, if you think I'm wrong, watch the movie and tell me something bad it teaches. Defcon 3 (Moderate) for being really sad, and seeing some im-pleasantries. Lots of people are going to be able to watch this movie, but the people that would appreciate it most, and grasp what its saying are post high school folks, when marriage and love are much more important.

I have to start out saying that I really really loved this film. It excellence is only exceeded by the number of people that aren't going to like it. Its not a conformist Hollywood film, its a little avant-garde, it has a unique style, and its simply beautiful.

Its a love story, now my favorite among them, but it isn't a chick flick. There is a lot of sadness throughout the film, but a special kind of love defeats it all.

Some of the beautiful things in the movie include: Its depiction of heaven "there is room here for everyone to have their own personal universe." The depiction of what makes Hell hell and why people go there.

The casting is done great, everyone's role is perfect. The visuals, the cinematography and the special effects were amazing, all that has to be tied to costuming and production design. It was hard to separate each job, they worked together so well. The story telling deserves credit too, there were tons and tons of flashbacks, it was sort of non-linear and had gaps not and then but this story couldn't have been told better. As far as how well this film was done technically, its among the best I've ever seen. Lord of the Rings was made practically perfect (as far as film making finesse goes), and What Dreams May Come is right up there with it.

This movie references another, this is something I frequently forget to mention, but I like to because it sheds a lot of light on the film we're watching. Hamlet, during his "to be or not to be" monologue, talks about the workings of death. He wonders if its all over when you die, nothing afterward. Then he wonders if death is but a sleep wherein you dream, he likes that better. This is where the title comes from "What dreams may come" in the sleep of death.
I really would recommend this movie for everyone, whether they would like it or not. The things it teaches about love and family should be understood by everyone. How we live our life here affects our life later on, it doesn't matter what you believe in after death, how we live now affects us later. However, if you are into somewhat artistic films, then I can't encourage you enough to watch this one.

Re-thinking some things

Sorry, still no movies, I haven't actually watched that many recently. Maybe I'll do Spiderman 3 if I'm able to go and see it this weekend.

I went swimming this weekend and got a really terrible cramp in my calf, that didn't ever go away, so I sat on some chairs and watched all the kids swimming around. I watched this kid really close to me swim laps, he was probably 10, so why he was swimming laps is beyond me, but he was, and he had terrible form, it wasn't a very good crawl, and it wasn't fast either. I watched some kids try and climb up this rope thing that is there. Some of them could do it, some of them couldn't. They were doing it really inefficiently too. If their goal was to get to the top (which I'm assuming it was) they could change their technique a little bit and they would do much better. I watched a few other people and noticed that they could do a lot more if they changed how they were doing what they were doing.

All of this caused me to think about a lot of things.

I've taken one swimming class in my entire life, so I by no means know very much, but a professional did teach us and showed us correct form, and I know from personal experience that its a lot better. That kid in the lane closest to me, the one with terrible form, would he have liked to know a better way to do it? Would he have cared? If he has his own way of doing things, then who am I to show him my way of doing things? Whats to say that my way is better than his way?

I had the same questions for the kids trying to climb the rope thing. Sometimes I feel like I'm teaching Jerman principles and not teaching the absolute and universally correct principles. That sentence came out weird. I feel sometimes like I'm putting too much of myself in what I teach to other people. There isn't any reason why my ways are better than anybody else's ways.

I'm also on my way of being a teacher. The kids in my classes are all going to already have ideas about how the world works, but there is a lot of things they just don't know, and don't know they don't know it. Like climbing the rope, they don't know how to do it, and I'm going to both tell them about the rope, and how to climb it.

Then there are still those people that know about the rope, have their own way of climbing it, and are doing a bad job of it. Would the world be a better place if all the robe climbers did it well? I think that's the wrong question to be asking.

Semester recap

Nothing made me feel quite so honored as when Liz Rhodes asked me to the Utah Symphony with her.

Nothing made me feel quite so loved as when members of my major heart attacked my door with get-well hearts on Valentines day.

Nothing made me feel quite so relieved as a discussion one Friday afternoon.

I've never been so tired as after a week of editing all-nighters.

I've never felt quite so unjustified as the experience with my towed car.

I've never felt so high as when things started to turn around.

I've never felt quite so dead as when I was sick.

I've never felt quite so alive.

I'm sorry, I know I haven't made a real post in a long long time. but life is kind of crazy right now with filming, finals, and everything else. In that order. As soon as finals are over, I'll make a point to watch a movie and rate it for you. I have one request right now, I'll get it done as soon as I can.

New Toy, or rather toyS

It took almost the entire semester, but I finally caved into getting The Adobe Creative Suite 2.

It comes with Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, ImageReady, Acrobat, and a bunch of other peripheral Adobe programs, Dreamweaver also came in the package.

It gets better.

Within a month or two it upgrades free to CS3 of everything, includes Photoshop extended, and it also comes with Flash. I got it through the BYU Bookstore, it was very inexpensive, saving me thousands and thousands of dollars. I don't need to say it, but I'll say it anyway. I'm excited about having my new toys.

Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a night.
Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
-webbkid

2 hours of your time?

In one of my teaching classes we are learning about assessment and creating rubrics. I asked my professor for some help in perfecting the rubric that I use to rate movies for this site. He understood everything with only looking at it for a minute or two and saw how it could be used, this is a good sign. We talked about the rubric for a few minutes, I explained how I want it less dependent on me, more mathematical, and less subjective. Each film is getting graded a few times: good teachings, bad teachings, content, and age level.

The way I rate movies is by writing down a list of all the good and bad things it teaches, or make a list of cool people and what they do and disliked characters and what they do. Then I look at that list the same time as the rubric and then give it the rating.

My professor then told me that I need to have some other people use my rubric to see how robust it is. If many people watch a movie and give the same rating then the rubric is a good one, if not, then I have some things to change or clarify.

I need some volunteers. I need a few people that can use my system and rate the same movie and then we all compare notes. Come find me or email me and we'll choose a film and a time once we get enough people.

On a side note: I'm also collecting movie quotes, If you'd like to help then write down the good quotes from the next movie you watch (exact wording is sorta important) and email them to me, this is going to be a big post (a reader participation post), which is going to get updated a whole stinking lot.