Go Play: Resourcing, Exploring, Upgrading

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Go Play: Resourcing, Exploring, Upgrading

The last time I wrote about gaming, I wasn’t really playing anything anymore. Since then I decided to spend some more time with games again, because it was an itch that needed some scratching. I had been playing many games in the past (something I will get back to eventually), but because of my luxury problem of being interested in too many things, gaming was relegated to the back seat. Until now. Anyway, since I’m always so critical of anything, I still enjoy watching blockbuster movies and playing video games. I’m always aware of the issues hidden there, though, and I thought today I try to explore some them in more detail here.

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3 Months of Movies (IV)

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3 Months of Movies (IV)

Another three months are up and so it’s time again for reflecting up the movies I watched in this time period. The good news is that this time I actually found time to watch more movies, which makes me happy, especially since I didn’t watch any movie during the holidays for two weeks. Still, my ambition to watch any movie in existence tells me I could have done better! There is always room for more movies. (check the Film List for all movies of those months, from American Graffiti to Gamer)

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 3: Grades

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 3: Grades

 

This is a big one. Grades are both so essential and problematic in this system that it’s hard to know where to start. Everything I wrote already is based on grades in one way or another and some of the other aspects are too. Would we rate anything we watch, read and play, if we weren’t used to grades through school? Aren’t grades systemic for this culture that always defines who is best, who is on top, who is in the upper class, who has the highest number of anything? What better way to instill this thinking in children than through school?

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Haywire (2011)

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Haywire (2011)

Haywire is an excellent action movie with an okay plot that falters a bit in the last 15 minutes. But it’s hard to care too much about the story, which doesn’t matter in the end because you enjoy the great actors playing interesting characters and most of all the excellent fight and action scenes that are really impressive and well done. Seriously, those fight scenes alone are worth watching the movie. They look real, happen in interesting locations and have some surprises. And Gina Carano owns all of them. I read some reviews claiming that the movie only exists to show off Carano’s fighting skills and though that makes it sound like a movie I’d normally not be interested in, I totally fell for it here. Most of this wouldn’t matter, if the movie wasn’t directed by Steven Soderbergh because his skills are visible in every scene. It is not a movie he will be remembered for, but he is such a talented director and every scene shows that. I really like the underdog nature of this film and it reminded me a lot of The Limey, Soderbergh ‘s great movie with Terence Stamp that is similar in spirit (and has the same screenwriter). Anyway, it’s a very entertaining movie and if nothing else you get some great actors enjoying themselves (like Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum, Bill Paxton, Michael Douglas and Antonio Banderas who are all excellent).

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You Belong on the Radio - Indie Edition

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You Belong on the Radio - Indie Edition

This should be called You Don’t Belong on the Radio.

It’s time for songs again, but I wanted to shake things up a little again and not just complain about the terrible mainstream, but take a look what you find outside it. This definition is fishy since “indie music” is not as not-mainstream as it used to be, but still, music that not necessarily only strives to make money and get into the charts is often very different. Almost needless to say, this is mostly the  kind of music I’m listening to. One thing you’ll notice is that the lyrics often are much less clear to interpret. As a resource I used the site CampusCharts, which always has a good mix of new indie songs that people can vote on. The charts are from the week 16 of 2015.

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Real Steel (2011)

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Real Steel (2011)

Real Steel is a movie you don’t think you want to see and which surprises you insofar as it isn’t completely stupid and somewhat entertaining. But it is still a movie about robot fights, so the good will only goes so far. Nevertheless, Hugh Jackman is always entertaining (I think) despite some overly manhood mannerisms and the effects are pretty good too. The plot is mostly free of surprises while the characters are written well enough for the most part. Danny Elfman’s score is terrible, tough, which is a shame. It’s also very much too long. This is no masterpiece by any chance, but it’s entertaining to some degree.

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 2: Class Tests, Tests and Exams

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 2: Class Tests, Tests and Exams

Teachers always have an ace up their sleeves, the ultimate threat to make students shut up and pay attention. “You know we write a class test soon, so maybe you should listen, if you don’t want to fail!” It often works, even the worst students at least pretend to listen now because they know they ought to. Sometimes “good” students remind others of the impending class tests, to get them to their senses, unable to understand how you can’t take it more seriously. The more effective tactic is to just threaten with a surprise test to keep everyone in check. If that makes teaching sound like training dogs not to bite, then that’s what some teachers make it sound like. And class tests and tests, written examinations in general, are the standard methods of authority in school, accepted and expected.

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This 40s Movie: Out of the Past (1947)

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This 40s Movie: Out of the Past (1947)

Out of the Past is considered to be a classic film noir, which doesn’t mean that much to me since I’m not a particular fan of this genre. It has been used for so long that it is hard to do anything new with it, but you can’t expect that from a movie from 1947 of course. You can expect the basic tropes of this genre, stereotypes and sometimes a surprise, if you’re lucky. Out of the Past doesn’t have that many surprises, but it’s a nice enough movie anyway. While the plot becomes rather convoluted in the second half, the movie is never really boring, well acted and has some nice directorial touches by Jacques Tourneur. But it’s also nothing special, really, one of those old movies that are fine to watch, but probably not too memorable in the long run.

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88 Minutes (2007)

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88 Minutes (2007)

(spoilers and some NSFW images)

88 Minutes is a terrible movie, even more terrible for using an interesting concept and not only ruining it, but not really using it at all. If a movie tries to attempt being real-time, it should at least tell the audience that and not fill the movie with scenes of car drives. I mean, screw all of that, the movie is not real-time, it’s just a very stupid, very boring and very cheap thriller that makes no sense whatsoever and baffles you in all of its (accordingly more than 88) minutes. The acting is horrible, even Al Pacino sleepwalks through it as the protagonist. The directing is as amateurish as possible, the script is laughable, so the movie fails on every level. What works is that it makes you laugh unintentionally, like when Al Pacino pays a taxi driver to give him his taxi, but lets the driver sit in the back all the time or when during a dialogue scene the poster of a local improv troupe is featured prominently. As a bad movie, it’s somewhat recommendable because it’s really a different kind of bad and it wastes its actors (poor Deborah Kara Unger, having one of the most pointless roles I have ever seen) spectacularly.

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 1: Homework

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10 Basic Principles of Our School System, Part 1: Homework

I decided to start a meta-series about school. After discussing the principles of our school system with a class again (something I do on a regular basis), I thought that it would be interesting to look at everything that we consider basic aspects of this system and discuss what doesn’t work about it and why. “Wait,” you say, “does that mean you’re trying to dismantle the school system from the ground up?” Well, yes, in a way, but I also want to look at those aspects and see what could work or how you could change it. But still, I do believe our school system is one of the biggest problems in our society, shaping young people in a way that makes them accept many absurdities and lies that keeps our culture alive and destructive. So any suggested change is relative to my overall disregard of this system. Note also by the way, that when I say “our school system” I mainly talk about the German school system as I know it. I know there are other systems or simply other schools (which is one way I was inspired to write this), but I’m sure much of it also resonates elsewhere. So, here you go, the 10 basic principles of our school system as I see it (in no particular order):

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The State of Things

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Sorry for the little hiatus (the longest ever). Theme weeks seem to both really inspire and then drain me afterwards. Coupled with a lot of stress in school, I just couldn’t get down to writing anything. I think I might have needed a little break, too. Things should be back to normal soon, though. I have some ideas for the future and will be happy to start posting regularly again.

Northwest Passage (1940) [1940 Week]

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Northwest Passage (1940) [1940 Week]

Northwest Passage is a better film than North West Mounted Police, but that doesn’t really mean that much. What makes it better is that it is filmed better, there are some spectacular scenes, the acting is better and the colors don’t blind you. When it comes to the depiction of Native Americans this might be even worse. At least it shows the extinction of Native Americans as detailed and gruesome as possible, while not taking any moral stance against it and actually justifying it most of the time. This is essentially a war movie, but instead of soldiers killing other soldiers in WWI or WWII, we have rangers taking out Native Americans. While they walk through swamps and forests, there is almost an impossible Vietnam vibe to all of it. It sort of works as a war movie adventure, in depicting the struggles the soldiers have to get through (the action scene in the river is kind of cool), the way they plan their mission and the difficulty of getting back home. In that sense it is almost enjoyable, if you ignore any ethical alarms setting of at watching the glorification of war and genocide.

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North West Mounted Police (1940) [1940 Week]

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North West Mounted Police (1940) [1940 Week]

North West Mounted Police is a bad movie in many ways. It is a Cecil B. DeMille spectacle, which is what he was determined to do, but in this case the very concept of a spectacle for this story seems misguided. Using a rebellion of a minority group against the American government as a background is not a good idea, especially if it turns the rebels into caricatures and uses it to paint the North West Mounted Police, a group of horse-riding Canadian policemen, as heroes. Add in some intercultural romance, betrayal, honor and many stereotypes about natives and women and you get an overlong piece of pseudo-propaganda with overly bright colors and strange acting. It is a movie that has very problematic ethical standards and is not well-made. This is not a movie that needs to be remembered.

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Comics Are for Everyone: 1940 Edition - Spanking During War Times [1940 Week]

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Comics Are for Everyone: 1940 Edition - Spanking During War Times [1940 Week]

(Coincidentally, this is the 200th post on this blog! Yes, go and count, it's true. Hooray!)

Comics in 1940 were very different than they are now. If you know anything about comics history you know that publishers back then didn’t really care about artists or writers, let alone royalties. Stories were cobbled together with no time and not much care. That the mess of the origin of many famous characters is the basis for what we still read and watch today is somewhat amazing. If you actually look at those comics, you see no great art in most cases and certainly no stories that are well-written. I decided to take a look at some #1s that came out during that year and focus on the most interesting, funny, weird or problematic panels.

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The Great Dictator (1940) [1940 Week]

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The Great Dictator (1940) [1940 Week]

The Great Dictator is a true classic in theory, a movie many people know and that seems to be relevant even today after Charlie Hebdo and The Interview and any satire that focuses on dictators. But I wonder how many people actually know the movie and like it as a movie as opposed to a concept. The movie ranks very high on the IMDb user ranking and after seeing it, I am surprised by that. It is not a bad movie at all and some scenes are really good, but overall I found it to feel forced, uneven and, worst of all, not very funny. I know, sacrilege!, but I watched the movie with the most open mind and was constantly stunned how jokes fell flat and how little payoff there often was. Often the satire is not really sharp and rather relies on slapstick, but, I think, even then slapstick that is mediocre. The editing is off in many, many scenes, hurting the movie’s pace. The acting was great throughout, though. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I was disappointed. Sure, if you account the time and circumstances, maybe you can’t really expect more, but the question is if the movie should be judged simply on its intentions or on its actual quality.

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Poster of a Girl - 1940 Edition: You May Kiss the Doll Now [1940 Week]

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Poster of a Girl - 1940 Edition: You May Kiss the Doll Now [1940 Week]

There’s no theme week without posters. Luckily, there aren’t so many posters to find from 1940 (at least not as easy as with more recent years), so the list is much shorter this time. Interestingly, the designs are much more sparse and simple than in later years. So, there is not quite as much to analyze as usual, but still enough, so here we go.

 

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Waterloo Bridge (1940) [1940 Week]

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Waterloo Bridge (1940) [1940 Week]

(spoilers ahead, but you don't care, right, it's a 1940 movie)

Waterloo Bridge is an odd film to judge. On the surface I liked it. The acting was quite good, the dialogue is well written and the direction by Mervyn LeRoy is good. It is an entertaining movie, apart from its plot development and moral, especially concerning women. I have rarely seen such a strange mixture of serviceable filmmaking and questionable ethics. Interestingly, for a movie made in 1940, it is set mostly during World War I but also includes Britain declaring war on Germany in World War II, clearly appealing to audience’s emotions at the time. Anyway, there are worse old movies you could watch and this one at least offers the opportunity for interesting post-watching discussions.

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For Whom 1940 Tolls [1940 Week]

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For Whom 1940 Tolls [1940 Week]

It’s 1940 week! Can you tell I’m excited? I am always looking forward to theme weeks in general because they provide a clear structure for me and they force me (well, by my wish) to post seven posts a week. Which is much easier when you can follow a clear guideline or a theme to build around. I’d do more theme weeks, if there were more popular. Anyway, on top of all of that this is finally an “old” theme week, something not just beyond what I actually experienced (everything back to the 80s) or even beyond what I know a lot about (the 60s and 70s). I don’t know much about this year or even decade, which makes this all the more interesting and exciting to me. Let’s get to it, shall we? (as they said in 1940, I guess).

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Opportunists Don't Knock

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Opportunists Don't Knock

In my 8th grade I’m doing something I normally don’t do: I do what everyone does. Which, in this case, means reading Wilhelm Tell by Schiller, the standard drama 8th graders have to get through. I’m not a fan of Schiller (or Goethe) and had in fact never read the play at all, so in a way it was an experiment for me and I never shy away from an experiment. Also I thought, this being basically a play about a rebel fighting an oppressive government, there must be something in it for me and therefore also for the students. Up to now I would say it sort of works. The language is tough for everyone (including me), but there are interesting aspects to discuss, from resistance to superheroes.

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