5. Philadelphia
A couple months ago my gym teacher told us that we would be watching Philadelphia in health class. I heard prior to watching it that this movie is, "about some guy with AIDS. Yeah it's sad." But that review doesn't really cut it. I was so transfixed by the pain that the movie demonstrated and the themes it illustrated. First, I learned just how ignorant people were during the 80's about AIDS, and also how everybody did not want to learn either. Tom Hanks played Andrew Beckett, who is really an ingenuous individual and worked hard as a lawyer. It crushed me to see him get fired for his job because of the ignorance of his bosses. This movie was made to depict the fear of AIDS in the 1980s to the best of it's ability, and it really succeeded in it. This movie really shows that ostracizing an individual just because they are different does not benefit everybody. Thank god that nowadays, nobody believes the false accusations of how noisome the disease is, but they are not correct about how it is contracted. Overall Philadelphia is an excellent movie that may actually be the only movie on this list that taught me something.
4. A Civil Action
Last year in Chemistry, we watched this film. Now to think of it, I have not the slightest idea why. It may be because there was about one and a half minutes about how to find evidence using chemistry, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, I liked this movie because it demonstrated how hard it really is to be a lawyer. Before I watched this movie, I thought lawyers just had to pass the BAR test and then audition for a job on Law & Order: SVU. Apparently there is a lot more to that. It starts out as a town that is extremely bereft because of the deaths that have been taking place in the town. The town suspects that it is the terrible water filtering system because some company dumps waste into it. So a huge vendetta takes place between the suffering families and the company about if the water was the cause. John Travolta, the head of a law firm, undergoes a (I think) 30 million dollar investigative plan. The worst part -- they lose the case! The good guys lose, and lose all of their money! And as much as I disagree with the ending, there was an evident and tacit reason it ended that way; to demonstrate how difficult it really is to win a case. Overall there was really no reason to watch this movie unless I was taking some kind of law-firm class, but it's okay because I liked it anyway.
3. The Amistad
One of Jasper's favorite things to do was just to, "kick back and chill." Although I did not learn as much as I would have hoped in Honors U.S. History I, I sure did learn a lot about great movies and girls basketball. And La Amistad, of course. I mean, this is the one thing I remember that actually interested me that entire year. It was a great story where America must find out where a ship named La Amistad had come from, after the slaves had taken the ship over and come to the shore off of the Atlantic. The problem is that the Africans were very jejune when they tried communicating with the Americans because there was no common dialect nor enough evidence to show that these were slaves that were illegally transported. I did get a lot out of this movie, though. In a world where blacks and whites are not supposed to get along or like each other, the lawyer overcomes this stereotype and does everything that he can to give enough evidence that these men are from Africa and exculpate them. Many people at the time thought of these Africans as just lilliputans who were worth nothing, but they showed in the end that they were full of courage and strength and could step up and prove themselves. Overall, probably 3/5 stars. But for a movie that is being shown in school, that is extremely good.
2. Saving Private Ryan
Well I don't know if this one counts; I saw it on a bus on a school field trip. But I really could not leave this movie out, because it is just a special movie (and not to mention Tom Hanks' second appearence on this list). One thing that I remember Mr. Jasper saying is that it is much easier to teach U.S. Hist II than Hist. I because there are more pictures and video to use to explain to the students. Well, this could not serve as a better example. Even the first two minutes showed me that I was not at all as erudite to the subject as I previously assumed. D-Day had always seemed a little blasé to me in the classroom. The film really emphasised the difficulties taht a lot of these men went through during war, and that the war was tough for everybody. The soldiers who went in and saved Private Ryan were really hurculean characters, even risking their lives for this one man. The excitement of it also never made me take my eye off of the screen also. Awesome movie.
1. Office Space
Last, but most certainly not least, Office Space. A lot of people may ask, "How could this be even somewhat related to a school subject?" or, "Are rated R movies even allowed to be played in classes?" Well, I don't know, and I don't care. Office Space is by far the best in-school movie I have ever seen, and still one of my favorite movies to date. In 10th grade, my International Business Firm teacher, Flynn, had a baby and was out for the rest of the year. Fortunately we had a much more sophisticated teacher, Ms. Tacne. Tac was not trying to be a malevolent person by showing us this; she wanted to show us a great movie that involved business (to some extent). The Movie is basically about these three guys who act as sinecures all day, doing nothing but going out and getting coffee and not work. This movie taught me a lot about International Business. First, it taught me that Tacne is the coolest teacher ever (omitting the lovely english teacher who will be grading these blogs in about a month). It also taught me that a cubicle can be an extremely horrible place, full of TPS reports, broken copying machines and Human Resource Directors.
So there you have it. If my principal found out that we watched most of these movies in school he'd probably have to take a soporific item in order to get him asleep at night.
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