Grant’s Blog

Movies are undoubtably useful as an educational tool. Because movies are arguably the most accessible form of media for youth kids, movies teach and shape young minds every day. And so, if movies have educational value, using music and well-crafted cinematography, they will teach most effectively. Historical accuracy is unimportant to the overall meaning, because general themes and motifs convey the overall experience.

Warning: spoilers below.

So, never before have I seen a love movie worth my time. A love movie that was real, that hit home, and that me, as a man, could say I really appreciated and learned from. This movie, (500) Days of Summer was a true jewel. I was a little skeptical when my female friend said that this movie was incredible and that we needed to go see it I was expecting an annoying and overrated chick flick delivering the standard message that love conquers all and that you will find the one you love no matter the circumstance. Well this movie blew me away. Using clever cinematography in tandem with a beautiful message that sometimes life throws unexpected turns at us, and that love isnt as predictable as we might think. It begins telling us that that the movie isn’t a love story, and through the progression of the 500 days we see that destiny might not work when we expect it to: summer breaks up with her boyfriend unexpectedly. However, during the 500th day, after summer has married someone else, he meets autumn, ironically. Love works in mysterious ways, as we learn in this witty, well planned, clever, and informative movie.

Myspace. Facebook. Twitter. Instant access to every thought and everything, in a way that has never before been seen in history. Now I can know if jillian left to go get coffee at 9:57 and is now back at 10:30 and is going to sleep. Social Networking sites, the new cultural norm for america, and the world, have bound us all together, yet have simultaneously put a grand distance between us. While we can communicate almost instantly with others on facebook, it also puts an eerie distance between people than makes me question the future of American society.
Things like facebook have provided great avenues for communication, which the majority of teenagers love immensely. With one simple wallpost, sent as a text message to one’s phone, people can always be in contact. By looking at pictures and videos, one can do a whole background check on somebody they just met on there computer. Personally, I love having that amount of insite on a person without going through the trouble of getting to know them. Facebook, myspace, and Twitter are simply glimpes inside of peoples lives open to anybody who says yes to a friend grquest.

However, simultaneously social networking sites are not only a little too invasive, but the shockingly put more distance in between people. All of us have heard about myspace meet ups gone wrong, and people getting a little too much attention from the stranger they met online. Although that danger is much more tangible, there are dangers that are far less present, but far more real. Social networking has inspired distance between people. People would rather send a text message than drive to a friends house and say hello. We are becoming a society based on non-personal interactions instead of visits. My advice: take a break once a week, and go to the park.

Amandla is a movie about how music in the struggle for south african apartheid was able to unite south africans to band to gether and dismantle this unequal society. Soembody in the movie said a profound quote: “struggle gave birth to music.” Music is a form of expression unrivaled by any other. It can express the deepest sorrows or the highest highs in ways that simple speaking cannot do. It also averts one’s heart away from violence, a poor form of emotional expression. These black africans, struggling to dismantle a society which dictates that their existance was made to be substandard, sing to express the intangible. It makes the country stop and listen and calls the world in one powerful voice to action. Clearly, it was successful. Music in south africa became a universal language for all to see. Simple melodic tones transformed into forces so much more powerful than any gun or any weapon white south africans used to attempt to crush their spirits. Although broken, the hearts of many were soothed by music. Souls battered and fragmented united as one and dismantled something powerful.

However, the use of music in social activist campaigns is not new; music has been used since the beginning of human history to express overwhealming emotions. Since slave times, slaves sang to heal their spirits in the face of overwhealming oppression. Through slave song, people were able to gather, fight, and conquer in the face of gargantuan odds. Music is an effective tool because it is universal. It has the power to become something more than just notes strung together. It is a language that can encourage the soul to seek love over hate, peace over violence, and brotherhood over separation. Music can teach us all a thing or too, if we listen.

The Matrix is a movie about a computer generated world in which humans are now trapped, because Artificial Intelligence is now the prominant life form on earth; in order to survive, these robots use human beings as an omnipresent source of energy. To ensure human subservience, they entrap all of them into a virtual world called The Matrix, a computer reality simulating the late 1990s, although in the movie the year is close to 2199 The characters are in search for “The One”-a human that can exert mass amount of control in the matrix-and believe they have found him in Neo. Through the movie, they seek to provide truth to everybody in the matrix and bring Neo to maturity. By the end of the movie, it was clear: Neo is the one. Able to easily stop bullets and even fly, he is a human like no other inside of this virtual world. However, the Matrix truely seems like a grand Metaphor for greater implications of authority and conformation to societal norms. The likelihood that right now, we are trapped in a virtual world is slim; however the likelihood that we are in some way oppressed by a greater societal force is valid. Neo, or formerly Thomas Anderson, began as the oppressed and underappreciated worker, illustrating a greater implication of daily oppression we face in day to day life as part of a greater societal machine. The gray color schemes associated with his corporation, the agents, contrasted with the jet black uniforms of the freedom fighters shows a stark rebellion in the face of an overwhelmingly dull reality. Reality, as the Wachowski Brothers have tactfully shown, is not conformity to the world others set out for us. It is not living as others have instructed us to live. It is the difference between “knowing the path, and walking the path.” It is manifesting your own destiny.

There has been some controversy reguardign Henry Louis Gates jr and his arrest. After arriving home from china after a long trip, he tried to forcefully gain access to his house after he discovered it was jammed.  A lady, thinking he was trying to break in to someone’s house, called the police. When the police arrived, although shown accurate proof that he did indeed live inside of the house, they said gates was acting disorderly so they arrested him. Gates called it a racial issue. Personally, although I do not believe they were blatantly being racist, I do believe some profiling did occur in this case. Racism in our day and age opperates subtly and subconsciously, with preconcieved notions about a race acting as a little voice inside of our heads. In my opinion, profiling certainly occured.

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