The Wichita school board spent $37,500 this week on a license to allow copyrighted movies from certain studios to be shown in district school buildings, approving the item without debate Monday as part of the consent agenda. Maybe the decision will end up saving the district time and money, as officials have said, because otherwise the district is expected to pay $75 per viewing for a copyright license. But many parents and taxpayers would ask a question, especially with the district looking for budget cuts: If it costs too much to show movies in class, why not stop showing them, or at least encourage teachers to cut back? Obviously, there are classes and events in which movies can be educational, related to literature, social studies and foreign languages. But movie viewing in school also risks turning into baby-sitting, and a waste of precious time for instruction.
Why is it good that Navy Capt. Owen Honors was relieved of his duties for making raunchy videos, and why is the movie “The King’s Speech” such a hit with audiences? “The questions are united by a theme,” wrote columnist Peggy Noonan. “It is that no one knows how to act anymore, and people miss people who knew how to act.” She noted how Honors acted as if “it was important to him to be seen as one of the guys, with regular standards, like everyone else.” In contrast, the story of King George VI overcoming his debilitating stuttering problem to lead England is “about someone being a grown-up, someone doing his job, someone assuming responsibility,” Noonan wrote. “It is about a time when someone was taking on the mantle of leadership, someone was sacrificing his comfort for his country.”
“It’s really become this Rorschach test for your personal interests and anxieties,” author Rebecca Keegan said about the variety of groups taking offense with the movie “Avatar.” The New York Times reported that the movie, which is setting box-office records and won the Golden Globe award for best picture, “has been criticized by social and political conservatives who bristle at its depictions of religion and the use of military force, feminists who feel that the male avatar bodies are stronger and more muscular than their female counterparts, anti-smoking advocates who object to a character who lights up cigarettes, not to mention fans of Soviet-era Russian science fiction, the Chinese and the Vatican.” The Chinese think the movie is “a parable for Chinese people whose dwellings have been forcibly razed by local governments to make way for new construction.”
A word to parents thinking about taking younger kids to see the latest “Batman” blockbuster, “The Dark Knight”: Don’t.
This isn’t campy comic book fare. It’s the most serious, scary and adult big-screen treatment yet of superhero material. Heath Ledger’s Joker is a sick, twisted, sadistic killer who makes Jack Nicholson’s Joker look like Ronald McDonald.
As this blog points out, many reviewers are urging caution: The movie is “potentially terrifying for children,” writes Jeffrey Weiss of the Dallas Morning News. “The PG-13 rating should offer some warning, yes. But this film dances just south of an R in my book.”
My 14-year-old son and I really liked the movie. But it’s pretty dark stuff.
Of the five movies nominated for best picture Oscars, I very much liked the two I’ve seen: “No Country for Old Men†and “Atonement.â€
“No Country,†the Coen brothers’ faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s gritty, bleak novel, also garnered a well-deserved best supporting actor nomination for Javier Bardem (in photo), who plays one of the most chilling psychopathic villains ever to hit the big screen. (The coin-flip scene with the gas station attendant is a classic.) Even his haircut is creepy.
I was surprised that “Into the Wild†didn’t get more attention. I expected a best director nomination for Sean Penn, whose direction was poised, skillful, even inspired.
At any rate, it’s good to see the terrific actor Hal Holbrook, age 82, get his first Oscar nomination for his supporting role in “Into the Wild.†Hope he wins, but I also thought Casey Affleck’s supporting performance in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford†was Oscar-worthy.
And I can’t wait to see Daniel Day-Lewis as the oil tycoon in “There Will Be Blood,†in a performance many are calling awe-inspiring. (But couldn’t they have picked a better title?)
All in all, not a bad year for movies.
Also, sad to hear about the death of actor Heath Ledger, who earned a best actor nomination in 2005 for “Brokeback Mountain.â€
Attendance at movie theaters was flat in 2007, after a slight increase in 2006 and three sharp years of decline before that, the New York Times reported. A big reason I don’t go that often is that there isn’t much playing locally that I want to see. I even have trouble finding anything at Blockbuster that I want to rent. Most of the highest grossing movies last year were sequels that are running out of gas — “Spider-Man,†“Shrek,†“Pirates of the Caribbean.†Big-name stars couldn’t save many movies, and most of the Iraq-related movies flopped.
The old adage that any publicity is good publicity apparently is holding true for Kazakhstan, a Wall Street Journal editorial noted. The country is cashing in on the movie “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” in which Sacha Baron Cohen pretends to be a Kazakh TV reporter. In the past, the Kazakh government has protested Borat’s bigoted caricature and has threatened lawsuits. But the movie has resulted in a number of favorable newspaper commentaries and TV reports about how the country really isn’t backward and, in fact, is a nice place to visit. As a result, Hotels.com has seen a 300 percent spike in searches for accommodations in the country, the Journal reported.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Now that the infamous Phelps family of Topeka is starring in a movie, can a reality TV show be far behind?
According to a story in the Topeka Capital-Journal, members of the Westboro Baptist Church had a festive time screening the documentary “Fall From Grace,” which examines the church’s virulent crusade against all things gay. It was made by KU film student Ryan Jones.
About 30 church members, arrayed in their trademark GodHatesFags.com T-shirts, alternately cheered, sang and hurled invective at the screen — not unlike a “Rocky Horror” audience, except for the costumes.
Church spokeswoman Shirley Phelps-Roper later gave the film what amounted to two thumbs-up: “Anytime we get the word out there that we are a doomed country, it’s a good thing.”
(UPDATE: KU filmmaker Ryan Jones called to make the point that his film is an unbiased look at the controversy engendered by the Phelps family, and is in no way intended as a sympathetic portrayal of their actions.)
Posted by Dave Knadler
So much for Mel Gibson being the Hollywood darling of the religious right. “The Passion of the Christ” director first went on his notorious drunken, anti-Semitic rant. Now he has compared the Mayan civilization depicted in his new movie to the United States, which he suggested was in decline. “What’s human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?” he asked.
Conservative radio talk show host Michael Medved responded: “If these anti-war comments are the beginning of an ill-considered, organized campaign to get back into the good graces of the Hollywood establishment that gave him the Oscar for ‘Braveheart,’ so he can show he’s not different from them and march arm-in-arm with Sean Penn and Susan Sarandon, there will be a great deal of disgust from the people who have enjoyed Mel’s movies in the past.”
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
The Wichita school board spent $37,500 this week on a license to allow copyrighted movies from certain studios to be shown in district school buildings, approving the item without debate Monday as part of the consent agenda. Maybe the decision will end up saving the district time and money, as officials have said, because otherwise the district is expected to pay $75 per viewing for a copyright license. But many parents and taxpayers would ask a question, especially with the district looking for budget cuts: If it costs too much to show movies in class, why not stop showing them, or at least encourage teachers to cut back? Obviously, there are classes and events in which movies can be educational, related to literature, social studies and foreign languages. But movie viewing in school also risks turning into baby-sitting, and a waste of precious time for instruction.
