Thank You Mrs. Kirk!

Mrs. Kirk, I don't know if you will check this, but thank you anyway for pushing us this year and preparing us for the AP test! There were definitely times when I didn't think I could make it. However, looking back, I know it was good for me, and I know I will be much more prepared for college level lit classes. Thanks for all your hard work this year, and I hope you have a great time back in South Carolina!

And PS: I got a 5!!!

What Dreams May Come

Wow! I could not watch any part of this movie without thinking about worldviews. The movie focused on the afterlife, which made it very easy for the filmwriters to project the cosmic humanist worldview into the movie. There were absolutely tons of examples of this, but the one that stands out to me the most is when Chris is standing with his son (although he didn't know him as his son at the time) in his painted "heaven," and his son tells him that "everything is spiritual - the physical is just an illusion." This was often played out in 'heaven' by Chris being able to be/see wherever or whatever he wanted just by imagining it. The movie also included reincarnation at the end when Chris and Annie when back as children and they met each other for the first time again.

This movie was very disturbing to me, especially the scenes where the hellish creatures capsize their boat on the way to hell. Aside from Christianity, life (and therefore death) would have no meaning whatsoever because God is the context for all meaning in our lives. Aside from this Absolute, I would try to derive as much meaning out of my own life as I could by doing all sorts of crazy things. I would want a worldview like this because it has no boundaries. However, because God gives our lives inherent meaning, I don't need the vile, sinful acts to make me satisfied anymore. I have Jesus.

Camelot

Oh musicals :) They make me laugh.

The movie reflected the Christian view of Justice. King Arthur was the overall judge of his kingdom. He had the power to continue with the medieval tradition of discerning fault and punishment by a sword battle. Instead, King Arthur instituted his court where every issue was presented and the court was fair. Justice prevailed in the end, but also grace was extended to Lancelot and Guinevere. Jesus is the ultimate judge of the world in the Christian worldview, but he also extends grace to us as sinners. In reality, it is only by His grace we are saved.

Planet of the Apes

Well, 2 down in the AP Film Festival. So far Mrs. Kirk, you've picked good movies. I thoroughly enjoyed Planet of the Apes.

The movie was full of Secular Humanist philosophy, mainly focusing on the backdrop of Secular Humanism itself - evolution. In order to address these ideas about evolution, the writer of the book it is based off of turned the world as we know it upside-down with man on the bottom, treated as brute animals, and apes at the top of the evolutionary chain. In fact, the apes evolved from man. This enables the direct expression and criticism of how we "do" science today.

There was religion in the movie, but the gods never had any power. Actually, as we find out in the end of the film, the gods are just a ruse made up by the gorilla leader to prevent the apes from ultimately destroying the world as the humans did a thousand years before. While I'm not labeling the movie as Marxist, but this is one of the Marxist viewpoints - that religion is a institution created by the bourgeois to prevent a proletariat uprising.

There were several slams on Christianity, that I tried to make a mental note of while I was watching the movie, but I have forgotten the specifics. What I can remember, though, is that the movie was claiming that Christians won't look at the scientific evidence for evolution. When the scientist couple uncovers "evidence," the leader dismisses their story, destroys the evidence, and convicts them of heresy.

I definitely enjoyed watching this movie and I found that after the beginning, I wasn't paying attention to the corny graphics, but was completely drawn in to the storyline.

Stranger than Fiction

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Stranger than Fiction with Will Ferrell for the past three days. If I recall correctly, I saw part of the film on an airplane a few years ago. I'd never actually watched the whole thing, though, and so it was a real treat.

The postmodern aspects were very noticable and funny too.
Here were my favorite pomo aspects:

Metafiction: The story was full of metafiction with Harold the character actually communicating with the author, and changing the ending of the story because of it.

Truth/Humanity: There was absolute truth for Harold Crick; it was the author writing his story. Yet it only affected him (maybe the kid on the bicycle and the baker as well), and he was able to change his absolute truth in the end, making it not so absolute. Furthermore, the narrator was not the highest authority. Specifically, she had the publishers pressing her to finish writing the book, but more generally she had fate or chance ruling over her (while she was ruling over Harold). The fate/chance aspect is that Harold is alive, hears the narrator's voice, and eventually seeks her out. Therefore, while it looks like there is some sort of absolute truth, there really is not, and we have little to no control over our future.

Wristwatch: I found it very interesting/entertaining that the main character and the hero of the story were different entirely. The protagonist of the story was Harold Crick, but the hero was the wristwatch. It kept trying to warn Harold or tell him something, and ultimately it gave itself up to save him. The opening line of the movie says something like: "This is a story of a man and his wristwatch." It is given a special emphasis at the beginning, but I just considered it odd. However, the watch turned out to be the pivotal connector and the driving force of the movie's plot.

All in all - great movie.

I have determined to make this my shortest blog yet!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern start out Act 3 contemplating the meaning of life, neither being able to see, yet they still live (reminiscent of the dead man in a box. Rosencrantz brings up the theory "I think, therefore I am." They also play a lot with day and night and they deconstruct the meaning out of the words until night represents the traditional day and day represents the traditional night. (word-killing). I find it interesting that there are even uncertainties in the stage directions. Guildenstern contemplates the conflict between determinism and fate on page 101, and Rosencrantz tries to "make Guil happy" by humoring him with a game he couldn't lose, kind of like thendywamps. Lastly, Guildenstern makes a comment that they "must not lose control" but I wonder if they ever had any control to begin with. They are just characters in Hamlet who have been brought to life in literature. (It is also quite humorous that Alfred emerges from the Player's barrel.)

And the winner is...

I really have no idea where to start. I guess I feel like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who enter the world completely clueless *(yet ignorant of the fact that they are clueless) and try to figure out the meaning of life. In the same way, I was thrust into this game of Thendywamps thinking that I knew what was going on, but in reality I am completely clueless as well. So i'll start at the same place my good literary friends did - with the facts.

Today in Mrs. Kirk's A.P. English class, we played a game. The game involved two dice, THENDYWAMPS, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, two teams identified only by two words on the white board and separated by 10 feet of carpet and desks, 5 stacks of monopoly money, a list of rather ambiguous rules that could be changed by luck or choice, and an absolute judge outside of all rules and logic.

The only reason I know we played this game is because Charis took a picture of the rules on the board. Afterwards, the board was erased, the money was returned, the dice were stowed, and the teams blended together in a scurry to get out of the room. The rules alone prove that we played the game.

But the winner! I'm supposed to decide the winner! Then again who is the winner? You say, "you were about to answer that." But what I mean is, what constitutes the winner? Even aside from this game, what does it mean to win? If it is the team who got the most money, then let the heads team win, but if it is based on how many people on the team have names that start with B, C, or M, then let the tails team win. If it is based on the individual mastery of the concepts rather than the team as a whole, then heads should take the victory. On the other hand, if it was based on who had the most fun, the win should obviously go to Mrs. Kirk (assuming she can take out her fustration on the punching bag she has at home with Blaine and Ben's heads on it - or does it have their tales?)

We must accept the ambiguity and also the fact that as much as we can postulate who wins, only the judge (fate) can decide. Determinism is negligible in the matter as it is impossible to make decisions towards a goal without knowing what the goal is. Both teams inferred that the purpose of the game was to obtain as much money as possible, yet how do we know this is the case? The fact is... we don't. We are completely at the mercy of the envelope and the judge. So who knows who will win?

We might as well just accept the ambiguity as it comes our way. There can be more than one right, and really no wrong - only actions and consequences. Life happens. That's all we know.

The proverbial coin is hidden beneath both hands.


{ i just hope the annoyingness of the teams isn't factored into the decision of who wins :) }