Can Art Be A Movie?

There are many classes that talk about the history of Art and the history behind the brush strokes. I personally love Art and its history and there are plenty of movies that show Art and its creation. For Example, in Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio's character is an artist but they also discuss many paintings by Van Gogh.

There are great movies that revolve strictly around painters and the way they work. A perfect example is Girl with a Pearl Earring . This movie tells the story of Johannes Vermeer a very famous Dutch painter who painted his most famous painting of the same name. This movies shows the way Vermeer painted and the way he used dummies to paint his paintings but for his painting Girl with a Pearl Earring he used a model. This movie talks about the girl who became the face of one of the most famous paintings in history. I recommend this to anyone even if you are not studying art. It shows a time and a place that people today are not familiar with and the way the world worked then. The acting is great, the costumes are superb, and the story is fascinating.

The next movie that I think really does a great job talking about art is Mona Lisa Smile . This tells the story of an Art History professor who is teaching women about art and the meaning behind it. I love this movie because it is about women finding themselves but also learning about some of the greatest art in history.

What can a Sports Movie Do For You?

I love sports films. I think they are great ways for people to see other people grow and be better at a challenging sport. My AP History professor showed me Miracle in class and I feel in love. I think it is a wonderful way to inspire people. Maybe I am far fetched but I truely believe that these sports movies Inspire people or at least I think that is what they are meant to do. More great films are Remember the Titans, Friday Night Lights, Jerry Maguire, Radio, and A League of Their Own.

Recently a film came out called Moneyball. This film is a great film. Brad Pitt did a great job showing the world of Baseball to those who might not understand what really goes on in the MLB. This movie centers around the Oakland Athletic's, a team that most people on the East Coast do not really know about but it shows the struggles of a team that has a small budget compared to a team that has an exorbitant amount of money. The movie compares the Yankee's to the Athletic's, money wise.

Yankee's (120 million) to Athletic's (40 million)

I think that is a little unfare when it comes to scouting and getting players that make up a good roster. This movie is sentimental, uplifting, and sad. It is rare to get a movie like this and show the inner workings of a league that has been around for a hundred years. I recomend this movie to everyone. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill knock it out of the ball park, literally.

Why Movies are Great

Going to the movies used to be one of the most popular places to go as a teenager but sadly this is rarely true anymore. For me, on the other hand, it is true. I love the movies. Movies are in fact a happy place. In college there are classes that are solely dedicated to watching movies. I happen to enjoy these classes because it opens my mind to movies I had never heard of. It expands my knowledge of a certain genre or even an event that has taken place in history. I took a class called, "Dark places of the mind." this class revolved around watching movies about psychopaths or people who were put in mental institutions. Movies like Psycho, or Girl Interrupted. Now I am taking a class called "History of Film: the Crime Film." This class will show movies about the mob or police films like the Godfather or Gangs of New York. Movies take people to a place they have never dreamed of or had them experience something that was completely foreign to them.

Some Educators believe that movies will do nothing for a student whose mind is always growing. They think that it is a waste of time and will accomplish nothing. In my opinion this is crap.

I studied abroad last year in England. I took many hard classes that really challenged me. We had to go to a lecture with our professor an then every other week have a tutorial with the same professor. My hardest class was Psychology. I could never wrap my mind around this subject and I struggled with understanding concepts but for our tutorials our professor would assign a movie for you to watch. These movies commented about certain situations that we had discussed in lecture. These movies really helped me understand what was going on in this class. I saw a German film called "The Wave" where a teacher creates a dictatorship out of a classroom and how pressure from peers could drive people to either join the dictatorship or stand against it and be ostracized. It helped me understand the social pressures that people faced.

If you take an English class and you are assigned a novel, most likely this novel has been turned into a movie and if a student is having a hard time reading it, the student should watch the movie version. In my experience reading Shakespeare is very hard on students but thankfully most of his plays have been made into movies and therefor easily accessible to a student struggling with the Elizabethan language.

Movies provide a way in. They can take you to a magical land or into a psychopaths worst nightmare or even back in time to a world we have only read about and never really seen. I don't care what people say about movies, for me they are a way for me to learn and grow. I will never stop seeing knew or old films. I think everyone should experience the something they are maybe not familiar with like a sci-fi movie or maybe into a romantic novel. Movies like "Milk" or Frost/Nixon" shows the youth what was going on before they were born. Movies are a great way to experience knew world, emotions, and realities. Hopefully you will be able to experience and enjoy movies as much as I do.

Science in Movies!

I thought I would start with a subject that most people would say “there isn’t an appropriate movie that you can watch in that class.” So I decided to start with Science. This maybe a broad subject but it is a lot easier to narrow down movies that fit into this category than specifying the science like organic chemistry. When I talk about subjects I am going to be more broad because there are some subjects that are very hard to narrow down. So Science, when you think of Science you don’t think of a specific movie. In fact there are a couple movies that talk about genes and the way the body works.
My first example is Lorenzo’s Oil. This movie stars Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon. This movie is about a boy who “develops a disease so rare that nobody is working on a cure, so his father decides to learn all about it and tackle the problem himself” (IMDB). Now this movie is a very emotional movie and a true story. Lorenzo is diagnosed with ALD, a brain disorder. This movie goes in detail the steps to take to stop a disease like this and the many attempts the family makes to stop the disease. Eventually the family comes up with a type of oil that does help prevent the diseased cells from spreading.
This movie is a fun way for students to be entertained but also learn something about a diseases and the way they can affect people’s lives. I personally love this movie and think because of a movie that was made like this there have been more steps taken to better understand ALD and how to stop it from happening.
The next movie that I thought I would discuss that also involves Science is Gattaca. This movie stars Uma Therman, Ethan Hawke, and Jude Law. This movie is about “a genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel.” This movie takes place in the future where doctors can tell you whether or not a child will live based on their genes. Ethan Hawke’s character only wants to be able to fulfill his dream and he takes on Jude Law’s genes so that he can travel to space. This movie is another way for students to learn about genes and DNA and what might happen in the future about doctors being able to genetically change fetuses.
I love this movie. It is a very different story line that some people are not used to but this movie helped me understand better about genetics and that people’s bodies and DNA can grow and change. People believed that because of Hawke’s inferiority he would not be able to go into space but his body and DNA was not weak but in fact strong and defied expectations.
There are plenty of other movies that are about science and show amazing stories of people wanting something and being able to pursue their passion. October Sky is about a high school student who becomes an amateur Rocket Builder. Stories inspire students, fiction or non-fiction. I may not have become a scientist or a doctor but without these movies I would not have learned or understood as much about genetics and DNA if I hadn’t watched it.

Introduction

Through out my school years Movies have played a large part of my educational experience. Yes movies are not true adaptations are not true to history but they can and do provide a way into what might have happened during medieval times, roman times, and revolutionary times. I am here to prove that the movies are not just a waste of time in the classroom but actually a teachers closest friend to help students get a better idea of their subject matter. I will also go in depth into different subjects where you think a movie would not traditionally fit. Stay tuned and find out how wonderful movies truly are in an Educational Setting! Movies got me through school and really have made me want to learn more about the movie, about the people involved, or the troubles they had faced.