Blog Ten. Brokeback Mountain. “This thing grabs hold of us, wrong place, wrong time, we’re dead.”

I have to include as well these 2 other lines of dialogue from different parts of the movie:

        Ennis: “We can get together every once in a while out in the middle of  nowhere.”

           •

        Jack: “The truth is sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it.”

As we often request, when you answer the questions, try to draw on specifics from the movie. 

1. What scene stands out for you and why?

2.  First of all, how would you describe the two characters, Ennis (Ledger) and Jack (Gyllenhaal)? Write a couple of sentences for each telling how you see them as people.

3. What causes them to have made compromises in their lives?   What are the benefits of these?  What are the costs?

4.  How has this movie affected your thinking about homosexuality?

Blog Nine. Restreppo. "We're going to war."

1.  What scene or moment stands out to you, and why do you think that is?

2.  You all have grown up during the two longest wars in American history. After you turn 17, you could enlist and become a soldier.  What do you think of soldiers?

3.  We don’t know these men very well yet, but what is your impression of them?  Can you think of some specifics to help anchor your thoughts? 

Blog Eight. Creed. "I'm Not A Mistake."

Here's the end of the fight between Adonis Creed and Ricky Conlan.  Take a look at it.

Creed was both a box office success ($173.6 million) and a critical success.  It doesn't necessarily break any new ground—it's fundamentally a genre film (boxing) that pays attention to all the tropes of the boxing film (the training montage, the relationship between the young fighter and an older trainer/manager, the big fight, the resolution of the fight being left hanging).  If you've seen The Fighter with Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale, if you've seen Million Dollar Baby with Clint Eastwood, Hillary Swank and Morgan Freeman—if you've seen Rocky—you know the plot. Critics have proposed that rather than a sequel to the Rocky films, this is a re-imagining of the original Rocky, an interpretation I agree with.  If anything, this movie assures us that Michael B. Jordan is a major star, Sylvester Stallone is not a one-note washed up action star, and that Tessa Thompson can hold her own with these two talents.

So:

1.  What did you think of the movie?  What scene or moment stayed with you—and why?

2.  What is Adonis—Donnie, Baby Creed, Kid—driven to prove? What's the meaning, the significance, of his telling Rocky that he's "not a mistake"?  How does that reveal his need to fight, his need to not let Rocky call the fight?

3.  What is Rocky's role here?  Adonis calls him "Uncle."  Rocky says he's proud to part of Adonis's family—even though, as Bianca notices, he's white.   In the context of what Adonis is going through, in terms of his struggle(s), how does Rocky fit in—what does he give to young Creed?

4.  What does it mean to you to prove yourself?  Do you feel the need to prove yourself?  Have you ever felt the need?  If so, why and to whom?

Here's a young Michael B. Jordan in The Wire. And here he is in a promotion for Friday Night Lights.  He comes in about a minute-eighteen in it. 

Blog Seven. "It makes me feel alive."

1.  To start with:  Over the last couple of days, and today, we noticed a buzz, an eagerness, to get to Creed.  What was your eagerness all about?  If you were not one of those eager, what is your reaction right now?  Are you captured? If so, by what?

2.  What draws Adonis to boxing? First off we get that it’s his father, but go further based on some of the themes we’ve talked about so far and on what we see in them movie?

3.  Given what Marianne Creed, Apollo’s wife,  says to Adonis, “Do you know how many times I had to wipe his ass? “You want brain damage?” and the hype and excitement around the sport, what do you really think about boxing?

Here's the trailer for the movie.

Blog Six. “Man, can I just have one day where everyone isn't all over my ass?”

Children are typically powerless; they have to adapt to the reality handed to them.   Some of you felt that he is often being criticized, and that might be so.  He is somewhat of an observer, maybe a little dreamy, and so is a little bit at odds with the external world.  He has often had to deal with ways in which he has fallen short, or adults have made life hard for him.  We have also been watching his character develop as a result of everything he faces.  We’ve seen the kid who wanted to believe in magic, the kid who had a bully for a stepfather, the kid who faces bullies in the junior high bathroom, and the kid who is “camping out” with older boys and who is facing their masculine boasts and pressure. 

At the end of today’s viewing, we see Mason chastised by two male figures, the photography teacher and his mom’s boyfriend.  They don’t see him as we see him since we have been watching him grow up, but their lack of this perspective does not necessarily negate what they see and what they say to him. 

1.  We want you to see Mason from two sides. Not a simple good/bad assessment, but more descriptive.  What do we see?  What do they see?

2. On his 15^th birthday, his mother doesn’t get mad at him when he comes home and admits to having been drinking and smoking weed.   She is being lenient.  In some ways, this contrasts with the men above.  What do you think of her leniency, and how might this contribute to Mason’s character?  Don’t speculate.  Stay close to the actual events in the movie. 

3.  Is Mason soft?  Yes or no--& why?

Blog Five. "I'm a warrior without a war."

Blog 5

Fighter pilot.  Marine.  Father.  Husband.  Friend.  We talked about each of these roles today in class.  Some he did well; others he did horribly. 

The general tenor of the class seemed to be one of trying to see him as a good man based on his intentions.  However, there was a countercurrent which held that Bull  Meechum must be held accountable for his actions, no matter his intentions, and when he is held accountable, what the do we make of him then? 

Maybe good or bad is the wrong question.  It’s more complicated than that. 

1.  For those of you who are going easy on him, why do you think you are going easy?  How does your thinking go?

2.  For those of you who are hard on him, why is that?  Expalin your position.

As you answer one of these, take into consideration whether it has to do with your view of what masculinity and what a man is. 

What about love?

He has a wife who loves him, who we see in tender moments with him, and who defends him to her children.  We see Ben who, after grappling with his feelings, says, at the end “I get it now” and “I love you, Dad.”

 What do they love about him? 

We’re assigning the following people to answer #3:

Logan, Will Budie, Will Johnson, Sam, and Evan

3.  What does his wife love about him?  Why do you think she defends him?

other guys answer this one:

4.  What about Ben?  Why does he love his father? 

Blog Four. What is Great about The Great Santini?

Bull Meechum works in the sky where he trains others to shoot down enemy jets.  

On the ground, he is different: boyish and funny, full of practical jokes, contemptuous of authority and rules.  When Bull complains about being passed over for a  promotion, his friend Virgil cautions that he better watch himself.  Even though the commanding officer of the base tells Bull that he is “a disgrace to the Marines,” he also tells him that the flight squadron needs shaping up and that he’s a “fair leader and a crackerjack pilot.”  Bull wants his squadron to imagine that what he says is coming from “the burning bush.”

Rules and authority appear to be important to the family.  Waiting for his return at the airstrip, their mother plans a decorous welcoming, yet when they hear his “stand by for a fighter pilot” and see him, they break ranks and run to hug him.  We assume they love him, and then the next morning, after tenderness in bed with his wife, he wakes everybody up at 3 a.m. to drive to a new home.  In the car he asks the kids, “Has the Great Santini ever let you down?” the kids all scream, “Yes!”  At the new home, he demands excellence from his kids and orders them to make sure that the little town of Beaufort knows that the Meechums have arrived.

In the movie (and novel) the focus is primarily the relationship between Bull and Ben.  There is also the counter-current in the relationship with Ben and his mother.  So far, the main scenes depicting these relatoinships are the basketball game, Ben’s discussion with his mother afterwards, and then the morning of Ben's 18th birthday in which Bull brings his gift, and later that day when he reads his mother's letter.  

What can you say about the relationship between father and son?  Consider the game, the birth story, and the gift.  The mother and son?  About the character of Bull Meecham?