On Companion Pieces

In which reading is required before we can begin


Earlier this week my friend, Sarah Street, wrote a blog post about the movies she was looking forward to watching this year. I had considered writing a similar post of my own, but decided against it. Then when I read hers I thought it would be fun to write a response to her choices here instead of in her comments. So the first thing that you need to do is go and read her post. She will introduce the movies and give her thoughts, both of which you will need to know to fully enjoy this post¹. Check it out here.


Dr. Seuss's The Lorax (March 2)



Zac Efron is never a selling point, ever. The best thing he ever did was a bit part in Firefly and even then he was a little obnoxious. Also, when I watch this and hear Danny DeVito's voice all I can think of is Frank Reynolds on It's Always Sunny.


2 - The Hunger Games (March 23)



I've got huge hopes for Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss (if you doubt me go rent Winters Bone). I'm still curious as to how this movie will deal with the subject matter, because as Sarah mentioned it is gruesome. Hopefully they strike a good balance between the need to show violence, as it is integral to the plot, without it being remorseless and gratuitous. Also, Sarah, Peeta is 16, that's gross.


1 - The Avengers (May 4)



Ironically, I thought that Tom Hiddleston's Loki was one of the best parts of Thor, so I'm psyched that he is coming back. Also, I can't imagine a director more well suited than Joss Whedon to get a great performance out of an ensemble cast. It's hard to imagine all of these characters on screen at the same time, it will be awesome.


Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1)



How can we make the story of Snow White more hip? Let's combine the Huntsman character with Aragorn (1:07). And throw in some Braveheart war scenes (0:15). Creepy, naked milk bath (0:39)? Why not. Last but not least, lets add some dragons (1:05) and trolls (1:27). Success! Also, this is totally shallow of me, but I'm sorry Charlize Theron is way more attractive than Kristen Stewert. That mirror is crazy.


3 - Prometheus (June 8)



Magneto, Ed Exley and effing Stringer Bell² all in the same movie? Yes, please. Also, during production they modeled all of the sets after sets in the original Alien so it shouldn't have the Star Wars prequel effect³. From what I've read most people are very excited for this.


The Amazing Spider-Man (July 3)



I don't know how I feel about this movie yet. I think (hope) that Andrew Garfield will be good as Peter Parker and I totally trust Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey. But do we really need to reboot this franchise already? At least be creative about it like X-Men: First Class. I kind of wish Sony had the stones to let Donald Glover play Spider-man.


The Dark Knight Rises (July 20)



If the trend continues people are going to freak-the-geek out about this movie and I will walk away thinking that it was alright, but that it felt bloated due to Christopher Nolans desire to cram as many story lines into a movie as he can. Also, he will totally waste great characters⁴. On the plus side this should be the last movie with gravelly voiced Batman.


9 - The Bourne Legacy (August 3)

A bunch of us are watching/re-watching all the Bourne movies (we've watched the first two so far) and it's made me remember how much I enjoyed them. I really like Jeremy Renner as an actor, but the supporting cast is what has me really excited: Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Albert Finney, and Oscar Isaac, it should be a good one.


6- Skyfall (November 9)

Like Sarah, I am a sucker for a Bond movie. The addition of Javier Bardem is just the icing on the cake (Sam Mendes directing doesn't hurt either). I am a little concerned they are adding the character Q back in, hopefully he is not as cheesy as he was in earlier Bonds.


The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II (November 16)

Barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, barf, sparkly guy, barf, barf, barf. The only good thing about this movie is that it is the last one.


Lincoln (December TBA)

I'm pretty excited for this flick. Stephen Spielberg directs (not Soderberg, you blew it Mrs. Street), and Sarah was right about Joseph Gordon-Levitt being awesome. Plus, freaking Daniel Day-Lewis, c'mon, look at that picture. It's like Lincoln came back from the dead for a relaxing lunch. Color me excited⁵.


Les Miserables (December 7)

Despite Les Miserables being one of the best musicals I've ever seen this movie has not been on my radar. However, Wolverine and Catwoman in it, what could be better? I too am interested in seeing Russel Crowe sing. PS sorry about the picture, I couldn't find any pictures of the film, I don't remember there being a scene in Les Mis  where Jean Valjean wears a pineapple shirt and plays the maracas, but I may be mistaken about that.


5 - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (December 14)



So I'm re-reading The Hobbit currently, it's funny that almost everything that I remember from the story happens in the first third of the book. Which means everything I remembered from the book will happen in this movie (it's a two parter, one this year one next). Also, if you enjoyed the original trilogy this trailer was made to make you remember that fact.


The Great Gatsby (December 25)

I enjoy movies despite Leonado DiCaprio, not because of him. I also don't like Tobey Maguire very much at all. So it's safe to say I'm not really looking forward to this movie. I do like Carey Mulligan though, she's got a cuteness to her for sure.

The Rest of the Story

10 - Moonrise Kingdom (May 25)

Wes Anderson ramps his "Wes Andersonness" up to eleven⁶ in this new film about two kids who fall in love and run away from home causing the entire town to mobilize to find them. You can check out the trailer here. While the trailer makes this movie look extremely over the top I am pretty excited due to some of the casting. In addition to some Wes Anderson regulars we'll get to see Ed Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel and Bruce Willis play in Anderson playground, it should be fun.

8 - Argo (September 14)

Ben Affleck is a decent actor, but he is a great director, and he is back behind the camera for his third movie, Argo. The movie, based on a true story, takes place during the 1979 Iran hostage conflict and is about the CIA attempting to free hostages by convincing the Iranian government that they are all a part of the film crew of a Sci-Fi movie. No trailer yet, but Affleck has earned enough credit with me that I am excited already.

4 - Looper (September 28)

Director Rian Johnson, whose other works include Brick⁷ and Brothers Bloom, has style out the wazoo. He tends to couple that with great characters and fantastic stories. So when I heard that his next movie would be dealing with time travel and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis it immediately jumped to the top of my "want to see" list. Details of the plot are being kept intentionally vague, but here is what we know:

"Looper is a time travel movie, set in a near future where time travel doesn’t exist but will be invented in a few decades. It’s pretty dark in tone, much different from Bloom, and involves a group of killers (called Loopers) who work for a crime syndicate in the future. Their bosses send their targets hogtied and blindfolded back in time to the Loopers, and their job is to simply shoot them in the head and dispose of the body. So the target vanishes from the future and the Loopers dispose of a corpse that doesn’t technically exist, a very clean system. Complications set in from there."


7 - Gravity (November 12)


Children of Men is one of my favorite movies and its director Alfonso Cuarón is returning to the Sci-fi genre with Gravity. I'll be honest, I was more excited for this film before Sandra Bullock was cast, especially since it is a small cast movie (Bullock and George Clooney will primarily be the only ones on screen) but the combination of Clooney and Cuarón is enough to overcome my distaste for Bullock. The synopsis makes it sound intense, Tim Felton will probably hate it, but he is a big wuss:

"Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky [George Clooney] in command of his last flight before retiring. But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone–tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness."


Like Sarah I am excited for many of the movies this year, just not all the same ones she is.
___________________________________________________________
¹ And really, if you aren't going to fully experience something, why experience it at all?
² Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, and Idra Elba respectively.
³ In the original trilogy all of the ships and computers looked old and boxy, in the prequels everything was smooth and modern, which makes it look like the galaxy regressed technologically. Just one of the MANY problems in those movies.
⁴ See: Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins and Two Face in The Dark Knight.
⁵ Which begs the question: What color best represents "excited"?
⁶ "Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?"
⁷ Seriously, go watch this movie. Right. Now. It's on Netflix Instant View.

On a Somewhat Preposterous Solution to a Serious Problem

In which a problem is addressed, money is counted, and little people.

I don't know if you heard but we, as a country, are in a bit of a financial tight spot.  As a result school districts across the country are in pretty rough shape.  Many schools are facing massive cutbacks of services, materials, and teachers.  Teachers are being notified that they are going to be losing their jobs; some places are taking more...drastic measures.

Things here in Indiana are pretty terrible as well.  Schools are expected to make huge cutbacks.  Various ideas that I have heard considered include cutting back sports teams, eliminating busing, canceling summer school, not paying janitors through the summer, and, of course, firing teachers.  Mitch Daniels, our esteemed governor¹, suggested teachers forgo raises (which isn't a bad idea).  However, he followed up talking about cutbacks with a terrible quote, "Anyone who complains about that should be immediately asked, 'Which tax do you want to increase?' We have used all of the reserves that the state had."  Well Mr. Daniels just off the top of my head I would suggest: property, liquor, cigarette/tobacco, and/or sales.  You could also create a tax on soda.  Or how about we don't spend millions on I-69² and invest that in schools instead.  Just a thought.

Rather ironically, or sadly that would also be an appropriate adverb, Forbes.com released their list of billionaires.  I was intrigued by the list and decided to dig a little deeper in to it.  Here are some statistics:

• There are over 400 billionaires in the world today.
• Of that 294 live in the United States.
• The richest man in the world is from Mexico, he beat out Bill Gates by half a billion dollars.
• Various members of the Walton family³ took up 5 or 6 spots on the list.
• IU alum Mark Cuban was on the list, his favorite way to pass the time in Bloomington is to come to Husband&Wife shows and hit on the wives⁴.

Here is the most ridiculous statistic of the day.  When added up the US billionaires have a total net worth of 1,093.2 billion dollars.

That is over one trillion dollars. Or:

$1,093,200,000,000.00

That number is unfathomable to me.  I can't really wrap my head around it. That is how much these chill buds and dude chicks are worth.  And yes I did just call the richest people in America chill buds and dude chicks.  So what does this absurd number have to do with a collapsing educational system?  Simply put, I'm going to solve the problem.

I am proposing that these 294 people each give 1% of their net worth to schools across the country.  I think that money should be pooled and given, in equal chunks, to all of the school districts across the county.  According to my research (a combination of Google and Wikipedia) I discovered that there are approximately 16,000 school districts in the country.  If we take one percent of that huge number above and divide it equally amongst the districts it comes out to $683,250 each.  That is a large number, and while it may not fix all the problems it will certainly save some jobs.

Now I realize that we live in a capitalist society which means people are free to make as much money as they want and spend it on what they want.  I am not saying we should force these people to give this money, but I am suggesting that we create a way for them to help out.  And why should they help?  Because schools are our future.  We can have the best roads, the largest armies and can dump dollar after dollar at greedy investment firms that can't manage their money but if we don't have well educated students it is meaningless.  Not only should these individuals consider giving but businesses should as well.  They need to stop thinking only of a quick return on an investment and instead look at what a long term investment in the education of future employees could mean.  A healthy educational system is paramount our society, it is the most important issue that we are facing as a nation, and unfortunately it seems to fall by the way side all too often.

Okay, let's be honest here.  Just throwing money at problems is not a long term solution.  And this problem has a seemingly unending number of issues.  From broad issues like greed and ego, to specific problems like suburban sprawl.  I could go on and on.  But here is the biggest problem, as I see it.  If you ever hear a politician or a school administrator, or a teacher, or a community member talk about the educational system you will hear them all say the same thing.  "The students come first."

But when was the last time that was actually the case?  The students NEVER come first.  If the students came first I wouldn't be writing this post right now. I would be telling you about juggling baby geese⁵ or something like that.  The problems facing the educational system, especially the lack of money, wouldn't exist.  People wouldn't stand for closing schools, offering fewer opportunities at schools, overcrowded classrooms.  Parent's would get off their asses and be involved in their students lives, unions would allow ineffective teacher to be let go instead of younger excited teachers, and administrators would take some hard looks at the high salaries they receive.

So until we change this fundamental problem we need to get some billionaires to help out.  So pass the word along to all your mega-rich friends.  Let them know that if they give 1% of their worth so will I, what an offer!

And if they look at you like you are a crazy person, which is likely, and think that it is a terrible use for their money here is what you say.  Just tell them that it is a better option then starting a 'dwarf theme park'(you may need to double click that link) like a mega-rich guy in China did⁶.  Those people do some weird things⁷.

So that post got a lot more serious than I though it would.  Maybe I should stick to geese juggling.
____________________________________________________
¹ I have many problems with Daniels, but that is neither here nor there.
² This road is such a waste of money, and will put many small southern Indiana towns in jeopardy.
³ As in relatives of Sam Walton of Walmart fame.
⁴ Cuban drunkenly stumbled into XRAfest last year and flirted it up with Carrie.
⁵ Goslings.
⁶ There you go Zim, sorry I didn't do more with it.
⁷ In addition to 'dwarf zoos' they also created a rocket system to attempt to change weather patterns.  Plus there is the fact that there are so many billionaires in a communist country.