Willie Mears Blog 9, Kpax

K-Pax was a sweet movie. I had seen bits and pieces of hit on television before but never got that roped into it, but when we watched it in class I was hooked. Throughout the entire film I was trying to figure out whether or not he was a crazy smart but also just plain crazy guy, or if he was in fact an alien. I don’t know if it is really debated but my take on it is that he is from K-Pax, and he used that guy’s body as a means to being on Earth. The scene when the water freaked out Prot was especially powerful. Up until then Prot was completely peaceful, didn’t hurt a fly, however the memory of the sprinkler when his family was murdered triggered something inside of him that made him go bezerk. Now he still was not violent, he was trying to protect the little girl, however he reacted in such a harsh way that it scarred the family mightily.
Another powerful element of the film was Prot’s ability to help people in the ward. The film portrayed it as though everyone that society deems as ‘crazy,’ has a very real and very fixable issue going on. The most prevalent example is with inmate Howie, who Prot gave three tests. Each test Howie took very seriously, and he thought they were to get him off of planet Earth when in fact they were to help him grow out of his problem. It painted a positive picture of the clinically insane; society often paints them as crazy people who are dangerous to society, and often are viewed as sub-human. However Prot is able to reach them, he is able to get onto their level and help them with their problems. His approach is not as a superior helping an inferior, which is how I think most people view that kind of relationship, but since he is an inmate just like them they are willing to take what he says seriously, and the fact that they think he is an alien doesn’t hurt either!
Overall it was easily my favorite film of the semester, a very entertaining movie, in English, and color! So what’s not to like?

Shannon Corcoran Blog 2 Source Code

The film Source Code seems like Groundhog Day mixed with The Matrix. The main character Colter finds himself in a chamber one which he is alone. He keeps on going back to the same eight minutes in which a bomb explodes. His job is to find the bomber and the bomb. Each time he goes back he learns something new from the first eight minutes. Even though he is keeps on going back to the present time, he is trapped in profane time. He learns that the eight minutes he is given are sacred time to find the bomber.
The profane time is the same eight minutes on the train. Even though he tries to save other people on the train, he fails each time resulting in his “death” or termination of the eight minutes and the same outcome occurs. The people on the train die. It was not until when he finds out who the bomber is; he wants to try to act as God and save the other people on the train for good. The way he tries to act like a god is to stop the bomb on the train from going off. It became his mission to save the other people on the train.

Whitney Hendricks Reading #1

On Friday April 22, I was reading the DailyPress and came across an article called “Last Supper was not Jesus' last supper, researcher says”. I thought this was really interesting, especially being in the paper on the day Jesus was crucified. In the article a British researcher has concluded that “The Last Supper was probably the next-to-last supper of Jesus' life”. He has been using ancient calendars and astrological data to rethink Holy Week. A scientist explored Exodus and believes that the day Jesus gathered his disciples for the Last Supper was actually on a Wednesday not a Thursday. “The Last Supper was on Wednesday April 1, AD 33 and Jesus was crucified April 3, AD 33”. They exclaim that this resolves an apparent conflict with the Gospel accounts of Jesus' last days alive. There were many more details about all different types of calendars and confusion on when the actual date it. I think it is all really confusing with the many different types of calendars there are. Makes me think, how do they know the world is going to end in 2012, the same thing could have happened with the Mayan calendar that happened with the calender we went by for the Last Supper.

Whitney Hendricks Personal #5 Return to Me

Recently when I was at home my mother and I watched one of our favorite films, Return to Me. This movie is a definite tear jerker! The film open with a husband Bob and his wife Elizabeth going to an important fund raiser for the zoo she works out. Elizabeth works at the zoo as an animal psychologist, working with a specific gorilla for several years. The evening ends with a horrible accident and the loss of his wife. Meanwhile there is a woman named Grace in the hospital dying and in need of a new heart. Bob's wife's heart saved Grace's life. Because of confidentiality and such, Bob did not know where her heart ended up. A year later Grace is adjusting to her new life where she isn't counting her days and actually being able to go out and do things. One day Grace went to the zoo and the gorilla that Elizabeth worked with came out and gave Grace a high five through the glass, something only the gorilla did with Elizabeth. Bob is still trying to adjust to life without his wife, his friends are trying to get him away from working so much and set him up on blind dates. As he was on a blind date he ended up being more attracted to the waitress than his date, there is just a spark. They both still don't know that Grace has Bob's wife’s heart. They end up falling in love, but she did not want him to know that she had heart surgery. One night she was over at his house and discovered the letter she had written to the donor family, she now knew that she had Bob's wife's heart. She quickly grabbed the letter and left, he came after her and after finding out the news he ran away too. She ends up going to Italy to paint but has no inspiration, all she can think about is Bob. He ends up coming to Italy because he couldn't stop thinking about it. We just have to ask, it is Grace he is in love with or is it Elizabeth's heart? A mere coincidence?

Whitney Hendricks Personal #4 Toy Story 3

Like I mentioned in my last blog, I love cartoon movies especially Disney Films. Toy Story 3 is another Disney-Pixar movie that parallels to Christianity. First we can look at the characters and settings as biblical references ; Andy is seen as God, Woody is his prophet, Lots-o is satin, Andy's room is heaven, and the dumpster is hell. We first see Andy has Woody's God in the first movie when he writes his name on Woody's boot, he is the owner and it's proof of Andy's love and commitment to Woody. The ideology of the toys is to be owned and played with. When Andy started to get older he paid less and less attention on his toys. As college soon approached Andy cleaned out his room and put his toys, with the exception of Woody, in a black bag to put in the attic. The toys have doubts about Andy's loyalty to them, with Woody's beliefs based on his faith, he assures them that they are just going to the attic. Some how by accident or change in fate they end up going to the curb. Woody saw the whole thing and knew it was just an accident, the toys feel abandoned and question Andy's faithfulness. The toys end up going to “Sunnyside Daycare” where they meet Lots-o the teddy bear. He explains to them that “no owners means no heartache... we don't need owners; we are our own owners. Masters of our own fate”. This makes Lots-o seem like an atheist. He has the belief of no higher power because he feels angry that his owner abandoned him causing him to become a villain with no remorse and self-preservation. Woody knows what Lots-o is up to so he tries his hardest to get the other toys to regain their faith and Andy so they can go back.

Whitney Hendricks Personal #3 UP

Truthfully I am a sucker for cartoon movies, they are just so amusing and exciting to watch. One of my favorites that has come out in the past couple years is Disney-Pixar's UP. This movie was a lot different than most cartoon movies, the symbolism focused on death and old age. I viewed this movie as a spiritual love story of an old man Carl and his wife Ellie. The film first starts off in the past, showing Charles Muntz with his blimp called the “Spirit of Adventure”. Carl and Ellie first met when they were kids, Carl was walking down the street and heard her voice coming from an abandoned house. He goes inside to find a little girl his age wearing the same goggles and flight helmet he is, just like adventurers. His accidentally lets go of his balloon and falls, causing him to go to the hospital. From then on, Carl and Ellie were inseparable. Ellie always had the dream to go to Paradise Falls in South America, Carl “crossed his heart” that he would take her there. They became soul-mates, got married, and fixed up the abandoned house to make it theirs. After many years of being happily together, Ellie passed away. Carl was devastated, he didn't know what to do with his life now that his true love was gone. When she passed Carl believed that she was still alive in the house and her spirit was still there, the house was a representation of her. Losing his wife caused him to live a very isolated life alone in the house until he was being forced to move into a retirement home. This was not an option for Carl so he decided to carry out Ellie's dream of going to Paradise Falls, attaching balloons to the house and floating away. Balloons were a major symbol in UP, they floated like angles. I saw this situation as the balloons lifting Carl's spirit, getting him out of the sad funk he was in. Soon Carl found out that Russell, a little wilderness explorer was on his porch when he floated away, he was stuck with him on this trip. Russell annoyed him at first but then Carl got used to him and started to appreciate him. After hardship in Paradise Falls, Carl realizes two things: 1. Paradise Falls isn't what he was expecting and hoping for, and 2. Ellie isn't the house, she is in his heart. He doesn't need to be obsessed with the house and all the old artifacts, he can let go and have fun again with still having Ellie close to his heart and in his memories.

Whitney Hendricks Personal #2 Cast Away

The other night while I was going through the guide on TV I saw the film Cast Away staring Tom Hanks was on, I hadn't seen it in a couple years so I decided to go ahead and watch it. I had never realized how much the meaning of life was depicted in this film until I watched it recently. It starts off with Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) being consumed in his busy corporate life working for FedEx. He lived his life by the clock, always being on time and sticking to his plans. Chuck was so consumed within his work that he paid little attention to his girlfriend. He was always traveling for work and ended up having to go on a business trip on Christmas Eve. While flying they hit a bad storm and crashed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Chuck was the only survivor, washed up and deserted on an island. Realizing that there was no one on this island he had to choose between dying or fighting for survival. He cared a lot for his girlfriend, had to do what he could to get out of there. He now had all the time in the world which was something he was not used to. Adapting was also probably the hardest thing for Chuck, he had to figure out how to get the means of survival such as food and shelter. As FedEx boxes started to wash up on shore he used what was in them to help him, such as an iceskate used as a knife to make a sphere for hunting. He didn't open all of the boxes however, there was one with wings on it that he saved and wanted to take it to the woman as soon as he returned home. This box can be viewed has hope, hope that he will make it back home to deliver it. Companionship was another thing he lacked on this island, in one of the boxes he found a volleyball and named it Wilson. The ball had a hand print of Chuck's blood on it that made the appearance of a face, being that there was no one else, Wilson become Chuck's only friend on the island. After four long years on the island Chuck was able to go back home, back to civilization. It was not an easy transition for him, I saw it as he was reborn. When he was back and settled he decided that he was going to return the box with wings that he had been holding on to for all that time. He left it at the house with a note saying “This saved my life”. It's crazy to think that a mere box with no direct connection to him motivated him to survive and live through the hardship of being castaway. At the end they show him at a crossroads, his life back home had completely changed due to everyone thinking that he was dead, so this was a point where he had to choose where to go. We are left with the saying “Tomorrow the sun will rise and you never know what the tide will bring”.