The Jacket- Buddy Powers

I can’t believe I had never heard of the movie The Jacket. That was a great film. I thought it was a very interesting aspect to the film was how the main character Jack Starks, played by Adrian Brody, traveled back in time. It was very un-Hollywood with no flux-compassiter or shocks of lightening sending him back in time, but a “medical” procedure that was essentially a torture technique sent him through time. I also appreciated how his mental state effected whether or not he would travel. He had to be relaxed in an extremely uncomfortable context (clothed in a straight jacket and locked in a morgue drawer). There is certainly important symbology to this context. The jacket symbolizes the limitation of his time in the future, he ends up being able to control his time there to some extent but this is mostly him just becoming aware of exactly how long he was allowed there. The morgue drawer was interesting because it obviously takes on the connotation of death. Jack entering the drawer as a living being goes against the purpose of the morgue, which is to house dead bodies. His entrance into the drawer each night and then out again symbolizes his journey from the world of linear time to a world outside of time that maybe only the dead are supposed to see. Maybe the dead are to be taunted by what will happen in their absence, but Jack has the chance to leave the drawer each morning alive and do something about what he sees

Thin Red Line- Buddy Powers

The landscape in Thin Red Line played such an important role in the movie. The short opening scene with the alligator slowly coming into view and then fading away provided a wonderful symbol of the films prevailing theme of lurking doom. The quote from the Japanese after Pearl Harbor comes to mind, “we have awakened a sleeping giant.” In this case it was shown through a stealthy and deadly crocodile. At the same time the film is more directly about the fear or death looming over every person. The main character, Private Witt, begins hiding from the war amongst natives on a tropical south pacific island, fearing death. Once he is captured and forced to return to battle, he embraces death and plays a key role in the battle of Guantanamo. “What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself? The land contend with the sea? Is there an avenging power in nature? Not one power, but two?” This quote was made by Private Witt towards the end of the movie and another good one is, “This great evil. Where does it come from? How'd it steal into the world? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us? Robbing us of life and light. Mockin' us with the sight of what we might've known. Does our ruin benefit the earth? Does it help the grass to grow, the sun to shine? Is this darkness in you, too? Have you passed to this night?” Witt is exploring in the depths of himself, within a beautiful tropical landscape this is marred by gruesome war, is there purpose? What he is getting at is whether or not he should fear death. At the end of the movie Witt on a mission upstream to locate the enemy, sacrifices himself for the men with him because he has conquered his fear of death. The closing scene is of Witt swimming in beautiful south Pacific waters with native children, symbolizing that he had attained immortality.

Apocalypse Now- Buddy Powers

Apocalypse Now is a brilliant commentary on the depravity of man kind. As the main character Captain Willard, played by Martin Sheen, heads deeper into the jungle he watches organized humanity erode away into animalism. Willard’s boat and crew get air lifted to a beach inhabited by Viet Kong so they can begin that journey up river, but also because the surf there is supposed to be phenomenal. One of Willard’s crew is a pro surfer from California whom Lieutenant Colonel, played by Robert Duvall, forces to surf the beach while the helicopters take siege on it. This was a perfect example of the deterioration of humanity. Chaos propels the scene. As the Lieutenant Colonel commands the surprise attack on the Vietnamese destroying their camp, he also joyfully barks out orders to his men surfing the waves amongst exploding shells the send pillars of water up around them. Later in the film the men come upon this USO theater right on the edge of the river and decide to restock their boat and stick around for the show. The appearance of the structure, blaring bright metal amidst a great unending darkness of forest and river, symbolizes the battle between humanity and animalism. The show that evening is full of half naked dancing girls that pour out of an Army helicopter, in front of bleachers packed with male soldiers. Not after too long the men loose their composure and start rushing the stage. As the playmates escape to the helicopter, men grab onto the land gear and onto each other in a string of hopeless soldiers who miss their beloved humanity.

Leandra Jacobson 4/22

The Watchmen graphic novel brings a completely different understanding to the film. At the end of every chapter are magnificent quotes by people like Bob Dylan and Albert Einstein. There’s an entire section of the story left out in the film concerning the pirates, a sub story coming out of a comic book a boy is reading in the novel about the events happening to a shipwrecked pirate. I have not completed the novel yet, but so far there have been a lot of fantastic congruencies with the film that further explain the perplexities of the plot.
The capture of Rawshark is juxtaposed with the pirate’s battle with the shark, an intense and animalistic attack on his fractured raft. The shark brutally attacks the raft, and is quickly stabbed by a “splinter of mast that had snapped off in my hand.” The pirate stabs the shark, a large and fierce great white. It is seemingly impossible how this beast is defeated by such a small man and simple instrument, as its shocking how easily Rawshark is tricked into the trap. Rawshark is arrested, a brutal fight against the police and eventually submerged, shortly following the pirate’s tale. The moment of realization is very powerful in the pirate’s tale, he says the sharks “stained marble eye looked up at me, and in that instant we knew each other.” The beast is staring him in the eye, and the hunter staring at his kill. The connection is passed between them; the hunted knows he will die. The feeling in that moment is powerfully portrayed with the addition of the frames of pictures illustrating the story.

Leandra Jacobson 4/15

Jurgen Moltmann is the author of "The Theology of Hope," a Christian work with existential philosophies relative to Kierkegaard. Moltmann supports that humans can in fact change and have free will in their actions. The world can change and there are not universal truths that cross all boarders and time. This active participation in life gives the idea of hope to the people and their future. This is a biblical promise of hope given; the promises made by God are fulfilled only to better the world for change like Jesus Christ and his resurrection on the cross. Things are constantly moving into “new constellations” of thought, never caught in a historical retrogression of circumscription and repetition. By moving into different forms, there is no cause and effect in the world. There is a constant hope for simply change, possibly always trying to improve and reach perfection because humans are imperfect and will never attain the sublime perfection of God. Humans can change, and whether they do or choose not it is in itself an act of free will as well. Moltmann sees this as only becoming known through a power of God, and taking a responsibility for your own life.

Leandra Jacobson 4/14

I enjoyed the rip on communication and media in the film, The Watchmen. In the end of the film, one of the characters asks something along the line of, “What is that, another detonator for a world ending device?” The man responds something like, “sort of,” and turns on a wall of televisions showing the same presidential broadcast. As a communications major I have studied in every class the power of media manipulation. This media broadcast, blaming John for the catastrophic explosion in the city, reached every person of the public who has access to the television. The medium of television is by far the most powerful, quick, and influential one present in America currently. Politicians can manipulate it to affect them positively or negatively as seen with Nixon in the film.
In reality, this was seen recently with President Obama’s infomercial the evening before the election. This 30 minute show was on every major network and completely unprecedented, an extremely effective campaign tactic. The support from the media shown in this act could be a reinforcement of how the support from the media can influence the outcome of the election. The public is easily manipulated by the media in that they assume it is a credible resource, which is not a safe assumption to operate voting standards from under. It unfortunately is the main medium of communication so citizens must be active political participants, in contradiction to the trend of passive involvement. This was a greatly significant societal message made in just a few lines in the film.

Leandra Jacobson 4/9/09

I would like to expand on my idea from Big Fish of becoming angry with God. Let me recap my idea: when your imagined or projected ideal of the world falls short, “blame must be assigned.” By blaming God for these faults, you are assuming that God is imperfect when if fact it is humanity that is the imperfection.

This reminds me of an old joke I heard once. I will try and recap/make up most of it as best as possible from memory. A boat shipwrecks in the middle of the ocean leaving one survivor floating on remnants of the boat. He is thirsty and starving, feeling death slowly creeping in. A dolphin swims up and says, “I’ll take you to safety, jump on my back!” But the man refuses and says, “No, God will save me.” A sailboat approaches some time later and reaches out their hand to him. He shakes his head and says, “No, God will save me.” Then, as he’s near death, a cruise line throws him a rescue raft filled with water and food and pleas with him to take it. He again says, “No, God will save me.” He dies and transcends to heaven, standing at the pearly gates. God approaches and the man says, “God! Why didn’t you save me?” God says to the man, “I tried! I sent you a dolphin, a sailboat, a cruise line…”

Sorry, bad joke. But the point to recapping that was that we are all subjects to our free will and the choices we make active participants in our destiny. Blame is not to be assigned to anyone outside our selves for the path we choose, especially a being such as God.