Every Wednesday afternoon this semester, my roommate and I head to the movie theatre. It is a great way to break up the school week, to spend some time together, and apparently, it is also a great way for me to prepare for my Multi-Modal centered career. I, as I have stated to my Multi-Modal class through my Multi genre Autobiography, am very eclectic when it comes to watching movies. I love to watch just about everything. So my roommate and I went to see movies that range from Underworld: Rise of the Lycans to He's Just Not That Into You to Slumdog Millionaire. And this week, we decided to go see The Watchmen.
Now, I am not really a person who reads comic books/graphic novels. I don't have anything against them, it is just something that I never really got into, but I think that they can be a valuable tool in a classroom for getting students interested in reading. I also think that by getting students interested in how literature such as graphic novels can be transformed into cartoons and movies they can better understand the importance of written literature as a medium. So when I heard that yet another movie was being made from a comic book/graphic novel, in my mind I was imagining a film along the lines of the X-Men/United/Last Stand, Spiderman/2/3, Fantastic Four/Rise of the Silver Surfer, etc. Needless to say, this movie was nothing like I expected. I am not suggesting that The Watchmen is a horrible movie or that no one should see it (because quite frankly I am still trying to decide if I like it or not), but I do think that it might be important to say that if you are a parent, big brother/sister, babysitter, etc. who has let a child go see any of the X-Men or Spiderman movies, The Watchmen is one I think you should seriously consider letting the kids skip. I do not believe in censorship or telling people what is right and wrong, but as a future educator if I tried to show this film to a high school class I would most likely loose my job. Okay, I am now getting off my soapbox...
Since movies seems to be the topic of the day, in Multi-Modal, we are reading from William V. Costanzo's Great Films and How to Teach Them. For one of my class assignments I have to watch and review one of the thirteen movies featured in Costanzo's text. These titles include: Casablanca, North by Northwest, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, The Godfather, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, Glory, Mississippi Masala, Schindler's List, The Shawshank Redemption, Run Lola Run, The Matrix, Bend it Like Beckham, and Whale Rider. After reading this list myself, I was confronted with just how much time I spend watching movies: I personally own 9 of the 13 titles! (Meaning this text will be a great asset to my future classroom!) What interested me most was how Costanzo included the classics such as Casablanca and One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest with more popular and modern titles such as The Matrix and Bend it Like Beckham. I think this text really explores a lot of ways for teachers to get students to understand fundamental parts of film and film making, as well as giving them a well-rounded introduction to types of films.
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I am a movie person as well, and I had the same problem when looking at the movie list. I have seen entirely too many movies, but I love them and will continue to see more! I am excited about the Costanzo text as well because I own most of the movies and will definitely utilize the text in my future classroom. Movies I especially enjoy and hope to use are Schindler's List, To Kill a Mockingbird, Romeo and Juliet, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and possibly the Matrix. Now, about The Watchmen, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can understand how if you went in thinking it was going to be similar to Spiderman or Batman, it was definitely too graphic, but I went in knowing it wasn't. I thought it was very intriguing and definitely a different take on the whole comic book hero. I want to see it again, but a friend told me I need to read the graphic novel first, so I'm getting on that. Overall, film is definitely a great part of the classroom and I will, without a doubt, use it in my future classroom!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you about the Costanzo text. I think that it incorporates movies from a lot of genres that could be used in many different lesson plans. Before I read his book, I just saw movies as supplements to the texts that students read in class. Now, I see that movies can be studied on their own, compared to texts, and much more. I look forward to studying films in my future classroom because I am such a huge movie buff as well!
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