Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is well renowned as a beautiful and powerful song, but there is also a movie by the same name, I first heard about it a few years back as part of a final for my persuasive writing class. I put the movie somewhere on my list of movies to see, but clearly I wasn't in a huge hurry to see it. Recently the movie has be brought to my remembrance a few times and I recently borrowed it from a friend. I watched the movie yesterday and it was amazing, a wonderfully made movie about a powerful and captivating story.
The movie chronicals the movement to abolish slavery in England, focusing on the life of William Wilberforce who was one of the most integral people in the movement. Wilberforce was a member of parliament (MP) in the house of commons and he and those who he worked with, worked for years to abolish slavery, despite being shut down time and time again. After watching this movie I wanted to have everyone I knew see this movie. I wasn't conscious of it being Black History Month when I watched this movie but apparently it is and I think it was a good way to commemorate this month. It's also striking to me that as far as I know, this movement to abolish slavery was mostly peaceful, unlike our own civil war, fought largely over issues of slavery.
Wilberforce found religion, so to speak, at a point in his life when his political opportunities were stretching out before him and he was torn as to whether he should serve God or continue in politics, and it was put to him that he could do both by working to make the world a better place. While the rest of us may not have the same opportunities or challenges as William Wilberforce, we have the same opportunity to use what we have to work to make the world a better place.

Tarzan

I really enjoyed the Disney movie Tarzan when it came out several years ago, the characters, animation and music are all wonderful. A few years ago I heard that Disney was making a musical of a few Disney movies including Tarzan; I couldn't really see it going well and didn't think much more about it. A year or two after that I had a roommate who'd seen the show in New York and had the sound track and through listening to it with her I came to enjoy the extra songs that hadn't been in the movie. Recently I've been listening to the soundtrack of the musical and liking it more and more with every listen. This summer I found out that Tarzan would be performed locally and dreamed of going but figured that it wouldn't happen.
I got to go though, I recently saw Tarzan and I loved it; I don't have pictures however because they weren't allowed. I think a lot of the show's success is due to the fact that the music and lyrics are by Phil Collins. The story is modified from the movie but is still quite enjoyable.One of the coolest things of the performance was the flying/vine swinging that Tarzan and the gorillas did. They had multiple zip line type lines on various paths across the stage and over the audience and the actors could go across. My new fantasy dream job is to be a bungee gorilla for Tarzan.
I highly recommend Tarzan.

black and white

Last night I was watching tv and flipping through channels when I came across this performance of South Pacific. I first saw South Pacific in first or second grade; in my elementry school the sixth grade put on a musical every year. I liked South Pacific and so I watched the movie and I liked that as well. It's been a long time since I saw South Pacific and last night I found myself understanding much more than I did as a kid. One of the important themes of South Pacific is about racism and how wrong it is. The musical came out when segregation was a part of life in the United States, the setting was World War II when segregation was a part of life and when hundreds of Japanese Americans were put into internment camps to make sure that they wouldn't join forces with the Japanese. When I was little I couldn't understand why Nellie the Nurse couldn't marry Emile and why Joe Cable couldn't marry Liat, I didn't really know or understand about segregation and racial prejudice; as I grew older I learned about these things, I'm very glad for the ways the world has changed since the musical was made. I wonder how much South Pacific might have influenced that change. I don't know much about Rodgers and Hammerstein but it can't have been easy to get such a musical made in that time period. One song in the musical more than any other brings home the message of how wrong racial prejudice and segregation were and are. You've Got to be Taught. This isn't the whole song but I think it gives enough of the message.

My own international cinema

I'm excited, I have two of my favorite foriegn films from the library: Life is Beautiful/Vita e Bella and Dear Frankie. Life is Beautiful is an Italian movie and Dear Frankie is from the United Kingdom. I love both these movies, however I wasn't introduced to either one by International Cinema. Besides my excitment over these two movies I'm excited because I realized that there's a section at the library where they have foriegn films set aside. This was sort of a 'duh' revelation because the movies are in the same spot they have been for at least a year and I have not discovered this until now, never the less I hope to start up my own version of International Cinema. I am a little daunted in the fact that a good deal of Italian movies are rated R, as well as movies from other contries. If you have any recomendations I'd love to hear them!

Dear International Cinema,
I miss you.

International Cinema is something they've been doing at BYU for years, I've probably talked about it before but they play foreign films ever week during the fall and winter semesters, there's usually 3 movies each week to choose from. The best parts about International Cinema are that the movies are edited to BYU standards and that it's free.
I went sporadically during my time at BYU although one semester I went just about every week. It's very interesting to get a glimpse of different cultures through their movies, or maybe just to see how movies differ in different parts of the world. I've found that happy, conclusive endings are not something that always happens...I've also found that I prefer happy, conclusive endings. I saw movies at International Cinema that I never would have seen otherwise, either because I wouldn't have heard of them or wouldn't have wanted to watch some of the things they would contain unedited. I've seen movies from Japan, Italy, Germany, England, some volitial Middle Eastern country which I don't remember at present....
One semester they showed some American movies and the foriegn films that they'd been based off of.
If you're ever in Provo you should check out what's playing at International Cinema.