Film Blog Post #3 (To Kill A Mocking Bird)

I love black and white movies, I always have. So when this movie was first put on, I knew that I would like it. (Total side note, but if you've never seen The Uninvited, you really should. Very old, very good.) Something big I noticed in the movie right from the start, was how gender roles were extremely prevalent in the film. Take Scout for example; she clearly had short hair and dressed in boys clothes because she did not have her mother around as an influence, so she took to her father and her brother. BUT, Scout can dress however she damn well pleases, because that is her decision to make. And it was SUCH a big deal when she wore a dress for her first day of school, because that was the "norm". Rude af if you ask me. And the way she was treated, by her brother and their friend, also rude af. They tried to get her to leave sometimes because "she's a girl" and "she's too scared". That's a load of bullshit. The likes and levels of fear and tolerance are not determined by what you have under your skit nor in your pants.
Aside from the annoyance I felt surrounding that, this movie was great. It played devils advocate, having a white man willingly and wholeheartedly defending a black man for an awful (and untrue) accusation. Having everyone watching the movie, if they were the jury, believing that man to be innocent, but he is then guilty as charged, simply because of the pigmentation of his skin. Shits wild and unjust, but it has happened before, and to be quite honest it still happens today, as screwed up as that is. But this movie was so good, with a few stories going on that all managed to intertwine together, I loved it. Totally recommend it for anyone.
Side note (that is actually related): I have never read the book To Kill A Mocking Bird, but I sure as hell believe it's a good one after seeing this movie. I wonder how accurate the movie to book ratio is.

Film Blog Post #2 (Precious)

Okay, so to be entirely honest, I definitely thought that I wouldn't like the movie Precious. I figured it out (before watching of course) to be this movie about self pity and mutilation, bullying and all those other cruel things in life. Although it was technically about that stuff, that is not what the movie was. This movie was a story, a story of hardship and struggle with self worth and the views of others. This movie was about abuse, sexual and mental, and the results that come with them. Precious faced way too many difficulties for such a young girl, and basically everything that happened to her were forces that she could not control without support. She had no support, until she decided to make a change and go to a school that was focused on her success, not just the words in a text book.
This movie involved her journey into understanding how to achieve goals in ones life, and to turn ones disadvantages into advantages. Precious learned how to read and write, how to express herself, and create her own reality, rather than just the scenarios she created in her head when the people who were supposed to support and guide her tore her down. Precious was a revolutionary movie, a revealing movie, and I don't think that it could have been projected any better. And I'd like to give Gabourey Sidibe hella props for playing this role so exceptionally. She gave it her all and conveyed the messages like no other could.