Good Will Hunting

Will Hunting (Matt Damon) is a young twenty year old from South Boston whom has a genius level intelligence and an eidetic memory, but chooses to work as a janitor. Although out of all the janitorial jobs out there he decides to work at one of the most prestigious colleges that is known for their mathematics department, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On Wills free time he spends time getting drunk with his friends Chuckie (Ben Affleck) Morgan and Billy and finishing other students work that's been left on the chalkboard. Till one day when he is caught doing this by one of the schools professors, fields medallists winner Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgard), Will flees from the scene. After an altercation Will puts himself into with a former school mate he is incarserated. Professor Lambeau arranges for Will to study mathematics under his supervision and see a therapist to forgo jail time.

Will is introduced to Sean Maguire (Robin William's) his therapist, a professor of psychology and Geralds old college roommate. Will is reluctant to agree to see Sean or any type of therapist as Will has repressed feelings from his childhood that he feels are better left in the past. But to Wills surprise Sean pushes back and Will eventually overcomes this defence mechanism and begins to open up to Sean. Will reveals that he is seeing a young woman named Skylar (Minnie Driver) he tells Sean how he doesn't know if he is going to continue to see Skylar. Sean sees this as another defence mechanism, as Will wont let anyone get emotionally close to him. Mean while professor Lambeau is urging and pressuring Will with his high expectations for Will to get a job. Sean warns Gerald that he can't keep pressuring Will, but Gerald feels that Will is squandering his potential. Gerald sets up job interviews that Will goes to and makes a mockery of. Will continues seeing Skylar, who has been eagerly waiting to meet his family and is trying desperately to connect with him. Skylar tells Will that she has to go to California for school and asks Will to come with her, this causes an argument and Will finally tells her about his violent past and that he doesn't have a family as Will was an orphan, he leaves Skylar and disconnects from her. During Will and Sean's next therapy session it is revealed that they both had experienced child abuse as boys. Sean helps Will through the fact that the abuse was not his fault. Wills friends give him a Chevy Nova for his 21st birthday and will decides to go and follow Skylar to California.

 

Good Will Hunting was ground breaking for the first time writers and stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film was released by Miramax in 1997 and had rave reviews. The Film was nominate for 9 Academy Awards one of which for Best Director for director Gus Van Sant who brought Matt and Bens vision alive. Van Sant was already know for his work on My Own Private Idaho and To Die For. Unfortunately he did not win the Best Director award but Matt and Ben walked away with the Academy Award for best Screenplay, written for the screen and Robin Williams won for his role as Sean Maguire.

I choose Good Will Hunting because I love the writing in this film, the foreshadowing that gives such sweet payoffs, the dialogue. The scenes between Damon and Williams are so well written and acted. Matt and Ben really created complex characters and dug deep into the reality of a persons psyche and what it takes to really reach a person. They deal with the issue of child abuse and being an adult having to live with it. Sean teaches Will that overcoming and realizing the things of the past our not your fault you can lead a happy life and start healthy relationships with others, its okay to love and feel love.

 

All Things Will Die....

Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.
-Lord Tennyson

Monday, Tuesday, One Day With Morrie!

Mitch Albom is the narrator of Tuesdays With Morrie. Mitch was a former student of Morrie Schwartz who was a professor of sociology at Brandies University. While Mitch attended Brandies University he became close with his professor and formed a bond that would be the most defying, life altering friendships Mitch would ever experience. 

Years have passed since Mitch attended Brandies University, he hasn't seen or thought of Professor Schwartz since. But when he hears about the terminal illness Professor Schwartz has he decides to pay his old friend a visit. Morrie has developed a terminal illness called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis more commonly known as Lou Gherig's disease. 

Mitch is a changed man since his Brandies days, life has changed Mitch as he has abandoned his dreams of being a musician for material wealth and professional success. Mitch worries if Morrie will even recognize this new man as hes not the boy Morrie once knew, 

When Morrie and Mitch reunite they fall back into the old routine, they recall the stories of their past, they flourish in that moment. Mitch and Morrie spend every Tuesday together and Morrie teaches Mitch the important lessons of life, so that when Morrie is gone those lessons don't get lost with him.

In what is suppose to be the darkest moment of Morries life, Morrie accepts death and realizes he is not afraid of death but what he really fears is that people will not hear what he has to say before he dies. Morrie sees the superficial, material world we have all absorbed ourselves with. Morrie want people to know that life has a deeper meaning. We should each cherish and pay more attention to the relationships we form through out our lives as those are what are important in the end of ones life. To feel love and to be loved is what makes ones life meaningful.

 “Everyone knows they're going to die but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”

 “The most important thing in life is learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
-Mitch Albom (Tuesdays With Morrie)

We are losing our youth to apathy...to this prescribed nonsense

Donnie Darko Poem by Richard Kelly

A storm is coming, Frank says

A storm that will swallow the children

And I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain

I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps

And send the monsters back to the underground

I'll send them back to a place where no-one else can see them

Except for me

Because I am Donnie Darko.

Upon the Stair I Met a Man Who Wasnt There.....

Antigonish a poem by Hughes Mearns


Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
I wish, I wish he’d go away...

When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away

Call me Kolesnikov!

In the fall of 2000 the Russian submarine K-141 Kursk  was trapped under the sea. The Captain of the ship Dimitri Kolesnikov wrote this dying message to his wife to let her know what he felt in the final moments of his life. 

 

 

Kolesnikov is clearly the kind of person who writes down his emotions. Kolesnikov and I have this in common. Although there are things that differ between the two of us, for example I am not Russian. Even though we are seperated by geography and language we are still that of the same species and we are the kind of person who write down our feelings to express ourselves. This can come from a variety of reasoning. We feel like we have no other way to express our emotions, we feel like this is the only way to be heard, we feel the need to be remembered. The need for people to know what we went through, through good times and bad.

The Man Who Created A Monster Named Chesser!

 

Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein" was adapted into one of the most iconic Warner Brothers monster movies. The film was made in 1931 and was directed by Jame Whale who went on to direct the sequel "Bride of Frankenstein". 

 

The film stars Boris Karloff who gives his most chilling and most memorable performance as Dr. Frankenstein's Monster. 

 

The film tackles the concept that a man should never try and play God, the films tag line reads "the monster science created....but could not destroy!" 

 

The character of Frankenstein's monster is a miss understood creature, who innocence is child like. Then when things take a turn for the worst after the brutality caused by the monster the villagers and the creator himself Dr. Frankenstein rally against the monster. The audience sympathies with the monster and in the end its man himself that is the real monster.