God help thee, poor monkey. - Macbeth

Sunday, November 11, 2007

Movie Review: Half Nelson


First off, let me say that THIS IS NOT YOUR ORDINARY TEACHER MOVIE. (You hear that, Mom? :-P) It is not, I repeat, NOT, about a rich white teacher whose revolutionary and controversial teaching style changes the lives of his poor, inner city students. If you want to see a movie like that, go watch "Freedom Writers" or something.
However, if you are looking for a bittersweet movie about real people with real problems and the connections that they develop, then this movie is for you. It's about the relationship that cocaine addict teacher Dan Dunn develops with one of his students and how they take care of one another. It's an amazing movie, and Ryan Gosling definitely deserved the Oscar nomination (although I still maintain that the award was rightfully awarded to Forrest Whittaker). Anyway, this movie is fantastic. The storyline is very realistic and easy to relate to (on some level), and the camera work is PHENOMENAL. I really enjoyed watching it. Plus it has a lot of good political comments in it. Apart from the drug addiction, Ryan Gosling's character reminds me of some of the teachers that I had growing up. My mom has a problem with movies that show how one teacher is going against the grain and teaching students who otherwise didn't want to learn because she says that there are tons of teachers doing that every day. This movie doesn't do that. It's more about how everyone has problems and we need to reach out to one another or we won't survive. I don't want to give anything else away, but you should really go out and rent this movie. Note: It's not appropriate for children.

1 comment:

Suzy said...

When am I going to have a movie made about me? Scene 1: "Ms. G. wipes another snotty nose." Scene 2: "Ms. G. ties Kemiazya's shoe, for the 33rd time in a day." Scene 3: "I'll just wait." Scene 4: "Would you rather have a long recess or a short recess?" It's a shoe-in for an academy award!