Archive for the 'Cinema' Category

Part boy-scout. Part genius. All hero.

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

I really wanted to be consistent with the true nature of this blog and not publish anything soon, but I’ve stumbled across something that must be shared with all of you. As some of you already know, one of my childhood heroes is MacGyver, “the right man when things go wrong”!

MacGyver

Well, today I found, arguably, the best entry on Wikipedia: List of problems solved by MacGyver.

Six seasons of incredible inventions and solutions by someone who only used a Swiss Army knife and duct tape, condensed in a single page. Now, that’s what I call a public service!

Scrubs

Friday, January 5th, 2007

We love the TV-series Scrubs . And we love it so much that this week we ordered the first 4 seasons! Isn’t this the perfect New Year present? :-)

Anyway, this post is to show you 2 fantastic (and hilarious) Scrubs videos.
The first one is a special thing the cast did to their fans. We think it’s a lovely Christmas present :)
The second is a sneak peak at the musical episode they shot. It highlights JD and Turk’s gayest moments!

Here are the videos:

Charlie Brown Christmas

Guy Love

So, did you like them? If so, drop us a comment and tell us what are your favourite things about Scrubs. Thank you!

Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding

Monday, November 27th, 2006

Teaching Teaching & Understanding Understanding is a 19-minute short-film about teaching at University. It is the winner of “Det gyldne Snit” 2006 and if you are interested about teaching (or learning) in an University environment, we highly recommend it!

Teaching Teaching & Understanding UnderstandingThe film presents, in a very effective and funny way, how teaching and learning are being done in universities. It basically compares different types of teachers and students in several different situations.
But the best thing about the movie is that it is constructive. It presents more effective ways (or theories) to teach and learn in an university environment.

Teaching Teaching & Understanding UnderstandingMaybe it’s because we have started recently teaching (and sometimes we get depressed with students behaviour), but there were two quotes that we think are worth noting here:

Transmission is not the way humans learn

and

“Learning takes place through the active behavior of the student; it is what he does that he learns, not what the teacher does. (Ralph W. Tyler, 1949)” .

Hence, the lesson is that learning is an activity that requires initiative and action! That’s what we tell to our (mathematics) students: they will only learn if they practice.

(We thank Claus Brabrand for the comments and the corrections.)

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Wednesday, November 8th, 2006

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate FactoryDirector: Mel Stuart
Stars: Gene Wilder, Peter Ostrum, Jack Albertson
Year: 1971

IMDB Link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0067992/

The other day we have seen the 1971 version of Roald Dahl’s children story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We have enjoyed Tim Burton’s version (2005) and we were a bit excited to compare both films.

The first thing we noticed about the older film is that there are differences in some important aspects:

  • there is no mention to Wonka’s father (the dentist) nor to Wonka’s childhood;
  • the Oompa Loopas songs don’t mention the children names;
  • there is a scene where Charlie and his grandpa taste some funny drink — it seems that the 1971 Charlie is less innocent and angelical than the 2005 one;
  • the announcement to Charlie that he won the factory is very different. In fact, it is a bit scary :)
  • after Wonka telling Charlie that the prize is the factory, Charlie asks if he can take his family with him. Wonka replies that he can take his whole family. If you’ve watched the 2005 film, you’ll remember that when Charlie makes this question, Wonka says no. And then Charlie replies that he wouldn’t change his family by all the chocolate in the world. A nice message :-)
  • we would say that the Depp’s Wonka is eccentric and lunatic, whilst Wilder’s Wonka is lunatic and scary.

We never read the book, so we are now very curious about the real story (it’s always nice to see if the film follows the real story or not). Maybe in the future we can update this post with additional information related with the book.

4 films in 1 post

Friday, November 3rd, 2006

Recently, we have watched Sideways, Melinda and Melinda, The Stepford Wives and The Notebook. Although this post presents our opinions about these films, its main goal is just to register some information about them. If you intend to visit this blog regularly, you will see that we will do this frequently. The reason is very simple: sometimes we just forget important details about the films we see and we want to use the blog to help us remember.

(Click the following link to read our opinions)

(more…)