Then, life took another unexpected (and this time, welcomed) turn.  To make a long story short, I’ll be teaching film appreciation again for the first half of the semester.

While I was caught off guard by this change, I’m excited to have another opportunity to teach this class.  I really enjoyed the last semester and learned a lot about films with my students.  I’m looking forward to teaching a group of students that are equally as enthusiastic and insightful as my class this past fall.  It also means that I’ll keep writing in this blog as a way to “lead by example” as I try to integrate some “Classroom 2.0″ tools into the film class.

So to my new students, who will find their way to this blog in a few days when I introduce their “discussion questions” – I hope that you’ll enjoy studying films and becoming “critics” as much as I enjoy teaching the class.  We’ll talk about how you can keep your own film blog as well as the class goes on.

As for my post about the Oscar nominations, I’ve decided that since I have film students again, I’ll save that post until we get closer to the ceremony.  By that point, I imagine that life will have intervene a few more times as well.

Then, a masseuse found Heath Ledger dead in New York.

So once again, I regret that my half year film class is over, because I’d like to pose the a question I’ve been pondering myself.

Let me explain my thought process first.  As a society (specifically, those with critical inclinations), we praise those who put every ounce of their being into their art.  Sure, art (and I use this in the broadest sense – painting, music, written word, performance, etc) resonates with us so profoundly because it lets us see how someone else interprets the world.  Toni Morrison calls this the “missionary quality” of art – that art is the medium by which artists communicate their personal thoughts, beliefs, and views of their world.

This becomes problematic when the art reflects a tortured view of the world.  We’ve romanticized the tortured artist who leaves a body of work that offers a glimpse into the inner struggles.  However, do we ignore these messages until the artist passes, choosing to actively acknowledge those artists that embrace the “human spirit” rather than those that portray the world as a dark, disturbed place?

As for Heath Ledger, there’s far too many questions left unanswered – was his death a suicide?  Were there other signs of illness?  All of this went through my mind this morning as I read a description that said how Ledger immersed himself in his role as the Joker in the upcoming Batman film The Dark Night.  The article suggests that Ledger slept two hours a night during filming due to the mental stress his role created.

At this point, it’s too soon to tell, but it seemed like Ledger’s turn as the Joker would become his signature role.  However, who knows if this role played a part in his demise.  Perhaps by connecting with the dark parts of his own soul (”method acting,” as my students know), Ledger opened up old wounds that he couldn’t heal.

Like I said, this is all speculation.  However, it has raised the question of whether total immersion in a role, in particular a role as dark as this one, can be a healthy thing.  If not, then what part do directors and producers play in ensuring that actors’ on-screen darkness stays on the screen and out of their personal lives?

Perhaps I should give some background. With every unit in our film class, my students watch an entire movie and then write a review of the film where they evaluate the film based on the criteria from the chapter. With our most recent chapter (that focused on narrative structure), I had to decide between a few movies – The Sixth Sense (a film that most of my students already saw), Memento (a film that many of my students watched as part of psychology class), and Annie Hall (a film I was confident that none of my students saw, despite it’s “classic” status).

I ended up choosing Annie Hall because I wanted to show something different – we’ve watched a lot of violent movies (The Departed, Gladiator, etc) and Annie Hall provided that variety. Additionally, I wanted to show a movie that the students were not familiar with so that they could evaluate how well the scattered narrative structure worked to tell Alvy and Annie’s story.

However, I fear that the opposite happened. I’m confident enough to say that Annie Hall was certainly not the most liked movie that my class watched (several students indicated that they “hated it” as well). Obviously, I didn’t plan on showing the movie because my students would hate it, but I was disappointed that they seemed to labor through it’s 93 minutes. While I imagined that the movie (as with many Woody Allen movies) would elicit “love it or hate it” reactions, I didn’t expect the vocal signs of disapproval from my normally silent students (we meet first thing in the morning, not the ideal time to sit in a dark room and watch movies).

I have not received their reviews yet, so I can’t tell if this dislike (to be fair, a few students told me that they enjoyed it) will translate into poorly written analysis of the film’s narrative structure. Certainly, I don’t expect all of my students to like every film (nor should they – I frequently tell my students that they should have personal standards for what they like and don’t like) but I hope that their dislike of Woody Allen’s neurotic on screen persona didn’t mean that they “turned off” the film and didn’t learn anything.

The only reason that I raise this question is that with the previous chapter (Editing), I showed what I think was the best received film (The Departed) as well as the best group of reviews that the class submitted all year. At first, I chalked it up to my students “getting the hang of” writing reviews (and reacting to the frequent “use the material from the chapter” comments on their papers), but now I wonder if the exceptional reviews were related to the number of students that “liked” the movie.

So, returning to my question, am I being paranoid (perhaps watching Alvy Singer’s on-screen mental breakdown inspired one of my own) or do I have a right to second guess my choice? Sure, I know that students tend to learn more when they have fun, but certainly there’s a balance between meeting the students interests and expanding (or challenging) their interests with challenging material.

Right?

As for the movie, I thought it was well done. I understand the buzz behind Ellen Page’s performance; she gives Juno a biting wit and manages to make her pregnancy believable (one of my qualms going into the movie). However, I’m not sure I see an Oscar nomination in her future. She turns Juno into one of the more memorable protagonists in recent films yet it doesn’t seem like the kind of role that the Academy usually celebrates (which is too bad). Additionally, I think that a lot of Juno’s charm comes from her speech; first-time screenwriter Diablo Cody sets Juno up with a stream of gems that Page delivers with the timing of a screen veteran.

I do have a couple issues with the script. First, I think that the movie (perhaps like a teenager?) went through a bit of an identity crisis. It seemed at the beginning that Juno appeared on track to be another goofy Napoleon Dynamite type of movie (for example, there were too many goofy characters in the first fifteen minutes, one of which could be Napoleon’s distant cousin). Similarly, the dialogue between Juno and her friend Leah seemed to be filtered through a thesaurus at the beginning of the movie; the audience would easily see Juno’s wit and intelligence even if she didn’t try to pack in a bunch of SAT words while talking on her Cheeseburger phone.

Once Cody’s script, skillfully directed by Jason Reitman (whose Thank You For Smoking shares a similar off-beat satirical charm), got through these growing pains, Juno became a movie about relationships. Bleeker, the father of Juno’s child, is the awkward and sincere foil to Juno’s sarcastic demeanor. While Michael Cera seems to be the go-to guy for sweet-yet-awkward teenage characters (which he does well in Arrested Development and Superbad), his performance is more than just awkward gawking. We see Bleeker’s heart break as Juno pushes him away, and runs (literally) by her side despite these distances.

The two sets of parents – Juno’s father and step-mother (another tremendous performance from Allison Janney, who will always be C.J. Cregg to me) and the potential adoptive parents (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, both superb for surprisingly different reasons) – showcase the different sides of the modern American family. Ultimately, both sets provide Juno with different perspectives on nurturing relationships and help Juno through her pregnancy. Juno certainly matures through the process; some of which is expected, some of which is unwanted (as she astutely notes, she deals with “things beyond my maturity level”), but Juno comes out of the entire process a stronger woman with a new appreciation for family and friends.

Speaking of relationships, I’d be remiss to leave out the music in the film. Yes, I spent a bit of my time identifying the records on Juno’s floor (Patti Smith’s Horses, appropriately) and posters on Mark’s wall, but the true musical gems were in Kimya Dawson’s song that ran throughout the movie. These songs narrate Juno’s inner monologue and help to guide the viewer through her roller coaster pregnancy. Additionally, Dawson’s “Anyone Else But You” is the soundtrack to an extremely tender moment between Bleeker and Juno at the end of the film (and, in my opinion, an incredibly endearing and realistic ending).

Juno’s greatest strength, as Hulbert wrote in her Slate article, comes in the realism in the movie. Juno portrays a pregnant teen without turning her into a pariah or a political statement, and everything in her world – her family, friends, emotions, school – are realistic. Going into the movie (and over the first ten minutes or so) I worried that Juno would be too over-the-top. However, Page’s performance and Cody’s script mold Juno into a conflicted blend of sarcastic and aloof detachment with teenage uncertainty and vulnerability. As her pregnancy progresses, you’ll become more attached to Juno and her support system (and appalled by those who betray her) .

Juno manages to provide an amusing look at or society without seeming trite or heavy-handed.  Instead, the film uses comedy to examine how pregnancy affects everyone (young and old) and make a statement about the modern American family.

This article made me think back to a whole series of articles this summer that declared that Knocked Up, one of Judd Apatow’s countless comedic hits this year, preached a pro-life agenda. (Here’s one of the numerous articles to cover this topic). I haven’t seen Juno yet and I saw Knocked Up months ago, but I hadn’t even considered the political agenda of the movie.

So what does this mean – am I just clueless to miss something like this? Is our society so detached from the discussion of issues that we have to discuss some of the most pressing political issues (let’s not forget that there’s a presidential election in less than a year) through our entertainment? I’m completely in favor of entertainment with substance, but in some cases this might be too much of a reach.

Regardless, I want to see Juno (among about half a dozen other movies – it’s going to be a busy winter break!) because a lot of the feedback has been positive, I’m a big fan of Michael Cera (a.k.a. George Michael Bluth from Arrested Development), and it kind of reminds me of another small movie that garnered a lot of buzz (and became a personal favorite of mine) – Little Miss Sunshine.

So, if you’ve seen Juno, what do you think? Smart comedy? Poignant satire? Profoundly didactic?

So why am I, a secondary education teacher with barely any experience, so interested in using blogs and wikis in the classroom (and perhaps some of my films students have the same question)? On the most basic level, I think that this technology provides educators with the ability to expand the classroom beyond the four walls and (in my school’s case) 84 minutes every other day. It gives students the chance to explore their own thoughts through writing while also sharing these ideas with classmates. Additionally, blogs and wikis help create an authentic audience for student writing. I want my students to realize that they don’t have to appreciate just the films I make them watch in class (and I have them watch some good ones – we’re finishing The Departed with particular emphasis on the editing). While the odds of being the next Ebert are against my students, they can still think about the movies they pay $9.50 to see and be active critics. Who knows – my students might catch the “blog bug” and start keeping a blog, writing about films for other people on the internet, writing about movies for their college newspapers, or even using these skills in other facets.

Simply put, my philosophy of education involved creating life-long learners. I see blogs, wikis, and other internet resources as tools to help facilitate this type of enduring learning. I also need to thank my colleague Rob Kovi for being an invaluable resource. He’s encouraged me to pursue this type of activity in my classroom, provided me with assistance with the resources, and supported my (often incomplete) vision for my films class.

So in the spirit of that, if you’re one of my students I encourage you to write your own blog. Go to learnerblogs.org and sign up for your own blog. If you’re in my film class and you want to blog about films, add a link to your blog to our class wiki.

If you’re a fellow educator, check out edublogs.org and write your own blog! If you’re not a teacher or a student, blog through Wordpress (which powers both Learnerblogs and Edublogs). I personally use Wordpress for my own blog about music (if you ask Google nicely, you might find it) and I think you’ll find it both easy to use and full of many useful features.