Presentations

PRESENTATIONS (upload your ppts under each of the film synopsis)

Film 1 Group 6: March 11th, 2013

Dead Poet's Society //The script, written by Tom Schulman, is based on Schulman's life at Montgomery Bell Academy, an all-boys preparatory school in Nashville, Tennessee (wikipedia).// He won Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen in Oscars for this movie. The truth is I never really liked poems as one of the elements in learning literature. First of all, not everyone could stand up in front of the class reading poems (especially when your friends tried hard not to giggle for you). But watching how Mr. Keating (Robin Williams) in this movie teach these kids the importance of poems and how it is an expression, it seems that poems are not that bad after all. These expressions are a statement, not only for love, but also for life. I wished I had a teacher like Mr Keating, because he was not only an English teacher, he also pushed students to be open-minded, to see things differently. The truth is in reaching for your dreams, we will all face obstacles. If not that voice inside your head that says you can't, or there's your parent who choose your dreams without even asking what you want. These boundaries are there to put you down, but could push you more to take more effort. The primary thing is there's fear and worries, but if we can get past that then there's even bigger joy we could have. That is reaching what you always dreamed of.

"Dead Poets Society" Presentation file [|https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1d4-pD-El8o0SHHv7ka6B_FD5hqsx4EyIPRvVQ7FK4E0/edit#slide=id.p] Group 5 March 18th, 2013

__ FILM 2 __

Group 2, March 11th, 2013

Teacher Gao of the Shuiquan Primary School has to be away from school for a month Wei Minzhi is to take over the class for Teacher Gao. Seeing that Wei Minzhi is only 13 years old, Teacher Gao protests to the mayor that such a young girl will not be able to teach students who are her own age or slightly younger. Teacher Gao’s class had 40 students at the beginning of the school year, but increasing attrition has brought that number down to 28. Teacher Gao admonishes Wei Minzhi that she must not allow even one more student to drop out while he’s gone and promises her an extra 10 yuan in pay if she succeeds. Wei faithfully calls the roster every day and then sets the students to copying lessons from the blackboard. She is not overly concerned about whether the students actually learn anything as long as they stay put; she ends up spending most of each day sitting guard outside the classroom door. Ten-year-old student Zhang Huike is a bright but naughty boy who often tries Wei’s patience as she works to keep a semblance of order amongst the children. His family is in serious financial debt, however, and when he fails to appear in class one morning, Wei discovers he has been forced to go to the city to find work. With Teacher Gao’s words still firmly in her mind but only a vague idea of where the boy might be, Wei Minzhi sets off on her own to the big city to try to find Zhang Huike and bring him back. https://docs.google.com/a/life.hkbu.edu.hk/file/d/0B6bza0vM9KeEN19BUmFPdi1FRFU/edit
 * Not One Less **

__ FILM 3 __ __ The Three Idiots __ Group 5, March 18th 2013



Plot Journey into the unknown The pattern of the development of the plot shows that Farhan, Raju, and Chatur may know a lot about Rancho than the audience does, but they do not know anything about Rancho’s present condition just like viewers. In addition, the trip is full of the unknown just like any trip because the director does not disclose any information beforehand to these men, nor to viewers. Thus, the arrangement of the order of the events creates a sense of immediacy in spectators, making them travel companions of these men rather than remaining uninvolved in what happen to the men during the trip. Moreover, the arrangement of the events also shows that //Three Idiots// is a narrative film that examines two serious topics - success and education - through telling the story of three college friends (Farhan, Raju, and Rancho) and Rancho’s intellectual foe (Chatur). Although this film is didactic in nature, it does not preach the message. Rather, viewers are invited to ponder on the two topics from two perspectives - one represented by Chatur and the other by Rancho - throughout the trip. Unsurprisingly, the rivalry and animosity that Chatur feels toward Rancho are introduced at the beginning of the film. In fact, it is a stroke of genius that Chatur is the initiator of the trip to find Rancho. As a successful first generation Indian immigrant to the U.S., Chatur, with a Bachelor degree in Engineering, has attained the American dream and cannot wait to prove to Farhan and Raju that he is more successful than Rancho. He is so proud of his achievements that he does not hesitate to call Rancho’s buddies “idiots” when they arrive at the tank. Chatur’s smugness forces us to examine our own definitions of success and the correlation between success and education. Does success mean becoming rich and owing lots of expensive things? If we accept this definition, shall we believe that Chatur is the winner and that Rancho is the loser? Chatur’s photos seem to prove this. Nevertheless, is there a possibility that Rancho’s success will surpass Chatur’s expectations? The fact that Farhan and Raju are not intimidated by Chatur after viewing his photos tends to support this presupposition, though their behaviors may reflect a different definition of success. So, the gathering of Farhan, Raju, and Chatur at the tank of the college not only prepares viewers for the road trip to find Rancho, but also help them get ready for a journey of the heart.
 * You can refer to group 5 presentation in **

**http://prezi.com/uq7wt5s-gi2u/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-uq7wt5s-gi2u&rc=ref-34481975**
__ The History Boys __
 * Film 4 **

Group 1: March 18th, 2013



W hat this story is about is disputing what it really means to be a good teacher and coming to understand the true role of the student. The play ultimatley questions our conception of 'knowledge,' couched as it is in an all too artificial social world. We're introduced to Hector, teacher at an English grammar school in the early 80s. He's a man with an intense passion for poetry, but a severe lack of respect for the authoritarian school system, throwing aside curricula and grading for a maddeningly successful mix of intense literature, philosophy and adolescent frivolity.

= Film 5 The Chorus = =A Worn-Out Tale's Unexpected Harmony = By Nelson Pressley

Special to The Washington Post Friday, January 28, 2005; Page C05 Music soothes the little savages running wild through a school for troubled boys in "The Chorus" ("Les Choristes"), the handsome and popular French film that picked up an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film [in 2005].

 "The Chorus" hits its marks very well. It opens with a shot of Manhattan, where world-class French conductor Pierre Morhange (played by Jacques Perrin) is about to be whisked back to France to bury his mother. At home, Morhange gets a surprise visit from a very old friend named Pepinot (Didier Flamand). Pepinot wants to show him the diary kept by Clement Mathieu, the supervisor who changed both their lives one pivotal year at the boys' school ominously known as "Rock Bottom." Apparently they have versions of this hackneyed story in France, too. "Les Choristes" is based on a 1945 French film called "The Cage of Nightingales," so it's almost impossible for writer-director Christophe Barratier to score any points for originality. Not that he tries awfully hard: The formula of the humane teacher painstakingly getting through to hardened kids is clung to like a security blanket. ====From there the movie flashes back to 1949 and relives the events in Mathieu's journal, starting with his first glimpse of little Pepinot waiting forlornly at the iron gate for parents who will never come. The school, which has the crumbling stone walls and peeling paint of a neglected prison -- the movie was shot in an old French castle -- is a battle zone. No sooner does the mild-mannered Mathieu arrive than one of the staff members is badly gashed by a booby trap set by one of the kids. ==== ===="Action-reaction," barks Rachin, the school's borderline sadistic headmaster. Then it's out to the wasteland of a schoolyard for the "reaction": Rachin intends to smoke the malefactor out or make everyone suffer. ==== ====Could the movie's dramatic conflict be more stark? Shall we handle kids with an iron fist, or might we try a little tenderness? Naturally, you root for the gentle Mathieu, a small, bald, unremarkable man played with shy appeal by Gerard Jugnot. Mathieu's quiet "Yes" is not good enough for Rachin, whose withering imperiousness compels Mathieu to correct himself with a meek "Yes, sir." ==== ====Mathieu is not a natural fighter, and his arrival in this dead-end job suggests a fair amount of losing in his life. Turns out he's a closet composer, though he's sworn off music for reasons we never get to know. Time and again, though, you see fear flicker across Jugnot's humble face before he steels his nerve and takes a chance, whether he's suggesting alternative disciplinary action to Rachin (an oily, weasely figure as played by Francois Berleand), trying to control his unruly class, or presenting himself hopefully to young Pierre's lovely single mother (Marie Bunel). ====

The Chorus / Les Choristes



Film 6 Fight Back To School

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Back_to_School

Taken from wikipedia

Star Chow ( [|Stephen Chow] ) is about to be kicked out of the Royal Hong Kong Police's elite Special Duties Unit (SDU). But a senior officer decides to give him one last chance: Star must go undercover as a student at the Edinburgh High School in [|Hong Kong] to recover the senior officer's missing revolver.

The undercover operation is made complicated when Star is partnered with Tat - an aging, incompetent police detective ( [|Ng Man-Tat] ). However, Star still manages to fall in love with Ms Ho ( [|Cheung Man] ), the school's guidance counselor, as well as disrupting a gang involved in arms-dealing. To discuss the subtle merits of this film are near impossible. This is basically a ninety minute opportunity to check out the burgeoning comic charisma of Stephen Chow as he kicks ass, humbles lesser individuals, and generally makes a mockery of the system. Eventually plot does kick in and Sing is called upon to rescue the students and the school, but that's just filler material for the wall-to-wall jokes. Suspension of disbelief or actual dramatic tension is completely forgotten thanks to the joys of Stephen Chow showing up snotty kids and adults with his lighting fast kicks and even faster mouth. Guaranteed to tickle the funny bone of those who actually possess a sense of humor. (Kozo 1995/1997) http://www.lovehkfilm.com/reviews_2/fight_back_to_school.htm

Group 3,March 25th, 2013