Monday, September 07, 2009

Grace in Movies

I'm trying to compile a list of movies that are very grace-filled, or have grace as a central theme--grace used here in at least close to a Christian understanding of the word. So far I've got:

Babette's Feast
Lars and the Real Girl
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Once
Gran Torino
In Bruges
Stranger Than Fiction
Children of Men
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Tender Mercies*
The Brothers Bloom
Groundhog Day
Saving Private Ryan
Amelie*
The Sixth Sense*
Dead Man Walking*
Chocolat*
The Enchanted Cottage
Les Miserables
Forrest Gump
Signs
Brideshead Revisited*
The Lives of Others*
The Man Who Would Be King*
The Pianist*
Man on Fire*
It's a Wonderful Life
Miracle on 34th Street
Scrooge (the Alistair Sim version is best)
A Christmas Story
Casablanca
Phantom of the Opera
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 and 1939 versions especially)
Sense and Sensibility*
Emma*
To Kill a Mockingbird

*=Ethan hasn't seen.

Also, I can't guarantee that these are family viewing. If you ask me I will be happy to comment on the appropriateness of any particular entry.

Any suggestions?

(EDIT: I will be adding to the list as people suggest things. Keep suggesting.)

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Skewl Wurk

I just want to say that for homework this semester I do things like:

1. Write plays.

2. Read Shakespeare.

3. Read other Elizabethan and Enlightenment era works--Defoe, Scott, Swift, Jonson, etc.

4. Read literary criticism, which is just as good as philosophy (and sometimes, as in my reading for Wednesday, IS philosophy--Plato's Republic).

and

5. Read about the English language and its development.

yay

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Quote of the Week

Which, yes, is my cop-out for not actually posting.


Jessica. I am never merry when I hear sweet music.

Lorenzo. The reason is, your spirits are attentive:
For do but note a wild and wanton herd,
Or race of youthful and unhandled colts,
Fetching mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,
Which is the hot condition of their blood;
If they but hear perchance a trumpet sound,
Or any air of music touch their ears,
You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,
Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze
By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

-Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice," Act V, Scene 1.