Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Day 8 Required Assignment
Please write a critique of the movie we viewed in class tonight and save it on your h-drive before posting it here. Save a copy also for your portfolio. Your critique should be about one and a half pages long, double-spaced, MLA format. Make sure this is not a summary but an evaluation. Please use third person and write this for a sophisticated adult audience (like the readers of Vanity Fair or the New Yorker). Include an intriguing title, a compelling introduction, well developed body paragaraphs, and a satisfying conclusion. This is for a grade.
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6 comments:
Freedom Writers was a movie based on a true story. In this day in age when most movies have explosions and lewd sexual scenes just to keep the audience from realizing that there is no plot to the story line it is good to know that somebody in Hollywood still has some writing talent. Even though there are no explosions and no sex scenes this move grabs hold of the audience and keeps you until the end. Hilary Swank has always been a good actress and stayed true to her craft when she played a freshmen English teacher at a gang filled high school in California at the height of a race related gang war. In the beginning we thought this was going to be a cheap spin off of Michelle Pfeiffer’s 1995 “Dangerous Minds “. But after watching the movie, it holds it own. True there are some similarities but Swank takes the movie to a whole new place. This movie allows you to not only follow the life of Erin Gruwell (Hilary Swank) but also her students. We get to take a peek in the lives of teens going through real everyday issues in a gang’s war zone. How the decisions they made effected there lives being played out for you on the screen is moving and inspirational. By halfway through the movie you have invested your hopes into the well thought and well written characters and hoping they make it through.
Also staring Patrick Dempsey as Scott Casey a supportive then turned bitter and envious husband was only a side note in this movie. Bitter is a new shade of green for this actor but he wears it well. We did hope he would have a larger role in this movie. So the “Grey's Anatomy” star could make up for the role he played in the disaster of a movie “Enchanted”. But through out this whole movie a new star does shine Ms. April Lee Hernandez who plays Eva. A hate filled gang member that under goes a metamorphosis into a caring, honest and dedicated student. Even though this is her first movie, she acted and stole her scenes like a seasoned vet. Though she could not out shine Swank, she shows promise and we expect to see her again.
Over all Freedom Writers is a good must see drama. The language is kind of racy and there is some violence that got this movie a rating of PG-13. It is well written and the Actors and Actresses bring the movie off the screen and to our hearts.
Koran Garris
Michele Gooden
Freedom Writers is a movie based on a true story. I think that this was an excellent inspirational movie. It deals with kids between the ages of 14 and 15 freshman in high school. These kids grew up in the hood working hard just to survive everyday. The group of kids went from all being enemies to being one family where everybody gets along and it was hard to do. The teacher helped all of these kids tremendously by helping them get through scool she bought them new books because the school thought that they were not good enough to use the books that the school had. The teacher was working two other jobs to support her teaching job. she was working as a bra sales person and a concierge in a hotel. She gave these kids a chance to prosper and write what their lives were like. She even let them grade theirselves on their classwork. This movie i think is the conclusion to dangerous minds.
Koran and Michelle,
I agree with you that this was a refreshing film in lieu of all of the substandard sensationalist fare out there today. Thanks for taking your time and writing such a thoughtful review. A+
Freedom Writers is an inspirational movie about a first-time teacher who reach out to her students and help them make a change in their life. While the school administrators have no hope in the children, she finds way to teach them how to read and love it. She gives them opportunities to do things that no one wants to give them. The things that she teach her class helps them to become better citizen.
While she is trying to give the teenagers a better life, her husband tell her that he is leaving her. While it is hard for her, she is doing what she wants in life and manages to make it.
This is a very inspirational movie. I love it and I am definitely keeping it. I think the movie was great in with the story line and acting!
After watching the movie "Freedom Writers" it reminded me a lot about one other movies that I saw a couple years ago that also had gangs and violence, "Stand and Deliver". Both of this movies death with schools that were located in the urban areas and had kids that were either in gangs or didn't care about school. The great thing about this two movies, they both had a great and caring
teachers (Jaime Escalante and Erin Gruwell) who really wanted to help these kids to suceed in life!
Freedom Writers was an inspirational movie that made me a little sad. When I first started watching the movie, I thought it was going to be another bad film with no plot and no end in sight, but I was wrong! Erin Gruwell (played by Hilary Swank), is and up and coming freshman English teacher who takes a job at an urban high school called Wilson High in Long Beach, California.
At the beginning, she had a hard time trying to convince the students that reading and writing would take them to higher and better things but in the minds of the student’s, they weren't buying it. The movie took a sharp turn for the best once Mrs. Gruwell started spending money for materials, taking them to field trips, and asking them to write down on a writing notepad anything and everything that happenes to them every day into a diary. These memoirs convey the daily tension, danger, and sadness of the student’s daily lives. One of the other great scenes in the movie was when the students have fundraisers and raised enough money to invite and listen to Miep Gies who was one of the main characters in the book "The Diary of Anne Frank.
Overall, I really enjoyed watching
Freedom Writers and felt that Erin was a naive teacher but was resourceful and dedicated in ensuring her students got the picture! Unfortunately, her hard work and long hours she spend with her students, ultimately ruined her marriage and her husband who was played Patrick Dempsey, ask
for a divorce.
There were several inspiring moments in the movie that speaks to people , no matter what
Their ethnic background may be. Hilary Swank plays the role of a teacher that inspired inner Cities kid to use the gifts that she saw that they was capable of challenging themselves in Doing something with their lives, Rather than just watching their minds go to waste on issues That only makes them even more ignorant and self absorb. Which is the ultimate reason
Why they keep fighting among them selves, because they got the impression that the world do
Not care . Hilary made sacrifices that no other teacher at the time was willing to make, and with all the sacrifices they saw she was making further enforced her point that they could
Accomplished any thing that they puts their minds to. And in doing so they can do great things
That could bring them satisfactory accomplishment and recognition.
It was a touching true story that took place in southern California in the 90s,with racial tension and rebellion. But still Mrs. swank did not let that blow her course, in helping the
Kids . The seen that was depicted on the streets were superb and the music was fitting
For the occasions, I enjoyed the overall movie except the fact that her relationship have
To come to an end. The fund raising was a great idea for every one, I could tell that
The reason behind it was sincere.
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