History Boys is a movie adaptation of a popular British play which goes by the same name. I only stumbled upon it by accident one night and I didn’t even recognize it for what it was until I heard a certain name. If you’re British and you’re crazy about plays, you’ve probably heard about the controversy raised by Ben Barnes when he opted to leave History Boys’The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian as the title character. The on stage producers wanted to sue him but didn’t (?) and after I knew the play’s story, and the central role which his character plays, I really think they should have. on-going theatre production to join the cast of

The story, as I understood it, is about eight teenage boys who were deemed smart enough by their school for it to help them get into Oxford and Cambridge. They were given special review classes by three teachers and these classes were pretty much where I thought the story revolves. Two of the teachers are familiar with and very close to the boys; the third is a young man whose primary role seemed to be to make the boys relearn everything they know in a manner very different from what they’re used to, challenging the boys and their old teachers at the same time. That plot seemed well enough at first, with the usual student-teacher conflict kind of drama, but alas…

Dakin—one of the eight teenage students and the character that Ben Barnes used to portray—is undoubtedly very intriguing. He seemed, and I believe IS, straight as an arrow and is also quite attractive but perhaps not physically—there’s something about his personality and manners that made a slightly older woman have a relationship with him, made a classmate who is a confirmed gay to love him, and also made his young teacher, who seemed to have been as straight as he was, to fall for him. The strange part about that was Dakin wanted him to, because he was attracted to him as well. Now, don’t be alarmed. The way the story unfolded, homosexuality seemed to be something as common as grass; it didn’t really raise many eyebrows. And sexual harassment is only slightly worse. Besides, all boys schools are reputed to produce three things: graduates, rejects, and gays, which makes sense since the boys’ school is one such.

I didn’t think of it this way before, but now I believe that being a gay or a lesbian is not something to be ashamed of. I think at least half the people on earth, if not all, have the tendency to become a homosexual and even less chooses to be brave enough to admit that to themselves let alone the world. It’s not a person’s fault if he or she turned out to be a she or a he. Some men are born armed with a woman’s heart, and some women are born with a man’s. If we think of it that way—that they were BORN like that—can anyone blame them? Being a homosexual, I now realize, is not something that people pick up or develop over time, it’s something people discover as time progresses. Needless to say, that realization was inspired by the various points and issues about life and other things tackled in the History Boys. I truly appreciate the story; its depth is something I’d like to achieve in my own writing one day, the ingenuity is another. The entirety of it is genius; it’s got everything on it. Perhaps its popularity endures because its universal insights apply even to this day. I’m so crazy about it, it makes me want to learn all sorts of knowledge that the playwright displayed through his eight smart boys and their wise and naturally imperfect teachers. And it doesn’t hurt that the greater part of it is told in a very funny way: the kind of fun that one could expect from teenage boys sharing the kind of friendship that makes people cringe but would secretly like to possess as well.

As soon as the movie finished, I wanted to go out and scour the bookshops for a copy of the play (if ever there were any) or better yet, to buy an uncut copy of the 2004 movie and watch it again because the one I saw on cable TV was unmercifully edited in various places. Such a shame because kissing homosexuals would truly be a sight to behold (ala Brokeback? Nah, I haven’t seen it and probably never would. Not when Heath Ledger is gone. So sad…). I wonder, was kissing also done on stage? Because if they let boys like Daniel Radcliffe stand in front of audiences naked, I suppose some innocent little kisses between two men are no big deal, right? I’ll end this with one question far removed from the rest of this post: is Daniel Radcliffe gay? Because I heard he already confessed… Seriously, is he? ‘Cause you know, he did go to an all boys school… Mountain

What we know:

Places of Origin

It is no surprise that zombies originated from the grave, and we have gathered the obvious that they are undead. This means a zombie's main hangout spot is the cemetery, so I would stick to cremation people. There is no need to spend money on a nice casket, because apparently it gives zombies back sores.

Food of Choice

Not only are they dead alive, (no oxymoron intended) the need for brains is what fuels these creatures. It feels sort of strange calling them creatures, considering they were once human beings, but who wakes up and has cravings for flesh? (With the exception of Jeffrey Dahmer, Hannibal Lecter, and the people cast in the movie “Alive”. ) If brains and flesh are not available, zombies will walk around aimlessly until they starve to death.

IQ

Zombies are not gifted in the brain department. They like brains, but they don't have one. We know zombies are stupid when all they eat are brains, and they don't get anything out of it. Consuming the main organ of thought and feeling, you would think they would at least grasp the knowledge to go a little bit faster for yet another, well, brain.

Why it works:

A New Genre

In 1968, George A. Romero made “Night of the Living Dead”, pioneering the “zombie” genre for horror fans alike. Not only were they scared of Vietnam, people in 1968 had George Romero scaring the bejesus out of them with walking corpses. In most recent years, Danny Boyle created a new zombie with 2002's “28 Weeks Later”. Instead of the slow reacting flesh eaters we are so used to, “28 Weeks” gave us people infected with a virus, but still flesh eaters. Case in point, it is movies like this that cause us to be cursed with god awful films such as “Flight of the Living Dead”. (No offense to the zombies.)

Gallons of Gore

Zombies are the essentials that make up a horror film, because basically they have bad personal hygiene. Their clothes are always stained with blood, brains, and guts, their flesh is rotting, but I'm sure they smell great. There is no zombie movie without tons of gory madness, because we can't quite figure out if that is what mashed up brains looks like.

What's The Big Deal?

Attention Hollywood, the above caption is the million dollar question. As an avid horror fan, movie makers are urged to stop creating zombie films.

Zombies are a tired subject. They are slow, stupid, and disgusting (with the exception of the break dancing zombies in the music video “Thriller”). There is a lot of other subject matter that can be really scary (clowns, evil dolls, ghosts, Britney Spears), so why not take the time and explore. For those who are still confused on what a zombie's main purpose is, just remember this:

(No pun intended.)

In my opinion, finding a film worth watching these days is a rarity. I saw several films and television shows over the years and while I will not "give away" too much about the following films in my article, I do want to give a few worthwhile thoughts.

First in my list of films in this article is Home Alone 2:Lost in New York,

starring a young actor we haven't heard much from in the last couple of years named Macaulay Culkin. While many may say "that's an old film" because it was made back in the 1990's,

I wil defend it's place in this list by stating that l do not particularly like the direction most of today's movies are taking.

There is no originality in most of them and there is often WAY too much profanity, I don't know about you but hearing the language in a lot of today's films makes me wonder "what happened to

all the good movies?" Why can't they make movies these days without spewing the f-word or other related words every other minute?

Is people's vocabulary and intelligence really getting that limited?

I know you may be thinking "sometimes they use that language for emphasis"

but to me that is just an excuse, and profanity to me takes away from the quality of the film.

Anyway now that I have vented my frustrations a bit, the second film I do suggest is worthwhile is

Friday Night Lights, and Remember the Titans is third on my list.

There is also a film that you may not have heard much about it is called Simon Birch.

(Good storyline, film work could be better though)

I also recommend the film Coach Carter for all you basketball fans.

I will begin weekly film reviews and sharing some of my favorites with the masses.

I hope you all will enjoy and if you have any recommendations yourselves that I haven't noted,

feel free to do so. If you enjoyed my film reviews feel free also to check out my weekly music reviews here.

Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling), after the death of his father moves into the garage, leaving his older brother and his wife the house to stay in by them selfs.Karin Lindstrom(Emily Mortimer) his sister-in-law feels that something is wrong with Lars, that he needs social interaction. Lars on the other hand, does whatever he can to avoid it, at all cost. But, one day at work, a friend introduces Lars to a website that makes and sells life like mannequins. Lars orders one, but, comes under the illusion that the doll is a real person, a women he met on the internet.

Gus Lindstrom(Paul Schneider) Lars' brother feels his brother is crazy, and thinks his fault. Soon enough however, the entire town instead of calling him crazy and ignoring him, accepts him and even treats the doll as one would treat a real human being. Will Lars ever realize that the doll isn't real, or will he be stuck in this illusion for the rest of his life?

This movie was way out there. Wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but, was able to keep my attention for the duration of the movie. It really gives you insight to just how lonely one person can actually get. Ryan Gosling played his part great, he was very believable as the lonely character he played. In all honesty,how many actors do you know that can go an entire movie having a conversation with an inanimate object, an actually have you believe it is talking back to them?

All in all, it was a good flick. Nothing great, but, something to watch when you have nothing else to do. I wouldn't recommend this movie to everyone, but, some will throughly enjoy it.

Coming back to this film are Bale, Freeman, Oldman, and Caine. In addition to this we have some new arrivals. Aaron Eckhart (The Black Dahlia, and Thank You for Smoking) will be joining the cast as D.A. Harvey Dent, and friend to Bruce Wayne. The next is Eric Roberts (Final Analysis, and Best of The Best) joining as Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni. Finally, there is Heath Ledger (Lords of Dog Town, The Patriot, and Ten Things I hate about you) as the Joker. Heath Ledger, as the Joker?.. It's a stretch, but maybe he can do it. Will he do better then Jack Nicholson? Can anyone act as psychotic as Jack Nicholson and be believable? These are all good questions. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Anyways I still have big hopes for this movie. It's my favorite comic book, and I hated how Warner Bros messed up the series by making it too childish and corny. The series has to remain dark, and Batman has to remain human. His abilities should also stay believable, as should the abilities of the villains. What makes Batman great is the fact that he's human. His abilities are all his own and not warped by some out world source, or chemical reaction. The fact that an ordinary man can save the day with a couple of gadgets, his own cunning, and his heart to go on and better the world is what makes Batman great. Not out there special effects and cheesy one liners.

Not sure but that he crashed his ship. Always wondered how these aliens could be so far advanced in technology yet still crash their ships? Just goes to prove the validity of Murphy's Law works on other planets. Anyhoo, this alien is floating around, wondering about things, so he sees a picture of her husband with a clipping of his hair nearby.

Viola! He gets a bright idea. He takes hair and he plucks out the DNA from it and somehow makes himself a physical body from the DNA.

He is born one day, a fully-grown man looking exactly like her dead husband. Imagine her shock to meet him. She thinks it's hubby come back. Meanwhile he's still trying to learn English so she and he can actually discuss his identity.

She and he end up falling in love even though he's a sneaky alien stealing people's hair clippings.

What I liked about the movie was the way Jeff Bridges played his role. He seemed to know what it would be like to wake up in a new world, with new sensations and new relationships to develop and I do believe he even had difficulty walking.

There was sufficient drama to entertain the audience, as we must always encounter forces within a movie which cause one to flee for your life otherwise the hero would end up under a microscope because he was from outer space, and of course, we assume Earth only belongs properly to Homo Sapian, and therefore if you are different, like able to make a body from a strand of hair, we would of course want to know how you did that when we couldn't do that power, and besides, would god approve? But there was no mention of god in the movie, thank god for that! We really don't see god as having a sense of humor, but I think we always had god all wrong in that regard. There were chase scenes and we all secretly wanted the alien to get away. He does get away, just barely of course, and all the while we are identifying how we ourselves would like to get away from something.

Moral of the story is really about falling in love, with a smidgeon of watch out, curiosity killed the cat. Then again, the child was born with a healing power and so we realize the cat has nine lives.

I was thinking about Mr.Bridges' acting though. This was actually a very spiritual story as I see it, not only because we get to see two people falling in love, with an exceptional child born from that love, but we get to see a person portray having an Earth life for the first time and the total innocence of that advent was appealing. The hero was a unit of awareness only, devoid of belief systems, protocol, roles, rules and political correctness. He's just there. And he doesn't even know what to say about it. He did eventually call home for a ride I think to avoid becoming toasted alien fruit loops.

I thought you were dead she says. I put you under the ground, didn't I? How did you escape from the grave? I'm glad you're back, but please, tell me everything, start from the beginning.

Mr. Alien says “duh....”

It's wonderfully entertaining, as I really couldn't fathom where they were going with the plot. Anything could happen. I did think they would fall in love but wasn't sure as it must be so hard to love a guy who is clearly not what he looks like. You gotta give the lady credit for playing her role well also.

I was comparing a religious state Christians call being reborn to this movie. Reincarnation is believable from my studies, however I'm speaking of a different kind of being reborn which is more like a transformation within a body already existent.

Yea, like being in love. It's very transformational to cause all things to become new. Belief systems do tend to change rapidly when under the influence of Cupid's bow and arrow.

The expansive property of love within mental area is a gradual rebirth. Poets devise words along these lines but we surely don't pay them enough. They shine their flashlights on the pages of human destiny.

There's really nothing I can add to this thought. Love must be experienced and you cannot teach it's meaning to another no matter how they may present their questions to you and with what yearning they pull from their heartstrings.

I could liken the concept of staying in love to what the Eastern religions call Nirvana.

It's a state of blissful awareness and just before blissful awareness arrives, one enters a state of nothingness. A total void to float in a bit. A little disconcerting but doable as the state of nothingness leads to some thingness.

The reason I mention the nothingness state is there's a little known law in operation. “The universe hates a void.” Just like water seeks it's lowest point, spirit will seek the empty vessel.

I'm thinking about how parting is such sweet sorrow now. The woman is more torn up over the parting than the guy, who somehow finds time to kiss goodbye while he's running for his life. You often see this scene in the movies; especially in Westerns; the guy is riding off in the sunset while the lady gazes at his back waving her handkerchief. I don't get it why she didn't jump up on his horse with him, but I have to admit it's good drama.

Oftentimes I think life itself is a movie and we would all like to write our own scripts, but in hindsight we might notice we did write our own scripts, we just forgot we did.