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Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:31 am
by Big Magilla
That's only one section of the film. What I found most interesting was the part where they go into "tracking", where school districts since the early 1950s routinely assign the best (smartest) students from the early grdes thorugh high school to the best teachers, the next level to the next level of teachers and the poorest students to the worst teancers so that the poorest students never have a chance.

In the days when the majority of jobs in the U.S. were unskilled labot jobs this didn't matter as much. It was always wrong morally and ethically, but it didn't hurt society as a whole. Nowadays when the unskilled jobs are routinely shipped overseas and everyone needs a good education to make a decent wage, it's reprehensible.

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 1:21 am
by Damien
Big Magilla wrote:
Damien wrote:Special Achievement: The Governor Scott Walker Award For Achievement In Political Thuggery: Waiting For "Superman" {which is a nice way of saying, as one voter called it, “a horrible, anti-intellectual and disgustingly anti-union turd.”}
It's not. It was made well before that idiot was elected. Besides which, it is not anti-union, although it is plainly against head-in-the-sand thinking promulgated by certain teachers' unions, particularly the NYC Teacher's Union and the National Teacher's Union, both of which place obstacles in the way of getting rid of bad teachers with thier "seniority is everything" stance."

And another -- who as a best-selling author on the subject is extremely well-versed: "Amazing how people believe the NYC “rubber room”—which has been abolished—held 7,000 “bad teachers,” as opposed to a couple dozen individuals whose disciplinary cases were pending. The right has an unerring eye for blowing such anecdotes into cultural tropes. I guess the rubber room will now become the “Cadillac-driving welfare queens” of the 1970s. Just once, I’d love to ask one of these individuals like your correspondent if they’d want their lives decided by the accusations of a New York teenager, with no appeal. I think the answer would be “no.”

Then of course, there’s the whole idea that the problem with education is getting rid of bad teachers hanging on to their seniority...when in fact, half of all teachers quit within five years. There was an excellent Diane Ravitch review of “Waiting for Superman” in The New York Review of Books that brought up just such inconvenient statistic, but of course now that she’s changed sides Ms. Ravitch has been dropped down the memory hole as far as the mass media is concerned.

I walk around my neighborhood listening to the little darlings, just out of class, racing down the street screaming “fuck” and “niggah” at each other, and wonder how anyone has it in them to teach school. The many teachers I do know are incredibly dedicated.

Oh, and Ms. Rhee? She’s now in Sacramento, with her fiancee, the mayor, who has been accused by numerous underaged, female interns of sexual harassment when he was running his charter school movement out there. Maybe it should be the rubber room for him.



It's a while since I've seen it but apparently the NYC Board of Education found the only way to get around union rules in this regard to to place the really bad teachers (7,000?) in a school for re-training where all they do all day is read and watch TV.

The Washington, D.C. union was ready to make a deal with the new superintendent which would have made it easier to get rid of bad teachers, but the National Union stepped in and quashed the vote.

Head-in-the-sand teachers' unions are only part of the problem. The film goes into detail about many other eye-opening problems and if you know any teachers, you know that the film only scatches the surface of the problems with education in America today.
Oh, we, of course, knew the film was made and released before Walker was elected, but the name of the award was to acknowledge that he and Davis Guggenheim walk the same walk.

I haven't seen Waiting For Superman -- I had heard such horrific things about it that I wasn't going to add 13 bucks to its box-office (just I avoided Passion of the Christ and all subsequent Mel Gibson pictures) -- so I can't comment on its merits, but one of my colleagues writes:

"The worst thing about Waiting for 'Superman' is that it actually goes into almost no detail about "other eye-opening problems". It has a whole section on how "American kids have a really high opinion of themselves" - which has nothing to do with education. It's a total mess of a film, from a structure/script point of view, and gives the requisite "rubber room" shots from the NYC Board of Ed (which are clearly disgusting and should be done away with), but says almost nothing about how schools are funded or why suburban schools are generally richer than inner-city schools (because of taxes). It says nothing about parents and puts all the blame on "the bad teachers who have tenure". My question is always that if there are so many bad teachers who are ruining our kids, how is it possible that anyone can get a good education? Clearly these teachers are a minority (one expert in the film suggests it's about 6%... but I wonder if it's possible that 6% of teachers could ruin things for every kid - or if every industry/business in the world has 6% of waste in its personnel structure."

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 7:50 pm
by Big Magilla
Damien wrote:Special Achievement: The Governor Scott Walker Award For Achievement In Political Thuggery: Waiting For "Superman" {which is a nice way of saying, as one voter called it, “a horrible, anti-intellectual and disgustingly anti-union turd.”}
It's not. It was made well before that idiot was elected. Besides which, it is not anti-union, although it is plainly against head-in-the-sand thinking promulgated by certain teachers' unions, particularly the NYC Teacher's Union and the National Teacher's Union, both of which place obstacles in the way of getting rid of bad teachers with thier "seniority is everything" stance.

It's a while since I've seen it but apparently the NYC Board of Education found the only way to get around union rules in this regard to to place the really bad teachers (7,000?) in a school for re-training where all they do all day is read and watch TV.

The Washington, D.C. union was ready to make a deal with the new superintendent which would have made it easier to get rid of bad teachers, but the National Union stepped in and quashed the vote.

Head-in-the-sand teachers' unions are only part of the problem. The film goes into detail about many other eye-opening problems and if you know any teachers, you know that the film only scatches the surface of the problems with education in America today.

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 10:34 am
by flipp525
Why not call it Best Automaton (Female)?

Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 1:25 am
by Damien
Reza wrote:I'm still trying to figure out what was so great about Un Prophete. It was good but it was basically nothing but a variation of countless films on the same subject - The Big House, Caged, Midnight Express etc. Hell, even Jessica Fletcher had a go at it one year.

I suppose with time every old subject gets a makeover and a new generation gets to embrace it.

I'm happy that I Am Love got so many mentions.

Who were the other actors competing for the ''Mechanical'' categories? Lol.

I only voted for A Prophet for Niels Arestrup in Supporting Actor. I like the film fine, but some of my pals were going on about the political metaphors and the religious symbolism.

I forgot to list the other main vote-getters in the negative categories. Here they are:

SOMINEX AWARD
1. Cairo Time
2. (tie) Eat Pray Love and Salt
4. Inception
5. Hadewijch (proving that even some of my friends can be philistines)

DRAMAMINE AWARD
1. Black Swan
2. Waiting For "Superman"
3. Eat Pray Love
4. Blue Valentine
5. Biutiful

MECHANICAL ACTRESS
1. Natalie Portman - Black Swan
2. Patricia Clarkson - Cairo Time.
3. Angelina Jolie - Salt and The Tourist
4. Mia Wajikowska - Alice in Wonderland and The Kids Are All Right
5. (tie) Sabine Azema - Wild Grass and Julia Roberts - Eat Pray Love

MECHANICAL ACTOR
1. Vincent Cassel - Black Swan
2. Jaden Smith - The Karate Kid
3. Shia LaBeouf - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
4. Sean Penn - Fair Game
5. Jonah Hill - Cyrus




Edited By Damien on 1301379948

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:58 pm
by Reza
I'm still trying to figure out what was so great about Un Prophete. It was good but it was basically nothing but a variation of countless films on the same subject - The Big House, Caged, Midnight Express etc. Hell, even Jessica Fletcher had a go at it one year.

I suppose with time every old subject gets a makeover and a new generation gets to embrace it.

I'm happy that I Am Love got so many mentions.

Who were the other actors competing for the ''Mechanical'' categories? Lol.




Edited By Reza on 1301371662

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2011 10:23 pm
by Damien
My old gang got together for the 36th annual IRA Awards and here are the results:

2010 IRA Film Award Winners
Best Picture: A Prophet/Un Prophete
Best Director: Jacques Audiard for A Prophet/Un Prophete
Best Actor: Edgar Ramirez in Carlos
Best Actress: Tilda Swinton in I Am Love
Best Supporting Actor: Niels Arestrup in A Prophet/Un Prophete
Best Supporting Actress: Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone
Best Screenplay: Thomas Bidegain and Jacques Audiard for A Prophet/Un Prophete
Best Cinematography: Yorick Le Saux for I Am Love
Best Production Design: Francesca Balestra Di Mottola for I Am Love
Best Music: John Adams for I Am Love
Best Costumes: Antonella Cannarozzi for I Am Love
Sominex Award: Cairo Time
Dramamine Award: Black Swan
Mechanical Actress: Natalie Portman for Black Swan
Mechanical Actor: Vincent Cassel for Black Swan

Special Achievement: The Governor Scott Walker Award For Achievement In Political Thuggery: Waiting For "Superman" {which is a nice way of saying, as one voter called it, “a horrible, anti-intellectual and disgustingly anti-union turd.”}

=======================
Here’s how the voting went down:

BEST PICTURE
1. A Prophet/Un Prophete
2. White Material
3. Carlos
4. The Strange Case Of Angelica
5. Vincere

BEST DIRECTOR
1. Jacques Audiard for A Prophet/Un Prophete
2. Olivier Assayas for Carlos
3. Manoel de Oliveira for Eccentricities Of A Blonde-haired Girl and The Strange Case Of Angelica
4. Claire Denis for White Material
5. (tie) Marco Bellocchio for Vincere, and David Fincher for The Social Network

BEST ACTOR
1. Edgar Ramirez in Carlos
2. Tahar Rahim in A Prophet/Un Prophete
3. Mark Wahlberg in The Fighter
4. Fernando Lujan in Nora's Will
5. (tie) Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network, and James Franco in Howl and 127 Hours

BEST ACTRESS
1. Tilda Swinton in I Am Love
2. (tie) Isabelle Huppert in White Material, and Do-yeon Jeon in Secret Sunshine
4. Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
5. Birgit Minichmyar in Everyone Else

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1. Niels Arestrup in A Prophet/Un Prophete
2. Pierce Brosnan in The Ghost Writer
3. Jeremy Renner in The Town
4. John Hawkes for Winter's Bone
5. (tie) Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right, and Kang-ho Song in Secret Sunshine

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1. Dale Dickey in Winter's Bone
2. Maria Paiato in I Am Love
3. (tie) Aggeliki Papoulia in Dogtoot, and Nora Van Waldstatten in Carlos
5. (tie) Helena Bonham Carter in Alice In Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, and The King's Speech; Ann Guilbert in Please Give, and Olivia Williams in The Ghost Writer

BEST SCREENPLAY
1. Thomas Bidegain and Jacques Audiard for A Prophet/Un Prophete
2. (tie) Olivier Assayas and Dan Franck and Daniel Leconte for Carlos, and Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini for Winter's Bone
3. John Requa & Glenn Ficarra for I Love You, Philip Morris
4. (tie) Maren Ade for Everyone Else; Michael Arndt for Toy Story 3; Robert Harris and Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer, and Manoel de Oliveira for Eccentricities Of A Blonde-haired Girl

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
1. Yorick Le Saux for I Am Love
2. Yves Cape for White Material, and Hadewijch
3. Yorick Le Saux and Denis Lenoir for Carlos
4. (tie) Daniele Cipri for Vincere, and Sabine Lancelin for Eccentricities Of A Blonde-haired Girl and The Strange Case Of Angelica

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
1. Francesca Balestra Di Mottola for I Am Love
2. Dante Ferretti for Shutter Island
3. Marco Dentici for Vincere
4. (tie) Albrecht Konrad for The Ghost Writer; Francois-Renaud Labarthe for Carlos; and Mark White for Please Give and Winter's Bone

BEST MUSICAL SCORE
1. John Adams for I Am Love
2. Alexandre Desplat for The Ghost Writer, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, The King's Speech and A Prophet/Un Prophete
3. Carlo Crivelli for Vincere
4. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for The Social Network
5. Stuart Staples/Tindersticks for White Material

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
1. Antonella Cannarozzi for I Am Love
2. Francois Clavel for Carlos
3. Adelaide Maria Trepa for Eccentricities Of A Blonde-haired Girl and
The Strange Case Of Angelica
4. Sergio Ballo for Vincere and Anton Chekhov's The Duel
5. (tie)) Jenny Beavan for The King's Speech, Maren Reese for Night Catches Us, and Virginie Montel for A Prophet/Un Prophete[




Edited By Damien on 1301385212