Ten Best Films of 2007

[Akash]

And by the way, students NEVER think about their future student loan debt when they're in college and choosing a major. NEVER. Especially not if their parents are paying for tuition.

You're kidding right? I've met enough students who would say otherwise and I was very active as an undergrad with the College Dems and other groups protesting on behalf of revamping financial aid. I've spoken to students from all over the country -- including a lot of lower income and minority students -- and believe me Sonic, many of them are concerned about it when they're in school. They have to be. Not everyone has the luxury of not caring. I don't know what your socio-economic background is, but students who aren't upper middle class or wealthy in particular often view graduating college and college decisions as a way to secure a job afterwards.

[Sonic Youth]

My head hasn't spun so much since a family gathering ten years ago where my eccentric uncle claimed NBC's decision in 1968 to pre-empt the Jets-Raiders game for the movie "Heidi" was due to a pernicious Communist plot invading America's households.

But it was, everyone knows that.

Sonic, my convoluted point was that I think saddling the average student with debt and pushing them off to a life of 40-50 hour work week, essentially prevents them from becoming activists or active citizens. Even among the middle class -- people who have the resources to find out what's going on in the news and in politics -- you often hear that people don't have time to focus on these things. Americans work a ridiculous amount of hours and even my parents -- who are fiscally conservative -- will tell you how many patients they see with ulcers and other ailments because of stress from work.

It's not as kooky as you might think. And I'm not the first person to think it.

Maybe I read it wrong, but you seemed to strongly suggest that the student loan program was created with the purpose of tamping down any emerging radical, anti-capitalist movements. Today's student loan program is a scandal. The skyrocketing of tuition costs over the past few decades is criminal. And everyone knows finanical institutions love to draw blood. But saying finanical aid debt was created with the purpose of de-radicalizing the masses is heading off into cuckooland.

Even if there is no deliberate conspiracy, I find the reasoning simplistic. History is full of examples of organized groups emerging from the working classes in order to fight the status quo. (The American labor movement of the 20s; Poland's Solidarity movement, etc.) There are probably hundreds of reasons why there is no true left in America today, and if the student debt program is one of them, then it's a small factor at best.

If banks want to prevent any leftist, anti-capitalist movements from emerging, they should give everyone huge raises.

And be glad you live in this day and age, because a 40-hour work week is as short as it has ever been. And you can thank the unions for that, who managed to organize to cut the number of hours despite the 50-60 hour weeks they had to endure. The real problem is people working 2 to 3 jobs at 60-70 hours a week to make ends meet.

And by the way, students NEVER think about their future student loan debt when they're in college and choosing a major. NEVER. Especially not if their parents are paying for tuition.



Edited By Sonic Youth on 1199079391

[Akash]

I haven't seen a list in a while so...

Juno (****)
Michael Clayton (***1/2)
Atonement (***1/2)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (***1/2)
American Gangster (***1/4)
Knocked Up (***)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (***)
300 (***)

Hmm, I think I'd have been better off not seeing this list.



Edited By Akash on 1199078895

[Zahveed]

I haven't seen a list in a while so...

Updated List:



TOP TEN
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (****)
The Darjeeling Limited (****)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (****)
No Country For Old Men (****)
Juno (****)
Into the Wild (****)
3:10 to Yuma (***3/4)
Ratatouille (***1/2)
Michael Clayton (***1/2)
Atonement (***1/2)



OTHERS
Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (***1/2)
Across the Universe (***1/4)
American Gangster (***1/4)
Knocked Up (***)
The Simpsons Movie (***)
Superbad (***)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (***)
Grindhouse (***)
Live Free or Die Hard (***)
300 (***)
August Rush (***)
SiCKO (***)
Dan in Real Life (**3/4)
I Am Legend (**3/4)
Enchanted (**3/4)
Blades of Glory (**3/4)
The Great Debaters (**1/2)
In the Valley of Elah (**1/2)
Spider-man 3 (**1/2)
The Invisible (**1/4)
Transformers (**1/4)


TRASH
Balls of Fury (**)
The Heartbreak Kid (**)
Number 23 (**)
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (*1/2)
Good Luck Chuck (*1/4)
Awake (*)
Hannibal Rising (*)


There are still a few movies I haven't seen, but I don't think 2007 needs another list from me.

[Steph2]

I think what you mean is that they fool around with you and they BECOME gay. You turn them.

I'd have lost so many cool points talking to you in high school.

Hmm, now I see why you're always giving out butt nuggets. You're just trying to get them all off of you.

[Akash]

Aakash, had you grown up in Hartford instead of East Lyme, we might have gone to the same high school.

Yes but you're two years younger than I am. I'd have lost so many cool points talking to you in high school. :p

[Akash]

My head hasn't spun so much since a family gathering ten years ago where my eccentric uncle claimed NBC's decision in 1968 to pre-empt the Jets-Raiders game for the movie "Heidi" was due to a pernicious Communist plot invading America's households.

But it was, everyone knows that.

Sonic, my convoluted point was that I think saddling the average student with debt and pushing them off to a life of 40-50 hour work week, essentially prevents them from becoming activists or active citizens. Even among the middle class -- people who have the resources to find out what's going on in the news and in politics -- you often hear that people don't have time to focus on these things. Americans work a ridiculous amount of hours and even my parents -- who are fiscally conservative -- will tell you how many patients they see with ulcers and other ailments because of stress from work.

It's not as kooky as you might think. And I'm not the first person to think it.

[Penelope]

Oh, sorry. We're talking about sex now.

Sex, politics, what's the difference? We all get screwed either way, right?

[Sonic Youth]

Furthermore, banks and other hideous institutions often lobby the gov't so that financial aid is NEVER taken to the logical place it should be taken. A country as rich as ours could have made education universally affordable a long time ago. The fact that financial aid always includes loans (with interest rates rising) is a way to trap the individual after college. If you burden the average student with loans after graduation, the student is forced to choose one of the two A/B options that includes securing a job that can help pay off the loans. Think of the effect this then has on the entire system. Economics and business are among the most popular majors in U.S. colleges (if not the most popular) and this is partly because of the cultural value assigned to these majors when one is ensconced in a turbo-capitalist society, but it is also a result of students who know they must secure jobs after graduation that will help alleviate their debt. So even as you are choosing your major, choosing classes, choosing what programs and fellowships you will take advantage of -- even as you are making basic decisions that should normally be about your growth as a student and an intellectual person -- even THEN, without being aware of it, you are pressured to choose one of the A/B options. This limits the number of non-practical, non-vocational leaning classes that the average student can and will take. And once he or she graduates and enters the workforce like a good worker bee, he or she is already too busy working to pay off student loan debt to consider any other alternative in life.

Essentially then, the system of student loan debt prevents students from becoming radicals or activists. It really does. Consider that your 20's are the time in your life when activism and radicalism would be most strongly incited (typically before you've married and settled into a "comfortable" life) and then you see how cleverly the fat cat as secured himself against the threat of radicalism, social change and activism by limiting your options in college, limiting your options after college, and basically setting the individual on a narrow path that helps to secure the working underclass needed to maintain the societal power-balance without threatening the elite upper class at all.

My head hasn't spun so much since a family gathering ten years ago where my eccentric uncle claimed NBC's decision in 1968 to pre-empt the Jets-Raiders game for the movie "Heidi" was due to a pernicious Communist plot invading America's households.

Oh, sorry. We're talking about sex now.



Edited By Sonic Youth on 1199074021

[Eric]

OK, clearly my straight male friends are about three shades further to the Louis C.K. side of the sexuality scale than yours, Pen.

[Steph2]

Oooohkay Pen. Wow.

I'm loving the discussion on American high schools too. Aakash, Johnny Guitar, Marco? Any more thoughts? I went to public school in CT but it was a particularly well off part of Hartford so of course the school was well funded. I hadn't thought about the capitalist aspect of streamlining education though. Fascinating!

Aakash, had you grown up in Hartford instead of East Lyme, we might have gone to the same high school.

[Penelope]

As for the push/pull of straight men: Call me old fashioned, but I still tend to believe straight guys when they say they're straight.

Oh, I do, too, until they start rubbing your leg with their leg under the table, ignore all the petite young ladies on the other side of the pool table to focus on you, readily agree to go see Notting Hill with you, and make a bet to friends that if a certain basketball team loses the playoffs they'll suck your cock...then, I begin to wonder....

[Eric]

That post came out all wrong, I wasn't at all fishing for sympathy.

As for the push/pull of straight men: Call me old fashioned, but I still tend to believe straight guys when they say they're straight.

So, American education. I'm curious to hear more on that topic.



Edited By Eric on 1199073009

[Akash]

Sigh, I hear you Eric. Sometimes I think relationships would be much easier if sex wasn't involved.

Well, let's not go nuts now. With very few exceptions, sex is what separates a close friendship from a relationship. It's kind of the defining thing, you know?

With me, I'll actually get pretty far (making out, even sex) and then later on they realize they're gay (or bi, and they want a guy).

I think what you mean is that they fool around with you and they BECOME gay. You turn them.

Eric buddy, nothing any of us says is going to make it easier. So um, cyber hug.



Edited By Akash on 1199071679

[Penelope]

Sometimes I think relationships would be much easier if sex wasn't involved.

Oh, I think it's worse: you're torn up by your desire for that person, and you keep reading their comraderie, their playfulness with you in the right/wrong way (they want to, but can't let themselves go there) and it ends in your heart broken.

At least with the sex, you had SOME fun in the relationship.