It is time to get done with Grad School. It is also time to start looking like I have a Master's Degree when I am in my classroom. It would also be pretty sweet if my students looked like they had a decent English when they walk out of my room, but that may still be a year or two down the road.
The only outstanding work that separates me from my magical piece of paper that adds those super special initials to the end of my name is a final project. My project is quickly turning into a re-write of my US Literature curriculum in such a way as to vastly beef up the writing component of the class. Much of the work that I have done in getting my Bachelor's Degree and teacher certification has been directed at getting students to view reading and writing as a transformative process. I want them to find and interpret texts in the world and then create their own texts to alter themselves and those around them. The reading part is easy. Kids these days with their texting, and their emailing, and their immersive video games, and their funny trans-media TV shows understand that words mean things. They also understand that the more they look at words the better they understand the world (even the world that is not directly connected to the words, because everything is everything). Such smart little kids these days.
My students still suck at writing, though. The best argument for this is that I still suck as a writing teacher. I've spend the last couple of weeks reading about why that may be. In a week I'll begin working on how to suck less.
There is a three-pronged attack:
1) Work writing in as the focus of my class. The more kids do it, the less they suck at it. The more I teach it, the less I suck at it. See? Win win. Writing is a relic of thought. If I am to determine whether or not the kids are learning something, I need more relics to evaluate. If they aren't writing, I have very little idea of what they are thinking.
2) Create writing groups. My kids rely to heavily on their teachers to revise and edit their writing. Good teachers make themselves irrelivant as quickly as possible. They need to rely on each other, and eventually on themselves to independently seek feedback on their words and know how to translate that feedback into less-sucky writing. Teaching kids to know what to do with feedback is probably going to be the second hardest thing that I will do in my class. The hardest will be getting them to give useful and honest feedback.
3) Help start a reading group among other teachers in my school. Grad school, like college, high school, junior high, elementary school, and Mrs. K's pre-school before it didn't actually make me smarter. Doing shit, recognizing that I suck at doing shit, watching other people do shit, and talking a lot about doing shit has made me better at doing shit. (I guess nothing has really made me smarter. Oh, well.) I would like to have more inteligent conversations about teaching with my fellow teachers about teaching. The best way to start this is to have more intelligent conversations about whatever. I'd like to get together once a month or so with a group of interrested co-workers and talk about books that we suggest to the rest of the group. I bet some people will suggest some neat books. Ideas are dangerous. Teachers are dangerous. We'll see where this goes.
There it is: What I am thinking about right now.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Hey, that's crazy . . .
It has been nearly a full year since me last post, and here I am thinking it is time to start posting again.
I'm working on my final project for my Master's Degree in Education and English. This process will include lots and lots of thinking. I'm reading a book about how writing and thinking are basically the same thing (one lasts longer than the other) (also see my first and second blog posts). You get where this is going.
I'll be back soon.
I'm working on my final project for my Master's Degree in Education and English. This process will include lots and lots of thinking. I'm reading a book about how writing and thinking are basically the same thing (one lasts longer than the other) (also see my first and second blog posts). You get where this is going.
I'll be back soon.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Kids These Days!
Check it out! This is my little brother (the tagger) and one of our cousins (the taggee).
Neu Metal and homages to cartoon chase scenes! I'm so proud.
Thomas' other posted videos include a nice little anti-capitalist mockery of toys-in-cereal (the pride just wells up), a slasher (or hammerer) series, and one of him eating glue (a bit more like what I was doing at his age). Now if I could just convince him that Dungeons and Dragons is cool . . .
Neu Metal and homages to cartoon chase scenes! I'm so proud.
Thomas' other posted videos include a nice little anti-capitalist mockery of toys-in-cereal (the pride just wells up), a slasher (or hammerer) series, and one of him eating glue (a bit more like what I was doing at his age). Now if I could just convince him that Dungeons and Dragons is cool . . .
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Devil Doctor Woman
Here we go, the final Guinea Pig movie. I wish the series was half as good as the pictures on the boxes.
Devil Doctor Woman (Peter no akuma no joi-san) 1990
Orange Video House Presents
Director: Hajime Tabe
Producer: none listed in English
Writer: Hajime Tabe
Starring: Eve, Masami Hisamoto, Nezumi Imamura
FX: none listed in English
Devil Doctor Woman starts out by finally giving me what I have wanted for the last five movies: a blood geyser! Our host for the evening introduces herself briefly as the unlicensed doc who deals with cases no other doctor will touch and then she slashes open a doll and it launches gallons of blood in the air. It was beautiful. I nearly cried.
If the movie had skipped right to the credits it would have been perfect.
What follows is a series of shorts highlighting made-up diseases treated (or mocked) by the Devil Doctor Woman (who looks like a bad Elvira impersonator). There is a family with exploding heads, a man whose body leaks smoke, a zombie, a man whose right arm is trying to kill him, living poop, and this dude whose tongue sings like a pigeon (you can imagine how challenging the special effects were for the last one), and plenty more poorly conceived excuses to spray red liquid at the camera. While I can see how fun it must have been to make, the rest of us gore nerds know which of our home movies to keep hidden in our basements!
We end with credits rolling over members of the cast and crew hitting each other with “iron pies” as their names come up on the screen. These ingenious devices are composed of a hard rubber plate covered in silver painted rubber spikes with a fake blood filled balloon “hidden” in the middle. We even got to watch one not break. Come on, guys! Where'd the cancerous mermaid go?
Do not watch Devil Doctor Woman. While the rest of the series has some artistic merit, some decent gore set pieces, or at the very least some effort put towards entertaining, this last one is a waste of an hour.
I promise I'll never ask for a blood geyser again.
Devil Doctor Woman (Peter no akuma no joi-san) 1990
Orange Video House Presents
Director: Hajime Tabe
Producer: none listed in English
Writer: Hajime Tabe
Starring: Eve, Masami Hisamoto, Nezumi Imamura
FX: none listed in English
Devil Doctor Woman starts out by finally giving me what I have wanted for the last five movies: a blood geyser! Our host for the evening introduces herself briefly as the unlicensed doc who deals with cases no other doctor will touch and then she slashes open a doll and it launches gallons of blood in the air. It was beautiful. I nearly cried.
If the movie had skipped right to the credits it would have been perfect.
What follows is a series of shorts highlighting made-up diseases treated (or mocked) by the Devil Doctor Woman (who looks like a bad Elvira impersonator). There is a family with exploding heads, a man whose body leaks smoke, a zombie, a man whose right arm is trying to kill him, living poop, and this dude whose tongue sings like a pigeon (you can imagine how challenging the special effects were for the last one), and plenty more poorly conceived excuses to spray red liquid at the camera. While I can see how fun it must have been to make, the rest of us gore nerds know which of our home movies to keep hidden in our basements!
We end with credits rolling over members of the cast and crew hitting each other with “iron pies” as their names come up on the screen. These ingenious devices are composed of a hard rubber plate covered in silver painted rubber spikes with a fake blood filled balloon “hidden” in the middle. We even got to watch one not break. Come on, guys! Where'd the cancerous mermaid go?
Do not watch Devil Doctor Woman. While the rest of the series has some artistic merit, some decent gore set pieces, or at the very least some effort put towards entertaining, this last one is a waste of an hour.
I promise I'll never ask for a blood geyser again.
Monday, July 14, 2008
He Never Dies
The box said that the two movies were a double-feature and I need something to get Mermaid in a Manhole out of my head. That was nasty! One more today (for an explanation about what the heck is actually going on please scroll down to the 7/8 post).
He Never Dies (Senritsu! Shinanai otoko) 1986
Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Masayuki Kuzumi
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Story: Noritaka Okamato
Screenplay: Masayuki Kuzumi
Starring: Masahiro Sato, Keisuke Araki, and EVE
FX: Nobuaki Koga
These guys love frame stories. He Never Dies opens with a white, English speaking doctor listing the many unknown phenomena of the world. A Japanese language translator speaks over him and the English subtitles dutifully translate back to English. The explanation ends with the introduction of this story of a man who could not die. We are asked to watch the following video and think about what we see.
Hideshi is a whiney office worker with a one-room apartment and a death wish. His work is boring, he is a failure with women, and he wants to die. When we first see him he is unable to slit his own wrists because it hurts too much. At work the next day Hideshi is contrasted with the suave and self-assured Nakamura, the womanizer of the office. Hideshi apologizes while Nakamura gets the girl.
Hideshi decides to never go to work again, but his bosses don’t notice after nearly a week and he is not fired. In desperation, he tries to kill himself again, only to discover that he can no longer feel pain, and cutting his own wrists yields only a small amount of blood. Then comes the painful realization: Hideshi is such a failure he cannot even kill himself.
Eventually Nakamura ends up at the apartment as Hideshi demonstrates his newest failing. The formerly confident Nakamura is reduced to tears and begging as his friend hacks himself up, pulls out all of his own internal organs, and eventually chops his own head off. Soon Kyouto, Nakamura’s girlfriend becomes worried about the two, goes into the apartment and is horrified by the mess, not, mind you, the gore.
This short film uses the signature Guinea Pig gore to set up odd comical situations between pretty standard characters. The acting is intentionally overblown, Hideshi has some funny echo effects added to his voice during some scenes, and Kyouto’s final reaction is to clean up the apartment as the severed head of her friend decides that maybe he is finally ready to return to work.
I loved the scene where Hidoshi looks at his own severed hand and voices disappointment in his own various failures. He Never Dies is a cute little film that doesn’t try to do much beyond mixing stock comedy characters with gallons of blood and buckets of organs. It’s funny and a little intelligent at a few points. I’d have to say it was worth the 35 minutes.
Almost finished! Tomorrow’s foray: Devil Doctor Woman. Please, no more movies with “devil” in the title . . .
He Never Dies (Senritsu! Shinanai otoko) 1986
Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Masayuki Kuzumi
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Story: Noritaka Okamato
Screenplay: Masayuki Kuzumi
Starring: Masahiro Sato, Keisuke Araki, and EVE
FX: Nobuaki Koga
These guys love frame stories. He Never Dies opens with a white, English speaking doctor listing the many unknown phenomena of the world. A Japanese language translator speaks over him and the English subtitles dutifully translate back to English. The explanation ends with the introduction of this story of a man who could not die. We are asked to watch the following video and think about what we see.
Hideshi is a whiney office worker with a one-room apartment and a death wish. His work is boring, he is a failure with women, and he wants to die. When we first see him he is unable to slit his own wrists because it hurts too much. At work the next day Hideshi is contrasted with the suave and self-assured Nakamura, the womanizer of the office. Hideshi apologizes while Nakamura gets the girl.
Hideshi decides to never go to work again, but his bosses don’t notice after nearly a week and he is not fired. In desperation, he tries to kill himself again, only to discover that he can no longer feel pain, and cutting his own wrists yields only a small amount of blood. Then comes the painful realization: Hideshi is such a failure he cannot even kill himself.
Eventually Nakamura ends up at the apartment as Hideshi demonstrates his newest failing. The formerly confident Nakamura is reduced to tears and begging as his friend hacks himself up, pulls out all of his own internal organs, and eventually chops his own head off. Soon Kyouto, Nakamura’s girlfriend becomes worried about the two, goes into the apartment and is horrified by the mess, not, mind you, the gore.
This short film uses the signature Guinea Pig gore to set up odd comical situations between pretty standard characters. The acting is intentionally overblown, Hideshi has some funny echo effects added to his voice during some scenes, and Kyouto’s final reaction is to clean up the apartment as the severed head of her friend decides that maybe he is finally ready to return to work.
I loved the scene where Hidoshi looks at his own severed hand and voices disappointment in his own various failures. He Never Dies is a cute little film that doesn’t try to do much beyond mixing stock comedy characters with gallons of blood and buckets of organs. It’s funny and a little intelligent at a few points. I’d have to say it was worth the 35 minutes.
Almost finished! Tomorrow’s foray: Devil Doctor Woman. Please, no more movies with “devil” in the title . . .
Mermaid in a Manhole
The Guinea Pig folks finally got to me. Four movies into the series and I am grossed out. (For full details of the Guinea Pig movie series go on down to the 7/8 entry).
Mermaid in a Manhole (Manhoru no naka no ningyo) 1988
Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Hideshi Hino
Starring: Shigeru Saiki, Go Riju, Masami Hisamoto, Mari Somei,
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Screenplay: Hideshi Hino
FX: Nobuaki Koga
The idea behind the Guinea Pig film series is for Hideshi Hino and his palls to show of their gore skills. The fourth movie in the series demonstrates just how far they have progressed since Devil’s Experiment.
Mermaid in a Manhole starts with an artist going down into the sewers to find subjects to paint. In voice over we learn that the sewers were built in a dried up streambed. As a child the artist had played in the stream and he recalls these pleasant memories as he wades through the muck. He thinks about how he has lost much of what he loved to the sewers. During this sequence we get flashes of a dead baby in the water along with some other odd images of garbage and fish floating around. Eventually, after sketching a dead animal for a while, the artist finds a mermaid that he vaguely remembers from his childhood (no explanation given) propped up against a wall.
This mermaid has some horrible tumors on her stomach, so the artist decides to take her home to take care of her and eventually paint her. As the movie progresses, the tumors get worse and worse. The entire middle and most of the end is comprised of the mermaid thrashing around squirting bodily fluids and worms (?!) onto the floor. There is a cool little segment where the mermaid realizes that the fluids from her tumors are different colors and that the artist should use them to paint her. The artist is torn between the desire to try to heal and the desire to immortalize her through painting. As her tumors spread, he must constantly paint over his masterpiece, to show her deteriorating condition. Themes of beauty being replaced by disease abound.
Nosey neighbors pop in and out of the movie to add some tension to the artist’s already disgusting predicament. They become increasingly suspicious of the fish in his garbage and the fact that he rarely leaves his house.
Eventually the mermaid is covered almost completely with tumors and begins to beg the artist to finish painting before she dies. The movie ends with a bit of a twist and some really horrendous scenes of gore.
It’s been a while since a movie actually grossed me out. I think the Guinea Pig folks finally hit on a successful experiment. Mermaid in a Manhole is disgusting! I can’t say it strongly enough. They forgo trying to make the gore look real and go straight for exaggeration. This mermaid oozes paint, blood, worms, and just about anything else you could think of. The lighting of the shots gets redder and redder and the set becomes cluttered with garbage and offal. The scenes of the mermaid’s death provide a truly horrid climax to some seriously artful nastiness. I don’t ever want to see a fish again.
This one is good (in a one-of-the-most-filthy-and-disgusting-things-I’ve-ever-seen kind of way).
Next up: He Never Dies. They made a gore comedy. I’m not sure if I support this or not.
Mermaid in a Manhole (Manhoru no naka no ningyo) 1988
Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Hideshi Hino
Starring: Shigeru Saiki, Go Riju, Masami Hisamoto, Mari Somei,
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Screenplay: Hideshi Hino
FX: Nobuaki Koga
The idea behind the Guinea Pig film series is for Hideshi Hino and his palls to show of their gore skills. The fourth movie in the series demonstrates just how far they have progressed since Devil’s Experiment.
Mermaid in a Manhole starts with an artist going down into the sewers to find subjects to paint. In voice over we learn that the sewers were built in a dried up streambed. As a child the artist had played in the stream and he recalls these pleasant memories as he wades through the muck. He thinks about how he has lost much of what he loved to the sewers. During this sequence we get flashes of a dead baby in the water along with some other odd images of garbage and fish floating around. Eventually, after sketching a dead animal for a while, the artist finds a mermaid that he vaguely remembers from his childhood (no explanation given) propped up against a wall.
This mermaid has some horrible tumors on her stomach, so the artist decides to take her home to take care of her and eventually paint her. As the movie progresses, the tumors get worse and worse. The entire middle and most of the end is comprised of the mermaid thrashing around squirting bodily fluids and worms (?!) onto the floor. There is a cool little segment where the mermaid realizes that the fluids from her tumors are different colors and that the artist should use them to paint her. The artist is torn between the desire to try to heal and the desire to immortalize her through painting. As her tumors spread, he must constantly paint over his masterpiece, to show her deteriorating condition. Themes of beauty being replaced by disease abound.
Nosey neighbors pop in and out of the movie to add some tension to the artist’s already disgusting predicament. They become increasingly suspicious of the fish in his garbage and the fact that he rarely leaves his house.
Eventually the mermaid is covered almost completely with tumors and begins to beg the artist to finish painting before she dies. The movie ends with a bit of a twist and some really horrendous scenes of gore.
It’s been a while since a movie actually grossed me out. I think the Guinea Pig folks finally hit on a successful experiment. Mermaid in a Manhole is disgusting! I can’t say it strongly enough. They forgo trying to make the gore look real and go straight for exaggeration. This mermaid oozes paint, blood, worms, and just about anything else you could think of. The lighting of the shots gets redder and redder and the set becomes cluttered with garbage and offal. The scenes of the mermaid’s death provide a truly horrid climax to some seriously artful nastiness. I don’t ever want to see a fish again.
This one is good (in a one-of-the-most-filthy-and-disgusting-things-I’ve-ever-seen kind of way).
Next up: He Never Dies. They made a gore comedy. I’m not sure if I support this or not.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Flower of Flesh and Blood
Oh, boy another torture film! So this time the director of Devil’s Experiment has a crazy fan who recreated the first of the Guinea Pig movies with another woman but I guess he was too cheap to use special effects and actually tortured and killed her (must have been a hell of a lot cheaper). The unidentified crazy person sent the 8mm snuff film to some cartoonist who decided to recreate the recreation so that the world could see how horrible people can be. I feel like I need footnotes before the opening credits start to roll.
(Check out the 7/8 post for full details of the Japanese gore fest).
Flower of Flesh and Blood (Chiniku no hana) 1985
Director: Hideshi Hino
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Screenplay: Hideshi Hino
Starring: Hiroshi Tamura and Kirara Yugao
FX: Nobuaki Koga
So we start off with the cameraman sizing up a woman in public, chasing her down and then knocking her out. The woman wakes up tied to a bed in a room with blood-splattered walls and some pretty nasty paintings. We see her captor with his back turned sharpening his knives. He is dressed like a samurai. The poor woman screams when she sees his face, not the razor or the costume. Perhaps its because he is also wearing lipstick? She hates transvestites? Lady, now is not the time for bigotry. Look at the knives!
Before getting into the hacking, our Samurai/Lipstick man drugs the woman and then explains to the camera that she will feel no pain, only ecstasy from the drugs. If she is feeling no pain, its harder to feel bad for the woman or even imagine yourself in her place. Since we can’t identify with the captive in any real way I guess this makes the movie not so much about the torture as it is about being horrified that this guy may exist (hence the frame story).
Once the action starts our hero hacks the woman up as she is lost in a drug haze. What is it about not showing people screaming? This would be so much more disturbing if the woman were awake. Come on, Guinea Pig people! Between hacking off each limb the Samurai/Lipstick man goes on for a bit about how the woman is a flower and her blood is like a flower blooming. Then flowers bloom along her neck when he chops her head off. Then her eyes are jewels when he scoops them out. The lipstick and samurai costume wearing crazy guy thinks that women are flowers that wear flowers and have jewels for eyes. These flower and jewel wearing flowers need his help in order to properly bloom.
Wow.
The gore here is much better than Devil’s Experiment. We’re talking at least on par with Slime City (which if you haven’t seen, you should go out and rent). All kinds of still-bleeding severed limbs, open body cavities, organs, rotting corpses, limbs planted in flower pots, chickens preserved in jars, teeth, grubs. All the goods. We even get a shot of the guy smoking a cigarette after hacking the woman up.
In the end we return to the city streets, follow another woman with the camera and are reassured in running text that the cops are on the case. Well that’s a relief!
I keep seeing references to a situation in which Charlie Sheen saw this nasty little bit of film making, mistook it for snuff, and contacted the FBI. I really hope that this is an urban legend. As good as the gore looks, it still doesn’t look completely real. Also, the end titles say that the Japanese cops are on it. They got it, man. They don’t need the FBI. Freakin’ busy body!
Next up: Mermaid in a Manhole! WTF?
(Check out the 7/8 post for full details of the Japanese gore fest).
Flower of Flesh and Blood (Chiniku no hana) 1985
Director: Hideshi Hino
Producer: Satoru Ogura
Screenplay: Hideshi Hino
Starring: Hiroshi Tamura and Kirara Yugao
FX: Nobuaki Koga
So we start off with the cameraman sizing up a woman in public, chasing her down and then knocking her out. The woman wakes up tied to a bed in a room with blood-splattered walls and some pretty nasty paintings. We see her captor with his back turned sharpening his knives. He is dressed like a samurai. The poor woman screams when she sees his face, not the razor or the costume. Perhaps its because he is also wearing lipstick? She hates transvestites? Lady, now is not the time for bigotry. Look at the knives!
Before getting into the hacking, our Samurai/Lipstick man drugs the woman and then explains to the camera that she will feel no pain, only ecstasy from the drugs. If she is feeling no pain, its harder to feel bad for the woman or even imagine yourself in her place. Since we can’t identify with the captive in any real way I guess this makes the movie not so much about the torture as it is about being horrified that this guy may exist (hence the frame story).
Once the action starts our hero hacks the woman up as she is lost in a drug haze. What is it about not showing people screaming? This would be so much more disturbing if the woman were awake. Come on, Guinea Pig people! Between hacking off each limb the Samurai/Lipstick man goes on for a bit about how the woman is a flower and her blood is like a flower blooming. Then flowers bloom along her neck when he chops her head off. Then her eyes are jewels when he scoops them out. The lipstick and samurai costume wearing crazy guy thinks that women are flowers that wear flowers and have jewels for eyes. These flower and jewel wearing flowers need his help in order to properly bloom.
Wow.
The gore here is much better than Devil’s Experiment. We’re talking at least on par with Slime City (which if you haven’t seen, you should go out and rent). All kinds of still-bleeding severed limbs, open body cavities, organs, rotting corpses, limbs planted in flower pots, chickens preserved in jars, teeth, grubs. All the goods. We even get a shot of the guy smoking a cigarette after hacking the woman up.
In the end we return to the city streets, follow another woman with the camera and are reassured in running text that the cops are on the case. Well that’s a relief!
I keep seeing references to a situation in which Charlie Sheen saw this nasty little bit of film making, mistook it for snuff, and contacted the FBI. I really hope that this is an urban legend. As good as the gore looks, it still doesn’t look completely real. Also, the end titles say that the Japanese cops are on it. They got it, man. They don’t need the FBI. Freakin’ busy body!
Next up: Mermaid in a Manhole! WTF?
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