I Hope You're Happy

Creative Reading is a one semester class, and next semester I will be teaching Film Studies. I'm a little worried about that, because I'm not nearly as obsessed with movies as I am with comics, and because showing a movie in class is more frustrating than you might think.

If you ask students what they would like to do in a class, they will often answer "Watch a movie!" Then when you show a movie, and you ask them to watch, there are always some students who won't even bother looking in the direction of the TV until you've specifically told them to do so 6 or 7 times. The problem is that people watch movies for fun, so when a movie is shown in class, there's an instinctive response that it must be fun time, and so you don't have to do anything. Worse, many students go to the movie theater to hang out with friends, or do other things while a TV is on in the background, and have trouble actually paying attention to a movie for any stretch of time. So while "Watch the movie" seems like a simple task to ask someone to perform, it's surprisingly difficult for many individuals.

Today we finished watching Batman Begins. I had wanted to spend three days on this, but apparently I can't count, because it took four. Since some people were having trouble paying attention I gave them a handout of questions to answer, which helped most of them focus. There were still a few, though, whose eyes kept drifting away from the screen. I kept telling one particular student to watch the movie. The third or fourth time she responded, "It's boring!" I turned to look at the screen. There was a massive explosion, as the train tracks tore apart and a train raced toward the ground. It was all motion and noise and excitement.

Before I could say anything she admitted, "Okay, it's not boring." She forced herself to watch then, at least for a few minutes.

Tomorrow we're back to Batman Year One, which we'll wrap up just in time for the end of the quarter.

"If you make yourself more than just a man, if you devote yourself to an ideal, you become something else entirely. Are you ready to begin?"

The students have been doing a lot of handouts lately so I wanted to mix it up and show them a movie. The animated movie of Batman Year One is coming out October 18th. It is not, however, out today, so we started watching Batman Begins. You know, this one:

The students are watching it and taking notes on how it is similar to and different from Batman Year One. Batman Begins is not an adaptation of Year One, but it does steal various concepts, characters, and themes from the book. Corrupt cop Flass and mob boss Falcone are in the movie, for instance, and so is the SWAT-team-coming-after-Batman scene. The James Gordon in the movie is similar to the one in the book, though the movie version has been in Gotham for years, instead of just transferring in from Chicago the same day Bruce Wayne returns. And while the book starts off with Bruce returning from his travels abroad and never gives even a flashback to show where he's been, the movie spends a great deal of time on his training.

But you don't have to do this assignment, so I'll stop giving you the answers. Batman Begins is a fun movie and I think they'll enjoy it. Also important, playing a movie is something easy for the sub to do. That's right, I will be going out of town tomorrow, so my class will be in the hands of a stranger. I hope everything goes well.

Someday I Will Write a Blog Post That Is Not about Batman

Now that we've read all of Batman Year One, we're looking at the relationships in the book and how they develop over time. Tracking, for instance, how James and Barbara Gordon's marriage changes, and how Batman and Gordon's respect evolves, and so on.

This is going to be a short blog post, due to child care reasons.

I would like to add, though, that I liked the change the filmmakers made in Batman Begins, where Joe Chill, the guy who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, is caught and tried and, most importantly, murdered right in front of Bruce. Unable to get revenge on his parents' killer, Bruce Wayne has to come up with a new goal, so he travels the world training to become the ultimate crimefighter.

I just heard that DC is planning on changing the Official Batman Backstory (which changes every week or so) back to its Frank Miller setting, wherein Bruce never knew the name of the guy who killed his parents, and the guy was never caught. That seems like a step backwards to me.

But I don't have time to develop that thought . . .child care duty calls. Have a great day!