The Heritage Commercial about Lucille Teasdale is definitely not one that I remember from my childhood,which makes sense given that it was made after Teasdale’s death in 1996. It definitely falls outside the range of these things that were lodged into my brain by repeated viewings. It’s kind of a shame. Seeing Canadians go out into the world and doing good deeds even if it kills them is the best kind of propaganda, way more appealing to me than the militaristic stuff.
But to review it properly, I have to wonder if this would have been a great Minute if I had seen it as a kid. It’s definitely got to be one of the goriest of them, given that surgery scene at the end, but the real test of these things is quotability. We love to use quotes from these in everyday life. Anything here? Well, I could see “I’ll take antibiotics later” being used as a catchall dismissal of concerns. But that’s it. That’s all we’ve got for decent quotes here. Kind of a shame, but that’s how it is.
I can go as high as Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.
I watched Whiplash. Here is what occurred to me while I did so.
This is one of those movies where everyone gets all worked up about a big competition that I, PDR, wouldn’t give a shit about. Often these are about sports. In this case, it’s about music.
Anyway, the move is fine. The actors are good. It’s shot well. All that stuff. But man, I don’t care if that kid wins the music trophy. But here’s what I do care about: This movie seems to endorse cruelty as a method of teaching.
The big bad music teacher of the movie is convinced that he needs to find the next best music man, and the way to do it is to torture his students. This, he feels, will weed out those students who aren’t fully on committed and will make the True Musician prove their worth by doubling down. It kind of sounds makes it sound like talent isn’t teachable, but is inherent in certain people and they are the only ones worth trying to teach. Seems like a dumb thing for a music teacher to espouse, but whatever. And this movie actually does paint this teacher as a bad guy. We see the negative effects this method of teaching has.
But then, in the end, main kid rises up against the cruelty and does a good music at the music championships. He seems to be doing it in an attempt to prove his bad teacher wrong, but this is exactly what his teacher wanted. Bad teacher was right all along. That sucks.
