Anthology of Ideas

The movie Baraka shows us that humans are not extremely different, but rather that all humans are and must be thought of as interrelated. The movie explores the many ways that human societies adapt to their surroundings, and in doing so, it also shows us that all human societies adapt in similar ways. Although humans themselves are diverse, their diversity pales in comparison to the diversity of the earth itself. The Earth itself has achieved far more diversity than anything a human can imagine ” even aliens in science fiction are based on animals, insects and fish. The human cultural legacy is minute and our existence is naught but a blink in time. That being said, as we are a creation of the earth we do not owe it anything; because, as its creation, we cannot harm it. Of course humans are capable of destroying all life on the planet, but it would recover eventually, and in doing so continue to create new life.

The role that art plays in human lives is not the only theme of the movie, it also speaks of how life conspires without ones knowledge and leads people to where they end up. Life is like a giant puzzle for each person, events have conspired since the beginning of the universe to lead to their lives. This is not to say that human lives are predefined or that destiny controls the way people end up but more like that the people and events that came before each person effect our lives, just as the people and events around oneself does. For example if someones great great etc etc grandparent died and didn’t have a child they would never have been born nor would one of their parents etc obviously. But even in the most simplistic parts of daily lives everything from the school people go to, to the last horrible blind date are affected by outside events that most people never find out about.

“Modern Times” was a wonderful blend of comedy and social drama. The movie provided a look into the world of the great depression by people who lived it. Different elements of the movie portrayed the different difficulties of life in that era. Between bursts of comedy a grand picture of a society in turmoil is produced. Through work shortages, factory closings, labor strikes and political unrest Chaplin’s world shows us another side that people like to forget about the past.

One of the many ideas that are prevalent in this movie is the idea that each person is just a part of a larger whole, that although you could try to be individual, it was not in your best interests to do so. This idea is shown both in the beginning of the movie and when Chaplin was “forced” through social pressure to strike.

The clip that is referenced is near the end of the movie after the two female characters fight at the school, and runs for about 2 -3 minutes.

It doesn’t take any physics experience to realize that “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” is a bad physics movie, however with physics we can show just how bad it really is. The clip I selected runs only a few seconds long but portrays many of the formula’s that one would use in a simple mechanics physics course. Through careful calculations and a little estimation (all double checked) I was able to determine a range of details including the acceleration of gravity on the “planet” this movie takes place in, the diameter of the planet, and the density of the planet. I was also able to determine a few specific examples aside from the acceleration of gravity that show that this movie is a BPM.