Divergent (the movie since that's more relevant at the moment)

From:www.forbes.com

Wow. A post about the newest sci-fi movie based on a book and aimed at teenage girls. That's new.
This was gonna be a much cooler post and be in comic book form, but unfortunately I'm lazy and would rather play Portal 2 than draw.
So no comic for you guys.
Anyway, back on topic.

Teaser type plot:
Divergent is dystopian novel set in a future Chicago. The city has been surrounded by a fence in order to protect the citizens from whatever is 'outside' ((which I hear is to be adressed in Allegiant (((the third book))) which I haven't read yet so please don't say any spoilers)). Inside the city is an entirely different story. The inhabitants have been separated into 5 different groups (factions) that value different things. Abnegation values selflessness. Amity values peace. Candor values truth. Erudite values intelligence. And Dauntless values courage. The cultures of each faction heavily surround what it values, and influences everything from what they eat to what they wear. When a person turns 16, they are allowed to choose which faction they will live in for the rest of their lives.
Beatrice Prior is an Abnegation born girl who is about to choose where she will stay for the rest of her life. Each of the kids are given an aptitude test to help them make their decision by putting them in a simulation that measures their reactions and thinking. Normally, you get one answer, and it wasn't that hard to tell that it would be your answer. Beatrice gets three. This labels her as a Divergent, a person who can't conform to one faction.
She later chooses Dauntless as her faction, since she always admired their courage and how they could have fun. The rest of the book goes through her training, and a scheme that one of the factions is cooking up.

Spoilerific from here on out.
Characters:

Tris (Beatrice's nickname): The main character of the story. She is very reckless, cunning, and selfless. Because of this, her three results on the aptitude test were Abnegation, Erudite, and Dauntless which she constantly mentions and worries about. Because she switched from Dauntless to Erudite, she is bullied by the other transfers and called 'Stiff'. However she often proves herself in training, and because she saves the entire faction which would have to get you some respect.
Also, she's played by Shailene Woodley who is an AMAZING ACTRESS. HOLY CRAP. SHE IS SO GOOD AT IT THAT I CAN' T EVEN BELIEVE IT.

Four: Tris' instructor during training and eventual boyfriend. He is the epitome of the Dauntless. He has perfect aim with any sort of weapon, is extremely strong, and believes in everyday acts of bravery. Unfortunately for him, Dauntless has turned more towards a belief in reckless bravery, which Four doesn't approve of.
Obviously Four is a nickname (but omg can you imagine if it wasn't? #worst parents ever), that Four earned during his initiation. For initiation, you have to go through your fear landscape and face your worst nightmares. Four is legendary for only having four fears (most people have 10-15).
It turns out that Four transfered from Abnegation (like Tris) to escape from an abusive father. This might be part of why Tris is attracted to him, coupled with the fact that he's sort of gorgeous.

I couldn't decide whether to have
the normal poster or the shirtless
Four poster, so I did both,
From:www.imdb.com

Caleb: Tris' brother. He seemed like the perfect Abnegation kid, but he transfered to Erudite which dispelled that theory. He's not very brave, but he's incredibly smart.
The main reason I bring him up is because he's played by Ansel Elgort, which is beautiful since he and Shailene will be in 'The Fault in Our Stars' together.

Christina: Tris' best friend who transfered to Dauntless from Candor.

Peter: The biggest dickwad ever who will do anything to get ahead. This includes stabbing someone in the eye with a butter knife so his ranking will be higher.

Al: A really big transfer from Candor to Dauntless. He's a total sweetheart, but sucks at being Dauntless.

Tori: A tattoo artist that helps Tris to understand her Divergence

Will/Uriah/ etc- Friends of Tris' that do stuff.

Final reaction:
I'm a dork who absolutely HAS to read the book before I see the movie. Unfortunately, everyone I saw this movie with hadn't read the book, so I was the only one who knew what was going on.
Since you're supposed to do reviews in a good/bad/good format, I'll start with something good.
The casting was amazing. Shailene was the perfect Tris. Theo James was a great Four, and everyone else looked very close to what I had imagined in the books.
Okay, now to complain about the same thing that I complain about in all of the movie-baed-off-book posts. IT WASN'T LIKE THE BOOK. EVERYTHING WAS CHANGED. BLAH BLAH.....blah.

Sorry guys, I'm really losing motivation to do this.
Let's just wrap it up.
Another thing that I really liked about the movie (though I admit this is more to the book's credit), was the scene with one of Tris' fears. Basically she's afraid of intimacy, and vulnerability, which is presented as Four forcing himself on her. She responds to this with a well placed kick to the stomach, getting her off him and fighting back.
I might just be focusing on this because I'm currently doing a report on feminism for school, but I think it's great that tons of girls around the world will see this scene. In a culture that keeps sexual abuse in the shadows, this'll show people that this sort of thing is not okay.

Conclusion:
If you've read the book, you're going to be disappointed because of extreme plot changes. If you haven't, you'll probably be confused cus they stunk at explaining things.
You should still go, but don't go with super high expectations.

Edit: Hey guys! I found this video and you should watch it because it has to do with next week's post.

Oh Captain, My Captain

That title sure got your attention, huh Mr. P?

You thought this was gonna be about Walt Whitman?

You're only sort of mistaken.

BEHOLD!!

DEAD POETS SOCIETY!!!

You came to the wrong neighborhood
from: www.huffingtonpost.com

Short teaser thing:
So we've got all these boys that go to this really elite boarding school called Welton Academy. All of their parents want them to grow up to be doctors and lawyers and go to Ivy league colleges and stuff. These boys have been stuck in boring but 'useful' classes like Latin and trigonometry all their lives. Suddenly, they find themselves in a poetry class taught by a notoriously nutty teacher named Mr. Keating.
Keating was a student at Welton Academy, and was a member of the long forgotten Dead Poets Society. The Dead Poets Society was basically a club that would sneak out of the school at night, go to a cave in the woods, read poetry, and try to get girls to join them. The boys reconvene the Dead Poets Society, and start their arpe diem fueled adventures.

Characters:
((I'm doing spoilers here since a lot of the big stuff is with each character, so as the usual warning: Spoilerific from here on out))

Neil Perry: Neil is the perfect son. His dad REALLY wants him to become a doctor, and is determined to do anything to get him there. He justifies his actions like making Neil take extra math classes instead of working on the school paper, as 'giving you more opportunities than I had'(but honestly it borders on emotional abuse).  In Keating's class, he finds out that he loves poetry, and it becomes his gateway to self expression. He is the one that revitalizes the Dead Poets Society, and embraces the carpe diem philosophy by trying out for A Midsummer Nights Dream, and getting the part as Puck. Of course, he couldn't tell his dad, as his dad would freak the freak out. He completely and totally rocks the role (even while wearing atrocious twig gloves), but his father is obviously not happy about it when he finds out about it the day before the play. His dad immediately takes him out of Welton as soon as the play is over, and says he'll send him to military school, which will put a stop to this 'nonsense'. Seeing no other way out of his dads controlling ways, Neil kills himself.

Todd Anderson: Todd is the new kid at school. His brother was a top student at Welton, and Todd has no chance of coming out of his brothers shadow, as Todd is very shy and awkward. He's Neil's roommate, which is how he gets into the group in the first place, and is also part of Keating's poetry class. At first, he refuses to speak to pretty much everyone except for a few close people. One day, he has to recite a poem that he wrote for class, and with a BARBARIC YOP, he overcomes his anxiety, and is more confident. He's very loyal to his friends.

Knox Overstreet: Knox is the romantic. While he's at dinner with his parent's friends, he meets their daughter Chris, who he falls head over heels for. He writes poetry for here, gives her flowers, and sort of half stalks her(?). Unfortunately, she's dating a big football player who goes to her school, so dorky Knox doesn't have much of a chance. One night, he's at a party that she invited him to, and he's kind of drunk, and tries to put 'the moves' on a sleeping Chris (note for any guys that read this: DON'T DO THAT. I DON'T CARE HOW DRUNK YOU ARE, THAT IS CREEPY AS FRICK), and gets beat up by her boyfriend. Knox goes to her school the next day, gives her flowers and reads her a poem, and then gets kicked out. However, it apparently worked since they go to watch Neil's play together, and presumably live happily ever after.

Charlie Dalton: He's the clown. He's pretty much there just for comic relief, and honestly I can't remember anything that would add depth to his character besides his jokes.

John Keating: This guy is the freaky poetry teacher everyone is talking about. In Christian boarding school terms, he's very eccentric. He has his students rip up their textbooks, stands on his desk a lot, has his students call him 'captain', and encourages underground clubs that breaks nearly every school rule. He really emphasizes free thinking, and creativity. His motto is carpe diem, which is latin for sieze the day. Basically he's the cool English teacher that everyone loves. Unfortunately, he's also very irresponsible. Though he has good intentions, he is extremely irresponsible. I think he was really in love with the idea of his students having a freedom that he never got, and was too carried away with it to see the repercussions of his actions. Neil's death wasn't entirely his fault (not even mostly his fault), but it was partially his fault, and he got fired because of it (in the scene which is pictured above, and butchered with a pathetic joke :). He's also played by Robin Williams, which automatically makes him a great character.

There are a bunch of other students, but I can't really remember much about them to constitute a long enough bio, so you're just gonna have to watch the movie if you're curious about them.

Reaction:
Besides the atrocious 80's music and Neil Perry's weird as shit Puck gloves, this movie is absolute cinematic GOLD.
The weird thing about this movie, is that I'd seen the beginning of it twice in different classes, but we never got much farther than when Niel throws Todd's desk set off the bridge. So basically, I never saw the end.
OH GOSH THE END MADE ME SO SAD.
BUT IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT, and if you read the spoilerific parts (which you shouldn't if you want to watch the movie), don't let anything sad deter you from watching the movie.
I'm at a point where I can really relate to a lot of things in this movie, like wanting to go against what your parents want, and having really awesome friends to help and help you through stuff, and how awesome poetry is and a bunch of the other major themes. I'm sure that any of the teens that read this can find something in that movie that reaches out to them.
This movie is really worth it guys. Watch it, and you're sure to love it.


((Quick side note. I don't think I've ever apologized for my atrocious run on sentences. I am truly sorry, but the ranty breathless feeling you get from them is what I'm trying to convey)).
(((Quick side note 2: I don't think Mr. P made it this far, but if he did (or anyone in Honors English did), then you should watch this neat little video about The Odyssey))).

The Lego Movie: Just a Pile of Bricks

From: www.forbes.com

According to Lego, Batman is the worlds best marketing device.
It certainly got me to go see the movie. Plus, a movie about legos HAD to be good, right?
Actually, I take that back. Bionical was a disaster.
Plot:
 It's about this lego man named Emmet, who's as generic as you can get. He's one of the millions of construction workers in his city, follows all the instructions, and does the same thing every single day. In fact, he's SO generic, most of his co-workers have no idea who he is. One day, he finds this weird red brick (that actually ends up being a glue cap), that's called the 'piece of resistance'. It is the only thing that can stop the machine that the bad guy, Lord Business, and can only be wielded by 'The Special'. Lord Business wants to freeze everyone in place with the 'Kragle' (a tube of Krazy Glue), because he's a neat freak or something.
Emmet meets this girl named Wild Style, who is a master builder. The master builders are the people that can use the legos around them to build stuff. Since Emmet is The Special, she takes him to meet a bunch of other master builders who will help him to defeat President Business.

This video sums it up nicely (plus it has Morgan Freeman reading from a phone book). If the video doesn't work, go to this link.

Characters:
Emmet ((construction dude in the picture)): Main guy. The completely generic guy who has absolutely no creativity or skill for building but ends up being the hero.

WyldStyle ((girl with the cool hair to Emmet's left)): The master builder that is the first to help Emmet. She was trained by Vitruvius and is dating Batman.

Batman ((Superhero extraordinary to Emmet's right)): I don't know what you want me to say here. He's Batman. An asshole Batman, but still Batman.

Vitruvius ((old guy to WyldStyle's left)): Some sort of wizard/hippie guy who was supposed to protect the Kragle. He was blinded by President Business, so he's got that whole 'blind mystic' thing going. He's voiced by Morgan Freeman, which makes his fail of a character acceptable.

Lord Business: The bad guy who has a problem with being short, likes sticky things, and wants everything to be absolutely perfect.

Minor characters include: Good cop/Bad cop, Wonder Woman, Superman, Green Lantern, Princess UniKitty, Michelangelo, 1980-something Space Guy, 2002 All-Star Basketball Team, Gandalf, Dumbledore, Metalbeard, Abraham Lincoln, and more.

Thoughts:
The bottom line was that this movie was really disappointing. Sure it had the humor that I went for, and they didn't waste the use of legos. I think that after seeing Frozen, my expectations for kids movies were raised a bit, and this movie didn't meet those expectations. However, I will say that it has a very cute ending, but it wasn't very brilliant.
Now that I think about it, my expectations were a little too high.
I recommend that you see it, but it's not so urgent that you can't wait until you can watch it online for free, rather than spending $7 on a ticket.

The Fault in Our Stars....I Had To Do It Sometime.

If you have any sort of contact with the reading universe, or just tumblr, then you know that the trailer of a movie that is based off of a certain John Green book just came out.

I hope you all are happy that I put that up, because I had to rewatch it when I looked for it and now I'm nearly crying because it's so good and I HOPE THAT YOU APPRECIATE ALL THAT I DO FOR YOU.

Anyway, I thought that since there is a new popularity with the book because of the trailer, I would tell you what I think about it.

(also because I promised back in my Vlogbrothers post that I would do a TFiOS post).
Also, I'm doing 99.999% of this from memory, so please cut me some slack if I get details wrong.

The Story:

This is gonna be spoilerific, so watch out.
Also, if you haven't read it yet, skip to the characters section, which is relatively spoiler free.

The book starts out with Hazel Lancaster begrudgingly leaving her America's Next Top Model marathon to go to a support group meeting for kids with cancer. Hazel unfortunately has cancer in her lungs, and has been terminal for the past three years. A drug called Philanxifor is the main thing keeping her alive.

Anyway, at the meeting, she meets a boy named Augustus Waters, who is there to support their friend Isaac who has cancer in his eyes. Gus can also be part of the group because he lost his leg to cancer a few years before the story starts, but he's mostly there for Isaac. After the meeting, Gus tells Hazel that she looks like mid-2000s Natalie Portman, and invites her to come over and watch V for Vendetta.

This sparks a friendship/romance that heavily incorporates a book called An Imperial Affliction. It's Hazel's favorite book, because it's about a girl with cancer and it's very truthful about the whole ordeal, even ending mid-sentence to show the suddenness of death. She gets Gus to read the book, which is an important thing.

A few weeks later, he takes her out to the park with a bunch of cheesy orange stuff and says that it's all for a gift for Hazel. Turns out that while Gus had cancer, he got a 'wish' from The Genies that he never spent. Btw, The Genies are pretty much Make-a-Wish. Anyway, he's apparently still eligible to spend it, and he decided to spend it on a trip for him and Hazel to go Amsterdam to meet Peter Van Houten, the author of An Imperial Affliction.
Then Hazel has a big problem with her lungs, as they are filling with brown 'cancer water'. She's admitted to the hospital, but gets to go home within a week. This brings up the issue of Hazel being healthy enough to go to Amsterdam. She's cleared, so they get to go on the trip!
So Hazel, her mom, and Augustus go to Amsterdam, and it's really great because Hazel and Augustus get to go to a fancy restaurant and eat artichoke and taste the stars (drink champagne), and it's really REALLY adorable.
The next day, the go to meet Peter Van Houten who ends up being the biggest douchebag to ever douchebag. He goes on and on about how cancer kids are parasites of society and drinks scotch at 10 in the morning and blasts Swedish rap and it's terrible. Afterwards, as an apology, Houten's assistant takes them to the Anne Frank house, where it's very hard for Hazel to get around because there are lots of stairs, and after all that talk about stair climbing her and Augustus kiss at the top which is great and beautiful.
After the trip, we find out the Gus's cancer has come back, and it's ALL OVER HIS BODY. He slowly becomes weaker and weaker and dies a few months later.
After the funeral, Hazel sees Van Houten again who came for the funeral, who is a douchebag yet again, and gives her a letter from Gus about how he loves her, and wants her to be happy. It's very beautiful and we all cry and thank god the book ends there because I couldn't take anymore of that.

Major Characters: 
((this is as of the beginning so everyone who hasn't read the book can read this part))
Hazel Grace Lancaster: A sixteen year old girl with stage 3 thyroid cancer and mets in her lungs. She obsessively reads An Imperial Affliction, enjoys René Magritte's irony, and has a page-boy haircut. She also has very much accepted the fact that she's terminal, and is desperate to hurt as few people as possible with her death, so she tries not to make too many friends.

Augustus Waters: A seventeen year old boy who lost his leg to osteosarcoma, and has a prosthetic leg (which I think would be fun as heck (at times) cus you could freak out everyone by taking it off and screaming 'OH MY FRICKING GOD GUYS! MY LEG JUST CAME OFF! HOLY SHIT!!" ((am I a terrible person for thinking that?)). Before that, he was a star basketball player, and was actually pretty popular. He likes The Hectic Glow and The Price of Dawn (the book and videogame).

Isaac ((who I don't think has a last name for some reason o_o)): He's a friend of Hazel and Gus who had cancer in his eye, and had to get it removed. Unfortunately, the cancer is back in his other eye, SO GUESS WHO'S GONNA BE BLIND! In the book ((because I didn't mention Isaac enough in the plot section)), he had this girlfriend named Monica. She was a total bitch because she dumped him when she heard that he was gonna be blind, and there was a great scene where Isaac goes on a heartbroken rampage and breaks a bunch of stuff in Gus's room and it's beautiful. He gets revenge later in the book by egging her Thunderbird. He's sort of the rock through the whole book, cus he knows what Hazel and Gus are going through (cancer wise). He's also the way that they meet, so that's good.

Peter Van Houten: The dickwad author of An Imperial Affliction. He's an American that moved to Amsterdam so he didn't have to deal with Americans. Or at least that's what he says at first. Actually, he had a daughter who died of cancer and he needed to get away from that. On the bright side, it inspired An Imperial Affliction..........ya.

Hazel's Parents: Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster are pretty freaking great, because they handle having a kid with cancer amazingly. They try to get Hazel to live her life while she can, and supports everything she does, and everything she chooses not to do.

(Some) Favorite Quotes:
((you can't talk about a book by John Green without having a section like this)).

From: http://www.pallimed.org/2013/05/the-fault-in-ours-
stars-tfios.html

"Okay, so I went into clinic this morning, and I was telling my surgeon that i'd rather be deaf than blind. And he said, 'it doesn't work that way,' and I was, like, 'Yeah, I realize that it doesn't work that way; I'm just saying I'd rather be deaf than blind if I had the choice, which I realize I don't have,' and he said, 'Well, the good news is that you won't be deaf,' and I was like, 'Thank you for explaining to me that my eye cancer isn't going to make me deaf. I feel so fortunate that an intellectual giant like yourself would deign to operate on me.'" (Green, 15).

"It's a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing." (Green, 20).

"Hazel Grace, you are the only teenager in America who prefers reading poetry to writing it. This tells me so much." (Green, 33).

"Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeald, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book. Then there are books like An Imperial Affliction, which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like betrayal." (Green, 33).

"Kissing someone so that you can get a free trip is perilously close to full-on hooking, and I have to confess that while I did not fancy myself a particularly good person, I never thought my first real sexual action would be prostitutional." (Green, 93).

"Oh, I wouldn't mind Hazel grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you." (Green, 176).

"You say you're not special because the world doesn't know about you, but that's an insult to me. I know about you." (Green, 240).

"When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without [Augustus Waters]." (Green, 258).

"The marks humans leave are too often scars." (Green, 311).

"People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm." (Green, 312)

I literally found all those quotes just by flipping through the book. You can't go one page without finding something ridiculously funny, or heart-wrenchingly deep.

Reaction:
I'm gonna make this short because I'm getting really emotional now since I had to go through the book to get those quotes.
I know a lot of you are thinking she's getting a little too emotional over this. I know that I do overreact over this book, but it's extremely important to me.
In a strange way, The Fault in Our Stars is MY An Imperial Affliction. It fills me with the evangelical zeal of wanting the world to read it, but also to keep it as my own.
I've read this book over and over again. The first time, I read until three in the morning, and cried the whole time. The second time was on my first night in Guatemala over the summer, and I was feeling extremely homesick and flipping out because I was in a strange country. The third was at the end of that summer, a day or two before my first day of high school.
I haven't known about his book for long, but it's affected me in ways that I never thought I could be affected. It's shown love, and loss, sacrifice, compassion, forgiveness, the unfairness of life, and so much more.

Frick that got dramatic at the end.
Since this was mostly from memory, feel free to correct me on stuff in the comments, and I can add more stuff if you feel like I forgot something.
Also, if you're interested in hearing the first chapter of the book, read by the AUTHOR to you, click here to enjoy.
I think I need to stop now. Okay?
Okay.