Left to my own devices

Piggy-backing on ours posts with a The Fault in Our Stars theme, this week's pic is of none other than that film's star, Ansel Elgort. Here is he is from a photo shoot for the July 2014 issue of Interview magazine. Enjoy.

Earlier in the week I wrote the first of two planned blog posts about my thoughts on the movie The Fault in Our Stars . Based on the book by John Green, the film tells the story of two teenagers, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus (Gus) Waters who meet cute and fall in love. The notable angle to this story is that both teens have cancer. Hazel is currently in a holding-pattern with thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs, while Gus is in remission from a cancer that cost him part of one leg. My first post about the movie dealt with how it made me think about life and death in general. The second post, the one you're reading right here and now, is to mainly provide some thoughts I had about the relationship between Gus and Hazel. It was a wonderful affair, to be sure, but not without some questionable elements. Yes, this is Hollywood, but one still expects a certain level of realism.

Something I have very little tolerance for is the gun control debate. While it's fairly obvious that the people (a vast majority of whom are men) who commit the mass atrocities that we've become so unfortunately used to over the years have mental health issues, it also can't be ignored that guns have most often been their weapon of choice. There's a reason for this. Guns, more than any other weapon save a bomb of some sort, can inflict the most harm in the shortest amount of time. Some will argue that we can kill each other with things other than guns. They will say that weapons of death can be knives, stones, our own bare hands, fireplace pokers, matches and gasoline, etc. All true. But the aforementioned items can be used for purposes other than killing. There is no other use for a gun than to kill or maim. None. A gun is not created for a certain task, and people just happen to also use them for destruction. A gun is made to destroy.

I saw the new teen romance movie The Fault in Our Stars over the weekend, and had some thoughts about it that I'd like to share over two blog posts. The first of these posts will feature musings on life and death that the film stirred within me, while the second post (which will appear later this week) will be a more direct view of the relationship in the movie. Hopefully, neither post will be too spoilery (in case you haven't seen the movie, or the read the book by John Green that it is adapted from). The Fault in Our Stars deals primarily with the lives of its two leads, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus (Gus) Waters. Both have had cancer. Gus' is in remission, while Hazel's (Stage IV thyroid cancer that has spread to her lungs) is in a sort of holding pattern. One day, at a support group meeting for teens who've dealt with cancer, Gus expresses an interest in Hazel (whom he affectionately refers to as "Hazel Grace"), and a nice romance blosso...

Reading about the 1994 movie Stargate (as you do), and it's recently announced reboot, I happened upon a Wikipedia page all about white saviors in film . This particular concept was new to me, although I've heard variations of its theme before (the counterpart being the Magical Negro ). In short, the white savior narrative in a film features white characters saving black characters from some sort of terrible situation or oppression. Movies that are generally agreed to fall into the white savior category are 12 Years a Slave , The Help , To Kill a Mockingbird and The Blind Side (among many others). Interestingly, a movie I saw over the weekend, Belle , is considered by some to buck the white savior trend. The film centers around Dido Belle, a mulatto whose father was from English aristocracy. She is raised by her uncle, Lord Chief Justice William Murray, and his family. In an article about Belle from The Daily Beast , the following passage is of note: " Be...