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When I first saw the title "Whale Rider" I thought to myself: Oh? Maybe it had something to do with saving whales? Like Free Willy? Turns out, the film is a lot more than just saving whales.  Whale Rider is a New Zealand German family drama film based on the novel of the same name written by  Witi Ihimaera .  The plot of this film is about a little girl from the Maori tribe in New Zealand named Paikea (nicknamed "Pai") who wishes to be the new chief of her tribe and the challenges she must face to achieve her goal; which included challenging gender norms, enduring prejudice and saving beached humpback whales. The Maori tribe originated from Eastern Polynesia, where their ancestor rode the first whale from Hawaiki, the original home of Polynesians, to New Zealand. Whales had been part of their culture for a very long time, as this animal had been their primary food source. Maori people revered whales so much that the motifs of this animal could be...

Should you have the talent to innovate something new and come up with eccentric ideas, only for it to be disproved by your superiors who value tradition and non-plasticity, Should you maintain the status quo or do what you think is the best? Hello, and welcome back to another movie review blog entry. This time, instead of summarizing the plot and giving a review of the film, I am going to both review the film and discuss the elements of social psychology behind the film to create a better understanding of it.  "Strictly Ballroom", a 1992 Australian Romance Comedy film about Scott Hastings, a talented Australian ballroom dancer who had innovated his own personal dance moves and defended it to the end despite being reprimanded by many. The film begins as a mock documentary regarding Scott as a competitive dancer, where Scott's peers and family members were being interviewed. Scott's mother Shirley Hastings and his uncle Les, both ballroom dance instruc...

Imagine your family being on the run, wanted as criminals, and they drag you along for the ride since you were a toddler. Changing identities and cities from time to time, all the way until you grow up. That's Running on Empty in a nutshell. A drama film made in 1988 regarding a talented boy gaining independence and freedom from this runaway life caused by his parents, Annie and Arthur Pope. The parents were being hunted by the FBI for they are responsible for bombing a napalm factory in the 1970's in protest to the Vietnam war (which is inspired by the 1970 Sterling Hall bombing), and accidentally rendered a janitor blind and paralyzed in the process. The family had been on the run. Changing location and identities as soon as they detect governmental agents in the vicinity of the town. Their eldest son, Danny (the main protagonist of the film) had been pulled into this life since he was two years old. His younger brother, Harry, shared the same fate as soon as he was bor...

As a college student majoring in Psychology, I am vaguely familiar with certain diseases, be it psychological or physical, which affects the human brain. While I did read about encephalitis lethargica (also known as the sleeping sickness) in articles and peer reviewed journals, to see the disease and its symptoms being portrayed in a movie is possibly much easier to remember and definitely much more entertaining than reading about them. Awakenings (1990) is a Drama/Biography film, based on the book of the same title written by Dr Oliver Sacks, where he wrote about his history with patients  who survived the 1920’s encephalitis lethargica epidemic and his discovery of the drug L-DOPA. The film stars Robin Williams as the fictional portrayal of Dr. Oliver Sacks: Dr. Sayer; and Rober De Niro as Leonard Lowe, one of Dr. Sayer's patients and the first patient to be administered the L-DOPA drug during its experimental period.  In the beginning of the film, we ...