Catching Fire

Earlier this month, I re-watched Catching Fire, since I've been re-reading all of the Hunger Games books.  I noticed that when the tributes parade through the Capitol, there are white roses decorating the chariots:

For anyone else, this just looks like decoration, but to Katniss, it's a visual reminder of when President Snow told her to convince him of her love for Peeta, after which he gave her a white rose:

While they're disguised as a mere decoration, the white roses are actually Snow's continued threatening of Katniss and those she loves.

A Bug's Life

A few weeks ago, I re-watched A Bug's Life.  I seem to remember watching this a lot on VHS after it came out, and I think it's my favorite Pixar movie, but watching it this time, there was a lot that I noticed that I hadn't seen before.

This post contains some spoilers.

The movie opens with a shot of the sun:

This is significant, as it illustrates the hierarchies that are present in the film.  As Hopper explains it later, "The sun grows the food.  The ants pick the food.  The grasshoppers eat the food."  The whole system starts with the sun, and the movie does too.

But then a leaf falls into the water, and it's revealed that that image of the sun was just a reflection:

Distorted perception is also pretty significant in the movie - the ants are capable of more than they'd originally thought, and - more comically - the circus bugs are mistaken as warriors.

Part of the opening exposition is the ants' gathering food.  At one point, Thorny says to Princess Atta, "Your Highness, I can't count when you hover like that."  The first few times I watched the movie, I almost certainly didn't understand that this line is a pun (I was, like, 6 when I first saw it).  The princess is hovering in the literal sense of flying, but she's also hovering in the micro-managing sense:

To contrast the regular way of gathering grain, Flik is introduced with his harvesting machine.  I'd never really thought about Flik's name (because, again, when I first watched this movie, I was a stupid kid), but it blatantly indicates that he's an outcast.  Flick is what you do to bugs to get them to go away.  When I was a kid, I'm not sure I noticed the bug-centric nature of some of the other names either, like Manny (the praying mantis), Gypsy (the gypsy moth, although it could play into the circus connection too), Mr. Soil, Dr. Flora, and Thorny.  And I certainly didn't understand the reference to P.T. Barnum in P.T. Flea's name.

Later, Flik talks with Princess Dot.  He gives her a rock and tells her to pretend that it's a seed.

And then he says:

Now, now, do you see our tree?  Everything that made that giant tree is already contained inside this tiny, little seed.  All it needs is some time, a little bit of sunshine, and rain, and voila!  ...  You might not feel like you can do much now, but that's just because, well, you're not a tree yet.  You just have to give yourself some time.  You're still a seed.

What's interesting about this is that Hopper makes the same sort of comparison later, but with the opposite intention.  While Flik tells Dot that a seed can grow into a tree (that a person is capable of a lot), Hopper tells the grasshoppers to "pretend this grain is a puny little ant."

Then he throws individual grains at the grasshoppers, which don't hurt.  They just bounce off:

Instead of illustrating that a person is capable of a lot, Hopper agrees with the grasshoppers' discounting of "just one ant."  But then he unleashes the whole bottle of grain, and the grasshoppers are engulfed.

He makes his point:  "[If] you let one ant stand up to us, then they all might stand up."  So while Hopper does oppose Flik in the value of just one ant, he recognizes the power that a group would (and does) have.  Ultimately both (a single person's capability and the power of a group) are part of the film's lessons.

A slightly less significant parallel is going the wrong direction.  At the circus, when Manny and Gypsy are on, Manny goes the wrong way to the stage:

And then Gypsy tells him, "The stage is the other way, dear," so he changes direction:

The same thing happens later with Princess Atta and Flik.  Princess Atta goes to check on the bird:

But then, realizing the bird is in the opposite direction, she crosses the screen again:

Interestingly, Manny and Gypsy and standing arm-in-arm in the background, which strengthens the parallel and seems to indicate that Flik and Atta will end up together like Manny and Gypsy are.

I also discovered some subtle references in the background of the city.  First, it's Pixar's A113, along with 1195 - the release date for Toy Story (November 1995):

In a wider shot, there's a box of Darla (I think it's dish detergent) on the right:

I think this is a reference to the Darla character in Finding Nemo, a later Pixar movie, but there are five years between the two, so I'm not sure.

An-other small detail is the lighting when Dot goes to get Flik's help.  At first, Flik is dismissive of the using the bird to scare the grasshoppers and thinks he himself is "a guaranteed failure."  The lighting reflects this.  The sky is overcast, so the colors are muted:

Then Dot gets a rock and tells Flik to "pretend it's a seed."  This makes him change his mind, and to reflect this, the sun comes out, making the colors more vivid:

Flik has a literal enlightenment.

I think it's also significant that the movie ends in the spring:

Spring is usually seen as a season of renewal, and this particular spring is a harbinger of a new period in the ants' lives because they're no longer threatened by the grasshoppers.

Grimm - S2E18 - Volcanalis

This post contains some spoilers.

By episode eighteen of season two of Grimm, Juliette is starting to regain some of her memories.  What's interesting is how that's portrayed visually.  At first, it's completely black and white:

Then Juliette herself is the only element that has any color, and even that is sort of washed out:

But as she continues to interact with her memory, more things start to gain color.  At first, it's Nick:

Eventually, the whole room is in color, although it's still a bit desaturated in order to differentiate between the memory and what's happening in the present:

It's a subtle shift, and I don't even think I noticed it the first time I saw the episode.

There are also some interesting things in the police part of the episode.  While it's not really Wesen, the suspect in the episode is Volcanalis, a priest of the Roman god Vulcan.  An-other person of interest in the case is Markus Hemmings.  Markus (spelled more normally as Marcus) is a very Roman name - apparently it derives from Mars, the god of war - so it fits well with the other element of Roman mythology.  Also, the derivation from Mars (and the bellicosity which it implies) fits with what Nick finds in the books in the trailer about Taureus-armenta (the type of Wesen that Markus is): "Many have been found in the front lines, first to volunteer, willing to face down any enemy, with nerves of steel under fire."

There's also a possible reference in the name of the geologist at the very beginning of the show - Jill Pembrey.  A lot of episodes of Grimm come out of fairy tales, and the Jill in this one, along with the mountain, seems to suggest the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill."  The other geologist is named Tom though, and there aren't any other elements in common between the nursery rhyme and the episode, but I still feel it worth mentioning.

An-other minor point is the name of geology business - Eon Industries:

An eon is a unit in the geologic time scale, so it's an apt name.

Grimm - S2E16 - Nameless

In re-watching season two episode sixteen of Grimm, I discovered that the name of the video game that's fairly integral to the plot is called Black Forest 2:

I didn't pay any attention to this at all the first time I watched the episode.  While the game is sort of important in the episode, it's more important for what it causes than for what it is.

In any case, I'm pretty sure the name is a subtle reference to the Black Forest in Germany (der Schwarzwald in German).  German culture informs a lot of the stories that the show adapts (like the Grimm fairy tales, which resulted in the show's name) and the history in the show itself.  In one episode, I think Monroe even mentions some ancestor of his who lived in the Black Forest.

Grimm - S2E15 - Mr. Sandman

The Wesen in season two episode fifteen of Grimm is a Jinnamuru Xunte.  They blow sand in people's eyes, which blinds them, and then lick their tears.  So eyes are pretty important in the episode.

One of the locations in the episode is the Santa Lucia High School.  In one shot, the sign is visible, although it's at a not-super-legible angle:

I realized that this was a reference to light, as Lucia comes from lux - the Latin word for light, but then I looked up Santa Lucia and discovered that she's the patron saint of the blind.  It's a very subtle reference to the specific characteristics of the Wesen in the episode.

Speaking French in Grimm

In re-watching season two of Grimm, I've noticed how frequently Captain Renard goes to his office to talk on his secret phone in French.  At first this struck me as kind of odd because so much of the show has to do with things that have their origin in Germany or at least German-speaking places (Vienna starts becoming more significant in season two).  But then I realized that he speaks French because he's a Royal.

I recently re-read my textbook (A Concise History of Modern Europe) for the class I took on the History of Modern Europe, and the author (David S. Mason) mentions that "French culture was admired and mimicked by the upper classes throughout Europe, and French was the language of the aristocracy and royal courts all over the Continent, including in Russia."  Later in the book he writes that "French was the most widely used international language, the language both of diplomacy and of most of the royal courts of Europe."

Since Renard is a Royal, he still uses French when he's dealing with those sorts of aristocratic and royal issues.  I'd thought that his use of French was just an-other way to conceal what he's doing, but it also has historical precedent.

Grimm - S2E7 - The Bottle Imp

This posts contains some spoilers.

Early in season two of Grimm, Juliette has awoken from her coma but can't remember Nick.  She's also starting to have feelings toward Captain Renard because he's the one who (unbeknownst to her) woke her up from the coma.  In episode seven "The Bottle Imp," there's some interesting movement that tacitly illustrates this.

Juliette comes to visit Nick at the precinct in the hopes that seeing him at work will help her to remember him, and when she leaves, first she faces away from Nick for a fraction of a second:

They aren't face-to-face anymore, which reflects how Juliette has no memory of him.  After that brief pause, she spins around so that she avoids seeing Nick:

(It's hard to capture the movement in a screen shot, but I hope this gives an idea of it).

She doesn't look at him, as if she's trying to hide something.  Something that could very well be her growing attraction to Renard.

Grimm - S2E5 - The Good Shepherd

As far as subtleties go, "The Good Shepherd" is a really good episode of Grimm.

This post contains spoilers.

Early in the show, there's an account named Norman Brewster, who later turns out to be a Seelengute, which is like a sheep.  After he finishes his accounting work, he closes his laptop and yawns:

It might just be a coincidence, but there is the connection between sleep (or tiredness, in this case) and counting sheep.

The first part of the detective bit in this episode occurs when Reverend Lance B. Calvin comes to the precinct with a claim that Norman embezzled church funds.  I'm not sure how much there is to this, but Calvin's name suggests some connection with Reverend John Calvin.

As Hank and Nick investigate the case, they find that the same situation occurred at an-other church over which Calvin presided.  Captain Renard describes it as "Scapegoat parishioner embezzles church funds and disappears." "Scapegoat" is a common term, but it was also a religious practice, as described in Leviticus 16:7-10, so it ties into the religious aspects of the episode.

After discovering Brewster's body, they decide to see how Calvin reacts to the news of his (Brewster's) death, so they go to the church, where Calvin is telling the board about the embezzlement.  An interesting thing about the board (and later the congregation) is that they're all wearing very neutral colors:

This is a visual indicator of the "herd mentality" that's mentioned later in the show, and it might have something to do with the board's being Seelenguter too.  It's like their clothes are the same color as their wool when they are wogt.  (I think I'm using the terminology correctly.)

It's also interesting that here and in a later scene, Calvin is seen as just a gesturing hand at the edge of the frame:

It shows that he's manipulating them while at the same time not revealing his true (whole) self.

In the scene with the board, Calvin's skill as a speaker shows itself.  His speech to the board contains alliteration:  "This is not the time for vitriol and vindictiveness" and "This is a dark day for us."  He also seems to use religious imagery, but he doesn't always get it right.  He tells the board that "with faith as our armor, we will march forward."  Ostensibly, this is a reference to Saint Paul's armor of God in Ephesians 6:

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.  Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.  In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. (Ephesians 6:13-18).  

However, in Paul's metaphorical armor, faith corresponds to the shield, not to the armor as a whole.  Calvin's error seems to speak to the quality of his character.  While both reverends and con-men might make use of rhetorical strategies, reverends would be familiar with Paul's armor and probably wouldn't mess it up.

When Calvin talks to Hank and Nick alone, he continues playing this part.  He talks about his "personal journey of enlightenment and reformation" as a reformed Blutbad.  For someone who seems so conscious of his speech, it's an interesting choice of words.  If you capitalize them, you get The Enlightenment and The Reformation, which seem somewhat contradictory, as The Enlightenment was concerned with reason, which could be seen as the opposite of religion, and The Reformation was a religious movement.  In some ways, it seems to indicate the conflict within Calvin - between his persona of the upright reverend and his actual position of conman.

When they ask where he was between 5 and 10 PM on Friday, he says, "Oh, now enlightenment comes.  I’m a suspect.  Well, good.  Let the truth be told."  Again, he uses rhetoric.  More specifically, he employs passive voice.  "Let the truth be told" rather than "I will tell you the truth."  But he still doesn't tell them the truth.

When they leave, he tells Nick that since he (Calvin) is a Blutbad and Nick is a Grimm it "could be the beginning of a beatific relationship."  Again there's the alliteration, but the word choice is also significant, as beatific suggests the Beatitudes of Matthew 5.  As they leave, Nick even comments that Calvin "talks a good game."

Since Calvin claims to be a reformed Blutbad, Hank and Nick go to Monroe, an-other reformed Blutbad, to get his opinion.  From him, they learn that the sheep wesen are called Seelengut "or if there's more than one, Seelenguter."  (Calvin also tells them about Seelenguter, but Monroe is a more trustworthy character.)  Seelengut means something like "good souls."  Seele (plural: Seelen) is the German word for soul, and gut for good.  This too plays into the religious aspects of this episode (including the title), not only with the mention of the soul, but also because sheep are an important symbol in Christianity.

Monroe agrees to go undercover in order to investigate Calvin more fully.  In his conversation with Monroe, Calvin keeps up his persona.  There's some alliteration in the phrase "delved into the darkness," and there's duplicity in "You’re no trouble; you’re a blessing" because Calvin wants to use Monroe to take the fall for his crime (killing Brewster and embezzling the money).  It becomes even more obvious when, in a later scene, after Calvin's explained his plan to his secretary, he tells Monroe, "You have no idea what a blessing it is that you arrived at our church when you did."

Grimm - S1E19 - Leave It to Beavers

In re-watching episodes of Grimm, I found some interesting things in "Leave It to Beavers."  The man who's murdered at the beginning is named Robert Grosszahn, and the construction company that he runs is called Grosszahn Construction.

In German, groß Zahn means big tooth, so it makes sense as the man's name; he's an Eisbiber, and they have the distinctive dental features of beavers.  Additionally, the groß part might indicate that the business is prominent.

Also related to the Eisbiber/beaver connection, the Lodge to which some of the characters in the episode belong convenes in a dam.  In the show, it's referred to as "the old power plant at the Bull Run Dam." It's also the location where Nick confronts the reapers.  In some shots, the hydroelectric generators are visible.

The beaver/dam connection might be a bit obvious - as some of the other Wesen/animal traits on the show are - but I figured I would mention it as long as I was going to write about Grosszahn's name.

Grimm - S1E17 - Love Sick

I recently re-watched a lot of episodes of Grimm, including the deleted scenes.  In one of the deleted scenes (actually, the only deleted scene) for "Love Sick" (season 1, episode 17), Nick has a dream in which Adalind stabs Hank with a giant needle.

While it's not what actually happens, it makes sense that Nick would dream about this because in the pilot episode, Adalind does the same thing to him (although she was attempting to do it to his aunt).  There's even a flashback to that scene in "Love Sick."

According to the deleted scene, it would seem that Nick subconsciously thinks that Adalind will go on stabbing people with needles, but what actually happens is beyond the scope of his nightmare.

No Scourging of the Shire?

Over the past few months, I re-read J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (and I'm still making my way through the appendices).  After finishing each of the books, I watched the corresponding movie (I have only the extended versions though).  I'd seen The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers before, but this was the first time I'd seen any version of The Return of the King.  I was surprised and a little disappointed that there's no Scourging of the Shire in the movie version.  It's an important part of the book:

This rest of this post contains spoilers for The Return of the King (the movie and the book).

1.  Without the Scourging of the Shire, Saruman doesn't seem as powerful of a wizard.  In both the book and the movie, he's held captive in Orthanc.  In the book, after Gandalf and company talk to him, he remains alive and captive, with Treebeard and the Ents watching over him.  Later in the book, Gandalf learns that Saruman used his persuasive voice on Treebeard, who's let him go.  Saruman then leads a band of ruffians in an invasion of the Shire.  In the movie, he's killed by Gríma Wormtongue after Gandalf and company come to talk to him.

In the book, Saruman evades his imprisonment and starts over in amassing power.  In the movie, he's just stabbed in the back.  (He's killed the same way in the book, but it comes much later, after the Scourging of the Shire.)  He's disposed of too easily in the movie, where, in the book, he presents more of a threat.

However, I do like the movie's treatment of the palantír more than the book's, and the nature of Saruman's death allows for it.  In the movie, it falls out of Saruman's pocket after he falls from the tower after his death; in the book (in Chapter 10 of Book Three), Gríma throws it at Gandalf as "a parting shot."  Gandalf even admits that "if we had entered in, we could have found few treasures in Orthanc more precious than the thing which Wormtongue threw down at us."  It seems too contrived in the book.

2.  The lack of the Scourging of the Shire in the movie also makes Sauron's power (and the war that he's started) seem limited in a way.  I think that in the movie version of The Two Towers Merry says something about there not being a Shire anymore if the Ents don't go to war, but it remains hypothetical.  In the book, the characters actually encounter the war's effect on the Shire.  The Scourging of the Shire shows that the Shire is a part of Middle Earth and can be - and is - affected by evil (evil that's either a direct result of Sauron or a side effect of the war against him), but in the movie the Shire is shown more as an isolated utopia.  In the book, it's able to remain temporarily separate from the rest of Middle Earth because it's under the protection of the rangers, but once they leave to help in the war, its borders are left unguarded.  I don't think that's fully explained or even present in the movie.

3.  Finally, the Scourging of the Shire shows the changes that the Hobbits have undergone.  They've all experienced battle (Merry and Pippin moreso than Frodo and Sam), so they're able to organize the Hobbits in the Shire to resist the bands of ruffians.  Merry and Pippin are noticeably taller because of the Entish draughts that they've drunk, and Frodo's experience with the Ring and with Gollum is shown through his interaction with the ruffians and with Saruman.  Multiple times he explains that he doesn't want anyone to die needlessly in the Hobbits' reclamation of the Shire, and he even tries to give Saruman a chance to redeem himself.  He knows first hand what the Ring and evil can do to people and how it can twist them into doing things that they don't really want to do, so he tries to separate those effects from who's affected.

In the movie, it seems that only Sam has been changed through the experience.  As in the book, he has the confidence to ask Rosie Cotton to marry him.  But the rest of the Hobbits seem more or less the same as when they started the journey.

The movie is already pretty long, and adding the Scourging of the Shire would have only made it longer, but I still think it's an important part of the story that illustrates both the magnitude of power that the characters face and the changes that they undergo as a result of their journey.

Flowers in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

About a week ago, I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  For the first time, I noticed some significance in what characters are wearing flowers.

The rest of this post contains spoilers.

The film opens with Jones as a teenager.  He tries to reclaim the Cross of Coronado from treasure hunters but fails, and it's given over to the character listed as "Panama Hat" in the credits.  One of the significant things about him is that he's wearing a red flower (I don't know flowers, so I can't be more specific):

Additionally, the framing here - especially the rack focus from Young Indy and the sheriff to Panama Hat as he steps into view - ensures that attention is drawn to him (and to a lesser degree his flower).

Along with explaining facets of Indy's character (including his hat and whip), this whole sequence differentiates between those who seek artifacts for wealth and personal gain (like Panama Hat) and those who don't (like Indy, who insists that the Cross of Coronado "belongs in a museum").  I think to some degree, the flower that Panama Hat is wearing indicates this selfishness throughout the movie.  Or at the very least, flowers indicate characters who you shouldn't be so quick to trust.

Only a few minutes later, Walter Donovan is introduced, and he's wearing a red flower - just like Panama Hat:

Donovan's flower indicates both of these aspects - Donovan is seeking the Grail for himself (unlike Indy, who seeks the Grail for the sake of his father - first finding and then saving him), and he's not a character to be trusted.  Later he says, "Didn't I warn you not to trust anybody, Dr. Jones," including himself in the "anybody."

After Indy and Brody get to Venice, they meet Dr. Elsa Schneider.  While walking to the library where she and Dr. Jones (that is, Indy's father) were researching, Indy himself steals a flower to give to her:

Elsa's actual interest in pursuing the Grail is harder to determine than either Donovan's or Indy's.  At times, it seems like she's after it for herself (like when she's trying to reach it after it's crossed the seal and the floor is breaking apart), but at other times, she seems more interested just in the endeavor to find it (like when they're looking through the tombs to find the second marker).

Regardless, she's also not a character to be trusted when she's first introduced.  Indy does and later finds that she's in league with the Nazis.

And finally, there's Kazim from the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword:

He's almost the opposite of both Elsa and Donovan because at first it appears that he's a bad guy (knocking out Brody and chasing Indy and Elsa through the tombs and the canals), but he actually turns out to help Indy by telling him where his father is and later distracting the Nazis as they're travelling to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon.

He's also opposite them because he's not seeking the Grail for himself.  In fact, he's not even seeking the Grail; he's trying to protect it.  After Panama Hat sets the standard, the characters in the movie who are wearing flowers generally turn out to be self-seeking and untrustworthy, except for Kazim.