Argo

Although I didn't get to watch the entire movie in class, I saw Argo in the movie theater when it first came out.  I thought this was an excellent movie.  The topic is one that probably not too many people are entirely familiar with.  A lot of people have probably heard about the hostages, but not about the way that they were saved.  The movie kept me on the edge of my seat, even the second time watching it.  I think Ben Affleck did a fantastic job.  The movie was very real which I really liked because that added to the intensity and I felt like I was actually there watching all of this.  Everything about it was amazing!

Parkland

Overall, I wasn't crazy about this movie.  It had a lot of amazing actors (Zac Efron especially!) so it had the potential to be a really good movie, but it was somewhat dull.  I felt like the story of what happened was following exactly which is good if you want to make a documentary, but for entertainment purposes it made it somewhat boring.  I wish we watched the movie that was shown first semester about the conspiracy because that would've been very interesting.

Apollo 13

Overall, I didn't really like Apollo 13 that much.  The first day of watching I was interested because I like Tom Hanks and it was really different from everything else we've watched, but the following days I found myself having a difficult time paying attention.  There was a lot going on and it was all very scientific and confusing.  Also, it wasn't really exciting to just watch them sitting in a spaceship the whole time.  I know that's the whole point of the movie, but it got kind of boring without a change of scenery.

I think that spending $9.928 billion a year on NASA is a ridiculous amount of wasted money.  Although space exploration may be interesting, there are so many problems on earth that need to be addressed and so many more places that money could have been allotted that would have benefited this planet.  Think about how that money could be used towards education, to help the needy, health care, ect.  I just don't see how landing on the moon provides any benefit to us.  I feel like the United States was just so caught up in this competition to be the most advanced country that they spent their money on that rather than on more important things.  

Currently, I don't think that space exploration should a priority for the United States.  As I said before, there are so many other issues that need to be addressed.  I feel like the United States always feels like they need to be ahead of other countries in everything.  It's more important to improve the country as a whole than to explore space, which benefits almost nobody.  I think it's smart that they retired the space program so that we can focus more on the problems in our country.

The Pianist

The Pianist was definitely one of my favorite films in this class.  It's content was very deep and I had a personal connection with the movie since I'm Jewish.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie hoping that Szpilman continued finding ways to survive.  I liked how realistic this movie was.  There weren't a ton of extremely well known actors and the main character was just an ordinary man trying to survive rather than some strong guy that tried defeating all of the Nazis.  The end of the movie when he played the piano for the Nazi officer and then he helped him stay alive was very touching.  I think this movie is a fabulous depiction of what times were like during the holocaust and an incredible story, I would definitely recommend that everyone watches it.

I think Hosenfeld chose to help Szpilman survive because he saw him for his incredible talent as a musician rather than for his religion.  Once Szpilman played the piano, I think Hosenfeld realized that he was just as much as human as any other person and that even a Jew can have incredible talent and killing him could be putting such talent to waste.  I think Szpilman trusted Hosenfeld because, at that point, he had been through so much and needed something to believe in, so he put his trust in Hosenfeld, believing that perhaps not all Nazis are 100% heartless people.