Students in the Galileo Academy of Information Technology held a screening of the short documentaries they made as part of the Adobe Youth Voices program. The films, which dealt with such topics as a high school wrestler coming out of the closet, growing up in 'pill hill' in the Tenderloin, betrayals of friendship, immigrating to the United States, and others were all interesting, honest, and well-crafted.

This is the drawing of the week for May 18-24, 2008.

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Galileo High School
Drawings of the Weeks
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Chicken John Rinaldi played host to his excellence, Reverend Billy, and Billy's director, Savitri Durkee, at Chez Poulet for a discussion about art and perseverance in the face of bad modern architecture.

When I got there, Chicken and friends were finishing a screening of "The Times of Harvey Milk," a brilliant documentary about a true hero. Chicken was gasping as he watched Dan White get away with murder - he hadn't known the whole absurd story before. Hopefully, he'll read The Mayor of Castro Street and learn more about this history and the treachery of Diane Fienstein.

Reverend Billy was in town to promote "What Would Jesus Buy," a movie he made with producer Morgan Spurlock, showing at the SF Indie DocFest.

Listen their conversation here.

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Chez Poulet
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As a substitue teacher for Ms. Foley's Spanish classes, I worked with students to create this painting about the movie, El Norte - a stirring and honest film about a brother and sister's difficult journey from Guatemala to America.

Students drew small pictures related to the film, which I collaged together with acrylic paint. Details of this painting can be found in the "Reflections on El Norte' topic gallery.

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Reflection on El Norte details

Sittin' on a little grass hill with some friends in Golden Gate Park near the Conservatory of Flowers, we quoted the short film Wat a Wonderful Day we had seen on the Res Magazine DVD.

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Parks
Nature
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In Richard McDowell's Health Academy classes, we watched some "Body Story" films that were some of the most compelling instructional videos I've seen.

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Galileo High School
Rythmic Geometry Series

Lauren and I went to see Howl's Moving Castle, a mediocre offering by the otherwise impecable director, Hayao Miyazaki. Maybe Disney screwed it up in translation (Billy Crystal's voice was entirely too distracting), but the movie really petered out at the end.

What's really frustrating is the 20 minutes of commercials the theater played before even showing any movie previews. Some efforts to battle this trend: NoMovieAd.com is working on a lawsuit and CaptiveAudience.org is organizing a resistence.

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Consumerism

In Ms. Foley's class at Galileo High School, we watch El Norte, including the torturous rat scene. It's a beautiful and sad movie that exposes a the struggles of political refugees from Guatemala trying to reach and survive in the U.S.

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Galileo High School
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At Galileo, Eth-Noh-Tec performs "Takashi's Dream" about a Hiroshima survivor finding forgiveness for the whole school (hosted by Galileo's Wellness Center).

Their use of interpretive movement did not impress much of the audience, but the story is a powerful. "It was actually sad," says Jason Colt-Labarento, "it was a touching story."

Me and Jason were both reminded of the heart-wrenching and beautifully animated movie, "Grave of the Fireflies."

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Galileo High School
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In Mr. Roman's class, we watched Mel Gibson's Hamlet - a good version, I think, except for the incest. The class had already seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, one of the cleverest movies I've ever seen.

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Galileo High School
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At the Zeitgeist International Film Festival, the short films were as much miss as hit. The entry from Lev was definitely one of the best. The Tamale Lady was there.

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Bars