Friday, July 3, 2009

The Shawshank Redemption カ


カ 44 characters.

add

Andy can really add! He crunches numbers, and wants to add funds to the library!

can

Morgan Freeman's first narrative line in the movie: "There must be a guy like me in every prison: I'm the guy who can get it for ya."

what

Red (Morgan Freeman) can get what you need.

baggage

The emotional and physical baggage that Brooks (the old man) takes with him, leaving Shawshank.

song

The whole bit with the opera song being played over the prison intercom!

river

River - up the river - prison - this movie!

change

Prison. It changes a man. Many men, in fact, in this film.

flower

The young buck Andy teaches for a year, a ripe flower in his youth, shot down on the Warden's orders.

freight

It's a prison movie. Vagabonds riding freight-cars to get around isn't such a big stretch.

shoes

Morgan Freeman: "I mean, seriously, how often do you ever look at a man's shoes?" [scene: Andy wearing dress shoes, not prison shoes, just before escaping.]

overdo

The fat guy getting beaten to death at the beginning of the film... talk about overdoing it, sheesh. Or any of the other harsh punishments in this movie... 2 months in the hole for Andy, killing his potential witness, etc.

whirlpool

Whirlpool -> intense flows of water -> when Andy slips out of the pipe, 500 feet of raw waste, into a river during the storm.

calamity

It was a real calamity when old-man Brooks was released after 50 years, and hung himself.

house

The first scene of the movie. Andy, gun and liquor in his lap, sitting outside his wife's lover's house.

marry into

One could say that Andy has "married into" his problems in this film. (unfaithful wife, framed for murder, etc.)

earnings

Andy is the #1 guy when it comes to calculating earnings for prison guards (and preparing w2s)

summer

The scene where they are tarring the roof, and enjoy some cold beers on a hot summer day.

widow

The Warden's wife will be a widow after he blows his brains out!

fruit

The "fruits" (pardon my language) attacking/stalking/raping Andy. (Red calls them "the sisters")

chapter

How many chapters of the bible did Andy cut out to hide his rock-carving axe?

candy

The "fruits" (sorry again) treat Tim like a piece of candy in this movie. Eck.

erect

I don't think this needs to be spelled out. =/

item

Morgan Freeman - the man who can get any item you need, for enough "smokes."

melon

melons -> breasts -> something there is little to none of in this movie.

below

This movie is all about life below the surface. Life in jail.

fire

A fire. There are so many possibilities... and you probably already know it from 火曜日, but, for the sake of consistency: Andy lights a fire under young punk's ass to get his high school diploma.

department

Andy makes the library department of the prison something amazing!

splendor

The splendor of sweet, sweet freedom - this scene.

provisional

The Warden's infamous provisional workforce, "the inside out program," where prisoners worked for nothing!

excellent

Andy really had an excellent idea talking to the guard and suggesting he take a tax write off.

value

Andy really understands the value of things: music, money, hope, etc.

spare time

In his spare time, Andy likes to carve chess pieces.... and plan prison breaks!


**RTK3**

eggplant 茄
bullying 苛
hackberry 榎
birch 樺
shrimp 蝦
pot 鍋
haze 霞
stretcher 駕
applaud 嘉
plentiful 夥
Sanskrit ka 珈
jeweled hairpin 迦

Notes: One of the first tricks I ever learned about reading kanji from my first teacher was this: sometimes you can find a "katakana clue" in the kanji to how it is read. Notice how many of the kanji in the カ group are pronounced as such.

Another tip, which may be painfully obvious but I'll mention it anyway, is when kanji share radicals or primitives, they tend to (it's by no means a golden rule) share pronunciations. There are 5 examples in this post: 可, 化, 過, 家, 果. The idea here is not to try to force each kanji into memorization, but to remember what I can, and with several similar kanji, remembering one can be the key to reading all of them. In other words, if only one of 3-5 stories stick where the kanji share primitive, I consider it a success (and you should too!).


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Two really serious dramas in a row - expect something light-hearted, fun and from the 80s next week!

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