You Can't Take It With You (1938)

This movie is about a young couple who fall in love, but are from two very different families. The man, Tony, is the son of a big time banker. The family is wealthy and ruthless, and proud of it, but Tony never felt like he belonged. The woman, Alice, is Tony's secretary and is from a middle class family, but not just any middle class family. Her grandfather is a revolutionary in his perspective on life. He lives every day of his life doing what he wants to do, and encourages others to do the same. As a result, their family is far from normal. Alice's sister is constantly dancing around to crazy music, being played by her husband. Her father and two other men make fireworks in the basement, and there are always minor explosions going off, and her mother writes plays. Not because she wants to, but because a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to the house one day. Needless to say this is a very bizarre household.

Alice and Tony are very much in love, but Tony's parents aren't very keen on having Alice for a daughter-in-law, and Alice won't marry Tony unless she has their consent. After an unfortunate meet the parents episode, they all end up in jail and Alice's grandfather winds up telling Tony's father off, instructing him on what's really important in life. During the court hearing, Alice decides that she's had enough and dumps Tony then and there. How will the two ever be together now?! And will Tony's father always be the heartless man we know him to be? Who knows?!?!?

This is one of my favourite movies. It's a bit of a romance and that's always nice, but the main theme deals with what one values in life, and how one should live in accordance with those values. We all work so hard in life, trying to be happy. Some of us work really hard at our place of occupation while others just worry themselves sick. It's so common to hear people complain about how much they hate their jobs, the dreams they have of what they would do if only they had this or were that, things they could have done but gave up on for various reasons. So many people settle for jobs they hate, people they don't like, places they can't stand, and for what? Because they're too afraid of what might happen?

This film was made 70/80 years ago and it's still relevant. Timeless I'd say. It's funny and romantic, but thought-provoking at the same time. A definite must watch.

31 Ways to Change the World by 4386 children

This is one of those activism books for kids, aged 9- 12. I like it a bit more than the other 'how to' activism for kids books out there because it isn't telling kids to fight the world's evils, it isn't telling them that the world is going to end unless they do this, and it isn't at all large-scale. Many of the suggestions in this book only immediately effect the person who is doing them and the person/ people they're interacting with. Instead of listing all of the actions I'm just going to summarize the gist of them by category.

There are a few actions that suggest how to interact with people more, like your parents or your grandmother. In general, many of the actions tell the reader to do more things with people. This is an important suggestion with the rise of technology. Kids are spending more and more of their free time alone in front of some electronic device or another, and while this is fun for them for the moment, too much of this behaviour can alienate them from their friends and family.

So in addition to the do things with people group of actions, there are the 'do things' actions. Things like playing or writing a letter, grow something and eat it, these help get kids off the couch.

Then of course there are the environmentally aware actions, but it goes about presenting this in a kid friendly way. One of these is to love your stuff, it doesn't say this, but by loving your stuff you won't rush out to buy new stuff and you'll value what you have. There are also the standard 'don't waste power' actions, but they give you some real life examples like shower time and junk mail.

There are also the 'educate yourself' actions. These suggest that you learn another language or learn about a cause to support or to bug your parents about. One of the actions is to simply ask why, which is always a good tool for learning.

Overall I think that this is one of the better elementary school aged activist books I've come across. It's short and sweet but has a lot of valuable things to say. It's also very colourful and full of pictures so is easy on the eye. What I like about this book the most is that it doesn't only talk about how to fix your environment or how to make a political or social change, it also talks about how you should make more time for the people you see everyday. How you should be more active and more social, because believe it or not those tiny and 'insignificant' interactions are what will shape your world the most and are what will determine your happiness. And if more people are happy, the world will indeed change for the better.