The Fourth ‘Wall
page 5
Changes in the nursing
faculty this year are expected to
give the program and its
students a fresh start. Penn State
Mont Alto hired three new
nursing instructors over the
summer, after the resignations
of LaVonne Johnson, Julie
Doyle, and Mary Ann Blum
Condon. A committee has
already been selected to hire a
new program coordinator. In
the meantime, Instructor
Carranda Barkdoll is acting as
Interim Program Coordinator.
With all of these changes,
Barkdoll hopes to keep the
program student-centered and
continues to build strong
relationships with community
leaders in the medical field.
Mont Alto has to compete with
HACC, Shephard, York, and
Wilson, so it is important to
maintain the established
network with the area hospitals
and nursing facilities.
Despite conflicting rumors
on campus, enrollment in the
nursing program has steadily
increased over the last several
years. Last year, there were 160
applications for entrance into
the nursing program; only fifty
are accepted each year. Of the
fifty that enrolled, there were
thirty-one graduates in the class
of 2005 — a 62% graduation
rate. Penn State Mont Alto has
a licensure test pass rate of 94%
according to Barkdoll. The
national average is only in the
upper seventies to lower
eighties. = Mont Alto’s
percentage was slightly lower
in 2004 as a result of changes
made to the licensure test.
Last year, the varying
expectations of students and
instructors generated much
conflict in the nursing
program. To help prevent issues
from arising this year, Francis
Achampong, Director of
Academic Affairs, addressed
new and returning nursing
students to outline the
University’s expectations of the
students.
As Achampong explains,
students sometimes assume the
role of a customer, rather than
a student in academia, and
want guaranteed satisfaction or
their money back. It is true that
students pay for their seats in a
classroom; however, they
should remember that their
money does not pay for their
grades — those have to be
earned. Barkdoll points out
that such attitudes can be found
in Staff
among students of any age and
in all majors. She speculates
that this is a result of the lack
of responsibility for our own
actions among today’s
members of a litigious society.
Barkdoll looks forward to
transitioning a new program
coordinator into the
challenging role as
“Ambassador of the Mont Alto
Nursing Program.” Barkdoll
will not be applying for the
position. She says, “I’m not
ready to give up my patients,
although I will continue to
teach.”
Travis Keefer
Terry Gilliam’s “The
Brothers Grimm” is a work best
suited for those who have no
expectations regarding the
actual history of the brothers
or the content of the fairy tales
for which the brothers are most
famous. The movie winds
through twists and turns at
breakneck speeds, and like
being on a rollercoaster, you
expect it all to come together
in the end, but the film never
does.
The film follows Wilhelm
Grimm (Matt Damon) and
Jacob Grimm (Heath Ledger).
The two are con-artists who
devise ghosts and demons out
of villages’ local legends and
then show up to exorcize or
kill the demon they have
created in a manner that
impresses the locals and of
course, the brothers receive a
large payment for their helpful
services. Soon, the brothers find
themselves in a town that
possesses an actual enchanted
forest that is populated with a
were-beast, Rapunzel’s door-
less tower, and a host of other
magical creatures from the
fairy tale world. The brothers
are guided on their quest
through the forest by the local
shunned woodsman, Angelika
(Lena Headey). The story then
fumbles its way through a
French invasion and the
charlatan brothers’ many
attempts at dealing with the real
curse held over the forest by a
wicked witch
{ Monica
Bellucci).
Surprisingly,
the acting overall is
fairly well-done.
There were times
when I forgot that § =
it is Matt Damon §
on the screen, and
with some of his
previous films, this
is a very
redeeming quality £=
of the film. Lena
Headey’s character
has become a
constant staple for screen
writers in pre-modern era films,
such as “King Arthur’s” and
“Pirates of the Caribbean’s”
Keira Knightley, Guinevere
and Elizabeth, respectively, or
“Van = Helsing’s” © Kate
since we've seen it all before.
The most excruciatingly painful
moments to see in the film are
when the French characters are
on the screen. The French, as
secondary antagonists to the
Brothers Grimm, are portrayed
with extremely over the top
ridiculous acting, making me
wonder if the director, writer,
Ebren Kruger, or both
purposefully sacrificed too
much of the film to make fun
of the French.
One thing that is impressive
about the story is that the
writer, Ehren Kruger, with the
brilliant directing job done by
Terry Gilliam manages to
convey an ever-present sense of
darkness. Unlike the most
popular retellings of the
Grimms, fairy tales, the original
stories told by Jacob and
Wilhelm are usually dark and
often very
violent.
Though we
Bn e ver
actually see
any of the
tales given
their due in
the film, the
*d a rk
“undertones
and the
violence is
often at the
forefront of
the film - that
21 is, when the
themselves. The accurate feeling
of the film in relation to the
feeling one gets when reading
some of the old tales is a credit
to Terry Gilliam’s skill and the
film’s superb cinematography
presented throughout.
Gilliam’s eye for a crisp, clear,
and concise shot does the film
an incredible amount of justice,
even if the script does him none
at all.
No matter how good
Hollywood gets with
presenting the bigger, badder
wolf, the true darkness and the
true scariness of anything is not
how creepy they can make
something look on screen, but
how creepy we can make
something appear in our own
minds by not seeing anything
at all. The imagination is the
source behind the chills one
receives from the original
stories because we could not see
the wolf, or the wicked
stepmother. These are things
obviously forgotten by yet
another Hollywood
blockbuster that fails to engage
the wonder or the imagination
of the audience. If you are a
fan of Terry Gilliam’s screen
work, then I suggest shelling
out the eight bucks to see it. If
you were expecting to see some
interesting re-inventions of
these old fairy tales on the big
screen, my suggestion is that
you should wait for “The
Brothers Grimm” to hit DVD.