The Man Who Knew Infinity is most definitely not a 6-pack and pizza movie. It’s a movie for when you want to be immersed in deep thought. When a movie is about a math prodigy that never went to school, it is always going to seem like a film that will make it tough for the average Joe to find a foothold. Thankfully they focused on the process and the racism and the wife back home who would never really be a wife to her husband.
Jeremy Irons and Toby Jones give marvelous restrained performances. Yes, they had to be restrained as they were playing University professors in WWI era England. No great emotions could be shown.
Scholarships are For the Brightest Minds
One thing jumping out me, especially in light of the 2019 College Admissions Bribery Scandal is that scholarships are supposed to be for the brightest minds. It seems you have to go all the way back to WWI to find a University which actually adheres to that principle. Today scholarships are to make money for the University.
No, that last statement isn’t typed incorrectly.
Let’s say it costs $100,000/year to attend your university.
Let’s say you have one scholarship for $100,000 to pass out. You could choose to do what you should, bring in the brightest mind available regardless of their academic status . . . or you could pass out ten scholarships of $10K each to students of rich parents who could otherwise afford to pay their kids way. The rich parents always hold out for a sweetener.
Instead of spending the scholarship on a bright mind you use it to bring in $900,000 in tuition revenue.
That is what is happening at today’s colleges and universities. All of the non-profits are for-profit they just hide it better.
A Vegetarian in WWI England
Initially it was hilarious. An Indian student berates a server in the mess hall for putting meat on our lead character’s plate. “You can’t feed him that, he’s a vegetarian!” or something along those lines is exclaimed. They take away his plate, put another one there, and another server puts potatoes on. Just as he puts part of one in his mouth a white student from across the table asks.
“How’s that any better? Those potatoes are cooked in fat.”
He spits it out and leaves. Our main character spits it out, leaves, then spends much of his money and time going into town to buy vegetables. Apparently WWI England Universities didn’t have a salad bar and didn’t serve a salad course with the meal.
The Man Who Knew Infinity – Summary
I found The Man Who Knew Infinity an interesting movie. Interesting enough I gave it four stars. I found the lengthy discussion about proofs and why we do them completely relevant in the “Trump era of bald faced lies called Alternative Facts.” You can’t just spout something out that ass on top of your shoulders and claim it is a fact. The Fox-K-G-Used-to-be news watchers need to all watch this movie and learn about proofs. It isn’t a fact until it can be proven via solid methods. Simply Tweeting it doesn’t make it so.
For more movie rental ideas please see list one and list two.
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