Film Test

　　Every class of every year always has that one BIG test. You know what I'm talking about. It's the test that the teacher will warn about throughout the year. "Guys, the big test is coming up!" "This is going to be a tough test!" "…"

　　For most teachers it is probably the end of the year exam or maybe a quarter exam or even just a really hard test, but for Mr. Borman's class…it was a bit different.

　　Every teacher at the high school level starts off the year with an explanation of what they are going to try and do that year. Within those explanations the teacher will usually highlight this big test and tell the students to prepare. Mr. Borman had this speech also, but instead of him telling us to be careful of the semester exam, he told us quote, "One of my goals this year is to teach you guys something. I intend to teach each and everyone of you how to watch film." Watch film?

　　That's right, he said he wanted to teach us how to watch films, as in movies and theatre and such. No one really knew what he meant. Just about every year in school we would watch at least one movie. The movie would "tie in" with what we were studying and help us understand what we were studying. How was he going to teach us to watch film?

　　Mr. Borman taught Biology. What kind of movie can we watch in Biology? Also, he wants to teach us how to watch films, we aren't studying literature or writing drama. Why do we need to know how to watch films? No one in the class knew what he meant.

　　Didn't I tell you? A wacko is a wacko.

　　Of course, Mr. Borman did need a reason to show us movies and stuff, any competent school administration would know that allowing teachers to just show movies for no reason is not a good thing. I learned that I didn't need worry about this; Mr. Borman would always find some reason to show us a movie.

　　The first week of our study of primate and species evolution our class got to watch two movies on Bigfoot, a documentary on the Yeti, and the movie "Gorillas in the Mist". Of course "Gorillas in the Mist" was the only real movie that contained any educational aspect to it. I mean a bunch of weirdoes speculating about Big Foot is not what I would call completely "educational".

　　This was just the warm up to what would happen next. I am sure that most of you have seen the movie "Jurassic Park". It is a great movie. It has the special effects of a big budget sci-fi movie, the gore and suspense of a horror flick, and the amazing writing of Michael Crichton. Did you also know that it plays an important part in the teaching of genetics and DNA? Well, it does, or so it did in Mr. Borman's class. While going through the course of studying genetics and DNA, Mr. Borman decided he should throw in a movie.

　　Not to say that "Jurassic Park" had nothing to do with genetics, I mean the whole idea of cloning dinosaurs is in there. Though it's a stretch, "Jurassic Park" still has quite a bit to do with genetics. The last movie we saw in Mr. Borman's class was even further off topic and not nearly as famous as Jurassic Park. It's named "Tremors".

　　"Tremors" is one of my all time favorite movies and it just so happens Mr. Borman loves it too. It was one of the first movies that my dad saw when he came over here and it is one of the first movies that I saw and understood when I came over here.

　　"Tremors" is a "classic". It just is. It doesn't have the greatest actors, except for Kevin Bacon, it doesn't have the greatest special effects, and it doesn't have the greatest premise or plot. But still, the movie itself is just a joy to watch.

　　The first time that I saw it was after my dad taped it for me and we watched it together. I was scared out of my mind the whole time. It mesmerized me. I was too scared to watch. Yet I wanted to watch. Since then I'm sure that I have seen the movie in excess of two hundred times, at least. I know the entire script word for word. I can talk along with the movie with my eyes closed and still, every time I see the movie I just have to sit and watch it, despite knowing what is going to happen next and exactly when it will happen. Mr. Borman is also a big fan of "Tremors". He honestly called it one of his favorite movies also. And just for the hell of it, he was going to show it in class. But that's not all, oh no, the best part is yet to come. Not only would he show it in class, the big test of the year, the one I spoke about earlier, was going to be based on the movie. That's right we were going to take an extra credit test on the movie.

　　In the beginning, I thought that this movie had absolutely no connection to any thing we had studied that year. But the only saving grace for "Tremors" was that there was a character in there that was a college student, studying geology. Only with some seismographs and scientific instruments can "Tremors" be classified as a quasi-scientific film.

　　Here's a little background information on the movie. The premise was adequately weird. It was focused on a small town of population: 14. The town was called "Perfection" and was located in the deserts of Nevada. The two main characters, Valentine and Earl Basset, ran their own little company named "V & E. Odd Jobs". The conflict of the entire movie revolved around people in the town starting to die one by one. They had no idea what was causing the deaths because all of the deaths were so weird. They found out later that it was these huge monsters that looked like worms living under the ground. The first time I saw the movie, I called them "Di Long". From then on, that's what they've been called. The monsters couldn't see, because they're under the ground, but their hearing was very good and they could dig through the ground at super speeds. Also they had very high intelligence and constantly adapted to continue their struggle with the humans.

　　The whole point of the movie was basically the remaining people in the town trying to escape from the monsters and get out of the isolated town.

　　Afterwards, I thought about the movie for a while. Why would Mr. Borman show us this movie? The movie never said anything about the origins of the monsters. The origin of the monsters was never discussed, doesn't that leave a huge gap open for speculation about genetics, evolution, and DNA? Mr. Borman didn't mention anything about this; it's something I thought of myself.

　　Good, now you get all that? Look at the following questions and try to answer them without looking above for the answers.

　　1. What was the name of the town?

　　2. Which state was this town located in and what was its population?

　　3. What was Earl's last name?

　　4. What was the name of Val and Earl's company?

　　Those were actual questions from the test. It is a lot different if you are watching a movie then if you are reading a book. When you're watching a movie, you don't pay attention to those little minute details. The name of Val and Earl's company was never said, it was printed on the side of their truck in barely readable letters, which showed on screen for about thirty seconds. And the questions above were the easy questions. The test was 90 questions long and some of the questions were just ridiculous.

　　What type of car did one of the main characters drive?

　　What kind of hat was one of them wearing?

　　How many people died?

　　How many monsters died?

　　What ways did they die?

　　But by far the most outrageous one was how many gun shots were fired when two of the characters killed one of the monsters?"

　　At that point in the movie, two of the characters had a cellar full of guns and weapons (including machine guns, shotguns, and a flare gun) and they just kept shooting at the monster for like 10 minutes of the film. The answer? 92 times. How do I know this?

　　I told you. I was so lucky to have the knowledge of this movie that I did.

　　I almost laughed my head off when I heard we were going to test on this movie. This was probably Mr. Borman's favorite part of the year. He could show his favorite movie and he could also "teach us how to watch film". If you had never seen the movie before it was pretty much impossible to catch all the little details let alone remember them. So most of the kids just had no chance on some of the tougher questions.

　　Out of 90 questions, the average score correct was around 50 or 60.

　　Mr. Borman's system was take how many questions you got right and divide by 10 and then add that many points onto one of your tests, so you could end up with 9 extra points on the next test, but that 9 points meant very little as far as your final grade.

　　What did I end up with? An 89. Mr. Borman said it was the highest grade he had ever seen on his Tremors test. I still hold the record.

　　Come to think about it, I don't think there is anyone on the face of the earth that knows more about this movie than Mr. Borman and I do.