The Taking of Pelham 123

Oh dearie me, this will never do.

I mean, as a modern teacher, I should be more positive and upbeat, in keeping with current thinking about offering encouragement - you know, "two stars and a wish" - but it's hard to do with this lumbering, mindlessly vacuous movie.  I mean, what is the point of this remake?  Why?  For goodness' sake, Tony Scott, why??

For those who don't know: when marking homework and the like these days, one is not meant to blaze away with the ticks and crosses, but is rather meant to proffer words of encouragement (that'll be yer two stars then) and of wisdom/advice (that's the wish bit - as in, say, I wish you'd stop making so many bloody mistakes).

I confess I'm not very good at this, but you know what, maybe this is exactly the approach I need for this snoozefest.  Let's see...

Two stars: Denzel W and John T (well, I mean obviously)

A wish: I really, really wish I hadn't bothered going to see this.

Can I get my chartered teacher status now please?

How's the maths?

Well you know, this is very interesting, as yet again we have a movie which offers up a maths (or in this case, arithmetic) question.  Travolta - aka Shouty McShouty of Bad Guy Inc - demands at one point that Denzel get a calculator and work out what 19 times $526315.79 is.  I leave it to you to ponder the significance of the answer.  But is this a trend that I'm noticing - Hollwood beginning to insert random maths questions into its movies?  I know this sounds far-fetched, but you never know.

Sadly of course Travolta's demands wouldn't go down well in Scottish education, where (under the new Curriculum for Excellence) it is for the learner to decide whether or not to use a calculator for a particular calculation.  Tut tut.  I mean, Denzel might have fancied having a go at long multiplication!  It would certainly have helped take his mind off the script for a bit.