Studio: 20th Century Fox

Published: March 31, 2023

Beasts of the Southern Wild

The film is magical realism, where the main character is a 6-year-old girl named Hushpuppy. She lives with her father Wink in Bathtub, a dingy swamp in southern Louisiana, USA, where life is primitive and where people live in harmony with nature.

The commune of Bathtub is flooding because the continental ice is melting and this is causing the release of ancient beasts. Winki’s health is also deteriorating at the same time, so it’s time for 6-year-old Hushpuppy to face these challenges and survive them with honor.

Koulukino’s learning materials deal with magical realism, the Hushpuppy character, editing, and montage, and include film interpretation tasks. The materials are aimed at middle schools and secondary education.

Published: March 31, 2023

Moulin Rouge!

The film is based on the well-known Parisian nightclub Moulin Rouge and the events take place at the beginning of the 20th century. Satine (Nicole Kidman) is a well-known courtesan of a nightclub, who aims to succeed in her career and become an actress. Christian (Evan McGregor) is a young American poet who arrives with his friends at a nightclub to plan a new show. A romance develops between these two main characters, and the focus of the film is the development of their love story.

Moulin Rouge has used many well-known pop songs, such as Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and “Material Girl”, The Beatles’ “All you need is love”, Elton John’s “Your Song”, the theme song from The Sound of Music and Nirvana’s ” Smells Like Teen Spirit”. It took almost two years to get the rights to the songs.

The film was successful at the Oscars and received two awards: best art direction-set Decoration and best costume design, and was awarded also at Bafta Gala.

Koulukino’s learning materials deal with postmodern cinema, the position of women in the Moulin Rouge community, and the musical as a type of film genre, and offer a preliminary task before watching the film. The materials are aimed at middle schools and high schools.

Published: March 28, 2023

Tolkien

“Tolkien,” tells the inspiring story of one of the most famous writers of our time, J.R.R. Tolkien. The film tells, among other things, about his orphanhood, his studies among love, friends, linguists, and artists, and his time as a young British officer in the middle of the First World War. Tolkien’s experiences have ultimately shaped him into the writer we know him to be.

Koulukino’s educational material deals with film production, a biographical film, growing up to be a writer, friendships, and studying and researching languages. The learning material is aimed at middle schools and secondary education.

Published: March 28, 2023

Ad Astra

Humanity is threatened by strange attacks that come from space. Astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pritt) goes deep into space to find the reason for the attacks and at the same time to find his father who disappeared decades ago. On his way, Roy faces an unprecedented threat.

Koulukino’s learning material deals with polyphony, language methods for creating a personal image, information search, writing, analysis tasks, and philosophy discussion tasks. The learning material is aimed at secondary school studies.

Published: March 27, 2023

Life of Pi

The film is a survival drama about a young Indian man and a tiger, based on Yann Martel’s bestselling novel Life of Pi. It all starts with a Japanese cargo ship that gets into trouble at sea. Everyone else perishes except Pi, the zebra, the hyena, the orangutan, and the Bengal tiger named “Richard Parker”, so Pi’s survival doesn’t seem easy.

The film was awarded four Oscars: best direction, cinematography, soundtrack, and visual effects.

The educational material of Koulukino deals with excerpts from the book and scenes from the film, the illusion of the film, and the depiction of time through the means of film. The material is aimed at high, vocational, and middle schools.

Published: March 27, 2023

Eddie the Eagle

The adventure comedy tells the story of Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards, known even to Finns, a British hill jumper who never stopped believing in himself. Even the British people lost faith in him, but with the help of his coach, he eventually managed to gather a large international fan base for himself at the 1988 Winter Olympics, where Finnish ski jumper Matti Nykänen won three Olympic gold medals.

Koulukino’s learning material deals with success, struggle, dreams, the meaning of small words and actions, movie characters, and sports heroes. The material is aimed at middle schools and upper secondary schools as well as other secondary educational institutions.

Published: March 27, 2023

Exodus: Gods and Kings

Christian Bale plays Moses in the biblical story depicted with modern film effects. Moses and his brother Ramses defend Egypt, led by their father Seti. In the middle of the battle, Moses saves the life of his brother Ramses. This frightens Ramses, because a prophecy has been made about Moses and because of it he is banished. As a result, Moses rises against his brother and flees the plagues that have just begun, leading 600,000 slaves in the process.

Published: March 24, 2023

Bohemian Rhapsody

Bohemian Rhapsody is based on the legendary band Queens and more specifically on its singer, Freddie Mercury. The film contains excerpts from real events.

The film tells how the band rose to fame. However, the singer’s life quickly goes downhill and in the end, in the worst misfortune of all, Freddie is diagnosed with AIDS. Despite his illness, he wants to once again pull off an all-time show at the Live Aid concert in Britain’s Wembley arena.

The film won a whopping four Oscars in the following categories: best actor, video editing, sound editing, and sound mixing.

Koulukino’s educational materials deal with Queen’s music, health, AIDS, HIV, life management, sexuality, culture, minorities, immigration, own roots, writing a film review and equivalent, writing Finnish words from English, and analyzing Finnish versions of songs. The last task is a debate exercise.

Published: March 16, 2023

West Side Story

Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.

Published: March 14, 2023

Ron’s Gone Wrong

20thCentury Studios and Locksmith Animation’s “Ron’s Gone Wrong” tells the story of Barney, a socially awkward schoolboy, and Ron, his walking, talking robot who should be “Your best friend right out of the box.”

Ron’s hilarious journey in the middle of the age of social media takes the duo on a step-by-step journey where the boy and the robot understand the meaning of true friendship in all its chaos and messiness. (Source: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Finland)