 What is the plot of Music of the Heart?
Machines in the Garden In the animated ecological epic Princess Mononoke , the camera travels over landscapes with a clear, steady gaze, like a Zen hang glider. The Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, who spent three years on Princess Mononoke and is reported to have done 70 percent of its paintings himself, seems to work from the outside in: to begin with the curve of the earth, then the mossy hills, the watercolor foliage, the nubby stones, the whorls on the wood, the meticulous carvings on a teacup. A view of nature that some would call "tree-hugging" doesn't feel softheaded when the trees are rendered in such brilliant and robust detail. He's both inside and outside the action: He knows when to rock your world and when to induce a state of sorrowful detachment. The movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called "the end of nature"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. On one hand, she's a benevolent industrialist who presides over a warmly matriarchal society; on the other, she wants to destroy the forest, harness its resources, and exterminate its animal deities--chiefly the Spirit of the Forest, a magnificent deer god whose touch brings instant life or death, and who transforms at dusk into the towering Night Walker.
 After a budget cut, a violin teacher in East Harlem arranges a fundraiser at Carnegie Hall.
 After a budget cut, a violin teacher in East Harlem arranges a fundraiser at Carnegie Hall.  A white lady teaches violin in East Harlem.  A violin teacher in East Harlem takes her students to Carnegie Hall.  East Harlem students hate their perfectionist violin teacher.