holidazeee movayyye

In reading the movies we have recently watched It's A Wonderful Life, and The Family Man. These movies are similar because they share the same theme just take place in a different setting and time. They are both variations of the classic Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens in that the main characters need to learn a valuable life lesson. They both didn’t know the true meaning of Christmas.                   

  Some things that are similar in the movies are of when both men were rich and successful. George Bailey was a rich business man, and Jack Campbell was the president of a company. They both take place during Christmas time. Both Men have realized in the end they are happy with their family and want them. Another similarity of these two movies is that at some point in time they both share crappy jobs. George Bailey was working for his dad when he really wanted to be traveling and doing other stuff. Jack Campbell was working for a big time business earning millions but then in a quick second he is working at a Tire sale place, probably making minimum wage.

  A big difference is in the way the story is told. Jack Campbell has everything he wants. He’s got his Ferrari, apartment, money, and his job. But what he doesn’t have is a family and a wife. George bailey had everything he wanted also. He did have a family and his money and power but he did not know that he was screwing up and he lost his family.                                                                                                                                                            I think these films share similarities in the theme. The theme is that you shouldn’t take things for granite and take a hold of something and never let go. Both of these movies show these two men love their family and they finally took a hold and got their love back.

9/11

In reading the movies we recently have watched "Reign over Me" and “Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close." In the movie "Reign over Me" Charlie is riding his motorized scooter down a street of New York City. His college roommate Alan was trying for a couple days to get his attention on his scooter. After he gets Charlie's attention they get a cup of coffee, and they hang out a few times. One day Alan upsets Charlie to where Charlie flips his lid and went water boy. Alan learns that Charlie's wife, three children, and dog were killed in 9/11. Alan tries to get Charlie the help he needs, after awhile Charlie agrees to see a psychiatrist. Charlie goes to these sessions about three times and the last time he went he went out of the room into the lobby and started talking about his family and how they died on the plane from Boston during 9/11. This film copes with nine- eleven by the life you live after you lost your loved ones and your best friend. It shows how crappy life is when something so extreme happens.
     The next movie we watched was "Extremely Loud, Incredibly close." This is about a family that is living well in New York City. The parents have a little boy named Oscar. Oscar goes with his dad everywhere, to his store, on little exploring expedition trips. The day of the worst day Oscar goes to school, and the wife is at work by the twin towers. The father had a meeting in the twin towers on a floor above 100. When the plane hit the building it was close to where he was and when Oscar got home he heard his dad calling but he couldn’t answer the phone. His dad was waiting as long as he could to have Oscar be brave enough to answer the phone but it was too late. Oscar feels so horrible about his dad that he yells at his mom about stuff and then he goes in his dad’s closet and drops a vase. There was a key in this vase and Oscar decides to find where the key fits and he thinks it will bring him closer to his dad. Oscar meets his grandfather and he finds out who the key belongs to. Oscar is really bummed out that it didn’t bring him closer to his dad. This movie copes with 9/11 by seeing what it’s like to have a loved one die in the building. Both of these movies have a comparison, they tell both sides of the event. "Reign over Me" tells a story about the extreme terror from the plane hitting the tower. "Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close" tells the story from being in the building and how horrifying it was when the plane hit the building. The movie "Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close" is my favorite movie of the two because I can almost connect with what the little boy was feeling.

Saving private ryan/ 1941

 Stephen Spielberg depicted war through films "Saving Private Ryan" and "1941" in two very different ways. The first was a drama and showed the very serious side of loss and sacrifice during war. The second was a comedy that poked fun of the hysteria towards the Japanese after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Each movie appealed to a different audience.
       The film "Saving Private Ryan appealed to me more because it gives a bigger picture of what is was like for the men who fought on D-Day. The poignant message in this movie is that every living person made a sacrifice, and it brought out the best in everybody. The mother of Private Ryan sacrificed her own child for the war; everybody in Saving Private Ryan in the platoon sacrificed two men’s lives to save him. Everybody in the war sacrificed their life to fight. Private Ryan sacrificed his own mother’s happiness for the war.
         In the movie "1941" the message was that fear can drive to people to over react and carry it out of proportion. Wild bill saw an American plane while he was flying and he thought it was a Japanese plane and he took it down. The army put an anti aircraft gun in the middle of someone’s yard in fear of Japanese planes.

Of these two movies I think Saving Private Ryan had the more poignant message. It looked very real when they were storming the beach and losing a lot of their friends.

racism at its finest

In this class we have watched a number of movies that are about race. In the movie "Do the right thing" Spike Lee was the director. If this movie was directed by a white person this movie would have a totally different view. When every one was crowded around Sal's pizzeria Radio got his box smashed with a bat. A fight broke out causing the police  to come. When they came I noticed they were all white cops. One white cop started choking Radio and killed him. The other guy that was with Radio was thrown in the back of a police car. Now if this movie was directed by a white director there would have been more use of the N word, more violence towards the black people. There could be a lot of fatalities involving whites on black fights and what not. The director might have swat come in and arrest everybody at Sal's for destroying it and lighting it on fire.
      You have asked if the movie "Schindler's list" would have been diifferent if he was a german catholic. I think that is a hundred percent right. Since Speilburg was a jewish person he has the views of what it was like during the Holocaust, the nasty devastating horror he had to live in before he came to be a Schindler jew. If he was a german catholic he would have the views of a nice house to live in, a good meal to eat every night before laying in a bed that felt like you were on clouds. He would have the joy of shooting those jews like most of the germans did. So yes this movie would have a different view not to mention a different plot.
          Last but not least the movie "Glory." This movie was told by a white actor basically focusing on the commander, which was also white. Now this story is about the civil war and the civil war was fought for the end of slavery. So that being said the commander at first didn't like these black people all to well. But then his view turned drastically with a snap of a stick. When the commander found out why the one black guy tried to leave, it was because he needed new footwear because his feet looked like hamburger meat. So the commander went and got everybody in the regiment new footwear. If this was told by a black director I really do think it would show how these dudes were being treated, how they had to live while in the regiment, what they were fed. More vulgar terms may be used and yes of course the n word. I really do think the ethnicity's of these directors takes a toll on the movie itself. There are plenty of different ways these stories can be told and they all lead back to what the ethnicity of the director is.

race and sports

In the year 2014 racism is alive and well. While it is true, that we have made progress towards getting along. We still have a ways to go. Sports teams can pave the way to a new beginning. Sports teams like the military have people of different races coming together to fight for a common goal. Teammates at any level usually want to win, and will over look their teammates race for the sake of the team. This opens the door for true understanding. There are many examples of this in the movies we have watched. In the movie “Remember the Titans.” Both white and black players had to play together due to integration in schools. At the start of the movie the coaches wouldn’t get along with each other same with the football players.  The new head coach “Boone” had everyone get off their buses and he split them into offense and defense. This made the buses not segregated and whoever they sat with was their roommate at camp. Coach had all the players get to know their families, what they like, where they were from, what they eat etc... After the big step of getting to know each other they started to work for the same goal and became a team. Sports may, or may not eliminate racism.  After a football game Gerry asked coach if he can kick ray off the team because he was purposely not blocking for Rev. Sports did not eliminate racism for Ray. If his hate was so strong that he wouldn’t even work with the team then he shouldn’t be playing.  Sports did however change Gerry’s beliefs about racism. Even with the movie “42” one of the men on Jackie’s team heard another man by the dugout yelling slurs at Robinson and he got sick of it. He went out of the dugout and defended Jackie Robinson. The way he thought about it changed after the coach showed him the letters that were sent to Jackie. He even took a big step and went up to Jackie in a game and was saying that he had family in the stands and they need to know who he was. In the movie “Glory Road” There was not many black players in basket-ball. They were getting racial slurs all the time and bad stuff happened at a hotel and restaurant. All the players came together and got past the racism between them and they worked together and they won the championship game. All of these movies and articles somehow show their moral high ground. All of these coaches also took the moral high ground. They could have split the team into whites only offense or blacks only defense. But they didn’t because it was a team and they all worked together to achieve their goal.

here comes the hero

We've recently watched a film called Here Comes The Boom. This movie is a pretty good one because there's a lot more action incorporated then what you would think. You wouldn't think to see Kevin James with his flab fighting in a ring with a professional MMA fighter. Let alone he does get his butt handed to him but there's a drastic turn around when he all the sudden knocks this guy out. I think that Kevin James is a hero because of the fact that he went and got the crap beat out of him to help not only the students but to help the music teacher keep his job so he can also have money to raise his unborn child. While this is going on the assistant principle stole all the money that Kevin James and the music teacher saved up to help the school. Kevin James main thought process was to just lose his fight in the UFC to get $10,000and go home. But from him being the hero when he finds out that the money is gone he wants to win. The students even showed up to the fight and played his song and that motivated him like no tomorrow. He was about to get knocked out but he fought and he knocked him out cold with the lightning flash strike to the face. (*-*)

father and son

              Road to Perdition is about a father being a gangster and he has two sons and a wife. The tragic part about this movie is that another gangster comes into Mike Sullivan’s house and murders his wife and his son. The only one left was his other son Michael. This movie answers a couple questions in the second article posted. The first question is "does my son know that I love him?" After mike had dealt with the people who were putting his son in danger, they go to a house on the beach and were going to live there. But while Michael was playing outside, the news reporter was behind the door and shot mike. He then tells his son that he loves him before he passes away. The second question is "does my son know that what he does is important to me?" The last thing that Mike wants is for his son to grow up and be a gangster. Also while they were at the beach house Michael hears the shots and he came inside and had a gun pointed to the news reporter. The last thing mike wanted was for his son to shoot that man so at the last minute while he’s bleeding out he shoots the reporter. At this time mike has succeeded because Michael never touched a gun again in his life.
                 The next movie that deals with the father son motif is Field of dreams. This movie answers the question "does my son know how proud I am of him." In this movie he builds a baseball field because a voice tells him to and it leads to seeing his dad. His dad has to be proud of him for building that field and almost losing his house just to see him play baseball again. This movie also answers the question "does he know that I love him?" When they finally have a catch together it seems like his dad is showing that he loves him and it seems like the tension between them has lifted.