Blog 5: LRC Relation

 I was unsure of Paranormal Activity as my movie, and I was unable to find a focusing question for the film. In result I decided to do my critical essay on the Lion King. This Disney movie has good morals throughout the film and many focusing questions. I started my focusing question with “How does lying affect a family?” In the essay I found on LRC, it helps bring depth to the question.

          The article I found on LRC talks about an author who writes about different family relationships. At first when reading the article one would think it has nothing to do with my focusing question because the article mostly refers to family relations. When reading the third paragraph of the article, it starts to tie into my question. Shadow Baby is a great example of a problem which involves lying to some degree. The book is about two women who give up their children for adoption simply because they do not want kids at that point in their life. After giving them up, they moved on with their lives as if they never had kids. Now, the two girls that were given up for adoption found out at a later age that they were adopted and soon became obsessed with finding their biological mothers. Sadly, when one of the girls finds her biological mother “It all came down to whether being mothered by your actual mother mattered…no, it all came down to whether being rejected by her when you had found her at last mattered.” That was mainly what made me change part of my focusing question from family to a person’s life.

           Most of the article was talking about Margaret Forster’s books and how they relate to family issues. The author continues through the end of the article referring to Margaret’s opinion and how she uses certain writing techniques. Even though “Family Secrets” was not straight to the point with my focusing question, it helped me to find another part to it. So, my final question is “How does lying affect a person’s life?”

 

My notes:

 A) Find one thing out can change you completely, from the article how Shone was a self possessed school leaver before she found out she was adopted.

 B) How one person can have no feelings and hurt someone so easily, when the mother just gave up her daughter no questions asked.

 C) The way you feel and reaction after finding something you have been waiting for a long period time.

 D) Believing that Santa had existed for 10 years and find out he wasn’t real. That was a let down.

Source Citation: Rodd, Candice. “Family Secrets.” Times Literary Supplement. 24. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 149. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. p24. Literature Resource Center. Gale. Pierce College. 13 Nov. 2009 <http://www.pierce.ctc.edu:2061/ps/start.do?p=LitRC&u=puya65247&gt;.

Blog Post 4: Paranormal Activity

Advertised as one of the most horrific movies of the year, Paranormal Activity is disappointing. In my opinion it is probably the worst film I have ever seen. My friends talked about how they could not sleep at night, or screamed in the theater and it surprised me. The theme of the movie seems to either scare people to death or does nothing at all; there was no in between. I  am with the audience that thinks it was nothing. The commercial makes the film out to be really scary, when in fact, for the first hour of the film was it straight forward boring. Watching the commercial one mostly sees all the scary parts, what one does not see are the little explanations. When one would read about the film, tabloids made it seem as if the movie was real, and not staged. No use of animation, props, or technology in general. If the director wanted to make this film more realistic the “actors” that died in the end should have disappeared for a while, but they are still alive today.  Which is ironic because of the events that the film portrayed. I find it surprising that this movie did not scare me because I scare really easily. The commercial for Paranormal Activity pretty  much gave a summary of the film’s scariest parts. Overall, this film is meant for one type of audience, and those are the ones that already believe in ghost or paranormal activity, because this film overall is not real. I personally think that Paranormal Activity was a waste of my time.

Blog Post 3 : “Moore’s Arguement”

In my opinion Moore’s argument is that the United States does not cover each persons health care like they should. About 25,000 Americans have problem with their Insurance companies. Even some people with health Insurance do not get the help they need. Moore argues about the way of the Insurance Companies act, a good example would be if an insurance company pays for your treatment, then they would find a way to get you to pay for it. The movie shows Sicko, people and their problems with their health insurance. Sicko displays real family issues, sickness, and interviews. Moore has different parts in the film were he would emphasis certain aspects. During one point in the film, Moore is viewed as a heroic figure, with an American Flag behind him. He stands at a border asking for medical care for 9/11 victims. He showed problems with the Health Insurance in the past and present. Moore’s argument would probably would lose his emphasis on the point. He would eventually lose his audience because the length of the movie being 2 hours long, the essay would be a ton of pages. In general the movie being turned into a essay, it probably would be a book, and you can’t emphasis or displays some of the points that are shown in the movie. When reading each person has their own view while in a movie each person sees the same thing but interprets it different. All of the movies displayed problems would be cut short and the point would not help show the targeted audience. Moore would probably change his view to being proven less strong.

Summary of “Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: How One Film Divided a Nation “

“Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11: How One Film Divided a Nation” is a book that mostly talks about how Micheal Moore’s films had an effect on people. Most of the book answers questions that the audience would have. This book is divided into six chapters which is meant to answer four questions about Robert Brent Toplin opinion. The four questions that you would learn about Toplins opinion are “did Michael Moore interpret recent American History effectively and with sophistication? Did he violate unwritten but generally acknowledged rules concerning responsible communication through documentary cinema? Were the accusations true or false? Did his political cinema have an impact on public opinion?” Toplin goes into deep anayalsis answering each question with his own opinion.  He points out the good and bad about Michael Moores films, commenting about the comedy and whether or not his film is well balanced with good and bad. Mostly in chapter one he describes the history behind Micheal Moore, then moving into chapter two, Toplin would talk about Moores film technique, and character development. While in chapter three, Toplin would investigate whether or not the audience understand the message that Moore is trying to present to them.  Chapter 4 is mostly about talks about the history of film and whether or not Moore follows the traidtion. Lastly in chapters five and six, Robert Brent Toplin talks about whether or not the film had a major effect on the Presidental election. Through out the entire sex chapter, he answers the first four questions in the beginning and keeps his audience informed.

Blog Post 2- “The Ugly Truth”

Women think with their head, and men obviously think otherwise. Watching the trailer for the movie “The Ugly Truth” showed this. My friends and I decided to go to see this movie the weekend it came out as a Girls’ Night Out movie. We ran into a previous teacher of ours who had just seen the movie and we asked if he liked it, and he said he did and that we’d probably enjoy it too. He was right about the movie. We did enjoy it very much, there were many parts where we couldn’t stop laughing and it was just an enjoyable movie over all. The producer tied humor into almost the entire film, and did not lose the plot. The plot of this film is pretty much a battle of the sexes. “Abby Richter” played by Katherine Heigl is a show producer whose boss teamed her up with “Mike Chadway” (Gerard Butler) who had his own show. Now what made it so funny is that they both had different opinions on males. Abby finds a guy who she likes and Mike makes a deal that he can get him to fall in love with her or he’ll quit as long as she does what he says. I love this film for the fact that is shows both opinions equally, but adds humor to it. Mike makes Abby do things she would never do and changes her entire wardrobe . Overall, the film makes one view things in a different way at times, at least for women when it comes to guys.

“The Ugly Truth Trailer”

Blog Post 1: Shelby Gonzalez “Banned Mastercard”

When one watches television and hears the words “Priceless,” what is the first thing one thinks of? Mastercard; so when I had to chose on what commercial to use, I  decided to use a Mastercard commercial that has been banned. I enjoy watching different Mastercard commercials because some of them are cute and funny. One of the main reasons I chose this particular one is for the humor behind the sexuality. The sexuality behind this particular commercial is very different from the ones you normally see. This clip focuses more on what is said than what is shown. Mastercard always had interesting commercials and always tries to tie humor into the commercial whether it is in the beginning or at the end. In each commercial there are at least two things that cost money, and for the last item they use something “that money can’t buy” ,and are able to use word priceless. While watching it, one is be able to see how they incorporated their usual tactics into something that had some more humor. I personally like this commercial, because it makes one believe that something is free. For example, when he uses the cheesey line, “I love you so much.” And then the narrator goes “Actually using a line like that: Another $12.00 dollar bottle of wine.” Most Mastercard commercials on the air, say something like “Backpack :  $20.00,” and then have a funny ending. This commercial is funny right from the start, but the ending is the highlight.  Sadly, this one has been banned and it not allowed to be aired because of inappropriate  content.