Final paper II

Rob Thurston

Per3

GFS paper 2

One trait I admire most about a person is their ability to be there own person that’s why I chose Billy Elliot for my second Essay

I believe the general theme of Billy Eliot is being true to you’re self. Billy is a young boy whose father was a great boxer and tried to re-live is “glory days” through his sons. However Bill likes Ballet witch is by no means considered a “manly” thing to do especially in a place like 1980’s northern Britain where being “macho” was a huge part of life. Billy was able see that conforming to the social norms would not get him to where he wanted to be. Although its not until the end of the film that we see that Billy’s ability to dance is his gift but its only when his it true to himself and who he is that he becomes successful.

Final paper I

Rob Thurston

Per 3

GFS bridge paper

 The most important bridge we can create is one of love that is open to all cultures

The Character I am planning to “bridge” to is the son in the American film little miss sun shine. His name is Dwayne the main ways I can relate to him are in our physical attributes: we both grew up in middle class whine households. In addition to our up bringing I am partly color blind and therefore unable to enter the air force. I at one point wanted to but when I learned I could not I was not as disappointed as Dwayne.

Similarly to the whole family in Little Miss Sunshine I too have had a vacation from hell; last summer we took a road trip in our mini van to my Grandpa’s dude ranch in Arizona. Aside from three flat tires my sister constant need to be talking loudly on her cell phone and my dog pooping in the back seat every fifteen miles or so it was largely uneventful. To make matters worse my iPod died as we entered into Nebraska (witch has a strangely similar geography to Mongolia aside from the fact that Mongolia’s soil is largely unfertile where as the great planes of mid-west America is ideal for farming),

            In the end it was the family’s love for each other as well as frequent Dairy queen stops that kept us going. I think in the Film Little Miss Sunshine the lager theme is Enduring Love. Although Dwayne’s love for his family wasn’t always apparent it was always there. That’s why I state that the most important bridge we can create is one of love that is open to all cultures.

“All you need is love”

-The Beatles 

Billy Elliot

From this film I learned a new way to pronounce the F word. As well as quite a bit about the attitude in northern england. There is a strong emfasis on being a tought manly man in Bill's naghborhood. The film starts out with Billy going to boxing class and discover he loves the Ballet. His family of mostly men doesn't understand. he starts to take lessons privately and eventually joins the royal ballet school. 

The kings speech

I thought this film was very good in fact its the best film we'v seen in this class. (witch isn't saying much)

It was refreshing to see a film that had a plot and scenes as well unlike several others we have seen. The kings speech was about king George VI and his speech problems. it follows him over a series of years and the ups and downs of his issues surrounding being king. It also covered a lot of the history surrounding the royal family of England.

the bet collector

this movies had no plot i didn't understand it i totally called her getting shot

Otek

THis movie was horrible I would rather baby sit  forty intoxicated eight year old than see this movie. It had the plot complexity of an episode of Arthur but took over three hours to end. It takes place in Cecholaslvica. there is a man and woman who are married but cant conceive a baby so the dad makes on out of wood and it comes alive and starts to eat people.  There is another family in this film but there is a little girl who begins to feed it when it gets locked in the basement by its parents. The only semi-positive things involved with this film was the camera angles witch made it sooooo much creepier and te father of the little girl he was the only person in the whole film who wasn't crazy or extremely dumb. The only part of this film i thought i would enjoy would be the end and never having to see it ever again but when it was finally time for for the ugly monster to be cleaved with a garden hoe and it ended we didn't see any thing. my life was made far worse by seeing this film it ruined eggs for me and if you are ever couris about what a possiblre reaction you would have to this film would be : put you're head on a subway track when the train comes by

Hoop dreams essay

   We just finished a Film called "hoops dreams". It follows two boys as they start high school with hopes of getting in the NBA. This film is three hours long but i enjoyed it a lot. There were several ideas that were provoked by this film . In the beginning we see the situation of the two boys ti isn't very good. they live in an area of Chicago that at the time was known for its crime. Now it doest take a rocket scientist to figure out that this is a bad situation. But these to boys believe that with their hoop dreams they can get out of the hood.

Race is a prevailing theme that is present through out this whole film the boys both black get recruited to go to a school St. Johns to play basket ball but as far as I saw the only other black kids that were present in the school were on the basketball team. One of the boys: Arthur's family cant make enough money to keep him at St. Johns so he must go to the local area high school called  Marshal. I think i counted a total of three white people all teachers at this school. These are two very big extremes that I'm glad I don't have to live with but were a great way of putting things into context in the film.

Another was economic division: THe other issue brought up by the division of the schools was class division: Arthur was at Marshal high school but William was still attending St.Johns. It took the boys a hour and a half that is a long time every day to get to school. Also the neighborhoods were SUPER different. you could see it in the boy's eyes when the were on the boy leaving their home because it a lot greener and there were more plants and the area where St. John's is has a lot more money than the ghetto of Chicago.

Tis films shines a bright light on inner city life. the theme of poverty is very prevalent. At one point Arthur's dad Bo leaves the family and gets addicted to drugs for a few years he makes it out ok and re-joins the family. William's father also left the family but when William was at a much younger age. there was a reunion at one point but you could tell that William was still a little bitter about his father leaving the family. In the end Im happy that I'v grown up with all I have but it is impressive to me that despite the odds both boys went to collage and played in the NCAA

But despite all the hardships the boys make it out and are making a good life for themselves. William is the head of a church and Arthur is launching a hoop dreams clothing brand. Arthur is now a father of five kids by five different women. The two had a happy reunion in 2008. Although all is not happy. Arthur's dad got shot as does William's older brother Curtis.