Movie Response

Favorite movies: 

She's the Man

Titanic 

The Notebook 

Grease

Elf

What Maisy Knows

The Impossible

The Impossible Plot: 

A family goes to Thailand for their Christmas vacation. They are staying at a beachfront hotel and when they were playing in the pool, suddenly a tsunami hits and their family is separated. The mother and one son, Lucas, find each other while they are being thrown around by the strong waters. They get themselves to safety and some nice locals help them to a hospital to help Maria, the mother. The father, Henry, and the two younger boys, Thomas and Simon, stay with each other. Maria was doing fine in the hospital until she had surgery and lost a lot of blood from all her wounds. She is relocated and her name gets mistaken for another person and Lucas and her get separated and Lucas thought he lost his mom. Thankfully a nurse takes him to one of the rooms and his mom is there. Henry and his boys are still at the hotel where the tsunami hit and Henry sends his sons on a car that took them to the mountains to safety while he stayed there looking for his wife and other son. Lucas was wandering around the hospital looking for something and he sees his dad from a distance. He chases after him but couldn't find him and looses hope. While Lucas is outside, Thomas and Simon are in a car with many other kids outside of the hotel and they turn around to see their brother standing there. After they boys reunite with each other, their father comes up to them and they are all together. They go back inside the hotel to see Maria and she had to get another surgery. Thankfully it went well and they headed on a plane to go to Singapore were she could get better treatment. 

a. The promise in the film is when Henry arrives at the hospital where Maria and Lucas are. He looks for their names and couldn't find them. But, as he is about to leave, he sees Lucas' red ball from Christmas and he has a feeling to get out of the car. The other promise is when Thomas and Simon arrive at the hospital and Simon gets off really quick to go to the bathroom, right before they were going to leave they turn around and see Lucas. This brings them all together. 

b. What makes you connect to this film so deeply is that it is a true showing of what family means. They search for each other no matter how long it takes and they will go through anything to help each other. Henry had his younger boys go up to the mountain so he could look for his wife and other son. Lucas did everything for his mom from helping her climb the tree to safety to making sure she wouldn't die after coughing up blood. The truth that exists in this movie is how strong family bonds are. 

c. Maria the main character wants to find her family but doesn't believe they are alive. She also wants to make sure she stays alive for Lucas, because she believes he is the only thing that is left of them. Another very important character is Lucas. He strives to help everyone and anyone he can. He went through the whole hospital calling names so he can reunite people. Lucas just wants his mother to stay alive and once he sees his dad is alive he wants to find the rest of his family. 

INCIDENT, AUGUST 1995

David Means is a very detailed and deep writer. He describes things down to the last spec. Every sentence has a specific way of telling his story in a meaningful and interesting way. Means, as said before, is a very detailed writer and below are some examples.

"...abandoned in a sense like Christ on the cross; if there is no God, then this piece of blind bad luck began when he abandoned his BMW and started his trudge with great purpose, and no purpose, into the underside of the road, 9W, a road that usually took him on Friday nights to the city, over the bridge, down the West Side Highway and off at 72nd Street, to a parking garage of cool poured concrete, the thump of his car door, rubber against rubber, sounding particularly sweet echoing in those confines..."

"...not so much for the good reverend, who had little to say and needed only to nod kindly, to put his large fat palm on the leg of this shaking man, whose knees were covered with a polyester tartan blanket normally used for roadside picnics with his wife..."

This story was very hard for me to understand and comprehend. Since I don't enjoy reading, my thoughts tend to stray from the story and I think about something else. This might have been the case or the story was just filled with so much information that it was hard for me to catch on from the very beginning. I understand and know the base of the situation but everything that was happening between the beginning and end was confusing for me to understand. 

Dialogue

Emily walked into the room to find Kailey with all of her clothes on.

“What are you doing?”
“Just trying on some clothes. ”

“What makes you think you can try other’s clothes on without asking? ”
“I was just trying them on to see what they look like. That doesn’t mean that I’m going to wear them out. ”

“They are my clothes! ”

“I know. ”

“Then what makes you think you can wear them? ”
“I am no wearing them! I just tried them on! I was going to ask you if I decided to wear them out! ”

“You didn’t even want to ask to try them on? ”
“I didn’t think it was necessary if I didn’t wear them out of the room. You’re getting angry about a situation that isn’t a big deal. ”
“It’s a big deal. Those are my clothes on your body, which they don’t belong on. You did even have the decency to send a quick message to ask. You’re a brat! TAKE THEM OFF!”

Creative Response

He turned sixteen years old on June 2, 1876. It was the beginning of summer and all he wanted was that ruby red, shiny bright ford that was for sale across the street. He had his eye on her for over a month now and told his momma about her every day. Every penny that he found or earned was put into that glass jar that was shown off on his red nightstand. Every week he would count the money and hope it would be enough to buy his dream—but it never added up how he wanted.

The dirt swept across their long dirt driveway day in and day out. He got his license on the day he became of age, but he didn’t have a car to drive. Mom had her car that she drove to work and dad had his beaten down car that he had to drive to the lumberyard. He decided to go over to the house across the street and ask if he could just look at the ruby red, shiny bright ford and sit in the drivers seat to dream about one day it being his. So he picked his little butt off the couch and headed over.

The neighbors were glad that he came to visit and even let him take the car down the road and back. He pictured himself in this car every day, even just driving to the grocery store lookin’ like a stud. He drove the car back and told the neighbors how this was his beauty he had always dreamed of and then sadly walked back to his house with his back hunched over. He sat on his bed, pulled out all of the money in the jar on his red nightstand and counted it out. The money didn’t add up how he wanted to, so he went to sleep with dreams of him back in the ruby red, shiny bright ford. 

Character Sketch

She was blonde, tall, and well-dressed with no worries in the world. She walked the walk and talked the talk. She always had an entourage, of course a blonde one. Never would she ever be seen out at a party alone. Her clothes, size extra small, were purchased from the places where no one could afford—the places where normal people would look in the window and drool at the beauty inside.

She stormed out of the house, balling her little eyes out. The tears, heavy as a brick, ran down her face as fast as Niagara Falls. With her friend by her side, they walked to the car. While sobbing, she was telling her friend what had happened that night. “He shoved me and I almost fell down. He kept telling me I was an alcoholic,” she explained. Who knew if all these things were true?

She never was the type of person who would be in and out of relationships easily. There were only three people who she actually cared about her first twenty years of life. But, this was definitely the worst ending to them all. Her thoughts throughout the night consisted of, “What is going to happen next? Are we going to get back together? No. Yes. No, he’s a jerk. But I love him.” Her friends kept telling her that she didn’t need a guy like that in her life.

The tears kept coming down, but this time they were lighter, but not light as a feather. Her small, weak body lay on the bed. Black makeup was on her pillow and used wet tissues were scattered around her perfectly decorated pink room. She tried to escape her thoughts about him but nothing would clear them from her head. She ripped the dream catcher off the wall and through it out her window and screamed, “This stupid thing doesn’t do anything!” She was exhausted from crying and yelling all night and before she knew it her black eyes were heavy and her mouth could move no more and she went to sleep. 

The Lady With The Dog

One thing that stands out about Anton Chekhov's writing is that he describes and explains things in great detail. Describing Gurov's wife, "She read a great deal, used phonetic spelling, called her husband, not Dmitri, but Dimitri, and he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home." And the description of Anna, "walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of medium height, wearing a béret; a white Pomeranian dog was running behind her." His use of detail engages the reader more and more to understand and really picture what is happening. He establishes a setting before anything happens so that whatever that is going to take place in the scene is well portrayed.

The characters, throughout the story, don't exchange much dialogue. Their depictions of each other come from their thoughts such as "afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel" which also is foreshadowing. "Gurov looked at her and thought: "What different people one meets in the world!"" Why would he not just tell her that to her face? Why do they both feel the need to not respond to each other or make conversation? They seem to know a lot about each other with only little conversation between them.

A theme that arises in this story is something that is so prevalent today: affairs. Not knowing what this story would be about, but by reading the first couple paragraphs and knowing that Gurov was fascinated so much by Anna, it gave a hint that something along the lines of an affair was going to happen. Gurov is living two lives, which he realizes in the end, one in secret and one that everyone knew.

Tapka

Just by reading the first line of the story, it is known that David Bezmogis uses very mature language.  "Goldfinch was flapping clotheslines, a tenement delirious with striving.  6030 Bathurst: insomniac, scheming Odessa."  He keeps it an easy story to read that flows nicely with developed language. 

The point of view is from the child being much older because the past tense is being used.  He reminisces on the times he spent with Tapka and his cousin.  The voice that is used is much more mature than a seven year old would use. 

How the story was introduced, I was not expecting it to be about a dog.  Maybe it would be about the child and cousin or even the Nahumovskys, who knows.  But no, it was about a dog.  This was an interesting choice because a dog is something that is so simple but he turned it into a story. 

The story didn't seem to have any negative parts until the end.  The boy and his cousin were able to take care of their neighbor's dog at a young age which gave them a sense of responsibility that most young kids couldn't handle.  They took care of Tapka every day while walking it to the park and back to their house.  The sad part, which had to happen, came at the end when everything was happy and nothing was going wrong. 

Hospital Scene

She was given two months to live. That was at the end of summer. What would happen our kids? Would we be able to live a normal life? Those questions ran through  my head day in and day out.

She laid there on the bed, IVs in her frail arms, hardly talking because she was so weak. When I looked at her I couldn't help but shed a tear, but I couldn't show her how much pain I was experienceing. We have been married for ten years and knew we wanted to grow old together. She sat there on the metal bed and I couldn't do anything except stand by her side with support every second of every hour of every day. Her eyes, squinty and small, were always filled with hope. There was never a bad thought in her head or a thought about death. The cows in the picture on the wall always made her smile, because it reminded her of her home when she was a little girl in Wyoming. She was very weak and famished and I was always hesitant to let the kids see their mother this way. She had gone through many tests and there was nothing that could save her.

I slept on that horrible couch or chair, every night. It pained me but I knew it didn't top the pain and suffering that she was going through, not just physical but mental and emotional. When I didn't want to leave her side, but I was so tired, I would fall asleep on the blue squeaky chair next to her bed hoping she would wake up the next morning. It was day and the two kids were coming. Kids their ages, ten and eight, should never have to go through something so tragic. But, when they came running into the room, their faces were always filled with joy. Every time they visited they brought one flower, never white because those were the colors of the boring room.

Intervention Reflection

“Intervention” was a great story to read.  I wasn’t sure what to expect in the beginning, except that it was going to be something about an intervention, obviously.  Marilyn obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with the idea of her husband going to rehab for being an alcoholic and when the family had “the talk” with Sid, she refused to make eye contact and talk to him.  It couldn’t be her idea and Sid never questioned if she had ever thought of the idea of him going to rehab.

I enjoyed the way the story was written.  The past and present were intertwined within the story and I think it flowed very nicely. I am often confused with flashbacks and it sometimes begins to become confusing for me to follow but the way Jill McCorkle wrote was appreciable.  She began the story with “The intervention is not Marilyn’s idea,” which to me was a big point in the plot.  At the end when Sid is confronted by his family, Marilyn doesn’t want to take any blame for the family deciding on addressing Sid’s problems.

*Never would I think I would know an alcoholic so close to me. I never like the face the fact that this thing can do so much to a person and alter their life and others lives in so many ways. It never seemed like he had a problem until I began seeing him make a drink early in the afternoon and continue pouring the alcohol way into the night. It went on and on for years and it never got better. Family members confronted him, but nothing was changing. He began to fight and rage towards his wife, something that would not be pleasant to see. She was scared that the verbal abuse would turn into physical abuse if he would drink too much. This scared me so much because it was real. It wasn’t a story about a friend or someone across the street. It wasn’t a story in a book. It was a story about my life, and it scared me.*

Character Sketch

I sat across from her in the student union on a gray sofa. She was a sorority girl, which doesn't matter at all. I knew her by her name, but I never really had talked to her before then. I had no judgement of her but she seemed like she would be a nice girl. I guess everyone is "nice" so that fact doesn't matter either.

I was on my computer with my journal by my side. She was also on her computer. I assumed she was doing homework because she was reading something then typing on her computer. Read. Type. Read. Type. By now we've exchanged some words by not much. I never have been one to talk a lot around people I don't know, so our lack of conversation wasn't a surprise to me. Read. Type. Read. Type. She continued on with her "homework" if that's what it was. She stopped typing, adjusted her position on the couch, then proceeded to say "This is uncomfortable." This was, what I didn't know, the start of my annoyance. She one again began talking, "This music seems all the same....". And so on.

Finally, silence. Wait, I take that back. She began to talk again, but this time to me. She obviously sees I'm doing something but goes on to say, "Are you doing homework?"

"Yes."

She again asks, "What are you doing?"

"I'm reading."

"Oh same." Blah, blah, blah, blah.

She continued to complain once again. I still don't judge her, but I couldn't focus when someone was talking to me and I was reading.

She was a nice girl, a complainer, and definitely someone who LOVED to talk.