Thursday, April 14, 2011
You posted it!!!!
I will read it later. Now where are your comments for the school blog about blogging in the classroom.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Shake Hands With The Devil/Hotel Rwanda
In Shake Hands With The Devil theThis film adaptation of the Romeo Dallaire's autobiography "Shake Hands with the Devil" details the personal journey of Dallaire through the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It reveals how the United Nations ignored Dallaire's request for more aid.
In Hotel Rwanda the film is about some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.
There are two layers in the films, the obvious, and the underlying layer. The first being the overall situations, which is the war amongst the people. Where one of the clans is trying to terminate the other clan. Then comes the second, deeper layer. Which is how most people assume that the UN did next to nothing to help these people. In actuality, the peacekeeping force there did as much as they could, but they were never helped from their superiors, and no one came to help them, they got no back up what so ever. What amazes me is how, despite these odds, they still stood on the threshold of life, simply trying to defend these people as best they could, and countless lives were lost.
Characters can easily represent darkness in films and stories, but in these films it's not just one or two characters, but an entire clan of people. This shows us how if one person gets a simple idea, an idea as simple as killing off these people, and can sell this idea to his friends, then this eventually leads to a huge movement. I don't think I even have to mention this, but this is easily connected to Hitler and the Nazis in world war II and how they tried to kill all the jewish people.
I was able to make numerous connections in regards to these films. The biggest being the movement happening in Libya. The people of Libya have lived under totalitarian, and despotic rule. Now they are making a grand statement in an attempt to over throw the leaders of those countries to follow the human desire to live in freedom and liberty. You would assume that this would make news headlines around the world, and that people would be jumping out of the houses trying to save these people, but as a society, it seems we're more interested in watching Charlie Sheen trip out on drugs, rather than another genocide happening.
Finally I connect this all to the essential question: How does the media shape our view of the world? This is where I found the movies to be extremely powerful. The media has an imense control of the world. Which is pretty scary of a thought. The media determines nearly everything we learn about whats going on in the world. While with the increasingly growing popularity of the internet, this is becoming less and less of a problem, back when this happened, almost no one knew. Had they, then I assume this entire mess would have been solved in a matter of hours.
In Hotel Rwanda the film is about some of the worst atrocities in the history of mankind took place in the country of Rwanda--and in an era of high-speed communication and round the clock news, the events went almost unnoticed by the rest of the world. In only three months, one million people were brutally murdered. In the face of these unspeakable actions, inspired by his love for his family, an ordinary man summons extraordinary courage to save the lives of over a thousand helpless refugees, by granting them shelter in the hotel he manages.
There are two layers in the films, the obvious, and the underlying layer. The first being the overall situations, which is the war amongst the people. Where one of the clans is trying to terminate the other clan. Then comes the second, deeper layer. Which is how most people assume that the UN did next to nothing to help these people. In actuality, the peacekeeping force there did as much as they could, but they were never helped from their superiors, and no one came to help them, they got no back up what so ever. What amazes me is how, despite these odds, they still stood on the threshold of life, simply trying to defend these people as best they could, and countless lives were lost.
Characters can easily represent darkness in films and stories, but in these films it's not just one or two characters, but an entire clan of people. This shows us how if one person gets a simple idea, an idea as simple as killing off these people, and can sell this idea to his friends, then this eventually leads to a huge movement. I don't think I even have to mention this, but this is easily connected to Hitler and the Nazis in world war II and how they tried to kill all the jewish people.
I was able to make numerous connections in regards to these films. The biggest being the movement happening in Libya. The people of Libya have lived under totalitarian, and despotic rule. Now they are making a grand statement in an attempt to over throw the leaders of those countries to follow the human desire to live in freedom and liberty. You would assume that this would make news headlines around the world, and that people would be jumping out of the houses trying to save these people, but as a society, it seems we're more interested in watching Charlie Sheen trip out on drugs, rather than another genocide happening.
Finally I connect this all to the essential question: How does the media shape our view of the world? This is where I found the movies to be extremely powerful. The media has an imense control of the world. Which is pretty scary of a thought. The media determines nearly everything we learn about whats going on in the world. While with the increasingly growing popularity of the internet, this is becoming less and less of a problem, back when this happened, almost no one knew. Had they, then I assume this entire mess would have been solved in a matter of hours.
Journal
This week my group was able to focus more on the conflicts of the wars in "All Quiet On The Western Front". Honor, faith, land, oil... Wars are fought for any number of reasons, but on the battlefield, every soldier has to hold their own. In our book we can see that the war starts off by seeming like a great game that the soldiers have been chosen to play, but as the book progresses, they learn that things can go terribly wrong. A huge part in this would be experiencing the death of their friends and brothers in arms, which no one in the world can prepare you for. In war, the theory of death is something to be questioned, naturally as humans, we have two forms of thinking; either you're going to kill someone because they are simply your enemy, or you die, because you're someones enemy. "Comrade, I did not want to kill you. . . . But you were only an idea to me before, an abstraction that lived in my mind and called forth its appropriate response. . . . I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?" (pg 187). This shows that killing the opposing force in conflict was simply a thought for the soldiers until they finally realized what exactly they were doing, and it had a great emotional effect on them. Another form of conflict is that the generals of this war seem like the most hardcore, war torn, willing to fight people on the planet, but in reality, they didn't even want to fight this war. But because the leaders of the countries had a disagreement, everyone else is forced to fight. This reminds me of a line from a song: "When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die." (Hands Held High - Linkin Park). This shows us that the leaders of our countires, the ones who are supposed to have our best intrests at heart, can cause anything to happen in a matter of seconds, and like Macbeth, occasionally get power hungry. Finally, theres the conflict amongst the soldiers as they dispute because they don't think they'll fit back into modern society again, after what they've seen and done in war. The best way to sum this up, would be in the words of Ernest Hemingway "There is no hunting like the hunting of a man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."
Thursday, March 17, 2011
What the Glog means
Background - The background changes from light to dark which shows the characters' view on war, and how they all thought it was this extravagant game to be proud of, but as the story and war progresses, they find out how dark and evil war can really be.
Art Style - Everything looks like it would be in pretty rough shape, thus demonstrating the lack of time to put attention to detail when in war. Because at any second you can get called into action. So your work becomes quick and messy.
Colour - I tried to stick to a two-colour theme. Black (or dark colours) and a dark/blood red. The black represents the view of World War I and II due to lack of colour in most films of that era. The red represents blood and the hardships of war.
Words/Quote - The words and quotes all simply reflect back to the main theme of conflict.
Picture(1) - The picture in the bottom-left corner of the Glog represents the firefights between the Germans and the French. The grenades which fly across the field creating a seemingly never ending conflict zone none as the no-man's-land.
Picture(2) - The picture in the middle of the Glog represents how pride and honor and decency is always kept even during conflict of wars. That no matter the scenario, you must push forward with you commander and fight through whatever conflicts arise, while keeping your country's pride.
Picture(3) - The picture middle-right of the Glog represents how even things like helmets or guns can aide you in war, but if you want to win the fight, you'll have to push through all conflicts.
Art Style - Everything looks like it would be in pretty rough shape, thus demonstrating the lack of time to put attention to detail when in war. Because at any second you can get called into action. So your work becomes quick and messy.
Colour - I tried to stick to a two-colour theme. Black (or dark colours) and a dark/blood red. The black represents the view of World War I and II due to lack of colour in most films of that era. The red represents blood and the hardships of war.
Words/Quote - The words and quotes all simply reflect back to the main theme of conflict.
Picture(1) - The picture in the bottom-left corner of the Glog represents the firefights between the Germans and the French. The grenades which fly across the field creating a seemingly never ending conflict zone none as the no-man's-land.
Picture(2) - The picture in the middle of the Glog represents how pride and honor and decency is always kept even during conflict of wars. That no matter the scenario, you must push forward with you commander and fight through whatever conflicts arise, while keeping your country's pride.
Picture(3) - The picture middle-right of the Glog represents how even things like helmets or guns can aide you in war, but if you want to win the fight, you'll have to push through all conflicts.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
In class write-up. Just a little late.
The first article I read was the Children of Rwanda's Genocide. The article talks mainly about the events and damages that occurred during the Rwandan genocide. The author conveys darkness quite nicely, although it's not hard. The entire article is actual facts as to what happened, and typically a genocide is something severely dark, making darkness easily conveyable. The one part of the article that really impacted me was this:
" For three months, the interhamwe militias massacred entire villages of Tutsi and moderate Hutu - on average 5000 people every day. By mid-July, almost one tenth of the people in the small but densely-populated nation had been slain."
Although we know that the genocide in Rwanda was terrible, putting it into a statistical value is much more meaningful. I really shows the damage that was done.
The second article I read was 10 Years Later in Rwanda, The Dead Are Ever Present. The article talks about how to do preserve the bodies, or to properly bury them. The dispute is a big one, on one hand, they want the bodies to be preserved behind glass to show what really happened there, and to last as a memory to help build a better future. On the other hand, they want the bodies to be buried due to the level of respect that would be missing, should the preserve the bodies. The darkness is conveyed in almost the same way as the previous article. Although the problem of the bodies and the government still show that even after 10 years, the horrors of this genocide still exist. The one part of the article that really impacted me was this:
" For three months, the interhamwe militias massacred entire villages of Tutsi and moderate Hutu - on average 5000 people every day. By mid-July, almost one tenth of the people in the small but densely-populated nation had been slain."
Although we know that the genocide in Rwanda was terrible, putting it into a statistical value is much more meaningful. I really shows the damage that was done.
The second article I read was 10 Years Later in Rwanda, The Dead Are Ever Present. The article talks about how to do preserve the bodies, or to properly bury them. The dispute is a big one, on one hand, they want the bodies to be preserved behind glass to show what really happened there, and to last as a memory to help build a better future. On the other hand, they want the bodies to be buried due to the level of respect that would be missing, should the preserve the bodies. The darkness is conveyed in almost the same way as the previous article. Although the problem of the bodies and the government still show that even after 10 years, the horrors of this genocide still exist. The one part of the article that really impacted me was this:
"A woman has her arms over her face, as if protecting herself from attack. One of her forearms has been hacked off. Another, a youngster, has a thin crack across his skull, the imprint of a machete."
This shows that the entire event was severely violent, and it's extremely hard to imagine that an entire population, to even imagine that one person could do this, is terrible.
Both authors show the same forms to convey the darkness, they focus on the tragedies. They showed how the turmoils between the two cultures really escalated into something huge. Also how the corporations over seas who were really the only ones who could help, practically did nothing to stop any of this until it was too late.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Support Non-Human Rights
In 1982, a massive star ship bearing a bedraggled alien population, nicknamed "The Prawns," appeared over Johannesburg, South Africa. Twenty-eight years later, the initial welcome by the human population has faded. The refugee camp where the aliens were located has deteriorated into a militarized ghetto called District 9, where they are confined and exploited in squalor. In 2010, the munitions corporation, Multi-National United, is contracted to forcibly evict the population with operative Wikus van der Merwe in charge. In this operation, Wikus is exposed to a strange alien chemical and must rely on the help of his only two new 'Prawn' friends.
There are two layers in the film, the obvious, and the underlying layer. The first being the overall plot, which is how Wikus tries to evict the alien residences out of their current location, into a new, smaller location known as District 10. Everything seems to be going according to plan until he stumbles onto an alien chemical which thus turns him into a 'Prawn'. He then needs the help of the aliens he was just recently trying to evict, to return to normal. Then comes the second, deeper layer. The overall population of Johannesburg wants the alien culture to leave, because they think that they're using up space and resources. One woman even says, "They're spending so much money to keep them here, when they could be using it for other things...". Once Wikus starts to change into one of the 'Prawns' he then is hunted out by the government to see how his body has changed. This shows that the overall mission of the Multi-National United is not quite as helpful as it sounds, they want to know more about the alien technologie and weapons, for profit for themselves.
District 9 isn't your regular science-fiction film. I mean, sure it has aliens, and battles and such, but the whole sense of it all goes a lot deeper. The fact that the film is shot in a documentary style makes it that much more believable, as well as conveys the theme of darkness quite well. Also, the setting really does the movie well in terms of conveying darkness, due to the shanty town-like setting, it really makes everything so believable. One scene comes to mind, is that, this company who supposedly has "the best interest" for the aliens, is at one point shown through closed doors, that they're really using the aliens as human targets to figure out how the alien weaponry works. This really showed how this aren't always what they seem to be.
Characters can easily represent darkness by typically being the antagonist, or simply being an evil person. In District 9, it's all based on perspective to who the evil is. At the start of the movie, Wikus is trying to evict the aliens from their homes so he is evil to them, but the second half on the movie, he's fighting against MNU, the company he onced served, as so he is evil to them.
I was able to make numerous connections in regards to this film. A connect from text to text would be the film Law Abiding Citizen, where everyone is turned against the main character, and he is forced to fight and save himself. A connection from text to self would be how I hate going to the doctor. For example, if I start getting sick, then my mom will say "Oh maybe we should have someone check you out to make sure you're okay.", to which I usually reply: "No, I'll be fine.". This is essentially what happened in District 9, only on a much bigger scale. A connection from text to world, would be how hypocritical some people can be when it comes to certain things. For example is the overuse of resources on our planet. Some people go on and on complaining about how we need to find different sources of energy, and then they go and fill up their car with gas. This relates to the movie because they population of Johanessburg really doesn't want to put up with the new alien population.
Finally I connect this all to the essential question: How does the media shape our view of the world? This is where I found District 9 to be extremely powerful as a movie. There were advertisments everywhere saying this such as, "This area is for humans only" or things such as "10 non-human sightings today". These weren't only just in the film, but were used as real ads for everyday life in our world. It really showed how the Multi-Nation United company was influencing the population to believe that these creatures were bad and should be kept seperate from the regular public.
There are two layers in the film, the obvious, and the underlying layer. The first being the overall plot, which is how Wikus tries to evict the alien residences out of their current location, into a new, smaller location known as District 10. Everything seems to be going according to plan until he stumbles onto an alien chemical which thus turns him into a 'Prawn'. He then needs the help of the aliens he was just recently trying to evict, to return to normal. Then comes the second, deeper layer. The overall population of Johannesburg wants the alien culture to leave, because they think that they're using up space and resources. One woman even says, "They're spending so much money to keep them here, when they could be using it for other things...". Once Wikus starts to change into one of the 'Prawns' he then is hunted out by the government to see how his body has changed. This shows that the overall mission of the Multi-National United is not quite as helpful as it sounds, they want to know more about the alien technologie and weapons, for profit for themselves.
District 9 isn't your regular science-fiction film. I mean, sure it has aliens, and battles and such, but the whole sense of it all goes a lot deeper. The fact that the film is shot in a documentary style makes it that much more believable, as well as conveys the theme of darkness quite well. Also, the setting really does the movie well in terms of conveying darkness, due to the shanty town-like setting, it really makes everything so believable. One scene comes to mind, is that, this company who supposedly has "the best interest" for the aliens, is at one point shown through closed doors, that they're really using the aliens as human targets to figure out how the alien weaponry works. This really showed how this aren't always what they seem to be.
Characters can easily represent darkness by typically being the antagonist, or simply being an evil person. In District 9, it's all based on perspective to who the evil is. At the start of the movie, Wikus is trying to evict the aliens from their homes so he is evil to them, but the second half on the movie, he's fighting against MNU, the company he onced served, as so he is evil to them.
I was able to make numerous connections in regards to this film. A connect from text to text would be the film Law Abiding Citizen, where everyone is turned against the main character, and he is forced to fight and save himself. A connection from text to self would be how I hate going to the doctor. For example, if I start getting sick, then my mom will say "Oh maybe we should have someone check you out to make sure you're okay.", to which I usually reply: "No, I'll be fine.". This is essentially what happened in District 9, only on a much bigger scale. A connection from text to world, would be how hypocritical some people can be when it comes to certain things. For example is the overuse of resources on our planet. Some people go on and on complaining about how we need to find different sources of energy, and then they go and fill up their car with gas. This relates to the movie because they population of Johanessburg really doesn't want to put up with the new alien population.
Finally I connect this all to the essential question: How does the media shape our view of the world? This is where I found District 9 to be extremely powerful as a movie. There were advertisments everywhere saying this such as, "This area is for humans only" or things such as "10 non-human sightings today". These weren't only just in the film, but were used as real ads for everyday life in our world. It really showed how the Multi-Nation United company was influencing the population to believe that these creatures were bad and should be kept seperate from the regular public.
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