Do we need the government?

   In my opinion, I feel that sometimes we do need the government, but at the same time I also feel that we kind of don’t need it at the same time. We need the government to ensure our safety from terrorists and war, but we also don't need it if we are going to have a dictator president like President Snow. President Snow controls everything that is going on in Districts 1-12 and in The Capitol. His government ensures that The Hunger Games happen every year. During the first movie, he had Seneca Crane killed for having there be two victors of The Hunger Games instead of there being one. The victors were told if they win the games, then they would be free to live their lives in peace, yet the 75th Hunger Games showed us how the government lied to their tributes and victors. After analyzing the movies The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I realized that our government and the government shown in the movies are kind of similar. In Catching Fire, The Capitol was trying hard to hide the truth of all the riots and rebellions going on in all 12 Districts. I feel like our own government is doing the same to us because they do not want us to be worried or scared about what is going in the world. The Hunger Games showed a lot uprisings and riots against the government and there has been riots against our own government and other governments around the world. However, this is just my opinion on why we do or don't need the government.

The Two Perspectives of The Butler

    I thought that The Butler was a great movie. This film was about Cecil Gaines, a man who was born into slavery. All he ever knew what to do was to serve. He served people at the hotel as a waiter, but then he became a butler at the White House. He served Presidents Reagan, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, and Eisenhower. The film had shown two different perspectives of the Civil Rights Movement, one of which was how Cecil Gaines fought it and the other was how his son, Louis Gaines fought. Louis chose to fight for Civil Rights by using violence. He did a lot of violent protests and riots. He also joined the Black Panther Party and the Freedom Riders. Cecil Gaines fought segregation in an undercover type of way. He talked to each of the Presidents about how his son was out there fighting for their Civil Rights and how African Americans were being treated differently by the way color of their skin. The film needed these two perspectives because both of these things were happening during this time period. There were a lot of people that were using violence to end segregation, while there were others that were trying to talk to people to see if they can end this. By using both of these perspectives, it proved that they were able to end segregation together. The director did do a good job portraying both of the perspectives because it gave us a general idea of how the fight for Civil Rights went. The reason why was there tension between Louis and Cecil was because Cecil did not want his son to be killed by doing these protests, but his son was very stubborn, so there were a lot of arguments between them, which caused the two of them to have a lot of tension between them.

Remember The Titans Post

   I found Remember the Titans to be a really good movie. The film was about an African American head coach that had to coach a mixed football team during the 1970s. During that time period, many people were against integration of schools, but Coach Boone didn't let that stop him from coaching the undefeated team known as the Titans. The characters that I shadowed throughout the movie were Louie Lastik & Blue Stanton. Louie was important to the film because he showed that he cared about African Americans more than most white people do. Louie lives in a lower class than most Whites, which is why he feels empathy towards Blacks. Blue was important to the film because they probably wanted someone to do the singing in the movie (JK). The real reason why Blue was important to the film was the friendship that Louie and Blue showed. They proved that race doesn't matter and that everybody should just get along. Coach Boone wanted everyone to get along and Louie and Blue were the first people that became friends on the football team. Louie got along with every African American that was on the team. Louie and Blue was the best pair of friends that the film showed.

Patton Movie Review

    I found the movie Patton to be kind of a good movie. I also did not like Patton at the same time. He forced the cook to fight, even though the cook said that he was not a soldier. He also forced a soldier that was scared and he did not want to fight, but Patton forced him to go out on the front lines of war to fight and maybe even die. Some historical inaccuracies were that he had a squeaky voice, he was dyslexic, and he only swore to expressively motivate his men and did not swear in casual conversation with his peers. The movie also suggests that Patton and General Dwight Eisenhower were distant, whereas they had been close friends for decades. Both had been early advocates for tank warfare after World War I.

The Dark Knight Review

       I think that The Dark Knight Rises was a really good movie. I found the movie, at the beginning, really boring because there was not enough action and I love action movies, but in the second half of the movie there was a lot more action than I had expected. There were a lot of fight scenes where Batman fought Bane underneath the Wayne Tower or where the police fought Bane's men out in the street. The bombing of the football stadium was an intense scene. Only one football player survived the attack. Also, the mayor of the town was killed in the bombing, too.The main actors and actresses in that movie were Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robin John Blake, Tom Hardy as Bane, Gary Oldman as Commissioner Jim Gordon, and Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate/Talia al-Ghul. The movie showed a lot of messages. One scene from the movie that showed a message was where Bruce Wayne tried to climb out of the pit, but he failed a couple of times. He had to embrace his fear in order to escape the prison pit, which he did and he was able to get out of the prison and he went to Gotham to save it from destruction. Another message the movie showed was where Bane's subterranean attack on the city symbolizes the evil and corruption finally erupting to the surface. The Dent Act stopped evil at the surface of Gotham, but not beneath it. Overall, I enjoyed the movie because I am a huge Marvel and DC fan and this movie was great.

How can films help us learn history?

     Movies impact our lives in many different ways. Movies make us feel happy, sad, scared, and they sometimes make us have a connection to the main character. The most recent movie I had seen was The Conjuring and that movie was scary. Some parts in that movie made me scared and jump a lot. It also made me want to shut the movie off because I hate scary movies. The creators of movies made them so that we could be entertained in our free time and so that we could learn lessons from them. Films can help us learn about history because it enhances the way we learn about history, shows us what history was like, and sometimes it is dangerous to historical films if the information is false.
     Watching films can help us enhance the way we learn because in this generation, many people watch films. The graph, “Cinema audience distribution in the United Kingdom (UK) as of 2014, by age and gender”, showed that 47% of people that watched movies were between the ages of 7-24. This matters because our generation of people watch a lot of movies rather than reading and learning from textbooks. Instead, we learn from watching films that have historic importance. Seixas did an experiment where he had students watch Dances with Wolves and The Searchers. Students found that Dances with Wolves was more accurate because it used modern techniques and promoted a contemporary interpretation of the past. Movies can help us learn about history because of the way that it enhances our learning style.
      Movies like 300, Saving Private Ryan, Valkyrie, and etc. showed us what history was like back then. Saving Private Ryan showed us what World War II was about back then, specifically what happened on D-Day. The movie was also served as a reminder of the sacrifices Americans had made to help in the fight against the Nazi regime during WWII. This film was important because it showed us what happened during the Normandy invasion. The movie, 300, showed us what happened during the Battle of Thermopylae during 480-479 B.C. between the Spartans and the Persians. King Leonidas of Sparta and Xerxes 1 of Persia were real people during that time. It was also true that there were only 300 Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae. 300 was an important movie because it showed us the final stand of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans during the Battle of Thermopylae. Another film that showed us what history was like was the movie Valkyrie. The movie was based on the July 20^th plot by German officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country. Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise, was one of the leading members of Operation Valkyrie. That plan failed and he was executed for trying to kill Hitler. This film was important because it showed us how there were some German soldiers that wanted Hitler dead. This ties to how films can help us learn about history because it showed us what history was like back then.
      Some films have historically inaccurate information, which can be dangerous to films that show us what happened in the past. One such film that we have all seen was Forrest Gump. Some information from that movie was true and false. One part that was false was where Forrest Gump was talking about how he was named after the Civil War hero Nathaniel Bedford Forrest. That information was historically inaccurate because NBF was also the leader of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). When Forrest was younger, he did not teach Elvis Presley how to dance like he did for the music video of Hound Dog. Another part from the movie that was historically inaccurate was the part where Forrest picks up the notebook that one of the students from the Little Rock Nine dropped. This film was important and historical because it introduced us to the fictional character of Forrest Gump and how he had lived through the Vietnam War, the Hippie Movement, the Black Panther Party, the Watergate Scandal, Ping Pong Diplomacy, and etc.
      Films can help us learn about history because it enhances the way learn about history through visual effects; it showed us what history was like in 300, Saving Private Ryan, and Valkyrie; and how dangerous it can be to have false information for a historic film. I say that films can help us learn about history because I learned a lot from watching 300, Saving Private Ryan, Forrest Gump, and Valkyrie.

            

“Through the Chains”

I thought that the short was horrible because it's about Tyler, a guy who loves soccer, and how he got expelled for getting into a fight. It was also about how he started stealing bikes with his brother. I did not like this short film at all because it was boring.