This well known movie The Social Network based on the true success story of Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, tells of the origins of one of the most important aspects of teenagers lives today, Facebook. Although this shouldn't be the case, it really is true. Teenagers spend so much time on Facebook every day and become very distracted and impatient when it comes to completing their school work. The movie itself tells Zuckerberg's story of beginning the profiling type of a website in college because he wanted to spread the popularity of the clubs at Harvard. As the plot progresses and the website grows wildly popular he runs into some legal trouble when he is accused by one of his best friends for stealing the idea for Facebook and is being charged for the crime. The whole movie is constant flashbacks switching from the many board room scenes where the law suit is being discussed and the parts of Zuckerberg's life that were part of making the famous website.
The Social Network
This movie is just one of the many constant reminders of how much our society has changed. A mere fifteen or so years ago, even less, cell phones didn't exist. No one was walking around with a blue tooth glued to their ear, people had beepers that they had with them when they were out of the house and they would wait until they either got home or had access to a public telephone to call that person back. Now we have this constant obsession with being in contact at all times and it has both is positives and negatives. Aside from the obvious positive of being able to communicate from different states or even countries, people don't realize how much they miss that is going on right in front of them when their eyes are constantly glued to their screens. Facebook is only seven years old and it has had such an exponential effect who knows of what is to come or to be produced next. Whatever it is, we need to learn to use our luxuries in moderation and not lose sight of what's important and going on around us.
Pursuit of Happyness is an incredible movie starring Will Smith as Chris Gardner with his son Christopher who is played by his son in real life, Jaden Smith. Gardner's climb to success is a factual rags to riches story that is unimaginable. After being evicted and left single because he is unable to make the rent and his wife leaves him, Chris is left with nothing more than portable bone scanners that can save his and his son's life. Being that he is searching for jobs in the beginning, he is relying on these bone scanners that he tries to send to multiple different doctors, however they are far from a successful source of income. After much searching and desperation he comes across an internship that he works harder at than any man had ever seen. He kept his financial situation a secret to as many people as possible, especially the people he worked with at the new firm. He would try to comfort his son by telling him the sleeping in trains and public bathrooms was all a game to keep him from crying at night. Without giving away the ending, the story is extremely inspirational and teaches us to be proud of and thankful for what we have.
The Pursuit of Happyness
Gardner's determination and persistency despite the fact that he practically loses everything is the most honorable trait of all that he possesses. After losing his home, his wife, and his money, he doesn't lose sight of his original values and most importantly tries to make sure those same values are passed on to his son. One the main reasons he went from job to job begging and pleading for work was because he wanted to provide something better for his son than what he was getting. Like most loving parents, Chris wanted to make sure his son lived a somewhat comfortable life and wanted him to look back on his origins with pride and admiration. The efforts of Gardner and his constant optimism are key traits that you find in just an all around good person.
Remember The Titans starring Denzel Washington, as Coach Boone, is one that stands out among most movies of its time. The high school football that is the focus of the movie is an integrated, with both blacks and whites, team in the state of Virginia during a time where segregation was accepted and in forced by majority. Coach Boone, who is black, is a new addition to the team and takes no time as to allow the boys to make any comfortable adjustments to his tough personality and coaching style. From day one Boone expects nothing short of perfection both on the field and off. One of his main focus was to make the black and white boys come together as a team to work together and learn to love each other, because essentially they were brothers. As the plot develops the team is forced to face the cruel outside world despite the progress they make together as a team. This movie is also based on a true story, one that is very uncommon and worth spreading.
Remember The Titans
This movie stressing the horrible topic of segregation that many had to deal with all over the world, but primarily in the southern states. These kids, whether it was to their liking or not were forced to live with and play with the boys of different skin color than them which did cause some problems in the beginning. As the movie continues all except for one of the boys come around and realize how foolish and unnecessary segregation is. These kids in a sense go against their origins which in this case is a good thing. White children from the time they were young were told to think negatively of black people and the same applied for the reverse. One of the boys even convinces his mom to break her terrible judgement just so she would even shake hands with his best friend on the team of a different skin color. Movies like these help get across the message to those who are still stuck in these old ways to be open to the change of time and understand that there is more to a person than their skin color.
The Blind Side based on the true uprising of football star Michael Oher, tells of the athletes rise to fame. Beginning in a run down poor area living as one of many children with his mother, life was far from luxurious. He grows up to be a teenager moving from house to house with no more than the clothes on his back. Eventually he is in enrolled in an upper class private school where he sticks out like a sore thumb. This is where he comes across the Tuohy family who takes him in under their wing for a night. As Mr. Tuohy could predict this one night was just the beginning of this young boy's entrance to the Tuohy family. They end up adopting the boy, helping him get a better education, and go on to college with a division one football scholarship.
The Blind Side
Michael Oher's story is an example of a success story involving leaving your origins and your past behind you in order to have a positive, successful future. Growing up with little to no support from his mother, or anyone else for that matter forced him to be independent from a young age, never forming any true relationships and trusting no one. In the beginning, when he moves in with the Tuohys he is skeptical. He doesn't jump at the opportunity, doesn't talk much to the family and leaves very early the next morning at the first chance he gets. Despite all the let downs that he was forced to deal with he grew fond of the family and learned that not everyone in the world was against him. He then begins to understand what is important in life and what his values should be. From there, he goes on to be a very successful football player with an education that he never thought would be possible. This story shows us that over time growth from where you started is necessary if you want to be successful.
The children in this movie live in a poor area where racism is not only accepted but expected amongst the youth. At one point in the movie the children are asked to stand on a line if they had lost a friend from gang violence, all of them step forward. All of them stayed on the line when they were asked if they lost more than one friend. In a town where gang violence was prominent there were very low expectations and standards for the children's education. With the help of one teacher these children's lives get turned around. She assigns them each a journal to write in where she discovers their true intelligence and love to write. She helps create a peace between the different races in the classroom that one couldn't imagine. The kids begin to grow accepting of each other despite the fact that the outside world wishes otherwise. In this movie, the children recognize the faults in their origins and grow to become better and smarter than the status quo
"In Long Beach it all comes down to what you look like. Its all about color. If your Latino, or Asian, or black you could get blasted anytime you walk out your door."
Freedom Writers
The comedy, The Invention of Lying, is a funny take on a very interesting and intriguing question, how did lying really get started? We had never really thought about it until we saw the previews for this movie. Is it possible that at sometime in our lives we only knew how to tell the truth and one day someone stumbled across the possibility of lying. We know this movie is obviously a more dramatic take on the process of telling a fib, but there's a good chance that at one point people didn't really accept lying where as now its used by many on a daily basis whether its either to get out of work or any other of the million chores we have to get done during our busy days. At one point in the movie there is also an ironic parallel made between god and the main character, Mark Bellison. After Bellison discovers he knows how to lie, he pretends to know what happens after you die and puts his ten "points of knowledge" on cardboard from a piizza box to simulate the ten commandents.
The Invention of Lying
As all of us already know, the Holocaust was a time of grief and sorrow for multiple Jewish families as well as other victimized groups. Life is Beautiful tells the story of Guido Orefice, a lower class Jewish man who ends up marrying the woman of his dreams and having a son of their own after much opposition given that she was set to marry a man of much higher class. As the beginning of the Holocaust gets under way the family is taken to a concentration camp where they have no idea what their fate is or whether not they will make it to see the next day. The mother, although she is not Jewish, gets on the train that had her husband and son because she refused allow the family to be separated. In order to make the experience less troublesome and scary for his young son, he makes it seem like it is a game and convinces the boy that they will someday get to go home when "the game" is over. These early years that the young boy, Giosue Orefice, spent in the concentration camp greatly effected how he was raised as well as what his values were. Being raised and exposed to such a dramatic setting at such a young age can greatly effect development and your overall outtake on life.
Life Is Beautiful
The movie, Babies, follows the lives of four babies that each come from different origins and are raised differently.Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, four completely different areas in the world with different values, religions, and cultures. However, they each child experiences similar events that help them to grow. Their parents each teach them similar basic principles that will guide them through life. While, at the same time, as these babies from four different locations grow, they develop into unique individuals, with much influence from where they came from. Were they born with their minds in a blank state, or tabula rasa, acquiring different ideas about the world as they learned from their parents and surroundings. Or were these different babies born with certain beliefs, traits that were carried down from their parents and the generations before them? Although the origins are important in shaping the lives of everyone, each individual has the opportunity to grow and learn as they get older, possibly not obtaining any of their values from their origins.
Babies
This touching immigration story, Under The Same Moon, tells of 'the other side' of illegal immigration. Adrian Alonso, starring as the little boy, Carlos, is separated from his mother when she goes off to Los Angeles in order to work and earn enough money to send her son to live with her. As four long years go by without his mother, Carlos deals with his longing for his mother and the death of his grandmother. After a series of events, two American help Carlos illegally cross the border to make it to the United States. When there, we see the devastating struggle that Carlos, and other Mexican immigrants, have to endure in order to make even enough money for one meal. At the end of this painful journey, and after four years separated from his mother, Carlos and his mother finally meet up in the United States. With a fairy-tale ending that doesn't normally happen in these immigration stories, Under The Same Moon truly captivates every side of immigration - from the little boy who misses his mom, to the parent who risks everything to provide for his son, to the employer who hires an illegal immigrant, and to the people who both help and hurt immigrants along the way.
Under The Same Moon
Many Americans take the opportunities and advantages that they possess for granted. We felt that this movie shows the importance of family, but moreover the importance of doing what ever it takes for your family's well-being. We see Carlos in this movie transition into a 'man' as soon as he makes the decision to go to the United States in search of his mother. This trip transformed him, and he gained values and learned lessons about what it means to be a true worker and what it takes to be a good person, lessons that many adults today will never learn. The immigration laws today are strict, and it is difficult for people in foreign countries to recieve the paperwork they need in order to move to the United States.
"My mom says, 'When I miss her, I should look at the moon, because she'll be looking at it too.'" This movie shows that no matter who we are, where we come from, or where we end up, we are all 'under at the same moon'.
"My mom says, 'When I miss her, I should look at the moon, because she'll be looking at it too.'" This movie shows that no matter who we are, where we come from, or where we end up, we are all 'under at the same moon'.
Sources
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcZTtlGweQ
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PV00km5LFO0&feature=related
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPhu9XsRl4M
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0L1U-Rdj4
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwfIf1WMhgc&feature=fvst
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-H2dNfx-Uw
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vupEpNjCuY
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16RZHqCIy9M&feature=related
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jCZgUiPixE
