The Usual Suspects
When it was released in 1995, The Usual Suspects was hailed as original, inventive, and, most of all, unpredictable. Having now seen this movie well over a dozen times, I can say that its impact is just as powerful today as it was the first time I saw it. In what I consider to be the best movie-making year of all-time, The Usual Suspects nonetheless distinguishes itself from everything else, offering a fresh take on the mystery and suspense genre.
As The Usual Suspects opens, we find "Verbal" Kint (Kevin Spacey, in an Oscar-winning role) the object of a police interrogation. He is one of only two known survivors of an explosive evening on a docked cargo ship, and the police want answers. Verbal was one of an elite group of known criminals involved in a police lineup in New York five weeks prior, and the rest are presumed to be dead from the previous night's explosion. From this opening interrogation, soon conducted solely by Special Agent Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), we are shown pieces of the puzzle that lead to the events on the cargo ship.
Five convicted felons - Spencer McManus (Stephen Baldwin, The Young Riders), Dean Keaton (Gabriel Byrne), Fred Fenster (Benicio Del Toro), Todd Hockney (Kevin Pollak, A Few Good Men *cc/fewgoodmen.html*), and Verbal Kint - are brought in to answer for charges of gun-theft, a crime for which all five profess their innocence. Crowded together in their cell, however, McManus is able to convince...
Thus, each person in this documentary can name at least five people that have been arrested, mainly immediate family members. They all have three main things in common: they live in Beecher Terrace, they have more than six charges, and they have some type of mental issue that needs to be resolved to better them.
German cinema was greatly affected during the Nazi movement between 1933 and 1945. Once appointed Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933 Hitler wasted no time and almost immediately began working on his propaganda strategy. Typically “propaganda targets a mass audience and relies on mass media to persuade. Propaganda is aimed at large numbers of people and, as such, relies on mass communication to reach its audience” (Gass, 14). The Nazi party used film propaganda to brainwash the German people, distract them from the harsh reality of the Nazi party, and attempt to intimidate the enemy. Hitler knew propaganda entailed mass persuasion and he knew just how to get his message out there; film. It was through the use of propaganda, largely film that made the Nazi party so powerful as they redefined propaganda.
William Faulkner stories were usually written within the setting of his home town of Mississippi. Posed after the Civil War and with a twist as we see in “A Rose for Emily”. As a matter of fact, this particular story could be Faulkner’s own family with the similarities of the setting and the fact that both Emily’s and Faulkner family lost the influence it once had.
The failure of the Bay of Pigs Invasion was due to a lack of planned strategy, miscommunication, and mismanagement of planning. Between these three components, the invasion was bound to come to an abrupt halt and even an impending failure. Even with the backup plans set in forth by the Presidential Administration, their intentions seemed to backfire when Castro’s Intelligence Forces knew well before hand about the near attack that the President Kennedy had set in motion.
During Hitler’s reign in Germany, propaganda was his main method of control. He and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, or Nazis, believed that to remain in control, it is necessary to prevent any and all internal unrest through strictly regulated popular opinion. The mission was to keep public opinion in favor of the Nazi party’s ideology. One of the primary aspects of their ideology was extreme anti-Semitism and racial inequality. Within years they were able to introduce this belief to nearly all of the German people through heavy influence by propaganda. Hitler was able to stabilize and dictate his Germany for years through propaganda aimed to control the lives of the youth, the opinions of the general public, and beliefs about the war effort and well-being of the country.
The artifact I chose for my analyst is the movie Pain & Gain directed by Michael Bay. This film is based on true events that took place in Miami during the mid-1990s. The main character, Danny Lugo, is a personal trainer whose life revolved around physical fitness. During his employment at Sunshine gym he becomes acquainted with Adrian Doorbal, a fellow personal trainer. The two realize that their hard work in the gym has led to big muscles and empty pockets. Lugo soon lusts after the earnings and lifestyle achieved by a new gym member he begins to train: Victor Kershaw, who Lugo believes is a crook. Inspired by motivational speaker Johnny Wu, Lugo decides to be a "doer" and hatches a plan to extort Kershaw’s assets by kidnapping and torturing him. Lugo and Doorbal soon realize they need a third member to pull off a job of this magnitude and recruit Paul Doyle, a recently released cocaine-addicted convict who has turned to religion. The three man crew, dubbed the Sunshine Gang, successfully kidnapped Victor Kershaw and extorted his assets. The crew then tried to murder Kershaw but was unsuccessful. When Kershaw informed law enforcement of what happened they believed the story was too far-fetched to be true. The Sunshine gang seemingly got away with all the crimes committed against Kershaw. It wasn’t long until their money ran out and they had to look for another hit to keep their new lifestyle going. The crew then decides to take down a wealthy business man named Frank Grigas. During this second hit, the three men murder Frank and his wife and dumped the chopped up bodies into the everglades. Law enforcement was soon on to the Sunshine gang and made arrest. Lugo and Doorbal were found guilty and sentenced to death for the murders ...
The story of the invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs is one of overconfidence, and lack of thinking. The blame for the failure of the operation falls directly on the Central Intelligence Agency and a new president. The invasion caused a rise in tension between the two great superpowers and 34 years after the event, the person that the invasion meant to overthrow, Fidel Castro, is still in power. The Bay of Pigs Invasion was on April 17th in the year of 1961, was an attempt by the US government to take Fidel Castro, new communist leader of Cuba, out of power in order to install a non-communist government that favored the US’s practices. This attempt failed and the United States involvement was revealed shortly after. This lead to internal accusations, loss of credibility towards the United States, and public blame of the CIA.
Alongside Moore’s use of V as the main character in V for Vendetta, Moore uses a Guy Fawkes mask to disguise V’s identity. Throughout the novel, this Guy Fawkes mask becomes a symbol of rebellion against tyranny. Moore includes a crucial quote in V for Vendetta that shows his intention for the Guy Fawkes mask to exist as a major symbol throughout the novel. Moore states, “Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof” (Moore 83). This quote speaks volumes about Moore’s idea to use this mask to help set the stage for what is to come by the main character, V.
My analysis is on the film The Goonies. While I view the movie and determine the various norms, behaviors, roles and interaction between group members, as well as individuals the examination within the realm of film can present many of the same components. Thus, our group selected this movie to analyze based on its formation of a cohesive problem-solving group full of unforgettable characters. The Goonies portray many different theories and aspects of small group communication.
In the courtroom scene with Jake Brigance (Matthew McConaughey) the closing argument was well directed and made a bold statement. This not only made this scene memorable but made an...
I spent a lot of time considering what movie I would watch to write this essay. I listed off the movies that I would like to watch again, and then I decided on The Notebook. I didn’t really think I could write about adolescence or children, so I thought that, maybe, I could write about the elderly. The love story that The Notebook tells is truly amazing. I love watching this movie, although I cry every time I watch it. The Notebook is about an elderly man that tells the story of his life with the one he loves the most, his wife. He is telling the story to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which is a degenerative disease that affects a person’s memory. She has no recollection of him or their life together, or even her own children. She wrote the story of their love herself, so that when he read the story to her, she would come back to him. There are three things that I would like to discuss about this movie. First, I would like to discuss their stage of life and the theory that I believe describes their stage of life the best. Second, I would like to discuss Alzheimer’s DIsease and its affect on the main character who has it and her family. Third, I would like to discuss how at the end of the movie, they died together. I know it is a movie, but I do know that it is known that elderly people who have been together for a long time, usually die not to far apart from one another.
An individual is shaped and molded by how they are treated by those that surround them. Most people value the opinions of those they care about and want to act in accord. Consequently, the choices people make are greatly influenced by the people in their lives. Sometimes, someone will become close with people who are different from each other. Such is the case in Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting (Matt Damon) struggles between the people that created him and the people that discovered him.
William Faulkner’s Southern background plays a constituent part of the creation of his story “A Rose for Emily”. With his creative mind Faulkner created a county in Mississippi called Yoknapatawpha. Like the southern town he was born and raised in, Faulkner peopled this story with both African American and Caucasian people of the late 1800’s. Faulkner’s idea of writing this story was to focus on the events causing destruction and suffering in one’s inner and outer situations.
Entrails torn from the body with bare hands, eyes gouged out with razor blades, battery cables, rats borrowing inside the human body, power drills to the face, cannibalism, credit cards, business cards, Dorsia, Testoni, Armani, Wall Street; all of these things are Patrick Bateman’s world. The only difference between Bateman and anybody else is what is repulsive to Bateman and what is repulsive to the rest of the world. Bateman has great interest in the upper class life, fashions, and social existence, but at the same time he is, at times, sickened by the constant struggle to be one up on everybody else. On the other hand Bateman’s nightlife reveals a side of him never seen during the day. Bateman is relaxed, impulsive, and confident while torturing and killing. He doesn’t have to worry about being better than anyone else. The only competition he has is his last victim. Torture and murder are the two true loves of Patrick Bateman.
The film 12 Angry Men consisted of twelve members of the jury who tried to solve a murder trial case. Trapped in a room, all men put their heads together by communicating and listening to each other. Each juror voted unanimously and in order for them to make a decision every juror had to agree to the same thing. However, out of all the jurors (Henry Fonda) the architect had a different perspective. Just when all eleven jurors had agreed that the boy was guilty the architect stood up and said the boy was not guilty. The case was about a lady who had given her testimony in court swearing she saw the little boy kill his own father. One boy's fate is on one man’s hand. As the architect tried to prove his point towards the others, the old juror