Between upbeat and depressing the film documentary, Can You Dig This, by Delila Vallot; was an up and down wild ride showcasing the what urban gardening is doing for one community. The city of Compton in southern California is mostly filled with poverty. People struggle to keep jobs and maintain food and a roof over their head. I couldn't imagine trying to find a zen place in the midst of the troubles in this community. The film used both narrative and music analogies to make it more like a light hearted gangster story.
Right from the beginning of the film, I picked up the sense that as a viewer I was on the outside looking in. This was also evident from the narrator’s viewpoint. Even though she came from this area, she was now a person who felt she didn’t belong. The fact that Vallot used plenty of narratives to make the documentary interesting. If she was just interviewing these four people within the shot, it would not have been as powerful. As an “omniscient narrator” (Gocsik, 239) Vallot is making a strong point. The point being that it’s hard for me as the viewer to understand why it’s so hard for these urban gardens to flourish in Compton. Spicey is a prime example. He doesn’t want to tell the narrator at first why he got interested in gardening; pot. Again, I was the
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I especially loved how they started out with “California Dreaming” as they drove through Compton. The lyrics helped send the message of the struggle for people to be uplifted amidst drugs, poverty, and misunderstanding. Each song from hip hop, children’s songs, to oldies. Music was the analogy for each scene it was used in. Upbeat for the times that characters were in the garden, slow and sometimes depressing background music when the filmmaker wanted to enhance the uglier side of Compton. The piano playing in the scene where Quimonie’s dad goes to the hospital made the scene even more emotionally
To the urban lifestyle of growing up in the ghettos and the hardships. She depicts the usages of drugs, gang, crime, poverty, teen pregnancy and mostly how it effects the community. But also shows how the outside violence comes into the home and can devastate the natural order of the household.
...g statistics about the public’s health and make the future seem bleak, “the lifespan is shortening for new American children” (Pastor) and “ one in three children born after the year 2010 will develop type II diabetes” (Pastor). Pastor says that he is shocked by the impact and wants to break away from the cycle created. In his closing statements he convinces the audience to break away from the cycle away as well, by drawing on the seeds he planted with pathos, ethos, and logos. The film was well made and addressed all the issues of “organic” food and well informed the audience of what is occurring. Next time, an audience member goes to the supermarket to buy food they will probably remember what their children will look like in twenty years if they don’t take a more “organic” approach to their lives.
This straightforward and occasionally documentary style film combines both the themes of the hope of creating your own family and the threats of exploitation and poverty. These are themes in the works of Ron Krauss. The style of the film occasionally is over-reliant on intercutting close-ups such as with the initial scenes between James Earl Jones and Vanessa Hudgens but fortunately Ron lets the characters interact in the same space for most scenes. From the heartwarming “Puppies for Sale” (1998) to the heartbreaking “Amerixica” (2010) Ron gives an empathic perspective about human life even under terrible conditions. This film with its emphasis on themes such as family and poverty has some similarities “The Blind Side” however for originality and empathy there are few if...
“Wow, your house smells amazing!” I exclaimed to my friend Kristi as we sat in her living room. Two years ago, I remember walking into Kristi’s house and taking a deep breath. Every time I visited her house, I relished the pleasant scent floating around her house, so one day I expressed this to her. However, her reply surprised me. “My house doesn’t smell like anything!” she responded. Initially confused, I slowly realized since she lived in her house her entire life, she no longer noticed the smell. This made me wonder if I no longer noticed things in my own life. Sometimes people’s lives mirror this situation. Settling for lackluster lives and sinful actions, they fail to notice problems in their lives anymore. Through “Dare You to Move”
In the story “Be Cool to the Pizza Dude” by Sarah Adams talks about the importance of treating others equally no matter what the person is like or looks like. This also includes being kind and cool to the pizza dude. Adams also talks about how being cool to the pizza dude is a practice of equality, she believes that her measurement as a human being, her worth and her pride she takes in her job or someone else's comes with respect for others.
According to the book, Not So Fast, mentions key details about how the development of a teenage brain is affected while driving on the road. Teenagers tend to not think twice about what their next move is because all they have in mind is to make it before the traffic light turns red. While teenagers are still developing, Tim states,”...The human brain does not fully develop until we reach our early or mid-twenties, and the last part of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex, the part that provides judgement and restraint and counterbalances the already developed part that creates desire, excitement, and risk-taking” (Hollister 14). Basically, teenagers are more capable of not thinking about the safety around their environment as long as they get from point A to point B. Some people might say that having a passenger can help reduce the chances of getting into an accident by guiding them. That may be a suggestion; however, Tim does point out that, “...Driving requires the continuous evaluation of hundreds of ever-changing factors and
To be specific, the film goes into some detail about the chicken farming industry. They give the opinions of two different chicken farmers. The viewer first gets the opinion of “Vince”. Vince has multiple chicken farming houses and does not see anything wrong with the company’s practices. He highlights how much money the industry has brought to his town and how much it has helped people survive. To counteract his opinion, the film shows chicken famer “Carole”. She gives the point of view of how degrading the industry is to its producers and how they have financially crippled the chicken farmers. Both points of view can be seen as valid facts from both sides of the
“This Is Just To Say” by William Carlos Williams is a twenty-eight-word poem that expresses author’s true thought and feeling about the actual eating of the plums. The simplicity of the poem gives readers a false impression that the poem somehow is related to the Bible story, because those words, such as “the plums”, “Forgive me” and “So sweet and so cold”, forces the readers to make a stronger association with the story of Adam and Eve falling from the Garden of Eden, the readers have always seeking for a deeper meaning in the poem, rather than simply enjoy the poem from reading. Traditionally, in order to call a set of words a poetry, the poem must have some potential meanings and metaphors other than its surface meaning of the words, but “This Is Just To Say” by William overturns those poetry’s rule, restriction, and rhyme scheme, and argues that a simple poem can be written to celebrate a true feeling of a simple joy of everyday life.
...he people. The boy on the porch has so much silent desperation, but also deeper understanding in his eyes than most kids his age. These photos weren't just presented with captions telling a date and place. They were instead accompanied by writings, which told the intimate details of their lives. This then creates an understanding in the viewer of the life and circumstances, which made the boy, look the way he does. Agee and Evans were not trying to get people to feel pity for the farmers, they were just telling the common story of strength and struggle which represents a group of people who were so far from famous.
As in Land without Bread, when the small children are in their classrooms and the camera pans to a picture of an elegant dressed lady, whilst the narrator in the background states, “What are you doing here?” The nature of this statement is to ridicule the townspeople as to how there are so deplorable, they have no right to mingle with the ‘civilized folk’ for they are too dirty and stupid. Flaherty and Buñuel both criticize people through their film, because their value system and how their society works is different.
Catch Me If You Can is an extremely compelling film, filled with humor, suspense, and numerous twists and turns that will keep one's eyes fixed at the screen from the beginning to the end, and one that I had really enjoyed as well. The producers of the film had more than successfully portrayed the true life story in a way that manages to captivate audience as well as express the shrewdness of the actual Frank Abegnale in real life. From this movie, one can learn that sometimes mischievous and impetuous of one's teenage life, as well as necessity, hard work, and determination can lead to true passion, the key to success in the real world.
She sees her life as movie being played in front of her as they pass the school, the fields of grain, and the setting sun. Children at play reminds her of her own childhood, being energetic and full of life; the grains suggest harvest time (growing, being productive, ripe), adulthood; and she gazes at them as if there is something that she missed or didn’t do at that time of her life, a time she should have enjoyed.
The cold, winter air burst through my thin blanket as easily as one moves. The ugly fog covers everything as far as the eye can see. It chokes you and blinds you to the point of no return, but worst of all, it removes all hope from your body, almost as if it sucks the very life out. The frozen, hard concrete bites against my head and the cold gnaws away my feet. Life is at an all time low.
My reaction to “Just Ask My Children” is one that was both shocking however expected all at the same time. To explain, I found it unbelievable how the family presented in the movie was treated; and to think that this was all based on something that really happened. The authorities acted so aggressively, barging into the home of the family and tearing the family apart. It seemed to be more of a guilty till proven innocent scenario, rather than the other way around as it should have been. The legal system didn’t manager to stop shocking me there however, it continued to even more when we saw people from the police department, as well as doctors pressure these young boys to commit to a crime that they did not commit! And yet even more shocking
Gardeners often find deep satisfaction in their gardens because they are rewarded by their patience and